People today are fascinated with the future. The future represents uncertainty, it’s something we can’t control or accurately prepare for, so we’re often anxious about the future, and many people try to find ways to get an edge on what tomorrow holds. This is what’s made psychic hotlines a $300 million a year business. This is why Americans bought 20 million books on astrology last year, with millions of Americans consulting their astrological forecast each day. There are dozens of magazines and books that use sociological analysis to try to forecast what the future will be like, books like Future Shock and Megatrends.
Often the Christian response to the future has been the kind of kooky speculation we saw portrayed in the drama. Back in 1988 3.2 million copies of the book 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 were distributed to almost every pastor in America (Alnor, Soothsayers of the Second Advent 15). That book claimed that Jesus Christ would return for his church in September of 1988. When people confronted the author of that book with Jesus’ words that no one knows the day or the hour of Christ’s return, he responded by saying that we could know the month, even the week, just not the precise day and time during that day. The secular media picked up on this and did stories of Christians putting their pets to sleep, selling all their possessions, and waiting on hilltops for Jesus to return. One major Christian network most of you are probably familiar with ran reruns for those three days . Obviously 1988 came and went.
You see, every generation of Christians for the last 2,000 years has had difficulty resisting the urge to speculate about the future. The apostle Paul in the Bible had to confront some of the Christians living in the city of Thessalonica because they’d quit their jobs and stopped providing for their families in their anticipation of Christ’s second coming. The biggest explosion in future speculation and doomsday predictions came in 1000 AD. "Multitudes sold their estates to unbelievers and gave away the proceeds to charities, businesses were neglected, the fields were left uncultivated, and for some years the wildest confusion and terror reigned" (Alnor 55).
What do Christians believe about the future? Today we’re finishing an 8 part series on the basics of the Christian faith. We’ve been trying to explore the core concepts that make up the essence of Christian faith. We’ve been trying to explain these concepts in a way that people unfamiliar with the Christian faith can understand and make sense of in their daily lives. As I’ve mentioned before, every world view and philosophy--the Christian faith included--is like a jigsaw puzzle, with each core belief fitting together with the other core beliefs to form a coherent way of viewing reality. Even though it’s in vogue to mix and match beliefs from different world views, religions and philosophies, the end result of that cut and paste approach is a world view that lacks internal coherence because the specific core beliefs don’t fit together. So far we’ve looked at what Christians believe about God, the Bible, the world, Jesus, the cross, the Holy Spirit, and then last week, the church. Today we’re going to finish our series by looking at what Christians believe about the future.
Now if you’re hoping a detailed timeline of the sequence of events leading up to Christ’s second coming you’re going to be disappointed today. Many Christians have different convictions about the sequence of events leading up to the end, and if you’re really interested about what we believe you can find out our views on some of these details at our Meet Life Bible Fellowship Church seminar next Sunday. What I want to focus in on today are the core concepts about what Christians believe about the future. So today we’re going to look at four key concepts about the future.
1. History Has a Goal
We start with God’s perspective on time.
Ephesians 1:9-10-- And he [God] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment-- to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ (NIV).
Several key words from these two verses reveal God’s perspective on time. The first is the word "mystery." In the Bible, a mystery is something that was previously unknown that God has now made clear. People are looking for secrets and mysteries when they consult astrologers and psychics, yet throughout the Bible, God warns us that consulting these things is a form rebellion against God, that if we really want to know about the future, we need to just come to God through faith. God has revealed all the mysteries we need to know about the future through his book, so there’s no need for astrologers and psychic friends.
The word "purposed" carries with it the notion of planning a strategic future course of action and then carrying that plan out. Then the idea of the times reaching their fulfillment carries with it the notion that time is heading somewhere, that there is something to be completed, something to be achieved and brought about within the sequence of time. Once the things God has planned and purposed are brought about, verse 10 says God will bring everything in the universe together through Christ. This carries the idea of summarizing something, placing every detail in its proper place, of tying up all the lose ends. This is like the final chapter in a mystery novel, where all the individual details that seemed arbitrary and isolated suddenly make sense in light of the entire storyline and plot.
This tells us that time has a destination, and here’s our first key concept. Since history is heading toward a final goal, all the events of our lives have meaning.
