Is Jesus Coming back Soon?
May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful- 1st Thessalonians 5:23-24 NKJV
Life has gotten so absurd it would be comical if it weren’t so dang crazy.
Lawlessness is slowly but surely morphing into a new normal. Grown adults are stumped as to how to identify their own gender. People appear to be going feral right before our very eyes. Governments allow legitimately evil people to go free while prosecuting those attempting to aid the innocent. Children can check porn out of their school libraries. Many parents now openly admit in writing they wish they had never had children. There is a novel new way to sin devised almost daily (2nd Timothy 3:1-5).
Sigh.
The nuttiness of it all has left many Christians wondering: When should we start expecting Jesus to come back? And: What does He want me to be doing right now?
Fair questions. Practical questions. Questions that deserve a good answer.
To be honest, I do not have a perfectly definitive answer to the first question. No one does. Jesus wasn’t even given a timeline of future events. If God the Father saw fit to leave Jesus is in the dark, we need to be content with our own lack of clarity on this issue (Matthew 24:36).
However, the Bible does give us some clear indicators to look for as well as some instructions as to what we should do while we wait.
Daniel, the book we’ve been in is a classic go-to for end-times info.
Daniel is where we get the first peek the anti-Christ, a one-world government and a season of intense suffering for Christians (Daniel 7:8, Daniel 7:20, Daniel 8:25, Daniel 9:27, 12, Daniel 11:21, Daniel 11:36-38).
However.
The book of Daniel focuses on big-picture events. Consequently, it is not the best place to go to for clues that the season of Jesus’ return is here or approaching (Matthew 24:32-34). Matthew is a much better book for those kinds of questions. In Matthew twenty-four Jesus gives at least four clues to look for and two directives we should follow as we wait for His return.
The indicators the season is at hand are:
Insane levels of deception and lies about God-
Deception will be the defining characteristic of the end-times. Some deceptions will be fairly obvious and easy for believers to recognize, people claiming to be the messiah and whatnot. Most of the deception will be far less obvious. Subtly is at the core of every good lie and end-time lies will be so good even some Christians will be deceived (Luke 21:8, Matthew 24:4-5, Matthew 24:24). Most end-time deception will involve doubts about what God really meant by what He says in scripture and calling God’s goodness into question. This is already very normal. Even many church people are asking questions such as: “Did God really say certain sexual behaviors are sinful? Are male and female the only options when it comes to gender? Furthermore, hardly a day goes by when we aren’t presented with some stupid article (often written by a “Christian”) or meme calling God’s goodness into question (1st Timothy 4:1-3). It’s all end-times 101 stuff.
Unprecedented lawlessness, hatred and oppression-
The sinful nature of humanity will be on full display in the season of and prior to Jesus’ return. Jesus sums the behavior of the last days as “wickedness” (Matthew 24:12, 2nd Timothy 3:1-5). Apparently, wickedness so common many will become disheartened by the seemingly unending stream of evil and give up on God altogether (Matthew 24:12).
Mayhem and chaos all over the place-
Relentless conflict between people groups, plagues, corrupt government and weird religious leaders will be all be increasingly common occurrences just prior to the return of Jesus. Christians are told directly not to become alarmed by the changes they see taking place (Matthew 24:4-8)
Christian leaders who abuse and exploit those they are called to lead-
Near the end of His prophesy Jesus predicts there will be “servants” (Christians) who have authority over other “servants” (Christians). Some of those servants will lose their fear of God, behave shamefully and abuse the other servants (Matthew 24:48-49, 2nd Timothy 3:6-8). This is a clear warning from Jesus not to allow the behavior of bad Christian leaders to shake our faith in the goodness of God.
Alongside the clues Jesus gives a couple of clear warnings Christians must heed if they want to survive the chaos. It’s critical we understand that just the lead-up to these times are going to be so perilous, confusing and discouraging if we don’t cling to Jesus we will be inclined to quit serving Jesus altogether (2nd Thessalonians 2:7-15, 2nd Thessalonians 2:3).
Apostasy is not inevitable. We prevent it by doing two things:
Practicing discernment-
I do not know when Jesus is coming back. It could be tomorrow. It could be a year from now. It could be decades from now. That said, I do know for absolute certain it has never been more important for Christians to be thoroughly grounded in truth and walking closely with Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2). We are close enough to the end that Satan has power to deceive like he has never had before. The only way to keep ourselves from being deceived is to know truth, walk in truth and commune with Jesus daily (Proverbs 3:5-6). Spiritual truth is the only truly effective antidote to the enemies lies.
And most notably:
We cannot let our love for God grow cold no matter how weird, scary or discouraging life becomes (Matthew 24:12)-
We just can’t. We must be painstakingly careful to keep our love for God from growing cold. Evil people, exploitation, scary stuff, persecution and injustice are going to get worse (way worse). If we are in the end times, my guess is we are probably somewhere in the second or third inning of a nine-inning game. We simply cannot allow ourselves to become unsettled by the evil or disheartened by the persecution and hardship. Followers of Jesus have to play the long game by choosing daily to love Jesus, live righteously, speak truth and love even the unlovable like Jesus loved because those things are the things that prepare us for His return.
