A neighbor (a recent believer) and I were talking the other day about the rapture and the end times, prophecy and the book of Revelation, etc. And I found myself saying "I know it sounds crazy. It sounds crazy to talk about things like this, about prophecy and Jesus coming back and the tribulation and things like that."
We Christians know how it sounds when we talk about these things - like we should be wearing tin-foil hats, claiming that the government is reading our thoughts, that aliens have probed us, and that we've seen Bigfoot working as a cashier at the local convenience store. I know that the Bible and its teachings - on how the world was created, on how it will end, on prophecy, angels, demons, the spiritual battle, on Jesus being God and coming to earth in a human body to die for our sins and then being raised again from the dead, etc. - I know all these things sound fanciful, fantastical (as my neighbor says), crazy.
But you know what I think? You know what I told my neighbor?
I know it sounds crazy, but I think it's the most logical, most hopeful, of all the crazy options. When you think about it, every option out there (and I've only listed a few) - every possible belief about how the world was created, how it will end, who God is, etc. - sounds crazy.
Buddhism: To escape the suffering of life (caused by our cravings), you strictly follow an eightfold path of behavior/thought-modification until you so master your selfish desires that you no longer crave anything - and then you'll finally reach a state of perfect consciousness and an end to the endless cycle of reincarnation. CRAZY!
Hinduism: There are many gods, all gods, no gods, all are god, god is in everything, etc. You decide. And in order to reach the highest state - being united with the infinite spirit, Brahma - you must continually work out your sins in this world, being reincarnated (as worse things if you're bad and better things if you're good) over and over again until you do. CRAZY!
Catholicism: A man-made hierarchy of rulership ("fathers", bishops, the pope, etc.) with lots of man-made rules, full of worship/prayer to Mary and the saints, where you are saved through your faith and good works and by fulfilling the 7 sacraments. If you die with unconfessed sins then you go to purgatory to work off your sins, but living Catholics can help you get out of purgatory quicker by doing good things on your behalf, praying certain prayers, or giving money to the church, etc. CRAZY!
Islam: There is no Trinity. Jesus wasn't God but just a prophet, and He didn't really die on the cross (someone was in His place on the cross, disguised as Jesus). We're all born as a clean slate but earn punishment as we sin. Allah does not love people who do wrong, and so everyone has to make up for their own sins by being a faithful Muslim and following the 5 Pillars of the Faith (tasks they must complete to be "saved"). A faithful Muslim man gets a large group of virgins to pleasure him for all of eternity, and a faithful Muslim woman gets to feel so beautiful that she won't be jealous that her husband is having sex with all those virgins. CRAZY!
Mormons: God the Father was a created being, sent to a planet to live as a man, where he worked his way to godhood. Then he returned to the heavens and had a bunch of “spirit babies” with his goddess-wife. The first spirit-baby was Jesus, followed by Lucifer. And then, God created all the rest of the spirit-babies who would eventually become people. God chose Jesus to make amends for Adam’s sin, but Lucifer got jealous and rebelled. After Jesus died, he fully reached godhood. His death only covered Adam’s sin, and so we are responsible for our own sins. We attain godhood through strict adherence to Mormon doctrines, practices/rituals, and proper Mormon living. We can even eventually earn our own planet. But there is no eternal life for those who are not members of the Mormon Church. CRAZY!
New Age: You believe that you are the master of yourself and your world, that you're in touch with (and in power over) supernatural forces that teach you supernatural secrets, give you supernatural powers, and allow you to influence/control things (and others) around you through things like witchcraft, seances, tarot cards, spells, and other New Age things. CRAZY! [I'm not sure what New Agers believe about eternity and heaven and hell, but I don't feel like looking it up online and opening up that Pandora's box. But a word of caution to those into New Age, who dabble in the supernatural: Playing with demonic fire will get you burned. You're not really controlling anything at all, but demons are using you, allowing you to feel in control as they ensnare you more and more. Get out, with God's help, before it's too late. Demonic forces are very real and very dangerous. How about a little "Witch's Invitation", just for fun?]
