What is the Point?: Discovering Life's Deeper Meaning and Purpose (21 page)

Psalm 45 is a most glorious passage of Messiah, and it is one of my favorites to meditate on, talk about, and to sing. It is the Father singing about the Son. The writer of the Book of Hebrews lets us know that behind the voice of the psalmist is the voice of the Father speaking to His Son (Heb. 1:8). This glorious psalm starts with the Father’s heart overwhelmed and overflowing for Jesus (Ps. 45:1–2; Heb. 1:8). I think of it as the Father thundering from heaven, “This is My Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased!” The Father’s heart overflows with His love for Jesus. This passage shows some of His emotion for His Son. I love it!

As the Father sings this song, the Holy Spirit will impart portions of it into the heart of the bride, who will join in as the angels look on. In this psalm the Father calls Jesus to action saying, “Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O Mighty One, with Your glory and Your majesty. And in Your majesty ride prosperously because of truth, humility, and righteousness” (Ps. 45:3–4).

There is coming a day, yet in the future, where Jesus will come as a mighty Man of War. On earth we will see Him as Bridegroom and will have hearts that are lovesick for Him, crying out, “Come! Lord Jesus! Come” (Rev. 22:17). We will be praying in unity around the globe, “Oh, that You would rend the heavens! That You would come down!” (Isa. 64:1–3). Jesus will be praying for the nations, and then when the scene is complete, the Father will commission Him to return. We see this coronation in Daniel 7 as Jesus is brought before the Ancient of Days and given the title deed of the earth and the action plan to cleanse it (vv. 9–14). We see the same scene in the Book of Revelation when Jesus takes the scroll at the Father’s command (Rev. 5). In response to the bride crying for Him to come, He will return as a Man of War. He is serving the Father by executing this plan, and He is serving the bride as well as the world by cleansing the earth of evil. He is a servant at the core of His personality, and He is the same Man who came as a Lamb, with the same personality, yet this time He is seen as a servant King who fights.

Israel was looking for this Man of War at His first coming. They were looking for Messiah to come and eradicate the enemies of Israel, fight against Rome, and set up a kingdom in Jerusalem that would rule the world. They were looking for a Man of War who would cry out in the street and start a revolution. They were looking for a Messiah to fight for them and deliver them from oppression, returning Jerusalem to its former glory as in the days of David and fulfilling the prophecies of Isaiah and many others. They were not looking for a Savior or a sacrifice. They were not looking for a Lamb, and they did not see, even in their own prophets, that He would first come as a Lamb and then come as a Lion.

Today we have reversed it, and we resist the Man of War, but those prophecies that Israel was hanging onto in its day, though they had the timing wrong, are still true prophecies. He is coming as Messiah of Israel, as a Man of War, who paid the price for all nations, making a way as the perfect sacrificial Lamb for all of humanity to be restored to God. He brought salvation even to the Gentiles (Rom. 11:25–26), and when this gospel reaches the ends of the world, He will return as a Man of War (Matt. 24:14)

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For two thousand years, since the cross, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus has been in heaven praying before the Father and asking Him for the nations (Ps. 2:8–9; Heb. 7:25). He has been asking the Father to send forth the Holy Spirit to win the hearts of humanity to Himself (John 17:20–26). Throughout the centuries the Holy Spirit has eagerly been working, and He has spread the name of Jesus to the ends of the world. During this period of time the cynics, the arrogant, and those who “love the lie” and hate the truth have said, “See! He’s dead! He was just a teacher, just a prophet, an eccentric man with a good message, but He was not God.” The scoffers have laughed at the righteous throughout the ages and have mocked those who long for the appearing of Jesus by saying, “Where is the promise of His coming?” In the generation of Jesus’s return, there will be many scoffers (2 Pet. 3:3–4).

It is true that no man knows the day or the hour or even the generation that the Lord is going to return, but one thing is certain; He is not a liar, and He will finish what He started—maybe in my lifetime, maybe not. Either way we are of the line of the great men and women of faith who have had this anchor of hope in their souls (Heb. 11). This anchor keeps us from wavering in the midst of the great delusion.

Jesus has patiently been praying before the Father, and the Father has been working along with the Spirit to convince the nations of the earth of the beauty and majesty of Jesus, their Savior and their Bridegroom. The Spirit has been convicting people of sin and righteousness (John 16:8), and the Father has been preparing the wedding (Matt. 22:2; Rev. 19:7). Together the Trinity has been working toward “the day of the Lord.” The day of the Lord is both the day of His wedding and the day of His judgment (Rev. 19:1–10). It is the day of vengeance and the day of gladness (Isa. 63:4; Song of Sol. 3:11). “Woe to the enemy of the King on His wedding day.”
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Jesus said that He would not return to the earth until all the nations hear “this gospel of the kingdom” (Matt. 24:14). He connected the timing of His return to the preaching of the gospel to all nations. Mission organizations project from statistical data that every people group and language on the earth will hear the gospel for the first time by 2025! Churches exist in all 232 nations and territories of the earth. The greatest harvest of souls in history is occurring now. The Bible has been translated in more than two thousand languages (used by 98 percent of the world’s population). Wycliffe plans to have it translated in every language by 2025!
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This is a stunning sign of the time! Jesus’s name has spread like a vine covering the earth.

He is the most beloved Man of all generations. There is no more famous Man. In the end there won’t be a more hated Man. He will become the obsession of the earth. Men will either hate Him with great hatred or they will love Him with fiery devotion, but everyone will have to deal with Him. All tongues, tribes, nations, and people will choose Him or choose the lie.

In addition to saying that He would not return to the earth until “this gospel” reached the ends of the world, He also said He would not return to Jerusalem until the leaders of that city invite Him (Matt. 23:29). The Father is preparing a wedding for His Son, and that wedding will take place in Israel. There will be a remnant from the seed of Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac who will call on the name of Yeshua, with love, in the identity of a Bride. It will come to pass.

The stage for the end-time drama is Israel. The glory of Jesus the Messiah will be displayed on that great stage as the entire world watches. The end-time drama is about the knowledge of Jesus and the nations of the earth seeing the way He deals with Israel and knowing this is how He will deal with them too. Israel is the witness, and even when they don’t want to be, they are the canvas on which His portrait is painted. We know Him through Israel’s prophets and patriarchs, and we know Him through twelve Jewish men who walked with Him for three and a half years. He Himself is Jewish and has chosen that family line to make Himself known. All eyes will be on Jerusalem as Jesus takes the scroll and opens the seals (Rev. 5:7–9). Even before those final days we see the nations reacting to His plan. The conflict is great.

This conflict that is rising will be beyond anything seen in human history. As the events in the Book of Revelation unfold, there will be a deep darkness that will come over the earth like a wave of delusion at the same time God’s glory will be released in an unprecedented way on His true church (Isa. 60:1–2). Yet we know that there will be a great falling away in the midst of this, even within the church, because deception and delusion will increase greatly (Matt. 24:9–13; 2 Thess. 2:3–11; 1 Tim. 4:1–2; 2 Tim. 3:1–7; 4:3–4). The delusion will include false peace and safety (1 Thess. 5:3), but it is absent of Jesus and therefore absent of truth.

Many who currently profess to be Christians will fall away while at the same time the greatest harvest in history comes into the kingdom. Those who love truth will run deeper into it; those who love the lie will go all the way into it. Malachi says that Jesus will come as a refiner’s fire, and He will start in His temple (Mal. 3:1–6). Jeremiah prophesied of the shepherds who tell lies in God’s name (Jer. 23). God will silence them by drawing a line in the sand where the gray areas will not be so gray.

Several years ago I was in a time of intercession, and I was crying out for America and for God to raise up leaders. I was crying out for mercy and asking for help. I suddenly felt the presence of the Lord strongly, and I heard His voice clearly. I have only heard His voice at this intensity a few times in my life. It stopped me in my tracks. He said, “What’s it to you if I raise up a man like an ax in My hand to judge My church? They lie! They lie about Me. They lie about My deity. They lie about My humanity. They lie about My first coming, and they lie about My second coming! What’s it to you if I judge My church?”

