A New Year, a New Call for The End

We live in a time when just about the only time we see anything Christian related in the general news is when someone is or has promised to do something crazy.  It is too bad, too, because we are surrounded by Christians every day that are normal sane individuals. Among them professions which include scientists (yes, scientists), doctors, mathematicians, grocers and burger flippers; the majority of which do not do anything crazy.  So, the New Year begins and immediately I see an article about the rapture coming on May 21, 2011.

I have several statements about the rapture which I have learned purely from reading the Bible.  Something, again, I suggest you do every day.  I say I learned it purely from reading the Bible because in my growing up in the church, the rapture was a concept that oddly enough I had never heard of.  Something one would think was fundamental to Christian teaching.  Yet, there it is, or wasn’t in my case.

The end of times is something fraught with fear and intimidation.  The secular world knows of the book of Revelation and all the horrors described within.  That, it seems, is the limit of their knowledge.  The book of Revelation contains much more.  Including hope, blessing, and instruction and that is just in the first three chapters.  In order to better grasp Revelation, one needs an understanding of the entire Bible.  A great study in this is from Dr. Chuck Missler.  See site linked to the right (Koinania House).

For the casual believer, shall we say, or someone with just passing knowledge of God’s plan, the end of times can be a fearful thing.  Terrible things are said to be coming.  However, fear not, if you are saved, these things aren’t in store for you.  That isn’t to say that everything in your life will be sunshine and roses.  If someone is telling you that, as the line in the movie says, they are trying to sell you something.  No, there is a distinction between the last days and the last day.

All it takes is a reading of the Bible and to be like the Sons of Issachar[i]; to know the times and the scriptures.  There are plenty to choose from to see we are obviously in the last days.  Just for some samples, try:

Now the Spirit says clearly that in the last times some people will abandon the faith by following deceitful spirits, the teachings of demons, and the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences have been burned by a hot iron. They will try to stop people from marrying and from eating certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.  – 1 Timothy 4:1-3

Or possibly a more well-known passage:

You must realize, however, that in the last days difficult times will come. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unfeeling, uncooperative, slanderous, degenerate, brutal, hateful of what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. They will hold to an outward form of godliness but deny its power. – 1 Timothy 3:1-5

One possibly abstract example comes from the Old Testament psalms.  Psalm 27 was written by David and speaks of confidence in the Lord.  The fifth verse reads as such:

For he will conceal me in his shelter on the day of evil;

He will hide me in a secluded chamber within his tent;

He will place me on a high rock.

The day of evil is another way of speaking of the Day of the Lord.  From the above descriptions, one can certainly see they fit the times we see around us.  The prophecy of Daniel is quoted by Jesus which gives us the only signal that the actual end is starting[ii].

As you read the Old Testament prophets of Isaiah, Joel, Ezekiel and others one can see how belief in the coming end of times will be a scary thing.  Indeed, if I believed I was to be left behind from the rapture, I’d be scared, too.  My hope lies with Christ, however, for He paid my debt without me even asking for Him to do so.  The good news is He paid that debt for all who will believe on Him.

If you are a believer and you are still worried about it, take what Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica on the subject.

With a shout of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of God’s trumpet, the Lord himself will come down from heaven, and the dead who belong to the Messiah will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. So then, encourage one another with these words.  — 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18

Finally, believe in the words of The Teacher, Himself when he tells us:

Jesus answered them, “See to it that no one deceives you, because many will come in my name and say, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and they will deceive many people. You are going to hear of wars and rumors of wars. See to it that you are not alarmed. These things must take place, but the end hasn’t come yet, because nation will rise up in arms against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. But all these things are only the beginning of the birth pains.”

“Then they will hand you over to suffer and will kill you, and you will be hated by all the nations because of my name. Then many people will fall away, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people, and because lawlessness will increase, the love of many people will grow cold. But the person who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

“So when you see the destructive desecration, mentioned by the prophet Daniel, standing in the Holy Place (let the reader take note), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. Anyone who’s on the housetop must not come down to get what is in his house, and anyone who’s in the field must not turn back to get his coat.

