Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Exodus 33-36
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 24:4-8
Jesus: Take care that you are not deceived. For many will come in My name claiming they are the Anointed One, and many poor souls will be taken in. You will hear of wars, and you will hear rumors of wars, but you should not panic. It is inevitable, this violent breaking apart of the sinful world, but remember, the wars are not the end. The end is still unfolding. Nations will do battle with nations, and kingdoms will fight neighboring kingdoms, and there will be famines and earthquakes. But these are not the end. These are the birth pangs, the beginning. The end is still unfolding.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
These verses from Matthew that give us the description of the events that happen before the end comes can be a little disconcerting. Wars, rumors of wars, nations fighting against nations, kingdoms fighting against neighboring kingdoms. These are standard headlines today. Famines and earthquakes. They are everywhere.
I did a quick Internet search just to see what is going on around the world in relation to Jesus’ predictions. Today there are 54 conflicts going around the world. Fourteen of them kill 1,000 or more people a year in the fighting. In the last seven days, the seismologists have recorded 90 earthquakes of 4.0 or greater on the Richter scale. You might be interested to know that four or five years ago, the agency posted earthquakes with an intensity of three or more, but there are now so many, they only post those with an intensity of four or greater.
Talking about famine is a little harder to wrap your head around. We know famine means there is not enough food for everyone so let’s look at hunger statistics. These, too, are hard to wrap your head around. Hunger can mean the pains in your stomach that some of us feel when we miss a meal. That’s not what Jesus was talking about, I don’t think. Most of us could stand to miss a meal or two without consequence. In fact, it would probably help most of us. But when we think about the undernourished or those that die of starvation, that number is staggering. Currently 795 million people on the planet do not have enough food to maintain their health. That’s one out of nine people on the planet. And among children under the age of five, it’s the hunger, undernourishment is the number one cause of death. Over 3 million children died of hunger in 2012 and 161 million were undernourished.
We hear about the melting of the polar caps and the rise of the oceans. The changes in weather that create weather patterns that reduce the growing season for crops or increase the temperatures to make it unfavorable for crops to withstand the scorching sun. We hear about El Nina` and other weather patterns that disrupt the normal flow of air and bring disasters to regions of the country and the world. Storms abound creating havoc for hundreds of thousands in this country and around in every country.
But Jesus tells us all these things are just birth pangs. These are not the end, but signs of its coming. These are the events that will tell us He is returning soon. So what should we do?
We could crawl into a hole and try to protect ourselves from the onslaught that is coming. We could arm ourselves and defend our tiny piece of ground from invaders and hold on to the possessions we hold in our hand. We could sit by and do nothing assuming God will come and wisk us away so we never face the troubles that will continue to grow until the tribulation begins and Christ returns.
I’m not sure any of those are what Jesus had in mind when He told His disciples the signs to look for that would herald His return. I think He gave us those signs to tell us time is short to finish the tasks He gave us to do. He gave us a command to go and make disciples in all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Remember? We are to share His message with others and bring them to the saving knowledge of Christ.
God does His best to let us know His grace is about to run out. Jesus told those around Him the signs like birth pangs that would precede the final judgments God would send upon the earth for their failure to follow Him and live in our selfish unrepentant state. I’m not sure how the signs could get much clearer. And if the birth pangs we see in the 54 conflicts, 90 earthquakes a week, 795 million people dying of malnutrition around the world, and all the other warning signs can be compared to the birth pangs preceding labor, just think what the end will be like. Women tell me the pain of the birth pangs and false labor are nothing compared to the labor itself. Can you imagine what the world will be like when these birth pangs of the end are over?
We have a lot of people to warn and help them understand there is but one way to escape the coming wrath God will pour out on this earth and those who fail to recognize Him as God. We don’t have much time left to do our job. We’d better get to it!
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