Feast: God's Will in the End Time

#FT18-08-AM
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 01-Oct-18; 59 minutes

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Most of you are aware of Dr. James Dobson; he is an American Evangelical Christian author; a psychologist and founder of Focus on the Family. And he opens his book, Dare to Discipline, with the illustration of a mother and her 3-year-old daughter in a battle of wills.

Dobson writes:

She, the mother, had realized that her tiny little girl had hopelessly beaten her in a conflict of wills, and the child had become a tyrant and a dictator.

For instance, the mother would put the daughter, Sandy, down for a nap. But Sandy would have none of it. She did not want to take a nap, even if she was tired. It was even worse when she was tired. She would scream at the top of her lungs, loud and long enough to alert and upset the entire neighborhood where they lived. People would be calling on the phone and coming up to the door asking if everything was alright. But it was just Sandy pitching another fit.

Because her mother initially refused to give in, Sandy would cry and cry; tearfully demand this or that—for instance, a glass of water. Refusing until she could not take it can longer, the mother would go off to the kitchen, get a glass of water, and deliver it to her wailing daughter. As the mother handed the glass to Sandy, she would push it away, because her mother had not brought it fast enough. The mother would dig in her heels, and tell her, “If you don’t take the water by the time I count to five, I’m going to take it back to the kitchen.” So, Sandy would wait for the duration of the five counts, and her mom would dutifully take the water to the kitchen, whereupon Sandy would start screaming again, yelling for water.

And the whole absurd process would begin again.

As Dobson noted, “She dangled her harassed mom back and forth like a yo-yo until she tired of the sport.”

These two, Dobson writes, “are among the many casualties of an unworkable, illogical philosophy of child management, which has dominated the literature on this subject for the past 20 years.” He wrote this in the early 70s, I believe.

The mother had read,

That a child will eventually respond to patience and tolerance, ruling out the need for discipline. She had been told to encourage the child’s rebellion because it offered a valuable release of hostility. She attempted to implement recommendation of the experts who suggested that she verbalize the child’s feeling in a moment of conflict, saying things like, ‘You want the water, but are angry because I brought it too late. You don’t want me to take the water back to the kitchen. You don’t like me because I make you take naps. You wish you could flush mommy down the toilet.’ The mother has been taught that conflicts between parent and child were to be perceived as inevitable misunderstandings, or differences in viewpoint. Unfortunately, she and her advisers were wrong. She and her child were involved in no simple difference of opinion. She was being challenged, mocked, and defied by her daughter. No heart-to-heart talk would resolve these nose-to-nose confrontations, because the real issue was totally unrelated to the water, or the nap, or other aspects of this particular circumstance. The actual meaning behind the conflict and a hundred others was simply this: Sandy was brazenly rejecting the authority of her mother. The way the mother handled this confrontation would determine the nature of their future relationship. She could not ignore it.

Dobson, later in his first chapter, shows a direct correlation between the permissive parenting methods taught by the so-called ‘child rearing experts’ and the adolescent rebellion of the 1960s, along with the spike in juvenile delinquency, drug use, and illicit sexual activity, and its accompanying sexually transmissible diseases and illegitimate children among young people.

Similar child coddling techniques have been used in the decades since (the 1970s is a long time ago—coming up toward 50 years!), and the results have continued to be juvenile delinquency, drug use, and illicit sexual activity, and its accompanying sexually transmissible diseases, and illegitimate children, plus ADHD, safe spaces, identity issues, and widespread narcissism. These are real psychological disorders. They are usually handled these days by psychotropic and other forms of drugs, and we have found that sometimes these lead to mass murders in schools. It all goes back to not showing authority to the parents.

Dobson believes that the problem is not that these kids were not punished enough (corporal punishment)—spanking or other discipline that the parent might use according to the advice given by these experts. They actually did very little of that. He believes the problem is that they were never taught self-control or respect of authority. They were never taught—a whole broad segment of our population—that behavior should be within certain boundaries. They were given no boundaries at all! And if they were given boundaries, they were never enforced. And so they made their own boundaries.

They were also never taught to defer to parents, police officers, principals of schools, teachers, or anyone else who was in charge. They were essentially left to their own devices without any adult supervision. And this started very young. And now they believe in their heart of hearts that because this is their way of life they can always do just what they please, no matter what.

