123 Sermon Illustrations on Second Coming

“What will he say when he shouts?”

The question took me by surprise. I had already found that West African Bible College students can ask some of the most penetrating questions about minute details of Scripture.

“Reverend, 1 Thessalonians 4:16 says that Christ will descend from heaven with a loud command. I would like to know what that command will be.”

I wanted to leave the question unanswered, to tell him that we must not go past Scripture has revealed, but my mind wandered to an encounter I had earlier in the day with a refugee from the Liberian civil war.

The man, a high school principal, told me how he was apprehended by a two-man death squad. After several hours of terror, as the men described how they would torture and kill him, he narrowly escaped. After hiding in the bush for two days, he was able to find his family and escape to a neighboring country. The escape cost him dearly: two of his children lost their lives. The stark cruelty unleashed on an unsuspecting, undeserving population had touched me deeply.

I also saw flashbacks of the beggars that I pass each morning on my way to the office. Every day I see how poverty destroys dignity, robs men of the best of what it means to be human, and sometimes substitutes the worst of what it means to be an animal. I am haunted by the vacant eyes of people who have lost all hope.

“Reverend, you have not given me an answer. What will he say?”

The question hadn’t gone away. “Enough,” I said. “He will shout, Enough! when he returns.”

A look of surprise opened the face of the student. “What do you mean, enough?”

“Enough suffering. Enough starvation. Enough terror. Enough death. Enough indignity. Enough lives trapped in hopelessness. Enough sickness and disease. Enough time. ENOUGH!”

Ernest Digweed died in 1976, leaving estate of 26,107 British pounds in trust to be paid to Jesus at Second Coming. He has to return in 80 years, or England gets it. But will Jesus have use for money? How will Jesus be identified?

Edgar Whisenant’s date-setting was wrong, as Scripture says. National media had fun at fundamentalists’ expense. Other date setters were also wrong.

Ironically, the executive director of the World Bible Society, Norvell Olive, took in $250,000 and was buying 3.13 acres of land in Nashville on which to build a new headquarters at the very time he was negotiating to publish the book. Olive awaited the return of Christ on a 68-foot luxury houseboat at Nashville’s suburban Percy Priest Lake. (Others were quitting their jobs.) And the paper quoted him as saying, “Yes, I live comfortably.”

Apparently so.

Because Revelation is poetry and metaphor, it is inappropriate to “nail down” a precise meaning for every image. It is possible, though, to discern overall contours of what the book meant to the first readers. Then we listen to what the Spirit is saying to the church today through the same images.

Revelation says more about church life today than about how the world will end.

The Book of Revelation is the Jurassic Park of biblical interpretation. Two thousand years after it was written it can still startle the living daylights out of a casual reader — or even a lifelong student of the book.

I got ambushed in 1989 when I taught my first course on Revelation in Montevideo, Uruguay. My students engaged John’s apocalypse with such intensity that the fearsome Beast of Revelation 13 seemed to snarl out from the pages of our Bibles. Our strategy for sneaking up on the Beast was different from most popular readings of Revelation. Instead of reading Revelation primarily to predict events in the modern world, we followed an approach familiar to evangelicals for most books of the Bible: we tried to relate Revelation to circumstances of the author’s own time. We wanted to explore the Beast’s first-century habitat before stalking it in the twentieth century.

Making our way through a jungle of history books and ancient texts, we found footprints of the Beast all over the first-century world. The trail of evidence took us through a library of ancient Jewish apocalyptic books, most not in our Bibles. We learned that Beast in those writings typically was a nasty nickname for a great political power (see Daniel 7, for example). We noted further that the Beast of Revelation has seven heads — which are seven mountains on which a whore called Babylon is seated (Rev. 17:9).

With that clue, the trail was hot: ancient pagan writers such as Virgil called Rome the City of Seven Hills. And Jews, after their failed revolt of A.D. 66–70, called Rome Babylon because it destroyed the temple in Jerusalem just as the real Babylon did in 587 B.C. We had located John’s Beast, and it was the Roman Empire that had turned blasphemous by calling the emperor divine. John believed the Roman Empire had become so violent, so oppressive, and so idolatrous that Christians were told: “Come out of her, my people, so that you do not take part in her sins” (18:4, NRSV). People of the ancient world were so awed by Rome’s power that they asked, “Who is like the Beast, and who can fight against it?” (13:4).

Now, in modern Uruguay, I put the same question to my class: “Who is like the Beast today?” Uruguay recently had emerged from a decade of military dictatorship, and several of my students had been imprisoned and tortured. The answer, in that context, seemed obvious to me.

There was a pause — and then a thoughtful student said, “For us the Beast is the great power from the North. Our military dictators were trained in the United States. They cooperated with the American empire and got rich from it. Companies and policies that shape our economy come from the United States. Your coins say ‘In God we trust,’ but actually you trust in your weapons and your dollars.”

“You’re in bed with the Beast,” my student was saying. Hard words to hear from a fellow believer. Isn’t America, after all, a Christian nation? But John of Patmos had the chutzpah to say that any earthly power can warp toward blasphemy, violence, and arrogance. Don’t confuse loyalty to any government or human society with loyalty to Jesus. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

Let anyone who is alert also note that sincere Christians interpret Revelation in different ways. Contents of this article could cause mild indigestion if you have only held a futurist view of Revelation (believing it to describe events entirely in the future). I largely take a preterist view (emphasizing how Revelation may be describing circumstances of the first century; see Directions, p. 86). But the Word of God cannot be tethered to any one school of interpretation. In the end, I want parts of several methods of interpretation. I believe that much of Revelation describes the first century — but the Holy Spirit enables us to see a new layer of fulfillment and application for our future. If the Beast appeared as Rome in the first century, he will appear in some other guise today. And the grand finale of Jesus’ return, Satan’s demise and New Jerusalem splendor surely remains in the future — even if we already experience a “first installment” of the End in the transforming power of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 1:22).

Wanted: influential subversive

No wonder many modern Christians ignore the Book of Revelation: the prophet of Patmos is hard to understand! Who was this guy who confronted a superpower in the first century and warns believers of every epoch not to get into bed with the Beast?

WANTED FOR IMMEDIATE AR REST: John, influential leader of followers of Jesus of Nazareth in the province of Asia [Minor]. Likely to have agitated small enclaves of the notorious sect called Christians in the following cities: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Philadelphia, Sardis, and Laodicea. Self-styled prophet. Not necessarily the same John who was one of twelve original disciples of the founder of the sect. Probably Jewish (but he writes in Greek). Possibly a refugee from Palestine during the treasonous Jewish Revolt [A.D. 66–70]. Well-versed in the Jewish scriptures. Wanted for disruption of the peace, slander against the Roman government, impiety to ward our gods and the Emperor, and traitorous allegiance to another king.

By the time John put pen to paper on a place called Patmos, the Roman Em pire apparently had lowered the boom. John says he was on that isolated, tiny island “because of the word of God” (1:9). It’s a stretch to believe he went there on an evangelistic tour. Rome sent troublemakers into exile on tiny, God-forsaken islands.

But if the Romans thought Patmos would be God-forsaken, were they ever wrong! “I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day,” John later wrote, “and I heard be hind me a loud voice like a trumpet...” (1:10). Perhaps today the voice would add, “fasten your seatbelt,” because the Spirit of God was about to take John on the visionary ride of a lifetime:

First, a face-to-face encounter with the risen Christ — who gives messages tailored to the circumstances of each of the seven churches in Asia Minor (chaps. 1–3). Then through a skylight John went into the heavens to the very throne room of God (chap. 4). From there, a fast-forward survey of physical and spiritual plagues about to rain down upon the earth — first marked by seven seals, then rerun as seven trumpets, then run again as seven bowls (chaps. 6–16).

Interspersed with the cycles of seven is a stage full of unforgettable props, backdrops, and marvelous characters. But this isn’t Hollywood, mind you. John is giving us theology in pictures, and he has an absolutely serious message to convey. Instead of using logical argument and deductive reasoning like Paul the apostle, John uses pictures and narrative to convey his inspired message. Think symbol. Think metaphor. Think poetry. Don’t get trapped with wooden literalism — unless you really expect to get to heaven and find that Jesus is a sheep (5:6).

Don’t get trapped with wooden literalism - unless you really expect to get to heaven and find that Jesus is a sheep.

Wake up! John called to first-century Christians in Asia Minor. You are compromising faithfulness to Jesus in order to fit into a pagan world. Wake up! Rome is a Beast that takes its power from Satan and receives worship that belongs to God (Rev. 13). Wake up! This city and its empire are full of violence and idolatry. God is about to call Rome and its allies to judgment.

It is the menagerie of props and characters that carries most of this message in Revelation. Real spiritual and political entities make their appearance as a Lamb, a woman clothed with the sun, a dragon, a beast, a whore, Babylon, and the New Jerusalem. John was a gifted artist and storyteller, but entertainment was not his goal. He was a pastor trying to help Christians of his day be faithful to Jesus at a time when some were scared by the Roman Empire and others were lulled by its charms.

For two thousand years the church has wrestled with the rich imagery of Revelation, sometimes with comic or even tragic results. Sixteenth-century Protestant Reformers, for example, called Roman Catholicism “Babylon” or “the Beast.” The Vatican returned the compliment. The Branch Davidian group in Waco, Texas, drew heavily from Revelation to construct a terminally twisted cult. Christian bookstores today are full of novels and pulp theology that use Revelation like a deck of tarot cards to forecast the future.

Finding one’s way through such a jungle of interpretation is daunting. But here is a guide for navigating your way toward understanding and applying its message:

1. Revelation made sense to its first audience and was not a giant puzzle that would only be solved two thousand years later.

With other New Testament books, we learn all we can about the original setting and how the author addressed that situation and then seek meaningful parallels and applications for our lives. John did not direct his message to believers in some distant time and place, even though Revelation may have rich meaning for us today. No, John wrote to seven real congregations in seven real cities in the Roman Empire. He names those cities in the order a real messenger would encounter them on a circuit ride around the region. He expected listeners in first-century churches to make sense of his message.

If you’re smart, John tells his contemporaries, you’ll figure out who the Beast is: “This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number” (13:18, NIV). Both Greek and Hebrew used letters of the alphabet as numbers, so every word had a numerical value. Modern students of Revelation have noted that the name “Nero[n] Caesar,” in Hebrew, adds up to 666.

The case isn’t completely closed on the identity of the Beast as Emperor Nero (A.D. 54–68). But Nero’s hand fits the glove. He was the first emperor to slaughter Christians, having blamed them for the great fire of Rome in A.D. 64. Probably both Peter and Paul died in his short, vicious persecution. Nero kicked his pregnant wife to death, neutered and “married” a boy named Sporus, murdered his own young mother, delighted in being treated as a god, and committed suicide after the Senate pronounced him insane. Even though John probably wrote Revelation 25 years after Nero died, he may have pointed to the deranged Nero as the epitome of everything wrong with a corrupt empire.

