There’s so many people who love to trumpet “any day now”, that for a long while I refused to even think about it (even though I longed for it). But if I had to be honest…yes, I think it could be near. I mean, I also acknowledge that things could get a whole lot worse.
I know that because "the end" seems to be taking an inordinate amount of time in human terms, from the perspective of a timeless God...this is not so.
"For a thousand years are in your eyes just as yesterday when it is past,
Just as a watch during the night." (Psalm 90:4, 2 Peter 3:8)
Peter also wrote...
2 Peter 3:3-4
"First of all know this, that in the last days ridiculers will come with their ridicule, proceeding according to their own desires 4 and saying: “Where is this promised presence of his? Why, from the day our forefathers fell asleep in death, all things are continuing exactly as they were from creation’s beginning.”
So its no wonder that people are a bit jaded about it, because it has not yet arrived to fulfill eager expectations......taking too long in human terms it seems. Some take the position that if it hasn't come for 2000 years, it never will.....that sort of thinking is a trap.
The Prophet Habakuk (2:3) gives us some more clues....
For the vision is yet for its appointed time,
And it is rushing toward its end, and it will not lie.
Even if it should delay, keep in expectation of it!
For it will without fail come true.
It will not be late!"
So we see some overriders mentioned there....."
even if it should delay" means that to us it might seem to be taking a long time coming...
"
Keep in expectation of it" because "
it will without fail come true"....."
it will not be late" because for God it will come right on time according to his schedule, not ours.
Jesus said the same thing....
"But know one thing: If the householder had known in what watch the thief was coming, he would have kept awake and not allowed his house to be broken into. 44 On this account, you too prove yourselves ready, because the Son of man is coming at an hour that you do not think to be it."
This is no time to let our guard down.....like the parable of the ten virgins, they all went to sleep, but the ones who brought extra oil for their lamps went in to the marriage feast, and the others were locked out. The bridegroom arrived in the middle of the night. What is that telling us?
Who will have no oil for their lamps?
Let me put it this way; the world is ripe for it…it would be as easy as exhaling for it to slip into what needs to happen next…and most wouldn’t blink, let alone fight.
So, while I can’t be positive (and who can be, no one knows the mind of God), my feeling is yes. But I won’t be shaken if it’s a no.
I don't think I can remember a time in my life when the whole world was imploding.....politically, morally, economically, and spiritually. Its ripe all right!
Well, yes, I agree. I was thinking of “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”. But those truly his know that calling and believing…trusting…loving…must be the same.
So in view of Jesus' words at Matthew 7:21-23, what does it mean to
"call on the name of the Lord"? Which "Lord" is that?
Paul says in Romans 10:13-14...
" for “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
14 How then are they to call on Him in whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?"
At first glance it may seem as if calling on the name of Jesus is what is implied here, but Paul was quoting Joel 2:32, which in the Tanakh, clearly identifies
"the LORD" as
"יְהֹוָ֖ה" (Yahweh) three times in that verse. So, what if people have been taught to call on the wrong name? What if believing Jesus is the only "Lord" in the Bible, is an error? What if Jesus has been teaching us to worship his God and Father all this time and the church blended Father and son into one entity so long ago, that no one questions it? The weeds sown will be errors. Big ones. This is actually blasphemy.....
The law that Christians are therefore breaking IMV, is the first of the Ten Commandments.....
Which says...."Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
The word in Hebrew rendered "before", means
"beside,...in addition to, together with, beyond, above, over,"....So no other "god" can be "beside" the true God, "in addition" to Him, or even "together with" him.
Could that possibly mean that all who accept the triune god of Christendom are calling on the wrong name?...and therefore the wrong god?
If the "weeds" have been growing since the second century, then how many people all these centuries later would question the church's teaching of the triune god, the concept of which was not introduced into Catholic doctrine until the 4th century?
Jesus was Jewish and the concept of a triune god was in direct contradiction to the Shema.....in Deuteronomy 6:4.
Could this explain why Jesus said that "few" are on the road to life? (Matthew 7:13-14) The "many" whom Jesus rejects he says are are law breakers.
Think about it....