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The End of the Age: Part 5–The Trouble with Tribulation

For those will be days of tribulation, the kind that hasn’t been from the beginning of the world, which God created, until now and never will be again! (Mark 13:19 HCSB)

Time to step on some more toes. A common theology in the modern Church is a pre-tribulation “Rapture,” the concept being that Christians don’t have to worry about any of this scary stuff, because before it all begins, we’re all going to get whooshed up to heaven and sit out the Tribulation.

Sounds great to me! Just one problem. The word “rapture” does not appear anywhere in the Bible. Neither is there any prophecy that specifically describes such an event. There are a few bits and pieces that have been strung together out of context, along with the odd mistranslation, upon which many people have constructed this wishful thinking. However, if the Rapture were something that we could be certain of, the Bible would have said so plainly.

And it doesn’t. Not anywhere.

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For the sake of the elect

Remember the very first thing that Jesus said when he started this speech to His inner circle? “Watch out that no one deceives you.”

(Now, “no one” includes me, so I’m not asking you to take my word for any of this. Anyone reading these words has access to a Bible. Look it up yourself and ask God to explain it to you. He may give you a different answer. I could be totally wrong about this. I hope I am, actually, because the Rapture is a much better deal than the one it appears we have coming.)

In Mark 13:20, Jesus speaks of the Tribulation:

If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. (NIV)

Now, if the elect (i.e., followers of Christ) have already been tractor beamed up to heaven before the Tribulation starts, then why would it matter to us if the days were shortened or not? If we’re already with Jesus enjoying our eternal life, we wouldn’t need to worry about surviving.

Yet, that’s the word Jesus uses, echoing Daniel 12:12, “Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1,335 days.” (NIV) Patience, perseverance and endurance are fruits of the Holy Spirit that all true Christians display. Scripture is clearly stating that we will need these qualities all the way to the end of the Tribulation.

Jesus goes on in verses 21-23 to warn his disciples that there will be false messiahs and false prophets in the end times who will do fake miracles that will appear convincing enough even to deceive the elect. Again, how can we be potentially deceived if we are not still on earth?

Next, Jesus goes full-on apocalyptic, quoting Isaiah regarding signs and wonders in the sky:

As Isaiah said in the days after that great suffering,
The sun will refuse to shine,
and the moon will hold back its light.
The stars in heaven will fall,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. (Mark 13:24-25 VOICE)

This is the verse that causes false prophets in our current age to blow a nut every time there’s a solar eclipse. But Judgment Day is a whole lot more than a natural astronomical phenomenon. ALL light will be blocked out—no sun, no moon, and no stars. This is the part where God lays the final smack down on His enemies.

This prophecy is reiterated later in Revelation 6:

I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. (Rev 6:12-14 NIV)

Heck of a day. I’m not looking forward to that. I get that the elect will have their victory and live and reign with Jesus forever and ever, but THAT day. . .I really don’t want to be around for that one. Can you blame people for coming up with the concept of a Rapture? Sure beats unprecedented natural disaster any day of the week!

At that time…

Back to Mark now. As Jesus quotes these prophecies, He then says (emphasis mine):

At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. (Mark 13:26-27 NIV)

At. That. Time. Not before. The elect will not be gathered until Judgment Day itself, which happens at the END of the Tribulation, not the beginning.

So, how do we balance our awareness of The End of the Age with our mission and calling in the present? Well fortunately, Jesus gave us instructions for that too, in verses 34-37:

It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. Therefore, keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: “Watch!” (NIV)

We are not to be lazy or complacent about Christ’s return. Yes, it has been 2000 years, but what of that? God is eternal. He doesn’t mark time like we do. Maybe He’s waiting for us to reach the whole world, or maybe He has a day marked on His celestial calendar that we haven’t arrived at yet. It’s enough to know that He is coming back, and He expects to find us ready to meet Him when He does.

Even so, Jesus’ illustration also mentions that the servants were left in charge, each with an assigned task. We are charged with taking care of this world and everyone in it until Christ returns. We can no more be slack about that duty than we can about watching for His return.

