Friends 'till the end. That's what we called ourselves. There were
four of us. We stuck together through thick and thin. We all met in
kindergarten and have been the best of friends ever since. If you saw
one of us, the other three were never far behind.
There was Paul. Good old Paul, always in trouble. You could tell by
looking at him, that trouble followed wherever he went. He didn't
fight, or do drugs or anything like that. No, Paul was best at
burping loud in the library, or making faces at the principal behind
his back, and getting caught. Y'know, good, clean, trouble. One time
in the school cafeteria, he stuck two olives up his nostrils and
couldn't get them out, so he had to go to the nurses office. That was
Paul. He was always there when you needed him. When one of the other
three of us got in trouble, we always knew it could have been worse,
just by looking at Paul.
Then there was Zeke. Zeke was the kind of person that everyone wishes
they could be like. He was smart, and happy, and good hearted. He was
from a Christian family and they were just plain wholesome. Zeke
never complained about anything, and if anyone else did, he always
had the perfect thing to say that would really make a person think.
He knew the answers to "What Would Jesus Do?" about almost anything.
If anyone didn't like Zeke, it was because they were just plain
jealous of him.
Then you have Jerry. Jerry was spoiled rotten, but he never acted
like it. He had everything a kid could want, and it seemed like he
didn't want it. I never could figure out what it actually was that
Jerry wanted, but he always seemed a little bit empty inside for some
reason. He came from a good Christian family, too. But something
about Jerry was sort of sad. Kind of like he wanted to know
something, but didn't know what. Sometimes he would just stare off
into space, like he was daydreaming, but if you asked him what he was
thinking about, he'd just blink his eyes, shake his head back to
reality and say, "I dunno." He was just being, Jerry, and we all
accepted each other, just as we were. We didn't try and change each
other. We were pals.
And, last but not least, there's me. I'm just your average kid,
living your average kid's life. I'm not smarter than the next kid, or
dumber than anyone else. I'm a believer, but I'm kinda quiet about
it. There's a lot of people like me. We just think that we're here
for a reason, we don't know why, but we're certain God knows and
we're gonna live our lives the best we can, have as much fun as we
can, and then someday, we're going to die and go to heaven. Period.
Biblical End Times - Our Time is Up Soon
Biblical Time is Up Warning
It's not quite going the way I planned. It's not going the way Jerry
or Zeke or Paul planned either. Our motto was friends 'till the end,
but we never thought the end would be so soon.
I guess I always knew that someday the world would come to an end. I
mean, everything that has a beginning, has an end, right? I just
didn't expect it to be in MY lifetime. Really, how many times have
people said the end of the world is coming? Thousands? More? Even the
little red hen. "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" We used to
call it "doomsday" when I was a little kid. It was always something,
that with just the mention of it, sort of made you a little ...
respectful. It was always just so hard to believe that it would
actually happen. It's one of those things that you think is so
unlikely, it couldn't possibly be ... now.
Well, needless to say, I was wrong. You know, I wish I had paid
attention in history class, I wish I had read my Bible more, and I
wish I was more serious about the things there were to learn in Boy
Scouts. I just might be more prepared. Shoulda, woulda, coulda, it
doesn't matter now. It's time, whether I like it, or not.
This isn't the kind of story that starts with a place on a beautiful
grassy hillside with a trickling brook at the bottom, blue skies with
pure white puffy clouds and a breeze gently waving through the trees
that someone is sitting under. This is ... IT! THE END! TIMES UP!
It started all of a sudden. There was lightning and thunder and what
sounded like voices. The earth was shaking. I didn't know what was
going on. Something fell from the sky, but I don't know what it was.
Maybe it was a meteor, or an asteroid or a nuclear bomb, but then
there was fire. The trees all burnt up. And all the grass, it wasn't
green anymore. It wasn't THERE anymore! That was just the beginning.
