The Beginning of The End Times

Updated 3/21/11

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel is God. He is the only One who has formed and there will be none after Him. God created the Universe and everything in it, and He breathed life into man so that man might seek Him and know Him and become His Friend. God loves His Creation, but God's very Nature is Righteousness and Holiness so all of mankind's wickedness and rebellion whether intentionally or not is an outrage to the very Heart of our God. Two thousand years ago God sent His Son, Jesus, to fulfill His Law by being sacrificed for the sins of man so that through the Sacrificial Blood of Christ, God could have a relationship with His Children. Those who put their faith in Christ were then credited with a righteousness based on faith from first to last. God then promised that those who loved Jesus and followed Him as their Lord and Savior would be sealed with the Holy Spirit as a down payment guaranteeing their standing forever as a child belonging to God. Romans 14 : 8 - "If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord."

Although it's a wonderful thing to belong to the Lord, it does come at a cost. When you're God's Child you become His Ambassador to the world around you literally representing Him everywhere you go. Beyond our passive representation of God, He also calls us to fulfill the desires of His Heart on earth. God calls His Children to stand for the Truth and to be in the world but not of the world. God calls His Children to go and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey everything that Jesus commanded us to obey. God calls His Children to hunger and thirst for His Righteousness and to do everything in humility and love. God calls His Children to be strong and courageous and to be lights to the world so that all can see and know that there's a God who loves them. It's always in our best interests to fear, love, obey, seek, and draw close to our God; however, when God's Children lose our fearful respect for our Heavenly Father, embrace wicked pleasures, misrepresent Him to the lost world, and begin to pick and choose which of His Commands that we are willing to obey, it's then up to our God, as our Loving Father, to bring us back on track to our Family Duties, Responsibilities, and Standards through His Faithful Righteously Angry Discipline.

God's Message to His Children of our generation. Revelation 3 : 15 - 20 - "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me."

God has planned out the days to come that are known to us as the end times, and all of His Plans will be accomplished. Known to God thousands of years ago and described above in Revelation 3 : 15 - 20, but unknown to us, is that God's Children in our generation would be, and now are, displeasing to our Heavenly Father. Through the secret power of lawlessness, mentioned in 2Thessalonians 2 and already working against us even back then, the deceiver has slowly and quietly stolen our passion for obeying God's Truth and replaced it with a desire to just get along with the devil's world, an acceptance of his lies, and a love for his pop culture.

No longer are we salt and light in our representation of our God, but instead we have become bound by the rules of a one sided political correctness that tells us that if Christians want to be good members of society that we must be careful to never say anything that might be offensive to anyone else. Sadly, in our misguided attempt to reach out to our politically correct generation as a new breed of cool, positive, sensitive, tolerant, accepting, loving, Christians the enemy has turned our efforts against us and in the process we have become timid, passive, lukewarm, bland, without any resolve to teach others to obey the Lord Jesus, afraid to rock the boat, afraid to call sin - sin, afraid to tell others that they desperately need our Savior, afraid to upset those who follow false religions, and so very afraid to hurt anyone's feelings that we will often affirm to others that the Lord is pleased with them no matter what they do; even within in the Body of Christ. Malachi 2 : 17 - "You have wearied the Lord with your words. 'How have we wearied him?' you ask. By saying, 'All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them' ............. "

Two thousand years ago Jesus told the Apostle John exactly how He would find His Church in the last days. Revelation 3 : 17 - "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked." Obviously this Verse speaks of a vast disconnect between how God sees His Children and how we see ourselves in relation to our God. In this Passage Jesus goes on to say that if the Church does not ask Him for spiritual "eye salve" to help us to see the Truth of this disconnect, and in response to the Truth earnestly repent, that the Lord, because He loves us, was then going to come with a rebuke and with discipline. Hebrews 12 : 10 - "Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness."

Two thousand years ago the Lord told the Apostle John what form this rebuke and discipline would take. It would be left to the oppressor to discipline God's Children in the form of the four horsemen of Revelation 6; where people will be killed by war - (chaos), famine, disease, and wild beasts. This is the discipline that the Lord will allow out of His Love for us to turn us back to a humble fearful obedience to the Truth if we do not seek His Eye Salve, earnestly repent, and turn back ourselves. Although it says in Revelation 1 : 3 that blessed are those who hear the Revelation and take it to heart, shrewdly, as the oppressor made his plans for our genocide he gave God's Children a deception so that we would not even be aware that the death, destruction, and terrible broken hearted misery that are on our thresholds are actually sanctioned as a rebuke from our God. "Don't worry about the book of Revelation.", the crafty one proclaims. "It's so confusing, and surely no painful discipline is going to fall on you. Compare yourselves to other Christians; obviously you're not the ones who are lukewarm, wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. Besides there's going to be this event called the pre-Tribulation rapture and one day you'll just fly away to Heaven to go have a party with Jesus leaving the rest of the world to me. Since that will be the very first sign that we are in the end times, and you'll be gone, why bother with it?".

