judgment – Page 4 – Sons of Issachar

60. The Abomination of Desolation

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

‘Has not… until now, nor ever will’

Can we put aside everything we may have been taught and read afresh what Jesus actually said?

For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will (Matt 24:21).

Until when? Until ‘now’. That is to say, until the generation to whom Jesus was speaking. The Great Tribulation was about to begin right then. So if you are looking for a Great Tribulation still to come, you are going to be disappointed. At least, ‘disappointed’ is not really the right word; in fact you are going to be blessed, because it is not going to happen. Jesus was quite categorical about that: ‘nor ever will’. The Great Tribulation culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem, and its like will never occur again. It is history.

For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather (Matt 24:27-28). Again, this is covenant language. These things are not literal: corpses and vultures are the language of judgment. It is Jerusalem being described as a corpse where the vultures gathered for the pickings. Flashes of lightning are also covenant language, speaking of the Son of Man coming in judgment.

Desolation

Luke 21:20-22 is the parallel passage to this:

But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. Then 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 country must not enter the city; because these are days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled.

"Siege of JerusalemfiMap" by User:Barosaurus Lentus - self-made based on[1]. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Siege_of_JerusalemfiMap.PNG#mediaviewer/File:Siege_of_JerusalemfiMap.PNG — “Siege of JerusalemfiMap” by User:Barosaurus Lentus – self-made based on[1]. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Armies, desolation (the house being left desolate, Matt 23:38). When believers saw these things, they were to flee to the mountains. Christians actually did do this. If you read Josephus, the Jewish historian, and his account of the Roman-Jewish wars, he says that all the Christians left Jerusalem when they saw the ‘abomination of desolation’ come. That was because they understood exactly what Jesus was talking about in these warnings, and they did what He said to do. These were days of vengeance that God was bringing on those who rejected Jesus, on those who rejected the Stone. It was not intended to fall upon those who believed in Him, so they were warned to get out of Jerusalem, and stay out. It was good advice. The ‘things which are written’ (Luke 21:22) about God’s vengeance were all to be fulfilled at that time.

Abomination

Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains (Matt 24:15-16).

That refers to a passage in Daniel which said, ‘and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate…’ (Dan 9:27). That took place in AD 68, when the Idumeans (Edomites) broke into Jerusalem and cut the throats of 7000 priests in the Temple. Blood ran out of the Temple in rivers. This is when the Christians fled, because Jesus had warned them to expect to witness an abomination in the holy place, and to run when they saw it.

I know I am laying out lots of scripture here. Firstly I know we might have lots of questions so I want to give a really firm scriptural basis for seeing things this way. And secondly, believe me, we will need to know the scriptures because if we talk to other Christians about this it will be a challenge for many of them. We will need to be really clear in explaining what we believe and why we believe it, not only so that they can be persuaded, but so that we cannot be led astray.

Times of the Gentiles

So finally for today, let’s go back to Luke 21:23-24 (the parallel passage again). 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 to this people; and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

Are we living in the times of the Gentiles now? Yes we are. So Jerusalem is still being trampled underfoot by Gentiles? Yes. That may be a bit of a theological struggle for some. Romans chapter 11 is where we can read about what will happen when the times of the Gentiles is fulfilled, but it is not yet.

59. The Great Tribulation: History or still to come?

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

History. (Read more…)

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57. This Generation Will Not Pass Away

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

It is important to understand the covenant background to Matthew, chapters 21-25, and please do take a moment to read that here if you missed it, before we get into what Jesus said. Because this is quite a challenge.

Woe

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people… Woe to you, blind guides… Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!… You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of Gehenna? Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city…” (Matt 23:13, 16, 29, 33-34).

‘Woe’ is a covenant word which we are not really familiar with, but which they understood very well, and they were very offended by it. In fact it got them so mad that they began plotting to kill Jesus in earnest. In saying ‘woe’, He was prophesying that judgment was coming to them under the terms of the covenant. ‘Serpents, vipers’… He was calling them children of the devil, as they also understood very well. ‘Gehenna’ is often mistranslated ‘hell’, but what Jesus was referring to was the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. Then, the bodies of thousands of the city’s inhabitants, including all the priests and other religious leaders, would be piled up in the valley called Gehenna (i.e. the valley of Hinnom), the rubbish tip outside the city.

