Summary of Bible references on the Rapture

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As the days of Noah

Pastor Sandy makes a good point here, there are many types of the rapture in the Bible, but most of them are referring to Jews, you have the early springtime in Song of Songs, you have the 2nd Passover a month after Passover, you have Shavuot, you have Pentecost, you have the 15th of AV, you have Trumpets, and you have Tabernacles. You also have Hanukah. But all those are Jews. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.

However Jesus said it would be as the days of Noah and Noah refers to a rapture that was not Jews but rather the nations.

According to this type the flood began on Nov 3rd, 2020, the 120th year, and that was the same day as the election. It rained for 40 days and 40 days after the election was Dec 17th when they certified the election. There are many other days as well that line up with Noah as well as our baptism and the beginning of the church age building the ark.

 

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"We are ready to execute"

 

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The Days of Noah

6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. 7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.

If we consider this was in 2020, then Noah was born in 1420 and Methuselah who died on this day was born

1051 William of Normandy consolidates his power as king of France

1420 Henry the V of England becomes the heir of King Charles of France.

1421 -- this was the year China discovered America, 600 years later Noah leaves the Ark for a whole new beginning. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/1421-gavin-menzies/1005471215

So then these years seem to be all about the new world order as the power moves from France to England and ultimately to the New World. Noah stepping out of the ark into a new land is like the Chinese discovering America in 1421. We can imagine the end of the age is very similar with the AntiChrist being in charge of Europe and the Old World Order making one last gasp attempt to hold onto power as we enter the new age of the millenial kingdom.

 

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The Gates of Hell

 

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The Gates of Hell

Best thing I have ever seen from an Archbishop of the Catholic church!

15:14 - 16:25 - We don't have a Pope who will defend those who do not want to have the experimental gene serum. Nor bishops who will raise their voices to condemn the use of aborted fetuses to produce these so-called vaccines. On the contrary the shepherds kick us out of churches if we don't have the Green Pass. They remove the priest who does not yield to the pandemic delirium, and in the Vatican the employees of the Holy See are fired, including the Swiss guards who refuse to get branded by rejecting the diktat of a courtly hierarchy of the New World Order. I express here my total solidarity with priests outlawed by their bishops, and with the former Swiss Guards; in particular to Pierre-André Udressy, who had the courage to publicly denounce the abuses he suffered by the Vatican authorities.

 

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Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. 10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. 11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. 12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. 13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. 14 And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. 15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.

This chapter provides us a little time line of the rapture. Immediately prior to the Rapture the dragon is in the center of the picture wanting to devour the man child as it is born. That is interesting when you consider that it is only recently that China has taken center stage on the world scene. However, what I want to focus on is what happens after the rapture and it seems it is pretty much immediately after the rapture (days and weeks rather than months and years). The dragon and all his angels are cast to the earth, the woman who brought forth the man child flees to the wilderness on the wings of the great eagle, "and the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman". I think this must be referring to great floods in China, though it might not be limited to China. What is interesting to me is that there is a flood season for the Yangtze which begins in early June and runs for more than two months. No doubt this flood is far more extreme than a typical seasonal flood, still a massive flood that causes dams to collapse could be apocalyptic in the Yangtze river valley were over 500 million people live and where a very significant portion of the world's manufacturing takes place. There is a very interesting similarity between the geography of the three gorges dam and the womb for a woman, the term rapture also refers to when the water breaks for a pregnant woman. If the three gorges dam were to burst it would be apocalyptic. Not only so but there are a number of hints in the Bible of a spring time rapture: "first fruits", verses in Song of Songs describing spring time when the Lord wants her to come away, the story of Ruth, the similarity between the Shavuot where the Law was given and the rapture, etc. This could be one more hint.

 

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1Thessalonians 5:2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

 

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Volcanoes can have a powerful cooling effect on the earth by pumping ash and chemicals into the atmosphere that block sunlight for six months and longer.

A second major concern is that they cause transportation issues. Active volcanoes cause air traffic to fly around the plumes. We have active volcanoes currently in the US, Japan, Spain, Italy, and near Australia and New Zealand. This could easily become a very big problem where airtraffic is like running the steeple chase.

