Are We Nearing The End?

As we near the end of the year 1999, the question arises for many, “Are we nearing the end of the world?” There is much speculation about this question and many magazines, papers, and other media seem to be asking the same question. “Is our world about to end?” This is not a new question and has been around for some time. In AD 52 many in the church at Thessalonica were concerned about this question. Paul wrote 1 & 2 Thessalonians to reveal God’s word about when Christ would come again.

In 156 AD a group of Christians in Phrygia were concerned about this question. At the end of the Third Crusade in 1186, a “Letter of Toledo” was circulated throughout Europe predicting the end and said that it was imminent. In Swabia, a man called “brother Arnold, a Friend of the Poor, predicted in 1260 what he called “the end.” Outside of Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1420, Martinek Hauska predicted that God would destroy the earth with fire on February 20. In upstate New York, William Miller predicted the return of Christ in 1843 and when it did not happen changed the date to 1844. The Jehovah’s Witness religion has made various predictions of 1914, 1915, 1918, 1923, 1925, and 1975.

In Mark 13:32, Jesus said, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in heaven…” It is foolish for men to predict that which is unknown even to the angels of heaven. But man constantly shows his “foolish” bent and the desire for sensationalism. When will we learn to depend upon what God has revealed to us in the Bible? When will we let him take care of the rest?

–Wood Avenue church bulletin, Florence, AL