9 The LORD is not slow concerning HIS PROMISE, as some regard slowness, but is being PATIENT toward you, because He does not wish for any to PERISH but for all to come to REPENTANCE. 10 But the DAY OF THE LORD will come like a thief; when… the earth and EVERY DEED DONE on it will be LAID BARE… (therefore) WHAT SORT OF PEOPLE SHOULD YOU BE, CONDUCTING YOUR LIVES IN HOLINESS AND GODLINESS, 12 while WAITING FOR and HASTENING THE COMING OF THE DAY OF GOD? … According to His PROMISE, we are WAITING for new heavens and a new earth, in which RIGHTEOUSNESS truly resides. 14 Therefore, DEAR FRIENDS, since you are WAITING FOR these things, STRIVE to be found AT PEACE, WITHOUT SPOT OR BLEMISH, when you COME into HIS PRESENCE. (2 Peter 3:9-14)
The Lord’s preparation of the Church is one of the most overlooked, New Testament dynamics that is (day by day) impacting the people of God right now. Whether we see it or not, the truth is, the closer we get to the return of Jesus, the more the heart and the collective mind of the Bride is being refined to both understand and champion the reign of our King!
Jesus is not coming to “take us home”. If we’re in Christ, we’re already home! He’s coming to rule and reign on the earth, WITH HIS BRIDE IN GLAD-HEARTED CELEBRATION of the way He administrates His Kingdom.
Right now, the Church is still “working the issues out” in our collective thinking. Our narratives are not filled with appreciation for the ways of our King. We don’t esteem the values of meekness, holiness, patience, and mercy-giving the way our King does. In fact, we count much of what He wants to work into our world as foolish, unpractical, and/or too religious. Where Jesus calls us to “serve”, we want to dominate. Where Jesus calls us to “pray”, we want to rush to action with human power. Where Jesus wants to aim at relationship, we want to build laws and structures. This disconnection from Jesus’ mind is what both Peter (here in 2 Peter 3:14), and Paul (in Ephesians 5:26,27) call “spots, wrinkles, and blemishes”. This is where the Bride is operating unlike Christ – where we are not Christlike!
So, how does the Lord bring us into like-mindedness? How does He conform us to His image?How does He cultivate both an understanding and appreciation of the ways of His leadership?
He shapes us by employing two living and active realities. The first are the affairs of 200ish nations, and the pressure points in our own lives. These are actually “grinding bearings” that the Lord uses to drive us to Himself. Where the answers are “out of our reach”, and “beyond our under-standing”, He nonetheless calls us to bring the tension points to Him, in both humility, and honesty. This means that we don’t allow other players to become the primary “shapers” of our narrative. It means that we bring what we see, what we know, and what we feel, into the “tent of meeting” with Him, and allow Him to illuminate our minds, and our hearts about both the facts of the storylines, and the issues they create in our own lives. He may or may not want to tell us the details about the nefarious activities of globalists. But He will most certainly want to talk to us about how these true or false reports are shaping our trust in Him, and our love toward others. Make sense?
The second living and active reality that He’s using to shape the Bride is His own Word.
Paul writes: “He (Jesus) sanctifies her, and cleanses her by THE WASHING OF WATER WITH THE WORD, that He might present to Himself the Church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:26-27)
Jesus uses both the crises in our world, and our daily, disciplined commitment to engage Him in prayerful dialogue with His Word, and in this kinetic mixture, He shows us how He leads, how He redeems, how He analyzes, how He rewards, and how He purges humanity, and the human spirit. And then He calls you and I, His Bride, to agree in prayer with Him about the ways and the intents of His government.
It’s in this turbulent forge that our Bridegroom King forms and purifies our thoughts, responses, attitudes, countenance, and will. As we bring our outrage, passivity, temptations, and promises in the context of these worldly, national and personal crises into His courts, with truthfulness, a spirit of yieldedness, a dash of expectation, and a will that is prepared to give Him the gift of repentance, He is faithful to remove the impediments (the spots, wrinkles, and blemishes) so that His authority can freely work in, and through our lives. This is how we, the Bride, are conformed to His Image. This is what it means to be aligned to the “true righteousness” (v.13) that He will manifest on the earth when the fulness of His Kingdom comes. We do this by faith, now, in anticipation of it fully coming when He comes. And this is, according to 2 Peter 3:12, (wonder of wonders) how we “hasten the coming” of that Day – His Day – when He rules in our physical presence!
Until that Day comes, 2 Peter 3 tells us to “wait” three times! This is an exhortation to a.) abide in, and not lose touch with this truth, b.) to walk in growing patience and peaceable confidence in the Lord, and what He is accomplishing, and to c.) give ourselves to these conforming dynamics with abandon.
However, the Kingdom of God is always a paradox. In the context of patiently “waiting”, v.14 also charges us to “strive”. (This paradox keeps us from turning the dynamics of the Lord into a math equation – and keeps us close, and reliant upon the nimble, intimate, breath-by-breath leadership of the Spirit.) It is by the Spirit that we “strive” toward coming to the place of “peace” with the Lord’s Bridal purification process. We are in His more than sufficient Hands. We belong to Him. We are in His care. He knows how to get ahold of us. He has our number. He knows how to call us out. He isn’t perplexed about how to bring you, your family, your Bible-study group, your community, and your nation into agreement with His ways. v.14 is the Spirit’s loud encouragement to “TRUST THE KING’S PROCESS!” He will bring us forth, into His Presence, without “spot” or “blemish”; purified; like a sacrificial lamb; ready to be offered up to Him; wholly yielded to His majestic reign.
This is His goal: that we come forth, by His power, united to Him, and each other, loving Him and His ways with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. (Mark 12:30)
This has massive implications for HOW WE “DO CHURCH”. It underscores the vital necessity that we become a people of daily, reliant PRAYER. WITHOUT BEING MUCH IN PRAYER THE BRIDE WILL NEITHER BEHOLD NOR YIELD OUR HEART AND OUR WAYS TO THE LORD’S REFINING WORK. NOR WILL WE LEARN TO WALK IN THE AUTHORITY OF HIS DIVINE ORDER.
This brings us to the other side of the coin. And it is the reason that spurs the apostle Peter to write these injunctions in the first place. Should we neglect, and/or withdraw from Jesus’ capable, prayerful, purifying process; should we instead, give ourselves to spiraling conspiracies, spouting our own opinions, -becoming rigid in our carnal thoughts, we will not come forth in mature love. We will actually come forth with a mutant love – shaped by our world, the devil, and our own corrupt soul. Perhaps, (or perhaps not) filled with “Christian-sounding” rhetoric – but no substance, and no fruit.
When we neglect Jesus’ prayerful, purifying process, and instead, give ourselves to spiraling conspiracies, opinions, and rigid carnal thoughts, we will not come forth in mature love. we will come forth with a mutant love.
The wretched truth of the matter is, when we refuse to give ourselves to His ongoing refining process, we are in essence saying to Jesus: “WE REALLY DON’T LOVE YOUR RULE AND REIGN in our world. We would rather continue to have our own way, under our own power, than have You remove the SPOTS and BLEMISHES from our hearts… We’d rather You NOT do what You want to do to manifest Your vibrant RIGHTEOUSNESS through our lives.”
This is the spirit of antipathy. This is the spirit Peter calls us to “strive” against. This posture will produce endless enmity (and never “PEACE”) in our lives. And, truth-be-told, it is the sentiment, and slant that accounts for SO MUCH of the hostility in the Church today.
Beloved, the Lord is not relenting. He will not let us sleep-walk through the fires that He has kindled in our world. He is a holy-disturber of our “false peace” Who is making every provision for us to be aligned to Himself, in joyful unanimity with His Kingdom.
Let’s go into the place of prayer, and wholly give ourselves to His refining process. Let’s hasten the return of our King!
PREFACE The wrath of God is one of the top ten most neglected topics in the Body of Christ in our generation. There are more than 150 distinct references to the wrath of God in the scriptures. The three books of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Revelation contain about a third of the references to God’s wrath, but the wrath of the Lord is found in the Pentateuch, Israel’s history, Psalms, Proverbs, the major and the minor prophets, the gospels, the epistles and the book of Revelation.
