How to Stop Worrying and Love the End of the World

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith.

Alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The End of the World Is Not Meant to Produce Panic

Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the 21st chapter. All right, so from time to time, I don't know if you notice this about me, I get criticism.

Criticism.

It's part of the gig, it's part of the job. But one of the things I find interesting is that every now and then, I get a complaint about my sermons. And here's the complaint, your sermons aren't practical.

I mean, so apparently people want me to give them like, you know, three easy things that they can do to make their lives better, as if somehow that's part of how the sermon works. Now, I'm not really good at the practical stuff, clearly, otherwise the criticism wouldn't come in.

And so what I'm going to do today is I'm going to intentionally be practical. Because you know, you'll note that our sermon text, our gospel text, brought us back to the end of the world again. But here's the thing, where there's overlap between the end of the church year and Advent, the focus is different.

It's a little, it's just a smidge different, if you know what I mean. And so today's sermon, I think I'm going to name it something like, how to enjoy the second Advent of Christ, or how to enjoy the end of the world, you know, something like that.

Doesn't that sound practical? Because, you know, at the end of the sermon, you're going to say, oh, well, that's how I'm going to do it. Now, let me first start off by saying how you don't do it. I think it's important to kind of get that off the table.

Here's how you don't do it.

All right.

So when I was in a legalistic church, a church that really emphasized you don't listen to secular music, you don't drink, you don't smoke, you don't chew, you don't do any of that stuff. Usually, when they would talk about the end of the world, it was always in terms of the.

Rapture.

You know, well, Jesus is coming back secretly, and you don't want to be left behind. And the surefire way of being left behind is if Jesus returns, and he can smell alcohol on your breath, as if somehow drinking alcohol in and of itself is a sin, and that would cause you to be left behind.

And then, of course, you know, any tobacco, that's out of the question, too. You know, no cigarettes, no cigars, no, you know, and granted, those are unhealthy things. But according to them, you know, if you were caught smoking while Jesus came back secretly, you'd be left behind.

And of course, dancing, too. You see, any rhythmic gyration of the human body, that can lead to fornal caboodling. So that's out, too. And if Jesus sees you dancing when he comes back, well, you're doomed.

So hang on a second here. Something just happened. There we go.

All right.

So that being the case, I'm going to note that that is not exactly the right way to prepare for or to enjoy the second advent of Christ. In fact, a little, this is actually not a secret. It's kind of a well-known fact.

I'm a huge fan of British comedy. Now, being an American, there's only so far that I can go with this, because British comedy is like not my natural comedic language. So it's like a second language. You know, so I think of my good friend Kevin Bullock in Swansea in the UK.

He can speak British comedy like fluently. And always and again, when we're talking and he says something really silly, I lose it. He's just brilliant at it. But one of my favorite authors when I was growing up was Douglas Adams, and he wrote a book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

And I would note that if we're talking about practical advice on how to enjoy the second advent of Christ and the end of the world, I think Douglas Adams gives a little bit better advice than the people that I used to go to church would give.

Let me explain. One quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in describing this particular book, which is a book in the book. It says this. In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the outer eastern rim of the galaxy, The Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom.

And though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it's slightly cheaper.

And secondly, it has the words, don't panic, inscribed in large, friendly letters on its cover. Now, I would say that if you want to enjoy and survive the second advent of Christ, Douglas Adams' words here, don't panic, written in large, friendly letters.

I'm not sure what friendly letters look like, but I'll just go with it. The idea of don't panic, that's at least better advice, more practical, if you would, than what I received when I was a kid. But that being the case, that's not exactly what the scriptures say either.

Let me explain. The last verse of our epistle text is super helpful here. Paul says, he writes to us, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope.

Mm. Mm.

Good words. Something to do with the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, I've said it before, and I'll kind of put it out here on the record so that everybody can see me saying it and say, yeah, I remember when he said that.

I think Lutherans need to take certain words back from other denominations. So I think we need to take back the word Catholic from the Catholics because they've misused.

It.

We need to take back the word orthodoxy from the Orthodox. They've misused it. We need to take the word evangelical back from the evangelicals. They've misused that word. And I also think we should take back the word Baptist from the Baptists because they don't believe that God does anything in baptism.

So we should take that word away from them and apply it to ourselves. But I also think we should take the word Pentecostal away from Pentecostals because they're misusing.

The word.

For all their talk of Holy Spirit, okay, and they've dropped the the for whatever reason, I'm not sure why they've done that, but for all their talk of Holy Spirit, they seem to think that the only practical thing that the Holy Spirit can do is cause you to gyrate uncontrollably on the floor, quack like a duck, bark like a dog, and then speak in gibberish.

Okay, I don't know any biblical passages that talk about the work of the Holy Spirit in those terms. So I think that they've abused the term Pentecostal. We need to take it back from them. That being the case, note here that what Scripture teaches us is a very rich and vibrant understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

And you're going to see this ties directly in to the words of Christ in our gospel text. Paul says, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. And here's where we're going to jump into our Old Testament text to kind of lay a little bit of a basis here.

