by Jim Corner

As more and more people are convinced that the end of time is just around the corner, let me share a few quotes of interest.

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents and tyrannize their teachers."

"The present age is not an age given to devotion. Men have not time to meditate, to pray, to examine themselves. They have too many newspapers to read, too many political questions to discuss, too much business to transact, too many doctrines to debate, too many faults and errors to censure-and too little taste for communion with God."

"It's a gloomy moment in the history of our country, not in the lifetime of most men has there been so much grave and deep apprehension. Never has the future seemed so incalculable as at this time. The domestic economic situation is in chaos, our dollar is weak through the world, prices are so high as to be utterly impossible. The political cauldron seethes and bubbles with uncertainty. Russia hangs as usual like a cloud, dark and silent on the horizon. It's a solemn moment of our troubles, no man can see the end."

What year or in which publication do you think these statements were made? Well, the first one was made by Socrates in the 5th Century B.C.; the second by Alexander Campbell in 1838 and the third appeared in Harpers Weekly in October of 1857. The simple point that I want to make is that you can take many items in a daily newspaper and fit them (with the help of a crowbar) into the Bible. Let me be very clear at the beginning that I have no better idea of when the world will end than the next person but one thing I know, the 'clues' that many take from the Bible are simply misrepresentations.

Let's begin with the book of Revelation. The July 1 edition of Time Magazine has an article entitled "The Bible & the Apocalypse". The word 'apocalypse' is not a Bible word but the English definition is 'revelation; discovery; disclosure'. "Apocalyptic" is defined as 'pertaining to the Apocalypse or Biblical book of Revelation'. The best commentator for the Bible is the Bible itself and there are 4 key verses in the book of Revelation that allow us to know that what John is writing about has nothing to do with 2002. The apostle John begins the book in 1:1 by saying that the revelation he is going to write about 'must soon take place'. In verse 3 he says that 'the time is near'. He then closes the book in verses 6 and 10 of chapter 22 with the same identical statements. So before we try and figure out who the 4 living creatures of chapter 4 are; what the seven seals of chapter 6 are; what the 7 trumpets of chapter 8 are; what it means in 9:14 about releasing the angels bound at the Euphrates River; the woman and the dragon of chapter 12 and so much more we need to remember that the inspired Apostle John said that the things that he was going to write about would take place soon and that the time was near. In trying to determine what a given Scripture means we must first ask the question: what would the initial readers have understood? Can you picture these 1st century Christians thinking: 'oh no, none of this will happen until the 21st Century'! If I told you today that something would take place soon would you be thinking 41st century? Now I will confess that 1:1,3 and 22:6,10 do not tell me what the things in Revelation do mean but I do know that they teach that all of the "End Time' teaching of today is bogus.

Let us look at a few of the doctrines that many are teaching today. The first refers to the antichrist. We are told by many that this refers to a particular man who will come and wreck havoc on Christianity. Over the years Adolf Hitler and others have been referred to as the antichrist but let's go to the Scriptures to find out the teaching regarding this subject. First of all, you can read Revelation from front to back and never come across the antichrist. The term is mentioned only in I and II John. Listen to John in I John 2:22: "Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist." Four verses earlier John had written that 'even now many antichrists have come'. 'Antichrist' was anyone who opposed Jesus and more specifically, denied His Deity. The notion that there is a singular man out there who will be the antichrist has no Biblical foundation.

The 'rapture' is another common doctrine with what little roots it has in the book of Revelation. Remember that the inspired apostle John said that the events of the book would occur near the time of the writing. Those who teach a rapture have a vivid imagination as the concept is not taught in the Scriptures. The 'tribulation' is another teaching that came from the fertile mind of man.

A cornerstone doctrine of many is the 1000 year reign. Once again, the only time that a 1000 years is mentioned is in the highly figurative book of Revelation which we have already seen has been fulfilled. Some of the 'end time' teaching is taken from Matthew 24 which is not referring to the end of time. Part of this problem is that the disciples ask Jesus a question in verse 3 and it is incorrectly translated 'end of the world' in the King James Version. The Greek word for 'world' is kosmos but the word that Jesus used was ainos which means 'age'. We could spend countless pages on Matthew 24 but let's simply look at verses 19 & 20. Jesus says pray that the day will not find a woman nursing a baby, nor should you desire that it take place on the Sabbath or in the winter. Now, the Bible clearly teaches in I Corinthians 15 that when Jesus does return it will be sudden and instantaneous. Your physical condition, the day of the week or the time of the year will have no bearing on the situation. Jesus, however, is talking about the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army in AD 70 and this fits the entire context of Matthew 24. In the Time article a quote is made that says, "Everything that is happening-wars, rumors of wars-in the Middle East is happening according to Scripture." That is simply not true; in Matthew 24:6 Jesus states that wars and rumors of wars are not a sign of the end.