Signs of the time

Signs of the time

By Pastor Rasheed Z. Baaith

    “And as He sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto Him privately saying “Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming? And of the end of the world?”  And Jesus answered and said unto them…” (Matthew 24:3 – 4a)

     America is reeling from extreme weather and the revelations of a man named Snowden who is giving highly classified information not to just America’s enemies but to the entire world.  In Brazil soccer “fans” decapitated a referee, here in Florida; the entire state is trying to prepare for the aftermath of the George Zimmerman murder trial. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela’s family is vehemently divided over burial plots and money, in Egypt the army has once again taken over the government and in Washington, D.C., our government as usual, is accomplishing nothing.  Meanwhile, gangs in Chicago seem to have taken over that city, killing whenever and whoever they please.

Meanwhile in California, the state government has passed what’s being called the “Bathroom Bill.”  It’s a bill that allows a little boy to use the girl’s bathroom and a little girl to use the boy’s bathroom if they identify with that sex, no matter what their gender of record is.  Think about it.

I believe these things are end time signs. The same end time Christ is speaking of in Matthew, chapter 24. I further believe that if these are not the end times, those times are so close it doesn’t matter anyway.  One true sign of the end of any civilization is moral decay.  Few will argue that the moral decay of this country is unraveling the foundations of its social and political order.

The Houses of God are included in this collapse.  Our churches have begun to institute a theology of compromise with sin where we are calling good evil and evil good even where the Word of God is ordained, clear and compelling. And while the defeat of the Defense of Marriage Act is the topic of the day, what that represents is so much more than the issue of homosexuality.  That event is just symbolic of today’s thinking.  A thinking that is constructed and centered on man doing what pleases man, not what pleases God.  No matter what the sin is.

It is part of the “falling away,” written of in 2 Thessalonians which reads, “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day will not come, except there come a falling away first…”

The words’ “falling away” as is used in this Scripture, refers to those who will reject Christ, not to those who may depart. And what Jesus are they rejecting?  They are rejecting the Jesus that says in Matthew 5:17, “Think not I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”  Jesus then goes on to say that unless our righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the two most notorious sinners of His day we have no hope of entering Heaven.  That standard may not be as low as it seems.  There is as much sin and the seeking of status, the grapping at materialism in the Church as there is anywhere else.

That’s true in Black churches, white churches, Cuban churches and Asian churches. The poison of corruption is everywhere.  I read somewhere recently where a pastor said he “should be able to live just like Diddy and Jay-Z.”  OK but on whose money?

Whether we think the comparison moot or not, as we look around we see things that portend a  change never before seen or imagined or the advent of the end of this nation, the Church and the world as we’ve known it.

Yet, if we have been as faithful in reading the Bible and living through Christ as many of us claim to have been, we will remember the encouraging words of 2 Thessalonians 2:2, “`That ye be not soon shaken in mind, neither by spirit nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.”

Meaning if it is not here yet, it surely is coming. Soon.