He refers to that time again as He goes on to explain in more detail what the consequences would be for them: “so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth from Abel to Zechariah… Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! (Matt 23:35-38).

“On this generation” – there it is again. He was speaking of that generation living between the years AD 30 and AD 70, and warning that all the righteous blood ever shed upon the earth was going to come upon them.

‘This evil generation’

“Your house is being left to you desolate”. This again is covenant language that we really need to understand. Remember how Jesus came into the Temple and drove out the moneychangers and traders with a whip? You can read Matthew’s account of that incident in this same section of his gospel, in chapter 21. And when Jesus left the Temple, swept clean and put in order, they had the opportunity to follow Him.

But what did happen? Well, Jesus had already described what would happen. You can find it in Matthew 12:43-45. “Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.”

Did you notice that last sentence? Maybe because we are so familiar with it, we have just skipped over it. Jesus specifically says that this has an application for the generation of which He was part. And indeed, that is what happened to them and their Temple. Their last state was worse than the first. That is why the unbelieving Jews persecuted the church – they were demonised. Literally, the whole house was full of demonic influence.

Babylon

Rev 18:2 speaks of this: And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird”.

The book of Revelation is talking about the persecution of the church and the judgments that came upon Israel. And it is Israel who are described here as ‘Babylon the great’. Jesus said that the guilt of all the righteous blood was upon that unbelieving generation. In Revelation 17:6 and 18:20,24, we can see that same blood-guilt is assigned to this ‘Babylon’. Here is the Bible interpreting itself; and we need to know it, because accepting this is going to be a major difficulty for some as God begins to challenge the church.

Three questions

And so we arrive at Matthew 24. Jesus came out of the Temple, and was going away from there, with His disciples; leaving it desolate, because the Holy Spirit left with Him. That was the last time He went there. “Jesus came out from the temple and was going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him. And He said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down” (Matt 24:1-2).

So He was prophesying physical destruction of the Temple. The disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matt 24:3). So they were asking 3 things: ‘When will be the destruction of the Temple?’, ‘What will be the sign of Your coming?’ (to bring about this judgment, not His last coming), and ‘What will be the signs of the end of the age?’.

The next 30 verses, up to verse 33, are the answers to the first two questions. We will see that very clearly as we look at it in a little more depth in coming posts. For now let’s skip ahead to verses 33-34. “So, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door”. So they, His disciples, would see all the things mentioned in the previous 32 verses. And when they did, they were to know that He – Jesus – would be ‘at the door’ (that is, ready to come in judgment).

And then He goes on, “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place”. I think that is clear enough, isn’t it? Everything in the previous 32 verses was to take place before that generation passed away. It was not to come upon a future generation, as so many of us have been taught, but upon that generation. It was on them that the curses of the covenant were to be outpoured.

Jesus was coming in covenant judgment.

56. Covenant Blessings, Covenant Judgments.

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

In looking at Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 21-25, we saw last time that we need to understand covenant blessings and judgments. So today let’s consider Deuteronomy 28:1-14 (blessings) and 15-68 (judgments, or ‘curses’).

Above all the nations

Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth… But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you… (Deut 28:1, 15).

‘High above all the nations of the earth’ – doesn’t that sound like the mountain of the house of the Lord being lifted high above the other mountains? All the other nations were supposed to stream to them. They had a kingdom mandate. If they kept covenant and were obedient, they could expect blessings. But if they were disobedient, judgment would come.

Peace?

What would it be like when that judgment came? Deuteronomy 29:19-21 tells us:

It shall be when he hears the words of this curse, that he will boast, saying, ‘I have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart in order to destroy the watered land with the dry.’ The LORD shall never be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the LORD and His jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse which is written in this book will rest on him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven. Then the LORD will single him out for adversity from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant which are written in this book of the law.’

‘Peace’. The first time this covenant judgment came upon Israel was when they were exiled to Babylon. At that time their prophets were prophesying peace and blessing, when they should have been prophesying judgment. ‘Stubbornness’: that sums up the attitude of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the rulers of Israel, who didn’t expect Jesus and didn’t accept His coming. There were bound to be covenant consequences (variously called ‘wrath’, ‘doom’ and ‘woe’).

