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Bruce McKerras
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Joined: 07/19/2013
Location: New Zealand
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Posts: 74
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Posted: 08/28/2016 at 8:00pm
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The Book of Zephaniah, The name Zephaniah means – God reveals hidden secrets:
Keep silent before the Lord, for the Day of the Lord is near, He has prepared a sacrifice and set apart those He has invited.
The Great Day of the Lord is near and coming fast, no runner is as swift as that Day, no warrior so fleet. That Day will be a Day of God’s wrath, a Day of anguish and torment, a Day of destruction and devastation, a Day of cloud and darkness, of trumpet calls and distress of the peoples. Because of their sins, their blood will be poured out and their bowels spilled like dung. Their rich possessions will not avail to save them from the fire of the Lord’s wrath, for He will make a sudden and terrible end to all who live in the holy Land.
On the Day of the Lord’s sacrifice, He will stretch His hand over Judah, [the State of Israel] and over all who live in Jerusalem. He will wipe out from that Land all traces of idol worship, all those who have turned their backs to Him and have neither sought the Lord nor acknowledged Him. The Lord will punish their leaders and rabbis, all those who are ruined by complacency and all who commit crimes of violence and fraud. There will be a great noise as the Land is devastated, even the birds and fish will be gone and the whole earth will be affected by the fire of His judgement.
Humble yourselves, you shameful nation before you disappear like burning chaff, before the burning anger of the Lord comes upon you. Seek the Lord all you dwellers in the Land, seek righteousness, seek humility and it may be that you will find shelter on the Day of the Lord’s wrath.
Gaza and all the cities of the Palestinians will be deserted and become a waste, at noon day, they will all be laid in ruins, bereft of inhabitants. Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and Arabia will become like Sodom, a deserted wasteland and those of My people who survive - the remnant of My nation, will take over those lands. You Cushites too, [Arab and African peoples] will be slain by the Lord. This will be a retribution for their arrogance, for they have insulted the Lord’s people and encroached on their Land. The Lord will bring terror upon them and will discredit their religion. Then the people of the coast and islands, [the Western nations] will worship the Lord, each in their own country.
Woe to Judah, they heeded no warning, took no rebuke to heart and never put their trust in the Lord. Her leaders are like roaring lions, her rabbis have falsified the Law, but the Lord in their midst dispenses justice to them. Twice now, [using Babylon and Rome] He has destroyed their cities and exiled them, so He thought: surely now they will fear Me and take My instruction to heart. But they have hastened all the more to do evil and go their own sinful way. Therefore wait for the Day when the Lord stands up and accuses them! He will pour His fiery wrath upon them and the earth will be enveloped by the flames of His wrath. On that Day, the Lord will rid the Land of all the proud and arrogant peoples, only a remnant of poor and lowly people will be left, a righteous people will live there in peace and safety.
Then: be glad all you who trust in the Lord, He has swept away all your foes, the Lord your God will be with you. He will rescue the lost and gather the dispersed and bring them home, they will be envied by all the other peoples of the earth. It is the Lord who will do all this. ;
Revised English Bible; abridged and paraphrased. ; ; ;
Edited by Bruce McKerras on 08/28/2016 at 8:36pm
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You, my friends should not be in the dark about end time events.
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Bruce McKerras
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Posted: 09/04/2016 at 5:58pm
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God’s Plan for our Time
As 2016 nears completion, we may wonder what it is that the Lord has next for His creation. We know the story of how He destroyed an early civilization by the means of a great flood. Jesus prophesied that in the time of the end it will again be ‘as in the days of Noah’. We can’t know how bad that civilization was, but it seems they just got on with life much the same as we do today. From God’s point of view, their problem was they failed to acknowledge Him or respect His Laws, so their Creator simply wiped them out and started over again, just like anything made that turns out defective is remoulded, or with breeding; try a new bloodline. Isaiah 64:8, Jeremiah 18:6-7, Romans 9:20-21
So are the world’s people today as bad as those in Noah’s day? It seems likely, as evidenced by the decline in moral standards and the widespread disbelief in the Creator God. Jeremiah 6:18-19, Psalms 10:13, Ezekiel 20:39
Several Bible verses tell us that God the Creator takes a keen interest in what is happening on earth. Revelation 2:23b, Job 34:21-22, Proverbs 15:3, Psalms 11:4-5, Jer. 32:18-19 In our perfectly balanced and organised universe, He is playing out a drama, a set piece carefully orchestrated and arranged so that each player can choose their own role. Each person is given a conscience; a moral intuition to be aware of what is right and what is wrong, so we all make our choices as to how we live our lives.
