The Prophesied Shining of God’s People
(Blog 0012 AndrewHadden.org)
God wants me to explain something that will happen in the end times that has been prophesied by Christ and the prophet Daniel – but been virtually ignored by end times teachers. It will have far more impact than most might have assumed. It will soon be life and death for many, multitudes. Christ ended his long end times discourse to his disciples and the crowd following him, as recorded in Luke 21, by saying:
But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. 35 For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man" (Luke 21:34-36 NKJV emphasis mine).
Christ was speaking to a group, his followers, but warning not all will be “counted worthy to escape” all the things he had just warned would come in the end times. Christ was clearly saying some will escape, and some will not. He first warns of what behavior not to fall into, and then warns to watch and pray. Many assumed this was referring to the rapture, the “catching away” of God’s people to meet Christ in the air when they are removed from going through any more of the end times. Many have assumed, and it is an assumption, that that will happen at the beginning of the seven years of the tribulation. Many others falsely assume that the rapture will occur before anything bad happens. With the help of their teachers, they take a path of the most idealistic and optimistic interpretations and applications of scripture possible, and add to it the most optimistic assumptions possible. And their teachers are paid well to give them these idealistic, optimistic views. For perspective, note that those in scripture that gave people nothing but optimistic views of their future were generally called false prophets.
Many assume that God’s people will not be here for any of the time of trouble, the tribulation, in spite of Christ’s clear warning that no one will know the timing of the rapture, even versus all the difficult events he had been talking about. They do it because they make a HUGE and very idealistic and optimistic assumption that when God made a particular promise, there was only ONE way that the promise could be fulfilled – and that was by a pretribulation rapture. But that assumption is absolutely incorrect. There are definitely more ways that God can fulfill that promise. That promise was when scripture says, “For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:9 NKJV).
God did not appoint us to his wrath, that is true. But many point out that God could protect his people as he did during the ten plagues of the Exodus, that fell on the Egyptians, but not the obedient Israelites, God’s people. They lived somewhat separate from the Egyptians, in a separate area, Goshen. They were also protected, from the final plague, by obeying God’s instructions, in putting blood on their doorposts so the death angel would pass over them. God also protected his people from the final wrath of their enemies, the Egyptians, by leading them through supernaturally parting waters, waters that then collapsed and drowned their enemies.
So it will be in the end times. God’s people will be protected by living where God tells them to live, separate from those that are to face his judgment. They will also be protected by supernaturally parting waters and God leading them out of nations that oppress them as the Egyptians did. Zechariah chapter ten prophesies waters will part again.
But that is where being “counted worthy to escape” comes in. Some won’t be counted worthy to escape. Christ told them how to live, to watch and pray, and how not to live. It will make a difference – even among God’s people. The parable of the ten virgins also had a dividing line as to who was ready to go out to meet him, though they were all virgins. Only half were prepared, had oil in their lamps, to enable them to come out to meet the bridegroom. So it will be. Some will be specially enabled to come out of the nations persecuting them, to a protected place, to pass through the waters. Christ included this warning at the end of his long end times teaching for a reason. It’s important. Some will be counted worthy to escape, others will not. Some will be specially helped to escape, others will not.
God had to explain this special help to me, and show me, in the Bible, what related to it. I am to lead people out when God is ready to part the waters. That is why I paid attention to this. God showed me waters parting decades ago, and I knew I was leading. Recently, I was asking God to tell me what people would need to make the journey. I kept in mind that the Israelites, in their exodus, had special help in the way of finding water, or God supernaturally supplying it. They also had God supernaturally supply food, such that they did not need to carry it with them. They were given mana. But I was very concerned about what they would drink or eat on a longer journey, as to miles, and some of it being where ocean waters had parted, and what else they would need.
But God’s answer stunned me. He said, “Two legs.” He went on to say,
Supernatural – all the way. They will not drink or eat . . . just walk en masse, day after day. No sleep – not needed. Supernatural. My times – the end times – supernatural. Transformed bodies. New bodies, ‘The End Times: Expect the Unexpected’ – right?
He was reminding me of the sermon title he had given me, “The End Times: Expect the Unexpected,” a sermon that is included as a blog on my web site. I did warn that the sermon itself was more important than the list of things coming God added to it – things that we have been marching through ever since. This was certainly unexpected – and I had graduated from seminary and studied the end times for many years. My response was to pray for God to keep me from any deception, and to ask God’s help to find it in scripture. He helped. He showed me this in scripture. Now I’ll help you.
The sermon Christ mentioned actually contained a key scripture about this, which Christ later pointed out to me. The sermon contained this passage on the parable of the tares:
40 Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. 41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, 42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! (Matthew 13:40-43 NKJV).