Some — but not all — of the judgments in Revelation may have started in John’s day. The white horse that rode out to conquer (6:2) might represent the far-flung conquests of Rome. The fiery red horse (6:4) could represent the bloody war between Rome and the Jews in A.D. 66–70.

The black horse with a rider holding scales (6:5–6) might represent the way the empire warped the economy of client states. A voice interpreting the black horse says, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages.” That was a very inflated price. Rome converted farmland of Asia Minor to produce export olive oil and wine for Rome. From Roman sources we know this created a shortage of affordable grain for the native population, sparking food riots. The cry, “Do not damage the oil and the wine!” (6:6, NRSV) may refer to the way Roman policies hurt the local economies of the seven churches.

If you read a telephone book as though it’s a novel, you’re likely to be confused. Something like that happened to Revelation in the church.

Three cycles of seven judgments in Rev elation move from bad to worse, ending with the cosmos itself coming unhinged. It is not clear whether John thought all these horrors had to happen. It is possible that his vision gives a ghastly preview of where the world will end if mortals do not repent (see 9:20–21; 16:9, 11). The plagues of Egypt gave Pharaoh some reality therapy, with the hope that he would repent. The plagues of Revelation — which sometimes mimic those of Exodus — might have the same purpose. God is not a sadist, and perhaps John hoped the world would repent before all the horrors of Revelation became reality.

But even manmade plagues in our era do not often lead to repentance. Until the love and power of God change human hearts, ordinary men and women will continue to inflict untold suffering on the world.

The twentieth century has seen empires act in ways that brought down apocalyptic catastrophe on peoples of the earth. Hitler’s blasphemous ideology brought ruin to Europe, and especially to the Jews. Mao’s “Great Leap For ward” and collectivization of the Chinese economy brought starvation and death to millions. In my own Mennonite denomination, I have met survivors of Stalin’s purges who still weep as they tell of their fathers being taken off by government agents, never to be seen again.

Plagues brought on by the American empire are harder for us to see. They include violent “kings of the earth” armed by America because they served our economic and political interests: the Shah of Iran, for example, or General Pinochet of Chile. Even Saddam Hussein was armed by the United States — until he turned against the West. Today Western nations maintain economic sanctions against Iraq, bringing catastrophic suffering to that country. By some estimates, 500,000 Iraqi children have died in recent years for want of food and medicine.

2. Revelation is part of a larger library of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, and it makes little sense without some understanding of that type of writing.

If you read a telephone book as though it’s a novel, you are likely to be confused. Something like that happened to Revelation in the history of the church. John wrote his apocalypse at a time when such visionary, trip-to-heaven symbolic literature was common among Jews. Dozens of similar apocalyptic books, both Jewish and Christian, survive from the ancient world. They are all part of an apocalyptic genre, and share common characteristics.

In the two centuries before Christ, many Jews came to believe that history was hell-bent. Like a parade of steamrollers, a series of pagan empires dominated Palestine in the years after the Jews came back from exile. First it was Alexander the Great, then his Greek-speaking successors, and finally the colossal Ro man Empire.

In the face of such bleak developments, some Jews abandoned faith in Yahweh and accepted pagan gods. Others had visions in which they came to believe that the reigning political powers of the world were in cahoots with Satan. They believed God would soon enter the fray of history with a Messiah (“anointed one”) who would destroy corrupt powers and inaugurate the kingdom of God.

Books written by these devout people usually are grouped together today as apocalyptic literature — from a Greek word that means “unveiling.” Apocalyptic authors used symbolism (beasts, angels, thrones) to unveil the truth that God still was in control of history de spite the apparent power of wicked rulers. Typically the authors had concern either about persecution or about God’s people being drawn into idolatrous accommodation to pagan society. The books had a double edge: heralding hope for persecuted believers, and giving a wake-up call to those who didn’t realize how much they had compromised with evil.

One way to understand the apocalyptic genre is to think of it as a kind of sanctified political cartoon — not that the literature tries to be funny. But political cartoonists routinely represent entire nations or historical entities with colorful characters. The Republican party is an elephant and the Democratic party is a donkey, yet a presidential election is a horse race. Russia is a bear, the United States is an eagle. We are sophisticated enough to look for the underlying meaning, and not take the political cartoons literally. But what happens when someone who has never seen a political cartoon tries to interpret one?

There is a similar problem when modern readers, who understandably have had little exposure to Jewish apocalyptic thinking, try to interpret the books of Daniel or Revelation. We are tempted to interpret them as literal history or as long-range predictions. So, for example, we might think that the Beast of Revelation 13 actually puts a physical “mark” on human foreheads (13:16). It is likely, instead, that John intended his readers to understand the mark as a metaphor for spiritual or political allegiance — just as the Book of Deuteronomy instructed Jews to put the commandments of God on their foreheads (Deut. 6:8).

Likewise, we might be tempted to think John predicted some physical mark on the forehead in our generation, and try to figure out if he means a computer chip being installed under our skin. With such a wooden interpretation, we imagine we are spiritually safe by resolving never to have a computer chip installed on our foreheads — and we miss the subtle ways in which our society gets us to cooperate with Beastly violence and idolatry.

3. The central thrust of Revelation is a call to faithfulness in the beguiling context of pagan Roman society.

A ferocious beast in apocalyptic literature usually represents a major political power (see Daniel 7). The only logical suspect for this part in the first century was the Roman Empire. That great city and its minions loom large in Revelation, appearing variously as Beast (13:1–10), Harlot (17:1–18), or Babylon (18:1–24). John says the Beast, like Rome, was “given authority over every tribe and people and language and nation” (13:7).

Although John portrays Rome as vicious, there is relatively little evidence in Revelation or in other ancient sources that Roman authorities actually persecuted Christians late in the first century. The common belief today that John wrote during a time of widespread persecution probably is wrong. Revelation names just one martyr, Antipas (2:13), and makes only passing reference to “those who have been slain because of the word of God” (6:9; see also 20:4). Rather, Revelation anticipates widespread persecution of Jesus’ followers.

John’s immediate concern is that some Christians had compromised their faith and were too cozy with a pagan world. From his vantage point along a maritime trade artery in the Aegean Sea, John could watch a steady stream of merchant ships carry the wealth of the world to Rome:

Woe! Woe, O great city,

where all who had ships on the sea

became rich through her wealth!

In one hour she has been brought to ruin!

(Rev 18:19, NIV)

Earlier in the same chapter, John mentions merchants of the earth who “grew rich from her excessive luxuries” (18:3). It is then that he calls the faithful to “come out of her.” Apparently some Christians were involved in commercial or political ties with an empire that John considered evil. It must have been possible for believers to remain secure in society if they participated at least at a minimal level in pagan religion and emperor worship.

Jezebel at Thyatira (2:20–25) was apparently a teacher who urged Christians to accommodate in some way to pagan practice (see 1 Kings 16:31–33). Likewise, Balaam at Pergamum (2:14) probably advocated some compromise with pagan expectations (see Num. 25:1–5; 31:16). Both Jezebel and Balaam likely are sarcastic nicknames for fellow Christians who had abandoned radical loyalty to Jesus in order to fit into an idolatrous culture.

What nicknames John would slap on modern Christians in our own pagan world? Academics like myself are tempted in university settings to tone down our confession of faith so we fit better into a postmodern mindset — or at least say “Jesus is the way for me, but perhaps you have another way to God.” Spirituality among Western Christians often is narcissistic self-fulfillment rather than radical discipleship. Spirituality for many baby boom ers boils down to this: What’s in it for me? John might say we worship our own souls rather than the Creator.

Despite Somber warnings, Revelation is framed with grace and invitation.

Or, John might say we worship the power to coerce. When I was a missionary in England, I asked a senior government official there about that country’s massive arms sales to developing countries — triggering Beastly violence in those societies and diverting vital re sources from pressing human need. The official had a three-part reply: (1) Weapon sales are not my direct responsibility in this government; (2) There are some regimes to which we will not sell; and (3) If we don’t sell the weapons, someone else will. John of Patmos would not sit still for such a rationalization. He would say, “Come out of her, my people, so that you do not take part in her sins” (18:4).

4. The emperor cult was the flash point that alienated John from Rome and alarmed him about the church.

It is hard for us to grasp today how grateful many people across the Mediterranean world were for benefits ushered in by Rome. The decades preceding 29 B.C. (the beginning of the reign of Caesar Augustus) were rife with civil disorder, international war, and economic collapse.

Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor, succeeded in uniting “all the world” (see Luke 2:1). At last there was international law and order. The Roman navy eliminated piracy on the seas, allowing maritime trade to flourish. Superb new roads appeared, along with an efficient legal system. Travel and business expanded dramatically. In most provinces, middle- and upper-class people benefited from cooperation with the new imperial masters.

Some of Rome’s subjects in the East decided Caesar Augustus was divine. By popular demand, the provincial council in the area of the seven churches of Revelation established a religious center at Pergamum in 29 B.C. to honor Roma and Augustus. John called this regional seat of idolatry the place “where Satan’s throne is” (2:13). Roma was the goddess personifying Rome, and John casts her as a whore in Revelation 17. The provincial council ran a contest to devise the greatest honors for “the god” (Caesar Augustus) who now ruled the world.

Not to be outdone, in 9 B.C. a patriotic group at Pergamum put up a stone that expressed gratitude for the “savior [Caesar Augustus] who put an end to war and established peace.” Caesar “exceeded the hopes of all who had anticipated good tidings [euangelion].” That’s the Greek word we translate as gospel.

The following inscription served as the ultimate “pledge of allegiance”:

I swear by Jupiter, Earth, Sun, by all the gods and goddesses, and by Augustus himself, that I will be loyal to Caesar Augustus and to his children and descendants all my life in word, in deed, and in thought ... .

Augustus was deemed “son of a god” because his adopted father, Julius Caesar, was thought to have become divine at his death. Businessmen promoted this extravagant patriotism because they benefited from the security Rome provided.

By the time John wrote Revelation, at least 35 cities in the province had climbed on the emperor-worship bandwagon. John thought emperor worship was sure to be a growth industry — except for faithful followers of Jesus: “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast — all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb....” (Rev. 13:8, NIV). Christians would have to choose their allegiance: Lamb or Beast?

The total loyalty John gave to Jesus in the first century makes me wonder about where I put my trust today. Harvey Cox recently rattled me with an article entitled “The Market as God” (Atlantic Monthly, March 1999). He argues that we give economic supply and demand a godlike role in society: “The Market, we are taught, is able to determine what human needs are, what copper and capital should cost, how much barbers should be paid ... .”

