The Last of the Last Days

[SR9]

I didn't say I knew that May 2018 was the end, I said I was guessing. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.

[mooosie]

Nothing wrong with guessing just be ready to stay and ready to go anytime


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ringo]

True, only the Father knows the day or the hour. Jesus will come for His bride when the Father tells Him it's time. True, we aren't supposed to know when the Rapture will happen (day or the hour), and what we feel doesn't enter into the equation. However, Jesus did command that we not be ignorant of the time (Matthew 16:3). Most scholars believe that man's years of Earthly rule will be 6,000 years and 1,000 years (Millennium) of Christ's rule. In three different Gospels (Signs of the End of the Age-Matthew, Mark, and Luke - Fig Tree Prophecy) the Lord tells us that the re-birth of ISRAEL (1948) would mark the beginning of this Last Generation. Add to that ISRAEL being God's Prophetic Timepiece and one can easily conclude that God certainly does have an Earthly deadline.

After much thought about my statement..."True, we aren't supposed to know when the Rapture will happen (day or the hour), and what we feel doesn't enter into the equation", I stand corrected. What we feel most certainly does enter into the equation:

Should this blessed hope of Christ’s any-time return have an effect on the believer in Jesus Christ? John wrote, “All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as [Jesus] is pure” (1 John 3:3). The believer anticipating Christ’s blessed return will seek to live, in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, a life of purity. We will all stand before the Lord and give an account of how we lived for Him on earth (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Jesus’ imminent return should motivate the believer to live godly in an ungodly world. The word looking in Titus 2:13 is the key for that to happen. To be “looking” means that we live each day in continual anticipation and expectancy, with the conviction that Jesus could come at any time. That hope becomes a transforming reality in this life, resulting in God being glorified through us (1 Corinthians 10:31). The blessed hope brings us joy and cheers us through the trials of this world. It should also cause us to stop and evaluate our thinking, words, and actions.

[Ringo]

I didn't say I knew that May 2018 was the end, I said I was guessing. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.

It wasn't my intention to insinuate anything to the contrary to your statement, I was only elaborating into a more developed point pertaining to the subject.

[Ringo]

I have no other way of knowing, but 70 years (A generation) from May 1948 would be May 2018. Years of 7 are significant in Bible Prophecy. May 1948 is when Israel became the free state of the Jews. What could happen on or near that time? I don't know, but I feel it will be or begin a significant time in the world.

The Rapture is imminent, only the Father knows the day or the hour, it can happen tomorrow, or before I finish typing this post. Many Biblical scholars believe that there is a 2-3 year gap between the Rapture and the Tribulation. The only thing we know for sure about the timing of the Rapture is that it will happen before the the 7 years of Tribulation. Date setting such as the Day or Hour is in reference to the time of the Rapture only. It's quite to the contrary pertaining to the Last of the Last Days of this Last Generation...(Matthew 16:3) "And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and threatening. O you hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky; but can you not discern the signs of the times"? God said that "The days of our years (generation) are Threescore Years and Ten" (70 yrs), but God also added "and if by reason of strength they be Fourscore Years" (80 yrs). "Fourscore if by reason of strength" AFFIRMS that ALL PROPHECY WILL BE FULFILLED, including the SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, no later than 2028. Knowing that the Re-Birth of ISRAEL (1948) marked the beginning of the Last Generation, we are already 68 years into the Last Generation. Any way we do the math time is short, and knowing that ISRAEL is God's Prophetic Timepiece, we won't have much longer to wait.

~ Things Are Going To Get Very Ugly, Very Soon ~

[Reba]

The following statements are just my opinions, not in criticism of anyone.

I trust the Scriptures, not my feelings, for what God has to say. Human feelings are changeable but God's Word is not.

God told us that no one except Him knows the day or time of His appearing again. I trust that He has a reason for that. In all the rest of the prophecies regarding end times, the times are very numerically specific, such as the seven years Tribulation and 1,000 years Millennium. In the case of the Rapture, since God didn't give us any specific numbers, then I conclude it's because He doesn't want the focus to be on timing and dating but on carrying out His Great Commission of spreading His Gospel.

I believe it's harmful to that work to distract from the sharing of the Gospel by focusing on signs. Signs were given mostly to the Jews at the beginning of the church age. Now we have the printed Bible which can reach more people, not just the Jews. Signs are not going to convict Gentile non-believers who make up a great deal of the world's population. Also, by focusing on dates, and then seeing those dates come and go, we Christians can harm the cause of Christ by discrediting our testimonies and opening up avenues of mockery.

Most intelligent and informed people of today's world are aware of all turmoil in this world. What they aren't aware of is the overwhelming peace and joy they can receive by trusting in Jesus Christ.

