We live in gray and latter days.
Each man does what is right in his own eyes. The man of lawlessness has been unleashed. The love of many has grown cold.
Say what you will.
“It has always been like this.”
Carnal security is a cat with many skins. It forever discovers another disguise by which to reassure itself that nothing is different, nothing is urgent, nothing need be discerned.
Willful ignorance is one of man’s most natural reflexes. When Noah warned of judgment, the world married, traded, planted, and built. When Jeremiah proclaimed the fall of Jerusalem, the prophets answered, “Peace, peace,” though there was no peace. When Jesus Christ announced the destruction of the Temple and the coming tribulations, His own generation found reasons to dismiss Him.
Men rarely deny the Word of God by arguing directly against it. More often they domesticate it. They place every warning safely in another age, another people, another crisis, another century. They postpone obedience by postponing relevance.
The scoffer has many voices.
Sometimes he laughs openly. Sometimes he wears the robes of scholarship. Sometimes he stands behind a pulpit. Sometimes he simply shrugs.
“People have always said the end is near.”
“Every generation thinks it is living in extraordinary times.”
“History has seen worse.”
These observations are not always false. They become false when they are used to quiet the conscience rather than sharpen discernment. For Scripture nowhere teaches that the repetition of patterns makes their culmination impossible.
Rather, biblical history unfolds through recurring patterns that gather force as they approach fulfillment. Egypt was not the only bondage. Babylon was not the only exile. Antiochus was not the final persecutor.
Jerusalem’s destruction was both a historical judgment and a shadow of greater judgments still to come. The Spirit teaches us to recognize types because God governs history covenantally. The pattern repeats until the pattern is complete. Therefore it should surprise no Christian that the age bears familiar marks.
Lawlessness increases. Nations rage. False prophets multiply. Men call evil good and good evil. Families dissolve. Children are sacrificed to idols, whether of stone, steel, pleasure, or autonomy. Commerce becomes an altar. Governments claim what belongs to God. Truth becomes negotiable, language becomes unstable, and judgment itself is condemned as hatred.
None of these things proves that tomorrow is the Last Day.
All of them preach that the Last Day is not far.
Vigilance does not require sensationalism.
The Christian need not identify every ruler as the beast, every war as Armageddon, or every new technology as the mark. Such speculation teases impatience more than grants wisdom.
But there is an equal and opposite error within modern carnal Christianity. It is the settled assumption that prophetic expectation is inherently embarrassing, that watchfulness belongs only to fanatics, and that sober eschatological alertness should be replaced by managerial optimism.
A spirit is no less dangerous because it has a good 401(k).
Jesus Christ is remarkably plain.
Watch.
Stay awake.
Keep your lamps burning.
Occupy faithfully until He comes.
The apostles did not instruct the Church to calculate the Day. But neither did they suggest we grow sleepy.
Christ’s appearing is not an appendix.
The return of the King is the ontologic emblem of the common Christianity. The Crucified One is not forever dying. He reigns. Now, in mercy and patience. Soon, with a fiery sword.
Whose side are you on? What banner do you fly? Is the Judge at the gate bad news or good?
Prudence, moderation, and experience are not wicked things. The assurance of normal continuity is a building block of wisdom. But the fact remains that the sun may not come up tomorrow, and even if you placed the right bet on Kalshi, it wouldn’t do you a bit of good.
God’s patience is not delay. His mercy is not indifference.
He is NOT silent.
Previous judgment found many on the wide road and unprepared. Only eight lived through the flood. Sodom was a city of prosperity up to the day that it burned. Babylon’s curse fell on every empire that rose in its place thereafter.
The sacrifices in Jerusalem did not stop until the legions of Titus surrounded the city and put an end to it once and … for now.
When God’s judgment comes, it is always an interruption.
We must then resist two temptations.
We must reject panic, because Jesus Christ reigns.
We must reject complacency, because it’s all going to burn.
Panic forgets His sovereignty. Complacency forgets His promises. Faith remembers both.
Are these the final sol years? Is this just another birth pain?
“The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this instruction.”
That which is entrusted to us is simple. Will the Son of Man find us watching? Will we be awake? How did you love?
What were you expecting?
Among many of the devil's tools is to use fear and/or complacency to distract our attention away from God's Word and saving grace. May we remain faithful in daily focus in the Holy Scriptures.