Isaiah 46:9-10

“Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me. ¹⁰ I declare the end from the beginning, and ancient times from what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.'”

I happened to be listening to a short video on the importance of prophecy yesterday, and in it, the speakers pointed out why many prominent atheists tend to date books like Daniel and the Gospel of Mark much later than Christian Bible teachers say. For instance, many atheists argue that the Gospel of Mark has a later date for writing, most likely after 70 AD. Most Christian Bible teachers place the writing around about 50 AD. First, the 50 AD means that Mark, the first Gospel, was written about 20 years after the events took place. Mark, as we know, was not an eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry. Rather, he was Peter’s traveling companion and wrote down what he had heard from him. In Mark 13:1-2, we see this prophecy:

“Then as He went out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!’ And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down.'”

This prophecy was so well fulfilled according to history in 70 AD that it is impossible for atheists to reconcile with their view that there is no God. But if the early dating is true, only God, One who is outside time and all-knowing, could have spoken these things; and thus, Jesus is God. I have heard many atheists, and they are online in droves stating that all of the Torah is simply a myth. No Creation, no Moses, no Exodus, no Abraham, etc., these are simply made-up stories. They propose that they are to be trusted more than the three religions of the world that are based on the reality of Abraham’s existence. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all depend on the truth of the Torah. We may each see it differently, but each religion is based on the truth of the Torah.

The same can be said for books like Daniel. Atheists often date this book much later than when Daniel was in captivity because the prophecies are so accurate that only two conclusions exist: there is an all-knowing God, or the books were written long after the accepted dates, and they are recounting the events as prophecy. Their presupposition is that there is no God, thus a later writing. We believe there to be an all-knowing God who can tell the future, so we can accept the earlier dating. We all live by faith, and only one group of us is right. Daniel 11 is so accurate about the future that it authenticates the entire Bible.

I invite you to read the article “Daniel 11: The Most Detailed Prophecy in the Bible.” [CLICK HERE to visit the article.] David Treybig, who wrote the attached article, had this to say near the end of it: When we consider the many prophetic details of Daniel 11 that were fulfilled as predicted, we can have confidence that the remaining prophecies of this chapter and others in the Bible that are yet to be fulfilled will likewise occur as God has ordained.

We can have confidence that the Bible is trustable and that our faith is sure and secure because of fulfilled prophecy. We can be sure that there is an omnipotent God who knows the end from the beginning as our verses at the top state. Nothing escapes Him, and there is never a surprise with Him. Nothing surprises our God; nothing.

There are many prophecies yet to be fulfilled, and we can be sure that they will come to fruition in the same deliberate manner that all of the others have been. There will be a rapture; there will be a judgment; there will be a worldwide government that tries to suppress and rule the masses; there will be a ruler that tries to control everything and gets a treaty with the Jews and the other Middle East cohorts. He will allow them to rebuild the temple and bring death like never before.

At the same time, God will pour out His wrath on an unrepentant and rebellious people like never before. Jesus will return; He will judge the wicked; He will rule for 1,000 years; He will defeat the devil and his minions, and He will bring in everlasting peace. We can be certain of the future because God has told us the past, and He has never been wrong.

These atheist fellows sound so sincere; they state that they promote ‘fact over faith’ or ‘data over dogma.’ But they live by faith that there is no god as much as we live by faith that there is a God. They love to make fun of our faith, treat us as simpletons, and maybe we are. It takes foolish people in the eyes of the world to believe that God is real and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Atheists would have you believe that Christians cannot be learned and be true scientists, but look at men like Dr. John Lennox of Oxford, C.S Lewis from Cambridge Dr. William Craig, Ken Ham from the Creation Museum, and there are many more like Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Sir Robert Boyd, Edward Nelson, and there are hundreds more; just Google Christians who are scientists as well. You will see lists of names going back centuries. Christians expected there to be order in the universe because God is a God of order; and thus, they went looking and found the order.

There are stories of people who claimed to once be ‘Christian,’ but now they are atheists. I saw one prominent atheist say that reading the Bible made him an atheist and that it is the Bible that creates a lot of atheists. But there are many more stories of men and women who went looking to deny God and found Him, none more prominent than Lee Strobel. In Psalm 19:1-3, we see these words that will be used to judge the whole world:

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.”

Creation is God’s greatest revelation to us, and this is why atheists must decry the Torah and call it into question. They deny the flood and God’s wrath. They cannot reconcile a Holy and a Loving God who exists as one at the same time and who is perfect. God required a human sacrifice to pay for sin, so He sent His Son, Jesus, whose birth we shall soon celebrate, to be the Man who died for all mankind.

For 1,500 years, he allowed us to sacrifice animals as temporary stop-gaps until the time for Jesus to come and be born. At that time, our Holy God lovingly poured out His wrath on His Son so that you and I, our sons and daughters, our wives and husbands, and our friends, can be saved forever and never have to fear death and what is on the other side.

I honestly pray that these men and women who ‘study’ the Bible and yet miss the God of the Bible will have their eyes opened and come to humble repentance before it is too late and their faith is proven wrong for eternity. I am content to trust the God who can tell me the end from the beginning.

Merry Christmas!

