Is It The Endtime?, Or Is It Time For An End?

      As world events unfold they seem to be headed from one climactic event to the next.  Events since the fateful day of  9/11 seem to be snowballing out of control from many peoples points of view.  It is often stated by people that we must be in the last days.

       The events of the last nine years have kept growing and spreading.  In December 2004 the world was humbled by the powerful Tsunami that took over 200,000 lives.  Hardly had the cleanup and help started to flow into the area impacted by the Tsunami when Hurricane Katrina rolled thru New Orleans creating total devastation in August 2005,   During the same period America became entangled in two wars half ways around the world. This was followed by an economic crisis that is still ongoing.  Since the  fall of 2007 hardship has fell like a plague on many Americans.. The most recent tragedy to sweep over the horizon was the Haitian Earthquake.  When the counting is done it looks like over 100,000 lives will have been lost.

      As horrible as all these events seem to be they do not exceed what man has managed to do himself.  World War II is said to have destroyed between twenty and thirty million lives.  Just the events that bought the war to an end destroyed more lives than any of the previously mentioned events.  Hiroshima and Nagasaki wiped out well over 200,000 lives in just minutes and the aftermath pushed it far higher. The truly scary part of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the mindset that allowed it to happen.

       Some of the scientist who developed the atomic bomb were fearful that the explosions would trigger a chain reaction that would turn the earth into a miniature sun.  Yet even with these dire warnings from the men who created the bombs it was decided to risk it all and use the bombs anyway.  So our very existence is only because, fortunately for us, some scientist were slightly off on their estimation of what they had created.  Since then we have created the hydrogen bomb which is capable of 1000 times the  destruction done by the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  We still may not be able to destroy the earth itself, but it seems we could easily annihilate most life forms that inhabit this planet.

      In the midst of this dire situation, the media, feeding on the fear factor have quoted the writings of past seers and prophets of different civilizations some forecasting the end of the world in December 2012 have been quoted.

     It has always been my goal to be open minded and to be willing to take all the facts into consideration.  My understanding of the things I have been taught over the years sometimes come into conflict.  Yet sometimes they validate each other.

     My years in the public education system sometimes conflicted  with  the education I was receiving in my home and private life.  Raised as a Christian who believed in creationism it became clear to me the things I was being taught about evolution conflicted with my  belief system.  Yet some of the things I was learning about things like plate tectonics seemed so authoritative and it was something you could see.

       At first this was a problem until I found much of it could be reconciled with the Bible and many of the things that scientist are teaching as facts are nothing more than Biblical teachings rephrased.

        This created a new problem dealing with the dimension of time.  Is, or was, the act of Creation a literal seven day period or was it a figurative term.  I have compromised in a couple of ways. One is that I do not believe God expects us to use the ostrich approach to life.  It is not my position to  dismiss things just because I can not explain them.  Secondly I find nothing in the Bible that says we are condemned to hell for not understanding some things in the Bible. We are required to believe God is the author of creation and that all things were made thru, by and for him.  That I do believe, so that is not the conflict.

        This really gives me an out because I do not have enough faith or intelligence to understand evolution.  Thanks to God I do not have to understand it. All I have to do is believe God did it and I do. That makes creation much simpler than evolution.

       Getting back on track so to speak.  The classes on tectonics intrigued me.  We went on field trips and they showed us layers of limestone and how there was dirt  between the layers.   They also took us to sites where the glaciers supposedly stopped and piled gravel in great piles.  Does this conflict with Bible teaching?
Not according to Genesis 10:25.  It says the earth was divided.  This was after Noah's flood. Also before the flood it says the fountains of the deep were opened in Genesis 7:11  The real trick is reading the Bible and letting the Bible say what it says. It says in Genesis 1:3-5 God created the light. and separated it from darkness and that was the first day of Creation.  While in verse one God created the heaven and the earth.  It also says the earth was without form (shape) and void (empty): and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  This is when creation began on the earth.  It does not say this it the beginning of creation. It says in the beginning God created heaven and earth.  Those events seem to predate the seven days of creation.  Who knows how long that period was.  Was it 24 hours.  Well I suggest you read 2nd Peter 3:4-8.  That is new testament  Also Revelation 3:14 argues what is first thing of creation.  Christ is the Light of the World.  If you read my book on the end times, you will see "I believe what the Bible says, and it says what it means."  Some try to say what it does not say.

      It was explained in our class how Indiana and surrounds had been below sea level several times in the past.  It was also explained that every so often there was another ice age.  These events took long cycles to accomplish, but the earth went thru cycles.  These statements became the battle ground that over the last sixty years has driven my desire to understand, know and reconcile the conflicts created in my life by education and my faith.

    The thing I have found is that man’s wisdom is ignorance when compared to the knowledge in God’s Word.  A simple example is that until the 1400’s it was thought the earth was flat.  In my readings over the years it was my pleasure to discover that supposedly Columbus based his faith in the outcome of his voyages  on one verse he discovered in the Bible.  When you have the faith to believe God’s Word is true you can accomplish what the average man says is unbelievable.  In the Book of Isaiah written almost 800 years before the time of Jesus there is a verse.  It is in the 40th chapter and the 22nd verse of Isaiah. “It is he(God) who sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are like grasshoppers: who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreadeth them out like a tent to dwell in.”

         That is not the only tidbit of knowledge that man has taken credit for and that has been around for ages.  They have been talking of an expanding universe for years.  That is another old, old idea.  In Revelation, which was written shortly after Jesus time, it says the earth and the heavens are fleeing away from the face of God.  That is in Revelation 20:11.

