Delivered From The Wrath To Come

"For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit . . . You became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit . . . For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you . . . in every place your faith toward God has gone forth . . . (so) wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come." (1 Thessalonians 1: 5-10)

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I saw a show today about earthquakes and the tsunamis they create. Our nation's entire West Coast is just east of something called the ring of fire, where tectonic plates collide and subduct, building up incredible pressure until released, the ensuing pressure waves having the potential to cause massive damage to cities like Seattle, Washington. Recent research has surprised scientists who are trying to see if these magnitude 9+ earthquakes can be predicted, showing them that there is a pattern of buildup and slow release. The odds of "the big one" coming will increase dramatically during one of the two week long release periods. My thoughts turned to the Minneapolis bridge collapse. Perhaps it will be shown that there were continual increase of load, causing a series a unnoticed internal failures, finally resulting in the whole structure giving way in just a few seconds. There is no way that anyone could have predicted the day of the failure, just as guesswork is involved in earthquake prediction. Yet, "the big one" is coming, and those who might be affected should do everything they can to be prepared.

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We live in a world that has been in the process of rebelling against God since the time of Adam. God wiped out the entire human race, save 8 people, and completely destroyed all human achievements, and in the process, He remade the physical map of the earth. God promised Noah that He would not destroy the earth again by water. But scripture is clear that there is another judgment coming. No rebels will survive to repopulate the land, and the geography will once again be quite different. Even though our lifespans are short compared to the overall history of man, and living in relative comfort has given us a false sense of security, we should not ignor that history is quickly drawing to this major climax, where God will defeat the spiritual and human forces of rebellion. Periods of crisis and tribulations have come and gone, but they have left internal fractures that have weakened the overall structure. The United States has been a brace that has helped stabilize the dynamics in the world, but rust is corroding this brace, and the world is about to collapse. It should give us pause to think that prophecy reveals that this next judgment, although it encompasses the whole world, is centered around Israel and Jerusalem, and that Israel only became a nation again in 1948, regaining rights to the holy places in 1967, and that America is currently engaged in a war in the Mid-East. Pressure is building and a terrible time is coming. God gives us encouagement to sound forth the word through our world, so that many can become reborn and part of His family. And He comforts us with the assurance that He will remove His family from the earth before this time of trouble.

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The apostle Paul was shown by the Spirit a mystery concerning what would happen before Jesus returned to set up His kingdom on earth. It was clear from the Old Testament that a messiah would sit on the throne of David and rule the nations from there. "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I shall raise up for David a righteous Branch; And He will reign as king and act wisely, and do justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. and this is the name by which He will be called. The Lord our righteousness". (Jeremiah 23: 5-6) Jesus is the messiah, and the context of His rule is as a Jew, ruling from a Jewish throne. Scripture is also clear that there would be great tribulation just prior to the coming of the messiah. There are two reasons for this tribulation. God would be judging the Jewish nation for putting false gods before Him, for not honoring Him by being obedient to the plan He gave them by the prophets, and for not trusting Him as deliver. The ultimate purpose for this judgment was to cleanse the nation of all rebels, and to cleanse and prepare the land for the coming of messiah. The second reason for the tribulation was to judge the Gentile nations as well, both for apostasy, and for the manner in which they treated the nation of Israel and the Jewish people.

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The early church was composed exclusively of people who were Jewish. When Jesus ascended into heaven He promised them that He would one day return, coming down from the clouds to Jerusalem. The early believers expected Jesus to return at any time to set up His earthly, Jewish, kingdom. They knew there would be a gap in time from the ascension to the second coming, but they had no idea how long that gap was. Eventually the Spirit sent Peter to the household of Cornelius, beginning the ingrafting of Gentile believers into the Jewish trunk. The Holy Spirit gave Paul a deeper understanding of this thing that was a mystery to the prophets of the Old Testament. Salvation was not just for the Jew, but included all who would approach God in faith and call on Jesus as Lord and Savior. Ths group of redeemed people, both Jew and Gentile, from the resurrection of Jesus until His return, would comprise a special group. We call this group The Church, or the Body of Christ. But we need to also understand this group as people who have been born into the family of God through the rebirth of their spirits by the
Spirit of Christ.

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The Spirit showed Paul another mystery as well, concerning God's plan for the church before the time period known as the seventh week of Daniel, which we usually call The Tribulation. In the 24th chapter of Matthew Jesus tells His disciples the events that would happen prior to His second coming. He talked about false christs and false prophets, wars and famines, and great tribulations. He mentioned the appearance of the "Abomination of Desolation" that Daniel prophesied. And then He said; "But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken, and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather the elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other". The Spirit showed Paul that there was something that preceeded this. There would be a bodily resurrection of the dead in Christ, as well as a bodily ascension of the alive in Christ, at a time before the tribulation spoken of in Matthew. Thus the "elect" who are gathered immediately after the tribulation of those days cannot be you or I, who are part of the church. They will be people who became believers during that time and were not martyred, and they go on into the new millennial age to repopulate the earth. The living who are "taken" in verses 40-41 then, are the non redeemed, who are removed to a judgment. In this scripture, the ones "left behind", are the believers.

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The Thessalonians understood that Jesus could return at any time, but they were confused because they were enduring great persecusion, and because some had died, when they had expected the Lord to return before that happened. Paul told them that although they were enduring trials, there would be coming a special time of great tribulation, but they would be "caught up" (in Latin "rapere", from which we get the word "rapture") to meet the Lord in the air before that time. Paul assures them that whether alive, or "asleep", all were part of the same family in Christ, and all would be removed from the coming judgment.

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The other night I dreamed that my little two year old granddaughter, Mallory, was a bit too high up on some playground equipment. "Come over here and sit on the floor next to your grandpa" I told her, and she got her little blankee and snuggled up next to me. Later that night I dreamed that she was riding on a two wheel bike (in dreams very young girls can do that), and I was instantly worried that she didn't have the ability to stay out of the traffic, so I ran over to steady the bike. Like Mallory, we all live in a world where bad things can happen. But we have God as our heavenly Father, and He loves His children with a greater emotion than I feel for my family. The wrath of God is coming to the world, but we were not destined for wrath.