Statesman63
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 | | Subject: The End is Near (Part 31 of Series) Wed Jan 21, 2015 7:32 pm | |
| The End is Near (Part 31 of Series)
There is no 8th Church age. We are in the last Church age as predicted by Jesus in Revelation chapters 2 -3. If we were to take the average of all of the Church ages from Churches 1-6, the average time of each Church age is 311 years. The longest Church age was the 4th Church (Thyatira), which was an outlier of 1,000 years. The first Church (Ephesus) age lasted only 67 years. The rest of them were 200 years. So far in our Laodicean age we are now at approximately 115 years into it. But even from this knowledge, we cannot predict an approximate time of Jesus’ return. God could throw another outlier at us and make this Laodicean Church age last 2,000 years, but this is unlikely because of what the Bible itself suggests. What we can deduce from knowing that we are in the last Church age is that the Church has undergone its last major personality change. The way the Churches behave today is the way the Churches will be up to when Jesus does return. To this point, we actually can deduce that the end time is near. The Church has had its last personality change.
The Bible has other prophesies that clearly show that we are currently in the last days and soon approaching the Rapture. Starting in Daniel 12:1 it reads, “At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people will arise.” [Hmmm...interestingly, God has the arch angel Michael protecting the nation of Israel throughout history.] It continues, “There will be a time of distress [after the Rapture] such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time [sometime in the future] your [Daniel’s] people [Israelites]—everyone whose name is found written in the book [specifically referring here to saved Israelites, but Christians & saved Jews are the same family through Father Abraham]—will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.” This last statement is describing two separate Raptures. There is the Rapture of the Saints (or Christians); and there is the rapture of unbelievers. The Rapture of the Saints, those who died in Christ is the next prophesied event that will occur that has yet happened. The rapture of the non-believers occurs at the end of the 7 year Tribulation. And verse 3 reads, “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.” God is going to highly reward and elevate the status of those who evangelized in some form and led others to Jesus Christ.
Notice what the angel tells Daniel in verse 4: “But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.” I’ll come back to the part that mentions the sealing of the words; but, the second part says, “[in the time of the end:] Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.” In our series of Revelation so far, we mentioned some great ancient libraries in the time of the early churches. In the Old Testament time, Egypt was a place of great knowledge. We know of many other ancient civilizations that had great knowledge including China and Greece. But what is it that distinguishes between us today and the ancient times of knowledge increasing? For people have always gone here and there to increase knowledge. But never throughout history was there the tool of the internet where all the knowledge of the world lay at our fingertips. The Internet, I believe, is the absolute fulfillment of the second part of this verse; and by fulfilling this verse we know that we are in the end times. We live in a time where education is “mandatory.” Even the layman is able to learn sciences at the whim of his fingertips. The Internet Age didn’t truly start until around the 1990’s. So according to Daniel, the Internet, as we extrapolate from this verse, is one sign that we are in “the last days.” What does “go here and there” mean in this verse? Many will go here to pbs.org and there to learningscience.org; some may go here to ehow.com while others might go there to learnjavatutorial.com to increase their knowledge. Many, I hope will go here to https://christian-anxiety.forumotion.com to learn a wealth of Christian spiritual knowledge (ha ha ha). We can go anywhere online, and even see nearly every spot in the world on Google Earth. This technology did not come about until the Laodicean Age.