Today, the whole world is in a precarious state, with a population of over 7 billion. There is the capacity to produce enough food and provide a reasonable lifestyle for that many, but not the altruistic desire to do so and human mismanagement exacerbates the problems. Therefore the situation deteriorates, life is difficult and short for most and the rest live in varying degrees of satisfaction, while all mostly do not acknowledge the one true God or keep His Laws. Over 100 Bible prophesies say how God will judge the nations and punish His enemies, to once again ‘reset civilization’. Deuteronomy 32:35, Psalms 18:7-15, Isaiah 2:12, Isaiah 30:25-28, Habakkuk 3:12, Zephaniah 3:8, Hebrews 10:27, 2 Thess. 1:8, Jeremiah 23:19-20, Revelation 14:17-20
Note that most of the prophesies about the great Day of the Lord’s vengeance and wrath, which is the next prophesied event we can expect, being the fulfilment of Psalms 83, Micah 4:11-12, Rev. 6:12-17, state that this time He will use fire to ‘set the heavens ablaze, the earth will be enveloped in flames and all that is in it will be brought to judgement’. 2 Peter 3:7,10-12, Isaiah 30:25-28, Mal. 4:1, Isaiah 66:15-16, Zeph. 3:8
But the Lord’s people have a Powerful Advocate, He promises to protect and save His righteous people. Jer. 50:33-34, Isa. 51:16, Nahum 1:7, Psalm 60:4-5, Zech. 9:15-16
Psalms 30:1-5 I shall exalt You Lord, for You have lifted me up and not let enemies prevail. I cried out to You and You healed me, You saved my life as I was sinking into the abyss. Sing praises to the Lord, all you His loyal servants, give thanks to His holy name. In His anger there is punishment, but in His favour there is life. There may be distress at nightfall, but the morning will bring rejoicing.
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You, my friends should not be in the dark about end time events.
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Bruce McKerras
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Joined: 07/19/2013
Location: New Zealand
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Posts: 74
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Posted: 10/06/2016 at 8:36pm
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Open the Gates to the People who keep the Faith - true Christian people. Galatians 3:26-29
Isaiah 26:1-19 On that Day – Judah will say: “we have a strong city “ ;
Open the gates; let a righteous nation enter, a nation that keeps faith. Lord, those who put their trust in You are untroubled. Trust in the Lord forever, for He is an eternal Rock. The path of the righteous is smooth and level. Lord we desire Your Laws and we wait for the dawn when they will prevail on the earth – then all peoples will know true justice. Though You show grace to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness and continue on in their evil ways. Lord, Your hand is lifted high in Your zeal for your people. The wicked do not see it, so let them be humiliated. Let the fire reserved for Your enemies consume them. Those who dwell in high places will be brought down to dust. The oppressed and poor will tread them down. Malachi 4:3
Lord, You establish peace for us, all we have is Your doing. Our forefathers worshipped other gods, but You alone do we honour. They are now dead, You punished them and wiped out all memory of them. Lord, You have enlarged the Nation. You have gained glory by extending the borders of the Land. In our distress, Lord we sought You out. You rebuked us and we cried out in pain because we have not done as You required of us. But your dead will live again, they will awake and shout for joy! Revelation 20:4
Isaiah 26:20-21 Go, My people, enter your rooms and close the door behind you. Hide yourselves until the Lord’s wrath has passed by. The Lord is coming from His dwelling place to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The sins of the guilty will be revealed.
Reference, Revised English Bible. Some verses abridged.
‘On that Day’ – That Day will be the great and terrible Day of the Lord’s vengeance and wrath, a worldwide devastation, but which will particularly affect the Middle East area. The Sixth Seal of Revelation 6:12-17, 2 Peter 3:7, Isaiah 30:25-30, Ezekiel 30:1-5, Isaiah 24:1-13, Jeremiah 49:35-37, Joel 2:1-11, Zephaniah 1:14-18
‘Judah will say: We have a strong city’ - The Israeli Defence Force is strong and well prepared for conventional warfare. But what will happen, will take them by surprise and destruction will overtake them. Isaiah 22:1-14, Isaiah 9:18-19, Jeremiah 9:10-11+22+ 25-26
A righteous nation - The nation Jesus referred to in Matthew 21:43 All the true Christian believers, those who kept strong in their faith during the Lord’s Day of fiery wrath.