Well, not really. Let me start at the beginning of the end. I can see
that the signs have been slowly happening for a while now. So slowly,
in fact, that I never even noticed. You bet that if I had read my
Bible more I might have noticed. It's all unfolding, just exactly
like it says.
There have been many people who have claimed to be the Messiah (That
means they think they are Jesus). Jim Jones and Charles Manson, just
to name a couple.
Biblical End Times - Our Time Is Up Facts
Biblical Time Is Up Now
Then, there are the wars. Oh, my, World War I, World War II, The
Korean War, Hiroshima, Israel, Viet Nam, Granada, the Persian Gulf
... did I forget a couple, dozen?
In the 1900's alone, there were over 100 earthquakes. Since 2000
there have been over 300 already! That's three times as many in five
years as there was in the past century! Not to mention the tornadoes,
typhoons, hurricanes, blizzards, floods, tidal waves and ...
TSUNAMI's. Now there's something we never even heard of before. Now,
everyone knows what a tsunami is.
The vanishing ozone layer is something people thought was a bunch of
nonsense, but it looks like it makes perfect sense when you read what
the Bible says about things happening in the sky.
Diseases spelled with more letters than I could count on two hands
and some that are named with letters because their real names are so
long, are things that I thought only future generations would have to
worry about. Way far in the future. Boy, was I wrong.
I can't believe people didn't see it coming. Jesus said it so
clearly. Oh, I used to worry about what people would think or call me
if I talked about Jesus. Not anymore. He warned us. We just didn't
think it would happen to us. Just take a look at what Jesus said
about the end.
Luke 21:25-26
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon,
and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with
perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;
26 Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking
after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of
heaven shall be shaken.
Call me a Jesus freak if you want to. He was right. As right as rain.
Bingo. Bulls eye. Hit the nail on the head. Whatever you want to call
it, (I like to call it truth) I am on His team.
Like I said, this place isn't exactly like what you read about in
storybooks. I can't describe it too well for you. Not because I don't
know how, but because there are people looking for us. Bad people. A
lot of people think these bad people are good, but they're not. They
keep talking about peace. They really want to kill us, because we
believe in Jesus. Who are they? They're called by the names satan,
antichrist and the false prophet and all the people that work for
them.
Biblical End Times - Our Time is Up Concern
Biblical Time is Up Quest Fear
I can tell you this much. We're in the wilderness, and we're in a
cave. Who's we? Me, and Paul and Jerry ... and a lot of other
Christians. Let me start, one more time. We were riding our bikes,
and all of a sudden, Zeke disappeared. There was his bike, just
rolling along with us until it slowed down slow enough to fall. We
all stopped, with our eyes bugging out, and none of us could even
talk for a few minutes. Poof! Now you see him, now you don't. He just
vanished!
We didn't know what to do, so we thought we'd better go tell his Mom
and Dad, but while we were on our way to his house, we found out that
Zeke wasn't the only one who disappeared. As a matter of fact it
looked like half the people on the planet were missing. There were
accidents everywhere. People were crying and others were hurt. There
were sirens going off everywhere. Then we heard some people talking
about the Rapture.
Heck, I didn't even know what Rapture meant. We found out later,
Rapture is when Jesus takes you up to heaven, if you're chosen, when
the end of the world is really coming. No wonder Zeke was chosen.
Zeke was never afraid to talk about Jesus. In fact, he was proud to.
He was good, through and through. When we got to Zeke's house, there
was nobody home. I think Jesus chose to take them all.
So that left the three of us. Paul, Jerry, and me. Paul was spending
the weekend with Jerry because his Mom and Dad were out of town. We
went to my house after Zeke's, but my Mom and Dad weren't there. We
looked everywhere for them. They were there when I left and they
didn't say anything about going anywhere while I was gone.
