Seeing Signs of the End

The young pastor was visiting his elderly parishioner. He was always a little intimidated when he went to this particular home. It was not that the man was hard to talk to. He was always friendly and even helped the conversation along. Rumor had it, however, that he had been a pastor of a very large church and that he had a doctoral degree in theology. Not that he ever mentioned it.

“So how are you doing today, Mr. Franklin?” asked the young pastor.

“Doing well, pastor!” he replied. He always used the title “pastor.” Never the young man’s first name, even though a couple of generations separated them.

“You always say that.”

“Well, at my age, being able to say that means it’s true!”

The young pastor didn’t know what to say to that. So he moved quickly on to the standard questions about children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. This was always a good way to eat up some time, and it was totally safe.

But as he was getting ready to leave, the young pastor made one of those safe theological comments many Christians make. “I guess as we read and hear the news today we can know that Jesus is coming soon. I imagine you can’t wait for that!”

A few moments of silence passed, just enough to make the young pastor think he had accidentally said something that offended the old man.

“Jesus is coming soon,” came the reply finally. “That’s always true. For me, what’s coming soon is my journey to go meet Him.” There was another pause. “But what the news tells me, pastor, is that God is in control. Always.”

“With all the trouble in the world, how could you say the news tells you that God is in control?” As soon as he said it, he regretted it. He was supposed to be the pastor, after all, encouraging, not frightening.

Mr. Franklin smiled. “The news always tells me that God is in control.”

“So when people are dying in floods, or have their homes torn up by tornadoes, or thousands are dying in war, that means God is in control?”

“Absolutely! I imagine you learned in seminary that God is always in control. We’ve all read the book of Daniel, for example, where God sets up kings and brings them down. Or perhaps Isaiah 45:7, where God says he is equally responsible for making darkness and light, well-being and woe.”

“Well, yes, but surely good news reminds you more of God’s action. I mean I really believe God is in control, but with some of the news, it’s harder to remember. But then I think that ‘wars and rumors of wars’ are signs that the end is near. That makes me feel better.”

“There are things it’s easier to teach than it is to believe, I mean to believe to the point you really trust them. God’s control is something like that. We say God is in control when things are going well and then we wonder where God is when things are going badly. When you’ve lived as long as I have, you’ve either discovered that God is always there, or you’re going to have a lot of fear in your life, and that’s no fun at all.

“It’s the same thing with signs of Jesus’ coming. As long as I can remember, which I’m sure you’re thinking is a long time, I have heard preachers pointing to bad things happening in the world and telling people Jesus was obviously coming soon because of all the trouble. They scoured their Bibles for signs so they could know what was going to happen next.

“Thing is, it never worked. It’s never going to work. The reason is that the one sign you need to see is simply that God is in control, and you’re God’s servant. Keep on working with that. When you get to be my age, you’ll realize how close Jesus has been to returning all the time.”

“I’ve been wanting to ask you about the end times, but I hated to admit I don’t understand everything about it. And here you’re basically saying you don’t have a roadmap either!”

“Yes, my PhD had to be good for something. The best thing it did was teach me that I really don’t know all that much.” He paused. “But in this case my education plus a lot of experience gave me some insight. You mentioned the news as a sign of the return of Jesus. You were surprised I would respond that God is in control. But you see, it is precisely in those times when things go wrong, when they come closest to seeming to fall apart that I see most clearly that God is in control.”

“I still don’t understand. God is in control when people are slaughtering one another in war?”

“Have you ever considered our great capacity as people bring on major disasters? It’s interesting to look at history, especially recent history and consider how much worse things could have gone. One of the things we don’t always consider is the depth of human depravity.”

“Depravity? I’m not sure people would like me using that word from the pulpit.” The young pastor looked thoughtful. “People don’t like to think of themselves as depraved. It sounds so dirty. Maybe ‘limited’ or ‘weak’, but not depraved.”

“But depravity, in a theological sense, simply means we have nothing to offer God. The problem is that when we put it that way, people think of themselves as OK, but not quite up to God’s standards. They’re pretty good, just not all the way good. But the reality out there is that we humans are really good at making a mess of things. When I think of the possibility of the Nazis getting the bomb before the allies in World War II, or the possibility of the superpowers destroying the world in the cold war, or simply the millions killed because we can’t get along, I have to realize that if something didn’t stop it, we could have destroyed everything. I wonder if that’s not what happened at the flood. It wasn’t that God destroyed everybody because he didn’t like what they were doing, it was because they were going to do that by their actions, and he chose to only intervene for a few. I don’t know, but it’s a thought.

“Still, for me, when I read the bad news and then think, and we’re still here, that’s when I am most reminded that God is in control.”

“OK, I think I see that. I’m not sure I can really feel it, but I see it.”

“Give yourself another couple of decades!”

The young pastor paused, then resumed. “I’m still wondering about the signs of the end-times. Aren’t these items of bad news signs of the end?”

“Let me ask you a question. If these are signs of the end, what are you supposed to do?”

“Well, I suppose I’m supposed to try to spread the gospel and help others. I’m supposed to be a witness.”

“And if they aren’t?”

There was another pause. “Well, pretty much the same thing.” He said it reluctantly.

“So what’s the purpose of knowing precisely how the end times are going to go? Hang on to Jesus if things are going well. Hang on to Jesus if things are going badly. Hang on very tightly if things are falling apart completely. And let me tell you, it’s hardest to hang on when things are all going well. You tend to forget!”

It was a very thoughtful young pastor who left that day.

(Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)