There have been times in Earth's history when incredible volcanic activity was tied to massive extinction events like the volcanic activity in Siberia during the Permian extinction.

 

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The Spirit of Nero = The Spirit of the Antichrist

The defining moment for Nero was the great fire of Rome. At this point in time it is not possible to conclusively blame Nero for the fire and I am inclined to believe it was a "happy accident". He says afterward that he will build back better and he does. This is the concept of the "great reset". In typical sociopathic fashion you trivialize the death and destruction and instead spin this as a great step forward. The problem is that to take credit for this you have to claim to be a visionary genius. This is what Daniel says, the antichrist takes credit for the things God does. That is truly the spirit of Antichrist. Sure enough Nero builds a huge statue of himself on the ruins and rubble from this fire. That in turn causes a great backlash and his popularity goes into the tubes. These sociopaths are truly idiotic having no clue what people think. Recently in the Governor's race one candidate said to the parents to keep their mouths shut and let the experts handle the education of their kids (I'm paraphrasing). Obama came and campaigned for him and said they had "fake outrage over fake problems". These fake problems included the curriculum teaching pornography to first graders and teaching kids that they are either evil oppressors or impotent victims depending on their skin color. They also said that dad's who were upset at their JHS daughters getting raped in the bathroom by boys were "domestic terrorists".

Nero is a guy whose father was murdered because the emperor thought he could rival him for the throne, Nero murdered his first wife who was his cousin and murdered his mother and of course saw Caligula murdered when he had been emperor. Making a blunder of the magnitude of his statue was not a small thing, it could mean his death. So he comes up with a solution which he deserves full credit for and which is where he truly earns his reputation of being an evil genius. He realizes if he blames some small Jewish sect, a group that neither the pagans or the orthodox Jews care for he could manipulate the populace. So, he turns on the Christians and is savage and cruel in his torture and murder. He turns murder into a spectator sport. He was raised up and taught by actors and actresses as a child and so he is way ahead of his contemporaries in understanding how to use theater to his advantage. Just as today a politician must be able to use the internet and social media and in Nixon's time they needed to know how to use TV, Nero knew how to use theater.

So what is the spirit of Nero.

1. Never let a crisis go to waste. Do not look at the city burning down and the people dying and suffering loss as a crisis, but rather an opportunity to build your kingdom. Even if he wasn't the evil genius who planned this, all that followed learned from him. Hitler and the Reichstag fire, Cheney and 9/11, the Pandemic and Biden. You use a crisis to manipulate people and get what you want.

2. Put a positive spin on it. Don't call it the great fire of Rome, call it "the great reset". Biden called the catastrophe in Afghanistan a "success".

3. Take credit for everything that happens as though you were God.

4. When you are caught in your lies and hypocrisies get that off the front page of the news by giving the people a much more graphic and entertaining story. Our emperor is an egotistical narcissist is old news, replace that with blood, guts, people screaming in the streets, and some paranoid conspiracy theory. Far more entertaining, your story will be buried.

This is the earthly wisdom that is evil that the writers of the New Testament warn us of.

1. They are not going to let this pandemic go to waste. A vaccine Passport increases the governments ability to control and monitor the population. Think about it, you don't have to go to court and have lawyers and facts and press reporting on it, you have a political opponent just give them a bad social score and you get rid of them.

2. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris promised the moon. Human rights abuses at the border would end as soon as they were elected, your college loans would be forgiven, only the rich will pay taxes, only people making over $400,000 will have to pay more in taxes, oops only families making more than $400,000 will have to pay more in taxes, oops only families making $60,000 or more a year will pay an extra $2,000 a year in taxes.

3. The flip side of taking credit for everything is to blame others for everything you don't want to take credit for. Impeach Trump after he is no longer president, accuse 75 million who voted for Trump of being racists insurrectionists, domestic terrorists, etc.

4. They are now caught in lies. They are caught in election fraud, they are caught in fabricating the whole Jan 6th insurrection, they are caught in selling influence. So we can definitely expect them to try and get that off the front page with something much worse.