I couldn't believe it when our next door neighbor knocked at the door
and said she was talking to my Mom and Dad out on the porch and in
the blink of an eye, they were just, gone! My face grew white. I
could feel all the blood in it, just up and leave. I thought I was
gonna pass out, but Jerry grabbed my arm and sat down with me on the
step. Paul said he was sure that his Mom and Dad would adopt me. I
was troubled, and looking at Paul couldn't even make me feel better.
It took me a while to get used to the idea that my parents were
really gone with Jesus and I was still here. I just wasn't ready for
this at all. Once the blood decided to return to my face, we all
hopped on our bikes and rode over to Jerry's house.
Biblical End Times - Our Time is Up Woe
Biblical Time is Up Signs
Jerry's Mom hugged him so tightly I thought Jerry might suffocate.
Jerry's Dad found out that the cruise ship that Paul's Mom and Dad
were on wouldn't be coming back any time soon so he said that both of
us could staying with Jerry's family for a while. I remember
wondering why Jerry's Mom and Dad weren't chosen, or why WE weren't,
but before I had too much time to think about it, we were all on our
way to the wilderness, and the cave.
You're probably wondering why we went to a cave in the wilderness.
Well, in the Bible, it says that during the End Times (that's what
the last 7 years before the end of the world is called), that God
will take care of believing Christians in the wilderness for 3½
years.
We've been here for quite a while now. It was really tough at first
to get used to some things. There's a lot of things you don't think
about, until it happens to you. Like when the power goes out during a
storm, THEN, you think about what it would be like to live without
electricity. Or when the water is turned off to fix a pipe, THEN, you
think about what it would be like to live without running water. But
once the electric or water is turned back on, you soon forget about
it and life goes on. The thing that was hardest for me to get used to
was living without my Mom and
Dad.
It took weeks before I stopped believing that they would be coming
back. It wasn't until Jerry's Dad explained to me that I should be so
happy for them, that they were chosen to go with Jesus, and I should
be happy for myself too, because if you're a Christian and you're
still here, it might mean that Jesus has an important job for you to
do, like helping someone who hasn't accepted Jesus as their savior,
to learn the truth and be able to go to heaven. When I heard that, I
felt so much better.
Here's what a regular day is like for us here. We wake up in the
morning and check to make sure the campfire is still burning. If it
is, add dry wood that doesn't make it smoke so that none of the bad
guys can find you. If the fire died out overnight, start a new one.
Good luck, because you don't have a lighter, lighter fluid or
matches. If the sun is shining, a magnifying glass is your best
friend. If the sun isn't shining, you'd better start rubbing two
sticks together, just like you saw on the old Indian movies.
Breakfast is something that one of the adults hunted for. Maybe fish.
Yum. Fish for breakfast. Lunch and supper are a little easier to like
because for some reason your taste buds do not agree with fish that
early in the day. If you're a fussy eater, you will go hungry here.
There are chores to be done. Fresh water must be carried from the
stream, but it must be checked by an adult to make sure it isn't
poisoned. Everyone washes their own clothes and dishes if you made
some out of wood or something else around the campsite. You have to
be kind of quiet all the time. Life is really different here. But I'm
glad I'm here.
Biblical End Times - Our Time is Up?
Biblical Time is Up Answers
I'm getting to know someone real well on this adventure. I'd like to
tell you about him. His name is John. He lived a long, long time ago
and he knew Jesus. They hung out together a lot. He wrote this book
that I've been reading. I've never been much of a reader. If the
story isn't super interesting right from the get go, it's like
reading the dictionary. BORING. But not the things that John wrote.
Even though I read John's book once before, I thought I'd give it
another shot, since I'm a little older now and I understand things a
little better. You can read something a second time, and catch on to
so many things that you didn't get the first time you read it.
See, when Jesus was alive, John was one of His apostles. But when
John was a lot older, he was a prisoner. The Romans ruled a lot of
the world back then and they didn't like it that John was spreading
the news of Jesus to people, so they shipped him off to a place
called Patmos Island. There was sort of a prison there. It was
probably a lot like the cave I'm in now.
