Fishing & The End of the World
(Towards a Humble, Missional Eschatology, part 1)
I don’t really enjoy fishing, but I do have a lot of cherished memories from my childhood of fishing with my dad. One of the most important things I ever learned in life, I learned the first few times I went fishing with him. Everyone ought to have the experience of fishing at least once to learn the difference between the tug of a tangle and the jerk of a bite. The first few times your hook gets tangled in the aquatic version of underbrush—or worse, a submerged log—you could swear that you have caught a fish. Once you feel the real thing, though, you know the difference and don’t have any problem distinguishing the two.
The lesson has a lot of applications in life, especially with the things of God. When it comes to the end of the world, history is full of people who are experts at yelling, “the sky is falling!” They are all inevitably proven wrong. Just this week there is another version or two of these idiots popping up again and saying that the world will end on April 24th.
The Bible is clear when it tells us that no one knows the date, and there is no hidden message that we can decode to determine a date. However the Bible does say that we can say one thing regarding the end… and that is when it won’t happen. There are a certain number of things that must happen before the end that enable us to say with confidence that the world will not end today, tomorrow or even on the 24th. So whatever you do, don’t propagate the lie that it could happen at any time.
What can be said with honesty is that every individual’s end is imminent. None of us have a guarantee of life beyond our next breath. We could all face our creator at any moment and have to give an account for ourselves and our decisions. We all need to decide now what we believe and who we will trust.
Just don’t try to scare people into the Kingdom with tales of the end of the world. It will only backfire on you if you launch a person into a life of belief with statements that will inevitably lead to doubts.
I don’t really enjoy fishing, but I do have a lot of cherished memories from my childhood of fishing with my dad. One of the most important things I ever learned in life, I learned the first few times I went fishing with him. Everyone ought to have the experience of fishing at least once to learn the difference between the tug of a tangle and the jerk of a bite. The first few times your hook gets tangled in the aquatic version of underbrush—or worse, a submerged log—you could swear that you have caught a fish. Once you feel the real thing, though, you know the difference and don’t have any problem distinguishing the two.
The lesson has a lot of applications in life, especially with the things of God. When it comes to the end of the world, history is full of people who are experts at yelling, “the sky is falling!” They are all inevitably proven wrong. Just this week there is another version or two of these idiots popping up again and saying that the world will end on April 24th.
The Bible is clear when it tells us that no one knows the date, and there is no hidden message that we can decode to determine a date. However the Bible does say that we can say one thing regarding the end… and that is when it won’t happen. There are a certain number of things that must happen before the end that enable us to say with confidence that the world will not end today, tomorrow or even on the 24th. So whatever you do, don’t propagate the lie that it could happen at any time.
What can be said with honesty is that every individual’s end is imminent. None of us have a guarantee of life beyond our next breath. We could all face our creator at any moment and have to give an account for ourselves and our decisions. We all need to decide now what we believe and who we will trust.
Just don’t try to scare people into the Kingdom with tales of the end of the world. It will only backfire on you if you launch a person into a life of belief with statements that will inevitably lead to doubts.
Amen! Yes! Preach it, Son!
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