Apocalypse

Blood Moons, Shemitah, CharismaMag.com, and Last Days Nonsense

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Four Horsemen of the ApocalypseWhere I live, everyone has been running around like crazy, preparing. Kids are off school. People have been buzzing about how it might all go down, and who will be chosen and who will not. Some have been anxious, others elated. What has long been awaited is finally upon us.

In other words, it’s the week of the county fair.

You thought perhaps I was speaking of something else?

Like that blood moon thing. Oh, that’s yesterday’s news. Who’s going to win Best of Show in cattle is more important right now.

As for me, I’m not so much a county fair person. I’m more concerned with the aftermath of this month of September within the pathetic prophetic community in charismatic and dispensationalist Christianity.

An unhealthy fascination with the Jewish holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which fall within September, is an area of concern. This year is also a Jubilee year in Judaism, which happens every 50 years (7 X 7 Shemitah years plus one) and marks a time of the forgiving of debts and the releasing of those in bondage of any kind. Add in the blood moon tetrad we just experienced, and all manner of End Times craziness afflicted us in 2015.

Over at Charisma magazine online (CharismaMag.com and it’s sister site, CharismaNews.com), it’s business as usual, save for a few rare posts wondering why nothing happened. For the last year or so, these sites have been spewing predictions about this month’s eschatological “certainties.” I know this because my Facebook pages have been strewn with Christians posting End Times articles sourced from these two websites.

What was supposed to happen as prophetically announced through various pricey books, DVDs, teaching seminars, and other big money generators was the end of the world, the Second Coming of Christ, the exposing of the Beast and Antichrist, the Last Battle, all manner of Israel-related stuff, signs in the heavens, and signs on earth.

Oh, and that Catholic leader guy visited America. Surely he had to fit into all that too. Had to. Gotta read all the signs.

Here’s the scorecard:

Blood moon tetrad events – FAIL

Wonders related to Shemitah – FAIL

Attacks on Israel – FAIL

Armageddon – FAIL

The Second Coming of Christ – FAIL

The Rapture of the Church – FAIL

Wow, that’s surprising, isn’t it? Not one of those things either happened or signaled anything.

What gets me is that we’ll go on about our business, get ready for fairs, go to work, cheer or lament our local football teams, and nowhere will there be an admission from all these “prophets” who made a fortune hocking End Times nonsense that they were ultimately dead wrong about everything they predicted. And nowhere will there be an apology from the editiorial staff at Charisma that they rode this nuttiness for all it was worth and that they’re sorry for having done so.

I fully believe that Jesus will return one day. I fully believe it will be during a time of great unrest and turmoil. I fully believe that a war between the forces of God and the forces of Satan will erupt sometime in the future.

But all these End Times predictions by self-anointed prophets in polyester suits seem more like astrology, numerology, divination, and outright witchcraft than anything Christian that proceeds from the throne of God Almighty.

God is not a god of error, confusion, and fear. He is not found in earthquakes and windstorms, but instead speaks in a still, small voice, yet one that carries devastating and lasting authority.

My advice to fellow believers is to stop funding and promoting charlatans who attempt to make money by peddling loud, scary predictions. Just stop. Please. Don’t buy their materials and don’t repeat their silliness in social media and elsewhere.

I also hope you will consider that today will be no different than yesterday, and that no apologies will come from those who spoke wrongly. Consider that sometime in the next year we will get another run-up of predictions heading into next September, and by the same “prophets,” and they will be wrong then too.

Whatever we do, we cannot and should not forget or excuse these failed prophetic words. We cannot go on as if the failure of these predictions does not matter. The only way the Church can be strengthened is if we stop supporting the predictions and predictors. One reason lost people no longer look to the Church for answers is because of this nonsense. It must be dealt with.

If any of us fell for all this, we should not lie to ourselves that we didn’t. Instead, we should get before God and get real with Him about our obsession with all things End Times and our tendency to fall for related nonsense. My fear is, if we don’t deal with it, should the Liar of All Liars arise in our lifetimes, we will believe his or her lies just as readily as we believed all these mistaken “prophets.”

I will add that perhaps we should examine the truthfulness of our eschatology. Is falling for this again and again a sign that perhaps what we believe about the End Times is flat-out wrong? Christians have held many differing views of the End. Perhaps the one we currently hold is incorrect.

In conclusion, I offer this.

The smartest religious people of Jesus’ day completely blew both the prediction of His first coming and its means. They got everything so hopelessly wrong that even when the anticipated Messiah stood before them, they could not see.

I believe Christ’s Second Coming will be just as surprising and confounding. It won’t occur the way we think or at the time we believe is most perfect. Yes, we are in the Last Days, but God has not stated to us the exact number of those days.

Until that Final Day of these Last Days, keep doing the work of the Kingdom and relax in letting God choose when and how He will bring it all to its conclusion.

