My Dear Friend,

A major correction is coming to the church as we move toward the time of the translation. Revelation hints at this.

Before John experienced his "rapture," or sudden transportation into God's glorious presence, he wrote letters of correction to the churches of Asia Minor on the behalf of Jesus. Wide correction. Deep correction. Explicit correction. Thorough correction. Transformative correction (Revelation 2-3).

Only when these corrective messages were finished was John taken up - in an obvious parallel to the great, sudden, snatching away of the bride of Christ (Revelation 4:1-2). So, the order of events was first correction, and then departure.

In each letter to the churches there is a distinct pattern: examination, assessment, separation, rewarding, punishing, reordering. Before discussing these, let us remember who was doing the correcting: the same Jesus that twice purged, or corrected, the Jewish temple. (See Mark 11:15-19; John 2:13-16.)

When correcting the Jewish "house" of God, Jesus appeared suddenly - there was no advance warning to allow those needing correction to mask their wrongdoing. And He was explicit and direct. He didn't mince words. His rebukes were swift, sharp, cutting. He was shockingly forceful. Indeed, He seemed a very different man from the usually mild-mannered, Nazarene rabbi and compassionate healer.

Initially, He caused a very disruptive disturbance - tossing about tables, money baskets, and bird cages, whipping donkeys and burros, and driving out religious merchants and buyers whose actions showed they had little or no respect, or holy awe, for His Father's Word and will. This odd "ministry" (and, yes, it was ministry) in the temple was starkly different from His preaching, teaching, and healing ministry in Galilee. It did not make those "ministered to" feel good or praise Yahweh, of that I'm sure. Yet everything He said and did was necessary, God-pleasing, and in the best interests of the temple and its worshipers. Why?

God could not honor a temple that was dishonoring Him. And by their intentional, impenitent, and persistent disobedience, the Jewish leaders were doing just that. "Those who honor me I will honor" was the unchanging divine declaration (1 Samuel 2:30, NKJV). So, Jesus corrected the temple not once but twice - in the first and third years of His ministry - to restore it to a biblically obedient, God-honoring condition. God said it was to be a "house of prayer" for all people, but the Sadducean chief priests had turned it into a "den of thieves" - Jewish money-changers and animal dealers providing suitable animals and Jewish coins for fellow Jewish worshipers for excessive profit (Matthew 21:13)!

So, the Judge of all visited as unexpectedly as a Thief in the Night to restore divine order to the divinely chosen people who, sadly, had become quite content with living in biblical and spiritual disorder (notwithstanding the Pharisees' letter-perfect Torahic instructions and meticulous keeping of the rabbinic traditions).

Take a moment, please, to pause and think over what I have just described: Jesus, not another; coming to God's house, not a pagan idol shrine; finding God's people, not Roman emperors, dishonoring God; forcefully changing the temple's disorder into order - without permission from the religious leaders; and finishing His work quickly, not over a long period. Ponder this. Turn it over in your mind and examine it from every angle before reading further in this piece. Why meditate on this most momentous gospel moment?

You are about to see it again! Oh, not on Israel's presently usurped temple mount, but in the worldwide church of Jesus Christ. In the near future, in some way, when we least expect it, through agents He sovereignly chooses, by the works of ministers He appoints, through the messages of His genuinely anointed New Testament prophets, change is coming to our individual lives and Christian assemblies, ministries, and missions. Deep changes. Wide changes. Thorough changes. Transformative changes.

The way we are living, the way we worship, the way we work, the way we prepare ministers, the way we conduct missions, the way we give our money, the way we lead our churches, the way we present the Gospel, all these things are soon to come under intense, continuing, direct divine scrutiny.

It won't feel good, but it will be good. It won't seem right, but it is right and will get us right. It will look like things are being turned upside down, but they are being turned right side up. It will cause temporary chaos, but will ultimately restore God's order. Many will say it's the devil, but it will be God. All God! Why?

Christ will be cleaning up His bride. You see, "she" - the corporate body of overcomers composed of every humble, willing, Christ-loving Christian who takes spiritual preparation for His coming seriously - must get ready for translation . . . and blissful, eternal union with Him: "His wife has made herself ready" (Revelation 19:7, NKJV)! The Jesus who initiates and guides all this correction from heaven will be the same Jesus who purged the Jewish temple on earth and, over sixty years later, spoke from heaven to purge the churches of Asia Minor.

When Jesus suddenly, forcefully reordered the temple the first time, it surprised the unspiritual, power-hungry Jewish leaders. When He did it the second time, that was it! "The chief priests" immediately clustered and "sought to destroy him" (Luke 19:47). Within a week, He was on a cross and they were back in control of the temple.

Pardon me for sounding political (I am apolitical), but I see a distant parallel to our current events. After the last presidential election, it was clear that the people were calling for radical change in the way our federal government, now thirty-six trillion dollars in debt, does business. So a vigorous, sweeping correction is now underway. Federal agencies are being examined by presidentially appointed agents. Fraud, abuse, and inefficiency are being examined, exposed, and removed. (Even if you don't like Trump's methods, bear with me here, and consider the legitimacy of this parallel.) The resistance is loud, vicious, and threatening violence. Why? Correction is underway. Deep. Wide. Thorough. Hopefully transformative. And presently many are angry. Why? Some of them fear their illegal or unethical conduct will be exposed. Others are just blindly following the mobs and mantras of the anti-correction leaders. This present turmoil is the price of long-needed change. Some are for it, while others so displeased with a little disruption they would rather maintain the status quo, though inefficient, corrupt, and self-opposing. The outcome remains to be seen. Now back to our biblical illustration.

