 |
Segment
VII
page 1 of 2Segment
VII
The Meaning of
Faith in Christ Distorted
Because faith in
Christ has been transformed into
presumptions about Christ, Jesus will
set the record straight with the testimony of
martyrs. Many pastors are teaching fables as
truth, and many people have deceived themselves
into thinking that God is pleased with their
actions when the opposite is true. (See Isaiah
1-4 for a review of this ever-persistent
problem.) The fruit of religious presumption is
decadence. The devils deceptions are
clever. He is a master of gradualism. He induces
intellectual games that lead to compromises
because he knows that sin has consequences. For
example, Americans have been wrestling with the
abortion issue for thirty-five years and the
Unites States is just as divided today on the
subject as when the controversy started. The
funny thing about this controversy is that hardly
anyone is addressing the sinful, immoral behavior
that produces unwanted babies. Why is there so
much silence about sexual promiscuity? The devil
knows that once an immoral couple conceives,
tough choices are ahead. Something has to be done
with the fruit of promiscuity. Therefore, the
controversy moves away from the cause of the
problem to dealing with the consequences of
sinful behavior, and there are no human
solutions to the problem of sin!
Biblical faith means a
complete surrender to Gods will to
go, to be, and to do all that He asks at any
cost. This is the faith that Jesus
lived by (Luke 22:42; Hebrews 5:7) and during the
Great Tribulation; this faith will cost many
saints their lives. There is no wiggle room on
this. The saints will be bitterly persecuted for
forty-two months. (Revelation 13:5) The Bible
clearly predicts this persecution, but millions
of people have presumptively chosen to believe in
a pre-tribulation rapture, expecting to avoid
suffering and martyrdom.
An intellectual assent to
truth cannot withstand the purifying fires of
persecution. Jesus willingly went to His death
because of the faith He exercised in His Father
each day. When Jesus arrived at the Garden of
Gethsemane, He asked the Father to remove the cup
of martyrdom from His lips, but it was the will
of the Father that Jesus die. (John 3:16)
Similarly, many martyrs will submit to death
because it is the will of Jesus that they do so.
Jesus has put the saints on notice of this coming
extremity saying, If anyone is to go
into captivity, into captivity he will go. If
anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the
sword he will be killed. This calls for patient
endurance and faithfulness on the part of the
saints. (Revelation 13:10)
In
the later study on the trumpets, you will see
that Jesus breaks the fifth seal on or about the
time of the sixth trumpet. (Revelation 9:14,15)
Therefore, the martyrdom of the fifth seal will
begin approximately 1,040 days into the Great
Tribulation. Ultimately, one-third of the saints
will be slaughtered because of the Word of God
and the testimony they maintain. Please examine
the chart above and the one below carefully,
Consider the vertical alignment of the events
listed in the charts. In the chart above, you can
observe the relationships that exist between the
six seals, which operate in pairs. In the chart
below, you can see how the wrath of the fourth
seal is implemented by the destruction caused by
the first four trumpets.
A Composite View of
Revelations Timing

·The
judgment of the dead continues during the Great
Tribulation. This is necessary because many will
not live long enough to be sealed or receive the
mark of the beast.
(The first four trumpets
include a series of horrific events. Before the
first trumpet, an earthquake literally shakes the
entire globe. Then, a hail of meteoric firestorms
will burn up a third of all the trees and al the
green grass, followed by two horrific asteroid
impacts and a great darkness caused, perhaps, by
hundreds of volcanic eruptions.) Twenty-five
percent of Earth will perish during the first
four trumpets. The fifth trumpet marks the
appearing of the devil masquerading as Almighty
God, and after five months of tormenting wicked
people who are willing to worship him, the sixth
trumpet sounds. When the sixth trumpet sounds,
the devils forces will be allowed to kill
one-third of the worlds population so that
he can establish total dominion over Earth.
(Revelation 9:15) Notice on the chart above how
the fifth seal is broken immediately after the
sixth trumpet sounds. When the slaughter of the
fifth seal is finished, Earths population
will be reduced to about 50% of what it was
before the Great Tribulation began.
The
Identity of the Altar
I saw
under the altar the souls of those who had been
slain because of the Word of God and the
testimony they had maintained. When the
fifth seal was broken, John saw the souls of
martyrs located under the altar. This language
speaks volumes if you already understand the
prerequisite doctrine of parallel temples. The
altar mentioned in the fifth seal refers to the
bronze Altar of Burnt Offering. You may recall,
this altar was located in the courtyard of the
temple (Exodus 40:6), while the golden Altar of
Incense was located inside the tabernacle, near
the veil. (Exodus 40:5; Leviticus 16:12) Since
the golden Altar of Incense is specifically
mentioned in Revelation 8:3, this has led some
people to assume the altar mentioned in the fifth
seal is also the golden Altar of Incense. We can
discover the true identity of this altar by
comparing the heavenly altar with the altars used
in the earthy temple. (Hebrews 8:1-5) Notice this
text: Present your burnt offerings on
the altar of the Lord your God, both the meat and
the blood. The blood of your sacrifices must be
poured beside the altar of the Lord your God, but
you may eat the meat. (Deuteronomy
12:27, See also Leviticus 5:9; 8:15.) This text
indicates that the blood of animal sacrifices was
poured into a container beneath the Altar of
Burnt Offering in the earthy temple. Once this
point is understood, the parallel becomes
obvious.
The souls of the martyrs
are under the Altar of Burnt Offering in Heaven.
They are located in Heaven because they represent
human beings sacrificed for the cause of
Christ. The Bible says they were slain because of
their faithfulness to the Word of God and the
testimony they maintained. Remember the campaign
to translate and distribute the Bible after the
second seal was broken (the large sword, the
sword of truth, placed in the riders right
hand). Do you remember our study of the second
seal about how the translation and distribution
of the Bible would cause men to kill one another?
The breaking of the fifth seal will be the
fulfilling of the second seal. The Bible says
these souls under the altar were slain because of
the Word of God. During the Great Tribulation,
God will have a people who stand on the Bible and
the Bible alone as the Word of God. A time is
coming when all people who obey the Word of God
(Abel the faithful) will be regarded as enemies
of God (Cain the presumptuous). In the same way,
the Crisis Government (Babylon) will regard the
saints as enemies and later, Lucifer, who will be
masquerading as Almighty God, will insist on
their death. Jesus warned His disciples, All
this I have told you so that you will not go
astray. They will put you out of the synagogue;
in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills
you will think he is offering a service to God.
They will do such things because they have not
known the Father or me. I have told you this, so
that when the time comes you will remember that I
warned you. I did not tell you this at first
because I was with you. (John 16:1-4)
continue
to page 2
|