Bass Fishing in the end times

“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24:36) “Many false prophets and false messiahs will appear...and deceive...even the elect." (Matthew 24:24).

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It seems that end times “prophecy” is all the rage. It sells books, sells films, fuels internet blogs, supplies doomsday fanatics with material for their Sunday sermons, leads some uncritical, gullible minds to follow false prophets onto mountain tops or into caves where they await the certainty of the last days, and leads some misguided and gullible people to their death. If predicting the end of the world were not so absurd and blasphemous, it might be humorous. And the present day fascination with “end times” soothsaying might even be novel, but for the fact that mankind has heard this same old song for two thousand years now. Some hear of wars and rumors of wars, pestilence, plague, nations contending against nations, natural disasters, unnatural weather, killer comets, and are convinced that our collective demise is just around the corner. Yet, in the past two millennia mankind has fought thousands of wars, faced plagues so bad that they wiped out one third of an entire continent, suffered natural disasters that have wiped out millions of souls, and, still, we survive, despite the doomsday soothsayers’ bold predictions to the contrary. I have no quarrel with those who say we need to keep a watchful eye for the second coming. We should always live as if Jesus were coming next week. But neither should we run to the nearest mountaintop with our white robes. My quarrel is with those false prophets who, for publicity, personal gain, or power, claim they know when the world will end or seek to capitalize on the fear of others who are misguided enough to believe them. History is replete with charlatans, false prophets, and downright dangerous people who claimed to know when the world will end–sometimes with disastrous results. And the irony is that many claim to be Christians who follow Jesus yet ignore Him when he says that no one–including himself–knows the day and hour...except God. They arrogantly disregard the word of God himself, presume a Godlike prescience that allows them to do what Christ himself said he could not do: predict the end. Hundreds of false prophets during the past twenty centuries have presumed to know the end, including saints, popes, priests, authors, psychics, Edgar Cayce, Martin Luther, the Great Criswell, David Koresh, Nostradamus and many others. This long procession of soothsayers from different countries, different centuries, varied occupations and backgrounds all had two things in common: they presumed to divine the answer to the demise of the world and they were, without exception wrong. In fact some were even wrong several times. History is replete with examples of would be prophets who predicted the end of the world and then–when that date did not work–predicted it again, several more times with equally embarrassing results. Some of their followers were led to their deaths by false end times prophecies. Others, the lucky ones, were simply disillusioned or disappointed as they stood on bridges, mountain tops or huddled in caves waiting for the end of time only to watch that historic moment pass by most unceremoniously. I recall reading about a minister who was so sure he knew the end of time that he and scores of misguided followers sold all that they owned, left their jobs and their homes, to climb to a mountaintop and meet Jesus. When the time came to meet the Son of God and accompany Him to heaven in a blaze of glory, the Son of God did not show. Of course, had they read Matthew 24:36, they might have had a clue. So, the time came and went, and slowly, one by one, and two by two, these devout end timers climbed back down their mountaintop disillusioned, disappointed and undoubtedly ready to lynch their leader whose credibility suffered a severe blow. One can only imagine the anticipation, the fervent prayer, the sense of excitement building as these believers faced the sky and prayed to their God while awaiting His son’s glorious arrival, and the abysmal disappointment they felt when the time came and went. I have long wondered how the minister felt. I envision him taking off his watch, holding it up to his ear, shaking it, and sheepishly asking a nearby parishioner “What time do you have?” or “This is Tuesday, right?” just before he walked back to his village in embarrassed silence. Such events are not uncommon during the past two thousand years. Some ended tragically when leaders who claimed to know the end was near convinced their flock to take their lives by mass suicide. And it continues even today. As recently as the fall of 2007 a fringe group of Russian Christians holed up in a cave awaiting the end of the world that was predicted by their leader and threatened to commit mass suicide if the authorities intervened. There seems to be no shortage of false prophets or people who are willing to disregard the word of Jesus and follow them. The end times lunacy seemed all so theoretical to me until a few years ago when I stood on my dock fishing for bass with a friend of mine. He was a good man, a member of a local Christian commune. They were a group of people who lived together in a manner reminiscent of the early Christian communities shortly after the time of Christ. They pooled their talent and resources, ate together, prayed together and lived in a harmony that was quite unusual in this day and age. This somewhat anachronistic group of Christians lived productive lives, contributed to their communities and were devout people. Their leader was an older gentleman who was a father figure and spiritual leader of the community. John and I had fished before many times. He always obeyed the fishing regulations and threw the little ones back–the one or two pounders that might make good eating but were under the legal limit and needed a couple more years to grow. Well, it seems that the end times hysteria had reached his commune as well. On that day John started keeping the small ones. I saw him stick a small bass in the fishing basket. “I’m keeping the little ones now,” he said as he gently shoved the small bass into their basket, “they won’t have time to grow.” When I asked him why, John replied with serious look on his face: “We are living in the End Times. These fish won’t have time to get bigger, so may as well eat’em.” I stood in stunned silence, trying to absorb what he said. Here we were, standing on the dock, with the world about to end, I didn’t even know it. Ironically, John’s spiritual guru-- who predicted that the end was so near that our fish (and we) would not live out the summer--died shortly thereafter. But the World did not. That was ten years ago. If a sober, level headed ordinary man like John could be so taken in by the End Times madness, I shuddered to think what hundreds of unstable people in a closed society led by a false prophet with a death wish might do. Frankly, I don’t much care about the end times craze or when the world will end. I do not know why we should obsess about it or listen to those phony prophets who claim to predict when it will all end. They come from a long line of charlatans who have no more an idea when the world will end than anyone else. I have read Matthew 24:36 and understand it perfectly well. If Jesus does not know, then some minister, priest, or cult figure holed up in a cave certainly doesn’t know either. Who can know the mind of God? Who is His equal? Is His time our time? Is His day a thousand years or a million of ours? Who knows what His watch says or when He set the alarm to remind himself to destroy creation? How brazen of mankind to presume to know the answer to the question. And how irrelevant after all. The world will end when it ends and only God knows when it will end. He will end his creation when He will and it is not ours to predict because no one can. We should concern ourselves with living each day as God would have us. I am an accomplished sinner, trying to do better–a work in progress, a soul in much need of repair. I have no time for end time foolishness. It is a needless distraction. I am concerned with trying to live as God would have me live. With apologies to Winston Churchill, I do not know if we are at the ”end of the beginning,” or the “ beginning of the end.” I am concerned only with whether I am living the life I am supposed to, and whether, in the end, I died in the grace of God. Until then, I may keep one eye on the sky, but I will not hold my breath. And I will continue to throw back the small ones because, as only God knows, they may get bigger.