(Matthew 24:14) The end will come.
Many people live in denial concerning the certainty of the second coming of Jesus Christ and the end of this world.
At that time, we will all stand before God and give an account of how we lived our lives.
The good news: we will stand before God with our sins forgiven and our righteousness is the free gift in Jesus Christ.
People are entertained by scary movies about the world’s destruction by zombies, but they push out of their minds any thoughts concerning the certainty that God will bring an end to our world.
God breaking into our reality makes us uncomfortable. We become uncomfortable because it brings to the surface an awareness of our finiteness and mortality.
The coming of Christ and the end of the world reveal that we are not really in control of reality.
The denial of the world’s end is why people embrace the fantasy that advanced technology, like AI, will save us from our own human fallenness.
We can live forever!
Today, many Christians like to talk about the end times, but early Christians spent time meditating on and envisioning the coming of Jesus, the end of the world, judgment, and eternal life.
They welcomed the coming of Christ, the end of our world, and God's new heavens and new earth.
They did not predict the time of the end, but they deeply embraced the certainty of the end.
As Christians, we should not encourage escapism, but we must be rooted in realism.
The suggestion that we focus on our own death and the end of this world strikes us as morbid and depressing.
The teaching of the Bible, however, indicates the opposite.
When we look forward to the end, the quality of our Christian lives actually improves. For example, 2 Peter 3:11–12 says, “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You should live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the coming day of God.”
The less we focus on the certainty of the end of this age, the more likely we are to be tempted to conform to it.
As the Bible tells us, “Do not be conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2), for “the world is passing away” (1 John 2:17).
No one knows when the end of the world will come, but we are certain that one day we will enter a new heaven and a new earth.
As mature Christians, do you spend any time meditating in hope of the certainty of the end?
Are you ready to stand before God?