in where the wild things are, max is sitting in school as his teacher talks about how eventually the sun will die and the solar system will be destroyed–whether by global warming or by war. you can see the optimism just drain out of max’s face as his teacher preaches this gloom and doom to his students.
that’s how i feel about end times preaching.
when i see adverts for world-ending movies or i hear preachers talk about end-times prophecy, it makes me feel like max probably did. it causes despair and hopelessness to rise up within me. it sucks faith and hope, wonder and awe out, leaving me clinging to a small, now deemed “naive” faith. i’m left crippled in the corner and unwilling to move. fear in place of faith. is this really what God wants?
i would guess that every generation has thought they were living at the end of time. surely, during the black plague, people thought it was the end of the world. people freaked out around y2k. now people are talking about 2012 because of the mayans. but the fact of the matter is that none of us know when the end is coming, because it will come like a thief in the night. it will come without warning.
i think end times preaching puts fear in the hearts of believers. i think it changes “loving people” to “saving people”. i think it pridefully assumes that we know when the end is, when God is coming back, and pridefully claims we know what that will look like. i think it is terribly pessimistic — and yet we, as Christians, put our hope in the God of the universe — a God of love, of mercy and of peace– and we’re not being optimistic?
a healthy sense of urgency is needed in the church, needed in believers. but there has to be another way to instill that urgency without using fear.
p.s. if you haven’t seen the movie yet, go. it’s wonderful.
1 Comment
November 5, 2009 at 1:42 am
although end times preaching is sometimes (often?) discouraging, i feel like what the actual scripture says about the end times, especially the book of revelation, has strengthened me and encouraged me so much. this is for several reasons.
1) it has prepared me for the intense trial and tribulation that i will face as a christian. the book of revelation says several times “this calls for perseverance and patient endurance on behalf of the saints.” honestly, that’s not something we preach in america. in america, if we have enough money, we can get rid of all our our discomforts. you can do everything from the comfort of your own home, and even in your home you don’t even have to wash dishes or do laundry. we hate talking about suffering, and so when we face it, we throw our hands up in the air and think God has abandoned us. “where was God then?” we ask. but Jesus talked nonstop about trials and persecutions the whole time he was here. revelation and end times prophecy is God’s forewarning that we as his church will have to endure incredible suffering in order to attain to eternal life with him- but the scriptures assure us that this suffering is the result of the sinfulness of wicked men and the wretchedness of Satan, and it’s not from God at all. the Bible even says if anyone does attack you, it is not from me, and anyone who attacks you will fall because of you (isa 54). but if we don’t read end times scripture, we won’t understand who the bad guy is and who the good guy is. that leads me to my second point.
2) if God never destroyed the world and killed everyone, all of the world’s wickedness would just go on and on and on and on and on and on. people would continually murder, commit racist hate crimes, mug people, beat up small kids on the playground, shoot innocent bystanders in drive-bys, get elementary schoolers addicted to crack, sell children into sex slavery, rape their daughters and sons, beat their wives, line up people of other ethnicities and races and machine gun them down, blow up women and children on buses, assassinate leaders, cheat on their spouses, curse their parents, call demons into themselves in seances and voodoo ceremonies, and pass around STDs. Hurricanes and plagues would continually wipe out whole towns and villages, famines would continally starve families to death, and nations would continually lay waste to each other in war. when those things happen to us, the end times become our source of hope. the point of the end times is ultimately not to kill everyone and judge everyone, because the scripture says that God actually desires that none should perish. but the point is that all that junk up there would go away- forever. in the new world God is making, the new city where we will live, none of that stuff will ever happen- ever. we’ll live in the most beautiful city anyone has ever seen and we will spend all our time hanging out and going to parties and having worship services. no one will be broken or demon possessed or depressed or lonely. no one will be poor or oppressed or forgotten or criticized or afraid. and most of all, we will be with God. his glory will be the sunshine. no one will ever say again “I feel like God has abandoned me” or “I just don’t know if God cares about me” or “I just don’t know if God exists.” he will be right there with us- forever- in his infinite love and beauty. we will be able to talk with him and hang out with him. i’ll get to hang out with you and all the people i love as many times as i want, forever and ever. this is our hope. but that can’t happen until the world ends. when i die, my soul will go without my body immediately into the presence of God in heaven, and i will have to wait for as many tens or hundreds or thousands of years until the old world is destroyed before we can hang out and have parties in the golden city where God is the sunshine.
that’s what end times preaching is for: to strengthen us to endure, by giving us hope for what is to come.
i’m so excited.
b