No. 79 - A PEEK INTO THE FUTURE By: John J. Blanchard Tuesday, October 25, 2005 The Last Great Day The past seven days we have been spying out the land. We have looked at creation, and we have seen that indeed it is very good. We have looked into creation and combined it with scripture, and we have seen God’s thoughts and His mind are indeed very, very good. We have seen that the earth is flowing with milk and honey. It is just hidden from view. We have seen that the earth has absolutely incredible potential, but it is an earth right now that is smothered and ruled by giants. They are scary! They hold the earth captive in an iron grip. They want to keep it or destroy it. If they are forced to relinquish control, it is their desire to turn over a barren wasteland to the Creator. Their strategy is what is called a burnt earth strategy. Physical armies have used that to break people’s will as well. Leave the victor absolutely nothing! It would be their desire to turn over a wasteland to Jesus Christ. It would be a land and an earth devoid of life and burnt to a crisp and certainly an earth without any light or truth of God left. It would be a barren wasteland. Their philosophy is, as I said, if we cannot have it, He can’t have it either. We must not fear these beings. We cannot see them, and that makes them all the scarier. God says perfect love casts out all fear. We are to love one another as the brethren in Christ. But we are also to love the world, for God gave His only begotten Son for the whole world not just for a few trees. It was for the whole world. DO NOT GIVE A BAD REPORT We must not go back home and give a bad report to the people. If you would turn with me to Numbers chapter 13, we are going to look at the story of the spies who went and checked out the promised land. We cannot read the whole account. Sometime you may want to read the whole account. God had instructed Moses to spy out the land that He was going to give the people. In our case, the land (the Millennium) is what is coming just ahead. It is the beautiful earth. Numbers chapter 13, verse 1: “And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.’” Moses sent the spies into the land. They went and they did their work for forty days, and then they came back to report. We are going to drop down to verse 25. Numbers 13, verse 25: “And they returned from spying out the land after forty days. Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land.” Look at the fruit. The other day we were looking at the fruit of the earth, and we saw that indeed the fruits of this earth even physically are very beautiful and very good. So they showed them the fruit of the land. Verse 27: “Then they told him, and said: ‘We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.’” Continuing in verse 30, Caleb was sensing what these men were doing: “Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, ‘Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.’ But the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.’ And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, ‘The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature.’” We saw giants! Continuing in verse 33 of Numbers 13: “‘There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.’” It was a terrifying report. Drop down to Numbers chapter 14 and read verses 1-12. God says when they reject you, they have rejected Me. When they looked in the land and spied it out and gave en evil report, they rejected Me because they are saying I don’t have the strength and the power to fulfill My word! I promised to give you this land full of milk and honey, and they are saying I cannot do it. They are saying it cannot be done. Because of that for forty years they ended up wandering in the wilderness. RELEASED FROM CAPTIVITY Yes, the earth is smothered by giants. Yes, it is a scary place. It is held captive, but we must not let the destroyer destroy it because we have rejected God. To say that Satan can have his own way and to let him determine the times and seasons goes against God, for God has said in the season at the correct time My Son will come. I will send My Son and deliver the earth. We will have a Millennium on time; in the correct season. To let Satan determine the times and the seasons and to say that God cannot deliver except for only a handful hidden somewhere in the desert is to reject God! It is to say He does not have the power and that He cannot have the willpower and the strength to keep His word. We must in all sense and in every way believe God and have confidence. Turn to Isaiah chapter 50. We are told here in verse 1: “Thus says the Lord: ‘Where is the certificate of your mother’s divorce, whom I have put away? Or which of My creditors is it to whom I have sold you?’” God says wait a minute! Did I give up My people? Did I give up My children? Did I say I don’t own them anymore, that they are not going to be My children? He goes on to say: “‘For your iniquities you have sold yourselves, and for your transgressions your mother has been put away. Why, when I came, was there no man? Why, when I called, was there none to answer? Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver?’” He says who dares to say I cannot do this when I have promised it! I have said I will keep My word, and I will never lie. Turn to Isaiah chapter 52 just over to the next page. Verse 1: “Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion…” We know we are spiritual Zion (spiritual Jerusalem and the holy temple of God). “…put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city! For the uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer come to you.” Verse 2: “Shake yourself from the dust, arise; sit down, O Jerusalem! Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion! For thus says the Lord: ‘You have sold yourselves for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money.’ For thus says the Lord God: ‘My people went down at first into Egypt to dwell there; then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause, now therefore, what have I here,’ says the Lord, ‘That My people are taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them make them wail,’ says the Lord, ‘And My name is blasphemed continually every day. Therefore My people shall know My name; therefore they shall know in that day that I am He who speaks: “Behold, it is I.”’” It is for His namesake (for His word) that we will be delivered. It will not because we deserve it. That is certainly not the case. God is going to preserve His word and show the world (the entire universe and the host of heaven) that He is not a liar, and He cannot be beaten. He has made His promises. We have read them once, but let’s read them again in Titus chapter 1. This time we will read the first three verses of Titus. Titus 1, verse 1: “Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness..." (According to My word, which accords with godliness, God says) Paul wrote him. “…in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began…” God’s promises go back so far anciently that time had not started yet! What are those promises? “…but has in due time manifested His word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior…” God says I have promised eternal life. Paul says I am teaching and preaching the fact that God has made these promises before time began. God is not going to go back on that promise. GOD WILL NOT DESTROY THE WORLD Turn to the beginning of the Bible in Genesis chapter 8. We will read a promise that we must believe. Our gracious God will keep His word. After the flood of Noah, and God rescued the family of Noah let’s read what God says in Genesis 8, verses 20-22. God’s word says, without a doubt, do not look at the evil of men’s hearts to say I will destroy the world. That is not what I am judging by. I am making an agreement with you today that there will always be seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night, and they shall not stop as long as the earth remains. Let me tell you that will be a long, long time. It will be well beyond six thousand years. It will be well beyond seven thousand years. Go to Genesis chapter 9 and read verses 6-7. As we have learned in this Feast, physically and spiritually produce abundant fruit. Read Genesis 9:8-12. Perpetual is a long time. Continue reading verses 13-17. Don’t make the mistake that God is only talking about a physical flood. What a dirty trick if He destroys it some other way. Earlier He said in chapter 8 there will always be seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night. For no flood of dissipation, no flood of evil and no flood of demonic armies will ever accomplish the task of destroying the earth. There will be no nuclear winter because that would stop seedtime and harvest. There will be no total destruction of God’s Church, for that would stop the fruit of the Spirit from working. Utter destruction has been averted. Study Malachi 4 someday, and you will see God promised to send an Elijah to prevent utter destruction. It has happened! We need to believe God when He says something because He said I will never ever lie to you or make a mistake. Let’s go to Isaiah chapter 45 because it also backs up this promise. Turn to Isaiah 45 where God makes an interesting statement. Isaiah 45, verse 18: “For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who has established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited: ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, “Seek Me in vain”; I, the Lord, speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.’” God says I am never wrong. Won’t you believe Me? I am never ever wrong, and I created the earth to be inhabited. If it gets destroyed in any fashion, I made a mistake. I am wrong! It is not going to happen, brethren. God has made a plan to deliver us from our own folly, from Satan’s influence and from any other natural catastrophe that you can think of. God is going to have a Millennium because He said so. ALL WILL BE OFFERED SALVATION Drop down to verse 20 and continue reading. “‘Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you who have escaped from the nations. They have no knowledge, who carry the wood of their carved image, and pray to a god that cannot save. Tell and bring forth your case; yes, let them take counsel together. Who has declared this from ancient time? Who has told it from that time? Have not I, the Lord?’” Those are the promises from ancient times that we read in Titus. “‘And there is no other God besides Me, a just God and a Savior…’” My name is Savior; it is not loser! “‘…there is none besides Me.’” Verse 22: “‘Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth!’” Not just a few people. “‘…all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself; the word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that to Me every