I have some short illustrated videos after this blog that give more information
I used to think that it wasn’t that important what we thought about End Time teaching, but I have now changed my mind. I have definite views about End Time events but felt that making sure you were ready for Jesus’ return was the most important thing to do. Why get into an argument about End Times as folk have so my different ideas. I still believe that knowing Jesus as His Bride is far more important than knowing who the Antichrist is.
I have posted things on YouTube concerning the End Times from a ‘Historicist’ point of view in the past and you would be amazed at some of the comments I got for my troubles. It was almost as if I had blasphemed the Lord by challenged some people’s pet doctrines.
My teachings over the last decade or so have concentrated mainly on having a relationship with Jesus and making sure you are ready for His coming, but I have seen over the last few years that having false End Time doctrines actually hinders your relationship with Jesus.
I believe its time for the Bride to get herself ready for the Lord’s Coming and this requires us to be totally focused on the Lord. Keeping your eyes on Him and not on the storm, help us to walk on water. I also see that God wants to have a great Revival before His Return but the Church isn’t really believing for this. Instead, the expectation of so many modern day Christians is for a ‘Falling away’ of the Church and the subsequent appearance of the Antichrist instead of Revival. If anything, the Church is now double minded and has lost her cutting edge. She is being distracted about issues that are leading her astray. There are now so many conspiracy theories that have been birthed through a false understanding of the End Times.
To be Christ’s Bride you need to know Him intimately and get lost in His wonderful love for you. His plans for you are for good and not evil to give you a future and a hope. We need to be excited about our future even in this time of great trouble, for He has prepared a table before us in the midst of our enemies. We can’t have a fear of the future and know Christ at the same time.
This is meant to be our greatest hour, a time when we do the works that Jesus did. This is our destiny, and our path should be growing brighter and brighter as we come closer to the Lord’s return and into maturity. Yes, the tares are getting worse but the wheat is also coming to a harvest as well.
This may be a shock to many, but I believe the biggest hindrance to the Bride’s vision is the belief that there is a future Antichrist coming. Yes, you heard me right. I don’t believe its scriptural and can be easily debunked, for history actually backs up what I want to say. You can’t argue with the Futurist teaching of a coming Antichrist because it hasn’t happened yet, but history shows that there was a religious system that fulfilled every one of the marks in past history. Before you thrown your toys out of the cot, please hear what I’m saying, as it could set you free.
I know we are living in perilous times, with wars, earthquakes, famines, floods and men’s’ hearts failing them for fear, but I don’t believe that the Antichrist is part this picture. Doesn’t it say in scripture ‘that as it was in the Days of Noah so shall it be when the Lord returns?’ Men were going about their business, marrying and partying when the flood came suddenly.
“But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” Matthew 24:37-39
At the beginning of the Book of Revelation it says that these things shall ‘shortly’ come to pass. What part of shortly don’t we understand.
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:” Revelation 1:1
Its now 2000 years since these words were written and so many are still waiting for most of Revelation to be fulfilled.
When Wycliffe put the Bible into the language of the common people he immediately noticed that the succession of ruling Popes showed all the marks of the Antichrist. One being that they considered themselves as Christ on earth and had the exclusive power to forgive men’s sins. Martin Luther in 1519, who was instrumental in the Reformation that smashed the power of Papal Rome, pointed out to the Pope Leo X that he was the Antichrist. That didn’t go down well.
The counter attack of Rome was to form an order of monks called the ‘Jesuits’ to shield the Pope and stop the Reformation. In 1585 Ribera devised a teaching that said that the Antichrist wasn’t the Popes of Rome but an infidel who was to come in the future. Another monk called Alcasar said that the Antichrist had been already in Pagan Rome and he was the Emperor Nero.
These teachings did little to stop the Reformation from taking place and Papal Rome eventually lost its ‘one world’ power and ended up with just the Vatican.
300 years after the fires of the Reformation had died down, around 1830, Rev J N Darby formed the Plymouth Brethren and taught the writings of a future Antichrist. Scofield put them into the footnotes of his popular bible and it was soon embraced by the church. The Rev C H Spurgeon was very vocal in opposing this teaching.
Unfortunately, it has become so ingrained in the thinking of the modern day Church that it is regarded as gospel now and so hard to dismantle. Most Christians just believe what the TV evangelists and Movies like ‘Left Behind’ are saying and can’t be bothered to check it out. I believe the Devil is delighted in how this has all worked out in weakening and dividing the Church.
Now days we don’t regard much of the Church’s history to be all that relevant, forgetting that there were millions who died believing and standing up for this truth in the Dark Ages. Yes the spirit of Antichrist is still with us, but ‘THE ANTICHRIST’ who was in the Church declaring He was God and persecuting the Saints has been already. We are still suffering from His influence even today. I also want to add that I don’t think the Popes of today have the same mentality of those in the Dark Ages, or that I consider Catholics not to be Christians.
I believe that since the Reformation in 1517, the way has now been cleared for us, the Church, to go on to maturity. We are coming out of the Dark Ages into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God.
Its now time for the restoration of all things that have been lost and for the former and the latter to come as prophesied in Hosea 6:1-3. Its time for His Bride to be free of all fear and do the works Jesus did, and for her to be like her coming victorious King and not hiding away in caves. It’s now time for the Elijah Ministry before the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord, where the wicked will be as ashes beneath our feet and the hearts of the fathers to be turned to the children and children to their fathers. Malachi 4:1-6.
God wants a great Revival in these days. The resulting Christians may not have a lot of time to become mature before Jesus returns but at least they will be saved by faith.