As I scanned forward for another parable, my eyes fell upon two words: 'powers' and 'elect'. See for yourself in Mark 13:22-27. This is the part where Christ speaks about the times during and after the tribulation. In verse 23 he states, “Behold, I have foretold you all things.” So, this is what we can expect for the end of the old and beginning of the new.
Many have been the sermons on this topic; many church hours have been overcharged pounding the doom and gloom of judgment into wide-eyed, head-shaking congregations. What I see, and what I wonder if others see, is a definition that towers above the topic of judgment.
Two things stand out in this stretch of scripture. First is the very end of the tribulation and second is the coming of Christ to establish the new age. Jesus told his disciples that in the end, and this certainly began in their lifetimes, there would be false Christs and false prophets who would be able to display “signs and wonders.”
In the Bible, we have seen real prophets and Christ, himself, display real signs and wonders, real eye-openers. Diseases have been cured, the dead have been raised, strange sights have been seen from the shining face of Moses to the glory of Christ standing with Moses and Elijah. To pick up on the cue, the signs and wonders of false Christs and false prophets will be nothing more than false signs and wonders. They may dazzle the eye, but they are only smoke and mirrors.
To be sure, the rise of these actors is possible only because the curtains are drawn on an empty stage. In other words, there is a void to be filled. There is a yearning audience willing to pay dearly for the show. It is the cravings of a certain type of people that is directly responsible for the emergence of such entrepreneurs. This type of people does not represent all types, however. This type can be deceived because of their own inclination toward an easy path. These will be grouped with the unbelievers as those who have chosen the wrong direction and spiritual inactivity.
There is only one type of person who will successfully navigate the treacherous end times. I speak of the elect. Who are the elect? One dictionary puts them as the 'carefully selected.' It is a type of person who has been singled out through circumstances that are not applicable to the common, or run-of-the-mill. It is a type of person, who by his very nature of being the opposite of those who are deceived, will do his own spiritual legwork – someone who stands apart from the bleating throngs, and as such, has the elbow room to seek and find the truth on his own spiritual legs.
It is said that in the coming, this type of person will be gathered from all the world for the purpose of establishing the new age. A better world will be manned by just this type. They are gathered from the “four winds.” They will be found in every nation and every tongue and every social order. They will be alike regardless of race, creed, or religion, and will sync perfectly because they are spiritually advanced.
The elect will not be fooled by the false prophets. There will be no false Christs for the elect; they already know the true Christ. They will be everywhere despite the world's ongoing anti-spiritual spirit. They will be rejected and stand alone, but I believe they will find each other – and while the warmongers war, while the mega-churches spiral out of control and while the non-believers and believers in blue elephants get swept along in the wake, The elect will find their place and ready themselves for the new age.
The mind of the common world is flawed. It hungrily seeks and accepts a common but easy state. It does not strive to be exceptional. Scientific facts and measurements aside, the common world is a pig at home in its mud sty, for it cannot tell its slop apart from its own filth. The mind of the world is an anti-spirit spirit. To be sure, it is the prevailing spirit of the world and has been set on a pretty high pedestal.
Which brings me to 'powers' . . . as the New American Standard version of Ephesians 6:12 states, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Christ said plainly in Mark 13:25, “the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.” This makes it quite obvious that there are evil powers in heaven. They are wicked spiritual forces and world forces of this present darkness.
If I have seen one constant in my studies, it is that spirit and mind are the same. The spirit of the world is the mind of the world. Wicked spirits in heaven are wicked minds in the highest places of authority. They are mindsets, philosophies, precepts and protocols that seek to be written in stone. The real Christ will shake that all around and the powers, who are superstars in their own minds, will fall from heaven. The elect will see this.
As a closing thought, I want to touch briefly on timelines. When we think of the tribulation, we think of the final days. We think of some unnamed, unset time in the future (another common comfort of the common world mind.) But, what if the future is now? Christ said that the elect would be gathered from the “uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.” That is a range from the lowest to the highest to be sure, but since the word 'earth' is specifically used, and not 'world', I think it safe to assume the far end of that spectrum would place the elect somewhere out in space. This is just a thought, but, as far as timelines go, we are in the space age.
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