(Note: The future rapture of the Church as described in Scripture is tied to the resurrection of the dead in that a resurrection event will happen just before people are raptured from the earth. 1Thessalonians 4 : 16 - 17 - "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." In the book of Revelation we see that there are just two resurrection events that are described in these Passages and both of these resurrection events are after the Tribulation time. One is described in Revelation 20: 4 - 6 and the other in Revelation 20 : 11 - 15. In Revelation 20 verses 5 and 6 the Bible twice clearly labels this resurrection as the first resurrection. Revelation 20 : 5b - 6 - " ....... This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years." Now if this resurrection is the first resurrection how can there be another resurrection then rapture event before the Tribulation when the first resurrection does not come until at the end of the Tribulation? Why did God bother to number this first resurrection as first? If there was a resurrection before this resurrection then why not just describe it without numbering it? I believe that it is numbered to help us to see that there is not going to be a large resurrection then rapture event until the Lord returns, coming in the clouds at the end of the Tribulation, as described in both Revelation 19 : 11 - 20 and Matthew 24 : 30 - 31. Although the two witnesses in Revelation 11 are brought back to life and are then taken up to be with the Lord, and the 144,000 will also be taken up at some point during the Tribulation to be with the Lord as firstfruits, see Revelation 14 : 3 - 4. Thus the large resurrection then rapture event that is described in 1Thessalonians 4 does not fit into the end times time line as the pre-Tribulation rapture event that so many people are hoping for.)

Today, since so many in the Body of Christ embrace this pre-Tribulation rapture lie, perhaps because it encourages the lost to make a decision of faith now before it's to late, or perhaps because it's obviously just so much more appealing then to have our relatively untested faith to be tested by serious persecution, pain, grief, loss and or tragedy; the Body of Christ now confidently spreads and strongly defends this powerful deception believing that we are soon going to be snatched away and rewarded for our faithfulness to Jesus; when in reality we have been quietly patiently lured, ever so slowly, away from the Heart of our God and we are about to be struck squarely in the heart by our own God's Terrible Painful Rebuke. Amos 5 : 18 - 19 - "Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him." Malachi 3 : 2 - "But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap." 1Peter 4 : 17a - "For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; .........." Jeremiah 9 : 7 - "Therefore this is what the Lord Almighty says: 'See, I will refine and test them, for what else can I do because of the sin of my people?'"

What does a terrible painful rebuke from the Lord look like? Here are a few verses in Hosea that should bring us pause. Hosea 9 : 16 - "Ephraim (Northern Kingdom of Israel) is blighted, their root is withered, they yield no fruit. Even if they bear children, I will slay their cherished offspring." Hosea 10 : 13 - 14 - "But you (Ephraim) have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your own strength and on your many warriors, the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be devastated - as Shalman devastated Beth Arbel on the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to the ground with their children." Hosea 8 : 7 - "They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no head; it will produce no flour. Were it to yield grain, foreigners would swallow it up. Israel is swallowed up; now she is among the nations like a worthless thing." Hosea 8 : 14 - "Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; Judah has fortified many towns. But I will send fire upon their cities that will consume their fortresses." Clearly, we should greatly fear the painful rebuke of our Lord, and if He says that we need to be disciplined then we should respond to His Warning with the utmost urgent seriousness. Joel 1 : 14 - 15 - "Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord. Alas for that day! For the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty."

The verses above where written about God's Righteous Anger towards His Children whom He deeply loves, and if we do not repent, His Rebuke to us could be just as serious. Think about this for a moment; the destroyer will soon be given permission by our God to kill us in 1/4th of the world. Also note that these warnings of rebuke and discipline in Revelation 3 were given for the end times Christian Church and not to the lost; although everyone on earth will be affected in some way by the terrible days to come, and many old scores will be settled when peace is removed from the earth.

