VIGILANCE: Asleep at the wheel!

"It is like a man away on a journey, who upon leaving his house and putting his slaves in charge, assigning to each one his task, also commanded the doorkeeper to stay on the alert. Therefore, be on the alert--for you do not know when the master of the house is coming, whether in the evening, at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning - in case he should come suddenly and find you asleep. What I say to you I say to all, 'Be on the alert!'"

Mark 13:34-37

Police discovered an eighteen year-old Santa Fe man at 2 a.m. sleeping on the passenger seat of Andrew Brewer's Chevy Camaro, next to broken glass and a large rock, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

Deputy Police Chief Beverly Lennen said the youth had apparently broken into the car to steal it. Unfortunately the car resisted starting and, for reasons known only to the car thief, he fell asleep at the wheel.

The authorities awakened and arrested him.

“He was just laying there,” the car’s owner said. “It was pretty odd … . Someone stole my car but didn't [leave] because he fell asleep.”

Jesus warned us to “be alert” that our Master not come suddenly and find us asleep at the wheel.

Christianity, Illustrations,
Religion, Vigilance

DAYS OF NOAH II: In the wrong bed trying to look innocent!

"And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all."

Luke 17:26-27

A several years ago, Reader’s Digest ran a splendid story which illustrates the similarity between our generation and that of Noah.

It seems a man brought two young dogs to town with him to get farm supplies; one was a German Shepherd, the other a Golden Labrador. He sternly told both dogs to remain in his pickup until he returned.

Later a woman came into the store and asked if anyone owned the dogs which were running in and out of the building next door. Shocked, the man hurried to his truck. When he arrived, he found his dogs faithfully sitting in the truck bed … of the wrong pickup!

Likewise, we're undone; we've no excuse; we're guilty! We shouldn't pretend innocence!

Our generation, the one preceding the Second Coming of the Son of Man, is no different than the one preceding the flood, and is almost identical to the generation just prior to the Son of Man's first coming!

Christianity, Illustrations,
Lasciviousness, Religion

DAYS OF NOAH: I am my father's son-in-law and my mother-in-law is my stepmother!

"And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all."

Luke 17:26-27

The April 12, 1993, issue of Newsweek unknowingly reported the signs of the times.

Bill Wyman, of The Rolling Stones, married his son's wife's daughter, a woman 34 years his junior. Her mother married Wyman's son, Stephan, a man 16 years her junior. That makes Stephan his father's son-in-law and his mother-in-law his stepmother.

No wonder Jesus made this prophetic comment: “And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it shall be also in the days of the Son of Man … .” Truly, those days are upon us!

Christianity, Illustrations,
Licentiousness, Religion

END TIMES: The Really Big Bang!

"And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed."

Luke 17:26-30

God has set an apocalyptic stick of dynamite on the horizon of mankind … He lit the fuse in ages past. On the one hand, the closer we get to the end, the better defined is the bomb. On the other hand, the closer we get, the shorter the fuse.

Scientists have it all wrong with their “big bang” theory; it wasn’t at the beginning, it was at the end.

God desires that man will do something for himself and for his fellow man, before the fuse is consumed and the spark enters the explosive. But Jesus has warned that, just as in the days of Noah, the pride of man will not allow them to catch on until it is too late.

The challenge for the contemporary believer is not (1) to become enamored with the titillating value of prophecy, nor (2) to become discouraged by the depressing quality of end-times truth, but (3) to wait patiently, watch eagerly, and work faithfully until the end comes.

I think what bothers me most is that far too many people seem to be waiting and watching but not working … they seem to be following the spark on the fuse rather than hurrying ahead to rescue the perishing.

You see, there are two sides to Noah’s warning: first, the warning that it will be as it was in the days of Noah, when He comes again; second, the warning that we’re not to be like those in Noah’s day, going on as if there was no tomorrow.

Christianity, Eschatology,
Illustrations, Religion

PROPHECY: Puppy Tales and Hummingbird Wings!

I’m told the odds of every prophecy concerning the first coming of Christ actually happening are 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 (one hundred thousand trillion); enough to cover Texas two feet deep in silver dollars.

If that’s true, Texans are going to be up to their chins in gold at the Second Coming.

I’m not one to turn to the end of a book to see how it turns out before I’ve read it, but I did with one book, the Bible. You see, believers get to page forward and see the end of things … the way things turn out. We also get to choose the part we’ll play at the end of the story; like an interactive computer game where the player gets to choose the ending from a list of choices.

