Riddle me this if you will

[Gibs]

The Everlasting Gospel is what will bring about the closing scenes rapidly, as it will be and is the TRUE gospel. It is soon to go out with great power and will stir up lukewarm Christianity some to strong consternation.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[JoeMo]

Samie and Gibs,

I infer from your posts that the timing of the 2nd coming of Christ is dependent on us? I think not. If God knows the beginning from the end, He already knows the time. As Jesus said, if we do not proclaim Him, the very rocks will cry out. In deed, Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims in areas of the worls that have never heard the name of Jesus are having dreams and visions of Him; and Bibles are "appearing" mysteriously where no missionary has gone. Yes; we have a part to play in carrying out the Great Commission; but the 2nd Coming is in no way dependent on us. God's WANTS us to be his Ambassadors; but He does not NEED us to be His Ambassadors. The timing of His Coming will surprise us just as much as it will unbelievers. Our main job is not to pinpoint the time of His Coming; but to be ready for it whenever it does happen; and to work to make others ready.

[Gibs]

JoeMo,

Never have I indicated the second coming of Jesus for the Saints could be hurried by us. I've always point to the fact, He has an appointed time from the beginning.

I've even stated in this life of ours with all our appointments we should know what an appointed time is.

Da 11:27 And both these kings' hearts shall be to do mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table; but it shall not prosper: for yet the end shall be at the time appointed.

Appointed times are so far ahead to begin with but always when that time comes it is too quick for us.

The same will be with the world with this, it is going to be too quick, and but few will be ready.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[Gibs]

JM, What you need to realize from my post above about the everlasting gospel is the fact it is proclaimed by the 144,000 and the Saints at the time the Lord has this to happen, we don't do this on our timetable, it is His!

Make sure our lamps are full and we can join in the powerful proclamation of this everlasting gospel. We must be filled with His Spirit and His Truth!

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[JoeMo]

OK Gibs, I misunderstood. I agree with EGW that the last events will be rapid ones. As long as our hearts are ready, we don't need to worry about setting a date. As was stated in an earlier post, all those who love the Lord, ever since the ascension of Christ, have looked for signs; and hoped that Christ would return in their lifetimes. I believe it was the same before Christ's incarnation. All faithful women since Eve had hoped that they would be the mother of the Redeemer. When He was finally born, only a few were ready and recognized Him. I pray that it will be different at His Second Coming. Definitely, every eye will see Him; and I pray that all who look forward to His Coming will be ready.

Are you ready for Jesus to come?

Are you faithful in all that you do?

Have you fought a good fight;

Have you stood for the right:

Have others seen Jesus in you.

Are you ready to stand in your place?

Are you ready to look in his face?

Can you look up and say, "This is my God!"

Are you ready for Jesus to come?

[Gibs]

JoeMO,

I too would hope all who are looking for His coming would be ready, but at the same time I know the most will not.

The point I make is this, His coming again is much closer than most realize, we know that by the signs around us every where, they are screaming at us.

No sign as men desire will be given, there is plenty for those who SEE!

Mt 16:1 ¶ The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven.

Mt 16:2 He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.

Mt 16:3 And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?

Mt 16:4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed.

Jesus could be very direct could He not?

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[CoAspen]

Quote:

.....it seems to me that about 15 minutes after Christ ascended his followers started seeing signs of the end of times. Every generation thinks it is the last one, that they will live to see the second coming. If the Bible is true, one day one will be that one, but I also think that so many are so desperate to be that generation that they see signs where there is none.

Correct. One poster said it was important to figure out the 'end time' to prove our belief. I say wrong!! The only way to show our belief in God is to show our readiness at all times!! That was the emphasis of Christ to his followers. Another reason the obsession never dies, I feel, is that people want to say,"I figured it out"!, come follow me!! They are looking for a certain satisfaction of being able to tell others of what they know to establish their own credentials. Wrong way to go! Pride!!! The obsession detracts from the the message of Christ, "Believe on me and be saved, don't worry about your tomorrows, I know everything and will take care of you, go and take care of my sheep, be your brothers keeper," etc, etc.!

[JoeMo]

[Gibs]

And the foolish didn't have oil enough and it was a parable and a prophecy, it is going to happen that a way, we can know.

The wise virgins have seen the right signs to know and are ready now and will stay so as the time is truly near and here!

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[Gail]

CoAspen

[Textus Receptus]

Read the first few chapters of the Great Controversy by EGW. Should explain it in detail. Moreover, it is really difficult to spread the three angels message without claiming that the Lord's Day is at hand. We are supposed to be "watchmen on the wall"

Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment has come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: Rev 14

Dare I say probation is closing? I want to spread the message to as many as will listen!

[Gibs]

Textus Recptus,

Then there are two of us not afraid to say it, (there is more!) "probation is closing", the last call is soon to be made, are the 144,000 sealed yet? We know not, if not it surely is close.

I believe most of the true ones of Him speak out unashamed and wanting to spread the last call.

Let us all be awake, no time to be sleeping now.

Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[CoAspen]

Dude, you must not be listening to the rest of the comments on this thread!!

Quote:

Then there are two of us not afraid to say it, (there is more!) "probation is closing".....

No one is denying that the end is around the corner, we just don't attempt to say which corner! You seem to be suggesting that unless one is obsessed with the 'end of it all', then they ain't ready! Can you really read the hearts and minds of others? Of course not, so maybe you should just 'listen' instead of always trying to convert people to your way of thinking. Please...don't go down the path of 'it's not me, it's what the Bible says'. it is your interpretation of what is written. Our difference, between you and many others, is that we believe in living everyday in readiness, not being overly concerned to look to for signs so as to be 'more' ready. There is no such thing as being 'more pregnant', one is or isn't!!

[JoeMo]

CoAspen,

Thanks for saying that. I couldn't think how to say it that nice. I think you could say with me "Come, Lord Jesus! Come!" I have mixed feelings about when (not that I yearn to know the hour and day). It would be nice if it were tomorrow, because then we could see Him face to face so much sooner. Then, on the other hand, if He came that soon, think of how many people would be lost! Like you said - let's just be ready; and spread the good news to as many as we can!

[CoAspen]

Considering todays news about the Little 10y/o girl, yes it would be great not to live in fear of the evil that might be just next door. All the more reason to live prepared. Prayers are needed for that family.

[Kevin Straub]

That "He" decides it is time is a bit of a Biblical language approach to this. A principle I have learned to abide by when considering The Eternal One is that nothing He does is arbitrary, including the time of His return. God's "foreordination" has much to do with His foreknowledge. The sovereign nature of God is such that there is nothing that happens but that we would say that He does all things. That is why we have the Biblical parlance depicting God as doing all manner of evil and mayhem, i.e., creating darkness, raining fire, sending bears, and such things. When God hands subjects over to the results of rejecting His presence it is as though He "did it." Along the same vein, knowing something is going to happen is portrayed as His activity but in reality He doesn't cause it.

Here are some things said to come from God:

"Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give [them] unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.

For thou didst [it] secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun" (2 Sam. 12:11,12).

"And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him.

And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade [him], and prevail also: go forth, and do so.

Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee" (1 Kings 22:21-23).

So, to say that "God has a timetable" and that He will return on that day of His choosing, ready or not, is not really the way to look at this. God functions according to righteous principle, unchangingly, never by arbitrary decree just because He is God and that's that. With regard to His return, His desire was to end the great controversy way sooner. The day of salvation would have come if ancient Israel had exercised faith in Him but they entered not in because of unbelief. The promised land should have been the heavenly Canaan and this was in fact God's intent, but unbelief ruined it for them. There have been other "days" of salvation throughout history. Each era has ended in failure, including that of the Advent Awakening of the Millerite era, culminating in 1844 and falling away into Laodiceanism by 1859. That was the fifth era. We are now in the 7th and this time God will have a people to take this thing to its conclusion. 4th Angel is here and sounding and we are in the swelling time of the everlasting gospel--the "3rd Angel's Message"--to its Loud Cry. The return of the latter rain is upon us. But don't look for it in institutionalized religion, including GC Adventism.

God will come when the rebellion has ripened to such a degree that it brings the final crisis and gives His Satanic Majesty, the Lord of the Flies, his one-world tyranny under which he will think to wipe out God's people and prevent the final revelations that bring down the curtain for this world. Satan thought to prevent Christ from fulfilling His mission by keeping Him from going through the experience of the cross and then by keeping Him from the resurrection. He will try to prevent the final generation from going through thier ordeal and has been quite successful at extending his stay on death row through keeping God's people asleep and worldy, by giving them a false idea of "occupy til I come" (it doesn't mean adding house to house and land to land, getting up a good career and nice little wife) and when God finally has a generation who are on board and giving Him glory (His glory is His character) and have their name written in their foreheads (His name is His character) Satan will try to get them to abandon their mission, too. The time of Jacob's trouble is their Gethsemane experience and their determination to push through works on the same principle as that by which Christ finally found the impetus to go the full, after three times in struggle with the Father. He thought of the hopeless condition of man if He were not to do this thing. By the same token, the 144,000 will get their appeal from the "souls under the altar" and realize that their staying on board in their role will give the final reward to those who have gone before and slept. It is selflessness that wins. All of this is a study in the seven angels. We know of angels 1, 2, and 3 and now we are talking about angel 4, that "other angel" of Revelation 18:1, but there are three more angels back in Revelation 14 and these are angels 5, 6, and 7, which have to do with events after the close of probation.