Turn to Isaiah 3. (This is not a child-rearing sermon, by the way.) He is speaking to Judah, but it applies today in type:

Isaiah 3:4-5 "I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. The people will be oppressed, every one by another and every one by his neighbor; the child will be insolent toward the elder, and the base toward the honorable."

Isaiah 3:12 “As for My people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O My people! Those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths."

You can see what Dr. Dobson said, and what God says here, this is how it happens. The children have no self-control, they have no boundaries, they have no respect for authority. And what do they do? They oppress and they rebel.

The battle between parents and children has been going on for a very long time—since there have been parents and children. Parents have always thought that their children are running wild and have slipped a rung or two from the standards of their generation, which was (tongue-in-cheek) a lot better; as a matter of fact, it was the best generation ever, and their children can never reach the heights they reached!

There is an actual Greek philosopher quoted in Romans who was making the same complaints about children—the youth of their society were not as good as they were, yada, yada. So even in ancient Greece, they were thinking the same things.

On the other hand, children always think that their parents are too strict; they restrict their freedom, and do not trust them to do anything. “I can’t even walk across the street without mom holding my hand.”

But, one Parent has always been fighting the battle of wills with His children—humanity—for 6,000 years. And this Parent is God. He is constantly at odds with wayward humanity. It is not His fault. He is good and right and pure, and does everything properly and in the right measure. But mankind has never been content with the perfection of God, the instruction of God, the correction of God. What we find as we read the pages of the Bible, is that this contention between God the Parent, and humanity the child, will come to a very violent and destructive head in this end time.

So in this sermon, we are going to be talking about “God’s Will in the End Time,” as regards to His children—all humanity, not just the elect.

Turn to Isaiah 30.

Isaiah 30:1-5 "Woe to the rebellious children," says the LORD, "who take counsel, but not of Me, and who devise plans, but not of My Spirit, that they may add sin to sin [like children who have no self-control]; who walk to go down to Egypt, and have not asked My advice, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt.! Therefore the strength of Pharaoh shall be your shame, and trust in the shadow of Egypt shall be your humiliation. For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes. They were all ashamed of a people who could not benefit them, or be help or benefit, but a shame and also a reproach."

Isaiah 30:8-14 Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and note it on a scroll, that it may be for time to come, forever and ever: That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the law of the LORD; who say to the seers, "Do not see," and to the prophets, "Do not prophesy to us right things; speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits. Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease [kill God!] from before us [stop Him]." Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel [the One they wanted to flush down the toilet]: "Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perversity, and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall, a bulge in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant. And He shall break it like the breaking of the potter's vessel, which is broken in pieces; He shall not spare. So there shall not be found among its fragments a shard to take fire from the hearth, or to take water from the cistern."

Pretty grim words, are they not? But this is the example of the children of Israel, the only nation on the face of the earth whom God has worked with, given His law to, and led by His servants (Amos 3:2). They are the only family on earth that He has known.

And despite His wise and consistent and good childrearing practices, they never ceased to rebel—generation after generation after generation—they were all wayward children, all trying to get their own advantage; never wanting to submit to the Holy One of Israel. Instead, they always wanted to listen to their friends, especially to the Egyptians. They were good buds! They only had enslaved them for a couple hundred years, though they had been there about 400 years. They had a “pretty good relationship with them” and liked to go down to Egypt and get their protection and their help. If it was not Egypt, then it was Assyria, or somebody else. It was never God. All those other people—Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, or whoever—they were cooler than God. They wanted to be seen by the rest of the world with these guys! They were the powers that be! Surely the Egyptians are strong!

They always thought God’s law was too harsh and restrictive. And despite paying lip service to the rules, they would lie, as it says here; they would connive; they were the kind who would always manage to “sneak out after curfew;” go to parties they had been forbidden to attend, drinking all night, and other things that cause a lot of embarrassment to God.

They never wanted to hear what was good for them. They would stop their ears like willful toddlers, and stamp their feet and pitch a fit, and become sullen and stubborn, and intractable before God. Like Sandy, as I mentioned before, they wanted to flush their parent down the toilet.

