The Closing Age of Grace: Last Chance Not Only for Believers

From a prophetic standpoint, the Age of Grace (or the Dispensation of Grace, as Clarence Larkin calls it) appears to be coming to a close.  For unbelievers, this means that there is little time left to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and receive the gift of eternal life (For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16).

But the closing of the Age of Grace has significant ramifications for believers, too.  The fear of the Lord should be upon us.  If we need to repent for sins that we have committed in the body, we should do so.  If we are not allowing the Lord to work through us, we should do so.  God is a God of love, but He is also a God of judgment.  Unfortunately, we don’t hear much about that these days.

Scripture tells us that all believers will stand before the Lord at the judgment seat of Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:10: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad

Romans 14:10: we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

The only difference between those who have already died in Christ — and those of us who will be raptured when Jesus meets us in a cloud in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) — is that we will be fortunate enough to avoid the sting of death.  But all of our works will undergo the test of fire at the judgment seat.

1 Corinthians 3:10-15:  According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.  If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.  If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. 

I confess that the thought of standing before the Lord tomorrow sobers me.  I already know that many of my works will not withstand the test of fire.  The late Pastor Gary Whipple, who preached about Kingdom truths for believers, once said that he believed that most of us will have a combination of works.  That brings me great comfort.

We always want to think that we have more time.  But do we?  If you do not believe in Jesus Christ, I pray that you will accept him as your Savior right now.  If you are a believer, I pray that you (and I) will allow Christ Jesus to work through us every moment that we have left on this fallen earth.

While there are many professed believers who promise me that I can have my best life now, or that I need to find my purpose, I pray that I will have a little more time to die to self-will and allow the Lord to perform His great works through me.

Hosea: A Type for Christ or God’s Bride?

I was listening to my audio bible and heard a passage from Hosea 3:1-9 that sounded like a type for Christ:

The Lord said to me, “Go, show love to your wife again, even though she loves another man and continually commits adultery.  Likewise, the Lord loves the Israelites although they turn to other gods and love to offer raisin cakes to idols.” So I paid fifteen shekels of silver and about seven bushels of barley to purchase her.

Hosea means “help” or “salvation” and the prophet does appear to speak to God’s love for us by sending His Son to die for us on the cross in Hosea 6:1-3:

Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.  After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.  Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.

Upon further study, however, I think that Hosea is a type for God’s relationship to His eventual wife: Israel. 

Looking at Hosea’s life, we learn that God instructed Hosea to marry a prostitute.  He chose Gomer, who was not faithful to him.  God chose Israel to be His bride, which has also been unfaithful in its covenant with the Lord.  So one could say that God also chose a harlot.

When we look at the names of Hosea and Gomer’s children, their firstborn was named Jezreel, which means God sows.  The second child was a daughter named Lo-Ruhamah, which means no pity or no mercy.  Their third child, Lo-Ammi, means not my people.  That sounds an awful lot like God’s long-suffering relationship with Israel, which turned to worship Baal and not the Lord.

Hosea is such a beautiful story because despite God’s judgment, it also typifies God’s love for Israel.  Hosea speaks to the day when Israel will finally repent and be welcomed back into the arms of her long-awaiting Husband.

Therefore, behold, I will allure her [Israel] and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak tenderly and to her heart.  There I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor [troubling] to be for her a door of hope and expectation. And she shall sing there and respond as in the days of her youth and as at the time when she came up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, that you will call Me Ishi [my Husband], and you shall no more call Me Baali [my Baal].  For I will take away the names of Baalim [the Baals] out of her mouth, and they shall no more be mentioned or seriously remembered by their name. (Hosea 2:14-17, Amplified Bible).

Quoteworthy: Testing The Spirits (1 John 4:1-7)

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.  

This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.   

They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.
 
We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. 

This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

Do Not Be Deceived!

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:5)

Satan’s first lie continues in many different forms to this very day.  If you have the time watch "The Age of Deceit," an excellent video that provides a comprehensive overview of the many ways that Satan has attempted — and continues to attempt — to deceive man and disqualify him from ruling and reigning with Christ Jesus in the Millennial Kingdom.   

If you are already familiar with these concepts it will be a review for you.  You may want to recommend the video to others in your community, particularly those who are being deceived by New Age doctrines.  But be prepared to be dismissed as a “fringe” believer.

