The Time of Ends

The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. -- 1 Peter 4:7

The thing about the end is that it can be general or particular.  In Peter’s case, he was writing before the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Titus.  There was coming a particular end to a way of life and a worldview.  Josephus’ claim of over a million slaughtered seems incredible, and one wonders at how he arrived at such a number, but there can be no doubt the death toll and the aftermath were horrific.  While nearness in time may be applicable in specific instances, in general we can always say that the end is “at hand” in that all things are before God and near to Him.  As individuals, as nations, as humanity, we move toward the end for which we have been created. 

I was thinking about this last night reading Origen.  How is it that my life can matter in the vast flow of existence and consciousness?  It would be as though some self-aware bit of algae on an old tire in the Mississippi thought it was keeping the river in its banks.  I look too far and not far enough. 

I look too far beyond my immediate circle of friends and family.  There I know my words and my example, my principles and prayers have made a difference.  The world has not been changed but a heart, here and there, is more open and responsive to the Spirit, perhaps.  I do not look far enough if I do not raise my eyes above the close horizons of my own intellect and ability to the infinite power and grace of God.  He changes hearts, and each heart is a world opening out. 

We take thought as to how we are to live, consider the stewardship of our possessions in light of the fact that there is an end, and it is near, in one sense or both.  I am sure this seems foreign, outmoded, and out of touch.  A little later in his Second Epistle, Peter spoke of the mockers in his day who asked, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”  Yet there was a catastrophic and devastating reckoning at hand, and there have been a multitude in the centuries since that time.  Another end waits, if not for the whole world then for some state or some people or some city; if not for many for a few.  Always, the end is at hand for each of us individually.  The world ends for us, as the closing of a door behind. 

Bide and Abide

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.  Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. – 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4

From our perspective, the Lord “returned” once to visit destruction upon Jerusalem.  He will return again to collect and judge the saints.  I don’t pay much attention to “Rapture” discussions, because I think it will be pretty obvious when Jesus does touch down.  That’s essentially what Paul is saying here. 

My preferred response to people who want to get into debates about eschatology and the Mark of the Beast, the identity of the Antichrist, when the Great Tribulation is going to start, and all that stuff, is to suggest they read John’s Second Letter:  For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist (2 John 7).   The antichrists are already here.  You probably know one or two personally.

 The “man of lawlessness” would be one who denies Christ, a false Christ, possibly – if indeed this is referring to a single individual.  I think it might be a class or a category – like saying “the man about town” or “the big man on campus”, a type rather than a particular individual.   The number of people who think they are god seems to be ever expanding.  When that comes to be the typical message preached and presented by so-called Christian churches, we will be seeing “the rebellion” – the great apostasy, the great “falling away”.  Sort of like with the man of lawlessness, I don’t think that will necessarily be made manifest in an acute way but rather chronically.  It is happening now and has been happening from way back. 

Our job is not to predict but to practice.  Back to 2 John, verses 8 and 9: 

Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God.  Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.   

So even the Bible agrees, to practice Dude-ness, one must abide.

Wheel in the Sky

Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!”  And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.  When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!”  And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that men should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.  When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand.  And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!”  When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!”  And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth. – Revelation 6:1-8

My wife bought a book recently.  It was written by one of the popular teachers on prophecy.  He points out that “end times” does not mean “the end of time”, which is true if somewhat obvious.  I like to think about it like the Ages in Lord of the Rings.  Certain elements have ascendancy in a given age.  Those elements may weaken or even disappear in a subsequent age.  This is different from the natural cycles of history, though those cycles are part of any age.  A prophetic book whether the Revelation of John, the prophecies of Jeremiah, or The Chronicles of Narnia will be applicable in any epoch or administration and fulfillment may be glimpsed in types more than once.  Humanity has seen in Christ the anti-type that casts all of the shadows of the Law and the Prophets.  Some dark day humanity may see the ultimate anti-type of the many antichrists that pop up in history.  I do not know. 

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have been around and may come around again.  They speak of a process that breaks down civilization.  It begins with the rider on the white horse.  Some say this is Christ, some say it is the Antichrist.  My interpretation is my own, but I see this first rider as tyranny, for tyranny almost always arises in a Good Cause -- on a white horse.  The tyrant comes as a rescuer, as one who can solve the problems inherent in, as Bill Clinton once said, too much freedom.  The sword of the red horse rider is a weapon symbolic of war in general, so perhaps the bow is meant to be a more specific symbol of suppression.  After all, the white horse rider comes as a conqueror rather than a warrior.  He is not fighting defensively.  He is the invader, the usurper and, ultimately, the despot. 

