Let The Seventh Angel Sound On High. (Isaac Watts)

Many in the church are confused as to the sequential events leading up to the return of Christ to this earth and the rapture of living saints. One thing all (or most) agree on is that it will happen. But scripture is very clear on this subject as it should be. You will find that if you combine the book of Revelation with Paul’s writings you will have your answer!

“At the last trumpet… the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” (I Cor 15:52)

Then the seventh angel sounded [his trumpet]; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever… We give You thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who are and who were, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign.” (Rev 11:15,17)

Yours in Christ,

Jeff Gilbertson

Let The Seventh Angel Sound On High

Let the sev’nth angel sound on high,
Let shouts be heard through all the sky;
Kings of the earth, with glad accord,
Give up your kingdoms to the Lord.

Almighty God, Thy power assume,
Who wast, and art, and art to come:
Jesus, the Lamb who once was slain,
Forever live, forever reign!

The angry nations fret and roar,
That they can slay the saints no more
On wings of vengeance flies our God,
To pay the long arrears of blood.

Now must the rising dead appear;
Now the decisive sentence hear;
Now the dear martyrs of the Lord
Receive an infinite reward.

Words: Isaac Watts,1707.
Music: Henry Williams Baker, 1862

The Second Death – “Dead Again”

“Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:11-15)

There is not much teaching in the body of Christ about the second death, but I would like to take a few moments and bring it up. One thing that makes this such a neglected topic is that all of the occurrences of the second death are in the book of Revelation, perhaps the most neglected book in the Bible!

In a nutshell, as you see above, the lake of fire is the second death. Each one of us, indeed, all of humanity from Adam on, will die. Of this there can be no doubt or debate! What comes NEXT however is what I find more interesting.

Men and women, young and old, rich or poor, who lived out their years on this earth only to serve themselves (or the devil) will rise again at the great white throne of judgment, at the end of the Millennium. They will each stand before God the Father, who sits on His throne, and the “book of life” and the books of their lives will be opened. Once faced with the written record of their own selfishness and sin they will be sentenced to die again and live forever in the lake of fire.

Of this “day of judgment” and the opening of the books Jesus spoke accordingly:

“But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.” (Mtt 12:36)

This coming day of judgment, when the books are opened, is the great white throne of judgment. All of mankind, from Cain down throughout history, will wake from momentary “slumber” and stand before the great white throne. Those whose names are not written in the book of life will be thrown into the lake of fire. Hence the title “second death.”

This is known as “the second death.” Just as believers are sometimes called “born again” because they expect a new, spiritual life after death, the parallel teaching in the Book of Revelation is that other people will find themselves “dead again.” In both cases, the second version is much more intense and eternal than the first. (Stan Campbell)

The Book of Life

The “book of life” is also seen here as being brought before the throne of God. This book has been seen before in Exodus (32), Psalms (69), and Daniel (12).

The Lord told Moses: “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book. (Ex 32:33)

Distinguished Bible scholar William Barclay has given us insight on this subject for us:

“In ancient times cities kept a register of their citizens; and when a man died, his name was removed from the register.”

Daniel makes a reference to the book of life in regards to the Great Tribulation at the end of this age:

“Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued. “ (Dan 12:1)

Finally, the book of Revelation makes it clear that those whose names are NOT written in the book of life will be found “in that day” to be worshiping the Antichrist:

“It was also given to him [the beast] to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.” (Rev 13:7-8)

There is one thing that you want to be absolutely certain of and that is that YOUR NAME is written in the book of life when your time comes to leave this earth or when Jesus splits the skies and comes down.

Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down,
That the mountains might quake at Your presence—
As fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil—
To make Your name known to Your adversaries,
That the nations may tremble at Your presence! Isa 64: 1-2

Yours for the soon coming King,

Jeff Gilbertson

God’s heart is to reveal not to veil. (B.W. Newton)

Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech. 2 Cor. 3:12

As the Apostle says ‘We use great plainness of speech’. This is true of all that God reveals. He reveals. He does not put a veil over it but withdraws the veil. The hindrance is in the natural obliquity [deviation from sound thinking] of our minds, which Satan is allowed to increase to our chastisement; and we need God’s gracious intervention to be saved from the sin not only of neglecting but of perverting Scripture.

The tendency of the human heart to welcome anything whereby it is exalted, facilitates this delusion. The result of this misapplication of Scripture is the destruction of well-nigh every practical principle that God desires to be exhibited in His Church.

See also the hymn,

“Joyful all ye nations rise;
join the triumph of the skies;
with the angelic host proclaim
‘Christ is born in Bethlehem!’”

Are the nations indeed to rise and join the triumph of the skies, because Christ is born into the earth? Born to be rejected; born to be crucified; born for His Truth to be set at naught; for Him and His servants to be abhorred!

You see, hymns like this altogether deceive the soul; they place us virtually in the Millennium!

If that really were so, and the nations were brought to the “fountain open for sin and for uncleanness,” they might “rise to join the triumph of the skies:” but see how the human heart may be deceived by words of God’s own Truth being misapplied!

B.W. Newton (1807 – 1899)

Toxic Charity by Robert Lupton

Toxic Charity — How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It)

Browse Inside this book

What’s Next on the Prophetic Timetable?

With the sudden wave of democracy currently flooding many of the authoritarian, dictatorial Middle East and North African nations, I believe that, using the Scriptures as our guide, we can start to expect a similar wave (yet in the opposite direction) to strike the democratic nations of Europe.

If you go back to the book of Daniel, written some 2500 years ago, I am quite convinced that God gave to King Nebuchadnezzar (a pagan king of a pagan kingdom) a dream that was to be a “prophetic picture” that stretches down from his time through the end of this age and introduces the “age to come”.

“However, there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days. This was your dream and the visions in your mind while on your bed.” (Dan 2:28)

Believe it or not, I believe you can expect a sudden wave of “iron fisted”, authoritarian rule to sweep through many democratic European nations. The exact opposite of the Arab Spring! Bankrupt Greece might be the first one, followed by Italy…

Here’s why:

In King Nebuchadnezzar’s famous dream, there was a statue that was “a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance” (Dan 2:31) with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

I think God wanted to establish this dream with such significance that He moved upon Nebuchadnezzar to have all the wise men in Babylon put to death for not being able to tell the dream (which had never been asked of any one before!) and interpret the dream. Only Daniel, as he was awaiting capture and death, was able to correctly declare the dream and its interpretation.

The “head of gold” Daniel declared to be King Nebuchadnezzar himself – Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, from God’s perspective was golden! (2:38) It was complete, authoritarian control. Daniel himself had said this about the king:

“Because of the grandeur which [God] bestowed on him, all the peoples, nations and men of every language feared and trembled before him; whomever he wished he killed and whomever he wished he spared alive; and whomever he wished he elevated and whomever he wished he humbled. (5:19)

The book of Daniel goes on to show us that after the golden kingdom of Babylon came the silver, “inferior kingdom” of Medo-Persia. Other authors have come to the same conclusions:

Nebuchadnezzar was an absolute monarch, the succeeding empires progressively less so. They were larger and lasted longer than Babylon, but none held as much centralized power as Nebuchadnezzar did. (David Guzik)

To further support this point the Bible provides us with two stories of pending executions. First is the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego thrown into the fiery furnace by the King of Babylon. The three youths were thrown into the fiery furnace because they ignored King Nebuchadnezzar’s edict to worship his golden image. The “king of the known world” was so enraged that he ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual.

Fast-forward to the second scene of Daniel being thrown into the lion’s den by King Darius the Mede, who had been tricked and manipulated by his own subordinates to slay Daniel against his own will. This is why scripture declares this kingdom to be “inferior” and is depicted as silver in the statute – which by today’s standards is still an inferior metal to gold!

