Can the world still be saved?
Acts 3:19-21
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that He may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you — even Jesus.
Heaven must receive Him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as He promised long ago through His holy prophets.
Isaiah 16:4-5
. . . When oppression and destruction have ended and enemy raiders have disappeared, then God will establish one of David’s descendants (Jesus) as King. He will rule with mercy and truth. He will always do what is just and be eager to do what is right.
One day soon, Jesus will appear briefly in the air to Rapture His Church from this fallen, sin-cursed world.
Seven years later, He will return from Heaven – with His Church – back to the earth. He will destroy the Antichrist once and for all and then bring about “times of refreshing” to the earth. All of creation will finally be restored to the glory, beauty, order, balance and perfection it was originally blessed with before it was marred by sin.
This current fallen, Humpty-Dumpty world we live in, where the ‘dog bites and the bee stings’ will finally come under Christ’s perfect rule. All of the promises of the Antichrist for a better world – without the Creator – under the ‘Great Reset’ (The New World Order) will have been put to shame and Jesus will set the record and the whole world straight: that He is our Maker, our just and righteous King and mighty God of all.
The Lord will reign and rule over the earth in peace and justice and the false peace touted during the Antichrist’s short rule will evaporate like mist meeting the rising sun; dissipating when met with the glory, majesty and holy and brilliant radiance of the Most High.
Isaiah, chapter 2: The Lord’s Future Reign
This is a vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: 2 In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of all — the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship. 3 People from many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob’s God. There He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths.” For the Lord’s teaching will go out from Zion; His word will go out from Jerusalem. 4 The Lord will mediate between nations and will settle international disputes. They will hammer their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore.
God will bring lasting peace to the earth.
Look back at Isaiah 16:4-5. It tells us that: God is eager to do what is right.
Can you imagine that?
Can you believe that?
God’s Refreshing is radically different from the Reset.
The Great Reset is an attempt to build a new tower of Babel: an attempt to make all things new without Christ: “To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism.” . . . “You will own nothing, and you will be happy.”
And then when the Antichrist (the Beast) comes on the scene – the false saviour and ‘great’ leader of the New World Order – before you know it, all your God-given freedoms will be down the toilet. You won’t be able to hold a job or go up the street to buy food with your own savings because the Mark of the Beast will have come and every facet of daily life will come under his control.
Revelation 13:16-18
It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, SO THAT THEY COULD NOT BUY OR SELL UNLESS THEY HAD THE MARK, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.
And please, humour me for a slight, but (what I believe to be), relevant digression. When I look at the way things are going in the world today – the push for globalism and the ‘new normal’; barely cooked COVID-19 vaccines flying off the shelves that are already showing undesirable side effects, yet could very well become mandatory – I can’t help but think, “what’s next?”. Giving up the freedom to choose anything at all can quickly become a slippery slope to a life of slavery. Even The Empire knows all about this. Imperial commander Valin Hess of the Empire (The Mandalorian, season 2, episode 7) sneered and said, (and I quote): “You see boys, everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order.”
Methinks Mr. Hess is referring to a kind of order that is oppressive, rather than orderly.
We’re being told what’s coming . . . and we’ve been told over and over for a long time now.
It only takes a little x-rayed vision to see the subliminal messages coming through our tv, cinema screens and music. Media is stuffed, no, bursting at the seams with all things end-times and antichrist: and ‘they’re’ getting bolder and bolder. Coming ‘out to play’, as it were because the time for Christ to take His Church is getting nearer.
Scary stuff indeed.
But Christ’s Order, Christ’s Rule is never oppressive.
The trouble we have today, and have had before, and will have again, boils down to one single truth: people’s rebellion against God, both as individuals and corporately as nations.
A rebellious heart tells God to get out of the driver’s seat and that He can keep His roadmap too (for that matter). A rebellious heart has no respect for the One who made him/her.
Remember that song: “I Did It My Way”?
Good ol’ Frank Sinatra.
But God’s wise instruction warns us that we (on our own) don’t know the way to true life, prosperity and peace. The Bible couldn’t be more clear: There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death (Proverbs 16:25).
God says that our sins impede us and make us blind to the right path: Jesus also told them a parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? (Luke 6:39).
God isn’t counting our attempts to go it alone and rely on our wits in His salvation plan for creation. He’s looking for those who would humble themselves and ask for His help.
John 9:39
Then Jesus declared, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind may see and those who see may become blind.”
Reset or not, this unredeemed world will continue to be plagued with the same problems it has always had: Greed, Selfishness, Racism, to name a few. The Bible tells us that: “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10). We already know this is true. Anything going on in the world that is motivated by gaining profit over others causes great harm.
Examples of this kind of money-grabby-greedy activity in the world are bone-chillingly numerous – too numerous to list here – ranging from the mundane, like putting unhealthy substances in food to get us hooked and keep us buying, to the radical, unbridled destruction of the environment for profit, to the cruel mismanagement of animals, or to one of the vilest extremes like that of child sex-trafficking.
