Please turn to Proverbs 1. I will begin reading in verse 20 to the end of the chapter. We read in Proverbs 1:20-33:
Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of JEHOVAH: They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.
I will stop reading there.
This passage, I think, has a lot to say to us today. It really hits the nail on the head as to exactly what is happening today.
As God’s Word goes out into the world, which is the wisdom of God, it is going out in a very great way into all of the world concerning Judgment Day being May 21 of 2011, which is next year; it is under a year. It is not that far away at all and soon it will be here.
What is the response of people to this information, to Judgment Day? We know that God’s elect are going to hear it and we know that their response is belief. They just believe that this is so and their response is then to go to God and to beseech Him for mercy and to go to the Word of God, the Bible, and to read it like they have never read it before.
They have this response because it is the will of God. It is His work within His elect people as He draws them to Himself. This is the response that eventually someone whom God intends to save will have at some point, but the response of many is quite different than the response of His elect people.
What is the response of many people? It really depends on where you are in the world. If you happen to be in America or in Europe or in some other nations that have previously had the Gospel, this response is much different than other parts of the world where they have not had so much opportunity to hear the Gospel. It is very different. This is why Jesus said that the “first shall be last; and the last first.”
We live here in America, and so we hear the responses of many people who do not believe that May 21 of next year will be Judgment Day. They just simply do not believe this, but the way in which they disbelieve can vary. It does not always have to be the same for every person.
Some people disbelieve by ignoring it, by simply ignoring it. They hear it, maybe in their own home. Maybe there is a believer in their house or someone very close to them who brings this up. Maybe they have Family Radio on in the house, but are they sitting down and really listening to what they are hearing on Family Radio?
No, they can go on with their life and put Family Radio in the background. It is in the background. They are not really listening to the “Open Forum” or to the Bible studies or to the things that are deeply involved with this information about Judgment Day.
So maybe they respond to the news that Judgment Day is next year by just simply ignoring it. They just write it off and are more focused on their life and on the things that they have going on in their life, whether it be school or work or friends. They are very much interested in these things and focused on these things. When information about Judgment Day does come up, it is more like something that is an unpleasant distraction; and so they quickly get away from it and they do not listen to it.
This is how some people respond. Some others, well, they do not ignore it, but they try to dismiss it. They try to dismiss it somehow and in some way as something that they really do not have to believe or really be serious about; and so this could come in many different forms.
The churches are excellent at this. By bringing up a couple of verses, like “No man knows the day or hour,” they believe that they can dismiss this. They can write it off, “I do not have to listen to all of this information because Jesus said, ‘Of that day and that hour knoweth no man.’ Therefore, I do not want to hear it.”
Yes, but there is an explanation for this. There is a pamphlet that has been written that has this very title to explain how you can know. There is another pamphlet written that says, “The Bible Reveals WE CAN KNOW May 21, 2011 is Judgment Day.” Have you read these?
“No, no; I do not need to. I do not need to.” Why not? “Because the Bible says, ‘Of that day and that hour knoweth no man.’” Yes, but there is an explanation for this! The Bible has more information. Will you not read it? “No, I do not need to.”
They are not going to read the booklets like We Are Almost There! or Time Has an End or other things like the tract “HOLY GOD will bring Judgment Day on MAY 21, 2011.” They just respond, “No, I have no interest, none at all.”
So these people dismiss this. They dismiss it and they think, even though I do not know how deeply they think this, that they have some Biblical justification because they can superficially, which means on the surface, throw out a Bible verse and then say, “Now I do not have to pay any attention to anything that you are going to say about May 21 being Judgment Day.”
