Partnering with God
Luke 17:26-33 And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. “In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
Jesus said that two very powerful stories will be essential to understand at the time leading up to His return: the story of Noah building an ark for safety, and the story of Lot being removed from Sodom and running to Zoar, a city that was protected through the judgment of Sodom.
Many want to believe there is nothing to be done as Jesus' return unfolds. Many want to continue to live like the world and hang onto Jesus as "fire insurance." Let me say plainly: according to the Bible this will not work.
There is much to do in the years leading up to Jesus' return. This is the main and plain truth of the Bible. Both the story of Lot and the story of Noah are stories of people partnering with God, responding to the instructions of God in order to keep themselves and those they loved safe in a time of judgment that was about to strike.
Right after Jesus connects His return to the stories of Lot and Noah, He says the oddest thing (odd if you don't understand His VERY specific end time plan. If you understand the plan, what Jesus says makes perfect sense):
Luke 17:33 Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
Jesus is describing the heart attitude both Noah and Lot had to adopt in order to save their lives...they had to trade the experience of life everyone else was living and respond to God with everything.
Both Noah and Lot did a quick 180 ... repentance, or agreeing with God... once God told them there was something to be done. They had to abandon life the way those around them were experiencing it in order to agree with God that something was about to happen.
Listen friends, if you think just waiting to see what happens will make you safe in the end times, which we are clearly in, then you are in for a very rude awakening. Jesus warned over and over to NOT do that. Consider Noah and consider Lot:
Genesis 6:13-15, 22 And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch. And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did.
Clearly, Noah had to put life on hold the way everyone else was living, and, day by day, begin building something that seemed silly UNTIL it rained for the first time ever. Most people who have studied Noah's story say it took about 100 years to build the ark.
Lot's story is ALSO an end time reality. Once Lot saw the safe place to flee to, turning back and desiring what life used to be like was guaranteed to bring the same judgment Sodom got upon him and his family:
Genesis 19:15-26 When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.” And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.” Then Lot said to them, “Please, no, my lords! Indeed now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have increased your mercy which you have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me and I die. See now, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one; please let me escape there ( is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.” And he said to him, “See, I have favored you concerning this thing also, in that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there. For I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
The return of Jesus, according to Jesus, will be filled with the same elements as these two stories. That is because Jesus is allowing the tribulation to happen to get the world to respond! Agreeing with God and responding will keep you safe!
Jesus has a plan for people to be kept safe THROUGH the end time harvest, not to be kept FROM the end times. God does not change. He is going to treat His people with the same protection and care He always has from the time of Noah and Lot, through the Exodus, David, Daniel, the disciples...every person we read about in the Bible was kept safe through trouble IF they agreed with God.
Why suddenly do we want to write a whole new manuscript about how God does things? God does not change.
There isn't one verse in the Bible about waiting to see what happens because Jesus is going to pull you away at the last minute while he rains down trouble on everyone else. Not one verse in its context says this. Yes, you can isolate a verse and make it say just about anything, but there isn't one verse in context that describes doing nothing but waiting till Jesus zaps you up. BUT, the Bible is FULL of stories of God's people responding to Him before times of trouble and being made ready to stay safe through the trouble.
The church has become rotten with the idea that you can immerse yourself in the world and not get judged with it...nope...that is NOT the story of the Bible. You gotta come out:
Revelation 18:3-5 For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.” And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
The truth is, if you don't want to get judged with America, you have got to come out of her manner of living.
You don't need to move to another country. You need a new American dream.
Another physical revolution won't help. In fact, taking up arms against your country is unBiblical. To come out, you need to come into a spiritual revolution mindset. The only way to flee this place is a wholehearted pursuit of Jesus. You trade the American dream for the dream in Jesus' heart.
This is Jesus' end time plan: to build safe places with non stop prayer and worship, called the Tabernacle of David. This plan is throughout the Old and New Testaments.
Luke 18:7-8... So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?”
