Tuesday, December 28, 2010

December 28 - Miriam

Today's reading from the One Year Bible Chronological reading plan is Revelation 7-10.

Ha!  No wonder people thought the earth was flat - "four angels standing at the four corners of the earth" (from Revelation 7:1).  (small joke) 

I have to confess that I am shamefully ignorant when it comes to end-times prophecies.  Actually, I think I confessed this already back when I posted on Daniel, but it is still true.  My cousin sent me a link to some information on her church's website just last week that deals with the end times.  The Southland Community Church website has a number of resources that one could study, and from the brief glance I've given it, I already came across something that really convicted me personally.

Many Christians today feel like the End Times is an unimportant topic – a side-issue which only distracts people from the stuff that is ‘really important.’ For these people, ‘important’ usually means ‘stuff that I can apply to my life today,’ and anyone who shows any interest in the End Times is considered weird, or worse, spiritually dangerous.

But there are more than 150 chapters in Scripture about the End Times! By comparison there are only 89 chapters in the 4 Gospels, which are mostly concerned with Jesus’ First coming. Thus, there is almost twice as much content in Scripture concerning Jesus’ Second Coming as for His First Coming. How can we ignore such an important topic in Scripture?
 In fact, Jesus Himself commanded us to study the End Times and to be watching for His return (see Matthew 24:32-35, Luke 21:28 & Luke 21:34-35) – this is intensely practical stuff! We take Jesus the Teacher seriously, and Jesus the Savior seriously . . . but do we take Jesus the End-Time Prophet seriously?
 
Youch.  I have not yet delved into these materials, but I plan to do so, and soon.  Here is a very concise synopsis of the chapters in today's reading, taken from the site I referenced above.
 
Revelation 7: God promises to protect His people from the judgments and compromise.
Revelation 8‐9: The trumpet judgments are released against the Antichrist’s empire.
Revelation 10: God promises to release prophetic messages to bring understanding in order to help
people avoid deception. Joel prophesied of a dynamic prophetic outpouring of the Spirit in the End Times.
 
I don't feel that I really have anything to comment on too much regarding today's reading.  The prophecies of the seven trumpets are fairly self-explanatory.  There are numerous charts one can find on the internet showing timelines - at least the order of events, if not over what time span or when.   
 
Tomorrow's passage: Revelation 11-14.

2 comments:

Tammy said...

That is a good quote - ouch! Which exact article was that from?

Miriam said...

It's actually just on the Southland Community Church's website. If you go to the site and click on Resources and Downloads (top right) and then End Time Material, those paragraphs are right on that page. You can then listen to or watch their seminars, or view some pdf files with charts, synopses, and various other materials about which chapters of the Bible talk about end times and what they have to say.