\n\tBack around the age of television programs like Laugh-In I remember watching a skit premised on how a weather report from Egypt at the time of the pharaohs
\n\tand the Exodus might have sounded. The announcer hammed it up plenty as he announced darkness sweeping over the land from the north; then huge hailstones
\n\tfrom the south, and then \u201cget this,\u201d he announced with wide-eyed incredulity, \u201cfrom the west, frogs!\u201d\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tI am not sure how such a show would work today. It might be a little too real for comfort. And the misapplied qualifier that some super-storm or flood is
\n\t\u201cof biblical proportions\u201d is not uncommon. The other day a White House spokesman noted that while they are always monitoring several hot spots at once,
\n\t\u201clately the whole board seems to be lighting up.\u201d Earthquakes, floods, drought, war, starvation, and pestilence are endemic to the news cycle. While
\n\tChristians might point to these things as end-time markers, few seem to have noticed the full context of Jesus\u2019 answer to His disciples asking about the
\n\tend of the world and of His return.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the book of Mathew in the New Testament you can read the sequence of events. Crowds had gathered in Jerusalem to hear Jesus speak. From other Bible
\n\taccounts we know that the crowd honored Jesus as their king. It must have been a highly charged atmosphere. Surging enthusiastic crowds, watched by Roman
\n\tauthorities ready to call out the riot squad—and watched by the religious leaders who feared that this man was taking away their power. Their fears were
\n\trealized as Jesus then launched into an extended sermon of woes or condemnations of the misguided religious practices of the day and the corrupt church
\n\tleaders who were encouraging the state of affairs. He ended by saying, \u201cYour house is left unto you desolate\u201d (Matthew 23:38).\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThen His disciples came to Him to show Him the buildings of the great Temple built by Herod. They were shocked when Jesus predicted that it would be
\n\tdestroyed so utterly that not one stone would be left standing. This was the sequence of events that led to the disciples coming yet again to Jesus as He
\n\tsat on the Mount of Olives nearby. Their question: \u201cWhen shall these things be? and what shall be the signs of thy coming, and of the end of the world?\u201d
\n\t(Matthew 24:3).\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThey were really asking two questions and Jesus essentially confined Himself to the second, which embraced the first. Perhaps He thought it better not to
\n\tspecify the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. In A.D. 70—in their lifetimes, as Jesus indicated later—they saw this cataclysm. Only the foundation
\n\tof the western wall of the Temple is left standing today.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tSo far as the end of the world, and His coming, Jesus gave an array of signs. In some ways they describe our age.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tHe spoke of \u201cwars and rumours of wars.\u201d But \u201cthe end is not yet\u201d (verse 6). He spoke of famines and pestilences and many earthquakes. \u201cAll these,\u201d Jesus
\n\tsaid, \u201care the beginning of sorrows.\u201d (verse 8).\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tWe seem to be well into the age of sorrows. Famine in the Sahel, civil war in Darfur, earthquakes in China and Haiti, spring turned to winter in Arab
\n\tcountries, Ebola spreading panic and death, megastorms on the East Coast. And overall the growing reality of global warming that promises rising seas, more
\n\tturbulent weather, more severe drought, unleashed natural pests like locusts, and intensified military conflict over shifting water supplies and arable
\n\tland.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tHow unfortunate that in the midst of this we should be fighting over religious solutions to very complex social and geographic problems.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tI saw on a recent cover of the Washington Post a rather Vietnam era-type photo sequence of a bombing of ISIS. The first photo showed a bare hill with an
\n\tISIS flag and a nearby fighter. The second photo showed the hill covered in an immense explosion from the bomb attack. The caption said something about
\n\tISIS destroyed. It troubled me for several reasons. First: it smacked of Vietnam in the assumption that killing a soldier or two has an effect on the
\n\tengine driving the war—body counts turned out to be horribly misleading. Second: I looked closely, and there was still a figure standing amid the smoke.
\n\tThird: who really cares about a bare hill, anyway? ISIS in their advance, as had the Japanese and the Americans in World War II, typically just moved
\n\taround the opposition and bypassed them as ineffectual. Fourth: the threat of Isis is not that it may take Baghdad, but that it may threaten Washington,
\n\tSydney, or Toronto. We are dealing with social dislocation and the idealism of youth harnessed to a radical religious agenda. The solution is less military
\n\tthan a desperate need to redirect religious vision toward uplifting ends.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tActually the outline of the end-times that Jesus gave places a lot of emphasis on the religious conflict just before His appearing. In fact, as He outlines
\n\tit, it is the religious conflict, turmoil, and persecution that define the end-times. He said that His followers would be hated and persecuted as never
\n\tbefore—in fact, the persecution is to be so severe that unless the times are shortened, no one will survive. \u201cAnd then shall many be offended, and shall
\n\tbetray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many\u201d (verses 10, 11).\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tFor me, this is fulfilled today by unprecedented persecution. Christians are facing a final expulsion from many countries in the Middle East. Many minority
\n\tsects of Islam are facing genocidal attacks from majority forces. In other countries Hindus attack Buddhists and in others Buddhists attack Muslims. Many
\n\tare offended at another\u2019s religion or lack of religion and are prepared to harm or kill to advance their view.\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tHow we can dream of the biblical promise that \u201cthey shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain\u201d(Isaiah 11:9). That day will of course come. But it
\n\tlies on the other side of the woes that Jesus spoke of on the Mount of Olives. It lies on the other side of the burning mountain of global warming. It lies
\n\ton the other side of religious violence. The only way past these woes is a personal commitment to use religion to discover God for ourselves. We must not
\n\tfall for the claim of the many false prophets in the different radical forms of faith that violence or force is no answer at all. Our communities should
\n\tteach religious fulfillment and responsibility—not entitlement or a sword to set things straight. Only this way will the recruiting stop and true religious
\n\tfreedom flourish, even in these wicked times.\n\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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