God’s Purposes In The Succeeding End Time Events

(Implications Of God’s End-Time Purposes)

(Chris S. Sherrerd)

Eschatology, or "study of end-time things", is not this author's favorite topic of interest[1]. However, eschatology is a major issue virtually everywhere throughout the Body of Christ today. Almost every well-respected teacher/preacher/writer has his/her own pet theories of the coming end-time events and are certain that we now are in those times and the second coming of Christ is now imminent[2].

But none of us, including this author, has it “all right”, simply because our Lord has sovereignly chosen to not yet reveal all we want to know about how the many Biblical end-time prophecies are going to work out. My guess about one of His reasons for holding back that full revelation and understanding, is that the vast majority of us are not yet sufficiently mature in our intimate relationship with Christ, and if He did give us a “road map” of the future, we would respond in self-protective and/or self-ambitious ways that would actually take us out of His will for us.

Mostcommonly, in a large segment of evangelical Christianity throughout the world today, once a believer is brought to a saving knowledge of Christ Jesus, he/she is confronted with extensive and persistent Bible teachings on the Second Coming of Christ. That was the case with this author. Frequently, such teachings are of an event called "The Rapture of the Church", which is supposedly to happen "at any time now", and is associated with a doctrine called "Pre-Tribulational Pre-Millennialism" which is defended with intense dogmatism in arguments against alternative interpretations of the same Scripture proof texts.

1. My Introduction To Eschatology

Back in the 1970s the Lord gave me some cutting edge revelations about His purposes behind the future end-time events and some insights about the events themselves. But because, as I suggested above, the Body of Christ was then not ready to receive them, I just embedded those revelations in a book[3], which I did not publish unto 2003. But now is His kairos time for those of His “saints movement” to hear and benefit from them.

Before I continue on that subject, I first need to give some relevant background details of my personal testimony along that line.

During the first 15 years of my adult life, I was an agnostic, totally consumed by science as a source for all truth. My professional career was based on that. But back in the early 1960s, through a series of specific experiences, I learned that all branches of science are not based on data (as the “Scientific Method” we were taught in high school claims), but rather are based on the philosophies,of the scientists doing the research and of the sources of the funding for their research. And those philosophies are pagan and archaic!

In 1964 I personally and phenomenologically discovered that the Bible is indeed true and the only reliable source of truth, and that Christ Jesus is all Who the Bible says He is. And I immediately embarked on a life-long searching of the Bible for truth of Him and His ways and purposes and will for me.

In the late 1960s, however, I was shocked to discover that the Christian “science” of the theology of eschatology (Biblical studies of end-times) was also based not on data(i.e., on what the Bible actually says and doesn’t say) but have resulted from the philosophies of the theologians. In such cases, the philosophies/theologies arose from what I call “Ahah hermeneutics”: a serious Bible student, while reading he Bible, suddenly thinks he/she sees some overall “pattern” (in this case of the prophesied end-time events); reacts “Ahah! I see it!”; and from then on he/she “puts on the dark glasses” of that “pattern”, and blindly interprets all other relevant passages of Scripture according to his/her personal “Ahah pattern” rather on what the Bible actually intends by those passages. As a result, many opposing eschatologies exist today, all with some truth and all with some errors.

In my own case of hungering for truth from the Bible, I fell into that same trap. I was taught through my church associations the “any-time-now-Rapture theory”. I knew nothing else, and trusted the Bible. So I thought “OK, if that’s what the Bible says, I believe it.” Hence, for a season I “bought into” that particular eschatology. But then, one day as I was studying Matthew 13:30, I saw that Jesus clearly taught that the tares, the weeds, the children of Satan, the unsaved, will be removed from the earth first before the saints are. Well, that shoots down the “any-time-now-Rapture” theory! I chose to believe the words of Jesus before the words of some theologian.

And I then asked the Lord two questions.

The first was, “Lord, if that’s not true, then what is true, about the end times?” The Lord answered me almost immediately, but not in a way I had expected: “Don’t seek to understand the ‘what’ nor the ‘when’ of the prophesied events, but seek the ‘why’. Seek from My Word and from Me My Purposes behind the end-time events. For only then will you be able to truly understand the events themselves and their time sequence.” (That was in 1967-1968.)

That led me into quite a detailed search that went on for several years. It wasn’t until 1976 when I got it all pretty well figured out, and delineated it in my book Unto The Mountain Pass cited above.

