Awaken Bible Prophecy Update 9-6-23: Three: Rapture Day, Blood Sacrifice, Naboth’s Vineyard

Seeing as how I have an abundance of shorter Commentaries that the Lord has directed me to write, today is another one where I combine several to create the longer Prophecy Update.  In this case, we’ll be considering three of these shorter pieces.

First we’ll consider the question as to Will We Know That Rapture Day?  In this we’ll explore a significant previous Rapture in the Old Testament and suggest that what we’ve always thought, may not necessarily be so.

Second and Third, we’ll look at a couple of incidents in the books of 1 & 2 Kings.  In Blood Sacrifice we’ll see the power of blood to the demonic realm.  Finally, we’ll examine the narrative about Naboth’s Vineyard in the realm of evildoers then and now.

Since these are all, in effect, Commentaries like I normally do on Fridays, they are each relatively short, so make sure you’re buckled in and ready to listen quickly.

Transcript:

Seeing as how I have an abundance of shorter Commentaries that the Lord has directed me to write, today is another one where I combine several to create the longer Prophecy Update.  In this case, we’ll be considering three of these shorter pieces.

First we’ll consider the question as to Will We Know That Rapture Day?  In this we’ll explore a significant previous Rapture in the Old Testament and suggest that what we’ve always thought, may not necessarily be so.

Second and Third, we’ll look at a couple of incidents in the books of 1 & 2 Kings.  In Blood Sacrifice we’ll see the power of blood to the demonic realm.  Finally, we’ll examine the narrative about Naboth’s Vineyard in the realm of evildoers then and now.

Since these are all, in effect, Commentaries like I normally do on Fridays, they are each relatively short, so make sure you’re buckled in and ready to listen quickly.

We’ll get right to them momentarily.  First, we’ll pray and present a Word from God.

<PRAY>

Scripture

1 Kings 14:14-16

“Moreover, the Lord will raise up for himself a king over Israel who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam today. And henceforth, the Lord will strike Israel as a reed is shaken in the water, and root up Israel out of this good land that he gave to their fathers and scatter them beyond the Euphrates, because they have made their Asherim, provoking the Lord to anger. And he will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he sinned and made Israel to sin.”

1 Kings 15:5

 . . . because David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

Will We Know That Rapture Day?

• Is the Rapture an imminent event?
• Are there any preconditions imposed on it?
• Does anyone except the Father know what day and hour it will occur?
• Then why am I posing the question in this Commentary as to whether we might actually have advance warning?

• If you’ve followed my work at all, you may have observed that I’ll sometimes escape from the box and discuss possibilities of prophetic events outside of that cube.
• What I come up with isn’t always a popular conclusion, but if we don’t ask questions, it’s easy to remain in our little, comfortable confines and potentially be ignorant of an important idea as a result.

• Why would I even come up with this concept?
• Isn’t it settled fact that the Rapture will happen at a time whereby we’ll be completely surprised despite having watched and waited expectantly as Jesus commanded us?

• Well, maybe or maybe not.
• To understand this, we need to explore another Rapture incident chronicled in the Old Testament. In 2 Kings 2:1-12:

¹ Now when the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. ² And Elijah said to Elisha, “Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. ³ And the sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from over you?” And he said, “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.”

⁴ Elijah said to him, “Elisha, please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho. ⁵ The sons of the prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from over you?” And he answered, “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.”

⁶ Then Elijah said to him, “Please stay here, for the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on. ⁷ Fifty men of the sons of the prophets also went and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. ⁸ Then Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground.

⁹ When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” ¹⁰ And he said, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so.” ¹¹ And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. ¹² And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more.

• Does anyone else besides me see something very interesting in this account?
• I’m sure you do.

• Both Elisha and two different companies of prophets knew beforehand that Elijah was to be taken up that day.
• Now obviously we point to this event as one of several pre-church-Rapture episodes.
• The others are Enoch walking with God and then he was not because God took him (Genesis 5:24), and the interaction of Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch and his subsequent reappearing elsewhere immediately following the man’s baptism (Acts 8:38-40).

