Dachshunds and Dogged Antichrists
I have a red miniature Dachshund named Shiloh. I realize that a miniature Dachshund doesn’t seem like the appropriate dog for an old redneck with a pickup truck, but he fits in my home well as I have no real space for a blue tick hound or a Doberman.
Shiloh is ten years old but he is still fairly feisty for his age. In the mornings, he likes to cuddle with my wife and will paw her until she rubs his belly. However, at night he turns into a beast and cannot go to sleep until he takes me on in a fit of savage frenzy. He will grab my hand snarling and biting like he is the most ferocious carnivore on the planet and he is showing me no mercy whatsoever.
He seems oblivious to the fact that he only weighs 14 lbs. and stands about a foot off the ground whereas I am 5’ 9” and suffice it to say that I outweigh him by quite a bit. We will tussle and fight until he tires out or I have had enough and then we both pass out. I often laugh at him because he sounds so intense like he is going to rip my hand and arm off to devour them. I could easy grab him by the neck and break it with the very hand he is biting or throw him across the room but I love the little mutt and would never hurt him.
He has done this nearly every night for the ten years we have had him. He never wins but he never gives up trying every night. No matter how quickly I end the battle or if I let it go on until he is tired he never seems to understand the impossibility of him winning. He reminds me a lot of those who fight against God. Some will even demand that He prove Himself by striking them dead. If I were to hurt that dog of mine and tell folks how I showed him who was the boss people will think ill of me and maybe even call the SPCA. I would prove how small I was not how big I was if I hurt something that small. If a five year old came up and started hitting me I would just hold him at arms length and let him beat the air but I wouldn’t put him in a choke hold or throw him on the ground and jump on him. I might just laugh at him and tell him he needs to grow up or pick on someone his own size. I believe that God looks at the fist shaking scorner demanding to be struck dead in pretty much the same manner.
Scorners will find something in the Bible that maybe cannot be proved currently and they say, “Ah ha, the Bible is wrong!” They will rant and rave and have a good time for awhile and then someone digs up something that proves the Bible was right in that area like the name David or the Hittite Empire. They find something else and rant on that and then someone will “discover” something in the lab that proves them wrong and the Bible right like polonium halos that point irrefutably to Creation. Do they quit fighting God and believe the Bible? No, they just keep looking for something else no matter how many times they are proven wrong. Ray Stevens sang that there is none so blind as he that will not see.
It doesn’t matter if they are atheists, evolutionists, Liberal theologians, or practitioners of cults. Pick a group or title if they are dogged in their unbelief and that makes them Antichrists. Let them rage and imagine a vain thing. God is aware of them and has a laugh about them.
Psa 2:1-12
1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
Why are the Goyim or godless heathen nations in such an uproar and involved with conspiracies? Why do they devise useless ideas and philosophies? In a so-called world of open forums and tolerance why is the whole world against the Jews and Bible believing Christians?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
It is because they do not want God and Christ to rule over them. They want to be accountable to themselves or to the religion of works of their choice or to the gods that they have made in their own image since they worship the creature instead of the Creator.
In the context, the anointed one here is the Messiah, the Son of God Jesus Christ that they taking counsel together to find the best way to defeat Him and the Father. However, we can see in Psalm 105:15 (Saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.) and 2 Cor 1:21 (Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God;) that the Jews and the truly born again Christians are also the anointed of God. If they hate the one who does the anointing they are going to hate the anointed as well.
That is why the devil has caused the nations to hate the Jews for centuries. They represented the true God in the earth and stood against the lies of satan when they were right with God. When the devil found that he could not destroy them from without he sought to destroy them from within by weakening their faith and commitment to Jehovah through lust of the flesh and compromise with the pagans around them. They took wives of the heathen and with the wives came the culture and idolatry. In that sin, God punished His people but when they repented He punished the heathen for their treachery. America, take note.
With the resurrection of Christ, the promises to David were put on hold until Christ could build His Church and purify His Bride. The Jews are still special or anointed of God and all the promises to Abraham, Isaac and David will be fulfilled in the Millennium. But now God is using the Church to be His representatives/ambassadors to declare His glory and His coming reign on the earth while offering the Gospel that people might escape the wrath to come. Therefore satan despises the Church and wants her destroyed. He knows he can only attack her from without as far as the Lord will allow but he also knows that the old “get them from within” tactic still works. Thus, he has conspired and caused the apostasy we see today by recruiting so called educated men who have tried to destroy the foundations of the righteous but they cannot. Yes, they have caused confusion and many have been lost to the heresies and compromises but the true Church is still here. When Christ returns the Church may be little in number but it will be here.
4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
Despite all the apostasy, persecution and delusion that the devil has caused to come against both Jew and Church God will have the last laugh. He will looks at them like I look at my little dog and laugh at the futility of their dogged unbelief with the facts slapping them in the face.
