The End of the World

It certainly did not seem as though we had only published once this month. Where did the month go? Apparently we have not been as focused as we might have been. We had thought we would get at least one more post written before the world ended yesterday, but neither of those things happened. Whether you sincerely expected the end of the world, considered the possibility, or merely watched from a distance, there are things to learn from the whole experience.

God intends for us to hear Him every day. That is the essence of the present day ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said it was good that He go away because then the Holy Spirit would come. (John 16:7) The Holy Spirit would not be contained within a human body as Jesus was during His stay on earth, but would be available to all believers all the time. What many people do not understand as they read those words is that each member of the Godhead carries the primary work of God on earth individually in each epoch of history. This is a key concept in understanding why we are still here and why the predictions of the end of the world yesterday were errant.

All three members of the Trinity were present at creation. (Genesis 1:1,2; John 1:1) God the Father worked from the time of creation until Jesus took on flesh and assumed His earthly ministry. When Jesus returned to the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 8:1), The Holy Spirit began His ministry on earth. That ministry will continue until Jesus returns for His Church--at some still future time.

This whole concept of the world ending at 6:00 PM, May 21, 2011 started with the teachings of one man. Granted that man is nearly ninety years old and so should be regarded as an elder in the faith. As we waded and sifted through his aberrant teachings, there was one, common thread of error that might have prevented much of the problem. In case you missed the previous post to this blog, we gave some explanation of the problem of spiritual deception. The nutshell version is that anyone can be deceived. Age and experience are helpful in recognizing deception, but definitely do not completely prevent the problem. In fact, the people with the best spiritual insight are often the most susceptible to deception.

One of our areas of ministry has been the teaching of and distinction between the spirit and the soul. The teaching is too detailed to repeat here, but to begin with, the spirit and soul are completely different and separate from one another. (1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 4:12) The spirit is the God part of us. Its sole purpose is to put us into contact with God. This concept is much easier to understand when we realize the spirit enables contact with God just as our body enables contact with the world. (At least we think that makes it more simple to understand.) Meanwhile, the soul sits between the spirit and the body, processing all that spiritual and physical input through our mind and emotions and then deciding what to do about it by our will.

The concept of the end of the world on May 21, 2011 is a result of a series of mathematical calculations based on interpretations of various scriptural passages, as well as historical and Biblical dates. Guess what? It did not all come together as neatly as some expected. The reasons for this seem obvious. Somewhere in the collective mind (soul) of a group of sincere, but misguided people, a date, a verse of scripture, or a mathematical calculation was incorrect. We have all made mistakes and continue to do so. This one simply got out of hand, like an urban legend going viral on YouTube.

As recently as May 20th, I commented to a Facebook posting it seemed odd someone could say for certain the end of the world would come at a specific time on a specific date, but not be able to discern whether another person were born-again. In fact, most of the people who espoused the concept of the world's end yesterday, are not completely certain if they themselves have been born-again. My point, of course, is that interpretations, and calculations of historical dates are all soulical activities whereas spiritual discernment would enable us to know if we or any other person has been born-again--and when Jesus might return for us. The point is to live as though He could come back at any time.

I sort of wonder if part of the reason God does not want us to know when Jesus will get here is because we might stop doing what we are supposed to be doing. (Assuming were are doing what we should be doing now.) Worse yet, we could be like the Israelites in the wilderness who cast off restraint because Moses was so long in returning from his meeting with God on Mt. Sinai. (Exodus 32)

The people who embraced yesterday as the day the world would end were seduced and deceived. Many of them are sincerely seeking God for His will and His plan. For the time being, they have disqualified themselves as Holy Spirit-led individuals by believing a lie. Among other things, they were taught that the Holy Spirit left all the churches in 1994 because He apparently could not work with them anymore. My understanding is that was the fall back position when Jesus did not return then as predicted. I wonder what they will say this time? At this point I am tempted to quote my own proof texts, but that would probably serve little purpose. We are still here. We may be for awhile yet. Most of you have heard me say I do not do eschatology. Perhaps now you understand why.