1. Closing Time: The End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)…

Jonathan Gallagher 2009

TEXT: Matt. 24

Preliminary

This first presentation sets out the challenges. So if this is all you hear, you will get a very one-sided picture. So I appeal to you to hear me through until the end of this series!

Introduction

In 1991 important thought leaders were meeting at Windsor Castle in England. One who gave a speech to the meetings chaired by the Duke of Edinburgh was Sir Crispin Tickell, environmental advisor to the British Prime Minister and former British ambassador to the United Nations. Tickell spoke clearly of the major threat to our future—ourselves! The multiple dangers of climate change, species extinction, biodestruction, sea-level rises, ecosystem collapse come from a man not given to over-exaggeration.

He asked his audience to imagine that the earth is a laboratory culture dish, and humanity is a steadily expanding infection of microbes. As we consume all the resources like the microbes eating the food on the dish, we multiply faster and faster until suddenly we reach the edge of the dish and run out of food. “Then the food runs out, the microbes die in their multi-billions, and extinction takes place.” A chilling scenario...

“For us, unlike the microbes, there is still a chance,” he concluded. “But it is clear enough that accelerating changes to the environment, particularly in changing climate and in limiting the diversity of life, could do profound damage to ourselves: how people live, where they live, whether they live.” Whether they live!

Is there any doubt that there will be a “closing time” for this world? While some may still consider human time as “relatively” endless, most look with apprehension at the apparently imminent demise of Planet Earth. Whether it’s some “natural” disaster, or some human-engineered end, closing time scenarios are a major theme in the collective consciousness:

“The world is dark with what seems like the sunset of civilization. Prophecies of global disaster, which before would have been dismissed as lunatic, are now seriously spoken, and everywhere stun the minds with terrifying dreams and incomprehensible dread.” Ernest Howse

“Never before has so terrible a threat loomed so large and dark over mankind as in these days.” Mikhail Gorbachev

“The stone age may return on the gleaming wings of science, and may even bring about its total destruction. Beware, I say, time is short.” Winston Churchill

“Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.” Albert Schweitzer

“To be brutally frank, we’re not going to make it. The human race is doomed…” Bryan Appleyard (Sunday Times [London] 15 December 2002)

“ SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” Woody Allen

[Images]

Laying out the issues

First I should declare a very personal interest in all of this… Growing up non-Adventist (interesting idea—the world is divided into Adventists and non-Adventists!), I wasn’t much exposed to ideas about the end of the world. Oh yes sure, the sun was going to explode into a red giant in 20 billion years or so, but that didn’t seem anything to really worry about.

Meeting an Adventist in towards the end of high school, a passing comment from him about the imminent end caught my attention. I wondered where he got such ideas from. The Bible? I thought I knew it well enough—so I asked him where. He pulled out his Gideon bible from his pocket and showed me a few verses—enough to terrify me with the thought anyway. I went home and checked it out—it was true! I discovered Revelation and scared myself even more.

Since then I have had a marked interest in the end-times, while now my fears have eased with better understanding. My doctoral dissertation was entitled “Believing Christ’s Return: An Interpretative Analysis of the Dynamics of Christian Hope” and weighed in at a massive 518 pages. The faculty at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland were impressed enough by such a recounting to grant me a Ph.D…

Questions

How do we present this end-time scenario, what is it about such ideas that do make sense, and most of all, why?

I well remember arriving in a new pastoral district in the UK and being told by a delegation of church members, “Please pastor, no more doom and disaster!” Seems that they’d been overloaded by a previous minister’s stress on the more negative aspects of the apocalypse…

Or then there was the lady who explained to me how she’d joined the church: “I came in with the beasts”!

Or then the evangelistic series I was asked to help with. First meeting Daniel 2, or “The Truth about the Amazing Metal Man!” as the flyers depicted it. Then we were on to the prophetic imagery that seems to attract interesting people… I remember some of them who came to our meetings, and from that sampling I did wonder whether we were doing the wisest thing… You’ll know all about this—the old charts and paintings, now updated to Powerpoints and DVDs.

