Once again Nelson does a great job of challenging us all about the state of the church in these last days. What is the state of your church? Has it compromised with the worlds values? How many in your church are actually born again? Is it even discussing Jesus Second Coming and prophesied tribulation at that time?
Increasingly, this site will focus on prophesied end times as they unfold in our time. The aim, to equip believers to use prophecy in evangelism. As I have mentioned in previous posts, there are far more prophecies about Jesus Second Coming than there were about His First coming. All the OT prophets were given a picture of a restored Israel with Jesus (descendant of King David) ruling and reigning from Jerusalem.
Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Nehemiah, Zechariah, and Micah are all stand outs for me in providing us with pictures of future “end times” events. All through Isaiah we get snippets of Jesus ruling from Jerusalem. As early as Isaiah 2, we read “Now it shall come to pass in the latter days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be firmly established above other mountains, and exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore”. Isaiah then goes on to paint a picture of The Day of the Lord when the Lord alone will be exalted on that day, everything proud and lofty, everything lifted up will be brought low.
As Nelson Walters states in this important video, the timing of the Rapture is not just a theological debate, its timing is critical, in terms of whether the church will face the tribulation, and even great tribulation outlined in Daniel’s 70th week. In the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21), Jesus gave His disciples and us, a lot of information about His Second Coming. He said, many times, WATCH, BE ALERT, for it will be like the days of Noah, they will be eating, sleeping etc and suddenly, He will appear in the clouds with the angels and every eye will see Him, believers will be taken up, but most look for rocks to hide under. God then pours out His wrath upon the unrepentant in the Trumpet and Bowl Judgements.
“Why do the nations rage…? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, ‘Let us tear off their bonds and cast away their ropes from us” (Psalm 2:1-3).
David describes a time when many rulers would see God’s Word in a negative light, as though it were bonds enslaving them and as cords binding them to His morality, godly ways and truth. They would see the demands of God’s Word as hindering “human potential” in sexual expression along with many other life choices.
This prophecy is being fulfilled now and it is time to speak up and to refuse to remain silent. In this hour, as the cultural wars intensify, the voice of aggressive secularists is getting much louder and bolder. At the same time, many in the church are retreating into fearful silence. To some, it seems as if the church will be overrun by the angry voices of the liberal left. However, I assure you that the Lord’s purposes will surely succeed. He is raising up those who will speak up with clarity and courage because of their fierce love for Jesus and the truth (John 14:21, 2 Thess. 2:10).
Where is all this going? Some ask if things will get better or worse. The truth is, both light and darkness will increase at the same time. Before Jesus returns, godliness and sin alike will reach their greatest heights in history:
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For the darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the Lord shall rise upon you, and His glory shall be seen upon you” (Isaiah 60:1-2).
The greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit in history is yet to come, in conjunction with a deluge of deep darkness assaulting the nations.
The Lord is raising up courageous messengers who will fearlessly proclaim Jesus as the only way of salvation, the authority of His Word and the supremacy of His glorious leadership.
Where do you stand? Where does your church stand? What is God calling you to do in this hour? It is time to make important decisions, to align yourselves with like minded brothers and sisters in Christ. The persecuted church invariably looks like the church described in the Book of Acts.
Compiled using article by Mike Bickle, The Lord is Raising Up Courageous Messengers in Charisma Magazine
The Coming Church: article by John Burton – see bio below. I suggest you reread these posts for further confirmation – Are our churches making disciples, July 16th – Church as God intended, July 26th – Wake up church, Aug 3rd – Church in the last days, Aug 9th – Building church God’s way, Aug 17th.
“The book that I’m currently writing will address some of the spiritual and practical changes that will come to the structure and expression of the church. Trust me, it will shock our nation severely.
Those who hold on to a structure or a ministry instead of Jesus Himself will not be willing to go where God is leading.
The coming church will be rooted in scripture. The biblical structure has been largely forsaken in traditional churches. What will the emerging church look like? Here’s just a small peek into a grand shift in the structure of the church:
1. Services will become more like prayer meetings. One of the greatest indictments on the church today is that prayer is not the driving force. Today, people tend to choose churches based on the appeal of the teaching and the worship instead of the fervency of prayer. If the church was a house of teaching or a house of worship, that would make sense, but it’s not. The church is a house of prayer for all nations. Every person in the church will function as a burning intercessor and the services will be marked by this unified groan of fiery prayer.
2. Personal need will give way to personal mission. Today, churches are often more like organic, socially driven hospitals. People tend to use the church as a way to meet their personal needs instead of serving it as a minister of God. This is going to change. Of course, there will still be personal ministry and true needs will be addressed.
