All of us have what some call a worldview. We are as unaware of this as a fish is unaware of water, but we all have a grid through which we view life’s problems and which we use to make decisions about those problems.

For the most part, that worldview goes unexamined. We have always thought the way we have and unless something jars us off our platform, we always will.

What are the foundational principles upon which we will base our end-of-life decisions, be it our own life or someone we love? As Christians, we like to think that the Bible is our foundation, our platform from which we view the world, and the framework for making the hard decisions of life. But we immediately, it seems, have a problem…

This message presents a small problem: it is almost too simple. And yet it contains a principle which can (and will, if you can apply it) change your life forever. Are you interested?

What did the First Christians believe about the last days? Forget about the expression the End of the World—the end of the planet is a long way off. It is plain, though, that the First Christians believed there was to be an end of the age (however one might take that) because that is what they asked Jesus about one day on the Mount of Olives.

They were familiar with the Old Testament prophets and their view of the last days and end of this system. Peter cited Joel with clarity on the day of Pentecost. He would be less than human if he had not seen what looked like the initial phases of the end times. And yet, Christ would not come in his lifetime, for some 2,000 years to come, or (for all we know) many more years yet.

The prophets told of a day of the Lord, a day of God’s wrath. And while they also saw it as a near-term thing, there is good reason to think that they also saw it as a distant event. It would be so cataclysmic that the destruction would boggle the mind. And they also saw it ushering in a new age. And not only did the First Christians have the prophets, they had Jesus’ Olivet Message to make them a little hypersensitive to prophetic events. Peter and the others thought they saw it coming, but they were also quite careful to avoid crying wolf. And they had good reason for that as well.

What did the First Christians believe about the last days—the end time of man on the earth? It may not have been a lot different from what some of us believe today, as I suspect more than a few of us have been disquieted by events in the Middle East. Even if we don’t fully understand all the implications of biblical prophecy, we know that the Middle East looms large at the end time, along with serious loss of life. With the Iranian regime certain to develop nuclear weapons, and with the stated intent to destroy Israel, you have to take this seriously and wonder how much longer are we going to be able to go on this way.

But we aren’t seeing a lot more than the First Christians did, and they can be excused for thinking the return of Christ would be in their lifetime. There were prophets among those First Christians but strangely, as far as the record is concerned, they express little interest in the far horizon. Perhaps, because they thought it wasn’t all that far away.

The activities of the prophets in the church seem to be very timely—that is, concerned with the events of the immediate future. But that doesn’t mean at all that there was not a broader view of prophecy in general and of the last days in particular. In fact, you are probably already thinking about the Book of Revelation. But it is plain that they had a belief system about the last days which was, at first, somewhat off-base. To some extent, this is accounted for by something Jesus said. We’ll find it in Matthew, chapter 24.

I am beginning to think that Americans, along with losing their Christmas spirit—whatever that is—are also losing their sense of humor. A law school in Indiana removed a Christmas tree from its atrium because of complaints. Some folks felt that the tree made them feel excluded. Now apart from the fact that I haven’t a clue what that means, since when did everyone have to feel included in everything that goes on? I am absolutely amazed at how thin-skinned atheists are. They are offended by the very word, God. In the words of Shakespeare, Methinks milady protesteth overmuch.

I wouldn’t have thought so, but it is beginning to appear that atheists are insecure in their beliefs. They seem to fear, if not God, the idea of God. The law school replaced the Christmas tree with two evergreen looking trees, fake snow and a sled. One of the trees has lights in it. Now there’s an idea. We take down the Christmas tree and we put up an evergreen tree, hang lights, tinsel, colored balls on it, put snow around the base and call it a…tree…for decoration. What’s funny about this is that the Supreme Court has ruled that Christmas trees are legal. They ruled that: The Christmas tree, unlike the menorah, is not itself a religious symbol. Although Christmas trees once carried religious connotations, today they typify the secular celebration of Christmas.

I submit this as exhibit one to demonstrate that we are losing our sense of the ridiculous. One, that the Supreme court of the land should be wasting time on issues like this. Two, did no one notice that Christmas is another form of Christ and Mass. Christ being the God of the Christian faith, and Mass a purely religious ceremony. And yet the Christmas tree is not a religious symbol. Well, I agree that it really is not, but it is hard to call it a Christmas tree and utterly ignore the meaning of the word. How is it that the constitution does not permit a display of the Ten Commandments in the atrium of a courthouse, but will permit the display of a Christmas tree. Not only at the courthouse. We have a National Christmas Tree on the grounds at the White House. What is the real reason why we can have one and not have the other, and what is the holiday all about?

