Tag Archives: End-Times

Is the Upcoming Civil War Our Prep for the End-Times? (Part 5)

Most Christians fall into the Pre-Tribulation or Post-Tribulation theological camps for the end-times. Just so you know: there are other end-times viewpoints, such as the Amillennial and Preterist point of views, but both of these require believers to read the Book of Revelation, Daniel and Matthew 24 through fogged-up glasses.

The Pre-Tribulation viewpoint is held by approximately 90% of American believers. This viewpoint believes the Body of Christ will be raptured and taken to heaven at any time before the Seven Years of the Great Tribulation (Daniel 7 and Revelation 13) takes place. Then, the church will return with Jesus at His second coming to set up His thousand-year reign on earth.

The Post-Tribulation viewpoint believes the Body of Christ will go through a major part of the Great Tribulation, will be raptured and taken up to heaven at the Seventh Trumpet Judgment, just before the disastrous Seven Bowl Judgments. The Post-Tribs agree with the Pre-Tribs on the church returning with Jesus at His second coming. About 90% of the Chinese, North Korean and Asian believers believe in the Post-Tribulation viewpoint.

But there are a some scriptures most Pre-Trib and Post-Trib believers seldom think about —

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. (Matthew 24:5-8)

The “beginning of sorrows” will be one tough time-period for us believers to endure. We will be arrested, persecuted and killed. The whole world  will hate us, just because we follow Jesus. Many believers will turn away from following the Lord, betraying and hating other believers. There will be many false prophets who will deceive many believers. Sin will be rampant and everywhere, with the love of many believers growing cold. 

Now, maybe, we have our fingers crossed, hoping we will be raptured into heaven before these terrible things happen.

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14)

Who preaches the gospel? Believers do.

Therefore, it makes no difference whether Jesus returns for us before the Great Tribulation takes place or near the end of it because we have to remain on earth and endure the “beginning of sorrows,” so we can preach the gospel to all nations (or people groups).

(Continued in Part 6…but if you want to read all of the parts to date, you can go here.)

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Is the Upcoming Civil War our Prep for the End-Times? (Part 4)

A great conflict loomed on the national horizon in 1857 because of the unresolved slavery issue. Yet, unlike other times when America faced dangers, people did not flock to churches. God no longer seemed relevant to the nation, especially for businessmen who enjoyed great prosperity during this time period.

An unexplained financial panic then hit America. Banks closed. Railroads declared bankruptcy. Thousands of workers were laid off. Desperate families faced starvation.

But in the midst of financial despair, Jeremiah Lanphier, a middle-aged businessman, felt God wanted him to start a noontime weekly prayer meeting for businessmen in New York City. He printed a pamphlet, How Often Shall I Pray, and handed them out to local businessmen, inviting them to prayer meetings at the Old Dutch North Church.

The first meeting was held on September 23, 1857. Lanphier prayed alone for the first half hour, but six men joined him for the second thirty minutes. On the following Wednesday, twenty men showed up for prayer. Forty showed up the week following. By October 14, 1857, more than one hundred attended the meetings.

They soon decided that weekly assemblages were not enough. So, they met on a daily basis. Pastors whose spirits were inflamed by these gatherings opened their own churches for prayer times. Before long, meetings were overflowing with young, old, rich, and poor. Within six months, ten thousand businessmen attended over one hundred and fifty different prayer meetings in New York City on a daily basis.

The Spirit of Prayer then spread the fire across the nation tosuch cities as Boston, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Richmond, Louisville, Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, and countless other cities.

The prayer meetings were quite simple in structure. A leader would start the hour by announcing a hymn. All would stand and sing one or two verses. Then, the leader would say a brief prayer, and the service was turned over to the assembled members. Any person was free to speak or pray for no longer than five minutes. A bell rang if the man overextended his time so that another could take a turn.

