“Men’s hearts will be failing them from fear” (Luke 21:26).
“Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (I Thessalonians 4:18).
When I was a kid–sometime in the early 1950s–I attended a revival meeting with my grandmother in Birmingham. The preacher scared the living daylights out of everyone with his prophecies about the future, his warnings about Russia and Communism, and his forecasts about what was about to happen. Later, as Grandma and I walked down those dark streets to her apartment, every plane going over seemed ready to drop an atomic bomb on us. I was frightened out of my wits.
Scary preaching is foreign to the New Testament.
The great apostle actually thought teachings of the Lord’s return and the believers’ victory over this world should comfort us, not frighten us.
But listen to the typical prophecy preacher. So many will use passages about the Lord’s return and the end times to strike terror into the hearts of the faithful. They speak of the martyrdom of millions of the faithful, of the havoc to be wreaked throughout the world by the Lord’s death angels, of the Beast and the Antichrist and the desolation of abomination.
Matters of which they understand little.
God’s final warning! The end is near! Signs of the time! The Antichrist is alive and living in New York City at this moment. The United States in Bible prophecy! Nuclear war predicted in Bible prophecy!
Sound familiar? If you’ve observed the religious scene in America for the last few decades, you’ve heard it all.
There’s a reason for this.
Fear-mongering is a well-calculated plan to get religious but ignorant people into their organizations or onto their mailing lists, and then motivate them to open their bank accounts.
After all, fear works. Fear motivates.
Healthy fear motivates us to protect our families from hardship, from disease, and from criminals. We take out insurance, we support the police, we install locks on our doors.
Those are all proper responses to genuine fear.
But what about the terror of the unknown? The fear of the economy collapsing, of lawlessness running wild, of pandemics and genocide? Of nuclear war, of divine judgement, of disasters on–don’t miss this–a biblical scale?
Is there a proper role for “warning people of coming catastrophes?” There is, if and only if, you know such a calamity is coming and can back it up.
Had you known, let’s say, on August 22, 2005, that Hurricane Katrina would devastate the Mississippi Gulf Coast and flood the City of New Orleans and take over 1800 lives, you would have been justified in running up and down the streets and highways urging people to get out and save themselves. True, some would have called you a nut and doomsdayer…for one week. But after August 29, they would have seen what a truly wise person you were. And CNN would have made you a celebrity.
But we didn’t do that because we didn’t know.
The simple fact is that most prophecy experts of past generations did not know what they were talking about. They had their scenarios and their charts and their convictions, but their prophecies did not come to pass. But do not fear, friend, because in the wake of each departing, humbled generation of prophecy experts, a new generation of self-appointed prophets appears, all of them with their immense Bible knowledge (“revealed only to us”) and their certainties and pride.
As a young preacher, I heard sermon after sermon identifying the European Common Market with the 10 horns of the beast in Revelation 13. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 giving official status to Israel, or the UN action of 1948 making that nation a reality were definite signposts of prophecy. No doubt the Lord Jesus was returning in “this” generation.” The preachers said it. And they were certain.
Had you said otherwise, they would have slammed you as a pagan. “The Bible is clear.” “The signs are in place.” “I’ve quit watching for signs and gone to listening for the trumpet!”
But it didn’t happen.
Scaring people for a living in the name of Jesus for cash.
Lord, help us.
Fundraisers know fear is a great motivator.
You’ve gotten letters from both political parties, I imagine. They try to scare you with scenarios of political disasters if the other guy is elected. “The criminals will win, he will open all the jails, he will cancel social security, and send all our jobs to Mexico.”
The only solution for this dreaded apocalypse, of course, is for concerned citizens like you to send them large cash gifts.
I remember so well how those letters from Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority used the same type of scare tactics and the identical solutions: Send us money.
What is a responsible pastor to do?
I’ll tell you what many an irresponsible pastor has done. They have chosen to remain silent on the subject, but invite in those “prophecy experts” to preach their opinions and interpretations to their church members. This way, the pastor feels he is not taking a position on the matter and if there are divine repercussions for spreading heresy and falsehood, the wrath of God falls on Prophet Gearshift, not him.
Like Pilate, he is washing his hands of the matter.
I’m not sure it works that way, but I’ll happily leave the judging to the Righteous Judge (see Genesis 18:25).
The parable of the wise and foolish virgins speaks to this in a fascinating way (Matthew 25:1ff). I wonder if it has ever occurred to the prophecy experts (said tongue-in-cheek) that it was the foolish virgins who expected the return of the bridegroom so quickly that they needed to do no long range planning. It was the wise virgins who planned for the long haul, who were ready whether the bridegroom returned quickly or long after they expected.
On Facebook I said the other day that there is every possibility that we of this generation may be among the dead in Christ who are raised when Jesus returns. Immediately someone attacked me: “You sound like an unbeliever! Don’t you believe Jesus is returning?”
I felt like saying, “Friend, I’ll bet I have preached on the Second Coming more than you have.” But I didn’t. That would be a silly bet, of course.
I replied, “For 2,000 years God’s people have been expecting Jesus’ return. And since God’s word says a thousand years are as one day and a day as a thousand years, if He waits another thousand years, it’s just a few moments.”
Question: What if you had told the first century believers that two thousand years would come and go without Jesus returning, as He promised? Would they have been discouraged? Would they have felt the Lord had reneged on HIs promise?
If Artemis II and the other space probes have taught earthlings anything, it is that days and years are blips on eternity and have reference only on Earth. The astronauts on the far side of the moon lost all reference to day and night, weeks and months and years.
Time is irrelevant outside our little sphere.
You’ll rarely hear a prophecy preacher saying, “I have no idea whether Jesus will come back this year or a thousand years from now.” What they say tends to be more along the lines of “I’ve quit looking for the signs and started listening for the shout.” That sounds spiritual, but after listening for the “shout” for 20 years, for 50 years, does he get tired and grow discouraged? And would he admit it?
When we preach this way we end up discouraging God’s discerning people by our false interpretations of Bible prophecy. And that is serious stuff.
Let’s teach God’s people to believe Jesus, to treasure the teachings of Scripture about the return of our Lord to earth, and to live in a prepared state so that whenever He returns it’s all good.
As of today, I am 86 years and one month old. If you had a list of all the millions of people born on March 28, 1940, no doubt I have outlived most of them. But in all likelihood my day is coming. And when I take my final breath of earthly air, in the next breath it will be celestial atmosphere. And how wonderful that will be.
I cannot wait.
“Be alert,” Jesus said (Matthew 22:42).
I’m doing my best, my Lord. Thank you for saving me and for saving me a place at the table. I love you dearly.