Overcoming the World: Part 7–Up There

Stay focused on what’s above, not on earthly things, because your old life is dead and gone. (Colossians 3:2-3a VOICE)**

Why is it that we dwell on things that we know aren’t good for us?

How many times have you caught yourself starting a sentence with “I really need to,” but then you don’t actually do what it is you really need to do? It’s as though we think we’ll at least get partial credit for acknowledging that we have fallen short of what is necessary. I really need to eat a salad, but I’m going to have pizza instead. I really need to go to the gym, but I seem to have grown butt roots here on the couch.

Or how about these. I really ought to pray more. I really ought to read my Bible more. I really ought to get off the Internet and pay attention to my kids. I really ought to put my phone down and talk to my wife. Can you relate to any of this?

You could say that acknowledging the problem is the first step to solving it, and it is. However, one step does not a journey make. You have to take the next one.

The thing is, the next step is usually not anything difficult. We just. . .don’t. . .do it. How hard is it to make simple choices like ordering something different at the restaurant, standing from a seated position, or simply TALKING to someone?

So why do we make it so much harder than it is?

I would chalk it up to a combination of habit and fear of change. We do what we do because we have always done it. If not always, then at least for long enough that it has become automatic. Habits are comfort zones; therefore, breaking them makes us uncomfortable. We will always gravitate toward comfort, no matter how obvious it is that a change would do us good.

Christians do not have this luxury though. When we turned our eyes toward Christ, we also turned them toward heaven, where He is. Once you have seen a glimpse of the eternal, the things down here lose their luster a bit.

The problem is that the things down here are the things we are used to and are surrounded with every day of our lives. We love our stuff. We love being in control of our own schedules. We love our dreams and ambitions. Even if they no longer satisfy us as they once did, we have claimed them as our own. Therefore, we defend them.

We can not forget this simple truth though. When we made Jesus the Lord of our lives, we signed a spiritual quit claim deed for all of that stuff. Our possessions are not ours, because the earth and everything in it belong to the Lord. We are not in control of our lives, because we have no idea what the next day, or even the next hour, may bring. And all of our dreams and ambitions die with us when we die. From a spiritual standpoint, they have already died, because we surrendered them when we surrendered to Christ.

When we talk about “overcoming the world,” we are usually focused on all the evil bad things that we wish we didn’t have to deal with down here, and that we know won’t exist up there. However, if we are serious about overcoming the world, then we also must focus on overcoming the pleasures down here along with the pains. This is much more difficult, because while pain usually catches us by surprise, pleasure is something we continuously seek. We want to do what we want to do when we want to do it.

Now is it bad to do things that feel good? Not necessarily. The point of this is that we need to realize that eternal life with Christ will feel, and indeed be, better than anything we have going on down here.

The thing we have to learn then is to be patient for the reward that is coming for us up there instead of being consumed with rewarding ourselves down here.

(Patience is only the beginning though. Come back for Part 8–The Struggle)

Overcoming the World: Part 6–Internal to Eternal

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us… Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:7, 16-18 NIV)

Life can really wear you out sometimes, can’t it? We work so hard to try to better ourselves and to make the world a better place for our families, but some days, it just looks like we aren’t making a difference at all. It’s enough to make you wonder if it’s really worth the effort.

What is it that wears us out when the problems of the world overwhelm us? Everyone’s situation is different, of course. It seems to me, though, that the things that often trouble us the most usually aren’t even happening to us directly. The problems that are too much for us to bear weren’t even supposed to be our own personal burdens. We barely have enough strength to get through the trials that life hands us, but we can’t seem to keep from taking on extra baggage as well. Why do we do this?

Can we just call this what it is? It’s fear.

It’s fear that gives birth to worry. You worry when you seeing angry mobs rioting on the news, but is there an angry mob outside your house right now? (Of course, if there IS an angry mob outside your house, you have an actual problem, and should stop reading this blog and go take care of yourself.)

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My point is that we worry ourselves into exhaustion and despondency about things that aren’t even happening where we are. Yes, they are happening in the world, and they are real, but if we’re not in a position to directly solve the problem, it’s not our problem.

