Eschatology, what does it mean to the average person?
First, most Christians have NO IDEA!
The word is treated like a medical term that only happens prior to a person’s four-month remaining life diagnosis of an incurable disease. So, who cares?
The only people that seem to care are the scholarly theologians who need to write books and explain what similarly happens when the coroner shows up and asks if there needs to be an autopsy.
Secondly, eschatology has to be defined into a “common Christian’s term” called “end times”. Why? Why would that cliche or phrase be used by almost every ” scholarly theologian”? Because it has a foundation to jump on while you stand there looking up to them for an explanation that took them maybe 7 years to obtain which you don’t have the educational status to debate or “understand” the word!. The theology graduate with a doctorate can now tell us what “eschatology is” and “why and what the ends will be”. Wow! Think about the first paragraph. They went to school to tell us what the coroner is going to find out! Amazing information!
Every Christian needs to know what happens after they die OR for the brief few months before!? I appreciate the knowledge of the so-called four (4) choices they were able to hammer out at some conference table that gave them the ability to each write volumes about their debates or conflicting views each had. While they make a ton of money with three of them being wrong and the “single Biblical predestined promise of the end” still in scripture will be the only one that matters. What I am about to explain without rewriting all of their “stuff” will be the “END TIMES OF WHAT COUNTS”. The title will be ” YOUR ESCHATOLOGY”.
A preview will reveal what is most important to know about “your end time”. A better and ” higher” perspective is understanding “your end time” is from birth to that little window BEFORE death, not after. If your timeline were drawn from birth to death and extended into the spiritual eternal timeframe you would see just a “dot” representing your entire life. Your end time is your entire life!!! What you do when 6 years old matters what happens to you a million years later! Most of the books stress what God is going to do! You are not God! You need to know what YOU ARE OR CAN DO! YOU CAN NOT CONCERN YOURSELF WITH WHAT IS NOT CHANGEABLE! If there remains a “free will” like oxygen, you have time to effectively change ALL OF ETERNITY!! GOD HAS PUT each person in that position! You can not change God; but, that does not mean you can not change eternity!
Next, I will give you a new understanding of what God has been doing since the creation of “the end times” all the way to the “beginning of the further-end times”. The man did not start anything. Everything man deals with is ” on an end-basis”. When mom cooks a serious batch of chocolate chip cookies and you return home you are going to experience nothing about their beginning but everything about their end. Whether you throw them away, give them away or eat them those cookies have only a destination for the purpose or not the purpose of the baker who made them.
Thirdly, the cliche “the end times” has been copyright protected in a book title and now most of the time a person whom has heard or read about the book or even watched a movie based off of that book generates a preconceived ideology of what “end times” should be! If Adam had called a horse a dog you would never have known the difference; but, it will be difficult to change your perspective of the dog into a horse no matter your viewpoint of agreement with any of the previous information, or movie scenes stuck in your mind. Only with your ability to compartmentalize what you already have in your files will you be able go rationally learn this new or reverse ideology from the old.
Fourthly, try to picture a favorite cookie just coming out of the oven, whatever “type it might be”. If you don’t like cookies think of a pie or maybe a favorite oven cooked meat. Think of something that smells delicious and you recognize that “finished cooked smell” that makes whatever it is “ready to enjoy”! Many of these dishes become even ” better” if presented in a cookie covered plastic dessert serving dish. Or like a really good tasting turkey being served on a “special holiday platter” that helps also bring great pleasure in memories associated with that smell. God made man offer up burnt sacrifices like or special meals that take sometimes days to prepare. The preparation and presentation was as important as the item being served or offered up. When your mom or grandmother, for example, started on Monday preparing for that Sunday Thanksgiving dinner you have to recognize MONDAY is as important as SUNDAY! Eschatology, in general, has been presented as what God does on Sunday and the days or year’s after. I am sorry to say they missed the HEART OF MOM OR GRANDMOTHER OR GOD; because he started the “End with your BEGINING as a Christian”. The day you gave your life to the Lord Jesus “YOUR ESCHATOLOGY STARTED”! Those that do not accept Christ NEVER HAVE AN END; they just continue their end from their start. Genesis to Revelations explains “your beginnings to further ends” and you can not leave out a single book in the Bible. Many theologies use a very few books and verses for their view. God started the beginnings of the further-ends, like the cookies when Adam came out of the oven. Has Adam affected your life? He sure has! Likewise, you will affect your life into eternity and many, possibly thousands or millions into eternity as well! This is the reason for me writing this. I am hoping to add a nice presentation to the word ( perfect cookies) God has given me. There are many restaurants that serve the exact same food; but, those with the best presentation ( smell, temperature, plate, size, surrounding atmospheres and sounds, beverage for palate tasting influences, and even angelic servants helping -figurative for smiling and courteous waiters and waitresses versus rude and unprofessional staff) bring that MEAL to the crown of a Master Chef’s life. Christians NEED TO SEE ALL THE WORK counts towards the end! Swallowing a gourmet meal is basically wasting! Not appreciating all the preparations is wasting! Not relaxing and enjoying the surrounding beauty and smell is wasting! God wants US TO ENJOY his work. If we do not enjoy it we will have no experience TO SHARE AS WAITERS OR WAITRESSES for the next invited by us to Christ’s banquet table. All of this allegory is about showing you the “PROCESSES OF GETTING TO THE END TIMES” has been left out of the books so far written! The processes for each of us is what counts actually more. Compare the time it takes to prepare a gourmet Thanksgiving dinner versus eating it as if Thanksgiving only comes once a year? Most books describe the swallowing nature or burial moments of the end times. That’s horrible! God has worked very, very hard for each one’s future. Why ignore that? Theologian write about characters in the Bible and how we should get ethical knowledge or wisdom from those people. That is not why they are in an autobiography of Jesus’ life. Each of those characters were written in the life of Jesus of how they “showed a type of his character” or they “showed a type of Satan’s character going against him”! From the “beginning of the further-end times” of man ( NOT GOD) the Bible reveals spiritual (not carnally) information of how man MUST CHANGE, COME BACK TO HIM AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for God’s authority entrusted to each ( especially men, fathers, husbands, grandfathers, shepherds, disciples, priests, and tenants of our Master’s temporary vineyards in our temporary promise land) to while on earth before our transformation (resurrection to a new body for our Christ-like spirit) like his. The “PROCESSES” from Genesis to Revelation reveal “end time information that has not been addressed! If you do not address the oven too high, or the ” turkey not having any salt”, or the chocolate chip cookies not sealed in an airtight container the “end result” will be much more devastating to your Mom’s efforts than if she had gotten really good loving and sincere help along the way!
The best part is getting to recognize the Bible we have purchased at some store is only a partial book of the entire word of God. There is a lot to explain here but Revelations describes the “whole Bible” to include not only pages of a written document but as liquid. There are bowls and vials that have been stored with information as Godly breathed as the written word from millions of types of Christ from Genesis to the last second! Other theologians have written about these and usually included them in the “judgement” section of their book. What they have not included is the fact those bowls and vials are about you and I if Christian! Every person God wanted in the Bible as we know it is in it; but, not every person who has a testimony about Christ as a type who has or is being used as salt is included in that Bible you purchased except in Rev. 16 & 17. All people that enter heaven have tears stored by God that shall be “poured out”. The “pouring” AFTER your dead could be one drop or two, or more! Our life will affect the “beginning of the future-end times”.
