What is our job at the end times?
“And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.”Matthew 24:4-8 NKJV
“And Jesus, answering them, began to say: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and will deceive many. But when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be troubled; for such things must happen, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles. These are the beginnings of sorrows.”Mark 13:5-8 NKJV
Over the years, I have been acquainted with a few people who are obsessed with the end times prophecies. Coming originally from an Episcopal tradition where the book of Revelation was not prioritized, my baseline reactions have not been particularly from a place of alarm. When I first came across the first of such persons, my reactions tended to lead me to think that these folks were simply “freaking out.”
Once COVID hit, and then the vaccine epidemic afterward, it was during these times that made me more acutely aware of the nearness of the end. It was a new position for me to take, as my entire understanding of the tapestry of human history had consisted of some current events, but primarily the past. Kings and rulers came and went, and wars came and went, but humanity survived. Only recently did I get a chance to study the conquest of Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1453 and to really understand its impact on history. The spiritual ramifications of this event were huge. But also part of what has informed my own historical personal perspective is that such an event like that occurred over 500 years ago, and we’re still here, and Christianity is still spreading and growing across the globe. It is a great perspective to have that keeps me from giving into fear and anxiety about the future of this world, but it comes with a pitfall: I was at risk of being so clueless and unaware of signs that, should a truly traumatic current event occur, it would truly catch me off guard.
The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 were that for me. Now, I didn’t naturally think that the world was about to end. But the response prompted in me was that of mentally preparing for a country to go to war in retaliation, which we ultimately did. The point was, I had become lulled into complacency, assuming and expecting that, simply because we’d had peace for 20 or so years, that it would automatically continue. (Kind of a transposition of Newton's First Law of Motion (the Law of Inertia): whatever object that is at rest will continue to stay at rest.)
Bottom line, I appreciate and take comfort from what Jesus says. First, He makes it clear that no one knows when His return is, not even Him, as per the below scripture:
““But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”Matthew 24:36 NKJV
Secondly, I lean on this scripture every time someone predicts a precise day and time of his return, usually based on “calculations” that they’ve made to determine the date that they ended up concluding. It helps keep me steady and to not pay much attention to which way the wind blows.
As for our job: it is summed up in two words: “take heed.” But what does it mean? From a Google search in which I directly asked the question, here is an excerpt from the answer given:
“…to pay close attention, be cautious, or carefully consider advice and warnings. It acts as an instruction to be mindful of potential dangers or to take specific information seriously. It is often used interchangeably with “pay attention” or “take notice”.”
Pay close attention. Be cautious. Carefully consider the advice and warnings that are given. I might add a few, myself: Watch out. Be on your guard. Take this seriously.
And so on. So Jesus is saying to be on your guard that no one deceives you. For someone who has been coming to the realization more and more of how much he has been deceived over the years (and at this point, decades), this is a huge command. It’s huge because I have frankly spent my life disobeying this word, and only now am I realizing this. But God’s mercy and grace are available, “as long as it is day,” so to speak:
“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”Hebrews 4:16 NKJV
“Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”Hebrews 3:12-13 NKJV
And so I still have an opportunity to repent and actually come back to Jesus to receive life. Put another way, one time when Jesus was addressing the Pharisees’ unbelief:
“But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”John 5:38-40 NKJV
And the penalty for unbelief:
““He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”John 3:18 NKJV
“For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.”Hebrews 3:16-19 NKJV
For us today, those who truly believe, it is eternal life with Jesus Christ in heaven that is our modern-day equivalent of the Promised Land. God offers it to all, and is longsuffering indeed,
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”II Peter 3:9 NKJV
But time eventually will run out on us to have the opportunity to be saved, not because God loses patience with us, but because eventually our biodegradable bodies (biodegradable only because sin entered the world back in Genesis 3) give out and die. Once that happens, our fates are sealed: the saved to eternal life with Jesus Christ in heaven, and the unsaved to eternal damnation in the outer darkness, as Jesus put it:
“And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”Matthew 25:30 NKJV
“So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “For many are called, but few are chosen.””Matthew 22:12-14 NKJV
That last reference was the final few verses of Jesus’s Parable of the Wedding Feast, where a king arranged a wedding feast for his son’s marriage and invited all their friends (their best and brightest, their favored individuals). However, none of them attended: some made excuses about having other plans, while others killed the king’s messengers. In his anger, this king told his remaining servants to invite the poor and the invalids, people that they may not have favored initially. And they gladly came. But there was one man who showed up without a wedding garment (I’m not sure why or how he even got there in the first place), and in this parable the king still cast him out because without a garment he was not worthy to come to the wedding feast. The point is, even Jesus says that it’s not “all things go” when it comes to heaven’s entrance requirements.
And that’s the reason for what Jesus said later when explaining to His disciples what their job is when we approach such times:
“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”Matthew 24:42-44 NKJV
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”Hebrews 10:23-25 NKJV
So, in short, our job is not to freak out at current events and obsess over the news. Nor is it to distract ourselves with other things. But rather it is to keep our eyes on Jesus, no matter what life on this earth throws at us. (Transparently, that is still very difficult for me to actually do! Lord Jesus, I believe; help my unbelief!)
“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”Hebrews 12:1-2 NKJV