This, again, especially coming from people in the church where this reaction normally comes from, is very wrong. It is very wrong because God says of the Bereans when they heard information from the Bible that they had never heard before that they were “more noble” than the rest “and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”
So anyone, really, especially those in the churches, ought to at least search the Scriptures to see if it is so. This is the least that they should do, because God would have them to do this. God called this the noble or the honorable thing to do. But to dismiss these things without research, without going into all of this evidence, is a worldly reaction. It is not a child of God’s reaction to this information, and many do this. They are unconcerned and this is why their lives are proceeding as normal each day, because many people do ignore this. Many others, they just dismiss it.
So there is this other group of people. They do not ignore it, but they do dismiss it. They come under this category, but they do this in such a way that God identifies it as mocking, as mockery. If you were to look into the Bible to see what God means by this, it basically has to do with people who make light of the Word of God. They even joke about the Word of God. They kid around, which is never a good thing with any part of the Word of God. This is never a good response, but especially when a matter is so serious, so deadly serious as Judgment Day being next year. For people to joke about it and kid about it and try to dismiss it this way is a very dangerous thing for them to be doing, to say the least. It is very dangerous, to say the least, for them to write it off, but to write it off in such a way that they are going to make a joke of it is especially dangerous.
Well, why would they joke? Why do people mock? Why? Why is this something that people think they can just ridicule and make a joke of?
I have some examples. I was going to read them later, but I think that now is a good time. Let me read some of these examples. This person responded to the tract and he writes, “I have saved a copy of your crazy page. I will email you loonies on May 22nd next year to see what you have to say.”
The next person writes from Albany, CA. “Hi! I read with much interest your site, but was dismayed at the final date of October 21st, which is my birthday. My question is about the exact timing of the end, as in what hour? When the world ends, I was wondering if I should bother trying to have people over for my birthday if things start in the morning. If they were more in the latter side of the day, maybe I could have a birthday doomsday brunch or early barbecue? Watching as the world slips into its final, flaming, chaotic death throes and lurches toward a brutal and desperate destruction at the hands of Satan would, in some cases, tend to cast somewhat of a gloom over a birthday gathering. Maybe you could speak with someone and put it off until later in the evening? Of course, if it happens at midnight, it would not matter because most people will be asleep anyway. Thanks very much for your consideration and regards.”
This is a reaction that you get from blogs and forums. On the Internet, you will hear these kinds of comments. Someone asked a question, probably a true believer. They said, “May 21, 2011 will be Judgment Day. Are you ready?” Here are some of the responses:
“Do I need to buy more luggage?”
“If I win the lottery, I will not get the 20-year annuity, for sure.”
“Things like this make me want to hurl myself off a cliff. Then I notice everybody is laughing at him and I feel a little better.”
“It is almost like I do not care. Wait! I really do not.”
“On the morning of May 22, 2011, could someone please call me up and remind me that I missed Armageddon?”
“I think five months of torment would be kind of cool. As life seems boring these days, I am hoping this materializes.”
These are from three or four different blogs and forums on the Internet. This is really revealing a lot about people. This is revealing a lot about people and how they respond to this information of the end of the world.
Someone, who I would guess was a believer, finally commented. It is at the very end of one of these blogs. This person said, “There was probably a blog like this while Noah was building the ark.” This was a very good statement that this person made.
There was not a blog, of course, but were people the same kind of people back then prior to the ark, prior to the flood? They were the same type of people. Do people naturally believe God? They do not. Of themselves, who does?
So getting comments through the tract and seeing all of this really made me wonder what it is that makes people mock. What is it that makes people mock? Why do people laugh? Why do they joke about something so serious?
Well, I think that this is a form of bravado, is it not? It is a form of bravado. I am hearing about this terrible day of judgment, five months of torment, and I say, “Bring it on! Bring it on! I am going to enjoy it!” Is this not someone trying to sound brave and unconcerned, as if this is no problem at all?
They probably get this from television and movies, which have really been very instrumental in society. If you think of the hero who finally finds himself in the most dangerous position imaginable where there is certain death, he is wisecracking. He is just wisecracking as he goes through it, and so this attitude has been picked up in much of society, in much of the world where the Gospel has been and yet where the fear of God has been lost. It is lost.
