Today's Scripture Reading (October 17, 2023): Isaiah 56
I admit that you are unlikely to see
me standing on a street corner holding a sign that says, "The End is Near."
Every time someone announces that the end of the world is just around the
corner, I am skeptical. And it seems that the world's end is prophesied as happening
with almost every year that passes us by. At some point, the prognosticators
are bound to be correct. Eventually, this planet will go through a catastrophic
event, and all life on Earth will end. It might happen tomorrow, or it might
happen a few billion years from now. But at some point, it will happen. Maybe
we will be here to experience it, but it is just as possible that we will have
gone on from life on our blue marble long before this world gives up its last
gasp.
As we enter the last quarter of
2023, it may be appropriate to examine how the world is supposed to end this
year. And it is quite a list. First, the Earth is predicted to be knocked out
of its orbit around the sun and become a wandering planet throughout the
universe, leaving the welcoming warmth of the sun due to a nuclear incident,
whether at the command of some lunatic or because of an accident. Therefore, life
on our planet ends in the cold embrace of space. At the same time, there will
be a massive solar storm, big enough to destroy Earth's magnetosphere, exposing
the planet's inhabitants to enough space radiation to destroy life on our
planet.
And, as if that is not enough,
before this year ends there is supposed to be an alien invasion, not one of
benevolent visitors who want to help us out of the predicament caused by a
nuclear accident and an overwhelming solar storm, but an attack of bloodthirsty
monsters that want nothing more than to destroy the life on this planet for
their own entertainment. Apparently, it will be an exciting two and a half
months.
But Isaiah suggests that this world will
end, not because of any of these predicted events, but because of our apathy
and the belief that we can drink our life away, thinking that tomorrow will be
just like today and that the end will never come.
I don't believe that we should go on
believing that the end won't come, so eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow
will be even better. Life on this planet will end at some point, but I agree
with Isaiah; the end is much more likely to come because of our apathy than it
is to end because of bloodthirsty monsters from space.
The truth is that this life is
supposed to be lived as if today was the last day. We are never to assume that
there is a tomorrow, and so, for today, we do our best to honor what God
expects from us. If he gives us the gift of tomorrow, we will do the same
again, not because the world is ending, but because it is what our God has
asked us to do.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah
57
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