Things will get worse and worse.

I continue my current book project, trying to finish in time for the eclipse on April 8. Last night I finished the chapter on Israel becoming a nation, going on to explore the imagery of the fig tree in Mark 13 as well as the meaning of Romans 11 and "all Israel being saved."

On to the next chapter this morning.
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Growing up, we never stopped to think about our “philosophy of history.” Everyone just knew that things were going to get worse and worse until Jesus returned. 

Of course, if you look back at the last 2000 years, there have been good and bad times. Things haven't irrevocably been getting worse for 2000 years. But this is the "premillennial" mindset and the assumption of my childhood. In the days right before Jesus' return, things will get worse and worse and worse.

2. Let me pause to explain this millennial language. Revelation talks about a Millennium in chapter 20, a thousand year period with Christ reigning on earth. We will explore it further in chapter 9. 

There are three basic views of what this Millennium signifies. First, there are those who take it literally and believe it will happen after Jesus comes to judge the earth. These are premillennialists who believe that a literal Millennium is still to come. This is the order in which events happen in Revelation. There is a battle called Armageddon in which the forces of darkness are defeated (Rev. 16). Satan is bound for a thousand years, and Jesus reigns over the earth.

Throughout most of church history, amillennialism has been the dominant view. This view does not take the Millennium literally but sees it as the spiritual reign of Christ now no matter what might be going on politically with Christianity in the world. This was the dominant view throughout the Middle Ages and even by the Protestant reformers.

Postmillennialism is a view that largely coincided with the optimism of the 1700s and 1800s. In this view, the world was getting better and better in preparation for Christ's return. As it were, the church would prepare the way for the return of Christ. This optimism was more or less dashed by the wake up call of two world wars and a reminder that humanity still reminds capable of the worst atrocities of the past.

3. Most of us didn't have a name for it, but I grew up a "premillennial." Even today, most of the American church is premillennial. We believe that, right before Jesus returns, things will get worse and worse and worse. Then when it looks like there is absolutely no hope at all, Jesus will come back.

In the late 1800s, the preacher D. L. Moody used the image of a lifeboat to capture this perspective on the world. The world was like a ship that was sinking. We needed to get into the lifeboat of salvation. Clearly, he had drunk from the waters of dispensationalism and John Darby that we mentioned in chapter 1. 

From this perspective, there is no point in trying to save the world. It's going down like the Titanic. It has no hope. This view of the world thus has little time for trying to improve society. It downplays concepts like trying to help the poor or address social ills. There's no point in trying to address climate change. The world is burning, and there's nothing we can do about it. Just get in the boat and try to get as many other people as you can in the boat with you.

These are all largely the unarticulated assumptions of a worldview. The bridge is out. We need to warn people. This is no time to work on their car engines. Jesus is coming back any day!

4. Where does it come from in the Bible? Two places, chiefly. First, there are the passages in Mark 13 and Matthew 24 where Jesus talks about the lead up to the temple's destruction. Then there is of course the book of Revelation itself.

Note that this tone is not equally sustained everywhere in the New Testament. For example, the Gospel of John does not have this same urgency. The Pastoral Epistles (1 & 2 Timothy and Titus) do not have this urgency. Paul's early writings, which seem to expect Jesus to return within his lifetime, do not have the same feel as Mark 13. Even Luke's version of Mark 13 feels less urgent.

What makes the difference? The difference is when Mark is being written. Mark was arguably written around the time when the Romans surrounded and then destroyed Jerusalem. Nowhere is this clearer than when he inserts the words "let the reader understand" into Mark 13:14. This was arguably a note to the person reading Mark to a congregation to emphasize the point about the temple's desecration. Why? Quite possibly because it was in process or had recently happened at the time of writing.

We will return to the question of the temple in chapter 7. For the moment, we want to show that the "worse and worse" dynamic of Mark 13 especially applied to the time leading up to Jerusalem's destruction by the Romans in AD 70. It may apply to the end times as well, but let's hear those verses first for their original meaning...