Prayer requests were made for family members or others not present. Many stood asking prayer for themselves. Others exhorted the men to pray more fervently and to live holy lives. Over the weeks, testimonies were given on answered prayers and all praised the Lord for them. Promptly, at the end of one hour, the leader rose and ended the meeting with a closing prayer. The members filed quietly out of the buildings.

This move of the Holy Spirit was known as the Businessman’s Prayer Revival, Laymen’s Prayer Revival, or the Prayer Revival of 1857. Powerful preaching was not involved like most of the other awakenings in America, but rather, it was filled with earnest, forceful prayer.  Dwight L. Moody, the noted evangelist, and Fanny Crosby, the blind hymn composer, were numbered among the Revival’s converts. George Duffield wrote the hymn, Stand Up, Stand Up For Jesus, to encourage businessmen.

The revival did not diminish with the beginning of the Civil War. Instead, it broke out in both armies, but in particular, the Confederate forces.  It began for the Southerners in the hospitals among the wounded and was spread into the camps when they returned to their units.  Prayer meetings were organized and hundreds joined the gatherings on the frontlines.

The great evangelist, Charles Finney, summed up the prayer revival: “The general impression seems to be that we have had instruction until we are hardened; it is time to pray.”

It was estimated that over 150,000 soldiers in the Southern armies were converted and overall, nearly 6.6 per cent of the entire United States became Christians in this prayer revival.

For those who think a Holy Spirit revival would stop a civil war from happening here in America today, the Businessman’s Prayer Revival of 1857 doesn’t offer us much hope. The Civil War broke out four years later, killing over 620,000 people dead – more than all of America’s other wars combined.

(Continued in Part 5…but if you want to read all of the parts to date, you can go here.)

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Is the Upcoming Civil War Our Prep for the End-Times? (Part 3)

Background:

First and foremost, everyone must remember Jesus Christ is a Jew and always will be one. His life, ministry, death, resurrection, burial and ascension were based on a Jewish calendar, not on an American one.

The Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar based on moon phases, which occur generally in thirty-day cycles. America and most of the world follow the Gregorian calendar, which follows the earth’s movement around the sun. The main differences are the Gregorian calendar has very little seasonal drift, only a day or so from year to year, but the Jewish calendar can vary fifteen or twenty days from one year to the next. For instance, Easter is always celebrated just after Passover, but the dates may vary greatly from year to year on our Gregorian calendar.

On the Jewish religion’s calendar, there are seven major feasts: Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement and Tabernacles. These feasts are the very heart of the Jewish religion.

The first three feasts are spring feasts, taking place in the last of March or April. The fourth feast occurs fifty days after Passover or in May or early June on the Gregorian calendar.

Jesus Christ, the Messiah, fulfilled the first four feasts when He became the Passover Lamb for all of us, when He was buried without sin, when He rose from the grave and when He sent the Holy Spirit to His church on the first Pentecost.

Now, the last three Jewish feasts are fall feasts and take place in September and October. These have not been fulfilled by Jesus as yet, but must be. Why? Because Jesus is a Jew.

The Feast of Trumpets (also known as Rosh Hashanah) will be fulfilled when Jesus returns for His church. Then those believers who are alive and those who are in the grave will be caught up to meet Him in the sky.

The Feast of Atonement or Yom Kippur will be fulfilled when Jesus returns with all of the saints out of heaven.

Finally, the Feast of Tabernacles will be fulfilled when Jesus establishes His tabernacle with His church in Jerusalem.

This simple explanation should dispel the belief that Jesus can return at any time and will also help us to understand timelines.

(Continued in Part 4…but if you want to read all of the parts to date, you can go here.)

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Is the Upcoming Civil War Our Prep for the End-Times? (Part 2)

The prophet Jeremiah accurately spoke the Lord’s words to backslidden Judah for over forty years, from approximately 627 BC to 586 BC.

In one of the prophet’s most contentious confrontations, Jeremiah wore a wooden yoke around his neck to the court of King Zedekiah as a sign of being in submission to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.

