Sunday.....Christianity.....Plant A Tree And Keep Oil In Our Lamps

Reuters reported yesterday that the National Academy of Sciences released a strongly worded report that the United States was doing little in attempting to find the smaller asteroids that are out there and headed this way, that are potentially devastating to the region they would hit. The U. S. is looking for the larger NEOs (near earth objects) but almost ignoring smaller ones, and that only $4 million is being spent yearly on the effort. You may be familiar with what is called the Tunguska Event where a comet or asteroid hit central Russia on June 30th, 1908 with the force of a large nuclear explosion. The Academy is looking at, among other things, evacuation measures in the case of an impending collision of cosmic bodies but I see something else important in this era that can witness natural disasters that kill hundreds of thousands of people at a time. I have to wonder how many of these scientists consider that the Bible seems to mention (Rev. Ch 8) this kind of occurrence (an asteroid hitting the earth) previous to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ? In former times most scientists, if not all, would have meditated on this. There are differing interpretations on the events of the Book of Revelation as should be expected. The vast preponderance of what scripture says is very clear and to interpret it differently is nothing short of holding one's own biases as more important than what God will tell you, and God has given us all that we must know and only what we can handle. The specifics of certain prophesies concerning the end-times will become more clear in their proper time. Today, we have the capabilities for a literal interpretation of many of these prophesies and this warning from the National Academy of Sciences should, at the very least, give us pause as we strive for political and military solutions to our national crisis, important as they may be even to the free proclamation of the gospel. Asteroids may be the least of our concerns when compared to nuclear war, a one-world government and a quest to elevate the autonomy of man not seen since the building of the Tower of Babel whose ruins lie in the sands of Iraq to this day. There is another biblical prophesy that admittedly unnerves me. The Apostle Paul speaks of a great apostasy before the coming of the Lord. Indeed, he is addressing those who would be unnerved as he tells the reader of a great falling away "before" God's final judgement and a strong delusion that is coming upon those who do not believe. To someone like me who strives, albeit probably poorly, to address the minds as well as the hearts of those who desperately need Christ, it is sobering to know that a time will come when...the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His Mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. And The coming of the "lawless" one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders....and for this God will send (people) strong delusion. Already at work in the time of Paul, we may or may not see the fulfillment of this but we are ripe for strong delusion as our interests are too often centered only on today. Another chief passage on the end-times comes from the book of Matthew in Chapter 25 where Jesus gives us a word picture of ten virgins, five of whom were preparing at the time of His coming by keeping oil in their lamps, and five who did not. This is a perpetual command to us and should occupy our thoughts at least one-seventh of our time. It is paramount, in my opinion, to have this concept of a strong delusion in our mind, if only in the back of it, for it will be the most difficult challenge that the church will face. As I have mentioned before, Martin Luther, when asked what he would do if he knew that Christ's Second Coming was tomorrow, answered I would plant a tree today. I think that you can see the attempts to plant trees in this blog, along with the encouragement to keep oil in our lamps.