Revelation for Beginners

END OF THE WORLD?

January 6, 2009 on 9:06 pm | In REVELATION AND CURRENT EVENTS | Comments Off on END OF THE WORLD?

Today (1-6-09) on Foxnews.com there was an article about five ways the world can end. It listed them as follows:

1. Massive asteroid impact
2. Massive volcanic eruptions
3. Nuclear war
4. Black hole
5. The expanding sun

What should we make of this? Does Revelation have any insight into these conjectures?

We can run into all kinds of difficulties if we try to interpret Revelation by the latest news headline. We end up with constantly changing interpretations and extremely unreliable conclusions. In actuality we should be doing just the reverse—interpreting the headlines by an enlightened understanding of the book of Revelation. That’s why we’re trying to do a thorough job of studying the book of Revelation on this website.

So what do we do about the above news item? Does Revelation have anything to say about how the world ends? Yes, it does. But it doesn’t mention any of the scenarios listed at the beginning of this article, as plausible as some of them may seem. In chapter 19 Jesus is portrayed as leading the armies of heaven on an earthly invasion and making war against the oppressors of His people. In chapter 6, at the end, in describing that event it has people calling for the rocks and mountains to fall on them to hide them from that coming of Christ. Chapter 16 pictures a great earthquake and violent hailstorm. These all take place at the coming of Jesus. There will be more about all that as we study the book in the original category of this website (revelation for beginners). But note in passing that, if we tried to interpret Revelation by the headlines, we would likely have discovered some verse that appeared to be similar to the news story—and we would have totally missed what Revelation was really telling us about the end. The news conjectures, if true, would leave this planet depopulated, and yet Revelation, as well as other scriptures, clearly indicates there will be two classes of people alive when Jesus comes—the saved and the lost. That means the earth will not have been destroyed before Jesus comes, though that does not mean there will be no major natural disasters or loss of life in the meantime.

The important thing right now is for us to know Jesus savingly, then it won’t matter, as far as our salvation is concerned, when He comes or how. The Biblical counsel is “Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.”