If recent earthquakes in various places are harbingers of the end, what makes one quake prophetic but not another? When I was a young Christian, books on the end-times were hot sellers. We all wanted to know “when” we were on God’s prophetic clock, and what would be the “signs of the times” whereby we could decipher how close the “end” was.
Well, that was why I devoured such books. After all, was I not a member of the “last generation”?
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| [Earthquake - Photo by Jose Antonio Gallego Vázquez on Unsplash] |
When the latest prophecy “expert” lists the key “signs of the times” that demonstrate just how near the “end” is, invariably, he or she will begin by citing Jesus’ words on earthquakes, wars, and so on. As he warned his disciples:
- “Beware, let no man deceive you, for many will come in my name, saying, I am the Christ; and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; be not troubled: for these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and earthquakes in different places.”
And so, predictably, recent earthquakes in
California have motivated popular preachers to claim they might be
harbingers of something prophetic that is about to occur. Of course, that is
the Standard Operating Procedure employed by the “experts” whenever a seismic
event of any significance occurs anywhere in the world, even in remote and
barely inhabited areas.
Here’s the problem. Multiple earthquakes occur daily somewhere in the
world, and especially in seismically active regions like the ‘Pacific Rim.’ So,
how am I to determine which quake is prophetically significant?
For that matter, where does the New Testament teach that
earthquakes are tools with which we can divine the future? All Jesus said was
there would be “earthquakes in different places.”
Nowhere did he say that one earthquake
would be more prophetically significant than another or exactly how we could
make that determination. Nowhere did he predict that in the “last days”
the frequency or intensity of seismic events would increase. That may be the
popular interpretation, and that is all it is, one that is imposed on his
words so prophecy preachers can make their prophetic case.
Jesus did not say that earthquakes (or wars and famines) are signs of the “end.” He only stated that such things will occur and that we should not be “troubled” when they do. Why not? Because “the end is not yet”!
Of course, Jesus did give one definitive “sign” that would indicate
the imminence of the “end.” When “this gospel of the kingdom shall be
preached in the whole habitable earth for a testimony to all the nations, then the end will come.”
Prior to his ascension, Jesus gave his disciples one mission, to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to all nations. Only when that mission was finished
would the “Son of Man come in power and glory” to gather his “elect”
to himself.
The very fact that he has not done so is irrefutable evidence
that the task remains incomplete. Yes, the Lord’s logic is circular, but
deliberately so. “The end is not yet, therefore, we must get busy preaching the Gospel!” Maybe that was the point he wanted to make.
Jesus did warn, and repeatedly so, about the “many”
coming deceivers bent on deceiving “the elect,” and as “many” of
them as possible. His warning stressed what the disciples would “hear”: Reports
of wars and claims about earthquakes and famines “in different places.”
In
context, he foresaw that these very “deceivers” would be the ones
spreading such disinformation, and so it is today with many of our most
popular prophecy preachers, teachers, and authors.
How many times have we heard prophecy teachers issue such warnings
over the last century or two only to see our prophetic expectations fizzle out?
If anything, the infiltration of churches by “many deceivers”
is a far more reliable “sign” of the end’s proximity than any earthquake “reported” in the daily news headlines.
None of this leads me to believe that we are not the “last generation,”
or that he will not return soon.
However, too many of us have been evaluating
such questions with the wrong criteria, and if his return is dependent
on the church completing the one task assigned to it, then I must assume
that day is a bit further off than I would like to think and hope.