And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book (Daniel 12:1).
Here, Daniel writes of the End Time being a “time of trouble.” Other prophets of the Old Testament express this same characteristic describing Israel’s End Time. Although great trouble has continued to be a part of the history of Israel, the trouble Daniel speaks of in their End Time prophetically will be the greatest of all. This great trouble of Israel is known as Daniel’s Last Week.
Daniel’s Last Week
Jeremiah called this specific time of trouble “Jacob’s trouble” (Jer. 30:7), comparing Israel’s sufferings to the birth pangs of a woman. Ezekiel speaks of it as the time when Israel shall “pass under the rod” (Ezek. 20:37). Isaiah, Hosea, Zechariah, and Malachi also speak of this trouble. This troubled time of Daniel’s Last Week will be during what is designated as the Great Tribulation, a time of trouble upon the world as a whole. More specifically for the Jew, this troubled time is properly called Daniel’s Last Week; it will be the final and worst time of judgment from God upon the Jews. It is through this final “week” (or seven years) that a refining process will be placed upon the Jew in order to fit them to again be God’s chosen people. However long the Great Tribulation lasts as a judgment upon the Gentile world, the last seven years will be accompanied simultaneously with the specific judgment upon Israel, Daniel’s Last Week. We should be reminded that the Great Tribulation has nothing to do with the Church: the concept of the Church will be closed at the Rapture.
Daniel is told in 12:1 that this last chapter relates to “the children of thy people,” that of Daniel’s nationality, Israel. Zechariah 13:8 declares of this period, “And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.” The prophet Zechariah goes on to picture the refining process until the people of Israel acknowledge the Lord as their God. Zechariah then enters chapter 14 describing the final struggle for Jerusalem and the open second advent of Christ’s second coming which will deliver Israel out of all her trouble.
All end-time seasons have been marked by this characteristic of deep trouble. And the End Time we presently are in will be marked by deep trouble.
The End Time of Noah
The end time of Noah is a pattern for our End Time. It was marked by trouble and deep distress. Luke 17 and Matthew 24 announce that the coming of the Lord would be like the days of Noah that were before the Flood. But what brought their trouble to its climax?
As we carefully review that history, for nearly 1,656 years there had been a separation of the godly and the ungodly lines. Cain was forced to separate from Adam and Eve. Yet it is evident that a sister, who was Cain’s wife, and likely some other siblings chose to leave with him. As the population on the planet multiplied over the next centuries, more and more, the families of the contrasting seeds were coming to the awareness of one another, seeing and eventually communicating with one another. Genesis 6:1 states that “men began to multiply on the face of the earth.” More men bring about more sinners, and thus more sin. As sinners multiplied upon the earth, so did their discoveries of deeper and darker sins.
Like the days of Noah, we have found ourselves in a generation of the multiplying of humanity. Statisticians have estimated that only around 1900 did the earth’s population pass one billion; this suggests that four thousand years of history was needed for the global population to come to its first billion. Yet today in 2016 we have reached a population of seven and a half billion. In the next ten to twelve years it is estimated that we will be at eight billion. The principle is still true: more men means more sinners, bringing more sin and the discovery of sins that have never been known before.
As Genesis 6 unfolds the historical scene of those years before the Flood, we read of licentiousness raging in a peculiar way unknown prior to this time. Though polygamy was first enacted by Lamech with his two wives, it is here in Genesis 6 that we have “the sons of God taking unto themselves daughters of men, all of whom they chose.” There are those who believe these “sons of God” were angels in a succubus union with physical women. But it is clear that these mentioned here possessed a physical, sexual identity which belonged singularly to the human race. These sons of God had the ability to marry. Also, God’s condemnation upon the sin of this day was addressed to man as flesh living his days on earth, and not to spirit. God did not pronounce any condemnation here upon angels; it was singularly upon man.
It is sad to acknowledge that it was the “sons of God” who made the first advances toward the “daughters of men.” They “took them wives of all which they chose” or desired; the matter of biblical separation of the godly and the ungodly seeds was violated. Back at the fall of Adam, God had placed an enmity between these seeds that is never to wane; it was a hatred instilled by God Himself.
