PROPHECY IS A DISTRACTION

(April, 2010)

Sergei . . . Good to hear from you!

"The False Prophet" series has many twists and turns...as the platform is set for the final Antichrist.  Allow me the liberty to expose another element which I feel is a growing affront to the Kingdom of His dear Son, as well as a "false flag" utilized by the pending appearance of The False Prophet.

I heard from a brother the other day that my prophetical bombardments are but a diversion, a distraction from the Gospel of the Grace of God.  His persuasion, coming from Dallas Seminary, looks like this:

"The Testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (Revelation 19:10) - They, including my beloved John Walvoord, past President of Dallas theological Seminary (which just shows you that one can disagree agreeably), interpret this phrase to mean that if one bears the "testimony of Jesus" that one must "speak up" about Jesus.  Witness Lee’s "speaking forth" as a means of prophetic witness - more akin to "testifying" or "giving a testimony" akin to that which took or takes place in the LC (even so, the fundamentalists adhere to this interpretation) and, at best, this "testimony" is simply an extension of "preaching/sharing the gospel.”

The Seventh-Day Adventists (although their "prophecy" is, in the main, very mixed up because a literal, prophetic Israel of the flesh does not exist, and they are determined to bring us all under law) do have the correct "sense" of the "spirit of prophecy" - which demands an honest exegesis in the context of the whole Revelation itself--i.e., the entire book of Revelation brings one into the prophetical with all its prophetic concomitant accouterments - including the 4 horseman, 7 churches, 7 trumpets, 7 seals, 7 bowls, 3 woes, 24 elders, 4 living creatures, 2 witnesses, 12 foundations, 12 gates, Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots, Antichrist, the Beast, False Prophet and, as they say, "the whole ball of wax!"

The word "testimony" in this phrase connotes MARTYRDOM - with the Greek word martaria as the root word which is also used for the English word "witness" and even "testify" - in other words this "Testimony of Jesus" is an "all or nothing" for believers - a willingness to "lay down your life for the Son of God!"  This is indeed a prophetic witness but in the context of the Revelation - there is an overall, super-abounding sense of the "prophetic" - it is comprehensive and demands an awareness of all the prophetic declarations contained within the Scripture, and, in particular, the Apocalypse, and, therefore, the numerous prophetic outbursts throughout the Hebrew Scriptures which are so abundantly alluded to in the Revelation.

The subtle degradation of that affiliation between the Testimony of Jesus and "the spirit of prophecy" is what concerns - What is Jesus' Testimony?   Naught but the very impact of the relevance of the prophetic as declared by these very Scriptures.  Is this a distraction?  If we abandon this testimony we shall create a void for folks like our beloved SDA's to fill and to contaminate - that is precisely what happened to the 2,300 days in Daniel 8:13-14 when C. I. Scofield and Dallas Seminary consigned its fulfillment to time past under Antiochus IV Epiphanes.  For evangelicals to consign this passage to history past, gave immediate credence to the Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses and the Seven-Day Adventists who used/use these very passages to justify their entire "prophetic systems" and so contaminate the very Testimony of Jesus (I have spoken extensively on this subject.).

What we have inadvertently accomplished is a tragedy of immense proportions!  The world is overwhelmed by cataclysms - natural, economic and socio-religious . . . and we dismiss the acceleration of these horrific occurrences as though the Bible is ostensibly silent as to their implications - they are simply additional "distractions" - a sort of "sound and fury signifying nothing" - a Shakespearean play, nice to behold but easily forgotten with the viewer knowing it was but a play, a fantasy, having no reality but a mere allusion to the plight of we humans.

As the "fool has said in his heart - there is no God" - even so, there are a growing number of scoffers (frankly, FOOLS) who make inane and ultimately harmful predictions that Jesus shall not return for 300 years or, worse yet, as the Local Church Movement once conjectured:  Jesus' coming (again) is His coming in us!  No, He shall come in LIKE MANNER as you have seen Him taken up into heaven:  EVERY EYE SHALL SEE HIM! (Acts 1:11)

The world is looking for answers - if the Church cannot or will not "connect the prophetic dots" - then we are as irrelevant as these cults have become and as non-committal as Dallas Seminary is becoming!  The abandonment of the prophetic witness embedded within the Testimony of Jesus astonishes.  "What the Spirit says to the churches" is the SAME "Spirit" of Prophecy - in other words the SPEAKING (prophetically) in a way of testifying to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 does not end there; this Spirit continues unto the very  return of the "Faithful and True Witness" in Revelation 19:10-16.  Interesting, isn't it, that the verse which talks about the "Testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy" is immediately followed by:  "Now I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse...and He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war..." - that is, the Second Coming of Christ.  The Second Coming of Christ is inextricably connected to the Spirit of Prophecy.

They who blast the prophetic as tangential to the "churches" (i.e., having little to do with "church life" or the "love of the brethren" and so-called "relational Christianity") or as a distraction to the gospel of the grace of God (i.e., irrelevant to the prophetic preachment of "another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the 'everlasting gospel' to preach to those who dwell on the earth--to every nation, tribe, tongue and people' . . . for the hour of His judgment has come" (Rev. 14:6-7) or worse yet, having little or nothing in so far as impacting the holiness or transformation (i.e., inner life) of the believer - which flies in the face of "Behold, I am coming as a thief - blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame" (Rev. 16:15) which is immediately followed by "And they gathered them together to the placed called in Hebrew, ARMAGEDDON!"

I can surmise from this disassociation of the prophetic from the building of the churches, the preaching of the gospel and the inner life or "fruit of the Spirit" in the life of the believer a complete lack of illumination, a disregard of the prophetic imperative, and an obstinate refusal to come to terms with the obligation to embrace the Testimony of Jesus AS the Spirit of Prophecy. 

If you take away "prophetic aggression" you will take away the "sense of urgency" - this (aggression/urgency) is true in the natural world but more so in the spiritual.  Being nonchalant concerning the prophetic - restrained and, if you would, non-aggressive relative to the "spirit of prophecy" - gives way to a resultant display of indifference to the building up of the churches, the preaching of a vibrant gospel and the commitment to holiness that results in the real transformation of the believer for the glory of God . . . all will be diminished.

Church life, gospel and holiness must be embraced within the "spirit of prophecy" - that is the Testimony of Jesus and I'm sticking with it!

Bless -

Doug Krieger