A PLANET IN TURMOIL

“The floods across much of the world have reached epic proportions”. “Much of the blame can be pinned on La Nina, a vast upheaval in the Pacific … and because the Pacific covers a third of the Earth’s surface, that turmoil has stoked up violent weather across a large part of the globe”. An estimated 1,000,000 are affected. So reports “The Times” this week. It adds, “No one really knows why these events come and go when they do …the only sure thing is that signs can appear weeks or months ahead but without knowing where exactly they would strike”.

Put this report alongside Jesus’ prophetic utterance just days before he died: “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will faint with terror, apprehensive at what is coming on the world”. He was speaking of his return, and saying that devastating happenings on the earth would presage that return and that the sea would have a particular place in that sequel.

Be careful here! The atmosphere of liberal, scientific and secular Christianity in which we live unfortunately tends to make even Christians “turn off” when the prophetic is put alongside the scientific. It has rather a sniff of being “over the top”. Better to just retreat into the prevailing cynicism!
Be careful lest that sort of thought creep across your mind, for there could be no greater mistake.

Jesus was adamant about the fact that catastrophic happenings in the heavens and on the earth and the sea would constitute signs of his coming. Natural events and catastrophes are not things that “just happen”. God is the Creator God. He knows all about sunspots, the source of so many problems! They are still within his determining “fiat”; he is still in control.

Why should such catastrophic signs be associated with his return? Well, Jesus’ coming will, of course, be a time of human reckoning and judgement, so what more plain a way could there be to draw attention to so serious a moment than signs that make us aware of such a judgement, and challenge us as to our behaviour.

If scientists can pick up the “signs” of a coming La Nina, though not exactly quite when it would come, Christians should be able to pick up the signs of the coming Jesus even if they cannot say exactly when. Those signs have been laid out clearly enough for us by Jesus himself and they include natural catastrophe. Our generation of Christians has actually shrunk back from any real study and reflection on “end times”, when more than any other generation, perhaps, it should have them firmly in its outlook and thinking. Jesus was not indulging in interesting theological possibilities when he spoke on the last days and his return and the signs of those times; his words were serious, down the line Holy Spirit prophecy.

We don’t know precisely where what we are witnessing in these days fits into the scheme of things. One would not want to say that the things we are witnessing were the fulfillment of Jesus’ words, but they are certainly clear pointers and reminders of the nature of what is to come.


Bob


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