This teaching of the true Gospel to some of these nations was lost long ago by the church, and so we are seeing the results. We are seeing people who have no fear of God, no fear of something like the end of the world happening.
Some might say, “Yes, but the Christians brought this on themselves because there have been so many times in history when the end of the world was said to be on a certain date and it never happened.”
Well, I do not know if there have been “so many times in history.” There have been some, but how many have been based on the Bible alone, on the true Word of God from a right way of dividing and understanding the Scripture? We are probably down to about a handful of all of these others.
If the Jehovah’s Witnesses came up with a date, it would have no relationship to the true believers anymore than if a secular organization had come up with a date. This is because they do not have the truth. But there were probably a handful of legitimate efforts to determine the end of the world, and what people say is, “They have all been wrong.”
Well, they are failing to forget that God in the Bible was the One who informed people about the end in the days of Noah. Was Noah wrong in believing God and understanding that the day of judgment for the world of that day was coming?
No, he was correct; and so this was an accurate prophecy that God gave Noah that was faithfully fulfilled by God. Likewise, in the days of Lot, God went to Sodom and He told Lot beforehand what was going to happen; and so this was another accurate prophecy that was fulfilled by God.
When people say, “It has never been right,” they are failing to take into account the Bible’s own historical pattern, which is that God forewarns before judgments again and again and again, and He is correct every time. He forewarned the Jews concerning the plagues upon Egypt. He told Pharaoh, “Tomorrow at this time shall this thing be”; and tomorrow at that time, it was. This was another fulfillment of the Word of God.
Also, the spies informed Rahab the harlot that Israel was going to destroy the city of Jericho, and Rahab was able to muster her family into her house and she was spared. We could go to many Biblical examples—for example, the Ninevites, and so on—where God forewarned and it was fulfilled. It was accurate and people were saved by God’s grace and due to His forewarning.
Let us turn to Proverbs 1 where it speaks of wisdom in verse 20. We read in Proverbs 1:20-22:
Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?…
The words “simple” and “simplicity” are the same Hebrews word. I think that we can understand that this is closely related to being a fool or being foolish.
So God is basically asking:
How long, ye [fools], will ye love [foolishness]?…
This is what is going on in the world today. Apart from God, the world is involved in foolishness.
Before we get into God’s definition of wisdom, let us just look at a few verses. It says in Daniel 12:9-10:
And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.
Here the Lord is indicating that He will open up the seals, which happened in 1988, and then He says:
…none of the wicked…
And the wicked is anyone who is not saved, anyone who is still in his sins. And so:
…none of the wicked shall understand…
This relates to them ignoring it, dismissing it, mocking it, or whatever way they choose to disregard this warning information.
This all comes back to God’s observation, since He knows the end from the beginning, that they will not understand. They are not going to be able to discern “time and judgment.”
Remember that God tells us this in the last part of Ecclesiastes 8:5:
…a wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.
This would have to do with May 21, 2011, which is the time as well as the judgment of God. It is Judgment Day itself.
So this says:
…a wise man’s heart…
Who are the wise? When God saves a person, He gives them His Spirit and Jesus is wisdom Himself. Therefore, they become wise. This has nothing to do with their own intellectual ability or their own philosophy, or anything like that. In standing before God, they have His Spirit because Christ is wisdom and, therefore, the Lord looks on them as wise.
On the other hand, if someone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they are a fool, which is like the ten virgins of Matthew 25: five were wise and five were foolish. The only difference is that five were saved and five were not. In every other way, they were identical. God saved some; others, He did not.
This is what makes one wise or one a fool. Even if you would look at the parable of Matthew 25, you would see that it was the wise who were ready when the bridegroom came, and so they went in. The fools were not ready because they had gone off, who knows where, to try to buy oil for their lamps.
