Witness or Witnesses?

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Witnesses to Witness the Truth of God's Word 

Christians will be here as witnesses of the coming events, like it or not, try to explain it anyway you wish, Christians, followers of our Messiah, will be here on this earth as witnesses to the things coming. There is no secret coming of the Christ taking Christians to heaven while Earth burns. That is an absurd notion and a false doctrine presented by the twisting of some few scriptures.  It is the perpetuation of the lie, "surely you shall not surely die" (Gen 3:4, Heb 9:27), from the originator of liars (John 8:44).  The Church of the Living God will be on this earth when the "time of trouble" (Tribulation) comes, make no mistake, as a witness of those coming events.  The Laodicean Church (People of the Christ) will be here and will be corrected and awakened from the false image they have of themselves, they will be made pure, taken through the fire of trial.  There will be others Marked by the Name of our Heavenly Father, set aside for special protection at a certain point, those few having not rejected the true Messiah and Father.  There will be Witnesses but not many -- enough. 

(Rev 3:14-16)And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

We are given a view of the 7 Churches and the Laodiceans is the 7th and it is on this earth to be refined, tried, and driven to repent.  Imagine that, the Church of the Living God, in the "time of trouble" needs to repent.  This period of time will test the professing believer as never before.

(Rev 3:17-19)Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

He, Yahshua, loves this Church and this is reason enough to improve them by passing them through this "time of trouble".  Of those that do not become scoffers and abandon the faith they will be given robes of white.  It is false teachers that tell the people of God, the followers of the Savior that they do not need to be concerned with the identity of their God nor of their Savior, any name will do, it's all about the love, they say, it's all about how you feel, they profess.  It is these deceivers telling the flock what they want to hear, that they are rich in spirit and of substance and have need of nothing.  They are told they will escape any trouble and will not see death but go straight to Heaven.  But, my friends, you have just read what is in store for the Church of God, known as the Church of Laodiceans.  Never forget, they too belong to Yahshua.  Yes, he is going to deal with them harshly, because they deceive themselves into thinking they are spiritually rich, that all they need is "love" in their hearts, after all, look at the blessings they have received, and how wonderful they feel when they go to Church. They, in reality, have lost their identity, because they feel rich, and may even look rich, in the physical as well as the spiritual they deceive themselves into thinking they really are bless of the Living God.  Names, Identity, does not matter, after all, see how rich in spirit we are?  

Friends, do not be deceived by any coming to you with this message of false "love".  Lust of the flesh can also be mistaken for true "love".  Do you realize our Father in Heaven chastens, corrects, punishes those He loves?  Love and the exercise of Godly Love is not always and enjoyable thing.  To correct a brother in Love is not pleasant, telling my readers they must do the Works of the Living God is more than a feeling of happiness and your expressed spiritual excitement.  The Work of the Living God is this:

So, then, whom do you worship, what is the identity of your God and Savior?  How can you possibly do the "work of the Living God if you do not know His Identity?  If you teach and preach under a false name, a false identity they you too have lost your identity and this is what we see today.  It is but a few practicing the Work of God.  This, of course, is not the Christian World view, is it?  Much more could be written on this, maybe later.

OK, back to witnessing.  I just want to make the point the world will not be devoid of people our Savior has an interest in during the "time of trouble", that there will be witnesses here but not of the kind you normally think of as witnesses.

When some people say they are witnessing they mean they are preaching the gospel to you while others say they are telling you of their conversion in order to confess Jesus to others. Some believers and teachers in the Name of YaHshua make do this too. This, of course, eventually, is or becomes self-serving.  Certainly when one comes to repentance and they see a truth that gives them hope, they naturally want to share it with family and friends and the world.  Once settled into the faith they are told witnessing is preaching to others about Jesus.  The Jehovah's Witnesses do this better than anyone.  They go door to door as individual preachers, preaching their message in the name of Jesus as a witness, not for you but against you.  They are sincere people but for the most part the people they visit reject and detest these unwanted visitors -- thus, you reject the Jesus they preach which in turn condemns you, in their view, to eternity lost, but they have accomplished their mission of witnessing.

