THE END OF TIME?
Is this the end of time? - James Rutz - WorldNetDaily.com
No. But as of today, you have only two shopping months till Christmas.
You just have to ask yourself: "Can I get my Christmas shopping done before Jesus comes back?" And if your time is tight, you may want to ask, "What's really important in life?"
Let's start here: Jesus was born on Dec. 25, right? Well, the neat thing about celebrating Dec. 25 is that it's such a comprehensive holiday. Since antiquity, it has been designated as the birthday of Baal, Moloch, Dagon, Nimrod, Hercules, Atlas, Mithras, Krishna, Zeus, Osiris, Tammuz, Horus, Apollo, Amon, Ra, Bacchus, and Jupiter. So if there's anything to these other religions, you're covered just by decking a few halls and downing a couple of eggnogs.
When Jesus came along, He got dumped into that godpile for sake of convenience, and the distortions of Christian history began to stack up like Yule logs. After awhile, you had not only baby Jesus, but holly and mistletoe and one-horse open sleighs and Christmas card lists encased in computers, burping out mailing labels for your friends so you can happily ignore them the other 364 days.
The Greek historian Herodotus understood the history-creating process all too well. He wrote, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects." So on top of pop mythology, history has been "adjusted" by historians.
What then can we do, sitting here near the tail end of history, drowning in thousands of volumes of historical facts? Sadly, many of our best teachers have been lost-in-details historians whose command of the facts is impressive, yet who sometimes reach haywire conclusions. (One thinks of the Ph.D. historians behind the Third Reich and the Soviet Union.)
I feel you have three main options: One, select the best of the various schools of historiography. Two, read history blindly and toss into your brain every factoid you find – with little effort to discover patterns or conclusions. Or three, build upon a basic body of knowledge you deem trustworthy, being careful not to junk it up with "stray facts" that simply aren't true.
My suggestion: Start with sacred history! Specifically, the Bible offers the most comprehensive framework of historical interpretation you can find today. And if you are a Christian, it shouldn't be hard for you to accept the events of Scripture – as self-explained in the Word itself – for an authoritative foundation underneath your understanding of history.
With that as a solid base, it suddenly becomes much easier to evaluate the vast cloud of swirling events that cloud our crystal balls and swarm across our TV screens and newspapers.
Take, for example, the tongue-in-cheek title of this column. Is time up? Is the world coming to an end? With a Bible in hand, we have a strong basis for constructing a reasonable answer to such questions – which otherwise could prove impenetrable.
The short answer is, yes, we're nearing a conclusion – but we're not quite there yet.
I could flesh this out from several angles (like the prophecies of Daniel or statements about Israel's fate), but the simplest is Matthew 24:14: "And this gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations [ethnic groups]; and then shall the end come."
That's a pretty straightforward timetable. But what does it mean regarding a date? Must every person in every ethnic group hear a clear explanation of the entire Bible before Christ returns? Or would it suffice to conduct a single evangelistic rally in every ethnic group over, say, 10,000 souls?
No one has precise answers to such questions. But we do know how many tribes and people groups remain to be reached in a meaningful way.
From where I sit, the closure of the task of world evangelization could conceivably happen in 10 to 15 years; we've got terrific momentum going now – mostly overseas. Or if things go badly, it could take a lot longer.
Yet closure is just the final act in a much larger drama: God is creating a vast worldwide team, a family of disciples who have been specially selected to be "the bride of Christ," the chosen ones who have learned by experience to stand against evil and defeat it. When that warrior bride is complete, the end will come.
But when that day arrives, it will prove to be just the beginning.
__________________________________________________________________
No. But as of today, you have only two shopping months till Christmas.
You just have to ask yourself: "Can I get my Christmas shopping done before Jesus comes back?" And if your time is tight, you may want to ask, "What's really important in life?"
Let's start here: Jesus was born on Dec. 25, right? Well, the neat thing about celebrating Dec. 25 is that it's such a comprehensive holiday. Since antiquity, it has been designated as the birthday of Baal, Moloch, Dagon, Nimrod, Hercules, Atlas, Mithras, Krishna, Zeus, Osiris, Tammuz, Horus, Apollo, Amon, Ra, Bacchus, and Jupiter. So if there's anything to these other religions, you're covered just by decking a few halls and downing a couple of eggnogs.
When Jesus came along, He got dumped into that godpile for sake of convenience, and the distortions of Christian history began to stack up like Yule logs. After awhile, you had not only baby Jesus, but holly and mistletoe and one-horse open sleighs and Christmas card lists encased in computers, burping out mailing labels for your friends so you can happily ignore them the other 364 days.
The Greek historian Herodotus understood the history-creating process all too well. He wrote, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects." So on top of pop mythology, history has been "adjusted" by historians.
What then can we do, sitting here near the tail end of history, drowning in thousands of volumes of historical facts? Sadly, many of our best teachers have been lost-in-details historians whose command of the facts is impressive, yet who sometimes reach haywire conclusions. (One thinks of the Ph.D. historians behind the Third Reich and the Soviet Union.)
I feel you have three main options: One, select the best of the various schools of historiography. Two, read history blindly and toss into your brain every factoid you find – with little effort to discover patterns or conclusions. Or three, build upon a basic body of knowledge you deem trustworthy, being careful not to junk it up with "stray facts" that simply aren't true.
My suggestion: Start with sacred history! Specifically, the Bible offers the most comprehensive framework of historical interpretation you can find today. And if you are a Christian, it shouldn't be hard for you to accept the events of Scripture – as self-explained in the Word itself – for an authoritative foundation underneath your understanding of history.
With that as a solid base, it suddenly becomes much easier to evaluate the vast cloud of swirling events that cloud our crystal balls and swarm across our TV screens and newspapers.
Take, for example, the tongue-in-cheek title of this column. Is time up? Is the world coming to an end? With a Bible in hand, we have a strong basis for constructing a reasonable answer to such questions – which otherwise could prove impenetrable.
The short answer is, yes, we're nearing a conclusion – but we're not quite there yet.
I could flesh this out from several angles (like the prophecies of Daniel or statements about Israel's fate), but the simplest is Matthew 24:14: "And this gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations [ethnic groups]; and then shall the end come."
That's a pretty straightforward timetable. But what does it mean regarding a date? Must every person in every ethnic group hear a clear explanation of the entire Bible before Christ returns? Or would it suffice to conduct a single evangelistic rally in every ethnic group over, say, 10,000 souls?
No one has precise answers to such questions. But we do know how many tribes and people groups remain to be reached in a meaningful way.
From where I sit, the closure of the task of world evangelization could conceivably happen in 10 to 15 years; we've got terrific momentum going now – mostly overseas. Or if things go badly, it could take a lot longer.
Yet closure is just the final act in a much larger drama: God is creating a vast worldwide team, a family of disciples who have been specially selected to be "the bride of Christ," the chosen ones who have learned by experience to stand against evil and defeat it. When that warrior bride is complete, the end will come.
But when that day arrives, it will prove to be just the beginning.
__________________________________________________________________
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