In these days when Christianity is mixing with the world, we must remind ourselves that God placed a hatred between the godly and ungodly seeds. We as Christians must hate the ungodly seed and what it produces, as the ungodly seed hates the godly seed and what it produces. Dear reader, this is where the trouble concerning the end time of the days of Noah began: the mixing of the seeds, the mixture of the flesh and Spirit, of godliness and ungodliness, of truth and error, of right and wrong, and of good and evil. The godly married to please their fancies of the flesh, not for spiritual desires. They married as many wives as they desired, far worse than what the ungodly had done. Lamech, the first polygamist of the ungodly line, was content with two wives. But the degenerate sons of Seth, having yielded to self-indulgence only limited their wives by the demands of their passion. They broke the laws of God in marriage, and this empowered them to break the laws concerning men. Violence now prevailed in the descendants of the godly line. From the beginning, violence had been a characteristic of the wicked line: the killing of Abel by Cain; and Lamech in his killing by self-defense (Gen. 4:23, 24).
Lawlessness now passes over into the godly seed as it is mixed with the ungodly. And the offspring produced giants (Hebrew, nephilim) in those days. Mixing of the seeds, the union of the sons of God and the daughters of men, produced strange children. These men became giants in wickedness as well as in size. Yes, the greatest trouble that this world has borne was when the mixing of spiritual seeds created great abnormalities in the earth. Sin was great because of the abnormal giants in the earth, that occasioned new curiosities and inventions of sin by this new breed of sinners. This is where we are today in our own country of America: a new breed of atheism, a new breed of demonically-possessed men, truly a new breed of sinners and sins.
Sin was great because every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually (6:5). The heart was already corrupted; now the corruption aggressively manifested itself into all of the many varieties of sins which the mind had imagined or “brooded over continually.” This announces rather conclusively that the mind as well as the heart was filled with evil. The cup of the mind had become full of evil as had the cup of the heart. Sin is a discovery and an invention; this people had exhausted many of the discoveries of sin and were now inventing through the mind other varieties of sin. This was the outworking evidence of a total depravity.
Sin was also great because “the earth was filled with violence” (6:11). The spilling out of the heart and the mind had now filled the whole earth. There was a reaction of sinner with sinner producing violence. Sin was great because the “end of all flesh” had come up before God. This is a statement that indicates the final stage of sin in a generation had come, and God must bring the matter to an end. This is rarely mentioned in Scripture, but we do read of this word of finality of God at the tower of Babel in Genesis 11 and of Sodom in Genesis 19. In the matter of Genesis 6, as well as in Genesis 11 and Genesis 19, we could only speculate what would have happened had God not stepped in at these various places in history. Without God’s intervention, a total destruction of the human race rather than a merciful destruction of certain ones of the human race could have happened.
This Present World
Our time is an end-time season; it is an end time to the Church ages. Therefore, we are in the worst days that the Church has ever known. Trouble is of such an increasing intense nature that it could flourish toward the attempted extermination of the saints; only the Rapture will thwart such a success. The Church has gone through great trials, testings, distress, and trouble, but never like what we are facing today. This last Church age has arisen in the aftermath of the greatest spiritual move of God in Church history. It has come in the aftermath of the great awakenings and revivals throughout much of Europe and America that gave preeminence to holiness of heart and life. The End-time Church of our contemporary is convinced that their choosing of the “fair” daughters of the world will be for the betterment of the Church (Gen. 6:2).
This End-time mingling of that which is of God with that which is of man is a special form of evil, and a very effectual engine in Satan’s hand for destroying the testimony of Christ on earth. This mingling may frequently give the appearance of something desirable to the Church, something to be rejoiced in rather than to be deplored. But if viewed in the light of God’s Word, we cannot possibly imagine that an advantage is gained when the people of God mingle and intermarry with the children of this world, corrupting the truth of God. It leads to disastrous consequences. True, the fruit of that union seemed exceedingly fair, in man’s judgment; but, “the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”
But God seeth not as man seeth: “God saw that the wickedness of men was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” This is the greatest trouble we are witnessing today; greater than the leadership in Washington, and greater than secularism and atheism. We are in the greatest trouble of the Church; God’s holy place has been defiled by the profane.
Satan’s first effort in history was to frustrate God’s purpose by putting the holy seed to death (Cain’s killing Abel). When that failed, he sought to gain his end by corrupting that seed. The great danger today is the continued compromise of truth for the sake of union with the world. Sin was great because of the multiplying of man upon the earth. When the Church is wanting to increase and become successful in the eyes of the world, it employs man’s adding techniques rather than the Lord’s. This is what has brought the trouble.
