Preparing for a Wedding :: By Daymond Duck

On Oct. 19, 2023, a reader sent me an e-mail titled “Waiting, Watching and Rejoicing – As the world is preparing for war – Heaven is preparing for a wedding.”

• Those who believe in the promises of our Lord will become the Bride of Christ. They anxiously wait for their special day. Our Lord must long for His Bride as well. His love for her was and is much deeper than our understanding allows us to grasp its fullness. He came to die for her and now is ready to bring all the Father gave Him to the wedding, sparing her from the wrath soon to come. Our job is to pass on the message of salvation, its simplicity, and the special nature of God’s love of sinners.

The Bride of Christ (Church) is on earth now, but heaven is preparing for a wedding between the Church and the Bridegroom (I Thess. 4:13-18: Rev. 19:7-9).

Dr. Thomas Ice, Executive Director of the Pre-Tribulation Research Center, commented on this.

• The bride (which is made up of the corporate and collected members throughout the church age taken to heaven at the rapture) makes herself ready for an impending event. How is the bride or the church made ready? She is made ready by clothing herself in the “fine linen bright and clean,” which is said to be “the righteous acts of the saints.” This statement means that by this point in history (right before the second coming), the sum total of the bride, the body of Christ, is in heaven and has already gone through the bema judgment where church-age believers are to be evaluated for their faithfulness to Christ during this present age (Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10).

The result of going through the judgment seat of Christ results in the bride being given fine linen that Revelation 19:8 says “is the righteous acts of the saints.” This is how “His bride has made herself ready.” Ready for what? She has made herself ready for the marriage of the Lamb. Thus, within the framework of the symbolism being used in this passage, it means that the marriage (marriage ceremony) takes place right before the second coming.

I will add that this is one reason to believe in the Pre-Tribulation Period Rapture.

The Church will be in heaven before the Second Coming.

The events that are going on with Israel and her neighbors seem to indicate that time is short.

Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023

• The Israeli government urged its Israeli citizens in Turkey to leave immediately.
• There are bomb threats in many nations.
• Drones and rockets targeted a U.S. base in Iraq that hosts U.S. and UN troops.
• Rioting Muslims set fire to the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.
• Rioting Muslims injured at least 65 police officers in Berlin, Germany.

Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023

• Israel’s Defense Min. went to Israel’s border with Gaza and urged Israel’s troops to get organized and be ready for an order to move in.
• A U.S. warship shot down three missiles and several drones that appeared to be fired at Israel from Yemen.
• The fighting intensified near Israel’s border with Lebanon, and the U.S. State Dept. issued a rare Worldwide Caution alert urging all Americans in foreign countries to exercise caution due to increased tension in the world. Other nations (U.K., Germany, etc.) issued similar alerts.
• Nearly 500,000 Jews have been driven out of their homes near Israel’s border with Gaza (and more have been displaced near Israel’s border with Lebanon).
• Iran said her proxies will launch a coordinated attack on Israel from all sides (from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen) in a matter of days if Israel keeps ignoring Iran’s demands for Israel to stop the attacks on Gaza (this sounds a lot like Psa. 83 and Isa. 17 are shaping up).
• The EU Parliament passed a resolution calling for the elimination of Hamas, declaring that the taking of hostages is a war crime, calling for the release of all hostages and the release of the bodies of all hostages.
• The chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee used Hamas documents captured from terrorists to urge the U.S State Dept. to classify the Hamas attack on Israel as genocide. The U.S. has proof that killing innocent women and children was a pre-planned Hamas goal.

Friday, Oct. 20, 2023

• Militias under Iran’s control in Iraq may join the attack on Israel.
• The UN is rushing to get aid into Gaza before Israel’s ground attack begins.
• Israel is pounding Gaza ahead of an expected ground attack.

Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023

• Israel vowed to attack Iran and wipe the Ayatollahs off the face of the earth if Hezbollah attacks Israel.
• An Israeli Rear Admiral said Israel is trying to eliminate as many Hamas targets in Gaza from the air as they can before they send in ground troops.
• Attacks on Israel from Lebanon were increasing, and Prime Min. Netanyahu said if Hezbollah launches a major attack on Israel, “We will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine, and the meaning for it and for the state of Lebanon is devastating.”
• Israeli jets struck a Muslim mosque on the West Bank that Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were using as a base for killing Israeli citizens.

Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023

• The U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory to US citizens that said, “Do not travel to Iraq due to terrorism, kidnapping, armed conflict, civil unrest, and Iraq’s limited capacity to provide support to US citizens.”
• Egypt and Jordan (two nations that have a peace treaty with Israel) harshly criticized Israel for its attacks on Gaza (but I saw no mention of the fact that Hamas is still firing rockets—about 7,000 to date—into Israel).
• Israel said one Israeli soldier was killed and three others were wounded when an anti-tank missile was fired at an Israeli tank inside Gaza. The main invasion has not started, but Israel has sent in a limited number of troops to search for bodies of missing troops and to prepare for the main invasion.
• Israel created and authorized a new group to identify, hunt down, and kill every Hamas terrorist involved in any way in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
• Israel’s Defense Min. said this war will end when there is no more Hamas.
• Israel said they have found instructions on the bodies of Hamas terrorists for making and using chemical weapons.

Monday, Oct. 23, 2023

• Israel posted unedited videos on X (formerly called Twitter) taken from bodycams of killed and captured Hamas terrorists to provide the world with proof of what Hamas did. The videos were also shown to about 100 members of the foreign press and were so gruesome that some press members asked for Israel to turn them off.
• There are an estimated 20-30,000 terrorists in tunnels in Gaza.
• Negotiations have been going on between Hamas, Egypt, Qatar, and Israel over the release of 50 hostages. Hamas wants fuel deliveries, but Israel is saying Hamas must release all hostages before they get any fuel.
• Israel shot down a drone from Lebanon that entered Israel by the sea.

Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023

• Hamas launched a massive barrage of rockets at cities in Israel.
• Netanyahu told elite troops in the IDF we will not stop until Hamas is destroyed.
• Two rockets were fired at Israel from Syria.

Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023

• In response to two rockets fired from Syria, Israeli Jets bombed infrastructure and rocket launchers belonging to the Syrian army.
• Turkey’s Pres. Erdogan said he is canceling his planned trip to Israel because of Israel’s inhumane war against Hamas militants in Gaza.
• Israel agreed to delay its invasion of Gaza to give the U.S. time to get defensive missile systems in place to protect U.S. troops in several nations, to allow the U.S. to get more forces in the area, and to try to get more hostages released.

Here are more reports from this week’s news:

One, I have great respect for Jonathan Brentner (he is certainly one of the best and most reliable prophecy writers today), and here is something he wrote that I think is very important (dated Oct 20, 2023):

• The pain and overwhelming grief caused by the current attacks on Israel will make the peace plan offered by the antichrist all the more appealing. This is the covenant that kicks off the seventieth week of Daniel (Daniel 9:27), which we refer to as the seven-year Tribulation.
• The leaders of Israel will believe that the terms offered by the man of lawlessness will save them from another devastating war, but he will betray them after three and a half years, which will cause many of them to flee for their lives (Matthew 24:15-21). If the rebuilding of the third temple is part of the deal, it will make his covenant all the more inviting.

Wars and rumors of wars in the Middle East (and the world) are far from over, but the current war could eventually lead to a worthless seven-year covenant of peace and the rebuilding of the Temple.

If this current war leads to the Battle of Gog and Magog, readers should know that good prophecy teachers differ on whether that is before the Tribulation Period or during the Tribulation Period, but they all agree that it is an end-of-the-age event.

(My opinion: The solution to the Middle East conflict is for both the Muslims and the Jews to accept Jesus as their Saviour. The Jews will do that at the Second Coming, the lost will be removed, and there will be 1,000 years of peace, justice and righteousness on earth.)

Time will tell about how all of this plays out, but people need to be prepared for the wedding (be saved) just in case things accelerate and these events are sooner than expected.

