Max Lucado has coated loads of floor over the years as a pastor, writer, and Gospel communicator. Most just lately, he launched a guide about the biblical finish occasions titled, “What Happens Next? A Traveler’s Guide Through the End of this Age.”
It’s a topic Lucado felt compelled to sort out.
“I’m getting old, and, so, as I get old, I get curious,” he informed CBN News. “I really think I have as many loved ones and friends who have already passed on into the next life as I do … here still on the Earth.”
Lucado continued, “My next birthday will require 70 candles. I don’t know if you can get 70 candles on one cake, and, so, as you get older I think all of us become more fascinated with what is about to happen. Personally, I’m super excited about it.”
Beyond that non-public attachment to the subject material, Lucado mentioned the “condition of the world” and the issues taking place in Israel, Gaza, Russia, Ukraine, China, Taiwan, and different areas compelled him to motion.
“[There is] this sense that the world feels super fragile right now … like we’re one press of a red button away from annihilation,” he mentioned. “There’s just … this angst in the world. So, those two things kind of came together, and I began to take seriously more teaching and study on this topic.”
While the subject of the finish occasions can generally spark nervousness and fear, Lucado additionally addressed why these topics ought to usher in peace.
“It has been used to scare people or manipulate people,” Lucado mentioned. “It should not. Jesus, when he wanted to encourage His followers on the night before His crucifixion, He spoke about end times.”
He continued, “[Jesus] said, ‘Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. [In] my Father’s house are many mansions.’ He went on to tell them that He would come and get them, and so He used the promise of His return as a way to lift them out of anxiety and sadness.”
Lucado mentioned Jesus’ return is a “key fixture of Scripture” and that it’s talked about greater than 300 occasions in the Bible and in practically each guide of the New Testament.
“It’s a dominating, primary theme of Scripture, that Christ will return,” Lucado mentioned. “And it should give us hope. In these days, it feels so dark; it feels so desperate. The promise of the return of Christ, in which the world that’s upside down now will be turned right side up — for some people, it’s the only hope they have.”
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The preacher mentioned his want is to observe the Apostle Paul’s recommendation to assist others repair their minds on “things above, not things of the Earth.” It’s the promise of Heaven, he mentioned, that ought to grow to be the focus.
Lucado warned of the dynamics that may generally take root when discussing the finish occasions, explaining there’s typically “one of two extremes” that may unfold. Some discover themselves saying the subject is simply too advanced or controversial, and, as a result of folks can’t know definitively all the particulars, some pursue none of the topic.
“That’s to our detriment,” Lucado mentioned. “That’s to our loss.”
But then he identified the different excessive.
“The other extreme [is] there’s the person who seems to know everything, or at least they act like they know everything and they love coming across like they’ve cracked the code and know things that no one else can know,” he mentioned.
Ultimately, Lucado harassed the significance of being “smack dab in the middle.”
“That person who says, ‘I cannot know everything, but I want to know everything God wants me to know,’” he mentioned. “‘And so I’m going to read the Scripture, I’m going to pray about it, I’m going to imitate the apostle Paul who said, ‘These present troubles are not worth comparing with the glory that far outweighs them all.’”
Lucado acknowledged the many various views that exist underneath the finish occasions umbrella at the moment. Some of these views, he mentioned, encompass Israel, with the Jewish state remaining central not solely to present occasions but additionally to theology.
In reality, it’s the position of Israel in the finish occasions that usually creates debate.
“For hundreds of years, church fathers and church leaders could not envision Israel being reconstituted as a nation,” Lucado mentioned. “Consequently, many of the prophecies about Israel regarding the reconstitution or repopulation of Israel as a nation were taken allegorically [and] metaphorically. They just couldn’t envision that. Of course, all that changed in May of 1948.”
That’s when the fashionable state of Israel was created, leaving those that as soon as thought it wouldn’t ever be attainable in absolute awe.
“Then, all of a sudden we realized, ‘Wait a second, these prophecies about the return of Israel to the land of Israel, we can take this seriously,’” he mentioned. “I think everything changed when Israel became a nation, and, consequently, our generation is privileged to live in the end of the end times, because Israel is now a nation — and so many of the prophecies — many of the prophecies that could not be fulfilled without Israel as a nation — can be fulfilled.”
Lucado mentioned he personally believes in a pretribulation rapture that can precede a chaotic time on Earth. he mentioned his theology of the finish occasions has modified since he first grew to become a Christian and, in specific, over the previous 20 years.
“I was, for many years, what we would call an amillennialist,” he mentioned. “I believed that the teaching in Revelation 20 was symbolic. … I came to change that belief about 20 years ago, as I continued to study, because I found several things in the Scripture that led me to believe there will be a literal 1,000-year reign of Christ on Earth.”
Ultimately, Lucado mentioned he hopes, “What Happens Next? A Traveler’s Guide Through the End of this Age,” conjures up readers to extra attunely perceive God’s love for them.
“I want them to know that nobody believes in them more than God does,” he mentioned. “Satan’s greatest lie is that God is against us; that’s hogwash. God is for us.”
Watch Lucado talk about these points above.