We let the Market determine that we shouldn’t much worry if some people in the world (you or me, perhaps) have plenty of food and two cars — while others starve. Relying on the Market for such life-and-death matters means we are serving some lord other than Jesus.

5. The emperor cult so penetrated political and economic institutions in John’s day that it was difficult for conscientious Christians to find a secure place in society.

The emperor cult at Ephesus expanded in A.D. 89–90 when the city erected a magnificent new temple to the reigning emperor. Inside was a huge statue of emperor Domitian, perhaps 25 feet tall. The city celebrated by hosting the Olympic games and by issuing a coin that made Domitian look like Zeus.

Across the empire, emperor worship penetrated political and economic life like a cancer. It became difficult to succeed in business or government without somehow participating in the emperor cult. Having “priest of the imperial cult” on your résumé became important for promotion. Coins needed for commerce carried images of the emperors as gods and proclaimed them to be divine. All of this may be what John had in mind when he said “no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark [of the Beast].”

Christians, by virtue of baptism, spiritually had a seal (7:3) or God’s name (14:1) on their foreheads. Likewise, those devoted to Rome engaged in emperor worship ceremonies and idolatrous oaths that placed a spiritual mark on their heads and hands. A vast priesthood of the imperial cult emerged — probably what John refers to as the second beast that made inhabitants of the earth worship the first Beast (13:11–18).

There are few governments in the modern world that are so evil that Christians must categorically oppose them as John did with Rome. But Christians in every country must think through how and why we engage in expressions of political loyalty.

Not long after I moved back to the United States after six years in England, I attended a meeting of a local civic club in Indiana. There was prayer before the meal, after which the club members repeated a promise of commitment to honesty, international understanding, and fair business practice. Finally, everyone pledged allegiance to the U.S. flag.

Having been raised in a Mennonite community where we did not show that kind of loyalty to a nation — although we respected and prayed for it — I have never saluted the flag or said the pledge. So I stood quietly and thanked God for all that is right and good about this country. I prayed this powerful nation would use its enormous resources for the good of all humanity, not just for Americans.

When the meal started, a friendly voice at the table said, “So, you’re English?” No, I answered. “Oh, you must be Canadian.” Then I realized that others had noticed I did not say the pledge of allegiance. “I love this country,” I started, “and I’m grateful for opportunities and freedoms I have here. But I am first of all a Christian, and I have Christian brothers and sisters around the world. My citizenship is with anyone who follows Jesus, and it’s hard for me to pledge allegiance to anything else.”

I’m certain that other Christians at the table could have told me of ways they give costly loyalty to Jesus. And I increasingly recognize ways in which I bow to gods of consumption, racism, and privilege. But that moment of being on the spot clarified something about where my deepest loyalty lies. There is much that is noble and true about the United States. But sometimes this nation will kill thousands elsewhere on the globe or otherwise act Beastly in order to maintain its place and power. Should Christians ever give blanket allegiance to such a mixture of altruism and violence?

6. Worship of God is Revelation’s answer to a pagan society held together by idolatrous allegiance.

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power ... .” (4:11). Such words sound to us like the routine language of hymnody. But these and other words of praise in Revelation were part of an alternative political and spiritual allegiance that eventually got Christians into trouble with Rome.

In heaven, John witnessed worship of the only One who deserves complete devotion: 24 elders fall down and lay their crowns before the throne; prayers of the saints come to God as golden bowls of incense; millions of angels sing praise to God, along with “every creature” in the universe (5:6–14).

Such images of choreographed worship provided an antidote and alternative to ceremonies of the emperor cult. An ancient Roman historian tells how a ruler named Tiridates of Armenia bowed before the throne of Emperor Nero in front of a huge crowd at Rome. Tiridates declared, “Master, I am thy slave. And I have come to thee, my god, to worship thee as I do [the god] Mithras.” When Tiridates sat beneath Nero’s feet, the emperor proclaimed him king of Ar me nia and placed a diadem upon his head. Parallels with the heavenly court are startling. God, too, is seated on a throne (Rev. 4:2). Twenty-four elders with crowns bow down in worship (4:10) in front of a huge audience (5:13).

It was not just kings who bowed to Caesar. On the emperor’s birthday, and on other empirewide celebrations, people in all the provinces worshiped their ruler with processions, decorated houses, feasts, choral performances, prayers, incense, and sacrifices. Public squares were filled with residents who showed their allegiance in orchestrated rites. Pressure for Christians to participate came not primarily from Roman officials, but from friends and neighbors who thought everyone should show gratitude.

The New Jerusalem is a welcoming and accessible city: the gates are never shut.

Rome was not the last political power to put enormous pressure for allegiance on its subjects. Haile, a college friend of mine, was born and raised in a nomadic Muslim family in Somalia. When he was a teenager, Somalia was taken over by a Marxist government. Haile was a good student, and the government planned to send him to East Germany for university training.

Not long before he had that opportunity, Haile became a Christian. His friends were appalled, since he was now at odds with the official policy of his atheist government. He would have no future in the government or in his career.

Fearing for his safety, Haile fled Somalia and ended up studying at a Christian college in the United States. He picked up conflict-mediation skills and went back to Somalia soon after civil war broke out. Instead of taking up arms, he served on a peacemaking team that moved between warring factions, trying to build bridges.

Then in 1992 Haile was in a house attacked by the warlord Idid, and Haile’s leg was shot off. He went for 11 days without proper medical care, and he expected to die. It seemed almost a miracle to me when Haile appeared in my office in Indiana a couple of months ago. “There was no ‘halfway house’ in Somalia during the years of Marxist rule,” Haile said. “If you were a Christian, you had to be willing to die. We were sheep among wolves and had to depend on God.” The church went underground, and worship was its life blood.

7. The New Jerusalem is already breaking into our world.

Reading the last two chapters of Rev elation is like arriving at an oasis after a trek through a blistering desert. Unfortunately, many modern Christians think the New Jerusalem passages point entirely to the future. Much of what John describes in the Holy City is yet to come, but the Christian view of history sees the future kingdom of God overlapping with the present, and the New Jerusalem depicts that future reality breaking into the present world. John does not feature the New Jerusalem as the place where believers go when they die. Rather, it is a heavenly community becoming tangible on earth among people who call Jesus Lord.

Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” He expected his followers to live changed lives now, not just in some future age. Pharisees once asked Jesus when the kingdom would come. He replied, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed ... . For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20–21, NRSV). Paul said, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17). These and other New Testament texts indicate that a restored creation is already beginning to break into the present.

Parts of Revelation appear to be a handbook on present-day citizenship for the New Jerusalem. In the face of a powerful empire that acts like a Beast, John portrays Jesus as a Lamb. Disciples of Jesus are those who “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (14:4), engaging a fallen world with the same vulnerability and love that Jesus showed. There is no indication in Revelation that followers of Jesus use force to defend themselves or to bring in the kingdom: “if you kill with the sword, with the sword you must be killed. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints” (13:10).

Believers need community to remain faithful to Jesus, and John’s sketch of the New Jerusalem is packed with insight for the life and mission of the church. The Holy City is “coming down out of heaven from God” (21:10). Salvation is a divine activity, not a result of our plans and efforts. The community is built on Jesus and the apostles (21:14), underscoring the unique authority of Christ and those who first knew him. The New Jerusalem is big enough to encompass John’s entire world — about 1,400 miles in every direction (Rev. 21:16).

The new community taking shape among followers of Jesus will have fabulous wealth, symbolized by an array of jewels on the foundation (21:18–21). But in contrast to ancient or modern society, wealth is shared by all. The New Jerusalem is a welcoming and accessible city: the gates are never shut, and even the kings of the earth bring in their splendor (21:22–25). Inclusion of these kings is startling, since they were promoters of the emperor cult and adultery with the Beast (chap. 18). God’s grace is greater and wider than we can imagine.

Nothing oppressive or impure will survive when the reign of God comes to completion. Satan will be bound for a thousand years and then summarily defeated (20:1–10). People who will be excluded appear to be those who persist in the kind of unholy allegiance that some people gave to Rome. Reference to “the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters” (22:15) may point to those who “commit adultery” with Rome, who approve the execution of believers, or who engage in emperor worship.

Despite somber warnings, Revelation is framed with grace and invitation. At the beginning of the book Jesus says, “If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (3:20, NIV). A “river of the water of life” flows out from the throne of God in the New Jerusalem, and trees nourished by that water produce leaves “for the healing of the nations” (22:1–2). The book ends with an invitation: “Whoever is thirsty, let him come ... let him take the free gift of the water of life” (22:17).

A call to holiness in the present

Of all books, perhaps Revelation is the one where it is most crucial to understand the life setting of the author. Because Revelation is poetry and metaphor, it is inappropriate to “nail down” a precise meaning for every image. It is possible, though, to discern overall contours of what the book meant to the first readers. Then we listen to what the Spirit is saying to the church today through the same images.

How would John of Patmos view the huge profits made on Wall Street while much of the world lives in poverty? What does Revelation say to a society that slaughters a quarter of its babies in the womb? What would John make of the killing of 100,000 Iraqis in order to protect Western access to Middle East oil? How would he view rich countries demanding debt repayment from impoverished nations?

Evangelicals have been distracted long enough with debates about the sequence of Christ’s return, the Tribulation, the millennium, and the New Jerusalem. Jesus warned against such speculation and instructed his followers to get on with mission work (Acts 1:7–8). The main intent of Christian teaching about the future is to call God’s people to holiness and bold allegiance to Jesus in our present life and witness (see 1 John 3:2–3).

Fortunately, Revelation is not the only biblical guide for how we deal with government and society. Paul was cautiously optimistic about the validity of Rome, perhaps before Nero went off the rails. Paul said the ruler is “God’s servant to do you good” (Rom. 13:4). Christians are not anarchists. Nor do we categorically declare most governments entirely good or entirely evil. Parts of almost any political, economic, or social structure will be serving God. Other parts will be fallen. We need Holy Spirit guidance, deep roots in Scripture, and counsel of the faith community to discern the difference.

It’s a jungle out there.

________

J. Nelson Kraybill is president of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana. He is author of Imperial Cult and Commerce in John’s Apocalypse (Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), and On the Pilgrims’ Way: Conversations on Christian Discipleship During a Twelve-Day Walk Across England (Herald Press, 1999).

*

[Original illustration at this number was deleted for being obsolete]

Sermon on Matthew 24 and the Second Coming according to Jesus. Disasters like the 1989 San Francisco earthquake are not signs of an imminent end, but are birth pains that will increase as parousia nears. Mention of antichrist, persecution of Church, Tribulation, gathering of saints.

A Jewish fringe group, The Temple Mount Faithful, believes the Messiah’s arrival can be hastened by building the temple now. They have already carved a three-ton cornerstone - without the use of metal chisels, as the Bible instructs.