Confusion with other end-time ideas

Trouble is by our very emphasis (some might even say obsession) with prophetic end-times, we can easily be identified with others whose wares seem as apparently preposterous as ours. Doomsayers have a ready audience, with myriads of predictions about just how our world will come to an end. In fact the many prophecies of doom are tracked by a website I came across called “It’s the End of the World…Again!” which mocks the multitude of failed predictions, and alerts us that more of the same are set in the future. A quick review shows that cometary or asteroid impact is a favorite, as is the arrival of space aliens. Others include the appearance of a new magnetic pole, the shifting of the earth’s axis, a huge solar flare, the sinking of Japan, the collapse of California into the sea, a huge fireball, tidal waves, a lethal virus, radioactivity, extinction through pollution, on and on in a disturbing litany of catastrophe that seem to have more in common with some Hollywood disaster movie.

Add the arrival of Jesus at his second coming into such a bizarre ocean of confusion and we seem in very good company with the oddballs and the kooks!

So here’s the problem. Just about everyone today might agree that there is some “End” but there’s little agreement on what’s coming. In the cacophony of prophetic voices, what’s another shrill proclamation on the imminent end? And just how are we any different—especially with all the beastly trappings?

Confusion—religious sphere

“Oh, but we’re religious,” you may say. “We don’t promote such secular ends.” That only adds to our problems, really. Because if there are crazies in all that’s gone before, the religious scene is even worse. In fact the truly scary groups are indeed those who promote some end-time scenario within their religious beliefs. You only have to say Branch Davidians and People’s Temple and Heaven’s Gate and you know what kind of problems such a perceived association creates for us.

Even the more “traditional” scenarios complicate matters incredibly. The “Left Behind” series based on the idea of the end-time rapture, with all the media attention that received. Try talking to those about what we think the end will be like, and it easily degenerates into a biblical World War III. Or the belief that souls fly off to heaven at death—which makes a literal second coming end irrelevant. Or hellfire. Or…

But how different do we appear to those outside of our Church? Is there not a danger that our prophetic message can be confused with all these other “prophecies”? In fact, one of the major signs of the times is surely that there are so many other voices claiming to speak with the spirit of prophecy and identify the future.

What of our historic focus on the signs of the times? How can we differentiate ourselves from the date-setters and the prophets of doom? How do we make our future emphasis a valid perspective, not one that will be dismissed as just another oddball religion? And the drive to try and set some kind of date leads us into area we have been warned against—yet human nature being what it is, we want dates.

[Answer in the fish: 1844+153=1997]

Time passes

Then there’s the issue of passing time. Some 35 years ago, this appeared in the Review: “We have been preaching for more than 125 years that Jesus will come soon, and he hasn’t yet come. Some have become discouraged waiting. Others, even though they are still in the church, have lost that first love for the blessed hope. They are not sure that Jesus will ever return. What is your attitude? How is your faith? Are you tired of waiting?”  M.S. Nigri, Review and Herald, February 20, 1975, 8.

It’s an intriguing though humbling experience to go back through and see what we have said about the issue of when, and how we’ve excused some apparently failed interpretations—for example, the statement that “the generation that saw the signs will live to see Christ come.”

“The generation in which the signs appeared, shall not pass till all the wonders of the second advent shall be accomplished.” E.J. Waggoner, Prophetic Lights, p.127. (1889).

“The present generation is the one that is destined to see the coming of Christ.” (Italics in original). Carlyle B. Haynes, Our Lord’s Return, p.56. (1916).

“Many people alive today will live to see Christ come.” A.S. Maxwell, Christ’s Glorious Return, p.107. (1924).

“Without a doubt there will be some living when the Lord comes who saw the falling of the stars in 1833.” C.B. Haynes, The Return of Jesus, p. 293. (1926)

“The teaching of this passage [Mt. 24] clearly is that when the people of this earth hear a great message of the coming of Christ, —a message that will set before them these signs as signs of the coming of the Christ, —the generation hearing that message will not pass away until the Savior comes… Just as surely will the coming of Christ take place in the present generation.” Carlyle B. Haynes, Our Times and Their Meaning, p.34. (1929).

While repeating the idea, as time passed some began to rationalize…

“When He comes again in glory there will be some alive to see Him who were alive when the stars fell. Any such must now be well over eighty years of age, but it is not unheard of for men and women to outlive a century, so that it may yet be a score of years or more before the coming of the Lord takes place.” The World’s Crisis, p.49. (Anon, written between 1914-1917).

After just that ‘score of years’ or so later A.G. Daniells returns to the problem in a Ministry article, “Is Christ’s Second Coming Being Delayed? If So, Why?” Here the “crisis of delay” which results from the “sign generation” approach is now clearly evident:

“We are well aware of the strong faith and positive teaching of the pioneers regarding the signs of His coming as given by our Lord and recorded in Matthew 24. We are also aware of their positive views and teaching regarding ‘this generation’ of verse 34. They sincerely, whole-heartedly believed that the signs recorded in that chapter were sure heralds of His coming. They believed and taught with great assurance that ‘this generation’, which ‘shall not pass away, till all these things shall be accomplished,’ was the generation in which they were living, and that the Saviour would come in that generation.

“More than fourscore years have come and gone since those earnest, God-fearing leaders reached these conclusions. The Saviour has not yet come. Those pioneers are now in their graves...” A.G. Daniells, “Is the Second Coming of Christ Being Delayed? If So, Why?” Ministry, November 1930, pp. 5ff.

Present Adventist interpretation can no longer follow the former interpretation without some re-definition. What is happening is a further re-interpretation of the word generation—so that not only are Christ’s words to his generation expanded to mean more than the literal generation, but also the “sign generation” of the last days is expanded to more than a literal generation. This re-defining is clear in this note from the SDA Bible Commentary: “Christ declared that the ‘generation’ that sees the last of the signs, shall not pass before ‘all these things (Christ’s coming and the end of the world) be fulfilled.’” Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Vol.5, 503. That the word generation is in quotes is significant.

“Failed prophecy”

Obviously such a “prophecy” did not take place, and even though this is not the same as date-setting, it did attempt to frame a definite time period. It’s reminiscent of the Millerite explanation that while it was true as Christ stated that “no one can know the day or the hour” they could still know the month and the year!

Though we have not officially set any dates, can we so easily deny the charge of “Crying wolf”? How do we continue to stress the imminence of the advent without appealing to the sensationalistic? What of the historic signs? How do they relate to today? Are they relevant? Can we honestly and with conviction say that signs we have to look up in history books are “present truth” for the 21st century?

I would point you to some of the illustrations in our books on prophecy. We can all smile at pictures of “the nation’s airy navies” in which antiquated biplanes attack each other. Of wondrous prophetic fulfilments in that trains can now run at over 100 miles per hour. Are we not in danger of pleading guilty to the charge of re-inventing the signs for each generation?

It seems that we need to have the time delimited so we can experience a real sense of urgency. No one bothers to establish end dates way off in the future. It’s always “just around the corner.” As I write, the big date is 2012, when the Mayan calendar runs out (so what?) and many others have also latched on to this date as the end…

The Problem of “Closing Time”

So here’s the real problem. We want to maintain the idea that the End is just around the corner, but it’s hard to sustain such imminence. Hence the drive to look for some kind of “signs” and confirmations that will keep us on the edge of our seats. The focus is on us, and our immediate future. And we need to keep the right-upon-us, totally unexpected aspects very prominent so we don’t get distracted or just doze off!

