Chapter 17 – Jesus, The Fire Of Truth

CHAPTER 17
JESUS, THE FIRE OF TRUTH

In Luke 12:49, Jesus declared that He had come to bring FIRE ON THE EARTH. Was this a literal fire? No, we know it wasn’t for Jesus never literally burned anyone up at anytime while He was on earth, not even an evil angel. But, He did bring a great deal of TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS, that made the disciple’s hearts BURN within them, not only before the cross, but especially after, Luke 24:32. This fulfilled John the Baptist’s prediction that Christ would baptize with Fire and the Holy Ghost. Luke 3:16. This came to pass in a most remarkable manner on the 50th day after the resurrection or on the Day of Pentecost, when Cloven tongues like as of fire, came and sat upon each of the praying disciples. They were truly men on fire for God after that, going everywhere preaching the Word of the risen Christ.

But, the unbelieving Jews were also baptized with fire as a result of this experience of the 120 disciples. However, like Pharaoh of old, it just “BURNED THEM UP,” to see the religion of Jesus prosper so much. Their hearts were hardened by the truth. You see, friend of mine, the fire of truth either baptizes you with the fire of Jesus’ love or the fiery indignation of Satan’s hatred toward God. How we relate ourselves to it determines which effect it will have in our hearts and lives. The heart of Cleopas burned within Him, Luke 24:32, as he listened to Christ explain the O.T. Scriptures to him and his friend on Sunday morning. That same fire burned in Judas’ heart at the last supper and on the night of Christ’s arrest and subsequent trial. That fire which brought peace and joy to the other disciples brought death to Judas. Jesus killed Him with His love, you might say. Judas might have found repentance and forgiveness as did Peter, but the love that melted Peter’s heart hardened Judas. Was that God’s fault? No, but in Isaiah 53;10 and Zech. 13:7 God the Father is pictured as “Killing” His own Son, for God always takes the blame. Can you imagine what it will be like when Christ comes back the second and the third time? “Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: A fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. And the Heavens shall declare his righteousness: For God is Judge Himself.” Psalm 50:3-6. His love and kindness go before Him. This is what causes the wicked to self-destruct. They cannot stand such love and purity and kindness. Rev, 6:14-17.

GOD’S LAW AND WORD IS FIRE

God’s law is His Word and His Word is fire. Jesus Christ was the Word made flesh, or you could say, THE FIRE MADE FLESH. As we have already noted in Luke 12:49, Jesus declared that He had come to bring FIRE ON THE EARTH: At the end of the controversy of 6,000 years, Jesus displays His law in the sky. “And the Heavens shall declare His righteousness.” Psalm 50:6.

So we see that the dual concept is here again used regarding the coming of Christ and the fire that He brings. It is a fire of truth and righteousness, as well as a literal fire. But, God is not bringing the literal fire, He is simply saying, “I am coming, and it will be a fiery coming.” Remember that the text said, “And it shall be very tempestuous round about Him.” It did not say He was bringing the fiery storm, but that there would be a storm raging about Him as He enters our atmosphere. If you will study out the context carefully, you will see that Christ does not bring the literal fire, but simply takes the blame for it, as He always has for all of the problems connected with the controversy on this planet. Notice: “And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath [God releasing His restraints] of Almighty God.” Rev. 19:15. In 2 Thess. 1:7-9, Paul tells us that Christ will come “IN FLAMING FIRE, and that those who KNOW NOT GOD, and OBEY NOT THE GOSPEL, are going to be PUNISHED WITH EVERLASTING DESTRUCTION, from the presence of the Lord, and from the GLORY of HIS POWER.” Notice how Paul parallels the phrase, “GLORY OF HIS POWER,” with the punishment of everlasting destruction. He lumped the second and the third comings of Christ into one grand, glorious, climatic event. When we go into the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, we see him again referring to the death and destruction that will result from Christ’s appearance, only this time it is “THAT WICKED,” which primarily refers to the Devil, but has a secondary application to the organizations, individual and/or individuals whom Satan is using today to deceive the world. The Mark of the beast is simply the character of man without God living in him. Notice how Paul describes their destruction.

“Whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming.” Here again, Christ is taking the blame for the death of the wicked, saying, “I DID IT,” so He may remain sovereign. Christ’s coming will interrupt the battle of armageddon or actually end it (at least for 1,000 years). He comes to rescue His own and resurrect the sleeping saints from their graves. Satan knows he has lost the battle and yet makes one final attempt to destroy the final remnant who have refused to bow down to him and his marking system for survival by receiving the mark of allegiance to his sign (SUNDAY, THE SIGN OF THE DEATH GOD) in the right hand or forehead, the 666 Beast System. He will pass a death decree in order to destroy this one little offshoot, heretic, group of people (THE LITTLE BAND OF CONSCIENTIOUS SABBATH KEEPERS), who are still resisting his authority. He must stop the demonstration they are giving to the universe that an entire nation of people {144,000} can stand true to God and His Eternal law under the most adverse circumstances because they have permitted Jesus to fully saturate them with His love, which is His law written in the heart.

Because Christ is omniscient (all knowing, Isa. 46:9, 10) and Satan is not, Jesus and His Father can calculate to the very second when each event in this last hour will occur. Satan has no power to counteract this. It was at midnight (Exodus 12:29) that God manifested His power for the deliverance of His people from Egyptian bondage. I believe God’s people will again be delivered at midnight, when God says “It is done.” Rev. 16:17. Now, as the result of this voice; which will sound like the sound of many waters (Rev. 1:15) there is a mighty earthquake. Now, I would like to suggest that what happens here is the same thing that happened when Christ died on the cross, when he said, “IT IS FINISHED.” There was an earthquake at that time. Does God cause earthquakes? To answer that, just ask the question, do earthquakes kill people? Yes, they do. If God doesn’t kill people and if Earthquakes do kill, then God is not the one who brings the earthquakes, at any time or place. Psalm 9:6 and Isa. 14:16, 17 tell us that Satan is the one who destroys the cities in the LAST DAYS. See also Jere. 4:2, 3, 26. This does not mean God doesn’t use, control and guide the results of earthquakes, which Satan is constantly bringing. Besides earthquakes, Satan also causes accidents, fires, disasters on land, sea and in the air. He brings tornadoes, hailstorms, tempests, floods, hurricane, droughts, plagues, and a thousand other kind of calamities.

Who brought the earthquake when Jesus died? Our Lord cried out, “IT IS FINISHED,” as He gave up His perfect life as a sacrifice for our sins, and an earthquake immediately followed. We just read how Satan is the one who makes the earth to “tremble” and destroys all the cities at the end of the world. He is the death God. It is his very nature to destroy. He cannot help himself. It is obvious that God used the “temper tantrum,” of Satan at Christ’s death to open the graves of the saints who came forth with Jesus on Sunday morning and appeared to many and later ascended with Him to heaven. See Matt. 27:50-53, Psalm 24, Eph. 4:8-10. Some people may think that God’s Angels will bring all the calamities upon the earth in this last hour of earth’s history. But this is not true. Holy angels of God are often pictured in the Bible as destroying angels. But how do God’s angels destroy? By simply withdrawing. These “destroying angels,” are the same angels John saw in vision and wrote about in Rev. 7, 15 and 16. They are pictured as coming out of the temple with the vials full of the WRATH OF GOD. But, they are simply symbolic of God’s restraint being withdrawn from Satan and the wicked. God’s angels “destroy” on command by withdrawing. That is, they retreat at Jesus’ command to honor man’s free choice and Satan’s angels then come in and fill the vacuum as they are “given permission to destroy,” by God’s holy angels (destroying angels) who just “destroyed,” by removing the restraint at Christ’s command. Remember the words VENGEANCE AND JUDGMENT do not mean to destroy, but to “vindicate,” and to “make and/or carry out a decision.” God does this by “preventing and permitting,” with His holy angels. I Kings 22 pictures God’s angels as “lying spirits,” because He permitted Ahab to believe the lies of Satan’s angels who were speaking through the mouths of the false prophets of Baal. God Himself is said to “repent,” and to “harden” Pharaoh’s heart and to send an evil spirit to Saul, as well as to kill Saul in the end. I Chron. 10:13, 14. “I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and…saying, my counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure…I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” Isa. 45:7, 46:9, 10. And remember that judgment (God carrying out a decision) never comes until man has fully set his own heart fully to do his own will and go his own way. God let Judas go. God let Jerusalem Go. God let the Jewish nation go. Go where? Go their own way and do their own will. This is how God destroys. “Destroy thou them O God. Let them fall by their own counsels.” Psalm 5:10.

