‘The sound of a great rushing wind descended on the large group of people gathered indoors, and flames of fire became visible on their heads! Can you imagine?
Sort of like being near the center of a hurricane or tornado with everyone suddenly holding lit sparklers! And as they spoke excitedly, the many different multi-national folks who gathered ‘round them for the “noise” of the disturbance “were confounded”. Because “everyone heard them speak in his own language”! They were “amazed and marveled” … “are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?” (Acts 2:7-8)
It was the Tower of Babel in reverse! God – who had divided the nations with a confusion of tongues at the God-denying, mankind-exalting developments of Babel – was here uniting the various people groups in a new covenant for all the nations under the Lordship of Jesus Christ!
Shortly after Babel fell, Abraham, father of the Hebrew nation, had been drafted into a special covenant with God for a special blessing to all mankind. “And in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). Abraham “believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (Romans 4:3, Genesis 15:6, Galatians 3:6, James 2:23). And now all tribes, tongues, and nations of the earth were to become part of a new covenant with God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, with the unity of the Spirit. Christ’s Great Kingdom had come in “a preliminary sense”.
The apostle Peter stood up at Pentecost and said to the crowds: “But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh… (Acts 2:16-17a). “The last days”, according to Acts 2, began with Pentecost, and we’ve been in them ever since. These would be the last days of the present evil “age” in which Satan is “the god of this world”. But how long can we be in the “last days” before the last of the “last days” arrives?
Biblical chronologists have calculated roughly 3800 – 4000 BC as a date for biblical creation. Famously, Bishop Ussher calculated 4004 BC. Isaac Newton calculated 3940 BC. With such calculations and the unfolding of non-evolutionary history, the earth is arguably about 6,000 years old – in a curious and remarkable analogy with the days of the creation week.
In 2 Peter 3:3-9, the Bible mentions “scoffers” coming in the “last days” regarding the promise of the Second Coming of Christ to the creation. And of people being “willingly ignorant” about the Great Cataclysm of Noah with its reminders of divine judgment, and earth’s history not being a uniformitarian one! Noah’s Flood is key for understanding earth history and how the earth fits a biblical timeline – and people deliberately overlook it. In that same passage, the Bible says that “a thousand years” is “as one day”. That’s an interesting phrase.
Because in another passage about the Second Coming of Christ, the Bible says “that old serpent, the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world” will be “cast into the bottomless pit” and bound “till the thousand years should be fulfilled” (Revelation 12:9 and 20:2-3). Here is a “day of rest” from this evil age, the seventh day in the analogy with creation week. Interesting indeed. But the Lord is “longsuffering to us-ward…not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). We are to be emissaries for the truth of God in these “last days”! Our work is the Great Commission. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14).
In the meantime, there is a whole lot of deception going on – as highlighted in last month’s newsletter (“Lies, Lies, and More Lies”). The devil and his minions are hard at it, and the rebelliousness of human “flesh” continues. When Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them”, there is no room for being “non-binary”. People through all time and cultures have understood this. Why such confusion in today’s “scientific” society?!
In fact, while words may not get their meaning from their etymologies, the Hebrew words for “male” and “female” in the above verse derive from “piercer” and “pierced one”, respectively. These are the same words God used to direct Noah to organize the animals into the Ark by male and female pairs. There are two sexes, and we are either one or the other. It’s in our biology, internally and externally. Gender confusion makes no rational sense.
Biological sex being replaced by gender ideology is really another manifestation of “seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1). The doctrine is very sadly targeting young people and invading the church. Through the bullying activism of LGBTQIA advocates (the so-called “alphabet mafia”), it works in synodical councils to change church policies. The churches and the Christians who succumb to these false doctrines tend to be the same ones who have long succumbed to the grand lie of evolution, allowing it to undermine their view of the historicity and inerrancy of the Bible!
Gender “re-assignment”, transgenderism, connects to transhumanism, a New World Order ideology wanting to make man into something else. Redefining basic biology, so the thinking goes, with assists from micro-chip-embedded artificial intelligence, can help “empower” mankind to “a higher stage of evolutionary development” – and to become more powerful “mediums” of demons.
In these times, these “last days”, we certainly have a job to do! But the Holy Spirit has been poured out in a down-payment at Pentecost. And the truth of God’s Word still sets people free! It must be proclaimed.’https://creationmoments.com/newsletter/how-long-can-we-be-in-the-last-days-before-the-last-of-the-last-days-arrives/?mc_cid=0004572593&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
By Duggan Flanakin ~
By Tim Graham ~