However, instead of the church functioning as a hospital, it will once again function as a mission-driven military. The mission will take precedence. The saints will be equipped for service, not for personal survival. In this ancient and emerging model, there will be MASH units that will take very good care of the wounded with the primary purpose of getting the soldier back into battle. Apostles will again lead with governmental authority and pastors will be seen as the main leader less and less as they focus more on shepherding and less on primary leadership.
3. Teaching will be minimized while instruction is emphasized. Teaching is mostly for personal edification while instruction is mostly for corporate assignments. Today, most churches focus on teaching principles of Scripture, providing truths that will help believers navigate through their lives and giving nuggets of biblical info. While there will still be important Bible teaching, apostolic instruction will emerge as a necessary new ministry.
There is enough Bible teaching online, on CDs, in books and on video to turn every one of us into personal spiritual giants. We need to take it upon ourselves to grow. What is lacking, however, is apostolic leaders, military commanders who give instruction and assignments to a ready army. Teaching is personal growth-based while instruction is a call to corporate action for the sake of mission fulfillment.
An example of apostolic instruction is this: The apostolic leader gives a corporate assignment for everybody in the church to fast for a week and then show up together to prayer walk through the city streets. It’s a corporate call to action versus biblical study. It’s mission focused versus personal growth focused. Personal growth will be largely our responsibility between services so we can be ready to respond to the corporate instruction where we will receive our assignments.
4. We will gather together most days of the week. The 24/7 church will again emerge as the church drives culture instead of reacting to culture. Cares of life will lose their power as we simplify our lives and put corporate prayer and mission ahead of most everything else.
This may be the most challenging change for Christians. Today, Sundays are the days to set aside for corporate worship while we give precedence to our ‘normal lives.’ In the Coming Church, the very reason we live will be to pray on fire together every day, receive apostolic assignments and then move out into our lives as kingdom ambassadors. It wouldn’t be surprising if a tithe of our time is what became the standard. Two to three hours a day, whether it’s in the morning, afternoon or evening, or even in the late night hours, will be given by every believer to praying on site together with others, ministering and giving ourselves to intercession-fueled kingdom ministry. Of course, much of what we have been giving ourselves to will have to be eliminated so we have the time necessary to devote.
5. Worship will be supernaturally driven. There is a new sound coming to worship, and it’s not simply a new style. There is a supernatural, otherworldly groan of intercessory worship that will explode out of the entire body as a new breed of trembling worship leaders lead the way into the shock and awe of the glory of God. We will no longer simply sit in a pew or stand with a raised hand while a familiar worship song is sung.
The prophetic, groaning sounds of Holy Spirit facilitated worship will make it normal to shake and fall to our faces as we cry Holy! The natural, logical sing-a-longs will be no more. We will have a hard time standing as God’s Shekinah and Kabod glory resides in His church. Worship teams will practice less and pray in the Spirit with tears in their eyes more.
Of course, this is an extremely limited glance into the many, many changes that are coming. I wanted to share this to provoke you to preparation. There is much that you and I enjoy in the church, or that is comfortable to us, that we will have to let go. Again, the coming church will be troubling and shocking, but it will result in the power and life that we have been crying out for.
God is about to answer that cry.
I strongly recommend that you read my book 20 Elements of Revival. That book reveals much of the shift that we must embrace right now. If you truly take in all that it has to say, you’ll never participate in the church the same way again.”
John Burton has been developing and leading ministries for over 20 years and is a sought out teacher, prophetic messenger and revivalist. John’s mandate is to call the church in the nations to repentance from casual Christianity and to burn in a manner worthy of the King of kings. He is equipping people to confront the enemies of God (established religion, Jezebel, etc.) that hinder an extreme, sold-out level of true worship. He planted two churches, has initiated two city prayer movements and is currently directing a prayer and revival focused ministry school in Detroit called thelabuniverstity.com.
As society turns its back on God, it naturally becomes more and more hostile towards those who believe in God and are unafraid to say so. The views of Christians increasingly stand at odds with those of our culture. As Christians, we nevertheless need to be courageous and unashamed of our faith and the teaching of God’s Word.
Christians need to stand up for their faith and be counted. If Christians don’t speak up to critique our culture and society, then others will, and Christians will increasingly be ignored. We need a strong voice for biblical values and morals to be reinstated in our society. The nation and individuals need to be called to account. This is not usually a popular role, but it is one that Christians in Britain today need to play.
Premier Christian Communications has published a survey of nearly 12,000 Christians about what it’s like to be a Christian in Britain today. Ninety-three percent of those surveyed said Christianity is being marginalised in society. Furthermore, half of those responding say they have personally experienced prejudice against their faith.
