One discussion I had yesterday shows how much the world has changed, and how much the world today matches what the Bible describes — a time when men and women will have no loyalty, will be proud, and will be liars. One lady, who is Catholic, told me that the law is finished because we are under the law of Jesus.
I asked her to explain where this “law of Jesus” annuls the Ten Commandments. Jesus said to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Some people believe this annuls the Ten Commandments. When I asked her to give proof that it does, she had no answer. In end time prophecy and current events, we find that people today are becoming exactly as the Bible describes: having a form of godliness but denying its power. From such, turn away.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 — “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” We find another list of end-time sins in Romans 1.
Romans 1:28-32 — “God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”
This woman could not answer my questions, so she switched to a technique many people use today: talking without listening. This is a clear example of how people behave today, and how closely it matches the end times described in the Bible.
This technique many people use today: (1) will never help anyone find the truth, and (2) will weaken our own ability to answer questions. If we continually avoid listening to people and only say what we want to say, we become weak in answering people’s questions. The Bible warns of a generation without loyalty. When we speak to someone, we owe them the courtesy of listening as well as speaking. A conversation is an unspoken agreement between two people that both will listen and both will speak.
I love a verse from the end-time prophet Ellen G. White, where she says that when men’s insolence passes a certain limit, then God’s judgments will fall. This sin of entering a conversation without listening is:
- Deceiving the person into thinking there will be a real conversation — it is a form of lying.
- Selfish.
- A waste of the other person’s time, and our own.
- A lack of love.
- Rude and insolent.
A Christian can never practice such behavior and still expect to enter heaven.
End Time Prophecy and Current Events: Preaching the Gospel
The goal of someone who tells others about the Bible — a pastor, a missionary, or anyone else — is to help them reach a decision. If we talk to someone about Jesus and do not help them come to a decision, we waste our time, because people need to directly decide for Jesus or against Him. When a message is watered down, it becomes even harder for someone to make that decision.
Ellen G. White said that when everyone has made a decision for or against the truth, then the end will come. It is very possible that people who talk without listening, and waste others’ time, are influenced by demonic forces — no true Christian would behave this way, because demons seek to waste God’s time and to keep the people they influence from ever making a decision.
When we present the truth to someone and they refuse to engage with any question, acting as though they are not listening, then time is wasted and nothing is accomplished. A true Christian will not waste time, knowing that life is short and that we will give an account to God for how we have used it.
People who do not value themselves do not value others either. They do not care about their own time or other people’s time — and sadly, even many Christians do this. Yet we know that for the talents God has given us, we will be required to give an account. Remember the man who had one talent: Jesus says to bind him and cast him into outer darkness. It is so serious that most people don’t even realize they are responsible for how they use what they’ve been given.
We carry a serious responsibility before God to return, at His coming, an increase on the talents He gave us. End time prophecy and current events show us that we do not belong to ourselves — and that our time, and other people’s time, is itself a talent. Have we wasted people’s time? Have we wasted our own?
Matthew 25:25-26 — “And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed.” Jesus calls “wicked and lazy” those who think they can do whatever they please with the talents they’ve been given — intelligence, money, time.
Jesus places in this same class of “wicked” those who think they can treat others however they please and waste their time. If someone truly loves others, they will recognize, “I need to give an honest answer when a question is asked of me.” If we cannot answer questions, it shows we do not actually have the truth. By avoiding questions, we show that we do not care about the truth — that we do not care whether we are in Babylon or in the true church — and that we do not care about the soul of the person in front of us. Having a form of godliness: from such, turn away.
End Time Prophecy and Current Events: Twisting Prophecy
This same lady then told me that the great city Babylon is Jerusalem. I explained to her that several points prove Babylon cannot be Jerusalem. She then said it must be Sodom and Egypt, “where the Lord was crucified.” I explained that these are two separate prophecies. Sodom and Egypt, in Revelation 11, come after the 1,260 years of persecution, while Babylon the great city exists during the 1,260 years — proving these are two different powers, fulfilling two different prophecies. It is shocking how much dishonesty and pride exist today, even within Christian churches, and yet Jesus has not yet brought this wickedness to an end.
The Two Witnesses: The Old and New Testament Prophesy 1,260 Years
Revelation 11:3 — “And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.” At the end of the 1,260 years of papal persecution, Sodom and Egypt then come onto the scene.
Revelation 11:7 — “And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.”
Revelation 11:8 — “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.”
Because this lady saw the phrase “the great city” used in both prophecies, she wrongly concluded — through surface-level reading, lack of deep study, and a desire to see what she wanted to see — that Babylon could not be the Papal Church of Rome. She closed her eyes to the evidence rather than follow it.
- We need to study what the Bible says deeply enough. Too often, people want an answer in five minutes. In my group, I once told a man that it took me two years to learn these end-time Bible prophecies. He said, “No, just give it to me now, in one minute.” We arrive at wrong conclusions about what God says when we want a fast answer instead of truly seeking to know what God says, and letting Him speak to us in His own time.
- As people stop truly listening, their listening skills weaken. Our capacity for genuine understanding may be lower today than at almost any point in history.
- By wanting things fast, without real Bible study, we end up twisting the Bible to our own destruction.
End Time Prophecy and Current Events: Our Own Destruction
2 Peter 3:16 — “As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.” When the Bible says that some things in Paul’s writings, and in Scripture generally, are hard to understand, this is exactly what it means.
If some things are hard to understand, we must always pray before reading the Bible — but we also need to examine: (1) the context, (2) the original Greek or Hebrew, and (3) compare it with all other verses on the same topic. If we do not take the time to do this, we will twist the Bible and make it say something it never said — making ourselves liars in the process. Reading the Bible is not a game; it is truth from God. By rejecting any truth, we reject Jesus, and we fail — it means we have rejected God’s light. We may accept many things, like the truth that Jesus died on the cross, but we are responsible for all the light that shines on our pathway from heaven. All honest people will accept all the truth Jesus sends them.
Repeat after me: Father God, please forgive my sins. Help me to follow all the truth You send me. Help me to study the Bible correctly, with an honest heart, so that I can discern right from wrong and follow the truth You have for me. In the name of Jesus, amen.