Reading on, we will later come back to the part where one of the angels says to Daniel that “it will be for a time, times and half a time” in verse 7. Daniel reveals in verse 8 that he did not understand any of this prophetic vision that was given to him. In verse 9, the angel says, “Go your way, Daniel, because the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end.” So the angel again reiterates that the message is sealed up: that is, the understanding of this prophecy has been sealed and shut up by God until the time of the end. Well, fast forward about 2,545 years to today—we now understand the prophecy given to Daniel because the understanding of it has been unsealed by God. God unsealed it because he said He would in the end time. If you want proof that God unsealed it then turn to Revelation 22:10 where the angel is now speaking to John. He says to John, “Then he [the angel] told me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near.” John and Daniel wrote concerning the same time period and events. The angel said to Daniel, in his day, somewhere around 500 B.C. to seal it up because it did not really apply to them so the understanding did not have to be understood at that time. But the angel says to John to keep this same prophecy open and to not seal up the scroll. Keeping the prophecy open simply means that the Holy Spirit now helps us to understand (along with good Bible commentators who are led by the Holy Spirit). Notice even with John, the angel did not say that he was actually living in the end time; rather, he said to John that the end time is near. “Near” meaning at least 2,000 years near, or approaching, but not in it. We are closer today to the end time than we were yesterday. But we saw from the knowledge increase verse in Daniel that we are no longer “near” the end times, rather we are “in” the end times. We are also living in the time of the Laodicean Church, which is the last church age.
Let’s consider the Rapture. Is the Rapture good or bad? Of course the event is good for we get to see Jesus, but I would argue that the timing is a judgment upon this Church age. Why does the Rapture occur at the conclusion of the worst of all Church ages? The Rapture is not a reward for the faithfulness of the Laodicean Church Age. Could it be that the Rapture occurs just after Laodicea because the Church of Laodicea has become ineffective and useless to Him? Why continue History if the Church has stopped evangelizing and has become self-centered and indifferent to the true will of God? Few Christians talk about Jesus outside of the few hours on Sundays. Fewer still have relinquished the idols in their hearts and minds and have picked up their crosses and are willing to sacrifice their time and efforts for others without asking for anything in return. At the conclusion of the Do-Nothing Church, that’s when the Rapture occurs. Hmmm...
Jesus actually did say something similar. To the very first Church age, Jesus says in Revelation 2:5, “If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.” The “lampstand” we saw from chapter 1 is the Church itself. Jesus said that if the Church of the Age of Ephesus did not repent, that He would come early for them. So the early appearance of the Rapture, Jesus is saying, would have been their judgment for not repenting in a timely fashion. Obviously they repented because Christians are still here. Laodicea, unfortunately will probably not wake up in time to repent. Thank God, however, that we will be raised imperishable and perfected.
Finally, why does the Bible predict that the world will get more evil in the latter days and not better as time goes on?—It predicts a world apostasy will occur just prior to the Tribulation. The world, it says, will become more evil on Laodicean’s watch. It will be our generation that will produce these godless Tribulation people. It is true that there has been a surreptitious increase of tolerance to sin in the culture in general within the last 40 years or so. Decades ago, we would gasp when we hear foul language on national television. Today, it seems okay for even young children to cuss without impunity on television shows and in movies. But the onus, or the burden of responsibility of the decline of our culture taking such a drastic decadent decline does not fall on the secular, but rather on the tolerance and acquiescence of Christian Saints who have allowed their children to blend in with the world instead of being set apart from the world. The Holy Spirit is the restrainer of the spirit of the Anti-Christ; but we, the temples and stewards of the Holy Spirit have been restraining the Holy Spirit in public and letting the world have the final say.
One of the reasons the Church is here is to mitigate evil in the world, but we have lost the respect of the world by compromising with them and resembling them. We are the only light of the world and the salt of the Earth there is. But if salt loses its saltiness, Jesus says, it is good for nothing but to be trampled over by the foot of men. Salt is a preservative. We are supposed to be the preservatives of righteousness and Truth, but we cannot be that if we have acquiesced to the world’s standards and opinions. We must be Christ-like outside of church hours in order to be the light of the world. The world does not have x-ray vision: they cannot see through the brick walls of the church. We have to bring Christ outside of the Church to be the light of the world. We have to bring Jesus to our jobs, schools, and to the streets. The course that we are currently on, we are speeding up the return of Christ because we are not being useful to Him as a whole.
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