End-Times Church

2 Tim 3:1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! 6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; 9 but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.

Ten years ago this morning we had a clear view of what the end of the world will look like. When those 2 planes flew into the Twin Towers in New York City, they shook, they staggered, and then they fell. It was as if the whole world was exemplified by what happened to those buildings.

Majestically they stood. They were the symbols of everything we trust in this world. Capital. Power. Strength. Steel. Concrete.

It becomes difficult to look at buildings such as those, in all their majesty, to see the humanity housed inside. The life inside becomes invisible, until…

Churches were flooded with people in the days immediately following 9-11. People were seeking certainty in what had suddenly been revealed to be a very uncertain world. Why was church the automatic destination for those seeking a safe harbor?

It didn’t last. Churches emptied back out, and eventually became even smaller in attendance than they had been before.

Now Ground Zero is re-born. The Freedom Tower is rising daily, and the Memorial Plaza and the new Grand Central Transit Station are rising – once again all very majestically. The sense is about the power of architectural design, and how the soaring open-span spaces can lift the spirit of man.

We are unquestionably in the last days of mankind, and of the church.

It is remarkable the Bible can so reliably predict the physical and historical events which take place during the end-times. We can read the Bible these days like a road map or history book of the events transpiring before our eyes…

More remarkable is how the Bible predicts the condition of the heart of man during the end times. Could there be a better, more concise description of the condition of mankind during the last days? Doesn’t it look like today?

-  Pastor Bill