HISTORY AND PROPHECY: YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Have you ever heard the saying, "Ignorance is bliss?" How about the saying, "History always repeats itself?" I am sure most of you have heard both, and perhaps even used them to get across a point you were trying to make. Well, today, I hope to use both sayings to "sound the alarm" of a rapidly approaching, world-wide cataclysm. Honestly, I fear what would happen to me if I did not warn mankind. Ezekiel 33:6 says, "But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand." All who read this are responsible for passing this message on (that, too, is a warning).

The Bible describes two times in our world's history (one past and one future), as times when "God has seen enough." The first happened about five thousand years ago, when mankind had become so evil that God said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them" (Gen. 6:7). Apart from eight people who found grace (unmerited favor), all of mankind was destroyed (Gen. 7:21).

The second time is yet to come, but just as with all Bible prophecies, those things spoken of by the prophets, will come to pass. Peter, in his second epistle, uses the example of Noah's flood to describe magnitude of this world's pending destruction. Just as God did with water, He will ultimately do with fire (2 Pet. 3:1-12). Verse ten says, "But the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which 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." The "Day of the Lord" is not a specific day, but refers to all of the end-time events over a span of time, during which God personally intervenes in history. In other words, when He, once again, has had enough!

It is very clear from Scripture that when the end-time series of events begins, it will be too late for our lost world. The Rapture (the removal of the Church), the Tribulation (Daniel's Seventieth Week), and the Millennium (the 1000 year reign of Jesus), are stages in the future Day of the Lord, all of which lead up to the destruction of our planet. Revelation 21:1 says, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea." Unfortunately, just as it was with Noah's preaching, scoffers mock our warnings of the world's pending doom (2 Pet. 3:3). Jesus said, "But as the days of (Noah) were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that (Noah) entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Matt. 24:37-39).

What are your plans for the holidays? Will you and your family be celebrating according to your family's traditions? Will you be eating, drinking, and exchanging gifts? What if the Lord, whose birth Christians honor every year, returns? What if you are not ready? Well, if that should happen, you will not be able to claim ignorance as an excuse; both history and prophecy have warned you! You may never have another day in which to accept Jesus as God's gift to you (Jn. 3:16). Because we are all sinners, we all need a Savior (Rom. 3:23; 5:8; 6:23; 10:9-10). God's offer is to "whosoever will," a phrase appearing ninety-three times in the New Testament, none more important than that found in Romans 10:13, which says, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." You have been warned!