A robust understanding of the wrath of God will enrich our appreciation for the judgments of the Lord, the fear of the Lord, AND the tremendous mercy of the Lord.
The wrath of God is different than the judgments of the Lord. The judgments of the Lord are about reward, encouragement, correction, discipline, rebuke and punishment. The wrath of God is punishment. Often severe punishment. And many times final punishment.
None-the-less, the 21c American Church largely lives as though the wrath of God does not apply to us. This is an enormously dangerous way to live.
We have been experiencing a long season of the judgments of the Lord. (A longer season than most revivals last…) One of the reasons the Lord leads us through long seasons of patient judgment, is to forestay His Hand of wrath.
Unfortunately, our response to the judgments of the Lord has not been repentance, and surrendering ourselves to His glory. Our response to the judgments of the Lord has been to wave the bill of rights in His Face, and the faces of our enemies.
This is precisely the Biblical pattern of human behavior that invites the wrath of God upon a people.
Father! Sober us to the reality of Your judgments and Your righteous wrath! Raise up prophetic voices that will bring the Church to our knees!
Below are 99 scriptures on the wrath of God…
Leviticus 26:28 Then I will act with wrathful hostility against you, and I for My part will punish you seven times for your sins.
Numbers 1:53 But the Levites shall camp around the tabernacle of the testimony, so that there will be no divinewrath against the congregation of the sons of Israel. So the Levites shall be responsible for service to the tabernacle of the testimony.
Numbers 16:46 And Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer and put fire in it from the altar, and place incense on it; then bring it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone out from the Lord, the plague has begun!”
Numbers 18:5 So you shall perform the duties of the sanctuary and the duties of the altar, so that there will no longer be wrath on the sons of Israel.
Numbers 25:11 Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has averted My wrath from the sons of Israel in that he was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I did not destroy the sons of Israel in My jealousy.
Deuteronomy 29:20 The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and His wrath will burn against that person, and every curse that is written in this book will lie upon him, and the Lord will wipe out his name from under heaven.
Joshua 22:20 Did Achan the son of Zerah not act unfaithfully in the things designated for destruction, and wrath fall on the entire congregation of Israel? So that man did not perish alone in his guilt.
2 Chronicles 34:21 Go, inquire of the Lord for me and for those who are left in Israel and Judah, concerning the words of the book which has been found; for the wrath of the Lord which has poured out on us is great, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to act in accordance with everything that is written in this book.
2 Kings 22:13 Go, inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and all Judah concerning the words of this book that has been found, for the wrath of the Lord that burns against us is great, because our fathers did not listen to the words of this book, to act in accordance with everything that is written regarding us.
2 Kings 22:17 Since they have abandoned Me and have burned incense to other gods so that they may provoke Me to anger with all the work of their hands, My wrath burns against this place, and it shall not be quenched.
2 Chronicles 12:7 When the Lord saw that they had humbled themselves, the word of the Lord came to Shemaiah, saying, “They have humbled themselves, so I will not destroy them; and I will grant them a little deliverance, and My wrath will not be poured out on Jerusalem by means of Shishak.”
2 Chronicles 19:2 And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him and said to King Jehoshaphat, “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord, and by doing so bringwrath on yourself from the Lord?”
2 Chronicles 19:10 Whenever any dispute comes to you from your countrymen who live in their cities, between blood and blood, between law and commandment, statutes and ordinances, you shall warn them so that they will not be guilty before the Lord, and wrath will not come on you and your countrymen. This you shall do and you will not be guilty.
2 Chronicles 29:8 Therefore the wrath of the Lord was against Judah and Jerusalem, and He has made them an object of terror, of horror, and of hissing, as you see with your own eyes.
2 Chronicles 32:25 But Hezekiah did nothing in return for the benefit he received, because his heart was proud; therefore wrath came upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem.
2 Chronicles 32:26 However, Hezekiah humbled the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the Lord did not come on them…
2 Chronicles 36:16 They continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against His people, until there was no remedy.
Ezra 7:23 Whatever is commanded by the God of heaven, it shall be done with zeal for the house of the God of heaven, so that there will not be wrath against the kingdom of the king and his sons.
Job 14:13 Oh that You would hide me in Sheol, that You would conceal me until Your wrath returns to You, that You would set a limit for me and remember me!
Job 19:29 Then be afraid of the sword for yourselves, for wrathbrings the punishment of the sword, so that you may know there is judgment.
Job 36:18 Beware that wrath does not entice you to mockery; and do not let the greatness of the ransom turn you aside.
Psalm 2:12 Kiss the Son, that He not be angry and you perish on the way, for His wrath may be kindled quickly. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!
Psalm 6:1 Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger, nor discipline me in Your wrath.
Psalm 21:9 You will make them as a fiery oven in the time of your anger; the Lord will swallow them up in His wrath, and fire will devour them.
Psalm 38:1 Lord, do not rebuke me in Your wrath, and do not punish me in Your burning anger.
Psalm 59:13 Destroy them in wrath, destroy them so that they will no longer exist; so that people may know that God rules in Jacob, to the ends of the earth. Selah
Psalm 78:38 But He, being compassionate, forgave their wrongdoing and did not destroy them; and often He restrained His anger and did not stir up all His wrath.
Psalm 79:6 Pour out Your wrath upon the nations which do not know You, and upon the kingdoms which do not call upon Your Name.
Psalm 88:7 Your wrath has rested upon me, and You have afflicted me with all Your waves. Selah
Psalm 89:38 But You have rejected and refused, You have been full of wrath against Your anointed.
Psalm 89:46 How long, Lord? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath burn like fire?
Psalm 90:7 For we have been consumed by Your anger, and we have been terrified by Your wrath.
Psalm 106:23 Therefore He said that He would destroy them, if Moses, His chosen one, had not stood in the gap before Him, to turn away His wrath from destroying them.
Psalm 110:5 The Lord is at Your right hand; He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath.
Proverbs 11:4 Riches do not benefit on the day of wrath, but righteousness rescues from death.
Proverbs 11:23 The desire of the righteous is only good, but the expectation of the wicked is wrath.
Isaiah 34:2 For the Lord’s anger is against all the nations, and Hiswrath against all their armies. He has utterly destroyed them, He has turned them over to slaughter.
Isaiah 48:9 For the sake of My name I delay My wrath, and for My praise I restrain it for you, in order not to cut you off.
Isaiah 51:20 Your sons have fainted, they lie helpless at the head of every street, like an antelope in a net, full of the wrath of the Lord, the rebuke of your God.
Isaiah 59:18 According to their deeds, so will He repay: Wrath to His adversaries, retribution to His enemies; to the coastlands He will deal retribution.
Isaiah 63:3 I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no one with Me. I also trod them in My anger and trampled them in My wrath; and their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, and I stained all My clothes.
Isaiah 63:5-6 I looked, but there was no one to help, and I was astonished and there was no one to uphold; so My own arm brought salvation to Me, and My wrath upheld Me. I trampled down the peoples in My anger and made them drunk with My wrath…
Jeremiah 4:4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your hearts, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or else My wrath will spread like fire and burn with no one to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.
Jeremiah 6:11 But I am full of the wrath of the Lord; I am weary of holding it in. Pour it out on the children in the street and on the gathering of young men together; for both husband and wife shall be taken, the old and the very old.
Jeremiah 7:20 Therefore this is what the Lord God says: “Behold, My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on human and animal life, and on the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched.”
Jeremiah 7:29 Take up a song of mourning on the bare heights; for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.
Jeremiah 10:10 But the Lord is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. The earth quakes at His wrath, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.
Jeremiah 18:20 Should good be repaid with evil? For they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before You to speak good in their behalf, so as to turn Your wrath away from them.
Jeremiah 21:5 And I Myself will make war against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, and in anger, wrath, and great indignation.
Jeremiah 21:12 House of David, this is what the Lord says: “Administer justice every morning; and save the person who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor, so that My wrath will not spread like fire and burn, with no one to extinguish it, because of the evil of their deeds.”
Jeremiah 23:19 Behold, the storm of the Lord has gone forth in wrath, even a whirling tempest; it will swirl down on the head of the wicked.
