The first chapter of Genesis is a synopsis of Yahweh’s creative obsession with life, recording in cryptic scriptural shorthand the incredible lengths God took in order to arrive at His goal: a man who would walk with Him in Spirit. But the biological life with which Yahweh gifted our race is, I believe, merely a metaphor for the spiritual life that defines His nature—a life we can share if we want to, if we’re willing to receive it on God’s terms.

So it comes as something of a shock to reach the end of the story—the last seven years of our age—only to find Yahweh undoing so much of what He had previously done. We now see Him enthusiastically dismantling biological life in the wake of mankind’s almost universal refusal to receive His love and fellowship. “Behold, Yahweh will empty the earth and make it desolate, and He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants…. The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched, and few men are left.” (Isaiah 24:1, 5-6)

We are used to reading of God’s judgment falling upon one nation or another in response to their wickedness, beginning with Israel. These things are a matter of historical record. But this is different: Yahweh is now seen dealing with the entire earth: “Yahweh is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.” (Jeremiah 10:10) And then, “Behold, the storm of Yahweh! Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of the wicked. The anger of Yahweh will not turn back until He has executed and accomplished the intents of His heart. In the latter days you will understand it clearly.” (Jeremiah 23:19-20) Man has largely ignored the prospect of God’s anger for almost five thousand years, because since Noah’s day, it has never before loomed as a universal phenomenon. But “in the latter days,” in the next decade or two if I’m seeing this correctly, we will finally begin to understand that although His mercy endures forever, His patience does not. Why? Because “the intents of His heart” are for Yahweh to cleanse the planet of wickedness, set it apart for His own glory, and to celebrate the love that exists between Him and His bride forever, beginning with a thousand-year party—a honeymoon, if you will—the Millennial reign of Christ.

Isaiah, in a passage we visited previously, concurs: “Behold, the day of Yahweh comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it…. I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless. I will make people more rare than fine gold, and mankind than the gold of Ophir.” (Isaiah 13:9, 11-12) Human life won’t be extinguished from the earth, but we will become an endangered species. Yahshua Himself explained the grim reality of these days: “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.” (Matthew 24:21-22) The book of Revelation lists two separate, specific events that between them account for the deaths of half the world’s population—first a quarter of us, and later, another one third. And there will be hundreds of ways to die (many of which are overtly prophesied) that can’t logically be included in either of these two causes. This all suggests to me that beginning with a population of seven billion souls, more or less, we’re going to be down below the one billion mark—and perhaps far below it—by the time the Millennium gets underway, especially after the separation of the sheep and the goats (a process described in Matthew 25:31-46). My own admittedly wild guess is that about three hundred million people (including about five million Jews) will enter the Kingdom as mortal believers—roughly the population of the earth when Christ first walked among us two thousand years ago.

This is where confusion ensues for most folks. If the church has been raptured out of the world before the Tribulation begins (in clear fulfillment of Revelation 3:10, not to mention the prophetic requirements of the Feast of Trumpets), then where did all these new believers come from? Where did they hear the truth? From two sources, both of which are spoken of together in Revelation 14. The first is a group of newly enlightened young Jewish men, 144,000 of them. I believe their witness is primarily to the nation of Israel. The second source of truth is the angelic witness, described as flying through the air, having “an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.’” (Revelation 14:6-7)

The 144,000 are “sealed,” that is, they cannot be slain in their mortal bodies during the Tribulation. But the neo-Laodiceans are not similarly protected. They will die in horrendous numbers during the great unpleasantness, whether martyred for their new faith or simply because they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. (A nuclear weapon or earthquake is very democratic.) Indeed, the same chapter that describes who witnessed to them makes this grim note: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on…that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!” (Revelation 14:13) These Laodicean believers were instructed and encouraged in two different contexts by Yahshua. In the Olivet Discourse, He said to them, “You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives.” (Luke 21:16-19) And in very similar language, He spoke to the Twelve as they were sent out to minister (though the instruction was clearly meant for those who would follow in their footsteps—especially during the Tribulation): “Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 10:21-22)

But saved or not, death will be the order of the day during the Tribulation. The seal judgments do not mince words: “When He [Yahshua] opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, ‘Come!’ And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that men should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.” (Revelation 6:3-4) Then, “When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, ‘Come!’ And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.” (Revelation 6:7-8) Lest we should lose our bearings in all this carnage, the One opening the seals unleashing all this death is the same One who said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) There is no contradiction here. The “they” in Yahshua’s statement refers to His “sheep,” His children, those who have placed themselves under His protection. The “sword and famine and pestilence and wild beasts” are meant for those who do not know—who don’t want to know—the Good Shepherd.

I mentioned that there were two well-defined causes of global-scale death in Revelation. The second of these is this: “Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’ So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind.” (Revelation 9:13-15) These demonic messengers inspire the “kings of the east” to perpetrate the last great war—a two hundred million man Chinese army (you can tell by the colors in their flag in verse 17) will ravage the Far East, killing somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.7 billion souls between Japan, Southeast Asia, and India. This—what I’d call World War IV—will follow the Muslim-triggered nuclear holocaust (WWIII) that will decimate one quarter of humanity in the West by only three or four years. What lies between these two wars? The ascension of the Antichrist to the undisputed throne of planet earth. Blessed are the peacemakers. And vice versa.

Both wars are in view in Revelation 14 (yes, the same chapter that told us of the 144,000 and the angelic evangelist). World War III (described under the fourth seal and the first trumpet) is described first: “Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, ‘Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.’ So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped….” Grain isn’t supposed to stand out in the field until it’s rotten. At some point it needs to be mown down. And harvest time works out rather better for the farmer than it does for the wheat.

