The End of the World?

So I understand from the news that tomorrow, Saturday May 21, 2011, beginning about 6 PM the end of the world is scheduled to happen.  I am amazed at how much media attention this "prophecy" has garnered.  I mean even the preeminent physicist Stephen Hawking reports this week that there is no Heaven. I have no idea if the Hawking declaration has anything to do with the reported end of the world.

OK being a child of the 80's I must digress here.

Now back to reality.  There is a great deal of interest in the end of the world, whether it will be tomorrow or some other day in the distant or not to distant future.  I have listened to and read a large amount of commentary on the prediction for this coming weekend.  I have seen everything from the theologian response to the Facebook/Twitter "status update" response.  There are people who are worried, scared, throwing a party and others who are genuinely saddened that the hype has generated a great deal of negative press and is degrading a foundational Christian doctrine. 

I just want to offer a few bullet points of thought.

1. As a Christian who really believes the Bible, I know there will be a day of final judgement. Matthew 25:31-32

2. No one knows the day or the hour of that coming, Jesus did not even know while he walked on the earth. Mark 13:32

3. Christian, there will always be false prophets and false teachers among us. II Peter 2:1-3

4. The judgement and end times "prophecy" is of particular interest to many of these false prophets/teachers. II Thessalonians 2:1-3a

5. The truth is the for many people tomorrow, judgement day will come, just as it will come for many today, and every day next week, next month, next year and everyday until the Lord Jesus Christ does return for His elect. Hebrews 9:27

6. Christians our job is not to defend the Bible or the truth claims in it.  Our task to to proclaim that truth, in love, in service and many times in suffering. II Timothy 4:1-5; Ephesians 4:15; John 13:1-20; Matthew 5:11-12

7. We have a Great Commandment (Matthew 22:36-40) to keep and a Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) to fulfill.

8. When the Lord Jesus Christ does come, may He find us being faithful. I Thessalonians 5:4-28

You may find this message I preached some time ago helpful. I ask "Are We LIVING in The Last Days?"

Are we Living in the Last Days? from Marcus Daly on Vimeo.

What the Church in America Needs - D. A. Carson

There Is No Next Year

I am a college sports fan. To be specific I follow SEC Football and University of Kentucky basketball. When you are a KY fan, you have to follow the whole SEC in football to have a successful season, though my gridiron Cats have be strong"er" the past few years. So I was disappointed when my Cats lost, even though I am proud of their very good season. But the 2011/2012 Preseason Top 25 is already out and I am glad to see the UK Cats on the very top.


Wonderful thing about basketball, one team gets to celebrate, congrats to UConn, (and the Texas A&M ladies) I'm over my brief bout with basketball bitterness, and everybody else get to say, "Just wait till next year."

The truth of the matter is that's fine for sports, because in the grand scheme of things, who really cares. Our lives and especially our eternal lives are not saved or lost based on what five teenagers do on a basketball court. It is though, very dependent on what we do in our churches day after day, week after week and year after year. For the lives of lost and hurting men and women, there is no "next year."

After spending another weekend with the KAIROS prison ministry team inside the walls of Bertie Correctional Institution, a closed (max) security prison facility in Windsor, NC, I realize again just how fragile this life and our time on it is. Of the six guys at my family table, all of them were under 42 years old and four of them under 25. What they did to land in prison or how long they have to be there is not nearly as important as all of them sharing with us that they had a close affiliation with a church growing up.

What is KAIROS

As a pastor and ministry leader, I have had the "I don't know what is wrong with my kids, I raised them in church their whole lives," conversation untold number of times. I think I may have a clue as to what is wrong. We raise them in church, but we fail to raise them in Christ. There is a huge difference. In this culture, church has become an institution or club that we join out of generational obligation or for the social status that membership in this congregation or that one brings us. That is not the church, the church is a disciple-making, evangelistic, mission-centric extension of the ministry of Jesus Christ, that is why we are called the Body of Christ.

I have to wonder, are we putting off ministry and truly reaching this generation for "next season" or are we willing to get back in the game and work hard to reach everyone we can in the name of Jesus Christ while it is still today. The guys we met this weekend were blessed with another chance, but we met 42 out of 1000 residents, and maybe consistently minister with about 100 at any given time, and this is only one of the 70 or so institutions in NC and of the thousands in the nation.

The point is this, we are living among a people that do not know the Lord, they know the church and don't like it, but they don't know Jesus. The worst thing that will happen is not that they may go to prison, the worst thing is that millions will go to hell, millions in our hometowns across this nations, and billions across the globe.

Church, there is no next season, if people die lost, they die eternally lost. The need, from rural communities to huge cities, from every corner of the nation and world, is for us, the church to take seriously the commission of Jesus Christ and begin now making disciples of all nations, both the nations we travel to and the nations that travel to us.

