Began March 22, published August 27, 2023
As usual, God had me down and dirty on this meditation; it was not easy to digest, as He was making it personal to me. Hence, the five-month wait time.
Lord Maranatha
I pray the Lord Maranatha
Is this the hand that I’m dealt?
Is this supposed to be the royal flush?
Is this supposed to be the highest hand?
Well I can’t tell because I am getting crushed (getting crushed)
Who am I, (who am I) who am I
Call it all into question my depression believe in a slew of lies
Lord why?
Feel like I am being crucified
So much pain so many scars
Plus the poison that’s in my soul
How long oh Lord? How long oh Lord?
Why did you give me this life?
Why am I tied to these chains?
Why did you give me these circumstances you know the doctor can’t change?
Will you fix me, heal me, eradicate
So filthy help me advocate
Equip me help me navigate
Come quickly please emancipate
It ain’t adding up I can’t calculate
How much longer do we have to wait?
I want to believe in having faith but I know I need to recalibrate.
Have you forgotten, have you forgotten me?
Lord have you forgotten please remember me
Oh Lord Maranatha, Oh Lord Maranatha.
-“Maranatha” by Flame on Royal Flush
I suspect that if you’re part of the bridal company of Jesus Christ, you have felt like this artist expressed, and it’s dark. The heaviness of suffering tests and refines our faith in Jesus and will bring glory to God when He redeems such darkness to display the power of His resurrection! This article is not aimed at delving into trials on a personal level, however. There is a trial that is continually corporate that is probably a source of agony for anyone in the Body of Christ who understands how vital unity is for the earthly expression of the glory of God through the church. The sickness that has so beaten us down is well voiced in the song “Maranatha” (read it again with the poisoned and weakened church in mind). However, there’s a reason. That is what this post is about, to explore the reason. To give us some Scripturally prophetic scaffolding in this exploration, we need to read Jesus’ words as recorded in Luke 21:5-24:
And while some were talking about the temple, that it had been adorned with beautiful stones and dedicated gifts, He said, 6“As for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down.”
7So they questioned Him, saying, “Teacher, when therefore will these things happen? And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?” 8And He said, “See to it that you are not deceived; for many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and, ‘The time is at hand.’ Do not go after them. 9And when you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately.”
10Then He continued saying to them, “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, 11and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.
12“But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name’s sake. 13It will result in an opportunity for your testimony. 14So set in your hearts not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves; 15for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute. 16But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death, 17and you will be hated by all because of My name. 18Yet not a hair of your head will perish. 19By your perseverance you will gain your lives.
20“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is at hand. 21Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the countryside must not enter the city; 22because these are days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled. 23Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath against this people, 24and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
There is a time when Jesus says that His Body would be completely fractured, the likes of which is given us as a sign when the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70, after Jesus’ ascension. At that time, the disciples were scattered from Jerusalem (demonstrated by all the temple’s stones being scattered), and since Jerusalem represented as a city the Bridal city, the spiritual dwelling of God on earth, God was representing a scattering of His true church among all the nations. But more than just a physical scattering, I believe that the prophecy Jesus gave in Luke 21 was only a spiritual foreshadowing in AD 70 of an ongoing scattering of the church that decimates the unity of the Spirit, to be climaxed in a final end-of-the-age fulfillment (Eph 4:3, Luke 21:16, Dan 12:7). The Lord loves to use physical realities to demonstrate spiritual realities behind the scenes. One proof of this can be found in Jesus’ words in Matthew 13:10-16:
And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” 11And Jesus answered and said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. 13Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,
‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND;
YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE;
15FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL,
AND WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR,
AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES,
LEST THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES,
HEAR WITH THEIR EARS,
AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN,
AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.’
16But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear.
While Jesus using physical types to demonstrate the spiritual is a whole other study that I strongly encourage you to delve into, please just go along with this concept for the sake of this study. Let’s think about the destruction of the temple in spiritual terms. I believe that fully unpacking the parable of the trampling of Jerusalem by the Gentiles will bring to the church great clarity over the suffering of discord that we feel among the brethren of Jesus in this day, and which the church has been feeling throughout this whole age. It will not only bring clarity but also hope, as we know that Jesus predicts that a designated time is set in which the “Gentiles” will no longer be given freedom to trample the holy city. In other words, the redemption of the holy presence of God on the earth is coming, and everything happening now is leading to that climax!
