A Weekly Meditation of Pastor Chang (January 17, 2010)
<Futurology, Soothsaying, Fortunetelling, and Biblical prophecy>
No body knows the date of the second coming of Christ Jesus, the end of the time. Even
Christ himself said the same thing, ¡°No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.¡± (Matt. 24:36) That means, even Christ when He was on the earth as a human being had the full knowledge of the Father and the creation and every plan and even exercised the will of the Father, he still did not know the exact date and hour of the end of the world. Yet Christ told us many signs of the end of the earth. Those prophetic words are better than any religious sayings in the entire world.
One of the prophetic signs of Christ for the end of the world is the works of earthquake. Few days ago, (Jan. 12) the Capital of Hattie, Port-au-Prince had suffered a terrible earthquake again, more than 100,000 people were killed and millions of people suffered. More and more we can feel the threat of the earthquakes; yet, sinful people continue doing sinful things as what the Bible says (Rev. 9:20, 21.)Why? I believe that it is related to the work of the Antichrist! The Bible says that by the end of time, Antichrist will work very hard to confuse and attack people and make things worse than before.
Who is ¡°Antichrist?¡±
Originally ¡°Antichrist¡± means any evil power, evil spirit, and evil work which manifest inside of human hearts and behaviors to attack Christ Jesus and His followers, and those who spread out the heresies among churches, and blaspheme God, are called: ¡°Antichrist¡± (cf. 1John 2:18-22; 4:1-6.) By the end of time, the work of Antichrist will be more powerfully increased. Finally, it will manifest among several world leaders or even to the last ones who will be ¡°false prophets¡± (Matt.24:24), and this ¡°antichrist¡± will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God¡¯s temple, proclaiming himself to be God. (2 Thess. 2:4.) Actually, even in the society of the USA, one can obviously see the works of the antichrist now.
The purpose of the antichrist¡¯s work is to destroy the faith and foundation of Christianity. For example in the following areas one can discover the works of the antichrist.
1. In the field of education: Just like what I indicated on last Sunday. Nowadays, the public schools do not allow people bring Bible to the schools. The reason was: ¡°the separation of church and state. But they allow people bring other kind of religious books except the Bible. Now publicly if anyone mentions about the name of Jesus Christ will immediately create tensions among people. Christian teachers are not permitted to mention anything of Christian faith. And if he or she is reported by students about ¡°sharing the gospel¡± will face the consequence of resignation from the position. In the college education, most of the professors are very liberal. It seems very popular and easy that they attack and criticize Christian faith and make funs of Christian prayers. But it seems that not many dare to criticize Moslems because they will violently fight back. Satan has worked very hard and tried to destroy the root and foundation of Christian faith in America.
2. In the political arena: many politicians dare not to express their Christian faith in order to keep themselves ¡°politically correct.¡± Recently, more and more political leaders, such as: cabinet members, governors, senators, and congressmen were found deceiving, corruptions, and other evil deeds. Of course, they are sinners, but on the other hand, one can tell the works of the antichrist.
3. In the social activities: social problems and racism are still found everywhere.
4. In the financial, economic, and commercial world, one easily can find fake products, bribery, greediness, and accusations in the courts always. The funny part is when the world business gets slow but the courts¡¯ cases never lose the business. People like to file lawsuits against each other everywhere. Part of the reasons was the works of the lawyers. But Satan works very hard to stir up human sinful nature and make it worse and worse.
5. In the field of religion: We always find all kinds of religions have scandals, even Christian churches are not exceptional. The more famous preachers, good pastors, wonderful spiritual leaders are always found something wrong and because of that people lose the interest in religions and especially Christian faith, that kinds of ways are really the works of the evil and the antichrist.
Each time when I see this, I always pray to the Lord to have mercy upon the church leaders and me is included. The world is getting worse. We need to be alert and keep ourselves in the right spirit with Christ Jesus! (To be continued¡)