The king’s court was filled with Judah’s leaders, temple priests, other prophets, various soothsayers and ambassadors from five neighboring nations. King Zedekiah and the ambassadors were setting up a military alliance to fight King Nebuchadnezzar at that precise moment.

Perfect timing, right?

Jeremiah stepped forward and said, “The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, has created all of the earth. He holds everything in His hands and gives control to whomever He decides should have it. Right now, He has given control to King Nebuchadnezzar. All of you need to summit yourselves under Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke. If you don’t submit yourselves to Nebuchadnezzar, God will punish you and your country. Don’t listen to any prophecies which disagree with these words because they are all lies.”

Heart beats probably sounded like base drums at that moment.

Then Jeremiah challenged them by adding, “Your prophets have prophesied that the vessels and articles taken from the Temple will soon be returned from Babylon. Well, if they are true prophets, let them make intercession to God to stop King Nebuchadnezzar from taking all of the rest of the vessels, articles and furniture  still hidden in the Temple and the King’s house to Babylon. God is giving all of these to Babylon and will restore them to Judah at a later time.”

A prophet named Hananiah stepped forward and prophesied, “The Lord will destroy Babylon’s stranglehold on Judah. All of the Temple’s precious treasures and all of the people, including Jehoiakim, our former king of Judah, will be returned within two years.”

Jeremiah may have shrugged his shoulders when he replied to Hananiah, “I hope you’re right, but you aren’t! My words agree with the prophets who spoke before me about wars and disasters befalling Judah. So, your words of peace will have to come to pass before we will know if God has sent you or not.”

Hananiah boldly broke the wooden yoke off Jeremiah’s neck and proclaimed, “God will do the same for Judah within two years.”

Jeremiah meekly walked away from the court. Maybe the onlookers cheered and applauded Hananiah and his boldness to stand up to the old prophet.

But Jeremiah returned a short while later and said, “Yes, Hananiah, you broke a yoke of wood, but God will replace it with a yoke of iron on these nations. And because you – Hananiah – have convinced these people to believe lies and have taught rebellion against the Lord, you will die before this year is completed.

Hananiah died three months later.

What do we know about Hananiah? He was the son of a prophet named Azur and would have been trained in the proper ways of the Lord and prophesying.

It’s my guess that Hananiah had a history of speaking accurate prophecies. Otherwise, why would anyone pay attention to his words?

(Continued in Part 3…but if you want to read all of the parts to date, you can go here.)

 

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Is the Upcoming American Civil War Our Prep for the End-Times? (Part 1)

 

The disciples asked Jesus about the signs of His second coming and also the end of the age. He replied, “There will be wars and rumors of wars with nations rising against nations and kingdoms against kingdoms and famines and earthquakes.”

But in the midst of His above words, Jesus said:

See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. (Matthew 24:6 ESV)

Since Cain killed Abel in Chapter 4 of Genesis, the world certainly has witnessed its share of wars and uprisings throughout the centuries. Yet, I don’t believe Jesus is talking about all of the historical wars here, but instead, I believe He is talking about a specific turbulent time period at the end of the age.

It’s my belief that the nations of the world, especially Israel, will be so fed up with war and the chaotic calamities happening during this turbulent time period that they will be willing to do anything to have peace. This will result in the signing of a peace treaty for a one-world government, which will usher in the Antichrist at its head. Just so you know, the Antichrist will not appear as the son of perdition (even though he is), but rather as an angel of light and a minister of righteousness. He might even be carrying a Bible and singing, “Power in the Blood,” when he takes his oath for office.

Okay, but why did Jesus say, “This must take place?”

Chapter 24 of Matthew is the best timeline for the end-times and the prophetic Book of Revelation. So, in order for all of the end-time prophecies to take place in the Father’s chosen time and season, some actions will have to kickstart those scenarios. These are a few of them.

