World Events–and what has me worried.

 

I grew up in the 1970’s where the evangelical world was obsessed with the end times. Books like Hal Lindsay’s “The Late Great Planet Earth”, and films like “A Thief in the Night” caused many of us to grow up with that insecure feeling. As a reaction to my upbringing, I have not given much thought to End Time scenarios. I have never preached past the seventh chapter of Revelation. I have never read the “Left Behind” series. I have not preached a series of messages through the prophecies in Daniel. 

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I have studied post-millennialism and amillennialism and pre-millennialism, (and its offshoot dispensationalism) The result of my studies is “I don’t know.” I know that Jesus is going to come back again. I know that God has history in his control. I do know that things are going to get bad before the end. But the reality is, I don’t know what shape the end times will take. I know a lot of people who are sure of what they think is going to happen. I am not sure.

So as I look at the world, I am not trying to jam events into some preconceived end times scenario. But what I see as I look at events in the middle east are somewhat frightening. Last night I heard CIA agent, named Reza Kahlili (Not his real name), speak (over Skype).  He wrote a book “A Time to Betray”. As a CIA agent he infiltrated the Revolutionary Guard in Iran.

He said Hamas has about 60000 rockets. The events over the past weeks where they have shot over a thousand rockets into Israel has dominated the news. (It seems odd to me that much of News seems to be reported from the view – “How dare Israel shoot back.”) The question one should ask, according to Reza, is “where is Hamas getting these rockets.” The answer he says is Iran. 

It is the worst kept secret in the world that Iran has been working on building an atomic bomb. It has been slowed by the “Stuxnet” computer virus. There have also been “mysterious” explosions and key people in the program have “mysteriously” died. However, the program continues to advance. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September of this year, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu,said that “Iran’s apocalyptic leaders were 70% of the way to building nuclear warheads.” He declared that they would be 90% of of the way by this coming spring. (Spring 2013)

Now all of this would be scary enough. Iran is supplying Hamas with rockets to drop into Israel, and they are close to getting the bomb. The Iranian President, in a speech to the U.N., declared that Israel should be eliminated. I find all of this scary, but this is not the worst of it.

The Iranian regime believes in a radical Shiite eschatology. (How the world will end) Reza and a book I read called “Israel at War” written by Joel Rosenberg basically say the same thing. They believe that there is a new world order coming where the “12th Imam” will arise and lead the world to follow Islam and Jesus Christ will be his deputy. The Iranian regime believes that it can create the context for this to happen. In fact Iran’s supreme leaders has said that he is the deputy of both Mohammad and this 12th Imam.

I don’t think our secular world gets the power of belief. Iran leaders have declared both that they do not believe that they can be hurt by western bombs, and that even if the whole of Iran was laid to waste, that those are acceptable losses if it ushers in the Muslim end times. What that means is that doctrine of “Mutually assured destruction” that held Russia and the U.S. in check in the cold war will not hold Iran in check. They will blow up Israel and the United States (who the Iranian leader refers to as the little Satan and the great Satan) even if they know they are going to get blown up in return.

I started this article by saying that I don’t know what to think about the various Christian views of the end times. I do know this though, Israel seems to be very central to whatever is going to happen. So I see all of this developing and I think, God may provide some sort of miracle to get the world out of this mess, or that Jesus may come back very soon. I don’t know what is going to happen – but I do see reasons to be alert.

The one thing that Jesus emphasises about the end times is that we should be prepared. It seems to me that being prepared to meet Jesus or to walk through difficult times would be a prudent course of action.