CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, June 4, 2023 – Jesus rarely taught about end-times prophecies. He mentioned them on occasion, and three of the four gospels devote a chapter to them, but they weren’t his focus. More important to Jesus was that his followers understand the necessity of having a strong faith foundation (building on rock rather than sand) and of being born-again. Everything else would flow from that.

Contrast Jesus with today’s self-professed prophets, whose entire ministries revolve around end-times prophecies. This is a red flag of spiritual danger right there, as such prophecies tend to lead Christians away from the basics of having a strong faith foundation and being born-again. They instead stress “visions” and prepping and private revelations, so that being a Christian is no longer about loving your enemies, but about hoarding food and guns and ammo that you have no intention of sharing with your neighbours, let alone your enemies.

Focusing on end-times prophecies is spiritually unhealthy. Perpetually and breathlessly rehashing John’s book of Revelation to see if this or that world event aligns with this or that prophesied sign is little more than a Bible game based on current events if the inspiration doesn’t come from God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us to “watch” for signs, not to binge watch.

Ultimately, fixating on the mark of the beast or the identity of the anti-Christ becomes fear- and ego-driven spiritual porn that has nothing to do with Jesus’ teachings or God’s Kingdom and everything to do with pride and caving to the devil’s seductions.

We need to be very, very careful when we approach the topic of end-times prophecies, especially prophecies based on John’s Revelation. We need to let God lead us by his Spirit, not allow ourselves to be led by random YouTube prophets whose sole purpose appears to be riling up their viewers for clicks, likes, and donations. Elijah, Jeremiah, and other prophets dealt with the same issues during their time on Earth. False prophets are not a new phenomenon, and neither is their focus on end-times prophecies. The only thing that’s new about this latest batch of false prophets is their high-tech method of delivering their lies.

But why are people so drawn to the topic of the end times? For some people, it’s curiosity; they simply want to know what may be coming down the pipeline. For others, there’s an element of escapism in fixating on eschatology (anything to do with the end times) that gives them the feeling they don’t have to deal with issues at hand (since those issues are going to be meaningless once the bombs start dropping, right?). These people use end-times signs as an excuse not to live in the present and deal with their problems. Then there are those who believe that Jesus is coming back soon to set up a worldly kingdom, and they’re rightly looking forward to such a time, if only they weren’t so wrong about Jesus doing that.

Jesus tells us that we should pray to God to take us away before the final cataclysms begin. Why would he tell us to pray to God to take us away if he’s coming back to set up a kingdom? Wouldn’t he instead have told us us to find a nice little hidey-hole to hunker down in and wile away the time until his return? But that’s not what he says; he says we should pray to God to take us Home before the storm begins.

I am not a specialist in eschatology and I don’t focus on it. Still, I’m relatively knowledgeable about it simply by being a follower of Jesus who reads God’s Word daily. I have a believer’s knowledge of the end times. My understanding is based not only on the book of Revelation and chapters in the gospels, but on other books in the Bible, including Daniel, Isaiah, and some of the so-called minor prophets. They all speak of a time when the world will undergo simultaneous cataclysms across every sphere (geological, economic, physical, social, spiritual, etc.) that will be so horrendous, nothing and no-one will survive. It will be a mass extinction event from which there will be no coming back. It will be the end of the world not only as we know it, but the end of the world altogether.

For a Christian, this is a not something that you should pray to happen soon. For a Christian, the focus should be on following Jesus’ example of teaching about God’s Kingdom and doing whatever is necessary to bring people to “repent and believe the Gospel”. Christians should not be praying for the worst of the worst to happen on the off chance that Jesus may be dropping by at the same time.

If you find yourself unduly attracted to end-times prophecies and those who are pushing them, especially on social media, maybe now’s a good time to remind yourself that Jesus didn’t focus on end-times prophecies and didn’t spend much of his ministry teaching about them. It was more important to him that we live our lives day by day by day as he instructed that we do, that we make godly choices, and that we unfailingly treat others as we would want to be treated, including our enemies. These teachings might not have the same thrill and attraction as speculating who the anti-Christ might be or whether we’ve entered the tribulation years, but they are critically important to our eternal soul.

That we learn to love our enemies under every circumstance and temptation is the meat and veggies of our spiritual education, whereas figuring out end-times prophecies is more like dessert. And we all know what happens to our body if our diet consists mostly of dessert.

“Let them eat cake” was never intended as nutritional advice.