Faithful living at the end of the world

In the wake of a worldwide pandemic and the corresponding government shutdowns, in the midst of war in Europe and the Middle East, and in an age of technological advancement moving at lighting speed, many people are asking, Are we at the end of the world? Apocalyptic movies such as the Mad Max franchise, Don’t Look Up, or 28 Days channel the anxieties about a world that has lost order and meaning.

Christians, of course, are not immune to fear, but we ask ourselves a different question. We wonder if we are living in the last days predicted by Jesus. Believers throughout the church age have held differing views on exactly how the end times will unfold. The latter half of the 20th century was a high-water mark for pre-tribulation dispensationalism, with bestselling book series, movies, and prophecy conferences. While belief in this strand of eschatology has waned somewhat in the 21st century, it doesn’t mean believers aren’t looking at world events and wondering where they fit into God’s plan.

This is a good instinct. Every believer, regardless of his eschatology, has a hope that a fearful world lacks. We have the promise of Jesus’s coming. We have confidence that God is gathering history to Himself. Scripture tells us to eagerly anticipate the coming of Jesus, who said in Luke 21:28 to “look up, for your redemption is near.” Christians aren’t to be asleep and adrift amid the cultural tides, but to be watchful, alert, and sober.

A recent Pew research survey found that nearly 40% of Americans believe we are “living in the end times,” but a surprising 75% believe Jesus will return. Among Christians, half may believe we are in the last days, while the other half does not.

In a sense, however, we have always been living in the end times. Writing to first century Christians, an increasingly beleaguered and persecuted minority, the Apostle John warned, “It is the last hour” (1 John 2:18). The writer of Hebrews opens his letter with “In these last days ...” (Hebrews 1:2). It can be hard for us moderns to fathom that a 2,000-year period could constitute “the final hour” and yet God declared the entire church age to be the last days.

So in an age filled with war, rumors of war, and Orwellian technology, we can be confident that we are facing the end of the world. But for Christians, this should not provoke us to fear, but faith. The sovereign Lord of the universe is not wringing His hands at any of this. In fact, Psalm 2 says that God sits in the heavens and laughs at human machinations.

Trust in God doesn’t imply naivete or a quietist withdrawal from the world. Rather, we are told in Scripture that anticipating the end should motivate us to double down on Christian faithfulness. Writing just after World War II and at the dawn of the Cold War, C.S. Lewis wrote of Christ’s Second Coming in an essay, “The World’s Last Night.” He urged Christians, “Precisely because we cannot predict the moment, we must be ready at all moments.”

What does it mean to be ready for Christ’s return?

We might be tempted to think it implies a fanatical obsession about the news or a piecing together of news stories with Bible passages to discern the exact date and time of the Second Coming. Growing up, I remember being convinced that Mikhail Gorbachev was the antichrist and that Yasser Arafat was the false prophet in Revelation. Jesus, though, said that “no man knows the day or the hour (Matthew 24:36).”

Scripture urges us instead to focus on what is before us. Paul urged the first century church toward a holy urgency, “The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:11-12). In one of his final letters, Paul urges Christians “to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:11-13). The writer of Hebrews says the end of days should find us gathering more, not less, with the people of God.

So while believers will differ on the exact timing and details of Jesus’s coming, we are united by a hope that He is indeed returning, victoriously, to finish His work of making all things news. We can state with confidence that we are in the final stages of God’s redemptive plan not because of a headline, but because we have God’s sure word. And so, with the Apostle John, we watch and say, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Editor’s note: This column connects with the cover story on eschatology in WORLD’s October issue.