(First published August 4, 2020)

Have you ever seen a movie in which, perhaps early on, one character warns another about the future? Perhaps it is regarding a choice he/she will face, or a relationship, or an event, but it usually seems unlikely. We can’t see how that could ever occur given what we know so far about the people in the movie. By the time the choice/relationship/event faces our character, the plot will have filled in all the pieces we could never have foreseen and we can see why that warning was so necessary. We’ve seen movies that roll out many variations on these plots, and we can never totally be sure how the warned character will opt when all comes to pass. But the warn-er, it’s clear, believes the warn-ee is capable of recognizing the situation when it appears and making the right choice. And one thing above all: the warn-er wants the warn-ee to win, to get it right, to avoid whatever bad would result from the wrong choice.

Friends, I would suggest we are living in a real-life rollout of the above. And yep, this is where I talk Scripture. Please don’t scroll and skip. Please. I really want us all to win from taking heed to the warnings before us.

The Old Testament is full full full of prophecies about the near and far future of those who are embedded in its pages. These are WAY beyond the scope of this ordinary blog post, but suffice to say God made it clear in these 39 books that not only would His Son come as Messiah to pay for the sin of the world, giving us opportunity for eternal relationship with Him, but that there would be a final day of judgment. Consider us warned.

The New Testament continues this conversation (the Bible is completely cohesive!) as Jesus proceeds, in the four gospels, to tell us more about “that day” than anyone else. He talks frankly about heaven, hell, and final judgment—at which time those who’ve refused Him will have no last-minute opportunity to say, “Oops! Sorry! Wait! I change my mind!” He makes it clear that He, as Savior, is the only way to heaven, then dies to pay our way and rises again to prove it. He returns to heaven but assures us He will be back—this time as Judge. Warned.

Jesus also tells us what the days that precede His coming will be like. Although scholars debate terms like premillennial, postmillennial, and etc—it’s clear that before He returns there will be a time of (I’d say “unprecedented,” but that word has been overused to nauseous cliche this year) stunning upheaval on the earth and in the skies. Before that, though, we will see what He calls “the beginning of birth pains”—conflicts among nations, earthquakes, famines, plagues. Warned.

Further on in the NT, Paul, Timothy, Peter, John, and Jude give us more information on what to look for in this “almost-to-the-end” season of planet Earth. They give us glimpses of false teachers nearly indistinguishable from others in our church flocks, “terrible times” of greed, disobedience, violence, blasphemy of the name of Jesus, lawlessness, counterfeit signs/wonders done by false prophets and ultimately the person called the anti-Christ. They tell us it will be absolutely critical in those days to hang on to the doctrines of the Bible, testing all things against its plumb line. Urge us to endure even in the face of all these events. Soberingly admonish us that not all who start this walk with Jesus will make it safely to the end, because many will fall prey to the lies and drift away to eventual destruction on that day He returns as Judge. Warned.

So we can WIN.

Hmmmmm.

I am far, far away from setting any times or dates—that is one hundred percent impossible per the very words of Jesus. But 1 Thessalonians 5 tells us that, because we have spiritual understanding as born-again believers, we will be able to tell when these signs pop up and point us to Jesus’ second coming and the eventual end of this world. And people—sisters, brothers—those signs are here.

The reason the word “unprecedented” has become a nauseous cliche is because, well, so many events of recent years and especially recent months can be described no other way. If you can, right now, hop onto any news site, read headlines, then hop back into this blog and tell me you don’t see occurrences that fall into the lists above…well…you can’t.

So here’s the point: if we are indeed seeing the times we’ve been warned about…this is the time to take heed. He may be days, months, or decades from splitting the skies and calling this thing done, but there’s no time like today to prepare for it. And just as Jesus and the rest of the gang told us what we would see as His judgment drew close, they also told us the only two possible outcomes of that judgment:

1. HEAVEN: for those who acknowledge Jesus as Savior (the only way into a relationship with God, because of His sinless life and atoning death on the cross), admit their sin, accept His forgiveness, and allow Him to be Lord of their entire lives. THIS IS THE WIN!
2. HELL: for those who refuse the above. I have stood at the gravesides of those who have lived their lives in this defiance and shuddered at what they began enduring the instant their souls departed their bodies.

For the record, there is no purgatory (the concept is never once addressed in Scripture. Check out Luke 16: 19-31, note v. 26).

No greasy grace.

No “when-I-hear-the-trumpet-I’ll-confess-my-sin.”

No “I don’t think God would send me to hell just because I ___________.”

No “a God of love would never hate anything.”

And note: just because you may not believe in God, doesn’t make any of this change. You may not believe in electricity, but that doesn’t make it not real. (Try not believing in the law of gravity—did you spend the day floating? Nope.)

Jesus is coming back, and we will all end up one of two places for all eternity.

Folks, we’ve been warned. And if you never heard any of this before and truly have been blithely clueless until you read this post, well, you’re warned now. The signs we’ve been told to look for are easy to find—a click away in uncensored video format, pretty much instantaneously, from anywhere in the world. Let’s not get caught up in the circumstances of them and miss the big picture to which they’re pointing. Let’s not miss it when the choice we’ve been warned about is right in front of our faces.

Life may feel like a drama most of the time these days, but I assure you it is not a movie. Our warnings are much more serious, and our choices eternal. God, the prophets, the apostles, and I—we all want you to WIN.