I hear the world is coming to an end this afternoon. Something about an eclipse?
During my life, there have been a series of prognostications of impending apocalyptic events, none of which have, to this point, panned out. The most disappointing to me was the failure of Ed Whisenant’s book “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988.” He set the date for my birthday (September 13) that year. It came and went and no trumpets sounded. Harold Camping set dates and any number of false prophets have arisen. There have been Red Heifers in Israel, blood moons, and myriad “signs of the times” that we have been told are unmistakable portents of the coming of the end.
The last few weeks my social media feeds have been filled with posts declaring that today’s eclipse is an unmistakable sign of the end, or a prophetic message from God. Someone showed that the last two or three eclipses over the good ol’ USA form something that could possibly look a little bit like a Greek or Hebrew letter. The most inventive one I saw showed that the path of the eclipse would take it over about a dozen towns named Nineveh. How could that not be a message from God? Many Christians are unsettled or apprehensive or excited, assuming that this “sign of the times” is proof that God is about to do something amazing or that God is speaking an important message to this nation.
Many of my friends have taken this opportunity to rightfully rebuke this overreaction, but they have also shown their disdain for the entire premillennial pretribulational position – “that Rapture nonsense.” I want to write some thoughts today as someone who still holds to the position that the church will be removed before the Tribulation.
Let me state my FOREMOST eschatological position clearly. I have studied this subject in depth and detail and come to my beliefs from my own exegetical work on the topic. I believe my position best fits the biblical evidence. However, I do not think the biblical evidence is so clear that anyone can be absolutely dogmatic that their view is the ONLY valid view. Godly people study the Bible and come to different positions.
NO ONE should anathematize those who hold to other positions. I’ve heard those who hold to my position question the biblical bona fides of those who other points of view and I’ve felt the withering ridicule of others about my position (some of it good-natured and much of it not). We need to accept that eschatology is one of those areas where godly people can disagree.
Much of the weirdness comes from people who hold views similar to mine, and I want to address them today. I am going to speak from my eschatological point of view to those who tend to hold similar views. You Amillennial and Postmillennial heretics…oops, brothers and sisters…will have to agree with what you agree with and overlook the rest.
Eclipses are NOT Mysteries
Last night, the sun went down and I did not panic, nor did I see it as a sign from God. I got up this morning (I stayed up late writing this) and the sun had arisen again. I did not see that as a miracle. The Earth spun and phenomenologically, the sun went down and rose again. That’s the way the Creator designed things. He also designed our solar system so that planets revolved around the sun and the moon revolves around the earth. Every so often (it isn’t that unusual) the moon gets in the way of the sun and we have an eclipse. Astronomers can tell us precisely when they are going to happen – every single time. They aren’t a mystery, any more than the sun going down tonight and coming back up in the morning.
There’s nothing remarkable about an eclipse. It’s hardly like an earthquake or a tsunami or a tornado. It is normal, natural, patterned, and predictable.
If God WAS Sending Signs, It Wouldn’t Be to America!
One of the distinctives of our position is that God has a future plan for the nation Israel and what God will do in the end times focusing on that nation again. Does God love America? Of course, he does – just as much as he loves Saudi Arabia and North Korea and Great Britain and Brazil and Senegal and every other nation on earth, but no more. We have no special place in God’s heart and there is absolutely no prophecy in the Bible that mentions the USA. (I’ve seen some of the attempts to include the US in eschatological texts and it’s SO weak.)
If there was an eclipse over Israel, maybe we’d have something to talk about. Not much, but at least it would make sense. We complain about “replacement theology” but we have developed our own form of it. We have replaced Israel with America as if the USA is in the center of God’s heart now, as if he loves us and cares about us more than anyone else.
An eclipse over America is an astronomical event, not an eschatological event.
If You Want a Message from God, Look Down, Not Up
I am not one of those who believe that God’s Spirit is limited in his ability to communicate with us. He speaks to us, leads us, and guides our quickened spirits. However, if you want a message from God, you need not be looking up into the sky at eclipses (you will not only fail to hear from God, you will go blind), you need to look down at God’s word. God has given us a sure and certain word to guide us and we don’t need to gaze at patterns in eclipses that become spiritual Rorschach tests to say whatever we want them to say. We need to go to the source of all truth and let the Spirit of God use the word of God to do the work of God in the people of God.
In addition to that, my eschatological family, we aren’t supposed to be reading the tea leaves in the sky anyway. The next thing in our system is not a bunch of signs, but a sound – a trumpet call! One friend described it as God’s shofar that gets the Revelation ball rolling. “We aren’t looking for signs, we are listening for sounds.” That’s what my dad used to say.
I have no desire to debate eschatology with anyone in the comments, but I think those of us who still hold to the position I hold need to be careful not to be drawn into the weirdness.
Let’s keep our feet on solid ground until Jesus gathers us into the air!
