Controlled Excitement is Tricky Business
Jesus in Coming …. “In the Twinkling of an Eye”
Wow today has been one of the most amazing emotional roller coaster rides I have had thus far.
Last night I didn’t sleep too well. Naturally when we get tired (or should I say exhausted emotionally) we open ourselves up to all sorts of “not so productive” thoughts. Dare I say it puts us in a vulnerable position for attack from the “nether-world”. So I have to “practice what I preach” … right? So I got up from my chair and walked down the hall praising Jesus, praising Jesus … singing praises. It helped like it always does, but I was still tired. UGH.
Then out of the clear blue sky, I get an email from someone new. She was telling me how she was in “tears” over the messages here at Tribulation-Now. It made ME “tear up”. Do you know how hard it is to keep your composure when you are in a professional work environment and all this “stuff” is going on?
IT’S HARD let me tell you.
A Radio Station Email
Next, to top it all off, I received an email from an Internet-based radio talk show. Evidently they are interested in interviewing me (or I should say “us” to be more exact). Now as long as I can get the message of Jesus out to people who need to hear it … AMEN … HALLELUJAH!
But I am more of a PowerPoint presentation kind of guy. I have never done anything like that before. But the Lord is amazing and he is really waking people up! So we shall see if it “comes to pass”. I returned their call.
Pastor Curry Blake
Next I get an email from one of Tribulation-Now’s email list members. He is taking a spiritual warfare course being taught by John G. Lake Ministries. Luckily it’s okay to “covet” the divine gifts of the Holy Spirit because I WAS COVETING in Jesus name. There are few pastors out there that really understand the Power of the Holy Spirit these days and HE is one of them.
So in jest I sent an email to “our” member telling him he probably shouldn’t mention this whole “alien-demon” thing to Pastor Blake because Pastor Blake would probably want to “Cast the Demons” out of HIM as a “class exercise”!
To my utter astonishment, our Jesus filled “contributor” actually showed Pastor Blake the Tribulation-Now web site. Reportedly Curry Blake is coming to my “neck of the woods” soon, and there was even some talk of him being interested in meeting me.
Again – I am in UTTER ASTONISHMENT and yet again … I see the divine fingerprint of the Holy Spirit in all of this. Again I find myself in front of my computer monitor choking back tears.
When you realize that this is all really happening and it’s not just our divine imagination … it gets REAL … “REAL FAST”.
Counting Our Blessings Too Soon
After the last article there was a huge response. It took a lot of work to answer all the emails and WE WIN IN JESUS NAME! Everyone’s contributions were amazing and the feedback was nothing less than … well very humbling .. but at the same time … very EXCITING.
How do you deal with all of this excitement and keep your composure?
OH but wait a minute. Something occurred to me. I remember a friend stopping by the house. He told me how he had read Hal Lindseys’ “Late Great Planet Earth” back in the 70’s and how utterly disappointed he was when the year 2000 turned out to be a “whole lotta nothin”. In fact, he even mentioned in disgust how he couldn’t believe Hal Lindsey was a “false prophet”.
WOW!
Now if you do ANY homework scripturally on “prophets”, you will find that the average person’s idea of what it means to be a false prophet is completely wrong. Once again I will call your attention to:
Deut 18:21-22
‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’ — 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall NOT be afraid of him.
NKJV
And if you study all the other scripture on the concept of prophets not being correct you basically get the same message. This idea of someone being a false prophet by virtue of them making some “human assumption” is not scriptural. In fact as you can see from Deut. 18:22 above, the Lord warns you NOT to be afraid of them. This implies you should “watch and pray”. Measure everything against the Word of the Lord.
And NEVER MIND, that Hal Lindsey has NEVER claimed to be a “prophet” at all. Hal Lindsey is what the Bible would refer to as a “teacher”. This is a completely different dynamic. Hal “speculated” that the year 2000 was going to be a “big year”. He was not correct. But look at the impact. There are people out there that jump on this “false prophet” bandwagon the second any Christian suggests a “date” and is wrong.