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church

How To Connect With Us

In-person: every Sunday (10:30 am) at Bethany Baptist Church 70 Victoria Street, Elora, ON

Online: https://mmbchurch.ca/

Email: seangooding@mmbchurch.ca

Join us on Zoom every Sunday (10:30 am) for Sunday Service AND every Tuesday at 8:00 pm for Bible Study: Meeting ID: 700 794 460 Passcode: 032661; https://us02web.zoom.us/j/700794460?pwd=M3NFRG91ZW5Sa2Z3amVyWkFnYXd6QT09

1 Thessalonians 5: 1-6

“But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. ² For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. ³ For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. ⁴ But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. ⁵ Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. ⁶ Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.”

One of the hardest things to do in life is to live with your guard up. To be always vigilant and looking for the next ‘shoe to drop’ as they say. Some have entered into a sense of relative calm after the US elections. There is a sense among many persons and not a few conservatives that life may be back to normal. We see the governing bodies of sports begin to reject the ‘a man can be a woman’ foolishness. In the US, some states have begun to offer the Bible as part of their curriculum again. We see sanctuary cities like New York begin to acknowledge that the unilateral acceptance of all immigrants no matter their criminal past is simply stupid, and they want to export some of these thugs. Good!

By the way, I am an immigrant here in Canada; my family did the paperwork, saved the monies, and came the legal way. We see the plan to reopen the oil pipelines, get people back to work and get crime under control, limit or remove liberal judges, and on and on we can go. There is a sense that the tottering ship is being righted. It can get us off guard; it can encourage us to take our eyes off the prize, that being the soon return of Jesus.

You see, when the Government appeared to be our enemy, we wanted Jesus to come soon, come now, today. But now, as we sense a period of things going ‘our way,’ it is easy to get our eyes off Heaven and begin to live like this is our home, and we no longer cry for Jesus to come sooner and rescue us. We lose the edge, and we lose the focus on Him.

As much as I am glad that the results of the election in the US went the way they did, the new President is not the savior that some want him to be; he is just a fallible man. His election may even spark a conservative movement here in Canada, and if they should win, even that man will not be the savior. In fact, according to the scriptures, the next man that the world hails as the savior will be the most dangerous man that ever walked the planet. His rebellion and defiance to the person of God will cause the death of billions of people.

As I can see it, and I could be wrong, the conservative movement we are seeing – not only in the US, maybe Canada in a few months, in Europe, and the sudden rejection of the ‘woke’ government agendas – is the calm before the storm. The forces of evil, the spirits that sit in the background like puppet masters, will turn up the heat and bring the pain to us.

In the passage above, we see a warning from Paul when the world thinks that there will be peace and safety, and there very well may be for a period of time. Jobs will come back, illegal immigration will slow, the wars in Europe and the Middle East will be temporarily solved and the like, then we begin to get complacent. Paul tells us that a ‘sudden destruction’ will come on the world.

Imagine what happened in Pearl Harbor that fateful day in December 1941; it was a sudden destruction, more than 3,000 lives taken, and millions more died in the ensuing war. The forces of darkness are never asleep, never off shift, and while they may allow the ‘peace and safety’ to grow for a while, make no mistake; they have a plan to destroy, and they love to hurt God’s people first if at all possible.

However, Paul also tells us that these things should not catch us off guard. We, the children of the light, should not let these distractions get our eyes off the goal, off of Jesus and His soon return.

I have a colleague in the ministry; we attended seminary together about 40 years ago. He said not too long ago that he had not planned well for retirement because he thought Jesus would have come by now. This is the battle we face in ourselves and in our minds. There are times when I can begin to wonder, ‘Hey, did I get this wrong?’ Did I miss something? Did I just follow along with the crowd about this Jesus returning? However, it is hard to read passages like this one in 1 Thessalonians and not see the clear promise that we have that Jesus will return like a ‘thief in the night.’

Peter warns us that the longer and longer it takes for Jesus to return, some will begin to wonder ‘where is the promise of His return?’ (2 Peter 23:4) Yes, to those that live in the darkness, the rapture will catch them off guard.  Though, I think that the spirits in the background have a ‘plausible’ explanation for the world to swallow ‘hook, line, and sinker.’ But to us who live in the light – those who have Jesus as our Savior and who humbly call Him Lord – His return, His call will not catch us off guard because there is the Holy Spirit in us reminding us that there is another chapter to be played out; there is more to come. One day soon, our faith will be sight; we will see Jesus as He is and be with Him evermore.

Paul, well, the Holy Spirit through Paul, tells us to watch, look, keep our eyes open, keep searching the Heavens, and be ready for the call, the trumpet sound, and the catching away to meet Jesus. Don’t get distracted by the short and shallow victories that we have here. Rather, observe them as temporary reprieves from the judgment to come. In these apparent times of lull, let us be about the Master’s business. Let us win all that we can to the Kingdom, let us share the Gospel, share the wonderful grace of our Lord and Savior. Let us reap as many souls as we can for the Kingdom.

Don’t get complacent; get busy. Invest more time and money in these short windows of opportunity, and make the most of the ‘peace and safety.’ Make the most of the time not to get comfortable but to make disciples. Enjoy the momentary wins; prepare for the difficult time that will come. There can be no avoidance of them. Keep our eyes on the skies. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!!

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

In-person: every Sunday (10:30 am) at Bethany Baptist Church 70 Victoria Street, Elora, ON

Online: https://mmbchurch.ca/

Email: seangooding@mmbchurch.ca

Join us on Zoom every Sunday (10:30 am) for Sunday Service AND every Tuesday at 8:00 pm for Bible Study: Meeting ID: 700 794 460 Passcode: 032661; https://us02web.zoom.us/j/700794460?pwd=M3NFRG91ZW5Sa2Z3amVyWkFnYXd6QT09