 

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Vaccine Mandate -- One step at a time to the MOTB

I agree that they would never try to force the vaccine on 100% of the people, not even on 20% of the people.

1st -- let those who are lining up for the shot get it. Promise that there won't be mandates because they are unconstitutional.

2nd -- offer free fries or lottery tickets to those to get the shot.

3rd. -- Get the shot so things will get back to normal

4th -- Get the shot and you can go to the restaurant again

5th -- Get the shot or lose your job, however those who are claiming that you will have to get the booster shot are simply fear mongering.

6th -- Seize assets, fine people who won't get the shot. Take children out of families who aren't vaccinated. Mandate the vaccine to children, mandate the booster.

7th -- If they can pass a minimum salary provided by the government then they can take that away from anyone not vaccinated.

8th -- Quarantine camps

9th -- Get the shot or get your head chopped off.

At this point it is probably less than 10% of the population, maybe only 5%. If you think this sounds absurd you still think the vaccine is for your health.

 

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Spirit of Nero is the Spirit of the Antichrist part 2

Everything so far is pretty bad, it is Hitler level, but Nero got worse. The sane people saw Nero as someone who needed to go, but sadly Nero realized this before they could act and his paranoia knew no limits. Monkey trials, summary executions, black lists the size of telephone books. That put him on Stalin's level, but still it got worse. He murdered his 2nd wife and went into Norman Bates territory having her body stuffed so he could visit it and then finding a 13 year old boy that looked like her, forcing him to wear her clothes, castrating the boy, and then marrying him.

When you look at Nero you see a boy raised up in the theater in a world of intrigue, betrayal and murder. He has no inclination to be a ruler but he does understand the theater and how to take any event and turn it into a story that makes him the hero. At first he is liked quite a bit (so far resembles Hitler). But then he shows a true talent at intrigue and turns into a megalomaniac with the most evil wisdom. As the blood guiltiness grows and grows so does his paranoia and mental collapse. You could say he has become completely demon possessed.

But then he is killed and that spirit can cook slowly in the fires of hell for two thousand years before entering into the resuscitated antichrist after suffering a head wound.

 

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The Lord's strategy

As a US citizen you have the right to protest, to assemble, to request a religious exemption to the vaccine, and to use the courts to sue. All of those are valid strategies for US citizens, but they are not the Christian strategy.

We are citizens of the heavens, we are here to witness of the Lord, our status here is as ambassadors of the heavenly King. When you enter the city you should say "peace" to the city. If they receive you then you stay, you work, you behave as a testimony of Jesus. However, if they don't welcome you, if they say get the vaccine or else you are not welcome here. you cannot eat at the restaurant, you cannot fly on the plane, you cannot stay at your job, then in that case you are to shake the dust off from the city (leave your job, sell your house, etc) and go to another city that does welcome you.

Suppose instead of protests, walk outs, and civil disobedience the people in NYC who do not wish to be vaccinated did that! NYC would collapse on itself. Apartment buildings would not have rentors, housing prices would fall, shortages would be in all of the various industries and services, tax revenue would plummet.

Political power is based on population. If 50% of NYC residents left NYC would become far less significant a city and wherever they moved to would gain political influence.

 

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I have seen an interesting correlation between the ten plagues in Egypt with what has been happening the world recently.

1. The pandemic turned the water of the Nile (signifying their economy) to blood. Bodies piled up and we had to shut down business.

2. Frogs -- this is like all those junky little things you get, t shirts at a concert, some trinket from vacation, etc. These were the first businesses to go bust due to to the shutdown.

3. BLM protests were like lice or gnats. Annoying but not that big a deal.

4. Antifa riots were like the flies, they stung, they hurt, they caused real damage.

5. Livestock is the big industry, and the pestilence we have seen is this "woke culture" along with Cancel culture. MLB moving all star game to Denver, NBA cancelling playoff game because of perceived injustice to Jacob Blake. As a result ratings for NBA, MLB, NFL etc are down 40%. Many other businesses suffering too.