Night and day crying out UNTIL Jesus returns is the plan. It is clearly laid out in the Bible. In fact, there is so much information in the Bible I could literally preach on this every day for several years and still not exhaust the hundreds of chapters and connected concepts related to a community of people building a safe place in the end time storm that is clearly coming. There is so much to know and do, but most people who claim to love Jesus will hardly lift a finger to find out what His return requires!
We simply mostly like Sodom more than Zoar. We have got to come out now, while there is time.
Coming out of the western comfort-soaked mindset is simple, but not easy. It is simple but will require a complete reordering of your life. Reordering life is what the Bible calls "repentance." Repentance is required. America is not about to be judged...America is being judged and according to the Bible it will get much worse...and as far as I can tell, very few are humbling themselves and responding...they are waiting to see.
Waiting to see what happens is called evil in the time that Jesus is about to return. It is called eating and drinking with the world:
Matthew 24:44-51 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Jesus said "no one knows the day or hour" as a warning to not slip into comfort. Many take Jesus' warning and turn it into an excuse to STAY in comfort...to wait and see. This is actually evil. Using Jesus' words this way is actually blaspheming the good warning He gave. It is speaking a curse over yourself.
Lot and his wife lived in an evil city, but they were comfortable there. It took angels coming and grabbing their hands to get them to start leaving! The night before they ran out, the people of the town brutalized their family, but when fleeing, Lot's wife didn't want to leave what she had there. She wanted what Sodom had for her, and she got what Sodom got.
We live in a very corrupt land, one that has taken the blessings of God and then tried to separate God out of the foundation. What are we clinging to? The murder, the violence against children, the empty entertainment, the fleeing wealth?!!
We kicked God out of the foundation and are trying desperately to hold the whole thing together until we "get our share". This cannot stand in truth. We have to spiritually come out of it if we don't want to share in the judgment...according to the Bible.
If you want what everyone else has, you WILL get what everyone else gets. This is the only way it works. Everyone gets what they want.
The rapture is real, but there is much to be done in the meantime. The rapture isn't going to just happen to people because they believe in God. The rapture happens at the last trumpet. Trumpets are an assembling call. The rapture assembles Jesus' family for battle. It is going to occur with the return of Jesus, not to take people away to heaven, but to assemble them to go with Jesus to take over all the earth. Heaven is coming to earth:
Revelation 21:2-3 Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.
God doesn't intend to abandon the earth, He is going to remake it in righteousness. He isn't going to remove people that agree with that! He is going to judge people that disagree with that...so that anyone willing to agree with Him can be saved...just like he has every other time. He loves the people of the world.
God loves the world much more than those who want to believe that He is going to run out of patience and just abandon it.
God wants us to build safe cities for those who want to repent to run to. These are the barns for the harvest. But they must be built before the wheat can run to them. If you don't do it now, you will need to run at some point yourself. It doesn't have to be this way...you can be faithful to Jesus' plan and carve out an ark:
Revelation 3:10 “Because you have obeyed my command to persevere, I will protect you from the great time of testing that will come upon the whole world to test those who belong to this world.
In order to build the safe cities, you must find out how. God gave Noah very specific instructions for how to build His refuge. The Bible has hundreds of chapters describing how to build ours.
The clouds are gathering and the storm is already hitting our brothers and sister in the middle east, Africa, and Asia. Will you build in agreement with heaven, or will you eat and drink like everyone else?
Isaiah 22:12-14 At that time the Lord, the lord of Heaven’s Armies, called you to weep and mourn. He told you to shave your heads in sorrow for your sins and to wear clothes of burlap to show your remorse. But instead, you dance and play; you slaughter cattle and kill sheep. You feast on meat and drink wine. You say, “Let’s feast and drink, for tomorrow we die!” The lord of Heaven’s Armies has revealed this to me: “Till the day you die, you will never be forgiven for this sin.” That is the judgment of the Lord, the lord of Heaven’s Armies.