The Great Commission is to spread the Gospel. The Gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[Ringo]

It really amazes me as to why so many pastors, teachers, and “Christian leaders” choose to ignore, revile, dilute, and misrepresent the 25 percent of God’s Word which comprises the prophetic Scriptures?” Here are a few compelling facts to consider from the Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy by J. Barton Payne:

There are 1,239 prophecies in the Old Testament and 578 in the New Testament for a total of 1,817 prophecies.
These prophecies are included within 8,352 verses of the Bible.
Since there are 31,124 verses in the Bible, the 8,352 verses that contain prophecy constitute 26.8 percent of the Bible’s volume.

I’m being conservative here. That’s actually more than 25 percent of the Word of God! The entire Bible has prophetic themes woven throughout. It's prophetic at the very beginning in Genesis chapter 3 when the conflict between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent was foretold. And it's prophetic at the very end of Revelation when the reign of Christ is anticipated for all eternity. The prophetic Scriptures so dominate the whole Bible that they’re impossible to avoid unless one intentionally changes their gait through its pages the same way one avoids stepping on cracks on the sidewalk. Over 1500 of the prophecies of the Bible are devoted to Christ’s Second Coming. For every prophecy in the Old Testament about Jesus First Coming, there are eight about His Second Coming. Christ’s return also comprises one of every five verses in the New Testament. If the Bible makes prophecy a priority, so should we. If an emphasis of the New Testament is the Second Coming of Christ, we should make that an emphasis too. If prophetic themes crop up all the time throughout the entire Word of God, we should be seeing prophetic themes salting many of our sermons and lessons. But we don’t. It’s time for a reality check. We can look at Paul’s example as a case in point. On his second missionary journey Paul visited the church of Thessalonica. Chapter two of 2 Thessalonians dives right into the problem and it concerns the second coming of Jesus Christ. Paul dispenses a healthy portion of meat in this chapter, but he asks in 2 Thessalonians 2:5, Don’t you remember when I was with you I used to tell you these things?

Paul didn’t have a lot of time with them, but he used what little he had to emphasize the themes of prophecy. Specifically, Paul taught these early believers about Christ’s Second Advent, about the Antichrist, about the Rapture, and about the Great Tribulation. So what gives with this emphasis on prophecy? Shouldn’t Paul have focused on Christian community, the love of Jesus, responsible tithing, and what it means to really care? Let’s get real here, eschatology? Isn’t that the fringe stuff that’s not really central to our faith? Shouldn’t he have emphasized Jesus since it’s all about Jesus anyway? The church of today needs to learn something from the church of yesterday. Our pastors, teachers, and “Christian leaders” would be wise to take a cue from Paul. It’s high time we reintroduced 25% of the divinely-inspired Word of God back into our regular diets. What's really alarming is the posture of the greater church towards the prophetic Word of God today. In an abject display of 2 Peter 3:4, the average church today doubts and belittles the very doctrines Paul considered vital to the faith of a believer and to the health of a congregation.The Church today is blind to its own prognosis. It has vaccinated itself against receiving the full truth by permitting only a portion of it to have any effect. It’s all about Jesus. This is a standard line that many folks parrot when they find themselves confronted by spiritual issues that challenge their personal preferences and zones of comfort. I’m not going to argue with the essence of that line, but I’ll offer a perspective that some people who are quick to deploy it have not considered. In Rev. 19:10 it says, “For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Let me put that another way: prophecy is designed to reveal the full person and divinity of our Lord Jesus. This is a problem for anyone that justifies placing prophetic doctrines on the back burner so they can “focus on Jesus” instead.

One cannot maximize their relationship with God when they refuse to wholly understand Him the way the entire revelation of the Bible intends for them to. The 25 percent of Scripture which is prophetic uniquely reveals the person, plans, and purposes of Jesus Christ. As such, it was divinely-intended to be a vital part of the believer’s spiritual diet. Any other choice results in spiritual malnutrition and an arm’s-length relationship with our Lord and Savior. Just as Paul realized that one’s relationship with Jesus will lack a great deal of meaningful dimension if His future plans and dramatic end-time return is discounted, so we will be less effective with the good news of salvation if we do not proclaim 100 percent of the testimony of Jesus. In scripture, you can look at the record of Jesus’ life. You can look at the impossibility of any mere human fulfilling the ancient prophecies about Him. And you can look at those prophecies and see that the Messiah must be divine. You can also look at prophecies, including His own, regarding His return, and see that we live in that time.

~ God Uses Prophecy To Prove He Is Who He Says He Is, And To Authenticate ALL The Warnings And The Promises Found In The Bible ~