A TRUMPET IN THE WILDERNESS

P.O. Box 1752

Denton, Texas 76202

(940) 479-2843

trumpet@airmail.net

atrumpetinthewilderness.org

Newsletter # 31 May, 2002

Blow a trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm on My Holy mountain!

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is

Coming; surely it is near

WRONG FOCUSES - FALSE BUILDINGS

Editor's Note:

For over the past year I have written exclusively to the American Church at large. When I use the word church I am addressing all those who say that they are believers in Yeshua (Jesus), those who say they are Christian whether they meet in cathedrals, temples, buildings, home groups or do not meet any place.

Over the past year, I have tried to express myself in various ways, modes and arguments, but in short, all my exhortations are saying basically the same thing: get your house in order! Some reading this article will label my remarks as incongruous at best, and they will not be heard or accepted. Some have stigmatized me as carping and condemning. I have received rebukes from the brethren that I am devoid of any encouragement. However, if one looks closely enough, they will be able to see the love in which it was written.

There's a great need of repair under this canopy we call Church, everything from the side show charlatans, selling their latest gimmick on religious television, to robe-wearing Priests trying to cover their own perversion. I use the aforementioned to try to convey that much in the so-called Church is in peril. His house is full of raging wolves. Some actually look like sheep but they are not. They are deceiving and destroying many. They must be stopped!

I am, to the best of my ability, trumpeting a call for the Church to come back to the cross so she can die to herself in order to live for Christ.

We haven't a clue as to what is about to happen to us, not only as a Church but as a nation. The great tribulation is at hand and we are about to face the greatest cataclysm in the tumultuous course of mankind. I have urged the Church to be grounded in Yeshua and not in things. What is about to happen and is already happening will cause multitudes to fall away. The Middle East will continue to be the focal point as we wind down the brief time we have left. So much destruction awaits while we sit and live however we want. This lackadaisical attitude has become a way of life with most in the Church. Many have given up.

I question at times if I have even heard from the Lord, for most of my exhortations have gone unheeded and basically ignored.

Those in the church must discover the reality of death to self. However, let me be candid and confess, that this writer has yet to die in a number of areas, but I welcome His scalpel to continue to cut away that which still lives.

In this article I try to address a deception the enemy is using and that is to keep people off focus. I have decided to address the three closest groups to me. You can most assuredly say that I am preaching to the choir.

I did something a little different that I am not likely to repeat. I have drawn parallels from a famous movie and how it relates to many believers. The movie is the 1933 version of "King Kong".

I trust this article will bless you and at the same time awaken those who are still asleep. I welcome your comments.

I have entitled this message: "Wrong Focuses, False Buildings".

King Kong's Mistakes:

I recall at the age of eight or nine sitting spellbound in front of a little eighteen inch Admiral television set, watching the original 1933 movie, King Kong. This movie had already become a classic, and I was watching it on the Saturday afternoon matinee. I remember fighting back tears when this mammoth beast with benevolent anthropoid-like tendencies, tumbled to the ground from the top of the Empire State Building. King Kong who ruled the jungle was subdued by the jungles of New York City, and tumbled 102 stories to his death.

The story begins when a crew from New York arrived at the mysterious Skull Island, somewhere in the Indian Ocean to do some location shooting for a new picture. The all male crew did not know the secrets that Skull Island held. A beautiful actress by the name of Ann accompanied the crew. The natives took a liking to the lovely actress and kidnapped her as an offering to their god, Kong. Kong demonstrates human romantic type tendencies toward the lovely lady but is later captured by the crew on the beach by using sleeping gas and taken to New York.

Weeks later, a live show opens in New York City's Radio City Music Hall, with a chained Kong as the main attraction. He is proclaimed as "The Eighth Wonder of the World." However just as the show opens, the man in charge granted the reporters a closer look at Kong who was chained between two pillars. When all the flash bulbs went off from the reporters' cameras, Kong apparently thought his object of affection was in trouble and breaks free in an attempt to rescue her. Kong wreaks havoc in the city in an attempt to find the blond beauty who has escaped into an high rise hotel room. He scales the high rise and finally locates her and reaches into a top storeroom and grabs her. He then climbs to the top of the Empire State Building.

