Father, help us to be worthy of your calling, remove our sins from us and grant us a place in your kingdom. May it come soon.
There's one question that been asked for nearly two thousand years and that is - when will Jesus come back to set up his kingdom?
Even the disciples asked it while Jesus was still with them. However they asked two related questions, but with (possibly) different answers. One thing is certain, that the response covered what would happen. And it did, and is still happening today.
If we look at the answer broken down into sections we get;
Jesus then summarised that when all these things were happening that everyone would see Jesus 'coming in a cloud with power and great glory'.
If we look at the list above we can see that the first 5 have been happening since the time of Jesus but each century seem to get more pronounced. This is certainly true of 2, 3 and 5. At the time of Jesus Rome was all powerful and the Roman Empire was fairly stable. There wasn't much fighting as Rome suppressed it very quickly. However, Jesus prophesy about the temple being destroyed did happen, because the Romans destroyed it along with Jerusalem. So part of it came true then.
Since the fall of the Roman Empire and especially with quick modern transport wars can start very quickly and this time it is nation against nation, not some tribe against tribe in a local scuffle. As a result Jerusalem is constantly surrounded by enemies.
Point 3 is becoming very topical at the moment. With the worry about the global fuel crisis more people are now planting bio-fuels. The rain forest is being reduced even more causing more global problems with greenhouse gases, and poorer countries are replacing food crops with bio-fuel production causing starvation for tens of thousands. At the moment scientists are blaming it all on the 'greenhouse effect' but they never bothered to read Jesus' response that we've been looking at (recorded in Luke's Gospel). God knew this would happen and that man's greed would make the situation even worse. I don't think that God would want to completely destroy something he made. Even during the flood he saved enough to start again. But God, not being subject to time, can see what man will do to himself.
Paul's second letter to Timothy looks at the last days in a more personal manner. The 'peril' is on a society basis, rather than geographic. He records society like this:
"For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;"
We have to make sure that we're not included in any of the above categories.
Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians adds a bit more. In chapter 2 it talks about the 'falling away' caused by someone who would exalt himself above God (or try to, at least). This person is given the title Satan. (Note: the Bible says 'man of sin' - in verse 3, not some super-natural being. See some comments on Satan for more details.) This is one of the few signs that we're still waiting for, although some scientists, who try to deny God, fall into this category.
Peter also gives an apt description of the last days in his second letter. If anything this really shows that we are in them now. Never before in human history have we seen the denial of God and the rise of atheism. Peter also gives the most graphic description of how Jesus will be manifest. Jesus says every eye will see him. At first I thought this would be like looking up and seeing a bright spot coming out of the sky, but Peter describes it as "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up". No one is going to miss that!
Everything points to the fact that we live in the last days.
<1-- No one knows when Jesus will come back but the simple fact is that if he doesn't come soon then there might not be an inhabited planet for him to come back to. The wars, famines and global destruction might mean that Jesus might be waiting for man to destroy his own planet so that Jesus can save those who are worthy.Or the destruction of earth will be God's way of wiping all the means of destruction from the planet, before Jesus sets up his perfect kingdom.
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