Let me tell you, I’m like a little boy at a pet store with a choice between two puppies but whose dad has said, “You can only have one?” One puppy is sleeping; the other, tongue hanging, is standing, front paws on the glass, tail wagging like hummingbird with one wing. Well, like that little boy, I’d want the one with the happy ending. [Puppy story adapted form Illustration Digest, March-April 1994, p.7.]

Christianity, Illustrations,
Prophecy, Religion

RAPTURE - What ever you do, don't get carried away!

ABANDONED APARTMENTS FOR RENT! [1 Thes 4:15-17; end-times]

New York City landlord Denise M. Lyman announced she would not allow the family of Sept. 11 victim Danielle Kousoulis into Danielle's old apartment to secure DNA to help detect her remains because Danielle had breached her Sept. 1, 2001, lease by failing to give three months' notice before "abandoning" the apartment.

I suppose a lot of people like Ms. Lyman will feel the same way after the Lord catches His sheep away.

END TIMES / ESCHATOLOGY: The Really Last Days!

As & Cs ARE HERE, BUT THE Bs ARE MISSING (Where Will All the Flowers Go?) [1 Thessalonians 4:17; other topics - Pre-Trib, Rapture] (New 31 May 2007)

A recent report by Joel Garreau, a WaPo Staff Writer, gives us some food for thought. I found this very interesting ... explains how God could bring about an end to runaway Western materialism. Garreau writes ...

In "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," just before Earth is destroyed to make way for a hyperspatial express route, all the dolphins in the world disappear, leaving behind just the message: "So long, and thanks for all the fish."

Now, around the world, honeybees are vanishing en masse, leaving their humans engaged in a furious attempt to figure out the meaning of their exodus. Entire colonies are following the Shakespearean stage direction, "Exeunt omnes." They're flying off and not returning. Commercial beekeepers open their hives and find them empty except for a queen, a few immature bees and abundant honey and pollen. The rest of the bees are simply gone, leaving behind not even dead bodies.

A third of our food supply - including much of the boredom-relieving stuff, from cranberries to cucumbers - is dependent on animal pollinators like the honeybee. As a result, this mystery is rapidly joining the all-star ranks of millennial end-time run-for-your-lives threats, right up there with Y2K, mad cow disease, West Nile virus, SARS and avian flu.

Of equal note is the way the bees are setting a new standard in human emotional resonance. Absolutely no one yet knows why the bees are checking out, though not for lack of abundant effort on the part of the world's scientists. This dearth of data allows us to project our greatest anxieties onto the bees.

No bees, no pollen; no pollen, no flowers; no flowers, no agri-business; no agri-business, no shirt ... and as the old saying goes, no shirt, no service.

Source link >>>

TAGS:
Bees, Great Tribulation, Left Behind, Rapture, Science

DEVELOPED NATION’S PROBLEM [2 Timothy 3:1ff; Sin; Social & Moral Values; Youth]

In a poll conducted by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal “three out of four respondents said they didn’t trust politicians when they talked about social and moral values."

The public’s apparent contentment with the state of the nation and its economic prosperity appears to have been shaken, partly as a result of a spate of murders by students at public schools from Pearl, Miss., in 1997 to last April’s massacre in Littleton, Colo. "Youth violence" was ranked highest among respondents’ personal concerns about American society.

“By a lopsided margin -83 percent- the Americans surveyed in the poll agreed that ‘parents not paying enough attention to what’s going on in their children’s lives’ has become a ‘very serious problem.’

“More than two out of three poll respondents said that ’the influence of sexually explicit or violent media on children’ has become a ‘very serious’ social problem. And 63 percent identified ‘the high rate of divorce and the breakup of families’ as a very serious problem for American society.

“When asked what change in American society over the past 15 or 20 years has most disturbed them, the highest number of respondents cited ‘the lack of respect for authority and elders.’

“The NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey was conducted by pollsters Peter Hart and Robert Teeter. They surveyed 2,011 adult Americans between June 16 and June 19. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 2.2 percent.”

I was told many years ago that third world and underdeveloped nations don’t have the problems with their children like we have with ours.

[Adapted: Tom Curry, MSNBC, June 24 (1999)]

FEATHERED STOWAWAY [Matthew 22:11-14; other topics - Day of the Lord, Wedding Feast, Preparation]

Steve Harvey writes a weekly humor and miscellany column, “Only In LA,” for the L. A. Times. In his July 24th column he tells the story of a fine-feathered friend who found himself in a place where he was not welcome.

It seems the small bird stowed away on an Air Canada flight before leaving Los Angeles International Airport. He either had help or imitated a passenger so well no one noticed. Once discovered, the pilot announced the unwelcomed guest would be put off upon landing and the door would be shut forever to reentry.

