Travel Update

We have been in Maryland for a week now and it has been great to visit and share with many of you. We will be speaking at Damascus Wesleyan Church on November 30th at 7:00pm. This will be our final engagement before returning to Kansas City. There are many others that we are anticipating touching base with before we leave. Our time in North Carolina was awesome. I had the privilege of leading worship at New Hope Christian Fellowship. It was an awesome time of worship, the Lord is doing incredible things in that body of believers! Michele and I also shared on Sunday night at NHCF as well. We want to thank you all for your prayers and financial support. Houses of prayer are vital members of the body of Christ, just as foreign missions and the local church among others, are vital as well. We need each other to accomplish and become what the Lord Jesus intended before His second coming.
Abiding,
Brian Jones

Matthew 24-The signs of the Times

This chapter is loaded with valuable insight from Jesus pertaining to His return at the end of the age. I have been reading and meditating on this chapter for a while and what I began to notice is that Jesus laid out 4 distinct time frames for us to watch for. The great thing about this is that Jesus gives us the order of which this will happen. Verses 5-8 are the “Beginning of Sorrows” which is stage 1. Stage 2 is described in verses 8-14, these are the “increased labor pangs”, Stage 3 is found in verses 15-28 which are the “hard labor pangs” and finally the 4th stage is described in verses 29-31, this stage is the coming of the Son of Man. For me, this made the concept of studying the end times so much more approachable. The fact is that Jesus used a common event to make it easy to understand the approaching of the end of the age......childbirth. Everyone was familiar with the process of a woman going into labor and birthing a child. Revelation describes these events in much greater detail. We need to be living with an urgency concerning the hour that we live in, not fear. Fear is a result of our lack of knowledge concerning Jesus’ plan at the end of the age. If we know Him and believe what He said, and give ourselves to Him in radical consecration now ,then we won’t be offended by His leadership in that day. My wife put it perfectly the other day as we were talking, I’m not sure if she heard this from someone else or not but it impacted me greatly. The statement was that Jesus was not recognized as the messiah at His first coming by many because they were expecting a warrior king and He came as the servant of all....... many will not recognize Him at His second coming because they will be expecting a humble servant but He will come as a warrior king and judge. Jesus said these haunting words many times and we should feel the same urgency that He was conveying.........Watch therefore!

In Christ,
Brian Jones

Matthew 24-As in the days of Noah

I am sitting here tonight in my recliner thinking about the scripture mentioned above and several others that relate to the “end of the age”. It seems that God has always been after our hearts. Like I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs, He longs to walk with us in the cool of the day again as He spoke of in Genesis. We will walk with Him again in this manner in the realm of eternity. It was His plan from the beginning and He intends for it to be that way again. Before this happens however, the earth will be cleansed in preparation for Jesus’ return and a final cleansing before the Father comes. There is debate about the rapture and whether the believers will be raptured before or after the Great Tribulation. Some would say “it doesn’t really matter, it’s all going to pan out anyway”. Thats true, but how offended would I be if I was wrong and was here for it all instead of being raptured beforehand? Jesus commanded us to know the seasons concerning the end of the age. If we think we have what it takes now to withstand what is coming, then we must be the “elite elect” because Jesus said that this would even cause the “elect” to question their faith. We need to be of sober mind and not be carried away by the spirit of this age. The cares of this world are constantly prying for our worship and attention. Matt. 24:40 is often used as a “pre-trib” foundation but as I was looking closer at this I noticed verse 39 which says “and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Verse 40 says, “Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.” This is not referring to the rapture, but rather the judgement on the wicked. If you look closely, it isn’t difficult to see that the ones that were “taken” were the unrighteous not the righteous. The righteous were the ones left behind. They were in the ark.....protected. These scriptures are in context to the days of Noah according to what Jesus said. My prayer is that we as followers of Jesus would search the scriptures out that we would be ready for Jesus 2nd return, that we would understand what Jesus’ leadership and government will really look like at the end of the age. I don’t want to be surprised and offended.

Blessings,
Brian Jones