Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. While the world did not end this week, as the South African pastor predicted, Joshua McKella said that the rapture would occur on September 23 to prepare if some people even sold their homes and quit their jobs. This is not the first end times prediction that failed to materialize. In 2011, a radio preacher named Harold Camping identified May 21st of that year as when the rapture would occur.
More famous was the 88 Reasons the Rapture Would Happen in 1988 book, but it didn't. There was also a rapture panic surrounding Y2K, and back in 1844, A Baptist preacher named William Miller misled so many people the event became known as the Great Disappointment. American Protestants have been particularly interested in end times prophecies. The Left Behind book series from the 90s and early 2000s sold millions. Though his fictionalized account of the end times was described as a contemporary phenomenon, it did not predict a specific day or year.
And of course, there was that. haunting Larry Norman song from the 1970s, I Wish We'd All Been Ready. Of the various views of the end times that Christians hold, the most well-known is some version of premillennialism. The most popular view of premillennialism is that at a future point, Christ will meet his saints in the air through the rapture before the Antichrist rules the world in a time known as the Great Tribulation. After that, Jesus will return again to rule for a thousand years before the final judgment.
Another view is Preterism, which understands that much of the prophesied happenings of Scripture that many people perceive to be of the end times happened during the first century. According to amillennialism, the millennial reign of Christ and the tribulation aren't specific periods of time, but rather representations of the rule of Christ through his church and the oppressions of evil that occur across history. Postmillennialism holds that Christ will return once the world has been fully evangelized. And of course, within each of these views, there are a number of variations. My view is pan millennialism.
It's all gonna pan out in the end. Yes, I realize that's a terrible joke, and you have to go to seminary in order to use that joke. Eschatology is fascinating. And while Jesus stated plainly that no one could know the day and hour of his return, He was crystal clear that he will return. And in Revelation, Jesus is recorded as announcing, Behold, I am making all things new.
In other words, the Bible's focus when it comes to eschatology is not so much the win or the how. It's that he's returning. And then the so what? That he is returning should be a great source of hope and joy and comfort for us, Paul described the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. As the blessed hope.
In his letter to Titus, in And 1 Thessalonians 4, a passage many think describes the rapture. Paul instructed that we should comfort one another with these words. In other words, if the end of days and the return of Christ is a source of fear, You're doing it wrong. Even the seemingly unhinged Old Testament imagery of Daniel and Joel are not intended to scare us, or definitely to entertain us. They are reminders that persecutions and tyrannies will not last forever, that God governs history, that the kingdoms and empires of this world are really just his playthings, and that his justice will inevitably come.
In the same way, if end times talks drives you to inaction, passivity, and disengagement from the world around us, You're doing it wrong. After the various warnings of what the future will hold in Matthew 24, Christ then challenged his followers to be prepared. to be good stewards of what we've been given in Matthew twenty five. The warnings given throughout the Gospels and in places like 1 Thessalonians 5 aren't just mere clues to a cosmic puzzle. They're admonitions to be faithful, to continue the task that he's given us.
Because Christ will return, we should double down on loving God, loving our families, loving our neighbors, and loving our enemies. A passage that best summarizes what we can be sure of. About both the present and the future is John 16:33, where Jesus said, I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world.
If our eschatology leaves us in fear or leads us to withdraw from our calling to be salt and light in the world, We are doing eschatology wrong. The prophecies of Scripture do not warn believers to hide in their basement or to flee into the wilderness. The words of comfort that Christ is returning, that He's the Lord of heaven and earth, that He is making all things new. And because of who He is and what He's going to do, We can live as we ought. in light of a story that's bigger.
than this moment. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy Padgett. For a version of this commentary that you can download or print out or share with others, Go to breakpoint.org.