• But don’t you find the knowledge of Elijah’s upcoming Rapture intriguing?
• How did Elisha and the prophets know it would happen soon?
• And Elisha says three times that he’s on high alert!

• They certainly didn’t use crystal balls or a divination dartboard.
• The only way they could have known was by God telling them it was soon to happen.
• They were expectant that day of the imminent event.

• Had they been given any prior notification by God to watch and wait for Elijah’s whisking away into the clouds?
• Don’t know.
• Because of prophetic Scripture we see this foreknowledge of what will soon occur in this particular instance.
• Based on that, is this the only time where humans might have an advance clue, or might this indicate something more?
• Is it possible that perhaps on that Rapture day in our current time that God might whisper in the ears of us who are eagerly awaiting this momentous event: “TODAY IS THE DAY!”?

• Don’t you think this is a valid question?
• I do.
• It doesn’t necessarily change anything for us who are pre-Trib and yearning to see the Lord, but it makes a sort of sense that we will be given advance notice of some kind because of the fact of what Jesus commanded.

• He said watch and be alert.
• Might our obedience bring an extra blessing over those who ignore Christ’s injunction?
• Won’t those disobedient Christians truly be caught unawares as when a thief comes in the night – whatever the possible negative implications of that might be?

• One other quick question surrounding all this which is again unanswerable until that Day:
• Note that chariots and chariots of fire came in a whirlwind from the heavens to swoop Elijah from the earth into the air.
• When Jesus appears in the clouds for us, will it be even more dramatic than we suppose?
• What if the Rapture is witnessed by unbelievers, and they see a similar scene to that which played out with Elijah?
• Wouldn’t that get tongues wagging and the massive Tribulation deceit going full-bore with the UFO narrative buzzing?

• One way or the other, this marvelous promise is soon to be fulfilled.
• Talk about a glorious Day!

Blood Sacrifice

• Although Jehoshaphat was a king of Judah who honored the Lord, he seems to have had a weakness for partnering with the kings of Israel who disdained Yahweh.
• What is it about God’s people that they cannot refrain from yoking themselves unevenly with pagans?
• I guess the anti-God world is so alluring that God’s children simply can’t stay away.

• In the case of Jehoshaphat, we see in 1 Kings 22 that he yoked himself with evil King Ahab.
• In that instance Ahab desired to retake the city of Ramoth-gilead from the Syrians.
• Ahab invited Jehoshaphat to join him in the quest and the king of Judah gladly agreed, saying in verse 4:

“I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.”

• Fortunately, Jehoshaphat had the foresight to inquire of the Lord concerning their efforts.
• Ahab, being the heathen that he was, summoned the four hundred prophets of Baal.
• To a man, they all declared that victory was assured.
• Discernment gave Jehoshaphat pause.
• I can just see his face twisted up in doubt so that he asks in 1 Kings 22:7:

“Is there not here another prophet of the Lord of whom we may inquire?”

• He had enough sense to know that Ahab’s men were false prophets and not much stock could be placed in what they said.
• As it turned out, Micaiah, the prophet of God, was summoned.
• After mocking Ahab for his unbelief, Micaiah went on to describe an amazing courtroom scene in the heavenlies where God’s Divine Council determined how Ahab would die.
• A lying spirit would be put into the mouths of these false prophets, Ahab would disregard this word of the Lord, and this king of Israel would be killed.

• Despite all this, Jehoshaphat accompanied him to the battle.
• Did he disregard the wisdom coming from Micaiah?
• Why would he recklessly decide to go with Ahab despite this warning?
• It almost cost him his life because Ahab hadn’t dressed in his kingly robes, whereas Jehoshaphat (foolishly) did

• It seems he didn’t learn from this episode, so he had to repeat it.
• It came to pass that Ahab’s son Jehoram (a.k.a. Joram) became king through the right of succession after his brother Ahaziah initially took over after Ahab’s death but also died.
• Once more the Bible doesn’t speak well of another of these kings in the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
• King Jehoram is described in 2 Kings 3:2-3 as follows:

He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, though not like his father and mother, for he put away the pillar of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless, he clung to the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin; he did not depart from it.