Whether America gets its house in order or not, Christ will restore His. Of this, there is no doubt. Why am I so sure? It is written! Here is God's writ: "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God" (1 Peter 4:17). That "house" is the church and that "time" is this time - the period leading up to the translation of the bride. What will Christ do in this "judgment"?

Exactly what He did twenty centuries ago! Since His nature does not change, His methods and goals do not change. Here is what we may expect:

• HE WILL EXAMINE US. Jesus' spiritual vision sees through our religious facades, stubborn obstructions, and crafty deflections. He discerns the way we truly think, our real inner condition, our actual attitudes, the real "us." As He walked among the lampstands of the churches of Asia seeing things exactly as they were (Revelation 2:1), so He does constantly among our churches. In the coming correction, He will simply make known what He has been seeing all along.

• HE WILL ASSESS US. Precious metals are assessed, or assayed, to determine their purity and value. Jesus will determine our spiritual value by our obedience to His Word and Spirit. Then He will tell us exactly where we are spiritually in His sight and thus what we are worth to Him in His service. Since, sadly, we do not consistently judge ourselves as we are commanded to, Jesus' assessment of us often differs widely from ours. The Laodiceans boasted that they were "rich," but Jesus assessed them as spiritually "poor," and said so.

• HE WILL SEPARATE US. "What?! I thought Jesus wants unity," we may ask. He does want unity, first with Him, and then with fellow Christians. But sometimes we get to destination unity by a road called separation. There comes a time - and we are at its doorstep now at the "end of this age" (Matthew 13:40) - when Jesus will separate the wheat from the chaff by identifying those who are trusting, obedient, and sound in doctrine and those who are not. He called out certain members of the church at Thyatira for heresy, fornication, and false prophecy and then distinguished them from the remnant that was still faithful. Thus, He separated the sheep from the goats. To us this will also mean separating from the close company of impenitent sinners and stubbornly unspiritual Christians in order to draw close to Christ and form spiritually edifying friendships with godly Christians and mature mentors - and pray for those from whom we have separated that ultimately unity may be restored.

• HE WILL REWARD THE OBEDIENT. In Asia Minor, this "reward" came in the form of divine commendations and promises of new authority, opportunities, privileges, honors, and ministries to those who continued to "overcome" in their trials and ministries. Jesus commended every church that continued in faith, zeal, and good works: Smyrna for its willingness to die for Him, Philadelphia for its enduring faith in long trials, and the remnant still living worthily in the unworthy Sardis church.

• HE WILL PUNISH THE DISOBEDIENT. "What?! Jesus punish . . . and Christians?" you ask in shock. Yes! Jesus not only blesses but also punishes. Precisely that occurred in Asia Minor - if the disobedient did not respond to His requested corrections. This punishment came in the form of love-inspired rebukes and warnings, because those He loves He "rebukes and chastens" whenever necessary (Revelation 3:19). He warned Ephesus it was about to lose its lampstand as an effective witness, Laodicea that it was about to be "vomited," - or rejected, and Pergamum that He was about to come "fight" against its leaders for irresponsibly refusing to deal with the heresies that were harming His people.

• HE WILL REORDER US. Reordering - returning something to the form and function its designer intended - is the end to which all Christ's examinations, assessments, separations, rewards, and punishments have been leading. When we emerge from the coming correction, we will be sanctified, unified, and close to Christ. We will live, worship, and serve God's way, as prescribed in His Word, not according to our own ways and whims. Reordering always results in revival and re-empowerment. God delights to refill reordered Christians and churches with His reviving life and miraculous power. When we are reordered, we will write a new and final chapter to the Book of Acts: Acts 29!

Once reestablished in God's order, we will also learn how to "stand" (Ephesians 6:11, 14). We will stand in awe of Him, not this world's great ones. Under this spiritual covering of wholehearted, holy respect, we will stand strong in our tests and temptations. We will stand loyally by fellow faithful Christians in their trials. We will stand and speak the truth whenever called upon to do so. We will stand against all heresy and sin, when it appears among us. We will stand firm in faithful living in these faithless times. We will stand in loving service in this cynical, bitter world. And we will "stand" before Christ in the secret place, "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit" for sinners and saints (Ephesians 6:11, 14, 18).

And because we are standing with Christ, He will stand with us. Through the fires. In the floods. Through the rivers. While we are being scourged by vicious lies. While we hang on our crosses of rejection without cause. While we are in cold tombs of apparently irreversibly hopeless failures - until He raises us to renewed service and fruitfulness. Why?

He has changed us. Deeply. Widely. Thoroughly. Transformationally. We are now ready for heavenly worship in Christ's presence on this earth. Ready to finish our commissions and ministries in this world. Ready to show those among whom we live and labor the real Jesus through Christlike living and, if necessary, suffering. Ready to be translated bodily into His presence just as John was transported spiritually 2,000 years ago: "After this . . . the first voice that I heard was, as it were, of a trumpet talking with me, which said, Come up here . . . And immediately I was in the Spirit and, behold a throne was set in heaven" (Revelation 4:1-2).

So it will be with every spiritually prepared Christian and church. "Immediately," we will be in His presence. Why? We have experienced a major correction.

A minor prophet expecting a major correction,

Dr. Greg Hinnant

GREG HINNANT MINISTRIES