This book shows us the things which are and the things that will come to pass. However, it all centers around the revealing of Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty! I get caught up in all the trumpets, bowls, judgments, horsemen and other things but those in reality are all subtext to who is being revealed and will one day arrive and everyone will know who he is and will morn as they look on the one whom they crucified.

Take a look at the first 8 versus and see how many times the focus is on Christ!

All right this was short and I will post more thoughts later. Until then may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ fill you at all times.

Scripture is clear that no one, let me repeat that, NO ONE knows
the appointed time of the Lord Jesus’ return except God the Father. The Lord
Jesus himself doesn’t know the appointed time. The Lord said that and the gospel
writers recorded that in their gospels. However, when you raise that point to
Camping and his supporters they say the Lord was hiding the truth from
unbelievers. That is why He said that.

They will go on to say that only those who are truly believers will
be able to see what they are saying is true. They cut and splice verses out of
context and twist them into heretical positions that have no foundation in
scripture at all. You have to be careful when handling God’s word and taking
verse and putting them together doesn’t mean that your position is scriptural.
Let me give you and example:

“..And he went away and hanged himself.” Matt 27:5

“You shall do the same with your oxen and sheep. It shall be with
its mother seven days and then you shall give it to Me.” Ex 22:30

Take these two verses and you can say that the truly spiritual
after betraying someone should hang themselves after spending seven days with
their mother. Do you see how outlandish and disgraceful that can be?

It is time to call Harold Camping what he is. He is a false teacher
even a heretic. The scripture is clear that anyone who distorts the truth and
then teaches it as truth is a false teacher. Try these two portions of
scripture to see what I mean.

1 John 4:1

Matt. 7:15-20

Look I am not abdicating that we close the doors and shut ourselves off from the outside world. NO!! What I am saying is we should tell them the plain unaltered truth of the Gospel. We have to be like Paul describes those a little later in the chapter. One planted and one watered however, it was God who gave the growth. God will destroy the wisdom of the wise. He will take what is foolish to the perishing and turn it into wisdom. Then they will understand and see and experience the power of God.

If we look at a section of scripture like Acts 1:6-8 what do you see? The Lord Jesus now resurrected is with the disciples on the mount just before he ascends to heaven. They inquire if he is going to restore the kingdom to Israel. The Lord Jesus says “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority,” then the Lord goes on to say they are to be His witnesses, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to the world. 

I could also add where in Matthew 24 it talks about the return of the Lord being like a thief in the night. And it says almost the exact word for word thing in 1 Thessalonians 5. And in both cases we are commanded to be alert. To make it our daily pattern to be ready for when the Lord returns for us because we do not know when he will come. 

How can anyone then be so bold as to say we can know when the Lord returns. Or be so bold as to contradict, that is exactly what it is a contradicting, your God & Father. Or even the Lord Jesus who says himself that “No one except the Father knows when...” How can they twist scripture and contradict the Lord’s own words? 

And the biggest part of this heresy! They go as far as to say The Lord will return on this date. Do they not remember that in 1980′s a twisted soul wrote a book explaining the 80 some reasons why He would return that year? And then next year had to write one additional reason why the Lord would not be coming back until next year. We could also mention how the Jehovah Witnesses have on a number of occasions predicted the Lord’s return at a specific date. Thousands of misguided souls sold their material goods to await the specific date only to still be here and without anything the next day. 

I pray that these souls will release the heresy they are guarding and see the truth. Let me leave a warning for us all. Not just them but all of us. It goes like this: 

“I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plaques described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away from his share in the tree of life and the holy city described in this book.”

What were they thinking?

Luke 23:39 one of the criminals who was
hanging there railed at him, saying, “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself
and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him,
saying, “Don’t you fear God, since you are under the same sentence of
condemnation? 41 And we rightly so,
for we are getting what we deserve for what we did, but this man has done
nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said,
“Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.”
43 And Jesus said to him, “I tell you
the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

If you are like me you are familiar with this passage from Luke. It tells us
what transpired between Christ and the two thieves he was crucified with. And in
these two men we see all of humanity and their responses to our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. Let us take a few minutes and look at both of these men.

Let us look at the attitudes of these two men. The first thief is defiant
till the end not willing to admit he is responsible for his actions. Look at the
word “railed” it is the same Greek word we get Blasphemy from. And while this
translation doesn’t quite clearly convey here is that in the original Greek
language this thief was unmercifully insulting and ridiculing Jesus. What state
of soul and mind is it that in the midst of one of the most torturous forms of
death takes his last breaths and hurls insult upon insult on an innocent man
condemned to death? He is without any excuse. We can tell from the second thief
that he very well knew that Jesus was an innocent man being sent to death. He
also refused to admit that he was being justly punished.

Here we see unregenerate humanity. Defiant to the last and yet still wants to
know why God will not do things their way. Saying to God save me and I will
believe you. As we can see from the second thief salvation never comes from our
terms.

The first thing the second thief does is rebuke the first thief.
“Don’t you fear God,…” Before we get to
the famous request of this thief, he puts the attitude of the first thief
clearly before us. The first thief was dying and he had no fear of God. In fact
he was so bitter that he did not have an ounce of compassion for an innocently
condemned man. But that wasn’t the attitude of the second thief.

We can see from his responses that he feared God and confessed his sins. He
tells the other thief that they are being rightly punished. Think about the
state of mind of this man. He says that his execution was justified. He was
guilty and deserved the punishment. Now contrast that with the other thief who
insults and seeks escape through what would amount to nothing more than a magic
trick to him.

He fears God, confesses his sins and thirdly he makes a humble request. He
asks Jesus to remember him in paradise. When we look at this from the idea of
what a thought of remembrance is, it strikes me at how humble and small this
request is. But as he has done all the time God goes above and beyond.

“I tell you the truth, today you will be with
me in paradise.” And with this statement we have the rest of
humanity, those who are saved by Christ.  These are the ones who are now and
those who will be with Christ in paradise.

Where do you fall? Which thief are you? If you are the second thief then rest
easy and no matter what the circumstance the God who saved you will never forget
you and you will be with him in paradise. If you are the defiant thief then I am
here to plead with you to surrender before it is too late. If not then God will
not remember you nor will you be with Him in paradise.

This is not a case of “if you do A then I will do B”. It is God telling us what he will do so never fear. Interestingly enough what is not in this reassurance is the promise of removal from tough times. You can say that in “yes, I help you.” is the promise of removal but I am not convinced that is what is meant by help. What God is promising is that He is with you and will give you the strength to endure and will help you through the challenge. Why wouldn’t He remove us from the trouble? God may, but if we connect this with 1 Peter 1:6-7 we see that trials are part of our sanctification and more importantly necessary. As a refiners fire takes the impurities out of gold, trials will take our faith and strengthen it.