We are not told that the walls of JERICHO falling down flat killed anyone, but a person might assume this, although it is not so stated. But, it is stated that the Israelites rushed in and killed everyone in the city but Rahab and her family. Joshua commanded this, not God. Joshua 6:7. Why? Because Israel had failed to follow the Lord’s perfect will and thus God had to let them follow their own will. The same is true about the laws of divorcement (Matt. 19:8, 9) and the selection of Saul as King (I Sam. 10:19). God’s perfect will has seldom been carried out in this earth by man. A few people like Enoch, Joseph, Daniel and of course, Christ Himself (the only totally perfect one), permitted God to work out His perfect will through them. But regarding Jericho, God’s angels again are pictured here as doing that which they permit to happen by withdrawing their power. Donald Patton believes that an earthquake caused the walls of Jericho to fall down. The Bible does not say that, so we do not know that to be true or false. What part the silence of seven days and then a lot of noise may have had on the laws of physics is beyond most brains to calculate. It just may have had a lot more to do with it than we may want to admit. QUESTION: WOULD SATAN DESTROY THE WALLS OF A CITY IF GOD REMOVED HIS PROTECTION? ANSWER: Yes, I believe he would. Why? Simply to make God look like a death God and thus distort the truth about His character. God never commands or brings Death. Proverbs 8:8, John 10:20. In other words, Satan, as in the days of Job, is permitted to bring disaster and then tells everyone God did it. Just as God assumed the responsibility for all the disasters in the Old Testament as well as the New, so He would again say, “I have destroyed Jericho.” I say, to be consistent with the way God operates, this would be the MODUS OPERANDI of God again at Jericho, as we spiritually analyze it all. God’s Holy angels are pictured as bringing the plagues, when in fact they do not bring the plagues. Satan brings the seven last plagues. Someone may ask about now, “why would Satan destroy his own people in Jericho?” I’ll tell you why. Because Satan is the DESTROYER. When he is finished with a person or a nation, he destroys them, and blames it upon God, who accepts the blame to protect all of His creatures, including Satan and his devils. This is how much he loves us!

Another question which someone will ask is, “What about Joshua’s order to leave nothing alive in Jericho except for Rahab?” Joshua 6:17. Here again, as we already stated, is God’s permissive will. It was JOSHUA’S order to leave nothing alive, not God’s command. He permits Joshua and the people to perform “social surgery,” so to speak, on a people so diseased with all kinds of sickness, mental, psychological, social and physical that their vile habits were spreading throughout the earth and would even have destroyed Israel if not checked. God let His people perform this “social surgery,” so as to make a lasting impression on their minds of God’s attitude toward this lifestyle. But it was His permissive way of dealing with it, not His perfect way, due to Israel’s hardness of heart.

