For those who believe God’s Word concerning the church’s place of safety, the question remains: where will “her place” be located? Nowhere in the Scriptures is this question answered to my knowledge. Nor has anyone provided the Biblical answer. As I have noted in times past, I believe that a cave-pocked mountain range called Petra in Jordan might be the place. Having visited the site I can see how it could be perfect for the safekeeping of a few thousand people. Though we do not know for certain where “her place” (Rev. 12:14) will be located, we do know that God will do what He said He will do FOR those who trust and obey Him. We also know what He will do TO those who do not trust and obey Him. Do not be deceived by the “It’s all good; just believe and repent” prophets. They and their disciples will not be in God’s place of safety when the earth turns into a place of terror, destruction and death. Only a few, Jesus tells us, will be taken there.

This will not be the first time He will have miraculously protected His people from impending doom by changing their location. He could have protected Noah and his family where they were living during the flood, but He chose to move them into the ark. He could have protected Lot and his family in their home in Sodom. Instead, He had angels to lead them out of the city. He could have protected baby Jesus and baby Moses where they were, but he made other arrangements. These examples offer us reason to believe that His people will be moved in preparation for the Tribulation period. If God does not change, if He is truly the same yesterday, today and forever, then we can expect Him to move His people when the time comes. He did not choose to protect His people where they lived, He chose to lead them out. I suspect He will do so again.

In the series titled “My People Who Are Called By My Name” (key word–People), I explain that within what is called “the church” are two types of people–sheep and goats. This situation is not new. People began to come under Satan’s spell soon after the founding of the New Covenant Church as the Apostle Paul lamented in Galatians 1:6-9. He warned the Corinthian church about following in the Galatians spiritual footsteps in Second Corinthians 11:4. He was in fact correctly describing the church in the Laodicean era as described in Revelation chapter 3:14-20. In Second Thessalonians 2:3 he warns that just prior to the return of Christ to earth there would come a great “falling away” (apostasy) within the church like no other time in history. We are seeing that happening now as denominations are going woke (Satanic)at an alarming rate. For students of the Holy Bible, this was expected. However, I must admit that I am shocked at the rapid pace at which church groups are openly bending the knee to Satan and refuting what God has plainly said about the moral decline of the church in the latter days due to Satan’s all-out attack. The few remaining true saints within her are his end-time focus as he strives to remove every last vestige of God’s true church from the earth. He has almost equaled his success in the Garden of Eden where he destroyed God’s first church.

Based on Biblical prophecy, we have known that there would come a time when true believers would become the targets of the false church and would be persecuted by the whole of Catholicism/Protestantism–the great whore and her harlot daughters described in Revelation 17:1-5 who would be drunk on the blood of God’s martyrs. This bloodbath took place officially in what became known as “the Inquisition” during which an estimated 50,000,000 people were killed by the Catholic Church which was being empowered by the Roman Empire. Next Inquisition will take place when she, together with her harlot Protestant daughters, and having the world-ruling “beast” government behind them, will persecute the tiny group of true believers who have remained true to the Lord. Paul warns that “All who will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12), some to the death. The persecution being experienced now will be nothing compared by what is coming their way in the not-to-distant future. By that time all true saints will have obeyed God’s command found in Second Corinthians 6:14-7:1, thereby leaving “the church” totally peopled by Satan’s followers and him in total control of all religions on earth. With a tiny exception (Mat. 7:13,14; 2214).

We are watching pure hatred toward God’s elect beginning to develop now as they are accused of harboring hatred toward sex deviants and those of other religions. Denominations are falling before the accusers like dominos. The vast majority of those who continue to resist the pro-sin, anti-God wave today will eventually “see the light” and will “go with the flow of God.” God’s true saints will be persecuted by those who believe that they are “doing God a service” (Jn. 16:2) by coming against the “radical religionists” who insist on living according to the Holy Bible , which will eventually be outlawed. The masses will serve a god, true enough. But he will be the “god of this world”–Satan (2 Cor. 4:4). Billions worship and serve him today believing that, like Saul of Tarsus, they are serving the Biblical God. Recall that, prior to his conversion, Paul “knew” that he was pleasing God by killing Christians. He said that he felt “alive” while feeding them to the lions, burning them at the stake, starving them, stoning them, etc.

God promises protection for His people for ‘keeping he Word of My patience” (Rev. 3:10). The New King James version renders this statement: “Because you have kept My command to persevere ….” To qualify for entrance into God’s place of protection one must stand up to trials and tribulations, to persecution and ridicule for clinging to God’s instructions. Spiritual vigilance and prayer are other requirements. “Watch, therefore, and pray always, so that you may be found worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Lk. 21:36).

Sadly, the vast majority of God’s Laodicean people do not watch and pray. He tells them they need eye salve because they have been seduced by Satan (Rev. 3:18). Their rebellion against God’s strict, no compromise style of leadership has left them blinded to His Truth. They must repent, turn from their wickedness and obey Him (vs 19). Read Second Chronicles 7:14 where the Lord is speaking to “My people who are called by My name,” telling them in today’s church that, though they are called “Christians,” they must pray, repent, turn from their wicked ways,” and obey Him in order to have their prayers answered. His requirements are no less for entrance into His place of safety at the end of the age. Sinners saved by grace need not apply.

Those who will make it into the place of safety are very much aware that they will need such a place as the Tribulation period approaches. Therefore they obey the Lord and do everything they know to do in order to please Him Who has promised to provide such a place. They are allowing Him to mold and make them into human replicas of Himself, as was Jesus of Nazareth who said: “They who have seen Me have seen the Father.” This is the goal of those who will enter the place God has prepared for His Very Elect. They are willing to give up anything that would stand between themselves and their Lord.

Many of us have had to give up family and close friends and move on in the Lord against the resistance of those who mean the most to us. Hopefully, they will remember what we have told them when they face the choice of living for Satan or dying for God. Most of the fruit of our ministries and lives will not be seen until that time. Few in this life believe what we preach and teach. We hope that one day they will remember our words and embrace the Lord and His ways which we placed before them through our words and our lives. As I have stated before, if just one person says to me in the Kingdom of God: “I am here because of you,” the reward will have been worth the sacrifice.

After being in God’s place of safety for 3 1/2 years, His true saints will rise to meet Him in the air, along with the dead in Christ beginning with righteous Abel and all who have lived and died in holiness since His death. From among the clouds, Jesus and 10,000 saints (Jude 1:14) will descend to the Mount of Olives, walk into Jerusalem where He will establish the Kingdom of God. From there He and they will rule the earth for 1000 years, then the universe forever. Read The Rapture, The Three Resurrections and God’s Very Elect: Future Caretakers of the Universe. Key words–Rapture, Three and Caretakers respectively. L.J.