It doesn’t take long until King Herod gives in to the religious leaders and joins the persecution brigade. Acts 12 records that he stretches out his hand to harass some from the church. Then he kills James, the brother of John, with the sword. “And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter also” (Act 12:1-3).
      Ironically, the king does this during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is celebrated in conjunction with Passover. It is designed to cleanse the household of leaven (yeast), which symbolizes sin.  The king assigns four squads of soldiers to hold Peter until the king can bring him before the people after Passover. Four symbolizes the earth.
         Apparently, the king is mindful of the previous “escapes.” Peter is bound by chains and there are soldiers guarding the door to his cell. Not that this matters because the King of kings is in control. Meanwhile, Peter is sleeping. Seems he knows God is in control.
        “Now behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shone in the prison; and he struck Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, ‘Arise quickly!’ And his chains fell off his hands. Then the angel said to him, ‘Gird yourself and tie on your sandals’; and so he did. And he said to him, ‘Put on your garment and follow me.’ So he went out and followed him, and did not know that what was done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision” (Acts 12:7-9).
      It seems Peter is still getting used to experiencing the supernatural realm as he fulfills his heavenly assignment. When he and his angelic escort reach the iron gate of the city and it opens on its own accord, it finally dawns on Peter what’s up. When the angel disappears, Peter states the obvious, “Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent His angel, and has delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all the expectation of the Jewish people” (vs. 11).
          It still takes him a moment to wrap his brain around this before he realizes he should probably get to somewhere safe. So he goes to a house where the disciples are gathered in prayer. A young woman answers the doors, sees Peter, and shuts the door in Peter’s face out of her eagerness to tell the others he is safe. Even though they have been praying for Peter, it seems they’re still getting used to the supernatural intervention of God as well because they don’t believe her at first. It’s a good thing God is patient with us.
         Meanwhile, back at the jail, when morning arrives there is “no small stir among the soldiers about what had become of Peter” (vs. 18). The soldiers know they’re in a heap of trouble. Sure enough, when Herod searches for Peter and he can’t be found, the king takes it out on the soldiers. They are killed instead. Meanwhile, Peter is safe in Caesarea.
         Now it’s Herod’s turn. The king is about to reap what he has sown. During a celebration with a visiting delegation, the people keep shouting, “The voice of a god and not of a man!” and Herod is loving it. Immediately, an angel of the Lord strikes Herod because he does not give glory to God.  Remember, he is the king of the Jews, who are supposed to be God’s people. He is devoured from within by worms and dies. Even though persecution and opposition continue, God is in control. For “the word of God grew and multiplied” (vs. 24).
        The Chronos Plan: The vast majority of us who live in the western world really don’t know the depth of persecution. Despite living in the extended time of the tribulation, we have had it relatively easy in comparison to the rest of the world. Persecution, like the rest of the “fruit” of the Devil, has always been with us, as has poverty, famine, pestilence, earthquakes and other natural disasters, wars, and ethnic cleansing. 
        In the time of the early Church, they were just beginning to sort out what it looks like to be the hands, feet, and mouthpieces of Christ on the earth. They were just learning how to stand on the truths of the Old Testament books by the leading of the Spirit within them. As we said before, this was a whole new ball game. Things would never be the same under the New Covenant.
         It is one thing to hear the Word and another to receive the Word inwardly, to where it is so trustworthy that the supernatural realm becomes more real than the natural, physical realm.  Part of the great commission that Jesus gave us informs us that we don’t have to worry about “taking up a serpent” or inadvertently drinking or eating anything deadly (Mark 16:14-18). This truth is our reality in these last Days.
        If there is any Psalm that we need to meditate on and come to accept as our new normal in this day and hour, it is Psalm 91. When we dwell in God’s Word and abide in His presence, He is our refuge and fortress. We can trust Him. I highly recommend that you commit this Psalm to memory.
