"Occupy Till I Come" Part #1

Common Sense Commentary: "If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run; yours is the earth and everything that's in it, and
which is more, you'll be a man, my son."  Rudyard Kipling, a Christian, on time.
The enormous and radical "changes" which are occurring in our country and the world today seem to be exactly what Biblical Prophets forecast 2000 to 3000 years ago.  My purpose in this commentary today, is not to list all those prophecies, but their impact upon Bible students, scholars, and Christians in general.

The Old Testament prophecies of a coming Messiah were plainly and completely fulfilled in the birth, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  But the Old Testament and New Testament prophecies of the "end times", Rapture, Tribulation and Millennial Kingdom have yet to be fulfilled except for the "signs" which precede those events.

The world has never before, in human history, seen the likes of the accumulative, compounded storage of knowledge as we have seen, in the last 70 years, up to today's high tech everything .... medicine, food production, communications, transportation, information technology, war weaponry, nano-tech, and energy tech, to name a few.
And it is doubling every few months at higher and higher speed.
I, as have many Christians, spent my entire life, since I was nineteen, 62 years, studying God's Word, the Bible.  The prophecy that really awakened my interest, by its fulfillment, was the re-establishment of the new nation of Israel in May of 1948 followed by millions of Jews returning to their God given homeland after 2000 years of dispersion.  Since that historic, prophetic event, we have witnessed a continuous and increasing variety and volume of fulfilled prophecy, especially as relates to the diminishing morals and integrity in business, society, and even among Christians and within churches.  This is, without doubt, the sixth dispensation, of human kind, preceded by five others from Genesis 1 to Jesus' crucifixion.  This sixth dispensation began with Jesus and ends at His second coming.  It is identified in The Revelation as being the dispensation of the Church Age which has Jesus as its foundation ... "Upon this rock I will build my church ...."  Matt.16:18.  It is all too clear that we are now living in the sixth,  major, human dispensation and in the last of seven Church periods (Laodicean) within the Dispensation of  The Church Age.  Jesus spoke prophetically to this seventh and last of the last in Rev.3:14-22, concerning events just prior to the Rapture.  He said, 2000 years ago, to the vast majority of churches and denominations of today .... "And unto ... the church of the Laodiceans write ... I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot ... So then because thou art lukewarm ... I will spue thee out of my mouth.  Because thou sayest, I am rich ... and have need of nothing;  and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable and poor and blind and naked."  The very next verse, Rev.4:1, near the end of the church age, records the Rapture and final mention of the church which has then become the bride of Christ. But the remaining church buildings will still continue with unsaved church members and become part of a one world church of religious, but lost souls.

Christians have been expecting Christ to establish His Millennial Kingdom on earth ever since He walked among us in Luke 19:10-13.  He told those around Him there that He had come, "to seek and save that which was lost ... and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear ...." Jesus gave them a parable which illustrated His Great Commission, His going away and coming again to call us into account, and then said to them, "Occupy till I come."  Don't stand around waiting and fearful; Stay busy witnessing, worshiping and teaching until you hear the trumpet of God and I return.

Then later, in Luke 21:7-28, they asked Jesus what signs would precede the end times and He gave them a long list of signs that would occur near the end. Then He concluded the signs with v.28, "And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh."


All of these and other end time signs, preceding the rapture, have motivated some of us to be so focused on their fulfillment and the growing hardships, wickedness and soon coming of Christ that we sometimes just stand gazing off into space like the Apostles and His disciples in Acts 1:7-11.  The last thing Jesus told them, before He ascended back into heaven, was "It is not for you to know the times or seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power... be witnesses unto me ... unto the uttermost part of the earth." Then, Jesus ascended up and up till He was out of their sight. There they stood, amazed, motionless, gazing up into heaven when two angels standing by them asked, "Why stand ye gazing up into heaven ...."  In other words, get busy doing what He called you to do.... "Occupy till I come."  And the very last words Jesus left us, in Rev.22:20 were, "Surely I come quickly". Not soon but quick.

Part #2 of "Occupy till I come" will follow soon and quick....
Pass it on. RB