“The Temple Mount is our religious and spiritual center,” says Faithful leader, Gershon Solomon. “We are sorry, but the mosque must be moved.”

In October a rumor that the Faithful would be having a procession to the Temple Mount was started, and a riot ensued. At least 20 Arabs were killed.

Series on Minor Prophets. Zechariah and prophecies of Christ's Passion.

1. Background of Zechariah.

2. His prophecies of Christ's passion.

a. Messiah comes gently, on a donkey. (not a war-horse) 9:9

b. God's shepherd will be rejected. (30 pieces of silver) 11:8-9

c. Shepherd struck, sheep scattered. 13:7

d. Pierced Messiah. 12:10-11

3. Accuracy of prophetic fulfillment.

a. Jews expected two Messiahs.

b. Jesus - one Messiah comes twice.

4. The Second Coming in glory. 14:1ff

a. Jews in exile.

b. Battle in Mideast.

c. Messiah sets foot on Mount of Olives.

5. What will you do with Jesus?

a. The people of his day rejected him.

b. We must mourn over the one we pierced.

1> Our sins pierced Jesus, and continue to. [1456]

*

I was walking down the street the other day when a pleasant-looking young woman approached me and handed me a pamphlet. I thanked her and began to read: “In the near future, many Christians will suddenly disappear from the Earth,” it said. Right away that got my attention. Good news always does that. I read on:

“Jesus will descend from heaven and take His brides (born-again Christians) into His kingdom.” This, apparently, was not to be considered a chastisement to the chosen.

“Such a wonderful event is called ‘Rapture,’” the pamphlet continued. “There will be quite a confusion in the world after Rapture: The families left behind will look for a large number of vanished people and the mass media will be busy with reporting this mysterious event.” You can bet your sweet boots on that. As a card-carrying member of the mass media, I can just see the headlines: “Religious Right Disappears, National IQ Surges.”

Think of what The Rapture would mean to the rest of us. If all the right-thinking Christians and their ideological ilk were suddenly taken, it would effect the painless elimination of half of Congress, two-thirds of the Supreme Court and all the Bush administration.

It puts me in mind of what Mark Twain once said: “Heaven for climate: Hell for company.”

Had the pamphlet merely described Rapture, however, I would not have been so taken with it. I’ve heard of The Rapture before; I'm not an ignoramus. It was mentioned on the Country Music Awards Show.

The thing about this particular pamphlet is that it told precisely when The Rapture is going to happen, to the month. It's due in October 1992, just a year from now.

But don't imagine that The Rapture will leave the rest of us sinners free to run around and have a good time, unencumbered by the harsh looks, to say nothing of laws, thrown our way by the virtuous. After The Rapture comes Seven Years of Tribulation, which will entail drought, hail, war, earthquakes, volcanic explosions, famines, plagues and “big disasters from heaven.” Sounds a lot like California, doesn't it?

You know, it's possible that we've already had The Rapture but so few made the cut that we didn't notice. Maybe these are The Tribulations.

#1652

*

Fresh packaging of E. G. White's writings. Catholicism is equated with apostasy and Protestants are cozying up to them. Idolatrous practices such as praying to saints and rosary are condemned. Heavy emphasis on the seventh-day Sabbath. It is practiced on Sunday only due to Catholic influence. The papacy is the antichrist.

America is seen in prophecy. In Revelation 13:11 the beast from the earth with two lamb-like horns is America. "Republicanism and Protestantism became the fundamental principles of the nation. These principles are the secret of its power and prosperity."

The "image of the beast" represents apostate Protestantism that seeks to enforce its dogma by the aid of the civil powers. (Sunday blue laws?)

The name and number (add up to 666) of the beast are:

"VICARISU FILII DEI" (Latin - Vicar of the Son of God)

"LATEINOS” (Greek - Latin man or church)

"ROMIITH" (Hebrew - Roman kingdom)

The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is attacked, and spiritualism.

The May 1984 National Geographic showed through color photos and drawings the swift and terrible destruction that wiped out the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in A.D. 79.

The explosion of Mount Vesuvius was so sudden, the residents were killed while in their routine: men and women were at the market, the rich in their luxurious baths, slaves at toil. They died amid volcanic ash and super heated gases. Even family pets suffered the same quick and final fate. It takes little imagination to picture the panic of that terrible day.

The saddest part is that these people did not have to die. Scientists confirm what ancient Roman writers record - weeks of rumblings and shakings preceded the actual explosion. Even an ominous plume of smoke was clearly visible from the mountain days before the eruption. If only they had been able to read and respond to Vesuvius’s warning!

There are similar “rumblings” in our world: warfare, earthquakes. The nuclear threat, economic woes, breakdown of the family and moral standards. While not exactly new, these things do point to a coming Day of Judgment (Matt. 24). People need not be caught unprepared. God warns and provides an escape to those who will heed the rumblings.

The European Common Market appears to be the unfolding fulfillment of Daniel’s ten nation world empire (revived Rome) in Daniel 7. The continuity of Europe with the Roman Empire is described (Charlemagne, Napoleon, Bismark, etc.) as well as the current trend toward a United States of Europe. Since 1985 the Common Market has been actively pursuing its goal of knocking down all economic barriers. “It is potentially the richest market the world has ever known.” According to Casper Weinberger, some leaders are looking to a unified country rather than an empire in Europe.

Some problems must be ironed out before Europe can fulfill the prophecies of Daniel 2 and 7, not least of which is the number 10 - there are currently 12 nations in the EC.

A poem by Margie Knight on the Christian meaning of Christmas (and a tie-in with the Second Coming):

'Twas the night Jesus came and all through the house

Not a person was praying, not one in the house.

The Bibles were left on the shelf without care,

For no one thought that Jesus would come there.

The children were dressing to crawl into bed,

Not once ever kneeling or bowing a head.

And mom in her rocker with baby in her lap

Was watching the Late Show while I took a nap.

When out of the east there rose such a clatter,

I sprang to my feet to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash

Tore open the shutters and lifted the sash!

When what to my wondering eyes should appear

But angels proclaiming that Jesus was here!

The light of His face made me cover my head --

It was Jesus returning, just as He said.

And though I possessed worldly wisdom and wealth,

I cried when I saw Him in spite of myself.

In the Book of Life which He held in His hand

Was written the name of very saved man.

He spoke not a word as He searched for my name;

When He said, "It's not here," my head hung in shame.

The people whose names had been written with love

He gathered to take to His Father above.

With those who were ready He rose without a sound

While all the rest were left standing around.

I fell to my knees, but it was too late;

I had waited too long and thus sealed my fate.

I stood and I cried as they rose out of sight;

Oh, if only I'd know that this was the night.

In the words of this poem the meaning is clear;

The coming of Jesus is now drawing near.

There's only one life and when comes the last call

We'll find that the Bible was true after all.

Final sermon in 2 Peter series. Second Coming as ethical motivation.

2 Peter 3:1-9

=========================

LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT

=========================

I. Have you ever been robbed?

II. What the Day of the Lord will be like.

A. Thrills and chills, or doom and gloom? Amos 5:18-20

B. It all burns up. 3:10

C. Condensed version of prophecy.

III. How should we be living? 3:11,14

A. Difference threat of imminent danger makes.

B. The Second Coming should be a motivation for holy living.

IV. Our lifestyle can speed up Second Coming. 3:12

A. Somehow God's will depends on us.

B. What speeds up Second Coming?

C. Is your sin holding up Second Coming?

V. New Heavens and Earth. 3:13

A. What will eternity be like?

B. God starts from scratch. 2 Cor 5:17

VI. It's not always easy to understand. 3:15

A. Paul's letters have wisdom, but are hard and easy to distort.

B. Note Paul's writings are equated with Scripture. ["other"]

VII. Be on your guard, and grow. 3:17

A. Christians have a foundation. 3:17

B. Christians must grow. 3:18

Interpretation of Matthew 24:14 which emphasizes translating "to all

nations" as signifying distinct ethnic groups. Various verses in the New

Testament, especially in the gospel of Matthew, support this. Missionary

focus should be on people groups.

#2986

*

Followers of the Rebbi Schneerson in Morris County, New Jersey, have put up billboards exhorting Jews to be ready for the coming of “Moshiach” or Messiah. A picture of the Rebbi reading the Bible is on the board. The followers say the Rebbe told them before his death that he specifically wanted an all-out advertising campaign to prepare people, particularly Jews, for his resurrection. He had preached about spreading goodness and kindness through individual acts, and his followers believe that if enough people follow his message, the world will be better prepared to receive him, and his arrival will be speedier.

“The rebbe told us himself, five years ago, ‘The time has come for preparation.’ He said Moshiach is ready to come. The world is prepared, now we each have to prepare by doing good and kind things for one another,” says Shifra Chana Hendrie of Morristown. “In the Jewish faith, we believe in a balance between good and evil. It could be just one good deed done by you or me that tips the scales so that he returns.”

Morris county has an estimated 40,000 to 45,000 Jews. Most Jewish leaders disagree with the signs and believe it is inappropriate. “That is not what the rebbe wanted. He was not running for office,” Rabbi Moshe Herson says.

[Continuation of #3644...]

JESUS FORETELLS THE FUTURE

In Matthew 24 and 25, Jesus took plenty of time to answer his disciples’ question: “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (24:3).

The “signs” he enumerated were many. They included such things as wars, rumors of wars, famines, and earthquakes. And he sprinkled his answer with warnings: his followers would be persecuted, and false messiahs would attempt to deceive them, claiming he had returned already. He spared no force of imagery in portraying the severity of those events before “the end.”

He then reinforced these admonitions with successive parables: the fig tree, the antedeluvians, the servants in the fields, the owner of the house, the faithful and unfaithful servants, the ten bridesmaids, and the talents. These parables bolster his point: that his coming will be swift and sure; it will intrude upon everyday life; and its time cannot be precisely calculated. The fig tree story (24:32-33) validated the expectation that signs will come — some of the strongest manifestations occurring in “this generation” — and that his followers should be alert to these. He enlarged this thought by referring to Noah’s generation (24:37-39), which was oblivious to the signs of impending disaster — the “illusion of normalcy” as A. J. Conyers calls it in “The End” (IVP). The owner of the house (24:43-44), like those of Noah’s generation, should have expected the unexpected. This negligence is contrasted to diligence of the servant (24:45-46) who ran his master’s household assiduously while watching for the master’s return. Next Jesus warned of delay (25:1-13): Only five of the ten bridesmaids were prepared when the groom finally arrived. The others should have reckoned with the possibility of his “tarrying.” Similarly, the vigilant, enterprising servants in the parable of the talents (25:14-30) multiplied the talents left in their care and thus won the master’s reward. In contrast, the passive, “worthless servant” sat idly with his single talent, until he met with his master’s contempt.

