This Will Not Change

 It's not just California... it's the whole world!
- John Cusack's character in 2012, the movie 

No, I haven't seen the movie yet.  Short on story, long on special effects I suspect.   But Hollywood knows we love a good end-of-the-world thriller every few years.  It taps into our social anxiety that things are just getting worse and worse. What's next - how about The END?!  I had a wonderful lunch with someone today  and we were talking about the state of things in the world.  They asked the Big Question: "Where's all this going to end up?"  Nobody really knows in the short term, of course.  My prediction: Things could get a lot worse.  Or they might get a lot better.  I'm pretty sure I'm right.

This week I'm preaching on Revelation 1.  Is this the start of a 26 week sermon series on Revelation, complete with charts and timelines and clear explanations of the "mark of the beast" and identities of four horsemen?  Hardly.  When I first became a Christian roughly 30 years ago, I dove deep into that stuff.  Hal Lindsay's The Late Great Planet Earth scared the crud out of me - and I loved it.  Maybe it was the mental rush of thinking I knew some kind of secret about God's timing or plans for the world.  Who wouldn't like to have a world-changing secret stashed away?  Automatically you're brilliant and everyone else is just a poor, ignorant fool.  There's an appeal to that.

In his book (published in 1979), Lindsay wrote that about 70% of the prophecies in the bible had already taken place, and that most of the rest seemed to be on the verge of fulfillment.  He then writes:

What generation [would experience the end times predicted in] Matthew 24:34? Obviously, in context, the generation that would see the signs -- chief among them the rebirth of Israel.  A generation in the Bible is something like forty years. If this is a correct deduction, then within forty years or so of 1948, all these things could take place. (Late, Great pg. 54)

Lindsay was careful to never predict the "day or the hour" but he seemed to support the idea that it would take place in the next decade or so (the 80's or 90's).  And there were many so-called scholars who believed that 1988 would be the most likely year for the rapture and Christ's return.

1988 came and went, and it hasn't happened yet.  Which isn't to say that the hope of Christ's return is untrue.  It is, in fact, at the very core of our hope in a resurrected Jesus.  The Bible is clear that things won't be made completely right - they can't - until Christ returns and transforms everything.  Paul puts it this way,

Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Romans 8:20-22 (NLT)

But does that mean we should get giddy when things get bad?  "Finally!  Wars! Pestilence! Hunger! Cataclysm - YES!  Jesus must be about to come back!"    No, that's not the attitude that would serve God or our world well.  Jesus calls us to be peacemakers, lovers of enemies, blessers of the poor - in other words do the work of recreation in the power of the Spirit until he returns and finishes the job.  But I've gotten way ahead of myself.  

The message this week won't go that for, most likely.  Instead we'll focus on  John, who sat rotting on the island of Patmos - and penned the book of Revelation.  He has a bead on how we can not only make it through, but perhaps even thrive as God's people in these "in-between times" - no matter how hard they get or what happens along the way. 

- Curtis

Those Who Have Hope

Click the "play button" for Left Behind promo...

1 Thessalonians 4

A few years back (1995), the first book in the series, Left Behind, was published. They sold about a gazillion books. I don't remember how many there were (14?), but I read two or three to see what all of the stir was about. The books focused on "the rapture." All the Christians in the world were beamed up to heaven in a flash, leaving a bunch of poor saps wandering around on earth with the Antichrist. I enjoyed the first book as titillating, if not well-written, fiction. At the end of the 2nd one I started to feel sick. I fizzled out somewhere in the third book, I think. What bugged me was that the characters were all narcissists.

You really can't blame God for leaving them behind.

Beyond that, I began to realize that I was getting sucked into the shallow theology. "Could this stuff be right?? Hmmm." It is a theology that looks joyfully forward to the evil decay of our world. Even though the books are written as fiction, they invite the reader to start viewing the world from a fatalistic place - but with a great, gleeful, "I know a secret that you don't know" perspective. As if the best way to view our world is, "Wars? Global warming? Terrorism? Hunger & hate? GREAT! Bring it on! Then Jesus will come! Niener, Neiner!" It's all very exciting and sells books.

It also teaches people bad theology.

Think I'm exaggerating? Check out the video at the top of this post, from a recent promo site for the book - (or click here - there's a second "episode" too).
The authors are also writing a new slew of books as well. I think they could accurately be labeled, "fictoprohecy."

Is this the best we Christians can do with the world in it's current shape? More importantly, is that what our Bible teaches us? Hardly. What happened to "salt & light?" Yet this very letter we are studying this week, 1 Thessalonians (4:13-5:11), is one that rapturists point to and say, "Look here - see??!"

I think we miss the point of most passages that talk about Jesus' return (and where did we ever get the phrase "2nd Coming" - he already came back a few times after the resurrection - so we have to be looking at at least his 7th coming by now). Jesus and Paul both seem to focus on how to live now, not when Christ will return or how we should be freaking out with glee when things get bad. And the Bible speaks of Jesus' return, not mainly in terms of destruction, but as a grand re-creation and restoration. Yes, evil will be wiped out at last. Justice will be done. There will be a judgment. And all things will be made right. Finally. But when it comes and what it looks like -who knows?

The words of all the OT prophets, of Jesus, Paul and John all point in one direction: Turn to God now while there is time; live justly; be ready; forgive; remember God is in control; share the Gospel; love God and one another.
We are to be a people who live with hope in a physical resurrection. - Curtis

For Sunday November 25th - The End of a Beginning

At last we are going to wrap up our series of messages, "Ten Truths to Live By." This week we study End Times! No, we're not going to have a prophecy seminar or pass out The Late Great Planet Earth or whatever is the latest book claiming to tell us when and how things will end. What we will do is take a look at several passages that talk about "the end" (or, in another way of thinking, a "new beginning").
The whole of scripture and history is really a testament to God's completion and wholeness. I often start things and do not finish them. Spanish lessons, guitar lessons, cleaning the garage, exercise programs. I can finish a chocolate bar, but not much else at times. I seem doomed to start thousands of things and finish only a few. When you or I fail to complete something we start, it depletes us because it either means we shouldn't have started it at all, or we haven't lived up to what we were intended to do. That's not God. He doesn't forget, doesn't get bored, distracted, tired, disgusted, or decide that maybe making you and me and all of creation was a big mistake after all. He always completes what he begins. This is good news.