Hyping the End in this way is just not sustainable, as the condition of the Adventist church today makes clear. The pioneers were very clear about the message and its urgency. Even fifty years ago, you could read this:

“The importance of the second Advent doctrine to Seventh-day Adventists cannot be overemphasized. It is in very truth a life-or-death matter to our movement.” Arthur S. Maxwell, “The Imminence of Christ’s Second Coming” in Our Firm Foundation (a record of a Bible Conference), p.186. (1953).

But now? This is not to try and summon some last dregs, but to give a new focus to this essential message. It is not meant to be based on how much time is left, on how soon it will happen, on how quickly the end comes:

“Now the shortness of time seems to be urged as a motive to seek righteousness. Should it be necessary that the terrors of the day of God be held before us in order to compel us to right action?” {FLB 350} “The shortness of time is frequently urged as an incentive for seeking righteousness and making Christ our friend. This should not be the great motive with us; for it savors of selfishness. Is it necessary that the terrors of the day of God should be held before us, that we may be compelled to right action through fear? It ought not to be so. Jesus is attractive. He is full of love, mercy, and compassion. He proposes to be our friend, to walk with us through all the rough pathways of life.” {LHU 98}

So we need to be presenting “closing time” in ways which are far different to the doom-sayers—as the return of the one we most want to see. After all, as Acts 1:11 makes clear, it’s “this same Jesus” who is going to return, the Jesus we know and love. This is not someone we don’t know, someone different. It’s the one who told us, “if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”

Recognizing our need to reminders, of wanting wayposts on the road, Jesus gave us signs. Some of the best known are in Matthew 24, though we should remember that he was giving an answer to a dual question posed by the disciples—when would the Temple be destroyed, and when was the end of the world. It would be good to go through these in some detail, but time is short (!).

Signs of the Times

The specific signs that we have long pointed to are those dealing with earthquakes, the sun and moon being darkened, and the stars falling. Certainly they were signs of those times, though whether they are signs of these times is a different question. As someone said to me recently, “It’s hardly the times if we have to look up the signs in a history book.

NON-SIGNS

Sometimes those events we think are the most dramatic and obvious signs of Christ’s coming are not at all.  Jesus tells us:

“You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it you are not alarmed.  Such things must happen, but the end is yet to come.”  Matthew 24:6 NIV.

It must have seemed to those Christians living during the last war that Jesus had to come soon.  But if they had understood the war to be the final and conclusive sign of his coming, they would have been terribly disappointed.  Similarly those who experienced WWI—the “Great War” or the “War to End All Wars”—thought that Armageddon would soon be upon them.

So too all battles and revolutions and rebellions and famines and earthquakes—Jesus tells us these are to be expected, but are not definitive proof of his imminent return.

THE REAL SIGNS

So what signs are there?  How do we know?

1.  By the scale of atheism, persecution and false religion.

Jesus points first to the growth of evil as one major sign:

“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold ... You will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death ... Many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other ... Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people ...  Matthew 24:12,9-11

Are these things happening in the world today?  What is the evidence?  Think of all those depressing statistics related to rise in crime rate, collapse of marriage and family, pornography, persecution of Christians etc., false prophets of modern world: materialism, secularism, humanism... Yet even here the insistent question is “how much is too much?” Only God knows...

2.  The expansion of Christianity: telling others about Jesus

Jesus clearly says:

“This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”  Matthew 24:14 NIV.

The formation of Bible Societies and Christian Missions from the last century on illustrates this sign.  Today the gospel is being preached in more countries than ever before.  Modern means of mass communication — literature, radio, TV, video etc. make the spreading of the gospel more feasible now than at any time in human history.  Once again though, with the rapid increase in the population of the world, how many are “being reached for Jesus”? And another telling question may be—what kind of God is being presented, for there are pictures of even the Christian God I too would reject...
3.  The moral state of the world

How many of this world’s population really care about God, or about living honestly and rightly?  The modern trend is to look after Number One; hit the other guy before he hits you; grab what you can while you can; get what you want by and all means.  This is the religion of total selfishness and greed, with no concern for others at all.

