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December 31, 2017 |
| Hail, Fire, and Water | ||
The Bible talks about a time of testing that will fall on all believers that will cause a large percentage of them to turn away. With Christianity having spread to all continents, peoples and languages, it's hard for us to image how this could be.
A recent news event, however, may show us how. In this lesson we will look at what the Bible says about this turning away by the faithful and what could cause that.
We'll begin in Revelation just after the seventh and last of the seals. The verses for this lesson will bring us to the first of the trumpets.
We won't go into the details here but trumpets were commonly used in Israel to announce the coming of the King. They were sounded at first to tell the people to prepare themselves for the approaching king and the last one announced his arrival. The trumpets served this purpose for the kings who were men and will for the return of Jesus to be the King of the world, as shown in the Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah). That meaning of the trumpets is retained in Revelation.
You might expect this would be a cause for celebration but it won't be. There is a problem. God's people consist of true believers but also people with one foot in each world, people whose faith is very weak, people who teach falsely, and others. The preparation of God's people for the arrival of the King will require these be removed.
3 And another Angel came and stood over the altar and had a golden censor, and much incense was given to him to offer with the prayers of all the Holy on the altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of the incense went up with the prayers of the Holy Ones from the hand of the Angel before God. 5 And the Angel took the censor and filled it with fire which was upon the altar and cast it over Earth. And there were thunders and voices and lightnings and earthquakes.
Prayers go up first before what is about to happen. In the temple there was a small incense altar for the purpose of burning incense. The smoke rising from the incense symbolized prayers ascending to God. There was also a container for burning incense called a censor. It was twirled around by the priest, which caused the incense to burn quickly and create lots of smoke, which ascended into the air.
In these verses though, the angel does something that would not happen in the temple. He takes fire from that altar, puts it in the censor, and then throws it on the Earth.
Everything we've read here is symbolic. There is no literal altar, censor, or fire - how, exactly, would you put fire (note: only fire) in a censor anyway. The two symbols we need to understand at this point are "fire" and "the Earth." The reasons why these symbols have their meanings are given in my book1.
The fire is a purifying fire sent from God to purify his people by removing what shouldn't be there. In many places the Bible refers to a purifying fire that produces pure gold by causing the dross to separate out. This fire will be producing a people who are pure because the contaminants will have separated themselves out.
The Earth is what I call a symbol set - a collection of other symbols that are related. The Earth symbolizes all living believers. By throwing the fire on the Earth, the Angel is throwing this purifying flame on all believers. We'll see the effects of that in the first trumpet event, which comes next.
6 And the seven Angels, with whom were the seven trumpets, prepared themselves to sound. 7 And the first sounded, and there was hail and fire mixed with water, and they were cast upon Earth, and the third of Earth was burned, and a third of the trees burned, and all the grass of Earth burned.
The effect on Earth will be fire (purification by testing), hail (driving away weakness), and water (cleansing).
The next symbols we need to understand are the trees and the grass. They are both believers but different in their maturity in the faith. Later on Revelation will also refer to shrubs. So the trees are the strong believers, the shrubs less so and the grass are weak believers.
When the verse says they were burned it doesn't necessarily mean they were burned away completely. Trees could be burned down to shrubs or even to grass. Shrubs could be burned down to grass. Grass could be burned away completely. A tree burning down to a shrub makes sense in symbolism but not in the real world.
Look how devastating this is to the Earth. Fully 1⁄3 of the Earth is burned at least somewhat. That means the faith of at least 1⁄3 of all living believers will be weakened, with some of them giving it up completely. Revelation is different in its precision from the other Bible passages that discuss this event. Specifically it says 1⁄3 of the strong believers will become weaker in faith. Perhaps more importantly, it also says that all the weak believers will be burned away, because there is nothing lower than grass.
People drift away from the faith all the time. Yet these verses indicate a special testing that will quickly pull away believers from all over the world.
To understand how earth-shattering such an event would have to be, imagine if the Roman Catholic pope or a mega-church pastor was proved to be completely corrupt. This isn't nearly a big enough event. This has happened before but it did not result in the degree of falling way described in these verses because most people saw it as a failing of a person, not a failing of Christianity.
That thought points us in a useful direction though, as it tells us that the event needs to strike very hard at the core beliefs of Christianity. What could do that? If we imagine the discovery of a scroll proven to come from the time of Jesus containing a new Gospel that claims the other Gospels are false, is that enough? No. Gospels like that have already been found and they did not result in a great falling away.
Persecution of Christians from history has had this effect of clearing out the dross. There has never been a worldwide persecution of Christians, though, and that would be needed to have this large effect. Therefore, this event must be something that is:
So what would it take? It can't be proved that God doesn't exist or that God didn't create the universe, and it can't be proved that Moses didn't exist. No claim from any person could be the cause - people aren't sufficiently credible by themselves and almost nothing they could present would have sufficient credibility. I have only been able to think of three scenarios that could do this
Of course the possibility exists of a combination of these.