In his resignation speech last month, Tim Farron, Leader of the UK Liberal Democrats said that “we are kidding ourselves if we think we live in a tolerant liberal society.” The survey shows that the majority of Christians feel that their beliefs are being marginalised and that many have encountered prejudice against their own Christian beliefs.
Christian Concern has supported many Christians who have been discriminated against or disciplined at work for expressing their Christian faith. For example, Sarah Kuteh was sacked from her job as a nurse for talking about her faith and occasionally offering to pray for patients. Is it any wonder that most Christians feel that society considers it unacceptable for them to share their faith with others?
In other cases, Barry Trayhorn was forced to resign from his job at a prison after quoting the Bible in a prison chapel service, and Felix Ngole was expelled from university for posting on Facebook in support of traditional marriage. Sarah Mbuyi was sacked after responding to a question from a colleague about her views on homosexuality. I could go on to list many other similar cases.
The point, endorsed by this survey, is that the cases that we publicise are just the tip of the iceberg. We deal with dozens more of these cases that never reach the courts, where Christians have been discriminated against in one form or another. This survey shows that there are thousands more—Christians who have experienced some kind of prejudice against their faith.
“But know this , that in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves…” 2 Timothy 3:1
“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matthew 5:11-12
“Yes and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” 2 Timothy 3:12
Blessed are those that are persecuted for righteousness sake , for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:10
Authorities in Iran are increasingly targeting Christian converts with arrests and imprisonments, according to the New York-based Centre for Human Rights In Iran.
“In less than two months, since June 2017, Judge Mashallah Ahmadzadeh of Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran has issued long prison sentences to at least 11 Christian converts and the former leader of the Assyrian Pentecostal Church in Iran,” CHRI said in a report.
On July 6, the judge sentenced four Protestant Christian converts to 10 years in prison each “in a trial completely lacking due process,” the group said, quoting Mansour Borji, the advocacy director of a London-based group, Article 18, which defends Christians in Iran.
The four converts — Yusif Farhadov, Eldar Gurbanov and Bahram Nasibov from Baku in the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Iranian national Nasser Navard Goltapeh — were arrested at a reception hosted by their Christian friends in Andisheh last June.
Prosecutors couldn’t produce any evidence to show the converts had acted against national security, Borji said. Yet they were convicted of being “Zionist Christians” who “acted against national security with the intention of overthrowing the state in a soft war.”
Two weeks earlier, the same judge had given Christian converts Yousef Nadarkhani, Mohammadreza Omidi, Yasser Mossayebzadeh and Saheb Fadaie 10-year prison sentences for propagating house churches and promoting “Zionist Christianity.”
A ruling is still overdue for a decision on an appeal by Omidi, Mossayebzadeh and Fadaie against a sentence of 80 lashes each for drinking wine during a communion service. The Christians were arrested May 13 during a series of raids by security service agents on Christian homes in Rasht.
The U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide has also criticised the government of Iran for persecuting converts.
CSW’s Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said in a statement.”We reiterate that the national security charges levelled in all of these cases amount to the criminalisation of the Christian community for exercising the right to freedom of religion or belief, and that this is occurring despite the fact that the Iranian constitution recognises Christianity. We urge members of the international community to extend the sanctions still in place against Iranian individuals to include members of the judiciary who are implicated in ongoing and severe harassment and persecution of religious minority communities.”
Perhaps this crackdown is occurring due to the reported large number of Iranians converting to Christianity.
In the Book of the Prophet Daniel 7:7, we read of the system of the Antichrist. It is described using the metaphor of a beast, “dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong.” After its initial assault on its enemies with its iron teeth, it continues to trample even the residual survivors. Its hard not to see this being fulfilled right now throughout the Middle East. After Muhammad died and his successors burst forth out of Arabia, they rapidly conquered the whole Middle East and North Africa. Within ten years the very heart of the ancient Christian Church was ripped out.
All of the great former missionary sending capitals were conquered: Ephesus, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria. Yet while a smaller minority of Christians managed to hang on in those cities, they have forever since been a struggling minority among their Muslim neighbours. Now the residue is even being trampled, and we read of repeated reports that speak of Christianity virtually disappearing from Iraq and Syria.
Yet despite the gravity of what is unfolding before the eyes of the world and the global church, I genuinely don’t think that most Christians have truly put the prophetic pieces together.
Before ISIS came, the Yezidis in Iraq numbered around 400,000. As the mass graves continue to be unearthed and the bodies counted, some estimates suggest that as many as one fifth of Iraqi’s Yezidis were massacred under the exceedingly cruel hand of the ISIS Caliphate.
