Answering Initial Questions
(Blog 0019 AndrewHadden.com)
I am obedient. That’s how I got all the callings he has given me, obeying, again, and again, for decades. Difficult obedience, painful obedience, risky obedience, always obedient. Try it. It will get you bigger and bigger callings, whether you wanted them or not. Is that a good introduction to this discourse, answering questions on my callings, roles assigned to me by God?
But that is not all. Trials and tests played a big role. You would not believe me if I told you. Really. Christ says I have been tried beyond all others. The trials began at birth – with me being delivered into the hands of Satan and his minions, who knew my callings, and who were given the opportunity to try to stop me from ever fulfilling them. My callings include being called to imprison Satan for a thousand years, during the millennium, and participate in throwing him into the lake of fire to die forever, in excruciating pain. My callings also include slaying principalities, the “gods” of old, who are prophetically warned in Psalm 82:7 they will “die like men.” So they took their best shot at me from birth, for decades. Even torture and attempted murder were allowed, with God preventing my death, I don’t know how many times. Apparently, Satan also was not allowed to permanently, visibly, maim me. Satan was positioned to rule, beneath Christ, on Christ’s divine council, through whom he was to rule the Earth. Satan fell and continued to rule until the time appointed to remove him, this time. Christ facilitated what he appointed for men to now do – take the place of the fallen on God’s former divine council, including Satan’s place as Christ’s assistant.
God had me prepare to answer the question, “Who is Andrew Hadden?” He wanted me to have it “Short, concise, direct” and said to “Say who you are – in scripture.”
I am sent to fulfill these scriptural prophecies:
Malachi 3:1-3
3:1 "Behold, I send My messenger,
And he will prepare the way before Me.
And the Lord, whom you seek,
Will suddenly come to His temple,
Even the Messenger of the covenant,
In whom you delight.
Behold, He is coming,"
Says the LORD of hosts.
2 "But who can endure the day of His coming?
And who can stand when He appears?
For He is like a refiner's fire
And like launderers' soap.
3 He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver;
He will purify the sons of Levi,
And purge them as gold and silver,
That they may offer to the LORD
An offering in righteousness.
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(Note: The sons of Levi were the priests, and servants in the House of the Lord.)
Malachi 4:5
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
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Zechariah 3 & 4
3:1 Vision of the High Priest
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him.
2 And the LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?"
3 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel.
4 Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, "Take away the filthy garments from him." And to him He said, "See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes."
5 And I said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head."
So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him. And the Angel of the LORD stood by.
6 Then the Angel of the LORD admonished Joshua, saying,
7 "Thus says the LORD of hosts:
'If you will walk in My ways,
And if you will keep My command,
Then you shall also judge My house,
And likewise have charge of My courts;
I will give you places to walk
Among these who stand here.
8 'Hear, O Joshua, the high priest,
You and your companions who sit before you,
For they are a wondrous sign;
For behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH.
9 For behold, the stone
That I have laid before Joshua:
Upon the stone are seven eyes.
Behold, I will engrave its inscription,'
Says the LORD of hosts,
'And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.
10 In that day,' says the LORD of hosts,
'Everyone will invite his neighbor
Under his vine and under his fig tree.'"
4:1 Vision of the Lampstand and Olive Trees
Now the angel who talked with me came back and wakened me, as a man who is wakened out of his sleep.
2 And he said to me, "What do you see?" So I said, "I am looking, and there is a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it, and on the stand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps.
3 Two olive trees are by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at its left."
4 So I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me, saying, "What are these, my lord?"
5 Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, "Do you not know what these are?" And I said, "No, my lord."
6 So he answered and said to me:
"This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel:
'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,'
Says the LORD of hosts.
7'Who are you, O great mountain?
Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain!
And he shall bring forth the capstone
With shouts of "Grace, grace to it!"'"
8 Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying:
9 "The hands of Zerubbabel
Have laid the foundation of this temple;
His hands shall also finish it.
Then you will know That the LORD of hosts has sent Me to you.
10 For who has despised the day of small things?
For these seven rejoice to see
The plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.
They are the eyes of the LORD,
Which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth."
11 Then I answered and said to him, "What are these two olive trees — at the right of the lampstand and at its left?"
12 And I further answered and said to him, "What are these two olive branches that drip into the receptacles of the two gold pipes from which the golden oil drains?"
