“The problem with Christianity is that for the past 1,000 years it has permitted itself only one scenario of the future: the end of the world in our lifetime. In fact, make that 2,000 years. The first generations of Christians believed the future was short lived, and that it would end in their lifetimes. And the 25 lifetime-generations since then have also believed that the future was short and the world would end in their lifetime. Every generation has legitimately seen signs and wonders indicating an immediate end of the world. The scenario was plausible in every century. It might still happen today, in our lifetime.”
Kevin Kelly
“If you knew that you were going to die exactly five years from today, what would that embolden you to change in life?”
ZatRana’s “ultimate question”
“The people who hanged Christ on the cross never, to do them justice, accused Him of being a bore—on the contrary; they thought Him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround Him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified Him ‘meek and mild,’ and recommended Him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.”
Dorothy Sayers
A good friend of mine recently chided me for writing in a missive that we are living in the end times. His logic: it hasn’t happened yet, and that the New Testament Church was firmly convinced the Second Coming of Jesus Christ would happen in their lifetimes.
Both are valid points.
So, I pulled up my past missives to see when I last dealtwith the topic of the end days. It was, interesting enough, during the height of the pandemic.
In that missive, I recalled warning my students at the College of the Ozarks (CofO) for several years prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 that we—as a culture—were overdue for an earthshaking event that would change everything.
I was right.
Everything did indeed change. Our concept of what is safe and what is healthy, the strength of our economy, how we shop and eat, how we worship, the value of our history, the political optics leading into the upcoming presidential election, our racial perceptions, how we educate our children, how we work, or how our nation interacts with the rest of the world.
Simply put, we do not look at things the same way we did TPV—time-pre-virus.
In those days, I shared my conviction with my CofOstudents that they were likely a part of the final generation and that time, as we know it, was getting short. Indeed, during one of our many discussions in our government class, one of my students, Uliks Bokshi—a young man brought up in Kosovo—raised his hand. “Did you say the same things, about a final generation, to your college classes twenty years ago?”
It was a simple question.
Yet for some reason, that simple question penetrated to my inner core. As a result, I spent the entire weekend in self-reflection, repeatedly asking myself, how sure am I that that these kids, these millennials in my college classroom, and my grandchildren by blood, mostly Gen-Zers, are really the final generation? Are these individuals actually living in the final days?
That simple question, it seems to me, has been exacerbated and accelerated by the events we are watching unfold in the era we are now living.
The basic fabric of all the things we took for granted scarcely a year or two years ago are coming unraveled.
But is time actually growing short?
In this vein, I recently ran across a fascinating article written by Kevin Kelly, (including the quote cited above) suggesting that Christians may want to prepare themselves to be around for another 1,000 years (only 13 generations):
“The end of the world in our lifetime is a scenario that cannot be rejected. It is as plausible as it has ever been. But in order to fashion a Christianity ready for the next 1,000 years, this generation of Christians must begin to create alternative future scenarios in order to fill out the space of possibilities. By relying on a single scenario of the future for the last 2,000 years, in particular a single scenario that was constantly and decidedly wrong, Christianity left the invention and control of the actual future to those outside the church. Relatively few scientists are Christians, and almost no futurists are. By retreating to this unwavering single wrong prediction Christianity has surrendered the future to non-believers.”
Kelly, speaking on another occasion, noted that using pure mathematical probabilities it is far more likely that Jesus Christ will return in 1,000 years than tomorrow.
H-m-m; that thought gives me pause for reflection.
Is it possible that my twin seeds are not the final generation?
Absolutely.
Is it possible that key biblical passages pointing to a prophetic future will gain an entirely new meaning if time lingers on?
Yes, absolutely.
Why am I so sure then, that today’s generation including my grandchildren and my former college students will be part of the final generation?
There are four basic reasons I am more convinced than ever that we—or at least my offspring—are living in the final days. The first is an admittedly, but purely subjective, nagging, inner spiritual sensation that is giving rise these days to an increasingsense of urgency. In many respects, that is the real crux of the matter. I definitely lacked the same sense of urgency with my college students two or three decades ago.
Why?
Perhaps that is what bothers me most. If indeed we are edging perilously close to the end of time, why is there such a complete lack of urgency in our churches? Why is there such blindness in our culture and society to the consequences of the spiritual deterioration everywhere around us?
Why aren’t my students and other millennials feeling it?
Why doesn’t my good friend share it?
Are my grandchildren being equipped to sense it?
What is blinding them to this spiritual reality?
My impending sense of urgency, I must admit, is driven, in large part, by my personal vision. This vision is the second reason I am convinced my twin seeds are approaching the final threshold of time. As I have explained to others, I don’t have many visions, so this one I had over seven years ago has stayed fresh in my mind. For the first time, I shared the details of this vision with my most recent crop of college students. I don’t know how many of you readers have had a life-changing vision. It is certainly not a sign that I’m anyone special. The vision was to equip me for an assignment. For that reason, the power and freshness of that particular vision still motivates me.
