Left Behind ...

A friend of mine once told me … “we do not get punished FOR our sins, we get punished BY our sins.” When understood properly we realize how detrimental all forms of evil are to ourselves, to all those around us, to our victims, and to our God who wishes us free from such self-inflicted pain. But it is not only from our own evil that we can suffer, we can also suffer from the evil of others. In the last days, Satan’s abilities will be less restrained and he will do much to divert the world’s attention away from truth, away from redemption, and towards a path of self-destruction that will finally result in the first death of all those who embrace his ideologies. As the end draws near a sequence of events will occur to give warning of what is to come.

One of the shortest texts in the Bible is … “Jesus wept.” Our savior felt the keen pain and sting of death as it affected the sisters of Lazarus. He sympathized with them and their loss, and was moved to act to reduce their pain. And so one of the greatest miracles affirming His divinity was conducted as He called Lazarus forth from the grave by name. Had He been more generic every dead person buried in the region might have come forth. But Lazarus heard his name called and emerged from the tomb, still wrapped in the cloths designed for his burial. It was this action that cemented the Religious leadership of the day to kill our Lord. This act was incontrovertible proof of His divinity, and instead of accepting Him, they purposed to kill Him.

The disciples and Christ visited with their friends for a while, and interestingly enough, nowhere in the Gospel does Lazarus talk about the searing pain of hell’s flames; or the bliss of his time in heaven with the father. Rather, he was asleep, knowing not anything, having no part in the land of the living as Solomon had once written. Those who believe that upon death a soul enters eternal glory or eternal punishment misread the scriptures. If this were true, it would have been an unspeakable harm to pull Lazarus out of heaven, to come back to live in a world of pain once again. I imagine Lazarus would not have been too happy about it. Also note that upon Christ’s own resurrection from the grave, He was plain to say to Mary not to touch Him yet because … “he had not ascended yet to His Father.” Christ too slept in the grave upon his death and resumed His life and work on His resurrection.

This distinction about our condition upon death is important as a belief that the soul is eternal opens the door to much mischief by the evil one. In Genesis at our creation the Bible speaks plainly that God breathed the breath of life into our nostrils and man “became” a living soul. We had a beginning, and those who embrace evil will have an end. God told our parents that upon eating the fruit from the sin restricted tree, they would surely die. If our souls were to live forever, then death would not be the true end result of eating that fruit. God would have lied. Even a tortured existence in hell that supposedly lasts forever, is still existence, not death. God was clear, the punishment was death.

In the beginning of the book of Acts the disciples witnessed the ascension of Christ back to Heaven on clouds of glory. The angels told them He would return in like manner. And every eye shall see Him. Later Paul writing to the Thessalonians describes the second coming of Christ as the son of Man appearing in the clouds (the same as in Acts) with a loud voice, a shout, a trumpet sound to wake those who sleep to greet the Lord in the air. After which we who are alive and remain are caught up to be with the Lord forever. This is a loud, visible, world captivating event, that no one will miss. We will not need the Satellite technology of the day, as our naked eye will easily see His return. The graves will give up their dead, not raised in the imperfection in which we went into the tombs, but in the perfection He always intended us to be.

Knowing that the dead sleep, means they could not be interfering in the lives of the living. There is therefore, no such thing as ghosts. But there is such a thing as a fallen angel, or demon in you prefer. Beings who are able to take on the form, and sounds, and smells, of those who have passed on before (probably by manipulation of DNA at a molecular level). They impersonate the dead, as they did with “Samuel” who appeared to Saul at the summoning of a witch in the Old Testament. Saul believed it to be Samuel, but the Bible is clear that it could not have been. “The dead know not anything.” They sleep awaiting the resurrection of the righteous as described by Paul, or the resurrection of the wicked as described by John in the book of Revelations. The results of Saul listening and believing the words of the fallen angel who impersonated Samuel led to his death, and those of his sons. Saul lost everything because of who he listened to.

