How Should We Prepare for the End-Time Drama?
The doom-and-gloom prophets can scare you. The preppers can make you think. Should we hide in a cave or just make wise preparations for potential end-time drama like we would get ready for an impending hurricane that could leave us without food, water and power for weeks?
If you ask 10 different people, you are likely to get at least a few different answers. It’s rather wild, actually, that this is such a hot topic of discussion in our lifetime, isn’t it?
I’ve been talking with my new friend Billy Hallowell, author of The Armageddon Code and faith editor at TheBlaze, about these issues. In this final installment, he shared his thoughts on prepping and what shocked him during his research for his new best-selling book.
You can still read parts one and two: “Why Can’t We Agree About Christ’s Second Coming?” and “Are You Discerning the Signs of the Times?“
Charisma News: How should we prepare for the end-time drama?
Hallowell: Many of the experts I interviewed for the book made it clear that it’s important to know one’s end-time theology or, at the least, to study and try to comprehend what will one day take place. And really that’s the best way to prepare.
There’s always a danger of obsessing over it or of taking concern to unhealthy levels. We’ve seen that happen with those who date-set or who try to predict the Antichrist’s identity (something that has repeatedly happened over the centuries).
As Christians, we can all—aside from full preterists—agree that Jesus’ Second Coming is a biblical event that has not yet come to fruition. The events that comprise the before, during and after of that return, of course, is up for debate. My book helps prepare people by allowing them to compare the major views on the end times, including the rapture, Antichrist, Millennium, Tribulation and Israel, among other topics, and come away with knowledge and understanding.
Globest.com: What did you learn while researching this book that shocked, surprised or even scared you?
Hallowell: I think so much of the end times is somewhat terrifying, which is quite possibly why so many people try to avoid it or feel overwhelmed and confused. I was actually surprised by how comfortable I was knowing that there is hope in Christ and that His Second Coming will—regardless of all of the proposed events that might be terrifying preceding it—instill a lasting peace and a rightness with God.
That narrative can sometimes get lost in the end-time discussion, especially when we get consumed with the finer details. Prophecy can be cryptic, and we can, to the best of our abilities, project events based on what’s in Scripture. But we won’t know all of the details until it happens—and I’m comfortable with that.