         One of the newer “discoveries” is that the earth has polar shifts.  The Book of Isaiah says in 24:1 that the earth shall be turned upside down.  In fact almost all the “new” discoveries are in the Bible if someone just takes the time to look.  Nothing is really new and what is really scary is history is repeating itself.  It does not have to, but that is the way we seem to be headed.  God destroyed the earth once.  The sad thing is his Word says he will do it again.  This time it will be with fire. Is this global warming actually only part of the 125,000 year cycle.  Are we being drawn toward a warmer time than in the past and that man's pollution is only coincidence and not a cause.

      The reason God did it the first time was that man supposedly was so evil.   All that mankind did was evil one to another.  If the three Abrahamic and God based religions of the world could get it together and understand that none of them have the market cornered on God it might be a lot nicer place to live.  They all need to know and understand that every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God is true and will come to pass.   The Christians can not disbelieve the Jewish Books of God.   The Moslems can not discount the Christian Books.  All three religions claim to believe the same prophets.  Yet they agree on nothing.  They all claim their roots in Abraham and at his death his sons came together and buried him.  That was probably the last unified act in the Middle East.  They all need to get hold of what God said about killing and murder.  When innocents are being killed that is murder in God’s eyes regardless of what men do to justify it.

       Maybe we need a forth religion. The religion of Yahweh’s Way.  A religion that respects all life and every Word of God.  Not one that picks and chooses or discounts one version over another.  A religion that recognizes we are all God’s creation and our lives are to be lived by, thru and for him and him alone.

      The truly sad part is that what could be a very noble religion is being hijacked by a bunch of radicals who have no real faith in God or Allah.  They have perverted the teachings of Islam to obtain their own personal agenda’s. The worse part of it is that the so called leadership of Islam, has let a religion that supposedly teaches and believes in loving your fellow man be corrupted.

       This statement can be proven by the fact that most of  the radicals come from the Middle East and groups that relate to the Middle East.   It is not a problem of Moslems in Indonesia or other parts of Eastern Asia.  The only one getting the victory in the present situation is Satan.  That is not the Jewish or American Satan they often speak of.  It is the internal Islamic Satan that is winning.  If Moslems are killing Moslems who is winning.  Certainly not Islam.  The lay Moslems need to rise up and demand that their religion be cleaned and purified of the evil that is bleeding it.

       In Christianity the Bible says Satan or thieves come only to steal, kill and destroy.   There is no honor among thieves and killers they only want to perpetrate their evil and hide it under the guise of religion.  In America for many years the Klu Klux Klan perpetrated evil and claimed they were doing the will of God.  Finally truth filled preachers exposed the lie they were telling for what it was.  Many crimes are committed in the name of religion.  Not just in the name of Allah either.  Anyone that truly knows God knows that he brings life into the World and not death and destruction.

   
      While I have jumped around and might make you wonder where it is all going.   There is a purpose in that it shows how many things are being pondered by people all over the world.  My goal is to show that God shows in the Bible that he has a plan and a way of doing things.  The second intent is to show that based on God’s past performance and his actions that it is, in my belief, time for God to bring the remainder of his promises to fruition.  It is not that God is slack or slow in showing his intentions, but he wants mankind to understand that he is the answer to all of the problems.

       That God is the solution to all the problems can be seen by simply looking at the simple solutions to global warming.  Man is wrapped up in polluting the atmosphere and getting all he can get out of life.  Yet the way man is doing it leads to his destruction.   Global warming in the grand scheme of things does not matter.  The truth is that there are a finite amount of resources and if man does not learn to use only the renewable ones sooner or later the way we are doing it will mean and end of resources.  As for global warning, scientist who study the ice packs, have proven that global warming happens on a regular cycle every 125,000 years or so.  It is followed by a long period that gets cooler and cooler.  The cold spells tend to go downward for 5000 years or so and then level out a little,  there are usually five of these downward steps.  Then it slows or levels every 25,000 years for a fairly long time.  There tend to be five of these 25,000 year downward trends, after which things continue down till they hit bottom after 125,000 years. Then it starts another long term warm up.  However the cold spells last much, much longer than the warm ones.  The warm ups from bottom to top tend to last less than 5000 years.

        The world will go on and survive long after mankind’s stupidity exterminates him and life as we know it.  The fact of all the fossil fuel reserves say life comes and goes on planet earth.  The fact all those fossil fuels at some time were on the surface of the earth and thriving shows the very fragile nature of life. Some reserves like coal are near the surface, yet some oil is so deep we can hardly reach it.  It was my privilege to find seashells on a mountain tops in Panama. They were encrusted in the rocks at that elevation.  Earth is a changing, living thing that is far beyond the understanding of some mortal scientist. Regardless of his IQ or the number of letters before and after his name.  How many times has life been eliminated and come back from the brink.  Only God knows the answer to that question.

       The real question is, is God getting ready to wipe the slate clean and start over again.  Religion says he gives us the chance to share his existence and be with him.  Atheists say it is all hogwash and that God does not exist.  My view of it all is that as my eyes behold the majesty of all creation and the heavens above how could God not exist.  It is impossible for me to believe this all just happened.  

       Comparing the consequences of our beliefs as I understand them it is pretty simple.  The atheists say there was nothing before and nothing after.  It is a simple philosophy and requires nothing of the person who believes it.  They can be as good or as bad as they choose.  There are no consequences.  If they are right they have lost nothing.  Following my beliefs means I will have lived a life where I have helped people and tried to make the world a better place to live.  Now if I am by accident right, what have they lost?  It is my choice to take my chances and have faith that things can be better in the end of it all.