THE END

"And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth:

Blood and fire and pillars of smoke.

The sun shall be turned into darkness,

And the moon into blood,

Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD."

 

Joel 2:30-31

I went looking for him that day, braving storms and tumults more fierce than any we had yet encountered. I needed his counsel. I needed the faith that kept him strong and confident for I was weak and fearful and none of what I was hearing was helping. So I went looking for him and came upon him at the bluffs overlooking the once placid lake that now no one dared approach. He was facing toward the east, smiling calm and serene in spite of the rage and fury about him. He noticed me and in spite of everything he turned to greet me as a friend, though I had often been less than a friend to him. He was distracted. “I’ve waited for this moment all of my life,” he said, “This is the moment we've all dreamed of for so long and at last it is here, at last He is coming. It will not be long now.” I asked him what moment he referred to and he said the strangest thing to me: “At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.” He turned again to the east, waiting expectantly, and I was suddenly very frightened. More so than I had yet been. Until that instant I believed what we were being told: that the storms would go away, that some explanation would be found why the skies were crazy, why the earth seemed to be falling apart, why too many people were dying. I desperately believed that this would all go away in time. But face to face with a man I knew to be sane and who had never knowingly lied to me I became terrified because, since he could be trusted, I knew what he knew: that these things would not go away but would get worse and increasingly horrifying as these days went on. And, more terrifying still, I knew why he was smiling. It was not that his revenge would finally be had on those who had tormented him and his kind, he had agonized with me too many years, given me too many examples of his love for that to be true. He was smiling because he knew that his God was coming for him to take him home and that was far more important to him than what was happening on this little planet. I was scared because I suddenly knew that his God is real and that these disasters were but the beginnings of His wrath finally being poured upon the earth. I finally knew that though He was coming He was not coming to take me home but to send me away unless I could change in impossible ways. These events were so completely beyond any human cause, other than total depravity, beyond any human explanation, other than what we had denied so long, that I may as well have blamed the ants at my feet for my despair. I ran and left him smiling there. I left him and ran weeping to my bed, overwhelmed by my despair, for I knew at last what he knew all along: his God is coming for His children, He is not coming for any of the rest of us other than to finally have His vengeance upon our disbelief and to have us enjoy its reward. There is no hope on which to cling for life, I am unable to believe and I am terrified to die. They may do what they will to me for writing these things, for saying that they are wrong but I can no longer care, it is certain to be infinitely less than what I will suffer at His hand and I cannot believe otherwise to save my soul. This I know – His patience is at an end and it will soon be too late. He is coming and all will worship Him, I with fear and horror, His own with love and rapture. It is the end.

 

"And it shall come to pass

That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved.

For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance,

As the LORD has said,

Among the remnant whom the LORD calls."

 

Joel 2:32