Don’t Look Out the Window :: By Jonathan Brentner
The video was unforgettable. A woman on a train remained focused on her smartphone despite widespread chaos outside her window. As she smiled at the images in her phone, only a pane of glass separated her from the destruction and fires along the path of the train.
The short video aptly sums up modern life for many in the U.S. The many distractions of modern life keep the majority of people oblivious to the dangers of our fallen world.
In contrast to the short video on social media, the view outside my window this morning is one of a quiet, peaceful neighborhood. If this was all I saw, I might conclude that all is well with the world.
However, a world of turmoil, violence, and lawlessness lies beyond what I can see outside my office. Sadly, it’s a view that most people choose to ignore or simply cannot see.
The View
The conflict in the Middle East is just one of many hotspots that could quickly easily explode into the next world war. I hear threats of impending nuclear warfare almost every day.
The national debt level in the U.S. just passed the thirty-five Trillion-dollar mark with almost all of the money collected from individual tax returns needed to cover just the interest for it. I cannot explain how we could reach such a mark without it completely obliterating our economy. As it is, we have an inflation rate that’s significantly higher than what the government admits, one that’s severely hurting most families.
The deception and gaslighting of our day are off the charts. The book of Revelation tells me that it will get worse once the antichrist arrives on the scene, but that’s more than I can comprehend at the moment.
Lawlessness and violence have become commonplace across America. Protestors fill our streets in support of the most demonic, despicable, and horrendous terrorist group imaginable. Why the tolerance for demonstrators calling for the elimination of Israel as a nation and the death of all Jews?
A sign from the streets of San Francisco sums up the anarchy of our day. It warned people not to steal goods in excess of a total of $950 because if they did so, they would face prosecution for their crime.
Smartphones are merely symptomatic of how easily we can become addicted to modern life with its pleasures, entertainment, sports, and travel. There’s nothing wrong with these things by themselves as long as they don’t keep our focus inside the train and anesthetized to the perils outside the window.
The Comfort
I couldn’t endure all that I see happening apart from the Bible which tells me about Jesus and my hope of His imminent appearing. He is the sum total of my security and hope for tomorrow. Sometimes, my morning quiet times end with my arms wrapped around my Bible. I hug the words of Scripture because they alone comfort and encourage me when I look beyond the peaceful scenes of my neighborhood.
I’m grieved by churches that tell us that matters of Bible prophecy are tertiary or those of lesser importance than other matters of faith. This assertion defies a realistic view of our current world, which screams with the message that Bible prophecy is of the utmost importance for our time. Believers today desperately need to hear what the Bible says about the future. It’s not debatable, not even close. Bible prophecy is most certainly not a tertiary matter.
The passion that keeps me writing is that of offering hope to the saints in these last days. I don’t know how much longer we have until we meet Jesus in the air, but all the signs tell us that the sudden destruction that will mark the start of the Day of the Lord will soon fall on an unsuspecting world, people too distracted to view the chaos of our world.
Our hope does not rest in politics or in getting the right person elected. The church will fail us; we dare not place our hope in it or in the Lord somehow subduing the evil around us through it. That’s not the purpose of the church. We are the body of Christ; we are not a kingdom that will succeed in bringing peace to the world. God’s Word tells us that evil and violence will increase in the days before Jesus’ return, just as we now see happening.
Believers who possess the discernment of a biblical worldview, one bathed in Bible prophecy, see the world for what it is. We know that the devil’s domination of the nations will continue until Jesus’ all-glorious and spectacular Second Coming.
The distractions are many; I know all too well how easily they can take my eyes off the prize of the pre-Tribulation Rapture (Philippians 3:13-21). The verses below are two of many that enable me to view life today through the lens of a biblical worldview:
“In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:2-3).
“When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4).
Jesus is coming to take us to glory, where He now resides with the Father. When He comes, we will appear with Him in glory. That’s not an earthly locale.
Don’t look out the window! That is unless you do so through the lens of Bible prophecy and specifically that of our “blessed hope” (Titus 2:11-14), our expectation of Jesus’ imminent and hopefully soon appearing to take us home.
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Note: In Hereafter, It’s Far Better Than You Can Imagine, Terry James and I describe the future glory that awaits us as believers, beginning with Jesus’ appearing to take us home. From beginning to end, we emphasize the jubilant joy that awaits us in Heaven. The last chapter contains twenty-seven frequently asked questions and answers pertaining to Heaven and our experience there.
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