Again, why oil? Why were the five wise virgins equipped with oil for their lamps while the five foolish were unequipped? This is because oil represents the Holy Spirit and the lamp represents the Bible. If you have a lamp with no oil and you go to the Bible, you are in darkness. But if you have oil in your lamp, the lamp can be lit; you go to the Bible and you see.
This is what God is saying. The wise will understand because they can see spiritual things. “None of the wicked” will understand spiritual things, such as Judgment Day.
So does this mean that every single person who knows that May 21, 2011 is Judgment Day is wise, is saved? No. To have knowledge of this event is not enough.
For instance, if we go to Job 28:28, it says:
And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.
The wise will understand. The Ninevites were wise, and so they repented in sackcloth and ashes and they cried mightily to God. They departed from evil. They were not going about business as usual.
This helps us to know that if someone intellectually knows in their mind, for whatever reason, that May 21 is Judgment Day, this is not the understanding that will save them. They have to have an understanding to where God is leading them to repentance and they are turning from their sins. This is the definition for “understanding” that the Bible has.
In other words, someone could be here at the fellowship or they could have Family Radio on twenty-four hours a day. They could be listening, listening, listening and hearing about Judgment Day, and yet not understand.
This helps us to understand Matthew 24, which speaks of individuals who perished in the flood and who “knew not.” They “knew not” until the day came. They had knowledge but not to the point to where it brought about a turning within them, a turning from sin. They continued on. Maybe even a few of Noah’s neighbors thought, “Maybe this might happen,” but there was no real knowledge, no true understanding. So this is how God defines “understanding.” It is a turning from evil.
Let us now go to Luke 21, which is a parallel chapter to Matthew 24. Notice Luke 21:15:
For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.
If you look at the context, this definitely has to do with our day, which is the time of the Great Tribulation and the end of the world. God is saying, “I will give you a mouth and wisdom,” which is a platform to declare the Gospel, to declare these things at the end of the world. Along with the mouth, which means that people will hear you, will come wisdom and the wise will understand. The Bible tells us, “A wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment,” and so God will give His people wisdom to speak these things and to declare these things, sharing this information with the rest of the world.
We have to wonder about the second part of Luke 21:15, which says:
…which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.
In 1 Corinthians 16:9, we read:
For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.
“A great door and effectual” is referring to the latter rain when God intends to save a great multitude primarily through the medium of radio and the computer through the electronic medium. He is not using the churches.
We have a big, wide world of nearly seven billion people, and so how are they going to hear? They will hear through this great and effectual door that was never possible in previous generations of man; and yet now at the time of the end, God makes it possible for a whole world to hear one individual on the radio. He is making sure that this will get out to all of the world because He has said, “I will give you a mouth and wisdom.”
So He is declaring the Gospel to all creatures using His servants as ambassadors and representatives, messenger boys or doorkeepers. However you want to look at it, God is using His people to share these things.
He even tells us in Mark 13:11:
…but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour…
This is referring to the hour of judgment:
…but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.
God is the One behind this. He is the One who is sending this forth. Anyone who has an issue with any part of this information has an issue with God Himself.
If God has opened up this great and effectual door, along with this naturally comes adversaries. This is because Satan is the adversary of God. When a great multitude is becoming saved, it means that Satan’s kingdom is being ransacked, that his goods are being spoiled, that people in great numbers are being translated “from the power of darkness, and…into the kingdom of his dear Son,” into the Kingdom of Light. Therefore, Satan stirs up adversaries to speak against this movement, to speak against the Gospel going out in this way outside of the church.
Primarily, who are these adversaries if not professing Christians? The churches and congregations themselves have been all stirred up at the news that the church age is over, that God is no longer in their midst, that Satan is there. This really riled them up and they have been constant adversaries to the Gospel going out into the world.
But, again, God says in Luke 21:15:
For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.
