APOCALYPSE NOW

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith for the Years of Winter… ©

The apocalyptic passages in the Bible, the predictions of the end times and the return of Jesus, are some of the most difficult. It’s pretty clear that some folks in the New Testament predicted that Jesus would return before everyone in that generation died. They were wrong.

Every prediction of the return of Jesus and the end of the world since then, over two thousand of them, have been wrong. So why do people keep getting sucked into end-times theories, when Jesus himself said that no one on earth, only God in heaven, knew when that time would be? [Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32]

I was once talking with a woman who was leaving the congregation I pastored for one that predicted the end time. She was a university professor with a PhD. Our congregation was “too liberal” for her, for we were not preparing for the end times, because we did not believe in the Bible. I pointed out to her that our lack of predicting the end of the world was evidence that we took the Bible seriously, since in it Jesus said what he did about not knowing the day or the hour when the end would come.

She replied, “But he did not say we could not know the month or the year.”

That is willful perversion. Anyone who understands the Bible even a little, has read it even a little, knows that Jesus often spoke in poetic language. When he said “day or hour,” he included month and year. The intent of the statement was clear—leave the end to God! Or as I like to say, “Just get ready and stay that way.”

That is what my friend, Bill White, did. That’s what my friend, Mike Dickey, did. And I could continue to call the roll. They did not have to know when the world would end. They just got ready and stayed that way. They knew the world would end for them one day. They were right.

Think of all those folks who predicted the end over the last two thousand years. They were right. The end did come for them. Jesus did return, for them.

That’s rather comforting, thinking of Jesus swinging low in that sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.

The predictions of the end times and the return of Jesus are correct. It might happen for everyone together some day, but in the meantime, it will happen for each of us individually.

The point is not to know the day or the hour, or even the month or the year, about when the final end time will come. The point is to be ready when your end time comes.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

 I tweet as yooper1721.