Prepare the Way: End Times
Treat Every Day as the End
Matthew 24:36-44
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. Nov. 30th, 2025
I grew up around a lot of end times expectation. The Left Behind books were still being published. Christian movies about the end of the world happened to become box office draws. It was the earlier days of the internet so if you were looking for information about the end times and how it will come about you’d easily fall into some conspiracy rabbit hole. I remember reading about the UN’s Agenda 21 and the New World Order and how the antichrist would bring about a one world government and strike peace in the middle east. Whether you were paying attention to Pat Robertson, or Hal Lindsey, or Jack van Impe there was someone willing to share their view about the events that need to take place before the return of Christ.
I say I grew up around this, but a lot of end times speculation will always be with us. It wasn’t too long ago that predicting the date of the rapture was a TikTok trend. Peter Thiel, one of the richest and most influential people in the world is happy to give lectures on the antichrist and what form he or she will take. Many people believe there the signs are out there for people who have eyes that see and ears that hear. In some way this must be true. As Paul reminds us this morning, “salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.” Jesus does warn us about wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and pestilences. These things, he tells us, are the beginning of the birth pangs.
But this morning we get a different picture from Jesus than we would get from end times prognosticators. He says no one knows the day or the hour of the Son of Man’s return— not even the Son of Man! He does not lay out a blueprint of the events that must take place before he returns. He does not warn us of one world governments or sustainability agendas or syncretic religion. Rather, quite astoundingly, and disturbingly, he tells us the end will come like a thief in the night. Otherwise the master would not have let his house be broken into.
But what I am most struck by is his description of life immediately before his coming. He likens his second coming to life immediately before Noah’s flood. In that story humanity had given itself over to such wickedness that God regretted his creation. But rather than give up on it he decided to start things over. He singled out Noah, the sole righteous man in his sight, and told him to build a giant boat and put two of every kind of animal on the boat. Noah had forewarning, but no one else outside of his family did.
Jesus describes the entirely ordinary form of life people had before the cataclysm came. “in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark.” He does not say they were waring and looting. He did not say they labored under an oppressive global tyranny. But they were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage. They were leading normal, ordinary lives. Prosperous lives. If they may have abused what they ate and drank, or the marriage bed.
He says it will be like this upon his return. “Then two will be in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, and one will be left.” While people will be at work, while they will be eating and drinking, in the midst of their ordinary lives, the end will come.
It is because Christ will return in the midst of our ordinary lives that we are called to be vigilant. Watchful.
I think the end times prognostications of televangelists and self-proclaimed prophets are beside the point. The end will not come when we have seen the signs and calculated the bible code. The end comes when we are lulled into slumber. When everything seems so ordinary, not so extraordinary. When we take things for granted. When we are so secure and confident that we are sure we have another day ahead. God is not waiting to wrap things up until his checklist is finished. No one knows the day or the hour.
I don’t say this to frighten anyone. If anything, this should be good news. We don’t need to fear one world governments or global tyranny or the like. That’s not what Jesus offers, and that’s not the biblical picture. But what we should do is be vigilant and watchful. We should not let ourselves get lulled into normalcy. We should use the time we are given to be made more ready for that day which has no end. We shouldn’t say, “oh I have another day.” Because you may not. The event we all hope and long for may arrive. And that is good news.
If we want to be ready it’s not by buying a book or watching a movie or documentary. It is in reaching out beyond the normal life into the extraordinary life Christ offers in the here and now. It is in making yourself a conduit of his love through prayer and service. It is through the fellowship of believers that points us to the things that matter, what remains after history is rolled up like a scroll.
Because part of the good news is that the end is really not the end. And we can experience eternity now.