Is it true that they cannot gainsay this or resist this? Is not everything that they are doing in resistance of this information? Are they not speaking against this on a wide scale as church after church is pronouncing their own particular condemnation against this? They have already called this heresy and us heretics, and so forth. Is this not gainsaying these things? What does God mean when He says that He will give a mouth and wisdom that cannot be gainsaid?
Let us go to Acts 4:13:
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men…
Imagine, we have all of this turmoil going on in our day concerning Mr. Camping because he does not have a seminary diploma. He does not even have a degree from a seminary and, therefore, he must be an ignorant man. Some who are against these things really try to play this up. They know that Mr. Camping was trained as an engineer and not as a theologian, and they will definitely bring this up, “He is not qualified. He has not gone to seminary.”
To go to seminary and to read the writings of men, which is about 99% of what one does in seminary, rather than to get into the Bible, does this really qualify someone to understand the Scripture, to teach what the Bible is accurately saying? No, this does not qualify anyone. But being in the Bible for more than 50 years, as Mr. Camping has been, this is a big qualification; not only being in it but highly respecting God’s Word and submitting to it and not daring to place himself above it. No, there is no better qualification than this.
Well, it is referring to the Jewish authorities in Acts 4:13. It says:
…they were unlearned and ignorant men…
This is referring to the apostles, the disciples of Christ.
It continues in Acts 4:13-14:
…they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.
“Say…against” is the word “gainsay.” They could not gainsay it. They could not say anything because this man had been physically infirmed and Christ had healed him, which was obvious because He was right in their presence. So they thought, “We cannot say anything about this.”
It is interesting that they did come to this point. In the days of Christ when Jesus would do healings, they would try to charge Him with doing it under the power of Beelzebub or under the power of Satan. They would even try to gainsay this. But now, at least, they are being honest, to a certain point, as they admitted, “We cannot say anything against the fact that he has been healed because, obviously, he was.”
But notice verse 15, Acts 4:15-17:
But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves, Saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it. But that it spread no further among the people, let us straitly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name.
In other words, they could not use the Scripture to gainsay. They could not use God. They could not use spiritual things.
What did they resort to? Instead, their response was, “Well, let us threaten them! Let us whip them!” But on what grounds? They had no grounds because they just admitted that they could not speak against what had happened. So, yes, people speak against these things today that they are hearing, but do they have any Biblical grounds for doing so?
The other word was “resist” from Luke 21:15:
For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.
Let us turn to 2 Timothy 3. 2 Timothy 3:4-5 tells us who God has in view:
Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
Then we read in 2 Timothy 3:7-8:
Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
Well, this says that they do resist. They do resist, but Luke 21 said that they would not be able to resist.
Let us go back to the book of Acts. In Acts 6:9-10, this is the account of Stephen. It says:
Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake.
They could not resist. They could not resist “the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake,” but they did end up stoning him to death.
Look at verse 11, Acts 6:11:
Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God.
Again, on the level of true Biblical interpretation and of understanding the Bible correctly, they cannot resist. That is, no one today in the churches can do Bible studies that are contrary to the end of the church age if they do it Biblically. If they follow God’s methodology that He has set up, which is that Scripture must be compared with Scripture and conclusions must harmonize, then no one can resist what God has opened up at this point in time.
The wisdom of God cannot be gainsaid. The wisdom of God cannot be resisted, and so what does the church today resort to? They resort to character assassination, which is just like when Stephen was killed with stones. You cannot throw stones at people today without going to jail. You would not get away with this, but you can label people as heretics or “Campingites” and you can say all kinds of things against them, and yet you will have no basis for doing this.
God never allows this, by the way. God never allows reviling. A child of God never has the authority from God to revile anyone. If you read the Epistle of Jude, Michael disputed with the devil about the body of Moses, but he did not revile him.
This was actually an exchange between Satan and Christ, and so Christ did not revile even Satan himself. Christ did not speak evil of the one who embodies evil, so how do people in the churches think that they can revile anyone and get away with it? This is only because they cannot share information from the Bible that can make correction, because there are no corrections that can be made against the wisdom of God.
