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It is four years later and I am now watching the Summer Olympic Games in Rio. To the praise of my Lord Jesus, the important truths He led me to share in the following edited 2012 blog during the London Games still apply. Truly, the motivation, discipline and actions of athletes in the Olympics and all sports competition well serve as excellent analogy for the Christian race and will do so until there is no such thing as athletic competition! How appropriate this repost is as a final, short wrap up word of encouragement to the faithful in all the Lord caused me to write about and who wait for immortal glory as God’s consummation to the great salvation He has worked for us in Christ Jesus.
Originally Posted September 2, 2012
Watching the London Summer Olympic Games, I was struck by the diligence the athletes showed first in training for four years and then in the exertion of competing in their areas of specialty. These men and women do all of this for medals that will fade. The same sort of thing now plays out on football fields on every level around our nation this fall as teams work together to win the prize of trophies, rings and bragging rights in a championship season. As Christians, we are taught in Scripture that we are running in a race that we too are to run to win (1 Corinthians 9:24).
As the Lord leads me to teach in The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, such a race requires the disciplined mind set of an athlete (1 Corinthians 9:25-27). It also must be run in accord with the rules (God’s, not man’s) lest we be disqualified in shame (2 Timothy 2:5). Finally, surrounded by a very great “cloud of witnesses” that has finished their own, our race is to be run with endurance since it is a marathon, not a sprint (Hebrews 12:1, NKJV). Truly, for this race is not about speed, but only faithfully finishing the race marked out for us. As we run, we look up ahead to our Lord Jesus the pacesetter who displayed the perfect motivation, discipline and faith as the key strategic action in His race; crossing the finish line to victory and immortal glory (Hebrews 12:2)!
Like the apostle Paul who saw the end of his race drawing near, we are only concerned to finish well knowing our works wrought in Christ will follow us and the prize of unfading crowns with immortal glory await (2 Timothy 4:6-8). Indeed, in the race of eternal life, physical death is not a disqualifying obstacle, but the finish line unless Christ returns first! And so, we run; experiencing all of the many kinds of challenges, hardships, afflictions, trials, setbacks, tears and longsuffering others endure to win only the temporary prizes of mortality. Many of them overcome by their challenges, hardships, afflictions, trials and setbacks and lacking endurance, drop out of the race.
However, we press on running our race looking for the Lord’s “well done” and after all adversity caused suffering endured in faith, perseverance and His strength, “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus;” the salvation and immortal glory even admiring holy angels desire to know more about (Matthew 25:21; Romans 8:18; Philippians 3:8-14, 4:13; 1 Peter 1:3-12, NKJV)! Therefore, let every aspiring strong man and great woman of God in the image of Christ our Lord run your race to win and collect the eternal prize to the glory of our God (Revelation 19:5-9).
This blog post is an edited and expanded version of supplemental articles the Lord led me to write in the June 2012 and 2013 Strong Man Of God Monthly Newsletter that immediately followed “Man As God Designed Him” and “Raised To Immortal Glory, Pt. 3” when those Commentaries were respectively published in the same publication. Clearly, the glorious immortal destiny of the saints of God is infinitely greater than those that choose to reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the mercies of God, I cry out to the reader outside of Christ by any means including as a professing Christian impostor or spiritually dead religionist to repent now and turn to Him while you have the opportunity!
Originally Published June 2013
Scripture teaches every single human being that has ever lived and died will be raised from the dead by Jesus Christ: some to immortal glory; some to immortal condemnation (Daniel 12:2; John 5:25-29)! In accord with God’s will and purposes as the apostle Paul teaches, the resurrection of all deceased humanity to immortality will be in ordered sequence. Thus, Jesus Christ is the first glorified immortal followed by those that by faith belong to Him at His Second Coming (1 Corinthians 15:20-23). Paul is led by the Holy Spirit to narrowly discuss only the resurrection of the saints directly following Christ’s as the focus of His instruction on the topic to the church at Corinth.
However, the apostle John reveals that between the resurrection of Christ to immortal glory and that of the saints, there will be a select number of persons that are raised to immortality. The next immortals after Christ will be the “Antichrist” (1 John 2:18; Revelation 13:1-10, NKJV), God’s two witnesses (Revelation 11:3-12), the false prophet (Revelation 13:11-18) and as “firstfruits” to God and Christ before the full harvest of all the saints, 144,000 men who had been lifelong celibates in the Lord’s service and now form His new and unique innermost circle as I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics (Revelation 14:1-5, NKJV).
