In the fall of 2019 before the whole COVID chaos hit, I was part of unpaid staff when a new pastor was chosen and came to lead our church. I had been the Missions Director for several years as well as a Bible teacher emphasizing eschatology. That’s pretty rare these days, I know, but our prior pastor and the interim pastor gave me free reign to teach on end times related subjects.
Because of my watchman mentality and focus, I’d been seeing for a while that things were getting darker in the world and America in particular. I’d said for some time that I believed the American church would face a time of trial and persecution before the Rapture, because I always felt the Lord would need to purify His Bride in our land. My facetious and (in)famous saying was: “Do you think the only suffering we’ll endure before Jesus returns is ease and comfort?”
Seeing this gathering gloom, I suggested to the new pastor in one of our first staff meetings that it would be prudent for the church to make plans for a time of coming persecution. Perhaps we should get the people thinking about this and make preparations to go underground at some future point by getting small groups meeting and understanding what this would mean.
This idea was met with a serious head nod and abruptly forgotten. Subsequently, into 2020 and the advent of COVID, because of things I said about what was happening and how I said them, the pastor didn’t approve, effectively saying, “That’s not who we are.” Eventually, through this and various other interactions, this led to my parting ways with the church.
Here we are now two years later in the fall of 2021, and our government is plunging headlong toward absolute tyranny. Conservatives and Christians, i.e. political enemies and those who love God, are being demonized. The State has set up a false dichotomy of fear versus safety by emphasizing the difference between vaxxed and unvaxxed people. Quarantine facilities, a.k.a. FEMA or internment camps, have been prepared all around our nation – no different from those already being used in China and Australia. The rhetoric is increasing against those who refuse to go along with the narrative propagated by mainstream and social media under direction of the Biden Regime. All they need is a trigger mechanism to go after those they deem enemies of the State.
No doubt at that time, churches that declare they follow only God and His commands will find themselves at extreme odds with governmental decrees. It wouldn’t surprise me if they are forcibly shut down. What then happens? Will churches be ready to meet secretly, i.e. those believers who haven’t yet been rounded up and isolated in Green Zones for “their protection”?
Perhaps in 2019 such scenarios may have appeared as fanciful conspiracy theories. Twenty-four months later, at least to some, they’ve probably taken on a new reality and truth.
In the prophet Jeremiah’s day, the Lord warned him that certain men were conspiring against Him. In Jeremiah 11:9-10 He warned:
Again the Lord said to me, “A conspiracy exists among the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words. They have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant that I made with their fathers.”
God went on to detail the extent of their sins, and it disgusted Him so much that He commanded in Jeremiah 11:14:
“Therefore do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their trouble.”
They had gone after other gods, worshiped them, gave them offerings of every kind, and set up altars in reverence to them. In other words, they had decided that the God of Israel wasn’t worth following. They apparently thought that pagan gods had more to offer than the One who had delivered them from the fiery furnace of slavery in Egypt.
Their iniquities had risen to such a drastic level in their rejection of Yahweh that He wouldn’t even hear prayers on their behalf going forward. He would bring disaster upon them.
There are two groups in our current times that are stoking the furnace of God’s anger. The first is those who have outright and long ago decided they didn’t need Him in their lives. For many of these, just as Romans 1:24 says, He has given them over to the sinful desires of their hearts.
The second group is the church that has chosen to ignore the Word of God when its people should have known better. How much condemnation might the Lord have for those who say they are in Christ, yet choose to continue doing church as though we’re still in normal times?
One of the phrases that is making the rounds these days that resonates, because of the truth it conveys, distinguishes between what we’re currently seeing, and surely what is ahead, versus the days of old, i.e. 2019 and earlier. It is the BEFORE TIMES. This is so dystopian – and yet so true – that it’s astounding we are even beginning to talk this way. Those who have believed that believers must endure the Tribulation are perhaps beginning to understand how devastating this coming time will be. To think that we can prep and hole up as God’s wrath rages around us – and that He will shelter us supernaturally – is an interesting, but false, perspective. I’m very much a believer in the supernatural aspects of God, but I also believe that He has other plans for us during the Day of the Lord. In fact, I’m very much anticipating the incredibly supernatural event that will soon astound the world, i.e. the Rapture of the true church.
Conspiracy theories from just a couple years have largely proven true. Thankfully our God is sovereign and watching closely. At just the right time, He will prove that the “conspiracy theory” of the Rapture is also fact. Won’t that be an amazing vindication of what many of us have believed to be the blessed hope that God has given to His children?
Blessings brother Gary, We all expect the tme of tribulation to be 7 yrs long. Of course we don’t know what single event kick starts that 7 yrs. We have a clue when our Lord said that first we will know who the man of lawlessness is and then the end will come. I think “Thilipsus” or tribulation is a part of the Christian experience but “Orge” or the wrath of God isn’t, so it’s my belief we will have to endur until the “pause between the 6th and 7th seal and THEN the true church will be raptured. See you when the smoke clears. +
I appreciate your input, Paul, but completely disagree. Tribulation is not THE Tribulation. All of the Tribulation is part of God’s wrath because it is Jesus, i.e. God, who opens the Seals and begins this seven years of horror.
I absolutely believe that we will go through some tribulation between now and the Rapture, but we’ll be out of here prior to the official beginning of the Tribulation. We will not see the unveiling of the man of lawlessness. We’re looking for Jesus Christ, not the Antichrist.
Maranatha!