A testimony unto all the nations

Jesus gave many signs about the End Times in Matt 24. Many of them can be fulfilled multiple times - e.g. false teachers (v5), wars (v6), famines and earthquakes (v7), persecution (v9), false prophets (v11) - and that is one reason why people disagree over "fulfillment". After all, they had happened in the past - and what gives us surety that the circumstances we now face are signs of "the End"?

There is however, one verse, which cannot be fulfilled multiple times.

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come.

Matt 24:14

Preterists may claim it's been fulfilled in the first century, but "the whole world" is the whole world. There is no need to give a discount to an omnipotent God. In the modern age, with satellite and communications technology, we've finally come to the point where we do know every nation on the globe. 

Perhaps then, the simplest question we can ask (for which there is a definite answer) is whether the Gospel of the Kingdom has been preached in "the whole world" (to every nation)?

Benny Prasad has taken the gospel to every single nation on earth. On 22 Nov 2010, he completed his "world tour" in Pakistan, and set a world record. Where he goes, he has preached the gospel of the kingdom.

References

http://www.worldrecordsacademy.org/travel/fastest_time_to_visit_245_countries_Benny_Prasad_set_world_record_112047.html 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Prasad

Danger

It is amazing how vulnerable the human young is.

In all of God's creation, the human is probably the only species whose young will not survive the initial years without a primary caregiver.

Little Elizabeth was trying to do no more than to reach for the slipper on the floor, while on the bed. It wasn't that she was seeking masochistic thrill or being deliberately willful. She was just being singularly-focused on the one object of her desire, and she knew not how reaching out for that could be in anyway dangerous. It is not that the object of her desire is good or evil - it was simply how she tried to have it.

As she extended her hand, she arched forward. Before anyone could react, she had tipped over and went tumbling head down; and of course, she wailed. 

As I meditated on the matter, I realized parenting is God's gift so that we can understand and experience God's perspective. Indeed, we are all like children. We sometimes focus so much on the objects of our desire that when we reach out for them, we place ourselves in danger. It is not that we are self-destructive, or that we are being willful in our pursuit - we just do not know what really lies ahead. Danger is not apparent to us. What we pursue may not be evil (though it may not necessarily be good either) - but whatever it is, it was simply how we tried to have it that endangers us.

For the same reason, Paul admonishes Timothy that the "love of money is the root of all evil" (1Ti 6:10), not money itself. It is often not because of what we want, but how we want things that God denies them ti us. Too often, we simply desire them in the wrong way. When God denies me what I want, may His Spirit also search me, and reveal if there be any wicked way in me. (Ps 139:23-24)