Although disaster and destruction are in sight, God, in His Mercy wants us to humble ourselves and repent; so He is sending help. Amos 3 : 7 - "Surely the sovereign Lord does nothing without first revealing his plan to his servants the prophets." Malachi 3 : 1a - "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. ........." I believe that God's End Times Messenger will begin the end times as a herald running with the end times Revelation that was given to a different Servant of God by the Holy Spirit, as described in Habakkuk 2 : 1-3 - "I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Then the Lord replied: 'Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.'" In heralding this Message the messenger calls God's Children to read it, to repent, and to turn their hearts and their children's hearts back to each other and to God. (Note, God speaking of His Messenger who will prepare the way before Him. Malachi 4 : 6 - "He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.") But who is looking for God's End Times Messenger and how would you know who to look for? For that matter who is listening for God's Watchman, who will see the sword of discipline coming, and how would you recognize the voice of a watchman even if you heard it? Frankly, very few are listening or looking for God's Messengers to come because if we are expecting to just get taken away before the end times begin then why would we need God's End Times Help anyway?

This is the situation that we find ourselves in. I believe that a key to God's Messenger's first end times mission is to somehow encourage everyone to earnestly seek the Lord for the eye salve that will help us to see and discern the Truth of our times; but people have been saying that we are in the end times for centuries, so what could possibly motivate anyone to earnestly seek the eye salve now, especially when we are blind and think that we are rich in the Eyes of the Lord?

If you read this Journal you'll see that I believe that I, like many others, can see the end times drawing near, and I've asked the Lord to testify to this specific alarm as the Second Watchman by sending to us obviously supernatural healing miracles. Then I later discovered that healing miracles are predicted for God's Children in Malachi 4 : 2 - 3 for right around the end times. "'But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things,' says the Lord Almighty." The thing is, I've also discovered a verse in Isaiah that indicates that the majority of the Lord's Healing will come in the midst of our end times testing and not before. Isaiah 35: 3-6 - "Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert." Along with the healing miracles, this verse also indicates that we are going to take some major hits and that God is going to allow some fearful things to happen, but then when we as the Body of Christ earnestly turn our hearts to Him and call on Him for help, He will come and save us.

Although the healing miracles will be wonderful to receive in the midst of our trials, I was hoping that they would alert the Body of Christ to our peril before the times of testing begin so that we can turn back to God as quickly as possible. I knew that all of God's Children worldwide would not see through the devil's deception, repent, and return to the Lord as the result of healing signs and Biblical warnings of destruction, before we've received any actual discipline, but I was hopeful that some would. I then hoped that these would be the ones who would call others to healing and renewal and who would be looking for God to come to our rescue.

At this point, after further study, I don't think that even unusual obviously supernatural healing miracles will be enough to alert the bulk of the Body of Christ to the seriousness of our coming discipline. If God answers these prayers I believe that there will be only a few days between when the miracles begin and when the discipline begins. Matthew 24 says that the coming days will be like the days of Noah where most people lived their lives completely unaware that the flood was coming. Matthew 24 : 39a - "and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. .....". However, since so many Christians are asleep and expecting a rapture, as opposed to the destroyer murdering themselves and their families; I'm still asking God to bring special early healing to people that I've specifically prayed for as signs to specific others that this Message is True, from God, and worthy of their immediate attention and proclamation. I've traveled to several states and I've prayed with a few people personally, but I've also silently prayed for several people who I have crossed paths with, like the hostess in Grand Forks, members of churches that I've attended, and also for some people who I have never met but that I've heard of through media outlets; all of whom are totally unaware of this intercession.

Like the Elijah of old calling down fire from Heaven, I'm still asking God to send down His Healing Miracles. 1Kings 18 : 36 - 37 - "...... O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again." After the healing begins I will continue to pray and ask God to heal more and more people in Jesus' Name through the first rounds testimony and example, but how far God gets in this process before the fearful events begin to happen is completely in the Lord's Hands. If God answers these prayers, some healing will begin first before the horsemen discipline, however, I can only make the requests and then it's up to our Lord God Almighty to make the decisions. Finally, don't be surprised if the deceiver has his own explanation for the healing miracles like they're from mutants or aliens or anything else other then from the Hand of God, because the oppressor knows that they're coming and he can't say that they're from the pit of Hell this time; otherwise the atheists that he's deceived would then have to consider that if there's a devil then there must be a God; and if I'm ever quoted as saying that I have blood that runs green and white, yes I've said it at different times either because of the college I attended or the color of soda that I liked to drink.

Sometime during the Lord's Promised Rebuke, when the Body of Christ humbly repents, and returns to it's first love, the Lord will come to our aid against the forces of the evil oppressor. Joel 2 : 12 - 13 -"'Even now,' declares the Lord, 'return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.' Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity."

If the world is on fire, or if God is testifying to His Very Near Presence with healing miracles, then I encourage you, to copy and paste this Journal to a file on your own computer so that you will have your own copy to read offline to see if the Lord speaks to you through it. I also encourage you to make a paper copies to have for yourself and to give to others. There are many chapters so please make sure you get a copy of all of the archives.

May God's Will Be Done

Press On

Your Brother

Thomas Israel