Note what Christ emphasizes here, by right after it saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” He is really drawing attention to it, and warning to hear it. He had just said, “Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” It is easy to just dismiss this as symbolic. I know. I did it. Many others do it. We should not. Christ was being very serious – and literal.
Let us jump to a similar prophecy in the book of Daniel. In Daniel chapter two, the king has a dream that troubles him. God gives the prophet Daniel the interpretation. The dream is about a sequence of empires, beginning with the empire of the king who received the dream. The dream is symbolic, and was of a giant statue with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet partly of iron and partly of clay. Different empires are represented who did indeed come in sequence, the last being Rome. Then the feet are described as mixed iron and clay that do not cleave together. The feet and toes are presented as a kingdom that is divided and do not adhere to one another. Then it is said, “And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed” (Daniel 2:44 NKJV). Note that it mentions God setting up a kingdom. Note that it is set up “in the days of these kings,” not after these kings are destroyed by Christ’s physical return. That aligns with Christ speaking of “the kingdom of their father” in Matthew 13:43. This is the kingdom in which the righteous will shine forth as the sun.
Those with heavenly bodies, have been, in history, called “shining ones” because they do indeed shine, glow. Daniel noted that, in the time of the end, the righteous, the wise, shall shine:
Those who are wise shall shine
Like the brightness of the firmament,
And those who turn many to righteousness
Like the stars forever and ever. (Daniel 12:3 NKJV).
But right after that, it says, “But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase” (Daniel 12:4 NKJV). Might not the book being sealed “until the time of the end” account for people not taking serious note of these things until now?
Those insisting on a pretribulation rapture, and basing it primarily on one scripture saying we are not appointed to God’s wrath, and assuming that can only be fulfilled by the rapture, need to make room for this other view of how God’s people will be protected – which has good scriptural support. Christ, speaking of the end times in scripture says, “Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43). And Daniel says, of the times in which we now live, “And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed” (Dan 2:44 NKJV). Daniel then said,
Those who are wise shall shine
Like the brightness of the firmament,
And those who turn many to righteousness
Like the stars forever and ever” (Daniel 12:3 NKJV).
But the idea of shining or glowing is not all that is being promised us. There is more protection, more enablement, than that. He is speaking of the transformation of our bodies and the establishment of a kingdom, a country, a protected place, like Goshen, for his people, those transformed.
But Christ also warned of the danger of falling into wrong lifestyles, habits, sins, and not being “counted worthy to escape.” He warned to watch and pray. Some Christians will not be counted worthy. They will have to remain among the nations. They will not be transformed and not allowed to come to the protected place. Thus, the book of Revelation speaks of martyrs. But God also promises defenders and deliverers for his people in the end times. They are the two witnesses spoken of in Revelation chapter 11, verses three through twelve. They are like Moses, and pronounce God’s judgments on the nations that persecute his people, and seek to do them harm, in the end times.
God wants me to recount some of the story of how God initially introduced the topic of our bodies being transformed. It was long before he talked of God’s people “counted worthy to escape” being transformed for the journey to a protected place. More than twelve years ago, God had someone drive a long way to come to my prayer center from out of state. That man gave me a prophecy about restored youth/restored flesh from a verse in the book of Job. It got my attention. It entered into my thinking when God wanted me to marry a woman much younger than me. And it helped me obey God and have children after we had been married six years. But God added to the promise with other, related promises of the healing and restoration of my body.
God compared me to one given great strength in the Bible, to be a deliverer and defender of God’s people – Sampson. I just tucked these things away in my heart and private thoughts. But there were other promises, promises it took courage and obedience for others to prophesy. God even gave people visions of me in roles like a “superhero.” Little did I know that God was very serious. He began to explain that he was going to transform, basically replace, my body, to match the role he was calling me to, to be one of his two witnesses in the book of Revelation. But the scripture does portray them as supernaturally protected until the time the scripture prophesies they will be killed and resurrected, three and one-half days later. And God brought me through a process of over four decades to show me that being defended with death would be absolutely necessary – because I did not want to be defended if it meant someone else had to die, someone who might lose their soul.
Eventually, God explained that, with the two witnesses, he could do whatever he wanted in terms of their transformed bodies. He eventually said our bodies would be more like those of angels, different from those of his people being transformed in general to make the journey to God’s protected place. You don’t have to struggle to believe this. It will be demonstrated soon enough. God will have me defending his people from those that will seek to imprison, enslave, or kill them. But I am restricted to doing exactly what God assigns me to do. He decides, I do not. I can’t be everywhere, for everyone. Expectations must be managed. God’s people are eternal. It is not a bad thing for them to go be with God in paradise instead of in the times of trouble ahead. God will choose to bring many of his people home, and leave those strong enough to fight here. There will be battles ahead – in the spiritual realm and in the physical realm. But once we reach God’s new protected place, God will defend its borders.