When these truths were first presented to me, I was quite skeptical.  Despite being a church-going believer, I knew nothing about prophecy.  So I made it a priority to study Scripture and learn.  If you are new to prophecy, I urge you to do the same.  I pray that God will give you eyes to see and ears to hear.

After watching this video, I felt led to go to the Book of Jude.  It is such a small book, yet so rich with prophetic warnings:

Jesus will be denied as God, even within our own churches, as the tares (deceivers) have slipped in amongst the wheat.  Some of these tares are openly preaching that man can be as gods, just as Satan promised Eve.

For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. (Jude 4)

Those who remain steadfast in Christ Jesus and the Bible will be mocked and scorned:

But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. (Jude 17-18)

Jude 6 also speaks to the fallen angels who cohabitated with women in an attempt to corrupt the seed that would produce the Messiah (Genesis 6:4), which prompted God to cause the great flood:

And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

The video will show you how this is happening once again, just as Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24:37:

But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

There is so much more, which is why the video is 2½ hours long.  As you watch, I hope you find strong comfort in the knowledge that everything that is happening has been foretold in Scripture.  While these events are incredibly evil, their emergence means that the Lord will be coming for us very soon.

Satan’s Counterfeit Kingdom

If you watched the opening or closing ceremonies of the London Olympics, and you study prophecy, there was no way to miss the not-so-subtle occult symbols and references to Satan’s counterfeit kingdom.  The blatant occult symbolism continued in the Paralympics opening ceremony.

While watching these videos, the dark foreshadowing of Satan’s counterfeit kingdom — which is still to come — was deeply imprinted within me.  While reading Isaiah 14:12-24 this morning, I was again reminded of Satan's counterfeit kingdom.

12 How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
 You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! 

13 You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens;
 I will raise my throne 
above the stars of God; 
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.

14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” 

15 But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit. 

16 Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate:
 “Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble,

17 the man who made the world a wilderness,
 who overthrew its cities 
and would not let his captives go home?” 

18 All the kings of the nations lie in state,
 each in his own tomb.

19 But you are cast out of your tomb 
like a rejected branch; 
you are covered with the slain,
 with those pierced by the sword, those who descend to the stones of the pit.  
Like a corpse trampled underfoot, 

20 you will not join them in burial, 
for you have destroyed your land 
and killed your people.

Let the offspring of the wicked 
never be mentioned again. 

21 Prepare a place to slaughter his children
 for the sins of their ancestors; 
they are not to rise to inherit the land
 and cover the earth with their cities.  

22 “I will rise up against them,” declares the Lord Almighty. 
“I will wipe out Babylon’s name and survivors, her offspring and descendants,” 
declares the Lord. 

23 “I will turn her into a place for owls
 and into swampland;
 I will sweep her with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord Almighty. 

24 The Lord Almighty has sworn, “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be,
 and as I have purposed, so it will happen. 

I have great hope, however, because I believe that the destruction of the king of Babylon is in fact a type for how Christ Jesus will ultimately overcome Satan and destroy his counterfeit kingdom. 

In verse 12, the terms “morning star, son of the dawn” are used.  The King James version provides one of the devil’s many names: 

 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!

This is a counterfeit description of the morning star, which is a title that belongs solely to Christ Jesus.  He is described as the “bright and morning star” in Revelation 22:16 (Jamieson, Fausset & Brown).

In verses 13-14, we are introduced to what bible scholars call the five “I wills” that Satan uses to describe his counterfeit kingdom:

1. I will ascend to the heavens.

2. I will raise my throne 
above the stars of God.

3. I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, 

   on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.

4. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds.

5. I will make myself like the Most High.

The King of Babylon is brought down, just as Satan will be brought down.  He went down slain to the pit, just as Satan will go down in the pit (Revelation 20:3), although he had been the terror of the mighty in the land of the living (Ezekiel 32:27). 

In Isaiah 14:4 (KJV), Babylon is described as the counterfeit golden city:

That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!

We can be confident, however, that the Lord will sweep this counterfeit kingdom with a broom of destruction (Isaiah 14:23).  The only true and pure golden city is New Jerusalem! (Rev 21:18) 

While Satan’s reign on earth will bring enormous suffering, I believe that the bride of Christ will be spared from the worst of it.  We can also rejoice that at the end of the spiritual warfare, Satan will be defeated.

