Sunday Drive 2 - Heading Home

If you read the preceding post, "Sunday Drive," I imagine that essay by Pat Boone gave you plenty to think about. Personally, I agree wholeheartedly with his assessment because I see it happening more and more everyday. I don't care what you aspire to be, or what your work ethic is, deep down, everyone will accept a free ride (or at least, a free lunch) if it's offered to them. Especially if everyone else is getting one. The most reputable people I know admit to, at one time or another, cheating on their taxes, filing a bogus insurance claim, or in some other fashion, accepting unearned cash.

This is precisely the strategy that the Obama adminstration is using to convert formerly hard working Americans into wards of the state. For example. I have a house in Phoenix, AZ, purchased primarily as an investment and future winter home. Up until recently, the tenants there had paid their rent on time, and were very responsible about taking care of the property. Over the last couple of months, however, their attitude has changed from "let's treat this home is if it was our own" to "Let's stick it to the rich landlord man." Paying a $300k mortgage on a house worth half that hardly qualifies one as "rich"-but that's not how they see it.  

But why this change in attitude? They have had no upsets in their personal situations—no layoffs, or anything that would create a serious hardship, yet they are now following the exact pattern of thinking that Mr. Boone discusses—"I'm going to live the American Dream, right here in Phoenix because I'm entitled." Unfortunately, in this case, by not paying their rent, we can't pay for the house. So it will be real interesting to see what happens when they come home one day and find a banker cross-armed at the door.

But, let's get back to the article by Pat Boone. The answers to where all this is going are right before us if we would just take the time to look. Mr. Boone points to the book of Revelation, which is rich with clues and information on the end times. If you are not familiar with it, it can be very challenging to follow and interpret on your own, so you may want to join a study group, or at least get a study guide.

Additional end times prophesy can be found in Daniel, Matthew, Timothy, Ezekiel and elsewhere. One of my favorite examples of applied end times prophesy is in Daniel Chapter 12, where it says, "even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” Consider that, from the time that was written until about 200 years ago, things changed very little. People walked or rode on horse back or in horse-drawn vehicles. Most things were made by hand. People wore animal skins to keep warm. Not until the 1800s did we see any industry and from that grew the major cities.

My earthly father just celebrated his 90th Birthday (as did folksinger, Pete Seger, BTW). He vividly recalls the early automobiles, mud roads, days on trains to get to business meetings. In fact, that's the way it was, not 90 years ago, but just 50 years ago. Compact Discs have come and (virtually) gone in the last 30 years. 25 years ago, I was one of the first in my town to own a computer (an early Mac that cost over $2000). While the Internet has been around since the '70s, it was unknown (and unavailable) to the public up until the early '90s. Yes, knowledge is increasing at a pace never before known to man. And people running to and fro? Who can question that we live in the most fast pace, stressful time in history.

Is that what Daniel was referring to 2700 years ago? Quite possibly. On the other hand, he could have been predicting a time when more and more people would begin to wonder about these things and would be running to and fro through the Bible to gain knowledge of the prophecies. Either way, our enjoyable, little picnic here on earth may be about over. Anytime now, Dad may be calling for all us kids to "Get back in the car—it's time to head home." If I were you, I wouldn't wander to far away.

Note: use caution when searching or researching end times prophesy on the Internet—as it says in Matthew 24:11  "And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many." I've found a good, straight-forward list of prophesies, with comment, at contenderministries.org. If you have others to suggest, please post a comment.