Suppose you had a son who wanted to go hunting with the other fellows in your town. Day after day he keeps pestering you, and each time he brings up the subject, you tell him it is not your will for him to kill poor, innocent, dumb animals God created for His pleasure and ours. Finally, one day, the boy defiantly tells you that he is going to buy a gun and go out hunting. He has saved his money and has made his decision. At that point you can either kick the boy out of the house, or take his money away from him and lock him in his room until he repents or you can let him have free will and go buy the gun. But, if you are a wise father, you will probably say, “son, it looks like you have made up your mind on this matter. I want you to know that I respect your right to think for yourself, even if it is against my beliefs and feelings. I once owned a gun myself, but I gave it up when I became convicted God did not want me to kill His creation. But, son, you are of age now and I must respect your free will. I would like to go with you to the sporting goods store tomorrow and help you select a gun. If you will permit me, son, I would like to instruct you how to use the gun. I once was an expert marksman, so I can teach you how to bring down an animal with one shot so the poor creature will not have to suffer so much. There are many things I can teach you, son, but most of all, I want to teach you how to handle the gun and use it so you will not endanger your life or the lives of others as you seek to become a hunter.”

If anyone saw you go to the store and buy a gun for your son and then go out on the firing range and teach him how to shoot it, that person would probably believe and report that you had taken up hunting animals again, when the real truth of the matter would be that you were trying to save your son from the worst effects of his choice to become a killer.

This is precisely God’s predicament. He had the choice of letting Israel alone to go out to battle the enemy, against His perfect will, or to teach them how to use the sword and to govern and control it as much as possible; only destroying that which was destroying itself anyway, such as the heathen tribes who were slowly dying of all kinds of diseases due to immorality and wrong eating habits.

When Israel chose to have a king and reject God as their king, the Lord gave them a king “after their own heart.” He was Saul. God did not abandon His people when they left Him, but tried to save them from the worst effects of their wrong choice. The same was true of the diet. When men insisted upon eating animal flesh, God again tried to save them from the worst effects of that choice and told them what animals they could eat and what they should not eat, Leviticus 11 and Deut. 14. God’s original diet for man in Eden was a vegetarian diet. Gen 1:29 and 3:18. After the flood man was given permission to eat the “clean” animals, but it was only until the earth could revitalize itself after the flood. But man’s carnal nature liked the flesh food and very few ever went back to the Edenic diet. Some will say, “but Jesus ate fish.” This assumption is based upon Luke 24;42-43. Notice that they offered Him two kinds of food. Fish and a honeycomb. It says, “And He took it, and did eat before them.” He took “it,” not them. Which article of food did Jesus choose? It does not say. My point is that this is not proof enough to me that Christ ate “fish.” He very well may have eaten fish and Lamb and other meats as well, because the meat was much cleaner than it is today. It is not a test of fellowship. But, I believe in these last hours of earth’s history God wants us to go back to the perfect diet of Eden especially since there are so many diseases in animals today. And also because of the many harmful chemicals, preservatives, and excito-toxins, such as MSG. A good rule to follow is:If man made it, don’t eat it. Scientific research has proven that a vegetarian diet is possible and sufficient for man today and many believe it is much superior to a flesh food diet. Let each person be fully persuaded in his or her own mind about this matter after much study, prayer and maybe even some fasting.

THE VOICE OF GOD DELIVERS

Let us turn our attention again now to the voice of God which shakes the heavens and the earth. It is very natural to assume that the voice of Jesus causes all the aberrations in the heavens and the earth, but we have already established that Jesus does not destroy or bring earthquakes. This is the work of the DESTROYER, even Satan. When God announces the day and hour of His return, that voice rolls through the earth like peals of loudest thunder, (GC 640). But it does not destroy anything or frighten the righteous, waiting saints. When Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord it did not frighten him, Isa 6:3, 4. In John 12 Jesus asked the Father to glorify His own name. Immediately a voice spoke from heaven saying, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” Those who heard this voice had two reactions. To those with a spiritual mind the voice sounded like an angel but to those who had a carnal mind the voice sounded like thunder. John 12:28, 29.

