Is this the end of the world?
Are these the last days?
A plague, wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes in diverse places, the world turned upside down.
Is this it – is this the end?
That’s the question many Christians quietly ponder as they see their lives changed in a week and apt never to recover from far-reaching assertions of governmental power. The America they know ended about the ides of March, and there seems little prospect of its return anytime soon. The freedom is gone, the prosperity is gone, the rituals and habits are gone.
No church, no weddings, no funerals, no jobs. No return to the lives of just a month ago.
And so they ask – Is this the end of the world?
The question arises from the Christian belief that at some long-prophesied time the world will come to calamity and chaos and Jesus Christ will return in power and glory, to cleanse the earth and judge the people and usher in the eternities.
It is something both feared and hoped for.
And searched for hard in the Bible. Believers see evidences of it in Isaiah and Daniel, all through Revelation and in Matthew 24. There are stories of horsemen and swords, prophets who lie in the streets, Gog and Magog, the unsealing of seals, the blowing of horns, stars that fall and a moon that turns to blood, an abomination of desolation, the mark of the beast and antichrists aplenty.
Some people make a life’s study of the end times. And they and others of faith or superstition look at the state of our world and wonder if this is the end, if these truly are the last days.
The answer is yes. And no.
We do live in the last days, in the final chapter of earth’s mortal existence. From the founding of the nation of Israel, to modern society’s insistence that bad is good and good is bad, to the preaching of Christianity around the world as a witness, these are clearly times consistent with Bible teaching and prophesying.
But the coronavirus is not here to usher in the return of the Messiah.
And even if it is, it makes no difference to you and me.
Because our appropriate course of action is the same, no matter what and no matter when. And while the coronavirus is not some grand final stroke which ends the world, it can be a reminder to us all that we need to be prepared now and always not for THE last days, but for OUR last days.
We need to be prepared to meet our maker, no matter how we should ultimately meet him. We should be ready to go to him now, whether we are whisked up into the sky with the myriads of other believers, or we cross over from an ICU bed with a ventilator hose down our throat.
There is a temptation in end-of-the-world prophesies to see the events they describe as some far-distant event for which we should one day prepare. The reality is that the time to make peace with God is now, as death, and our last days, may come at any time of any day.
Today is the day to prepare to meet God.
Not as some eternal life insurance policy intended to spare ourselves the hell our actions might well deserve, but as a happy escape to the encircling arms of a loving God who wants our joy in this life and the next. In times of trial, the peace offered by our Father which art in heaven is all the more inviting and vital.
So, are these the last days? Yes, and no. And it doesn’t matter.
Because our play is the same.
Today is the day to prepare to meet God.
Whether Jesus should return today, or many millennia from now, our choice is the same. Do we believe in God in heaven? Do we believe that he sent his son to save us? Do we accept that son as our savior? Do we have faith that his sacrifice allows us to repent of our sins, and that his resurrection gives us victory over the grave?
Do we have even the particle of faith necessary to want to believe those things?
If so, we are going in the right direction.
And if we plant that seed of faith in our hearts, and tend it and nurture it, it will grow and mature, and we will grow and mature, and we will be ready and prepared, no matter what.
That’s what we should be thinking about today.
In days of uncertainty, when the risk is real and the danger is all around, it is natural to call out to God for help, even if we don’t know or follow him well. The good news is though our love for him may be weak and undeveloped, his love for us is strong and eternal.
He is knocking at the door, and all we have to do is answer.
In earnest prayer, asking for his guidance and protection, forgiveness and grace.