Armageddon

In most religions you will find a reference to terrible end of the world. In the Christian religion it’s called the Armageddon. In the days when most holy books the world were written, it was thought the world was a much smaller place. My personal belief is the end of the world will be a regional happening. An example of what I believe is the recent earthquake in Japan. In that example we find it to be the end of the world for thousands of people, through no fault of their own, that happened in less than an hour. That mighty wall of water, caused by the quake, did not pick or choose who was to live or die. It did not ask if a person was of great wealth or if they were a poor homeless person. It took everyone!
From the instant we were conceived our only true promise was that we would die. Seldom is it to be the time or way of our choosing. But, in many of our holy books we find that we are told or threatened that it must happen.
This time it happened “over there”. It happened to “them”. But, they’re different than us! They talk funny! They go to a different kind of church! It is really too bad. It is such a shame.---What are we going to have for our evening meal? Do you think all that bad news is going to mess up my favorite TV shows tonight? I wish I could do something for all of those poor people but---Thank God it was them not us. If I think about it, I’ll say a prayer for them before I go to bed.
Let’s put the shoe on the other foot. Let’s visualize what would happen if it happened in MY neighborhood. I’m sitting watching my TV, all of a sudden the screen flickers and then it goes black. Then the lights go out. What’s all that noise? I walk to my front door and look out. I see several of my neighbors also looking out their doors.
It seems we all see it at the same time. It’s a solid wall of water treetop high! It’s crushing everything in its path! I could see my neighbor up the street. He was mouthing the words “O SHI” he never finished that last word before both he and his house were crushed!
As I looked I could read my next neighbors lips, as she was crossing herself, her words were “forgive me Father for I”. She never had that chance to finish! As I watched, that mighty wall of water struck! The only survivor was my unseen Friend who always walked beside me. I was sure He would still be there when I got there!
I’m sure that there were many that had last words on their lips like; would have or should have, but now they were just fellow travelers on a short journey. And that was a journey that was dictated by a mighty wall of water.
When our end of the world comes, and we’ve been promised it will, it does not matter what we want to call it.
As I looked at that massive wall of water rolling across those cities in Japan I thought to myself; how important many felt about their accumulated stuff had been to them and as I looked I saw all those lifeless bodies rolling in waves of lifeless stuff. I realize how unimportant all of our precious stuff can become in little more than a blink of our eye!
How differently we would feel about waterfront property if we realized it was only there so we would have a bird’s eye view of our coming doom.
Don’t always think it can only happen to “THEM”. Sooner or later it could happen to “US”. And, it’s later than you think!