• In other words, he wasn’t quite as bad as his father King Ahab and his mother Queen Jezebel (good for him!), but Scripture does accuse him of clinging to the sin of Jeroboam.
• That’s certainly not a positive.
• What was the sin of Jeroboam?
• To learn that, we have to go back in time when Jeroboam reigned and see what we learn in 1 Kings 14:7-9:

‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel [to Jeroboam through the prophet Ahijah]: “Because I exalted you from among the people and made you leader over my people Israel and tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you, and yet you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commandments and followed me with all his heart, doing only that which was right in my eyes, but you have done evil above all who were before you and have gone and made for yourself other gods and metal images, provoking me to anger, and have cast me behind your back . . .”’

• God gave Jeroboam the immense privilege of being king over half of the divided kingdom.
• If he had been faithful like David, the blessings upon him would have been great.
• Instead, Jeroboam made two golden calves for his people to worship, so as to keep them from seeking Yahweh in His temple in Jerusalem.
• Because of this, the Lord rightly accused him of making idols for other gods, provoking God’s anger, and basically throwing Him to the curb.
• This caused the people of Israel to likewise spurn God, and that was unacceptable.
• When a leader plays the role of pied piper and merrily shows people the edge of the cliff, telling them that is the way toward life, he is held liable for this sin above one who sins only for himself.
• Jeroboam’s sin was He created and worshiped gods other than the Lord.

• Back to King Jehoram, Ahab’s son.
• The king of Moab had been in thrall to Israel and paid yearly tribute.
• This king decided he’d had enough when Ahab died, and he rebelled.
• Jehoram wasn’t about to take that, so he asked the kings of Edom and Judah to help him teach the Moabite king a lesson.

• Once more, we see King Jehoshaphat’s eagerness to make nice with the pagans.
• (Too bad Facebook wasn’t a thing back then. Can you imagine all the “friends” Jehoshaphat would have had?).
• We see in 2 Kings 3:7 Jehoshaphat repeating exactly the same vow of loyalty to Jehoram as he did to his father Ahab:

“I will go. I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.”

• In this case, nobody even thought about inquiring of the Lord until they were in the middle of their campaign and had no water.
• Jehoram despairs, but Jehoshaphat, apparently remembering his God, asks if there are any true prophets around.
• Someone suggests they check out what Elisha has to say.

• You may recall that during Ahab’s reign, it was the prophet Elijah who gave the king so much trouble because of his anti-God fervor.
• Here then was Elisha whom Elijah had mentored.

• If it hadn’t been for Jehoshaphat standing among the three kings who sought to come against Moab, Elisha would have told them to pound sand.
• As it was, because of Jehoshaphat, the Lord moved on behalf of these kings.
• He caused a miracle of water to appear like blood which deceived the Moabites such that they were routed.

• Here we come to a very interesting and highly disturbing part of the narrative.
• When the king of Moab saw that his soldiers were completely overrun, he took his oldest son and sacrificed him as a burnt offering to his god.
• This blood sacrifice pleased and stirred up the forces of the dark spiritual realm to such an extent that “great wrath came against Israel” (2 Kings 3:27).
• This was enough to turn King Jehoram and the other kings back so that they stopped pursuing Moab.

• This is a very telling incident and provides us today with a great caution.
• The demonic realm feeds off of innocent blood sacrifices.
• It’s one of the reasons we hear about Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA).
• It’s also why adrenochrome is real and why satanists crave it
• It is a byproduct of the stress children are subjected to under torture and their adrenalin skyrockets
• That is captured from their blood in the form of adrenochrome and ingested for the high it provides
• For this very purpose innocent children are valued by those who engage in this abomination.
• When their blood is shed in reverence and worship of evil entities, those who perform these sacrifices are often given significant power to execute even greater wickedness.
• Satan exalts them for a time for their devotion to him.
• I’ve believed this for a long time and the times in which we live have cemented my thinking in this regard . . .

