The Encourager Newsletter - Vol. 4 Issue 6 - March 19, 2010 - What is the End Time? - Warming Your Coffee

What is the End Time?

The Bible begins: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Genesis 1:1). For all of us mortals that is the opening scene of our understanding of God and all that He made. This is our basic assumption and everything else is relative to this. It assumes that the writer, Moses, got it right. There is a time line that runs through the Bible and this is the beginning of the time line.

The end of the time line is expressed in several places in the Bible, most often quoted is Revelation 10:5-6: And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, (6) And swore by him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: (Revelation 10:5-6).

The end time does not mean that all time ceases to exist but that God is going to move quickly toward establishing His kingdom upon the earth. It is the end of the “times of the gentiles” and the end of “Jacob’s trouble” and the end of “the great tribulation.” There will be no delay of time. It is time to unfold all the things that must happen. See also: (Rev. 1:3), (Rev.10:6), (Rev.11:18), (Rev.12:12), (Rev. 12:14), (Rev. 14:15), (Rev. 22:10). It is an answer to the prayers of God’s people who have prayed: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). And it is an answer to the prayers of the martyred saints (Rev.6:9-10).

The phrase “no more” occurs 235 times in the Bible and indicates a ceasing of activity or condition. This is a list of 235 “end times” of many activities. If the Bible keeps track of so many things that ceased to be or ceased to function, why should we think it strange that there is one very big ‘NO MORE” or end time that wraps everything up? It is offensive to the “thinkers” of the world that God would have the audacity to sit in judgment upon them and bring all their plans and accumulated accomplishments to a grinding halt.

In our study today, time will continue another thousand years after this primary “end time” but the end of time has reached a “no more” point for bringing the world system to a halt and taking charge of the earth. Handel's oratorio, Messiah included a favorite passage: “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ and He shall reign forever and ever!” He’s quoting (Rev. 11:15) word-for-word.

No wonder the Bible is shoved aside by millions of people who know this book is exclusive and not simply one opinion among many opinions. The Bible claims to be right and the other views to be wrong. That’s why it is so hated. It is offensive to think that there is an end time and that all along there has been a time line in place by which God Almighty scheduled His program step by step to the very end. But if you believe the Bible then that’s what you believe. And if you do not know these things, isn’t it time you set aside a half-hour a day to get into your Bible and see what it says? The Bible is more than a paper weight.

God has appointed times in between the beginning and the ending. We can learn much from looking up such phrases as: “in the time appointed” and “the appointed time” and “the fullness of time.” For example, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world came not just any time but on God’s schedule: But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, (5) To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (Galatians 4:4-5).

Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the LORD. (Jeremiah 8:7)

Please permit me to violate established evolutionary and political orthodoxy and say that it is not possible for men to destroy the earth or the people of the earth with nuclear weapons nor with man-made global warming. It is possible to kill a lot of people and burn up a lot of real estate and to mismanage farms and swamps and forests, but there is a limit to what God permits men to destroy. The devil is the great destroyer. In Rev. 11:18

The Word speaks of “them which destroy the earth,” to destroy in the sense of corrupting the earth, or diverting God’s purpose and order. Not in the sense of doing away with the earth or the people of the earth.

The reason there is a limit to man’s power is that there is a God Almighty Creator who made the universe and within that vast domain is God’s pet project we call “earth.” God’s word says He … hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; (Acts 17:26). God is perfectly capable of managing what He has created and capable of seeing it through to His appointed end, thank you.

God put man in charge of some things. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (28) And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth (Genesis 1:27-28).

The earth is peculiarly designed and peculiarly located to carry out God’s program of creating and redeeming a host of creatures called man and woman. Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world (Acts 15:18).

The current furor over the theory of man-made global warming has a very good feature: it announces to the whole world that a global warming is coming that will melt the ice caps. It is wrong in one crucial point: it will not be of man’s making but of God’s doing. I find nowhere in Scripture that God made the earth and man in such a way that the final say of the earth’s survival is in the hands of frail, wicked men. Issues 4 and 5 of The Encourager Newsletter have focused on part of God’s end time program that is just around the corner.

Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture (Psalm 100:3). That is a square pill for the atheist and the agnostic to swallow. Ω

Warming Your Coffee—Barbara Carr

I recently heard a pastor tell this story. “I love coffee. I go to Starbucks and all the restaurants famous for good coffee and order a cup. In few minutes the waitress comes by and says, “Can I warm that for you?” I always say, “Yes, please.” The reason I always say yes is because no matter what I do to keep the coffee hot it gets cold. I wrap my hands around the cup, I hold the menu up to keep the fan from blowing on it, I do everything I can think of and it still gets cold.”