Jesus prefaced his end-times narrative with the warning to “watch out that no one deceives you,” which warned the disciples that these events may not transpire according to a well-plotted story line. There would be room for doubt and deceit. Jesus alerted his followers to the fact that the signs of his coming will be evident — keep alert; that his coming will be swift and sure — be ready; and that it might take longer than they think — don’t give up.

This, however, is the surest of Jesus’ predictions of the end: “No one knows about the day or the hour” (25:36).

HOW SHALL WE THEN LIVE?

If, as Jesus said, we cannot know the hour or the day, yet we also see the signs, how are we to be both ready to go and resigned to wait?

According the apostle Peter, the scoffers say: “Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation ... Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?” (2 Peter 3:4; all Scripture quotations from the NIV). But he reminds us that the Lord’s tarrying means salvation for more. Still, Peter poses the question: “What kind of people ought you to be ... as you look forward to the day of God?” (3:11-12).

His answer: “You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God ... looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth” (3:12-13).

Two stories can fill in what “looking forward” might mean.

When our middle son, Ben, was much younger, he had heard more than one sermon about the importance of surrendering our lives to Christ. And Ben seemed well-attuned to the heart of God; he exhibited the selfless and kind tendencies that would take some — like his mother — a lifetime of sanctification to acquire. So it disturbed my husband and me when Ben stubbornly resisted our invitations for him to give his life to Christ. He would offer no explanations; he would simply tell us in his preschool English that he wasn’t ready.

He resisted for several months. Then, one morning as we sat around the kitchen table eating our Cheerios, little Ben announced that he was ready to give his life to Christ. He then got up from the table and went upstairs. My husband and I looked at each other and followed him. I guess we expected to find Ben on his knees in prayer. We didn’t. Instead, we found him folding his Star Wars pajamas into his Sesame Street suitcase.

We said, “Ben, what are you doing?”

He answered, “Packing.”

”Why?” we asked.

“To go to heaven,” he said. [see #3710]

We then understood why our child hesitated to give his life to Christ. He thought that, in so doing, he would have to leave us and take up residence, literally, with Christ in heaven.

We should all possess the faith of little Benjamin: we should have our hearts so fixed on Christ’s appearance that the attachments of our earthly life pale in comparison. For we are “aliens and strangers on earth ... longing for a better country — a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:13).

But what about the meantime?

Perhaps there is a clue in the life of Jeremiah, who, while “confined to the courtyard of the guard in the royal palace of Judah” — even as Nebuchadnezzar’s army was besieging Jerusalem — heard the word of the Lord to “buy [a] field in Anathoth” (Jer. 32:7). Anathoth, just outside of Jerusalem, was not the most stable real estate market at that moment. The Babylonian troops were razing the city and burning and pillaging the surrounding areas. Who needed a field at Anathoth? Wouldn’t the money be better invested in some surer venture? But that is exactly the point: the field at Anathoth, given the conditions of the moment, may not have been a stable investment, but from Jeremiah’s standpoint, it was an investment in the promise of God: “This is what the Lord says: As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I promised them. Once more fields will be bought in this land of which you now say, ‘It is desolate’” (Jer. 32:42-43).

So when it comes to living under the shadow of the end, we find ourselves suspended between two seemingly contradictory realities. On the one hand, we need the faith to let go of worldly attachments — like little Ben, who packed his bags to leave the only world he knew. On the other hand, we need to live fully, here and now, with assurance and abandon, like the weeping prophet who invested in smoldering real estate. Paul captures the essence of this tension when he suggests that “to live is Christ” (this life is worthy of the best that we can give it...) but “to die is gain” (...joyfully relinquished for the better portion). Both dispositions depend upon unremitting faith in the promises of God. As Paul Erb wrote, “We live in a tension between that which we already have received and that which we look forward to with hope.”

In recounting what we have already received, what God has already accomplished — his creating the universe and setting humanity at the pinnacle; his intention for humanity to enjoy unbroken fellowship with him; his orchestration of our rescue from our self-imposed captivity to the Devil and to sin; his setting up the reign of God in the heart of every believer; his bringing forth an outpost of the kingdom, his church — the details of the impending events related to “the end” tend to diminish in their consequence. “Eschatology is...concerned, not so much with the ‘last things,’” writes Erb, “as with Him who is ‘the first and the last.’”

So, as we live and breathe in this turbulent time, witnessing unprecedented global posturing and moral breakdown, nation rising up against nation, famines, earthquakes, rebellion, and the rise of false messiahs, who cannot help thinking of Jesus’ words: “When you see all these things you know that [the end] is near, right at the door” (Matt. 24:33)? That is where “the end” should be in the heart and mind of every believer: at the door.

Where the Antichrist might reside or what might be the eschatological significance of crop circles are lesser questions. The greater question to be asked, as posed by Conyers, is: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth” (Luke 18:8)? Indeed, the world scene is changing in ways never before experienced, and these events may well carry some eschatological import. But Conyers asserts, “Speculation...requires nothing from us ... As long as ‘No one knows about the day or hour...but only the Father’ — then the end of history becomes equally important for every day in history...the judgment of every day and every action.”

Jesus’ verdict in his end-times discourse punctuates the imperative of service and action in the present. He concluded with the parable of the sheep and the goats. We will be judged, when that moment arrives, by the day-to-day actions performed in the shadow of the end — on whether or not we extended the glass of cold water to “one of the least of these.”

Every day is the last, just as it was for little Ben the morning he left his soggy Cheerios to pack his suitcase for heaven. At the same time, each day is born with promise and possibility and beckons us to invest each moment and opportunity with hilarity and abandon, with all the assurance of Jeremiah, who invested all in the promise of God. As we wait for the Lord’s return, we should, in the words of J. I. Packer, live “packed up and ready to go, and packed up and ready to wait.”

________

Copyright © 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine ctcurrmrw5TB0185919

[see #3644]

[A Skeptic's views on Biblical prophecy and the millennium]

Millennium hysteria has been with humankind for a long time, but when it is combined with doomsday prophecies, the result can be a dangerous flight from reason. The following was adapted from the opening address at the Second World Skeptics Congress held in Heidelberg, Germany.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is the world about to end? Are we living in the last days of civilization? Will the human species and the planet Earth be engulfed in fire storms, earthquakes, floods, or be destroyed by the impact of an asteroid? As we approach the year 2000 we are surrounded by prophets of doom who predict that terrible disasters await us. Obviously the year 2000 has special significance in these scenarios, for it marks the beginning of a new millennium. The year 2000 and the years soon thereafter seem to be the deadline for many end-time prophets. But we may ask: Does the new millennium start January 1, 2000 or 2001? The calendar we use begins at year 1 instead of 0 -- for a zero was left out in the transition from b.c. to a.d. Thus, a century does not begin with a double-zero year, but ends with it. If this is the case, the new century and millennium begin with an 01-year, not an 00-year.

But it is not clear that 2001 is the beginning of the new millennium, because the Western world measures it by the birth of Jesus Christ. But many Biblical scholars agree that we know very little if anything about him, though many believe that he was actually born four to six years before the year a.d. If this is the case, the third millennium might already may have begun in 1996, not in 2000!

The millennium is actually a human creation of our culture, an arbitrary date in eternity. Why it should be of special significance is muddled, aside from its religious meaning or cultural bias.

Most non-Christian cultures in the world do not measure the calendar by the date of Christ's birth. The Chinese year in 1998 is 4696, the Hebrew calendar 5760. For the Muslims, the calendar begins in 622 a.d., when Muhammad went from Mecca to Medina, and 1998 is actually the year 1420. It is 6236 according to the ancient Egyptian calendar, 2749 for the Babylonian, 2544 for the Buddhist, 5119 for the Mayan great cycle, and 2753 according to the old Roman calendar.

The Gregorian calendar was first initiated by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, replacing the Roman Julian calendar of Julius Caesar, which was ten days different from today's. After the decline of Rome, Britain celebrated New Year's Eve on December 25th -- until William the Conqueror changed New Year's to January 1, 1066, the date of his coronation. Britain subsequently changed it to March 25th, and later to accord with other countries. The French desired Easter Sunday to be New Year's Day. For the Chinese, New Year's Day is at the end of February.1

Thus, January 1, 2000 or 2001 is really a meaningless non-event -- an expression of Western socio-cultural prejudice, of no special significance in the nature of things.

Secular Doomsday Prophecies

Nonetheless, there is a perennial concern for the future. Human beings always wish to peer ahead and know what will ensue tomorrow or next year or in the next century. Many of these interests are based on expectations of a better and more promising world. But there are often predictions of gloom, and great apprehension.

Three kinds of forecasts may be distinguished among the Doomsday prophecies. First, secular predictions. We recently enjoyed a period of great economic optimism, as stock markets, at least in Europe and America, soared. The bulls dashed forward with rosy forecasts. There was sustained technological scientific expansion. Some people even predicted a long boom in which the economic cycle had been overcome. This was based on new industries: telecommunications and the information revolution, biogenetic research, and space technologies. Under this scenario the bulls predicted that Germany and France would overcome their recession, unemployment would be solved, the Asian and Russian economic slump would become a thing of the past, and gross domestic products would continue to expand as prosperity gains. This scenario was one of unlimited horizons. By contrast, the bears focus on the negative: The year-2000 computer bug will wreak havoc everywhere, they warn, oil shortages will appear, either deflation will overcome us or inflation will re-ignite, and the Dow-Jones stock exchange average will plummet from 9,300 to 3,000 in a short period of time. Here the pessimists prevail. Following the scenario of the Dutch Tulip bubble bust, crowd psychology rules the day, as the public is engulfed first by the fervor of speculative binge and then by pessimistic forecasts of doom. One may ask: whose prophecy of the future will prevail -- the optimists, pessimists, or neither?

Another key source of present doomsday scenarios is science fiction, in which the future is unusually bleak: either Big Brother will emerge, or complete anarchy will prevail. Science projects doomsday asteroids or comets striking the earth. Deep Impact and Armageddon, two Hollywood movies, arouse fear and terror, and Jurassic Park brings back the dinosaurs to devour us.

Probably the most frightening secular prognostications are environmental scenarios of runaway population growth and devastating ecological pollution.

Many of these forecasts are not end-of-the-world predictions, but they illustrate the difficulties of making long-range extrapolations. Of course there are real dangers -- from environmental damage to nuclear war -- and we need to be aware of them and to take rational precautions; for example, global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer. I am surely not denying that there are genuine problems that need to be seriously addressed. But not too long ago we were warned that the world would be overtaken by famine, that hundreds of millions -- even billions -- of people would starve to death, and that the cities and countrysides would be teeming with swollen bellies. Contrary to expectations, India and other impoverished countries have managed to increase their food production, and while there are famines in Africa, the predicted worldwide famine has not occurred.