Now we need to remember that some prophecies are placed in the Bible so we can pray the problems away, but others are there to forewarn us so we can prepare ourselves beforehand. Jesus’ words plainly tell us ahead of time not to waste our energy trying to pray these problems away, but rather, we need to prepare ourselves to go through these times of sorrows.

If you’re thinking the Lord wouldn’t allow His church to go through such suffering, let me ask a question: who sets the Antichrist and his killers loose to prey upon the earth?

Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals…When He opened the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh seals.. (Revelation 6:1 to Revelation 8:1)

The Lamb – our Lord Jesus Christ – is the only One who can open the seals for these seven seal judgments. He is also the One who releases Death and Hades to kill one fourth of the earth in the fourth seal judgment.

Each of us can study Revelation, Daniel, Zechariah, Matthew 24, and the other end-times’ scriptures to determine our own beliefs, but what does this have to do with an upcoming American Civil War?

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom… (Matthew 24:7)

Most of us can see the possibilities of wars breaking out between the United States, Russia, China, Iran and countless other nations, but how many of us can see the possibility of a civil war breaking out in America?

Sadly, I firmly believe it will happen. Not only do I believe a civil war will soon take place, killing thousands of Americans, but I also believe we can’t pray it away.

Why would the Lord allow this to happen to America?

(Continued in Part 2)

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Churches: Fellowships Without Fellowship (Part 10)

 

“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts…Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape.” (C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters)

We have to keep in mind that the Great Tribulation will be a seven-year time period, which begins in peace. A man of peace – the Antichrist – will forge a peace treaty that will be accepted by most Christians, Jews, Muslims, and nations. This will stop the wars – nations fighting against nations and kingdoms against kingdoms.

The peace treaty will be so strong that the Jews will be allowed to build a temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and carry out daily sacrifices. I know – it’s hard to imagine this ever happening again, but it will!

This peace treaty will be in effect for three and half years until the Antichrist sets up the image of the beast in the Temple and stops the daily sacrifices.

Now, don’t go thinking the three and half years during the peace treaty will be a time for Christians to sit around a campfire, strumming a guitar and singing, “Kumbaya My Lord.” No! I believe it will be a time when churches will be pressured to accept compromises – small at first, but increasing in severity as time passes – in order for them to survive.

How do I know this?

This is what the Communists did in China with their Three Self Patriotic Movement. The same Satan who authored the suffocating rules on the Three Self Churches will attempt to do the same on our traditional churches. All of it will be done under the guise of tolerance and keeping the peace.

Then, BAM!

Many traditional churches and believers will be preconditioned through the gradual slope of compromises into accepting the mark of the beast.

“Home fellowships are persecution proof and are the only viable form for underground churches. We believe in the years to come, we will see increasing restrictions on our ability to meet together, to worship together and to pray with each other.” (Chuck Missler)

(Continued in Part 11…but if you want to read all of the parts to date, you can go here.)

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Churches: Fellowships Without Fellowship (Part 9)

Using Chapter 24 of the Book of Matthew as our End-Times timeline, we read that the Anti-Christ will commit the abomination of desolation in verse 15.  This was prophesied by Daniel and Jesus tells us to understand his prophecy about this event.

Will believers and the Church still be on the earth at that time? Yes, because Jesus will not return for the Church and believers until verses 30 and 31.

Now, there are timelines in the Book of Revelation, but they’re not always chronological, according to chapters and verses. Some of the text is out of order and must be lined up with other books in the Bible.

Okay, with the above words as guidelines, what will be one of the church’s biggest problems in the End-times?

He [the Antichrist] causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666. (Revelation 13: 16-18)

After the “abomination of desolation” takes place, the Antichrist will persecute and kill Christians and Jews. His biggest weapon to bludgeon people into obeying him and his government will be the “mark of the beast.” No one will be able to buy food or medicine or gasoline or whatever without the mark.

Can Christians just rely on His grace and take the mark of the beast, while tossing a wink toward God? You know, Daddy loves me anyway, right?

Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. (Revelation 14:9-10)

I am an eternal security believing Christian, but because of my fear of the Lord, I would never want to cross the line against these verses nor would I suggest others to do it. What might eventually happen to believers? I don’t really know nor am I interested in finding out. Just obey His words!

So, what can believers do to protect themselves?

(Continued in Part 10…but if you want to read all of the parts to date, you can go here.)

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Churches: Fellowships Without Fellowship (Part 8)

 

Fifty percent of American Evangelical Christians attend a church with 300 or more members. So, unless you live in a rural area of our country, the odds are high that you attend a church of this size or larger.

Okay, here’s something for you to consider the next time you attend a service:

After you sit down, look at the people in the row ahead of you, to the left and right of you and also behind you. What are their names? What are their children’s names? Do they have problems or needs? Are you willing to share your life, home and finances to help them with their needs? Are you willing to die for them?

Do you really believe that these same people would be willing to answer “yes” to the above questions for you and your family?

If your answers to the above questions are “I don’t know” or “No,” then you attend a church that falls far short of the New Testament model in the Book of Acts.

32 All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had. 33 The apostles testified powerfully to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God’s great blessing was upon them all. 34 There were no needy people among them, because those who owned land or houses would sell them 35 and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need(Acts 4:32-35 NLT)

Maybe you’re thinking the traditional American church has outgrown the blueprint of the early church in the Book of Acts. If that’s your thinking and your comfort zone right now, then you need to read the next few articles in this series.

(Continued in Part 9…but if you want to read all of the parts to date, you can go here.)

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Churches: Fellowships without Fellowship (Part 7)

 

Continuing with Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses from his book, House Churches That Change the World:

13. From Denominations to city-wide celebrations

Jesus called for a universal movement, and what came was a series of religious companies with global chains marketing their special brands of Christianity and competing with each other. Through this branding of Christianity most of Protestantism has, therefore, become politically insignificant and often more concerned with traditional specialties and religious infighting than with developing a collective testimony before the world. Jesus never asked people to organize themselves into denominations.

In the early days of the Church, Christians had a dual identity: they were truly His church and vertically converted to God, and then organized themselves according to geography, that is, converting also horizontally to each other on earth. This means not only Christian neighbors organizing themselves into neighborhood- or house-churches, where they share their lives locally, but Christians coming together as a collective identity as much as they can for citywide or regional celebrations expressing the corporateness of the Church of the city or region.

Authenticity in the neighborhoods connected with a regional or citywide corporate identity will make the Church not only politically significant and spiritually convincing, but will allow a return to the biblical model of the City-Church

14. Developing a persecution-proof spirit

They crucified Jesus, the Boss of all the Christians. Today, his followers are often more into titles, medals and social respectability, or, worst of all, they remain silent and are not worth being noticed at all. “Blessed are you when you are persecuted”, says Jesus.

Biblical Christianity is a healthy threat to pagan godlessness and sinfulness, a world overcome by greed, materialism, jealousy and any amount of demonic standards of ethics, sex, money and power. Contemporary Christianity in many countries is simply too harmless and polite to be worth persecuting.

But as Christians again live out New Testament standards of life and, for example, call sin as sin, conversion or persecution has been, is and will be the natural reaction of the world. Instead of nesting comfortably in temporary zones of religious liberty, Christians will have to prepare to be again discovered as the main culprits against global humanism, the modern slavery of having to have fun and the outright worship of Self, the wrong centre of the universe.

That is why Christians will and must feel the “repressive tolerance” of a world which has lost any absolutes and therefore refuses to recognize and obey its creator God with His absolute standards. Coupled with the growing ideologisation, privatization and spiritualisation of politics and economics, Christians will, sooner than most think, have their chance to stand happily accused in the company of Jesus. They need to prepare now for the future by developing a persecution-proof spirit and an even more persecution-proof structure.

15. The Church comes home

Where is the easiest place, say, for a man to be spiritual? Is it hiding behind a big pulpit, dressed up in holy robes, preaching holy words to a faceless crowd and then disappearing into an office?

