At the beginning of the month the BBC commenced a new drama called 'Hard Sun'. Two cops Renko & Hicks are investigating a murder when they stumble on proof that the world faces destruction in fives years time. Apart from the obvious shock & horror this gives them a dilemma. Do they make this known to the public or not? The intelligence services, who already know about this, & are searching for the lost 'proof' are adamant that it is not. In the first of the series Renko & Hicks are hunted down ruthlessly with MI5 threatening the detectives families in an effort to bring them in with the evidence. I have currently only watched the first of the series, but it promises to be very thought provoking.
As I watched episode one it got me thinking of what it would be like if this unlikely scenario were ever to come true & the general public learn of it. I imagined a sort of slow breakdown of law & order as the years went by with criminals no longer afraid of long term jail sentences.
Even law abiding citizens who wanted to keep the status quo for as long as possible would start to think why bother. Why bother with the career ladder when there will be no career? Why bother with your job at all when there will be a bucket list of things you want to do before you die? And with the imminent collapse of the worlds economies and banking system there would be no job, probably no food and riots in the streets. This is indeed a nightmare scenario.
Now scientists have told us that there will be an end to the world. However the timescale they have given us is considerably longer than five years. A cursory google of 'end of the universe' taught me that current theories are that the universe will end in the next 2.8-22 billion years in three possible ways. They are called either the big freeze, big crunch or big rip. You can look up what these are at your leisure.
For those of you who believe that the universe will end in billions of years time there is a lot of comfort. Even the earths own destruction is forecast for billions of years in the future so providing the earth can dodge the odd rogue asteroid, super nova or the stupidity of its inhabitants etc we have a lot of time before we have to consider our species mortality. Of course not so our own personal mortality.
Soothsayers, & self proclaimed prophets regularly preach 'the end is nigh' According to the Daily Express Nostradamus prophesied the end of the world in 2018. The Daily Mirror reported that on Sept 23rd last year a mysterious planet named Nibiru was set to destroy our planet or this year on Oct 15th was set to start a series of natural disasters that will culminate in the earth's demise. I wouldn't hold my breath.
Now those of you who know your bibles will be aware that it also teaches that there will be an end of the world. This prophecy appears in the Book of Revelation and chapter 21 v 1
'Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.'
It may seem a throwaway statement to say that the earth had passed away, but it means that the earth as it was, is now, will have ended.
When will this happen? Will it be in five years or 22 billion years time. Well the bible does not tell us despite many such attempts by people over the years to try & make it do so. Matthew 24 v 36
'No-one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.'
Of course atheists will claim that the bible is no more reliable than Nostradamus or the conspiracy theorists that abound in the media. Yet the bible has a proven track record with prophets prophesying the destruction of the Old Testament nations of Israel and Judah and their subsequent return.
For me the most amazing prophecy comes from the Book of Daniel and chapter nine where Daniel is given a vision of how long it will be from his time until the Jewish Messiah or Christ in the Greek comes. This prophecy fits exactly with the time of Jesus & is so accurate that sceptics have suggested that Daniel could not possibly have known this, so these details must have been written in later. You can't win.
For me it is logical to assume that if the bible is accurate with prophecies that have already happened then why not with the ones still to come. Of course this does not leave us as comfortable as if we were to consider the end of the world as being billions of years in the future. If we don't know the time then it could be today or even in the next few minutes.
The bible teaches us that the end will be preceded by the return of Jesus Christ, but not as a baby, but as God. Then He will judge us & we will all fail. However those who have repented of their wrongdoings (sins) will have received forgiveness as Jesus will have taken their punishment on the cross. For them eternity will be very pleasurable. For those who have never sought forgiveness from Christ eternity will not.
