end times

Spoiler: God Wins

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“… just slipping a note to those in the thick of it who really need to know right now how this all works out, how today ends, how this week ends, how this whole shebang ends:

SPOILER: GOD WINS” (Ann Voskamp).

“No doubt about it! God is good—
    good to good people, good to the good-hearted.
But I nearly missed it,
    missed seeing his goodness.
I was looking the other way,
    looking up to the people
At the top,
    envying the wicked who have it made,
Who have nothing to worry about,
    not a care in the whole wide world.

Pretentious with arrogance,
    they wear the latest fashions in violence,
Pampered and overfed,
    decked out in silk bows of silliness.
They jeer, using words to kill;
    they bully their way with words.
They’re full of hot air,
    loudmouths disturbing the peace.
People actually listen to them—can you believe it?
    Like thirsty puppies, they lap up their words.

What’s going on here? Is God out to lunch?
    Nobody’s tending the store.
The wicked get by with everything;
    they have it made, piling up riches.
I’ve been stupid to play by the rules;
    what has it gotten me?
A long run of bad luck, that’s what—
    a slap in the face every time I walk out the door.

If I’d have given in and talked like this,
    I would have betrayed your dear children.
Still, when I tried to figure it out,
    all I got was a splitting headache . . .
Until I entered the sanctuary of God.
    Then I saw the whole picture:
The slippery road you’ve put them on,
    with a final crash in a ditch of delusions.
In the blink of an eye, disaster!
    A blind curve in the dark, and—nightmare!
We wake up and rub our eyes. . . . Nothing.
    There’s nothing to them. And there never was” (Psalm 73:1-20, The Message).

It’s easy to lose sight of the end when you’re stuck in the middle. When evil seems to rule the day, it’s hard to believe that God can ever set things right. It’s tempting to fall into a cynical view of “Well, that’s it. We’re done for. There’s no hope left.”

But just as Billy Graham said, I’ve read the last page of the Bible and I know it’s going to be fine in the end. Actually, more than just fine. It will be better than the happiest ending in the best book you’ve ever read. It will be like in the last book in the Narnia series where all that happened before was merely the title page and prologue, but heaven is where the real story starts and where each chapter is better than the one before.

The Bible says for those who are in Christ that whatever the worst that we can face is light and momentary compared to the joy that’s coming. Read that again. The absolute worst we can imagine ever facing is light and momentary compared to the joy that awaits.

Not that what we face isn’t very real and very scary and very awful. But the joy ahead is infinitely greater and longer and lasting. It will be like the joy of a new mother holding her child after the pain of delivery, knowing it was way more than worth it.

It will be way more than worth it when we get there.

Eschatology and All That

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I have a new view about the millennium and the tribulation. You’ve heard of amillennialism and postmillennialism and premillennialism. I dare say you’re either on the pre-trib or post-trib side of the fence.

Aslan-PC

Well, I am a panmillennialist. That means I believe it will all pan out in the end.

I do believe Jesus is coming back. I’m not sure when and I’m not sure if it will be before or after the dreaded tribulation. I don’t know what the millennium will look like or even if it will be a literal 1,000 years or not.

I do know there will be a new heaven and a new earth. I do know God will wipe away every tear from our eyes and there will be no more pain or sorrow anymore.

I like to think it will be like Narnia in The Last Battle. I like to think all the best parts of this life will be there. Maybe all those pets we’ve loved and lost will be there. Whatever it looks like it will be like those dreams we have that we can’t remember but are always trying to get back to when we sleep.

I used to not be all that keen on heaven. I suppose it’s because I had the idea that heaven would involve sitting on clouds playing harps or sitting on wooden pews for an eternally long church service. Neither of those particularly appealed to me.

Then I read The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis. It talked about heaven like that feeling on the first day of summer after school has ended. I could relate to that. I still can. It’s like that first day of vacation when you realize you don’t have to be anywhere or do anything by any certain time.

That feeling. Only better. Like a million, gazillon times better.

So yeah, that’s what I believe.

The Trouble With Tribulations

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Before I start, let me throw out this disclaimer. I am not an expert on eschatology and I don’t by any means have Revelations figured out. I think when it comes to millennial and tribulation views, there are wise and godly people on all sides of the spectrum. I’m just offering my own thoughts on the topic, based on the sermon I heard today.

The pastor says that when he comes to a problem, he wishes God would pick him up and toss him over to the other side where he can breathe a huge sigh of relief that that problem is over. God isn’t like that. He walks you to the very problem and proceeds to walk with you through it so it never has dominion over you ever again.