The Spiritual Type: Temple Stones
It is necessary to understand the Biblical comparison of temple “stones” in the spiritual reality of the church, and for this, we look at 1 Peter 2:4-6: “And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, 5you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6For this is contained in Scripture:
‘BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHOICE STONE, A PRECIOUS CORNER stone,
AND HE WHO BELIEVES UPON HIM WILL NOT BE PUT TO SHAME.’”
2 Cor 6:16 (NASB): “Or what agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, ‘I WILL DWELL AMONG THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.’”
The Spiritual Type: Jerusalem
Gal 4:22-26: For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the servant-woman and one by the free woman. 23But the son by the servant-woman had been born according to the flesh, while the son by the free woman through the promise. 24This is spoken with allegory, for these women are two covenants: one from Mount Sinai bearing children into slavery; she is Hagar. 25Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother.”
According to this passage, there are two Jerusalems. There is the Jerusalem that is under law and not led by the Holy Spirit, which is the false religion of Christianity, also known as the “harlot” throughout Old Testament prophecy and Revelation. Second, there is the Jerusalem that lives by faith in Jesus Christ and is empowered by the Spirit of God, known in Galatians as the “heavenly” Jerusalem. With this understanding, let’s look again at Jesus’ prophecy:
“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is at hand.”
I suspect that so much confusion in the church’s understanding of Bible prophecy comes as a result of not understanding the language of God. If the church had a glossary of all the parabolic types in Scripture and turned it into a divine language dictionary, I suspect that there would be a lot more unity in the church. According to this passage in Galatians, there are TWO Jerusalems. And if we only, out of ignorance, assume that Jesus is talking about one Jerusalem in Luke 21, particularly the physical one that we see on the map, I think we will have a very shallow understanding of this prophecy.
First, there is the heavenly Jerusalem that will be surrounded by armies. Daniel sheds light on this: “I kept looking, and that horn was waging war with the saints and overcoming them 22until the Ancient of Days came and judgment was given in favor of the saints of the Highest One, and the season arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom” (Dan 7:21-22).
Then, there is the Jerusalem counterfeit that is surrounded by armies. What armies? There are many references in Scripture to Jesus coming with His saints as armies to bring recompense on the unjust and to burn the tares. Jude 1:14-15 is an example:
Enoch, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied about them:
“Behold, the Lord is coming
with myriads of His holy ones
15to execute judgment on everyone,
and to convict all the ungodly
of every ungodly act of wickedness
and every harsh word spoken against Him by ungodly sinners.”
I think the layers of interpretation that can be drawn out of this one brief prophecy that Jesus gave us is an example of how the church is permitted in this age to be fractured. So many different people in the church see Scriptures through a different lens or presupposition of interpretation. I propose this is because we are a body, and each part of the body is given but one function and one perspective that suits that function. Since Scripture is the written understanding of the whole counsel of Yahweh God, who is complex beyond human comprehension, it would be unthinkable for any one human being to grasp its fullness. Only the Holy Spirit giving a common lens to our hearts at the consummation of the age and the time of our transformation into what is supernatural can ever bring to us true unity. Understanding these things should surely give us humility and grace toward one another! “And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble’” (1 Pet 5:5).
Besides this, however, the Lord is allowing His people to be “surrounded by armies” of demonic darkness that throw blindness and confusion into the mix. This will continue until Jesus determines that all things have been fulfilled and the time for this confusion and weakness in the church comes to an end.
But is all lost in this age, until Jesus finally restrains the evil one and gives us supernatural wisdom? Certainly not! God is actually using all of what appears to be shame and chaos in the church to set up a glorious display of His redemptive power that will overcome it all. An example of this is the Apostle Paul’s complaint:
“Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! 8Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. 9And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Cor 12:7-9).
Luke 21:20-24 is a passage I want to chew on, to expand on these thoughts. For the rest of this study, I intend to only focus on the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the true church of Jesus, not the counterfeit. Thus, my applications will narrow in on that, though I’m sure so much more can be dug out of the passage of our study, especially if one were to consider the application to the counterfeit harlot church.
The Spiritual Type: Mountains
“Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.”
We’re talking about Jerusalem–the physical prototype for the true church of Jesus Christ, so when Jesus talks about those in Judea, I propose that He’s talking about those in the church. Judea is the land that the tribe of Judah occupied, and Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. It is the tribe of kings–the ruling tribe. Thus, the co-heirs of Jesus’ rule in the Kingdom of Heaven are metaphorically part of Judah. “And if we are children, then we are heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him” (Rom 8:17). “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne” (Rev 3:21).