So, the adversarial relationship, which was all on the part of the children of Israel, was bound to come to a head at some point. God worked with them and worked with them. As He said in Jeremiah, He sent prophets early and often, and they did not listen. They never listened. As a matter of fact, they liked to persecute God’s prophets—stick them with swords, or saw them in two, or burn them with fire, or do whatever with prophets they did in their particular day, and then they would tell these fake prophets, “You be our preachers. You tell us good things! We want to hear what you have to say, because these ones from God—no, we cannot abide that. It’s way too much. We can’t bend the knee.”

So, it had to end terribly.

And it did. It ended with severe discipline upon both Israel and Judah. In verse 13 of Isaiah 30, God says that despite all their rebellions, all their sins, all their waywardness, all their lying, all what they did against Him, He would give them a fair warning. That is essentially what is being said here. He said He would give them a breach in a high wall; it was something they could see.

You know what a breach is? When you breach a wall you open it up. You make a crack in it, and bits and pieces fall out, and an army can eventually send their soldiers through it. So, God says that He is going to give them a crack in the wall for them to see, so that they could look up at the wall and say, “Huh! That wall is about to come down. It has a breach up there, and we need to shore it up! It’s bulging out! You better not stand under there! It’s going to fall.”

So He gave them time to see it, to survey it, to figure out what needed to be done, yet He says, “Even though I’m going to give you this warning, you won’t take it.” As a matter of fact, it would be the stupid people who would stand under it, and they would not get out of the way fast enough! That is exactly what He says, it would be so utterly destructive, that nothing of value will remain to be scavenged from the pile of debris or rubble. That is pretty rough. That is a tough discipline. And it just mounted up to that, to the point where all that was left was dust and rubble. The people were gone. They had been taken away or killed. And there was that gaping breach that they should have seen and corrected.

Now, we should not get too smug. Such a thing is happening to the nations of Israel. And not just to the nations of Israel. The rest of the world, because of Israel's dominant culture that we have exported all over the place, they are right there with us. Sins of all kinds are piling up all over the globe. People around the world are forsaking God’s Word, and those who do not know, or do not believe it, are themselves forsaking basic human standards and dignities.

For example: We have billions who follow a moon god named Allah, and they are vicious in their pursuit of their religion, pursuit of turning you into either their slaves, or “their brothers in the faith,” and they do appalling, horrifying acts of inhumanity. And then there are small pockets, like that place north of South Korea, Kim Jung Un and his cruel and barbarous and brutal oppression of his own people, just to prop up his little tin-dictatorship.

It is going to get worse than that. At some point, God will have had enough. His patience will end, and the crisis at the close of the age will commence in earnest. The crack is there. And at some point, the wall is going to fall, and it will grind all humanity and its works into powder.

Let us turn to some more “happy” scriptures—Joel 3. (If you thought you would get out of the Feast without hearing this passage—not a chance!)

Joel 3:1-2 "For behold, in those days and at that time, when I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem [time reference], I will also gather all nations, and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there on account of My people, My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; they have also divided up My land.”

Joel 3:9-16 Proclaim this among the nations: "Prepare for war! Wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, 'I am strong.'" Assemble and come, all you nations, and gather together all around. Cause Your mighty ones to go down there, O LORD. "Let the nations be awakened, and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, go down; for the winepress is full, the vats overflow—for their wickedness is great." Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will diminish their brightness. The LORD also will roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and earth will shake; but the LORD will be a shelter for His people, and the strength of the children of Israel.

Now, turn to Zechariah and get another view of this sort of thing:

Zechariah 14:1-5 Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south. Then you shall flee through My mountain valley, for the mountain valley shall reach to Azal. Yes, you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Thus the LORD my God will come, and all the saints with Him.

Zechariah 14:12-15 And this shall be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, and their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths. It shall come to pass in that day that a great panic from the LORD will be among them. Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor, and raise his hand against his neighbor's hand; Judah also will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations shall be gathered together: gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance. Such also shall be the plague on the horse and the mule, on the camel and the donkey, and on all the cattle that will be in those camps. So shall this plague be.