6. Boils -- this is where we caught them in their lies. They lied about the the pandemic, boils all over their face, they lied about Hunter Biden's laptop, lies all over their face, "Let's go Brandon" is pointing out they have lies all over their face. CNN has seen their ratings drop 80%. The mainstream media is no longer mainstream, instead they are the "legacy media".

7. Thunderstorm of hail and fire -- Earthquake and volcanic activity is up 100 fold. Floods and fires are now a daily occurrence.

8. Locusts -- The vaccine mandate is stripping these businesses bare. Airlines cancelling 2,000 flights in a single day. Firehouses shutting down because of the mandate, people in every industry leaving because of it.

9. Darkness for three days -- This is where we are at now, we can only speculate what this will be.

10. Death of the firstborn -- this was retribution because they had killed the Israelis firstborn years earlier. Could this vaccine mandate be the final nail in the coffin for "Egypt"?

 

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Exodus 12:1-15 -- The Lord will eat this Passover again with us at the time of the rapture

1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.

A new age begins with this age, the age of the nation of Israel. In the same way the Church age also began with the Lord instituting the Lord’s table exactly the same time that the age of Israel ended (they began by celebrating the Passover and ended by instituting the Lord’s table). Also, please note, the children of Israel left Egypt exactly 430 years to the day from when they entered Egypt. The age of slavery in Egypt began and ended on this day, the age of the nation of Israel began and ended on this day.

Luke 22:14 When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. 15 And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”

What does this mean, “eat it again”, Christ is our Passover, sacrificed for us? Also, “it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God”. The Passover is the deliverance from the slavery of sin. This will not be fully accomplished until the rapture. Also, please note, this account is peculiar to Luke alone, the gospel to those who are raptured first. This feast became the Lord’s table which is a dress rehearsal for the marriage feast. The fulfillment of the marriage feast will occur at the time of the rapture, therefore it stands to reason that the fulfillment of this feast that the Lord is referring to occurs at the wedding feast. At that time “He will eat it again”. Why? Because His bride matches Him. Our sacrifice becomes a feast for Him to enjoy. Our experiences of Christ become the meal that He enjoys.

3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.

You have to select the lamb, examine the lamb and prepare the lamb. This takes time. So the month begins not with the Passover, but with the preparation for the Passover and that Preparation begins with the instructions from the Lord. You have ten days to follow those instructions.

This is household salvation. This is how God operates, this is how the church operates. We move as one large family. We have babies, we have the elderly, we have our animals, we are all going. Moses didn’t flee Egypt the first chance he had with just the men, he made it clear we are all going from the youngest to the eldest. The atheists mock as the Lord saying He delays His coming, but Moses waited until everyone would be saved.

5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.

When did the soldiers pierce Jesus with the spear? Twilight. This is a rehearsal, they are practicing for the main event.

7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs.

The blood is a sign that you live in a house where a lamb has been slain and where you are one with the slain lamb. Since the days of Cain the world has killed the innocent lambs out of greed or jealousy. Pharaoh ordered the midwives to kill the babies. The US legalized abortion so that sixty million babies could be killed. They are mandating this vaccine for kids. There is a reckoning to be had for those actions. Everyone is going to fall into one of two houses, a house where they are one with the slain lamb, or the house that killed the innocent lambs. If you are guilty of innocent blood the last thing you want to do is to advertise that by putting the blood on your doorpost. On the other hand if you are appealing to the Lord for justice for the innocent blood slain you would put it on your door. If the wedding feast is the fulfillment of this feast then make sure you are in a house that puts the blood on their doorpost letting all know that they are one with the slain lamb.

8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs,and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it.

During this age of grace we have thoroughly consumed the lamb. Before going forward God demands that we thoroughly become one with the slain lamb and the bitter herbs. Yeast signifies the customs and traditions. At this point in time Israel didn't have any customs and traditions.

11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

We should all be ready at any moment to leave this earth and join the Lord in air. You get dressed to leave prior to eating, it gives you the proper mindset.

12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord.