Now please don’t misunderstand what I mean by “not our problem.” I am not saying that we shouldn’t be concerned about things in the world that are wrong and need fixing. What I am saying is that 99.99% of the time, it’s not up to us to fix it, either because we lack the resources, the ability, or we are simply too far away to have a direct and immediate impact on the situation.

So what can we do? We can give the situation over to the One who can do something about it. And while we’re at it, we can give Him our anxieties as well.

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Yes, the world is a mess. It’s a mess because it has people in it, and people are a mess. And yes, you and I are people, so guess what? We’re a mess too! But we can be less messy.

A good way to start that process is to examine what you expose your mind to. How do you start your day? If you’re turning on the TV or rushing to social media, that’s what’s going to set your tone for the rest of the day. Is that the tone you want? In the same amount of time, you could meditate on a Bible verse or an inspirational quote of some sort. You can’t control what happens out in the world, but you can control what goes into your head, which is what feeds your attitude.

Once you have developed the habit of being intentional about this, it will become easier for you to shift your perspective from the now to the not yet. When things are going badly, it is easy for fear to rob us of hope, but remember this. EVERYTHING we fear, or could possibly fear, has an ending. We may not be able to see it from where we’re sitting, but all the troublesome things of this world will pass.

Instead, what we can learn to do in ALL situations is to focus on the things that won’t pass away. Truth. Love. The Word of God. Best of all, the eternal life that is given as a free gift to all those who put aside their fears, worries and the troubles of this world and trust in Jesus, who by His death and resurrection, has overcome all of them.

Now of course, we can’t see any of this. We can’t see our fear, the Lord’s Spirit, the actual physical Kingdom of Heaven. We only see this world, its problems, and our own aging faces in the mirror.

But as the risen Christ told Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

(Come Back for Part 7: Up There)

Your Will Be Done

Then they arrived at a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to the disciples, “Sit down here while I pray.”

He took with him Peter, James and John, and began to be horror-stricken and desperately depressed.

“My heart is nearly breaking,” he told them. “Stay here and keep watch for me.” (Mark 14:32-34 PHILLIPS)

It’s hard to imagine Jesus, the Son of God and Savior of the world, being “horror-stricken and desperately depressed.” And yet, it happened. Jesus was facing the greatest test of His time on earth, and He was facing it as a human being.

It’s difficult to wrap your brain around the concept of Jesus being both fully divine and fully human, rather than being some sort of a spiritual half-breed.

But if there are any doubts about Jesus being fully human, his anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane should put those to rest. He knew what He was about to face, and He needed strength to get through it. Matthew’s account of this episode words it this way:

He took Peter with him and Zebedee’s two sons James and John, and began to be filled with anguish and despair.

Then he told them, “My soul is crushed with horror and sadness to the point of death. . . stay here. . . stay awake with me.” (Matthew 26:37-38 TLB)

Despair.

The One who was the Light of the World, who came to bring hope to everyone in it, was filled with . . . despair.

So considering this, is it any great wonder that we can feel despair when we face our moments of greatest testing?

And to take that one step further, usually when we are having our moments of fear and torment, the worst thing that we are facing is the unknown. We are scared, because we wonder what is going to happen. Will I have the strength to endure this trial? What will people think of me if I fail? What am I about to lose? Do I really want to know the answers to these questions?

Jesus didn’t have the luxury of fearing the unknown. He knew EXACTLY what was about to happen. And it scared Him. A lot.

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Let’s be clear about this. Jesus, the Son of God, knew why He had come to earth. He knew He had work to do, and He knew He had to finish that work.

But Jesus the son of Mary and Joseph said this:

“Father, if it is your will, take this cup of suffering away from me. However, your will must be done, not mine.” (Luke 22:42 GW)

Jesus knew going into this time of prayer what God’s answer was going to be. He knew what He had to do, but He was NOT excited about it.

Nevertheless, He submitted to His Father’s will. He did not want to go through with His arrest, torture and execution, but more than that, He did not want to go against His Father’s will.

The Greek word regarding God’s will in this sentence is ginomai. This signifies that Jesus is not only saying that God’s will must be done, but that it must be. In other words, God’s will is eternal, just as God is eternal.

