The Last Days

You probably hear it said from time to time: “These are the Last Days”. Vague references are made to the New Testament, the Book of Revelations in particular. Images of nation rising against nation, wars and rumors of war, etc, are raised. Who knows? Maybe you are one of the ones making such a statement, as you advise people to repent to avoid being caught up in some prophesied day of judgment you believe to be imminent.

Are these in fact “The Last Days”? If you believe they are, I would have to ask: The last days of what? Of who? Humanity? The planet earth? The galaxy? The entire universe?

How might “everything” come to an end? How COULD everything come to an end? There is not a bomb large enough to liquidate the universe, or even the entire planet earth. Also, one would have to question what good it would do for God to destroy the universe, galaxy, planet, or even significant parts of the planet. It just doesn’t make sense.  The “earth” did nothing wrong to warrant such a fate, nor did the universe. And yet, there are unmistakable signs that suggest that humanity is running out of time, on a large number of fronts.

Authors of the new testament hinted on a number of occasions as to how the world would end. Judgment by fire, destroying the wicked by the sword emanating from his mouth, etc, were foretold. Judgment by fire could have referred to a series of thermonuclear blasts happening all over the planet, but what was that about a sword sticking out of Jesus’ mouth? And why did he supposedly foretell that the kings of the world would do battle against him when he returns?

Clearly, the only reason anyone would do battle against a man like a returning Jesus would be because his contemporaries do not believe he is a messiah. So we can infer that as before, a returning messiah will not be immediately recognizable as someone all that Divine, if and when he returns.

Authors of the new testament spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven “being in our midst”, saying that it would start off like a very tiny seed that grows to become a mighty tree.  Jesus spoke of himself as a bridegroom and made numerous references to such imagery, culminating in his referring to his return as the marriage supper of the lamb.  Such imagery has been dismissed as irrelevant, but I suggest to you that this imagery is in fact the key point.  The messiah’s mission is to establish the ideal family that Jesus could not establish because of his untimely crucifixion, and that Adam & Eve could not fulfill because of their faithlessness.

Having successfully begun a true and ideal lineage, and teaching others how to accomplish the same goal, the Kingdom of Heaven begins as a small circle of true and ideal families, surrounding the messiah’s own family, that look inconsequential. Nevertheless this community will grow exponentially as more and more people learn the Truth, get connected to the lineage of the messiah, and give birth to their own children, who are devoid of “original sin”, as was Jesus himself.

As the foundation of the Ideal Peace Kingdom expands on the earth, God will increasingly remove the foundations underpinning the myriads of false and corrupt systems upon which humanity feeds every day. Increasingly, the old systems, long tried and true, will increasingly not work anymore. Wars can not be “won”. The more someone strikes out at others, the more they will be constricted, like the fable of briar rabbit hitting the tar baby. The more we try to exploit others, in any manner, the more we will find ourselves twisting in the wind, hoisted on our own petards. This is the circumstance we find ourselves in today.  The age of “Instant Karma” is increasingly upon us.

The Kingdom of God has been growing in our midst for almost 50 years. Though it started as a tiny seed, a single family in a very small location, it is quickly reaching the point of shaking away national level foundations. We can see this manifest in the utter failure of 21st century wars to achieve anything remotely resembling success, no matter how much firepower is used, and in the growing worldwide failure of global economics.  This breakdown is being manifested in all areas.

Whilst this is scary to those who do not know what is going on, it is quite understandable, even predictable, to those who understand what is driving this, and why. Scripture refers to the last days are the “Great and Terrible” day of the Lord. It is “Great” that the Kingdom of God is being built brick by brick in our lifetimes, and we are given the opportunity to carry a brick or two ourselves. It is “Terrible” that the false and self-centered world we have known from birth is being systematically dismantled at a pace consistent with the expansion of the Peace Kingdom.  Humanity has been tricked into believing that the spider webs that entrap us are in fact the lifelines upon which we live.

One of my favorite movies is “Jacob’s Ladder”.  Toward the end of the movie the protagonist (played by Tim Robbins) is told that those whom he thought were devils tearing away at him were really angels trying to free him from the ties that bound him.  Such is the time we live in today.

The next few years ought to be a doozy, but take heart, keep your eyes open, and ask God to help you find the center of the storm, where all is quite peaceful, calm and joyful.