Life is Too Short #26

Today’s reading is from Matthew 24:14; 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2

Today our key verse is found in Matthew 24 verse 14
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.


The text says in the whole world not to the whole world…. As the preachers are preaching who will be left out?

I have heard people say things like life is too short, and I understand the gospel but I'm not ready yet to accept it, and if the rapture occurs and I'm left behind, I'll know for sure that what you said is true, and then I will just accept Christ…

I see this kind of comment a lot, people trying to beat the system. You know people who try and beat the governmental system, and people are trying to beat God's system.

One would have to wonder about the legitimate desire to know God if we are trying to manipulate the process.  Somehow those two things don't go together.

Someone who says it is more fun to live like the world, that person has a distorted view of life and eternal life.  And one day that individual will understand that he made a bad decision.

While I believe that there are those who are saved during the tribulation through the preaching of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists.

I wonder if that opportunity will be extended to those who have previously heard and rejected?  While there will be hundreds and thousands of people saved during the tribulation - those who are given an opportunity to hear the gospel during this life is not guaranteed a second opportunity.

I am left wondering this in my heart and my mind not because of some imagination running wild, but it is because of what I read in the Scriptures from the pen of the apostle Paul.

If you would look at 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2.  This passage is about the rapture.  When the rapture comes and the church is going to be removed.  Look at verse 3-7…

2Th. 2:3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,  2Th. 2:4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

2Th. 2:5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? 2Th. 2:6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. 2Th. 2:7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.

There are many who have ideas about the restrainer.

Who he is, for what he does.  But the word HE v7 should be in a capital letter, because the restrainer is the Holy Spirit.

And what it says is simply this: the restrainer who lives in all of us as God's children is the one who restrains iniquity in the world that we live.

If there were no Christians the Holy Spirit would not be active in the world today.  Where's the Holy Spirit?  He lives within the believers, and when the church is taken out of the way the Holy Spirit is taken as well.

So therefore Paul says the restrainer is gone.  And during the tribulation period the Holy Spirit will come upon certain people, he will not indwell them   - but he will function in the tribulation period more as he did in the Old Testament.

So during the tribulation the role of the Spirit is not the same as that role during the age of the church.

Rather he will function as he did in the Old Testament!    Like he came upon Gideon, and he came upon Samson, but there will be no indwelt people during the tribulation.

Can you imagine if nothing else happened in this world and if all of the restraining influence in this world as seen in the believers was taken out of here this world would fall pretty quickly – even without the influence of the antichrist present.   Read v 8-12

2Th. 2:8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. 2Th. 2:9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 2Th. 2:10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

2Th. 2:11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 2Th. 2:12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

What is Paul saying?   I think he is saying there is no second chance for those who heard the truth and rejected it, for those who were exposed to  the truth and rejected the way of salvation look what Paul said – V 11 – GOD SENDS THEM A GREAT DELUSION.

Here is is great warning:  There is no one who will manipulate the system.  It says that those who did not believe the truth when they had the opportunity will be deceived and believe the lie.

The Bible says that today is the day of salvation!  Today is the day that we must respond to what God is saying to us!  If there is a 2nd chance gospel so to speak for those in the tribulation, I think it runs contrary to what I read from the pen of the apostle Paul concerning such things.

So let me recap:  When believers, who are the temple of God, are taken away at the rapture. The Holy Spirit will cease to be here upon the earth except for as he was in the Old Testament.

He will infill and empower certain individuals, those 144,000 Flaming Jewish Evangelist I have told you about.  The ministry as we know it, for the Holy Spirit will be over.  That in part is the reason the tribulation will be so terrible.

Scripture says that after the rapture the lawless one will be revealed.  Don't let anyone tell you that you can sow your wild oats, and if you miss the rapture it'll be okay, you can accept Christ later and get into heaven by the skin of your teeth or  with smoke on your clothes…  I'm not convinced that's the way it's going happen.  A delusion will befall them.

There is coming quickly an ultimate deception, today I believe the reason why more people aren't being saved, is because of a growing deception.

As I read the book of Revelation I think to myself as one moves through the tribulation you would think that it would stand to reason the people would cry out to God for mercy and embrace the truth…

Go ahead and you read the book for yourself, and you like me will see, that the greater intensity of the tribulation the more angry the human heart grew.

And at the end of the tribulation when you think they'd be falling on their face, saying God you are right and I was wrong: and I believe I will accept you, instead they were standing with their fist closed in the face of God, blaspheming his name as they never had before.

Sin darkens the heart of man to a blind deception that is powerful enough to produce delusions that are so dark that wickedness is delightful.