The second question I asked was, “Lord, if the “any-time-now-Rapture” theory is wrong, why have You allowed such a large portion of Your Christians, Your people, to be deceived by it?” Many years later, He gave me the answer to that: “Because My people are not ready; they don’t yet have a strong enough faith to handle the real truth. If they knew the truth, in their weak faith, it would destroy what little faith they had.”

2. Principles Of Eschatology

There are so many conflicting eschatological doctrines which have been published over the ages. In my studies, I honestly didn't care which turned out to be right; I just wanted to know the truth. And so I sought the Lord intensely in prayer and in waiting upon Him. Slowly but clearlyHe led me to five basic tenets of eschatological hermeneutics, which I share as follows:

(1) As I mentioned above, our chief concern should not be with the what and when of the events prophesied for theseend days, but rather with the why thereof. We should first seek from the Lord and His Word, understandings of His purposes, goals, objectives, and ways. Only through that will it be possible for us to reach any true understandings at all on the events themselves and their relative timings.

(2) We are not to focus onto what Satan is doing, nor what is happening to Israel, today. Rather, we need to focus onto what our Lord Christ Jesus is doing within His Body andwhat His sovereign purposes are behind His doings.

(3) Our Lord's overall purpose, in His dealings with mankind in these "last days", is to gather and mature His Bride. That preparation is not only nor mainly quantitative, but alsoqualitative. Although He would that all be saved, His goal is also to bring to maturity those who are saved. And maturity here means in our personal relationship with Him, that He, in us and though us, may manifest His glory while we are still here on Earth. Hence, evangelism as currently understood, which deals with quantitative development of the Bride of Christ, is only a part of Christ's purposes in His dealings today. A mature Bride, which we are far from being as of yet, will accomplish evangelism far more effectively by attracting men to Christ via His glory manifested in us.

(4) He is sovereign, and He is now in total control of all things. Satan can do and does absolutely nothing without express permission given to him by Christ Jesus and/or by human will. Christ allows satan to do much evil, in ways very difficult for us to understand; but always only as part of His overall purposes. More specifically, Satan is Christ Jesus' agent in two ways: (a) to enforce the Adamic curse of death on all who determinedly reject Him; and (b) to chasten His children (Hebrews 12:1-11)! This means that for those of us who are in Christ, He will allow absolutely nothing to befall us except that it be of His Will for us. Romans 8:28 and Psalm 91 shall be experiential realities forus.

(5) Although our Lord Christ Jesus wills to impart to His maturing Bride an understanding of the general outline of His plans from here on, for our sake He does not dare to impart to us a detailed schedule of actual events and timings, as we just discussed. Knowledge of details will come only one step at a time as needed: only as we live through the timings, and only for one step (i.e., the next one) at a time. All detailed predictions and schedules which may from time-to-time be published, are from human imagination, not from divine direction from the Holy Spirit of Christ Jesus.

3. God’s Overall Objectives Behind Creation

So, what are His purposes for the successive end-time events? In order for us to understand them, we need study the context of those end-time events in His overall objectives behind creation in the first place.

Genesis 1:26-28 -- "After Our 'image'". That means, among other things, "of the same mentality, interests, personal objectives, desires, goals, etc." The modus operandum of the Godhead is: each Member chooses by free choice to live and function totally for the other members. God's single overall objective in His creating mankind is to obtain and have a family of sons (mature agents), each of whom by free choice lives and functions solely to effect and further His (God's) interests.

Now, God's ways are much higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9). But God says, "Come, let us reason together" (Isaiah 1:18). Hence, we proceed to ask and meditate upon the next question: how could God obtain such a family who by free choice would so choose such total oneness with Him and His objectives? God of course could create man. He could create man anyway He chose. He could create them as puppets to be automatically in oneness with Him. He already had done that - the hierarchy of angels; but the angels are in oneness with God by nature, not by free choice. But how could He create them so that they would freely choose Him?

So, what God did was: (a) create man with a free choice in his nature; (b) confront man with a real, practicable choice and challenge; (c) allow man to try that alternative; (d) show man that His way, being a way of totally-self-abandoning love, is so much more desirable a way even for man; (e) by a tremendous practical display of that love on His part, redeem men from their depraved state into oneness with Him; (f) by that process, redeemed men would out of gratitude want to freely choose God's way of self-abandoning love as theirmodus operandum as well.

