THERE WILL BE AN END TO THE WORLD…IT WILL BE “THAT DAY”

Jesus said something stunning just before He ascended to Heaven.  It was after He rose from the dead and Matthew’s testimony is one who relates it. Jesus appeared to women first who followed Him…they ran and told the disciples. (The eleven were in an undisclosed room in Jerusalem perhaps).

Matthew says, “And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him. But some doubted. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority is given to Me in Heaven and in earth. Therefore go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things, whatever I commanded you. And behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the world. Amen.” (Matthew 28:16-20)

 

Until the end of the world.

 

As I exercise on my bicycle, I ride past a beautiful, fit couple.  We stop and talk sometimes.  One day they asked, “Will there be an end to the world?” Since that conversation I’ve thought about it. Now and then verses in the Bible stand out about “that day” … "...for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." (2 Timothy 1:12) "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night..." (2 Peter 3:10).  Are these referring to the end of the world? Are they referring to a “day” when everything changes? Whatever that repeated “day” is referring to, we who believe in Him, have accepted His forgiveness are safe, no matter what happens.  “I am with you all the days until the end of the world.”

 

"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." (Philippians 1:6)

 

"But as many as received Him, He gave to them authority to become the children of God, to those who believe on His name." (John 1:12) 

 

I accept that, LORD.

WHY GET TO KNOW THE GOD OF THE BIBLE WHEN YOU LIKE THE GOD IN YOUR HEAD BETTER.

Whether we know Him or not, like Him or not, understand Him at all, the LORD GOD of the Bible is in charge. He is more loving than we can imagine and more terrifying than we imagine.

My husband and I finally reached the Book of Revelation again.  Eric and I looked forward to this because we are discussing and understanding more this time through the Bible. If you have curiosity about the love and terror of God just read the Book of the Revelation. 

From Chapter One His character is described: "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. And has made us kings and priests to God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” (Revelation 1:5-8) 

Here is love. Jesus is faithful and true, He has all power, He is Prince of kings.  And He loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. But too many have rejected Him for thousands of years!

The Lamb of God in Revelations, Jesus, relays great mysteries about the end of time. Thunder, strange beasts, an earthquake, the sun becomes black.  The moon becomes blood red.  Stars fall to earth.  Every person, including kings, hide from the wrath of the Lamb.

When you like the Jesus in your head better than the Jesus, The Lamb of God, I understand. We cannot imagine our sun becoming black, our faithful moon turning red as blood.  But if you read the Bible through, and through and through throughout your life, you will see "Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood."  Such love, when rejected gives us a terrifying future.  

In this Book the voices of the angels speak loudly.  "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." (Revelation 14:6,7)

After he rose from the dead, “…Jesus came and spoke to them… All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Go therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. Amen.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

Because of His love we get to know the real God in His Word. 

AGING AND US…

When getting old was years down the road I used to think about this, “Even to old age I am He; and to gray hairs I will bear you…” (Isaiah 46:4) It was comforting for a faraway time.  Now, it is here!

Will I become useless, invisible, a burden?  Rearing children, work, Eric and I used to be intensely busy.  If we are blessed to grow old, how do we live and move and use that time? My husband, Eric is seventy-six and I am seventy-eight, we talk about it:  Growing old begins when you are young; you build into your heart and soul the person you are continually becoming. Have I grown? Or gone backward?

This morning we read in the Book of Judges.  Joshua and Caleb were over eighty years old.  Forty years earlier they were just two of the twelve spies Moses sent to view the promised land.  Ten brought back a report of giants and walled cities that they could never overcome and the heart of all the people melted.   They had come to the border of a great victory but would turn back, wander in the wilderness and die.

But Joshua and Caleb fully followed the LORD.  We can do that! For as long as we are alive there is purpose! There is useful, loving, humble service to God and your kids, and mankind.  People are watching us old folks.  Will we "mark time" with selfishness!! 