I think when it comes to God’s people and tribulations, the pattern is that God doesn’t protect his people from them, but rather through them. Revelation 14:7 talks about the multitude clothed in white robes who have come OUT of the tribulation. You can’t come out unless you first go in. So many blessings are given to those who endure, not those who escape.

Again, I’m not trying to be dogmatic. There’s a whole lot about Revelation that makes my head hurt and makes me want to lie down for a while. But I do know that the main point isn’t when we get raptured or how the timeline works, but that in the end Jesus does come back and set everything right. The happily ever after ending isn’t just at the end of fairy tales and children’s stories. It’s at the end of the Book of Revelation, too.

I like the old joke that goes like this: I’m a pan-millennialist because I firmly believe that everything is going to pan out in the end. And I have Bible verses to back that up.

 

Reminders from Revelation

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I’ve been loving the sermon series on Revelation from Brentwood Baptist Church, as well as the companion Wednesday night Bible study. Here are a few of the highlights I’ve taken in so far.

1) Revelation is primarily a book written to persecuted believers to give them encouragement that Jesus has already overcome and the victory is already theirs if they hold on a little bit longer. Like I heard it said, we as followers of Jesus don’t fight for victory, but from it.

2) Revelation is a book saturated in worship. The setting of the book is a heavenly scene of ultimate worship. To focus on the symbols and what they mean is to miss the main point that God puts everything right again and the good guys win once and for all.

3) It’s not ultimately about when the end will come or who the anti-Christ will be or what the mark of the beast will look like. Ultimately, it’s about the Lion of Judah, the root of Jesse, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, Jesus, and how he has already overcome.

You can read commentaries about the book. I’m reading one right now. But if you really want to understand the book, read the book. Sit down and read all 22 chapters in one setting.

You can even read the ending first if it will help.

 

There Be Dragons in the Book of Revelation

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I started attending a new Bible study led by Mike Glenn, pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church and lead teacher at Kairos on Tuesday nights. It’s all about the mysterious book of Revelation. Yeah, that scary book at the end of the Bible before you get to the maps.

It’s really not about how things are eventually going to turn out one day. It’s about how they already are. It’s not about how one day Jesus will ascend to the throne, but how He’s already there.

I confess I’ve missed the point of the book in the past. It’s not about who the anti-Christ will be or what day the end will come. The reason John wrote the book was to encourage believers who were facing intense persecution by a very hostile and anti-Christian government.

It’s about how evil forces in the world will try to rise up against God and His people, but how God in Christ has already overcome the enemy. The outcome is not in doubt. Jesus has already won the battle at Calvary.

The best takeaway from tonight’s study was that this book was written in worship to communities of worship about whom to worship. Not Caesar, but Christ.

Revelation is a reminder that the ending to my story is already written and it is a happy ending. No matter what I’m currently facing or how hopeless my situation seems sometimes, the best really is yet to come.

So I suppose I really will be spending a lot of time in that last book of the Bible. I could read all the commentaries and bible study guides and Tim LaHaye books in the world, but I’d be much better off just reading the book itself. Only God’s Word is living and active. Only God’s Word is God-breathed.

There will be more about those dragons and seven-horned beasts and other special guest appearances from the Book of Revelation in blogs to follow. I’m looking forward to it.

 

In the End

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I am still baffled at how much Christianity in general has become and “our side vs. their side” religion. It’s obvious that everything that’s wrong with the world is “their” fault, with “them” being any group who believes differently than us or who maybe falls into a sin category that we don’t struggle with.

I’m not sure when the end will come or what it will look like. I like to think that I am a pan-millennium person– that it will all pan out in the end. I do know this.

In the end, it won’t matter that we proved our point or showed the other side how very wrong they were. It won’t matter that we had the best arguments and the most clever billboards and bumper stickers around.

It won’t matter that we got “our” people into political office so that we could get “our” agenda and laws put in place and keep “them” from being able to destroy all life as we know it.

It will matter how much we loved people. It will especially matter how much we loved those whom we disagreed with, who sided against us, who ridiculed our beliefs, and who mocked our faith.

It will matter that instead of seeking power, we took the form of servants as our Lord Jesus did, and laid down our lives for others. It will matter that we went to the least of these.

It will matter that we gave food to the hungry, gave a drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, visited the sick and those in prison, and stood up for the outcast and downtrodden. It will matter because what we did for them we did for Jesus. Jesus Himself said so.

In the end, it’s not about taking back a country, but advancing a Kingdom and making way for a King who will make all things right again and turn this world right-side up again.