By Carllister Ejinkeonye
“... and
saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell
asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Peter 3:4).
The attitude of
most people to issues on eternity and the end time activities and their
interpretation has remained as stated in the Scripture. They do not
believe and where they try to believe they do not see the possibility of such
prophecies or programmes happening in their own time. For them the evil
day is still far off (Amos 6:1-3; Isaiah 56:12), yet for any wary and wise youth
who desires to see as he should see, perceive as he should and understand as he
should, it must be clear to him that it is not just that time is no more but
that the injury time we have hitherto been enjoying is only seconds away from
the end. We are in between the time the goal keeper catches the ball in
his hand and the blowing of the last whistle of the Referee.
Let’s begin by considering specifics and peculiarities associated with our generation which mark it out as the last day generation.
Peculiarities
associated with our generation (Matthew 24:32-35)
Jesus’s prediction
of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem was met with a question on when
these things shall be (Matthew 24:1-3). Jesus answered rolling out the
various incidents that would mark the end. They include the signs of the
false prophets, Christs and teachers, wars and civil unrest, famines,
pestilence and earthquakes, persecutions, abounding iniquity and its effect,
the state of the temple of Jerusalem, increase in gospel mission activities,
increase in travel and knowledge, massive departures and falling away from the
faith and the sign of weather and climatic change (Matthew 24:1-12; Daniel 12:4;
2 Thessalonians. 2:3; 1 Timothy 4:1-3).
Worthy of note to
every Christian youth is the fact that the level of evil and iniquity of this
generation can in no way be compared to that of Sodom, Gomorrah and Noah’s
generation which brought God’s wrath down on them (Genesis 6:1-6; 19:1-9).
The Scriptures rightly refer to it as a generation of vipers and an untoward one (Matthew 3:7; Acts 1:40). It is a generation of ‘e-’ evils of
diverse forms and magnitudes. For this generation, the axe of the Lord is
laid on its root (cons. Matthew 3:10). Obviously, judgement is determined.