The Christian faith has always been a historical faith because it sees God acting in the course of actual human events and these events leading to the fulfillment of a grand, master plan. In the Old Testament key historical events like creation, the founding of the Jewish nation, the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, the bringing of Israel into the promised land and so forth are all rooted in actual historical events. In the New Testament the birth of Jesus, his life, his trial, his death by crucifixion, his bodily resurrection, his ascension into heaven, and his founding of the church, these are all actual historical events. God is carrying out his intention, his plan, through the flow of actual people in actual places.
This pictures history as being like a road, leading to a specific destination, with all the events and signs along the road having significance to take us to the next leg of our journey. Now this way of looking at life is very different from what you find in Eastern religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and the New Age Movement. Eastern thought pictures life as an unending cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Because of this history has never been real significant to Eastern religions, because history is just the same story told over and over again, only the faces change but the plot remains the same, and it’s believed that history will continue for eternity.
We can see this influence in our own culture with the rising popularity of belief in reincarnation, which rests on this Eastern way of viewing life as a cycle rather than a road leading toward a destination. According to a Gallup poll in 1995, 27% of Americans believe in reincarnation. People like the Greek philosopher Socrates, the famous military leader General Patton, the industrialist Henry Ford, the Spanish painter Salvador Dali, and the author Mark Twain all embraced reincarnation and this cyclical view of history. And yet we can’t just cut and paste reincarnation into a Christian world view, because it doesn’t fit the Biblical understanding of history leading toward a destination.
The Christian faith has always affirmed that history is heading toward a final goal, a culmination, a final tying up of lose ends. You see if you’re going in a circle the scenery really has no significance because it’s the same thing over and over again. But if history is a road leading to a destination, then everything that happens along the road has meaning and purpose as we journey step by step. It’s this fundamental conviction about the nature of time that enables Christians to find hope and meaning in the midst of the pain and tragedies of life.
Roman 8:28-- And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
As God works out his purpose, both personally and globally, even the awful tragedies of our lives can be used to bring about God’s good purposes. The classic example of this way of viewing life is a young man in the book of Genesis named Joseph. If anyone was a victim, it was Joseph, as he was betrayed and sold into slavery by his older brothers, falsely accused of wrongdoing in Egypt, and then forgotten as he sat rotting in an Egyptian prison. The emotional scars and trauma caused by other people in Joseph’s life would’ve kept a therapist busy for decades. Yet God was with Joseph--in spite of these terrible injustices --and soon Joseph found himself the prime minister of the Egyptian government, sustaining Egypt during a major famine. Eventually Joseph’s family--including his brothers who sold him into slavery--came to Egypt and they survived the famine only because of Joseph’s position. If Joseph had not been in that position, his family would’ve starved to death and if that’d happened all the promises God made to Joseph’s great grandfather Abraham, his grandfather Isaac, and his father Jacob would’ve never been fulfilled, and ultimately Jesus wouldn’t have been born because his lineage would’ve died out. Joseph understood that his life was part of a grand master plan, so much so that at the end of his life he was able to say to his brothers, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done" (Genesis 50:20).
If God is leading us along a road toward the final fulfillment of his purposes, then we too can live with that same assurance, that no matter what happens in our lives, these events will ultimately find meaning in God’s plan.
2. Jesus Will Return
That brings us to the second key concept in John 14:2-3.
John 14:2-3-- In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am (NIV).
Jesus is picturing heaven here as being like a home. Home isn’t just where you get your mail, but it’s where you’re secure and safe, it’s where you’re with those you love and who love you. Home is the one place where they have to take you in, no matter what you’ve done. In this word picture of heaven, Jesus says that there’s enough room for everyone. There are many rooms or dwelling places in this home, it’s not as if there’s only limited accommodations for a few select people and the rest are out of luck. There’s enough room for all who will come to Jesus through faith.
When Jesus says that he’s going away here, he’s referring to his death and resurrection. His death on the cross and resurrection are the means by which he’s prepared a place for us, because only through the cross will we’re able to find restoration with God.
Then comes the promise: If goes through the pain of dying on the cross to prepare our place, he’ll certainly come again one day to take us to that home. This is a reference to the second coming of Jesus Christ, that conviction that at the end of history when time runs its course, that Jesus will return again.
A few years ago US News and World Report found that 61% of Americans believe that Jesus will come again. Jesus spoke often about his second coming, that the first time he came as the suffering servant but the second time he will come as the glorious conqueror, to vanquish evil, to make right every wrong.
