Fearless Future
It’s easy to mock the caricatures of the old-fashioned preachers, alarming their audiences with warnings of the coming doom and gloom followed closely by hellfire and brimstone. Indeed, some pastors love to focus on Bible prophecy and major on scaring people into the Kingdom. So it’s no wonder that movies and TV comedies—and sometimes more serious presentations—portray them as a little more than a joke.
These parodies of Bible prophecy presentations emphasize the shock factor concerning what lies ahead. They leave the viewing audience believing one would have to be insane to think such things. Some Christians start buying into the idea that it’s a little crazy to believe in a literal interpretation of biblical end-times events. And many Christians today just don’t want to hear about the end times because they consider it too negative. They’d instead focus on blessings, God’s favor—the positive things in the Bible. Before you know it, all they want to talk about is prosperity and the potential for the here and now. One might conclude the hereafter has nothing to do with what we’re here after!
Despite all that, there has been an exponential rise in a genre of TV and movie offerings called “apocalyptic dramas” or end-of-the-world-themed shows. Unfortunately, most who consume these programs and films are unaware that “apocalyptic” really comes from the Greek term “apokalypsis,” meaning unveiling or revealing for which the book of Revelation (not Revelations) is named.
Yet, such shows have a common denominator that excludes them from the biblical scenario completely. God is uninvolved. In every case, it is only through the persistence of heroic humans that the life-threatening, world-ending disasters can be thwarted and humankind spared. The script often includes a religious fanatic, seen as an out-of-touch joke of a person. We all know that salvation will come through the self-reliant, capable, level-headed naturalist if the world is going to survive.
In reality, few things in the Bible are more positive than the things to come. Aren’t you looking forward to Christ’s return? Or have we become a little too comfortable with the kingdom of this world as our home? Are we too reliant on humankind and what people can do for us? It’s like Heaven; everyone wants to go there, just not right away. It’s the thought of getting there that can be a scary proposition.
The scariest thing about considering Christ’s return and all the stuff that goes with it is the implication it has concerning us and the way we ought to live now. Peter wrote about that very thing in his second letter. He said,
Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, …Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless —2 Peter 3:11-12, 14 NASB.
One couple tells the story of their little preschool boy who had stubbornly resisted their invitations to invite Jesus into His life. Not that they were pushy, but he seemed to understand what it meant, always interested in spiritual things, but every time they asked, he would just tell them in his way, not yet.
After resisting for many months, one morning, he finished breakfast and suddenly let his parents know he was ready. He marched up to his room, where they assumed little Ben was going to pray. Instead, he started packing his Star Wars PJs into his Sesame Street suitcase. After discussing with him why, they realized what he saw his commitment to be. They explained,
We then understood why our child hesitated to give his life to Christ. He thought that in so doing, he would have to leave us and take up residence, literally, with Christ in Heaven. We should all possess the faith of little Benjamin: we should have our hearts so fixed on Christ’s appearance that the attachments of our earthly life pale in comparison.
Wendy Murray Zoba, “Future Tense,” Christianity Today magazine (October 2, 1995)
That’s why God reveals coming events. So we can live with hope now, in light not only of the future events but the coming One, whom we should long to see face-to-face.
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” —Romans 8:18