Jeremiah 32:37 Behold, I am going to gather them out of all the lands to which I have driven them in My anger, in My wrath, and in great indignation; and I will bring them back to this place and have them live in safety.
Jeremiah 36:7 Perhaps their pleading will come before the Lord, and everyone will turn from his evil way; for great is the anger and the wrath that the Lord has pronounced against this people.
Jeremiah 42:18 For this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel says: “As My anger and wrath have gushed out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so My wrath will gush out on you when you enter Egypt. And you will become a curse, an object of horror, an imprecation, and a disgrace; and you will not see this place again.”
Jeremiah 50:13 Because of the wrath of the Lord she will not be inhabited, but she will be completely desolate; everyone who passes by Babylon will be horrified and will hiss because of all her wounds.
Lamentations 2:2, 4 The Lord has destroyed; He has not spared all the settlements of Jacob. In His wrath He has overthrown the strongholds of the daughter of Judah, He has hurled them down to the ground; He has profaned the kingdom and its leaders… He has bent His bow like an enemy; His right hand is positioned like an adversary, and He has killed everything that was pleasant to the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Zion He has poured out His wrath like fire.
Lamentations 4:11 The Lord has expended His wrath, He has poured out His fierce anger; and He has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has consumed its foundations.
Ezekiel 5:13, 15 Then My anger will be spent and I will satisfy My wrath on them, and I will be appeased; then they will know that I, the Lord, have spoken in My zeal, when I have spent My wrath upon them… So it will be a disgrace, an object of abuse, a warning, and an object of horror to the nations that surround you when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and raging reprimands. I, the Lord, have spoken.
Ezekiel 7 5 “This is what the Lord God says: ‘A disaster, a unique disaster, behold, it is coming! 6 An end is coming; the end has come! It has awakened against you; behold, it has come! 7 Your doom has come to you, you inhabitant of the land. The time has come, the day is near—panic rather than joyful shouting on the mountains. 8 Now I will shortly pour out My wrath on you and expend My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways and bring on you all your abominations. 9 My eye will have no pity nor will I spare you. I will repay you according to your ways, while your abominations are in your midst; then you will know that I, the Lord, am striking. 10 ‘Behold, the day! Behold, it is coming! Your doom has gone forth; the rod has budded, arrogance has blossomed. 11 Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness. None of them shall remain, none of their people, none of their wealth, nor anything eminent among them. 12 The time has come, the day has arrived. Let neither the buyer rejoice nor the seller mourn; for wrath is against all their multitude. 13 Indeed, the seller will not regain what he sold as long as they both live; for the vision regarding all their multitude will not be averted, nor will any of them maintain his life by his wrongdoing. 14 ‘They have blown the trumpet and made everything ready, but no one is going to the battle, for My wrath is against all their multitude. 15 The sword is outside the city and the plague and the famine are within. Anyone who is in the field will die by the sword, while famine and the plague will consume those in the city. 16 Even when their survivors escape, they will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, each over his own wrongdoing. 17 All hands will hang limp, and all knees will drip with water. 18 They will put on sackcloth and shuddering will overwhelm them; and shame will be on all faces, and a bald patch on all their heads. 19 They will fling their silver into the streets, and their gold will become an abhorrent thing; their silver and their gold will not be able to save them on the day of the wrath of the Lord. They cannot satisfy their appetite, nor can they fill their stomachs, because their wrongdoing has become a cause of stumbling. 20 Moreover, they transformed the splendor of His jewels into pride, and they made the images of their abominations and their detestable things with it; therefore I will make it an abhorrent thing to them. 21 And I will hand it over to the foreigners as plunder, and to the wicked of the earth as spoils; and they will profane it. 22 I will also turn My face away from them, and they will profane My treasure; then robbers will enter and profane it. 23 ‘Make the chain, for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. 24 Therefore, I will bring the worst of the nations, and they will take possession of their houses. I will also put an end to the pride of the strong ones, and their holy places will be profaned. 25 When anguish comes, they will seek peace, but there will be none. 26 Disaster will come upon disaster and rumor will be added to rumor; then they will seek a vision from a prophet, but the Law will be lost from the priest, and counsel from the elders. 27 The king will mourn, the prince will be clothed in horror, and the hands of the people of the land will tremble. I will deal with them because of their conduct, and by their judgments I will judge them. And they will know that I am the Lord.’”
Ezekiel 13:15 So I will expend My wrath on the wall and on those who have plastered it over with whitewash; and I will say to you, “The wall is gone and those who plastered it are gone.”
Ezekiel 16:38 So I will judge you as women who commit adultery or shed blood are judged; and I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy.
Ezekiel 21:31 I will pour out My indignation on you; I will blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and I will hand you over to brutal men, craftsmen of destruction.
Ezekiel 22:20-22, 31 As they gather silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into the smelting furnace to blow fire on it in order to melt it, so I will gather you in My anger and in My wrath, and I will place you there and melt you. And I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and you will be melted in the midst of it. As silver is melted in the furnace, so you will be melted in the midst of it; and you will know that I, the Lord, have poured out My wrath on you… “So I have poured out My indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; I have brought their way upon their heads,” declares the Lord God.
Ezekiel 24:13 In your filthiness is outrageous sin. Because I would have cleansed you, yet you are not clean, you will not be cleansed from your filthiness again until I have expended My wrath on you.
Ezekiel 25:17 I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes; and they will know that I am the Lord, when I inflict My vengeance on them.
Ezekiel 36:18 Therefore I poured out My wrath on them for the blood which they had shed on the land, because they had defiled it with their idols.
Daniel 9:16 Lord, in accordance with all Your righteous acts, let now Your anger and Your wrath turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the wrongdoings of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people have become an object of taunting to all those around us.
Hosea 13:11 I gave you a king in My anger, and took him away in My wrath.
Nahum 1:2, 6 A jealous and avenging God is the Lord; the Lord is avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies… Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the burning of His anger? His wrath gushes forth like fire, and the rocks are broken up by Him.
Zechariah 7:12 They also made their hearts as hard as a diamond so that they could not hear the Law and the words which the Lord of armies had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the Lord of armies.
Zechariah 8:2 The Lord of armies says this: “I am exceedingly jealous for Zion, yes, with great wrath I am jealous for her.”
Matthew 3:7 and Luke 3:7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
Luke 21:23 Woe to those women who are pregnant, and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land, and wrath to this people.
John 3:36 The one who believes in the Son has eternal life; but the one who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
Romans 2:5, 8 But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,.. but to those who are self-serving and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, He will givewrath and indignation.
Romans 3:5 But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He?
Romans 4:15 For the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there also is no violation.
Romans 5:9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrathof God through Him.
Romans 9:22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with great patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction?
Romans 12:19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrathof God, for it is written: “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
Romans 13:4, 5 But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a servant of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil… Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for the sake of conscience.
Ephesians 2:3 Among them we too all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest.
Ephesians 5:6 See that no one deceives you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
Colossians 3:6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience.
1 Thessalonians 1:10 Wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is, Jesus who rescues us from the wrath to come.
1 Thessalonians 2:16 …hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always reach the limit of their sins. But wrath has come upon them fully.
1 Thessalonians 5:9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Revelation 6:16, 17 They said to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the sight of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
Revelation 11:18 The nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.
Revelation 14:10, 19 He also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb… So the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth, and threw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God.
Revelation 15:1, 7 Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished… And one of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, Who lives forever and ever.
Revelation 16:1 Then I heard a loud voice from the temple, saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.”
Revelation 16:19 The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of God, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath.
Revelation 19:15 From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.
OBSERVATION I’d REALLY RATHER NOT be talking about the wrath of God in this season. (I’d probably NEVER want to talk about the wrath of God…) I’d rather be talking about what I’ve preached and taught for nearly 40 years – revival; unity in the Body under the banner of Christ; the goodness of New Testament community; the power of the Holy Spirit; the exhilarating adventure of following Jesus and His great commission; His glorious return, and prayer and worship of the Son of God.