         Among its many promises: He delivers us from the one who tries to ensnare us and from any pestilence, wherever it comes from. No destructive plan of the enemy can touch us. No plague can come near our dwelling. No evil shall befall us. He’s given His angels charge over us. Through Jesus’ authority, we trample the evil hierarchy underfoot. God always answers us in trouble. With long life He satisfies us. We can fully expect to see the benefits of our salvation not only when we are in Heaven, but now on this earth at this time!

      Despite threats from the religious leaders, we learn in Acts 4 that Peter and John continue preaching the Gospel. That is, that Jesus the Messiah came to deliver the people from sin by dying on the cross, that He was resurrected from the dead, and now lives forever more.
       This infuriates the captain of the Temple and the Sadducees. The Sadducees were an elite, aristocratic faction that wielded much power in the Temple. They tended to be the rich and powerful, and included the chief priests and high priest. They held the majority of the seats in the ruling council (the Sanhedrin).
       So it’s not surprising that they were fed up with this preaching. They thought they had gotten rid of this Jesus. Also not surprising, they arrested the duo that evening and kept them in custody until they could be questioned the next day.
     Despite this religious power mongering, Acts 4:4 records, “However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.” And that’s not counting the women and children who believed—five thousand plus in one day. I call that a successful crusade!
         The religious leaders demand to know by what power or by what name the disciples are healing and preaching. Take note: the Gospel is going forth with signs and wonders following to confirm the truths they are preaching. Filled with the Spirit, Peter begins another mini-sermon, quoting from Psalm 118:22 and Isaiah 28:16 about the new and living temple made of living stones fashioned after the Cornerstone.
         “If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:9-12).
         The Chronos Lesson: This is the power of being light and salt by the Spirit. Peter and John return to their brothers and sisters in the Lord to report what had transpired. How did their fellow believers respond? Did they grumble about the injustice? Did they curse the leaders? No, they prayed to God. And they used Scripture to do so, knowing that God’s Word is God’s will.
        They quote from Psalm 2, which is another Messianic time-specific prophetic Psalm. The part they quote describes the underlying antichrist spirit behind the injustice. Why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain (ego-centric and useless) thing? The disciples know God’s will and God’s appointed time for dealing with injustice.
          As for themselves, they know their assignment from the Lord and they do not intend to be deterred. They are determined not to react to the threats in an ungodly manner. They don’t call the rulers vicious names. They don’t even curse them. Instead, they pray for boldness to speak as they ought (see Eph. 6:18-20). They pray for the power of God to flow through them so that miracles can be done in the name of Jesus. Why? Because it is the goodness of God that draws people to repentance (Rom. 2:4). Light is the only thing that can dispel darkness.
          The Devil loves to see believers react according to the world’s ways—which are actually his ways. He loves to sidetrack believers, distracting them with activities that sound good but are not in concert with how God is moving in these times. It’s time to be moved by the Spirit and not by our own strategies.
         If our strategies ignore God’s prophetic plan of redemption, including the chronos times and the kairos signs, if they distract us from preaching the Gospel and making disciples, and if they keep us from being in tune with the Spirit so that we can be moved to do signs and wonders, then they are not from God, no matter how noble or religious they sound. In effect, that’s mimicking the religious leaders of Jesus’ time and our current humanistic world, and not Christ our Lord.
           Oh, by the way, the next chapter continues the story, saying that they continued to preach, with believers increasingly be added to the Lord—multitudes of both men and women. Wherever the disciples went, the multitudes gathered to hear, they brought sick people and those tormented by unclean spirits, “and they were all healed.”

       As Jesus’ earthly ministry was drawing to a close, He prepared His disciples to carry out their timely assignment. “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).
      As the end of this Church Age draws nearer, our understanding the chronos times and the kairos signs of our age help us to focus on our timely assignment. The timing of the Rapture is not dictated so much by when He needs to come to take us back to our prepared place in Father’s House in the 3rd Heaven. For we know for certain that we shall be caught up at the appointed time to be seated as the immortal, heavenly court to execute God’s vengeance against evil.
