Is this the end?

A few years ago, I stumbled across a teaching series on the “Olivet Discourse” from R.C. Sproul titled “The Last Days According to Jesus.” The Olivet Discourse is a set of scriptures found in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, where Jesus talks with his followers about what they can expect in the future. 

At the time, the series was free to view, and I taught through it with a bible study group at our church. Listening to those videos was a truly remarkable experience in my life. It was the first time I learned that Christians believed radically different things about how the world would end.

Up until that point, I had the vague idea that the “world,” would get worse and worse until Jesus came back and set things right. It wasn’t until much later that I realized the scriptures were filled with instances of Jesus "coming back" and setting things right.

These encounters are frequently referred to in the bible as “The Day of the Lord,” and these Days of the Lord culminated but did not end with the destruction of Jerusalem, circa 70 AD, and the subsequent fall of the Roman empire. There’s a fantastic video created by the Bible Project and published on their website describing some of these biblical events. 

I started thinking about this series again after a few years and noticed that it helped make sense of other passages.. In first Corinthians chapter seven the Apostle Paul states that, “time is short, …those who are married should live as though they are not,” and later, “for this world in its present form is passing away.”

The New Testament is filled with these types of statements, and some scholars refer to them collectively as an “intensification of nearness.” These bible verses always remind me that what we believe about the end of something is extremely influential in shaping what we believe about the thing itself.

One way of interpreting these passages is by seeing that most of the apocalyptic prophecy in the bible, including the book of Revelations, is not talking about a singular event in the distant future, but a series of recurring events that happen every time a man made kingdom sets itself up in opposition to the kingdom of God. 

We can view Revelations, then, as a book specifically describing the imminent fall of the Roman empire, in line with the book of Daniel predicting the fall of Babylon. It would also be consistent to acknowledge that the fall of the Russian, French, and British empires followed similar patterns. 

It’s important to see that how we view the end of our life and nation, affects how we live our lives now, and in a very similar way what we believe God is doing in the world now, is shaped by what we think the world will be like in the future.

If we’re convinced that the world or our community is only going to get worse and worse until “Jesus comes back,” should we be shocked if that is what seems to be happening? Is it a self-fulfilling prophecy; something that happens because we believe it is going to happen?

Many people believe that the United States of America is quickly approaching its own Day of the Lord, when we will fully experience the tragic consequences of our own selfishness and pride. If you feel that way there is still hope because in the bible, right in the middle of a seemingly endless line of stories about judgment and destruction, we see a story of redemption.

Jonah reluctantly visits the city of Nineveh, and as a result, the king leads his people in turning back to God in faith and repentance. Will this redemption happen in our own nation, or will men and women of faith continue to elect leaders who will fight harder and dirtier to get what we want “politically?” Only time will tell.