You see, if you accept their message, their witness, you then have a pass to the Kingdom, but if you do not accept their withness you are doomed to hellfire.  See what I mean by self serving?  But wait, this applies to all that call themselves Christians, too.  It is easy to pin the tail on the Jehovah's Witnesses, as they are seen as a cult by most Christians and non Christians alike, and resent being bothered by the Witnesses. 

It is my opinion (my opinion) that once again the Christian community has it wrong.  To witness is not to preach, or teach, but to observe.  During the "time of Trouble" there will be Witnesses, lots of witnesses of what is happening and they will be able to confess the Word of the Living God and our Savior, YaHshua, is true.  Considering how far the world will have slid away from the truth these witnesses will number in the thousands, not the millions.  We must consider that when our Savior compared the end-times with the times and days of Noah, there were very few true witnesses around and even fewer surviving witnesses.  In fact, Noah was the only witness that, by Faith, believed he was going to witness something never seen before.  He believed it and when it happened he became a witness to that event and to the truth of YaHWeH's words.  There were other witnesses, certainly, but compared to the population of the world (some have calculated upwards to a billion and beyond, by calculating birth rates from Adam and Eve to Noah) eight survivors is really a small number and only one of those survivors, Noah, had been found worthy to escape.  You might say his family rode along on Noah's coat tails.  They must have had some sense of belief as there is no record of Noah's family rebelling, they were submissive and in this found salvation from the flood.  You have to wonder, how many other relatives were left behind.

Our Savior compared the end of man's rule to those days when all humanity was destroyed by the Great Flood.  Could it happen again?  We have a promise, which those at that time will witness, and the promise is the intervention of our Savior.  We are told that if He, by the authority of the Father, does not intervene, "no flesh would be saved" (Mat 24:22).

The Laodicean Church will be that witness, they will live through the events here on earth, not in Heaven.  Some will ask about the Philadelphian Church, aren't they saved from the "time of trouble"?  When reading Revelation 3 one can see there is not one place where we are told anyone goes to heaven.  It is my opinion the Philadelphian Church will have past into history with the last generations of that group having gone to sleep in the Messiah to await His return.  Read the resurrection chapter, as it is called (1 Cor 15:50-52) nd take note, it says "all will be changed" and not part or the "rest", but "all" at the sounding of the Trumpet announcing the arrival of our Savior. 

Each Church era has their witness, things they have seen and can witness to concerning the truth of the Word.  They each have a fault or faults but remain His and the open thing you can state about he Philadelphians is they never abandoned the Identity of their God and Savior for another, they remained true to death and never "denied His Name", and they have "kept His word".  In other words, my friends, they base their belief and trust on a particular individual with a certain identity and happens to be the author of the Word, the Holy Bible.  This group is not based on a whimsical notion of feelings but on hard evidence of their lives and the written Word of the Living God.  Is this true and that false?  How do we know?  We look in the word, we do not listen to some blabbering, self proclaimed prophet seeing visions of things they should not repeat, but they do, don't they?  The Laodiceans, on the other hand, seem to be the polar opposites of the Philadelphians.  They, the Laodiceans, appear to have it all but in reality, from our Savior's view they are lacking.  The Laodiceans have the privilege (to but a positive spin on it) of witnessing the unfolding or the truth of His words. 

Don't worry, you are not going to miss out on the "Resurrection" when all of His people will hear the Trumpet sound, all those dead and alive and will be "change in the twinkling of the eye" and rise to meet Him in the air.  This coming can be seen and read in Revelation 11 as a detailed account of the Two Witnesses and of the sounding of the Trumpet and of the Resurrection. 

Peace to you and yours in His Name, you servant Dan

Please read "The Two Witnesses of Revelation 11" for a new understanding of just who they are.  I believe you will find it very revealing.