       Those of us who are “in Christ” have already been sealed by the Holy Spirit for that Day of Redemption, when we shall receive our glorified bodies, fully sanctified and complete in Him.  We already know that “His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Pet. 1:3-4).
         When we understand the times and the signs, we recognize that the rapture is related to the war with Gog of Magog (the Antichrist), which is the same 3½-year war described in Ezekiel 38 and 39, as well as other prophetic passages about the coming of the Day of the Lord. God shall indeed rend the heavens in response to the prayers of the Jewish nation overwhelmed by the sudden and swift invasion of the Antichrist’s coalition of Middle Eastern armies.
         It shall be the appointed time for Christ to come again because of God’s promise to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He promised that He would not allow them to perish from the earth. He would keep them from passing away as a people, for a remnant shall finally recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Hosea’s 3rd Day revival shall surely come to pass when the heavens are rolled back and Jesus stands on the Mount of Olives, splitting the mountain to make a way of escape.
       The Chronos Lesson: Like the tribe of Issachar, this timely understanding tells us what we need to do. We are called to be wise stewards of our time. So what is so pressing for us now that it should take precedence over everything else that the Church ought to be doing? We are to steward the last great revival on the earth through the Church while we’re still here.
        We are to continue to preach the Gospel to anyone who will listen, and to preach it in such a way that there are signs, miracles, and wonders confirming the good news of what Christ’s finished work has provided for all who are willing to believe in Him as their Savior. All because we have been with Jesus (Acts 4:13). This is what we see in the book of Acts at the start of this age.
        It is time to be about Father’s work, what He has purposely determined from the beginning to be done. Let us pray boldly as the early disciples did. “Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness we may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.”

     What actually triggers the rapture? We know there are two elements to this answer. First, the chronos aspect which is the appointed time. In His omniscience, God knows when the events will happen in the context of the 7 great prophetic Days. Second, the kairos aspect are the signs that we see that mark that appointed time. The event isn’t haphazard. It cannot be mistaken.
       When we think about the rapture when Christ returns for His Bride, the biblical shadow is that the groom will return at the appointed time, when all is prepared for His Bride to join him. In ancient times, there was no set because it depended upon when the preparations were complete.
          So what triggers Jesus’ return? It is driven by the invasion of the Antichrist’s coalition of Middle Eastern armies. God made a promise to the Jewish forefathers that Israel would not be destroyed. They would not be totally annihilated. The invasion that is one of the signs of the end of the sixth Day is the second Red Sea moment in Israel’s history. There is no escape.
         “We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask now, and see, whether a man is ever in labor with child? So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor, and all faces turned pale?  Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; and it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it” (Jeremiah 30:5-7).
       God’s people cry out in desperate prayer. “Oh, that You would rend the heavens! That You would come down! That the mountains might shake at Your presence—as fire burns brushwood, as fire causes water to boil—to make Your name known to Your adversaries, That the nations may tremble at Your presence” (Isaiah 64:1-2).
        The Almighty God’s answer is recorded in Ezekiel 38:18-23. God does indeed rend the heavens as Christ literally descends to Mt. Zion at the rapture. The force of His presence causes an earthquake that splits the mountain, providing a way of escape for the Jewish remnant who has finally recognized Jesus as the Messiah.
        We see this same earth-shattering timely trait over and over in prophecy concerning the Day of the Lord and Christ’s return at the dawn of the 7th Day. Revelation 16:18 is just one example. It is the 7th trumpet judgment: “And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth.”
         The Chronos Lesson: It was said of the tribe of Issachar that they had an understanding of the times and seasons so that they knew what to do in their own time. So our original question brings us to another. “Why do we need to study the Ezekiel War and see all the details?”  The answer is found in Acts 4:29-30.
         Paul and John have just been arrested by the religious Jewish leaders for causing a great disturbance. How? They were teaching about Jesus, particularly about His resurrection and His healing power.  Remarkably, they are released but threatened not to continue preaching. Verse 13 is revealing. “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.”
