Are end time signs right on target?
Recently, I took part in doing a survey in the neighboring communities around my church. We wanted to gauge people's interest in certain programs: such as diet and health, stress management, prophecy studies, parenting, and help to quit smoking.
The responses were varied. Most people were interested (at least in some of the issues); some were already engaged in similar programs. But there were two responses that touched me personally.
No time in the end time
He was a young man in his late teen or early twenties. When asked to give his yes or no response to six questions, he said, "Could you come back when my folks are here? I really haven't got the time."
We live in a fast pace world. Everybody is busy. Everyone wants to go faster, and everyone else is moving too slowly.
It's showing up in our health reports too. So many stress-related illnesses. One recent report says Americans take less vacation time than the rest of the industrialized world.
And guess what gets neglected?
We neglect our spiritual selves. Compare the phenomenal rise in attendance at places of worship immediately after September 11, 2001 to what it has lulled back to today.
It seems that only in the wake of a disaster we really have time for meaningful relationship with God.
As to the young man mentioned earlier, he was polite in stating that his parents may have time to consider the health and religious issues we were dealing with, but he has not got the time.
But there was another response to our survey that waded far out with me into the night as I drifted off to sleep...
I know, but...
This time a cheerful young lady answered the door. She was interested in health and fitness, and in managing stress. Although we punctuated her work at the computer, she was very cordial. But then she said the regrettable thing.
"I know I should, but I don't go to church anymore."
"Why?" we asked.
"I'm too lazy to get up early on the weekend," she said candidly.
We left her with a sentence or two of encouragement, for which she said, "Thank you."
No Surprise
This end time condition had been predicted. Look at 2 Timothy 3:1-5 (NIV):
1But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God-- 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
The Bible predicted that there would be increased state of ungodliness in the last days. Verse 3 says that people will be unholy, and verse 4 says, people will love pleasures more than they love God.
Note that this is nothing new. But when, in the face of escalating political, social, and environmental problems people just take God as is convenient, you know it's end time!
It is evident that many just have "a form of godliness but [are] denying its power."
What has happened to the seats that were occupied in the pews immediately after 9/11? Do you see how religion is being made a crutch?
End time appeal
Most likely you're reading this because you love God - maybe you recognize that He wants us to get to know Him better and have a meaningful relationship with Him.
But what about the millions who show no interest in (or do not know about) eternal life that God offers?
how about sharing heaven's hope with someone today? Encourage a friend or relative to take a serious look (again) at life - eternal life, that comes only in knowing God.
"Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." - John 17:3 (NIV)
We are living near the very end of time. We will soon begin to know what eternity means - if we know God.
For what many will discover (only too late) is, that it is not what you do or do not do that matters, BUT it's who you know when time ends.
See also:
A prayer for forgiveness at the
Kansas State Senate