10-30-20 Viewing the World with Biblical Lenses
Viewing the World with Biblical Lenses :: By Gene Lawley
Our current world is in a “topsy-turvey” panic situation. The left is totally dedicated to somehow solving that “impending” climate-change disaster that is—in their view—about to suffocate us, or on the other hand, engulf us with roaring waves of water as the ice melts at the poles.
Then, a Corona virus comes along and explodes those issues in favor of a very real and present danger to civilization, worldwide. Their idea of a God in heaven, if that idea were ever to take place, has no ability to do anything.
If mankind wants to know his future, he can find it in the Bible, the Word of God, the God of the universe, the Sovereign Voice of Prophecy. Jesus said, in Luke 21:28, “When these things begin to happen, look up, for your redemption draws near.”
God has a plan for the universe, and it has not changed from its existence before time began. These three verses give us some idea that we can know what is coming to pass, in addition to that quote from Luke 21:28 above:
John 16:13 – “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but what He hears, that He will speak, and He will tell you things to come.”
Amos 3:7 – “Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.”
Habakkuk 1:2,5 – “O Lord, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear? Even cry out to You, ‘Violence!‘ and You will not save.‘
“Look among the nations and watch—be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you.”
To those thoughts we must also add the following from Romans 11:33-36:
“Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor? Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.”
Viewing the world through Biblical lenses is like thinking God’s thoughts along with Him. That is how it seems to be when I am reading the Word as it is verbally inspired, or “God breathed” as I am reading it in its present tense. In other words, God is saying it in eternity now, but I am seeing it in present time. Therefore, we can view current and future events as they appear in the Scriptures with confidence that they are our future.
A very real and vital example that tells us about this Corona virus and whether or not it means this is the end of the age, and Jesus is going to appear at this time, is in Luke 17:26-30:
“And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”
The picture shown here is as it will be when Jesus is revealed. It will not be the picture of devastation and doom that we are seeing today. There will be, then, a restoration of the economy and related lifestyles to resemble those in the passage above. (Incidentally, some have placed this passage’s parallel in Matthew 24:37-39 at the Lord’s second coming at the end of the seven-year tribulation. However, at that time there will be no such thriving economy, but devastation and a struggle to survive will be the conditions.)
Daniel 9:26-27 is the bullseye of the prophetic target that opens up the culminating end of this age:
“And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined.
“Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering, and on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.”
We see that the time of this beginning point is when the Messiah was crucified. We also see here that one who is of the lineage of the Romans who destroyed the city of Jerusalem and its temple in 70 A.D. He will join with many to confirm a covenant—with many nations, no doubt, since it will have been the United Nations which established nationhood for Israel in 1948. This one who rises out of the ashes of the old Roman Empire is seen as a “prince,” perhaps someone of a higher political stature than a person rising out of obscurity, at least at this point. Who is now hovering in the shadows just off-stage, waiting for that opening to come to him and he is elevated to leadership of the world?
The one who is to come will bring forward that sixth head of the Beast of Daniel’s prophecy to the front page of today’s current events. With whom the covenant is made is revealed when we see that a new temple is evidently allowed to be built soon after the covenant is in place, just as touched on above.
Again, as mentioned above, this points to a restoration of Israel as a sovereign nation. It also reveals who the “many” are who also confirm the covenant—the United Nations. God often made a promise to the Jews that after He scattered them to all the nations of the world, He would later restore them to their native land again in the latter days. Ezekiel prophesied in Ezekiel 37 of that restoration and ends that chapter with a promise of an everlasting covenant with Israel. This. Time-wise, parallels with the seven-year covenant the secular world will make.
The key figure in this context is that “prince” who arises with authority to take control, as the Scriptures indicate. How will that happen, we may wonder? It is also the timing of the Rapture of the saints; and the resulting “sudden destruction” the world will experience, no doubt will open the way for “someone” to take charge, for the world will be looking for a leader.
That mortally wounded sixth head of the Beast will arise as this person takes control and fronts his actions behind the face of the New World Order proponents who have been longing for a one-world government to give them elite status.
This coming lawless one is revealed coming forth on a white horse, “conquering and to conquer.” This is a simple preview of what he will be doing throughout the seven years of the covenant period, although he will cancel the covenant halfway through it. That first seal opened by Jesus in Revelation 6 and the action portrayed in Daniel 9:27 displays the strange authority that will have been given to the Antichrist. Somehow, he will come to a world leadership position that is identified with his confirmation of the covenant with many other world leaders. There is no Scripture which tells of his being assassinated, then rising again to convince people that he is the Christ. Once the Rapture occurs, no Christian will be left on earth to challenge his authority, and the Lord will bring upon those who are left behind an evil, deceptive spirit to turn their hearts.
Currently, it is obvious that the “falling away” Paul writes of in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8 is underway, full bore. In that passage we see that the “falling away” leads to a complete “taking away” with the removal of all resistance against the evil that is overwhelming the world.
The covenant’s confirmation is the pivotal event that triggers the Rapture, evidently, for Paul also writes of it in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 to 5:10, noting in 5:2-3, “For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night, for when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman.
Who in the Middle East is fervently interested in “peace and safety” but Israel? That little country, the apple of God’s eye, is the bullseye also of prophecy. And thus we see it as the focus of seven years of judgment, along with the whole world, from which God will salvage a third of the Jews and restore them to a relationship with Him. (See Zachariah 13:8.) In Zachariah 12:10 we read that the Jews will “look upon Him whom they have pierced, and mourn for Him as for an only begotten son.” They will recognize Jesus as their Messiah during that seven years, at a feast of the atonement.
Closer at hand is the current epidemic of Corona virus. What do the Biblical lenses reveal to us about that issue? There is no direct reference to such things encountered by mankind during the ages particularly, but Biblical history shows that God deals with the sinfulness of man in drastic measures. The most destructive event, of course, was the flood of Noah’s time. It was worldwide and so extensive that only eight people survived, though warnings were evident for about 120 years.
That event was brought on because people of the world were so degraded with sin that “every imagination of the thoughts of their hearts were only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). Is this world approaching such a condition? It may well be so. God is certainly shouting out a warning that His judgment has not been nullified whatsoever. At the least, this episode has the ability to shake the population loose from its grasp onto false gods and false doctrines and point them to the truth that is in Jesus Christ. A saying akin to that thought comes out of the wars of the 20th century, “There are no atheists in the foxholes.”
The agnostics believe God created everything then left it to fend for itself, so I understand. But that is not so. God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). That is where we are today.
Contact email: andwegetmercy@gmail.com
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