Grown-Cold Love

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And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
— Matthew 24:4-13

Anymore, I’m always hearing about these being the last of the Last Days. With the Mayan calendar nonsense sucking in Christians and with handwringers already lamenting the as-yet-undecided outcome of the 2012 presidential election, apocalypse now isn’t just a movie title.

cold heartOne of the characteristics most noted of the degenerates that will run amok during the Last Days is the fact that their love for God will have grown cold.

But wait a second. As much as we can’t stop talking about Those Other Guys Who Are Most Definitely NOT Us and their grown-cold love for God, are we reading that passage correctly?

Does it really say that the love of many for God will grow cold?

No, it doesn’t delineate what that love is or for whom. We are the ones reading God into that passage.

The fact is, the Bible never attempts the fission of love into factions, love for God versus love for people. Indeed, it explicitly states we must avoid that separation:

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
— 1 John 4:20

Could that possibly be more clear?

So how is it that we almost never talk of falling away from God in terms of falling away from loving other people?

And how is it that the comments on so many Christian websites are filled with supposed lovers of God channeling their ire toward their brothers and sisters in clearly hateful ways? How is it that supposed lovers of God can so gleefully rejoice when a foe gets his comeuppance? How is it that supposed lovers of God can be downright cheerful at the prospect of bombing other people “back to the Stone Age”?

I would suggest that perhaps the better way to determine if our love has grown cold is to ask how much we love people outside our immediate families, especially those we view as sinners. Even better, how much do we love our enemies? If the answer is not much, then perhaps we have already fallen away, no matter how loudly we sing in church or how many chapters of our Bibles we read religiously each day.

If we want to take the pulse of our times, if we want to be on the cutting edge of calling these the last of the Last Days, then perhaps the reality that most of us can’t get along with other people at all says more about the state of our souls than any other test for Christian perfection.

Because it’s not enough to talk about love for God growing cold. If those of us who claim we love God can’t even muster a warm smile for the checkout girl at the grocery store, then all the claims for loving God we espouse till we’re blue in the face won’t hide the fact that we have fallen away and don’t even know it.

Unhinged

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We interrupt the end of the world for this news bulletin…

Have you been receiving some of the same emails I have?

You’d recognize them if you saw them. They come from Christian parachurch ministries. They come from ministry leaders who are not yet somebody on the national stage but who hope to be some day. They come from friends you’ve known for years.

What they all have in common is their begging. Not for money, but for you to do the right thing come Election Day.

When you lean into those emails and take a whiff, can you smell it? The fear? It’s all over them.

In fact, it seems to be all over everything nowadays. The Christian blogosphere reeks of fear. The media. Your neighbors. Maybe even you.

But it’s about more than just the election. People seem to be panicking everywhere I look over any old thing. Seems like someone called a run on the national storehouse of pins and needles. And that panic results in ramblings and ravings that make no sense to those who fit this truth:

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
—2 Timothy 1:7

Many of the most revved up writings I see lately are coming from people entrenched in the modern prophetic movement. Though I consider myself a charismatic, I have yet to see any fruit coming from the self-appointed prophets who litter the charismatic landscape.

Lately, much of the prophetic talk has centered around a particular vice-presidential candidate. Or it’s a rant about Supreme Court judges. Soon to be standard issue...Or the need for us to kowtow to what the national Christian “leaders” say we believers MUST DO—OR ELSE. Most of it contradicts itself. And sadly, it contradicts the Bible more than anything else.

I could reproduce some of the “words” going around out there, but you can see an example in one of my previous posts: “Only One True Kingdom.” Truth is, that “word” is tame compared with some of what is making the rounds.

Here’s my word for the state of things today: Unhinged.

Recently, I read a book that discusses how people react during disasters. A quick look around shows all the signs:

  • Numbness
  • Denial
  • Hysteria
  • Depresssion
  • Rationalization
  • Obedience to small, daily routines despite emergency conditions
  • Sudden onset of blindness

While that final one may not be literal in this case (though it does happen in disasters), it sure satisfies the figurative element for what is going on in our country at the end of The Year of Our Lord 2008.

But it shouldn’t. The Church, especially, should be calmer, wiser, and more discerning than this. That same disaster book discusses how it’s the small people who step up (such as the busboy who saved hundreds during the Beverly Hill Supper Club disaster that occurred in my community), the nobodies, the normally powerless, who can make all the difference. Isn’t the Church supposed to be filled with small, powerless (by the world’s standards) nobodies who end up leading others to safety?

The world doesn’t need a Church that has gone nuts. It needs levelheaded people who stay true to the Word and Spirit.

So if you’re one of those folks sending me emails featuring the kind of stuff I’ve mentioned here, I have a not-so-prophetic “word” for you: Stop.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled apocalypse, already in progress…