The other day I thought I saw a woman driving a vehicle wearing a bright green scarf and thought it was a Muslim woman. As I looked carefully it was an American woman, not a Muslim woman. It wasn’t a green scarf but it was her hair..

 

Will mistaking a bright green scarf for bright green hair be a source of contention in the future? Because there’s fighting everywhere…

His story repeats itself. (The defintion of history is God’s story.) The Bible’s II Chronicles 20 has verses about a battle that apply today:

“It came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them other beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria; and, behold, they be in Hazazon-tamar, which is En-gedi.”

Is the fighting of our time the battle of Armageddon?

II Chronicles 20 goes on:

“And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the LORD, before the new court, and said, O LORD God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven? and rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen? and in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend for ever?…And now, behold, the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom thou wouldest not let Israel invade, when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them, and destroyed them not; behold, I say, how they reward us, to come to cast us out of thy possession, which thou hast given us to inherit.”

God told the Jews that the battle was his, not theirs, also, in II Chronicles 20:

“And when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of mount Seir, everyone helped to destroy another.”

Praise the LORD.

The end is probably near.

Jesus said, in Matthew 24:32: “Now learn a parable of the fig tree [Israel]; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer [the harvest of the separation of the righteous and the wicked] is nigh (near).” May 2018 will be the 70th anniversary of the statehood of Israel. The numbers 7 and 70 are symbolic of completeness in the Bible (Jesus said to forgive 7 x 70 times and for 70 years Judah was in Babylonian captivity, for example).

It is alright to speculate about the end as long as we use the tools of the Bible.

 

No one cares about us now
Few will look ahead
We don’t even have a house
where we rest our heads
They are busy fighting now
and there’s little hope
They are all acquiring
lots and lots of rope

Living in the wilderness
Banished, to the side
Not a part of anything
till the end of time

Still we preach acceptance-love
No one cares a bit
Most of them had never once
though they swore by it
Where is all our character?
Few are really sad
There is so much acting-out
no one’s holding back

Living in the wilderness
Banished, off to the side
Not a part of anything
till the end of all time

‘Course, where we’re going there’ll be
no more sadness
no more crying
no more fighting
no more dying
We’ll be perfect in time
Lots of mercy in life

Singing in the wilderness
Banished, to the side
Not a part of anything
till the end of time

 

What will happen at the end? The wicked will be destroyed by God’s consuming fire (his righteousness and holiness. “The day of the Lord will come as as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” (II Peter 3:10-12)

So, what should we do? “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (II Timothy 2:15)

The Bible is the only environment for safety: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17)

Jesus the savior is the word; “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:1-5)

 

We don’t believe they hope to meet our friend…

So, we are banished, until the end!                                                                                   Banished, until the end