Right now it is the night, and the tribulation is just about to start. When it does there will be weeping and wailing heard in Egypt. The rapture is likened to a thief in the night. The Passover has an angel of death in the night who steals the firstborn of Egypt. The ones that the Lord takes during the rapture, they may be despised slaves, but they are the “firstborn” of the Egyptian economy. This is why I do not act like chicken little with the events that are happening around the world, everything is in place for this judgement but it won't happen until the same night as this rapture. The church gets caught up at the same time that Satan gets cast down. When Paul said we knew perfectly well that the Lord's coming was as a thief in the night it is because that is how the Passover came, as a thief in the night.

13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

This is why it is called the Passover. The avenging angel came by and saw what? That the Jews were righteous? No, they saw the blood of the lamb. That is a testimony that those in this house fear God and obey His commands. That is what we mean by “justification by faith”. You aren’t justified because you were a really good person, or that you have been treated unfairly so this will balance it out. You are justified because you fear God and obey His commands. You are justified by the blood of the lamb, not of sheep and goats, but of His Son, Jesus Christ. This word for "pass over" is related to the word "stand". It suggests God standing over the house to keep the avenging angel away. Putting the blood on the door is a testimony that you belong to God and God will protect what belongs to Him.

14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.

Here is yet another command that you will keep if you fear God. This is something that is easy to misunderstand. First, you can go to the grocery store and buy yeast to leaven your bread, but you don’t have to. Sour dough is bread made with a “natural leaven”. If you simply leave the dough out in the air for a period of time leaven from the air will land on it, and begin to leaven it. It is highly unlikely that the Jews “bought” leaven which they added to their bread. What they all most likely did was to add a sour dough starter to it which does the same thing. In fact if you simply make dough in a wooden bowl that you always use for this purpose it will leaven the bread. So then to get “unleavened bread” not only did they not add the sour dough starter, but you also don’t give the dough a chance to rise. It is made in haste. Personally I like to make bread and I like to use a sour dough starter. I think it makes the bread delicious. But that is not how soldiers eat, they eat crackers. You can fit more food in a smaller space. This is not a meal for a five star restaurant but rather for an army on the move. Also, if I am not going to use my sour dough starter for a week I might as well throw it out. That also is part of the law, remove all leaven from your house, it is a spring cleaning. When you enjoy God’s word you don’t need to be a french chef, take the word, crush it up, add a little water, some salt, and there you go, the bread of life.

 

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Exodus 12:16-30 Don't forget where you came from

16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you may do.

You got to love this. This is the Jewish thanksgiving and it lasts a week and you have two big celebrations on the first day and the last. When you look at the Jewish festivals it seems all they do is have sabbaths where you do no work, and sacred assemblies and eat food. But the reality is that in the world people have much more free time than this, they don’t know what to do with themselves so they seem empty. Having all these great celebrations that everyone is involved in, they are fun. The year starts with this great week long thanksgiving remembering when you were like an army leaving Egypt and all the wonders God performed. It ends with the feast of tabernacles where you get to stay in a tent. It is like the yearly feasts were designed by a ten year old. Even if the parents work every other day that is not mentioned you still have some great quality family time every year, not just with your family but your cousins, and all your friends. Likewise think of the rapture, the first day would be a great celebration, then seven days later (7 years according to Daniel's prophecy) you would have the marriage of the Lamb, the second big celebration.

17 “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.18 In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. 19 For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. 20 Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.”

Obviously no Jewish bakery would be making bread with yeast, so if you had bread with yeast you bought it from the world. One week don’t eat the world’s bread. Beware of the leaven of the pharisees. A Hollywood movie has been leavened, prepared by the finest chefs the world has. By contrast your unleavened bread may taste like dry crackers. But it is special, you made it, and you are remembering when you came out of slavery. You weren’t coming out of a five star restaurant. These are real experiences.

21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning.

My understanding is that hyssop refers to our faith as being small and weak. We don’t even get to use a real paint brush. Our bread is crackers, and all we have is some weed to wipe the blood with. But that is real, that is how we started out. Don’t forget where you came from.

23 When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

Be at peace, this is how the year began, it has only been a year to God, so relax He isn’t all of a sudden going to let the destroyer rough up the church at the end of the age.

