Shepherd, the Time of Jacob's Trouble is still to come...

THE GOOD AND FAITHFUL - AND WISE - SERVANT

All pastors, all Christians, should long to hear the words “well done” when we finally see Jesus. We may even imagine that this will automatically occur when he welcomes us into Heaven. But that's not the context of these words of Jesus. He’s on Earth rewarding the good and faithful when he tells them “well done.” in Matthew 24 and 25, Jesus has returned. Final generational shepherds hold the greatest responsibility, as the call to remain faithful starkens. As a pastor, this hits me hard and renews my desire to show myself approved on this crucial topic. The great answer to the question of what are the signs of his coming in the end of the age spans throughout Matthew 24 and 25. We see it is more than a general reward for being “good and faithful” but also “wise” by providing food in due season, as Joseph did for Israel in Genesis. There is a major revelation here, if we look.

“The king's favor is toward a wise servant, But his wrath is against him who causes shame.” Proverbs 14:35

JACOB’S TROUBLE WAS NOT 70AD AND IT WAS NOT THE HOLOCAUST

How could we exegete Scripture properly and wind up believing that what Jeremiah calls “Jacob’s Trouble is past? Or that it can be separated from Jesus’s physical, earthly return? Yet that's what many of us believe! The wording, the direct citations between Jeremiah 30, Daniel 12 and the words of Jesus are clear: the so-called “Great Tribulation” is the same prophetic time/event as Jacob’s Trouble. As such, we can know with certainty that the Great Tribulation and the return of Jesus did not occur in 70 A.D. It did not occur after the horrors inflicted on Jacob in the Holocaust. No, it is pertinent to us. It is critical to understand, teach and prepare for.

“Alas! For that day is great, So that none is like it; And it is the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.” Jeremiah 30:7

NO MATTER YOUR PERSONAL END TIME VIEW, IT’S STILL COMING

Jacob’s Trouble is future. It is important enough for Jesus to warn us to be wise and faithful in the face of it. What will it look like? It will be the invasion and military defeat of Israel by her enemies. Like our Lord told us, it will call for Josephs to provide food, drink and shelter for those fleeing this invasion. Also as our Lord told us anything we do to them in that time will be as if we're doing it to Him. God will take this attack on the Jews extremely personally and will dispense great rewards to those who help them. And also the inverse. That means that even if you believe the church has been removed from the earth prior to this time there's no reason in the world you can't make practical preparation to feed, clothe and shelter the fleeing Jews of the future today!

SHEPHERD OR HIRELING?

When Jesus tells us in John 10 that He is the Good Shepherd he lays out the condition for who is truly following Him and who is just in it for other reasons. Will you sacrifice your life? Hopefully all pastors would answer in the affirmative at any time throughout history, but in this final act of the Age, there can be no doubt that is what will be required to be recognized as a true shepherd. Teaching that martyrdom should always be prepared for and may be required of us - especially if we are the “ones upon whom the end of the age has come” - is first priority.

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.” Matthew 24:9

PUTIN AND HIS INVASION OF UKRAINE IS A FORERUNNER TO THE ANTICHRIST. SORT OF.

Watching a dictator breaks security deals, invade a smaller neighbor unprovoked, use deception, fake news and propaganda, and intentionally target non-combatants certainly gives a taste of what it will be like. But imagine Russia and all the surrounding nations of Europe invaded Ukraine together. Imagine they were really 1 super nation who had agreed just 3 1/2 years prior never to attack. The Scriptures tell us the antichrist will be far worse than Putin and the genocide mission launched on Israel will be far worse than what we are seeing in Ukraine.

SATAN’S HALLMARK IS HATRED OF THE JEWS

When we begin to see the big picture of the end time plan of God, we see that Satan has always hated the Jewish people because God is the one who chose them. He hates Israel as a nation because God established Israel as a nation. Satan hates Jerusalem and wants to put his name there because the God of the universe put His name there and is sending King Jesus to reign there. I did a full treatment on the critical chapter of Revelation 12 in my book Flee To The Mountains to show just how much our Father wants us to know and apply this wisdom.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO TRULY “STAND WITH ISRAEL”?

It is easy to share a tweet or put a flag on our profile picture. But friends this is not what God expects of us when he evaluates our lives on this matter. Standing with Israel has everything to do with being willing to die for the Jewish people, whatever their opinions of Jesus and Christians. Are we ready to stand in between the Muslim terrorist and the Jew we don’t know? To say “Here am I, send me?” Quite frankly, it is our responsibility, Shepherds. One answer to the coming time of Jacob’s Trouble is to establish Jacob’s Refuge. May we all hear “Well Done” on that Day.

(Originally published on the Stand Firm Blog, April, 2022)

Give what you are able

The NWO, Globalists, The Great Reset - just a great deception

For Christians who think truth matters, we need to understand that widely accepted terms like "NWO, Globalists, The Great Reset" are just part of a great deception.

The term was popularized by science fiction writer HG Wells in 1940 as he authored the book "New World Order" in reaction to living through World War I and then watching World War II unfold before his eyes. He was convinced wars like that would happen over and over again with millions more murdered and scarred so he wrote the book with her personal ideas of how to avoid them in the future. He believed in things like collectivism and more global forms of governance, so that's what the book endorsed. Over the next 50 years "New World Order" became a catch-all for Western, and especially American, Christian paranoia.

