JC's Weekly June 20th 2005

Looking Up?

The race of man is rapidly growing. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, world population is at an all-time high, with 90 million people entering our world each year. It took 123 years for the population of the world to grow from 1 billion to 2 billion, but each successive billion people have arrived in ever-shorter timespans. From 2 to 3 billion took only 33 years, from 3 to 4 fourteen years and it only took 11 years to grow from 5 to the current 6 billion people. The population of the world's most economically developed countries is actually dropping, while 95% of all population growth is taking place in the world's poorest countries.

Coupled with this incredible population explosion, is a dramatic increase in premature death. According to the worldwatch institute (www.worldwatch.org) for the first time since the great famine of China in the 1960's, the world's mortality rate is increasing, despite and perhaps even because of rapid population growth. The main causes of this dramatic calamity? HIV, water depletion and the scarcity of cropland for food.

HIV, which leads to the fatal AIDS Syndrome is wiping out whole cultures on the African and Indian Subcontinents. I have spoken to African pastors who have told me that they fully expect half of their church to die of AIDs in the coming year. One out of every three people on our planet live in Africa or the Indian subcontinent and these are the regions most devastated by thie terrible disease. In Botswana and Zimbabwe, the life expectancy of males has FALLEN from 62 to less than 44 years - primarily because of HIV/AIDS. The saddest fact of these statistics is that this disease is entirely preventable - And only children and rape victims indescriminantly die of AIDS, having inherited it from their sexually promiscuous parents or attackers.

In China, the world's most populist country, despite strict controls on families and forced abortion and sterilization, another kind of epidemic is raging - the lack of women. More than 50 years of the forced abortion of infant girls have created a gender imbalance that will dramatically affect Chinese and perhaps the world's culture. Some statistics I have read state that there are 152 men for every 100 women in China and in rural areas, where boys are needed for work, the figure may be much higher. What happens in a society where there are tens of millions of men with no women to marry?

The shortage of drinking water is something that we cannot imagine in America. One example of the effects of no available water could be seen in the Masai tribesmen of Africa who for generations, drank the blood of their cattle during the dry season because there was simply no water to be found. God has graciously helped in the case of the Masai; Living Water International (www.living-water.org) has provided clean water to this tribe and others, but one organization cannot even begin to address the global water shortage efectively. One film I recently watched from some of our missionaries in Bangladesh showed the condition of water in much of the undeveloped world - in the same river, people bathed, gathered drinking water, dumped their trash and human waste - all at the same time.

Even though there are perhaps millions of American families who struggle with meeting their daily nutritional needs, no one in America really knows what it is like for there to be NO food sources. Rich in farmland, our country pays farmers each year not to grow their crops. But in many parts of the world, there simply isn't any food because there isn't any land on which to grow it, or the population growth is far outpacing the ability of land to produce crops. One cannot feed 10,000 families from a single acre of land, and yet in some parts of Africa and India, this is the demand placed on the earth.

What does this have to do with the church?

In the book of Luke, Chapter 21, Jesus is giving His disciples and vicariously, you and I a picture of what will happen as the end of time draws near. "And He said, "nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be great earthquakes in various places and famines and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven" (Vv.10-11).

In December of 2004, approximately 280,000 people died within 15 minutes from an earthquake and tsunami in the Indian ocean, which qualifies as a "great earthquake" in my humble opinion. Jesus went on to say "But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake." (v. 12) The Jewish believers until the time of Constantine (285-337 A.D.) were brought before the synagogues and persecuted in Jerusalem. Many Christians since then have been brought before kings and rulers for naming the name of Jesus' Christ. It is estimated, in fact, that since the Stalinist persecutions in Soviet Russia until the present time, more Christians have died than in all the centuries before combined.

For the last 2000 or so years, this particular prophecy of Jesus has been fulfilled. Further on in this passage (v.20), Jesus provides some startling detail. Jesus says that Jerusalem will be surrounded and that "Jerusalem will be trampled until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled". Jerusalem was crushed by the Roman Emperor Vespasian in A.D. 70 and not one single Jewish person was left alive inside the city.

Jesus then goes on to talk about His return. He states in (v.28) "Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near."

One doesn't have to be Chicken Little to see that our world is heading for a disaster. Jerusalem has long been considered the "center of the earth" (according to Herod the Great) because on this tiny stretch of land alongside the Mediterranean sea lies the most fertile land in all the earth. Everything grows abundantly there - water is plentiful, the weather is just right and the soil is rich. If you were the dictator of a nation filled with starving, dying people where would you go? If you had an army of trained men, hundreds of millions strong and couldn't feed your people, in what direction would you travel?

That's right - to the most fertile slice of land on earth. This is precisely where these nations will go. When? I don't know. But what I do know is that before these nations of the East march toward this rich source of food and water, Jesus Christ will return. There have been earthquakes and famines on the earth for thousands of years. But there has never before been a time when mankind could no longer find food and water or when millions of men could not find women to take as wives, because these things simply were not there.

When Jesus comes back He is going to quickly leave again, taking with Him all those who have joined with Him in their hearts and minds. Those who do not leave with Him will be left here to watch as the great masses of humanity, driven to seek their basic necessities, march toward that most ancient city of Jerusalem; filled with food and exotic women. The Bible talks about what will happen when they get there. The details can be found in the book of Revelation, Chapter 19.

The Bible asks the question, "Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD?Or who may stand in His holy place?"(Psalm 24:3)

The answer, "who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully." (Psalm 24:4) In short, only those who have not lifted up their soul to anything else but Jesus Christ. In a world where sex, money, fortune, notoriety and self-indulgence are the loftiest goals one can obtain, it is easy to lift up our lives (our souls) and sell ourselves for these things. Don't do it. Nike is wrong. And when Jesus comes back, he won't be wearing tennis shoes. Set your mind and your life of the things of God. That way, as the end of time approaches, you won't be like Chicken Little, wondering what is going to happen next. Don't guess at the most important thing in your entire life - eternity. Be certain that when Jesus Christ returns, you will go with him. The trip is free; all you have to do is ask.