24 “Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’” Then the people bowed down and worshiped. 28 The Israelites did just what the Lord commandedMoses and Aaron.

This is why we keep the Lord’s table every month. It is meaningful and it is a rehearsal for the wedding dinner. Think about a terrifying thought for a moment, imagine you had to stand up during the Lord’s table and share your experience of the Lord. It would be like a cracker you made, or it might look like the blood smeared on the lintel with some shrub. Now imagine you need to do that at the real wedding feast of the Lord at the end of this age! That is why we need to practice each week. We are preparing to see the Lord on that day.

29 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

Everyone is crying “how long O Lord will you not judge and avenge our blood?” Then when the Lord does answer that prayer they are shocked, how horrible! Yes, Cain killing Abel was horrible, Pharaoh killing the Jewish babies was horrible, America aborting sixty million babies was horrible. There will be a day of judgement and on that day there will be a loud wailing in Egypt.

 

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2Samuel 4 We will live or die with the choices we make

Two points we need to understand. First why is this called 2 Samuel? Samuel died before any of the events in this book take place. These two books, which form a bridge from the priesthood to the kingship, are in two parts. You have the Saul part and the David part. Everyone makes this same mistake so God in his wisdom presented the error with Saul which takes us from doing what is right in our own mind all the way to the bitter end of that choice. It then shows us God’s choice. In fact these two books present one choice after the next. How do you react under pressure and how do you choose when so much is on the line? How do you choose a king? What do you do when all those following you are leaving? Where do you go when staying in Israel means you will ultimately die? These two books present to us the two choices by Samuel, one according to the flesh the other according to the Spirit. We will often have very valid justifications for our choice: Saul is taller, bigger, faster, stronger than anyone else. It is so natural, so easy to choose based on that. For example, every football team will draft players each year. Their ability to select the right person determines their success or failure. I was very impressed by something that Brett Favre said concerning Tom Brady. Tom is not the fastest quarterback by a longshot and he doesn’t have the strongest arm. So what is it that makes him the greatest quarterback of all time? Doesn’t make sense? First, he is the most accurate. Every quarterback in the NFL can throw an accurate football, but to do it consistently day in, day out, throughout your career under every condition, that requires diligence and attention to detail. Second, he is “elusive”. He can’t outrun the defensive linemen but he can sidestep. Most quarterbacks will get “flushed” out of the pocket when they feel pressure, instead he sidesteps and then continues about his business of finding the open man. Third, like Joe Montana, he is “mr. Cool”, doesn’t get anxious or down. He was down by 19 points in the Super Bowl to Atlanta in the fourth quarter. His response was that it was very hot that day and he figured the defense would get tired. He is always seeing some sliver of hope. Here is what impressed me about this. Every coach will preach discipline and practice, every coach will tell quarterbacks to sidestep pressure and to stay in the pocket. Brady listened and obeyed. All the other quarterbacks who had a good chance to outrun defensive linemen didn’t. Not only so but you can see “superstar” quarterbacks down by three scores in the fourth quarter throwing in the towel. They don’t have faith. There were several things that happened in that Atlanta game that were beyond Brady’s control. Faith is not just in your ability but in your teammates and in God. But listening and obeying, that is critical. Having faith, that is critical. These should be at the top of the NFL’s scouting list of qualities to look for. Disobedience is an expression of unbelief.

The second big point is what does this mean, “to go back to your roots”? Why is Hebron where Abraham buried his dead the place to return to? Abraham was the father of faith, he was also the father of Isaac. To be a father is not simply a result of biology but also because of lessons he passed on to his son. He taught Isaac faith. When he sacrificed Isaac on the mountaintop he taught Isaac that we must have faith in God even if that means death in us. We must be willing to put our dreams, hopes, and everything we have on the altar to God. This is what we see David do time and time again. His dream and his hope was to be king of Israel, how do you go and live with the Philistines? Well in truth he lived in Ziklag which was part of Israel’s inheritance given to them by God but which they had given over to the Philistines. Think of this election in Virginia, education is part of our inheritance and yet we had given it to the leftists and communists. How do you support the men following you? David did what God had commanded the king to do, he utterly destroyed the Amalekites. He didn’t get any glory for this, instead he was despised as a deplorable. To be faithful to God is far more important than to give big “sacrifices” to God, big parties where everyone can come and see how great David is. Why is it that everyone else is wrong, Saul is wrong, Abner is wrong, Joab is wrong, Ish-Bosheth is wrong, Israel is wrong but only David is right? David is taking the path that leads to life because he is following the lesson of Abraham to put everything on the altar. His future, his being king, his pride are all on the altar. He does not dare to lift a hand against God’s anointed. Why not? It would be self defense. Because if you are a living sacrifice to God you don’t need “self defense”. If you belong to God then God will respond if someone tries to kill or damage you, likewise since Saul belongs to God David has no standing to lift a hand against him.