The vision? There I was, somehow, walking in the halls of the heavenly realm watching the great assembly from afar when I noticed them, the final generation—the remnant—I write so much about, prominently seated in the throng of believers gathered below.
They were adorned in blazing white robes.
They were the ultimate overcomers.
Sprinkled among them were the faces of my twin seeds.
What do I mean “twin seeds”? Simply put, my natural seed extending three generations in the future and all my college and high school students over the years. Each of them, in my view, must seek God’s wisdom to survive the technological tsunami and counterfeit truth that is coming.
And it is coming.
The reality that some of my twin seeds were present among this special gathering in my vision was a confirming testimony to me that some of them would overcome the perils that lie ahead.
For now, however, my twin seeds are living in the midst of a world gone crazy and all indicators point to it getting worse over the next two decades.
The third reason underscoring my conviction that my twin seeds are living in the end-times is that today’s technological developments are coming ever closer to fulfilling the last-days’ biblical prophecies by Jesus Christ, in the revelatory vision of Saint John, as well as the Old Testament prophets. To mention a few: AI and increasingly sophisticated drones, robotics, biogenetics and transhumanism, the worldwide internet, quantum computing, and research into subatomic particles.
No previous generation can make the same claim in the same way.
Even the “Standard Model,” the yardstick by which today’s physicists and scientists measure our certainty of reality, and what comprises it, is under assault.
And all of this does not even include my fourth (and perhaps most compelling) reason: the ever-unfolding, and biblically prophetic events in the Middle East, now teetering on the edge of war.
Why does it matter?
I am now writing a historical fiction novel. Many of the chapters take place in pre-World War I Jerusalem where, of all characters, Germany’s last Emperor (Kaiser) Wilhelm II visited in 1898. In one memorable scene, I have my main character—a Prussian police inspector—and a Russian Orthodox presbyter and pilgrim, standing on a small bluff and gazing on the Golden Gates of the Old City. It is the perfect location to discuss the end of times. In those days, thousands of Russian Orthodox pilgrims would descend upon the Holy City—and more specifically that particular site—many intending to die there. Why? To be among those who would rise first when the Messiah returned and would enter through those gates.
To them, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ was an ever-present spiritual reality.
And hope.
There are also multitudes of Muslim graves nearby.
Why?
Acccording to Simon Montefiore, in his classic book Jerusalem, “the Muslims created a geography of Apocalypse around Jerusalem. The forces of evil perish at the Golden Gate. The Mahdi—the Chosen—(the Muslim end-time savior and conqueror) dies when the Ark of the Covenant is placed before him. At the sight of the Ark, the Jews convert to Islam. The Kaaba of Mecca comes to Jerusalem with all those who ever made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Heaven descends on the Temple Mount with Hell in the Valley of Hinnom. The people gather outside the Golden Gate on the Plain—al Sahira. Israfil the Archangel of Death (one of the Dome’s gates is named after him) blows his trumpet: the dead (especially those buried close to the Golden Gate) are resurrected and pass through the gate, the portal to the End of Days (with its two little domed Gates of Mercy or that of Repentance), to be judged in the Dome of the Chain where the scales of justice hang.”
It matters what one believes about the end of times.
If I am right—and that’s a big “if”—and we are living in the very last days, my “twin seeds” will need the reality of a close relationship with Jesus Christ to survive and become overcomers in the days ahead.
The key is entering into a personal relationship and not just participating in religion.
This spiritual reality is true regardless of whether Jesus returns tomorrow, ten years from now, twenty years from now, or 1,000 years from now. Today, the young, innocent, and in most cases, unwitting minds of my twin seeds are clouded increasingly by worldly agendas and elite-driven narratives. If my twin seeds’ ears are beginning to resonate to the noise and strategies of deception today, imagine what it will be decades from now.
Based on what I see around me, my twin seeds are unprepared spiritually for what is coming.
As are many of my well-intended friends.
Today’s deception and noise—now only in the beginning stages—is being orchestrated deliberately to confuse, annul and supplant three exclusive claims made by Jesus Christ about Himself:
“Jesus said to him, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by (through) me.”
This non-politically-correct claim to deity led those religious and political elites around Jesus to crucify Him. In today’s politically correct culture, one advocating the exclusivity of Jesus Christ likewise will be ostracized, ridiculed and cast out.
Try it out yourself.
Next time you find yourself in a worldly collection of friends, co-workers or religious colleagues, take a bold stand for Jesus Christ as the sole gateway of eternal life. Watch the reaction. If, on the other hand, you are among those in the groupwhen someone else makes such a bold statement, ask yourself why such a claim triggers such an uneasy feeling inside you. If there is no validity to Jesus’ claims, why this uncomfortable response?
In Jesus Christ, and the completeness of His Atonement, all things will come together at the Final Day …