Three and one half years after the resurrection to immortality of the Antichrist, all of the Lord’s saints are raised to immortal glory (Revelation 14:14-16, 20:4-6). One thousand years after this, all of the wicked are resurrected to immortality to be judged on the Day of Judgment and immediately condemned to “Hell” or if you will, “the lake of fire” with “Death and Hades” (Matthew 18:7-9; Revelation 20:11-15, NKJV). The two evil human immortals, Antichrist and false prophet, will have actually preceded Satan and his fallen angelic hosts and the main body of wicked immortals as the first to be cast into the lake of fire (Daniel 7:11; Revelation 19:19-20, 20:7-10).
The clear evidence the Antichrist is truly slain and resurrects an immortal (Revelation 13:3) is his single handed take down of the Lord’s supernaturally empowered two witnesses. Until the Antichrist, no human force on earth is able to get near them as they carry out God’s campaign to protect Israel during their reinstated temple worship complete with animal sacrifices and plague assisted call for humanity to turn to God in repentance. “The beast” or Antichrist is described as he “that ascends out of the bottomless pit” (which is another name for Hades, the realm of the dead awaiting judgment) to kill the two witnesses, stop temple sacrifices and launch his God shortened 42 month reign of desolation (Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:15-22; Revelation 8:12-13, 11:1-7, NKJV).
Those obsessed with their worldly brand of gender equality are surely stymied and disappointed to know the beast and later the resurrected false prophet along with all of the pre-Second Coming immortals are men and retain a masculine form in their immortal spiritual bodies. Hence, the immortal Antichrist in appearance “greater than his fellows” and “fierce” of face is called the “man of sin” and “son of perdition” since his masculine form indicates this is what he is (Daniel 7:19-20, 8:23; 2 Thessalonians 2:3, NKJV). Consistent then with the immortal spiritual bodies of the saints, the spiritual bodies of the immortal wicked will retain the general frame and form of the natural, mortal human body. Wicked immortals will not marry, procreate or even desire sex either.
Besides transformation from natural to spiritual, the immortal bodies of the wicked as seen in the Antichrist share indestructibility in common with those of the saints. He is able to kill God’s two witnesses because they cannot kill him with their God granted power of fire that destroys mortal flesh. This is perfectly consistent with what our Lord Jesus teaches about Hell’s torment as He stresses that the worm of the wicked immortals there never dies in the fire that is never extinguished (Mark 9:42-48). Unlike God’s glorified immortal sons, wicked immortals in Hell will have the ability to shed tears and experience pain as they forever weep and grind their teeth in agony (Matthew 13:41-42, 47-50, 24:48-51, 25:41-46; Revelation 21:4).
Too, the immortal spiritual bodies of the wicked are stripped down from those of the saints. They have no glory. And while Scripture does not specify whether or not the Antichrist or false prophet are able to fly, appear or disappear, it does declare that Satan and all of his hosts will have been confined to earth at this time precluding any travel in the spiritual realm by anything evil beyond it (Revelation 12:7-12). Save what God grants these two evil immortals to temporarily do by the power of Satan (Revelation 13:11-15), they will not have any supernatural abilities--the glorified immortal saints by contrast, eternally operate in the power of the Holy Spirit! Indeed, all that these two evil immortals do is orchestrated, empowered and overseen by Satan (2 Thessalonians 2:9).
For this reason, the Antichrist will fully honor only the devil as a god above himself--therefore, understand, he will not advocate for any major religion or preside over any form of ecumenicalism as some teach (Daniel 8:24-25, 11:36-39; Revelation 13:4). Truly, as seen in the Antichrist, the wicked are not done at all with evil after death. Returning from his short stay in Hades very bitter knowing his eternal fate--as do all at death, his first major act is to kill men who are plainly God’s servants fully showing no repentance. Conversely, he is eternally hardened into his evil mindset in which God’s just end for him and all that reject Christ is “outer darkness” in Hell forever (Matthew 22:1-14, NKJV)! The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
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