Now, you have to imagine being John. You have met Jesus. You heard
Him tell the secrets of life. You ate with Him, drank with Him,
traveled with Him, watched Him do miracles. People walked who
couldn't walk, people who were blind, saw, people who couldn't hear,
heard, just because they believed in your best friend. You heard Him
tell the Jewish people that the reason He was there was because they
broke their promise to God. All they had to do, was follow His
commandments. A lot of times they turned their backs on God and
didn't keep their word ... or His. So, being the merciful, ever
loving God that He is, He sent His Son to make a new promise. Now,
all they had to do was believe in Jesus.
John saw it all. Yep, he had a front row seat. All the way up to the
Jews hanging his best friend, the Son of God, on a cross, because He
claimed to be, who He really was. Three days after they took his
beloved friend Jesus down off the cross and buried Him, He came back
to life and told His apostles and disciples to preach the gospel
(the truth) to the whole world. Jesus spent 40 days on earth again
after He rose from the dead, teaching the fellas how to spread the
Good News of God's new promise, and introducing them to the Holy
Spirit, who he left here to help Christians and then God took Jesus
up to heaven.
Now, here comes the part that made me want to get to know John
better. While John was on that island, Jesus sent John a vision. That
means, John saw things that Jesus wanted him to see, kinda like a
dream, only the things that Jesus showed him are really going to come
true one day. They are right now.
Jesus told John to write these things that would happen at the end of
time, in a book so people would be ready when the End Times got here.
There was just one little problem. The Romans who already didn't like
John and put him in prison for teaching about Jesus, REALLY wouldn't
like what Jesus told John to write. John loved Jesus so much, he just
had to get the message out, so, John had to use his imagination, and
write what Jesus told him so that Christians would understand it, but
the Romans wouldn't.
He had his work cut out for him. The book that he wrote is called The
Revelation. When I read it the first time, I thought it was just a
scary story with lots of make believe creatures and horror, like at
the movies. Now I know that those creatures are real symbols for
certain nations and people and the devil, and the horror that John
describes isn't science fiction, it's what's really happening! It's
called the Great Tribulation.
The Biblical End Times - Our Time is Up
Biblical Time is Up Danger
The cool thing is that if you are a true Christian believer, God will
take care of you in the wilderness for 3½ years while all those
things that Jesus told John about are happening. And that's why I'm
glad I'm here, because I am a believer and I wouldn't want anybody
but God taking care of me.
I've learned a lot of things since I've been here. The bad people who
I told you about earlier, have a mark that they want you to take.
They put it in your right hand or in your forehead. They won't let
you buy or sell anything if you don't have it, but if you take it,
then you belong to the devil and you won't go to heaven. I'd rather
starve than belong to the devil. He wants to own everyone in the
world. He won't own me.
It's a funny thing. I look around at all the people who are here in
the cave. Some people used to be very important people to the world.
Some were lawyers, doctors, business people, and some are just
regular folks like me, only adults. Well everyone is pretty much the
same now. God doesn't care if you're a big shot, or just a little
person. It's what is in your heart that counts to Him.
You can see the people who used to be important, they think a lot.
When we first got here, they talked a lot, like they still wanted to
be as important as their old jobs made them think they were. Like the
Bible says, at the end, people will be eating and drinking and buying
and selling and planting and building, just as if the world is gonna
go on forever. I know those same people are now thinking that they
wasted all their life trying to be important in a way that wasn't
important to God.
God takes good care of us out here. Just when it seems like there
won't be enough food, or firewood or water, something happens and it
all works out fine. It always reminds me of the story where Jesus fed
thousands of people with just a few fish and a few loaves of bread,
and there was still leftovers.
I pray a lot now. I didn't used to. When we first got here, I thought
I was going to die of boredom, but there was more to learn and do
than I thought. We made a sun dial, because there aren't any clocks.
