Eternal life resides in Jesus and in Him alone. No one else! This is true now and will also be the case after Jesus removes His true church from the earth.
In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
What do people need the most? The answer remains the same as it’s always been: A clear understanding of the Gospel. By this I mean that people need Jesus, not the one that so many today create in their mind but but the One revealed on the pages of Scripture.
The fact that we still wait for His appearing despite the increasing relevance of all the signs I wrote about back then demonstrates God’s patience as well as His restraining hand in holding back the calamities that loom over the world at this moment. And the clouds grow darker by the moment as the world teeters on the edge of the start of the Day of the Lord.
The falling rain outside my office reflects the gloominess I feel today. It’s just one of those melancholy days that many of us experience from time to time under the weight of living in today’s world.
Through the struggles of my past, I have learned the value of clinging to God’s Word when the cares of this world threaten to undo me.
I often hear statements such as, “Today is no different than any other time in history; look at what happened in the last century with its deadly wars.” Others point to New Testament times when immorality across the Roman Empire rivaled that of our day.
Is our day truly unique? Do we live in the season of Jesus’ imminent appearing?
What’s the allure of false teaching, particularly in regard to future things? Why do so many people go astray from what the words of Scripture tell us about what’s lies ahead for us and the world?
These questions again came to my mind after I received an email boasting that “dispensationalism is on the decline.”
I have heard it said in many ways from both Christians and pastors. They say today is no different than any other previous period in history. They tell us that just like the past, the societal trends we bemoan will correct themselves.
In other words, there’s no reason to think we live in the last days of human history. But is this really the case?
The dearth of sound biblical teaching on Bible prophecy has created a void that false teachers have filled with a wide assortment of wayward beliefs regarding the church, Jesus’ appearing, the Second Coming, and Israel. As a result, most believers cannot discern the season in which we live and place their future expectations on temporal outcomes rather than eternal realities.
In Invitation to a Lavish Feast, I seek to provide the saints with a firm foundation for their hope in Jesus’ imminent appearing.
From what I have read or seen on social media, most of us who are excited about the possibility of a September Rapture are not saying it will happen during this Feast of Trumpets. We avoid date-setting and agree that it’s wrong. We know that such failed predictions of the past have placed an unwelcome stigma on all of us who yearn for Jesus’ soon appearing.
All the biblical depictions of this other-world domain, whether it be the glories of Heaven, the earth during Jesus’ thousand-year reign, or the eternal state, far surpass the mythical Narnia in their captivating beauty and splendor. It’s this kingdom that should fill our hearts with wonder and joyous anticipation. Yet so many believers live as though the reality behind the mythical Narnia doesn’t exist.
The good news is that Paul doesn’t limit participation in the Rapture to those who are watching for it. The opposite of looking for Jesus’ appearing is not that of physical death, but rather that of being asleep in the sense of not paying attention to the sings of the times, a common malady among the saints today.
Just this past July 28-29, the nations met at the UN to agree upon a resolution aimed at bringing peace to the Middle East. The US and Israel didn’t send representatives to the meetings, but almost every other country attended. The result of this assembly was a document entitled, “New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State solution." The formal UN vote on the document is set for this September at its annual gathering.