I am still amazed when a village of Chaldean Catholic Christians is decimated because of the name of Jesus, simply because they are not Muslim, and some American prophecy teachers and watchmen continue to claim that it is the Catholics who are the real threat. Could it be that the eastern beast is now knocking at the gates of the city while far too many of the “watchmen” are either determinedly perched on the western wall looking in the wrong direction, or are asleep entirely? The way things are moving, I truly believe we may be far closer than most think. Let us all repent, for the Day of the Lord is indeed at hand
In 1 Peter 4:12-13, the apostle Peter says, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though some strange thing happened to you. But rejoice insofar as you share in Christ’s sufferings, so that you may rejoice and be glad also in the revelation of His glory.”
The same Peter who wrote these words once rebuked Christ for declaring His intention to go to the cross (see Matthew 16:21-23). Peter once found suffering abhorrent, but now he tells us we should rejoice. Peter had grown in his understanding of the role of suffering in the Christian life. He had seen that the suffering of the cross was not the end—but only the way to the resurrection.
The persecution of the church is not new. In fact, history proves again and again that Christianity flourishes best under persecution. How then are we as Christians to respond to persecution?
On February 12, 2015, 21 Egyptian Christians were beheaded on the coast of the Mediterranean at the hands of ISIS fighters. Just before they beheaded each man, they offered him his life—if only he would deny Christ. But these brave men loved Jesus more than their own lives.
In this age of tolerance, we must love those who persecute us—but never surrender the truth. We must invite all people to come to the one who loves them and died for their sin. We must “implore [them] in Christ’s stead: Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Above all, we must resist the temptation of being ashamed of the Gospel.
In the midst of suffering, God makes us some incredible promises:
There is an indescribable blessing that can only be received through suffering for Christ. When you trust in Him, even amid persecution or difficult circumstances, you will experience His presence with you in a unique and powerful way. And as you walk with the Lord in obedience, He promises that He will never leave you or forsake you—in the fiery furnace, the lion’s den, or even in your workplace.
This article originally appeared on Leading The Way.
JESUS gave His disciples, and us, plenty of signs of His second coming and they are unfolding now just as prophesied. The mainline church in the west is asleep, also as prophesied “as in the days of Noah, they were eating and drinking etc.”? What is your church preoccupied with at the moment? Is it with the latest building programme, or paying off the debt from the last building programme? Is your pastor preaching about the coming judgement and the lost souls in your street? Is he preparing you for the coming persecution?
Franklin Graham is aware and doing his best to alert the church. Take a look at the following video.
A staggering 90,000 Christians were martyred in 2016 alone, according to Dr. Massimo Introvigne, director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR). Approximately 600 million Christians are not entirely free to worship. The CESNUR study goes on to explain that the major source of persecution has shifted.
The monstrous new perpetrator of mass persecution of Christians is no longer state communism, but Islam, both state and non-state. According to Introvigne, “Islamic ultra-fundamentalism” is now the new murderer of Christians.
Consider for a moment the staggering arithmetic of modern martyrdom. According to my calculations, there are 525,600 minutes in a year. The report says 90,000 Christians were slain in 2016. That means every 5.84 minutes of every day in 2016, a brother or sister in Christ was murdered simply for being a Christian.
This Christian nightmare is not the occasional random murder by some lone-wolf psychopath. It is systemic persecution that includes rape, forced marriage, torture and “conversion” to Islam at the point of a sword—the literal point of a sword or muzzle of a machine gun. Islam is Satan’s Antichrist religion for these “last days”. As mentioned in my last post, the stage is set for the Antichrist figure in Revelation to surface.
Nations and world leaders must face up to the true nature of this slaughter. When Boko Haram kidnapped dozens of little girls in Nigeria, it was not political. The “Chibok girls” were Christians, and their kidnappers were Islamists who genuinely believed that, according to the Quran, they had a right to enslave, buy, sell and rape young Christian captives.
According to the annual watch list published by another organisation, Open Doors, the top 10 countries where intense persecution of Christians takes place were all more than 50 percent Muslim. Furthermore, 40 of the top 50 such countries are predominantly Muslim. While the United Nations obsesses over Israeli apartment houses in East Jerusalem, it is largely silent in condemning Islamic apostasy laws and the persecution of Christians in 40 nations.
Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Then many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. Matt. 24: 9-12
These are the words of our soon coming King Jesus, answering His disciples questions of what it will be like before He comes again. Does this sound like the events outlined above and the persecution being faced by outspoken Christians in western nations? Is the church prepared for increased persecution. Jesus tells us it will escalate, until finally He pours out His wrath upon the earth. When does Jesus pour out His wrath upon the earth, when the seventh seal is opened and the first trumpet is blown. What is your pastor/leader preaching this Sundays?
LIVING ETERNAL NOW 