As most of you know May 21, 2011 came and went without the return of Christ. For those who believe God’s Word there was little reason to give attention to Harold Camping’s prediction of our Lord’s return on that day. During His life and ministry on earth, Jesus said quite clearly that no man knows the time of His coming; not even Himself at the time He said it, only His Father. Camping has been considered to be a real quack by most, and the media had great fun ridiculing his false prediction. His error was primarily his failure and unwillingness to believe God’s Word; an error, however, which he shares with many other people including an overwhelming proportion of the same media. The unfortunate result of Camping’s bold lie is the encouragement it provides to an increasing disrespect of the truth of God’s Word in the minds of unbelievers. Such unbelievers glibly cast Camping together with those who do faithfully preach and teach the truth of the Second Coming; a certainty in the future. Camping is but food for the naysayers to lead more astray into a sleepy denial that such things will truly occur. Those who perpetuate such a mindset in their view of reality will suddenly awake to real terror (Revelation 1:7) when the time of preparation will be long gone.
I have at times in SFTD talked about my father who is approaching his 94th birthday. He has earnestly studied the Bible since his days in high school when he became a Christian, and following high school with his days in college and seminary and 70 years of ministry as a pastor and military chaplain. He repeated in a recent email that he feels we are drawing much closer to the Second Coming, and that it might occur sooner than many think. Yet he is always careful to point out that neither he, nor any other man or woman has any knowledge of the specific time; only that it will come. Jesus does tell us, though, that we are to be aware of the season of His return, “When you see all these things, you know that He is near, at the very gates. (Matthew 24:33) One of the signs the Lord gives us that my father finds particularly significant in determining this season of His return is: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. The instant communications and technological world in which we now live makes the fulfillment of this sign a real and near accomplishment.
If we have ears to hear what has been clearly told to us from His mouth we will know that our time of preparation is now. We are even today to be filling our lamps with oil (Matthew 25) by knowing His Word and doing it, by keeping our hands on the plow of our work for His kingdom, by confessing Him before men, by living as though He will come tomorrow, while not standing around gazing into the sky. He wants to catch us in the act of doing His will.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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