More men coming into the church, unchanged by God’s redemptive work, brings more sinners, which in turn means more sin. As a result, weird and abnormal sins will be the product of the mixture of the flesh and Spirit. The mixture of the world and the church have certainly brought multitudes of people under the canopy of the professing Church today. But people still with unconfessed sin, refusing to be delivered from sin, have brought their sins and love of the world within the church. The Church is now forced to change her theology to accommodate the unchanged lives, to accommodate their music, and to accommodate their permissive standards. Humanly, the building of the visible Church means more to the Church leaders than the purity of the Church. Through such false building, we have created our troubles, our great troubles. Noah’s troubled day began with the mixing of the seeds, the mixture of the flesh and Spirit.
No matter what the distinctives of a church were back in the 1700s, when revival swept through England and America, there was the clear evidence in the people of purity of heart, purity of life, and the denial of ungodliness and worldly lusts. But when the powers of Liberalism and Modernism theologically erupted from within such movements, there was a destruction of the separation between the seeds, and Christianity became “loving” and “loveable” to the world. Sin has almost become respectable today because of the abnormal giants in the earth. This new breed of sinners within the Church has occasioned new curiosities and inventions of sin. Such a never before known dialectic mixture of hot and cold, of Spirit and flesh, has erupted in the Church. The Church is assimilating all it has chosen of the world and has created the flesh and Spirit giants of our times who have paved the way for unprecedented wickedness in the future.
The Contemporary Giants
How often our hearts have been drawn to godly spiritual giants of the past whom we desired to emulate in heart and life. In contrast, the concept of “giants” today is found in the context of the megachurch. Dare we name only a few in order to bring clarity of this truth in our contemporary times.
Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagan have become the product of this mingled offspring. Within the Charismatic movement they have been giants in proclaiming the “Faith Formula” theology to the End-time Church world, believing that man’s own word can create faith in people.
Rick Warren, founder and senior pastor of the Saddleback evangelical megachurch in Lake Forest, California, has globally brought compromise in every area of Christian thinking, opening the door for every version of the Bible to be fully accepted, and under the canopy of Christianity legalizing every sin and lifestyle.
Joel Osteen and his wife Victoria, co-pastors of Lakewood Church in Houston, the largest megachurch in the US, have brought the self-esteem teachings of Robert Schuller to a greater imagery. Today Osteen is the most prominent man of renown in the Charismatic movement.
Mark Burnett and Roma Downey have brought The Bible, and its spinoff A.D. The Bible Continues, polluting the Gospel with their Roman Catholic influence.
Billy Graham probably became the greatest enemy of the true Gospel and has done more damage to Christianity than any other man in the twentieth century. He made compromise fashionable and the acceptance of the world with Christ permissible. His son Franklin Graham has become an enigmatic son of both seeds.
Jerry Falwell, Jr., president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA, boasts of the world’s largest evangelical Christian university. He truly has gone beyond his father in the compromising covenants with the world.
Pat Robertson, the chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network, is a pioneer in the telecommunication world under the guise of Christianity. Yet he has brought acceptability of the existential, Charismatic philosophy into the arena of politics and the government.
T. D. Jakes has stepped forward speaking by the great power of the flesh. He is the apostle/bishop of the Dallas-based nondenominational megachurch The Potter’s House. His impassioned sermons have drawn over 26,000 members to his church. His picture appeared on the cover of TIME magazine (September 21, 2001) asking if he were the next Billy Graham.
John C. Maxwell, once involved with the Wesleyan churches, has become a key innovator bridging denominational barriers. He has made the crossover, like so many, into being a motivational speaker to large ministries and to Fortune 500 companies.
Creflo Dollar is portrayed as a televangelist, pastor, and preacher of prosperity theology; he is the founder of World Changers Church International. He has risen among the ranks of being a “giant” of “renown.”
Vashti Murphy McKenzie was the first female bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME Zion Church), the largest of the black denominations in the contemporary apostasy of our times.