As the eagle swoops down

Not so for us. Let’s be clear on this. God’s ‘wrath’ is not aimed at us, ever. It is an expression of His burning passion for us, not against us. But we will see where that wrath did fall.

“All the nations will say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’ Then men will say, ‘Because they forsook the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, the anger of the LORD burned against that land, to bring upon it every curse which is written in this book; and the LORD uprooted them from their land in anger and in fury and in great wrath, and cast them into another land’” (Deut 29:24-28).

Initially this judgment was fulfilled in the exile to Babylon, but with a prophetic promise of return. After a time, God restored them to the land and gave them another opportunity to be obedient. If they continued to be disobedient, then further consequences were inevitable, and this is what Jesus is warning them about. He is referring to passages like these in Deuteronomy:

A people whom you do not know shall eat up the produce of your ground and all your labours, and you will never be anything but oppressed and crushed continually… The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand … It shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land, and it shall besiege you in all your towns throughout your land which the LORD your God has given you (Deut 28:33, 49, 52).

The final fulfilment of this prophecy was that Jerusalem was indeed besieged and subsequently destroyed. That happened at the end of the generation to which Jesus was speaking, in AD 70. And look at the phrase ‘as the eagle swoops down’: you can also see how that could speak of the Roman armies, which carried an eagle as a standard.

This was to be followed by spiritual restoration. There was a promise of physical restoration after Babylon, which was totally fulfilled, and they were brought back into the land. But afterwards, all the promises relating to the new covenant were of a spiritual restoration in Christ.

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jer 31:31-33).

Restoration? Yes, for everyone, in Christ. This is new covenant language, and we see it again in Ezekiel. There would be a physical manifestation of this restoration, but it would be the kingdom of God filling the earth.

So much for the covenant background. Next time I want to consider in detail what Jesus said about all this, back in Matthew 21-25.

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55. God’s Covenant Purpose

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

Over the next series of posts I want to set out for you clearly what Jesus said. We have looked before at the passage in Matthew 24 where the disciples asked Jesus “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” What were ‘these things’ that they were asking about?

To find the answer to this we need to go back several chapters (remember that there were no chapters in the original scriptures). Wherever you start from, you are in a sense jumping into the middle of events which were already going on, but there is a clear development of ideas which begins in Matthew 21.

God’s people

Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone; THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’? Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing the fruit of it. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust” (Matt 21:42-44).

Jesus was talking about Himself, that He would be rejected and that there would be a consequence of that rejection for Israel. The mandate to be God’s people would be taken from the people who rejected the Stone, and it would be given to people who accepted the Stone. That Stone was to become the chief cornerstone of the church. In verse 44 we see that the Stone will fall on those who reject Him, and in due course we are going to see what happened when that Stone fell.

Let’s understand this: God’s covenant purpose has not changed. We can read it in Genesis 12:2 where God makes covenant with Abraham, “And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing… And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” There is continuity here, you only have to look at passages like Gen 1:28, where God made covenant with Adam, in Gen 9:1 with Noah, and in Matt 28:18-20, where the church was sent out to take the gospel to the whole world. It is the same covenant purpose: to bring the kingdom of God to the earth.

We read in Galatians, The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “ALL THE NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU” (Gal 3:8). The gospel we preach has the same covenant purpose: to bring God’s kingdom to the earth. There is a unity in God’s purpose that we have not always understood.

For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith (Rom 4:13).

Abraham’s promise was not a small package of land in the Middle East. It was supposed to start there, but from there to spread, filling the whole earth with God’s kingdom. And it did not come by keeping the Law, even under the old covenant, but through the righteousness of faith. It was always by faith. You never could have a relationship with God other than by faith. The Law was only a tutor to protect that covenant until Christ would come and fulfil it. No-one could keep the law, so you never could be justified by the law, only by faith. The covenant with Abraham was made 430 years before the Law was given, and it was not nullified by that Law. In fact, it is still in place today – and that is why we are here.

A light to the nations

God’s covenant purpose through Israel was stated in very similar terms: just look at the language. “Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod 19:5-6).

That is still the promise to God’s people today, by the way.

“I am the LORD, I have called You in righteousness, I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You, And I will appoint You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the nations…” (Isa 42:6). They were supposed to be a light to the nations, but they weren’t. They kept it all to themselves and stopped anyone else receiving it.