But we’ve not been called into a “status quo” family. We’re the people of “statue Regis” – “the order of the King”. And His leadership is present to us; dynamic; not disconnected and static. And when His own household continues to spurn His analysis, judgments, and ways of correction again and again and again, our King WILL bring correction. He will even punish – and sometimes, severely.
This isn’t TRYING to be prophetic. This is reading the scriptures, and seeing the pattern of how our God will not relent in bringing forth a Bride for His Son who is wholly in love with Him, and His ways. A bride who loves like Him. It’s also paying attention to where we are in the big-picture of current events.
Judgment isn’t “coming”. Judgment has BEEN here. Intensifying for years.
Displeasure, chastening, discipline, punishment, penalty, vengeance, castigation, sanctioning and penalty are coming upon a people who are bent with arguments for self-exoneration, and perverted hearts for retaliation and retributive justice.
I would rather the theme for the hour be something else. Ten years ago, this isn’t where I had hoped we were going to be. It wasn’t anything I was praying toward.
But we belong to a real God Who is a real Governor of the affairs of His people. He isn’t a blithe principle. He didn’t sign us up for a “read through the Bible in a year” program. He isn’t a stuffed lion. He isn’t a helpless baby in swaddling clothes. He didn’t give us WWJD bracelets. He filled us with His own dynamic Presence. And He is filled with holy, resurrection power, purposeful zeal for His creation, and the redemption of His creation. He’s going to get full value for His Son’s atonement – whether we agree with the purchase price or not.
He IS going to have a people who are humble, contrite, filled with mercy, ablaze with the fear of the Lord, consumed in first-commandment love, living the Sermon on the Mount, alive in prayer, crucified unto the purity of Christ, walking in the Spirit, and His fruitful ways…
Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for war!” (Joel 3:9)
One of the two greatest crises of the soul is fast approaching our MAGA brothers and sisters in Christ. Faster than I would like to believe. Right now, the topics of Antisemitism, Zionism, the nature of Islam related to the God of Abraham, Replacement theology, etc. are steaming through a plethora of statements, debates, exposes, and teachings from Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, Joel Webbon, Glenn Beck, and thousands of evangelical leaders – unlike any time in the history of the American Church. THE controversy of the nations: “WHAT ABOUT ISRAEL?”, is about to reach a boiling point within the ranks of Christian Nationalism.
Here’s the alarm: When Donald Trump finally turns on Israel, MAGA believers will be confronted with the consequences of the decisions and talking points that they’re cultivating now. Will they act in fidelity to the God of the Bible Who is pressing His character through the affairs of this tiny nation? Or will they (once again, as they have with Canada, Mexico, Greenland, the Ukraine, Denmark, Panama, NATO etc.) come up with a defense for Trump’s storylines, and take up this man’s offense against Israel?
It’s coming. As sure as every part of the Bible is true, it’s coming, friends.
What makes this inevitable internal, “anfechtungen” most alarming is this:
1. MAGA has spent nearly every day of the last decade developing spin redactions and apologetics to defend Trump’s outrageous unrighteousness. That’s a LOT of gravity to go against. I believe the devil has purposefully accrued this inertia for the sake of ultimately bending the will of many sincere MAGA Christians re: Israel when all the chips are on the table… in spite of the fact that millions now ardently protest: “But we will never betray you, Israel.” In the day of great threat and temptation, MAGA will walk in the pattern of deception, and have cultivated no integrity of will to stand against this lawless man’s hot displeasure.
2. The second alarm deals with the realty that it is God Himself Who is going to be behind the crux of this confrontation. (See Joel 3 below) MAGA won’t be fighting against political opposition. It will be wrestling with God Himself. It is His penultimate test to the faith of the Bride. “Will you stand with your Bridegroom, and with Israel? Will you believe My promises for Zion are true? Will you even let go of your fascination with an unrighteous leader in order to remain champions of My heart, My expressed plan, and My vision for the redemption of the people of this land, and the nations?”
This is the way the question will be framed: “Will you betray MAGA? Or will you betray Israel?”
It’s coming, beloved. As crazy as it seems that a controversy over this one, small, resilient people-group could embroil the whole earth, it’s coming…
AND, it’s coming to a church near you.
JOEL 3:9-21 9 Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for war! Wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. 10 Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’ ” 11 Assemble and come, all you nations, and gather together all around. Cause Your mighty ones to go down there, O Lord. 12 “Let the nations be wakened, and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. 13 Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, go down; for the winepress is full, the vats overflow – for their wickedness is great.” 14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. 15 The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will diminish their brightness. 16 The Lord also will roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and earth will shake; but the Lord will be a shelter for His people, and the strength of the children of Israel. 17 “So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion My holy mountain. Then Jerusalem shall be holy, and no aliens shall ever pass through her again.” 18 And it will come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drip with new wine, the hills shall flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah shall be flooded with water; a fountain shall flow from the house of the Lord and water the Valley of Acacias. 19 “Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a desolate wilderness, because of violence against the people of Judah, for they have shed innocent blood in their land. 20 But Judah shall abide forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. 21 For I will acquit them of the guilt of bloodshed, whom I had not acquitted; for the Lord dwells in Zion.”
5 years ago, the American church rebelled against the judgments of the Lord in our land. In 2025, the Lord is shouting Isaiah 1 to us, telling us that our stubbornness is making us increasingly hostile towards Him and His end-times purposes on the earth.
“Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity… they have forsaken the Lord, they have turned away backward. Why should you be stricken again? You are blatant in your rebellion.” (Isaiah 1:4-5)
ROUND 1 In 2020, (through COVID, race-riots, and election controversy) the Lord brought numerous judgments to our American way of life. And although the purpose for His judgments was to reward, as well as refine, the American church’s response to these pressure-points was mostly “revolt” and “insurrection”. We did not learn to humble ourselves. We did not come to Him in need, in brokenness and repentance, and “learn righteousness” (which is what Isaiah 26:9 tells us the Lord’s judgments are meant to afford us). Instead we clothed ourselves in layers of conspiracy, concocting self-saving narratives that desensitized our hearts from righteousness, and caused us to “go backwards” (Isaiah 1:4) from the ways of the Lord.
ROUND 2 Two years ago, the Lord exposed hundreds of cases of spiritual and sexual abuse within the western church, bringing His purging fire upon an epidemic of corrupt leadership within His House. This judgment contained a corporate call to Joel 2 repentance unlike anything ever seen in American Christianity. And although Joel 1:2 exhorts “the elders” to lead the people to the place of honest humility, the majority-response of the fathers in the house was to point fingers, write reports, write self-saving rebuttals, hide, wrap ourselves in social media litigation, redact our histories, and rebrand. There was no trumpet set to the mouth. (Joel 2:1) and no concerted thrust to bring our family to the threshing floor of the Lord. It was a massive, and obstinate failure of leadership.
Throughout these many episodes, our family has resoundingly chosen pretense, over being purified. And the pretense we’ve allowed to germinate in our soul has become a petrie-dish of the devil.
ROUND 3 Consequently, in the fall of 2025, the Body of Christ in America finds herself proudly clothed in fig-leaves, instead of adorned with the sure mercies of the Lord – brandishing the counterfeit gospel of “hostile selfism”, that waves sin away without repentance, despises Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and refuses to bear a cross for His preeminent glory.
Our stiff-necked refusal to let the Lord deal with the reality of our perversion and unrighteousness, has left us tremendously defenseless to a delusional spirit. Without coming into the light of His holy gaze, our household has no way of discerning the beguiling trickery of the flesh, and she is left hostage to a ravenous lust for power, and supremacy within our society – spirits that always spell “insurrection” against the ways of Christ.
In the place where true prophets would pierce the spirits of the age, and call the church to surrender to the fear of the Lord, false prophets titillate the people of God with gilded promises designed to entrench them deeper and deeper in self-determined fantasy, and falsehood.
Last November, (2024) the Lord supernaturally visited our house of prayer with the message of Isaiah 1, and told us of a holy fire that was about to visit our land; a judgment from the Lord that would strike the people of God with even more intensity than those in 2020.
Contained within this Word of warning, the also Lord issued a gracious invitation from Isaiah 1:18-19, “Come now, and let us debate your case,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall become as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.”