Caleb would not “mark time”.  He said at eighty-five, "And now, behold, the LORD has kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the LORD spoke this word to Moses…now, lo, I am this day eighty-five years old…I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now..." (Joshua 14:10-12)

Spiritual, intellectual, and physical strength is a possibility and an opportunity:  we have time, we are still alive. Yesterday I fasted coffee to pray (I admit, coffee is more interesting than food first thing in the morning).  All day I felt down, low, listless; you can deduct that my body is addicted to it.  The next day I drank my morning coffee with Eric, ate my Ezekiel bread with butter and honey and felt energetic and happy. As I was riding my bicycle the twenty-mile route, it was easier than eight years ago. I was on chemotherapy then.  At seventeen miles back then as I passed a grassy place under shade trees I had a strong urge to lie down in the shade.  It never happened, but today I was riding past the same shady grassy place and felt motivated and strong. So, with energy now what will I do?  How will I invest my life?  Not banking on what is in the past, but looking to the future, how will I, (thank the LORD, along with Eric), how will we fully follow the LORD?  Thinking about Caleb and Joshua.

EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE RIGHT…WHO IS?

The bottom line is…Who is Jesus? It takes sixty-six Books within the Bible to describe Who Jesus is.  Creator, Redeemer, Savior, Friend, King of Kings, LORD of LORDS.  He is the foundation for truth, so He is right.  As Creator God makes the rules.  From the description of Jesus described in the Bible you will come to know what is right.  Begin with “For all the law is fulfilled in one word…you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

I personally come to conclusions and look at the world, the culture, my fellow human beings through a pursuit of Scripture, the Bible.  This is how I seriously intend to make my deductions.  There is good; there is evil in the world.  Knowing the difference is one serious pursuit of my life.  Conclusions about every issue pervasive in America will be after I have searched them out from my continuing study of the Bible. It is that simple. 

That is just the beginning.

Yes, God created the mosquitoes, the flies, the annoying parts of creation, the amazing power in creation: volcanoes, hurricanes, tornados.  If we think it through, this is scary stuff.  But if we think that through, it demonstrates His power.  The sad things happened when Adam and Eve rebelled and ate of the Tree of Good and Evil which God commanded them not to eat. 

If we have a “picture” of Jesus in our heads, but it is not the same Jesus who is described in the sixty-six Books of the Bible, it is not Jesus described in John 1:14. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

How does one “imagine” the greatness of Almighty God Who is All Power, All Knowing and Everywhere Present.  That is the God, Jesus, who keeps your heart beating, “He stretches out the north over the empty place, and He hung the earth on nothing.” (Job 26:7) And rather surprisingly simply says “He made the stars also” (Genesis 1:16)

Am I right? There is quiet confidence in my soul that God is “definitely right”.  My pursuit of life at seventy-eight years is perspective.  All the mistakes, the regrets and the sins bring me to huge gratitude, because I am growing to know Jesus more every day:  He loves me.

WHAT IF?

What if our Country goes downhill because it is following a dark path? What if life looks black ahead?

It does not matter what happens to us or to the world, when we are doing our personal best to walk with God. Just before Jesus ascended to Heaven, after his resurrection he assured us, "And behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the world. Amen." (Matthew 28:20)

We can focus if we are reading Scripture every day to live by faith in God: once, twice, three times a day as Daniel did. His enemies knew it.  When he ended in the lion’s den, God was there.  In the morning he said loud and clear to the distraught King Darius, “My God has sent his Angel”. (Daniel 6)

God said about three men in history who lived through dark times, “Though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own soul by their righteousness...” (Ezekiel 14:14) Dark days are the same as sunny days to our Creator.  “Yea, the darkness does not hide from You; but the night shines as the day; as is the darkness, so is the light to you.”  (Psalm 139:12)

The queen was after Elijah the Prophet. Jezebel threatened to kill him.  Her fury knew no bounds. "And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.  And he looked and behold, there was a cake baked on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink and laid him down again. And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. 

And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What are you doing here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away." (I Kings 19) Did the queen get him? You know the story, “Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” (2 Kings 2:11)

 

How do we have faith to believe, to hold onto Jesus?  It doesn’t matter who threatens, who slanders, who lies.  “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.”

 

What if the darkness in the world deepens! If you are walking with God with integrity, with all your heart, it does not matter? 

HOW AM I DOING, LORD?

Our life is a gift with one chance to do it right.  An accident on my regular bike ride last week brought some soul searching. How am I doing, Lord? 

It could have been much worse, but I realized after it that one second can change everything.  It was the regular twenty-mile route on a clear, perfect day.  A chain-link covered ramp was just ahead.  I hurried up because a biker waited for me at the top.  It is a covered bridge across a river.  But at that moment as I reached her, my handlebar touched her handlebar and maybe her hand as well.  The next second I was hitting the chain-link fence at the top of the ramp head on and went down hard.  It took a second to realize that it really happened.  I got up, turned and faced the other biker and said, “It was my fault.  Are you alright?” She said the same thing to me twice.  I was fine; she was, too.  She rode down the ramp and was gone.  I turned to my bicycle still jammed against the fence, picked it up and coasted down the other side, but the chain was off, the gears had “jammed” and the front tire was damaged.  My next decision was to turn around, try to make it home without being rescued by my permanent, dependable rescuer.  Eric, my husband, has rescued me a few times.

This time, I managed to move the chain back on and limped the five or six miles home.  The bike was not totaled, the shop mechanic assured me…but the wait for it to be assessed and fixed and returned emphasizes my incident that changed everything.

I wondered out loud to my husband today, “Was God saying something to me?” “It could be.” But what I know is that life can turn a corner when you least expect it.  Incidents can happen that change the future, even the present.

A couple of places in Scripture came to me that night. They are contrasts.  One is a warning, one a mystery.

In Matthew, just before John baptized Jesus, he confronted Scribes and Pharisees who put on a false pretense of getting right with God (their hearts were deeply opposite).  John the forerunner of Jesus told them, “Every tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.” Matthew 3:10. How am I doing, Lord?

But a mysterious verse in Ezekiel 47:12 lifts the spirit to hope. “And all trees for food shall go up by the torrent, on its bank on this side, and on that side. Its leaf shall not fade, nor its fruit fail. It will bear by its months because its waters come out from the sanctuary. And its fruit shall be for food, and its leaf for healing.” Does my life “bear good fruit”?

So, to end this introspection here is a thought.  Live every day with dependence on our Creator, Jesus Christ.  He has promised “I will never leave you or forsake you.” He will go ahead of me and come behind me.  I am His.

"Do not fear, nor be dismayed, for the LORD God, my God, will be with you. He will not fail you nor leave you."  (I Chronicles 28:20).

ARE YOU BORN AGAIN?

Are you born again?  "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us..." (Titus 3:5)

When a friend told me, “I don’t think people in our Church know how to be born again” I was taken aback.  It took a few months to realize the seriousness of her statement.

Then I thought about another Church we were part of.  For two years, the Class we participated in seemed to grow cold, meaningless.  I wondered why.  Another friend told me after we left that the Teacher had given a pop quiz, and nobody knew anything.

 There is eternity ahead for every person.  This is the most important truth in your life. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:20) All of us “are in the same boat.”

 But you can be born again! 

 Do you know that Jesus, Son of God, came as a perfect sacrifice, died for your sins and mine, rose again (proving He is God)  He showed Himself to 500 at once after He rose from the dead.  "And Jesus came and spoke to them saying, ‘All authority is given to Me in Heaven and in earth, therefore go and teach all nations...’" (Matthew 28) “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that you may know that you have eternal life…” (I John 5:13) 

 Believe your God and Savior, Jesus Christ… “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9).  Believe in Jesus: that is faith.

Then, eternity with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is yours…forever.