Is the World Ending Tomorrow?

Okay, I’ve had enough.  Time to write about this.  Today on MSNBC it features a family that is waiting for the end of the world tomorrow.  The kids recount the story of their parents who have quit work and have dragged them from state to state preparing people for the end of the world on May 21.

I have also seen similar stories on many other news outlets.  Most secular media view this as another cockamamie prediction from fearful Christians.  The word I would use would be “misguided.”

To be sure, all Biblical Christians believe that Jesus indeed is coming back!  Come on, you can’t read the Scriptures honestly and not come to that conclusion.  And it is hopeful for Christians!  Jesus is restoring his people – and indeed all of creation (Romans 8:22).  I know that people who are not Christ followers consider all this in the category of fairy-tale.  But Christians throughout two millenia have “longed for His appearing.”

But the Bible is also so clear that nobody knows the day or the hour (Matt 24:36).  To use the theological word, the return of Jesus is “imminent.”  This means that it is sure to happen, and could happen at any time, but is not yet.  Christians are simply called to “be ready.”  Christians are called to lead their lives in order that we would have no regrets if Jesus returned soon.  And perhaps this is why Jesus had so many stories he told about kings who left only to return and find their “employees” lax and non-attentive to the king’s business (parable of the Faithful Servant, Luke 12:35-48).

Harold Camping is the man behind this latest push to declare the exact day of Christ’s return (May 21 which also happens to be my anniversary).  Believe it or not Camping has been wrong before!  How does the man have any followers?

I found this very through and detailed response about Camping and this prediction put out by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.  The article is called “Camping’s Folly.”

If you are a Jesus follower, be ready for the return of Jesus, but not with wild-eyed predictions like this.  Be ready with a life of faithful love of God and your neighbor as yourself.  If you are not yet a follower, we Christians do have a message for you.  It is not about wild predictions, but rather an invitation of love.  God wishes to re-establish relationship with you.  And this is through his loving son who gave up his life so you could have real life.  This is the same Jesus who will return one day to reclaim his own, and yes to judge the world as only He can.

Let’s be ready.  But ready the right way.