Jesus spoke about his modern situation by comparing it to the sensual, corrupt and godless people living before the Flood:

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.  For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.  That is how it will be at the end of the Son of Man.”  Matthew 24:37-39 NIV.

God waited 120 years at the time of Noah. How long will he wait for us? He certainly can determine when enough evidence has been accumulated, when immorality cannot continue any longer. But though we see the sign, it does not specifically identify the endpoint.

4.  The final world-shaking, visible signs

Jesus tells his disciples:

“Immediately after the distress of those days ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken’.  At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn.  They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.”  Matthew 24:29, 30 NIV.

An awesome description of the coming of Christ, preceded by these catastrophic signs.  No time for debating after this! But why do they mourn? Is it because they see God as he truly is? Or is it because they are so self-referenced that they’re just upset they can’t go their own way anymore? Certainly these are very visible demonstrations of the end—no-one will miss it!—but the response is one of sadness and not happiness from those who know not God.

Even so, the most important signs are those that reveal the end of the great controversy. A very specific description of those people living at the end is given in 2 Tim 3:1-4 NIV: “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.”

What does this say about us and our role in the great controversy? For whichever side we are on, we still provide demonstration and evidence...

For in the end, whatever the perspective on the signs, they are there not delimitations of time, but reminders of God’s future. We are such creatures of time, that the when is the all-important question. But for all the reasons we’ve mentioned, the real issues are far wider than our own rather parochial interests. These are issues involving the whole universe—and the restoration of harmony involves far more than us and Planet Earth! Nor is it so much a question of when, though that is always the burning question for us! Add to that our proclivity to procrastinate. If we knew the end was coming next January, we’d wait to get Christmas over first! As Augustine remarked, “The last day is hidden so every day may be regarded.”

Sakae Kubo comments: “Our readiness must not depend on the imminence of Christ’s return but on its reality in our own experience.” S. Kubo, God Meets Man (Nashville: Southern Pub. Assn., 1978), 107.

So how real is it? Is it something that still matters, or are we with the unfaithful servant who says, “My Lord delayeth his coming” and starts beating the other servants! Is there any “delay” for God?

In conclusion, let’s summarize the challenges:

Second Advent attitude problems

1. Neglect. Viewed as simply not important. Irrelevant to life and practice. The End: just the last in a bible study series; the wrap-up presentation; the last thing we ever think about!
2. Repetition. Having said the same thing over and over again. Same tired formulae, the same old clichés. We’ve heard it all before, in the standard way that all the books reiterate.
3. Familiarity. Being so familiar that contempt sets in. The concept no longer affects us as it once did. Belief gone stale.
4. Apologetics. Need to make sure we get our understanding across, and prove other views wrong. No time consider what it means—we’re too busy proving we’re right.
5. Passing of time. Been saying it’s soon for so long—how soon is soon? Can we go on teaching an imminent advent? We’ve been wrong in the past, and evangelists tend to like dates…
6. Negative reactions. “My Lord delays his coming”—so I’ll just enjoy life here and now. I’m happy as I am—no need to worry about any return of Jesus.
7. Skepticism. How can you really think a divine being is going to come through the clouds? It’s an outdated world-view that doesn’t match with what we know about astronomy.
8. Present presence vs future arrival. “Internal” vs “external” views of Christ. I prefer to see Jesus here and now in my heart. Second advent suggests Jesus isn’t here now.
9. Otherworldliness. Second coming makes you think too much of heaven, it’s escapist, it stops you thinking about this world and dealing with problems here.
10. Interference with personal plans. I don’t want a second advent because that would interfere with my plans for my life. I want to do X first…
11. Apathy and indifference. I keep my faith and real life separate—I don’t want to think about the implications. It’s just a belief.
12. Fear. I don’t like to think about the second coming because it scares me. I’m not ready. I don’t want Jesus to come back…

Deception and the Attitude towards Delay

3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you….
36 “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? 46 It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. 47 I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ 49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. 50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. 51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 24:3, 4; 36-51 NIV.

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