Before conclusions

We have no reason to believe that we are living in the end times. None.

Get out your Bible, painful though it may be, and read Matthew 24. Stick with it at least through verse 36. See? No one knows the date. The angels don't know; only God the father knows. Only Him.

This gets on my nerves as much as anything else my brothers and sisters in Christ get up to. "We can tell from the signs that we're living in the end times!" No, we can't. We fit what we notice into Biblical teachings, but that's no different from seeing animal shapes in the clouds. Partly it's how our brains are wired, and partly we do it for the thrill. And sometimes we do it with a conscious agenda of lighting a fire under sluggish Christians, which is probably the worst motive of all.

The end will come when it comes. Our job is to live as though we expect it one second from now. But we have zero, and I mean zero, and let me underscore zero, rational basis for saying it'll be in the next year, next ten years, in our lifetimes, or even in this millennium. If Christ tarries until the year ten thousand, that's His call. So enough with the scraped up solemnity and suspense over the end times. Really; enough already.