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Locked on 10/27/2009 12:40:43 PM PDT by Admin Moderator, reason:
Childish behavior. |
Posted on 07/25/2009 2:40:04 AM PDT by Quix
The Bible says we cannot know the time of the Lord's return (Matthew 25:13). But the Scriptures make it equally clear that we can know the season of the Lord's return (1 Thessalonians 5:2-6):
"You yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night... But you brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night or darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober."
This passage asserts that Jesus is coming like "a thief in the night." But then it proceeds to make it clear that this will be true only for the pagan world and not for believers. His return should be no surprise to those who know Him and His Word, for they have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to give them understanding of the nature of the times.
Furthermore, the Scriptures give us signs to watch for — signs that will signal that Jesus is ready to return. The writer of the Hebrew letter referred to these signs when he proclaimed that believers should encourage one another when they see the day of judgment drawing near (Hebrews 10:25-27). Jesus also referred to the end time signs in His Olivet Discourse, given during the last week of His life (Matthew 24 and Luke 21). Speaking of a whole series of signs which He had given to His disciples, He said, "When you see all these things, recognize that He [the Son of Man — that is, Jesus] is near, right at the door" (Matthew 24:33).
A Personal Experience
Every time I think of "Signs of the Times," I am reminded of a great man of God named Elbert Peak. I had the privilege of participating with him in a Bible prophecy conference held in Orlando, Florida in the early 1990's. Mr. Peak was about 80 years old at the time.
He had been assigned the topic, "The Signs of the Times." He began his presentation by observing, "Sixty years ago when I first started preaching, you had to scratch around like a chicken to find one sign of the Lord's soon return."
He paused for a moment, and then added, "But today there are so many signs I'm no longer looking for them. Instead, I'm listening for a sound — the sound of a trumpet!"
The First Sign
One hundred years ago in 1907 there was not one single, tangible, measurable sign that indicated we were living in the season of the Lord's return. The first to appear was the Balfour Declaration which was issued by the British government on November 2, 1917.
This Declaration was prompted by the fact that during World War I the Turks sided with the Germans. Thus, when Germany lost the war, so did the Turks, and the victorious Allies decided to divide up both the German and Turkish empires.
The Turkish territories, called the Ottoman Empire, contained the ancient homeland of the Jewish people — an area the Romans had named Palestine after the last Jewish revolt in 132-135 AD.
In 1917 Palestine included all of modern day Israel and Jordan. In the scheme the Allies concocted for dividing up the German and Turkish territories, Britain was allotted Palestine, and this is what prompted the Balfour Declaration. In that document, Lord Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, declared that it was the intention of the British government to establish in Palestine "a national home for the Jewish people."
The leading Evangelical in England at the time was F. B. Meyer. He immediately recognized the prophetic significance of the Declaration, for he was well aware that the Scriptures prophesy that the Jewish people will be regathered to their homeland in unbelief right before the return of the Messiah (Isaiah 11:11-12).
Meyer sent out a letter to the Evangelical leaders of England asking them to gather in London in December to discuss the prophetic implications of the Balfour Declaration. In that letter, he stated, "The signs of the times point toward the close of the time of the Gentiles... and the return of Jesus can be expected any moment."
Before Meyer's meeting could be convened, another momentous event occurred. On December 11, 1917 General Edmund Allenby liberated the city of Jerusalem from 400 years of Turkish rule.
There is no doubt that these events in 1917 marked the beginning of the end times because they led to the worldwide regathering of the Jewish people to their homeland and the reestablishment of their state.
Since 1917
Since the time of the Balfour Declaration, we have witnessed throughout the 20th Century the appearance of sign after sign pointing to the Lord's soon return. There are so many of these signs today, in fact, that one would have to be either biblically illiterate or spiritually blind not to realize that we are living on borrowed time.
I have personally been searching the Bible for years in an effort to identify all the signs, and it has not been an easy task to get a hold on them. That's because there are so many of them, both in the Old and New Testaments.
I have found that the best way to deal with them is to put them in categories, and in doing that, I have come up with six categories of end time signs. We will explore these catetories beginning in Part 2 of this series.
I just wanted to thank you for posting the link to this website, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as much at any of your links as I did with this one!
Nope, NOTHING will make me laugh the way I did when I actually read the "Roman Catholic Website" crystalinks.com and discovered that it was actually a website for a Jewish, new age pyschic who converses with an "entity" named Zoroaster, but she just calls him "Z" for short. Yep, I'm going to save that link for a LONG time.
Just want to make sure everyone understands that is not a link to a “Roman Catholic Website” no matter what the poster, Dr. E, put in the post #837 as the origin.
It remains unclear why it was labeled as a “Roman Catholic Website” when Crystalinks.com is patently New Age. I cannot conjecture any honest reason for doing so, other than an amazing error, when a slight bit of investigation would have made everything quite apparent.
Sometimes, I wonder if the protestant contingent attended the Keith Olbermann School of Theology. ;-D
I also wonder if a correction would have been made to the label of “Roman Catholic Website” if multiple posters hadn’t mentioned it...or would the lurker be left to do the minimum research on his/her own? Of course, anyone reading the thread now would not need a correction, all would be explained.
Thanks for the research. I would never have gone to the link. :)
ROFLMTO
Perry Mason once again tastes EPIC FAIL. LOL
But there is a huge cross on the IH40 around Groom texas which is a "Whoa" in a very good sense: Cross Ministries.
That’s the problem, isn’t it? I don’t like to click on links in other people’s posts unless I really know and trust the poster, because there are a lot of places on the web I don’t go, i.e. “new age” demonic junk. Heck, a person could get a virus.
Exactly right.
What an awesome website!
That is amazing!
TX has all the good stuff.
It truly is an awesome witness. We had the privilege of seeing it when it wasn't quite yet finished.
But it was obvious it would become a strong testimony to Jesus Christ: a bunch of passenger vehicles and several big semis had stopped that day.
The big cross was up and they had a few stations of the cross up. There was a building with a full sized replica of the shroud of Turin.
The "office" was a portable steel building. LOLOL! It has come a long way since then.
Clear to someone who has abandoned and rebuked their own God-given gifts of discernment?
LOL
BTW, did you check out post 813?
>>lol. I guess some people have a really hard time differentiating between a statue of Christ and a statue of a human being<<
Did you get the memo that Christ isn’t human?
Ping for discussion.
LOL
Go to the link for crystalinks.com, this is truly epic failure. Oprah could probably do a better job of explaining Catholicism than Ellie Crystal.
Got Mirror?
Bible-believing Christians are anti-idolatry...
Catholics included.
...and no one erects those golden calves like Rome.
Good thing the Catholic Church doesn't erect golden calves.
Mary would be appalled to see what goes on in her name.
We can take YOUR word for it, or Christ's.
You really should check out the website. I’m at my office and our virus filters are really good. The website belongs to a total nutjob, it’s hilarious.
LOL!
What a precious little denial of the humanity of Christ.
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