Pretty grim stuff, is it not? Joel and Zechariah in these two passages tell us what will happen when God has had enough, when His frustration has reached the boiling point, when the time is right. He will sovereignly maneuver events so that all the nations, as it says here a few times, will be driven to march their armies against Jerusalem. That will be their goal. And it will be their goal because He—God—wants them all in one place to deal with them in one fell swoop. All humanity (represented, at least) gathered there at Jerusalem. Joel makes it especially clear that this gathering of the nation’s armies is for the purpose of judgment.

Now at this point, Israel, in the previous two and a half years, had been conquered, and many of its people slain, and the rest taken into captivity, with only a few remaining.

But this judgment is for two specific reasons as Joel puts it (3:2). He says that it is because of their treatment of the people of Israel, not just in previous two and a half years, but in all times past as well, but also their insolence toward God Himself—this parent/child relationship I am talking about.

So the gathering occurs in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, outside of Jerusalem, renamed by God as the Valley of Decision where He will decide their fate. He will sit as Judge and render sentence.

And we know what His sentence is. It is already written. His decision is to punish the nations as they have never been punished before with severe pain and destruction. It can be nothing else. He cannot be merciful at this point. They have exhausted His mercy. Their wickedness is great, which is a great understatement.

We know from other places like Revelation 19 that the Beast and the False Prophet will be there. And He will at the end of all this judgment put them into the Lake of Fire.

Let us turn to Psalm 2 to get another rendition of this.

Normally, this is a coronation psalm for the kings of Israel, but it has prophetic overtones of this very thing:

Psalm 2:1-9 Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, "Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us." He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: "Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion." "I will declare the decree [the valley of decision]: The LORD has said to Me, 'You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.'"

That is the second time we have seen that potter’s vessel mentioned.

So crush them He does like it says in Isaiah 30, like potsherds broken so badly that there is not anything to carry a bit of fire to it is place.

Remember earlier this week we heard that God invites the birds of the air to come to the Supper of the Great God. And the meal He has for them is the flesh of the soldiers of the armies of the nations He will slay with the sword of His mouth.

Zechariah tells us that God sends a plague that melts their flesh right of their bones. And at the same time, He sends a panic among them making them begin killing each other. It will be a total rout; an absolute slaughter; carnage that this world has never seen. It is hard to imagine. That is what happens to those who rebel against God; the insolent against Him generation after generation after generation. It says that the blood will flow up to the horse’s bridles. That is a lot of blood!

There will be no doubt about God’s judgment. It is a public execution, worldwide in scope, where God finally expresses the superiority of His will over the perverse and evil will of men. It has got to end. Things must change! It is a reckoning long in coming—and well deserved by humanity.

But He does not leave matters there. That is not the end of God’s will for the end-time. As Charles Whitaker taught in his sermon, and then his articles on, “The Goodness and Severity of God,” a biblical principle that comes out in the prophecies of this time is that, “on the heels of destruction will be the forces of restoration.” It is a very important principle to understand, that when God destroys He immediately begins to rebuild and restore.

Please turn to Isaiah 42. God does not destroy needlessly. He destroys as a punishment for sin, but then when He restores, He is going to make something much better.

Isaiah 42:21-25 The LORD is well pleased for His righteousness' sake; He will exalt the law and make it honorable. But this is a people robbed and plundered; all of them are snared in holes, and they are hidden in prison houses; they are for prey, and no one delivers; for plunder, and no one says, "Restore!" Who among you will give ear to this? Who will listen and hear for the time to come? Who gave Jacob for plunder, and Israel to the robbers? Was it not the LORD, He against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in His ways, nor were they obedient to His law? Therefore He has poured on him the fury of His anger and the strength of battle; it has set him on fire all around, yet he did not know; and it burned him, yet he did not take it to heart.

Isaiah 43:1-4 But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place. Since you were precious in My sight, you have been honored, and I have loved you; therefore I will give men for you, and people for your life.

Isaiah 43:6-7 I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not keep them back!' Bring My sons from afar, and My daughters from the ends of the earth—everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him."

Charles did not use these verses in his sermon, I do not believe, but they convey the same principle showing that God brought deserved punishment on Israel for their sins. Yet, directly on the heels of that punishment, of that terrible destruction of the Great Tribulation, comes the Second Exodus—the return of the surviving remnant to the Promised Land to be converted; to bring them back, so He could love them, and restore to them what had been taken from them.