• It is my contention that the vast majority of people in high positions – whether government, entertainment, or corporate – have achieved those positions by literally making a deal with the devil.
• Yes, there are those who are either Godly, whom the Lord has blessed to rise to high stature, or the occasional person who has effectively pulled himself up by his bootstraps without demonic help, but I think these achievers are relatively atypical.
• In the rarified air of dominance in our culture that brings power, control, money, and unbridled sexual access, the people in this place are vassals – tools – pawns – to Satan and his minions.
• Blood sacrifice is integral to this access.
• They are happy to take all that he gives because they think there are no eternal consequences.
• They live for this world and give no thought to what comes next.
• Satan has deceived them to believe that at the end of live they are annihilated, i.e. all goes black
• As a result, they live for today and seek all the pleasure and toys they can find
• It’s why moral relativism is so prominent an ideology
• If there’s no objective standard rooted in God that holds them to account, whatever they deem permissible is right and good in their eyes
• And it all ends with death
• All hail Satan and his ways!

• Scripture shows us the mind and character of God.
• It also provides hints and understanding of the way of the world with how the Prince of the Power of the Air operates.
• Life is in the blood.
• By the taking of life and the improper shedding of blood, Satan shows his disrespect for God and his intent to stain and corrupt man made in God’s image.

• We do well to stay far from those who might be drawn into Satan’s orbit.
• When we yoke with unbelievers, we place ourselves in a precarious position – these days probably more so than ever before.
• Jesus associated with unbelievers only when teaching or preaching.
• Aside from Judas, who was destined to betray Him, Jesus spent His time with those who believed.
• That should be our model.

Naboth’s Vineyard

• The account of King Ahab’s desire for what wasn’t his is worth our time examining because of the lessons that are applicable to us today.
• The narrative involves an innocent man by the name of Naboth; Ahab, who is noted in the Old Testament as one of the most wicked of all kings; and his evil wife Queen Jezebel, a pagan princess from the Phoenician city of Sidon who ruled over 400 prophets of Baal.
• It demonstrates how coveting what someone else has, ignorance of surrounding wickedness, and complete surrender to the demonic spiritual realm, lead to death and terrible eternal consequences.

• Naboth had the misfortune to own a vineyard within shouting distance of King Ahab’s palace.
• Ahab would look out his window each day, see the bounty that was growing, and lusted after the property.
• When he offered to trade other land to Naboth for what had always been in his family, the man rebuffed him.
• Rather than moving on like a man, he sulked like a child with his feelings hurt.

• Ahab’s wife Jezebel saw him moping and immediately devised a scheme to illegally seize the plot of land for her husband.
• Her attitude was:
• You’re the king of Israel. You can have anything you set your heart on, Ahab.  I can make that happen.

• Was there anything that Jezebel would receive from the transaction?
• It doesn’t seem so.
• Her pleasure was simply in doing evil.

• In Ahab’s name she wrote letters to men of high authority and encouraged them to falsely honor Naboth.
• Oh, and be sure to put some low down, devious thugs at the banquet table who can accuse Naboth of cursing God and King Ahab.

• In his innocent ignorance Naboth attends the feast, thinking that the leaders of the city like him for some reason.
• Soon, however, he learns the truth.
• There is no morality in a place without God as its head.
• The worthless hoodlums charge Naboth with treason and the useless rulers have him stoned to death.
• Wrong place, wrong time for Naboth.

• With the owner of the vineyard out of the way, the path is cleared for Jezebel to cheerfully tell Ahab that the land is his to do with what he pleases.
• All neat and tidy.
• Thank you, Jezebel, for loving your man so much that you would do anything for him.
• Even kill.

