As we all know now, the world didn’t end, the rapture didn’t happen and we are all still here on planet earth.  The warnings and calls to repentance of yet another day of judgment ‘prophesy’ have been replaced with late night comics amusing us with clever anecdotes and comments about the dooms day preacher.  So why didn’t the world end.

Most of us – Christians – take one of two approaches to these apocalyptic evangelists.  Either A:  we quote Jesus in Matthew 24 when he states that ‘about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father’ (24:36), claiming that no one can predict the day; an interesting and possible true argument, however it is worth noting that Jesus simply said no one knew the day, not that no one would ever know the day.  In fact, Amos seems to support this thought when he writes that ‘the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets’ (Amos 3:7). 

Option B is that we hope it is true.  We are ready for this world to end and inwardly welcome the possibility of proving to everyone else once and for all that we are right and they are wrong.  I mean, life as a Christian in a fallen world can really be tough. Sometimes it is just nice consider the end of this corrupt, godless place.

Unfortunately, I fear both of these approaches frequently leave us missing the point. The first seems to reveal almost an apathy and indifference, maybe even some skepticism to the end of time, and the latter a similar indifference and apathy to this world and its inhabitants. 

The question then is not so much why the world didn’t end last Saturday, but why the world has ended yet, on any day.  And the answer, from a Christian perspective, can only be that God is his grace and kindness has given us yet another hour to be about the life that He created us for.

The truth is that Jesus is coming back, soon, be that next week or next millennium. And when He does return, He will have a question for those of us who have professed his name:  ‘What have you done with the time I gave you.’  Not ‘did you get the date right’ or ‘are you glad to be out of that place’, but rather ‘did you make your life count, did you invest the talents that I gave you wisely?’ 

Why the world didn’t end is easy: there’s still work to do.  Find your place and ‘git ‘er done’.

To the King,

David