This, though a gross oversimplification and understatement, is the gist of the one plan behind God's dealings with man during the first 6000 years of human creation. Not a separate plan for each dispensation or step of its unfolding, although certainly there occurred over time successive revelations of His plan to man and a succession of covenant relationships with men.

4. God’s Overall Objectives In These End Times

In a general sense, our Lord’ overall objective in these end times is the redeeming all of creation from the Fall. That is the overriding theme of the breaking of the seals of the Scroll (Revelation chapters. 4 to 11).

But in the meantime, God’s overriding purpose is to prepare a Bride for His Son. Only those of us who become an intimate extension of Christ will endure those events, let alone be used by Him in His purposes. We will find Him when, and only when, we seek Him with our whole heart.

So, the key to understanding all of this is Bridehood. Our Lord's overall purpose in these days is to search out, woo, and mature His Bride: His people, called by His name, filled with His Holy Spirit, united in faith with Him and with one another, and in holiness of living, so that He will regard us "worthy" of ruling and reigning over His inheritance in intimate relationship with Him. Ephesians 5:27 tells us that Christ loved His church, gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her by His word, "that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish." Revelation 19:7 describes the Bride of the Lamb as having made herself ready for the Lamb's "Marriage Supper (Convocation)". Revelation 21:2 & 9 relate the Bride, the wife of the Lamb who has been made ready and properly adorned, to the new Jerusalem, the HolyCity, the dwelling place and seat of government of King Jesus Christ. Obviously, He has much yet to do in and with us to get us to that state.

Christ did not come and die on the cross in order to become the Son of God and Lord of Lords - He was already those! He came, rather, that He might make us His Bride, that we will rule and reign with Him. His first coming, Pentecost, His dealings with His church throughout history, His dealings with us now and the near future, and His Parousia return, are all part of that grand plan and purpose. Oh that we be overcomers!

More specifically, to work this, our Lord seeks to:

(1) bring each of us unto deep intimacy with He Who lives within us, so that ...

(2) we function as love-motivated servants to one another in His Body, so that ...

(3)we comprise His new order of priesthood, priests of intercession and other forms of support to one another, so that ...

(4) we all mature as His Bride.

How will He raise up His remnant people?

First of all, He is currently transitioning all local representations of His Body from “churchianity” to the Kingdom of God. “All”, that is, “whosoever…”. That transitioning involves many major changes in our basic paradigms of what Christianity really is – not religion but relationship with King Jesus. Most of institutional Christianity today is but a modern form of the ancient religious system of Satan known in the Bible by the word “Baal”, just with “Christian” titles, customs and holidays.

Second, He is changing and refining the leadership - His undershepherds - of His Body. He is restoring the apostle and prophet ministries to His Body - at all levels. He is requiring a much greater level of holiness in the lives of His ministers, leading to a much deeper intimacy in their personal relationship with Him. He is also raising up new leaders without any renown. And although a few “mega-churches” will continue to be used by Him for revival and evangelism, the majority of His Body is being restructured into house groups with a multiplicity of ministries in each.

Third, through soon-coming severe economic and social chaos and other world-wide disasters, He is about to topple down our main idols of religion andaffluence. He is about to cause us to evaluate the proper priorities which we must place on all of our activities: crimping our traveling to and fro, exposing the weaknesses in our immediate family relationships, and causing us to recognize our desperate need for one another.

Also, through persecutions (by other "Christians" as well as by the world), he is about to force us to mature in our dependence upon Him, and to mature in our relationships with those other believers with whom He does place us in fellowship. Love, intercessory prayer, various Body ministries - these must blossom in our lives, not in a "grand and glorious" sense, but on a “one-to-on, rubber-hits-the-road” basis with other people.

5. So He Is Raising Up And Maturing His Bride

What is required of us to be a member of the Bride of Christ?

We first have to come into the Kingdom; that’s harvest, that’s evangelism. But then what else is required? Or is that enough? No. It’s not only a matter of coming into the Kingdom during harvest time. We must also be discipled unto maturity! The parousia return of King Jesus will not occur until His Bride is without spot nor wrinkle!

Despite what many people are saying, we are not yet now in the end times. We are notyet the omega generation! We’re already into some of those events; but there’s yet much much more that has to be accomplished. And that will take many decades yet before the parousia return of King Jesus.

“Come let us reason together, saith the Lord” – Isaiah 1:18. So how would you think God might accomplish both: bringing “all whosoever” into His Kingdom; and them maturing them? How might God do both?