"Set Your Minds On Things That Are Above....Not The Things Of Earth." (Colossians 3:2 ESV)

            It was the best-selling non-fiction book of the 1970s.....Hal Lindsey's....The Late Great Planet Earth. That's not only quite an accomplishment in publishing....but it says a whole lot about what the American public was like back then. The evangelical....Born Again....awakening was in full-swing....in no small part because we as a people were becoming animated as to the day and the age that we live in as it relates to the Bible. I've read the anecdote a few times....it may or may not be true....but the report was that Israel's first Prime Minister....David Ben-Gurion....had a copy of Hal Lindsey's book by his death bed.
            Prophecy....'teachers'....and they came out of the woodwork....talked about a chip in the hand in order to buy or sell....and a ten-nation end-times European confederacy....and a coming Antichrist....and wars and pandemics and cosmic and geological signs....and particularly great delusion and a falling away in the church....and they were mocked....but as it turned out....these things not only have begun but they are increasing at a greater and greater pace. Recently....a month ago....ten European nations signed a defense compact....and I haven't even heard anyone mentioning the possible significance of that.
              AI....artificial intelligence....has been an issue long before the recent spate of news reports. It has been a done deal for quite some time now....for there is no stopping it. The warnings from a couple of tech execs are too late....and Trump's comments of it being a hoax are the rantings of an unstable mind that will change allegiances in a moment if his grand plans of personal exaltation demand a shift.
             The Lord is near. It's as simple as that. We failed to see the signs. The evangelical fervor of the 70s and into the 80s....did what all revivals do....it waned. I once posted a long time ago....that the Billy Graham evangelical became the Ralph Reed evangelical....that became the Karl Rove evangelical....which was no evangelical at all....and we have since become the Donald Trump evangelical....following a false prophet....and maybe even worse.
             That niche stills remains in evangelicalism....with Bible prophecy teachers everywhere....some good and some bad and some ugly....but overall the pulpits are leery of being tagged some kind of end of the world date-setting fanatic....but as I posted in the past....God does not have us date-setting....but He does want us to be....mind-setting.....setting our minds on the return of the King of Kings....to a world that if we would but open our eyes....we would see all of the prophecies....as God deems it our need to know....from all over God's Word....being fulfilled....here and there....increasing in frequency and intensity....and we would be living as did those reading the letters of Paul and Peter and Jude and John....living day-to-day....in both joy and trepidation....fulfilling our responsibilities....but at the same time looking up for our redemption which surely draweth nigh!