It’s the same basic picture in the vineyard, but this gets a bit messier: “Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over the fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, ‘Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.’” Note the word “then.” This is a different harvest, a different war. This time World War IV—the war of the kings of the East—is being described. “So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia.” (Revelation 14:14-20) Now you know why the sixth bowl judgment (Revelation 16:12) required that the Euphrates River must be dried up: The last battle of the last war will commence west of where they started, at a place called Har Megiddo—the “mountain of rendezvous”—known to the world as Armageddon. The objective: to annihilate Yahweh’s people Israel, once and for all.

Will Satan’s armies succeed? No. It’s a bloodbath, remember? 1,600 stadia is equivalent to about 180 miles—pretty much the entire north-south length of the land of Israel. Zechariah reports, “On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it…. And this shall be the plague with which Yahweh will strike all the peoples that wage war against Jerusalem: their flesh will rot while they are still standing on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.” (Zechariah 12:3, 14:12) That’s a pretty squishy picture: multiplied millions of the bodies of God’s enemies, not just dead, but mashed to bloody goo three or four feet deep. Who’s going to clean up the mess? Yahweh’s taken care of that, too: “Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, ‘Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great….’ And [they] were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.” (Revelation 19:17-18, 21)

I could go on, but you get the picture: in the end, life is for the living. Yahweh—in the person of Yahshua the Messiah—will, someday soon, separate the dead from the living, even if those who are dead are “still standing on their feet.”

There was no motive then for drowning innocent children, babies and animals but that is ok with you?

Better to drown them as collateral fucking damage than putting lazy guardian angels on them for protection.

More importantly, who is the Anti-Christ?

I mean why did he not create humans that would automatically, robotically and by design, love Him. I mean, he is God after all?

I have been leaning towards a 'playing with us' atheist, but with this last post filled with everything new agey, I have to agree GIA = OPRAH

Issah, now I understand why even though Yahweh loves us, He's reluctant to kiss us on the lips.

kp

no free-will and no ability to communicate, plus our natures are completely different therefore it can't understand me and I can't even fully understand it.

We are made in God's image, both male and female with free-will. .

Oprah! Funny, Ed.

Matthew, you mentioned something that struck a nerve. Why do we "put our pets down?" Because we hate them? Because we want to exercise dominance over them? Of course not. It's because when they get so ill that we can no longer take care of them, when they get to the point that they're suffering horribly, when all we can do is watch helplessly, when their "quality of life" is completely negative, then, as emotionally painful as it is for us, the only merciful thing we can do is end their lives. We don't like to do it; we would avoid it if we could. But sometimes, in the end, it's the only compassionate course of action left to us. I've been there. I know what it's like.

What struck me is this: when the human race becomes so corrupt that there's no way to save it, would a merciful God allow it to continue indefinitely? Obviously, it would take the wisdom of God Himself to know when that point had come (and I don't think we've quite reached it yet---not quite). But we can see that condition right around the historical corner. Some of us humans are terminally ill poodles, for whom the only merciful thing God could do is "put us out of our misery." Some are rabid dobermans---a snarling danger to anyone who ventures too close. And some of us (too few, it appears) are still healthy, spiritually speaking. We may be young and vigorous---and like immature puppies apt to draw our Master's ire from time to time by chewing on His slippers; or we may be older and more mature---still not perfect, but beloved companions anyway.

Yahweh has informed us that there will come a time when He will, of necessity, deal as best He can with all three groups. He'll shelter the healthy ones, and---for the benefit of the planet---He'll put down the rabid attack dogs. But---and this is the one that sticks in the craw of guys like "I am the Greatest" (or whatever it is)---Yah will also, with sadness and reluctance no doubt but also in a spirit of compassion, decide it's time to put the sick ones out of their misery. Why prolong their agony any longer? Guys like GIA seem to think that Yahweh is looking forward to the Tribulation with fiendish glee. No, He's not. I'll tell you what He's feeling, 'cause I've been there, too: He's feeling the agony I felt when I had to instruct the doctors to pull the plug, to stop the artificial life-support for my brain-dead father. I would have done anything to avoid that moment. But there was nothing left that I could do. I loved my father. Hell, I even loved my cat. But when it's over, it's over. I do not envy Yahweh the pain He's feeling right now.

kp

Choosing the nostrils instead. Why did Yahweh breathe His Spirit into Adam's nostrils rather than through the mouth? What can we learn from this?

Well, the thought police are deleting all my posts but I will try one more time.

You say God makes man with free will.

God says do it my way or burn forever or be punished somehow forever.

Is this what you call free will? It is what I call a threat from a tyrant.

Hosea 1:10
Ye are the sons of the living God.

I have accepted my fate as a son of God.

Will you not do so.

Have ye forgotten that ye are Gods.

That the Bible is a book of myths because God does not breath. He has no lungs.

Grow up son and stop believing in fantasy.

What a game for God to play!
Create a place for eternal bliss as well as a place for eternal suffering.
Then create beings whom you love dearly and watch over.
And in the end, decide which to consider "trash" and "throw away" into the place for eternal suffering and which to cling to and love in the place for eternal bliss.
Even man, with all his faults, is greater and more responsible.

James

Generally speaking, any that forme a belief on fantasy characters are wrong in their interpretations.

God does not need fantasy to show his messages to us.

Regards
DL

I think maybe James and Greatest I Am need to get a room :-