My favorite part of the Bible is the Old Testament
prophets. I was reading in the book of Isaiah and the following
Scriptures is the subject of this piece.
The Day of
the Lord
Isaiah 2:5-22 (TLB) 5 O Israel, come, let us walk in the
light of the Lord and be obedient to his laws! 6 The Lord has rejected
you because you welcome foreigners from the East who practice magic and
communicate with evil spirits, as the Philistines do. 7 Israel has vast
treasures of silver and gold, and great numbers of horses and chariots 8 and
idols—the land is full of them! They are man-made, and yet you worship
them! 9 Small and great, all bow before them; God will not forgive you
for this sin. 10 Crawl into the caves in the rocks and hide in terror
from his glorious majesty, 11 for the day is coming when your proud looks will
be brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted. 12 On that day the Lord
Almighty will move against the proud and haughty and bring them to the
dust. 13 All the tall cedars of Lebanon and all the mighty oaks of Bashan
shall bend low, 14 and all the high mountains and hills, 15 and
every high tower and wall, 16 and all the proud ocean ships and trim
harbor craft—all shall be crushed before the Lord that day. 17 All the
glory of mankind will bow low; the pride of men will lie in the dust, and the
Lord alone will be exalted. 18 And all idols will be utterly abolished
and destroyed. 19 When the Lord stands up from his throne to shake up the
earth, his enemies will crawl with fear into the holes in the rocks and into
the caves because of the glory of his majesty. 20 Then at last they will
abandon their gold and silver idols to the moles and bats 21 and crawl into the
caverns to hide among the jagged rocks at the tops of the cliffs, to try to get
away from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty when he rises to
terrify the earth. 22 Puny man! Frail as his breath! Don’t ever put your
trust in him!
In this Scripture we have a warning and unfortunately we, as
the Body of Christ, are not heeding this warning. We are in the last days
and we must understand that there is a duality in this prophecy.
Many people find the subject of prophecy to be the most
fascinating aspect of Bible study, and they show an intense interest in it.
Some scour the newspapers, books, magazines, television for the latest tidbit
that fulfills their favorite prophecies. Unfortunately, few understand
the vital keys to understanding the prophecies of the Bible, and causing many
of them to be wildly misunderstood.
One of these keys to understanding prophecy is the fact that
most prophecy is dual in nature. Throughout the Bible, we see duality in many
things. God made a material creation and a spiritual creation (Genesis 2:1-4
Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were
finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had
done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had
done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it
He rested from all His work which God had created and made. This is the
history[a] of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that
the Lord God made the earth and the heavens). The first Adam was physical,
and the second Adam, Christ, is spiritual (I Corinthians 15:45-47 And so it
is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam
became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the
natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth,
made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven). The Old Covenant was
based on physical descent and physical blessings and cursing. It was followed
by the New Covenant, which is spiritual (Hebrews 8). At the first
coming of Christ, He came in the weakness of flesh; when He comes again, He
will be a powerful spirit Being.
A list of everything in the Bible that demonstrates duality
would be a very long list. So it is with the prophecies, most of which consist
of two predictions: a type and an antitype. The type, usually a relatively
minor event in history, symbolizes a major, often end-time event that will
occur later. The major event is the antitype.
However, we must keep in mind that not all prophecies are
dual. God's predictions regarding the fate of ancient city-states such as Tyre,
Sidon, Ashkelon and others do not appear to have an antitype. In general, it
seems that God has chosen to use the duality principle in those prophecies
which deal directly with His people Israel or with the church (spiritual
Israel).
The principle of duality in prophecy is especially important
to God's church today. Many prophecies in the New Testament predicted the great
apostasy which took place in the church toward the end of the first century
Acts 20:29; For I know this, that after my departure
savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
II Thessalonians 2:3-12; 3 Let no one deceive you by
any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and
the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts
himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as
God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not
remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now
you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time.
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains
will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one
will be revealed whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and
destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is
according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,
and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not
receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this
reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie,
that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure
in unrighteousness.
II Timothy 3:1-8; But know this, that in the last
days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves,
lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without
self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong,
haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of
godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of
this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible
women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always
learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as
Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of
corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith;
4:3-4; For the time will come when they will
not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they
have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they
will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables
Jude 3-4; Beloved, while I was very diligent to write
to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you
exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all
delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who
long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace
of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ
All of these prophecies are dual. The falling away from the
revealed truth of God that occurred in the first century is a type of what is
happening today in the church. We are witnessing some of these prophecies being
fulfilled! Duality in prophecy is being demonstrated in our lifetimes
before our very eyes!
Today, we understand that the destruction of Jerusalem in AD
70 was a type of the Great Tribulation which will occur in the time immediately
preceding the second coming of Christ. We can see that He actually prophesied
two events. Jerusalem's destruction was the type, and the Great Tribulation is
the antitype.
For this reason, we must be keenly aware of this important
principle of understanding God's Word. We must be constantly on our guard,
watching prophesied world events, as well as those unfolding in the church,
lest we be caught unaware. Listen to the urgent warning that Jesus Christ gave
to all of us who are living in the end time.
I see a Church that is a “Feel Good Church.” We wake
up each day and do what feels good to us according to our understanding.
Some days we read the Bible, praise God, and pray a little. Many days we
don’t. We fail to grasp the importance of reading His word constantly and
how it relates to our Salvation. The Salvation that allows us to enter
into the Kingdom of God.
You can see the church of today in Revelation 2 and 3.
It describes the seven churches: Loveless, Persecuted, Compromising, Corrupt,
Dead, Faithful, and the Luke Warm Church. Unfortunately, all seven reside
in the church we attend. Which of these churches described in Revelation
will ensure your entry into the kingdom of God? What church pertains to
you?
Blessings to you all,
Tony Sanchez