And what is the most difficult, and therefore most meaningful, place for a man to be spiritual? At home, in the presence of his wife and children, where everything he does and says is automatically put through a spiritual litmus test against reality, where hypocrisy can be effectively weeded out and authenticity can grow.

Much of Christianity has fled the family, often as a place of its own spiritual defeat, and then has organized artificial performances in sacred buildings far from the atmosphere of real life. As God is in the business of recapturing the homes, the church turns back to its roots, back to where it came from. It literally comes home, completing the circle of Church history at the end of world history.

As Christians of all walks of life, from all denominations and backgrounds, feel a clear echo in their spirit to what God’s Spirit is saying to the Church, and start to hear globally in order to act locally, they begin to function again as one body. They organize themselves into neighborhood house-churches and meet in regional or city-celebrations. You are invited to become part of this movement and make your own contribution. Maybe your home, too, will become a house that changes the world.

(Continued in Part 8…but if you want to read all of the parts to date, you can go here.)

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Churches: Fellowships Without Fellowship (Part 6)

 

Continuing with Wolfgang Simson’s 15 Theses from his book, House Churches That Change the World:

9. Return from organized to organic forms of Christianity

The “Body of Christ” is a vivid description of an organic, not an organized, being. Church consists on its local level of a multitude of spiritual families, which are organically related to each other as a network, where the way the pieces are functioning together is an integral part of the message of the whole.

What has become a maximum of organization with a minimum of organism, has to be changed into a minimum of organization to allow a maximum of organism. Too much organization has, like a straightjacket, often choked the organism for fear that something might go wrong. Fear is the opposite of faith, and not exactly a Christian virtue. Fear wants to control, faith can trust. Control, therefore, may be good, but trust is better.

The Body of Christ is entrusted by God into the hands of steward-minded people with a supernatural charismatic gift to believe God that He is still in control, even if they are not. A development of trust-related regional and national networks, not a new arrangement of political ecumenism is necessary for organic forms of Christianity to reemerge

10. From worshipping our worship to worshipping God

The image of much of contemporary Christianity can be summarized as holy people coming regularly to a holy place at a holy day at a holy hour to participate in a holy ritual lead by a holy man dressed in holy clothes against a holy fee.

Since this regular performance-oriented enterprise called “worship service” requires a lot of organizational talent and administrative bureaucracy to keep going, formalized and institutionalized patterns developed quickly into rigid traditions. Statistically, a traditional 1-2 hour “worship service” is very resource-hungry but actually produces very little fruit in terms of discipling people, that is, in changed lives. Economically speaking, it might be a “high input and low output” structure.

Traditionally, the desire to “worship in the right way” has led to much denominationalism, confessionalism and nominalism. This not only ignores that Christians are called to “worship in truth and in spirit,” not in cathedrals holding songbooks, but also ignores that most of life is informal, and so is Christianity as “the Way of Life.”

Do we need to change from being powerful actors to start “acting powerfully?”

11. Stop bringing people to church, and start bringing the church to the people 

The church is changing back from being a Come-structure to being again a Go-structure. As one result, the Church needs to stop trying to bring people “into the church,” and start bringing the Church to the people. The mission of the Church will never be accomplished just by adding to the existing structure; it will take nothing less than a mushrooming of the church through spontaneous multiplication of itself into areas of the population of the world, where Christ is not yet known.

12. Rediscovering the “Lord’s Supper” to be a real supper with real food

Church tradition has managed to “celebrate the Lord’s Supper” in a homeopathic and deeply religious form, characteristically with a few drops of wine, a tasteless cookie and a sad face. However, the “Lord’s Supper” was actually more a substantial supper with a symbolic meaning, than a symbolic supper with a substantial meaning. God is restoring eating back into our meeting.

(Continued in Part 7…but if you want to read all of the parts to date, you can go here.)

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