Are you ready?

Once again an email has been circulating entitled 8 Signs of the End Times. This email and others like it usually list various Bible verses which when taken out of context support the author's belief, who then goes on to "interpret" these passages for our benefit. These warning signs usually include false Christs and/or prophets, wars and rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, etc.

One of the earliest predictions about the end of the world can be found within Buddhist scriptures, in which an unknown rabbit (we'll refer to him as Mr. Hare) was disturbed by a falling fruit and believed that the earth was coming to an end. He was able to convert other animals to his beliefs so quickly that he started a stampede. Luckily, a sensible lion halts the stampede, investigates the cause of the panic, and restores calm. There are several western versions of the story, but the best-known concerns a chick (we'll refer to her as Miss Penny) who decided that the sky was falling when an acorn fell on her head. She decided to tell the King and on her journey convinced other animals about her prediction. Occasionally, humans also become obsessed with the belief that the world is coming to an end, as evidenced by these emails and the phrase "The sky is falling"; which is a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent.

The moral of these fables is not to be a 'Chicken' but to have courage, and more importantly, not to believe everything you are told. Yes the world is going to end, and yes if we look at the world around us it does appear that the sky is falling, but Don't Panic! Focus! The message in the Bible is that, when the world is going to end, and why the world is going to end, and how the world is going to end, is not something that we need to be concerned with. Mark 13:32 says, “But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father", so it's not something we need to worry about. As Christians, the only question you have to ask yourself, and the only thing you need to focus on is, "Am I ready"?