Thus, Jesus is telling those in His church, when surrounded by the armies of darkness, to flee to the mountains. We have to understand what mountains stand for if we are to grasp the spiritual significance of Jesus’ instructions to us. I wonder what kind of church we would witness today if everyone understood the parable of Jesus here. Without understanding of this, I suspect we fall into multiple traps: perhaps we flee, but we flee the fellowship of God’s people altogether. We seclude ourselves and become disillusioned about whether there is anyone at all who knows God. We cut off fellow brothers and sisters who are only seeing through a small fracture of the large broken window. Since they are not seeing through our small fracture, they must not be seeing through God’s window at all, we presume. So we assume them apostate. We put them into the category of the weeds, as we discussed in our last post. We therefore mistakenly flee true brethren.
How, then, should we flee? We flee to Jesus by means of His grace. The war of these last days is so intense and the bullets are flying so thickly, that our only hope is to be absolutely sealed tight within the protective armor of our King Jesus. This includes not only clinging to truth, shunning evil, and donning the Word of God as our peace and our weapon (see Ephesians 6) but primarily binding all these things together by prayer as we continually beg God to give us wisdom by the Holy Spirit. We can assume nothing. I personally groan thinking about the many battles I’ve lost because I’ve followed a feeling, an assumption, a fear, or circumstantial evidence to lead me into an “understanding” about a person or situation. And it was dead wrong. The way I approached it resulted in a complete breakdown of the relationship. The root of that was pride. I thought I had that one; it was obvious enough, I assumed. Well, nothing is obvious. The devil is so good at masquerading as an angel of light, as it were (2 Cor 11:14). We cannot trust our own reason if we have not committed our ways and thoughts to the Lord; even then, our reason must be established with the witnesses of Scripture and the fruit of the Spirit. “Commit your way to Yahweh, trust in Him, and He will do it” (Ps 37:5).
This leads us to the definition of “mountain.” Jesus tells us to flee to the mountains. Scripture defines this for us. “You will bring them and plant them in the mountain of Your inheritance,
The place, O Yahweh, which You have made for You to inhabit,
The sanctuary, O Lord, which Your hands have established” (Ex 15:17).
When doing a word search on “mountain,” I found that it was consistently the place of worship and sacrifice to God, often corporately. “And He said, ‘Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God at this mountain’” (Ex 3:2). “Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and called his relatives to eat a meal; and they ate the meal and spent the night on the mountain” (Gen 31:54).
So when we are corporately finding ourselves fractured and broken, unable to share a common mind or obtain unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, as Ephesians 4:3 commands us to aim for, we must corporately flee to the mountain of God–that place of humbling ourselves before the King and begging Him to fight our battle and bring to us that unity. We must make corporate prayer and the sacrifices of praise our priority!
Have we seen this happening? I think we all know the answer. Where has corporate prayer been a high-priority activity in the churches? I propose that properly understanding Jesus’ instructions to us in the last-days’ distress is the first step to overcoming the adversary! Applying it and urging our fellow brethren to understand and apply the Lord’s will in this is our charge! It is life or death!
The Spiritual Type: Pregnant Mothers and Nursing Infants
“Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath against this people.”
Those who are not well tried and trained by Scripture and time-tested faith in the Spirit during the heat of battle, oh so quickly will fall to the enemy's schemes! This is why, I propose, that attempting to uphold the spiritually young in the faith in such times of spiritual oppression is as heart-wrenching to the shepherds of the church as to pregnant and nursing mothers in literal wartime.
To give you evidence of why I am drawing this conclusion, Scripture likens babies to the spiritually young: “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation” (1 Pet 2:2).
The Spiritual Type: Gentiles
“Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.”
In Scripture, Gentiles are always those who are outside of the light of the understanding of Yahweh and His ways and Word. They are the heathen who do not know God and who need to be brought into understanding of His Word through evangelism by those who do know Him. This was visibly expressed by geographical region in the time that Israel was a nation and possessed a physical temple in which the glory of God was seen. The Gentiles were those who were not part of Israel and did not live within its borders.