Over this past year, our house of prayer has taken the Lord up on His invitation, prayerfully allowing the Spirit to show us where and how His Words in this chapter apply to the sticky issues in our heart, and our family’s current relationship to the Lord.
In Isaiah 1, the Lord identifies the root essence of the people’s unbending refusal to come to Him in five ways…
1. He calls our stubbornness, a “BETRAYAL and REBELLION” (Isaiah 1:2-4) of the ways of the Lord. And to betray God, is always to fall in league with the enemy of our souls. Under the sway of a spirit of “betrayal”, we increasingly see the “commands of the Lord” (Matthew 28:20 essentials for all authentic disciples) as “optional”. And what becomes “optional” to us, ultimately gets twisted into being perceived as “inconvenient”, and “non-expedient”, until we are found in full disagreement with our King, and the ways of His Kingdom.
2. The Lord calls our stubbornness, a “CORRUPTION” (Isaiah 1:4) of our heart that keeps us from a tender, humble, and nimble responsiveness to the Word of the Lord. Being corrupted from His intimate counsel perverts and distorts our thinking and reasoning about any number of important Kingdom issues in our world. Not only are our views about righteousness corrupted, our relationship to others, and our witness to a curse-riddled world is corrupted, deficient, and lacking both transparent truth-telling, and vulnerable grace-giving.
3. The Lord calls our stubbornness, “SICKNESS” (Isaiah 1:5-6). This is a two-fold condition whereby being racked with a feverish, delusional disease, we don’t come to the Lord to let Him treat the wounds of our relational iniquities, or the sores that are eating away at our flesh. Consequently, our ways, that were meant to be healthy, warm, compassionate, and meek, become deformed, putrid, rigid and cold.
4. The Lord calls our stubbornness, “EVIL” (Isaiah 1:16). What began with “tolerance for the lesser of two evils”, has caused us to become blind and deaf to the evil of our own ways, to the point that, just like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, we manifest a brooding defensiveness of the evil that we’ve allowed to grow up within ourselves.
5. The Lord calls our stubbornness to come to Him, “PROSTITUTION” (Isaiah 1:21). We refuse to come into the tent of the Father, precisely because we are still too busy entertaining other lovers who promise us security, adulation, comfort, and pleasure. We play “fast and loose” with our covenant to God, and His Son, assuming we can remain “married” to Him, while also joining ourselves to other men, movements, parties and ideologies…
Days ago, New Yorkers elected a virulent, antiZionist, Muslim man to become the mayor of America’s largest city. In Mamdani’s rise to power over a true “nerve-center” of our society – the home to our nation’s financial structure, I believe we’re witnessing the fulfillment of another portion of the Isaiah 1 prophecy. Unfortunately, even as many evangelical, orthodox, and Messianic leaders have rightly sounded the alarm about Zohran Mamdani (see *footnote quotes below), the accompanying “call to action” has (once again) been to fester in our hatred, and become more strident in our political opposition.
The Word of God clearly tells us that a big reason cities (ie. New York city) are DEVOURED and OVERTHROWN by STRANGERS (ie. Mr. Mamdani) is because the covenant people of God (ie. evangelical followers of Christ) resist God’s call to repentance, defend their EVIL ways, and refuse to let the Lord purge them of their rebellion, corruption, sickness, and evil prostitution.
“Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the Lord… and their wounds have not been closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment…Therefore, your CITIES are DEVOURED BY STRANGERS in your presence; and they are DESOLATE, as OVERTHROWN BY STRANGERS.” (Isaiah 1:4, 6-7)
Stated clearly: the solution to the threat of radical Islam (as well as other dangers contained in Isaiah 1) isn’t so much dependent upon how the pagans vote in the election booth, as it is upon how the household of God does (or does not do) business with the Father on His threshing-floor.
Beloved. The Lord is saying: “If you will not allow me to break this stubbornness off of you, I promise, this stubbornness WILL break you.”
Throughout 1980, in defiance of all the seismologists warnings about the impending eruption of Mount St. Helens in southern Washington, one intransigent man named Harry R. Truman mulishly chose to remain in the life that he’d known on the side of the mountain, rather than be evacuated to safety. Inevitably, on the fateful day of May 8, the volcano exploded with the force of 1600 atomic bombs, forever burying Mr. Truman in ash.
This is a parable for the message of Joel, and Isaiah. Unless we push pause on our status quo, humble ourselves, and seek shelter within the mercy and ways of the Lord, our stubbornness will cause us to be swallowed up in the current fire that’s now upon us.
“Those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed… The strong shall be as tinder, and the work of it as a spark; both will burn together, and no one shall quench them.” (Isaiah 1:28, 31)
Is there hope? Absolutely. This short message is a call to true hope in the Word of the Lord. But our delusion has grown deep, pervasive and supernaturally headstrong. We will only live into that Spirit-borne hope as we embrace the place of abasement in the courts of the Holy One.
But we need to come. He will not tolerate a Bride who is filled with rebellion, corruption, sickness, evil and prostitution when He returns.
“Come now, and let us debate your case,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall become as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool. 19 If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best of the land; 20 but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Isaiah 1:18-20)
____________________ JSB • November (Edited), 2025
*FOUR NOTES RE: MAMDANI ONE Zhran Mamdani is a long-time member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) which has openly, and often-stated its intent to enact the following extreme anti-Israel policies for the governing of New York City: • Divest City pension funds from Israeli bonds and securities • Withdraw City funds from banks that lend money to Israel or do business in Israel • End City contracts with companies that do business with Israel • Operate City-run grocery stores free from Israeli products • Investigate real estate agents hosting illegal sales of stolen lands in the West Bank • Evict weapons manufacturers and transporters from the NYC Metro Area • Remove non-profit status from charities that raise funds for IDF • Divest CUNY endowment and reinstate wrongly fired professors • Dismantle Eric Adam’s NYC-Israel economic council • End NYPD training with IOF End repression of demonstrators and the SRG • Arrest Netanyahu and active IDF soldiers for war crimes
TWO On October 8, 2023 (one day after the horrific October 7 attacks) Mamdani tweeted the following: “Statement on ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine: I mourn the hundreds of people killed across Israel and Palestine in the last 36 hours. Netanyahu’s declaration of war, the Israeli government’s decision to cut electricity to Gaza, and Knesset members calling for another Nakba will undoubtedly lead to more violence and suffering in the days and weeks to come. The path toward a just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.”
THREE Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove is the highly respected leader of Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City’s Upper East Side. On Shabbat October 18, 2025 he gave what might be the most important sermon in his life. Here are some brief excerpts: “To be clear, unequivocal, and on the record: I believe Zohran Mamdani poses a danger to the security of New York Jewish community. Mamdani’s refusal to condemn inciteful slogans like “globalize the intifada,” his denial of Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state, and his many long-standing calls to support BDS, make him a danger to the Jewish body politic of New York. Zionism, Israel, Jewish self-determination – these are not political preferences or partisan talking points. They are constituent building blocks and inseparable strands of my Jewish identity. To accept me as a Jew but to ask me to check my concern for the people and State of Israel at the door is as nonsensical a proposition as it is offensive – no different than asking me to reject God, Torah, mitzvot, or any other pillar of my faith. Mamdani’s distinction between accepting Jews and denying a Jewish state is not merely rhetorical sleight of hand or political naivete, though it is, to be clear, both of those things. His doing so is to traffic in the most dangerous of tropes, an anti-Zionist rhetoric that, as we have seen time and again – in Washington, in Colorado, in ways both small and large, online and in person – has given rise to deadly antisemitic violence. This past summer, you may recall, at the Glastonbury Music Festival in England, the crowd erupted into chants of “Death to the IDF.” Where exactly would a Mamdani administration stand should that happen next summer in a concert on Governors Island, or in Central Park? Today, as I have before, I am throwing a flag on the field and calling out a threat to the Jewish people five minutes early rather than risk being five minutes too late.”