In other words, these things are true. These things are faithful and others cannot speak against the truth, not by using God’s Word the Bible, but they can then get into other areas. They can make charges that are unbiblical all day long. They can revile to their heart’s content, but they are not doing it in a way that God recognizes as legitimate.
Again, Luke 21:15 says:
For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.
This is why the Gospel continues going out. No one has proven any of it wrong, and it continues to go into all of the world.
Let us go back to Proverbs 1. It says in Proverbs 1:22:
How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?…
I have many verses related to this, but I think that we will just move on. It continues:
…and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?
Do you know the Biblical definition of scorning, of being a scorner? What does this mean?
God says:
…the scorners delight in their scorning…
But He is actually asking a question:
How long…will…scorners delight in their scorning?
When you look up this word “scorning” or “scorner” in a concordance, there is one thing that stands out right away: it is not a good thing. This is definitely not a good thing.
For instance, look at Psalm 1:1-2:
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of JEHOVAH…
We can see here that being scornful is a negative thing.
Proverbs 13:1 says:
A wise son heareth his father’s instruction: but a scorner heareth not rebuke.
In Proverbs 15:12, we read:
A scorner loveth not one that reproveth him: neither will he go unto the wise.
And Proverbs 19:29 says:
Judgments are prepared for scorners, and stripes for the back of fools.
Also, Proverbs 22:10:
Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out; yea, strife and reproach shall cease.
And Proverbs 24:9:
The thought of foolishness is sin: and the scorner is an abomination to men.
So we do not want to be a scorner. Whatever this means, we definitely do not want to be a scorner, because God has nothing good to say about this.
By the way, this is how we try to understand what words mean in the Bible. This is because the Bible is its own dictionary. In other words, God defines His own terms.
So we keep seeing this word in a negative context, but this does not really help us to define it. We just know that it is not good to be a scorner.
There are a couple of instances where God uses this same Hebrew word, but it was translated into a different English word. For example, it says in Proverbs 14:9:
Fools make a mock at sin: but among the righteous there is favour.
This word “mock” is the same word as the word “scorner.”
One other place is Isaiah 28:22:
Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord JEHOVAH of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth.
“Be ye not mockers.” This is also translated one other time in the Bible as being “in derision.” So the best that I can see from the Bible is that to be a scorner is to be a mocker.
So God asks the question:
How long…will…scorners delight in their scorning?
Or, in other words:
How long…will…[mockers] delight in their [mocking]?
The good news is that no matter where we stand personally, if we have dismissed the Word of God—for example, this information about Judgment Day—and if we have ignored it or mocked it, this is not an unpardonable sin. This is not something that guarantees that we are doomed and that we are going to be destroyed, and yet this is not a good thing either because no sin is good. If we continue in any sin, we will be destroyed.
But God is merciful. He knows that this is the natural mind of man that thinks in this way because unsaved man naturally has no belief. They do not trust Him. They do not understand His Word or trust in His Word. But He is merciful and He can potentially save any scorner.
He tells us this in Proverbs 1 after making this statement in Proverbs 1:22:
How long…will…the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?
Then He says in Proverbs 1:23:
Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.
He is directing this to the scorner, to the simple, to the fool. Turn! Do not continue in the way that you are going. You could even have been in a group and maybe, for some reason or another, Judgment Day had been discussed where there was laughing and joking and a lack of earnestness in taking this subject as seriously as this subject deserves to be taken. Maybe you are even the one who has been scorning this and laughing about this, and yet God could potentially save you. But maybe others, of themselves, had maybe not even considered laughing about this information until you started doing so.
This could also be what is going on in your family. Maybe one of the older children mocks at this idea. Do not think that the younger children are not paying attention to this. Do not think that they are not beginning to disregard this also due to the attitude of the older sibling. After all, they are so wise, right? Is this not how the younger children look towards the older children? They are the ones who are bigger and who are getting privileges that they do not have, and so they must be the wise ones. Well, do not count on this. Do not count on the older children being wise.
