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Welcome
“As bees work together to produce honey, we need to interact with each other and use our gifts to serve and help the unbeliever come to the Lord, as His power and mercy touches their lives, Praise Him, Amen.”
Stella
Worship
Word
But mark this: There will be terrible [or ‘stressful’] times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God …
2 Timothy 3:1-4
The apostle, as he is inspired by the Holy Spirit, writes to Timothy that “there will be terrible times in the last days” (2 Tim 3:1), moral decay will precede the Day of the Lord. This is a consistent theme in Scripture e.g.,
At that time … There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people – everyone whose name is found written in the book – will be delivered.
Daniel 12:1
Jesus, Himself taught it, e.g.,
Those will be days of distress unequalled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now –and never to be equalled again. ‘If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom He has chosen, He has shortened them.
Mark 13:19 -20
John teaches that this increase in evil is an evidence that we are in the last hour,
Dear children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.
1 John 2:18
As does Peter,
Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.
2 Peter 3:3
as does Jude
But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, ‘In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.’ These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.
Jude 17-19
cf. also 1 Tim 4:1.
So that is the dark side, the evil side of the ‘Last Days’ but we must take encouragement for there is another side (cf. Isaiah 2:2, 12), Jesus’ side, the Kingdom of Heaven side,
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
Heb. 1:1-3
And the days when the Holy Spirit has been poured out in unprecedented measure,
… this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Acts 2:16-21
We need to keep this balance that the Scriptures maintain, Amen.
Quote of the week
“I have read the last page of the Bible. It is all going to turn out all right.”
Billy Graham
Verse of the week
Therefore keep watch … you do not know on what day your Lord will come … you … must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.
Matt. 24:42-44; cf. Rev 16:15.
Let’s Pray
Heavenly Father, help us to keep a right balance in these last days; burdened because of the increase in wickedness; but also rejoicing for Your redemption draws near. Help us by Your Holy Spirit within, to keep looking up Lord, for truly our full redemption is drawing near, in Jesus Christ, Amen!