The end of the world is coming! The end of the world is coming! The end of the world is coming!
It really is you know.
I recently heard someone give a talk that focused on the “end times” and how there are certain signs that signal we may well be approaching the final days. Scripture talks about wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and famine. Christ tells us in Matthew’s gospel that “All these are the beginning of birth pains”.
That section of gospel that speaks about signs of the end also references false prophets to come.
“Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming ‘I am the Christ’, and will deceive many. Matthew 24:4-5
Now you can certainly look at the world today and fill in the blanks. Wars and rumors of war? Check. Earthquakes and famine? Check. False prophets claiming to be teh Christ? Check. (David Koresh, Jim Jones and others come to mind). Do I personally believe the end times are approaching? I have no idea. The only certainty I can state is that we’re one day closer than we were yesterday.
Some people are so wrapped up in worrying about the end of days. People without a Christian faith reach out to psychics or fortune tellers or astrology; anything that might offer them some hint about the days to come.
As a believer, all I need to know is that Jesus Christ is coming in power and glory. The final showdown with Satan is won by Christ!
We know how the story ends. So, what does it really matter when that final chapter comes to pass? Did not Jesus himself say that only God the Father knows the day and hour for certain.
“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Matthew 24:36
Throughout history, there have been people who claimed to know when the final days were upon us. Not surprisingly, always around the turn of a century or the start of a new millenium there are cries that are sounded about the “end times”.
In his book, “Approaching Hoofbeats”, Billy Graham writes about the end of times and the scripture that foreshadows the final days. He writes that “the promised coming of the Lord has been the great hope of believers down through the centuries”.
Graham writes, “Winston Churchill’s favorite American song was, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, which begins with the stirring phrase, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord”.
The great creeds of the church speak of the coming end of ages. The Nicene Creed states that, “He shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead”.
Charles Wesley wrote 7,000 hymns, and in 5,000 he mentioned the coming of Christ.
Are you ready for the end?
Kenny Chesney has a recent song that speaks of the end of ages. The chorus sums up the way many people feel about the final days:
Everybody wanna go to heaven
It beats the other place there ain`t no doubt
Everybody wanna go to heaven
But nobody wanna go now
We all want to go to heaven; that is our eternal hope. But the song does make the point that we’d prefer to live a bit longer in this skin, on this earth, in this life. Yet why would we prefer existing in a sin sick world rather than be called to the “streets of gold” where we’ll spend an eternity praising the Lord our God. It’s our human nature, living in the moment.
Should we worry about the end of ages? Not if we’re living our lives the way God intended. In fact, we should approach each day on this earth with the same zeal and spark that we would if we were told in advance this is our final week of living.
Learn from your mistakes. Live for the moment, for Jesus Christ. The end of time will take care of itself. Remember who reigns victorious? That’s right. That is our great hope and promise. There will be no pain, no tears, no sadness in the eternity we’re promised as children of God.
Each day is a gift. Approach it as such and don’t worry about things you can’t control, like the end of the world.
“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own”.
Matthew 7:25,34
The next time the world knocks you down, take heart. Consider the Apostle Paul’s statement of ultimate hope to the Romans. But these “our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed”, for the whole “creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
The end of the world is coming you know. Praise and thanks and glory be to God.
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