Demographers told us only a decade ago that population growth would increase exponentially and that there was no way to stop it. By the year 2000, they said, there would be seven billion inhabitants on the earth, and by 2020, 15 billion or more. But, in many parts of the world, there has been a significant decrease in the rate of population growth; and the extreme projections for 2020 are most likely exaggerated.

Some ecologists maintained only twenty years ago that by 1980 the atmosphere would be so polluted that we would need to wear gas masks year-round -- not even in Los Angeles has this occurred! They warned that many of our lakes and waterways would be so despoiled that all of their fish and plant life would be destroyed. The Great Lakes, they said, would be totally dead. President Lyndon Johnson in 1968 visited the Buffalo River in western New York and ignited it with a match. Massive efforts to clean it up followed. There has been a noticeable increase in the fish harvest in Lake Erie, and the lake seems to be coming back. Ecologists have warned that we would deplete our natural resources and run out of oil, gas, and other fossil fuels in the near future. In the long run they are probably correct, but new resources have been discovered and new sources of energy developed.

A frenzied phobia of the unknown surrounds the additives and chemical wastes of modern technological society. There is fear of cancer-causing agents; everything from fluoride to sugar has been claimed to be noxious.

We have been told by successive Cassandras that the imminent collapse of major banks would bring down the entire world financial system, that galloping inflation was uncontrollable, and that we were on the verge of a depression that would change the face of society. No doubt we will continue to experience recessions, possibly even depressions, in the future. Marx predicted armageddon for the capitalist system. Millions of pessimists are still waiting for that to occur. They think every recession will lead to a worldwide economic collapse. Interestingly, George Orwell's 1984 has arrived and passed and our freedoms are still intact, much to everyone's surprise.

Overhanging all of this is the sword of Damocles -- nuclear energy. Nuclear fears engulfed large sectors of society. Anything related to radiation was considered diabolical. In many countries the public shrinks in terror at the thought of the opening of new nuclear power plants. The greatest fear of all is the fear of a thermonuclear holocaust. We are admonished on all sides that death stares us in the face and that some miscalculation would inevitably trigger a worldwide nuclear war. The results, we were told, will be a nuclear winter and the near extinction of all life on this planet. This was the Age of Anxiety par excellence.

Pessimists become angry at realists who think that civilization and the human species are likely to muddle through periodic crises and mini-crises but still survive these end-of-the-world forecasts. I am only advising that we place them in a balanced perspective. But to say this infuriates those who are convinced that our whole universe will collapse. In one film Woody Allen worried about what modern astronomers have to say about the cosmos, that there are two ultimate possibilities: either the universe will expand into infinity, cool down, and die, or eventually collapse into itself like an accordion.

For many the Apocalypse seems to be almost a wish fulfillment. The mundane world lacks the drama that a fertile apocalyptic imagination produces.

Religious Doomsday Prophecies

A second area for Doomsday scenarios are religiously based. Indeed, we today find hundreds of millions of people who interpret the world primarily through a biblical lens and see their own end-of-the-word scenarios. Much of this is based on the Book of Daniel of the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation of the New Testament. But their vision is far more terrifying than anything that mere secularists can dream up, because it is all part of God's plan of punishment for sinners. And it is imminent. Moreover, only a small portion of suffering humanity will be saved from it. Several Protestant sects, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, have held apocalyptic theologies in the past.

Today the message that fundamentalist prophets are preaching is one of a millennial Armageddon. They are truly convinced that we are living in "the last days," and they view earthquake tremors, wars, and rumors of war as signs of the impending apocalyptic disaster. The last great battle of Armageddon is approaching, we are warned. Indeed, this generation, many of them insist, is the last generation, and this was all foretold in the Old and New Testaments. Jesus said: "I tell you this: the present generation will live to see it all" (Matt. 24:34-35, New English Bible). And "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled" (Matt. 24:34, King James Version). Many of Jesus' disciples believed that his admonitions applied to his own generation in the first century a.d. That prophecy did not come true for the early Christians, and almost 2000 years have since passed. We were told by Pat Robertson, Hal Lindsey, David Koresh, Harold Camping, Edgar C. Whisenant, and other evangelists that the generation referred to is ours. Even President Ronald Reagan was quoted as saying in the 1980s: "You know, I turn back to your ancient prophets in the Old Testament and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself considering if we're the generation that is going to see that come about. I don't know if you noted any of those prophecies lately but, believe me, they certainly describe the times we're going through."

In his book, The Late Great Planet Earth (a bestseller in the U.S. in past decades), Hal Lindsey claimed that Armageddon is just around the corner. According to biblical prophecies, seven years of terrible tribulation will soon befall mankind. This period is about to begin because the Jewish people after the long Diaspora have finally returned to their ancient homeland in Palestine, which they left after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. And it is a genuine reality, we are told, because of the establishment of the State of Israel.

Next, Lindsey says, the Israelis will rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Then a whole series of cataclysmic events will trigger the final Armageddon. A great war will ensue. Israel will be invaded from all sides: by a confederacy from the North (which was said to be the Russians), by the Arab nations, and by a great power from the East (which was identified as the Chinese). During the period leading up to these events, there will also emerge a European confederation -- the old Roman Empire, now the European Common Market -- headed by an Antichrist preaching a new religion. These years will witness the greatest devastation that mankind has ever seen. The valleys will flow with blood, cities will be destroyed by torrents of fire and brimstone -- this, it is said, represents a thermonuclear war, World War III, the most awesome holocaust of all time. At that moment, Jesus Christ will return to rescue in rapture those true believers who accept the word. Christ will reign for a thousand years and eventually establish his final kingdom throughout all eternity.

In a series of four new books that have suddenly swept to the top of the bestseller list, millions of people disappear from the face of the earth. The have been snatched from homes and offices, automobiles and airplanes -- all saved by the rapture, which has taken God-fearing Christians to heaven, while the rest of humanity is left behind to suffer the terrible trials and tribulations inflicted by the Antichrist. This is the plot of the fictionalized apocalyptic series, Left Behind, by fundamentalist preacher Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.2 LaHaye ominously forewarns on his Web site that the year 2000 computer problem could trigger a "financial meltdown" as prelude to the world's destruction.

Fears of the "last days," it has been claimed, appeared at the end of the first millennium. Charles Mackay, in his 1841 work, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, depicted the epidemic terror that seized Christendom in the middle of the tenth century, as people expected the last judgment.3 Some said that Mackay's account was pure hyperbole. In any case, the first millennium passed without the destruction of the world! Why should it occur in the second?

Many people in history have believed in the end-of-the-world scenario based on the Bible, and they often thought that it applied to their own age. A graphic illustration is the case of William Miller and his followers in the nineteenth century. Miller, a fundamentalist Protestant preacher from Vermont (and precursor of the Seventh-Day Adventists) studied the Bible carefully. He was convinced that the world would come to an end in his own day, sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. He based his analysis upon a specific biblical passage that draws on the Book of Daniel. "And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed" (Dan. 8:14, King James Version). Miller interpreted "days" as "years." Since the prophecy was dated 457 b.c., the end of the world, he said, would occur two thousand and three hundred years later, in 1843. The Millerite groups -- which numbered in the thousands -- sold their possessions and awaited the final day. But, as we know, nothing happened. When 1843 passed he extended his prediction by another year, but again nothing happened. This forecasting of the end of times has been repeated many times throughout history. The same thing is most likely true, in my judgment, of present-day predictions of Armageddon.

Other religious traditions have prophetic-apocalyptic themes: Buddhism awaits Lord Matrieya, Islam the Madhi; Orthodox Judaism the Messiah; and Native American Indians wish to return to nature as it was before the European invasion. For those who use the Mayan calendar, the world will end in 2012.

It is clear that a state of belief may help create a self-fulfilling or suicidal prophecy. A widely held belief can have profound political and social ramifications, especially if it is held by people in positions of power. Apocalyptic thinking may mean that those who are under its sway will do little or nothing to prevent overwhelming disaster, fatalistically awaiting what is inevitable; or they may so act as to allow it to come true, believing that they are fulfilling divine prophecy. The problem with faith in prophecy is that it can take control of the future out of the hands of those best able to shape it. We are supposedly impotent and helpless creatures awaiting our fate, unable or unwilling to exert any influence to rectify or modify the course of events. The fixation on apocalypse grows out of fear of the unknown, and it is fed by hope for redemption. Often when the prophecy is falsified, the convictions of the believing group are intensified and the prophecies extrapolated.4

In democratic societies we need an informed public capable of wise decisions and without fantasy. We know of the dangers that distorted, apocalyptic, survivalist, conspiratorial, or pseudoscientific ideologies have had on societies.

New Age Doomsday Prophecies

A third kind of doomsday prophecy is that offered by New Age cults. The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and the world skeptics movement have examined a great number of the paranormal claims that are proliferating today from psychics, fortune tellers, seers, and gurus of various kinds. These include the failed predictions of Edgar Cayce, "the Sleeping Prophet," who warned of a massive shifting of the poles in the years 2000-2001. They involve a number of suicide cults, such as the UFO-related "Heaven's Gate" and the French-Swiss-Canadian space-age religion, "The Order of the Solar Temple." They also include the bizarre annihilation agenda of Japan's "Aum Shinrikyo" cult, and the many New Age cults proliferating in Russia today. There are also numerous astrological predictions of disaster due to planetary alignments, such as the so-called "Jupiter Effect." And psychics are now having a field day in their Armageddon prophecies. How many times are those who claim to have precognitive or psychic powers correct in their prophecies? The track record, I submit, is extremely weak. We can and do make predictions about the future based on evidence and rational inference, and often these predictions are reliable. But those made on the basis of mystic power, psychic intuition, or astrological forecasts prove to be no more accurate than anyone's wild guesses. Those who make such claims often fit a prophecy or vision to present circumstances after the fact, or they make the prophecy so general that it can be related to virtually any case. This has been done with the predictions of the ever-popular Nostradamus, the sixteenth-century seer. His quatrains have been read by every generation, including the present one, and his prophecies have been adapted to all sorts of circumstances in every time period. Often what is taken as prophetic is only due to coincidence; events are not preordained and predetermined as the prophetic tradition maintains. The future depends upon our own actions in the given situations. There are no special secret paths to knowledge of the future.

In conclusion, we live in a highly developed scientific and technological society. We face awesome problems. If we are to solve them, we must draw upon the best critical intelligence available. We need to use our rational powers, not abandon them. In free societies anyone is entitled to his convictions. Yet democracy presupposes an educated citizenry. When apocalyptic faith is intermingled with ideology, it can have deleterious social, political, and military consequences. It is at this point that all those committed to skeptical inquiry have an obligation to carefully examine those claims being made about our collective future, whether they are based upon so-called revealed prophecies or not, and to submit them to empirical criticism. There is thus a compelling need for critical examination of the prophecies of doom -- whether secular, religious, or New Age -- for these have serious implications for the world at large. And that is one of the key tasks of this World Skeptics Congress.

