COVER STORY

 

 

 

 

The legend about the pope and an elderly Jewish man named Moishe comes in several versions. Here’s one of them:

 

About a century ago the pope decided that all Jews should leave Rome. But seeing the uproar in the Jewish community, and wanting to appear conciliatory, he came up with a novel idea. He would have a debate with any member of the Jewish community they chose. If that person won the debate, then the Jews could stay. But if the pope won, the Jews would have to leave.

 

With all the educated, high-powered Jews shying away from confronting this Christian Goliath, the community eventually turned to an old janitor, named Moishe.

 

Very concerned about his speaking abilities, however, Moishe agreed to the debate on one condition: that the event would proceed in total silence. Incredibly, the pope agreed.

 

As the big day arrived, Moishe and the pope sat down opposite each other. For a full minute, they stared at each other in motionless silence.

 

At last, the pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. Moishe looked back at him and raised one finger.

 

The pope then waved his finger in a circle around his head. Moishe vigorously pointed to the ground where he sat.

 

The pope then pulled out a wafer (the communion bread) and a glass of wine, and set them on the table. Moishe pulled out an apple and placed it down in front of him.

 

At this development, the pope stood up and said, “I give up. This man is too good. The Jews can stay.”

 

After the meeting, the cardinals gathered around the pope, asking what happened. The pope said: “First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there is still one God, common to both our religions. Then I waved my finger around my head to show him that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground, showing that God was also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and the wafer to show that God absolves us from our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of original sin. He had an answer for everything. What could I do?”

 

Meanwhile, the Jewish community had crowded around Moishe, amazed that this old, uneducated janitor could do what all their scholars had insisted was impossible. “What happened?” they asked him. “Well,” said Moishe, “First he raised three fingers to tell me that the Jews had three days to get out of Rome. I lifted one finger to tell him that not one of us was leaving. Then waving his hand around his head, he told me that this whole city would be cleared of Jews. I pointed my finger to the ground to let him know that we were staying right here.”

 

“And then?” asked a woman.

 

“I don’t know,” said Moishe. “He took out his lunch and I took out mine.”

 

The moral of the story: we might all be looking at the same events, the same signs, the same evidences. But these events, these signs, these evidences are all silent; they do not speak. And the interpretation we bring to them often arises from our own personal presuppositions.

 

That’s why it’s vital for us to go back every so often, take a seat at the feet of Jesus, and listen again—with more attentive, less prejudiced ears—to what He has to say, as He speaks directly to the issue of the end of the world. And one of His most sustained treatments of the theme comes in Matthew 24.* Because of space, I focus here on the first 12 verses only, believing as I do that they effectively summarize the entire discourse. 

 

Calm and Unhysterical 

In response to His disciples’ drooling admiration of the Temple, Jesus in verses 1 and 2 predicted the building’s destruction. Shocked to the core, three of them approached Jesus privately for clarification and elaboration. “When will this happen?” they asked, “and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

 

Their question focused on two things: time and signs. Jesus would address both; but it’s critical to notice what comes first in His response. As if hearing nothing about time or signs, He said: “Watch out that no one deceives you” (verse 4, NIV). The issue of deception, then, is critical in Jesus’ response, and I return to it below. But for now, look at verses 6-8:

 

“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.”

 

What I notice as I make my way through the passage before us is the calmness of Jesus, the absence of any hysteria. In the wake of calamity and disaster, the disciples should not expect the end to come tomorrow or the day following. In fact, Jesus actually outlines for them the scenario of an extended future. “Such things,” He said, “must happen, but the end is still to come.” (“But the end is not yet”—KJV.) In other words, we should not try to make a direct connection between military conflict or natural disasters and the Second Coming.

 

As Adventists, we’ve traditionally tended to link the Second Coming with war and economic crisis. During the First and Second World Wars, our evangelistic preaching was rife with predictions that this is it! (And from a human standpoint—and given certain presuppositions—it looked so!) But the wars ended, and Jesus did not return.

 

The Great Depression of the late 1920s/early 1930s saw millions out of work, multitudes hungry—an economic meltdown of major proportions. But the Great Depression did not trigger the Second Coming.

 

As the Gulf War was about to commence in 1991, with Saddam Hussein issuing frightening warnings about “the mother of all battles,” our prophetic juices stirred up again, with some Adventists mounting pulpits and rushing into print with warnings about the Battle of Armageddon. 

What gives me the greatest concern as I read Matthew 24 is not what Jesus said about wars, earthquakes, famines, and pestilences; but what He said about us!

Today, the hysteria continues. One Adventist worker has been claiming to have secret intelligence, gleaned from some unnamed evangelical pastor, that the president of the United States (George W. Bush at the time) had given sealed orders to the entire armed forces of the country as to what to do when the next crisis comes. Once that crisis breaks—either through a terrorist attack or a financial collapse—the families of military personnel would have two hours to get out of the cities and head for the mountains or isolated towns. All major U.S. cities will be sealed off, no one allowed to enter or leave. Meanwhile, the military already has in storage millions of casket liners—500,000 in the Atlanta area alone—presumably to dump the bodies of the millions who’d be killed. And the idea seems to be that Adventists should have a stash of food at the ready and be prepared themselves to flee to the mountains.