In light of His knowledge of this, Jesus really didn’t have any illusion that His prayer was going to be answered with a “yes.” And yet, He prayed for God to let Him off the hook anyway.

Perhaps this knowing was the greatest reason for His despair? He knew He wasn’t getting out of this. I can’t even imagine what He must have felt like in the garden.

And yet, He remained submissive, because He never lost focus on what His greatest mission was. And that was simply for God’s will to be done. Jesus was sincere about completing His work. He isn’t just saying “Your will be done,” to sound pious, like it’s the right thing to say while praying.

It is, of course, the right thing to say, but it is also the right thing, period.

Because God’s will wasn’t about Jesus the man doing something He didn’t want to do. It was about Jesus the Savior bring God’s plan of salvation to fulfillment:

Jesus Christ did the things God wanted him to do. And because of that, we are made holy through the sacrifice of Christ’s body. Christ made that sacrifice one time—enough for all time. (Hebrews 10:10 ERV)

This sacrifice began not on the cross, but in the garden, when Jesus made up His mind to be in agreement with God’s will. Because of this resolution, and the confirmation of His purpose that it signified, we are able to approach God today as His adopted children.

But this is about more than our salvation. Heaven will be awesome, of course, but what about the here and now?

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Do you ever have situations that you know you won’t be strong enough to face by yourself? Isn’t it helpful to know, then, that even Jesus needed to be strengthened not only by angels and the Holy Spirit, but also His three best buds? It is much less difficult to say to God, “Your will be done” when you have your closest friends surrounding and supporting you.

It is not likely that any of us will ever have to face a crucifixion, and we DEFINITELY won’t ever have the weight of the sins of the world upon our own shoulders.

Nevertheless, when I am faced with something I really don’t want to do, and fear is holding me back, it helps at least to know that the God to whom I pray knows a thing or two about fear and apprehension.

But it helps me even more to know that He still got the job done.

DN=: Part 11–Backwards

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana—The Life of Reason

All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.

C.S. Lewis–The Four Loves

Last July, we talked about three ways of learning. There is experience, or making your own mistakes and learning from them. Then there is wisdom, which is learning from someone else’s mistakes so as not to repeat them. And then there is common sense, which is collective wisdom that has taken root in a population.

Observing this progression, it is easy to see that common sense results from people building upon what has gone before. It is the sum of the mistakes and the corrections of previous generations. It would logically follow, then, that to employ common sense in one’s reasoning, one must look backwards to history.

Nevertheless, our culture inexplicably does not seem to value this type of reasoning anymore. The “progressive” ideology dictates that all things must change in the name of moving “forward.” Whether it was working well or not is immaterial.

But common sense dictates that if you have made a wrong turn, forward is not your best option. To get back on the right road, you’ll have to go backwards until you reach the spot where you made the wrong turn. THEN go forward.

Obviously, you can’t go forward and backwards at the same time. Therefore, by completely ignoring (or worse, attempting to modify) history, a “progressive” mentality completely nullifies any potential of employing common sense. This makes failure a virtual certainty.

The primary reason that Truth Mission exists is to declare war on this intellectual futility.

Truthseekers proclaim God and His Word as the source of all Truth, which is unchanging and applies equally to all people in all situations. Truth never fails, because God never fails.

Understanding this, it then becomes clear why Christians look to the Bible for answers when life poses difficult questions. The Bible has an example for nearly any situation in terms of which strategies work and which ones don’t. Because the Bible is the ultimate source of correction, it will always improve our situation if we heed that correction.

More importantly, however, because God’s Word is eternal and unchanging, the lessons it teaches will always have value, regardless of the circumstances of the world or our individual situations.

ETERNAL DN= OUT OF DATE

As we have already noted, one cannot go backwards and forward at the same time. Therefore, anyone obsessed with moving forward at all costs misses the opportunity for the course correction that only history and Truth can provide.

Since one with such a worldview only sees the Bible as a musty old book, and not God’s eternal Truth, the further “forward” they go, the smaller Truth becomes in their rearview mirror. Since they consider everything behind them “out-of-date,” then the Truth and all who proclaim it become, in their minds, “backwards.”