Notes

For fuller discussion of this, see Richard Abanes, End-Time Visions: The Road to Armageddon? (New York and London: Four Worlds Eight Windows, 1998).

The four books, all by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, are Left Behind (1995), Tribulation Force (1996), Nicolae (1997), and Soul Harvest (1998), all published by Tyndale House Publishers.

Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (New York: Crown, 1980).

See Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken, and Stanley Schachter, When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of Modern Groups That Predict the Destruction of the World (New York: Harper and Row, 1956).

About the Author

Paul Kurtz is Chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo.

info@csicop.org (comments), webmaster@csicop.org (web-related problems)

Web site design by Patrick Fitzgerald. Articles and graphics are copyright by CSICOP or their respective copyright holders. Do not redistribute without obtaining permission.

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THE VIOLENCE OF GOD CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD IN THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS.

"Listen ... the Lord of hosts is mustering an army for battle.... Wail, for the day of the Lord is near.... See, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger" (Isa. 13:4-9, NRSV).

Isaiah won't let us escape the fact that our God is violent. In fact, Scripture often describes him as a warrior, a warring king who obliterates his enemies. That leaves thoughtful Christians wondering how we deal with this biblical motif. Does the Bible endorse violence? Is violence one of the ways we can fight the Lord's battles?

This biblical language of violence is especially unsettling in this closing decade of the twentieth century, which is clouded with bloodshed -- much of it religiously tinged. Christians who aspire to love their enemies have rightly been shocked by public and domestic acts of violence inspired or justified by misreading a "Christian" ideology of the biblical "Wars of the Lord."

Still, moments arise when our thoughts echo those of the disciples when they said (after being snubbed by Samaritan villagers), "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" (Luke 9:54; all references are from the NRSV). Rightly sensing that Jesus was on a mission of divine warfare, they wrongly perceived his strategy. They -- and we -- are rebuked by Jesus.

What then is Jesus' warfare, and how should we tell the ancient story of the wars of the Lord? Those who stand firmly in the biblical tradition know they cannot refashion the language of Scripture to suit their tastes. "Wrath of God" passages remain part of the authoritative Word. Few would want to follow Marcion, the ancient church heretic who edited out offensive portions of Scripture, including the Old Testament God who was "lustful for war."

What remained for Marcion was a climax with a truncated plot, with the main character split in two: A God of creation and wrath was pitted against a God of salvation and love at the Cross. The church's response to Marcion was the faithful course of submitting to the authority of all Scripture. They believed that whatever offense the "wrath" passages might elicit would be resolved in the unfolding "plot" of God's saving activity, ultimately overflowing in his grace and righteousness.

The conflict and plot development of the saving activity of the warrior God can be understood as an unfolding drama in the biblical narrative: God the divine warrior delivers Israel from her enemies, and Israel is God's warrior people; God also fights against Israel in judgment; these two currents meet in Jesus, who delivers Israel from her darkest enemy, Satan, and takes the divine wrath against Israel upon himself in his death.

Act one: Israel's deliverer

We don't have to read far in the Old Testament before we come across the opening scenes of this salvific plot. God is a warrior for Israel's deliverance.

The exodus of Israel from bondage in Egypt marks the first time God mounts the stage in warrior dress. Pharaoh, the king of the superpower Egypt, is overthrown by the little-known God of a nobody people. Moses, Miriam, and the people recount the divine victory: "I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.... The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name" (Exod. 15:1,3). [...]

One thing is clear. The battles against Canaan are God's battles. He goes before Israel. He directs the battle. Israel seeks his will and follows. These wars find God overcoming incredible odds while Israel is armed with little more than faith: Israel against Egypt, Gideon against Midianites, David against Goliath. Israel, a breed of warrior that is strongest in weakness, is a shepherd boy on the battlefields of human history.

Since Yahweh indwells the encampment, leading the march to battle, Israel's soldiers are to consecrate themselves for battle and maintain ritual purity. But for many contemporary Bible readers, the stories of divine warfare create a haunting problem. Israel is commanded to devote to destruction all the residents of cities within the land of promise -- men, women, children, and suckling babes. The Hebrew word for the objects of this annihilation is cherem, "banned" or "devoted things": As for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them ... just as the Lord your God has commanded (Deut.20:16-17).

Our eyes run quickly over these familiar episodes, reported in their spare narrative style. "Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys" (Josh. 6:21). If we pause, we wince at the R-rated scenes of violence cast upon our mental screens. Was this annihilation truly God's will? Perhaps Israel misheard God. If God required this of Israel, how can followers of the Prince of Peace condone these stories and teach them to our children? What comfort and moral direction can we find in a God of warfare?

First, the destruction of one's enemies for the sake of a deity was not an exclusively Israelite notion. It was practiced by Israel's neighbors. Israel's enemy, Mesha, the king of Moab in the ninth century B.C., left an inscription memorializing his ban against Israel! Commanded by his god, Chemosh, to take the city of Nebo from Israel, he struck by night, "slaying all, seven thousand men, boys, women, girls, and maid-servants." They were, in Mesha's words, "devoted to destruction for Ashtar-Chemosh." It appears, then, that God in some sense reshaped a convention of contemporary warfare for his own redemptive purpose.

Second, from Genesis to Joshua there is a firm understanding that Israel is executing God's judgment on a people whose doomsday clock has struck twelve. God promised Abraham that in the fourth generation his descendants would return and inherit the land when the iniquity of the Amorites was complete (Gen. 15:16). The Ca-naanites, whose godlessness had reached the limit, experience their Day of the Lord at the hand of Israel and her God. Israel's conquest is a boldly enacted parable of the Day of the Lord that will one day dawn on every nation. There is a divine justice in this war, though we may not fully comprehend its dimensions. The instruction to execute judgment against a whole nation, annihilating women, children, and nursing babes, evokes our revulsion and taxes our comprehension of the dimensions of human sin and guilt. Yet we must be reminded that earthly life is God's to give and to take. And more important, in his mercy, God's eternal judgment of individuals does not operate on the same plane as his corporal judgment in these "wars of the Lord."

Third, in holy warfare the vanquished enemies become like a sacrifice, something "devoted to God." Both the object of sacrifice and the object of destruction can be called HEREM in the Old Testament, which means "something devoted" exclusively to God. This convergence of sacrifice and warfare evokes the imagery of Jeremiah ("The sword shall devour and be sated, and drink its fill of their blood. For the Lord GOD of hosts holds a sacrifice," 46:10) and Isaiah ("When my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, lo, it will descend upon Edom," 34:5). The sword of the Lord, sated with blood and gorged with the fat of his enemies, yields the grisly image of a sacrificial offering for the Lord. The underlying point seems to be that these enemies pay with their lives for the sins for which no other sacrifice on their horizon can atone.

But if the Lord's warfare was holy and just, Israel's execution of it was something else. Laying "unholy hands" on the sword, grasping plunder for personal gain, trusting in her own strength and stratagems, Israel did not play the parable well.

So the plot advances. The story goes searching for a holy warrior, an "Israel" who will obediently carry out the will and embody the strategies of the heavenly divine warrior.

ACT TWO: THE DIVINE WARRIOR AGAINST ISRAEL

This becomes clear: The divine warrior is no genie in an Israelite bottle, his ark no magic talisman. Israel learned the meaning of the divine covenant in the school of experience. If obedience brought the blessing of victory, disobedience brought the curse of defeat. If God would fight for faithful Israel, he would also fight against unfaithful Israel, evacuating his temple, and going over to the side of the enemy. Within the ebb and flow of the Old Testament story, defeat and exile is the rip tide of judgment on Israel. The trauma of reverse holy war, culminating in Israel's ignominious defeat and exile, is sounded in Lamentations: "The Lord has become like an enemy; he has destroyed Israel" (2:5).

There are numerous episodes of this divine warfare against Israel, foreshadowings of the judgment of the exile. Their narrative pattern is laid down in the blessings and curses of God's covenant with Israel. If Israel is obedient to the covenant, God will protect his people from their enemies: "They shall come out against you one way, and flee before you seven ways" (Deut. 28:7). If Israel is disobedient, the curse is invoked and God will cause Israel to be defeated: "You shall go out against them one way and flee before them seven ways. You shall become an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth" (Deut. 28:25). Ai (Josh. 7:1-5), Hormah (Num. 14:39- 45), and the blood-soaked ground between Ebenezer and Aphek (1 Sam. 4:1-11) stand as tragic memorials of the divine warrior's turning against Israel in judgment. But Israel, feeling good about itself, fattened its collective psyche on a theology of optimism and national immunity. In Samaria, the prophet Amos rebuked those who saw the future "Day of the Lord," as -- of course! -- the day of victory for Israel: "Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light" (Amos 5:18). The eventual outcome was the northern kingdom's thorough defeat and exile by the sword of the Assyrians. In the language of Israel's covenant, this was the sword of the Lord.

In the face of doom, the prophets -- even Amos -- nevertheless proclaim hope. Their vision of judgment is coupled with the expectation of a future Day of the Lord when he will defeat all hostility, demonstrate his kingship, renew his people and all creation, and fill heaven and earth with his glory. The creation is no passive and disposable backdrop in this drama but an afflicted subject, anxious spectator, and active participant. As Paul puts it, "the whole creation has been groaning" (Rom. 8:19-23). When God marches to war in judgment, the heavens thunder, creation withers, nature convulses, sea flees, and fertility and music cease (Nah. 1:2-6; Hab. 3:8; Isa. 24:1-13). The creation is also enlisted in battle. The imagery of the storm gods of Canaan is harnessed in one of the hallmark images of Israel's divine warrior: "You make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind" (Ps. 104:3). At God's victory a cosmic reversal unfolds. The creation is rejuvenated, the trees of the forest sing for joy (Ps. 96:11-12), and the exhilarating praise of "a new song" fills the air (Pss. 40:3; 96:1). Clearly this is not simply a conflict and battle for people; the divine warrior is laying claim to his entire created order.

The latter prophets, writing in the shadow of Israel's defeat, show the image of divine warfare as they paint their canvases of judgment, deliverance, and restoration. There is hope beyond the darkness of defeat. The divine warrior makes repeated appearances in Isaiah's mural of renewal [....] This lone warrior foreshadows the Cross.

