I've been reading some books by Joel Rosenberg (The Last Jihad, The Last Days, The Ezekiel Option, and The Copper Scroll) I'm on The Ezekiel Option. These books are about the end times with a setting of an international thriller: espionage and heroics, not your typical Christian fiction. I have to admit I was slow to warm up to the characters, but after 2 books they began to feel like old friends. I grieved when they were injured or betrayed, and celebrated their successes. That's what good writing is all about right?
At the start of the third book I almost stopped reading. One of my favorite characters went missing and I honestly thought, "I'm just not going to read this if McCoy is gone...I just can't take another one getting killed". This about a fictional character! (and yes I can still distinguish between real and imaginary). But it got me thinking ... about real friends, and real end times. I'm not ashamed to admit that the end times scare the bejeebers out of me. I don't want to be around for it. I don't want my family to be around for it. But I do want us all to be on God's side. Because while I won't claim prophet status, I can tell the future .... God wins.
And therein lies the hope. Regardless of what happens here, God wins. God will create a new heaven and a new earth. We will worship Him forever. The thought of that is enough to calm the fears. The light of that Biblical truth chases away the darkness that plague my thoughts. Because it really will be all right in the end, the very end that is. The beginning of the end and the middle of the end will stink more than we can even imagine, but the very end of the end ... I imagine it will be so much better than the best we can ever describe.
So when things seem bad here - whether its the current economic crisis, or wars and rumors of wars, I take hope in the promise of heaven.
Because after all, God wins!
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There is truly nothing about the "end times" that should ever scare "the bejeebers" out of a Christian believer if they are being taught correctly and they have "rightly-divided the word of truth". Perhaps what you are refering to as the "scary part" is the teaching that the anti-christ shows up and he appears on-the-scene before the return of Jesus Christ. I do agree with you - as that certainly would scare "the bejeebers" out of just about anybody - not just the Christian believer.
Yet I've searched the scriptures 100's of times and I've found nothing to support this ideology - that is, that the anti-christ appears before the return of Jesus Christ. Those who support that theology often confuse the church of the body (the church of grace to which you and I belong) with the church of the bride (Israel) by making these two usages of "church" synonomous with each other. The Word of God however separates these two churches with the bride of Christ being the church of the Gospels and the Church of Grace being the church of the Epistles.
The confusion in not keeping these two churches separtate and how they relate to each other biblically (especially in a chronological sense) is just "the tip of the iceberg" supporting this erroneous belief of the Anti-chirst appearing first.
Here are a few comparisons between these two churches (the church of the bride and church of the Body) to prove they are indeed different and not the same:
1. Church of the Bride (Israel) was called from or since the foundation of the world began. The Church of the Body was only "purposed" from the foundation of the world as it was hidden by God since the foundation of the world.
2. The Church of the Bride only had Holy Spirit "upon" them, while the Church of the body has holy spirit "inside" of them. We are "sealed with the holy spirit". This truth could not be said of Israel, the bride of Christ.
3. Church of the bride - their ultimate sphere and dominion is the earth. Church of the Body: We are seated in the heavens (see Ephesians 2:6) and our sphere and ultimate dominion is heaven itself.
We, the Body of Christ, are called to be a "new creation" however Israel never was called nor promised to be a new creation. That is why Paul tells the believers in Thessalonians they don't need to know about the signs and times - those are for Israel (after we are gathered) not for those of us in the age of grace.
We are told to look for Christ, not to look for the Anti-christ. We are to look for Christ, not what Russia, or the EU, or Nero is doing.
Because Christians don't make this distinction between this unprophesied age of Grace and the Old Testament (OT) times, they take the prophesies from the OT and of Jesus from the Gospels (remember - he came ONLY to Israel in his ministry on earth - to call them to the Kingdom that was at hand) and apply these prophecies to themselves - which is not right, since we are living in an unprophesised time period.
The prophecies of the OT and the Gospels are fulfilled and they are ultimately completed in Revelation.
Any prophecy of the "end times" as many Christians are into today, though, while fascinating and wonderful to understand - do not apply to us. Just how could they, since biblically we are in an unprophesied time period.
As the church, the one body, the new creation - as a different species that will be revealed someday:
We are not Israel, who is the bride - they were never told they would be a "new creation."
So we have two different groups, two different churches called out at two different times, with two different purposes in God's mind, with two different spheres of being and two different destinies.
We were called in eternity, we shall live in the heavenlies in eternity as a new creation - a new species, a new being that has never been seen or conceived of, except in the mind of God before Genesis 1:1 - conceived in eternity.
Those are our promises! For us - the Church of the Body, this is truly "amazing grace".
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