As a young conservative Christian American in my 20s who didn't critically examine the latest conspiracy terminology, I confidently trumpeted that “they” had changed the name of their wicked plan from “New World Order” to “Globalism” because “we” caught on. When President George Bush used the phrase New World Order in a speech on September 11 (!) 1990, those in the Bible prophecy community went bonkers. This was IT. This was the Beast of Revelation 13, the reign of the Antichrist and return of Jesus was right around the corner! Ignored was the context of Bush’s statement which only reflected a post-Soviet Union, post-Cold War era where there were no more competing superpowers, but a flexible realignment of military power to address things like Saddam Hussein’s recent invasion of Kuwait. Keeping the “NWO” phrase in context, Bush said:

“We are united in the belief that Iraq's aggression must not be tolerated. No peaceful international order is possible if larger states can devour their smaller neighbors. Clearly, no longer can a dictator count on East-West confrontation to stymie concerted United Nations action against aggression. A new partnership of nations has begun, and we stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective -- a new world order -- can emerge: A new era -- freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, east and west, north and south, can prosper and live in harmony.”

But as is always the case with conspiracy theories, the lack of a full context feeds the deception. Christian Bible prophecy folks like me had already made up our minds that the “New World Order” or “Globalism” WAS what the Bible was referring to in Revelation 13 - it HAD to be. The context of Bush's words (or Biden's or whoever else will use the phrase) are nowhere near what the Bible describes if we just take it at face value. But then Pat Robertson's book "New World Order" was released in 1991 to blatantly capitalize on this fervor and on the heels of his challenge against Bush in the 1988 Republican Presidential primaries, even finishing ahead of him in the Iowa Caucuses. The American conservative Christian belief system was being codified writ large. You had to view Bush suspiciously and had to accept the New World Order was exactly what the Bible was prophesying would come. Clearly, peer pressure is not the posture of a teachable spirit, or a humble trembling that is required when we see the “end times” truly coming to pass. I think a lot of it has to do with my fellow Americans who can’t fathom that we are not the center of God’s plan and that capitalism, freedom and democracy is not the same thing as the Gospel and the Great Commission. Stuck in the Cold War mindset, we insist on the Beast being a communist plot to overthrow American exceptionalism instead of letting the Bible interpret itself.

IT HAS ONLY GOTTEN WORSE

Even now 30+ years later, Bible prophecy teachers are filling up YouTube and Telegram with “Globalists!” this and “Globalism!” that as if it’s an unimpeachable FACT of the Bible and you MUST agree or you are…wait for it…one of “THEM”. Some of these teachers are stuck in the Revived Roman Empire error, perpetually waiting for Europe to unite as one as the Antichrist rises from there and takes over as head of the United Nations…or something. But there are others who, while holding to the much more scripturally defensible Middle East end time paradigm for the Beast and Antichrist, can’t let go of the New World Order/Globalist boogeyman. And now we can add “The Great Reset” to the list…thanks a lot Covid. Yet another nothingburger, the Great Reset is allegedly the “global elite” is using covid and wherever else to dismantle capitalism and enforce radical social change. Same old story with nothing but we conservative Christians driving view and books sales with scary titles. But let’s face it, that’s what drives the views; we would do well to remember that Satan’s deceptions and man’s inventions are always shiny objects appealing to the flesh. This crazy nonsense about biowarfare labs in Ukraine/Putin is really a good guy/NATO is evil is nothing new for we prophecy watching veterans who have been paying attention. When NATO took military action against Slobodan Milošević in 1999, I was paying close attention because of the NWO theory backdrop, “this could be it…” - but as I looked honestly at the situation it was so clear Milošević was a monster who was directly responsible for many innocents suffering and murder, even genocide. And yet, as I listened to one of my favorite conservative radio personalities Michael Savage tell it, NATO was the evil aggressor who was on an NWO mission to overthrow “a great Christian leader of Europe”. This is more than “a differing viewpoint”, this is wickedness in full bloom. Same stuff as we see today - and it’s not getting better because we the Church are refusing to acknowledge our errors and REPENT. We are being deceived.

This is not to say there is no such thing as a “Globalism” or that many leftist politicians do not seek to advance a “post-Christian” worldview, it exists and so do they, but it’s the assumptions about what that all means and ignorance about who really believes what that shoehorns all of that into Bible prophecy. Now we have a very cult-like situation where all are expected to just go along or else you can’t be trusted. Unfortunately I know that very well now and have experienced several instances of going from “trusted teacher” to “under suspicion” (or worse) for simply pointing out these things to my fellow American Christians of a conservative bent. The sad truth is, some of us are insisting on “fighting the culture wars” instead of taking up our cross and dying daily. That is what God will not relent on and I believe the Church is being judged on this. “Do not be deceived” is a command we haven’t taken near seriously enough.

WHO IS REALLY BEHIND IT?

A lot like Scientology, the REAL TRUTH of who is really behind the New World Order/Globalists/Great Reset is reserved for the select few who survive the rigors of full initiation/indoctrination/brainwashing. Drumroll please...It’s the Jews. Sigh. Yup, like clockwork Satan rears his head at the end of the deception to reveal it was the Jews all along. The ultra-rich Jews also called “international bankers” and “big media” (and increasingly “big tech” and “big pharma”) who “control the world”. Almost never named save the big families like “Rothschild” and…wait for it…a super rich Jew named György Schwartz, known to the world as George Soros. Can you see yet you are being lied to?

I weep for the layer upon layer of excrement we as Christians are under when it comes to this deception! Can’t we see through Satan’s shiny distraction to what the Bible actually says?? Not just about the Beast(s) of Revelation 13, but the stark warnings by King Jesus against deception and our hearts growing cold due to lawlessness?? Aren’t we to rely on His Word and not cleverly devised fables like the “New World Order”? Yes friends, we can and we must. Much more can be said, but this has to be published now...