knee shall bow…’” He said the word has gone out. Every knee will bow! And you better believe every knee will bow! “‘Every tongue shall take an oath. He shall say, “Surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength. To Him men shall come, and all shall be ashamed who are incensed against Him. In the Lord all the descendants of Israel shall be justified, and shall glory,”’” “All” is pretty big! Everyone will know and admit God almighty is the Great God, and His Son Jesus Christ is the King. It is an amazing promise. He will not be defeated, and every knee will, indeed, bow. When every knee bows, what are we picturing? It pictures what we are celebrating here today. It is the Last Great Day. This day pictures the time when everyone will have a chance to see the true nature of God and experience His understanding in their minds. They will know that He really is a merciful God and that He has never, ever desired people to either blow up their own children to kill someone else or to shed innocent blood in any other way. He has always desired peace. His capital city, Jerusalem, means “city of peace”. How will all of this be accomplished, brethren? How will this be done? We have seen that the earth is more than just good land. This earth is the most productive place in the universe. Science is proving that. The kingdom of God will be based here on earth. God’s promises are to the people of the earth, for God so loved the world He gave His Son for the people of the earth. The earth will be the seat of God’s government. Turn to Isaiah chapter 9. THE UNIVERSE IS GOD’S PLANTATION In Isaiah chapter 9 we will read something of the Millennium here and God’s government. Read Isaiah 9:6-7. If anyone else but God made such a promise, we could all go home and forget the whole thing. But God has proven over and over that He is not a loser. He is going to win and win big! Christ’s government will go on forever and ever. The family, therefore, must keep growing and get forever larger. It will be huge! Turn to Isaiah chapter 51. God has made so many amazing promises. We must believe Him. Isaiah 51, verse 12: “‘I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you should be afraid of a man who will die, and of the son of a man who will be made like grass? And you forget the Lord your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth; you have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor…’” Satan is the oppressor, brethren. He works through people, but when we fear we are actually fearing people and their oppressor behind them, Satan. That is honoring Satan in a way. Continuing in the last half of verse 13: “‘…when he has prepared to destroy. And where is the fury of the oppressor? The captive exile hastens, that he may be loosed, that he should not die in the pit, and that his bread should not fail. But I am the Lord your God, who divided the sea whose waves roared, the Lord of hosts is His name. And I have put My words in your mouth; I have covered you with the shadow of My hand, that I may plant the heavens, lay the foundations of the earth, and say to Zion, “You are My people.”’” The earth and all will rejoice. Everyone will have an opportunity, but God says He will plant the heavens. What does that mean? It is the only way He could fulfill His other promise that the increase of His Son’s government will go on forever. There is only so much room on earth. The Hebrew word for plant is nata which means literally or figuratively to plant, or neta which means a plant or collectively a bunch of plants forming a plantation. Now we have seen that the earth is God’s garden, but the universe is His plantation! He promises to fill it with the family. It will be ruled by the family of God in an unending increase of a government that is going to get so big you and I cannot comprehend it. We literally cannot comprehend how big this is going to be! This will be accomplished in some remarkable ways through the resurrections. ALL SHALL BE MADE ALIVE Turn to I Corinthians chapter 15. We often call this the Resurrection Chapter and rightly so. It explains much of how God is going to accomplish these amazing promises. I Corinthians 15, verse 20: “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Yes, Christ is the only one resurrected at this point in time. He is the first of the firstfruits. But we know God’s people that participate in Pentecost are the rest of the firstfruits. Continuing in verse 21: “For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” As Mr. Herbert Armstrong used to say, it is the same “all”. Everyone created in the image and likeness of God is included. I Corinthians 15, verse 24: “Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For ‘He has put all things under His feet.’ But when He says ‘all things are put under Him,’ it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted.” The Father says you will reign over everything except Me! By agreement we will rule the universe with our children, the sons of God. Concluding in I Corinthians 15, verse 28: “Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.” We will all possess the knowledge of God. His mind will work with our mind. It will be a wonderful time when free will combines with the will of God to produce a peace throughout the universe that we cannot imagine today because the oppressor still reigns. The oppressor and his influence are still here, but not much longer, and he knows it. Back up, if you would, to Ezekiel chapter 37. This is a scripture that we have traditionally read on this day for decades. Ezekiel 37 talks about the valley of dry bones. It is an interesting thing God is telling us here. He tells us how He is going to go in a specific order to be very, very fair. Ezekiel 37, verse 1: “The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry.” These were very old bones. Continue reading Ezekiel 37:3-11. Some of these people died in the wilderness. Some of these people were slain by the enemy. These people had given up. Some were slain in Auschwitz. Continue reading verses 12-14. This is all of ancient Israel and all of Israel descended from them. It would be billions by now. Because God promised in I Corinthians 15, shortly thereafter all the world will be resurrected! The Hittites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, and all the other enemies of Israel will come up out of the grave and have their opportunity to learn about God, so that all flesh can bend the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ and say You are the Great God. You are the Great God, and the oppressor is gone. We can see clearly now. We can be taught of what You have been doing and what You have been working on for so many millennia back even before time began. We can see You are a God of Your word. We must never ever sell God short. Lucifer, the greatest being ever created by God and the most brilliant being ever created by God, tried to prove God wrong. He could not do it so there is no man on the earth who is going to succeed. God will win, and He will win big. Our minds, like I said, cannot take in the vastness of what He has planned for us, and we cannot understand the vastness of His intellect. We cannot understand how He can pull all of this off. Every scripture in this Bible is true, and it is written in multiple layers where no human being could figure it out. Einstein could not figure it out. Newton could not figure it out. Nobody except by God’s Spirit and His help can understand it. We must be led by the Spirit into the truth of God, and then we will see how great and how awesome is our God. MAKE NO LITTLE PLANS I want to quote a famous human architect by the name of Daniel Burnham. After the great Chicago fire, he wanted to build a new Chicago. In selling his plans for the huge skyscrapers in the windy city that we know today, he said, “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood.” Do not think in a miniscule way. We are going to build a great city here, an awesome place that will be known around the earth! Make no little plans. They do not inspire anybody. Right now our blood should be stirred, brethren. We should be pumped and excited as never before. We should be looking with eager anticipation, looking up, for Christ will return at an hour that we do not expect. He will shock us! But because of the things that we have learned and He has been feeding us, we understand we can look up and rejoice. We should be so happy and joyful. Do not let anything cause us to doubt. Do not let any man rob you or me of the joy that we should have at this time. Do not let any man cause us anxiety. Do not let any news report discourage you. We must not get discouraged by physical signs. Let no doomsayer cause us to doubt the great promises of the Almighty God, for then we will be like the ten spies who went into the land and were afraid. Be like the two spies and have courage and say God can do this! If God is with us, who cares how big those guys are! Our God is the Almighty God, El Shaddai. Turn to Romans chapter 9, where Isaiah is quoted. Verse 27: “Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth.’” God knows in all of His wisdom that if He had given Satan the full six thousand years, Satan in one way or the other would have gotten us to destroy ourselves. God promises to cut it short. Romans 9, verse 29: “And as Isaiah said before: ‘Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed…’” He did. “‘…we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah.’” There would be nothing left except ashes, but God said I am not going to let that happen. Trust Me on this one. I am the Master Farmer who not only wants to plant the earth as My garden to keep the family farm, but I am the Master Farmer of the universe! I will plant the heavens, believe Me. I am the Grand Master of the universe who cannot be beaten, even in a single move! Nobody’s intellect can match God’s. Turn to Revelation chapter 21. We are going to the end of the book. We started at the beginning. We are going to the end of the Bible. Revelation 21:22 tells us: “But I saw no temple in it…” I looked in the land, and I did not see any temple. “…for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” There will be no liars because the father of lies is gone. There will be no more abominations of desolation because the desolator will be gone. There will be no one to be influenced to defile, for the super defiler will be locked away. Turn to Revelation chapter 22. Read verses 1-5. Because the spiritual darkness that Satan has pulled over the earth will be gone. Revelation 22, verse 6: “Then he said to me, ‘These words are faithful and true.’ And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show His servants the things which must shortly take place. ‘Behold, I am coming quickly! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.’”