Many people in northeast Ohio have visited the Amish Country at least once, if not numerous times. One stop they are sure to make is at Lehman’s Hardware Store in Kidron, Ohio. What I have learned from my visits there is that at one time only other Amish people purchased items at the store because they were committed to using non-electrical equipment in their farming. More recently, however, a new set of clients has arrived, not counting the usual tourists. Some religious believers have the convictions that they are living in the last days. Therefore, they are getting ready for the crisis that is coming. They may need non-electrical equipment in order to survive. The owners of the Lehman store do not subscribe to this view but they are happy for their business.

 Are we really living in the last days? Not a few people are fascinated with a study of the end-time. What does the gospel of Luke say about the future?

Everyone seems to be interested in the future whatever his or her background happens to be. Through the years as a pastor I have taken many of my annual study leaves at the Kirkridge Retreat Center in the beautiful Pocono Mountains in eastern Pennsylvania. Robert Raines had been director of Kirkridge for many years. One year the theme was “the future.” The leader asked the participants to estimate how many years he had yet to live. The answers ranged from thirty years to five years. Those who attended this retreat were then asked to make up a menu for the rest of their lives. What do I have an appetite for? What do I want to taste again and again or for the first time? What do I not want to stomach any longer? What for me, would be a healthy diet for living?

Here are some samples from their menus:

Want to sing more. I want to visit sacred places, to complete my master’s program, to visit the moon, to mentor young men, to be more playful and more prayerful. I want time for woodworking and to have a vegetable garden. I want to go to Scandinavia; I want to live in a third world country. I want to work for a year as a church or school custodian. I want to spend time at the ocean and read the lives of our country’s presidents. I want to want. There is no passion in me. I’m ready to die or to be reborn. I want to become intimately familiar with a plot of wilderness for four seasons. I want to ski more: the only time I feel graceful is when I’m skiing. I want more time alone. I want to learn to play a musical instrument, and eat a hot fudge sundae without getting heartburn.[1]

What do you want to do with the rest of your life?

One day during Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem, he and his disciples walked by the gorgeous temple in the Holy City. Someone said in awe, (It could have been one of the disciples, or possibly a tourist passing by), we are not told explicitly who it was. “Look how beautiful the temple is! King Herod had built this enormous, ornate, cream-colored temple of stone and gold in order to appease the Jewish people for whom he had responsibility under the overall supervision of the Roman occupying legions. Tourists from all over the world came to see this unique building. Construction began in 19 BC, and the building proper was completed by 9 BC. The building was totally completed in 64 AD, six years before it was destroyed by the Romans under General Titus. But the day Jesus and his disciples walked by the temple, it was a thing of beauty.

While the disciples and other tourists admired the temple, they were shocked to hear Jesus say: “As for these things that you see, the day will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down”(21:6). The disciples had a hard time believing his words, and they asked him, “Teacher when will this be, and what will be the sign this is about to take place?” (21:7).

Jesus responded by saying many people will come in his name purporting to know when all this will happen, but don’t go after them Jesus warned. They will hear of wars and insurrections, earthquakes, famines and plagues, and other dreadful things, but the end is not near yet. Then Jesus gave them instructions about how they should respond when brought before the authorities or even cast in prison. When the time came, they would be given words to say. He then spoke of Jerusalem under siege until the Son of Man appears and their redemption draws near. Part of his reply seems to relate to what happened in 70 AD when the Roman general Titus attacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple, but parts of it seemed to be of a later time. Whatever the setting, those who follow Jesus should prepare for that time by prayer, patience, witness, and by being alert at all times. Jesus’ disciples can be assured that no matter how severe persecution might be, in the end will be ultimate victory.

Chapter 21 in the gospel of Luke is a difficult chapter to interpret; it is usually considered to be an eschatological section. Eschatology is the study of “the last things.” The most eschatological book in the New Testament is the book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible. Such writings usually include an accent on symbolism, numbers, and other bizarre material.

The Jewish view of eschatology divides history into two categories: this age and the age to come. The main book in the Old Testament that has visions of the future is the book of Daniel. Other examples are eschatological writings, such as Enoch, the Ascension of Israel and Fourth Ezra which were written during the inter testament period, the four hundred years between the time the Old Testament ends and the New Testament period  begins.

“The Day of the Lord” appears prior to “the age to come.” It would be a time of upheaval, war, and judgment. After this dreadful day would appear “the age to come” capturing all the dreams of Israel from the beginning of their covenant relationship with God.

The Christian understanding of “the last days” may be divided in three different views of the millennium — the thousand year period when Christ reigns with his people in ultimate victory. It should be pointed out that the term millennium or thousand year reign is only mentioned in Chapter 20 of the book of Revelation and yet much has been written about the details of this thousand year reign by Bible commentators that do not actually appear in the Bible itself.

