Are You Ready for the Last Days?

Are you ready for the last days? Next to the question of whether or not you are born again, this is the most important question you need to answer. The world around us is spiralling out of control into moral chaos, new forms of Marxism, wholesale rejection of God and Christ and the Bible, hatred for Israel, and Big Brother government rolling out technology to monitor and control mankind. Things are not going back to the way they were or anything close. You can forget about that. The new normal is the mystery of iniquity accelerating down the path of departure, trampling on and opposing every institution of God.

This is not my opinion. This is not the position of some small group of fringe-evangelicals whose stability is questionable. This is the position of EVERYONE who is going down the path of interpreting the prophetic parts of the Bible literally. We disagree on some details. But we don’t disagree on the direction the world is headed, on the shortness of time, and on the fact that the  signs mentioned in the Bible indicate that the time of tribulation at the end of the world is just around the corner.

Nor is this based on a tiny handful of passages whose application and understanding is legitimately debated. It is based on a massive chunk of the Bible. Folks, nearly 1/3 of the Bible is unfulfilled prophecy. For all practical purposes, if you don’t believe 1/3 of the Bible, you don’t believe the Bible.

The truth is, IF you are a student of biblical prophecy and you examine the current trends in the world with even a modicum of spiritual understanding,
THEN you can see the tentacles of darkness wrapping themselves tighter and tighter around the world EXACTLY as prophesied in the Bible. You can see the morality of the world degenerating rapidly into the morality of Sodom exactly as the Bible said it would happen. You can see the geo-political changes happening that are setting the stage for the world-shaking events prophesied to happen in the last days. You can see the economic trends that are preparing the way for a one-world, cashless economic system. You can see the technological trends that are going to usher in the mark of the beast and that awful time when men will be unable to buy or sell without taking the mark and participating in the antichrist’s economic system.

Prophecy is not making wild guesses about what might happen at the end of the age. Prophecy is giving ear to what God says in the Bible will happen at the end of the age. Prophecy is history told before it happens. Prophecy is reading the headlines and the story outlines before the story actually unfolds in the world. You have been given a glorious opportunity in the prophetic Scriptures. Take full advantage of it. If God gave you a report of every stock that would boom or bust for the next fifty years, can you imagine what you could do with that information. Wealth unimaginable. But you have been given the spiritual equivalent in the Bible. Capitalize on it. 

Friends, whether you are a teenager in high school, married and raising a family, empty nesters, or retired, your future is not going to bring you the rosy dreams that you imagine. Your dreams will be challenged, maybe seriously challenged, maybe incinerated. House dreams. Home schooling dreams. Family dreams. Business dreams. Retirement dreams. Travel dreams. Even ministry dreams. Largely if not entirely down the tubes. 

If you haven’t already refocused, it is high time to refocus. Get your eyes off the pursuit of fulfillment in the clean things of this life. Many opportunities will be taken from us. Many others will not be able to be enjoyed without compromise. Seek your fulfillment in Jesus Christ alone and his wonderful promises for a wonderful eternity. If you keep your focus on the clean things of this world, you are going to be severely disappointed. You will pierce yourself with many sorrows.

Now I am not telling you to not be diligent in your temporal obligations like family and work. These are God-given obligations. But I am telling you to make sure that you are going forward in your obligations with your eyes on Bible prophecy, on the signs of the times in the world around, on the things that will soon be coming over the horizon. Right now all the signs are pointing to things getting much more ugly down here in the next few years, ramping up to the rapture of the church followed by the time of tribulation. You don’t  want to be caught by surprise by these things. Be a watcher not a statistic.

Examine yourselves. Are you more like the foolish virgins who superficially looked like Christians but they really weren’t watching for the coming of the Lord they way real Christians watch for the Lord? Go back and read Matthew 25:1-13. Think on it. Meditate on it.  Is your chief passion the coming of the Lord and his eternal reward, a reward which can’t be taken from you? Or is your chief passion your earthly dreams and ambitions, things which are temporal, things which you cannot keep, things which you may never obtain, things which the evil ramping up in the world will likely take from you even if you do manage to obtain them. BE one of the wise virgins.

Folks, I plead with you to go through this life with your eyes wide open to the truths revealed to us in the prophetic Scriptures. The prophetic passages of Scripture were given to us to be a light in this dark world (2 Peter 1:19). Learn them and use them.  This world is dark and evil. Ten times darker and ten times more evil than many of you think. And the darkness and evil are increasing. The mystery of iniquity is rapidly approaching its climax. Very dark times are bearing down on this world. The harbingers of that storm of evil are already making us uneasy. The only source of real hope in the dark days ahead are the wonderful promises held out to believers in Jesus in the prophetic Scriptures.

Eyes wide open, brain engaged, heart on fire.

Lee W. Brainard