Jesus said that two very powerful stories will be essential to understand at the time leading up to His return: the story of Noah building an ark for safety, and the story of Lot being removed from Sodom and running to Zoar, a city that was protected through the judgment of Sodom.
Many want to believe there is nothing to be done as Jesus' return unfolds. Many want to continue to live like the world and hang onto Jesus as "fire insurance." Let me say plainly: according to the Bible this will not work.
There is much to do in the years leading up to Jesus' return. This is the main and plain truth of the Bible. Both the story of Lot and the story of Noah are stories of people partnering with God, responding to the instructions of God in order to keep themselves and those they loved safe in a time of judgment that was about to strike.
Right after Jesus connects His return to the stories of Lot and Noah, He says the oddest thing (odd if you don't understand His VERY specific end time plan. If you understand the plan, what Jesus says makes perfect sense):
Luke 17:33 Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
Jesus is describing the heart attitude both Noah and Lot had to adopt in order to save their lives...they had to trade the experience of life everyone else was living and respond to God with everything.
Both Noah and Lot did a quick 180 ... repentance, or agreeing with God... once God told them there was something to be done. They had to abandon life the way those around them were experiencing it in order to agree with God that something was about to happen.
Listen friends, if you think just waiting to see what happens will make you safe in the end times, which we are clearly in, then you are in for a very rude awakening. Jesus warned over and over to NOT do that. Consider Noah and consider Lot:
Genesis 6:13-15, 22 And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch. And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Thus Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did.
Clearly, Noah had to put life on hold the way everyone else was living, and, day by day, begin building something that seemed silly UNTIL it rained for the first time ever. Most people who have studied Noah's story say it took about 100 years to build the ark.
Lot's story is ALSO an end time reality. Once Lot saw the safe place to flee to, turning back and desiring what life used to be like was guaranteed to bring the same judgment Sodom got upon him and his family:
Genesis 19:15-26 When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.” And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.” Then Lot said to them, “Please, no, my lords! Indeed now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have increased your mercy which you have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me and I die. See now, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one; please let me escape there ( is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.” And he said to him, “See, I have favored you concerning this thing also, in that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there. For I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
The return of Jesus, according to Jesus, will be filled with the same elements as these two stories. That is because Jesus is allowing the tribulation to happen to get the world to respond! Agreeing with God and responding will keep you safe!
Jesus has a plan for people to be kept safe THROUGH the end time harvest, not to be kept FROM the end times. God does not change. He is going to treat His people with the same protection and care He always has from the time of Noah and Lot, through the Exodus, David, Daniel, the disciples...every person we read about in the Bible was kept safe through trouble IF they agreed with God.
Why suddenly do we want to write a whole new manuscript about how God does things? God does not change.
There isn't one verse in the Bible about waiting to see what happens because Jesus is going to pull you away at the last minute while he rains down trouble on everyone else. Not one verse in its context says this. Yes, you can isolate a verse and make it say just about anything, but there isn't one verse in context that describes doing nothing but waiting till Jesus zaps you up. BUT, the Bible is FULL of stories of God's people responding to Him before times of trouble and being made ready to stay safe through the trouble.
The church has become rotten with the idea that you can immerse yourself in the world and not get judged with it...nope...that is NOT the story of the Bible. You gotta come out:
Revelation 18:3-5 For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.” And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
The truth is, if you don't want to get judged with America, you have got to come out of her manner of living.
You don't need to move to another country. You need a new American dream.
Another physical revolution won't help. In fact, taking up arms against your country is unBiblical. To come out, you need to come into a spiritual revolution mindset. The only way to flee this place is a wholehearted pursuit of Jesus. You trade the American dream for the dream in Jesus' heart.
This is Jesus' end time plan: to build safe places with non stop prayer and worship, called the Tabernacle of David. This plan is throughout the Old and New Testaments.
Luke 18:7-8... So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?”
