END TIMES TEACHING
THE COMPLETION OF GOD’S BUILDING
1 Corinthians 3:9 “For you are God’s fellow workers, you are God’s field, you are God’s building.”
After I first got saved in June of 1976, the Lord gave me a couple of dreams that detailed what had happened to me when I first got saved, and the emphasis and direction of my future path in my Christian walk.
I did not fully understand the meaning of the first dream back then, but as time passed, I now have a clear understanding of how that one dream was like a road map of my future that God laid out for me to follow.
The second dream I had that year, that is still as vivid to me today as when I first had it, I thought it was explained back then, for right after I dreamed it my pastor preached on a Scripture that explained my dream.
I’ve never told him about my dream, and I did not even know that there was a Bible verse that would explain to me what that second pivotal dream that I had that year meant had not my pastor preached about it.
In the dream I was laying with my face sideways and paralleled to the ground, for that was my perspective. As I laid there my attention was drawn to a pair of hands that reached down to the ground and picked up a white stone. As I visually followed the trajectory of the hands that were carrying the white stone, I saw them place the white stone on a church building that was almost completed.
The entire church building was made of individual white stones, the body of the building was completed except for the steeple area that lacked just a few stones. The hands kept coming down and picking up white stones from the ground and placing them on the church as I watched in amazement.
Then I saw the hands come down and grab me, that was when I realized in my dream that I was one of the many white stones that the Lord was using to build His church building.
You can imagine my surprise and total amazement when the next church service that I attended after that dream, my pastor preached on our next Scripture and on its symbolism.
1 Peter 2:5 “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
When I told the dream and what my pastor had preached about to one of my spiritual mentors, the very first thing that he told me was that since in the dream the building was on the final stages of construction, what that meant was that the return of our Lord was very near.
What my pastor preached on back then, which was something that became clear to me, was that every individual believer like a living stone, is placed within the spiritual building which is the church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, at the moment of their salvation.
And that is why that dream was given to me shortly after my salvation, to reveal to me what had happened in the spiritual realm when I first got saved. But it wasn’t just about my salvation that was revealed to me in that dream, as my mentor astutely observed, it was also about the progress concerning the completion of God’s building.
In the other dream, which was like a road map for my Christian journey, it ended with me standing before an opened door that was set before me, as I stepped through that door I saw the masses that were waiting to be redeemed on the sea shores, as war raged over the sky above them.
It is just now that I’ve come to realize the connection between the two dreams as I see them through the light of our next Scripture:
Revelation 6:11 “Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.”
While most of the news media puts their focus on the things that are happening that are more meaningful to them, the fact that Christians are dying for their faith in ever increasing numbers all around the world, has widely gone unreported.
I heard that North Korea just had a televised execution of about eighty Christians, their crimes were that they had Bibles or pieces of paper with Scriptures written on then.
Christians in Syria and Egypt are both experiencing persecution on levels that they had never experienced before. In Iraq, a place that we, the US just liberated, Christians are fleeing the persecution of that nation against them in record numbers.
The acceleration of martyrdom and persecution for Christians all around the world can only mean one thing; the completion of God’s building draws very near.
Along with that I read a report that anti-Semitism is on the rise as well in Europe, and there is no doubt that as far as nations go, Israel stands alone right now, for it is clear that within present US foreign policy the security of Israel has become expendable.
In case you did not notice, here is what the prophecy about the completion of the number of the martyr’s was:
Both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren.
It clearly implies that there are two different entities that are being persecuted because of the Word of God before the removal of the church takes place and the judgments of God begin.
So, what is our role, as believers, in the midst of all that is going on right now? Here is what the apostle Peter connected the erection of the church building to:
A holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
As living stones, we not only comprise the walls of the building, but are also those who minister within the building as well. We are a holy priesthood, and it is our place and duty to offer up spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Let me ask you this: Where is your emphasis in the midst of all this chaos that is going on all around us today?
I got to tell you that it is not easy to stay focus on spiritual principles and spiritual realities, especially as I become more aware of all the evil that is rapidly unfolding all around us right now.
All the evil things that are going on all around us now are designed to push our buttons, if you will, so that our attention is diverted from what our true ministry is in all of this, so that we need to stay focus and in tune with what our ministry is, in spite of what is going on out there.
1 Peter 2:8 “...They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.”
Notice how Peter says that those who were appointed to minister the Word became disobedient to the very Word they were appointed to administer.
The Word says that we are to love, not hate, even those who are trying to destroy the very freedoms that we enjoy.
If our enemies that hate us so much, can get us into hating them back, then we stumble and become disobedient to God’s Word, and do you not know that that is the very aim of our spiritual enemies?
After Fidel Castro took over in Cuba, immediately he began to divide the nation by railing against the rich, and the landowners, and the businesspeople, dividing them by class, race, and social status. Soon after that he stoked the flames of hatred against the class of people that he targeted, and one by one he deposed them of all their worldly possessions until the government owned everything.
How did he get away with it? He got them to hate one another to the point that they were willing to give up their own individual freedoms just to see the people they hated so much, punished by the government that they were empowering. At first they got to share in some of the goodies that the government had taken from those they hated, only to see themselves be targeted later by the very government they had empowered, but by the time they realized what monster they had created it was too late.
That is exactly what is going on in the United States right now, and without a doubt it is also going on in many other nations as well.
But the remedy is always the same, do not give into their enticements to hate, let us remain true to the Christian values that have been handed down to us from the apostles of our faith.
We are the spiritual eyes of the nations, we are the spiritual ears of the people that make the nations, we are the heart of Christ in a perverse generation that seeks its own destruction, we stand on the solid foundation of the Word of God, and we cannot be moved!
1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
We are the living stones that have been hewn out of this last generation, used by Jesus to complete the building, which is the spiritual house of praise to Him, we are the church of God in this earth.
1 Peter 2:23-25 “Who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”