Should a study of End Times be important to the believer?

I would say 'yes.'

Now, I'll preface my answer with this: to get bogged down into all the details of how and when the second coming will take place will cause one to lose the focus on Jesus Christ and affect your overall attitude and behavior. Believe me when I say that for I was a living example of such..... ;)

But I would say it is essential in that the believer should always be prepared for His coming. This is real and it will happen sooner than you probably think.

Our salvation isn't complete without the coming of Christ in the last days. Romans 8:32 talks of our "adoption as sons, and the redemption of our bodies." Our new bodies will be glorious as He is glorious.

Just as Jesus says in Matthew 24:44, "Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect."

Are you ready?

Owen's view of mortification of sin

I'm reading John Owen's The Mortification of Sin, and something captured me while spending some time in Chapter 2:

Where sin, through the neglect of mortification, gets a considerable victory, it breaks the bones of the soul; and makes a man weak, sick, and ready to die, so that he cannot look up. And when poor creatures will take blow after blow, wound after wound, foil after foil, and never rouse up themselves to a vigorous opposition, can they expect any thing but to be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and that their souls should bleed to death?

Now, I might also add to Owen's view that this isn't a legalistic thing to do in the Christian walk. Mortifying the deeds of the flesh is for all believers. 1 John 3:6 states that those who abide in Him keeps on sinning; for those who keep on sinning do not know Him. The idea implied here is mortification.

It's part of being a Christian. Be like Jesus. The more and more you focus on Him, the less you care about that former life you led.....

In Christ,
jason