RAPTURE TRAIN TO GLORY
A Play
by Gavin Finley
endtimepilgrim.org
ACT TWO
Michael takes a look at my ticket. Written in big hot pink letters are the words "Special Early Rapture Express" and below that "A Church Exclusive". He raises a quizzical eyebrow and gazes into my face.
"Where did you buy this ticket?" he asks.
"I don't recognise it as one of our vouchers. It has not been authorised and issued from the throne of God by Gabriel from the third heaven."He pulls out a scanner from his gold belt and peers at the readout intently.
"Hmmm", he says.
"This is just as I thought. This ticket does not bear the seal of God's throne. It is a forgery. It is not a faithful administration of the Scripture of Truth.-Dan.10:21 This ticket has been improperly issued by lower angelic and earthly religious powers and without divine authority."There is a stunned silence in the train. We are all dumbfounded. Finally, Johnny asks,
"Why would our religious leaders and what? Angelic powers you say? Why would they do such a thing? Aren't all the angels over the church holy?"
Michael replies,
"The angelic religious powers over your people in the institutionalised church are in many cases unholy. The reason they are unholy is because down on earth below the Judeo-Christian people of God have married into or covenanted with unholy political and merchant powers. These ruling princes in the heavenlies are often forces of darkness masquerading as angels of Light.-2Cor.11:14 These princes that bear political and merchant rule, both the earthly human rulers and the angelic rulers above them, have never made themselves totally subject to God. In marrying these thorny swordwielding princes the churches have corrupted themselves. In making these church-state and church merchant alliances God's ministers below have actually loosed unholy angelic rulers up in the second heaven. Powerlessness in God and untold grief has been the result. You as the people of God are partly responsible for the loosing or releasing of these powerful spirit rulers. As the religious powers are now unifying for bargaining power with the emerging global secular powers this process is unleashing bigger and more powerful rulers in the heavenly realms. Whether you realise this or not these powers are loosed or bound by you, the congregation, the "called out"/ecclesia of God. You are in the loop here. Your witness is vitally involved in accordance with the sovereign purposes of God. As you make your earthly pronouncements and enter into your earthly covenants you bind or loose angelic principalities and powers in the heavens.-Mat.16:19 It is the people of God by their authorising and loosing of these unholy alliances that will ultimately loose the dark angelic spirits over the endtime harlot system and antichrist system."We are sitting with our mouths open at this point. I am in a state of incredulity.
"This is awful! How are we supposed to respond to this?" I ask.
There is a charged and pensive atmosphere building among the people gathered. Michael is looking out the window at the crowds coming towards the train as he answers.
"YHVH has always been the protector of His people. But alas, the majority of His children are all too often not inclined to trust Him. Nor do they trust His Word. This is the root cause of your troubles. It is the cause of the coming Great Tribulation. The "called out" company of God will covenant with men before they turn to Yahweh.-Dan.9:27 As with all things political the process of maintaining popularity and power with the crowds becomes a foremost concern for your shepherds. The true Shepherd of Israel declares that you are a stiffnecked people.-Exod.32:9 You have turned aside from your God to follow others. You and the people of the covenant that went before you fail to remember your God. You repeatedly go back to making covenant with powerful yet unholy secular rulers. Your political lovers are linked to spiritual principalities and powers of darkness in high places. These power brokers invariably have earthy and thorny agendas. Jotham, son of Gideon discovered this with his half brother Abimelech back when Israel was entering the promised land. -Judges ch.3 Accordingly the important holy matters as laid out in scripture are all too often neglected by God's people. Sacred issues are all too often set aside for pragmatic and political reasons. These reasons are quite understandable from a human perspective. The shepherds of established Christendom must cater to the stony hearted majority. These uncommitted ones make up the masses of the nation belonging to the prince with whom the established religious powers have entered into covenant. So it follows that the established religious powers must retain the popular support of these stony hearted people of the nation or merchant system involved. They must do this in order to stay in power or in business as the case may be. Since the crowds ultimately rule even as the seas rage it follows that holiness has never been achieved with popular Judeo-Christian religion. So the policies, traditions, edicts and doctrines of established or popular Christendom are almost always mixtures of the holy and the profane. They are accommodations to the flesh and the world with just enough of the genuine Truth and Spirit added in to make it respectable. They are mixtures. So as a result of this many church teachings and doctrines are not authorised from the throne of the sovereign God Most High. So this is why the scriptures do not testify to the truthfulness of much of the common popular teachings regarding the last days. While they may well be well received and well funded they are not supported in the Scripture of Truth. Nor are they given a witness by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the true saints of God."
At that moment someone standing in the aisle speaks up.
"I don't understand what you are saying, Michael. We trust our religious leaders to tell us the true facts regarding the endtime. They are the ones that have studied the scriptures. Many of them have access to the Word and in Greek and Hebrew! And now you are saying that we as members of the crowd or the pew are the one's calling the shots? Do we pressure religious leaders that much really? I thought the religious leaders set the agenda."
Michael replies,
"Yes, the shepherds, the pastors and teachers are accountable before God for what is taught. They also bear an awesome responsibility for the preparation and development of the saints toward their perfection/completion in God. Most try hard to be faithful to God's Word. But as the endtime plot thickens they are under enormous political and economic pressure from the princes and merchant rulers with whom they have previously contracted. They also must please their superiors or the ones who pay their stipend. The one who pays the piper gets to call the tune. In addition to that they must also maintain their popularity with the crowds. Crowds can bring down a leader very swiftly when they are roused to indignation. Remember Pontius Pilate? Even as governor he had to deliver Jesus to be crucified? And why? It was because the wish of the crowds that Jesus died. At that awful moment the crowds roared,"Away with Him! Crucify Him!
We have no king but Caesar!"As the crowds called for the crucifixion of Truth back in those days so they continue to do so today. It is because of concerns of popularity and power that the political, merchant and religious rulers have consciously or unconsciously conspired to "cloak" or twist God's Word. They have done this in order to promote or continue their earth based humanistic "peace" over the crowds. It is also for the sake of this supposed "peace" that the religious powers of established Christendom have allowed the crowds to have what they wanted in the way of pagan diversions and fables. The Egyptian goddess Ishtar has become the substitute for the resurrection of the Saviour on the Feast of Firstfruits, the cross has been magically replaced by a sword, the House of God has become a structure of masonry and on and on it goes. These and a host of other profane admixtures have drawn people away from a deep personal devotion to God. The crowds wanted it that way. So even with Bibles in nearly every home a fog of religious disinformation continues to shroud the true Word of God, hiding it from human hearts. This matter of scriptural integrity is the crux of this. God's Word has always been a matter of holy witness and sacrificial bloodshed. Church history shows that religious powers have repeatedly persecuted to death those who stand on the pure testimony of the holy scriptures. Many have been and yet will be put to death for upholding a holy confession of faith in the Saviour who is the Living Word of God. You will recall how vehemently the established churches persecuted the reformers and Bible translators. Why did they attempt to prevent the shedding abroad of the light of God's Word? Why does established Christianity change God's information into disinformation? The answer is that established religious powers consider pure Bible truth as too "extreme" or "radical" for them to uphold. So as a matter of practical expediency the shepherds of God's people have found it necessary to "water down" the Biblical truths to maintain their popularity with the crowds, - and also retain their position.
Johnny is stirring restlessly at this point. Finally he gets up to ask,
"I'm not sure I understand, Michael. What is so "radical" about the Bible of all things?