For those of you who disbelieve these things, have you thought that your mockery might lead to the very perishing of your younger brothers and sisters or your friends? Have you considered that your attitude of making this a joke could lead to this same attitude in your younger brothers and sisters?
What if God does save you? You would not deserve this and neither do I and neither do any of us; but what if He does save you? What if He saves you on May 1st of 2011 and then you realize that this is true! “This is really true! God has opened my eyes! Judgment Day is in three weeks!” At that time, you are going to think, “Oh no! Look at what I have been saying to my family! Look at what I have been doing with my behaviour in my own family with my own brothers and sisters, and they have followed me!”
Well, I am just saying this because each of us has a responsibility, each one of us. Whether in our family or in our neighborhood or at work, each one of us has a responsibility before God. God is very merciful and He might save anyone, but remember that the sin of mocking is not a good thing.
If you remember in Genesis 19, God in the form of messengers or angels went into Sodom and came into Lot’s house. We then read in Genesis 19:12-14:
And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place: For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of JEHOVAH; and JEHOVAH hath sent us to destroy it. And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for JEHOVAH will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.
Their attitude was, “Are you joking? Are you kidding? You cannot be serious! You cannot really be serious, father-in-law! Come on!”
Yet Lot had told them exactly what God had told him. He said:
Up, get you out of this place; for JEHOVAH will destroy this city.
It was almost word for word, and yet they did not believe him. They did not believe him. They did not respond. It was a joke. But Lot’s response was, “No, I am not joking. I am not joking. I love you. You married my daughters! Please, get out of this place!” We can be sure that Lot besought them.
Later, if you remember, Lot lingers. He lingered in the city. Why was he lingering? He lingered because he had family and friends and he cared for them; but Jehovah, being merciful to him, took him by the hand and led him out of the city.
There is information in the Bible where God recognizes the nature of man, the attitude of people and their tendency to make light of extremely serious things and to mock. God says something about this that you may not have noticed, but this is a very sobering thought. If we go back to Proverbs 1:24-25, He says:
Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:
The Bible tells us that the Word of God or Scripture is given “for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” The Word of God itself reproves us.
Here God is saying:
But ye…would none of my reproof:
That is, you would not listen to His Word, and then we read in Proverbs 1:26:
I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;
If we laugh about this now, God says in Luke 6, “Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.” But those who are mourning now will later laugh. You see, God recognizes this, “Okay, you do not believe this and this is your privilege.”
From my perspective, any response that others have does not bother me. The way I look at this, if they are writing back to us from the contact form on the “May 21, 2011 Judgment Day!” tract, any response is a good response. It does not hurt me if people mock or if people laugh or if people dismiss this, or whatever, because I know that it is in God’s hands to open up an individual’s eyes.
But God also is fully and completely aware of the attitude of you and of me and of how we are responding to this message that is coming from the Bible. He is indicating that if you laugh now, it is because you are acting brave. You are acting totally unconcerned. You have no fear of hearing these things. The trumpet is blowing the warning. The watchmen are making the cry, “The sword is coming upon the land!” You are hearing all of this, and yet you are responding with a total lack of fear. You think that there is no possibility of this happening, and yet God is indicating, “Alright, but the day is coming!”
What day is He talking about when He says in Proverbs 1:26:
I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;
This word for “calamity” is translated in the very next verse as “destruction.” So He is saying:
I also will laugh at your [destruction]…
He is talking about Judgment Day, May 21, 2011 through October 21, 2011, which is next year. But it is not so much that God is going to just sit back and laugh. This is a response to the people of the world who showed no concern. God will then have “judgment without mercy.” He will then have no more concern. He will then no longer be concerned about anything going on in the world. As far as the people of the world, there will be no more salvation possible.
Let us stop here.