There is everlasting hope for those who believe

Photo by Thibault Penin on Unsplash

You will hear about wars and reports of wars. Don’t be alarmed. These things must happen, but this isn’t the end yet. Nations and kingdoms will fight against each other, and there will be famines and earthquakes in all sorts of places. But all these things are just the beginning of the sufferings associated with the end.

Matthew 24:6–8 (CEB)

Understand that the last days will be dangerous times. People will be selfish and love money. They will be the kind of people who brag and who are proud. They will slander others, and they will be disobedient to their parents. They will be ungrateful, unholy, unloving, contrary, and critical. They will be without self-control and brutal, and they won’t love what is good. They will be people who are disloyal, reckless, and conceited. They will love pleasure instead of loving God. They will look like they are religious but deny God’s power. Avoid people like this. 2 Timothy 3:1–5 (CEB)

The End Times. The second coming of Christ. The apocalypse. The rapture. The end of the world.

Scary stuff, right? Not to me personally, which I’ll explain below, but of course I understand the fear and I sympathize with anyone feeling anxious these days. We might even say that anyone who’s paying attention should be anxious about the crises we see coming our way in the mid- to long-term. Major crises, possibly like world-ending extinction-level events.

And besides that, anybody else been reading through Revelation lately? I started re-reading Revelation closely around the end of 2017/early 2018. Yeah … take a good look at Revelation and compare it with world events. You might see a pattern there, and if you do you probably won’t like it, hahaha!

I look at all the natural disasters afflicting the world this past decade, and I see their increasing pace. Disaster is striking everywhere. And that’s not all of course. There are important things happening in society as well; I see signs there too. How about that passage from 2 Timothy, above? Are people today selfish and money-loving? Are they without self-control and brutal? Do they love and celebrate the good?

Anyway … no, I don’t necessarily like the pattern I see either; I don’t enjoy seeing people suffer, I don’t want to see people die. But I rejoice in knowing that the end is close at hand, and God will save His remnant of people who believe in Jesus; people of all races, nations, tribes, language (Revelation 7:9–17). Everything wrong will be made right. Those who put their faith in Jesus Christ will be saved and given eternal life.

That is why I want to make it clear that it is not my intention to fearmonger about the end of the world. Quite the opposite! I hope Christian readers will take heart and relax! Do not fear the End Times. We were told these dark days would come, because they must. And we were also told what happens after the apocalypse, in the life to come. So don’t worry! There is nothing to fear if you have faith in our LORD Jesus Christ and you are living as righteously as you can. Keep reading for more details on that below.

Anyway, Jesus Christ told us that when we see these signs, we’ll know it will be soon … yes, I know in my heart that He’s coming back soon.

How soon is soon? Well, I will never try to predict any date or time. That day will come like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:2), therefore we must always be ready for it, because we don’t know the day nor the hour (Matthew 25:13). Furthermore, trying to predict this event too specifically is going dangerously far down the road of divination, and divination is forbidden (Deuteronomy 18:10). Furthermore, divination is closely associated with the false god Baal, a high-ranking demon worshiped by Queen Jezebel and a recurring antagonist in the Bible. Read my series on the Jezebel spirit, which starts here, to learn more.

We can’t go too far into throwing out specific dates for when this will happen, that would be the sin of divination. I see many Christian video creators on YouTube sharing and describing their dreams of the rapture that they’ve been having. OK, that’s fine; I honestly see no problems there. I see a pattern of many Christians from around the world all having rapture dreams and sharing those on YouTube — that makes sense. But some take it too far, talking about this or that date, or prophesying events that are yet to happen.

Be wary of this, because many false prophets will appear in order to deceive, if possible, even those who have been saved (Matthew 24:24). Be extremely careful about prophesying. If what you prophesy doesn’t come to pass, and therefore it becomes clear the prophecy was not of God, then you’ve only done the work of the demonic spirit who gave you that false prophecy. Some of the video creators have been deceived themselves, and so they pass on the deception. I’m not saying they aren’t being genuine, I’m sure they believe what they’ve been “told.” But not all dreams are from the Holy Spirit, it’s important to be aware of that.

On the other hand, however, some of the video creators are obviously trying to clickbait for views, and that’s a different story entirely. Then they are more willingly cooperating with the demonic spirit deceiving them, because their intention in titling their videos and choosing their thumbnails is not to serve the LORD first. Their main intention is to maximize views: Maximize profits.