Jack Hayford, founding pastor of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California, is most prominent in the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement. Andy Stanley (son of Charles Stanley) and his most contemporary North Point Community Church outside of Atlanta, Georgia, pushes the envelope in the way to “do church” in this generation. Jamal-Harrison Bryant is a postmodern pastor within the AME Zion Church. Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth with a Mission, has sent thousands of contemporary missionaries into over 135 countries. Eddie Long, who took a staunch Missionary Baptist Church and brought in the Charismatic message, now pastors New Birth Cathedral, a 25,000-member church located in the suburbs of Atlanta. Tommy Tenney has sold nearly two million copies of his book The God Chasers (1999). In 2014, Joseph Prince of New Creation Church in Singapore was reported to have a net worth of $5 million (www.richeslifestyle.com). Brian Houston of Hillsong Church (Australia), has now collaborated with TBN for a television network. We must also acknowledge the international influence of women such as Marilyn Hickey and Joyce Meyers.
The contemporary church is filled with its own list of “men of renown.” Even the Neo-Evangelical leaders such as John Piper, Chuck Swindoll, David Jeremiah, Charles Stanley, John MacArthur, Gary Chapman, and others who are portrayed more conservatively, have mixed the godly seed with the ungodly in their theology, worship, and daily lives.
The above list does not even include the “giants” of influence in Nigeria and other countries who have become some of the wealthiest charlatans of renown. The phrase “men of renown” in Genesis 6:4 is a term in the Hebrew language that means “men of the name.” We read this phrase once again in Numbers 16:2, men who had become “famous,” or men whose names had become known. This latter context regards Korah and his gainsaying. These were men whose names were in competition with the name of Jehovah, or in our day and time, men who have risen to worldly greatness by “using” the name of Jesus and the Gospel to promote themselves. These and many more have been the parent stock of the giants in our End-time world who are bringing to public religion a variety of inventions of new sins.
The Deepening Darkness of the End Time
It must be candidly acknowledged that we would never be facing the godlessness and strange flesh we are witnessing today in leadership of our country if Christianity had not fallen away from the Truth. Such evil and wickedness could have never risen if the powers of truth found in Christianity were still part of our nation. We are like Jeremiah of old who said, “we looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble!” (8:15). The prophet Jeremiah also declared in 14:19, “Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? hath thy soul lothed Zion? why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? we looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble.”
Our nation and the world is in deep trouble! God is giving us over to trouble because of our rejection of Him. Note 2 Chronicles 29:8, “Wherefore the wrath of the LORD was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and he hath delivered them to trouble, to astonishment, and to hissing, as ye see with your eyes.” Again, we grievingly acknowledge that it is the failure, the deep sin-sick failure of the Church that has brought the troubles to our nation; now we have no spiritual strength to deal with them.
The New Testament reveals that in the End Time several concepts of trouble will be faced by God’s people. (1) There is a trouble that comes from agitation, like the stirring of the waters, or circumstances moving to and fro causing troubles to arise. (2) There are troubles that cause individuals inward commotion, that take away the calmness of mind, disturb the heart with intense darkness. (3) There are troubles to disquiet, to make restless, to perplex the mind of one by suggesting doubts, darkness, and despair. (4) There will also be troubles that will bring great pressure and tribulation that will cause mankind to feel confined and with no hope for recovery. (5) There are also troubles which are malignant in power, in malice, ill-will, with the desire to injure, to promote wickedness and depravity. (6) There are also deep troubles of intrinsic wickedness that unashamedly break God’s law; this truly will be the nature of man in the End Time. Accompanying these troubles will be great affliction and vexing of heart that can distract (if we are not vigilant) our attention from God and the hope of Christ’s soon return.
Conclusion
Dear reader, End-time troubles will come in every form, every concept of pain, and every mental distress. Cares and troubles are at their worst in human history. Facing this age with the oppressive laws that have been passed has produced vexation which pains the soul and emotions of God’s people.
In moments of facing this age, do you ever feel like you have been physically beaten up? Our living on this planet is becoming more and more confined; the way of the Christian is becoming more narrow. What are we to do? Where are we to go to be delivered? The laws of the land are now against us, and there will be fewer victories for the Christian in the courts of the land. Even our places of natural enjoyment are becoming limited.
May God help us in our End Time to face the troubles that increasingly will be manifested as man deepens his hatred against God, his hatred against God’s people, and his hatred against the standards by which they live. Yet, we must see in our next article what God has on His heart for His people “through” all of these troubles.