Are you ready for the end? Do you think it’s coming soon?

This is an old religious argument, especially among American Christians. Did you know that the word “Adventist” in the name of the “Seventh Day Adventist Church” refers to what many Christians today call the “Second Coming”?

This strong belief, as a part of American culture, is about two hundred years old now. The Mormon and Jehovah’s Witnesses religions and others also have strong beliefs about the end of our time in history. They advise people to convert to their beliefs, to be ready for the terrible end, which is coming soon.

The original ideas come from many parts of the Bible, including the last book in the Bible, the book of  “Revelation.”

Variations of this belief are popular in most Christian groups, and they are now becoming common in popular culture:

Also note that Doomsday teaching is popular with people who are not religious Christians. For example, we have large numbers of concerned “Climate Change” activists, who believe that we are very close to the end. The end for them could be our extinction.

I was recently at a church meeting, and the speaker was and still is someone who I respect. He told us about Augustine, “Saint Augustine” to Roman Catholics. Apparently that saintly teacher made some interesting comments about Bible’s book of Revelation.

Augustine was the Christian Bishop in the city of Hippo, now in eastern Algeria, and he lived long ago, from 354 to 430. Augustine lived after the time when the Roman Emperors mostly stopped torturing and killing Christians, and during the time when the Western Roman Empire began to collapse.

He died in Hippo, when the city was under siege by a large barbarian army, from a tribe known as the Vandals. The barbarians won that fight. 

According to our speaker, Augustine advised Christians to only read the book of Revelation for inspiration. He did not think we should interpret it literally, and he thought all of the important events in the book had already happened, by his time. Augustine did not see a future in “Revelation” according to our speaker.

In the Latin language, which Augustine spoke, the name of the Emperor of “Caesar” Nero sounds like the number 666 or possibly 616 in Greek, so possibly that man was the Antichrist from the book of “Revelation.” Our speaker is well educated.

Apparently, Augustine looked back at his recent history to the terrible persecution of Christians and other people by the powerful Emperor Nero. For him, the terrible end had already come. If we follow the teachings of Augustine, the predictions about the “End” that is coming soon, may be just religious science fiction.

One variation of this is a popular belief before and during World War II, that the perfect model for the Antichrist, as described in the Bible, was the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. I heard this from an old man, who told us that the best part of the story was that him and his friends did not put their ideas into writing. Those ideas died when Mussolini was executed.

So, should we be concerned, or is this all just a future fairy tale? Is the doomsday end near? Did the Christian teachers get it right, or wrong?

There are two important words to use here: reverberation and opportunity.

1) Reverberation:

If you want to see the future, just look in a mirror. Human beings build their future, and shape the world around them. We can reasonably expect that people will continue to be what they are, unless they make a change. In this case, God will have to make a change because the problem is so deep.

The Bible gives us these words: 

It is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.  (1 John 2:  18)

John, who wrote those words, also wrote the book of Revelation. The problem, that will bring things to an end, is our common behavior. Human beings repeat the patterns of their behavior, in history. 

We reverberate in our behavior. Augustine might have been completely correct, when he looked back in history and saw an Antichrist like Nero. By the reverberation rule, we can also look forward and see the same repeating behavior. This is not strange religious science fiction. It is a picture of common human behavior, repeated in history.

Even people who are not religious can see that.

2) Opportunity:

The evil Emperor Nero commanded soldiers who walked in sandals and carried swords, and their commanders could send notes to each other, by some form of snail-mail. Also, the population of the Empire, at that time, numbered in the millions.

Today, with a population in the billions, we can communicate and travel easily, and we have very powerful weapons. If someone repeats the behavior of an ancient emperor, they can accomplish much more now. Hitler and Mussolini could only dream about our times.

Historic reverberation could kill us all, now.

The Bible tells us:

For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. (Matthew 24: 21 and 22)

We have a “Second Coming” because God has to stop us from destroying ourselves.

The Biblical doomsday, or Second Coming might be popular in common culture because everyone can see the possibilities, even without a Bible. 

The end might be very near, and we should prepare.