Obsession With Bible Prophecy: The Devil Loves It
The first question the disciples asked our Lord after His resurrection from the dead concerned prophecy: “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6)
Look carefully at Christ’s response to them: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.” (Acts 1:7)
Did you get that? “IT IS NOT FOR YOU TO KNOW.”
Students of the scriptures have been studying “end time” prophecies since the completion of the canon of Scripture. And the interpretations have been, and still are, as varied as the people proffering them.
We could assemble the most brilliant apologists in the world for the various interpretations of Bible prophecy and let them present the reasons for their interpretations and each of them would be able to present a very coherent and convincing scriptural case for their position. And the fact is, the best any of them would be doing would be making a studied, educated GUESS at how it all MIGHT happen.
Come on! Get real, folks! Some of the smartest men of history have been making educated guesses regarding the return of Christ since the Apostle John finished writing the Book of The Revelation. Date setters have come and gone–along with the dates they set–for 2,000 years. And the educated guessers of today are no smarter than they were then.
Jesus wasn’t kidding around when He told the disciples (and us), “IT IS NOT FOR YOU TO KNOW.” The one thing that He did want us to know is that it is our duty to “Occupy till I come.” (Luke 19:13) Therefore, until Christ comes (whenever that is), we are to “occupy” or “take care of business.”
Regardless of one’s private interpretation of prophecy, our duty as Christians is the same: we are to take care of business. We are to tend to our family business, our vocational business, our spiritual business, our community business, our national business, etc. Until He comes, we have a divine mandate to “take care of business.”
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