unPHILtered: The Way I See It (19 page)

Think about it: if I did not love lost people, why would I spend the time or effort to say these things? Are they mad at me because I love them? I believe the Evil One is behind that logic. My only regret is that I did not turn to God earlier in my life. It would have saved Miss Kay a lot of pain, along with my young sons and family members back then. But you know something? It’s never too late to begin the journey with God.

You’re not kidding this ol’ dude. I didn’t have peace of mind before I found Jesus. None! I have it now, though. Why? I was wrong back then—dead wrong—but I am right about Jesus, and if you are not reconciled to God, I implore you to be reconciled! You will find a peace that surpasses understanding, and the blood of Jesus is more than sufficient to remove every last sin you have ever committed—sexual or otherwise. Go ahead and rip into me if you like. I will still love you in spite of it. Remember this one thing: you know the way out of your sinful dilemma because God has appointed me to tell you, and I have done so. I have done my job on your behalf, and I will continue to pray for you.

I do not fear sinners at all. In fact, we’re
all
sinners. But some of us sinners have placed our faith in Christ and been saved by His blood. I love those outside of Christ, and my love is too strong for me to be afraid of them. The flap over the
GQ
interview didn’t bother me one bit, and I didn’t lose any sleep over it. My prayer is that everyone in America who needs to repent will turn from their sins and learn to love. All
we can do is share the Good News with others, telling them Jesus came to earth more than two thousand years ago to save us from our sin. The nonbelievers count time by Jesus, just as we do. We tell them He died for our sins, which are many, and that three days after His death, He rose from the dead to guarantee that we can have our sins removed and get out from under the yoke of Satan. It is a daunting task to alert others about Jesus, but I am up to the task, even if some people hate me for it. You see, folks, my love for the ones caught up in their evil ideologies is not contingent upon how they feel about me. It is not me they have a problem with—it is Jesus—and I simply represent Him. I pray they have a change of heart and repent their sins.

Which list are you in? Where do you stand before God? What list do you practice? You have seen the two lists. One includes love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; the other includes sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, homosexuality, thievery, greed, drunkenness, slander, and swindling. Boy, it is easy to find out who someone really is if you watch their actions. You can usually tell by what comes out of our mouths and what we do after dark. Just read the two lists and we can probably identify who we really are. One list guarantees eternal death and the other list has no laws against anything on it. I would encourage you to think about those things. I am not your judge. There is a judge, but it’s not me. I judge no person and condemn no one. I only
want America’s culture to change for the better. I’m quoting you the sins and telling you what God did through Jesus to forgive you. You can take it or leave it; it’s your call. I can’t make the call for you. But remember this: whichever way you decide to go, I’ll love you anyway.

D
uring nearly seven decades on this earth, one of the things that has really struck me is the temporary nature of all living things. As I told you earlier, American men can expect to live about seventy-six years, maybe a few more if we’re lucky and a lot less if we’re not so fortunate. Women can expect to live a little longer than men, and the healthiest among us might even live to be about ninety years old or older.

Hey, we should be counting our blessings. If you look at some of the species in the animal kingdom, they have much shorter life spans than humans. Rabbits live for an average of only nine years (and reproduce like, well, rabbits while they’re here), and hamsters and guinea pigs live about four years. Dragonflies, which hover over ponds and rivers like miniature helicopters
during the summertime, only survive for an average of about two months. A dragonfly might remain in its nymph state for four years, waiting for the perfect time to begin its life, only to stay on earth for around sixty days or so. A mayfly, which is one of the main sources of food for fish on a river, might live less than twenty-four hours. Naiads, the larval form of mayflies, live up to a year in the water before becoming adults. After mayflies wait so long to become full-fledged insects, they might live for only a few minutes, or a few days at most.

After reading and studying the Bible over and over again during the last four decades, I’m convinced that God originally created humans to live for hundreds of years. I think He did it to populate the earth. It took humanity a long time to get the population going, especially after God wiped out all but eight humans with the Great Flood, so He programmed them to live a lot longer than we do now. It probably helped that they didn’t have fast-food restaurants and other junk food around to pollute their bodies!

You might have heard the saying “He’s as old as Methuselah.” The oldest man who ever lived is believed to be Methuselah, who was linked to Adam and Noah and lived to be 969 years old. God introduces us to him in Genesis 5:21–27:

When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other
sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech. After he became the father of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Methuselah lived a total of 969 years, and then he died.

The United Nations estimates that there were about three hundred million people living on earth when God sent Jesus to live among us. It took one thousand years for the population to increase to three hundred ten million and then another two hundred and fifty years for it to reach four hundred million in 1250 AD. You have to remember that they didn’t have antibiotics like penicillin around back then, and people around the world dropped like flies when they became sick. If you had some kind of contagion like the plague going around, oh my goodness, it really put a dent in the world’s population. That’s one of the reasons the world’s population kind of flatlined for so long.

