Living As If It’s The End
Imagine with me for a moment. What if Christians were the most fearless people on the face of the planet. Imagine if every man, woman and child who claim to be devoted to Christ actually lived like the great martyrs of old or the great apostles of the New Testament. Think about the impact that they could achieve on the societies that they live in. You may often hear stories of people who left everything behind to go to some far off place to share the gospel. They would hear the voice of the Lord and be so utterly convicted by the Holy Spirit that they abandoned all the commodities of a life of comfort and worldly security, all that they might have known, in obedience of a divine ordination burdened on their heart by God. What would that look like? Bear with me as I try my best to explain what I feel burdened to share with everyone.
“The End is Near”, “Fear Ye, Fear Ye”, “Repent you Sinner”.
This is not what I mean by the end. Please don’t consider me to be one of those noisy clanging cymbals on the side of the street, as the Apostle Paul would have probably called them. However, I do want to address the end times in a way that will try to challenge the modern day Christian. In Matthew 24, Jesus speaks of the “End of The Age’’ and the signs of the coming return of Christ. Time and time again, Christians have faced wave after wave of persecution, under the Roman Emperors all the way to Constantine and Theodsius, sometimes under the Pope at times (I won’t go into great detail of that right now), under communist regimes all across the world such as Russia, China, North Korea, as well as Facist regimes too like Germany during World War 2 and under Mussolini. Perhaps you may have been unaware, but recently in China Christians are being tortured, driven out of their homes, and even killed for believing in Christ and attending an underground church. The numbers are reaching close to genocidal levels according to the BBC and other News sources. If this alarms you, let me say that this is not new news because it has been happening for a while. With the new leader in China in recent years, persecution has become increasingly persistent and more horrific. A similar thing is currently happening in Nigeria, where Muslims are slaughtering men, women and children in the thousands for simply believing in Christ. They are being burned alive, decapitated, beaten to death and women are being tortured then raped then gutted like wild animals. Their bodies were thrown into mass graves, creating similar images to those of the Jews in concentration camps in WW2. Today there are wars and rumours of wars, earthquakes and natural disasters are more frequent than ever before and also consistently getting stronger. Society all across the Western world and western society is rising up in Antichrist positions and stances that oppose every biblical value on nearly every social aspect. What was once considered good is now called evil.
However it seems that no matter how many times things happen, when it seems like it can get any more worse, it does. While this may be true, there in between these seemingly horrific times of global catastrophes, history is periodically sprinkled with moments of great revivals and great awakenings such as the Great Welsh Revival that spread across the world, or the Jesus Movement in the seventies that surged across the United States and affected parts of Europe. There are always ups and downs in the history of the world and it would be foolish to say that history does not repeat itself.So when we look at the current events of the past few years and even this past year and even today, as Christians we must ask ourselves a few simple questions in light of Matthew 24. What season are we in? How should a Christian react to the times that we live in? Is Jesus coming back?
Instead of answering all three separately, try and answer them in combination with each other.
The bible says that all of creation groans for the coming and return of Christ. The world and everything in it, longs to be united with God once again, just like it was in Eden. No wonder that the world is in so much tension. The time that we live in is what you would call another “Birth Pang’’ of the coming of Christ. In verse 8 of Matthew it says that these things are only the beginning of the end, note that it does not say that it is the end yet. Many of us tend to think that every calamity is the end. We are living in a season of another “Birth Pang” if you could put it like that. Note that if Jesus was talking about the end of times two thousand years ago, we must be pretty far along in the beginning of the end. Just like actual birth pangs of a pregnant woman, they start and then increasingly get worse and worse as the due date of her child draws near. You could apply the same idea about the tragedies and calamities of the world in that sense. Right now the world has never been so unanimously affected and plagued by the same tortures of the world. Suicide rates are steadily getting higher everywhere, cancer is everywhere, not the mention the Covid-19 crisis that persits still after nearly a year of the first outbreak. Do not get me wrong I am talking in a very broad sense of the end of times and of events, yes people who live in areas that are extremely affected may feel as if the end of time is nearer for them, and in a sense that is true because for them it is the end. For the people who are being persecuted and are on the run for their life, they are living in the end. For every generation that has lived, they have their own Birth Pang season.
All that being said, we should not look on these season that we live in and take a position of laxity when it comes to our divinely ordained mandate or even adopt an attitude of saying that this is just another season and it will pass by and tell ourselves that the end is not yet here. I know people that say that they are not worried about the end of the world, and yes that’s great but that does not mean we have to become lazy in our mandate of spreading the gospel to the farthest parts of the globe. Part of me believes that these times of great tension in our society and the world are not just simply signs of the end that is coming but it is ordained by God to keep Christians on spiritually on their toes. No one knows the day nor the hour, but that does not mean God won’t come back right now. He can do whatever he pleases. So as Christians we should not sit back and let people suffer in the birth pangs of the world, we should not let the tarries of this life snatch the lives of the lost and the broken, the hurting and the weak. We need to stand up and speak out for truth and never cease on our mandate of making disciples. Just as God spoke to Jerimiah in Jeremiah 1, that God will give you the courage and faith to stand up and He will give you the words to say when you are faced with opposition that seems so great and powerful. But praise God that we have a God and an Advocate that is much more greater and much more powerful than any problem that we may face, or any birth panging season we may be living in. Praise God for the Holy Spirit that lives in us.
The ultimate truth in all this is that Jesus is coming back, and He is coming for His bride, and for His people. He is coming to judge the world, He is coming to exercise His divine Justice but at the same time exercise his extravagant love and mercy. He has opened up the way of salvation to all but not all will find it, and not all will want to accept it. That does not stop the fact that his return is imminent. We do not know the day nor the hour, and so this hidden promise that God has given us, should cause us to live like everyday is our last day on earth, that every moment is our last, that when we are going about our day to day tasks we should consider if it has any spiritual benefit, or will it benefit the Kingdom of God. So many Christians believe that all the work they have to do is accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour and that is it. But no, that is only the beginning of the most fulfilling life. The Christian walk is one of sacrificial devotion to the creator of the universe, and you serve Him in every way He commands you to live.
Ask yourself this today.
When the end of days comes and judgement day does arrive and you are called to stand before God face to face. What would you rather hear Him say to you. Well done my good and Faithful servant! :OR: I didn’t know you!
I pray that each of you are challenged to live lives that are worthy of entering into heaven. I pray that today you can make a difference for the Kingdom of God and that you can be a light to the world, that you will live out your mandate in any medium that you can. May God bless you and keep you. Amen.
Matthew 24
Romans 8:22
Jerimiah 1