Here we find a confidence that’s essential to the Christian faith. Since God keeps all of his promises, we can be sure that Jesus Christ will return again.
According to the Bible this second coming will be literal.
Some Christians who don’t accept the truthfulness of the Bible have tried to reinterpret Christ’s Second Coming as symbolic of the Holy Spirit’s work in the church’s life. Others have said the second coming really just refers to society getting better and better, ushering in a golden age. I once had a pastor of a large church in Orange county who’d been in ministry for 50 years confide in my that he no longer believed in a literal second coming of Christ. Yet we can expect his second coming to be just as literal as his first coming, because he was literally born into the world, literally lived and taught in Palestine, literally died on a cross after being condemned by a literal court, and was literally raised from the grave.
According to the Bible this second coming will also be visible. Revelation 1:7 says "every eye will see him" when Jesus comes again. Nobody’s going to miss this event, no one will slip through the cracks.
Now the fact that God keeps his promises--this promise included--gives us a confidence. We may not know all the details of how the end will come about, we may not have our curiosity satisfied about the identity of the antichrist and what the mark of the beast truly is, but we do know that God keeps his promises. Maybe you’ve heard the saying, "I may not know the future, but I know the one who holds the future in his hands."
3. Living In Between
Yet living in confidence doesn’t mean that there’s no struggle in our lives.
Titus 2:11-13-- For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope-- the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ (NIV).
There are three time frameworks mentioned in this passage. First there’s the time when God’s grace appeared through Christ. This refers to Jesus’s birth, life, death and resurrection. When Christ appeared God’s grace appeared, making accessibility with God available for all who will come through Christ. Then there’s the end of the age--the second coming of Christ--referred to here as a blessed hope. But there’s a third time period, "this present age" which is a kind of in between time. In this present age we struggle with ungodliness and worldly passions--doing things in independently of God God, indulging ourselves at the expense of others, living for our pleasures.
This way of life seems totally normal to our culture, but in the life of the Christian it betrays a lack of understanding of how God’s grace transforms our lives and changes us. A man or woman changed by God’s grace is able to life a life of self control, an upright and godly life that lives in intimacy with God, obeying God, living by God’s counter cultural principles for life. Because we live in this present age we experience a battle.
This is our next key concept. Since we live in between Christ’s first and second comings, we experience conflict.
I’m often asked if I think we’re living in the end times. I respond, "Yes" but I’m quick to point out that this entire present age, from Christ’s founding of the church 2,000 years ago until Christ comes again one day is called "the last days" in the Bible. God’s kingdom--his rulership--broke through into our world through Christ, and then through his founding of the church, and now, very quietly and unobtrusively that kingdom is breaking through as men and women come to trust their lives to Jesus Christ and live in full devotion to Christ. The times we live in are times of conflict, where on the one hand we’ve already be welcomed into God’s kingdom, fully accepted and forgiven through Christ as God’s children, but on the other hand we still struggle with sinful habits in our lives, we still get distracted by the way of life our world offers us. We live in a transitional time, a time the Bible describes as the last days.
Several years ago a New Testament scholar named Oscar Cullmann suggested that the present age we live in is similar to the time in between D-Day and V-Day during World War II. Yesterday was the 54th anneversary of D-Day, which was the decisive battle in WW II when the allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy France. Winning that battle turned the tide of the war and made an Allied victory inevitable and sure. In a similar fashion, when Christ died and rose from the grave, he won the decisive battle against sin and evil, he conquered the grave, making his ultimate victory in the end a certainty. Yet in WW II the war wasn’t officially over until V-Day, when the Axis forces finally surrendered. In a similar fashion although the end is now sure, we live in that tension between the decisive victory and the final curtain falling.
Some have wondered why it’s taken so long for Christ to come again, why allow us to live in this in between time? The Bible’s explanation is one word: grace. We live in a grace period, a time when God desires to give every person the opportunity to experience God’s grace through Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 3:8-10-- But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come...(NIV).
So until then we live in a transitional time characterized by conflict between the old and the new.
4. A Final Destination
Now once Christ comes again at the end what will happen? Jesus tells us.
Matthew 25:46-- "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
When the final curtain on human history falls, the sides will have been chosen and the choices made final. Those who reject God’s grace will live out the consequence of that rejection by living in eternity separated from grace in eternal punishment. Those who embrace God’s grace will be welcomed into eternal life.
