"You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See to it that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not the end." With those words, Jesus tried to calm the fears of His followers. To the ancient world of Jesus it appeared the very fabric of the universe had been ripped out of place. The Jewish people were living under the tyrannical thumb of the latest world superpower. The promises God made to Abraham and his descendants, to Moses, and to David about the future if Israel seemed were a distant memory. The glory days of the Davidic and Solomonic kingdoms were long gone and it seemed that Israel would never again rise to a place of such power and influence in the world. Most Jewish people were happy if they could just rise to face a new day of survival in captivity.
It would be easy for our generation to have a similar mindset. Western Christians are certainly not worried about their daily survival from a basic needs standpoint. We live in a time a great prosperity and convienience and yet we look at the world tearing itself apart with religous and sectarian strife and feel insecure and hard pressed. From Iran to North Korea to Iraq to the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinians we see nothing but signs of our own demise looming on the horizon. Today I heard veteran newscaster Chris Wallace say he had never seen the present level of intensity being displayed in Israel's response to the kidnapping of their soldiers. Without a doubt, we live in uncertain and unsettling times, teetering on the brink of world war where it seems the slightest provocation could send us hurtling into the abyss of annihilation.
How should born-again Christians view the current mess of world affairs? Some choose to make wild predictions about the end of the world. These believers are sure exactly what time it is according to the prophetic time clock. They see events in the Middle East combined with tensions over Iran and North Korea as the run up to the rapture, the tribulaton, and the second coming of Christ. Could they be right? Absolutely, but they could just as likely be completely wrong. I am reminded of some other words Jesus spoke from Matthew that we some people seem all to willing to overlook or forget. "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone"(Matt. 24:36). If Jesus doesn't know the hour of His own second coming we can be sure we don't know the hour.
But it really shouldn't matter when Jesus comes since believers are commanded to watch and to pray and to always be ready for His coming. Our current status, even with all the tumult in the world, should be the same as it is during the brief interludes of peace the world has enjoyed. We should be alert. That is to say, we should be looking forward to the day of Jesus return with a sense of excitement and prepardness. Jesus said, "But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into"(Matt. 24:43).