The Bible, Prophecy, and Christian Responsibility

We must not wrongly use the Bible to opt out of our responsibilities in this world:

Quite often when I or others seek to alert fellow Christians to some of the pressing issues of the day that need to be addressed, whether in the culture wars, or problems in our churches, or anti-Christian bigotry, or the tsunami of evil overwhelming the West, oftentimes someone will come back and reply something like this:

‘The Bible said this would happen’
‘This has all been prophesied’
‘Scripture warns about this’
‘It was all foretold to happen’
‘All according to what God said’

I hear these sorts of things all the time. Just yesterday for example on the social media someone put up an abortion post. I saw that someone replied with this remark: “The world is divinely ordained to get worse and worse but Christians will be raptured away and leave the world to the Great Tribulation.”

Too often these sorts of responses can be used as a copout, as an excuse to just sit back and do nothing. The unspoken idea is this: ‘It is meant to be, so who am I to take a stand against these things?’ But this is NOT how we are to understand and use the Bible, including prophecies and passages dealing with the end-times.

There are several reasons for this. First of all, the prophetic passages, especially as found in the Old Testament, can be, and are, understood in various ways. Indeed, the very notion of the “last days” itself is open to various interpretations and debate.

The person above clearly has in mind a short period of time at the very end of the age. That might be part of it, but the New Testament actually uses phrases like “the last days” to designate the entire sweep of history from the first coming of Christ through to his second coming.

If that is how we should look at things, that means the Apostle Paul, Augustine, Luther, Spurgeon and you and I have all been living in the last days. Thankfully these and millions of other believers did not let this understanding become an excuse to sit back and do nothing.

They were fully involved in the work of the Kingdom in countless different ways. And even if they did think the end was near – and Christians throughout the church age have always thought their generation could be the last one – they did not resort to a life of resignation, passivity and indifference. They worked even harder.

I have no doubt that just as some believers today will criticise others, and use the mantra, ‘it is all meant to be,’ so too Christian activists in the past heard similar things. I do not doubt that when William Wilberforce and his fellow abolitionists worked so hard against one terrible social evil – the slave trade – they were told by some Christians: ‘Hey Wilby, this was all predicted long ago, so just chill.’

Thankfully many active Christian workers ignored such unhelpful advice. Indeed, for many, they used the idea of the Lord’s future return to spur them on even further in their activity for the Kingdom. They used their view of end-times as a motivation to pray even more and work even more.

And the truth is, even if this or that was foretold by the prophets in the Old Testament or elsewhere, that does not mean we are to just pull out of things and take a breather. The command to be salt and light for example is NOT nullified just because evil was foretold long ago.

The command to make disciples of all nations is not nullified, even though we know to some extent how things might pan out according to biblical prophecy. The various callings of the believer in a whole range of fields – whether mercy ministries or social action or evangelistic work or whatever – are not to be negated because we know there is a prophetic clock ticking.

Of course the world will end one day. But we do NOT know when that will be. Jesus made it clear that no one knows the day or the hour of his return. He also told us to ‘occupy till I come.’ We are to keep busy with the work of the Kingdom.

We are not to let eschatological speculation or theories about the prophetic calendar push us to just go into useless inactivity. We are to keep on keeping on for Christ and the Kingdom. If anything, the various warnings and predictions of what is to come as found in parts of the Old and New Testaments are to help strengthen us by realising that Satan and his minions will always be opposing what we do, and will always be promoting evil and ungodliness in so many ways.

They were never meant to be used as a wet blanket to discourage us from doing what we ought to be doing. They were not meant to encourage us to put up the white flag of surrender. They were not meant to be a call for the abdication of our Christian responsibilities.

Consider just one hardcore New Testament prophetic word: 2 Peter 3:8-12. The first part of that passage says this:

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Those are pretty sobering words. Some might use this portion of Scripture to head for the hills, build an underground bunker, or build up stockpiles of supplies in a bomb shelter in preparation for all the fireworks. But the next verses go on to say that in light of all this, what kind of people should we be? Here is how verses 11-12 go:

“Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!”

At the very least, in light of this heavy-duty warning of judgment to come, we ought to strive to be even more holy and more godly. And that should of course result in believers wanting even more to share their faith with others, to be salt and light in a dark and needy world, and to work for righteousness in our needy world.

Indeed, it should lead to the sort of thing Jesus urged us to pray about:

Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9-10)

And notice one other important thing in the 2 Peter passage. We are told that we can somehow ‘hasten’ the Lord’s return! What is that all about? Well, some other passages imply that what we do is part of when the Lord returns. Consider just one such text.

Matthew 24:14 says this: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” So the return of the Lord in part depends on getting the gospel out to all nations.

As we know – or should know – God usually does not just zap people into the Kingdom. His main means is to use people – you and I. He expects us to share the gospel far and wide. So if you are eagerly awaiting the Lord’s return you better be praying for the lost and sharing your faith with them.

There is no place for passivity here or inaction. What we actually DO has a role to play as to when Christ comes back. That is an ominous thought – and a huge responsibility! But see much more on this matter in this piece: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2023/02/06/on-hastening-his-return/

So the next time you read or see something about some great evils that are taking place, and how Christians are seeking to stand against this in the name of Christ, please do not be quite so hasty – and perhaps flippant – in simply replying, ‘Yeah, it was foretold – its gonna happen – no worries.’ That really is not the best way to respond to all this.

At the very least we all should be praying about these matters, be it abortion on demand, the rise and rise of Islamist terrorism, the trans madness, and so on. And pray for and encourage those Christians who are actually trying to do something about it, with God’s grace.

I finish with the words of William Booth who wrote this in 1885: “Now something must be done, and somebody must do it. Thank God, The Salvation Army never sees an evil without asking the question, ‘Can anything be done to remove it?’”

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