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Conclusion
A Fiery Furnace
The vehement contention of the last of the Last Days is going to threaten existence itself. It is going to push both Israel and the Church to the brink of the abyss of destruction. Therefore, any person (Jew or Christian especially) who actually believes that life on earth will be "business as usual" during this epoch, is either ignorant or crazy...or both!
That is why God is crying out for a revolution in and of the Church. In the days of our "infancy" (Ac 15), the leaders of the Christian Community miraculously embraced and implemented one such revolution, when they "legislated" for Gentiles to become Believers without first of all "converting" to Judaism. This was a monumental paradigm shift. Had these people been unwilling or incapable of making such a massive alteration, it is not unthinkable that Christianity would have remained a little Jewish Sect, which vanished in the inferno of the 69-70AD Roman siege of Jerusalem.
By the 1500s the Gospel was sinking into a quagmire of unbiblical dogma and religious culture. Fortunately, there were those then capable of being spiritually and intellectually stretched beyond measure and "overturned". These began to espouse an expression of Christianity in which the dispensation of the grace of God was not exclusively tied to and thus ordered and limited by a "professional" priesthood and its "legal" sacraments (i.e. "religious ceremony or act regarded as outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace").
Praise God for the shock waves the formidable, German Reformer, Martin Luther, broadsided into the "establishment" when he dared to believe and teach that "a poor serving girl, if she has the Holy Spirit, is as well able to understand the Scriptures as the Pope himself."
Similarly, as the calendar ticked over into the 20th C, there were believers who "got over" themselves and refused to panic when the Holy Spirit moved His Gifts out of the ecclesiastical museum, put them back on the front-burner, and turned up the heat to "high"!
The end of The End is the enthronement of Heaven's King for this planet, which will take place on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The challenges to existence itself during this season will therefore have their focus and locus in Israel...people, nation and State. Here are some of the reasons why:
(1) God has ordained that His Son, our King, will return to the acclamation of a believing, Jewish Jerusalem.
"For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.' " (Mt 23.39)
