by Stephen Rodgers

Editor’s Note: In cased you didn’t know, I’ll be filling in for Garrett until he is able to return to his Living Theology series.

Well, in case you missed it, my post last week was a bit…longwinded. I’ll aim to be a good deal wittier this time, assuming that you agree that brevity is its soul and all that. So moving right along…

My claim this week is that there are basically two categories of unfortunate events: the personal (which we call a “tragedy”) and the impersonal (which we call a “statistic”…or if we’re being more sensitive, a “current event”). In other words, the relative tragedy of any given event is often directly related to our personal attachments, or lack thereof. I’ll give you two brief examples, and I’ll even use bullet points to ensure their brevity:

• Columbine, 1999. There’s no denying that the horrible events at Columbine high school captured national attention. However, while I also watched the news and read the papers, I had a more personal connection. A childhood friend of mine was attending Columbine at the time, and in those days prior to Gmail and Facebook, SMS and Twitter, being unaware of how someone else was doing was a given, not the exception. It wasn’t until several days later that I heard from him and knew that he and his brother were alive.
• Moravia, 2010. I read and/or skim a great many articles every day, and so like most days, I slid my eyes across the front page of the international version of CNN. This time however, they caught on a headline informing me of “massive flooding in Moravia” along with a number of pictures that demonstrated in no uncertain terms that water laughs in the face of modern engineering. Normally, the relative moistness of Central/Eastern Europe has no bearing on my life, except that this time it came with the realization that my fiancée was potentially treading water. She has since corrected my view (“We live on hill, so water is not a problem; we fear fire.”), but at the time it was alarming to say the least.

So this brings us to eschatology.

Now a number of you might be scratching your heads at that one. After all, your familiarity with eschatology might bring to mind a number of prefixes: pre-, post-, and a- right? And something in there about “tribs?” Particularly savvy students might be trundling out their commentaries on Daniel and Matthew along with Revelation, but in this case, they’ve jumped the gun (whether they’ve jumped the shark as well is grist for another mill). You see, I don’t mean that kind of eschatology, I mean that kind of eschatology.

For those who cannot see my indicative hand-waving and chin-thrusting, I am referring not to eschatology of the a-/pre-/post- variety (what theologians often call “specific eschatology”) but of the Heaven/Hell variety (what theologians often call “general eschatology”).

You see, I recently heard a comment that started me down this line of reasoning. When asked to comment on his post-millennial views, Douglas Wilson made the observation that while he personally doesn’t believe that Jesus Christ could return tomorrow, there is absolutely nothing whatsoever preventing Him from demanding that Pastor Wilson make the trip to Him. In other words, whatever your view on when the sovereign Lord intends to return to judge the quick and dead, we all agree that like the rich fool that Christ so aptly illustrated for us, our life could be demanded of us this very night. (Luke 12:16-21)

However, before we all wax poetic and oh-so-sanctified about how wonderful Heaven will be (my aforementioned fire-fearing fiancée is an excellent example of this, as she famously has announced that she does not fear interstate highways and crazed American drivers because “Heaven is better”), let us pause briefly to consider that this applies to unbelievers as well as believers.  Which is to say, “Yes!  True!  But…”  In other words, as I once pointed out in my Apologetics class, the issue is not whether we live forever or don’t. Everyone, by their God-given nature, is functionally immortal. The question, rather, is where you will eternally reside?

So my challenge to you is this: what priority do you place on the souls of the lost? What time do you spend in evangelism? How near and dear…how personal…is your eschatology? You see, like Columbine, like Moravia, and like so many other tragedies, Hell is personal for me. I have friends there. I have family there. And it is something that is starting to keep me up at night. Because while they are forever beyond my reach, there are others who are not. I commented earlier that 1999 was a lousy year in terms of digital media and a robust social-networking scene. News flash: 2010 is quite the opposite. There are over 500 names in my Gmail contacts. There are almost 400 souls calling themselves my Facebook “friends.” This newsletter alone garners nearly 3,000 unique visitors per month.  That’s a lot of people that God has brought within the reach of my voice, phone, and keyboard.

How many of those people need to hear the Gospel? How many have yet to bend the knee to Christ?

And do we take it personally?

“If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms around their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.” (C.H. Spurgeon)