Revelations speaks about a time of Jacob’s Trouble before the end arrives. It is a time of persecution. Christians have always assumed that this persecution would come from non-believers to those who still believed. But the truth may be more insidious than this. Revelations also speaks of an Anti-Christ who will arise and deceive many. Imagine the influence a fallen angel, or demon could hold, if he impersonated Buddha, and spoke personally with the Dali Lama. Imagine what more influence a fallen angel or demon could hold on Muslims, if he appeared in a covering of light, claiming to be Mohammed himself, back from the grave to correct the teachings of Islam. Imagine if Satan impersonated Christ and used a legion of fallen angels to appear as past religious leaders, and Christians of note, to say that our forms of worship were incorrect, and we needed to amend the Bible according to his “new word”. This being (Satan) would appear as an angel of light, preaching peace, but promising destruction to any that opposed his authority.

I wonder what my Atheist friends will say on that day? When proof of the supernatural has arrived in just the form they have always asked for, will it be too late to find truth? Only those who are armed with the knowledge of the dead being asleep will have any mental defense against demons wreaking this kind of havoc. Those who believe souls are eternal will not be able to distinguish which are departed loved ones, and which are demonic impersonators trying to deceive the world. Add to this the fragmentation of doctrines between protestant Christian denominations and you have a recipe for confusion that makes the demonic arguments seem reasonable. Satan will not be allowed to impersonate the method of Christ’s return, so you will not see Him appear in the clouds with every eye able to watch him arrive. But I am sure he will use modern technology such as CNN’s global satellite network to get his messages across.

And what is the message of the Anti-Christ you ask? Quite simply to worship him, listen to him, and do what he says, not what the Bible says. The Bible, long derided as a book of violence and chauvinism, will be discarded in the new “light” the supernatural beings ask us to accept. To reinforce his purported dominion Satan and his agents will work miracles, of healing, and peacemaking. The lure will be enough “almost” to deceive the very elect. But for being pre-warned this would all happen, and content to trust God as He has demonstrated the truth our salvation in removing evil from our lives over time in a personal way, we might all walk the paths of evil.

But despite the calls to worship the “Christ” we can see, there will remain a stubborn few, who will choose to worship the Christ they cannot see. There will be a remnant few who choose to obey what they have been taught in scriptures rather than what “beings of light” have to say. But what will happen to this stubborn, archaic, old-fashioned group of believers? They will be ordered to be exterminated with great prejudice. Who would do such a thing in a country like ours you ask? Your husband, your wife, your parents, your children, your best friends, all those who not like you have adopted the “new” way of worshipping “god”. They will see you as a pariah that needs to be removed the perfection the beings of light are trying to establish. “Christians” who keep the name, but forsake the God behind it, will be first in line to torture and kill those remnant few who remain faithful to a God we cannot see.

The question upon which all of humanity will determine its fate is … will you follow God, or will you follow what you can see. It is enough for Satan that you do not follow God. It is enough for him that you ignore what God asks, and pursue your own ideas of morality, of love, of service, and insure that you believe you are a good enough person. That is all the evil one needs, for you to miss out on what God offers. Whether by intention, or by deception, or by apathy, or by negligence – choosing not to follow the God of the Bible, is a definitive choice for Satan. The results of which will be catastrophic. There will be no constitutional separation of church and state in the days like this. The Anti-Christ will insure church and state are closely united in order to use the resources of governments to hunt and kill any who dare to disobey.

It will be a desperate time, worse than any the world has ever seen, as Satan will have more ability to work his evil than ever before. Believers will have to flee to the mountains, deserts, and forests to look for shelter from the hate that is created for them all over the world. There will be no more friendly countries, laws, and lands – only those who wish the death of all the Bible believers. Some have speculated that a secret rapture will precede these horrible events, and believing Christians will be spared this agony. But this is not what scripture teaches. There is no “secret” coming of the Lord, only the one described in Thessalonians, and described in Acts. There is no “third” chance for the wicked to repent (though under these conditions truth would be all but extinct in every heart except for those who have spent their lives following the true Bible God). The Holy Spirit will be removed from the world, and the righteous will stand before God without a barrier between them. There will be no comforting influence to calm and melt the hearts of men, only the spirit of evil which is full of hate. Were it not for the second coming of Christ, none would survive. But in the last moments, before the orders of execution can be carried out, our Lord will appear as He has promised, and the world will meet its first demise.