He will have them in derision or scorn. All their complex theologies, excuses and false science will be displayed as what they are the vain imaginations of fools that were deluded by devil using their own lusts. He will mock them and their so-called wisdom.
He will speak to them in His wrath. I believe that while He has spoken to wicked people in His wrath throughout the centuries and certainly to those in Hell the wrath He is speaking of here is the Great Tribulation. In that time the earth will see the wrath of God as it has never been seen before. The magnitude and extent of it will surpass the Flood, the plagues of Egypt and make Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction look like just a little slap in the face.
They will be dismayed and terrified in ways that no one can imagine. They will ask for rocks to fall on them and even pray to die but they will not be allowed to die that they may experience the full effect of His wrath. They will be mighty sore from His sore displeasure, which means exceedingly great wrath. God will have plenty of reasons to be burning hot. He has offered His grace and mercy for 2000 years only to have His offer rejected, His Son crucified, His Church and the Jews persecuted and murdered without mercy. The Anti-Christ will have sat in the temple declaring himself God with the help of a false prophet dressed in sheep’s clothing. He will be perfectly just to execute His judgment of the world in His wrath.
6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
Despite all the rage and conspiracies, God has already set His king and His Son, His only begotten Son, on an everlasting throne that will be established in Jerusalem though it be trodden down of the Gentiles right now. He declared the decree. He implemented the decree with the incarnation of Christ and sealed it with the blood of His Son. He shall return. He shall reign. The heathen are His and the earth is His. Nothing can stop Him from claiming that which is His by Birth, by Blood and by the Book!!
It won’t be pretty when He comes back to sit on the throne. Blood will be up to the horse’s bridle and only a third of all Jews in Israel will be alive and that only because they realized the truth of Who He is and have called on their Messiah for their soul’s salvation as well as for deliverance of the body. Oh, that millions of Jews might come to Christ before that day of horror and judgment! Those who would not pray for the salvation of the Jews or declare them to be saved without Christ let them be anathema! They are the enemies of Christ if they love not His earthly kin and reject Paul’s inspired declaration that the Gospel is “to the Jew first and then to the Greek.”
10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
In wrath God still remembers mercy for here He is giving the kings or leaders another chance to escape the wrath to come. We can apply this not only to literal kings and queens for there are few of those today, but we know that there are many that follow leaders that are not political. Some follow professors, lawyers, theologians, athletes, and actors that pit their puny wit and worldly wisdom against the Lord and His anointed. These blind leaders of the blind rule and judge over their respective organizations or kingdoms yea, more like fiefdoms thus they also need to heed this word of warning.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” God is admonishing, chastening or instructing them to serve Him. They need to come to understand that He is their Creator. I once heard a Black lady scream at her child, “I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it.” She was partly right. God did use her and her husband to bring about that life. However, only He has the right to take that life outside of where He has delegated it to man in the area of capital punishment or has allowed it in war and self-defense. He can take it out for it is His and He can do with what is His anything He wants to do with it.
Even when you serve Him there is still to be some awe-inspiring fear. It is a joy to be in the Lord’s work but it is also such an awesome responsibility that we need to not take it lightly and do it in the flesh or be sloppy in our service. We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account. Yes, we that are saved will be saved since we at least have the foundation of the work of Christ. We may end up with nothing but burned wood, hay and stubble but that isn’t the way I want my life of service to end up. I want to have at least some little thing to toss back at His feet in gratitude for what He has done for me.
A kiss was not only a sign of affection in those days but also a sign of respect. These kings, judges and anti-Christs need to learn respect before they can give Him any affection. They mocked Him at His trial and men still put Him on trial and mock Him today. Until that change of heart comes about to where they see the truth of His claims and respect Him they will be in danger of Hell fire with every breath even if they are very moral men in all other aspects of life. Many people think more of themselves than Christ and think that He can’t possibly be very angry with them since they are so good. It only takes one sin and if there was a value on each one that one sin might only a small one but it only takes a little wrath of the Son to perish from the way or be destroyed. There is only one way to kiss the Son in true respect and affection and that is to confess that you are a sinner and that only what He did can save you. Any other way or path is the path of destruction from His wrath.
Indeed, blessed or happy are all they that put their trust or confidence in Him for they shall escape His wrath. My dog only escapes my wrath because of my love and compassion on him. Jesus has not immediately executed His wrath upon the dogged anti-Christs that have snarled at and bitten Him and those He has purchased and anointed. He still has love and compassion for them and He extends that hand of mercy with pardon. They can bite that hand that desires to feed them with the Bread of Life, but every dog has its day. They snarl, bark and bite now but one they will howl in Hell if they do not repent of their dogged unbelief. Facts are numerous and grace is abundant but the “fool has said in his heart there is no god” for me? Don’t be foolish lest your perish but rather understand the truth and be saved! Maranatha!!
