This is the forth blog in a nine-part series that’s looking at the idea of something “Beyond Human Experience”. This blog is also the first of three blogs that are looking at seven events that are still to come in world affairs. These are not at all in any order and they are not the only events that are on the horizon for us. They are seven of the main events that will help us to understand our future when faced with it.
Although we can’t know exactly when the Creator God’s Kingdom will come (as Jesus asked us to pray it would), there will be signs like ‘birth pains’.[i] To a modern-day mind, and for those who’ve lived in prosperity and peace since the 1950s, most of what’s written below is beyond our human experience. Because of that, it’ll sound ridiculous — far-fetched. For one thing, technology and world affairs have never been in a position where the prophecies described by Jesus and other ancient prophets, could come true — at least … not until now.
Though not necessarily in this order, the basic components of the final Act in the Creator God’s Universal Play will include (among other things) these seven things:
- A Powerful Deception
“The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”
“He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life. And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed …
And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the freemen and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.”[ii]
This deception is design to sift out those who are ready – the ones who have listened and taken heed then acted on the advice – from those who are not. It’s very similar to the story when Moses, in the Book of Exodus Chapter Nine, predicted a worst hail storm in the history of Egypt. He told Pharaoh – the King of Egypt – to issue orders to bring his farm workers and livestock in from the fields. Pharaoh didn’t and neither did many others. Only those who feared Mosses and the God of Creation that Mosses served, took notice of the warning. So although this list of seven event is not necessarily in order, one of the greatest warnings for us today is that of a future powerful and very realistic deception.
- A Sudden Rapture
‘Thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves …”
“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.”
“I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, ‘Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.’ So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.”[iii]
- A Great Tribulation
“For then there will be great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equalled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.”
“Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword.”
“The rest of mankind who were not killed by the plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshipping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood – idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.”[iv]
If you’re intrigued with how these could fit into your own life experience (or that of your children or grandchildren) and what of the other four events in my list, just click on my next blog: 3.5 Seven Events Yet to Come – Part 2
[i] Romans 8:21-22
[ii] 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 [NIV]; Revelation 13:13-18 [NASB]
[iii] Ezekiel 37:12-13; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17 [NASB] and Revelation 14:14-16 [NIV]
[iv] Matthew 24:21-22; Revelation 6:4 and 9:20-21