Night and day crying out UNTIL Jesus returns is the plan. It is clearly laid out in the Bible. In fact, there is so much information in the Bible I could literally preach on this every day for several years and still not exhaust the hundreds of chapters and connected concepts related to a community of people building a safe place in the end time storm that is clearly coming. There is so much to know and do, but most people who claim to love Jesus will hardly lift a finger to find out what His return requires!
We simply mostly like Sodom more than Zoar. We have got to come out now, while there is time.
Coming out of the western comfort-soaked mindset is simple, but not easy. It is simple but will require a complete reordering of your life. Reordering life is what the Bible calls "repentance." Repentance is required. America is not about to be judged...America is being judged and according to the Bible it will get much worse...and as far as I can tell, very few are humbling themselves and responding...they are waiting to see.
Waiting to see what happens is called evil in the time that Jesus is about to return. It is called eating and drinking with the world:
Matthew 24:44-51 Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Jesus said "no one knows the day or hour" as a warning to not slip into comfort. Many take Jesus' warning and turn it into an excuse to STAY in comfort...to wait and see. This is actually evil. Using Jesus' words this way is actually blaspheming the good warning He gave. It is speaking a curse over yourself.
Lot and his wife lived in an evil city, but they were comfortable there. It took angels coming and grabbing their hands to get them to start leaving! The night before they ran out, the people of the town brutalized their family, but when fleeing, Lot's wife didn't want to leave what she had there. She wanted what Sodom had for her, and she got what Sodom got.
We live in a very corrupt land, one that has taken the blessings of God and then tried to separate God out of the foundation. What are we clinging to? The murder, the violence against children, the empty entertainment, the fleeing wealth?!!
We kicked God out of the foundation and are trying desperately to hold the whole thing together until we "get our share". This cannot stand in truth. We have to spiritually come out of it if we don't want to share in the judgment...according to the Bible.
If you want what everyone else has, you WILL get what everyone else gets. This is the only way it works. Everyone gets what they want.
The rapture is real, but there is much to be done in the meantime. The rapture isn't going to just happen to people because they believe in God. The rapture happens at the last trumpet. Trumpets are an assembling call. The rapture assembles Jesus' family for battle. It is going to occur with the return of Jesus, not to take people away to heaven, but to assemble them to go with Jesus to take over all the earth. Heaven is coming to earth:
Revelation 21:2-3 Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.
God doesn't intend to abandon the earth, He is going to remake it in righteousness. He isn't going to remove people that agree with that! He is going to judge people that disagree with that...so that anyone willing to agree with Him can be saved...just like he has every other time. He loves the people of the world.
God loves the world much more than those who want to believe that He is going to run out of patience and just abandon it.
God wants us to build safe cities for those who want to repent to run to. These are the barns for the harvest. But they must be built before the wheat can run to them. If you don't do it now, you will need to run at some point yourself. It doesn't have to be this way...you can be faithful to Jesus' plan and carve out an ark:
Revelation 3:10 “Because you have obeyed my command to persevere, I will protect you from the great time of testing that will come upon the whole world to test those who belong to this world.
In order to build the safe cities, you must find out how. God gave Noah very specific instructions for how to build His refuge. The Bible has hundreds of chapters describing how to build ours.
The clouds are gathering and the storm is already hitting our brothers and sister in the middle east, Africa, and Asia. Will you build in agreement with heaven, or will you eat and drink like everyone else?
Isaiah 22:12-14 At that time the Lord, the lord of Heaven’s Armies, called you to weep and mourn. He told you to shave your heads in sorrow for your sins and to wear clothes of burlap to show your remorse. But instead, you dance and play; you slaughter cattle and kill sheep. You feast on meat and drink wine. You say, “Let’s feast and drink, for tomorrow we die!” The lord of Heaven’s Armies has revealed this to me: “Till the day you die, you will never be forgiven for this sin.” That is the judgment of the Lord, the lord of Heaven’s Armies.
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