This past Sunday morning
as I was eating my breakfast I did something I don’t normally do, I turned the
channel to catch a few minutes of a well known TV preacher. If SportsCenter hadn’t been talking about auto
racing this never would have happened, but they were, and it did. It turns out that the whole series that this
message comes from is about the End Times and how it somehow, in his opinion,
relates to the recent financial crisis that began in the US several years
ago. It only took a few minutes of
watching for this preacher to proclaim that he sees the signs described by
Jesus in the Gospels happening in our world today. This “insight” culminated in his prediction
that he feels confident that he will be alive long enough to see Christ return. If there is one cardinal sin of
interpretation of apocalyptic literature it is erroneously concluding that the
events described are being fulfilled in one’s own lifetime. This same error has been committed again and
again throughout Church history, notably at the arrival of the first millennium,
and again as the year 1,500 approached.
There are several things wrong with anyone who claims to
know when Christ is going to return, most obviously that Jesus himself declared
that “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor
the Son, but only the Father” (Matthew 24:36).
If Jesus doesn’t know when the Father will bring the Church Age to an
end and begin the End Times, how can anyone living here on Earth think that
he/she has somehow cracked the code and recognized the signs?
This predictive folly is dangerous on several fronts: it
discourages Christians from investing in the future and allows them to take a
guilty pleasure in the misfortunes of our world as they seem like signs that
Christ is coming soon. For that reason
alone, such pronouncements need to be countered by preachers everywhere who
takes Jesus’ warning that it will indeed be a surprise seriously. {I don’t have time to get into the
Dispensational assumptions that this preacher is using as he interprets the
Bible, these too are coloring the conclusion and have him looking for evidence
of decline and ignoring evidence of revival.}
On another level, this sort of thing bothers me
personally because of the assumptions that underpin it. Two primary assumptions that I believe are
both false are part of this assessment that the End Times are near: #1 The United
States is in the midst of a moral decline.
#2 The Church in the US is the primary focus of God’s work in our
world. Is there evidence that the U.S.
is in some unprecedented moral decline that will end in the ruination of the
Church in America? No, but there are
plenty of negative statistics and anecdotes for those looking for such
evidence. This entire line of thinking
about America isn’t based on factual analysis anyway, but rather upon a
mistaken identification of the US as the new Israel in God’s plans (relates to
#2). People who takes this view are
always talking about how good things used to be in some past near-utopia before
the current group that is bothering them the most supposedly ruined the country. That such a prior time of super-virtue never
existed is hard to point out when memory is rose colored. As a student of history, I know that nations
as well as institutions like the Church have life cycles; that like a pendulum
they swing back and forth from highs to lows.
Are we in a period of decline?
Maybe, maybe not, but I don’t see it; everywhere I turn I see Churches
fighting in the trenches, working together as never before, with capable
leadership and committed lay people. Even
if decline happens, why can’t God send a revival? God blessed America with the First AND Second
Great Awakenings, why can’t God do something like that in this generation? The pessimism of those who insist that our
days are numbered is certainly not helping the kingdom of God. I have fought against those who are intent
upon a pessimistic view of our nation’s future, but it seems like I’m talking
to a wall; instead, I’ll simply keep working for that future by the grace of
God.
The second assumption has pride and racism mixed in with
it. If, and in my mind that’s a big if,
America is in decline, doesn’t the rest of the world count in God’s evaluation
of humanity too? Even if America becomes
a godless land (which it won’t, but follow me on this), does that necessarily
mean the End must be near? What if God’s
work in the Church in South America, Africa, and Asia vastly overshadows the
decline in the West? Here’s some real
truth that those hoping for the End Times won’t want to hear: it already does. The growth of the Church in the Third World,
among poor non-white peoples, has greatly overcome the losses in Europe and
America that the Church as a whole has experienced in the past few
decades. The balance of “power” for the
Church is shifting, much as the global political and economic balance of power
has shifted somewhat away from the West toward the rest of the world. According to God Word, God doesn’t value a
white American believer more than a poor African. How much of the pessimism of those who bemoan
the future of the Church is really just misplaced American pride and a bit of
latent racism?
I shouldn’t have starting watching a TV preacher, I know
better, 9/10 it just makes me angry; but maybe my insight here will help some
of you realize that the future of America is not set, the work we here today do
for the kingdom of God will help determine what the next generation of
Christians have to work with. If we
screw it up, and leave them a Church that is weaker than the one left to us, it
still doesn’t preclude God’s ability to send revival and restore his
Church. Likewise, the growth of the
Church in the rest of the world is a cause of celebration in Heaven, as new
souls come to accept the saving power of Jesus Christ, this is after all what
the missionaries who set out from England and America had hoped and dreamed to see
realized. Is the End near? I have absolutely no idea, and anyone who
says otherwise is full of it.
