Friday, October 21, 2022
Thus saith the Lord: “But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand” (Ezek. 33:6). The pastor/watchman who love the Word of God and the testimony of His Christ and sound the trumpet of the end-time sword of destruction, are not popular, nor were they in ancient Israel. They are not politically correct, nor regard traditions of men, and therefore largely rejected.
The growing season has passed and we’ve entered the fall harvest season. Crops are being harvested, but in great insufficiency due to drought. This poor harvest will yield great food insecurity and famine in early 2023 and beyond. And as true Christians we expect this because Jesus warned us in the end-times “there will be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in various places” (Matt. 24:7b). But the problem is that many Christians were promised by false teachers and preachers that because Christ would rapture them pre-trib, they wouldn’t be on the earth to witness any of the tribulation events, and thus many have done nothing to prepare, no different from the five foolish virgins of Matt. 25:1–13. And just as the harvests of 2022 and beyond will be diminished due to drought, so too, the harvest unto eternal life at the resurrection, “at the last day” (John 6:40) will be diminished due to a spiritual drought because people were not warned.
One day in the fall harvest season, Christ “Himself will descend from heaven…And the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thess. 4:16). And speaking of good seeds and tares, meaning believers and unbelievers, respectively, He said, “Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, [God’s angels] ‘First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat [true believers] into my barn’” (Matt. 13:30). Just opposite of what the evangelical church tells people concerning the false Dispensational pre-trib rapture, Christ commands His angels to “First gather together the tares [unbelieving and wicked] and bind them in bundles to burn them”. And while the wicked are being harvested and bound in bundles to be burned, believers will be watching this unfold with their eyes at the resurrection as Jesus taught saying, “the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:28–29). [my emphasis] And “all who are in the graves” includes the redeemed and the damned. This brings understanding to God’s Word that “Only with your eyes shall you look, and see the reward of the wicked” (Psa. 91:8).
Thus saith the Lord God: “An astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests [pastors] rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end?” (Jer. 5:30–31). God said, “That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9). What occurred in ancient Israel is again repeating itself in today’s end-time church. Eternal losses could otherwise be averted if the organized church sounded the end-time trumpet.
And regarding the end-time “pestilences” Jesus warned us about, COVID-19 and its subsequent mandated vaccines are Satan’s tool in the hands of the ungodly to prepare the global population to obey Satan and his Antichrist and also accept his “mark of the beast” (Rev. 13:16–17). I have said many times that the COVID-19 vaccines themselves, while deadly and harmful, are not “the mark of the beast”, but are the vehicle through which wicked entities mandate global obedience. And for those who think COVID-19 vaccines have run their course, think again, they are about to return with a vengeance. And for all who resist the vaccines…well…suffice it to say that life will increasingly become economically difficult. We’ve already seen millions lose their jobs for refusing the jab. People have suffered lockdowns, children suffered educationally, and suicides have skyrocketed. We’ve seen thousands of businesses destroyed. We’ve seen the military purge tens of thousands for refusing the jab. Evil elite globalists always use the economic scourge to mandate obedience. But Christ, because He is God and loves His true Bride, warned us of these truths two thousand years ago. But unfortunately, many pastors and teachers in the church have turned against the testimony of Christ, to believe instead the lying pre-trib rapture epiphany of John Nelson Darby. And sadly, in unbelief many have sown, and in unbelief they shall reap.
And that ancient Serpent, the devil, desiring to destroy the testimony of God, said, “Has God indeed said…?” (Gen. 3:1). That same old intoxicatingly deceptive lie yet serves Satan and his agenda well. All he has to do is find willing vessels open to hearing of another way besides the way the Son of God taught. Thus, in a night epiphany he projected a lie into the heart and mind of John Nelson Darby, who was a willing vessel, troubled by the truth that God’s Son said that His elect saints would endure the seven-year tribulation to the end. I also heard a modern-day theologian express, not only his own thoughts about the testimony of God’s Son, but likely too the thoughts that troubled Darby as well. That theologian preaching to thousands of students and faculty at a very prominent Virginia university said, “I cannot fathom a God who would drag His bride through the mud of the tribulation, then turn around and marry her!” The problem today is that many professing Christians can’t fathom the God of the Bible having an end-time testimony that believers must endure the 7-year tribulation, because that biblical truth runs contrary to the eternal loving God they have created in their own hearts and minds, as Satan takes a victory lap in having silenced and nullified the testimony of the Lord Jesus, the Christ who Satan could not destroy, the Christ who declared to Satan in the wilderness temptations that, “It is written”! Yes, the same Christ who won the victory over Satan’s lies, sin and death at the cross of Calvary!
Thus saith the Lord God: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’” (Matt. 4:4); and Jesus said “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me’” (John 6:45). And Jesus also said “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18). Yet, today, many theologians and pastors whose academia has gotten in the way of faith, shut out Jesus’ end-time testimony. Self-deceived, they do this to their own shame and loss, and to the shame and loss of those who listen to their pre-trib rapture.
The Holy Spirit wants you to carefully consider the kind of pastor/teacher who influences your life. Does he unwaveringly hold to the principle Christ exampled that, “It is written”, and then build on those truths? Does he teach that Christ’s apostles taught what Christ taught, and not the opposite? Does he prepare believers to endure to the end of this present age just as Jesus taught at Matt. 24:13, or is he politically correct and hide behind traditions of men “making the word of God of no effect” (Mark 7:13)? Indeed, as Jesus said, “Let both grow together until the harvest”. Only you can decide who you will or will not believe: will it be Christ or traditions of men?
Marlin J. Yoder