We find in these words of Jesus Christ that hell is just as literal as heaven. Back in March of 1997, Time magazine devoted their cover article to what Americans think about heaven. They found that 81% of Americans believe in the existence of heaven, but that only 63% believe in the existence of hell. Interestingly, although that many people believe in hell, only 1% of Americans think they’re going there.
Some have felt that this is unjust of God to consign some people to hell and others to heaven. I had a police officer friend tell me once, "I just can’t believe that God won’t allow everyone in heaven." I told my friend, "Then you’ll certainly have job security because heaven will be just like life here." Does that mean the devil will also be in heaven, that Hitler and the like, that people will be forced into heaven whether they want to be there or not? Does that mean God violates people’s free will and forces everyone to be in heaven, regardless of what they want? I know very few people who think that, and when you really get down to it, everyone who believes in heaven, believes that there’s a certain criteria for who will be there and who won’t. So the real question is what’s the criteria? According to that Time magazine article, 54% of Americans believe the criteria is a combination of faith and works. But according to the Bible, no human being qualifies to be in heaven, because heaven is a place of absolute purity and our lives are filled with imperfection. C. S. Lewis once said that for an imperfect, sinful human being to be in heaven would be as tormenting an experience as being in hell.
So the real question is how can imperfect, sinful people be transformed into the kind of people who can live in heaven, how can we be changed into men and women who will be at home in a place of absolute purity and righteousness? The Christian answer to this is God’s grace through Jesus Christ. Through what Jesus did on the cross, men and women can be changed, cleansed, and freed from imperfection and failure, and these are the people who will be able to live in heaven without it being torment. As C. S. Lewis said in his book the Great Divorce, in the end it comes down to one of two things: Either we say to God, "Your will be done" and enter into heaven through Christ, or God says to us, "Your will be done" and we enter into hell. Hell is an eternal memorial to humans freedom.
Hebrews 9:27-- Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.
This of course makes the Christian faith incompatible with reincarnation. Death is like taxes, it’s inevitable, inescapable. After death we’re not reborn as another person, but we face our God, our maker, our creator, and we give an account of how we’ve lived our lives, of what we’ve done with our lives.
These passages tell us about a decision. This is the final key concept. Since there is a final destiny for all people, our decisions today have eternal significance.
We stand at the crossroads of a decision. God’s grace has appeared for all people through Jesus Christ, but how we respond to that grace--our decision about it--will have eternal consequences. Of course the most significant decision a person can make is his or her decision about Jesus Christ. If Jesus truly is God’s provision to communicate His grace and transform our lives, then he’s unique from every other spiritual figure in world history. Whether or not a person embraces God’s grace through faith in Jesus or rejects God’s grace is the most significant decision that person can make.
Now in our culture today we like to keep all of our options open because we know choosing one course of action means not choosing other courses of action. So we tend to be very indecisive and non-commital, yet we need to realize that not making a decision is a decision in itself, because it’s impossible to be neutral about Jesus. Now for those who’ve responded to God’s offer of his incredible love through Jesus, the significance of our decisions don’t end there. I know some people who devote themselves to Christ, and then go on their merry way, figuring they have their place in heaven reserved. Yet according to the Bible, if you’ve trusted Christ your place in heaven may be secure, but you will still be judged according to what you’ve done in this life with what you have. Our decisions about what to do with our money, about where to invest our time, about what priorities will be important in our lives all have eternal significance because the things done in devotion to Jesus Christ are things that will last forever. Whenever I seem a Christian who’s wealthy but who spends their wealth on themselves, my heart fills with sadness for the kind of loss and shame they’ll experience when they stand before God and he asks them what they did with what God gave them. You see, the more God gives us in terms of resources, opportunities and so forth, the higher the level of responsibility to use those things wisely and the higher the level of accountability when we ultimately stand before God.
I think there will be lots of surprises at the end of the age when we stand before God.
Conclusion
What do Christians believe about the future? We believe that there is a destination as all of history moves toward a final goal. We believe that there is reason to have confidence since God has promised that Jesus will return again and God always keeps His promises. We believe that we are in a battle between our identity in God’s kingdom and our identity in this present age. We believe that our decisions matter because there is a final destiny for every person.
