Don’t wait till it’s too late to get right with God!
by Rev Ray Brinkley
I’m sure we have all become exhausted watching the scenes of devastation that daily fill our television screens, but I believe these are warning signs to us that Jesus’ second coming is very near. Jesus said that “wars, and rumours of wars” would precede his return to earth to judge all mankind (Matthew 24:6-8).
The prophet Zechariah declared, too, that the “day of the Lord is coming” and then describes what can only be the result of a nuclear explosion:
“And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, and their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths” (Zechariah 14:12).
This is a terrifying description of something Zechariah could not have experienced personally. He describes it as a plague, since there was no knowledge of nuclear warfare in his time. Those people who heard this prophecy originally must have thought he had ‘lost his marbles’ by speaking on a subject that was completely foreign to them. But we now know that this is what happens when human beings are exposed to the ferocity of nuclear bombs such as those detonated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Some years ago, I heard a radio programme where eyewitnesses to these events gave harrowing descriptions of what they saw, and they could have been reading directly from this passage! The impact of the radiation released was destructive and immediate, affecting everyone in the vicinity. While many different people were used to write the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is the ultimate author and God’s executive agent for working out his will on earth.
The Japanese victims of the nuclear bomb did not know it was their last day on earth. Now we, too, could be threatened by a nuclear attack or at least its fallout.
The Lord Jesus gave up his life on the Cross of Calvary to offer eternal life to all who turn from their sin and put their faith in him. Call on him in prayer today while the invitation still stands.