There is a great deal more in these passages from a prophetic standpoint that I need more time to delve into.  But I felt compelled to post this as a warning (and it is not surprising that I encountered both symptoms of illness and computer problems that made this extremely difficult) to those who do not have eyes to see, or those who do see, but have fallen into a deep sleep that the prophet Isaiah writes about in Isaiah 29:10:

 For the LORD hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered.

What is the Worth of Wisdom?

But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea saith, It is not with me. It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold. Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding? Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air. Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears. God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven; To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure. When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder: Then did he see it, and declare it; he prepared it, yea, and searched it out. And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding. (Job 28:12-28)

I have been reading the book of Job, which has a lot to say about wisdom (it is mentioned more than 20 times):

• Sinners die without wisdom (Job 4:21)
• God has the secrets of wisdom (Job 11:6)
• With the ancient is wisdom, strength, counsel, and understanding (Job 12:12-13)
• The price of wisdom is above rubies (Job 28:18)
• The fear of the Lord is wisdom (Job 28:28)
• God is mighty in strength and wisdom (Job 36:5)

When the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see the types in Scripture that foreshadow the coming Kingdom, God blesses us with wisdom that is not only worth more than rubies, but all earthly treasures.  It allows us to see that Job is yet another Old Testament ensample (type) of Christ Jesus. 

Both Job and Jesus:

• Were sinless and falsely accused of being sinners
• Were tempted by Satan and remained faithful to God
• Suffered tremendously despite being blameless
• Forgave the words and actions of their adversaries
• Lost everything and are later blessed abundantly

His Kingdom come!

Quoteworthy: He Will Return As King!

“It is clear from the Scriptures that God has been trying to set up a "visible" Kingdom on this earth ever since the creation of man, to whom He gave dominion (Gen. 1: 26-28). But that dominion was lost by the "Fall," and Satan set himself up as the "Prince of this World" (Matt. 4:8-10, John 14:30).

In the "Call of Abraham" God took the first step toward the setting up of a visible Kingdom on this earth, which assumed an outward form in the "Jewish Commonwealth" under Moses, but the plan was blocked by the Jews losing their "National Existence" at the time of the Babylonian Captivity B. C. 606, and the beginning of the "Times of the Gentiles."

But when 600 years of the "Times of the Gentiles" had run their course, God again made a move to set up the Kingdom, and the angel Gabriel announced to Mary the Birth of the King (Luke 1:26-33). Thirty years later the King's forerunner, John the Baptist, announced that the Kingdom was "at hand" (Matt. 3:1-2), and when the King manifested Himself to Israel He Himself made the same announcement (Matt. 4:17-23), and later He sent out the "Twelve" (Matt. 10:7), and the "Seventy" (Luke 10:1-9), to proclaim the same thing. But the King was rejected and crucified, and the setting up of the Kingdom postponed, and the Kingdom took on its "Mystery Form" under the name of the "Kingdom of Heaven."

There are some who object to what they call the "Postponement Theory," and claim that the Kingdom which was "At Hand" was not an outward visible Kingdom, but a spiritual Kingdom, and that it was not withdrawn but is seen today in "New Born" believers. They base their claim on the fact that the earthly visible Kingdom of Christ could not be set up until after He had suffered and died on the Cross as the Saviour of men and had risen from the dead, and ascended to the Father and received the Kingdom, and that therefore the offer of an outward visible and earthly Kingdom at that time was not a "bona fide" offer, and that John the Baptist and Jesus must have meant by the "Kingdom of Heaven" something else than an outward visible and earthly Kingdom.

What are the facts? First, that the Old Testament scriptures teach that there is to be an earthly and visible Kingdom over which the Son of Man is to rule (Dan. 7: 13-14, 2:34-35, 44-45; Jer. 23:5; Zech. 14:9), and we know that at the time of Jesus' birth there was a widespread expectation of the coming of the Messiah, and that Simeon and Anna waited in the Temple for the "Consolation of Israel" (Luke 2: 25-38). We are also told that "Wise Men" came from the East to Jerusalem inquiring "Where is He that is born KING OF THE JEWS?" and when they had found Jesus they worshipped Him as KING (Matt. 2:1-11).

There can be no question but that Jesus was born to be a KING.”

From Rightly Dividing the Word by Clarence Larkin.