I did it my way. I’m in charge. I’m in the driver’s seat.
Pay attention, folks.
Maybe you’re not part of the evil corporations that are destroying the world or part of those who endeavour to keep people in the daily-addiction-cycle of a prediabetic insulin-induced post-lunch coma. Maybe you are faithful to your loved ones, conscientious and law-abiding. You feed stray cats, give to the poor, and you always recycle.
Wonderful!
But rebellion starts and resides in the fallen heart of each and every person. It’s not shown just by these obvious, outward examples of evil on our planet. It’s about living day-to-day without our Creator. Asserting that we are fine on our own and that we don’t need His counsel to navigate our lives; that we, and we alone, will make our own rules.
And some people even go so far as to refuse to acknowledge that God even exists.
Wow. What a terrible shock they’ll get one fateful day.
Yes, even living a ‘good’ life by human standards while leaving God ‘on the shelf’ is sin. It is an insurrection against the Heavenly Throne; treason against the King of Heaven.
The truth is, in this fallen world, no amount of human innovation or invention will ever fully fix the problems we have on earth. Imperfect people produce imperfect results in an imperfect world. And even though the intellect and imagination given to us by God to create and invent (like Him) have been a help and a blessing to many on earth, because “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (1 Chronicles 16:11-12), WE, on our own merits do not possess the ‘Midas Touch’ for the greater good of humanity. The GMO food (genetically modified organisms) that would end world hunger proves poisonous, and medicines continue to have dangerous side effects, and that great new type of BPA-free plastic will still prove to cause illness when the next ‘XXX’ toxin is discovered . . .
Fly in the ointment.
And what of genuine lasting peace between all nations and races of people? There’s to be no Star Trek “United Federation of Planets” despite the collective imagination of the world, and there will never be a true United Nations on earth while we continue to rule-out Christ as Ruler. This dream of peace and unity that springs up in the heart of people and spills out into fictitious tv shows and fervent political speeches merely expose that we know things aren’t right, and we want to fix them.
But within this fallen, sin-wracked and sin-wrecked world is a bottomless pit of trouble. Fixing the world is beyond our grasp. It’s more than we can handle.
We need the King of Heaven. We need Christ.
He alone has the answers to the world’s problems. He’s the Architect. He made the world perfect, saw it fall – because He does not control people and permitted Adam and Eve to choose – and has the remedy. God explained it all to us in His written word, the Bible. This is His counsel for us; His guidance for our good and our flourishing.
We are never going to reach some kind of utopia on our own. We are God’s creation, and we cannot raise ourselves above Him in rebellion, ‘putting the cart before the horse’, so to speak. We only reap more anarchy, confusion and trouble when we do so. Hasn’t our history of wars, racial oppression, slavery etc.. shown this time and time again?
Take a look at these examples from God that show us what happens when we put the ‘cart before the horse’:
Genesis, chapter 11: The Tower of Babel
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, SO THAT WE MAY MAKE A NAME FOR OURSELVES; . . . 8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.”
Isaiah 47:8; 10-14
“Listen to this, you pleasure-loving kingdom, living at ease and feeling secure . . . You felt secure in your wickedness.‘No one sees me,’ you said. But your ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ have led you astray, and you said, ‘I AM THE ONLY ONE, AND THERE IS NO OTHER.’ So disaster will overtake you, and you won’t be able to charm it away. Calamity will fall upon you, and you won’t be able to buy your way out. A catastrophe will strike you suddenly, one for which you are not prepared. “Now use your magical charms! Use the spells you have worked at all these years! Maybe they will do you some good. Maybe they can make someone afraid of you. All the advice you receive has made you tired. Where are all your astrologers, those stargazers who make predictions each month? Let them stand up and save you from what the future holds. But they are like straw burning in a fire; they cannot save themselves from the flame. You will get no help from them at all . . .
Humans often seek solutions to problems or sweep sin ‘under the carpet’ while glorifying themselves in the process. But this will never ‘cut the mustard’ while God is on the throne . . . and He’s not changing seats.
We need a new way of living – God’s way.
This is God’s way:
Romans 15:5-13
May God, who gives this patience and encouragement, help you live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus. Then all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory. Remember that Christ came as a servant to the Jews to show that God is true to the promises He made to their ancestors. He also came so that the Gentiles might give glory to God for His mercies to them. That is what the psalmist meant when he wrote: “For this, I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing praises to Your name.”
And in another place it is written,
“Rejoice with His people,
you Gentiles.”And yet again,
“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles.
Praise Him, all you people of the earth.”And in another place Isaiah said,
“The Heir to David’s throne will come,
and He will rule over the Gentiles.
They will place their hope on Him.”I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
God’s way of doing things has a rebound blessing-effect. When we submit to His way of doing things, we’re blessed and inturn others around us are too.
God taught us to know and love Him, to love people and care for the earth: The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it (Genesis 2:15).
Genesis 1:26-28
Then God said, “Let Us make human beings in Our image, to be like Us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”
So God created human beings in His own image. In the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.
Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”
Instead of being a slave to self and (for example) amassing money at any cost, Jesus said: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
And He taught us that generosity is not just limited to giving things; we can offer our time, our care and our friendship: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:36-40).
1 Corinthians 16:14
Let all that you do be done in love.
Life would be very different on earth if everyone bowed the knee to Christ and followed Him – Christians included!
I challenge you today – whether you’re in a pre or post-Rapture time-frame – if you end up left behind and find yourself living in the Tribulation period, recognize that anything the Antichrist tries to offer to fix the world’s problems is nothing more than empty, hollow lies. Satan always manipulates distorted copies of God’s originals: hence, The Christ vs the ANTI-Christ.
The Great Reset is a counterfeit version of God’s first promise to one day heal and set things right in the whole world. Take careful note of what He says: The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to counsel (Proverbs 12:15). We are all blind fools if we ignore God, miss out on His Great Refreshing and end up in the black pit of Hell for all eternity.
God is gracious and merciful to all. The End-of-Days Timeline described to us in the Bible promises that wonderful times of refreshing are certainly coming, but they are not human-centric. They will be found only with the return and reign of the King of Glory; the Prince of Peace. The Son of God.
God has lent out this world to us for a time, and it will be saved. But we will still have to give an account to Him for the lives we chose to live: either honouring or ignoring Him. So the question remains, especially if you have been left behind: Can I still be saved?
And the answer to that question comes with another question: Will you bow the knee?
Philippians 2:9-11
Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The Great Reset, the time of Tribulation, must come first to awaken any who would see, any who would hear, any who would understand that a world without God is not worth living in: Though He brings grief, He also shows compassion because of the greatness of His unfailing love. For He does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow (Lamentations 3:32-33).
Isaiah 26:9
When Your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
Through it, may you become ready for the return of King Jesus and get to experience for yourself the exultant joy found in His appointed Times of Refreshing.
Isaiah 45:18
For the LORD is God, and He created the heavens and the earth and put everything in place. He made the world to be lived in, not to be a place of empty chaos.
Isaiah 11:1-10 The Branch From Jesse: King Jesus
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear (honour and respect) of the Lord—and He will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what He sees with His eyes, or decide by what He hears with His ears; but with righteousness He will judge the needy, with justice He will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth; with the breath of His lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be His belt and faithfulness the sash around His waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to Him, and His resting place will be glorious.
Revelation 21:4
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
Times of refreshing following the dark days of the Tribulation are sure. God’s promises will prove true. And His restorative work on the earth will be everlasting; it will never lapse back into the state it once was.
Can the world still be saved? Most certainly! It’s not over ‘til our Great God sings!
But there is another, more significant type of refreshing the Lord is inviting you to now that is also eternal: the refreshing and rebirth of your spirit. We are in dire need of this because when sin came, our spirits died within us and dead spirits only end up in one place after they leave the body – Hell.
God offers us all a chance to shake off the mustiness of our sin-cursed, deadened spirits, to become a new creation: Therefore, if anyone is in (belongs to) Christ, he/she is a new creation: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17).
No one can ‘control’ people to be ‘good’ or ‘better’: the Reset is a Communist-Marxist-Tyrannical-Satanic farce. What we need is a change of heart! We need to be made new from the inside-out. Jesus doesn’t force us to follow Him. He invites us to let Him do a redemptive work in our hearts through which He sets us free from the burden of SELF (preservation, profit and promotion) and calls us to rest in Him for all that we need. He reminds us that we are loved and cherished by Him and that we don’t have to ‘fight’ to be seen or heard. We can hammer our swords into ploughshares and turn our spears into pruning hooks.
Ezekiel 36:26
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Galatians 5:22-23
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
There is no law against these things!
Psalm 36:5-7
Your unfailing love, O LORD, is as vast as the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, Your justice like the ocean depths. You care for people and animals alike, O LORD. How precious is Your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of Your wings.
With the same power that God used to raise Jesus from the dead, He can resurrect our spirits, essentially ‘birthing’ them again. It’s a whole new start, just like becoming a new creation.
John 3:5-8
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God (Heaven) unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at My saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
The Great Reset is going to turn into The Great Regret – mark my words. But times of refreshing are soon coming to the whole earth, and yet it can start with you right this instant. Friend, don’t hold back. Reach out and meet with Jesus today. Experience for yourself the restorative, rejuvenating power of Christ. Quench and satisfy your soul at the Cross: On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive (John 7:37-39); “Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink – even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine or milk – it’s all free! Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen to Me, and I will tell you where to get food that is good for the soul!” (Isaiah 55:1-2).
“Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men alive!” – Leonard Ravenhill.
If you still wrestle with the question about your personal invitation to know Christ – “Can I still be saved?” – then give up the fight and believe the good and trustworthy Word of the Living God!
He foretold the event of the Rapture in the Bible long ago . . . so how will you let the occurrence of this event (or even the knowledge of this soon-to-be event) affect your future?
John 3:16-17
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.
Romans 10:9
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
Acts 3:19
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.
Psalm 34:8
Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.