You see, God does not like to inflict wrath on people. When He does it, He does it in measure. But, when He does it *snap! it ends. It is over. And He takes His people up in His arms, and tells them, “I love you. You are mine! I am going to make something great of you,” (which is an awesome child-rearing practice).

But because He hates sin, because He is just, He must punish. It is inevitable. But He makes haste to restore, and show love, and to give help, to return as soon as possible after the destruction to a right relationship under His covenant. He has to square everything up so that He can start from a good foundation again.

Turn to Romans 11. We are going to hop through this chapter a little bit. What I am going to show you is Paul’s explanation of God’s plan, conceived ages ago of how He is going to bring salvation to all Israel despite all of their rebellions, and whininess—complaining, stubbornness, stiff-necked, iron fore-headed behavior.

Romans 11:1-2 I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew.

Romans 11:7 What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect [you and me] have obtained it, and the rest were blinded [hardened].

Romans 11:11-14 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them.

Romans 11:21-26 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness [hardening] in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.”

What we have here is Paul’s explanation of God’s will concerning the salvation of Israel.

He did punish them. He punished them severely. They do not even know who they are, most of them! They got rapped on the head and lost all their memory. He cast them off to go their own way. He says, “I divorce you! Get out of here!”

But not completely, it was only for a time. Part of His crafty plan was to call the Gentiles to salvation, mostly through the apostle Paul, and those who have succeeded him. Not only to save them, which He most certainly wanted to do, He wanted them as part of His elect. He chose them specifically. But He also had an ulterior motive—to provoke Israel to jealousy, because Gentiles are receiving the blessing and reward that should have gone to them.

Have you ever taken a toy away from a child, and given it to some other child? You know the reaction of that child who had his toy taken away. Not good. Jealousy is about the best you could hope for in those circumstances. So, He wants Israel, once He opens their eyes, to see that they had really missed out. It could have been so much better with them if they had only listened to God. He would have given them everything that they would have desired. But they had to mess it all up, because of their stupid stubbornness—their unwillingness because of their carnal natures to submit to God.

This plan, Paul says, is God’s plan, so it is going to work. He is going to succeed in bringing all Israel to salvation. That is God’s will in the end time. He is going to try and get as many of Israel as He can converted. He desires His first physical children to be saved at some point, and He will initiate all manner of mighty works using His sovereign power even to the point of doing great wonders to bring this about.

He suggests in Isaiah that He is going to do more of the Red Sea and Jordan River type crossings so that when they need to cross a river, they are not going to be swamped by the water at all. They will pass right through. He is going to bring them back to Him so that He can speak to them face to face, and give them His law, and give them His Spirit, and give them His covenant.

Turn to Hosea 14.

Hosea 14:1-7 O Israel, return to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity; take words with you, and return to the LORD. Say to Him, "Take away all iniquity; receive us graciously, for we will offer the sacrifices of our lips. Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride on horses, nor will we say anymore to the work of our hands, 'You are our gods.' For in You the fatherless finds mercy." "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for My anger has turned away from him. I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall grow like the lily, and lengthen his roots like Lebanon. His branches shall spread; his beauty shall be like an olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon. Those who dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall be revived [delivered] like grain, and grow like a vine. Their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon.”

So, once all of this humiliation occurs to Israel, and destruction too, God will pull out all the stops to bring all Israel to repentance and to forgive their iniquities. Of course, as He says in Jeremiah 31:31-34, that He will present them with the New Covenant, and give them His Spirit—convert them—until the law is written on their hearts and minds, and they truly become God’s people; part of His spiritual Kingdom, not just His physical sons and daughters, but part of the Family of God. And then they will receive eternal life and all the blessings that come with that.

There is a hint in verse 7 that His work with Israel in this time will create the environment that others not of Israel who come in contact with them during the Millennium, will also repent. And so those of all the nations who go up to the mountain of the Lord, will have the opportunity to be taught God’s ways, and to be converted. That is what we see in Isaiah 2, verses 1-4.

Isaiah 2:1-4 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established on the top of the mountains [the summit of God’s government], and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths." For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

But you know, God is not finished yet. His will is much grander than that. He will work hard as He has always works hard, with single-minded purpose; and we with Him during this time to convert the whole world in those 1,000 years. We know from Revelation 20 that when Satan is released at the end of that time, many who are as the sand of the sea, a lot of people will rebel and side with the Adversary. And those people will be devoured by fire out of heaven.

