“Where is Jesus?”, as Christians are Mocked for Watching for His Return

 As most of you know, I was raised in the ELCA Lutheran church so never heard a single sermon about the return of Christ.  Also I had never heard about the rapture until I was about 35 years old when I, and millions of others, read the book Left Behind.  I have now been convinced that the return of Jesus is close, for about 15 years.  I’ve been blogging about it here since 2008.  Scoffers are now everywhere.  “You’ve been saying Jesus is coming for 15 years!  Come on!  Time to give it a rest!”  But let’s remember that Jeremiah warned of the destruction of Jerusalem for 40 years before it happened.  And also Isaiah warned of Israel’s destruction for over 50 years.  So let’s remember that as we patiently watch for Jesus to come for his bride.

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But even though they think that such Christians are crazy, mainstream pundits openly admit that there are lots and lots of people out there that are interested in learning what the Bible has to say about the "end times".  The following comes from a Slate article entitled "Why Growing Parts of the Christian Right Are Convinced It's the Apocalypse"...

Are we living in the days just before the return of Jesus Christ to this planet?  

Right now, there is a tremendous amount of chatter about the "end times" all over the Internet.  So many really crazy things are starting to happen all over the world, and many people correctly recognize that we were specifically warned that a lot of these crazy things would happen in the last days.  

For example, in Matthew 24 Jesus specifically told us that there would be "wars and rumors of wars", "famines" and "pestilences" just prior to His return.  As global events continue to spiral out of control, speculation that prophetic events described in the Bible are happening will only intensify even more.

Of course there are plenty of skeptics out there.  In particular, there have been quite a few articles in the mainstream media lately that portray Christians that believe that we are living in the "end times" as a bunch of nuts.

If you peruse the list of recent releases in Christian publishing, you'll get the sense that "the end times" are upon us. This summer saw the release of survival guides, books about current events, and prayer manuals all oriented around a rapture, a second coming of Christ, or an otherwise cataclysmic event at the hands of God. (Subtitles included 12 Megaclues That Jesus' Return Is Nearer Than Ever; An End Times Guide to Survival; Do Current Events Point to the Antichrist and His Worldwide Empire?; and Prayer Strategies That Unlock the End-Time Armory of God.)

According to Publishers Weekly, this spate of end-times books is being printed to meet demand. It's what the readers want. (At least some of them; editors at the imprint Harvest Prophecy, which was founded last year, told Publishers Weekly they had seen "a strong surge of interest because there is so much happening in today's world that parallels End-Times signs given in the Bible.")

And survey after survey has shown that a surprisingly high percentage of the U.S. population actually believes that Jesus will come back in the relatively near future.

https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=5708