The Bible speaks of a new player with amazing powers. This is mentioned in other places but also in Revelation 13:4: "Who is like this Beast, and who is able to war with it?" The beast will prove that he has extraordinary power, but it appears that he does not come to full power until the middle of the tribulation period. This purification by fire begins before that.
In a previous lesson called The Great Falling Away2 the discussion included what the Bible says about this event in places other than Revelation.
This future event is commonly called The Great Falling Away or the Great Apostasy, which mean the same thing. The verse that is the source of the name 'Great Falling Away' comes from 2 Thessalonians 2:3 in the King James Version.
3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; (KJV)
More recent translations use different words.
3 Let no man deceive you by any means, to the effect that surely no revolt will first come and the Man of Sin, the Son of Destruction, be revealed, (Aramaic NT)
3 Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. (NIV)
3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, (NASB)
Every one of these translations is expressing the same idea, however, that there will come a time when there is a sudden turning away from the truth of the gospel.
Jesus also described the same event. In a teaching called the Olivet Discourse, Jesus discusses future events. Matthew, Mark and Luke include this discussion but only Matthew and Mark talk about the falling away.
9 And then they will deliver you to suffering, and they will kill you and you will be hated by all the nations because of my name. 10 Then many will be subverted, and they will hate one another and will betray one another. 11 And many false Prophets will arise and will deceive many. (Matthew 24:9-11)
22 "And false Messiahs and lying Prophets will arise, and they will give signs and wonders and they will deceive if possible, even the chosen ones. 23 But pay attention; behold, I have anticipated this; I have told you everything." (Mark 13:22-23)
We've seen that the Bible has repeatedly warned us about this. Jesus' words in the last verse above, "behold, I have anticipated this; I have told you everything" make it clear we have been warned. So the question comes, how will we respond if that event comes in our time?
This lesson will focus only on the Contact scenario mentioned above. This is partly because of time / space limitations but also because of recent events.
Because of mankind's worship of science and technology and desire to have some authority figure solve all of our problems, we are very susceptible to falling for this kind of test.
This week news came out that there had been a government organization collecting information about UFO encounters. Along with that came a video from 2004 where an F/A-18 aircraft had followed a UFO. If you are reading this on a computer, you can view the video below.
In the video you see the pilot's HUD view as he circles around behind the UFO, trying to figure out what it is. It has no wings and no blades like a helicopter. They note that it is flying into a serious headwind so it isn't something like a balloon. It was flying along its longitudinal axis, which makes some sense to us who are used to aerodynamic vehicles. At the end of the video though it rotates end over end, in 3 or 4 steps, which seems to have been done to make a point.
After the video came out CNN interviewed the pilot, who told more of the story. He was flying out of the USS Nimitz off-shore from San Diego. He and his wingman were vectored to a location to check out something that radar had picked up. When he got to the location he saw what he calls a "40 foot Tic Tac™" on the ocean surface with something going back and forth in the air above it.
Within seconds the Tic Tac was at his altitude (about 12,000 feet) and they began to circle around each other. That's where the video above begins. After the video concludes, the pilot tightened his turn to approach the Tic Tac straight on and within 2 or 3 seconds the Tic Tac accelerated out of sight.
If these ships really do exist and they aren't man made, just proof of their existence would test Christians. In a world that mostly doesn't believe in God, angels or demons, their occupants would be believed to be extra-terrestrials. So the challenges to Christians would be:
The scientists at Answers In Genesis have used the Bible to "prove" that extra-terrestrials can't exist. They argue that Adam's sin allowed sin into the entire universe and would have affected extra-terrestrials too, yet Jesus' sacrifice only covered the descendants of Adam, therefore extra-terrestrials would need a savior but have none.
Their argument is flawed because it makes the assumption that intelligence equates to having a soul. Intelligence appears to result from the structure of the brain. Therefore there could be intelligent beings without a soul who do not require a savior any more than my cat.
None-the-less, they have tied themselves to this argument and will appear foolish if UFOs are proven to exist.
If we should ever communicate with the occupants of these vehicles it could shake Christianity even further. What if they said:
In a society that is quickly turning away from God and looking for a reason to dismiss Christians, this would be just what they need. The result would be persecution and being ostracized.
The UFO business is full of quacks and liars. Like needles in a haystack though there are some cases like the one above that are very credible. Knowing what the Bible says about a Great Falling Away, I've been concerned about the UFO scenario for a long time.
Whether UFOs are real or not, we need to be aware that something will happen that will shake the faith of Christians like never before. In that time we will need to hold on to the truths we know, knowing that the Bible said we would be tested this way.
This brings up the question of who we accept as credible. Do we accept the Bible to be credible because it is God's word or do we accept the claims of beings with superior technologies or capabilities?
1 Where The Sea Leads - Stan Burton (available on Amazon)
2 http://skburton.droppages.com/2015-04-12%20TheGreatFallingAway/TGFA
3 https://www.youtube.com/embed/3RlbqOl_4NA
4 https://www.youtube.com/embed/3RlbqOl_4NA
5 https://www.dreamstime.com/white-candies-gum-red-background-candies-gum-image100972272
