Well, according to my count, we have about 12 days left until the world ends.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ve probably heard all about the Mayan calendar and how some say it predicts the world will end on December 21, 2012. Apparently, a stone tablet discovered in the Mexican state of Tabasco in the 1960’s denotes the end of an age and the coming of a great king on 12/21/2012, which some researchers, bolstered by the media, have convinced a large number of people to equate with the apocalypse, doomsday or in the words of Dr. Peter Vinkman of Ghostbusters fame, “forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together…mass hysteria!”
End of the world or not, many people believe the Mayan calendar points to some significant event that will change life as we know it forever. According to a Reuters survey conducted in May, 1 in 10 people believe the world will end in 2012.
It’s not the first time the media has convinced us the world was going to end. Anyone remember Y2K? We were supposed to be plunged into confusion as every computer-driven system in the world shut own. Banks and Wall Street would be thrown into panic as years of financial data were wiped out or rendered inaccessible. Electrical plants would go offline, and the safeguards against nuclear meltdowns would fail. Mayhem would ensue and life as we knew it would be over.
Or what about the comet Hale-Bopp in 1997 – anyone remember that one? Popular rumor was that some sort of alien spacecraft would come in the wake of the comet to carry us all off, for better or worse. Thirty-nine people in the Heaven’s Gate cult committed suicide based on that belief.
Even among Christians there have been many who claim to know when the world is going to end. In 1982, Pat Robertson of the 700 club made this statement: “I guarantee you by the end of 1982 there is going to be a judgment on the world.”
And, in case you’ve forgotten, it was a widely held belief in the Christian Church in the first century, even among the apostles, that Jesus was coming back within one generation of his death.
The polar ice caps are melting and we’re all going to die!
Planet X is heading right for us and we’re all going to die!
The bird flu is coming and we’re all going to die!
The seas are rising and we’re all going to die!
The ozone layer has a hole in it and we’re all going to die!
The bees are disappearing and we’re all going to die!
The terrorists have nukes and we’re all going to die!
A solar flare is going to hit the earth and we’re all going to die!
Well, they all got one thing right…we are all going to die!
When and how, and what happens afterward…well that’s where predictions start to fall apart.
I want you to listen very carefully to what Jesus says in about when the end of the world will happen in Matthew 24: 3-8:
3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
4 Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.”
And then from verses 36-44:
36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[f] but only the Father. 37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
Let me repeat verse 36, because it’s really important:
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[f] but only the Father.”
So when is the world going to end? Nobody knows but God. And anyone who says they know is, at best, mistaken. At worst, a liar.
Now, I’m not going to stand here and say the world isn’t going to end on December 21. Because I don’t know. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But I do know that the Mayans and Nostradamus and whoever else says the world is going to end on December 21 doesn’t know any more about it than you or I do. I’m pretty sure science will predict some of the phenomenon that lead up to the end: earthquakes, floods, that sort of thing. But it won’t know when the end is coming, or even if the events they predict have anything to do with the second coming. I’m pretty sure someone will eventually guess the right date, but they won’t have any special insight that you and I don’t have.
Nobody knows but God.
It’s no more likely that the world will end on December 21, 2012 than any other day of any other year. But it will end. Maybe even in our lifetime, we just don’t know. So we should probably get ready.
There are all sorts of TV shows on now that feature people getting ready for the end of the world. It’s a popular topic with all the Mayan Calendar hype this year. My favorite is a show called Doomsday Preppers. This show usually features an individual or family who are preparing to survive whatever cataclysmic event they believe will destroy the world. Some people have bunkers dug under their homes filled with canned goods, water, generators, and fuel. Some are preparing for the seas to rise and have boats outfitted with supplies for surviving on the water. One woman, worried about germ warfare and a massive plague, conducts regular decontamination drills with her family that entail stripping them down in the yard and hosing them off in a plastic baby pool. Most of these people have weapons to protect their supplies from everyone who didn’t prepare before the event.
I even saw a show recently featuring a guy who claimed aliens would come to save anyone who displayed a certain symbol, and people were buying symbols from him so they could get passage off the doomed planet!
All of these doomsday preppers believe that through these efforts, they and their families will survive whatever the end of the world brings.
I have a very important message for these people:
There is not a hole you can dig deep enough that God cannot find you. There is not a place you can sail to where God cannot reach you. There is not a weapon that can keep God from taking everything away from you. There is not a planet you can fly to that God cannot destroy. And, maybe most importantly, there is not a decontamination system in the world that can wipe you clean of the filth that WILL eventually cause your death and destruction.
When the day of the Lord is at hand, none of your worldly preparations will make a bit of difference.
But there is one doomsday prepper who got it right, and who tells us exactly how to prepare in the right way. His name was John the Baptist.
Now, let me clarify something before I go any further. Yes, it’s Advent, and yes, this is the obligatory John the Baptist sermon. And yes, I know as well as you all know that John the Baptist foretold the birth of Christ.
But John the Baptist wasn’t just talking about the first coming of Christ when he spoke. John didn’t distinguish between a first and second coming, because he didn’t know there would be two comings. So when John talks about the arrival of the Son of God on earth, he’s expecting something a little more like what we think of as the second coming. He’s expecting it to be the end of the world as he knows it.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at how John the Baptist says we should prepare for the end of the world in Luke 3: 10-14:
1 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 “What should we do then?” the crowd asked.
11 John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.
14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”
Nowhere does John the Baptist say, “build a bunker, get a bunch of food and water and weapons, and make sure you decontaminate after going outside!” In fact he says just the opposite – he asks them flat out – “What moron told you you could escape the wrath of God?”
No, John doesn’t tell people to prepare their things, or their bodies, Instead, he says “prepare your hearts.”
But interestingly enough, he doesn’t say “pray, fast, and believe with all your heart that you are saved, and you’ll be just fine!” Unfortunately, I think that’s what many Christians think about the end of the world.
As Christians, we’re confident about a lot of things. We like to hang our hats on things like John 3:16 and act like that’s good enough. “Jesus died, I believe, so I’m going to heaven. Bring on the Judgment day. Oh, I cannot wait for that glorious day when I can be with my Christian Bretheren in the presence of my Savior.”
John the Baptist literally SPITS on that idea.
“You rotten people,” he says, “do you really think that because you call yourselves God’s people that’s enough? God can make people out of rocks.” Anyone who has ever tried to garden in the Poconos knows that rocks are useless unless you do make them into something useful, like a rock wall, or beautiful, like a waterfall or something. Otherwise, they’re just in the way. Something to be tossed aside to make room for something that is useful or beautiful, like carrots or a nice flowering tree.
So what John is saying is this: “When the savior comes, if you useless people haven’t made yourself into something useful and beautiful, you are going to be tossed away.”
Ironically, John tells us we can’t do this by hiding or stockpiling, but by getting out in the world and by giving things up. If someone needs food, give it to them. Don’t take more of anything than you deserve. Don’t accept more money than you need, instead, give to someone who needs it. Turns out that’s what making something beautiful, and useful, of yourself is all about.
John’s not saying that being a nice guy is going to save you, but what he is saying is “stop talking about how you’re God’s people and SHOW it.” In the end, that’s the only doomsday preparation that’s going to save any of us.
So maybe the world will end in 12 days, and maybe it won’t. Maybe it’ll end today for all anyone knows.
Be prepared.