13 Then he answered me and said, "Do you not know what these are?"
And I said, "No, my lord."
14 So he said, "These are the two anointed ones, who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth."
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Revelation 11:3-12
3 And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth."
4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. 5 And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner. 6 These have power to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy; and they have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues, as often as they desire.
7 When they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them. 8 And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. 9 Then those from the peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations will see their dead bodies three-and-a-half days, and not allow their dead bodies to be put into graves. 10 And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them, make merry, and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.
11 Now after the three-and-a-half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. 12 And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, "Come up here." And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them.
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Designating that I am to fulfill Malachi 3:1-3 and Malachi 4:5 means that I am to fulfill, for Christ’s second coming, the scriptures that John the Baptist was sent to fulfill for Christ’s first coming, being a forerunner, and coming in the spirit and power of Elijah. Christ did indicate, after John the Baptist was dead, another fulfilling these scriptures.
I am also assigned to be one of the two witnesses of Revelation chapter 11, verses 3-12, who are predicted in type by the High Priest, Joshua, in Zechariah chapter three, and Zerubbabel, the governor, in Zechariah chapter four. Joshua was given to judge, rule, God’s House, and Zerubbabel was in government, but also was commissioned to build the House of the Lord. But Joshua and Zerubbabel are both called the “two olive trees” – a source of olive oil used to ritually anoint leaders. Anointing has long meant an outward show of being chosen by God and being anointed, enabled, by God for the task to which one is called. The two witnesses in Revelation 11 are also called “the two olive trees.” God is indicating they are fulfilling the predictive types from the prophecy in Zechariah chapters three and four. They are a channel of God’s anointing for God’s people for the end times.
I also rely upon God’s explanation to me that the two witnesses are sent to be defenders and deliverers of God’s people in the end times. The plagues and judgments they pronounce are meant to defend and deliver God’s people across the world, much as Moses was sent to plague Egypt in order to free God’s people from oppression and slavery there, long ago. God will punish the oppressors of his people across the globe, in fair and equal measure to the way they oppress and afflict God’s people. But those that seek to slay God’s people will also be slain.
My first task, though, is to give people hope. All is not lost; fates are not yet set. God will still give mercy to those who sincerely repent of their sins, turn from them, and seek God and seek to obey him. God offers help and strength to live the moral life he asks of his people. He offers mercy to those that stumble and fail in weakness, as they strive to obey. The blood sacrifice of Christ on the cross is the only thing God accepts as payment of the penalty for past sin. It is freely given to those that ask. Heaven is not earned by good deeds, and none of our deeds are good enough to earn forgiveness and Heaven. Forgiveness and eternal life are mercifully offered through the blood of Christ.
Please note that the numbered 1260 days in which the two witnesses prophesy in Jerusalem are at the end of the great tribulation, which has not yet begun. We are in the time of the “beginning of sorrows” that Christ spoke of in Matthew 24, or “birth pangs” Paul spoke of in Romans 8 – a time before the tribulation, the final seven years.
People need to understand that the millennium comes before the tribulation, not after it, a view that a large portion of the Church has understood for much of Church history. (A view called “postmillennialism” as to the physical return of Christ relative to the millennium.) That goes along with them seeing evidence in scripture that Christ rules through his people, not in person, in the millennium, as seen in Revelation chapters two and three. So we have a much brighter future ahead than we would if we were heading right into the tribulation, as those with more media attention have assumed. That difficult seven-year time of trouble is more than a thousand years away.
We are in a time where God’s people, Christians and Christian Jews, must prepare to come out of “Babylon,” the world’s ruling system, and await God’s time to gather his people together in a protected place. This also signals that a pretribulation rapture is not necessary to fulfill the promise to protect God’s people from God’s wrath, as many have assumed in error. Yet God’s people must still, in measure, “come out of Babylon,” so as not to partake in her sins and receive of her judgments (Revelation 18:4). For now, that means to live where God directs you to live, to avoid judgments that will come in some areas for unrepentant sin, as God fulfills Christ’s words about severing the wicked from among the just at the end of the age (Matthew 13:49).
Do not despair. There will be a great outpouring of God’s Spirit and anointing upon his people, and their leaders, in the days and years ahead. There will be signs and wonders and miracles. God’s people will rise triumphant over the trials of the times.