“I will appoint You as a covenant to the people” (Isa 42:6). Time and again, we keep coming back to this: we need to understand covenant. In particular, we need to understand covenant blessings and covenant judgments, because those are what Jesus is going to refer to in this passage. We can see those concepts most clearly in Deut 28:1-14 (blessings) and Deut 28:15-68 (judgments, or ‘curses’), and that is where we will pick up next time.

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54. Salvation and Judgment

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

Stone and Mountain

I want to begin today by looking again at two scriptures we have seen before:

Now it will come about that In the last days
The mountain of the house of the LORD
Will be established as the chief of the mountains,
And will be raised above the hills;
And all the nations will stream to it (Isa 2:2).

You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands …But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth (Dan 2:34-35).

This Stone and Mountain are very important: Jesus taught about it, and so did the apostles. The Stone is Jesus and the Mountain is His kingdom; the house of the Lord is God’s people. The kingdom is manifest (or demonstrated) through the church as God’s people, not through the institution called ‘church’.

The kingdom of God is going to fill the earth, in our time. As we have seen, tares have been sown into the church in terms of false doctrine which has put that off to another time or another people.

There has only ever been one people of God: people of faith. Faith is the key: it is not about being born into a Christian family. It was never even about being born into a Jewish family: you were not of the true Israel unless you had faith. It really wasn’t a national thing, as we will see.

‘Two sides of the same coin’

When God comes in righteousness, He often comes in judgment as well as in salvation: they are two sides of the same coin.

‘Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne (Kingdom); Lovingkindness and truth go before You’ (Ps 89:14).

“The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire… He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt 3:10-12).

The Flood brought salvation for Noah and his family, but judgment for the world.
In the Exodus, in the crossing of the Red Sea, there was salvation for Israel, but judgment for Egypt as all their army was swept away.
At the Cross there is salvation for believers, and it is open to everyone. But if you do not receive it, there is judgment.
In fact in all Jesus’ comings – and there are many comings of Jesus, ending with his Last Coming – there is both salvation and judgment.

Speaking of that Stone again:

This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER stone,” and, “A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed (1 Peter 2:7-8).

The Stone, we know, was Jesus. Those builders who rejected Him were the Jewish people at the time. Not all of them rejected Him of course: the earliest church was made up of Jewish believers. But for those who did reject Him, those are strong words. ‘Doom’, like ‘woe’ in Matthew 23, is a covenant word.

No peaceful co-existence

Jesus ascended back up to heaven in around the year AD 30. The destruction of Jerusalem and its temple happened in AD 70. That 40-year period was a generation in which the old covenant people co-existed with the new covenant people. It was not a peaceful co-existence. Saul, before he met Jesus and became Paul, was sent out by the Jewish leaders to persecute Christians. They were trying to stamp out what they saw as heresy. Later on, in every city where (as Paul) he went to preach, he spoke to the Jewish people there first as God’s people and inheritors of God’s promises. When he showed them that these could only be received in Christ, most of them persecuted him, though some believed. That is why he was beaten and stoned.

So in this period the Old Covenant (with its Natural Country, City and Temple) was still in existence alongside the New Covenant (with its Spiritual Country, City and Temple). Much of the New Testament was written from the perspective of the persecution which arose because of this.

In particular, the whole of the book of Revelation was written about the covenant judgments (‘doom’) that were to come at the end of this period, the consequences of Israel’s rejection of the Messiah and their persecution of the church. It was written to provide comfort to those Christians who were suffering that intense persecution, to reassure them that God had a plan in it and that it would come to an end. It was not written about ‘the end of the world’. We need to get that out of our thinking, and then look at these scriptures for what they actually say.

That is a process we will begin in the next post. I want to look at the whole passage which leads up to the disciples’ question in Matthew 24, because that is essential if we are to properly understand the answers that Jesus gave them.

Pictures to share with you

Here are some pictures that I really like. I don’t necessarily want to say a lot about them, I’ll just share them with you.

Can you imagine the Lion up in heaven, going ‘What are they up to now?’. It’s a good thing God has a great sense of humour. Even when He corrects us, He does it with a smile on His face.

