If the Alarm Is False, It’s Not Time

How can we deal with false alarms in the Christian world? I see and follow so many ministries that make a killing off the idea that we are currently in the end times. There are times I play devil’s (not trying to be clever here) advocate with the view that we could be near the time, even in a few posts recently.

But the more I study the Bible, the more I’m convinced the world of the last days is so alien to anything we experience in our era.

The answer is straightforward. Read your Bible.

What is an end-times false alarm?

It is any interpretation of recent or present events that has to be forced to fit or could be anything.

With the movement that sees Jesus returning in 2028-2030, I found a few faults with their viewpoints.

1)      No scripture anywhere says that Jesus must return 2,000 years after He left Earth. In fact, it took at least 4,000 years for Him to show up, so why not wait another 2,000 years and make a mirror image of the First Coming? That’s just an example. Jesus does not have to return in your lifetime.

2)      The Great Tribulation lasts at least 42 months. The Beast or Antichrist rules for 3.5 years before Jesus destroys him without a human hand (Daniel 8). He would have to be ruling right now and people would have to be taking the Mark of the Beast already for this to happen by Fall of 2028 or 2030 (though 2030 has some time left to be the year if I’m fair to them).

3)      The end-times megacity, Babylon the Great, is not doing anything important right now and hasn’t even been built. I’ve covered this multiple times, but it’s the truth. This city will be in control of the last world empire, and the Antichrist and ten kings (who will not be here until many generations) will destroy it to fulfill God’s will. You can’t spiritualize this prophecy when it describes a literal megacity. It is not a country, not a system, and it is not a metaphor. The harlot IS a metaphor, but for a literal city that will exist in our future.

4)      Current events might involve biblical lands, but the lands are not doing anything the Bible requires for them to be nations of the last days.

5)      There is absolutely no way in heaven, hell, or the metaphorical underworld, that the Temple in Jerusalem is going to be built at any moment. I suppose Iran could fire a missile and blow up the Dome of the Rock, but that would start some serious warfare against Iran from the Sunni Islamic nations. The logistics of the Temple make more sense if multiple nations join the Abraham Accords over decades to centuries and the region calms down for a while.

If a meteor falls in some remote land, that is not a sign of the last days. A giant meteor fell 65 million years ago and killed the dinosaurs (an event referenced in the Book of Job) and it wasn’t even the beginning times, let alone the end.

Any war can happen and it not be the last days. WW2 happened, and we are further along in human history with things not being even that bad, so we probably have more history to go.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe World War 3 will happen in the next five to ten years, if not in the next few years. But this isn’t the King of the North vs. the King of the South ultimately leading to the Antichrist (Daniel 11:21-45). I don’t care what scholars say. Antiochus is not in view there in Daniel 11. Preterism makes zero sense.

Daniel 12 refers to the events of Daniel 11 as though they are all about the generations (yes, plural) before the last events of history before Christ returns.

The world is just not there yet. Is there a huge and weird heatwave right now? Absolutely. But where did the Bible say weather changing was a sign of the end times? I don’t recall Jesus saying that once.

Weather changes in a natural cycle. Those recent earthquakes are also negative events, but I believe the Ring of Fire is waking up and a big one is due in Japan, the West Coast, or South America.

It is only a matter of time. Yeah, the events are lining up with other events. I will give you that.

But just because a pastor says it’s the end times doesn’t make it so. Conversely, just because I say something doesn’t make it the absolute interpretation.

America turns 250 years old today. I hope the next 250 years are amazing.

“What? That’s so far away! It can’t be that far out!” That’s what the Christians like to say.

I support pastors and ministries, to be clear. But if the signs aren’t actually there, let’s stop forcing them to fit.

If I told you a green field was the color red because the light hit it just right, if I squinted my eyes and wore red lenses, you’d know it was a green field no matter what I said.

In the same vein, the end times are super specific about how the world will look.

We aren’t there, ladies and gentlemen. We are simply not there.

Shalom.