Time is running out for the world as we have known it (under the rule of Satan). Jesus Christ promised that he would return and the scriptures testify that when that time arrives, he will take control and all things will be changed. Only those human beings he finds being true to God’s ways will be counted worthy to join him when he descends on the Mount of Olives.

Since most of the world doesn’t even know what God’s ways are, that means thousands and thousands of people are going to endure the absolute worst time of their lives and scripture clearly states that two-thirds of them will die. The surviving third will suffer great tribulation before they will receive relief.

When you stop to think about it, two-thirds of the earth’s population is a staggering number. The recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean killed over 400,000 people and the whole world was stopped in its tracks for a few days while it tried to get its mind around the sheer numbers. But it is only a warning of what is to come. Try, if you can, to comprehend the death of four billion people in wave after wave of disaster over a few short years. That’s what the scriptures tell us is going to happen.

For those who are living “the way of the world,” they either don’t believe the scriptures that reveal these coming events or they have been deceived into believing that their religion or their belief system represents the ones who will be spared. It ony takes a person being willing to ask God’s help in opening their eyes to see the truth that none of the major world’s religions are based on God’s way. All have been corrupted by Satan, who has come between them and their Creator, to deceive them into thinking they are honoring and worshipping God, when they really honor the god of this world—Satan himself.

God’s way is not the way of the world. Jesus said “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36, emphasis added). The way of the world is opposed to God’s way. It is the way of Satan.

Satan took over in the Garden of Eden and has led the entire world away from God. When God selected the Hebrew people as his people, Satan intervened, and over time, drew them all away. When Jesus established his church on earth, Satan once again intervened and led that church away from God and into following him. When the reformers wrested themselves and their followers away from Satan’s papal church, the adversary intervened once again and influenced the reformation to stop short of its goal of returning to the “faith once delivered.” Too many elements of the papal church survived and followed the reformers into the Protestant churches.

In every instance, “the way of the world” has influenced the leaders to the point that all are still followers of Satan’s ways and not followers of God’s way. The true church, those who are trying to follow God’s way, are very few in number. They have been persecuted down through the centuries and will suffer even greater persecution in the end days. It is Satan who influences men to persecute those who do not agree with them. Satan wants to eradicate anyone on the earth who turns away from him and begins down the path of following God’s way.

Satan still believes that he can win his war against God and take over God’s throne. He has never learned the lesson that the “created” can never take the place of the “creator.” He has spread his lies to human beings—those who will allow it, which is the largest percentage of the world today.

Satan’s time of rule on the earth is running out. Many look to the conditions on the earth today on which to lay this claim. But there have been others before them who have also used the conditions of their world on which to lay a similar claim and they were wrong. Thousands of people thought Christ would return in the middle of the 1800s and many were disillusioned and lost their faith when it didn’t happen. There have been numerous times in the history of man when the conditions of the world could be made to fit the scriptures that speak of the end times. So what makes us think it is now?

It’s all in the numbers!
In the Old Testament God provided a way for man to mark time. Through the creation he provided ways for man to mark the months and the years through the physical mechanics of the universe and the earth’s position in it. Then he went further and spelled out a seven-day week . . . “six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath [rest] of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work:” (Exo. 20:9-10; cf. Gen. 2:2-3).

The years were also divided by sevens. Six years the land was to be worked, but every seventh year the land was to be allowed to rest (Exo. 23:10-11; Lev. 25:2-4). Next God said that time was to be divided by sevens again. Seven cycles of seven years (49 years) was to be marked off and the following year—the fiftieth year—was to be a Jubilee year—also a year of rest (Lev. 25:8-10).

All of these demarcations of time are found symbolically throughout the Bible. The seven-day week represents the full time frame that God has provided for Satan’s rule and final defeat, followed by a day of rest. Peter said “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).

The six days of labor to God is as 6,000 years for man. When he said “in it you shall do all your work,” he was also speaking to Satan. He allowed Satan to have 6,000 years in which to try to prove his case against God, but then comes the seventh day . . . the seventh thousand years. “. . .but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work” (Exo. 20:10). When the seventh day comes, Satan will not be allowed to do any work. It will truly be a Sabbath rest for mankind. The seventh thousand years belong to God.

When God said in Genesis 6:3 “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years,” God was saying more than that he would shorten the life span of man. Prior to this event, men had lived from 800 to 1000 years. After the flood of Noah, the time frame when God spoke these words, the human life span began to decrease significantly.

But the 120 years means much more than man’s life span. The Jubilee years that God gave man under Satan’s rule is also being referred to. One hundred and twenty Jubilees is exactly 6,000 years. God will only strive with man under the influence of Satan for 6,000 years, then it’s his turn. Satan will be bound so he can no longer influence man and God will begin to show man his ways. The labor under which men have battled for 6,000 years will cease. The last thousand years will be a time of rest.

Is the importance of the seventh-day Sabbath starting to sink in yet? Has the importance of observing it when God said to observe it started to “dawn on” the reader yet?

Where are we in history today? It is the year 2005 of the common era. All are pretty much in agreement that there were around 4,000 years from Adam to Jesus and now 2,000 years since Jesus walked the earth. In round figures we have arrived at 6,000 years. We don’t know the exact date of the creation of Adam even though many have tried to establish it. James Ussher has even offered a date, day of week, and time of day for Adam’s creation, but we can’t fathom on what he is basing that time of day feature. We’ve also lost track of the Jubilee years. Even though some groups believe they know, it is all really a case of a “best guess.” Without the exact date of the re-creation of earth and the creation of Adam, we can’t say exactly when the 6,000 years are completely gone and the last thousand years begins.

The only thing we can really say with certainty is that approximately 6,000 years have passed. It is time. God is going to intervene and usher in his day of rest. Most of the world is not ready for that event. And those under the influence of Satan will never be ready. Satan desires only the destruction of man and he will never release his grip until he is defeated and bound with chains. By then, two-thirds of mankind will be destroyed.

Jesus told us to watch and be ready “for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming” (Matt. 24:42). For most of the Christian world who are following what they believe to be God’s way, Satan has offered them a theory about being “raptured” off the earth before the terrible times come. A series of modern fiction books have been written—the “Left Behind” series—and multiple-thousands of people have avidly embraced these books, even though they are clearly presented as fiction. Satan has deceived the multitudes into believing that they know what is coming and what they need to do to be spared. But everything the series is teaching them is coming straight out of the beliefs of an apostate church—one of Satan’s churches.

Jesus clearly defines the ones who will earn the reward of meeting him when he descends on the Mount of Olives as . . . “those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12). Those two elements identify who will be saved from the earth during its coming time of great trouble. It doesn’t say the ones who keep either one or the other of these elements, but the ones who keep both of them. That means the people who obey all of God’s commandments at the same time their faith lies completely in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. Who are they?

It is almost easier to identify who they are NOT. The Jewish people keep the commandments of God, but they deny the work of Jesus, so it can’t be the Jews. The Christian Church keeps the faith of Jesus, but they have done away with the law, claiming Jesus nailed it to the cross, so the followers of the traditional Christian Church can’t be numbered among those who will meet Jesus when he returns. As for all the other religious groups on the earth, they either follow strange gods or mortal men they have turned into gods.

So who will there be left to meet Jesus when he returns? It will be “the little flock” — the small remnant who will be protected in the wilderness during the days of God’s wrath upon the earth. It will be those who keep and obey all of God’s commandments, not just the ones they want to keep. It will be the ones who look to their elder brother and the firstfruits from off the earth—Jesus Christ—as their savior and redeemer. It will be those who still remain true to all of the scriptures, not just the ones that tell them what they want to hear.