John writes in Revelation 3:15 about the church of Laodicea. “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.” Coffee is good either hot or cold, but tepid coffee is terrible! The Lord wants us to be hot or cold; not lukewarm. Our Christian life is like this. We are all fired up and before you know it we are lukewarm, or cold as ice. What causes this? It must be the lack of something.

Could it be the lack of searching the Scriptures? Two men were on the road to Emmaus after Jesus’ death on the cross. He walked with them, ate with them and opened the scriptures to them and then He was gone. After He was gone they realized it was Jesus. “And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?” (Luke 24:32)

This comment tells us of the deep pleasure, the warm glow and intense love they felt in their hearts as He talked to them. Studying the Word of God will warm our hearts as we read what Jesus did for us and that His love is ongoing. Before the foundation of the world, God ordained that Jesus would suffer for our sins. God has big plans for your life! Do we yet understand that?

Could it be the lack of prayer? “And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray” (Mark 6:46). There are many references of Jesus praying. If Jesus needed to pray, do we not need to pray? Unless we are better than Jesus Christ we need to pray. Mark 6 tells us the story of Jesus on the mountain praying and the disciples on the Sea of Galilee in a really bad storm. They were surrounded by wind, waves and blackness, but Jesus walked on the water and saved them.

This could have been us. Jesus has gone to the Father and we are on earth surrounded by the storms of life. We need to stay close to God in prayer in order to survive. Our lives can grow cold so quickly without the times alone in prayer.

Could it be the lack of Church attendance/Christian fellowship? “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25).

Dan told me a story of man who had been out of church for some time. The pastor had talked with him several times, but he continued to miss church. The pastor went again to his house for a visit. The man opened the door and invited him in, knowing what the pastor was going to talk about. They sat in front of the fire place with a cup of coffee and talked about several things.

As they talked the pastor took the fire poker and pulled a small coal of fire out on the hearth. It was still burning, but as it lay there alone it grew dim and just smoked a little. Finally, the fire went out of the coal completely. When the pastor got to the door to leave, the man said “You have made your point, pastor. I’ll be in church Sunday.” We need each other for spiritual warmth.

Could it be a lack of thankfulness and praise? “Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God:” (Psalm 147:7)

In prayer we often just go over some of our many blessings and give thanks for them. In so doing, we realize it is impossible to list them all. But we need to work daily at thanking God because so often we take these blessings for granted. We are told to sing with thanksgiving and praise. Our God is an awesome God and we are to praise Him and worship Him. In so doing we will feel “Our hearts burn within us.”

These are a few things in our lives that we need to maintain or increase in order to keep our fellowship with the Lord hot and not cold. Our pastor says there is no such thing as straddling the fence. He is right. The coffee is either hot or cold and so are we. Ω

The Encourager Newsletter - Volume 3 Issue 46 - Daily and Stuff - 2009.10.23

Daily….

Everything God does to transform a pound of seed into a harvest of ripe golden grain, He does it daily. Transforming a few tomato seeds into delicious red slices for a sandwich is done daily. Acorn to giant oak tree is done by daily changes we cannot see. The development of a baby from conception to a beautiful baby in the nursery is done by daily changes. Everything we do that's worthwhile will have to be done daily.

"Daily" occurs 62 times in the Bible. God made the earth and the universe daily….six of them. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it (Exodus 20:11). If God did not make the earth and heaven in six days, then we have a Moses problem. Not only so but Jesus certified Moses as a prophet of God by his writings and his appearance with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration long after he had died, along with Elijah who has not yet died.

And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, (Deuteronomy 34:10)

And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me (Luke 24:44).

And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elijah: (Luke 9:30).

If Moses' words are not true, including his words about God making the earth and the heaven in six days, then we also have a Jesus problem as well as a Moses problem. It could be that we have a Darwin problem who never did anything outstanding but write a book: The Origen of Species. Behe wrote a good commentary on Darwin in Darwin's Black Box. So, whose book shall we accept by faith?

The Bible claims that God made the earth and the heavens….daily….six days. The Old Testament worship system of the Jews is based on that claim, particularly the Jewish Sabbath.

God did not rest because He was tired. He rested in the sense of ceasing His work, stopping what He was doing. Some of our well-intentioned leaders, even Bible believers, have bowed before the religious priests of evolution to accommodate their unfounded assertion of a dateless past of billions of years. These scared Bible believers have earned nothing but the evolutionist's contempt and scoffing.

Without a six-day creation the weekly Jewish Sabbath has no basis. The Sabbath was ordered by the Lord Himself to commemorate God's six-day creation. (Exo_31:13-17.) Most Christians observe The Lord's Day to commemorate the resurrection of Christ. The Lord's Day is not the Jewish Sabbath. The days are not the same but they are similar.