We play games with rocks, like you would with marbles, and sometimes
it's more fun than video games. There isn't a TV or radio. There
aren't computers or refrigerators or microwaves. It's the wilderness.
Sometimes people have gone to get things for us. I don't know how
they get them because nobody here has the mark, but they come back
with different kinds of things every time. Some people just couldn't
take it here, and after a while, they went back and took the mark,
just so they could eat more or buy cigarettes or something. I'll
never take the mark, no matter what. They'll be sorry.
Jerry doesn't like it here. He's always fighting with his Mom and Dad
and never wants to do any work. He sure acts spoiled now. Now that he
can't have things, he wants everything. I tried to talk to him but he
keeps telling me he just wasn't cut out for this kind of living. I
explained to him that it will all be worth it in the end, but he
won't believe it. He stares off into space more than ever now. I pray
that he doesn't leave and take the mark.
Paul is a different story. His Mom and Dad were almost never home
before the End Times began. He was always either home alone or
spending the night or weekend somewhere. Even though people thought
he was going to be trouble here, he surprised them. He was just so
scared because things were so weird the day that Zeke disappeared,
that he didn't know what else to do.
I've known Paul all my life, and even though sometimes he was rowdy,
he has a good heart. I don't think Paul even believed in Jesus when
we first got here, but he's definitely a Christian now. Maybe Paul is
the one that Jerry's Dad was talking about, because we've spent a lot
of time together just talking since all of this started and Paul is
like a different person. He sure knows how to fend for himself and he
loves to work around the cave and the camp.
Neither one of us had seen our parents for a while now so we kind of
felt like we were supposed to stick together. Paul started reading
the Bible with me more and more and we've learned more since we've
been here, than we had in all our years of school put together. Paul
even teaches some of the younger kids Bible stories every afternoon
to give the parents time to rest or do work that they can't do with
the little ones under foot. I had to stop him once from putting rocks
in his nostrils to make them laugh, but he'll be alright.
Lots of people are still out there without the mark, but didn't make
it to the wilderness either. Some will die because of their belief in
Jesus, but they will go to heaven. The people who don't ask
forgiveness for their sins, will go to a place called the Lake of
Fire, forever.
Jerry just told me a little while ago that he's going to leave and
take the mark. Paul and I tried everything to change his mind, but he
just doesn't want to listen. When I showed him the part in the Bible
about the Lake of Fire, he just rolled his eyes at me and walked
away. His Mom and Dad and Jesus are going to be so sad. I'll pray
about it even more. God gives all of us the chance to choose. I hope
Jerry will choose God.
God said that His people will be tested. I think that's because He
wants to be sure that His angels will not trade Him for anything.
That's why He sent the Great Flood in Noah's time, is because a bunch
of the angels traded being in Heaven with God to come down to the
earth and be bad. And satan, well, satan was God's perfect angel,
once upon a time. But then, he decided he wanted to be better than
God. He's so jealous of God, that he goes around the world doing
everything he can to try and win people's souls from God.
The wilderness is a really good test. People think they are really
strong, and they can really make you believe it with their words, but
will they do anything for God? When Moses led God's people through
the wilderness, it was for 40 years. They disappointed God many
times. I'm not going to disappoint Him. Whoever believes in Jesus
through the End Times and doesn't take the mark, gets to live forever
with Him and God. I think 3½ years isn't a long time at all
compared to forever.
Biblical End Times - Our Time is Up Summary
Biblical Time is Up Conclusion
The Bible says that we can't even imagine the great things that God
has prepared for those who love Him. That is the thing that Jerry is
missing. He wants something out of life, but he doesn't know what it
is. That's because what he wants is what God has prepared for him,
but he can't get it until he proves that he would do anything for God.
Jerry is one of God's sheep. He is just lost. Paul and I have to go
talk to him again before he makes a choice that he will be sorry for,
forever. Jerry is my friend. Friends 'till the end. What would Jesus
do? I will never give up. Zeke taught me that.
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