We were watching a movie on the coming apocalypse at church. It was supposed to be based on the words of Jesus from the Gospels. Instead we got a wildly imaginative interpretation of the wide ranging apocalyptic writings found throughout the Bible. The large net they cast wasn’t just over Bible passages but also over current geopolitical situations. Many current news events were mentioned, the most startling being the prominence of the European Union. The EU was proclaimed as the latest agent of Satan! A terrible superpower whose army will invade the Holy Land from the north. I still cannot fathom how this interpretation was arrived at when the EU does not have a military force independent of NATO – and of course we are a significant part of NATO. It really was a stretch and it makes me wonder why these types of interpretations are so popular. The people I was watching with were really interested, even as I was turned off by it. One has to wonder what would happen if the EU were to collapse tomorrow – would the writers of the DVD put aside their views of the apocalypse or would they just dream up another enemy? The history of apocalyptic interpretation suggests that no matter how wrong the interpretations are the guessing game will go on.
And so the question I ask you my friends is this – why do so many people invest so much of their belief system into prophecy that never comes true? The OT prophet Daniel predicted that soon (3 ½ years in his estimation) God’s judgment would come upon the earth. Didn’t happen. The apostle Paul said that Jesus was coming soon – as in his lifetime. Didn’t happen. The disciple John said that soon we would see “a new heaven and a new earth”. Their idea of soon must be different from mine. For 2,000 years Christians have been predicting that God’s judgment and the renewal of the world would be soon but at the same time ‘soon’ continues to be extended into the eternal future. Yet this poor track record of failed interpretation and endless extensions has not dissuaded people from imagining the great apocalypse from happening soon. Why is this? My feeling is that many people are so desperate for their lives to get better, or to feel better about themselves, or to see the wrongs of the world righted, that they imagine everything changing for the better right now. People can understand now – and so now is when God is going to step into the world and make it all better. I think that most people can’t create a mental image of evolutionary change – can’t picture change happening over time – and so hope and pray for instant change. Now, or soon, is better than later. Yet it is in the much distant later that humanity will look back and see how much God has changed the world.
Instead of instant change, slow steady progress helped along by occasional revelations is how our world will progress according to the Urantia Book. No matter how backward a planet is the age of “Light and Life” is coming through God’s preordained plan (600.3). It is a part of God’s plan to renew our struggling planet and bring about a “new heaven and a new earth”. But this will not happen through sudden dramatic change but through the slow steady spiritual evolution of countless generations of people. We may not realize it now but our world is moving towards a wonderful future – a future full of light and life. If we could be transported to a planet in a more advanced stage of development we would think that we were in heaven (598.3). If we could see a world in the age of Light and Life we would never question God’s evolutionary plan for our world (631.6). For many of us the future looks bleak, but the Urantia Book says that our future is wonderful and despite all appearances to the contrary we are moving towards an age of heaven on earth. God is going to renew our world but through God’s wise and slow plan not our impatient fantasies.
We have already seen the wisdom of God’s evolutionary plan in the natural world. We are seeing God’s wonderful unfolding of spiritual awakening right now. It’s just that it is taking time. We need the time. God has given us the blessing of time to work out our inner conflicts and turmoil. God has given us time to seek and to find him. God has given us time to grow because God is timeless and what is important to us is not so important to him. Humans impose arbitrary deadlines because we don’t know eternity. We have not yet experienced that concept. God knows eternity and sees the endless future awaiting us. We imagine it and want it to happen soon. But God knows that how much time it takes doesn’t matter as long as we are on the way.
Well that Apocalyptic DVD has been relegated to the dustbin of my history. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Next time we’ll stick with what Jesus really said. He said he would return but he didn’t say when. I say take your time my friend after all there is plenty of time to go around.
God Bless You,
William Whitehead
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