This next one was an advertisement for a conference, I think. It reminded me of a scripture: Hosea 11:10 They will walk after the LORD, He will roar like a lion; Indeed He will roar And His sons will come trembling…

17. Prophetic Timetable Overview (part 2)

Mike Parsons –

Important note: at the time of writing this blog post, Mike had not yet received all the revelation he now has regarding the ‘hell‘ delusion, AD70 as the ‘end of the age’, happy eschatology and the restoration of all things, for example.

Last time we looked at the opening stages of what I have called the Prophetic Timetable – at what God is planning to do in our days. There is a call to intimacy, a gathering of stumbling blocks, a raising up of a Joshua generation, a judgment of God’s household, a harvest of labourers and a shaking of the world’s systems.

Final Harvest

And there is going to be a final harvest. I have told you before, at the very least there are going to be more people in heaven than not. If there are 6 billion people today on the planet, then I want most of those people to be swept into the kingdom of God – but we are going to need that earlier harvest of labourers to bring this harvest in.

The River of Life is flowing from the throne in heaven today. The crystal river is full of gems and other wonderful things, but it is flowing through the realms of the heavenlies, into the dimensions of the atmosphere of the earth, a kingdom in (not ‘of’) darkness, to a place called Nirvana. Some of you might know what that place is, it is a desolate place. The river is being dammed up in that dimensional realm. The River of Life continues to flow and build up pressure and so that dam is going to be broken when we take back possession, when we take back the authority that Adam lost. Satan became the prince of the power of the air in what was Adam’s sphere of influence. When we bring the dominion of the kingdom of God, opening the everlasting doors so that the light of the glory of God disperses the darkness, then that dam is going to break and the River of Life is going to be poured out on earth. That’s why this harvest is going to come, it is because the River of Life is going to be poured out. I have seen that place, it is desolate right now, waiting and waiting for us to get our act together, to take back authority, to release the things of God.

There is going to be increasing darkness, but increased light. Increasing darkness in the world; increasing light in the church. We are going to shine before people; we are going to demonstrate the light, to be children of light. There will be increased manifestations of the glory of God, signs and wonders, and full ministry and full miracles being released. As a result of all that, there is going to be persecution. When we start seeing the true church born out of the institutional church, there is going to be persecution. But we can rise above that. There is going to be an end-time transfer of wealth: we are going to need to be able to finance the end-time harvest.

The mountain of the house of the Lord (speaking of God’s Kingdom, administered through the church) is going to be raised up above every other mountain, every other hill, every one of those things that are being ruled right now by the enemy.

Return of Jesus

These paragraphs reflect Mike’s undersrtanding in 2011 (see note at the head of this blog post).

[Jesus is going to return. But in Acts 3:21 it says that Jesus will remain in heaven ‘until the restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time’. So everything prophetically spoken in the New and Old Testaments will be fulfilled before Jesus returns. That is going to blow some of your theologies out of the water. There is all sorts of nonsense talked about what is going to happen. Jesus said that He is coming back in the same way that He went. When He comes back on the last day, it will be the end of time and the ushering in of eternity. He is going to stay in heaven until He has restored everything on earth. So, everything promised to Adam and Eve: restored. Everything promised through the prophets: restored. Everything spoken of through Jesus: fulfilled, coming into its fullness before He returns. Not after He has returned, but before He returns. ‘He must remain in heaven until…’.

So who is going to do the restoration? We are, His people. He gave the original mandate to Adam and Eve, and now He has given it back to His people, calling us to fulfil it – as he calls the church to fulfil it – calling us to bring His kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven.

There will be a last day, when Jesus comes, a day of resurrection, a day of judgment, when we will be changed in the twinkling of an eye, it says, and we will be drawn to meet him. On that last day, He is indeed coming back in the same way He went: on clouds of glory, with the cloud of witnesses who will be with Him, to receive us to himself.]¹

The ages to come

And then we have the ages to come. All this that we are experiencing right now is just preparation for the ages to come. This is not the final deal; this is to prepare us for what is to come. And how you live here will determine what you do there. Jesus said some people are going to rule over ten cities, or five, or some over one – that was just an illustration of how there are going to be different roles to play, different levels of authority to exercise, and that will be dependent on our faithfulness here in doing the things Jesus did and the reward that He is going to release to us in that heavenly realm. Now, I want to rule over a universe, don’t you? Jesus said we could do the things He did, and greater; well, He created this universe, why not create another one? Take the limits off your thinking here: with God in eternity we are not going to be sitting around on a cloud with a little harp, plucking it and saying ‘Oooh isn’t this lovely!’. The ages to come are what we are being prepared for here and now; in the ages to come He is going to show us the fullness of everything.