Have you noticed that the end of the world, that there are two very different experiences that human beings can go through, and there is no middle ground. There's not going to be some fellow going, you know, I kind of sort of liked the end.

The Day of Judgment Divides the Arrogant from Those Who Fear God's Name

Of the world.

It was, you know, it was okay. You know, as if somehow you can have a tepid, you know, kind of mediocre, middle ground approach to the end of the world. That's not how this works.

All right.

There is either abject terror, or there is complete joy. And those are really your only two options. And what's the dividing line? Faith in Jesus Christ. And so here's the thing. I'm going to assume that since you're joining us online today, you know, and you probably have better things to do on a Sunday than listen to me ramble on, that the reason you're here is because you actually believe in Jesus.

I'm going to go with that.

All right.

I believe that you're here because you believe in Jesus. And since you believe in Jesus, you know what? You heard today that your sins were forgiven, absolutely pardoned and absolved. In fact, that's kind of the best thing about being a Christian.

We hear in our Old Testament text, frightening words. And let me start there. Behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant, all the evildoers will be stubble, and the day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

And oftentimes preaching about the end of the world only focuses on that bit. Okay? Now, it's absolutely true that the evildoers and the arrogant will be set ablaze on the day of judgment. That's most certainly true.

We learn in the Gospel of Matthew, they end up in the lake of fire. But that being the case, you're going to note something here. All of us, according to God's law, we fit into that category of the arrogant and the evildoers.

And arrogance here is this somehow bizarre thing that we human beings do. Like we think we know better than God.

All right?

Yeah, I know. I know the Bible says that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, but we know better than that. And I think Mr. Darwin has a better idea of how we came to be than God does. And then you have people sit there and go, yeah, I know that the Bible says that that's a sin.

But you know, we really need to not worry about God getting angry about something so.

Trivial.

So, you know, things like this, right? That's utter arrogance. And then of course, then there's real arrogance. The guy who just tells everybody how wonderful he is, you know, and all that kind of stuff.

So here's the thing. When I examine God's law, and I look at these categories, evildoers and arrogant, it's like, you know, there's something really uncomfortable about this. And that is I fit into those groups.

And if you're honest, so do you. But, and see, here's the but bit, because there's a but right here in verse two, too. The but bit is that, listen, Christ, knowing your arrogance and your evildoing, he has taken upon himself your sin.

He was smitten, beaten, afflicted, crucified, died, buried, all because of your sin and mine. He took the punishment that we deserve upon himself so that we can be pardoned. So then rather than living our life in hopelessness, all right, we can instead live our lives in hope.

Hope and expectation of mercy, pardon, reconciliation, peace, a new world, an inheritance in the world to come, and life eternal, all given as a gift because of God's great mercy and his love for us. That being the case, we could say that we were part of that group known as the evildoers and the arrogant, but God in his mercy has bled and died for all of that.

So we're part of a different group. In other words, here's the other half of this. Part two of the Day of Judgment begins in verse two of our Old Testament text, but for you who fear my name. Talking about the Day of Judgment, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.

You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. You shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts. And by the way, I quipped a few years ago, apparently it's a thing that calves skip.

And so, one of the gals that attends our Aletheia services, she lives in Somerset in the United Kingdom and she lives on a farm and they have cows. And during the winter, because, you know, things are so wet and cold and miserable there in the UK during the winter, the cows have to be indoors.

They put them in a big facility with stalls and stuff like that, and they keep them there for half a year. But what she ended up doing was she recorded the day that the weather had become nice enough and the ground had become not muddy anymore so that they could let the cows out in the.

Pasture.

And oh my word, she took video of it and put it on her social media. And wouldn't you know it, cows skip. They looked absolutely happy. I did not know that cows can be happy like this. And so, this picture here is the picture of who?

You!

Me!

See, when the Day of Judgment comes, we're going to be skipping like calves. We're going to be having a good old time. Everybody else is going to be going, it's the end of the world. And we're going to be going, it's the end of the world, okay?

And there is no middle ground. And that's kind of the point that Jesus is making in our gospel text. Listen to what Jesus says. There will be signs in the sun, the moon, the stars, and the earth, distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world.

The powers of the heavens will be shaken and they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. That's the first half of this. Now, a little bit of a note. I don't know if you guys have noticed.

I keep pointing this out as maybe you have noticed, but it seems like the world's lost its mind, right? There's a word now that you can't say this word, by the way, but I'm going to say it. This is the word that has everybody terrified.

Boots are shaking because of this word. And here's the word. Are you ready?

Omicron.

I know.

You can't say that word, Omicron. Yeah, the whole world is freaking out right now because of Omicron. And you know what? You know what I can promise you? This Omicron stuff, this is still the warm-up show.

The main act hasn't started yet, okay? And if the world's going crazy, losing their minds over Omicron, right? And of course, we're all sitting there going, are we going to have to do this whole thing all over again?

And some politicians are saying, oh yeah, absolutely, we're going to have to do this all over again. Hang on one second. I hear a buzzing noise.

You hear that? Hang on. There we go. I'm going to mute that.