Anyway, consider this: What good does it do you to have some prophecy of events that cannot be stopped, because it is God’s will that they happen? Do you think you’re going to prepare for these End Times? There’s nowhere safe to go and no way to survive, except one. Everything that you need to do is internal, within you. It’s time to turn back to Christ and put your full faith in Him. Jesus is the only way, and you’re running out of time to seek Him. But OK … I do admit there is one advantage to having an early warning for the End Times. We have more time to get our lives right, and to overcome the personal sins in our lives to the best of our imperfect human ability.

I don’t have any rapture predictions, but I’m kind of feeling 2032/2033, sometime around then. And that is just a personal feeling, just a ‘hunch.’ That’s all. It doesn’t come from the Holy Spirit, it’s not a prophecy, I didn’t dream about it … just my personal guess. But is 2032/2033 a timetable that I’m working towards? NO! Remember, this could happen tomorrow for all we know. So I pray every day, read the Word every day, I repent my sins to Jesus frequently, and I’m trying my very best not to walk in sin.

That last part is the most difficult, unfortunately. Sins are delicious due to our imperfect, fleshly human nature. But I pray to Jesus every day for His aid. I’m trying to live my best life (a life of faith in Jesus and righteous living) right now.

I thank God for each day I’m blessed with during these End Times; it doesn’t matter if the world is soon to end, when that happens, I hope to be with God. So why should I fear death? If I die, I have high hopes of finally meeting Jesus in person and conversing with Him! Achieving that is my goal now, now that it’s the end.

This is how I’m able to feel at peace with the imminent end; I know that Jesus is the one and only way out of this, so I’m keeping my focus set on Him. For that is truly the only way to “prepare” for the end. Love God and put your faith in Jesus that He is who He says, and that He can forgive you of all your sins. He is more powerful than all sins; no sin is too great for Him to forgive, for those who believe in His power. But you have to go back to Him in humility, confess your sins, and place your faith in Him (1 John 1:9).

And then, with the rest of the time you have left, try your absolute hardest to shake those sins, pull out all the stops. This is the end now, so don’t hold anything back; turn to Christ now and REPENT.

To be honest, there are some things I do feel anxious about. I feel anxious about my faith: Is it strong enough? Is it accepted by Jesus? How can I be more faithful? And so on. And overcoming my sins is proving so hard to do. So far, it’s been too hard for me; I’m not succeeding. It’s comforting to know that we’re saved by faith, not by good deeds (Ephesians 2:8) and not by being free of sin (Romans 3:23–24). Nevertheless, in the early chapters of Revelation Jesus repeatedly admonishes us all to change our hearts and ways … leading me to believe I need to overcome my sins before Jesus returns.

But I don’t have anxiety about the apocalypse itself, no. Jesus Christ said that not only will it happen, but it must happen, and He also said what will come afterwards. And therefore, who am I to try and argue? Who am I to try to stop it or fight against it? God’s will cannot be stopped, delayed, denied, resisted, and so on. The whole world will be destroyed, and it’s out of my hands of course, so I don’t need to stress about it. As I already said, I have problems enough of my own trying to overcome my sins.

Not only do I have no anxiety about the end for that reason, but I also have no anxiety about trying to escape or avoid it. For one thing, as a Christian I don’t fear death in general, as I mentioned earlier. I will never tell anyone to go to some place at a certain time or do anything in particular to be safe during the rapture. No, none of that will help you. There’s no safe place to run to. We can be saved by putting our faith in Jesus, loving Him, and holding on to our faith to the bitter end, till the day He returns. That is the one and only way to dodge what’s coming. The good news is that this is a personal task, so you can do it from wherever you are right now; you don’t need to go anywhere in particular.

The bad news is that this is a personal task; no matter how much you love somebody, one thing you can’t do is change them, and you can never force someone to have faith in Jesus Christ. Faith has to be genuine, honest, and truly felt in order for it to be real. If you force someone to have faith … well, all you’re really doing is forcing them to say they have faith in Jesus. You have no idea what’s truly in their heart or mind, and if their faith isn’t real in their heart and mind, then their faith isn’t real, and it won’t save them. Jesus Christ is the one who examines hearts and minds (Revelation 2:23), so whatever is truly inside a person that you can’t see, Jesus knows it.

Not everyone will be saved on the day of the rapture. Perhaps some of our loved ones won’t be saved either. Jesus said: “I tell you, on that night two people will be in the same bed: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together: one will be taken and the other left (Luke 17:34–35).”

The one you share a bed with at night, they might not be taken up to Jesus during the rapture! I hope that illustrates my point: You have to worry about your own faith now, your own heart and mind, and your own ways. No matter how much you love someone, you can’t make their faith real. Only they can, it all happens within.