      Fast forward to our own time, in the midst of lawlessness, governmental disarray, and uncertainty. It’s time we recognize the power of our identity in Christ. The same Holy Spirit lives within every believer. When we understand the times and the seasons, we can pray as the disciples did, for it is the goodness of God that draws people to repentance.
         “Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they [we] may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus" (vs. 29).

     To judge or not to judge—that is the question. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Mt. 7:1-3). In other words, the way we judge others will come back on us. This is the principle of sowing and reaping. The context also warns us not to judge hypocritically.
    James expands on this concept, saying “There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?” (James 4:11-12). So does Paul in Romans 2:1-3. He tells us that “we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.”
     Later, in Philippians 1:9 Paul declares, “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment.” The Greek word for discernment here is aisthesis, which refers to perception, understanding, and judgment. It carries the idea of cutting through hazy matters, such as morality, in order to size things up correctly.
    This issue of haziness is crucial. We know from 1 Corinthians 2:11 that only God knows what is in the heart of a person. Only God sees the hidden things in each of us. Only God recognizes the purposes and motives of the heart (soul). As believers, we are not yet fully perfected in Christ, so we have to be careful to discern rather than make a final judgment.
    Jesus spoke about this kind of discerning judgment in Luke 12:56-57, when He chastised the religious leaders because they could “discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it you do not discern this time?” Hebrews 5:14 uses a derivation of the same word to tell us that this kind of discernment comes with spiritual maturity. In fact, it is vital that we exercise this God-given ability in order to discern both good and evil. The Greek word means to make a judicial ruling, to separate thoroughly what is of God and what is of the Devil.
     So how do believers do this while at the same time acknowledging that we are still on the journey with Christ to transform our minds according to God’s Word?
      Once again, we turn to the One who is the Truth and the Word for the answer. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that one thing we must do is to look at the fruit (Mt. 7:16). Every tree reproduces itself through the fruit, for the fruit carries the seed of life in it. You can identify the type of tree by its fruit because the Genesis principle is that every tree and creature produces after its own kind. A good tree will bear good fruit; a bad tree will bear bad fruit. “Therefore, by their fruits you will know them.” The Greek word for know here is ginosko—the kind of knowledge that comes through study and careful observation. The fruit is the person’s  or an organization’s lifestyle.
       The Chronos Lesson: So the issue is not so much whether or not to judge, but how we judge. Since we are not all-knowing like God, we cannot know everything that must be known in order to judge rightly. Because we are not perfect like God, we run the risk of condemning a person out of our own imperfections. It is a common peculiarity of humans that the things that bug us the most can often be something we exhibit ourselves. Let’s face it, are any of us able to cast the first stone?
       We are, however, responsible for observing the fruit so that we can determine what is godly and what is evil. Part of being light and salt in this world is to bring God’s revelation of truth to the world to help them see the distinction. But because God designed humans with a will, we cannot force our choices on others. Sometimes they just have to see the consequences of their actions—to see how bad the fruit is—in order for them to recognize that the “tree” is not good.
      This is also why we cannot legislate morality. Laws, by definition, require an agreed upon standard of right and wrong. Yet our culture today is based on relativism. That is, individuals determine what is right and wrong for themselves. By rejecting God as the Creator and Supreme Being, society has no basis for determining what is right and wrong behavior. Practically speaking, if we look back through history, every attempt to legislate morality has backfired.
      This is why Paul warns us, “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God” (1 Cor. 4:5). In the meantime, we can and must observe the fruit and discern rightly according to God’s truths.
      Why is this appointed time tied to the Lord’s return? It is because at the rapture, we shall be perfected and conformed thoroughly to Christ. Then and only then will we have the full capacity to judge rightly, in all truth, and without hypocrisy. It is also when we will stand in complete agreement with God and our Lord to execute His righteous judgments as the heavenly court at the appointed time.