I have recently been sharing some aspects of understanding about the times we are in. When we overlay biblical prophecy onto our current global situation, it seems striking to think that we could well be entering into an End Times scenario. The bible tells us that our world is heading somewhere fast, but God is in control, and we can trust him as the great promise keeper.

I want today to think that having an End Times awareness actually helps us to explain and communicate the gospel. Often our simple gospel sharing says something like ‘God loves you, if you believe in Jesus all your sins can be forgiven, and one day you will go to heaven to be with him’. Yet this only shares a partial gospel, one which is very spiritual and the future hope is other-worldly. There is more to be said of the Christian message.

What could we say? That we are living in an epic cosmic story, and God has initiated a salvation plan for the world. That the arc of the story goes all the way from creation through to the wonderful age to come. It takes in the fall of humanity, the coming of Jesus into the world, his life, death, resurrection to conquer sin and death, his ascension back into heaven, the mission of the church and, crucially Jesus’ return to bring in the fullness of the kingdom on earth as in heaven. That our hope is not other-worldly but very much rooted in this world and in our longing for the renewal of all things. That is what Jesus will bring about when he comes.

The startling message is that yes our world is in a mess, but God is real, he loves us, his Son who died to save us is returning, and we need to get our lives ready for him. The gospel message of the early church had this salvation arc clearly in mind, both in the motivation of their mission and in the urgency of their preaching.

Listen to what Peter said in Acts chapter 3: “God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.” (v18-21)

There is no other meta narrative in our world which has as much weight and coherence as the Christian gospel, if we share the fullness of it. And how people need to hear it. In a world in which the lack of purpose and meaning to life is sucking people’s will to live, and ultimate truth seems hard to discover, we have something to offer. We are not wandering hopelessly in a mindless universe, but God is working out a wonderful plan that we are part of. The gospel may sound incredible and is often dismissed, but it makes absolute sense of the world. We declare it in communion services: ‘Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again’.

The hope of the gospel is that the king is returning soon to sort out the chaos of the world. It is this Jesus that we are called to trust. Our kingdom mission and witness as a church is all leading towards this. Let us not be embarrassed or ignorant of the full gospel message.

Thanks for reading, William