To the Christians who are Excited about the End of the World

It’s not a good news cycle, for someone who was raised in an apocalyptic religious movement.

I am aware that not everyone who’s been in the Charismatic Renewal has experienced its apocalyptic side. I’m jealous of those people. My sect of the Charismatic Renewal was awash in end times prophecy, and I’ve written many times about how that traumatized me.I’ve been thinking an awful lot about end times prophesies and the hysteria that follows them this week.

I get terribly anxious when a certain type of Christian gets excited about end times prophecies being fulfilled. And this past week, many Christians have been. They are excited about Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s horrific war in the Middle East, which started with Iran and is engulfing more countries than I can keep track of right now. They are excited that this means we’re bringing about the end times and Jesus will be returning soon– just after we murder millions of people far away from the United States. I even hear some Christians talking as if this war is not just a sign of the end times. They’re acting as if they’re bringing about the end times, by fighting a war. As if they’re going to make Jesus appear like a card trick because our government is killing enough people in the right geographical location.

I want everyone to back up and remember what the Bible actually says about the End Times.

Christians agree that Jesus is going to come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. Any denomination that professes the Nicene Creed professes that that will eventually happen.  In one way Christ is already here with us. In another way, we’ll all meet Him at our own death, so each of us is always in our own personal End Times and had better get ready to see Him. But in another way, He’s coming back, at an hour and a day nobody knows. It could be thirty seconds from now. It could be ten thousand years from now. Sure, it could happen during or right after this particular war in the Middle East. 

But this notion that you can force Jesus to come back on your own schedule by triggering a catastrophic war in the Middle East is not in the Bible. In fact, the Bible says the opposite: But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of  heaven, but My Father only. In that same chapter of Matthew, Christ warns us against any false prophet who tells us we can definitely know when He’s coming back: Therefore if they say to you, ‘Look, He is in the desert!’ do not go out; or ‘Look, He is in the inner rooms!’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 

It says right in the Gospel that anyone informing you of when Jesus will come back is a liar. It says that anyone trying to get you to run after them and do what they say to meet Jesus coming back is a liar. That absolutely rules out the idea that you could set up the circumstances to force Jesus to come back at the time of your choosing. It also rules out the notion that we can know exactly when it’s going to happen.  The hour and the day of Christ’s return are totally out of your hands. All you can do is life a life you won’t be ashamed of when you do see Him, and ask His forgiveness when you fail. That’s what Christianity is supposed to be about.

There is one question I have for the particular type of Christian who’s cheering on the war right now: if you’re happy and excited about millions of brown people thousands of miles away suffering and dying, what would Jesus say to that?

What do you think Jesus, a tan-skinned Semitic-speaking man from what is now Palestine, who lived His whole life under the brutal occupation of European forces and was murdered by European occupiers, thinks of this war?

If you really, honestly thought that you could bring Jesus back by waging a war in the Middle East and causing all that pain and suffering: do you think Jesus would be pleased with you when He got there?

If the One Who raised the widow’s son from the dead confronted you after you’d sacrificed a school full of children to make Him come back, what do you think He’d say?

If the God Who gave water from the rock met you while you were rejoicing in the bombing of water desalination plants that people rely on so they won’t die of thirst, what do you think He’d do?

If Jesus, Who was murdered by foreign occupiers who thought nothing of massacring a bunch of tan people in a different country, came back to confront you right now, would He be pleased with you?

We have no way of knowing when Jesus is coming back, and we can’t make Him get here on our schedule. But He did tell us exactly how we’ll be graded when He comes.

He told us:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

That’s what you are supposed to do. That’s what Jesus will be interested in, whenever you see Him: whether you see Him after your own death or when He comes to judge the living and the dead.

How’s that been going for you lately?

Do you think Jesus will count you as a sheep or a goat?

I guess we’re lucky He hasn’t come back yet, then. Let’s get busy doing what Christians are supposed to do.