On Sunday I went to a picnic-barbecue for a place where I work. The afternoon was beautiful, and we sat around talking about things, like old friends. We agreed that we would not talk about work, and the made the time almost perfect.

One friend spoiled the happy mood by saying “I think the apocalypse is going to happen soon.” I don’t think he’s a Christian, but he drives long distances with a truck, and he visits a lot of places. His summary is simple, we can’t continue like this. He was just saying what he feels, and he spoke sincerely.

My friend was watching people and nature, and sometimes I think the whole world is one big argument. People are divided. Nations like Turkey, India, Brazil, and Argentina are struggling with debt and economic collapse.

Apparently, the Yellowstone Caldera, a super volcano, is larger and more ready to erupt than we thought, and there are other super volcanoes. We had so much smoke last week from forest fires in the west, that we called one day “Zombie Apocalypse Day.” Cities near me kept the street lights on in the day because the smoke made the daytime sky as dark as night. The smoke woke me up at night when I coughed and choked in my sleep, and I had to close all the windows.

The picture of someone holding up a sign with the words “The End is Nigh” has become a cultural joke. Usually the person holding the sign has a long beard, like some Old-Testament prophet, and maybe some modern attachments, like a sandwich board and a megaphone. The image is common because we are concerned about the end. We know, every age has a beginning – a middle – and an end, and we want to know where the end is. The concept is so common, it has become a video game “The End is Nigh.” Our time in history will have an end, just like every other time.

Violent Muslim groups, like ISIS, believe we are at the end of this age, and some believe that they can bring the end sooner with war, which explains some of the hostility against Israel. Recently ISIS fought fiercely for a small town in Syria, “Dabiq,” that most of us never heard of because in Islamic tradition, that is the site for the final battle between Muslims and Christians.

Strangely, many Muslims believe in the second coming of Jesus, who will rule the Earth.

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Mormons are the original Doomsday preppers, and many of them believe we are already in the early stages of the apocalypse. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists believe very strongly that the end is near. Also, Buddhists, Hindus, and Zoroastrians have beliefs about an end to this age. It seems like everyone believes.

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And it’s true, the end is almost here. I know we are at the end of this age because I have a cell phone in my pocket.

The Bible is clear, the future will be one final, world-wide expression of human behavior, the same behavior that we have seen for thousands of years:

And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live for ever. Children, it is the last hour! As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. From this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But by going out they made it plain that none of them belongs to us. (1 John 2: 17 to 19)

That is clear to me. What will happen in the future has already happened and is happening now. Imagine if Hitler ruled the world instead of just Germany.

I can take that phone out of my pocket and call any place. I can literally call Timbuktu; the country code is +223. I looked that up on the Internet in about 30 seconds.

We have a very small world now, where we can communicate and travel anywhere, easily. Now, terrible things that happened in one town, or one country, can happen once, over the whole world. And since we can rule our world with one government, we will. It will make sense to us to control everything, for the best good of everyone. We have been doing that through all of history, and now we can do the big one.

Jesus came to make us right, but we also have the option to believe that we are good enough already, and now we can spread our corruption over the globe.

The end is nigh.

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1:18 to 20)