Fire will come and purify the church. So anyone who is storing up stuff here, no matter how good it is, it is going to go into the fire. We need to be ready, because God has already begun.

In future posts we will begin to look in more detail at these periods, and first of all the call to intimacy.

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16. Prophetic Timetable Overview (part 1)

Mike Parsons –

This is the full version of the diagram we began to look at last time. In this post and the next one, I am just going to give you a brief overview of what God has shown me He is looking to do in each of these periods, and then we will begin to look at each stage in much more detail in coming days and weeks.

Firstly there is a call to intimacy: God started doing this a while ago, and it will continue. I know a lot of people struggle with intimacy. Even when we come together, when we are praising the whole place is heaving and full up at the front; as soon as we begin moving into intimacy you can see people start to drift off. There is something totally different about us giving God praise (which comes from our spirit) and real intimacy (which comes from His Spirit and our spirit joined together). God wants us to know intimacy. I am going to be going into that a lot more as we go on.

Second, there is going to be a gathering and removing of stumbling blocks. Angels have begun gathering here in our meetings. I have seen them, as have others. They are not just the trumpet angels, the healing angels, or the breakthrough angels: they are the gathering angels. They have been watching, waiting for an opportunity to gather and remove stumbling blocks from us, from the church. There is going to be a whole move where God does that.

There is judgment coming to the household of God: it is going to divide what is of God and what isn’t. However, judgment is not condemnation: with God, judgment is always an opportunity to change. Again, I will go into this more fully in future posts.

There are challenging times coming.

There is going to be a harvest of labourers. We are going to see thousands and thousands of people turning to Jesus, and that is not an end-time harvest, it is to prepare to send out labourers into the harvest fields to bring in the end-time harvest. Ask Jesus for them (Luke 10:2). There are going to be prodigals returning by their hundreds, streaming back to God. God is going to be drawing them.

Awesome times, but we need to be very careful to prepare and equip those people to do the things that God is calling them to do. There is going to be a raising up of the Joshua generation at this time – Caleb and Joshua were people of a different spirit who were able to take the people into their inheritance, the promised land. God is calling for a generation to be raised up, who will bring and equip those harvesters to bring in the final harvest. There are going to be apostolic centres to train those harvesters, and we are going to be one of those centres. There will be an increasing manifestation of the five-fold ministries and gifts of the Spirit to train people. There is going to be an increasing manifestation of people who seek first the Kingdom of God, people who live it, not just say it or know what it says, but who actually live it day by day and hour by hour.

There is going to be a shaking of the world’s systems, a storm of judgment coming on the earth, and we have to be ready, because we must have the answers in the judgment that is coming. When the world’s systems have fallen apart, the church is going to be raised up in authority, with answers. When the medical experts have no cure for some of the diseases that are going to be released, we will have healing in our hands. We have already seen a minor shaking of the financial system, a little tremor, causing a crisis the experts could hardly manage, which turned into a worldwide recession: when it all collapses, we will be people who can say, ‘Oh, over there in that fish’s mouth there is a roll of £50 notes!’ Or, ‘You need food this week? Oh, OK, there you go, I’ll just multiply what you have.’

Do you remember Elisha and that story about the widow and her son, and the oil that didn’t stop flowing until they ran out of pots to fill? Oil was a precious substance, you could use it for cooking but you could also sell it. As soon as they ran out of pots, the oil stopped flowing. That is a picture of what God is doing here. If you don’t want the oil to stop flowing, you have to keep coming for more, and bring more people who come as empty pots to be filled. People from the churches round here come to be filled, people find us on social media and YouTube and catch God’s heart in what we are saying, and they go on to fill others who are hungry and thirsty for more.

Returning to what I was saying, these world systems are all going to be shaken. Increasingly, we are going to see more ‘little’ examples of shaking which build up to a great shaking.

Next time we will look at the remaining periods in this diagram: the final harvest, the last day, the return of Jesus and the age to come.