Grace and Peace Wins the Race
So if there is any lesson we can all learn from the extremely exciting dynamics of our savior returning VERY SOON … it is humility. We have a wonderful opportunity ahead of us to “win souls” for our King Jesus as long as we “keep our ducks in a row” and remain humble. After all, when these “UFO” things finally get announced on a global level, there are going to be a LOT of people wanting answers. We better have those answers ready in JESUS NAME. And we better be humble about “how” we deliver that message.
I am not sure there is anyone as excited as I am about all this. It’s hard. On one hand, you know what you have in store for you on the Heavenly side of the equation … but on the other hand, you realize you might have to go through some really tough times to “get there”.
And if you lose credibility by getting too “hyped up” about a particular belief in a “prophecy” interpretation you’ve embraced (and God pulls out the divine “ace of spades”) …. what do you say to your “fellow friends”? What if they think you are a complete “goof ball” and tell you “I can believe in those “aliens” better than I can believe in “your” Jesus”?
Breath in the Holy Spirit
We all need to “take a deep breath” of the Holy Spirit and learn to keep our Jesus filled excitement in check some how. Remember that a “good leader” is the one that has a “calm head” in times of distress. Remember Robert Duvall in “Apocalypse Now” and how he just walked around on the beach telling that guy to get his surf board while bombs were going off?
I see a time coming when we will be doing the same thing.
John, Robert Duval bends down to his knees and say's "I just love the smell of napalm in the morning" and we see jet fighters in the background torch the jungles with agent orange. Some speculate the character of Lance was my brother who served with the 101st Airborne at Hamburger Hill during the Tet offensive. He did get to surf over there but the movie is exaggerated. He was a Team Rider for Jacobs surfboards when he got drafted in 1966.
Aloha Steve
Wow … that's scary interesting. My heart goes out to anyone that has had to go through such things.
Thank you for the reality check. This is a good place for us to focus our prayer power. There are a lot of wonderul Jesus filled people engaged in such conflicts. It breaks my heart but they deserver our undivided prayer power.
IN JESUS NAME!!
Hal Lindsey's Pretrib Rapture "Proof"
Is Hal Lindsey's proof for a pretrib rapture "100 proof" – that is, 100 percent Biblical?
In "The Late Great Planet Earth" (p. 143) Lindsey gives his "chief reason" for pretrib: "If the Rapture took place at the same time as the second coming, there would be no mortals left who would be believers" – that is, no believers still alive who could enter the millennium and repopulate the earth.
We don't know if Lindsey's amnesia is voluntary or involuntary, or if he need amnesia rehab, but earlier (p. 54), while focusing on chapters 12 through 14 of Zechariah, Lindsey sees "a remnant of Jews in Jerusalem" who are mortals who will become believing mortals at the second coming and then become repopulating mortals!
During the same discussion of Zech. 12-14 Lindsey overlooks some of the final verses in Zech. 14. They reveal that some of the tribulation survivors "of all the nations which came against Jerusalem" will refuse to go there "to worship the King, the Lord of hosts." Here's what will happen to those "heathen" rebels: "upon them shall be no rain."
So the facts about the repopulating mortals, in unbelieving as well as believing ranks, cancel out Lindsey's "chief reason" for opposing a joint rapture/second coming – the ONLY rapture view to be found in official theology books and organized churches prior to 1830!
(See historian Dave MacPherson's "The Rapture Plot," the most accurate and most highly endorsed book on pretrib rapture history – available at online stores like Armageddon Books etc. Also Google "Scholars Weigh My Research" and "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty.")
Although Hal Lindsey claims that his "Late Great" didn't set a date for Christ's return, many of his followers – including copycats Bill Maupin ("1981") and Edgar Whisenant ("1988") – did view Lindsey as a date-setter, and his later book "The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon" (the sort of title that date-setters and their ga-ga groupies love) became another fizzle – unless we're still living in the 1980s!
In Old Testament days false prophets were stoned to death. Now they're just stoned!