So forward they go, until inevitably, they find a tree in their path, yielding the all-too-predictable result. Busted face notwithstanding, their pride remains intact, since that was what led them forward in the first place.

In the absence of the common sense that has been left behind, this pride initiates the blame game by rationalizing: “I am superior to the backwards thinkers, yet I have a busted face. Those to whom I am superior do not have busted faces; therefore, it must be their fault that my face is busted. Indeed, they are likely the ones who planted this tree to prevent me from going forward. I should have the freedom to walk wherever I choose without having to worry about my face being busted!”

(So what’s the problem with freedom of choice? Come back for Part 12–Civil Liberties)

DN=: Part 8–Hate Speech

Be clearheaded. Keep alert. Your accuser, the devil, is on the prowl like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8 CEB)

All of humanity has a common enemy—Satan, the accuser. The enemy’s primary goal has always been our destruction, but he has been busy developing some new tactics.

First to review, you’ll remember that in Part 3, we identified “righteousness” as being a right standing with God the Father, which is made possible only through a trusting relationship with His Son, Jesus. Those with whom the enemy succeeds in denying this opportunity for righteousness will nevertheless still crave it.

However, since they have allowed themselves to be cut off from God’s saving grace, they are only able to manufacture a false perception of righteousness. In their desperate attempt to elevate themselves in their own minds, they find themselves compelled to disparage others in order to make that possible.

The enemy facilitates this process by helping those under his influence categorize people into groups and label them. Then he directs his unwitting followers to abuse the people in those groups by treating them unequally and criticizing them based on their differences.

Over time, these blanket condemnations become a habit, and hatred develops. If left unchecked by correction, it is possible for this hatred to swell into an epidemic of ignorant bigotry. This bigotry will then be projected toward the groups of people to whom they are trying to maintain their sense of superiority.

Combating this is a struggle we all share. And it is indeed a daily struggle. Seeing other people as individual human beings, instead of part of a labeled subset of humanity, requires a generous helping of both humility and critical thinking.

Knowing this, our enemy imparts his unwary abettors with a liberal dose of arrogance, which suppresses all traces of humility and artificially inflates their perception of their own intellect, eliminating the prospect of any critical thought taking place.

This is where the enemy plays to his greatest strength. He advises his impressionable followers, “If you can’t convince ‘em, accuse ‘em!”

And this is how it plays out.

When one of these people attempts to engage a Truthseeker in debate, he quickly discovers the futility of this venture, since the primary objective for Truthseekers is to end arguments, not win them. Since the arguer finds that he cannot claim the logical high ground, he will then attempt to lower the ground beneath his opponent by attacking his character.

But here is the twist! Since unwarranted character assassination would make him guilty of judgmentalism, he must first deflect his own guilt by accusing the Truthseeker of being judgmental himself, thereby forcing him into a defensive position. With any luck, the Truthseeker will take the bait, lower himself into the argument, and thus become that which he has already been accused of being.

On the other hand, a mature Truthseeker will not take the bait, but will simply hold fast to the Truth, and not change course.

When the arguer sees that his attempts at both logic and character assassination have failed, he plays the only card left in his deck by attacking Truth itself.

He does this by labeling the Truth “hate speech.”

DEFENSE OF TRUTH DN= HATE SPEECH

The irony of this concept of “hate speech” is that the people most commonly accused of hate speech are in actuality the ones most commonly on the receiving end of it.

For centuries upon centuries, Christians have put their trust in the eternal God, in his indisputable and unchanging Word in which He is revealed, and in His universal promises and plan for all of mankind. In a world where people follow after every wind of change, no matter how ludicrous, we build our lives on the solid rock of eternal unchanging Truth, passing it down from generation to generation.

But instead of a fixed and eternal rock, our faith is now portrayed by our degenerate culture as an ignorant and hateful tradition. We are even demonized for faithfully carrying out our most important responsibility as parents, the passing on of our faith to future generations, with the charge of “indoctrinating” our own children!

If parents should not be the ones most responsible for helping to frame the basic worldview and shaping the character of their own children, then who should? The enemy has some ideas about that.

(And you’ll hear all about them if you come back for Part 9—Brainwashing.)