“How terrible it will be for women who are pregnant or who are nursing babies in those days! Pray that it may not be in winter or on a Sabbath when you flee, because at that time there will be great suffering, the kind that has not happened from the beginning of the world until now and certainly will never happen again. If those days had not been limited, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be limited.

“At that time, if anyone says to you, ‘Look! Here is the Messiah!’ or ‘There he is!’, don’t believe it, because false messiahs and false prophets will appear and display great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Remember, I have told you this beforehand. So if they say to you, ‘Look! He’s in the wilderness,’ don’t go out looking for him. And if they say, ‘Look! He’s in the storeroom,’ don’t believe it, because just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there’s a corpse, there the vultures will gather.

“Immediately after the troubles of those days,

‘The sun will be darkened,

the moon will not give its light,

the stars will fall from the sky,

and the powers of heaven will be shaken loose.’

Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all ‘the tribes of the land will mourn’ when they see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory. He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet blast, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to another.”

“Now learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branches become tender and it produces leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see all these things, you will know that the Son of Man is near, right at the door. I tell you with certainty, this generation will not disappear until these things happen. Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear.”

“No one knows when that day or hour will come—not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father, because just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be when the Son of Man comes. In those days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage right up to the day when Noah went into the ark. They were unaware of what was happening until the flood came and swept all of them away. That’s how it will be when the Son of Man comes. At that time two people will be in the field. One will be taken, and the other will be left behind. Two women will be grinding grain at the mill. One will be taken, and the other will be left behind.

“So keep on watching, because you don’t know on what day your Lord is coming. But be sure of this: if the owner of the house had known when during the night the thief would be coming, he would have stayed awake and not allowed his house to be broken into. So you, too, must be ready, because at an hour you are not expecting him the Son of Man will come.” – Matthew 24:3-44

So, what about this date of May 21, 2011?  I don’t know.  That’s what the Bible tells me.  Though the web site author of weCANknow.com claims to have calculated it, I remain skeptical.  Not only because such claims have proven to be wrong in the past but largely because of the above passage from Matthew above.  It may, indeed occur on May 21, 2011.  It may be January 3, 2011.  No matter when it is, if you have been reading this blog as of late, or listening to your pastor at church or even those on Christian radio or maybe the guy you thought was crazy on the street corner; and you’ve been reading your Bible, you know there is a way to not fear that day yourself.  That brings to mind a statement I can agree with that comes from weCANknow.com.  Read your Bible.  Look this stuff up on your own, see that what is said is true. 

Many descriptions of the “Great and Terrible day of the Lord” exist throughout the books of the prophets in the Old Testament and probably have a lot to do with the misconception that God from the Old Testament is different from the new.  God is a just god but he isn’t a compassionless god.  That means that while justice for our sinful nature must be done, there is a way to be saved from that justice since the price has already been paid for all of us.

All have sinned…

God’s righteousness through the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah— for all who believe. For there is no distinction among people, since all have sinned and continue to fall short of God’s glory. By his grace they are justified freely through the redemption that is in the Messiah Jesus, whom God offered as a place where atonement by the Messiah’s blood would occur through faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because he had waited patiently to deal with sins committed in the past. – Romans 3:22-25

But also remember…

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his unique Son so that everyone who believes in him might not be lost but have eternal life. Because God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s unique Son. – John 3:16-18

The Day of the Lord need not be something you suffer through.  You can be saved from it.  Indeed, perhaps you were wondering exactly what “being saved” meant you were being saved from.  You can be spared the justice we all deserve because of the mercy we are all offered.  You need only accept it.  Accept Christ, believe in Him and you will not have to fear the end of time.  There is more that occurs after the Day of the Lord, but I leave that for a later time and as an exercise for the reader.  It’s in The Book.


[i]  1 Corinthians 12:32

[ii] Daniel 9, Matthew 24:15


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