The Last Day

 

Journalist Bill Vaughan once said, “An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.” This year, if he were still alive, he might say it’s the optimist who stays up to see the old year leave, hoping a better one is coming.

Most of us are tired of the daily count of covid cases and the constant change in rules that to protect us from getting it. People are crying for a return to normal, whatever that might be. On this last day of 2021 I want to look again at what the Bible says about the last days. While the general hope is that life will improve and stay that way, Christians know that God says this is not the case. However, not all of the prophecies spell disaster and judgment. Isaiah 2:2–4 gives this good news:

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

This hardly seems possible right now with daily news of conflicts and saber-rattling. It is easier to relate to what a heavenly being told Daniel: “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end. Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand.”

Peter’s NT sermon in Acts 2:17–21 is even more specific:

“ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ ”

This is a mix of good news for God’s people amid all sorts of scary wonders in the world. While the word “magnificent” is used, this will be glorious only for those who know Jesus and terrifying for those who do not.

This next passage is a warning for God’s people and a description of today’s newspaper headlines:

2 Timothy 3:1–5. “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.”

2 Peter 3:3–7 is even more pointed as it describes godless people: “Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.’ For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”

Another indicator of the last days is when people reject Christianity and abandon the church. This too is in the news . . .

1 John 2:18–19. “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”

 GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. The Bible does not give dates, only indications. Some scoff. Others are hopeful that God will change His mind. For me, one day at a time. Focus on Jesus. listen for His instructions and be obedient. Let Him be my source of peace and joy. He came the first time; He will come again, just as He promised. I am secure because He said, “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.” He also said, “The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day” meaning He will end all the bad news defeating all who defy Him and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord! In the end, Jesus wins!

 

This seems to last forever . . .

 

 

We are in a cold snap. This morning it is -23F or -31C with a wind that makes the air feel like -38. What is it about days like this that make summer sunshine feel so far away? Almost to the point of forgetting what it feels like? Winter gives a sense of eternal, even though I know better. While I use the words eternal or forever to describe things that only seem to go on and on and on, the Bible speaks more literally of the eternal.

The OT word actually means “ancient, forever, everlasting.” It can be used to describe days long past, or the future. When applied to God, it could mean “always” for our God is ETERNAL. In that sense, this OT word is about His faithfulness, trustworthiness, and goodness. It also means that He always is.

1 Chronicles 16:34. “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!”

Psalm 90:2. “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

Isaiah 60:19. “The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.”

There is more, but most interesting is Ecclesiastes 3:11: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” I know that eternity is a reality, yet I cannot quite figure it out. How can there be no beginning or end? How can God always exist? What is life like beyond the grave, outside of or without time?

The NT word for eternal is an adjective that defines the everlasting God and His realm; the blessings of salvation; and everlasting conditions that have neither beginning nor end. In more than half the times this word is used, it is linked with “life” creating more questions. How can I be given something that has no beginning? The NT has the answer.

This word is used to describe God, His glory and Spirit, and that He is immortal and the source of our eternal salvation and eternal life. He also delivers us from eternal judgment.

1 Timothy 6:14–16. “Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”

Hebrews 5:9. “And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.”

This eternal life is a gift from God to all who believe in Jesus. It is His life that I am given.

John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

1 John 5:11–12. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

1 Timothy 1:16. “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.”

Receiving this gift through faith puts us in a different realm that has neither beginning nor end. Colossians 1:13–14. “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

His kingdom is eternal and the life we are given is eternal. 2 Corinthians 5:1 says I “know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” yet while I know it, full understanding eludes me for I still walk in the realm of time with beginnings and endings. In that dual existence, God tells me to “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” I’m to look forward to that day when my “resurrected body will also be eternal, dwelling forever in heaven” because my eternal Savior has so “richly provided for me an entrance” into His eternal kingdom. I don’t understand it, but I can believe it — because my Eternal God said it!