• As you can imagine, that doesn’t go over well with the Lord, and He sends Ahab’s nemesis Elijah to confront him about his sin and that which Jezebel committed.
• Elijah pronounces God’s curses upon them both.
• Here are the curses from 1 Kings 21:21-24:

Behold, I will bring disaster upon you. I will utterly burn you up, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel. And I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the anger to which you have provoked me, and because you have made Israel to sin. And of Jezebel the Lord also said, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel.’ Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat, and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the heavens shall eat.”

• This was one of many encounters Elijah had with Ahab, the reason he would later say to King Jehoshaphat of Judah that God’s prophets never spoke good tidings to him.

• At the close of this episode, we learn the following in 1 Kings 21:25-29:

(There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited. He acted very abominably in going after idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the Lord cast out before the people of Israel.)

And when Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, “Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring the disaster upon his house.”

• Of course, there were other wicked kings of note, including Jeroboam and Manasseh, but none had a wife like Jezebel.
• Both king and queen would meet their end as spoken by Elijah:

• The house of Ahab would meet its end
• Jezebel would be eaten by dogs

• Yet, interestingly enough, Ahab truly repented.
• The consequences he had brought upon himself were somewhat delayed, although they still came.
• We also learn in 1 Kings 22, with Ahab’s enlisting of King Jehoshaphat to accompany him in his battle to reclaim Ramoth-gilead, that he still consulted Jezebel’s prophets of Baal.
• His repentance was real for the incident with Naboth, but it was short-lived.
• He certainly never turned to God by surrendering his life to Him.

• What we learn here is that evil men do evil deeds and they commit them against the most vulnerable.
• All Naboth wanted was to enjoy the land of his inheritance.
• The coveting heart of Ahab made that impossible.
• Coupled with someone of pure evil intent – Jezebel may well have been demonically possessed – the innocent in the land stand no chance.
• When someone pursues idols in place of the Lord God, his actions are abominable in God’s eyes.
• They will not stand.
• All who come alongside or encourage evil behavior will face the consequences of those actions.
• As God says in Romans 12:19:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

• Whatever wickedness there is, God will take care of it.
• That’s one of His main job descriptions.

• As we consider the landscape of the world today, evil men are waxing more and more, greater and greater.
• What we currently see is only a foretaste of what is approaching.
• It’s why the Tribulation is spoken of in the Bible as the most horrific time to ever come upon the earth.
• The combination of unspeakable evil perpetrated by demonically-possessed people – just think Lahaina, Maui as the prime example of this – along with God executing His righteous judgment upon the unbelieving, God-hating world as He takes vengeance, and you get a glimpse of the future Tribulation period.
• It won’t be pretty.

• All who bow their knee to Baal, Molech, Chemosh, Ishtar, Satan – you name the pretend god whose idols cause the world to despise the Most High, Jesus Christ – all these pretenders who demand worship will be annihilated, along with those who have followed the broad road of destruction.

• As much as it’s easy to fear or be anxious about what’s ahead, our only hope is to rest in Christ.
• I was unable to sleep the other night thinking about the horrors that those who lived in Lahaina endured.
• Now, many have nothing, their entire lives have been uprooted.
• I was looking around my living room the next morning and envisioning all that gone in a flash . . .
• The comfort, the provision, food and shelter – nothing left.
• How easy it is for the evil cabal to cause such devastation these days!
• They decide an area is their target, and they unleash any of a number of their potent weapons, whether it be directed lasers to start fires, chemtrails with their additives to cause greater heat and incineration, or HAARP weather manipulation to cause tornadoes or earthquakes.
• Who is safe from any of this?

• I can only gain peace through Jesus.
• It is by Him and Him alone that I can rest given the chaos and violent intent all around us.
• Is it easy to say: “Thy will be done, Lord”?
• Not at all.
• It’s why we must double down in seeking Him through His Word and in our quiet times.

• Then there are those who attempt to curse our Blessed Hope – those who evangelize that there is no pre-Tribulation Rapture.
• Well, thanks so much for your marvelous encouragement.
• I think I’ll just stay with what Scripture says, believing that Jesus will soon come in the clouds and deliver us from this world of unspeakable evil.
• That truly is hope that is blessed.