These are the conditions immediately before the second coming of Christ. But there is more that happens just a bit earlier, and we will discuss it more detail in the coming sections. Stay tuned …

The End is Near ...

There is a singular truth about evil; it will implode over time, self-destruct, taking out everything else it can along with it. When we embrace evil in our lives, we embrace pain. We may not suffer the pain of evil in our immediate reality, but we destine ourselves to feel pain none the less. But the truth about evil is that it will not stop merely at pain, it must always and only, end in death. Those who embrace evil, forsaking the escape from it that Christ would gladly impart, will share the fate of evil. Evil would one day self-destruct. But our God in His infinite mercy has determined to cut the time of evil’s demise short. He interferes in world events, and course corrects the paths that man foolishly runs towards hastening his own destruction. God prevents us from killing ourselves, for He wishes to remove those who serve Him safely before evil can wreak its havoc fully on all those around it when it goes.

And so the belief that the “end of the world” will one day occur makes sense to many people. Non-believers in our God tend to think man will be the instrument of his own destruction. They would be right, were it not for God staying our hand. Between our short-sightedness and greed we are more than willing to poison the ground we live on, and the water we drink merely for the sake of earning a few extra dollars to spend. The debate over whether global warming is real is proof enough that greed can influence almost anyone from the masses who are taught to reject what is clearly in their day-to-day lives, to the scientists who are paid to disclaim any attempt at curtailing corporate profits – greed and sloth will prove our undoing, were it not for God. But God seems to have grander plans for the complete destruction of our planet than to let it suffer the consequences of its own actions. He wishes to answer the siren call of the Atheists for “proof” of His existence before all time ends. And so the world will not end with a whimper but with a bang, orchestrated by our God Himself.

Christ said … “as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the son of man.” Many look at the story of Noah and see only an angry God bent on destroying the world, sorry about having created man given how evil man had become. But this thinking is influenced highly by the evil one. Look again more closely. God could have destroyed the entire world and ended man’s existence but He did not. He was careful to save the family of the man who still claimed to serve God. Noah was not perfect. Noah liked to drink. Noah was not chosen by God, Noah chose God. And so God responded to Noah, and saved not only Noah, but his wife, sons, and their wives; all for the sake of Noah. One of those sons God saved would almost immediately turn to evil again right after the flood. God knew this, but saved him anyway, not pre-judging what he would do, but giving him the opportunity to make different choices even if he would not. God saved sinners. He was not looking for perfection, just for someone who was willing to look for Him.

As for the rest of humanity, despite its evil, God did not immediately act upon the “anger” He was supposed to be feeling. I believe it more to be extreme sadness than extreme anger. Instead, God waited for Noah to build the ark, taking more than 120 years to complete the task. In this time, news of Noah’s work spread throughout the then known world, and all came to hear Noah preach about the coming end of the world as they knew it. Noah did not have logic, or history on his side, only God. Rain was not a phenomenon anyone could relate to, nor was oceans, nor was flooding, nor storms at all. No one had ever heard of such a thing. Yet Noah preached what they refused to believe. He taught truth regardless of him being mocked, derided, and you can bet accused of drinking all the time. Still God waited 120 years hoping against hope that man might take the time to repent and seek Him, but they did not.

I can almost hear the atheists in the crowd demanding for Noah to show proof that God existed. The angel guarding the gates of Eden with a fiery sword was apparently not enough. They needed more to believe, or so they said and so God heard them, and according to His plans, He brought animals from all over the world, two by two (for the unclean animals), and seven by seven (for the clean ones). In this God revealed his distinctions when it comes to dietary laws. He also used this animal parade from all over the world to show His miraculous power. It was not enough. For those who choose NOT to believe in God, there is never enough “proof” to make them see past the stubbornness of their decisions. The ark lacked a rudder, as God would guide the boat. The ark lacked a method of closing the door and insuring it was sealed, the angel of God himself would do that work. Yet still they did not believe. I imagine when the first few drops of rain fell, there were those still clinging to their stubborn scientifically based notions that rain could not exist; until there was little room on the top of the highest peaks, where man and beast tore at each other for the precious ground, trying to stay above the torrents that now surrounded them. Perhaps then they believed, and then they died.