Okay. So the word you're not supposed to be able to say is Omicron. And well, I just got to tell you this, it's going to get worse. It's going to get worse than this. This is nothing, all right? So because it's going to get worse, what are we supposed to do?

How are we supposed to survive in the midst of all of this? Well Jesus says this, Jesus says this, when these things begin to take place, straighten up, raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near.

So if the whole world loses its mind, everything goes crazy. The sun, the moon are darkened. The earth is in complete distress. Everyone's running around losing their minds. Jesus says, don't worry about it.

Lift up your head. Your redemption is drawing near. Now, that being the case, how does one achieve such a laissez-faire attitude regarding so much turmoil, distress, death, and destruction and things like that, right?

Well, Jesus says these words, watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness in the cares of this life that that day come upon you suddenly. Now dissipation is not a word we use a lot, all right?

So let me explain what dissipation is. Are you ready? Dissipation is beer pong, okay? It's drinking games. That's what dissipation is for the purpose of, so I guess it's like quarters and beer pong and things like this.

That's what dissipation is. So we learn from Christ that what is going to happen is that as the world slips farther and farther into destruction and the day of the Lord gets closer and closer, everybody freaking out, all hearts melting within them, a whole lot of people are going to basically say, well, let's play beer pong.

And they're going to spend the end of days in a drunken stupor. But Christ says that when you see these things take place, straighten up, raise your heads, your redemption draws near. So here's what Christ says to us, and then we'll connect this back with what Paul says.

Stay awake, stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape these things that are going to take place and to stand before the Son of Man, praying. See, here's the thing. If you look inside yourself, okay, it's true that you are a new creation in Christ, but it's also true you have a sinful nature.

And have you guys noticed that those two seem to be at war with each other so that you're constantly butting heads? And at times it feels like your sinful nature gets the upper hand, and then you get the upper hand, and then sometimes you just wrestle that thing to a stalemate, right?

Well, here's the thing. You don't have the strength necessary to persevere in hope. You don't have the strength within you to be able to have such a joyous and happy attitude towards the death and destruction and the mayhem and all the things that are going to befall the earth as we approach the last days.

You don't have that strength. Neither do I. So, what does Christ say? Pray, pray that you may have strength. And do you think Jesus is going to sit there and go, well, yeah, I know that you're praying for strength, but I'm not going to give it to you.

No, it doesn't work that way. See, the reason why Jesus told us these things is because if we listen to what He says and we believe His words, we can sit there and go, oh, oh, that's how. So, to be practical, coming back to what Paul said, what did Paul say at the end of our epistle text?

He says that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. You see, when all of these signs and the craziness really sinks in and, you know, and the death of the planet and the universe is imminent, right?

We continue to have hope and strength to have that hope comes from God, the Holy Spirit. So, pray, as Jesus has said, pray, pray that He give you the strength. And so, you'll note then, rather than us going, well, it's the end of the world.

We might as well play beer pong. No, we do something different. Listen to what Paul tells us to do in the idea of this hope, even in the face of the end of the world. For what was written in former days was written for our instruction, Paul says, so that through endurance, endurance, and that comes from the strength of the Holy Spirit, and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.

And see, that's the thing. Being forgiven, you have hope. You're not like the unbelieving world who has to have that stupid slogan, YOLO, you only live once, bologna, okay? You only live forever, okay?

We who are in Christ, eternity has already begun for us. We have already begun eternal life, and the current chapter that we're in is going to come to an end with the end of this world, with our own demise, and we have hope of a new heavens, a new earth, the wedding feast of the Lamb.

Man, I'm telling you, we're going to be skipping like calves. I can't wait to be skinny enough to do that again.

All right?

It's going to be fantastic. So, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live then in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may, with one voice, glorify God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you. So, what do we do as Christians as the day draws nearer and nearer and the destruction becomes more eminent? We love each other. Hang out together.

Hear the Word together. Have the Lord's Supper together. We pray together. We love each other. We hug each other. We mourn and weep with each other. We encourage each other with the Scriptures in the face of all of this, and we rejoice together.

We lift up our heads together. We straighten up together and encourage each other, saying, it's just around the corner. It's almost here. And so, then Paul reminds us of the faithfulness of God. I tell you, Christ became a servant to the circumcised in order to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises that he gave to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.

In fact, that's what we all do. And so, you know, Christ fulfilled all of those prophecies of Scripture, and that's to show God's truthfulness. And so, because God has shown himself to be faithful and truthful, always keeping his promises, do you think for a second that if you ask Jesus for the strength to persist in hope and to be encouraged even in the face of a world gone mad as it begins its writhing and languishing and birth pains, getting ready to the end of the earth, do you think that if you pray for that strength and that encouragement, that power and hope, that Jesus is going to go, nope, no soup for you.

No, he's not like that at all, no. He's going to do exactly what he said he would do. So, pray, pray, as Paul says. So, may the God of hope then fill you with joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, and God's Holy Spirit will give you that power, you may abound in hope even as the world goes crazy and all of these signs begin to take place.

We will continue to have hope, lift up our heads, and rejoice because our rejection is.

Drawing near.

In the name of Jesus, amen.

Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. We thank you for your support. All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.

And again, thank you for listening.