Therefore, for Jerusalem to be trampled by Gentiles implies to me that the sacred understanding of God, His ways, and His Word will be desecrated by what is not sacred, not of Yahweh God, and not of His Word and truth. How truly we see this at work now! We have seen it at work throughout the church age, in fact. Consider the dark ages, when the removal of the Word of God from laymen resulted in a great spiritual starvation among the sheep. Though God sent a great Reformation through various reformers like Luther and Calvin, a new form of darkness has swept into the churches to this day. Due to the onslaught of spiritual dullness in the minds and hearts of the people, great sway has been given to worldly pressures upon the church so that it has widely adopted things into its midst that are abominations to God as clearly laid out in Scripture.
God’s discipline upon His people Israel was a foreshadowing of the severe famine of the Word of God and love among His people that would come to the apostate church. Look at the severity of God’s language to His people:
“I will empty out the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem to the point of destruction in this place, and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life; and I will give over their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth. 8I will also make this city an object of horror and of hissing; everyone who passes by it will be horrified and hiss because of all its slaughtering. 9I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life will distress them” (Jer 19:7-9).
Understanding the parables in the types of this passage is of paramount importance for the church to understand her discipline (“these are the days of vengeance” - Luke 21:22). Judah and Jerusalem stand for the place of God’s glory and rule on the earth, the place where people would go to worship the Lord and to obtain His wisdom. So God’s emptying out the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem is to fulfill the following passage:
Amos 8:11-12: “‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares Lord Yahweh,
‘When I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water,
But rather for hearing the words of Yahweh.
12People will wander from sea to sea
And from the north even to the east;
They will go to and fro to seek the word of Yahweh,
But they will not find it.’”
The severity of famine for the truth of the Word in the church would cause the nations to laugh the church to scorn. The church has become, in various cycles the past 2,000 years, a place of hissing and derision. It is often a place of shame and division. It is the last place most seekers of God would truly find Him. “Those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the countryside must not enter the city; 22because these are days of vengeance” (Luke 21:21-22). Many have fled the church, just as Jesus prophesied, disillusioned by its claims that it reveals the glory of Jesus Christ. Only after fleeing to the wilderness have these broken-hearted ones found the living Savior, whose water of life gushed out from the rock of Spirit-applied truth. The church couldn’t give them that relationship with the true God through Jesus Christ nor the experience of His power in their lives nor the opening and application of the Word of God to their hearts by the Holy Spirit. (John 8:31-32: “If you abide in My word, then you are truly My disciples; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”) But more than that, even if the church preached the true words that point to life, without the power of the Holy Spirit to lift up a soul on eagles wings from the darkness of Egypt, those words will be meaningless. I suggest much of the dullness of the words of Scripture in the churches is due to the great lack of corporate prayer. Furthermore, the church is barely modeling the fruit of that Spirit-led life. Do onlookers see much of a difference between the talk and lives of Christians compared to their heathen friends? Seekers don’t even know what to seek–they just know they’re dying of thirst (and others are dying but don't even know it).
In addition, there is an actual opposing force in the churches that are driving people away from the true spring of living water. The opposing force is a felt darkness, division, hedonism, or shallowness. The church has become a spectacle for countless opposing doctrines that would make anyone wonder how one can know what Scripture really says and what God really means; or watered-down truth in worship and false sensationalism (a counterfeit Holy Spirit imitation to try to overcome His absence); or stiff-necked traditions of men that ignore cultural ways and issues, which is also in contradiction to the Lord’s ways, which we would see if we study how He has always been so culturally relevant in His interactions with the people; or shallow friendships that do not go deep enough to reach real-life situations, accountability, and encouragement.
This has led to bickering and division: the devouring of brothers, whether verbally or by internal thoughts. “For you were called to freedom, brothers; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” 15But if you bite and devour one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another” (Gal 5:13-15).
The root of all these problems in the churches is the warfare against us that has been employed by the armies of Satan, to “wear down the saints,” as the prophet Daniel prophesied would happen. Jesus told us that His church would indeed be trampled by the Gentiles, and we have seen it and are continuing to witness it at a heightened rate. Understanding the meaning of this gives us so much realization as to why we are seeing what we are seeing in the churches. It also gives us hope because Jesus made it clear that a definitive time limit was set for these abominations to trample the truth and holiness of God displayed in the earth!