As you move down the statue from head to feet the metals became less and less valuable but more and more stronger for destruction. We find next Greece (bronze belly) which ruled by the strength of military might and then New Testament brings us up-to-date by showing that the Roman Caesars (legs of iron) have succeeded the Greek kings by the time of Christ. Secular history confirms what God showed to Daniel in giving him this interpretation.

“Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come…”

In the last book of the Bible we find the apostle John was given a similar revelation of the successive kingdoms that would rule on the earth in connection to Israel. In his usual cryptic style throughout the book of Revelation he writes about these kingdoms like this:

“Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. The beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth and is one of the seven, and he goes to destruction”. (Rev. 17: 10-11)

In Isaiah we are told that the first kingdom to rule Israel was Egypt, which lasted 400 years and that was followed by Assyria.

For thus says the Lord GOD, “My people went down at the first into Egypt to reside there; then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.” (Isa 52:4)

Daniel identifies for us the three kingdoms that would follow: Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece. The “one is” kingdom (of Rev. 17:10) can only be the Roman Empire which was ruling as “legs of iron” at the time of John’s writing.

The “other has not yet come” kingdom will be the revived Roman Empire that will come at the end of this age in the form of a 10 nation federation (remember the 10 toes of iron and clay from the statue). It is to be noted that the spread of those 10 nations (or kingdoms) at the end of this age will include an odd mixture of “iron and clay” and will stay in power until the return of Jesus:

In that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with common clay. As the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle. (Dan 2: 41-42)

This volatile mixture, this “divided kingdom” of iron-like strength and clay-like fragility, will remain until the Second Coming of Christ, when He comes as a Rock, “cut out without hands” (2:34) and crushes the statute on its feet, bringing all the kingdoms of men to an abrupt end! After that, the Millennial Kingdom of Christ will begin on this earth.

But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. (2:35)

In this prophetic picture, the next developing plot will be some of the clay-like nations of western European taking on the flavor of the iron-like rule of a dictatorship, as we have known for centuries in north Africa. Don’t be too surprised if a “Gaddafi-type” despot comes to rule a nation like Greece, Turkey or Italy.

The beast which will come at the end of this age is “one of the seven” which means he will come out of the Roman Empire, a small insignificant ruler at first but he will arise to try and take over complete control of Jerusalem, with the help of the 10 nation federation. There he will meet his end at the coming of the King! (Zech 14:1-4)

In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever. (2:44)

Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus, Come!

Jeff Gilbertson

The Prophetic Significance of the Arab Spring: Why it had to happen before Jesus returns.

• Syria’s embattled Bashar Assad security forces have killed thousands of protesters
• Yemen’s wounded Ali Abdullah Saleh clings to power in a state on the verge of civil war
• Tunisia’s president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia January 2011
• Egypt’s deposed Hosni Mubarak was talked into internal exile before being hauled into court
• Libyan’s ruler Muammar Gaddafi styled himself as Africa’s King of Kings ended up dragged through the streets

As each successive Arab dictator has been ousted, the violence unleashed to retain power and the violence needed to topple the regime has increased exponentially. That may serve as a sobering harbinger that the worst in yet to come in the Middle East. (Paul Koring — The Globe and Mail, Toronto)

To date over 15 countries have experienced a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests in what has come to be called the Arab Spring.

Interestingly enough, and what I want to highlight at this time, is that many of these countries fall within the boundaries of the old Roman Empire — which has a huge place of importance in the last days scenario. Father God will orchestrate End Time events so that the transition of the end of this age to the “age to come” will take place primarily within the boundaries of the Roman Empire, the same Empire that ruled during the death of His Son!

To look into the answer as to what is the prophetic significance of the Arab Spring one must turn back in time to the early days in the life of Daniel (ca. 580 BC). Daniel was just a youth when the King of Babylon, one King Nebuchadnezzar, approached the him about a troubling dream he had.