Atheism: Everything - life, people, the planets, all the complexity and precision of the universe, the delicate balance and tight interconnectedness of everything that makes life possible and keeps life going - happened by random cosmic accidents over billions of years, starting with a single accidental explosion where nothing accidentally created something, and then that something accidentally grew more and more complex and differentiated over time till it accidentally became a well-oiled, precise, self-sustaining system. (It's rather convenient that evolution relies on unrecorded, untestable, unobservable microscopic changes that happened over unrecorded, untestable, unobservable billions of years, because then evolutionists don't actually have to "prove" anything. They just have to say the changes were too small or happened over too many years to record, test, or observe. That, to me, takes a huge amount of faith to believe in, more than believing in a Creator.) There is no Creator, no God, no objective morality, no real purpose, no future - and therefore everything is essentially meaningless, valueless, pointless. CRAZY! The craziest of all.
[Atheists think they're somehow smarter for not having "faith" in something, that they don't let beliefs about God influence their lives - but they're just fooling themselves. They do indeed have beliefs about God that shape their lives: the belief that He isn't real, that they won't have to answer to Him, that they are their own gods and can do whatever they want without real consequences. They do indeed have "faith" ... in nothing. They have faith that there's nothing out there, that nothing will save them (which will happen, for them), that everything ends in nothingness. Utterly hopeless. For a little bit more about creation vs. evolution, see "Starting the new school year with Creation vs. Evolution". And for a more in-depth look at atheism and world religions, see "Atheism, World Religions, and Christianity".]
Christianity, the Bible: God created the universe and everything in it, including people. He is not "a force," but He is a relational Being who loves all people and wants all people in heaven with Him. But He gave us the right/responsibility to decide if we want Him or not. [FYI: When I say "Christianity," I am not talking about Calvinism, which is a corruption of Christianity.] And when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, mankind broke fellowship with Him, fell into sin, and became separated from Him. Because of our sin, we cannot get to heaven on our own (no amount of good works will earn us salvation). The penalty for sin is death, which is, ultimately, eternal separation from God. But since God loves us (even when we were sinners who rebelled against Him), He doesn't want us to die in our sins. And since we cannot pay the penalty for our sins ourselves, He Himself (God the Son, Jesus) came to earth as a human to pay the death penalty we owe for our sins so that we could be saved and go to heaven. And then He rose again, proving He is God, and calls all people to believe in Him. And anyone who believes in Him, who receives Him as Lord and Savior, accepting His death in their place, will be saved from hell. (In the end, He'll give us what we wanted: life with Him or life without Him.) Eventually (soon?), Jesus will come back again and separate those who accepted Him from those who rejected Him, and in the end He will renew everything, setting it all right again and destroying sin, evil, and death forever. CRAZY!
But, to me, Christianity, the Bible, is the most logical of all the crazy options. It makes the most sense and has the most hope, the most answers, the most meaning/purpose, the most support (historical, archeological, literary, internal, external, rational, etc.) to back it up and to validate it. And seeing how the headlines are starting to read like the book of Revelation, it has the most indications that it's right on track. Biblical prophecy does indeed sound fantastical, but if I believe that the Bible is truly God's Word - which I do, not blindly but after many years of research and study - then I have to believe in the prophecy that it teaches, even if it sounds "crazy". And the more time goes on, especially these last few years, the more accurate biblical prophecy appears.
Make your decision soon. You might not have much time left. Which "crazy" option are you putting your faith in? Which are you betting your soul on? Are you ready to find out if you're right or if you're wrong?
For more along these lines:
Is God Drawing Lines in the Sand?
God Would Never Do That? Or Would He?
A Pre-Trib Rapture is the Most Merciful Option
Starting Your Own Relationship with Jesus
A few timely songs: "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" and "In The Sky"
And some that never get old: Sweetly Broken and Oh, What Love and I AM and Secret Ambition and The Champion and Manifesto and Burn the Ships and We Believe and God's Not Dead and My Jesus and since it's Christmas time, Hallelujah Christmas, and my favorite Christmas song, Little Drummer Boy (Oh my goodness, I just love them all so much! Why not make it your New Year's resolution to watch them all? That's a resolution you'll love to keep. And for more great songs, see "My 'When Anxiety Strikes' Playlist" and "Home Church and Worship Songs.")