FOUR Mamdani is a “stranger” to the covenant promises of the God of the Bible. AND, he is a danger to the Jewish people, New York’s support of the Jewish state, and by extension, the purposes of the Christian’s “King”, Y’shua of Nazareth, as He marshals His return to the earth. The salient question for us is this: “WHY is this man now where he is?” More pointedly, “WHAT IS THERE IN US, that has put him in a place where he may “OVERTHROW” God’s purposes for the city of New York, the Jewish people, and Zion, the throne of Y’shua’s ultimate reign?“
The Drama of This Ancient Psalm/Prophecy Is Being Played Out Before Our Eyes. Are We Aligning Our Lives to Its 5 – Fold Exhortations?
Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: “Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion.”
“I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ ”
Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.
INTRODUCTION: Psalm 2 is a 4-part prophetic drama about the Father establishing Jesus’ leadership over the earth. God intends for this narrative to help us cultivate an appropriate, prayerful response today so that we have the grace to stand with Him in the hour when these events are being fulfilled.
Most Christians live largely unsettled and a little apathetic about the major features surrounding God’s end-times’ storyline.
Without a clear understanding of these realities we live unsure of the purpose of our lives, foggy about our calling, uncertain of our priorities, unconvinced of God’s loving presence, prone to distraction, with little appreciation for what’s “at-risk”, and little perspective on just how prayer contributes to our vitality.
Gaining “living understanding” about these “plot-points” is like erecting a strong framework within which we can cultivate passion, exhilaration, wisdom, power, and strength to persevere in our daily relationship with Jesus.
Psalm 2 provides us with a 50,000 foot overview of the essential elements contained in God’s end-times’ narrative.
(Act I) The Rage of the Nations (Psalm 2:1-3)
Psalm 2:1-3 prophesies that the nations will rage in anger against Jesus’ leadership. His standards of morality, righteousness, and His right to hold every heart accountable to His order of love and justice will be deeply opposed by a world steeped in the curse of sin. It will also be a stumbling block to many within the Church.
People from every political stripe, on every level of society will plot strategies, and use their influence to mobilize the masses to rebel against God’s righteousness, and resist God’s loving leadership.
The rulers speak of the leaders of the “culture”: socio/political, economic, spiritual, educational, military, entertainment, media, arts, athletics, etc. They will use social unrest, hardship, conspiracy and injustice to exert pressure on each other to make lawlessness the cultural norm.
The kings of the nations will set their hearts to fully influence the faithless ways of the people under them. The term kings includes the heads of state, e.g., presidents, prime ministers, and legislators. The term also refers to believers; those who have been called to be kings and priests to God (Revelation 5:10), but who have fallen under the sway of false teaching, and strong delusions.
The kings, rulers, and people will conspire together against the values and plans of the Lord which will be portrayed as foolish, “unenlightened”, and even “dangerous” to the well-being of society, and in some cases, the Church within a society.
They will also lodge hostile arguments against the Father and His anointed One (Jesus); protesting, and compromising with the idea that Jesus is uniquely the Jewish Son of the Father, and the only One worthy to rule every nation.
The plan against God will be focused on casting away the authority of His Word (v. 3) (either through rejection of the Word itself, or through perversion of the application of the Word) throughout all aspects of society. These people will see a literal understanding of God’s Word as if it were “bonds” that enslave them and “cords” that bind them from being “authentically human”, or “unrealistic to the human situation”.
(Act II) The Father’s Response to the Rebellious Nations (Psalm 2:4-6)
God laughs because He is confident in His ability to fully accomplish His plan in spite of humanity’s resistance. We are small creatures who live for a mere eighty years. God’s whole Person fills 300 billion galaxies, and He has no beginning and no end. His laughter denotes just how small our power is to overthrow the intent of His heart.
One of the chief ways that the Lord will express His intent is through end-time, friends of the Bridegroom, who will primarily speak of the earth’s need to be prepared for the coming of the Bridegroom in His anointed glory.
The Lord will also use these ones to express His “deep displeasure” over the nations’ fierce opposition to the preeminent plan to have Jesus, and His unique manner of leadership reign over humanity.
Beloved, it’s vital that we let the Holy Spirit develop a theology of the fear of the Lord in us today, so that we possess a holy respect for His judgments, His wisdom, His redemptive love, and His sovereign ability to rule the heart, in the hours in which the Lord is, in fact, expressing His displeasure in our world.
(Act III) (Scene 1) Jesus Recalling the Inheritance He’s Received from the Father (Psalm 2:7-8)
In these 3 verses we hear Jesus recalling the divine decree that the Father has declared over Him. Jesus’ inheritance from the Father is a redeemed Bride and a throne in Jerusalem, from which He will rule the whole earth.
As He recalls the eternal dialogue that He and His Father have had, He is also giving us revelation of the desire that burns in His own heart. Understanding the Father’s decree, and the Son’s desire are vital if we want to faithfully partner with Jesus in praying for God’s purposes on the earth.
The apostles drew on these realities when they prayed about the hostile leaders in Jerusalem. They asked the Father to manifest His power on the basis that the world was opposing the reign of His Son, the One He had anointed to rule the earth. “For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together…Lord, look on their threats and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done…” (Acts 4:27-29)
If we are to grow up in our prayer-lives, (indeed, if we are to grow up in our relationship with God) we must move from a “Jesus fix our lives” mindset, to a “Jesus, reign in my world” mindset.
One example of this mature intercession is found in (Acts 15:13-17) where God answers Cornelius’ prayer, and releases salvation to the Gentiles. This was God fulfilling one key dimension of His plan to have His Son rule the nations. In order to accomplish this, He actually looked for a human heart that was aligned with what He (the Father) had purposed to do on earth.
In (Acts 10:3-5) we hear about the Father responding to Cornelius’ prayers: “About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius!” And when he observed him, he was afraid, and said, “What is it, lord?” So he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa, and send for Simon whose surname is Peter.”
When Peter arrives at Cornelius’ house, he is also in prayer and receives revelation of God’s intent to bring “the nations” (the Gentiles) under the covenant reign of His Son.
The point is:“Who is Cornelius? Who is Peter? On earth they were simple men uttering weak prayers based what they saw in the heart of God. In heaven God saw them as a vital allies, through whom He would fulfill one major component of the promise that He had made to His Son.
The story of Peter and Cornelius’ prayers are profound encouragements to our own prayers.
(ACT III) (Scene 2) Jesus Judges the Rebellious Nations(Psalm 2:9)
In verse 5 David tells us that the Lord will judge the nations with “WRATH” and “HIS DEEP DISPLEASURE“. What does “deep displeasure” look like in a trillion galaxy God???
Verse 9 tells us: “You (the Son) shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.“
MOST of us western, Bible-believing Christians don’t have a theology of God’s WRATH that’s stable enough to keep our hearts secure in love through the “time of trouble” that’s erupting around us… What I mean by this is, when the judgments of God fully come upon the earth, they will stir up so much emotional hostility and accusation against others, and ultimately against God Himself. The essence of this hostility and accusation will sound like this in the human heart, “God isn’t fully just. His Word is too radical. His way needs to be more reasonable. All by itself, His plan is not good. It needs the help of human wisdom. His judgments are out-of-line with true love. etc.”
There will be SO MUCH HUMAN-CULTURAL PRESSURE to agree with these accusations against God’s character. If we don’t prepare our minds and hearts today for the social pressures we will face tomorrow, our “love” and “faith” in God will be severely crushed.
How do we prepare ourselves to face these social pressures? David gives us four ways to prepare ourselves in Act IV of Psalm 2, but in a nut-shell, we need to pray-read the Word of God today with a spirit of humility and wonder.
(Act IV) David Prophetically Warns the Leaders of the Nations (Psalm 2:10-12)
In the final scene, King David issues a solemn, five-fold exhortation to the leaders, and all people of the earth. It’s wise for us to heed these divine admonitions as we prepare ourselves for the Day of the Lord. No one can say that they have not been warned, or don’t know how to respond to His purposes.