Christ comes again when He finds faith in the earth. His question may have reflected the reality of how narrow the road and how few the travellers would be in the final generation of translated saints. He cannot come until He has a faithful bride, a woman in white and she will not be of the seven (Isa. 4:1); not defiled with these women (Rev. 14:4). He must have the final generation for their specific work and their answer to the challenges of Lucifer going right back to the days of the rebellion in heaven, from the inception of the great controversy. That is why Jesus said that we would do "greater things," and why He was going to His Father. He went to obtain the gift of the Holy Spirit, through which He would personally come and live in His saints. He was only one individual but in the final generation, He will be in the world in many individuals. The "greater things" has to do with coverage. In the final crisis, He has a church that are under theocratic governance, not the hierarchical model of man-over-man that we see today in every human institution, including the GC SdA, who take great pride in their ecclesiastical structure, teaching that it is God ordained, but not understanding "permissive will" or "accomodative will" and wrath. "I gave them a king in my anger," says the Lord (Hosea 13:11). It is God-ordained as a stop-gap measure, to lead them to Christ, just as was the giving of the law at Sinai. Institutionalized Sabbath-keeping, looking for Messiah, diet-conscious people, whose movement was founded upon the sanctuary truths, put the Saviour on the cross!

God has a church and it is not the great cathedral or the national establishment or the various denominations. The presence of God alone can constitute a church. Denominational structure, by its very nature, removes God. Perhaps I am going too far in this post. What I am saying has tremendous implications for "churchians" and therefore requires a lot of substantiating from inspiration. This work is already done and those interesting in pursuing can inquire further. I just want to underscore in all of this that the work finishes in His true church, of which He alone is the Head. That He has such a people is vital to the finalizing of the great commission and it is this that brings the world up to the end of "His timeline." When He has the number, whatever it is (symbolically called the "144,000") who have engaged fully in the messages of angels 1, 2, and 3, under the 4th, He has a body that have taken the plan to critical mass. Now He has enough to meet the need of every soul needing help and guidance in the time of crisis. They hear His voice and obey every prompt. There will be many in the world who don't get one of the messengers of the Lord to come to bring light and encouragement because they have no desire for it and God knows the hearts of all. But those who are seeking will have help. God will bring them what they need, which is Jesus, in the person of the Holy Spirit, through His remnant elect.

So, God's timeline has to do with having a people that are in full cooperation with Him. They have the testimony of Jesus and keep the commandments of God.

Truth is progressive. The light is to increase. The reformation was never to cease. Laodiceans, rich and increased with goods and having need of nothing, do not know the increase of riches that are being mined from the Word of God, by His Spirit, as we are heading into the final movements.

[M. T. Cross]

It matters because the way we figure it out reflects whether we take the words of the Master Teacher seriously or not.

[Gibs]

In Reality the time of the end began when Adam and Eve sinned, time was of no consequence before.

But the culminating end is beginning NOW and there is no doubt about it. Man is annihilating himself. Is it a conspiracy therory that TPTB want to get rid of 93% of the population? I'll allow you to unravel that one. But it rings with some truth I'm sure of that.

The truth these days is extremely scarce, ya can't believe anything ya hear and doubtful you can a 10'th of what ya see. If you believed your eyes on the "tube" they could have a man do a little hop and sail right on into heaven.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[Gail]

The reason we follow Jesus is not because the time is short. That would be a religion built on fear.

But if you take your Bible and look at the Man, you will find that He made promises and claims to give you a life that nothing on earth can match.

He is the source of living water and He is the Bread of LIFE! He promises that in Him you will live abundantly and eternally.

A life with Him is freedom from fear, even the fear of death. With Him there is purpose even to the bad we endure. There is hope for the future, and what a future it is!

He is not only a provider of eternal life with Him, but He gives us power over the chains of evil that hold us now.

His is a message of love to a world that desperately needs love and hope.

If that doesn't make your eyes light up at the mention of His name, then I doubt that news of bad things coming upon the earth in the future will do it.

[Gibs]

We must not belittle the fact that the signs of warning that the antediluvians had were not discerned and all perished in the flood.

We are at the same threshold are we not.

No I do not belittle the fact that our eyes must be fixed upon Jesus, we must make it our thing that we dwell with him continually or we are in danger of falling to Satan.

We know the time is short at least some of us but so many do not and need to be warned. No fear won't bring them in but they need to know and realize He alone is the way of salvation and the way and only way of escape, not only of what is now bursting upon the world. They also need to find His great Love for them and then want to be forever His and to Love Him supremely who first loved them even while in sin rebelling against Him.

The 144,000 are soon to go forth of the third angels message, Sister White says is the Gospel, and both sides of the "coin" will be preached with much power!

The FULL Gospel message must be preached into all the world which has not been done, but is going to be and shortly.

Too much preaching is being done but not enough or no message in it.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[Robert]

The FULL Gospel message must be preached into all the world which has not been done, but is going to be and shortly.

It can't be done if you don't know it!

[Gibs]

Well be asurred Robert, I know it and the 144,000 also and all those who fall in line with them.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[JoeMo]

MT and Gail -

Anything I say would be repetitive to what you have already said; So I will just say

AMEN!

Live your life like The End could come tomorrow; plan your life like it won't happen in your lifetime.

I

[Gibs]

But do remember Jesus said there is 5 foolish virgins, a prophecy as well as a parable.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.