Was there dust at the beginning of the world?
Where does dust come from?
How can we ever get rid of dust? When I lived with my aunt in Jupiter, Florida, she was anal retentive about cleaning dust off of her shelves, furnature, desks, counters, bed posts, etc. I'm not trying to be obstinate, but I just don't understand to where she was cleaning the dust. If you use a feather duster and dust the dust onto the floor, isn't it now on the floor, and with a gust of wind, it will end up back on the shelves, furnature, desks, counters, bed posts, etc.?
So, how do we really get rid of it? Or will it just keep multiplying and coming back? And how do we get more and more? I started off with my brand new car not having any dust in it, and now my dashboard is covered. Where did it come from? And, is it just going to keep multiplying until the world is full of it? Or will the end come before we have to use snowplows to get dust out of the roads?
Recently I've been thinking a lot about the end of the world. There have been a lot of predictions about the end of the world. We all remember when American Christian radio host Harold Camping stated that the Rapture and Judgment Day would take place on May 21, 2011, and that the end of the world would take place five months later on October 21, 2011. Well, he was obviously wrong, but in the meantime, he got people to give up their life's savings for his cause.
What these people must not have known is that it states very clearly in the Bible that "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32). So, those who gave everything away should have been more learned. Anyways, I just wanted to talk abot Camping because he's not the only one who has made a prediction like this. Through all the ages, people try to predict the end of the world. Now it's my turn.
No, I'm not saying that I want to set a specific date for the end of the world. I just want to talk about a specific plan. In Matthew 24:14, the Bible says "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." Doesn't it make sense, then, that the plan would be to get out to all the nations and testify? The first question is, how do you define "all nations"? There are 196 countries in the world today. I think that all have been preached to. Why then, is the world still in motion? It must mean that there is more to "nations" than countries alone. What about people groups? There are differences in culture, language, religion, society, and heritage. David Barrett in his 2001 revision of the World Christian Encyclopedia recorded the number of peoples at 12,600. That's a lot of peoples. Maybe that's the goal. Maybe all of those people have to be reached.
I want to be like Paul in Romans 15:23 when he says, "I no longer have any room for work in these regions," and Romans 15:19 when he continues in saying, "They were convinced by the power of miraculous signs and wonders and by the power of God's Spirit. In this way, I have fully presented the Good News of Christ from Jerusalem all the way to Illyricum." He went in, as a missionary, laid the foundation for the church, and went to the next region. I want to be able to say that I went in to a region and evangelized through the grace of God so well that the people got it. Then, Paul sent Timothy to finish the evangelism work. Then, the people would have to have leadership to develop pastors and church leaders. How did Paul recognize that he didn't have any room for work? Did he just one day wake up and realize that they got it? That the people understood the good news and were mature enough in their faith to do it on their own? I want to wake up to that realization someday.
So, what's next? Well, if we want Christ to come back, we HAVE to evangelize. We have to think of more than ourselves. We have to save people from hell. Hell is real and it is eternal. If we don't tell people about the saving love and grace and forgiveness of Jesus, they will end up in the lake of fire. Let's help end the world by saving them. Let this be the generation that fights the good fight and runs the race with perserverence. I want to end the world and have a party with all the believers in heaven. If we sit around and wait for other people to do it, we will only create more dust. I don't know about you, but I don't want the world to be filled with dust.