When the voice of God (Christ and His Father) says, “IT IS DONE,” the heavens and earth shake, due to a tremendous earthquake, because of demonic anger and rage that the righteous have been delivered beyond their reach forever. They have lost and they know it. They believe they are doomed. It is like a man who has just lost a game of chance such as a card game or a horse race. He is beside himself with rage and pounds the table or the door. “I lost, I lost, I lost,” he screams and curses, stamping his feet angrily and running around the room wildly. This is how the demons will act at this time. The angel of death which passed over Egypt will pass over all the world in these last days. Only those who are sealed with the truth (Jesus) will be spared, Rev. 7. The destroying angels of God represent God’s withdrawing His protection, thus permitting destruction to come. Paris during the terror, in 1793-95 is an example of the destruction that will come again when God’s Spirit withdraws. In fact, we can already see this happening in many countries in the world today.

DEFEATED DEMONS SCREAM

In the earthly ministry of our Lord we see how the demons acted when Christ defeated them. When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, [angel of Satan] saying unto him, ‘Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose.” Mark 9:25-27.

Personally, I believe this happened quite often in Jesus’ ministry. When Christ died on the cross, Satan shook the earth with anger, and he does the same thing at the end of the world. I believe Daniel has reference to this when he says, “But tidings out of the East and out of the North shall trouble him: [Satan] Therefore, He shall go forth with great fury to destroy and utterly to make away many.” Dan. 11:44.

In this end-time, Satan will bring earthquakes, tidal waves and increase the heat of the sun, not only through his power, but through the wicked genius of evil men he controls. The So-called “weather-war” machines may be used to disturb the weather. All the prophets in the Bible who describe these end-time events saw many things in vision. They saw the lithosphere (solid part or outer crust of the earth) breaking up causing great tidal waves as the sea was lashed into fury. This is a perfect description of what scientists call astral catastrophes. God knows the exact moment these catastrophes are going to occur and has predicted them accordingly. Satan is the prince of the power of the air, (Eph. 2:2) and tries to manipulate nature against us, but God intervenes often and either stops it, or controls it by directing it in the way He sees best and takes the blame for whatever destruction results. He protects us from the disaster or lets us die in it for reasons we cannot know now, but which we will approve of later. What we can understand of His providence now, He has explained to us if our hearts are open to receive this information.

GOD USES EARTHQUAKES FOR GOOD

The Father used the earthquake at the death of Christ to open the graves of the saints Jesus took to heaven. At the end of the world Jesus will again say, IT IS FINISHED, OR DONE (Rev. 16:17). Satan again throws a temper tantrum and causes aberrations in nature to vent his wrath. Again the Lord uses this earthquake to open the graves of the dead who will come up in the special resurrection referred to in Rev. 1:7, Dan. 12:2. All who died believing God’s true messages, those that mocked and derided Christ’s dying agonies, and the most violent opposers of His truth and His people, are raised to behold Him in His glory and to see the honor placed upon the loyal and obedient. Why does Jesus raise these people? Just to torture and tantalize and kill them again? Oh, no, my friend. That is not God’s character.

First of all, God never killed them the first time, so He won’t do it the second time. Satan will do that unless they commit suicide. But either way God will say again, “I DID IT.” No, the real reason the Lord brings these people back to see the final triumph of good over evil is to encourage them to change their minds about Him, if they will. Yes, His love is so great that He never gives up. He never quits. Rom. 2:4, “He hopeth all things.” I Cor. 13:7. If they refuse to repent and accept His salvation in this final age before the 1,000 years, then they will be left behind to die with the 2/3rds of lost humanity, Zechariah 13:7-9, whom the Lord will resurrect after the 1,000 years for the final restitution or restoration of all things, Acts 3:21. This will be the final and ultimate proof that the God of all the earth does do right. Very soon now, we will see the King in all of His beauty coming from the east. Yes, Jesus is the king of the north (Isa. 14:12-14; Ps. 75:6, 7) and He is coming from the east to bring peace and everlasting life to His precious ones.