Three principal views of this thousand year reign are called postmillennial, premillennial, and amillennial.

The post-millennial view contends that Christ will come after the millennium begins. The kingdom of God is now being extended in the world through the preaching of the gospel. The nineteenth century was the great century of Christian missions and also the increase of benevolent societies that began to reform a variety of social ills. Optimism was in the air. Many were looking forward to a golden age of one thousand years that would climax all their efforts.

The weakness of this view was that such progress did not continue with two world wars in the next century and a giant economic depression in between, in the 1930s.

Jonathan Edwards, congregational pastor at Northampton, Massachusetts, and a leader of the Great Awakening, had a keen interest in “the last days.” He set forth the stages as he saw them: 1) Christ’s earthly ministry and crucifixion, ending in the destruction of Jerusalem and ‘bringing the church into the glorious state of the gospel’ ; 2) advancement of the church in Constantine’s time, to liberty from persecution; 3) the downfall of the antichrist, now being accomplished, by the advancement of the church to the ‘glorious prevalence and truth, liberty, peace, and joy which we had often read of in the prophetical parts of scripture.’”[2]

The second view is premillennialism, this is the favorite of most evangelicals in our day. This view maintains that Christ will return “before” the millennium occurs. Although many attempts to reform society have been made by those of post millennial persuasion yet, premillennialists believe the world is getting worse and worse, and later the antichrist will take over. Only the dramatic return of Christ can bring about the golden age of one thousand years of peace here on earth.

This particular view lends itself to so-called prophetic teachers setting dates when “the last days” will happen and even identifying the antichrist with certain people living in their day.

Premillennialism is a relatively late theory having been set forth by John Nelson Darby, an Englishman living in Ireland, who belonged to a small denomination known as the Plymouth Brethren whose church membership in America is about 85,000 members (Garrison Keillor, of Prairie Home Companion fame, was reared in the Plymouth Brethren church but is not now a practicing member.) Darby also applied various dispensations to his premillennialism; each dispensation had a particular title, according to Darby we are presently in the “church age” or sixth dispensation, a period marked by apostasy and the weakening of Christian morality. This period will be followed by the rapture when all saved Christians will ascend to meet Christ in the sky and be safeguarded from the Great Tribulation, a time of violence and death, to be followed by Christ’s thousand years of reign on earth and his last judgment of humankind. Darby’s views came to the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas, and the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago became hotbeds of dispensational premillennialism. Even more so, in 1909 the Scofield Bible was published based upon the King James Version of the Bible, but containing in the margins the whole theory of dispensational premillennialism.

In the twentieth century advocates of this view included Hal Lindsey, Pat Robertson, and Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, the latter two co-authors of their highly successful Left Behind books and movies, both based on premillennialism. American church historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom notes that although adherents of this view claim to be literalists, dependence on highly debatable (not to say fanciful) interpretations of some obscure apocalyptic passages have led many to insist that its interpretation is anything but literal.[3]

The third view of millennalism is what might be called amillennialism. This view regards the thousand years, like other numerals in Revelation as symbolic. The millennium does not refer to a literal one thousand years but a very long time stretching from the first coming of Christ to his second coming. This is a more “realistic” view, somewhere between the optimistic view of the postmillennialist view and the pessimistic view of the premillennial view. The millennialist theory assumes that good and evil will continue until “the last days” when Christ comes again to destroy the forces of evil forever and issue in the peaceable kingdom.[4]

Each of these views has difficulties; this third one which most mainline and historic churches from the time of the Reformation adhere to this one, and it is the one that makes best sense to me. Its main drawback is that some churches treat the book of Revelation as the only book in the New Testament; followers of the amillennial view tend to neglect the book altogether and concentrate on other matters.

I heard of a group of theological students who were studying the gospel of Luke, Chapter 21 in the seminary gym when the custodian walked by, and they thought they would have a little fun with him. They told him the eschatological passage they were studying and wondered if he could help with the interpretation. The old man looked at the passage of scripture, and then without hesitation he gave them an answer. He said the passage said, “God wins!”

 This would seem to be the underlying theme of Jesus’ eschatological teaching in chapter 21 of the gospel of Luke, as well as the central point of the book of Revelation. John, the author of the book, wrote in symbolic language so that the enemy, the Roman Empire, would not know what he was writing, but only those being oppressed on the mainland of Asia Minor would understand its meaning. The book was written to give hope that in the midst of their persecution, they would not give up and realize that in the end God would be victorious no matter how dark the day seems now. For us today, the same message holds true, Luke is convinced at the right time all things will be made right. We can count on it.

Amen.

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