Listen to the broadcast program. radio028en.ram (15 minutes)
PROGRAM outline is transcribed below.
This is based on a short article
Greetings once again in the name of Jesus Christ! You are listening to ComfortForToday.com, a program named after the website of the same name. We are on this station each week at the same time, and we welcome you to join us. The article which I read each week, as well as the poems, etc. are taken from my website My husband and I trust you are enjoying these programs, and would be very happy to hear from you. Our e-mail address is comfort@comfortfortoday.com, and our mailing address is Comfort Books, 27 Dominion Gardens Drive, Georgetown, Ontario, Canada L7G 6B2.
So please relax and enjoy the next 15 minutes as I read article #28.
Man has always tried to prove or disprove the existence of God.
Philosophy
tells us it can't be proven one way or the other, and that those
who believe
in God believe only because they have had an 'experience' which,
they say,
is an unreliable proof. Believers have come up with lists of
reasons, such
as creation itself, to insist there is a God. God allows man to flounder in his own intellectual arguments. In
the
meantime, He has been busy during the course of history working out
a plan
of 'patterns'. Now, in these last days, we can see that MAN cannot
prove
or disprove God's existence, but GOD has proven it Himself! In our day, God is allowing man to see the plan for the ages in
a new
and fresh way as one piece after another fits into the giant jigsaw
puzzle.
We shrink back in awe as we look at it! The Bible is one massive
collection
of these patterns or types! For example, Abraham, the Jewish patriarch is a type of God
Himself,
the "father of many nations" (Gen.17:4). His son Isaac,
whom
he was asked to sacrifice on the altar, represents God's Son, Jesus
Christ.
Isaac's wife, Rebekah, whom he loved so much and for whom he had to
wait
for many years before she could become his bride, is the Bride for
whom
the Bridegroom, Jesus, has waited so long. Beautiful Rebekah had a
time
of preparation just as the true church has had almost 2,000 years
to get
ready for end- time prophecy to be fulfilled when the Bride will be
"a
radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but
holy
and blameless" (Eph.5:27 NIV). When the Jews were freed from Egyptian slavery, they went into
the desert
to worship God (Ex.7:16). As they crossed the desert to get to
Israel,
they would have arrived much sooner had they not rebelled against
God and
insisted on their own way rather than being obedient to God's
leading.
So, too, the church, Christ's Bride, has been detained by
stubbornness
and rebellion, unwilling to leave the ways of the world. Often its
leaders
are responsible for the delay as was Rebekah's father. The entire salvation message of Christianity is represented in
that
tabernacle set up in the desert. One room, called the Holy of
Holies, could
not be entered by anyone except the high priest because anyone who
entered
would die. The priest alone could make atonement for the sins of
the people
by sprinkling of the blood of animals. When Jesus died as the Lamb
slain
for the sins of the world, the Bible tells us the curtain of the
temple
was torn in two (Matt.27:51). Man could now go into the very
presence of
God and, because of the blood Jesus shed at Calvary, would not die
as they
did in the desert tabernacle, but have eternal life. God allowed man to follow the laws given to Moses and, when man
proved
that he was incapable of keeping them, God put a new law of love in
his
mind and heart. Instead of physical circumcision, the cutting now
takes
place as the Holy Spirit cuts sin from the heart with His
double-edged
sword (Heb.4:12). The blood on the doorposts in Egypt which saved
the Israelites
from death is the blood of Jesus applied to the doorposts of our
hearts
which saves us from death of the soul. Jesus is our high priest who has entered the Holy of Holies into
the
presence of God where He intercedes for us (Rom.8:34). Because we
have
been set free from the slavery of sin, we can now worship and
praise in
freedom just as the Israelites did when they left Egypt. We hold up
our
hands to praise the King and give Him glory just as the wings of
the cherubim
were raised above the ark in the Holy of Holies as guardians of
God's glory
(Heb.9:5 LB). We have been freed from the vicious circle of sin and
death
(Rom.8:2). A good teacher uses blackboard illustrations to demonstrate a
lesson.
The greatest Teacher of all time has been illustrating His truths
since
the beginning by using the experiences of His chosen people as
patterns
in one giant lesson plan. As the lesson draws to a conclusion, we can now see what He has
been
trying to teach us. He has proven His own existence!
That is the end of the article. So God has used the history of the Jewish people as a prophetic tool to foretell the future. All the events and people of the Old Testament have a message for those of us who know Jesus Christ. It is like a prophetic thread weaving the entire Bible of Old and New Testaments together.
So while the Jewish types and shadows become ever more vivid to us, there is also in the Bible much direct prophecy. Everything, that is, EVERYTHING that the prophets foretold about the past have taken place, therefore we can be assured that what is prophecied for the future will, indeed, come to pass.
When the disciples asked Jesus "What shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?"
Jesus then began to list some of the signs. He said there would be people claiming to be Christ, "wars and rumours of wars" when "nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom." He said there would be "famines, pestilences and earthquakes," persecution, increased sin, and that the love of many people would become cold (Matt 24:3-12).
All these signs are present in our world today. But let us consider just one of them--the blatant sin about which I wrote in article #399 on the website.
We could say that the letters in the Word "B I B L E" stand for "Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth". It is God's instructions on how to prepare for death, but also instructions about how to prepare for the rapture of those who are looking for His return. While the rapture is an 'escape' from the terrible events foretold for the end of the age, it is only a prelude to Jesus' final return to set up His kingdom on earth.
Before He can set up His kingdom, of course, He has to get rid of sin. So after he removes those who have followed His instructions in the Bible, we are told that He will pour out judgment on those who refused to read or listen to the biblical instructions. These years of tribulation will be terrible years according to the Bible.
The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy what the great sins of the last days would include:
"People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God--having a form of godliness but denying its power" (2 Tim 3:2-5).
Is not this list a prophetic message? Sure sounds like the times we live in! Add to the increased sin the other signs Jesus foretold: increase in earthquakes, wars, famines, floods, and new diseases and we have reason to believe that God knows what is going to take place and is in control. The Bible is one massive panorama of events knit together with the scarlet thread of redemption. God has a great plan to save all those who want freedom from sin and death...He sent His Son to die so that we could be forgiven of our sins and would not have eternal death, but eternal life!
We will not be afraid when all these things come to pass because God has told us what is going to happen. The end of the story is that all "the signs of the times" will one day be no more, and we will have a perfect world governed by Jesus Christ from Jerusalem (Rev 21:2).
Through prophecy--direct prophecy and prophetic events and people in the past--God has proven the reality of His own existence! Indeed the Lord reigns!
HYMN: "THE LORD REIGNS" from the CD "Keep Coming Holy Spirit" by Robert Critchley of TACF.
CLOSING PRAYER
God Has Proven His Own Existence
The Blatant Sin of our Day is a Sign of Christ's Soon Return