by Allyn Smith

Created on: December 03, 2009   Last Updated: December 06, 2009

The world is in turmoil; socially, politically, financially, spiritually and environmentally. Most people will agree with this statement. But what most people don't realize is that this turmoil is only going to get worse as we approach the end times.

The end times are prophesied in the bible, but most people don't recognize prophesy as an absolutely certain entity. The definition of prophesy is: to accurately predict what is going to happen in the future, and considering the bible's prophesies: to reveal the will of God, empowered to bring this prophesy about.

To accurately predict an event, you have to be in complete control of all the myriad events leading up to that event. If just one decision or event went a different way than it was supposed to, the foretold event could not happen. The natural law of cause and effect, where every effect has a cause, which in turn had a previous cause; is the mechanism that is used by God, the first cause, in creating and sustaining the universe.

An example of how the law of cause and effect works is Jesus' crucifixion. When Jesus was crucified, sixty two prophesies were fulfilled. Jesus was "the lamb slain from the foundation of the world."(Rev 5:6, 12; 13:8) These verses say, before the earth was created, God had already planned for Jesus' crucifixion. A look at just one example of the decisions and events that absolutely had to transpire, to fulfill this prophesy; and of the power, wisdom and love required to bring it about, is Adam and sin. If God hadn't created sin, and Satan to represent that sin; if Adam had refused to eat the apple, and not sinned; Jesus could not have been crucified, and the Bible would be false.

Another cause and effect chain needed to precipitate the Lamb being slain starts with God's love. God's purpose in creating the universe is to have sons and daughters; "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." (Eph 1:4) In order for God to show us the greatest love possible, he gave us a world of opposites; love/hate, life/death, saved/lost, heaven/hell, sickness/health, etc. Only from the uttermost can we appreciate to the uttermost. Without the need for God to give us the greatest love possible, Jesus would not have been "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world". You cannot be saved to the uttermost unless you are first lost to the uttermost.

It is our need for opposites that God will cause us to go

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