It seems that when Satan gets out, he is going to be working with such intensity that many millions or billions of people will be swayed to his way once again. I mean, how many are the sands of the sea? Their ultimate fate is not mentioned. It just says that they will be devoured by the fire from heaven. But I am sure that there will be some among them that lose their salvation in that rebellion. Maybe all of them? I do not know. I do not know how God’s justice will be weighed. That is all in His hands. But it just a crying shame to think about that, that all that God had given them through the Millennium—the wonderful prosperity, and the governance through His Son—and they will throw it all away because Satan rises up one last time and deceives them just as he had done to their forefathers in the past.

Thinking about that makes me really consider the power of Satan’s influence. The fickleness and weakness of human will. How easily Satan is able to twist our nature to fight against God. And I consider our struggle now. How susceptible we are to all his deceptions; how he could turn on his power at any point that God allows—and could we resist? Right now, we are protected. We have God’s Spirit, He is keeping us, but there is a time of deception and trial coming in the future when we will need to be strong. I am not saying that to be a downer, but I am saying that to encourage us to be growing in our faith and resist the Devil.

Turn to Revelation 20. I want the part about the Great White Throne Judgment, because God’s not finished yet.

Revelation 20:11-13 Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works.

So, at this time, we believe it is about 100 years long, is the time of the Great White Throne Judgment when everyone who has died from all the nations from all times, Israelites and Gentiles alike will be raised from the dead, from wherever they happened to be buried, or otherwise, and given an opportunity, then, for life; and beyond that for eternal life; salvation!

You and I, and those who are with us at that time will have spent the entire Millennium preparing for this amazing event of restored life, and the conversion of the masses of humanity. As I mentioned in a sermon several years ago, this is going to be an awesome project preparing for 50-60 billion people to be raised from the dead; clothed and housed and fed; instructed, guided and given things to do. Sanitized! Can you imagine the sanitation dilemma for 50 billion people? That is what we are going to be doing—building up this earth in preparation for this great time of judgment when people will be given the opportunity to turn things around for themselves—their initial time or day of salvation, so they can live before God in the way He wants them to live.

Now, in Ezekiel 37 the valley of dry bones shows that this all is a resurrection to a physical life. It says there that He will raise them up, and bring up sinews and flesh upon these bones, and then He will give them breath so that they can stand and breathe again. “Live! He says!” And then as He gets toward the end of that section, He says that He will put His Spirit in them. They will be given the opportunity to be converted. It is really more than just a resurrection to physical life; it includes the opportunity for eternal life.

Turn to II Peter 3. We will end here because this puts a cap upon God’s will over the end time, which I am stretching out from the time of the Great Tribulation all the way through into the New Heavens and New Earth.

II Peter 3:7-8 But the heavens and the earth which [now exist—this world we live in right now] are now [kept] or preserved [in store] by the same word [of God], are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition [destruction] of ungodly men. But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Remember His perspective on time. Do not get your hopes up. It may not be soon, but it may be sooner than you think.

II Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us [all humanity], not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance [and all that repentance entails].

This is God’s will for this end time. God desires all to come to repentance. That is it. That is what He wants. That is His desire. That is what He has been working toward all these many thousands of years since He is conceived this plan.

Remember what I told you that “will” is? Will is the conception of a plan or idea, working it out, and following through to the very end.

And this is God’s will that He wants for all of His children of humanity. He wants all mankind—every one of us—to realize the brokenness and the sinfulness that is in them. He wants them to look inside and say, “I’m not whole. I’m not complete.” And then, turn to Him for the answer. He wants all humanity to amend their ways. He wants all humanity to accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and take hold of the salvation He offers. He wants them to live forever with Him, and with their brethren, and have the joy of life with God. He wants billions upon billions of sons and daughters. The more, the merrier! He wants a kingdom full of His children running around doing godly things. He wants to share everything He had with all those that are converted, and who have eternal life.

And all He asks—all He asks—is that they humble themselves and conform their wills and ways to His. Is that too much to ask for eternal life and everlasting joy?

RTR/rwu/drm