Sunday, May 22, 2011

Fuel for Mockers

Here we are – a day past the predicted Rapture, Second Coming, end of the world, Judgment Day, depending on who you talk to. The one thing about all this nonsense that I knew for sure was that none of this would happen on May 21 at 6:00 P.M.  I had great confidence in that fact, because the Scriptures make it quite clear that no one knows the day or the hour. Without starting a debate on the difference between the Rapture and the Second Coming, and there is a distinct difference between those two events, I believe it will be helpful to examine a few Scriptures to see just what they say about the return of the Lord.

Jesus said in Matthew 24:36, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (NASB). Jesus continues in verse 44, “For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will” (NASB). Too many people over the years have attempted to reduce the Scriptures to some kind of mathematical formula, and mixing that with some kind of “hocus pocus,” they have come up with a certain date and time for the return of the Lord. Such can only be done in ignorance of or in outright denial of the Scriptures.

The worst thing about these people who think they can predict what God has not chosen to allow man to know is that they provide fuel for the skeptics and mockers. No amount of nonsense any human can say can change the truth. Jesus is coming back. He made that very clear. “I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:3, NASB).

The Rapture of the Church is imminent, just as it has been since they days of the apostles. Nothing has to be fulfilled before the Rapture. There are no signs of the Rapture, but there are certainly signs of the Second Coming of Christ, an event which will occur seven years later, and many of those signs are becoming more and more visible today. It is safe to say that there are many reasons to believe the Lord will return soon, but it is never safe to get into date-setting.

Of course, the media and others are using this non-event as a reason to scoff at the idea of the Lord coming back as a hoax or a fairy tale for gullible people. There are those who will take any opportunity to deny the fundamental truths of Christianity and to group all Christians in with the types of people who make things up to grab headlines or in some cases to enrich themselves. The reality is that this is all just another of Satan’s tools to get people’s eyes off the truth.

Peter addressed this situation. “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.’ For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:3-7, NASB).

There have always been and there will continue to be those who mock at the truth. They ask, “Where is the promise of His coming?” Many are certainly asking that today. The fact that God has already judged the world with a flood “escapes their notice.” They are “willingly ignorant” or as one speaker said, they are “dumb on purpose.” Regardless of all the evidence of a global flood, they deny it, because they don’t want to admit that God already has and will again judge the world because of sin. They desperately hope that denying the obvious will make it go away, but God is not going to go back on His promise to bring “the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”

It is imperative that we not do or say things to add “fuel to the fire” for mockers. They desperately need the Gospel of Christ, and they need to know that judgment is coming, no matter what people may say about it.