1 When Ish-Bosheth son of Saul heard that Abner had died in Hebron, he lost courage, and all Israel became alarmed. 2 Now Saul’s son had two men who were leaders of raiding bands. One was named Baanah and the other Rekab; they were sons of Rimmon the Beerothite from the tribe of Benjamin—Beeroth is considered part of Benjamin, 3 because the people of Beeroth fled to Gittaim and have resided there as foreigners to this day.

4 (Jonathan son of Saul had a son who was lame in both feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel. His nurse picked him up and fled, but as she hurried to leave, he fell and became disabled. His name was Mephibosheth.)

5 Now Rekab and Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, set out for the house of Ish-Bosheth, and they arrived there in the heat of the day while he was taking his noonday rest. 6 They went into the inner part of the house as if to get some wheat, and they stabbed him in the stomach. Then Rekab and his brother Baanah slipped away.

7 They had gone into the house while he was lying on the bed in his bedroom. After they stabbed and killed him, they cut off his head. Taking it with them, they traveled all night by way of the Arabah. 8 They brought the head of Ish-Bosheth to David at Hebron and said to the king, “Here is the head of Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, your enemy, who tried to kill you. This day the Lord has avenged my lord the king against Saul and his offspring.”

Wow, look at the arrogance. “This day the Lord has avenged my lord the king”. Really, it was the Lord who murdered and beheaded him?

9 David answered Rekab and his brother Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As surely as the Lord lives, who has delivered me out of every trouble, 10 when someone told me, ‘Saul is dead,’ and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and put him to death in Ziklag. That was the reward I gave him for his news! 11 How much more—when wicked men have killed an innocent man in his own house and on his own bed—should I not now demand his blood from your hand and rid the earth of you!”

An innocent man? Really? He doesn’t mean in a theological sense. We have already learned that Ish-Bosheth is corrupt enough to cause Abner to leave. Many people will justify their actions because “he deserved it”. Not that he was found guilty in a court of law, but he is basically a bad person. The “never Trumpers” are like this. They don’t take issue with his pro life judges, they don’t have an issue with the improvement to the economy or the fact that he didn’t get us into any wars, or even the peace treaty he brokered with Israel. No, it is because some of the things he has said proves to them that he is a bad man. In any court of law those quotes would have been inadmissible because they were irrelevant. But now people want to justify all sorts of crimes like censorship and tyranny because of these things.

12 So David gave an order to his men, and they killed them. They cut off their hands and feet and hung the bodies by the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-Bosheth and buried it in Abner’s tomb at Hebron.

Your hands and your feet need to be fully under the Lord’s leading. There can be no compromise. That is what it means to be a king. Abner is in the tomb because he chose Ish-Bosheth as head rather than the Lord.


I heard one person answer the question “what does Tom Brady winning the Super Bowl in Tampa do to Bill Belechik’s legacy?” He said that it doesn’t do very much to his legacy as a coach. He is still a great defensive coordinator and a great coach. But it does a lot to his legacy as a General Manager. The damage done to Belechik is not about his ability on the battle field as a strategist and tactician. No, the damage done is on his ability to choose who should head his team. People remember what you did last the most. Can you imagine if Belechik never wins another Super Bowl? His record without Brady as quarterback could wind up below .500. This will become a permanent mark on his legacy. Second of all, how much will this affect the team's trust in his ability to act as GM?