The Secret of Israel (19) – Time to Keep Watch
The finale has started. The antichrist has shown himself in many forms in the Church and on the world’s stage. He has preached that Christ was in fact nothing more than a great human being, a prophet maybe, but not the Lamb of God who died for the sins of the world.
He stated that we don’t know so much about God actually, no more than what we ourselves can think of and he dismissed the prophecies as mere mythical images that will leave you at the most with a moral message. And with that he has defeated his thousands and alienated them from the Church.
There have been great and inspiring dictators who even preached the millennium and false prophets who supported this with their ideology of Marxism and fascism. The great distress has finished. Cold-bloodedly and systematically the Jewish people has been abused and pushed to the brink of annihilation. And what now?
It is better to point at what Christ has given His Church in the finale of the history of salvation
It is easy to raise a finger against the Church, but it is better to point at what Christ has given His Church in the finale of the history of salvation. I will mention four.
- The rediscovery of the tremendous gifts of the Holy Spirit.
- A new, intense hunger after the message of the end time.
- A new missionary élan. We realize that the Church is there for the sake of the world.
- To get a new grip on what God is doing in the midst of His people.
Moreover we should not be naïve about this. The devil also sees this and he doesn’t waist any time to throw dust in the Church’s eyes, confuse and if possible lull the Church to sleep. And the first trump he plays is the shrinking of the Church! Because that happens too, the Church and not only Israel is facing stormy weather.
His evil advice in reply of the shrinking of the Church is that we first and foremost must keep everyone and everything together and cut away everything from the congregation that stands in the way and you already understand that those are just the gifts Jesus have given us. But at the same time he is so cunning that he tries to render harmless those who are clinging to the gifts he is trying to deactivate:
- Gifts of the Holy Spirit are discovered and experienced, but with the Church’s doors closed.
- He tempts those who have distinctive expectations for the future to make all sorts of constructions that boil down to the notion that it all will take a while yet or make us think so, because a whole chain of events has to happen first.
- He makes missionary conscience discharge into easily accessible congregations and services, where Christ in His full Revelation as King of the Jews, as a Jew Himself, is concealed.
- He makes Christians who love Israel struggle with who Jesus is or let them waste their breath on how they can be Christians and at the same time as Jewish as possible.
But it is time to keep watch! And keeping watch means that we show the world that we taste the powers of the future era. That the Kingdom of God is already becoming visible in the congregation. Keeping watch means that we profess and preach Jesus as the King who will come in Zion and will establish the Kingdom for Israel.
God’s Kingdom will start in Jerusalem
Keeping watch means that we as Church humble ourselves before Israel, but that we also bless Israel, stand in the way of anti-Semitism and that we plainly bear witness to the fact that God’s Kingdom will start in Jerusalem. Christendom is basically aimed at Zion.
The Church in the finale will bear witness in both word and deed and will emanate the Acts of God and she will be the great advocate for Israel with Christ Himself. Thus we will face under stress of weather, together with God’s people, side by side, against the spirit of the age and in this manner we don’t shrink but we will grow in the belief that the whole truth will bring blessing.