 

Why Adventists would get sucked in by such hysteria baffles me. But when we do, we degrade the value of prophecy and make religion a curiosity in the eyes of people who might otherwise be sympathetic listeners—even potential believers. One of our chief concerns should be for the long-term credibility of the church. Whether we’re speaking or writing, we should seek to put things in such a way that the detractors of the church cannot easily tear them apart or poke fun at them.

 

Let’s remember that our pious predictions of the nearness of the coming, based on the latest calamity, do not influence the time of the event. If they did, then Jesus would have been here since the mid-nineteenth century, a time of unprecedented advent expectation and fervor.

 

We’re talking here about the Sovereign God of the universe. His plans are not affected by Roy Adams’ misinterpretation of the prophecy. As Ellen G. White put it: “Like the stars in the vast circuit of their appointed path, God’s purposes know no haste and no delay” (The Desire of Ages, p. 32). 

 

What Concerns Me Most 

What gives me the greatest concern as I read Matthew 24 is not what Jesus said about wars, earthquakes, famines, and pestilences; but what He said about us! After speaking about His followers being persecuted, put to death, and “hated by all nations” (heavy stuff!), He says that “many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other” (verses 9, 10).

 

Against that background, hear this from Ellen G. White:

 

“As the storm approaches, a large class who have professed faith in the third angel’s message, but have not been sanctified through obedience to the truth, abandon their position and join the ranks of the opposition…. Men of talent and pleasing address, who once rejoiced in the truth, employ their powers to deceive and mislead souls. They become the most bitter enemies of their former brethren” (The Great Controversy, p. 608).

 

Then look at verse 11: “and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.” We sometimes think we’re the smartest generation. But among us are some of the most gullible souls who ever walked the planet. The spring of 2005 saw thousands of people making pilgrimages to the underside of a Chicago railway bridge, where seeping sewage water had created a stain thought to resemble the Virgin Mary!

 

If a sewage water stain could produce such a response, imagine what will happen if what Ellen G. White says here comes to pass exactly as she wrote it:

 

“As the crowning act in the great drama of deception, Satan himself will personate Christ…. In different parts of the earth, Satan will manifest himself among men as a majestic being of dazzling brightness…. The glory that surrounds him is unsurpassed by anything that mortal eyes have yet beheld. The shout of triumph rings out upon the air, ‘Christ has come! Christ has come!’ The people prostrate themselves in adoration before him, while he lifts up his hands, and pronounces a blessing upon them…. He heals the diseases of the people, and then, in his assumed character of Christ, he claims to have changed the Sabbath to Sunday…. This is the strong, almost overmastering delusion” (The Great Controversy, p. 624).

 

These are the things that should concern us more. Will we stand faithful? 

 

The Pinnacle of the Passage 

If we’re looking for a sign that would signal the actual imminence of the coming of Jesus—a sign that when fulfilled, we can say: “This is it!” then the place to find it is Matthew 24:14: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

 

This is not a flashy sign. It does not attract hysterical attention. It does not touch off panic buttons. But it’s utterly important. It’s the only sign Jesus tied directly to the Advent.

 

Some may take perverse comfort in the apparently slow advance of the gospel, assuming they could have their fling out in the world, keep an eye out for the fulfillment of the gospel commission, then jump back into the church at the eleventh hour.

 

But that would be foolhardy. In the first place, the fulfillment of the preaching of the gospel in all the world is not something we can humanly measure. As humans we cannot know when this task will have been completed to the satisfaction of God’s inscrutable wisdom. Nor can we have any idea of the multitude of agencies our omnipotent God has deployed to accomplish His work among the nations. Only eternity will reveal that. (And I think we’ll be surprised.)

 

A second consideration on this point is the uncertainty of life. On the morning of September 11, 2001, 14,000 souls made their way to their offices and appointments in the massive twin towers across from the Hudson River in New York City. No one even vaguely suspected anything but a normal day. But 40 seconds past 8:46, boom! And a thousand people are blown to shreds without a moment’s warning!

 

Our only security is to anchor ourselves in God today—and every day—allowing the Great Commission to be fulfilled in us and through us. 

 

Time of Expectation and Joy 

The phrasing of Luke 21:25-28 leads to the conclusion that immediately preceding the advent there’d be a reprise, a repeat, of certain advent omens, perhaps on a more intensive scale. The passage speaks of certain portents in the sun, moon, and stars; of “anguish and perplexity” at developments on earth; and of the shaking of the heavenly bodies. “At that time,” Jesus says, “they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (verse 27).

 

But through all this calamitous time, we’re not to be afraid. When you see these things come to pass, Jesus said, then look up, lift up your heads, straighten up your shoulders, put a spring in your steps, a smile on your face, a song in your heart; and let the sheer joy of that fantastic hope reverberate through every fiber of your being, “because your redemption is drawing near.” 

 

* Unless otherwise noted, all scripture references are from the NIV.