Kong fights a duel to the death with a squadron of bullet shooting airplanes. These bullet-shooting biplanes were too much of a match for the mammoth ape.

Apparently the Empire State Building, reminding Kong of his place of safety back on Skull Island, thought he was climbing to escape to a place of security. However he was climbing to his death. He was climbing up a wrong building. He had focused on a wrong thing and was climbing up a false place of safety. Kong made two very grievous mistakes. First he focused on the wrong thing. In his case it was the beautiful Ann. Secondly he climbed up a wrong building, in his case the Empire State Building.

I want to draw a striking parallel of King Kong on the high-rise and many believers in today's world. Kong reminds me of many believers who are fighting everything the enemy throws at them and they are not where they should be.

Why are so many believers ready to give up? How did so many Christians get to where they are?

Kong didn't get to the high-rise all at once. He had to first be taken captive. He focused on the wrong thing. Kong focused on a beautiful girl. Many believers have focused on many wrong things. Because of wrong focuses we find ourselves swatting futilely at many of the atrocities that surround us.

There is a way which seems right to man, but the end is the way of death. Proverbs 14:12

I have chosen these three groups because they are very dear to me. Within each of these groups are some real believers in Yeshua. These groups are not wrong within themselves if they are on the right building and have the correct focus.

"Churchy" Churchgoers Building

Before I address this group let me say it was in this group that I was first taught of Yeshua who we pronounced Jesus. In addition to learning about Him, I was introduced to a myriad of other Biblical characters and the stories that surrounded them.

Although there are true believers in established Churches who are trusting the Lord the best they know how, many are not focusing on Yeshua and thus they are in a wrong building and are focusing on wrong things. Anytime your focus is not on Yeshua you are focusing on something that is wrong, no matter how good it may be. You are in a false place of security.

Many are secure in their false security. Sunday after Sunday they are sitting in a pew that will carry them to hell. This saddens me and angers me simultaneously. If your faith is in a denomination, then I urge you in the name of Yeshua, to come out of a building and come into Him.

The number one false building is just that, a building. The Churchy Church goers are at ease in Zion. This is one area were Protestant and Catholics are joined at the hip. Whether they use the blasphemous names like "holy father", "blessed mother" or more covert names such as "Imabaptist", "Imamethodist", "Imapentacostal", they all are wrong if one's faith is in them. I am acquainted with two men who could be used by the Lord so much but they are chained by their denomination. I did not say chained by their doctrine. I am not saying we should rescind doctrine. On the contrary, Scripture should teach us doctrine, but our doctrine should not teach us Scripture. Today there's a total abandonment of doctrine in many Churches. This is saliently true with most charismatics. They believe a two and one half hour pep rally will suffice for instruction, exhortation, and correction for the week. Actually this is why many are weak. I am vexed and concerned by the lack of doctrine, and I plan to address this pressing issue as one of the articles in my next newsletter.

One of the foremost ways to know God is through His Word. Since creation God has been trying to get man to know Him. Many will read the latest book from their Christian bookstore, but nothing in the Word of God. As long as the "Prayer of Jabez" and the Left Behind series continue, Christian book stories will stay open and the Churchy Churchgoer will be content.

These religious thespians are gifted at playing church and they have their reward by fooling each other. Their narcissism is evident. I will dare to say many if not the majority of those who attend services have never had a born again experience and the watered down Gospel they have heard has had no hope of redemption.

In the name of Yeshua I charge you to come out of a system and put your faith 100 per cent in Him and prove your faith by your obedience. Obey the Word of the Lord and stop debating it.

Do you know Yeshua, or do you only know about Him? Are you born again, or were you basically born in a Church?

The "Synthetic" Remnant Building

Like in the previous group I have learned much from these people, and like in the first group there are those who really believe in Yeshua.

However, many in this group are excited about some new truths they have learned and have lost focus on Yeshua Himself. I call them the Synthetic Remnant because many have focused on the things they teach, on information they have obtained, but have failed to focused on Yeshua and thus they are focusing on wrong things and thus they are in a false building. Synthetic is something that is close but not the genuine article. They are close but not the real thing.