Before we look forward to how our world will end, it is wise for us to learn the lessons from the last time it met with destruction. Several key points emerge: 1.) God was not looking for perfection, but was looking for those who sought to serve Him. 2.) Despite the doubters the world did end, and God was true to His patience and His word. 3.) Every attempt to save mankind was made before the end came; even miracles occurred, but even miracles are not enough for those who choose not to believe. For us to make it through the coming end time events and fulfillment of the last prophesies on earth, we must begin by renewing our commitment to submit our will to Christ, and follow Him wherever and however He leads us.

Noah’s story again teaches us the world did not end by its own decision or time lines. It ended at the hands of our God, through a mechanism no-one believed in. God set the timeline, no one else. God performed the miracles, no one else could. And God followed through on His word, both saving His servants, and destroying those who clung to evil. And so it shall be again according to our Lord. There are several prophesies in the Bible that have not seen their fulfillment as yet. Some of the most important are as follows … A.) The rise of the Anti-Christ in physical form, B.) The sealing of the 144,000 of God’s special servants, C.) The close of probation where the fates of all mankind are sealed in the books of heaven, D.) The seven last Plagues, E.) The second coming of Christ, F.) The binding of Satan to the earth for a thousand years alone, G.) The descending of the Holy City Heaven on what is now Jerusalem, H.) The raising of the wicked for Satan to marshal his troops for one last great Armageddon battle, I.) The panoply of history in front of all of mankind, J.) The final attack of the wicked on this Holy City, K.) The raining down of fire on the wicked consuming them all in time, and finally L.) the recreation of the world made new, with death, pain, and the former things passed away forever.

Items A-D above are nothing short of the supernatural and should have provided more than enough “proof” that God indeed does exist. But alas, those who choose not to believe may choose to continue not to believe. We can only hope that the revelation of these events will change their perspectives. Items E-L represent the extinction of evil, and are conducted long after the “proof” is beyond all questioning. As with those who fought for the highest peaks during the flood, if not already with God, the wicked have no hope left to them of surviving what will come. Noah’s story affirms this as well. In coming sections we will review each of these cataclysmic events, for now this overview will have to suffice.

When could all this begin? Some argue it must have to wait until some distant future when the world is “really” bad. Not so. It could have started in 1888 before we were even born. At that point all the other salient prophesies had been completed to mark the time of the end. Wars, rumors of wars, the sun going black, the stars falling, the moon turning to blood, even the cleansing of the sanctuary work started in 1844 – all of it was completed by 1888. God’s remnant message had emerged by then. Everything was ready … except one small thing … us. Our Christian leadership faced a choice; preach salvation by faith alone, or by faith and works. We chose the latter. We were wrong. And it has taken more than 120 years to correct our message of hope. But for those who argue this is how every generation has thought since Christ went back to heaven after His first trip, they are right. And they are wrong, in that no other generation has seen the 120 year waiting period expire before now. As it was in the days of Noah, 120 years of preaching, sound familiar. Deja vu.

Let us not forget that the message of our gospel is to free us from the pain of evil and sin right here and right now. Regardless of how close we are to the end of all things, we need our savior to do His work within us right here and right now. We long to be freed from the pain of sin, and know the freedom of His righteousness. And while our message will remain true for all time, we must not neglect the signs that we sit on the precipice of the end of all time as man has measured it. Soon, perhaps in the coming weeks, months, or years we may witness the end of all evil, and establishment of His kingdom forever and ever. This news should bring joy to our hearts and minds. This news is exciting. This news is exhilarating. If this news inspires fear within you, then you should return again to your knees, and reaffirm your commitment to serve our Lord and Savior. Allow Christ to begin to save you from evil, and you will join in the joy of His soon coming return. It cannot happen soon enough …