Roman Empire at its peak 150 A.D.

This dream is the cornerstone of all prophecies as it depicts the coming succession of Gentile rulers on what I call the “Prophetic Earth” until the return of the Lord Jesus in glory in the form of a large statue. This statue accurately prophesied the reign of Babylon (head of gold), Persia (silver), Greece (bronze) and Rome (legs of iron). This is a stunning prophecy as Greece is called by name as the world leader 250 years before Alexander the Great’s birth!

1. Babylon (604 – 539 BC)
2. Medo-Persia (539–330 BC)
3. Greece (330 – 146 BC)
4. Rome (146 BC – 456 AD)

These coming Kingdoms that would rule on the earth are depicted as metals and you can easily see that as you descend down the statue, from head to toe, the metals become more and more inferior — even the Olympics use this same standard! (Gold, Silver, Bronze) Finally you get to the feet and toes that are an unwielding mixed of iron and clay.

Gold represented absolute reign by a King. Silver represented reigning by council. (Remember that Darius was tricked into putting Daniel into the lion’s den by those he shared power with!) Bronze represented military might and power to the strongest. Iron represented absolute control albeit by an elected official — think “Caesars”. Clay represented government “by the people”. Think “he has feet of clay” as when someone reveals a flaw that makes him vulnerable or more human.

The Bible describes something as miry clay, mixed with iron. But iron and clay don’t mix! The prophecies describe ten-nations which will be unified together, but only for a short time… Nevertheless, there are as yet unfulfilled CORROBORATING prophecies which predict a cohesive combine of nations described as ten kings which will play a critical role in a tumultuous culmination of end time events. (Garner Ted Armstrong)

Clay in scripture is equal with people.

“O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.” Isaiah 64:8

A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world has been “the people want to bring down the regime”. (Uriel Abulof, March 2011)

Daniel told King Nebuchadnezzar that the final stage of the statue would be a mixture of iron and clay in the feet and toes. Then he foretold of a Stone “cut without human hands” (Jesus Christ) that would come to the earth and destroy this statue — starting with the feet and toes – and set up an everlasting Kingdom! Therefore, at Jesus’ Second Coming, the feet and toes of clay (democracy) and iron (authoritarian) must be intact.

“You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them… In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.” (Dan 2: 34, 44)

Daniel will cover this same ground again in Chs. 7-8 but there he describes the coming kingdoms’ military strength and uses the symbolism of beasts; lion, bear, leopard, etc. Here in the vision of the statue (Ch. 2) Daniel is describing the coming kingdoms on the earth as they influence and interact with Jerusalem and God’s chosen people, Israel.

Here is the point you cannot miss: the clay in the iron feet and toes is the addition of democracy into the Roman Empire nations. Where nations had been ruled by iron fisted leaders, the Bible predicts that clay of the people will intermingle and will not mix. This will set the stage for a strong leader to unite the Empire, starting with 10 nations.

Jeff Gilbertson

“This generation will not pass away…” An examination of Mtt 24:34

“Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” Mtt. 24:34

For most Bible believing believers, the long standing teaching of this verse and chapter has been that “in one single generation” all these things of the Last Days or End Times Scenario will be accomplished: Famine will come. Wars. Pestilence. Death and killing… what Jesus calls “the Great Tribulation” in Mtt 24. Then suddenly, like clockwork, Jesus will coming riding on the clouds and return to earth at the Second Coming. (Mtt 24:30) This will all happen in one single generation (of 40 or more years) when the Jews at long last have returned to their homeland.

This interpretation had led to the woeful predictions of the End Times coming in 1988 – literally a single generation (forty years) past 1948, the date of Israel’s being granted statehood after a 1900 year absence from the global stage. Certainly this is a dramatic date and cannot be overlooked. But obviously 1988, 1998 and 2008 has come and gone and still no Second Coming…

Some have ventured out even further to lock-in on “1967” and the Six-Day War whereby Israel took back complete control of Jerusalem from (Muslim) Jordan. Unbelievably, in just six days the tiny nation of Israel fought back against four of the strongest Arab nations and captured Gaza, the Sinai, the Golan Heights. Many Jews believe that God intervened as He did in the days of Moses. Certainly an important date in the history of Israel!

Still others contend that the “the single generation” time frame can be expanded to include up to 100 years, and not with out good Biblical exegesis:

“In the fourth generation (400 years) your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” (Genesis 15:16)

Sadly all of these (and potentially many more interpretations) miss the point completely and keeps the church imprisoned in poor eschatology. The issue at stake in “this generation” from Mtt 24 is not talking about time (be that 40 years or 100!) but about the people of God, the Jews.

Below I have listed some well known Bible commentators who reiterate this viewpoint:

This generation shall not pass – this race; i.e. the Jews shall not cease from being a distinct people, till all the counsels of God relative to them and the Gentiles be fulfilled. (Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible)

I believe that… this generation means the Jewish race, instead of only those then living. Christ has described the awful end of the Jewish state; after such a destruction and scattering of the remnant to the ends of the earth, all the examples of history would declare that the Jewish race would become extinct. Christ, however, declares that, contrary to all probability, it shall not pass away until He comes. They still exist, 1850 years after the prediction. (People’s New Testament)

An Evil and Adulterous Generation

If you, the reader, would just insert this common phrase — “an evil and adulterous generation” — straight from the lips of Jesus in other verses from Matthew, I believe the answer is crystal clear.

“Truly I say to you, this [evil and adulterous] generation [of Jews] will not pass away until all these things take place.” Mat 24:34

Here are a few other examples of Jesus speaking in the same book of Matthew about “this generation” of Jews:

“An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet… The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah ; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” (Mtt 12:39,41)

“Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.” (Mtt 12:45)

My point in writing all this is to say simply that it is an issue of the nation of Israel, the Jewish people, that will not pass away until all these end time events occur! This simple yet certain interpretation, which has strong contextual argument, takes away any possible date setting pitfalls and confusion from seeing “this generation” as a period of time.

The Jews are as a people back in Israel. Jerusalem is the spiritual capital of Israel again after a 1900 year absence. Jesus will return to Jerusalem in the future in the midst of an all out, global battle for Jerusalem. (Zech 14) With fire and sword Christ will destroy the Wicked One and his armies and then, once and for all, He will rule and reign from there as King of kings and Lord of lords, forever.

“I trod down the peoples in My anger And made them drunk in
My wrath, And I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.” (Isa 63:6)

“For the LORD will execute judgment by fire
And by His sword on all flesh,
And those slain by the LORD will be many. (Isa 65:16)

Maranatha!

In Him,

Jeff Gilbertson

Alone Together by Sherry Turkle

Facebook. Twitter. SecondLife. “Smart” phones. Robotic pets. Robotic lovers. Thirty years ago we asked what we would use computers for. Now the question is what don’t we use them for. Now, through technology, we create, navigate, and perform our emotional lives.

We shape our buildings, Winston Churchill argued, then they shape us. The same is true of our digital technologies. Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we face a moment of temptation. Drawn by the illusion of companionship without the demands of intimacy, we conduct “risk free” affairs on Second Life and confuse the scattershot postings on a Facebook wall with authentic communication.

But this is not a book about robots. Rather, it is about how we are changed as technology offers us substitutes for connecting with each other face-to-face. We are offered robots and a whole world of machine-mediated relationships on networked devices.

As we instant-message, e-mail, text, and Twitter, technology redraws the boundaries between intimacy and solitude. We talk of getting “rid” of our e-mails, as though these notes are so much excess baggage. Teenagers avoid making telephone calls, fearful that they “reveal too much.” They would rather text than talk. Adults, too, choose keyboards over the human voice. It is more efficient, they say. Things that happen in “real time” take too much time.