I was shattered to the core and terrified. I realized that one of the answers to my cry for mercy would be the exposure of the lies that are in the church. Not all of the church lies about Jesus. There are many who love Him and believe what He said about Himself. There are also many in the church who are wavering and tottering on the fence, looking over the edge and considering more ways to God than just Jesus, or maybe that Jesus wasn’t really God. Some are saying He isn’t returning to the earth. Others say He wasn’t born of a virgin. On and on the lies go, and these lies are often perpetrated by so-called “shepherds” in the body of Christ. He is against these lies, and He will shake His house to expose them so that the humble, meek, and those who love the truth can see more clearly and run to His name and find refuge.

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In the midst of all of these conflicting ideas and the multiple factors that are creating chaos and confusion on the earth, there will be a people around the world who agree with Jesus and His leadership. They will love Him as He loves them, and they will be in the place of prayer and worship all around the world. There will be a song in the night that will awaken the dawn of His appearing (Isa. 24:14–16).

Isaiah prophesied of Jesus bringing justice to the earth. He emphasized various things that He would do at both His first and second coming (Isa. 42). In the middle of chapter 42 Isaiah paints a picture of a song and cry that will be heard across all the nations of the earth. He doesn’t leave any area of the earth out. Even in Kedar, which is an Islamic village, this song will be heard! (See verse 11.)

Today the Holy Spirit is awakening this song. There will be a worldwide worship and prayer movement made up of the global body of Christ. Jesus will return in response to the love songs and the intercessory cry for justice (Luke 18:7–8).

In Isaiah 24 Isaiah paints the most vivid picture of the condition the world will be in at the Second Coming. As you read it, you feel dreadful and wonder if there is any hope. Suddenly right in the middle of that dark chapter he burst out with hope:

They shall lift up their voice, they shall sing; for the majesty of the L
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they shall cry aloud from the sea. Therefore glorify the L
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in the dawning light, the name of the L
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God of Israel in the coastlands of the sea. From the ends of the earth we have heard songs: “Glory to the righteous!”

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SAIAH
24:14–16

The righteous are seen in the middle of the darkness, in the midst of tribulation, and in the shaking as burning and shining lamps, bringing a multitude to Him and pulling on the strings of His heart beckoning Him to return. This worldwide worship movement will see Him as a Bridegroom (Rev. 22:17), and the Holy Spirit will establish the first commandment to first place in the body of Christ. (See Ephesians 5:27.) This great company of people will not only be an army, a workforce, or the body alone, but they will also be the bride. They will sing songs of love and pray prayers of love because they genuinely have encountered the voice of the Bridegroom.

Isaiah informs us that the primary theme of the songs will be the majesty of the Lord (Isa. 24:14). This is the awestruck, beauty-filled, fear of the Lord. It is beauty. We sing of His glory and His majesty, and we sing of His love and His mercy. I believe one of the primary songs that will be sung will be the song of all songs as well as the hymns of Revelation that are full of majesty and adoration. Not only will we sing about majesty, but also the Lord will anoint this worship and prayer with His presence, and the majestic splendor of God’s presence will be in the prayer rooms around the world, as the firstfruit of Jesus being on the earth. He will manifest His majesty, which will be seen through healing, signs and wonders, deliverance, and salvation as well as the evidence of the fear of the Lord and the supernatural capacity to love Him in great faith.

Oh, we are only at the beginning of the beginning of where this is going, but just as you see the edges of the dawn long before you see the sun, we will see the beams of His brilliance fill the prayer rooms of the world long before we see Him face-to-face. It is the first sign on the horizon that the sun is about to appear.

We want to be people who usher in that light because we have encountered Him and are carriers of His Spirit. It says in Daniel that the people of understanding will instruct many and the wise will shine like the stars (Dan. 12:3). It says of John the Baptist, at Jesus’s first coming, that he was a burning and shining lamp. Jesus will raise up burning and shining lamps at His second coming too, and they will be men and women who have encountered the light and are filled with understanding and power.