ACT THREE: JESUS THE WARRIOR

As we turn from prophet to gospel, Israel's plot remains unresolved. Mark opens his gospel with an Old Testament overture of a new Exodus echoing Isaiah. To paraphrase Mark 1:3: "Prepare the way for the divine warrior's procession through the wilderness to his holy mount." Mark accentuates the activism of Jesus, who bounds onto the stage of history ready for battle. Mark takes us to the wilderness where John the Baptist dips repentant Israelites into the same waters their ancestors crossed to enter the land of promise. Jesus enters this water too and, like Israel emerging from Egypt, is named by God "my Son" (Exod. 4:22). Like Israel, he is "driven" (Exod. 12:39) into the wilderness. After 40 days there facing down Satan (the old enemy who enchanted Israel by idols), he proclaims the kingdom, gathers a new body of twelve around him, and casts out demons.

But do we understand the place of casting out demons in his ministry? Mark frames Jesus' encounters with demons as pitched battles in which Jesus "drives out" the unclean spirits. This sounds remarkably like an earlier chapter when the divine warrior, with Israel as his agent, "drove out" Canaanites from the land of promise. The incarnate divine warrior Jesus now carries the conquest to its deepest level. Jesus is a strong man and fierce warrior rescuing those bound by Beelzebul (Mark 3:23-26). Even the "rebuke" Jesus delivers to the demons, the wind, and to hard-hearted disciples carries overtones of the divine warrior defeating his enemies (Ps. 18:15; Nah. 1:4). [...]

But the plot thickens. Three times along this way Jesus alludes to ominous events about to overtake this mission: Suffering, rejection, deliverance to Gentiles, and certain death -- then a third day of "rising." Here the subtext of the warrior God and Israel's deliverance breaks through in the story of Jesus.

Since Eden's rupture, God has been bearing in his gut the sin and suffering of the world. But the saving act is itself a suffering act. Temple sacrifice of bulls and goats only begins to chart the depths of the costly suffering that undergirds Yahweh's grace. The waiting father who greets the prodigal has died a thousand deaths before he embraces his son. More so with God. The holy warrior bears within himself the suffering on behalf of his people. Israel tasted the redemptive tears of suffering in the boot camp of the Exile, but did not graduate. But from Israel's womb will come a Servant who will pass through pangs of redemptive suffering, made more acute by his innocence.

In our haste to see prophecy fulfilled, we easily overlook that Isaiah's familiar Song of the Suffering Servant actually reveals the profile of a warrior (Isa. 52:13-53:12). Like viewing a large tapestry, we need to step back, readjust our focus. First Isaiah speaks of good news for Zion.

"Listen!" (Isa. 52:8). We listen and hear the heralds announce the approach of a mighty divine warrior who has rolled up his sleeves and "bared his holy arm" of salvation.

[...] A startling vision emerges: the divine warrior appears in Servant flesh. A new meaning of redemptive warfare takes shape, and in Mark's gospel we see him marching from the hills and seasides of Galilee to his appointed day of conflict in Jerusalem.

THE CLIMAX: THE VICTIM IS THE VICTOR

[...] The paradox of the divine warrior is that while he fights off every effort to hijack Israel's destiny -- whether from enemies without or unfaithfulness within -- he is also bearing the suffering of human history within himself. The God of battles carries sin and suffering with his own groans, and finally on the cross draws his sovereign wrath down upon himself.

"Holy war" takes on new meaning in this light. The divine warrior, who formerly drove the sword of Assyria and Babylon into the heart of Israel and Judah, is himself pierced by the same sword, now in the hands of Rome.

This cross, staked at the epicenter of a tremor that shakes Jerusalem, radiates to the ends of the earth. The divine presence that Ezekiel saw evacuate the temple, borne away on its wheeled chariot, now holds its ground on Zion, inhabiting the first truly innocent Israelite and Adamic flesh. This naked and dying form bears the weight of the darkness of this age. His voice amplifies the lament of the Day of the Lord. When we see the cross we should hear thunder and the churning of chariot wheels in the air. With the Roman centurion, whose battle-hardened eyes knew a warrior's death when he saw one, we too confess that here is the heart of both the judgment and the triumph of the warrior God. The vengeance of God has marched forth to divine sacrifice; the love of God has mounted the throne of the cross. The climax of the story that began with Israel is also the astounding climax of the epic story of Israel's divine warrior.

[Part 2, #4387, deals with the Second Coming]

#4386

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Living in joyful anticipation of Christ's return. As we await His return, Jesus admonishes us to be prepared. But what are we to do?

1. A Historical and Biblical Perspective.

2. The Groom's preparations. Gen 34, 29, 1 Sam 17:25

3. The Bride's preparations.

4. The parable of the 10 virgins. Matt 25:12

5. Christ's preparation for His bride. Rom 8:3-4, 1 Pet 1:18-19,

Heb 8:6-13, John 14:1-3, Rev 21

6. The Church's preparation.

Take a spiritual bath. 2 Cor 11:2, Eph 5:25-27, 2 John 7-11,

Rev 19:8

Wait with an expectant, faithful heart. Matt 24:42,44,

Mark 13:32, Matt 25:14-30, Rom 8:18

7. A future celebration.

The Australian Associated Press reports a rare earless lizard forced organizers of Queen Elizabeth II's visit to Australia to reroute her flight.

The Eastern Lined Earless Dragon, lives near Canberra Airport, where the Queen had planned to begin a two-week trip on March 17, but accommodating her personal aircraft required widening the airstrip.

Because the lizard is an endangered species, any changes to the runway would have had to have gone through a 90-day review period before approval, so the Queen's plane will touch down in Sydney instead.

[National section, March 7 2000, "Earless dragon changes Queen's travel plans]

Application: The Lord says, "He who has ears, let him hear." [Matthew 13:9] I don't think any earless creatures will delay the King of kings, or force the Lord of lords to reroute His Second Coming. [Revelation 3:11, 22:7, 20]

Source/Attribution: John Gillmartin

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Watching For The Master

As I pulled into the parking lot of the shopping center I noticed a couple get out of their truck and carefully close the door on the passenger side. As I parked my car I could see the reason for the special care in closing the door. Their dog was in the cab of the truck. I watched the animal as the couple disappeared inside the store. He never took his eyes off them. My getting out of my car right next to him did not distract him. He was still. He was not barking. He was focused on his master. I did what I needed to do and came back to my car. There he was still looking toward the store entrance where he last saw his master. Still not barking. Still not in a panic. Still not distracted by other cars or this stranger staring at him and making mental notes. He was watching for his master.

Practically every time we come home we are greeted by our cat, Smooky II. Sometimes he hears us, or sees us well before we reach our house. Occasionally he will be sleeping on the porch. At other times he is patrolling the neighborhood making sure all is in order. When he hears our car he responds. If he is across the street he heads home. If he is on the porch he jumps down and runs toward us. It is not unusual for him to run right in front of us as we pull into the driveway. By the time we reach the door he is usually there waiting for us Of course, he his anxious to get to his food dish too, but, he also watches for his master.

This is not a lesson in animal psychology, but the scene with the dog in the cab of his master's truck caused me to think: Am watching for the Master's return? How eager am I to see the Master coming in His glory? Am I ready to shower Him with my love and praises of gratitude? Sometimes I get so caught up in this world and all it has to offer, that thinking ahead to the next doesn't excite me very much. At times I am so enamored with other people, other relationships, other activities in this life, that I think very little about how exciting it will be to see the Master return. A song that we sing quite often with as much emotion as any we ever sings addresses the issue:

Jesus is Lord, my Redeemer.

How He loves me. How I love Him.

He is risen! He is coming!

Lord, come quickly. Hallelujah!

I wonder, do I really want Him to come quickly? And, what if He does? Am I watching so that I will see Him when He comes? Other songs ask, "Will our robes be white?" when He comes? And, "Are you ready?" Am I? Are you? -- Tom Norvell, Colonial Heights, VA

One extreme view of the Second Coming ["Modernist"/Liberal] is best illustrated by an item that appeared in the Q&A section of a denominational religious magazine:

READER: "Why are there so few sermons in our churches on the 2nd Coming? Is this part of our belief or not?"

EDITOR: "Not all Christians think alike on matters of theology, but it would be hard for someone to feel at home in our tradition who did not understand God as the one who has come, who is present in our lives today through the risen Christ, and who is yet to come in whatever form the future winds up taking. To literalize the 2nd Coming is to ruin both its beauty and its significance. To ignore it is to avoid what may be the most important part of the gospel we know about since the past and present, relatively speaking, are

brief while tomorrow borders on forever."

ANOTHER READER: "I compliment the Rev. _________ for his elusive non-answer to what I am sure was a serious question concerning the 2nd Coming of Jesus Christ. If I understood his answer he said in effect, `We don't all agree, but if you want to be comfortable in the _______ church you will need to agree that Jesus is coming again, but not really, for if you actually believe in the 2nd Coming you will ruin both its beauty and its significance, yet you can't ignore it because it is in the future ...' Why not a simple

answer? Why not admit that those who cannot receive the Bible literally must spiritualize the 2nd Coming because it is too large a segment of the NT to be ignored."

"If I straighten the pictures on the walls of your home, I am committing no sin, am I? But suppose that your house were afire, and I still went calmly about straightening pictures, what would you say? Would you think me merely stupid or very wicked? The world today is on fire. What are you doing to extinguish the fire?"

-- Corrie ten Boom, Amazing Love, 101

Several years ago Johnny Carson had Billy Graham as a guest on his television program, “The Tonight Show.” At one point there was a lull in the conversation and Johnny said, “You know what Billy, I bet if Jesus ever came back to earth, I bet we’d do him in again!”

Billy Graham leaned forward in his seat, and said, “In the Bible we read that Jesus predicted that He would return to earth again. But the first time He came in love. The next time, He’ll come in power - no one will DO Him in!”

________

The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, SwanLC@aol.com, May 17, 1999

As we near the end of the year 1999, the question arises for many, "Are we nearing the end of the world?" There is much speculation about this question and many magazines, papers, and other media seem to be asking the same question. "Is our world about to end?" This is not a new question and has been around for some time. In AD 52 many in the church at Thessalonica were concerned about this question. Paul wrote 1 & 2 Thessalonians to reveal God's word about when Christ would come again.

In 156 AD a group of Christians in Phrygia were concerned about this question. At the end of the Third Crusade in 1186, a "Letter of Toledo" was circulated throughout Europe predicting the end and said that it was imminent. In Swabia, a man called "brother Arnold, a Friend of the Poor, predicted in 1260 what he called "the end." Outside of Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1420, Martinek Hauska predicted that God would destroy the earth with fire on February 20. In upstate New York, William Miller predicted the return of Christ in 1843 and when it did not happen changed the date to 1844. The Jehovah's Witness religion has made various predictions of 1914, 1915, 1918, 1923, 1925, and 1975.

In Mark 13:32, Jesus said, "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in heaven..." It is foolish for men to predict that which is unknown even to the angels of heaven. But man constantly shows his "foolish" bent and the desire for sensationalism. When will we learn to depend upon what God has revealed to us in the Bible? When will we let him take care of the rest?

--Wood Avenue church bulletin, Florence, AL