First Things First

Okay, so first things first.  The world is not about to end!  There.  Now we’ve got that out of the way. 

So…many people who have not been exposed to Bible prophecy think that we crazy Christians are obsessed with the end of the world.  We are not.  They can just see us now, standing in the church pews, arms locked with the others around us, swaying back and forth.  Our eyes are closed with great devotion.  Some of us are raising our hands or crying, and they think we are asking God to end all life on earth.  They believe that is what makes us happy and fulfilled.  The culture outside the church thinks this is an odd thing to want.  They would be right. But is that what we believe?  Are we praying for the end of the world?

 The Bible does not say that the world is about to end.  The book of Revelation is not about “the end of the world.”  In fact it says something quite different.  John, the writer of Revelation, wrote that he saw, “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away (Revelation 21:1). But it was still a heaven and earth meant for people.  Isaiah (a major prophet) does say that the heavens will roll back like a scroll (Isaiah 34:4).  According to the Bible, it will be no sooner than one thousand and seven years from right now. 

How do you handle the possibility of having to defend your belief in Bible prophecy?  Do you just hope that it will not come up?  Do you say that you don’t really believe in that part of the Bible?  Many of our brothers and sisters died for their belief that Jesus would be returning to earth to fulfill prophetic events.  But they were not focused on the end of the world.  They were focused on the beginning of Jesus’ promise to visibly return to them and to be the King for a thousand years.  If the Bible says Jesus is going to be Messiah (king) or “anointed one” on earth for a thousand years, why would we let people portray us as believing in the quick demise of the entire planet?

I think it’s funny how we let Hollywood bring us entertaining stories about “the end of the world as we know it.”  Then the media hand over these ideas to the general public for religious scrutiny.  We as Christians, in efforts to please the culture or to be “relevant” to our friends, laugh and say something like, “I don’t really know what the end of the world is going to be like…”  As we laugh it off uncomfortably.  Well no.  You shouldn’t.  Because the Bible doesn’t say it’s going to just end. 

We are going to examine the difference between “the world” and the word.  We will see that the world is on a progressive path to usher in a new government structure that will make it very difficult to discern between truth and deception…that part is coming soon.