The words of Romans 10:11-15 are very familiar to believers. They provide us with confidence in God’s eternal plan for us. They are also a call to action for believers – “Share this good news with the unsaved before it is too late!”
“As Scripture says, ‘Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.’ For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'” (Romans 10:11-15 NIV).
People are anxious about the state of the world. Many Christians see connections to end-times prophecies in the Bible. They want to be prepared for the events that may come soon. These Christians have been blessed by good teaching about the prophecies in the Bible. Many of these folks have read Biblically sound books about the coming events.
They look to websites like Rapture Ready to get more insight.
Even more people are oblivious to what the Bible says about the end times. Some of them are genuine believers, but their pastors or priests don’t preach about these prophecies. These Christians are ill-equipped to see the connections and are under-motivated to share this information with their unsaved friends and family. These Christians will be taken by Jesus in the coming Rapture, but the loved ones they leave behind won’t know what happened or why it happened.
The vast majority of people living today are not Christians. Their views of the end times (if any) are based on false teachings of some faux religion or cult, or the pagan script and imagery from the latest “superhero” movie. The end-times events will catch them completely by surprise. They will be confounded by the Rapture and will suffer in the Tribulation. Many of them will turn to Jesus and become Tribulation Saints (praise God!), but the vast majority will reject Christ and will be subjected to God’s judgment for eternity. If only someone had brought them the Good News of Christ before it was too late!
But the meaning of “too late” is underappreciated in our era.
The coming end times events will radically impact humanity. The following chart depicts these events (God knows the precise numbers of people at each point, but these are reasonable approximations for this demonstration). Will those who perish hear the Good News before it is too late?
I salute the Christian teachers, scholars and authors who share the Gospel through their various ministries. I especially appreciate those who see the signs of our times and who tell others about the end times prophecies and their significance to us.
Thank you for the great sermons, articles, web resources, speeches, podcasts, videos and books that you provide.
Many of these end-time resources are very scholarly, deep and detailed. They are a blessing to those who want to dig deeper into these subjects and to those who are preparing their own sermons and writings about the end times. Thank you for assisting me in my end times novels and my nonfiction writing.
My goal for the Tribulation Pilgrims’ Progress novel series and my new nonfiction study guide Lifeline, A Guide to Surviving the End Times is to provide reader-friendly Biblically-sound information to people (saved and unsaved) who don’t know much (if anything) about the Bible’s end times prophecies. I hope these readers will learn the truth and will see the relevance to their own lives.
I hope many of them will turn to Christ.
Christian readers with more knowledge of the end times will find my books to be a convenient summary of key topics and are likely to enjoy the fictional storyline of the novels. These books are written for readers living in these last days of the Church Age and for future readers who are left behind, living in the early days after the Rapture.
Now is the time to carry the Good News to these people.
Mark C. Tredecim