Two, concerning the Battle of Gog and Magog: on Oct. 20, 2023, Joel Rosenberg, editor-in-chief of All-Israel News and All-Arab News, said he believes Israel may launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran before Israel finishes off Gaza.

Rosenberg opined that Iranian officials said they will attack Israel if Israel invades Gaza, so if Israel is going to have to fight Iran anyway, why not take out Iran first.

Many world leaders would like to see Iran’s nuclear facilities taken out, and Iran is giving Israel an excuse to do it.

Three, concerning the war in Israel: on Oct. 20, 2023, Israel’s Defense Min. said Israel is operating under a three-phase plan for the war that is focused on eliminating Hamas, destroying its military, and destroying its influence over the government of the Gaza Strip.

• Phase I is underway now, and it involves airstrikes to destroy Hamas terrorists and the infrastructure they have put in place to wage war against Israel.
• Phase II will be a lower-intensity war to destroy the pockets of resistance and infrastructure the airstrikes didn’t get.
• Phase III will be to turn the government of Gaza over to new leaders who won’t attack Israeli citizens.

Four, concerning the prophecy that Israel will have a great military at the end of the age: on Oct. 20, 2023, it was reported that thousands of ultra-orthodox Haredi Jews that have long claimed that they are exempt from military service (supposedly because their job is to study the Scriptures) have suddenly signed up.

Israel’s already powerful military is suddenly becoming more powerful.

Five, concerning world government, the decline of America, and deceit: on Oct. 20, 2023, Dave Hodges (The Common Sense Show) reported that sources in the U.S. Department of Human Services (DHS) said the U.S. Border Patrol intercepted hundreds of people on the U.S. terrorist watch list today at America’s southern border, and the Border Patrol was ordered to release them into the U.S.

Hodges said he confirmed the story with a second source.

Six, concerning world government: on Oct. 21, 2023, during a campaign speech in Washington, DC, Pres. Biden said:

• The current U.S.-led world order has sort of run out of steam.
• We need a New World Order in a sense.
• I think we have an opportunity to do things if we’re bold enough and have enough confidence in ourselves to unite the world in ways that it never has been.

So, Pres. Biden has hit the 2024 campaign trail talking about a New World Order that will “unite the world in ways that it never has been.”

It sounds kind of Biblical to me.

(My opinion: The current U.S.-led world order didn’t run out of steam. There has been a deliberate fundamental transformation of America and the world since the “Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” went into effect on Jan. 1, 2016.)

Seven, concerning the ancient vessels that were removed from the Temple before the Romans destroyed it in 70 A.D.: on Oct. 23, 2023, it was reported that a Jewish rabbi in Rome said a leading Italian parliamentarian from Italy’s ruling party said Rome has the Temple vessels and wants to return them to Israel.

According to the article, the Italian parliamentarian said:

• “We have in Rome the implements of the Jewish Temple. The Golden Menorah and many other Temple vessels and tools that we took from Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. With these vessels, you brought light into the whole world. They are with us. By keeping them, perhaps we’re preventing you from fulfilling your destiny. If so, we will return them to you. If you want them – take them. It won’t be easy, but if this is what will enable you to fulfill your Divine role, then please, they are yours. They are lying in our cellars. We aren’t doing anything with them.”

I do not know the facts, and this is the only report I have read about it, but if this is true, it is truly amazing.

Eight, concerning world government and the decline of America: on Oct. 24, 2023, it was reported that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection is warning that members of Hamas and Hezbollah may try to enter the U.S. at America’s southern border.

FYI: God does not send anyone to Hell (all of us are born with a sin nature and destined to go to Hell because we sin), but God has provided a way (Jesus) for everyone to go to Heaven (and He is the only way to get there; John 14:6).

Finally, are you Rapture Ready?

If you want to be rapture ready and go to heaven, you must be born again (John 3:3). God loves you, and if you have not done so, sincerely admit that you are a sinner; believe that Jesus is the virgin-born, sinless Son of God who died for the sins of the world, was buried, and raised from the dead; ask Him to forgive your sins, cleanse you, come into your heart and be your Saviour; then tell someone that you have done this.

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