In another place and another time, there will be those who will want to join a wedding party; they will be denied entry ... because they won’t have the right ticket. Others will attempt to gain entry through stealth, but their clothing will reveal them as uninvited guests. They, like the bird above will each and every one be put out and the door will be shut forever to entry.

NO ESCAPE! [1 Thessalonians 5:1-3; other topics - Day of the Lord, Judgment, Second Coming]

Recently, The Los Angeles Times (May 7, 2002, A10) reported on a Palestinian thief who has single-handedly embarrassed the entire Israeli security service. Mahmoud abu Jamous, 31, a kind of local folk hero and jailbird, recently escaped from an elaborate security effort while being transported from one jail to another. Abu Jamous was locked inside a special cage, inside an armored police van, with leg restraints and handcuffs, and watched by no less than 10 prison guards. What’s more, his vehicle was preceded and followed by two other security vehicles.

The sad but comical part of this fiasco is that none of the security personnel noticed the felon was missing. A motorist called the local police and reported that he saw Abu Jamous drop from a barred window of the van and run away. He’s not been seen since.

Paul tells of another day when all of the world’s security systems will fail. He writes:

“Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, "Peace and safety!" then destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” [1 Thessalonians 5:1-3]

There will be no folk heroes among the unrighteous who will escape; no one is going to slip out a window unnoticed.

NOTHING BUT THE SKIN ON YOUR BACK [Revelation 13:1; other topics - Nakedness, Old Nature, Sin]

Reuters News Service reported “a naked man was found dead [July 6, 1999] on the back of a killer whale in the tank at SeaWorld Orlando.” The man was found laying nude on the whale’s back - absent any signs of trauma. He evidently hid until after the amusement park was closed.

Many in the world think life is just one big amusement park, where they can play and play to their hearts content. They think they can play with the beasts and hide while they do it. But like this man, they will end up naked and dead on the back of a beast that has risen up from the sea.

SOME PEOPLE ARE REALLY HARD HEADED! [Matthew 5:30 & Revelation 6:15-17; Hope, Hopelessness]

CNN recently reported on a Pennsylvania construction worker who inadvertently severed his hand with a power saw; then repeatedly shot himself in the head with a nail gun, apparently hoping to stop the pain. The young man had no fewer than a dozen 1-inch nails protruding from his skull, reports said. Thankfully, surgeons reattach his hand. The twenty-five-year old was hospitalized in stable condition. [excerpted from CNN, 25 January 2001]

This is no joke. More than once construction work supported my family while a bivocational pastor … personal experience reminds me how easy one can be injured in this demanding work. Thank God He made some of our heads harder than others.

The shock and despair at the moment of a severe injuries are extreme; first a sense of stupidity arises, then despair … the more serious the injury, the greater the despair. Obviously, this fellow’s despondency exceeded his wound.

When Christ comes again, however, more than a few people are going to wish they had severed offending hands, when they had the chance; their despair will be so great they’ll hope more than a nail gun to assaults their heads.

VEILED: [Hebrews 10:19-20; other topics - Separation, Veil]

A lens cover not only protects a camera's lens but it prevents the camera from seeing the scene right in front of its eye.

In the same way, the veil between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies prevents anyone seeing the scene right in front of them.

Remove the lens and voilà, the panorama unfolds as a image within the camera. Likewise, remove the veil and there is no more separation between man and God. [New 20 February 2007]

TAGS:
Christianity, End-times, Separation, Veil

War

Global Halitosis [Matthew 24:6-8; other topics - End Times; Peace]

Christ said when the fig tree blooms we’ll know the end is near. He said one of the other signs was "wars and rumors of wars.” He said you’ll also hear people peddling peace.

Everywhere you look today you see war and fighting. It seems every nation on earth is in a fight or threatening to have one [and that doesn’t even take into account the earthquakes or famines]. And if you listen real well, you’ll hear a crescendo of voices crying “peace, peace.”

In telling stories of his youth in Kentucky, Lee Roberson describes a 25 acre farm he and his family worked years ago; but all it ever was, was “25 acres of wild garlic.” He says his family did everything they could to get rid that farm of garlic: they “sub soiled” it, “plowed” it, and “burned” it, to no avail. Roberson says he milked four cows (twice a day, every day) for his folks. He even skimmed it and churned it for butter. He asks, after all that work, “you know what you’re drinking? ... Did you ever drink onion milk?”

Roberson closed with this comment: “There will be no peace in this age for the roots of war cannot be dug out. There will be no peace in this age because of the worldly, sinful nature of man”

[Adapted from “The Truth That Changed My Life,” Dr. Lee Roberson; Revival Fires!; September 1999, Vol. 11, No. 9, 16]