Kentucky fell one point short of a trip to the championship game. But that’s alright, they have next year. How many people have to fall short in life, have to die without Christ and without a next “season” before we wake up and make the difference, the Lord has called us to make?

The System

I watched a very eye-opening documentary this morning called Waiting for Superman. The trailer is below.

The main idea of the movie is that our nation has created an education system that does not most benefit the people it is trying to reach, in this case the school age children of our cities, towns and rural communities.  Instead, it caters to those who run the system.  You should watch it and come to your own conclusion.

My concern here is not that movie or the public education system, my concern is the church.  After watching this I was force to ask myself, "Have we in the church created a system that is not reaching those we are called to reach so that we can keep happy those already in charge of that system?" 

Here is what I fear it looks like for too many of us.  Church is for me and I must fight to ensure I get what I "deserve," even if I am not doing the "job" I am called to do.  Do we have our own unwritten form of "tenure" that says that even if a church, or pastor, or leader is ineffective at reaching and teaching the nations or even the community with the gospel of Jesus Christ, we cannot remove them, close that church and seek other ways to "reform" the community of faith. 

If a school fails a child, that is tragic.  Their lives are too often left to a lottery (see the film) and if they are not picked...well the outcome is the perpetuation of the problem. 

If a church fails a community or the nations, it is eternally tragic.  We are commanded to "make disciples of all peoples" (Matt. 28:18-20).  There is no going back if we fail in this one command.  The church must stop being the system, and must start being the church.  If we fail, people are not just destined to a life of struggles but are condemned to an eternity in hell.

This documentary maintains that all children can learn regardless of their neighborhood, background, or life experiences.  I really believe we, in the Church of Jesus Christ, have the responsibility to take this message to all, because everyone can be reached with the gospel. 

Just some thoughts, I will continue to study and really see if there might be this connection.  The fact that something is wrong in our nations school systems is obvious.  It is just as obvious that something is wrong with the vast majority of our churches.  We don't need "Superman." We need to be obedient to Jesus Christ. 

God, Are You Serious?

This past week we began a Sunday school series in the Book of Hosea. You know the prophet that God told to marry a … ah, well, a … a prostitute. It really is a beautiful story of how the sovereign God continues to pursue His people even when we are promiscuous in our relationship with Him. Well, the truth is we prostitute ourselves by seeking to replace God as Lord and put ourselves in His place. This is spiritual adultery. But that is not the focus of what I want to communicate in these next several blogs.

The reality is that God often calls us to do what we would never imagine doing. This happens several times in the Bible and I will try to hit some of them over the next few weeks. However, let me focus on Hosea for a minute or two. Can you imagine what had to go through Hosea’s mind when God told him to marry “HER!!!???” No doubt, she was well known throughout the town, especially that side of town. Gomer (and lets lay aside our cultural connection to Gomer Pyle) was not the girl that momma would have wanted her son to bring home … no way, not in this lifetime.

But the truth is that God had a great plan for Hosea, Gomer and His people. Several times throughout the Bible God says, “I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (I Chronicles 17:22; Jeremiah 32:38; Ezekiel 11:20; II Corinthians 6:16; Hebrews 8:10; Revelation 21:3) Yet the second, yes the second, child Hosea and Gomer have God tells them to name him “Not My People.”

God called Hosea to do something so out of the ordinary that everyone would take notice. And God did not call him to do it once, but twice. After Gomer fell back into promiscuity and was bound in slavery, God told Hosea to go and buy her back and make her is wife AGAIN.

No doubt, in the middle of the circumstances that Hosea found himself in, he had questions. I can’t help but think that he looked up and said, “God, are You serious?” The truth is though, that whatever his questions might have been there is no hint in the Book of Hosea that he wavered in his obedience to God’s call and command.

Today we live in a world where following God is going to seem absolutely ridiculous. And no doubt, we will find ourselves scratching our heads saying, “God, are you serious?” The answer is yes, God is serious, He is eternally serious. God sought to redeem Israel through the message of Hosea’s life and God is seeking to redeem a people for Himself through our lives – II Corinthians 5:16-6:1. What God is calling you to may seem absurd, believe me I am experiencing it right now in the direction God is leading me and my family, but when you are certain of God’s direction and it matches His revealed Word and is confirmed by those you are praying with, then yes, God is serious, very serious, life and death serious, eternal life and eternal death serious.

I doubt God has called you to marry a “Gomer,” but He has called you to reach a community, your family, your co-workers, your neighbors. And He is likely calling you to take the Gospel message to them in a way that has never been done before. God called no prophet before or since to do what Hosea had to do, but he continues to call His people every day to reach a people for His glory and His kingdom. I know it sounds crazy, but Christians, God wants you, and you and I have to be obedient, even when we are asking, “God, are you serious?”