It took about sixteen hundred years for the world’s population to double to six hundred million in 1600 AD. It didn’t reach one billion until 1804. Then, in the span of only two hundred years, the population increased more than six times over to more than six billion in 2000. In the twentieth century alone, the world’s population increased from 1.65 billion to six billion.
That’s a lot of procreating! The UN estimates the world’s population will reach ten billion people by the year 2200. People are still dying across the world, obviously, but a lot more people are being born every year. Plus, humans are living a lot longer. The life expectancy of a human has increased by twenty years since 1950, and the UN predicts it will increase to seventy-six years across the world by 2050.

Hey, folks, we’re running out of real estate on planet Earth! Now you know why scientists are so interested in other planets like Mars and Saturn. They’re looking for somewhere else for everyone to live. How in the world are we going to feed ten billion people in less than two hundred years from now? I guess that’s one of the reasons birth control, including abortion, is sanctioned by so many governments nowadays. Countries all over the world are looking for every kind of way known to man to curtail Earth’s population.

But here’s what the save-the-planet groups and census counters forget: the Bible tells us that one day Earth will be discarded like a worn-out dishcloth. The Scripture tells us it will get paper-thin and wear out, so let’s be realistic about saving the planet. Conserving fossil fuels is a hot political issue in America, and we’re aggressively searching for other forms of energy, like wind, solar, and nuclear. Scientists say there’s no way fossil fuels will sustain us, not with more than seven billion people consuming
them around the world. You can only punch and drill so many holes in the earth, so they’re looking for other ways to fuel our automobiles, heat and power our homes, and cook our food.

I’m telling you right now that it’s an exercise in futility. Of course we must be good stewards of the earth God gave us and care for and respect it the best we can, but we have to remember that God didn’t design our planet to last for eternity.
“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe”
(Hebrews 1:1–2). The Hebrews writer wrote that scripture in about 65 AD, and he was already referring to the “last days.” It has been Earth’s final days ever since Jesus came here. Up until then, things were rocking along and God was working with His people “at many times and in various ways.”

Now it’s 2014. How many more dramatic things are going to happen, biblically speaking? There’s only one last event—Jesus’ return—because everything else has already occurred. God created the cosmos and then drowned everyone on Earth. After the Great Flood, God gave humans the Law of Moses, putting everyone under a code a couple of thousand years before Jesus was born. Then God sent us Jesus, His only Son, and He was crucified and then rose from the dead. Jesus has already gone back to heaven, so what’s the only thing left?

The only thing left, according to the Bible, is the return of Jesus. Then Earth and everything on it will be destroyed. Men
won’t destroy it; God says He’s going to destroy it this time. Read the scripture again. When the Hebrews writer says,
“but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son,”
that’s the reason we need to get behind Jesus. Jesus is the heir of everything, and He’s our only escape hatch off Earth. He’s the radiance of God’s glory and is the exact representation of His being. He sustains all things by His powerful Word. After He provided us with purification from sin, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. He went back to where He came from.

When is Jesus coming back? What’s the holdup? We don’t know when Jesus is coming. Second Peter 3:4 says:
“They will say, ‘Where is this “coming” he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’ ”
The unbelievers forget that long ago, according to God’s Word, the earth was formed out of water—and then He destroyed it with water. They forget that God has already drowned mankind once before. The present heavens and earth are reserved for fire. He did it with water the first time, with fire being reserved for the Day of Judgment. Trust me, we’re not going to destroy Earth—He is. Of course we can and should be good stewards of the earth while we’re on it, but we can’t “save” it. It’s meant to come to an end. I’m with God, and I don’t want anyone to perish, as Peter says in 2 Peter 3:9:
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
That’s my desire, too. I want everyone to come to
repentance. My desire is to help others out. That’s why I’m telling everyone to turn from their sins and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Now, we’ve heard plenty of predictions about the end of the world throughout the history of mankind. Nostradamus predicted the world would end in 3797 AD. Remember the Y2K phenomenon, when our calendars turned to January 1, 2000? People around the world predicted doomsday scenarios of the rapture, the war of Armageddon, the second coming of Jesus, and the appearance of the antichrist. But other than a few computers shutting down, nothing really happened. Some scholars believed that the Mayans, who lived in Central America from about 1500 BC to 1519 AD, carved into their calendars that the world would end on December 21, 2012, but that day came and went without anything happening. From Branch Davidian leader David Koresh to a woman in Conyers, Georgia, who claimed to see images of Mary and Jesus, people all over the world have predicted the end of Earth. Obviously, none of it ever came true.

We have to remember that no one knows when Jesus is coming back. “
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief”
(2 Peter 3:10). Hey, so much for making a prediction about when Earth will end. He is going to come back like a thief, and no one knows when a thief is going to rob you, right? God is an eternal being and time doesn’t pass for Him, not one second. Time only goes by for us. He’s outside of time and is omniscient (all-knowing),
omnipotent (all-powerful), and omnipresent (present everywhere). He’s a spirit and one super-powerful being.

When Jesus returns, here’s what’s going to happen, according to 2 Peter 3:10–13: