It's Complicated

I decided to make a quick note, again today, to remind me (and to alert others) that I have a message about prophets who were a little crazy.

I can't develop the message today. It's too complicated.

But, if God says the same, I'll write all about it, right here in this space one day.

For now, though, what's most on my heart is just a word to say that, yes, at least two of the Old Testament prophets were a little crazy, but not all. And, remarkably, God used each and every one of them.

And, Jesus, through saying every prophecy would come to pass before the end of life as we know it, truly saved every true prophet, even Ezekiel, who was often angry and indignant.

So, don't dare think that I came to do away with the prophets, Jesus said. The prophets are Heaven-bound, just like you and me.

Some prophets had messages that were extremely woeful, and that's not what many people want to hear now. A lot of folk, today, simply want to say Jesus didn't condemn the world. And that's true.

He didn't walk among us to condemn the world, but so that people would recognize their sins, repent, and be saved in Him.

His purpose has always been to save us from condemnation, but that doesn't mean there isn't condemnation. And a closer look at both Ezekiel and the book of Revelation on my Sunday, yesterday, actually helped me to understand that a little better.

As the church, we take comfort in how the New Testament tells of the church being raptured to Heaven one day. We take comfort in that word of knowledge, because the Bible tells us to. (1 Thessalonians 4:18)

But I wondered, yesterday, why major parts of the church talk about being raptured away as if it's about the end of the world, contrary to how traditional Bible scholars have taught and taught and taught that the church is raptured away while others are "left behind."

In slowly reading, almost painfully reading, through difficult prophecies, I realized why some of the church does NOT teach that the church is completely raptured away and others left behind.

I think some parts of the church realize there's a possibility that the "Kingdom Age," which some Bible scholars have said is supposed to follow the "Rapture," is actually not a time still to come. I think some of the church sees, in prophecy, the strong possibility that the Kingdom Age began when the church was formed through Jesus' disciples, and that we are nearing the end of the Kingdom Age!

So, when Jesus said to pray for the coming of His kingdom, He was asking us to pray for the formation and spread of His church. Period.

So, the Kingdom has already come! And, a little sadly, that may mean that, when Jesus comes again in "glory," to rapture us on to Heaven, that that event, the Rapture, will happen at the same time that much of the world becomes the burning hell some atheists, now, are so publicly sarcastic about.

In other words, when many of us have thought it's right theology that says Jesus returns in battle for His church, and then returns again to judge the world, we've probably been wrong. Correct theology is probably more along the lines of Jesus, who is called "Word of God," returning at a time of war and casting Satan into a burning hell while, at almost the same time, much of the church is ascending to the safety of Heaven.

Then the part we all agree on: Heaven and earth are made anew, and spiritual Heaven returns in an earthly way that's without sin.

Meanwhile, prophets like Ezekiel have given us a record of terrible things that happened in Old Testament times, things that happened just as Ezekiel said, because Ezekiel (less Holy-Spirit-led than Isaiah and Daniel) listened to Babylonian officials when they would tell him what they were about to do to Israel.

Ezekiel repeated those things that Babylonians told him were about to happen, and he repeatedly declared to Israel that the Lord said terrible things would happen. And terrible things did proceed to happen. But, Ezekiel, who I believe often had conversations with Jeremiah, also told of some things that actually came "in the Spirit."

It's through the complete work of the Old Testament prophets that we know some prophecies were about events of our time. The prophets not only told of Jesus' first coming, but of the formation of the church.

And I'm convinced, now, that the formation of the church began the Kingdom Age, and that the relative peace of the Kingdom Age, when even Africa was party to life in or around Israel, began to decline when the Ottoman Empire caused Old Testament sins to re-emerge (sins that Babylon had done away with: from Assyria, to Tyre, to Israel, to Egypt).

Babylon had conquered pretty much all of the Middle East, because of terrible sin problems; and Israel had become faithful again, during that time of Babylonian conquest. But, then, much later, after Jesus began the church as God's kingdom in earth, hell rose up again, through forces like the Ottomans. And that kind of sin has been a source of conflict and division ever since.

So, there was a period of almost perfect peace that prophets had foretold long before Jesus, but there also has been fulfillment of prophecy that said there would be a re-emergence of hell in earth. From the Ottomans, to the first and second world wars, to the cold war, to now, haven't we seen the beginnings of tribulation in the earth?

...

I'm going to keep reading: carefully reviewing. But, for now, I think I have insight that I didn't have early yesterday.

Thank Heaven for John 3:16.