Matthew 24:3 - Take Heed

 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Matthew 24:4

In what is known as the Olivet Discourse, the disciples ask Jesus about what signs would accompany his return and the end of the world. Jesus has just finished pronouncing woe on the Pharisees, and apparently they are shaken and curious about the things to come. This is a topic that I have followed closely throughout my life, first out of fear, and now out of a genuine desire to understand the prophecies we have been given in scripture to help us understand and navigate during what will be one of the most important times this world has ever seen.

It's interesting that Jesus doesn't immediately start describing the signs of the end as the disciples had asked. He begins with a warning. "Watch out, and do not let anyone fool you" (GNT). I always assumed this meant, "Do not let any false Messiahs deceive you," because of the next verse. However, I believe Jesus started with this because deception is going to be a critical factor in the last days. 

Looking around today, we have cries of "fake news" and "conspiracy theories" ad nauseum. Who do you actually know you can trust? Ninety-six percent of the news media is controlled by the same owners, all of whom have political interests they desire to protect. Actual "Christian" churches throughout the world are asleep at the wheel, questioning even the most critical aspects of the faith such as: was Jesus actually God in the flesh?, does it even matter if He rose again?, and is God a mass murderer? Even churches that adhere to the core of Christian belief have varying theories about how the end will play out.

When it comes to eschatology (the branch of theology that is concerned with the end of the world or of humankind), there are countless competing theories. Many are platitudes that are passed down from seminaries to pastors to church members, sometimes without any of those parties playing the part of the Berean.

In Acts 17:11 we see just what the believers in Berea were up to:

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

They were sitting under the instruction of the apostle Paul, one of the most anointed teachers that God has ever sent to us, but they still went home and searched their scriptures - the Hebrew Scriptures that had been passed down and preserved for centuries - to be certain that they were not being deceived by this new guy in town.

I believe that mentality has been lost today. Most believers blindly adhere to what they learned as a child, or in youth group, or in college simply because an authority figure that they loved and respected told them so. Not because the Bible told them so. We have the completed canon of Scripture in our hands, unlike the Bereans at that time, and yet most will just parrot what a teacher has told them without doing any due diligence to find out if that belief is even to be found in the Bible at all.

In this prophetic day and hour, we must examine our beliefs in light of the word of God. Satan has been at work, and lies have been heaped upon lies in the centuries since Jesus lived, died, and rose again. 

We do not have the luxury of living an unexamined life of faith. 

It's time to take up the sword of the Spirit and fight to prove that what we have been taught to believe is actually supported in scripture. 

I personally believe the consummation of all human history is closer than we have ever dared to believe, and I'm taking a deep dive to make sure that no one deceives me.

Isaiah 53:5-6 - The Story Is Real

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:5-6

Once upon a time there was a couple that lived in paradise on earth. They had everything they could have ever wanted and needed, and they had peace and fellowship with an all-powerful God. God wanted them to love Him by choice, so He gave them a choice. Their choice became the first sin and led to separation from God and ultimately, to their deaths. Their children grew up in a world that was less-than. They were filled with fear and made choices that made things worse. Everything spiraled beyond their control.

But God did not reject the human race. Throughout history, He spoke to just the right people at just the right times to communicate His plan to fix this broken, ugly mess. He would send His son to pay the price, to restore the fellowship that was broken, making it possible for everyone to choose life in Him.

And...

He did it through Jesus's death, burial, and resurrection.

Isaiah 53 contains one prophetic message, among many others in the Old Testament, written long before Christ was ever born.

And it happened.

He paid the price, righted our wrongs, and made it possible for us to live with God forever.

I am a lover of stories. I've studied ways to make a good one in painstaking detail. I love the way the plot of any good story has an all-hope-is-lost moment (seriously, Google it), and for readers to be satisfied by any tale, it has to have sufficient resolution. I am frustrated by writers who intuitively do it all right without having to try as hard as I have to. But the most crazy, amazing thing to me is that the story that does that best, that did it first, is the REAL one.

I love reading and writing fiction on an obsessive level. One observation I can never escape, is that the story that created the framework I love living through again and again is God's story about His love for mankind, the drastic steps of frantic love that He took to redeem us, and how He overcame death in spite of anguish and pain, just like the true hero of any story.

But he's the real hero. His story is actually non-fiction.

He loves us. He made us to love Him. Our lives are all a part of this story whether we know it or not. God is still writing about us, still enacting his plans for the future. We are all going to live in this story forever, and in His grace, Jesus made a way for us to be on the winning side.

Believers will live in heaven forever. I'm not entirely sure as to what will be going on for us all there, but I do know that it will be amazing. God has shown us enough in His word and through near death experiences, visions, and dreams of believers that hint at the ultimate satisfaction of every longing or desire we've ever had on this earth.

As a person that has wanted to climb inside so many stories and live there, it's both comforting and exciting to know that... I am living inside a story. I'm not it's Author, but I get to participate in the role God Himself penned for me.

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” - C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” - C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory