Growing up, my parents both worked at a Christian conference center. Churches that were mostly from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania would hold retreats at this place, getting away from the routine and having a chance to study whatever the teacher/speaker/pastor decided to focus on. Getting away from familiar surroundings is often a good way to break away from the ordinary distractions of life and be able to dive deeper into the Bible.
In many cases, it would be the same church groups that came to the conference center at roughly the same time each year. Over time, the group leaders would develop a relationship with some of the people working at the conference center. One of the tricky parts would be when, every now and then, you have a group leader whose theology and teachings start to wander away from what the Bible says. It usually doesn’t happen all at once, more often it’s a bit slower, so it gets difficult for a conference center to say “you know what? That’s not what we’re about. I’m sorry, but we’re not going to approve your request for a reservation this year.”
When I was, oh, probably 13 or 14, a situation like this was brewing. One of these groups had been coming to the place for years, but this year was different. The group leader, a pretty smart guy in many respects, decided that by using “clues” sprinkled throughout the Bible, it was possible to determine a mathematical formula to calculate the date when Jesus would return, and it turns out that date was very near. He had even released a book about it and had a sizable following that eagerly ate up what he was saying.
I’m a little fuzzy on the details…the group had reserved the conference center for, if not the predicted date, very shortly before it, so all those people were pretty pumped as they started showing up. Like, there was a lot of buzz in the air. Between my parents and most of the rest of the adults on staff, though, the thing that the conversation kept coming back to was the Bible verse that says “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” – Matthew 24:36
As you might imagine, a lot of people wanted to hear more about the impending second coming, and many of them flooded into this little conference center. I don’t know what it was like for the grown-ups, but I remember that for me as a kid, there was this, like, sort of excitement that was easy to get swept up in. The thing that probably comes closest now is if you buy a lottery ticket when there’s a record-breaking Powerball. “Yeah, yeah, I know it won’t happen…buuuuuuut…imagine if it did!” I remember there were some pretty distinctive-looking clouds that day, too, adding to the general goose-bump factor.
There were a lot more people showing up than the place normally held, so it was an “all hands on deck” situation. There were more cars than the place had room for in the regular parking lot, so I got recruited to help direct parking in the grass field. I remember while I was doing this, one of the guys that parked his car and was on his way to the auditorium stopped to speak with me. “So what do you think? Do you think he’s right in his prediction?”
Despite the excitement in the air, being the tactless young man that I was, I spoke my mind. “Nah, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the Bible verse that says ‘no one knows the day or the hour.’”
The dude had some kind of answer for that. I think he pointed to the presence of what he called “clues” in scripture, but he seemed to feel like this collection of hidden items somehow enabled students of the Bible to gloss over that very straightforward verse.
At any rate, the predicted date came and went, and the second coming has yet to occur. I should’ve bet the dude whatever money I could’ve scraped together that it wouldn’t happen. (If he won, I wouldn’t have had the chance to pay up.)
Today, I certainly do NOT consider myself a Bible scholar. Back then, I knew even less. Yet it was still enough to recognize false teaching.
If you’re the type of person that considers yourself a Christian, but spends little time reading and trying to understand the Bible, you’re setting yourself up to be led astray by false teaching. Spoiler alert: You don’t get wings and become an angel after you die. Read the Bible. If you’ve tried reading a Bible that has nothing but straight scripture, and it’s tough to make any sense out of it, try using a study bible. Study bibles have lots of notations, maps, and diagrams that help explain the context of what’s happening, or information about what the original Hebrew or Greek text said that gets lost in the translation into English. It will help things make more sense to you in a way that can help you apply it to your life without having to guess about what it actually means.
Watch. Be ready. Jesus is coming back someday, but none of us knows when it will happen. In the meantime, as you go about the business of life, ask yourself “is this somewhere I’d be okay being when Christ returns and He asks me what I was doing there?”
Lord, please help us all to be ready for the day You either return or call us home. There are a lot of false things out there. Between the Bible and the Holy Spirit, please help us to know what’s true and what’s false, so we can not only avoid being led astray, but also help keep others from being led astray. I ask in Your name, Amen.