‘Let the fire reserved for Your enemies consume them’. – God promised to never again flood the earth, but in Deuteronomy 32:22+34-35+43 I have a fire reserved in My storehouse awaiting the Day of punishment and vengeance, for the Day My enemies make a mistake, that will be the Day of their doom. I will punish all who hate Me and cleanse My peoples Land. Jesus said: the world ‘will be as in the days of Noah’, and now most peoples are, once again, in a similar godless situation. Isaiah 66:15-16, Isaiah 34:1-5, Jeremiah 25:30-31, Ezekiel 20:47-48, Hebrews 10:27, Psalm 11:4-6
‘Hide yourselves until the Lord’s wrath has passed by’. – A clear instruction from the Lord. Keep under cover and call out to the Lord for His protection. Joel 2:32, Acts 2:21
‘Open the gates, let a righteous people enter’ - The Lord’s people, all the righteous Christian people, be they true descendants of Jacob or grafted in by faith, will enter their heritage soon after all the holy Land is cleared and cleansed by the fire of His judgement/punishment. All true believers in God and Jesus, all those ‘who desire His Laws and look forward to the time they will prevail upon the earth’, will gather and go to live in all of the Promised Land. Ezekiel 20:34-38, Isaiah 62:1-5, Psalms 69:35-36, Jeremiah 31:9-10, Ezekiel 36:8
This will be the fulfilment of God’s promises to the Patriarchs, Ezekiel 20:42 and His chosen Church will, at last, live as God originally intended His people to be. Ezekiel 39:27, Isaiah 42:6
‘Lord, You have enlarged the Nation’. – Isaiah 49:20 says how the large numbers of people who will emigrate to all of the holy Land, will say: Make room for us to live here, this place is too small! Micah 7:11 They are: a vast multitude of Christians from every tribe, race, nation and language. Isaiah 66:18b, Revelation 7:9
The Lord will ‘establish peace’, Zechariah 8:7-12, Psalms 67:1-2, and the new nation of Beulah, Isaiah 62:1-5, will grow and prosper. Joel 2:18-27, Isaiah 66:12-13, Hosea 14:4-7
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You, my friends should not be in the dark about end time events.
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Bruce McKerras
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Posted: 10/09/2016 at 2:25am
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Call upon the Name of the Lord Joel 2:32, Acts 2:21
Psalm 57:1-6 Lord, be gracious to us, we who make You our refuge. We trust in Your protection until the disaster has passed. When we call upon the Name of the Lord to save us, He will send from heaven angels to protect us and our enemies will be brought low. They have many weapons and have prepared a trap - dug a pit, but they themselves will fall into it. Psalm 7:12-16
Psalm 56:3-7 In the Day of terror, I will put my trust in You – the Most High, in God whose promise is my boast, in God shall I trust and I shall not be afraid. What can mortals do? Constantly they speak against us and plan destruction for Your people, in malice they band together and watch for any opportunity to harm us. We cannot avoid their harassment, their devious and wicked ways. God; in Your anger, destroy those evil nations. Psalm 9:17, Ezekiel 32:20-30
Psalm 56:8-13 Lord, You note our grief, our tears are recorded. You will repulse our enemies on the Day that we call to You. Lord, we are Your people, bound to You by our Covenant, you will rescue us from death, in Your power we will walk in the light of life. Psalm 18:28
In the first Exodus of the Israelites, they were tasked to conquer and destroy the heathen occupiers of the holy Land. They failed to completely clear the Land, Judges 1:19-36, but the Lord used their successes and failures as lessons for them and us, 1 Corinthians 10:11, but because of their sins, the Lord used other nations to conquer and exile them. Now, Judah is back, but in unbelief and they will be judged along with all the attackers of Israel. Amos 1 & 2
It will not be like that again for the great Exodus of the righteous Christian Israelites, as they gather and settle into their heritage of all the holy Land. Psalms 60:1-5 There will not be any ungodly people left surrounding the new nation of Beulah, Isaiah 62:1-5, because the Lord Himself will ‘bring our enemies low’.
Many prophecies say how all of that area promised to Abraham, so long ago, will be cleared and cleansed by a ‘Day of terror and disaster’, and all those ‘evil neighbours’, Jeremiah 12:14, will be gone. Then, ‘by the Lords wrath, He will bring His people out from the nations’ Ezekiel 20:33-38, Ezekiel 34:11-31 and ‘in the Lord’s power, we will walk in the Light of Life’. Isaiah 9:2-3
God be exalted above the heavens, let Your glory be over all the earth.
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Topic: End Times Story
