The end times. A controversial subject if ever there was one.
It can be so confusing trying to make it all fit: the second coming of Christ (the main, foundational event), the resurrection, the rapture, the tribulation, the millennium, the new heaven and new earth, and the great white throne judgment. There are disagreements on the nature of the millennium and on the placement of the tribulation in the timeline. I would imagine there are probably disagreements on other things.
There seems two extremes people take about the end times.
1) They make too little of it. Some people hardly even try to make sense of it. They take a flippant view saying, “It will all pan out in the end.”
2) They make too much of it. I think many Christians, probably early in their faith, go through an ‘end times phase’. I know I did. We read books; we hang on the authoritative pronouncements of confident-sounding preachers… Nothing seems more important to us when we are in that phase.
If these are the extremes, where should we settle?
In my morning Bible ready I recently came across a prophecy of Isaiah that I found hard to interpret. It was found in Isaiah 65:17-25. There, Isaiah prophesies of a glorious future, blessed by God. One where there will be a “new heaven and a new earth,” (vs. 17). It will be a place where “The wolf and the lamb will feed together…” (vs. 25).
It sounds like final heaven. But there was a snag to that interpretation. In vs. 20 it says, “Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed.”
People will live long lives but they will still die. So, this can’t be describing final heaven. My best assumption is that it is a prophecy of the millennial reign of Christ–something better than today but not final, permanent glory.
A few days later I came to another prophecy that was also hard to figure out. The prophet Jeremiah prophecies that both Israel and Judah will return to their land from the north (Jeremiah 3). But Israel and Judah were defeated by different enemies and carried off at different times. We know of Judah’s return from Babylon, but not Israel’s return from Assyria. Has this happened yet or is it future?
I don’t know, and God does not require me to know. But I noticed that both before and after the hard-to-understand prophecy there was a call to the people to “return”–return as in repentance, in turning away from their idols (Jeremiah 3:14, 22).
So, the people were not required to have perfect knowledge about the prophecy, but they were clearly called to repent and be right with God.
Being right with God is more important than knowledge.
It’s kind of democratic–you don’t have to be smart, you don’t have to be rich, you only have to obey and be up to date in your spiritual life. And that’s something everyone can do.
Being ready, being right with God, is something we can all do.
In the New Testament, Jesus gave his own prophecies of the end times. This was in Matthew 24-25, sometimes called The Olivet Discourse.
Like the Old Testament prophecies, Jesus presented some things we could know. He said, “when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door,” (Matthew 24:33). So there were some things we could know about it.
But there was at least one thing we couldn’t know (even he did not know): the day and hour of his own return (vs. 36).
At the end of it all, Jesus gave the command: “be ready” (vs. 44). Perfect knowledge about the end times was not required or necessary. Being ready for it was the main thing.
So, if we know nothing else of the end times, we know this: be ready. And that is the important thing. And this most important thing is knowable and attainable for everyone. No charts, graphs, books, or seminars are necessary. We don’t have to understand everything, but we need to be prepared for it by being right with God now. Obedience is more important than knowledge.
I once heard a man describe a conference he went to about the end times. He said the speaker had them so convinced that Jesus was coming very soon that the people wondered if they should even bother driving down the mountain to come home.
Well, I don’t think there’s any harm in those kinds of reminders (as long as they don’t get into date-setting).
It’s hard to imagine anyone sinning if they have the Lord’s immanent return on their minds. A good, healthy place in our thinking for the end times is an incentive to living right with God.
Live as if the Lord will come back today but be mindful that it might take thousands of years. Whenever the date comes, Jesus’ command is to “be ready” now. We need to take Him seriously.