Thought For Your Day

End Times and End Game.

(1 Th 5:6-10, 2 Cor 5:17-20)

My friend, are you future-ready?

Jesus is coming again very soon! Perhaps TODAY!

There are three basic responses to the imminent return of Christ. There’s the “SO WHAT” response, the “SO HOW” response, and the “SO THAT” response.

1. The “SO WHAT” RESPONSE - The APATHETIC Christian!

The “So What” response is not a response of ignorance but of indifference.

It can be likened to a common response to the alarm clock. When the alarm clock rings, we switch it off and turn over to sleep. So nowadays, alarm clocks come with the SNOOZE button! It allows us to wake up SLOWLY.

A greater alarm clock is ringing. Christ is returning. Yes, we ought to wake up from spiritual slumber!

But too many wish to wake up slowly. And before they know it, they are caught in the stupor of apathy.

Theologian Wayne A. Grudem asked a searching question: “Do Christians in fact eagerly long for Christ's return?”

And Grudem gave this sobering counsel: “THE MORE Christians are caught up in enjoying the good things of this life, AND THE MORE they neglect genuine Christian fellowship and their relationship with Christ, THE LESS they will long for his return” (emphasis mine).

About one-fourth of the entire Bible is prophecy, and about 90 per cent of all prophecy is geared for “the End Time”. Yet many Christians in the global Church are ambivalent towards it.

And eventually, ambivalence leads to apathy.

2. The “SO HOW” RESPONSE - The ANXIOUS Christian!

There are Christians who are anxious about the Last Days. They conceive it as a foreboding time of doom and gloom. They are fearful of the “wars and rumours of wars”, “the earthquakes and pestilence” - and all the other terrifying signs of the Last Days. Furthermore, they envision an impotent church helpless in the tsunami of uncertainties.

A.W. Tozer, one of my favourite authors, speaks with a prophetic voice. Of the End Times, Tozer wrote: “Nowhere in the Word of God is there any text or passage or line that can be twisted or tortured into teaching that the organic living church of Jesus Christ just prior to His return will not have every right and every power and every obligation that she knew in that early part of the book of Acts.”

In other words, REVIVE US AGAIN, LORD! Let the Church be the Church that God intends!

3. The “SO THAT” RESPONSE - The ALERT Christian!

The Statement of Faith of Evangelical Free Church of America reads: “We believe in the personal, bodily and glorious return of our Lord Jesus Christ. The coming of Christ, at a time known only to God, demands constant expectancy and, as our blessed hope, motivates the believer to godly living, sacrificial service and energetic mission.”

Godly living. Sacrificial service. Energetic mission.

1 Thess 5:9-10 captures the heart of God in His redemptive mission for us: “For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, SO THAT whether we are awake (in life) or asleep (in death), we will live together with Him.”

“We will live together with Him”! That’s the Gospel of Christ who makes all things new (2 Cor 5:17).

We must not talk about the End-Times of Man without understanding the End-Game of God! And the End-Game of God in redemptive history is that “we will live together with Him”! Hallelujah! Baruch Hashem!

How then shall we live in the last days? As ambassadors for Christ!

2 Cor 5:19-20 declares - “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.. and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST...”

Ambassadors! - “So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober” (1 Thess 5:6).

My friend, are you future-ready?

Pr. Edmund Chan