Strong Man Of God Blog

On March 30, 2014 in Instruction by Robert Kelley

During all of my service to God, I have sought to be humble, transparent and honest about my own weaknesses in the faith while as He gave leadership and power, I proclaimed and taught His Word uncompromised. I have never represented myself as having arrived at perfection. However, like the apostle Paul as an aspiring strong man of God in the image of Christ, I have considered all worldly attainments garbage (including the favorable opinions of men) and “press” zealously toward God’s goal (Philippians 3:7-16, NKJV)! When I fail, I get back up again in confession, repentance, the forgiveness and strength my God supplies and grow as a result!

Therefore, if I am disqualified from being heard due to imperfection, then so are all other preachers regardless of credentials. And if in keeping it real my revealing that I am still in the process of growing in faith as I did in my blogs, The Testing Of Our Faith and Praying For God’s Solutions under the category, Instruction stirred anyone to seize the opportunity to foolishly attack the strong man of God cause and message, then let me give even more evidence of my weakness in Christ. For as God is my witness, apart from the grace and strength of Christ operating daily in my life to His glory through me, I am the weakest of the weak (1 Corinthians 1:26-31; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10)!

Not only did I fail the faith test involved in last year’s bad business decision, but prior to making that decision I willfully chose to ignore the warning of spiritual discernment I was gifted with by God in fulfilling my service to Him. The gift of “discerning of spirits” (1 Corinthians 12:4-10, NKJV) is given by God to aid in perceiving the presence and/or activity of evil or disastrous outcomes--a critical ability His shepherds need in their responsibility to protect God’s sheep and decision making (Acts 8:9-25, 27:9-21). In fairness to myself, I ignored the warning of evil attending to the other party in the business deal not only for prospective benefit, but also a mistaken notion of respect for his person.

It does not matter who it is, whenever a Christian sets aside or ignores the gifts, provision, power, instruction or anything of God to operate out of his own resources, such a one is heading toward failure (John 15:5). My failure was a painful reminder to me and you just as weak and worse as I am--if you will humbly receive it. Truly, this is one of the primary reasons all of us leaders and teachers in the Body of Christ are to be humble, transparent and honest about our weaknesses and Christ’s strength since we are charged to be “examples to the flock,” (1 Peter 5:1-3, NKJV). Rather than pressure in pretending to be “all that,” there is joyful liberation in keeping it real!

I feel sorry especially for those pastors that cannot see that God’s call to His sons to “be strong” (Joshua 1:1-9; Ephesians 6:10, NKJV) is with the clear understanding the result is accomplished in His supernatural power and frankly, I am concerned if you really know Him if you do not comprehend this. We are naturally weak in sin and inadequate to live Christ-like or do the works of God or do you not understand that to be a man as God designed is to be like Christ, the second Adam from Heaven (1 Corinthians 15:45-49)? As ordained of God, we are calling weak men like you and me to come up to the impossibly high calling of God in Christ exclusively through His strength!

While God has given His called shepherds the spiritual gift of discernment, He has given a measure of it to all of His saints (Mark 13:28-37). We cannot afford for any reason to relax our discernment of the times going forward. Our Lord Jesus upbraided members of Israel’s religious educated elite for requesting that He show them a sign from Heaven while they stumbled all over Him. They could “discern the face of the sky” in forecasting the weather, but were not discerning “the signs of the times” in willful ignorance (Matthew 16:1-4, NKJV). Many professing Western Christians are similarly willfully not discerning the times. They are preoccupied with their lives and the flesh pleasing activities of manmade Christianity the religion in their churches.

They recognize the world is falling apart in every way, but have deceived themselves that the worst of it will be well into the future. Our fishing for men to save and restore them through the Gospel and the strong man of God message rooted in God’s Word, though, is an important sign they stumble over that God is actually nearer to wrapping up this present evil age than many care to believe. Indeed, our mandate among professing Christians now is the same as Elijah’s in the world when he comes just seven shortened years before the “day of the Lord” as I write about in my book, The Strong Man Of God (Malachi 4:5-6; Matthew 17:1-13; Revelation 11:1-12, NKJV). The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, “Who is on the Lord's side?”

Tagged With: Discernment is not optional for the saints.

The Prayers Of The Saints, Pt. 2

On March 23, 2014 in Bible Prophecy by Robert Kelley

The so-called two-stage Second Coming of Christ where He first comes secretly to evacuate His Church from the earth before seven years of tribulation to include the last three and one half years of great tribulation and then returns after with the saints in glory is no where taught in Scripture. This heresy must be artificially constructed by starting with the false premise that especially the great tribulation is all God’s full on wrath and then fancifully reading into 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 that it is His means of evacuation prior to. However, in context, the apostle Paul is not comforting his readers about an evacuation from tribulation of any kind or wrath. He comforts and instructs them about the saints who have died with his words about their return with Christ.