1. Be wise O Kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth This is an exhortation to those believers, and unbelievers who think they already have enough information and “soul-resolve” to make sound judgments about God during the end-time pressures. We are wise to learn from our brother Peter, who believed he had enough inner fortitude to withstand the temptations to deny Jesus. We are wise to heed the Spirit’s warning now and cultivate humility, teachability; and seek the Lord (Psalm 27:5) for wisdom (James 1:5), divine might in the inner man (Ephesians 3:16) and grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)
2. Serve the Lord with fear This is a call to obedience. But it is based on the revelation that God is the eternal God and we are HIs creation made of dust (Psalm 103:14). It’s wise to cultivate the fear of the Lord regarding One Who is so holy, and greater than us, so that we can serve Him in the way that He has determined. “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:28-29) (For a more complete picture of the fear of the Lord read Hebrews 12:18-29)
3. Rejoice with trembling This is an command to mix our fear and awe with the joy and exhilaration that comes from beholding Him in His beauty (Psalm 27:4) and being made joyful as He engages us in His house of prayer. (Isaiah 56:7)
4. Kiss the Son, let He be angry and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled (in His judgment against evil) but a little. a. One prominent greek word for worship is “pros-ku-ne-ow”. It literally means “to kiss toward”. To “kiss the Son” is an exhortation to live a life of adoration, worship and first commandment love.
Jesus is worthy (Revelation 5:12) to be loved, adored and worshipped. But He’s also gloriously beautiful. Our hearts were fashioned to (kiss) “adore” the wonders of Who He is. (Psalm 27:4; Psalm 45:2; Psalm 50:1-2; Isaiah 28:5; Zechariah 9:17)
5. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him. It is supremely prudent to do the hard work of cultivating great trust in God today, rather than to allow the subtle, mounting deception of the world to gain increasing sway over our minds and hearts. “And because wickedness will abound, the love of most will grow cold.” (Matthew 24:12) “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart.” (Psalm 119:1-2)
The Lord is gloriously orchestrating a prophetic voice in His Church that will amplify and give understanding to these 5 exhortations of verses 10-12. However, these voices will only be cultivated and strengthened through lifestyles that are plumb-lined to the priority of corporate prayer.
May God’s grace be upon us as we seek Him in the place of prayer, beloved.
In the Age of Social Media, Many Times Our Hash-Tag Declarations Need to be Explained and Detailed. Here are 12 Specific Ways that Saying CHRIST IS OUR KING Begs to be Unpacked in 2025.
For the last few weeks, it has become vogue to declare “Christ is King!” throughout evangelical circles. Memes, banners, t-shirts and coffee mugs trumpet this exultant proclamation. And it “is” a glorious reality. But what does it mean? In an age of spin, and nuance, when we openly launch our hashtags at each other, this phrase especially begs to be unpacked. It’s critical that we Christians understand what gives this statement great worth, and where it can lead to profound misunderstanding about the nature of Jesus’ Kingdom.
“There is a way of a man”, (Proverbs 14:12; Proverbs 16:25) and then there is “the way of the King”. This phrase, “the order of the King” is the literal, root definition of the greek word for righteousness: “dikaiosune” that’s found throughout the New Testament. To speak of righteousness, is to speak of THE WAY OF THE KING, or THE WAY OF CHRIST. One day, ONLY the way of Christ will exist on the earth. Consequently, it’s very wise, and right that we learn, honor and appropriate His way, within ourselves and our world, today, before He returns.
It’s also vital to note that in Jesus’ day, many good, moral, conservative Jews subscribed to the notion that CHRIST (defined literally, as the Jewish concept of Messiah) IS KING. But the KING they envisioned was one who would dominate, conquer, subject others, and ruled in glory WITHOUT the need for suffering, and the agency of a cross. This is the concept of JESUS IS KING that the twelve struggled with all throughout their discipleship. This is largely why Judas betrayed Jesus. And this is why the Jewish leaders simply couldn’t see their concept of Messiah in Jesus of Nazareth. Their concept of “CHRIST IS KING”, (or “Messiah will be King!”) was VASTLY different than Y’shua’s concept of “CHRIST as KING”.
When we say CHRIST IS OUR KING, we want to declare two things: 1. We agree with the Father’s decree in Psalm 2 to “anoint” (the literal meaning of the word “Christ”) Jesus of Nazareth, His eternal Son, as the historical human, Jewish King, to rule over every individual heart, and every distinct nation. We are saying “It is this God/Man, and not another ‘false christ’, that the Father has chosen to be King over the earth!”
2. We, ourselves choose to submit our lives to the reign and the claim that this King (Jesus of Nazareth) has upon us. We’re saying, “We submit our wills to Your will Jesus!” – often doing what He wants in direct contradiction to what we believe is good, and right, and permissible. As a result, we TAKE EVERY daily THOUGHT, piece of rhetoric, cultural narrative, value, belief and VAIN IMAGINATION CAPTIVE INTO OBEDIENCE to the desire and glory of CHRIST (2 Corinthians 10:5). We remember that WE ARE NOT OUR OWN (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). We live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28) unto His glory – which often means we will operate quite contrary to that which seeks our own pride and glory.
Personally, I don’t believe we’ll arrive at Y’shua’s concept of CHRIST AS KING, without MUCH inner conversation with the Lord, through the agency of the House of Prayer reality. The House of Prayer is where I go to “inquire of the Lord” (Psalm 27:4) regarding what kind of KING, JESUS is.
This is the kind of “learning” that the Spirit is actively drawing the Bride of Christ into in these hours of contention, conflict and judgment. He means for us to feel the pressures in our world, let them drive us into the Word, where He enlightens our own thinking, and intimately purges and purifies our heart attitudes and beliefs so they align with the nature, the order and the values of CHRIST, OUR KING.
(Isaiah 26:9) tells us – “When Your judgments are on the earth, the inhabitants of the earth LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS.” ala. to “LEARN” the ways of our KING.
Without cultivating this ongoing, thought-forging “dia-logos” with the Living Word Himself, we will be easy prey for the rhetoric, temptations, and deceit of devil-inspired human logic.
The devil is only too happy to keep us saying CHRIST IS OUR KING, without bringing our narratives, attitudes and ways into the tabernacle of the Lord.
Mormons, religious parrots, cultists, and liberal liturgies can intone these syllables. Only a person who has dethroned, and crucified the universal king of “self” can say CHRIST IS KING, and walk in league with the true Christ, the incarnate, crucified, resurrected Jewish God/Man, Y’shua of Nazareth.
This is the monumental task that is before us in 2025: in the minutes before our King returns to fully establish His Kingdom on planet earth the Holy Spirit is keen to bring human hearts, souls, minds and flesh into obedient, wholehearted love to the KING, and His Kingly ways.
What follows are 12 specific dynamics that reflect the controversies in the Church and our culture right now that are calling us to come into agreement with the MAJESTIC WAY OF CHRIST. WHEREVER we see these issues exalting themselves within our souls, our fellowships, and our communities He is calling us to reject the predominant ways of our flesh, and the world, and instead choose to follow the radical WAY OF CHRIST. Wherever we do this, we are authentically testifying that CHRIST, is indeed, OUR KING.
Conversely, where we choose our own way, instead of the way of Christ, we betray the fact that CHRIST, in fact, is NOT KING over our lives. The knife cuts these matters quite sharply, beloved.
1. The ways of our King are clothed with humility and meekness. Wherever we act unto the prideful elevation, and the assertive dominion of man, and marginalize humility and meekness – we are declaring CHRIST IS NOT KING IN this place of MY LIFE.
2. The ways of our King are laden with compassion, empathy, and contrition toward the oppressed, the broken, the poor, and the afflicted. Wherever we diminish, and develop arguments against these internal qualities, we must consider the degree to which we have another vision what it means for CHRIST to be KING in our lives.
3. The way of our King often includes “being loyal to One”, at the expense of having many others (including many other Christians) who will laud and support our thoughts and opinions. Wherever we see the magnetic appeal to the power of the crowd, the popular, the majority voice – we must instead declare: “WE HAVE ONE KING”.
4. The way of our King is filled with divine order that maximizes the experience and expression of love. We are to bring this way to bear wherever we see the perversion and denigration of the human person, family, and community.
5. The “order of our King” is one that celebrates unity, congeniality, peaceability, and kindness. Where we feel the draw into hostility, alienation, provocation and elevated exclusivity – we must ask ourselves if we are indeed walking in the loving order of our KING, or the contentious way of selfishness and enmity.