Tyranny and conquest are naturally tied to war and conflict.  Thus the conqueror is followed by one who takes peace from the earth and initiates great slaughter among humanity.  We see this played out on a small scale throughout the world as people find it impossible from time to time to live without killing their neighbors.  Many of these conflicts threaten to flare up and engulf much larger regions in blood red flames of war. 

The third rider is on a black horse and is the harbinger of economic hardship, famine, and lack.  Again this is a natural extension of the destruction of war which hampers the production of food and other resources along with trade and transport. In addition to hampering production and displacing resources, war itself is directly demanding in terms of food, fuel, and material.  There is nothing constructive or productive about war.  It is the ultimate form of broken-glass business stimulation.  It creates only to destroy.  The lives of many are disrupted.  Many become refugees, losing their own power to produce and becoming a drain on the productivity of others.   

Displaced people without enough food, lacking adequate shelter, often crowded together in unsanitary conditions are near perfect incubators for epidemics.  We are not surprised when the pale horse of pestilence follows hard in the footsteps of war and economic collapse.  As in our own American Civil War, disease often kills more than the war machines themselves.

What is unveiled to us is the dance of history, the cyclical destruction of humanity’s best efforts.  We build our civilizations and systems, determined to eliminate the flaws and weaknesses of prior systems only to find that we have created a weakness of a different kind.   There is only one kingdom that has a sure Foundation, and even that one must be tested, purged, purified, and refined.  The Church will endure, though at times it must be reduced to the Remnant, so it seems.  A company or two of prophets will be hidden away, and the Lord will find His seven thousand who have not bowed to Baal, and, in the end, we will come, not to another cycle of exaltation and destruction, but "to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ".  And He shall reign.    

Until then, while the horsemen ride their rounds and the old earth rolls as a sleeper in a recurring dream, the sun goes down each day, and I hear Yeats reading the evening news.

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

This Must Be For You

Anyone who has an ear to hear should listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. -- Revelation 3:22

This ends the section of the book of Revelation where the Lord gives specific messages to each of the seven churches of Asia Minor. If you attend to experts discussing this section, some will say that the various churches are types – some churches are like Philadelphia, or Smyrna, and others are like Ephesus or Laodicea. Other students of the Bible will tell you that these represent stages or ages that the Church will go through leading up to the end times. Futurists and pre-millennialists tend to think that way.

I don’t know about all that, but I don’t think it matters so much. I think this verse could be the key to the whole book of Revelation, if not the Bible. What does it say? Anyone who is capable of hearing should, not must, but should listen. Listen to what? What difference does it make to me what the Lord said to some ancient, long-dead Christians in Thyatira or Sardis? I’m not where they were, and they were not dealing with my problems.

What God says, He does not say solely to one group of people in one period at one place. His word transcends culture, language, space, and time. I’m all for using the available tools to study Scripture, for good hermeneutics, and, at least to some extent, interpreting in the light of tradition and context. All that is fine, but first and foremost, God is speaking to me where I am, in whatever mess I’m in. One of the ways in which He speaks is by His written word, and, if I will listen, He will speak in an immediate way that is exactly what I need to hear right now.

This isn’t about pulling texts out to prove some point or reinforce my inclinations, or any kind of bibliomancy. This is about reading the word of God with my ears open, reading with the understanding that somehow, in some way completely incomprehensible to me, God ordained that I should open this book and read these words, and that He really wants to speak to me and have me understand. He brings me to this point with all the – don’t think of it as baggage any more – gear, tools, and equipment I need to hear Him. What the Spirit says (not said, He’s still talking) to the churches I am equipped to make real. The stuff I’ve been through along the way has outfitted me to see this passage and see it come alive in my life.

The Bible, any holy book, but especially the Bible, is dangerous. It really is like a sword. A fool with a weapon can do a lot of damage, whereas someone who knows how to use a weapon can deploy it intelligently for self-defense and good. The Bible is loaded, and it can be lethal. People, even some with the best of intentions, have hacked the Bible, perverted the words and gone counter to the intent of the Author. We can't let that scare us. If we are willing to listen to what the Spirit says to the churches, or to disciples, patriarchs, kings, judges, shepherds, or cities, we will hear Him speaking to us.

Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us, and He will heal us; He has wounded us, and He will bind up our wounds. He will revive us after two days, and on the third day He will raise us up so we can live in His presence. Let us strive to know the Lord. His appearance is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land. (Hosea 6:1-3)