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Might you be called to equip and prepare, both yourself and others, for the end of the last days? Do you ever feel like the words Jesus spoke to Peter, "Feed my sheep" also speak to your soul? Do you want to be strong and courageous? Would you rather follow Christ than men, so that you can be your best person to the praise, glory, and honor of our Saviour? Are you ready to walk in love, even if this means laying down your life? If you answer yes to some or all of these, then we have a lot in common. Let's get going...
Greetings and welcome to another episode of "Going to the End". Today I want to ask, where are we right now in respect to the last days? I realize how difficult it is to always be talking about the future, like it's somewhere in the distance, ahead of us. Truly, it is not easy to do without some idea of where we stand right now in relationship to that future. For some perspective, we can look at the day of Pentecost, when Peter began to lay the foundations for the church.
Speaker 1:The day of Pentecost occurred not long after Christ ascended into glory. And in Acts chapter two, Peter had to explain what was happening. He suggested that we are already in the last days. In verses 15 through 17, he says, "For these are not drunken as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.
Speaker 1:And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophecy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams." So if this is true, and from Peter's perspective, Christ's followers are already in the last days at the day of Pentecost, then what am I talking about when I suggest that the last days are front and center with the scenes relating to a seven year period of peace prophesied for Israel and the world? It's a question worth asking.
Speaker 1:I think we have to break it down a little more because in Matthew 24 verses four through eight, we can read the words that Jesus spoke relating to a period known as the beginning of sorrows. And the beginning of sorrows is along the lines of wars and rumors of wars, which we know very well about right now. And it is also about floods and famines and earthquakes. These are all the beginning of sorrows, but the end is not yet. So we have one type of last days from the time Jesus ascended until the present moment.
Speaker 1:We can say we are right now in the beginning of sorrows of the last days. And that drama might necessarily have its own climax and its own resolution. Now, I'm pretty sure that we are not yet at the climax of the beginning of sorrows of the last days. And even though I have a clue what that might look like, I'm not going to say too much specific about it. We could discuss it and I would love to hear your ideas, but let's just say it gets worse before it gets better.
Speaker 1:Now, the resolution to the drama of the beginning of sorrows of the last days will most likely be peace for Israel and the world. The glorious sunrise spoken of in the previous episode. For a bright and glorious sunrise, we must necessarily see a pretty dark. I don't want to say very dark, but it won't necessarily be a pleasant dark before the dawn. I'll talk more about that in a bit, as it could relate very much to act two of the drama of what in this context, we could more realistically refer to as the last last days.
Speaker 1:We can call the seven year peace for Israel and the world the last last days. And Act two is the second half of that seven year peace. We cannot call that rising action of Act two the end of the last last days. For the end of the last last days will be an Act three of the last last days. So in the big picture of this last days timeline, we are presently somewhere after the midnight of the cold war, which some people want to still talk about this doomsday clock idea.
Speaker 1:And we're still like mere seconds or minutes until midnight. But I think psychologically, the world has been held captive long enough in this idea. Oh, we're just seconds or minutes from midnight. This mentality kind of needs to be put into mothballs because from the way I look at it, the next midnight is the midnight of the end. When things get so bad for the marked society that mutually assured destruction seems like a good idea.
Speaker 1:And obviously that will be an act three event for the end of the last last days. The midnight of mutually assured destruction being a true threat will not occur so long as humanity at large still has the capacity to experience goodness. And that capacity for knowing goodness will remain within the human experience until the mark of the beast destroys that capacity in all those who take the mark. In terms of where we are right now, roughly, I would say we are between the midnight of the cold war, which basically highlighted humanity's ability to destroy itself and all flesh on earth. I dare say even the cockroaches.
Speaker 1:We're somewhere between that midnight and the dark before the dawn, which I guess comes around three, four in the morning, somewhere in that range. It might be something pretty eventful. I suppose, especially when we look at how it could be used as a bad memory for the world, a memory that could be used against us during the campaign of act two of the last last days, which campaign will be effectively to marginalize the Christian and Jewish faith systems. And for that, we need to know our enemy. For I believe the underlying rationalization for that campaign will be the notion that never again will a major world religion bring us to the brink of a global war.
Speaker 1:Remember that this anti Christian and anti Jewish campaign will begin shortly after the midpoint of the seven year peace. And if people of the world are afraid that their peace is threatened, or they're afraid that their peace is slipping away, They will want someone to blame and they will want somebody on whom they can take out their frustrations. And that somebody will most likely be us. We will be the target of a campaign that basically wants to wash us out of their society because well, they don't like us. They don't like what we represent.
Speaker 1:We represent a truth that real peace, real love, and real joy comes from heaven above from Jehovah. It does not come from within the human heart. Humans have not evolved to this greater awareness of peace and love and joy all on their own. They could not fully realize these things without the blessing of the Lord, which he may indeed pour out upon the whole world when the peace becomes a reality. But in the long run, they're going to try to wash us and wash the Lord entirely out of the equation.
Speaker 1:So to best justify that campaign, they're going to want to believe something to the effect that yes, never again, a major world religion bring us to the brink of a global war. So basically the campaign to wash us out of, or to marginalize us from their society is in essence to preserve their peace. And this is just a little bit suggestive that the dark before the dawn of that great peace for Israel and the world, which will last for seven years depending on from which perspective you look at it, the dark before the dawn could possibly come from another world religion, which actually does at the present threaten peace. And of course, I speak of radical Islam and the terrorism that comes with that. Remember that the first half of the peace, the seven year peace is truly genuine because without that, there would be no rebuilding of a Jewish temple in Jerusalem.
Speaker 1:Too many people, too many ideas would oppose that. So the ideologies and the forces that oppose that would necessarily have to be brought to a rather low level compared to what it is now. The peace really becomes possible when the following can be said about radical Islamic jihad as we know it: "Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded. They shall be as nothing, and they that strive with thee shall perish.
Speaker 1:Thou shalt seek them and shall not find them, even them that contended with thee. They that war against thee shall be as nothing and as a thing of nought." Isaiah chapter 41 verses eleven and twelve. The justification for that diminishing of an enemy hardly comes without greater friction and greater conflict than we presently see. And it's probably going to be a major, major terrorist attack that creates the sufficient demand for peace that would compel us toward the last, last days in a real way.
Speaker 1:So in terms of looking at where we are relative to the last last days or the end of the last last days, I have to roughly say we're metaphorically somewhere like 2AM, somewhere in that ballpark. And I guess that basically answers the question. Obviously, there needs to be a little more said about act two and the rising action of the last last days. So in future episodes, I might just call it the last days. Even though we realize that where it comes to the church, we have always been in the last days.
Speaker 1:Because anything after the time Jesus walked on earth is in essence the last days. But we're still in the beginning of sorrows of the last days with wars and rumors of wars. The last last days don't begin until the peace begins. The sunrise of a new day. So we're somewhere, say we're around 2AM now, and we are looking for a 6AM sunrise of peace.
Speaker 1:We've still got some hours of night to go. And for obvious reasons, I cannot speculate in any detail on how dark that's going to be. Still, these ideas should bring a little perspective where we are now in relation to the last days and the last last days. And perhaps that will make it a little easier to listen to and to digest the other episodes of this podcast. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1:Please subscribe if you like or say hi and have a nice day. My friends may the peace of the Lord be with you.