You must be in fellowship prior to your Bible study, so that the spiritual information you receive can become a source, of blessing to your soul and produce spiritual growth.
7 Behold,[idou] I come[erchomai] quickly:[tachu] blessed[makarios] is he that keepeth[tereo]
the sayings[logos] of the prophecy[propheteia] of this[toutou] book.[biblion] KJV-Interlinear
7 "And
behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy
of this book." NASB
'Behold,' is a statement to get your attention. Listen up. Pay attention. Be wise and not stupid in your life.
There are many things happening in this universe, which are not seen. And it is those unseen things, which will determine your destiny, not the things you see everyday in life.
Unfortunately, it is the everyday things, which we do see, that hold our attention. The world wants you to see things through the world's eyes, and not through Gods eyes.
Look around you. Where is this God? When is He coming as promised? Hasn't time passed by these many centuries and He is nowhere to be seen? So says the fool and the mocker.
Don't we have better things to do in life? Like cleaning up the environment, saving a fish or an owl or something? Shouldn't we try to feed the children of the world, or at least give them all flu shots? Shouldn't we be making love and not war? Aren't there a lot of things we should be doing, that will help humanity to grow up and become a better member of creation?
And so our lives are filled with clichés and cute phrases, which unfortunately far too many people take as authoritative, rather than just cute phrases. Just do it, make love not war, imagine a world without hunger, coexist, and on and on the phrases go, implying mans ability to control and guide his own destiny, but veiled in the human arrogance of ability.
And so the arguments and human rational thinking go. Shrouded in the veil of human good, but hidden within a foundation of evil.
Spiritual growth teaches responsibility, but spiritual growth comes first, and then the responsibility is supported by God, within His plan. Responsibility has to be based on truth, and not lies.
Responsibility based on lies, becomes the foundation for prejudice, bias, favoritism, elitism, idealism, rationalizing everything that is convenient for you and not others. That is why human good and human effort will always fail.
Some of the above phrases may be good things (feeding the poor and such), but unfortunately to many of those good things become the focus of arrogance and not truth.
Regardless of all of mans plans, which are numerous, Christ is coming very soon. How soon? Well we don't have that answer other than the speculations we made in yesterday's study.
We know that the Tribulation world will have a large population. It is reasonable to assume that the Rapture will not occur until the world's population grows substantially, even though we know that it could occur at any moment.
We know that the Tribulation will be plagued with all kinds of problems. It is reasonable to assume that technology will run out of solutions as problems inundate the world.
We know that the empires of the Old Testament were centered on the region of the Middle East. And that there have been no empires except for the Roman Empire, which have ruled the known world during the Church Age.
Our dispensation is primarily focused on the trend of moving peoples to the four corners of the world, with world leader want-to-be's trying, but failing, in their every attempt to rule the world. The next world leader near success won't occur until the Tribulation. It won't happen during our dispensation.
We know that there are increases in world population, travel, earthquakes, warming trends, resources diminishing, and technology is racing forward at a lightning pace. We know through our historical hindsight, that these things and many more, are occurring now in our current century, like never before in history.
In the first chapter of Revelation, we studied the arm of Christ, flexed and holding steady on the lever of human history. His arm muscles bulging and strained with immediate anticipation of shifting that history lever into the next major change, namely the Rapture.
We know that near the end of our dispensation there will be a 'great' apostasy, paving the way for the third historical gap or pause in history, which we have already studied. Namely a great turning away from Christ and a turning toward everything else like secularism, religion, cults, and so forth.
We know that the 'end times' is a reference to our dispensation, or these last 1900 years plus, and that the 'last days' is a reference to the final seven years of the Tribulation.
We know that God does nothing haphazardly, nor does He do anything without plans, design and preparation.
When all of the ingredients of history are in place (people, technology, continents, weather, etc.), then Christ will shift the gears of history into its next level (the Rapture followed immediately by the Tribulation).
But for the moment, we should be living our lives day to day. We should be studying in order to prepare ourselves for whatever God has planed specifically for us, and not worry too much about what and when things might or might not, begin to occur on a worldwide scale.
God will take care of the big things. We need to take care of our spiritual life.
Therefore, behold, listen, and pay attention. He who listens to these words of the Bible, and learns, and understands ones own personal role and responsibility and obligation, then that spiritual growth will bring blessing both now, and in eternity.
But to those who ignore all of this Bible stuff, then the busyness of the world will become a distraction away from their spiritual life, and misery, frustration, and loss will become their destiny.