However, things began to happen that they didn't expect to happen. Many people let their guard down when the Y2K events didn't take place like many prophesied. A lot of self-proclaimed prophets profited from the profits made from books, tapes, and videos sold regarding the horrendous events that were supposed to have occurred but didn't involving the Y2K fiasco. Many got wounded by their good intentions and from following the words of the false prophets. As you have heard: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I started writing our newsletter in November of 1996. At that time I attended a lot of prophecy conferences. I attended more then than I do now, but I still will attend one now and then. There is a brother I know who had built up a world wide following. He was and is a dynamic speaker. He was and is a true servant of Yeshua. He was and is not perfect, but his trust was and is in Yeshua. However, he went out on a limb a number of years ago and made a startling prophecy concerning Israel. It didn't happen. The limb broke and many people fell off the limb. They not only followed him, some actually put their faith in him. When his prophecy did not materialize the following occurred. Many became numb, and their numbness was replaced with disillusion, their disillusion was replaced with anger, and anger was replaced with the greatest evil of all, indifference. They like Kong set their eyes on wrong things and ended up on a false building. Houses built on sand will surely fall even if the sand looks like rock. Many have put their faith in some biblical facts, but faith in facts will not suffice in the day of testing.

These people are correctly aware that we are to obey all the law of God and not pick and choose. They especially like to camp on the fourth commandment. I am amazed how the fourth commandment divides. It is either ignored completely or is emphasized above all the others. I believe we are to keep the Sabbath day and to keep it holy, but I do not believe in the Sabbath Police. While the churchgoers put the fourth commandment on extinction the Synthetic Remnant builds much of their theology on this one. You can be a complete Sabbath keeper and go to hell. This is a broad and intense study, and saying too little could be saying too much.

I will never forget a meeting I attended in Dallas, Texas several years ago. I think it was around 1998. This meeting focused on survival and keeping the Law of God. Many of the messages centralized on the fourth commandment. These discussions turn into snobbery and a holier than thou attitude. There were sarcastic jokes and snickers like a bunch of undisciplined Junior High students when the teacher is out of the room. Anytime our pride is vested in something, even if that something may be righteous and correct our pride can nullify anything which is good.

Our faith cannot be in the law or in how much theology or eschatology we know. Our faith must be in Him-Yeshua - and Him alone. We must have a firm foundation on the Rock, and any other foundation will be false and will not hold. Although much of what they say is correct many have their faith in their "theological correctness".

God has already set things in motion and some things we cannot change but we fight just the same. However we can only fight from the correct building with the correct focus.

I beseech you my brothers and sisters, if your faith is not in Yeshua it matters not how much you know. You will simply spend eternity in hell and tell the others how smart you thought you were.

I know a man who knows as much about Torah as some Torah teachers. He is a wealth of knowledge on anything Jewish, but I have yet to ascertain any real depth in his faith. We must be clear on this! Satan will use any of his adroit and deceitful schemes he can to deter our walk. He will use anything to get believers to take a detour and focus on anything but Yeshua.

Many are where they are as a result of a series of circumstances. We must remember we are not the results of our circumstances but our responses to them. Some of these things will be difficult to discern, and we must have absolute perspicacity to know what we are to do. The only way to have this kind of discernment is as a gift from the Holy Spirit. It's essential to be clearly focused on Yeshua.

So much awaits us. We will go through the great tribulation. The great tribulation will be the greatest cataclysm in the tumultuous course of mankind. Our main focus has to be in and on Yeshua so we can correctly see how to fight and deal with the strategic events.

How many of you are on top of a wrong building, focusing on wrong things? When Kong was on the Empire State Building he took a bullet to the neck. I remember he put his hand on his neck and looked at the blood on his hand, he looked at the biplanes and again at his own blood. He seemed not only hurt but confused. He took a few more bullets to the neck area, made a couple of desperate swipes at the biplanes before tumbling to the ground. Although he did manage to get one biplane he couldn't take any more bullets and 102 stories brought him to his death.

If everything around you were stripped from you, i.e., your church, home group, family, friends, and anyone you fellowship with would you still have faith? Is your faith in them or in Him?

If we are going to survive, let alone be victorious, if we are going to be on the vanguard of His army, we must learn to abide in the Vine. It matters not how correct you are, if your faith is not in Yeshua and in Him alone.

Now may the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob bless you through His Son Yeshua.

In His Service

Jack Hunter

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem