Discerning the Signs but Looking for the Lord
I do listen. As I get older, I forget more easily, but I do listen to people’s concerns. In the last several years, a number of devoted Christians have asked me some form of the following question: “Are we close to the return of Jesus Christ?” As with any Biblical teaching, we must be careful with this subject. In Matthew 24:36, Jesus said, “Of that day and hour knoweth no man.” Later, in Acts 1:7, He added, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons.” Paul wrote in I Thesssalonians 5:2 that “the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” Thus, date-setting defies God’s Word and dishonors our Savior. However, in Matthew 16:3, Jesus pointedly asks, “Can ye not discern the signs of the times?” We do not know and cannot know the exact time of Jesus’ Second Coming and the resulting period of the Tribulation, but we are told to seriously study the signs found in Scripture. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
A fifteenth foreshadowing of the final unfolding may seem a bit odd. In II Timothy 3:1-5, we are told “that in the last days” people will be “unthankful” (verse 2). Compared to some of the other awful attributes in this writ of wrongdoing, ungratefulness seems somewhat tame and sadly typical. The only other use of this Greek word in Scripture is found in Luke 6:35. Here, Jesus, speaking of God the Father, says, “He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.” Now we begin to see the enormity of the sin of ingratitude, for it is the spurning of the kindness of God. Jesus said in Matthew 5:45 of His Father that “He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” Therefore, God is good even to those who refuse to recognize His grace. Such willfulness leads to a rejection of the greatest goodness of all, salvation through faith in God the Son, Jesus Christ. We thus perceive the tragic consequence of being “unthankful.”
Given how common ungratefulness has always been and currently is, it is challenging to understand how this negative attitude will increase at the end, but it will, as Scripture predicts. Certainly our affluent age should produce gratitude and contentment rather than the grasping and angst that are so prevalent. As always, Christianity provides the appropriate antidote: “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (I Thessalonians 6:18).