It doesn’t matter when the end of the world is coming
If you didn’t hear, the world ended yesterday. Again.
Not really. You might not have heard about it, because mostly it got the media silence it deserved, but another prediction of the end came and went this weekend. This time the culprit was the perennial phantom planet Nibiru, which was supposed to somehow destroy Earth again. (I suppose it’s also invisible, since most planets are easily seen at a distance of hundreds of millions of miles.)
It’s not the only recent failed prediction of the end, and most of them seem to be made by some Christian numerologist-of-the-year. Before this it was David Meade this September 23; Mark Blitz on September 28, 2015; the Mayan calendar in 2012; Harold Camping on May 21 and October 21, 2011 (and 1994 and 1995); Pat Robertson on April 29, 2007; Nibiru’s first appearance in 2003; a slew of failed predictions in the 1990s to 2000; and more.
If we’ve learned anything from these self-styled prophets, it’s that despite Jesus’ assurance that no one knows when he’s returning, there is never a shortage of people who think they’ve found the secret. There’s always someone who thinks they’ve found some code or chart or formula or equation that reveals the date of the apocalypse. At this point, it’s possible that someone will get it right by coincidence.
This is something about which Jesus could not have been plainer. “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father,” he said. That’s pretty straightforward. Some things in the Bible are hard to understand; this isn’t one of them. (Okay, maybe the part about the Son takes a little explaining, but not the part about us.) Jesus meant what he said. He wasn’t trying to be tricky or speak in technicalities. He didn’t mean someone could figure out the week or the month. He didn’t mean that 2,000 years later some conspiracy theorist with a calculator would figure out the secret code. It is true that Jesus told us to keep watch (Luke 21:36). But he also says that no one will expect him, not even his followers (Matthew 24:44).
American culture has totally missed the point of the end-time prophecies. There’s an obvious question here: Why would Jesus tell us to keep watch if it’s going to take us completely by surprise? Why would he tell us to do something that sounds completely useless?
The answer, I think, is that it’s not useless. I don’t think God tells us to do useless things. After Peter talks about the coming end of the world in chapter 3 of his second letter, he adds this insight: “Since everything will be dissolved in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to conduct yourselves in holiness and godliness as you anticipate and hasten the coming of the day of God, when the heavens will be dissolved by fire and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with God’s promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.”
Based on what Jesus said, keeping watch isn’t going to help us predict his return. But it will keep us alert to the fact that it’s coming. And that should motivate us to do what Peter says, to live holy and godly lives every day, as if the end could come that day, because it can.
The Bible talks a lot about the end of the world, but it always does so in highly vague and symbolic language. We have no idea how to interpret much of anything the Bible says about the end, except that Jesus will come back and make everything new. And I think that’s intentional on God’s part. There’s so much there that it captures our attention and we can’t help but try to figure it out, but no matter how hard we try, we always have to acknowledge the possibility that we are wrong and that Jesus could come back tomorrow or in 22017. We don’t know, and that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.
Trying to find out when Jesus is coming back is an utter waste of time. It’s worse than a waste of time. It flies in the face of, even defies, the words of Jesus, which any would-be Bible teacher ought to be very afraid of doing. It makes any wannabe predictor of the end a false prophet and unworthy of any Christian’s attention or trust. And it distracts us from doing work that actually matters. It leads people to build bomb shelters and bunkers instead of going out and doing work for Jesus. It leads people to pay more attention to the words of President Trump and Kim Jong-Un than to the words of Jesus. Not to mention it makes Christians look like scaremongering fools to the rest of the world.
So, although the mainstream media will always sensationalize these apocalyptic predictions, we would do well to ignore them and give them no attention whatsoever. It doesn’t matter when Jesus is going to come back. Jesus doesn’t want us to know, and he will ensure that we don’t until he’s here. Every day could be the day, and we need to be sure we live like it.