The work week has been studied to death to try to find the ideal number of work days. Every test that's run shows that the ideal mixture of work days and rest days is to rest one day in seven and maintain the cycle.

God knows a lot about making stuff and how to make it work. He's the expert on efficiency.

Whether you believe God made the earth and the heavens in six days as the Bible says, or whether you believe in a dateless past of billions of years, you were not there to watch it being done and you are shut up to the unavoidable proposition of taking it by faith. A dateless past of billions of years is not more scientific than the Bible's six-day creation. Sorry if you are offended. If you are an evolutionist, you are an evolutionist by faith because all you have to go on is what someone told you or what you read in a book.

OR…perhaps the Bible restricts your lifestyle, especially your sexual life style (as was admitted by Huxley) and that's your game. Everyone who has anything to say about the past is a person of faith. The past does not walk into a laboratory to be examined. A growing number of Ph.D.'s believe the Bible gives the best explanation of how everything got here. The Bible is also the best book to point to the future and how to live the unchartered present of "daily."

We are to pray for daily bread (Matthew 6:11). Jesus taught daily in the Temple (Luke 19:47) and the disciples taught daily in the Temple and house to house (Acts 5:42). We are to exhort one another daily:

Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. (13) But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:12-13). Have a good….day.

Stuff: Letting It Go

---Barbara Carr

A friend was very sick and wasn't expected to live long. She was a Christian, a good woman, in church as long as she was able and raised her children to love the Lord. Dan and I were visiting her one day and she made this statement. "I am ready to go home to Heaven, but I hate to leave my stuff." There is a side to this that I can understand. Would someone else love and take care of her antiques and hand crafted quilts as she had? How important is our "stuff" to us?

"There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men: A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease. If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he." (Ecc 6:1-3)

Solomon was disturbed about the evil he had seen under the sun, the evil in this world. It was a silent, subtle evil. He had about 100 children, but his soul was not satisfied. He was not able to enjoy his wealth. He worried that he would have no burial. A traditional Jewish funeral would have many people mourning and weeping. If the family couldn't get enough mourners and weepers, they hired them. Solomon was a very rich man—wives, children, lands, houses, horses, and chariots; lots of "stuff". Yet, he was wondering about his funeral. Stuff cannot be a substitute for love.

"All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled. For what hath the wise more than the fool? what hath the poor, that knoweth to walk before the living?" (Ecc 6:7-8)

Our appetite for stuff is out of control. I don't deny I like my stuff and want more stuff. When I run low on stuff, I go to a yard sale and build up my supply. At the present we want a GPS. What do you think? It's a good tool for traveling; being warned of stalled traffic ahead; finding gas at the best price and where to eat. Don't you think we need a GPS? Almost every family has at least two televisions, two cars or more, telephones galore and the list goes on.

We just love our stuff. But how much is enough? When should we put "stuff" on a credit card? Credit cards can be a useful tool to eliminate having to carry money with you and to keep records for you but it is a monstrous tyrant if you don't pay it off every month.

In these verses Solomon is trying to give us lessons on what he has learned in life. He says many times "all is vanity." He is trying to give us a wakeup call.

"For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?" (Ecc 6:12)

Our inner man cannot be satisfied with the stuff of this world. A man can have a good job, a nice home and a fine family and still feel like a failure, because he cannot get enough stuff. Children have a mountain of stuff, yet they are bored. We walk between two opposing values:

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. (James 1:17) In contrast….

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1John 2:15)

"Stuff" can become an idol and then it is a sin problem. "Stuff" can be a great blessing but it is a terrible master and god. No amount of stuff can pay for and forgive our sin. Jesus Christ died for our sin and paid our sin debt. That's worth more than all our "stuff" put together. God has a plan for our life. He knows our past, present and future. Stuff cannot secure our future. Only God knows the future. What do you want/desire out of life? We can't live well if our life is dominated by stuff, because we can never get enough.

Solomon had it all, but his soul wasn't satisfied. Let's clean up our life. Let's desire the things God wants to desire and be thankful in our hearts for everything we have that has come from His hands.

"Follow after charity (love), and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy." (1Co 14:1)

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." (Gal 5:22-23)

This is what God desires from us as His children. We can't produce the fruit of the Spirit. Denying ourselves and surrendering to the Spirit of God is not always easy, but we need to work hard in that direction. We don't want to come to the end of life with lots of "stuff" like Solomon did and have the regrets he did. God fills all of our needs and gives us most of our wants. We need to be thankful for the beautiful, useful things He gives us. But "stuff" must not own us nor come before our love for the Lord. Ω