I haven’t taken any kind of scientific poll, but the Lord has exposed me to various kinds of the “best” churches in the last few years. I refer to the “best” churches as those that profess to hold diligently to the truths of Scripture as taught by Scripture without the adulteration of unholy ideas from the culture. These have included churches of strong traditions that come from the Protestant Reformation and the doctrines of those reformers, “conservative” culturally aware churches that are strong in community outreach but perhaps weaker in articulating doctrine, as well as conservative (orderly, respectful to the fruit of the Spirit) Pentecostal churches who operate in continuing manifestations of spiritual gifts. Among all these churches, I have still found myself coming away thirsty or downright angry over the way the Spirit is mocked for lack of true love or steadfastness in truth. Many people whom the Lord has connected me with (“pen pals”) throughout the country give a similar witness.
So why do we have to endure these things? In the passage we’ve been studying, Jesus gave a very specific reason within the context of his prophecy: these are the days of vengeance–vengeance not against the “wicked” but against that which is wicked among the chosen people of the Lord! See Jeremiah 19 again; earlier in the passage before what I quoted above, the Lord said, “‘Hear the word of Yahweh, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Behold, I am about to bring a calamity upon this place, at which the ears of everyone that hears of it will tingle. 4Because they have forsaken Me and have made this a foreign place and have burned incense in it to other gods…”’” (Jer 19:3-4).
God doesn’t discipline His people to destroy them, as He does the wicked. He disciplines them to purge them and to bring glory to Himself among the nations who are watching the church. I don’t intend to explore in depth the reasons for suffering, but I will include a few Scriptures to shed light on this:
To break our stubbornness and give us a meek spirit before the Lord
Lam 3:16-18, 21-33: “He has broken my teeth with gravel;
He has made me cower in the dust.
17My soul has been rejected from peace;
I have forgotten goodness.
18So I say, “My strength has perished,
As well as my hopeful waiting which comes from Yahweh.” 21This I will return to my heart;
Therefore I will wait in hope.
Heth
22The lovingkindnesses of Yahweh indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
23They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
24“Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I wait for Him.”
Teth
25Yahweh is good to those who hope in Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
26It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of Yahweh.
27It is good for a man that he should bear
The yoke in his youth.
Yodh
28Let him sit alone and be silent
Since He has laid it on him.
29Let him put his mouth in the dust;
Perhaps there is hope.
30Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him;
Let him be saturated with reproach.
Kaph
31For the Lord will not reject forever,
32For if He causes grief,
Then He will have compassion
According to His abundant lovingkindness.
33For He does not afflict from His heart
Or grieve the sons of men.”
To prove the genuineness of our faith in Jesus unto His glory
1 Peter 1:6b-7: “…you have been grieved by various trials, 7so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
To sanctify us and make us like Him, as His sons
Heb 12:5-7: “‘My son, do not take lightly the discipline of the Lord,
and do not lose heart when He rebukes you.
6For the Lord disciplines the one He loves,
and He chastises every son He receives.’
7Endure suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?”
Dan 12:1, 10: “...And there will be a time of distress such as never happened since there was a nation until that time…Many will be purged, purified, and refined, but the wicked will act wickedly; and none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand.”
Conclusion
He crushes us with sin so that we’ll hate sin. He fractures His Body, the church, so we begin to despise the disunity, see the shame of Jesus’ glory trampled in the earth, yearn and pray for wholeness, and feel the death of our brokenness. This is to display His glory, because He is the God who raises the dead. God aims to break our will so that we are completely moldable to His will; He wants us to feel so hopeless in our own strength that we will see Him alone as our salvation. Then we will flee to the mountains: we will seek God and worship before Him in the secret place, and we will truly pray. And we will pray in brokenness. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise” (Ps 51:17).
“If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the grasshopper to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, 14and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their evil ways, then I will listen from heaven, I will forgive their sin, and I will heal their land” (2 Chr 7:13-14).
Note: Everything I write here is not in a spirit of being an authority but rather a sharing of what has come out of my personal meditations with the Lord and through life. Always seek the Lord Jesus yourself, to make clear to you what of these words should apply to your heart and what should be corrected.
Scriptural citations: I have begun to use the LSB translation (Living Standard Bible), which is the most-recent edition of NASB. One of my main reasons, besides its endorsement by prominent pastors in the church such as John MacArthur, is its return of the name of God "I AM" (which when transliterated is "Yahweh") to the translation of the original texts. Most other translations use the word "LORD" to refer to the Name "I AM" or "Yahweh." I perceive this as a mis-translation, since "Lord" is a title and not the name God gave Himself.
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