Signs

 

Three Dreams

For the past week I was approached by three different saints who came to me to share their dreams that they had had recently. All three dreams were similar in that they each were seeing the last move of God happening. They saw that the building into which we have plans to move, had people from all over the world coming to it and these people were all part of the final harvest. All three saints said they experienced the glory of God manifesting in their respective dreams. One saint said they had seen God’s hand come out of the cloud and put something into me. They all shared that there was a sense of urgency, that the sense was that we were out of time. I feel like this switch into the glory can come at any time. What I was hearing as these saints shared their dreams with me is that we need to all get it together and to be serious in our walks and in our seeking of the Lord. 

The Remnant

 

This brings me to what I want to share to you about signs and sins. The Lord is testing the church to see if they are more worried about wearing a mask and being distracted with all the Covid fear-mongering perpetrated by the left or, are we faithfully preparing for the Day of the Lord by making sure we have clean hands and a pure heart. The Lord is going to hold everything back until His remnant is sealed. In the book of Ezekiel, the prophet was shown a man with an inkhorn that was the one who would seal the saints with the Lord’s mark. Those who are not sealed would be removed. God is going to get rid of the hypocrites in the church. However, those who have the fear of God, the fear of the Lord on them, the ones who don’t want to miss out on God’s final move, are the ones who will be sealed. 

The Parable of the Wedding

 

In the parable of the wedding feast, it says that God will raise up an army to destroy all the people who were invited to the wedding but did not come. Those whom God invited abused His servants. If Jesus allowed five thousand people to leave in one teaching, and again another three thousand at another teaching after Jesus sifted them with His teachings when He said they must eat His flesh and drink His blood, clearly Jesus was not letting everybody enter in. He is looking for a remnant. 

 

Jesus had two megachurches when you think about the size of the crowd which He let depart from His teaching. He could be considered as one of the worst evangelists since He actually got rid of more people than He gained. For example, He only had one hundred and twenty people in the upper room after His ministry. It is wrong to think that we are going to make it into heaven without paying a price. Jesus said that only those who are worthy are those who pick up their cross and follow Him. Paul said that he picked up his cross every day. Picking up the cross is dying to your desires, denying yourself of your personal wants, as well as changing your priorities. Your life is not your own, the bible says. Your life belongs to Christ now. 

The Mark

 

When the remnant class is sealed in God’s mark which is evident through their death-to-self focus, it is then that God will release the four winds. This man who has the inkhorn will seal the remnant with a mark. In Hebrew, the word for “mark” is “tav” which is spelled “tav vav.” If we look at the ancient Hebrew pictographs for “tav” and “vav”, it is respectively a “cross” (tav) and a “nail” (vav). The “mark” is actually speaking about being nailed to the cross. I went to Israel some years ago and took a picture of Golgotha where Jesus was crucified. Golgotha in Hebrew means “The Place of the Skull”. What is eery is it does look like an actual skull. Jesus was crucified on top of Golgotha--on the top of the skull on a cross, or on a “mark” (tav).

 

It is for this reason that the early church fathers write that the man carrying the seal of the living God and marking the remnant was doing so in the spirit of Elijah. They say that one of the attributes of the Elijah ministry is that it causes the reverent fear of the Lord to be placed on people. When you have the fear of the Lord, you are willing to kill all your fleshly desires. This is what is meant by being marked or sealed. 

 

The Sting

The book of Revelations brings up these locusts that come out of the bottomless pit who have the power of scorpions. They were commanded to only cause harm to those who do not have the seal. Here is something we have to understand. This is written allegorically and needs to be interpreted spiritually. Otherwise, you will believe that there are going to literally be giant locusts with the tail of a scorpion that will be roaming around the earth. Locusts do not have stingers as scorpions do, they also don’t have tails, nor are locusts venomous. What is the sting of these locusts then?

 

In the Book of Deuteronomy, there is a commandment that speaks of not charging your brother interest on a loan. One of the definitions of the word “interest” (נֶשֶׁךְ neshek, in Hebrew) is that it is the “sting of a scorpion, also “a strike from the serpent”. Jesus said to beware of the venom of the Pharisees. The word also says that the letter kills, which means that false teachers are spiritually killing people through heretical teachings. The apostle Paul says of death, “where is your sting”? The sting that is going to bring about death to all those who are not sealed is “false teachings”. 

 

Spiritual death is far worse than physical death. If you are right with God and are sound in the faith, when you die, you just go home to be with the Lord. There’s no fear of death. The martyrs rejoiced that they were going home to be with the Lord. If you destroy someone’s soul with false teaching, it is worse because that is what is going to send them to hell. Paul said that if anyone preaches a different Gospel than the one he preaches, let that man be anathema--cursed and damned to hell. 

 

Paul prophesied about the great falling away and how there would no longer be a love for the truth. The Word has numerous warnings for the end times; all these warnings caution us about the dangers of the false teachers that would rise and subtly find their way into the church. God warns that their teachings will result in leading people to destruction. 

The Goad

The Lord chastises those whom he loves, so he uses a “goad” which is a “teaching that brings pressure”. He is goading us to repent by changing our ways.  How many of you came to the Lord because everything was going really well in your life? If you are like most people, your life was probably falling apart when you came to Christ. You didn’t come to him when your life was all sunshine and rainbows. When we are going through the chastisement, the pressure, we need to sit down and ask the Lord: "why this is happening"? We need to ask where we may have an open door to the enemy? In which areas of our lives are we being disobedient? There is only pressure when we resist, so, where are we resisting God in our lives? 

 

When you get yourself cleaned up then you’re able to clean up others. This is taking the beam out of our own eyes before taking the speck out of the eye of others. It should be our priority to ensure that we have clean hands and a pure heart. We need to continually check our hearts, saints. Amen. 

 

Sincerely,

Apostle Michael Petro