Dear friends:

Yesterday I was talking to an old friend and his wife whom I had not
seen for a long time.

"What have you been doing?" the friend asked me.

For some reason my reply just spontaneously popped out, "Waiting for
Armageddon."  It surprised even me.

Their reaction was predictable: surprise that I would make such a
startling statement, but a sense of agreement because of world conditions.

Of course, I am not really waiting for Armageddon.  I don't plan to
be here for Armageddon.  I am really looking for the blessed hope
(the rapture), and returning with Jesus after Armageddon.

I decided later that those words, "waiting for Armageddon," are a
good witnessing line and conversation starter -- a direct yet oblique
way to get to a point.  Most every one knows what Armageddon is, or
at least they have a vague idea.  Those words might even be taken as
facetious, as they were at first in my case, but they are an
attention-getter, and suddenly sobering to the hearers.

It can go in several directions from there, such as:

1.  World conditions.
2.  Specifically conditions in the Middle East.
3.  Israel's rebirth in 1948 according to Scripture.
4.  How the 1967 Six-Day war was predicted by Scripture.
5.  The rapid decline in morality.
6.  The rapture.
7.  The need to receive Christ and be right with God.

And on and on.  At the least, it can cause people to start thinking
about spiritual realities, the times in which we live, and their own soul.

Try it!

Jim