If you’re planning on celebrating the birth of Christ in the near future…well, I hate to be the one to tell you this but you’re about three months late. Yeah, really. What’s funny about it is that the whole story is right there in the Biblical account of the birth of Jesus, right in your Bible, but nobody pays much mind to it. You can read it, for example, in Luke 1:

And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

And what follows is the annunciation of the birth of Jesus, and you’ve probably heard it in a hundred little Christmas plays—that is, if you’ve lived long enough. But did you notice the expression in there—the sixth month? Did you ever wonder about that? It was in the sixth month that the angel Gabriel came to Mary and announced the birth of Jesus. Well, sixth month of what? Well if it’s the sixth month on your calendar, that would put the conception of Jesus in June and his birth in, well, nine months later, March. On the other hand, if it’s the Hebrew calendar, well the sixth month in the Hebrew calendar would be September and that would place Jesus being born in June.

So, what’s with this December 25th business? How on earth did we get the birth of Jesus in December? Well as it happens, it isn’t the sixth month of the Hebrew calendar. It isn’t the sixth month of our calendar. It’s the sixth month of something entirely different. Let’s find out more beginning in Luke, chapter 1.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Christian Educational Ministries Weekend Bible Study.

Tonight, we present Ronald L. Dart with a study on the Epistle of Jude from the CEM Vault.

To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy — to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and he shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.

Now, his great city is not like anything you and I might imagine. No artist has ever come close to capturing the image of this city. And, of course, anyone who has visited the old city of Jerusalem as it now is can dismiss that out of hand. One wonders how anyone can refer to Jerusalem as beautiful or golden when one visits the city on the ground. What’s there now is not what was and certainly not what will be. Not even John who saw this vision could really do it justice.

The vision is found in Revelation chapter 21 and we’re beginning along about verse nine. This is part of the final vision of John in the Book of Revelation. We have to remember that this is a vision. It was very vivid and very real to John. Also remember that no man had ever seen anything like this. All John could do is tell us what he saw in terms of what he had previously seen in his lifetime. After all, he had his language, he had his vocabulary, he had his imagery. That’s all he had to work with, and what he was seeing, well, he must have felt totally inadequate to the task. But he continued:

And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, On the east three gates; on the north three Gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Now, it strikes me (and perhaps it strikes you the same way) a little odd, how often the 12 tribes of Israel come into play in a prophecy dealing with the very end of time. You would have thought that some of these in the Old Testament would have long since faded from the scene and would no longer be relevant, but here they are. You have 12 gates, and every gate has the name of one of the 12 tribes. You have 12 foundations, and the names of the 12 apostles are on those foundations, and Jesus said that the 12 apostles would sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel in his kingdom. Well, I guess what we have to conclude is that when all is said and done, God is not yet finished with the 12 tribes.

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him in the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled.

This important piece of news is given to us by John in the twentieth chapter of Revelation right in the beginning. And having told us this, that Satan would be bound for a thousand years, we wouldn’t have to deal with him any more, he opens our minds to understand a couple of new things here that, it’s funny, he tells it to us almost as though he thought we already knew.

He tells us that there is not merely one resurrection at the time of the end, but there are two resurrections a thousand years apart. Now, that’s an interesting problem, and that’s something to work out. Now, we do understand that the thousand years could be symbolic like other numbers in Revelation, but there’s no hint of that here. In fact, rather the way everything is worded, it seems to me that, give or take a hundred years, that we’re talking about a thousand years period of time in which Jesus Christ rules the earth, and his saints rule with him, and during that period of time Satan is utterly without any influence in this word.

Now, there are two chapters in the Bible that deal with the resurrection of the dead. Both of them deal with the first resurrection. They are 1 Corinthians chapter fifteen, and 1 Thessalonians chapter four. I won’t take the time to read them to you here, but they make it plain that all the dead in Christ are raised at his return. Now, let me explain: What this means is that everyone who is really a Christian, everyone in whom is the Holy Spirit, everyone who has met whatever requirements there are for salvation will be either changed to a spiritual being or resurrected from the dead at the return of Christ. What this means is, that everyone who is written in the book of life is raised in the first resurrection. What John continues to say, in verse seven, is a little more difficult.