The dead in Christ will indeed be resurrected and “caught up” together with those yet living to meet Him in the clouds (4:17, NKJV). The two Gospels that present the event in fullness, however, agree Christ’s return is a globally seen and heard affair that immediately follows the great tribulation in which as part of it, He gathers His “elect” to Himself in the sky (Psalm 50:1-6; Matthew 24:29-31; Mark 13:24-27, NKJV). After comforting the Thessalonians about the dead in Christ, Paul says nothing about tribulation, but reminds them of the timing of Christ’s return they had been previously taught and God’s wrath bound together in the “day of the Lord” urging them to comfort each other in His salvation (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, NKJV). Gathered to Christ above the earth, the saints are not touched by God’s wrath poured out in full below. They then descend with Christ to reign on and restore the earth after the battle at Armageddon (Psalm 149:5-9; Joel 3:1-14; Zechariah 14:1-5; Revelation 1:4-8, 2:25-29, 16:12-16)!

The three and one half year great tribulation is initiated by the Antichrist and is the final, bitter and hate filled expression of Satan’s wrath against everyone and everything connected to the God of the Bible before his known millennial vanquish to the “bottomless pit” (Daniel 7:21-25; Matthew 24:15-24; 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12; Revelation 12:7-13:18, 17:16-18:8, 20:1-3, NKJV). God signals the end of the great tribulation by pouring out preliminary displays of His wrath and power directed specifically at the followers of the Antichrist identified by his mark on themselves and their life support; inviting their repentance if it were possible since they are far gone spiritually (Revelation 16:1-9, 10b-11).

Through all of the great tribulation the saints are expected to depend on God in prayer; watching and waiting on the Lord’s return in faith and patience even when as a result of God‘s preliminary judgments in wrath on the Antichrist’s followers, a temporary lack of food, fresh water and suffering from the sun’s activity occurs (Isaiah 50:2; Joel 1:15-20). Some will die waiting knowing that what lies ahead in Christ far exceeds anything they suffer (Romans 8:18-25; Revelation 7:9-17, 14:12-13). Are not the saints affected by and die now in supposedly natural disasters (Jeremiah 30:23-24; Matthew 24:7-8; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:11, 25-26)? Still, a remnant endures (1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:15, 17). Immediately after the great tribulation ends with the sun plague, God turns out the lights of the universe plunging the earth into complete darkness, paving the way for the glorious light of Christ’s appearing (Isaiah 13:10, 50:3; Ezekiel 32:7-8; Joel 3:15-17; Amos 5:20; Zechariah 14:6-7; Matthew 24:29-30; Mark 13:24-25; Luke 21:27-28; Revelation 6:12-17, 16:10a)!

Popularized fantasy in the past fifty years by Western Christians and their media, the “secret rapture” sounds good but it is false! No doubt it will be heresies like the “secret rapture” through which not mass evacuation but defections from Christ unfold in the falling away shortly ahead (2 Peter 3:1-4). Truly, when already weak and nominal professing Western Christians that have believed the “secret rapture” heresy see that they remain on the earth while their increasingly hostile secular nations begin violently persecuting and killing Christians as they are doing now in other parts of the world, they will fulfill the Lord’s prophecy and depart from Him (Matthew 24:9-10; Mark 13:12-13; Luke 21:16-19). But as it has been for millennia the faithful saints will be calling on the Lord in prayer!

How well received are the prayers of the saints on high? On a physically windless day known only to God; in the midst of the fervent prayers of His besieged saints troubled on every side by the persecution of a hate filled, antagonistic world, the Holy Wind of God will blow over His two-fold elect (Psalm 74, 85, 130; Isaiah 63:7-64:12; Acts 4:23-31, 16:20-26; Revelation 7:1-8). He will rest on remnant Jews marking them as set apart and belonging to God who in their mortal flesh will receive the Lord Jesus as the Messiah at His coming (Isaiah 1:9, 10:20-23; Jeremiah 30:1-11, 18-22, 31:1-14; Joel 2:28-32; Zechariah 13:7-9; Malachi 3:16-18; Romans 9:27-29). The Holy Spirit is given not to convert the elect remnant Jews, but to protect them until Christ’s appearing (Exodus 8:20-24; Ezekiel 9:1-6; Revelation 9:4, 12:1-6, 13-17), then they will be converted and serve Him in their mortal flesh (Zechariah 12:10-13:6; Romans 11:25-29).

While the unconverted, elect Jewish remnant with hearts like Simeon, Joseph, Mary and Anna of old are protected (Psalm 46; Luke 2:25-38), Christian saints enjoy a spiritual revival of a magnitude not seen since Pentecost as I discuss in The Strong Man Of God (Acts 2:1-4). Sealed already by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14), this is their spiritual preparation for all that is to follow through the Second Coming of Christ. In the strength of this revival, the faith driven prayers of the saints on earth coalesce before God to move His hand (Exodus 2:23-25, 3:7; Psalm 18:1-19, 34:15-22, 119:126, 141:1-2; Matthew 6:9-13; Revelation 8:1-6) to some never before seen displays of His mighty power in warning judgments (John 12:28-31; Revelation 8:7-11:14, 15-16:1-12) then finally, the full out pouring of His wrath upon the whole earth (Revelation 11:15-19, 16:17-21). The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, “Who is on the Lord's side?”

Tagged With: The saint's prayers are honored by God

Strong Man Of God Blog

Robert Kelley's weekly instruction, observations and reflections inspired by the Lord posted each Sunday night.

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