Tethered to technology, we are shaken when that world “unplugged” does not signify, does not satisfy. After an evening of avatar-to avatar talk in a networked game, we feel, at one moment, in possession of a full social life and, in the next, curiously isolated, in tenuous complicity with strangers. We build a following on Facebook or MySpace and wonder to what degree our followers are friends. We recreate ourselves as online personae and give ourselves new bodies, homes, jobs, and romances. Yet, suddenly, in the half-light of virtual community, we may feel utterly alone. As we distribute ourselves, we may abandon ourselves.Sometimes people experience no sense of having communicated after hours of connection. And they report feelings of closeness when they are paying little attention. In all of this, there is a nagging question: Does virtual intimacy degrade our experience of the other kind and, indeed, of all encounters, of any kind?

There is only one “revelation” in the book of Revelation.

Just this week I heard yet again – on the radio – a speaker, who is actually teaching through the book of Revelation, say” Please turn to the 21st chapter of Revelations.” This might seem a small point — Revelation vs Revelations — but it really is rather huge.

The book is entitled The Revelation of Jesus Christ and the first verse says it all:

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John. (Rev 1:1)

There is only one revelation in the book of Revelation! JESUS CHRIST!

When we continue to misname the book and call it “Revelations” we further enhance the prevailing attitude in the church that the book is just one series of “oooohhh” revelations that are so difficult and mysterious that we will never understand the book! Even though the Word of God teaches us that:

“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16)

According to Rev 1:1 the whole book is one revelation of Jesus Christ. The word rendered “Revelation” in the Greek is “Apokalupsis” and has been translated into English as “Apocalypse” which means “nakedness” or to “uncover”. So one could, with good confidence, proclaim that the book of Revelation is an “Unveiling of Jesus Christ”!

Sadly, the devil has so twisted the terms around that “Apocalypse” now means something sinister or evil!!(Thanks Hollywood!)

We do not make this same mistake with “s” with other books of the Bible. For example, we never say turn to the book of Daniels, or Marks, etc.

Here is how I see the one revelation of Jesus in the book of Revelation:

Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, will manifest Himself at the end of this age to give back to His Father the earth! He will come riding with the clouds on a white horse and will deal out retribution to the enemies of God, once and for all! He will come as a Man of War.

In this final Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God the Father gave to His Son, Jesus will be known as “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth”. (Rev 1:5) As the slain Lamb, He will take the scroll – the title deed of earth – from His Father and break open the seals to bring about His Ownership of earth forever and then, at the end of 1000 years, hand it back to His Father, who will once again walk on earth as He did in the Garden of Eden with humanity’s first couple. (Rev 6-20, I Cor 15)

In this prophecy Jesus is called the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega. He will be known as Bridegroom, Judge and King!

Again and again the apostle John affirms that he is writing a book of prophecy:

“Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.” 1:3

“And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book“…. And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.” 22:7,10

“I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book.” 22:18

We need to get back to the basics of Christian belief and believe and heed and restore prophetic scriptures, like the book of Revelation, to the Body of Christ!

“Worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Rev 19:10

Yours for the coming King,

Jeff Gilbertson

All men should be more concerned about what the future has in store.

All men should be more concerned about what the future has in store. The great business of today seems to be securing wealth and pleasure for the present life; most people seem utterly indifferent about what is to come to pass afterward.

God has not left us in ignorance as to the future. He has given us the prophetic word to shed light on what is to come. If people were willing to seriously read the Bible, in subjection to its holy author, they would find that in it the whole course of human events, right up to the great white throne, has been clearly revealed. Anyone who earnestly desires it, may know the truth of God’s ways right on to the end.

(Arno C. Gaebelein — 1861-1945 was a Methodist minister in the United States of America. He was a prominent teacher and conference speaker.)