Apocalypse When?

“At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”  Matthew 24:10-14

Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 24 is one of our main sources of what the End will be like.  It seems every generation believes the End is coming in their time.  I think God inspired the Bible to read that way so we would live and love with some urgency.  

This passage has long given me chills that we are indeed nearing the End, though Jesus said that not even the Son knows when it will be.  Here is a link to a very interesting study on Religion and world population since 1900: Status-of-Global-Christianity-2025.pdf

Taken at face value, there is a 2% decrease in Christianity.  In Europe and North America, the actual total number of Christians are down in the last 5 years, a trend that is expected to continue.  However, in Africa, since 2000, Christians have grown from 383 million to 754 million.  Asia has also seen nearly 50% growth over the same period.

However, there is the question of what it means to be Christian.  According to the latest Pew Report, in Europe, 91% of people are baptized, but only 22% go to church more than once a month.  In the US, 48% of Christians in the US go to church at least once a month, 30% seldom or never.  

The amount of giving to Christian Causes has grown from $320 Billion to $1.38 Trillion, slightly more than 6x growth, a beautiful statistic.  Countering that is the last one on the page: Ecclesiastical Crime has grown from $19 Billion in 2000 to $92 Billion today and is expected to reach $390 Billion by 2050.  Approximately 6.6% of all funds given to Christian Causes are stolen by the “Church”.  Ecclesiastical Crime should be a contradiction in terms.  Can you imagine what Jesus would do to all this thievery going on in His House?  By His Authority?  And this is only talking about financial crime in the Church.  

Between 2004-2023, www.bishop-accountability.org reports over $5 Billion spent by the Catholic Church in the US on sexual abuse cases, with about 75% of that going to over 16,000 credible victims.  Strangely, I could not find anything that shows the full magnitude of this evil.  The same website reported nearly 6% of active Catholic priests between 1950-2018 had been credibly accused of sexual abuse.  

Jesus warned “many false prophets will appear and deceive many people (Matt 24:11)”.  As my father likes to say, “going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.”  But as going to church doesn’t make you a Christian, many who never go to church seem to be very loving and giving, following the Greatest Commandment, if inadvertently.  

Christians today love to cry that we are being persecuted because we can’t pray in schools and we are supposed to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”.  (That, in and of itself, shows how hard it is to follow Jesus, especially his command to rejoice when we are.)  I believe we’ve earned most of it.  To me, the most telling sign of the coming of the End and the return of our Lord and Savior is that the love of most is growing cold.  Beyond what the numbers say, Christians just seem meaner now.  More judgmental.  More hateful.  More criminal.  Less forgiving.  Less loving.  Less Christ-like.  Maybe it’s always been like this?  

How is your heart for others?