6. Jesus is a curse-breaker. Wherever we hear curse, vile debasement and condemnation being heaped upon others – our allegiance to Jesus bids us to step in and declare: NO. CHRIST IS KING. THESE ARE NOT HIS WORDS. His will is to bless, and love unto redemption.
7. When CHRIST IS KING, all earthly power, wisdom and understanding will be submitted to His heart on a matter. Wherever we see the heart of Jesus being compromised with, and/or subjected to political expediency, earthly power, and carnal wisdom and logic – we must excuse ourselves, in order to declare: OUR WAY WILL BE THE WAY OF THE KING.
8. The way of the KING rings with the pure TRUTH of the WORD of GOD. Wherever we see our self, and those in our world wanting to cut deals, and make compromises with what the LORD has specifically declared in the scriptures, we must (often graciously, but steadfastly) remain true to the WORDS of our KING.
9. The way of the KING will ALWAYS bear the internal fruit of the Spirit. Wherever we see our self, and our world producing something other than the fruit of the Spirit, we must let the Lord examine our hearts and our lives to see if we are, in fact, living out the way of CHRIST.
10. The WAY of the KING will produce much repentance within ourselves, and wherever His glory is manifest within our world. Wherever we see our self, the Church, and our world wanting to avoid, or make little of repentance, confession, and self-abasement, we must understand that we have walked outside of the WAY of CHRIST.
11. The WAY of OUR KING rides on the deep pathways of prayer and meekness and peace-driven faith. The way of our flesh and the world will constantly give us arguments that urge us to rise up in protest, rebellion and insurrection.
12. The WAY of CHRIST JESUS invites us into an ocean of love that far surpasses our own capacity to love. Wherever we are giving ourselves to murder, shame, curse, and lock up our enemies in condemnation we must understand that our KING has much greater power to give us.
Beloved, TAKING THESE thought patterns and talking points captive within ourselves and our world is what having CHRIST AS KING is about! It’s the ONLY meaning that will bring pleasure to the Father. It’s the only way the declaration will prove beneficial to yourself and redemptive to the world.
Again. We cannot appropriate the way of our King, without coming into His Tent, and listening to His distinct, supernatural wisdom, guidance, and empowerment. It requires supernatural work to walk in the supernatural way of our King.
In the end, MANY believers will not do the supernatural work of aligning their hearts with the grace-saturated ways of our King, and instead, will succumb to the narrative of the devil. Without giving ourselves to this work of righteous formation within our souls, we WILL be found OPPOSING the ways of the KING in the hours of crisis, threat, and tribulation – no less than Peter did, (despite his protestations) when he betrayed “the CHRIST, the SON of the LIVING GOD” before a slave girl. (Mark 14:66-72)
Beloved. We want to exultantly proclaim “CHRIST IS KING!” But we must ask ourselves if the Christ we are exalting is the CHRIST of the Bible. And we dare not fail to examine ourselves to see if we indeed have surrendered ourselves to this, the TRUE and rightful KING.
“If anyone is convinced in himself that he is Christ’s, (and CHRIST IS HIS KING) let him again consider this in himself.” (2 Corinthians 10:7)
“My Word is like a fire that purges dross… (Jeremiah 23:29); Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? (Isaiah 33:14) The strong will be like tinder, and his work like a spark. They will both burn together, and no one will quench the fire. (Isaiah 1:31)”
For the last 9 months, the Lord has been speaking to our House of Prayer in Arizona from the book of Jeremiah, and Isaiah chapter 1, about the approaching “fire of the Lord”. The hour is here. The Church in America (pastors, evangelists, apostles, teachers, prophets, young and old, women and men, Jew and gentile and black and native and… all who claim to be “in Christ”) is entering the forge of the Lord, with all of heaven, and the nation watching.
Some of us will come out of the furnace with spirits that are burnished bright; shining with His likeness. Millions of other believers will be radicalized by contraKingdom rhetoric; enflamed with nothing more than a raging self-seeking ethic that the Word of God warns us against.
Religious zealotry always looks promising to the flesh. But it is never what moves the Church from one age to the next. Consider the zealots of Jesus’ day. They subscribed to a very orthodox theology of God, and the scriptures. But their spirits, such as they were, were unprofitable for the Kingdom work that the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit were bringing to earth.
This historical parallel is essential to note. We live in an hour when many zealous individuals also verbalize classic, theological orthodoxy, and yet refuse to live under the reign of Jesus’ authority – marginalizing the blessings and warnings of the Sermon on the Mount, avoiding our daily (Luke 9:23) cross, and hence devoid of the Spirit’s baptismal fire. Consequently, the church elevates political power as an expedient end to prayer power, cultural dominion over humility before the Lord, and the temptation to live with a hostile, even violent spirit, rather than to learn the way of meekness.
Heaven has no use for a “Church” who has no use for the Son’s Sermon on the Mount. The Spirit will simply not release anointing upon a Church who isn’t walking crucified to “Christ”.
Heaven has no use for a Church who has no use for the Son’s Sermon on the Mount.
No. Classic, theological orthodoxy cannot be the sole, nor primary distinguishing characteristic of what constitutes “fidelity to the Lord” in this hour.
Nonetheless, it is a brusk, unbowed, militant, theological orthodoxy which is being spun, embraced and now normalized within our evangelical family in this hour.
It’s incumbent upon pastors and leaders to discern this deceitful perversion of Jesus’ Kingdom. It is a false way, that though it be filled with emotional, populist appeal, lacks the essential element that makes for Kingdom success: the crucified life. It is for this reason that the Lord is bringing His fire into our midst. His “burnings” are intended to purge the self-saving spirit from His Bride, while simultaneously beautifying the Christ-reliant, Christ-exalting resurrection spirit within His Bride.
This separation of the way of self, from the way of Christ, is a compulsory work of the Spirit. And it is the fire of the Lord that forges this element within the character of the Bride; refined, spotless, and pure – prepared to be presented to the Son. And it is for this work that the fire of the Lord is upon the “ecclesia” right now, in the fall of 2025.
Will we come to the Lord’s threshing floor and allow His fire to remove the endemic selfism from our ways, and spirits? Or will we “rise up” in the religious zeal of our own self-determined flesh in order to champion a crossless, politically empowered morality?
Every evangelical leader in America ought to be attuned to the intent of the Spirit right now, so as to help the people of God to…
A. Understand the nature of the cultural and internal conflict that’s upon them,
B. Understand the glorious nature of what the Lord wants to produce through the forge (ala. vibrant Christlikeness)
C. Understand how to help the people wholly submit to the purging/purifying work of the Spirit through this season.
A vow (not even a very popular, emotional vow) will not save the Church right now. Only finding His Presence, and bowing low before His unapproachable majesty will align us with our King. We can either be stirred to fervent determination (which will exit us from the forge of the Lord – a whole “other” story… [See Isaiah 1:28]), or we can stay in the fire, trust His heart for us, and submit ourSELVES to the deep, cleansing work of His fire. The Lord will ONLY bring resurrection power to one of these two places. Not the other. NOT the other.
Beloved. We don’t want a Christianity that has no resurrection power upon it. Only a cross will get us there. Not a sword. (Even if we do call it “the sword of the Lord”. It is not.)
We want bonafide New Testament Christianity. Not age-old, intertestamental religious zealotry. It’s vital that we learn to distinguish between the two.
Rising up in militant, nationalist opposition to their enemies brought neither Judah, nor Israel into revival. It brought them into exile.
Rising up in militant, nationalist opposition to their enemies brought neither Judah, nor Israel into revival. It brought them into exile.
The only way into the revival that the Lord has in store for His people is through the Christ-forging fire that the Lord is bringing upon His people.
Truth-be-told, the New Testament scriptures are clear: though He be enormously patient and compelling, should the covenant people of God steadfastly spurn the purging work of the Father, they can expect to be purged from the Father.
In real fear and trembling, I pray that more than a very small remnant will see the forge that’s upon us, and avail ourselves of it.
“The sinners in Zion are afraid; fear seizes those clothed in falsehood: ‘Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?’ He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, he who despises the gain of oppressions, He will dwell on high; His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks.” (Isaiah 33:14-16)
SPIRIT WORD & CROSS 