September

In Israel you can find lots of things that you were never looking for. Like people that believe that the Jews control the world for their own ends, and that information on the Holocaust was greatly exaggerated.

Or that the resurrection happened in 70 A.D., or that the last day is simply the last day of each individual's life, and we are now living in the new heavens and new earth. It can't be so because the first heaven and earth have not passed away. "There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Don't mock me by saying there is now no more sorrow--I have plenty of sorrow, and death lurks everywhere. It is not a total sorrow or a hopeless one, but it is very real, and my hope is for the resurrection. The day I die, I will be alive with Christ, but millions of people will still be starving in Africa, and that isn't the new heavens and new earth. The tares and the wheat are still mixed together. That's not the new heavens and new earth.  "...that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow..." At present every knee does not bow. That's not the new heavens and new earth.

"But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." "and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." If that happened at 70 A.D., there are no more ungodly men, and the sin that we see is just an illusion. "All that is in the world...is of the world", and "the world passeth away and the lust thereof:" If the elements have already melted, how does sin still thrive? "He that committeth sin is of the devil:" If the devil is already cast into the lake of fire, how does he still deceive men, and why is there still the "man of sin"?

Oh well, I give up. I just can't understand how we can be in the new heavens and new earth, any more than I can understand the earth being flat.

2 Peter 3:13-14   "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless."