What Means the Olivet Prophecy?

The Olivet prophecy includes the warning that before the return of the Son of man, there will be wars and rumors of wars, famines, pestilences and earthquakes.  This has always puzzled me because for something to be a sign of such a significant event, it seems to me that it would have to be new phenomenon and not something that happens all the time anyway. I mean, Jesus may as well have said that before he comes, men will be inhaling and exhaling, seeking food, drinking water and having showers. That is stuff that goes on all the time….just like wars, hunger, disease epidemics and seismic activity. Hardly signs of anything.  But wait…..what if these phenomena ceased for a time and then began again? That resumption of activity would be out of the ordinary and could be a sign.

On the other hand, maybe what Jesus is saying in response to the question put to him at Matthew 24:3 is that there will be wars, etc., but those are not the sign of the end of this age. No, the sign is at verse 14: the good news of the Kingdom is to be preached to the whole world and then shall the end come.  But it has been preached everywhere, hasn’t it?  Still no end of the world.  He keeps on discussing the issue and then in verses 37-39 he says that his coming will be at a time that is no different from the lead-up to the last worldwide catastrophe: people will be going about their business and will be unaware that anything is about to happen. Because there is not sign ahead of it?  No, because they aren’t aware of the sign.

I confess that his meaning in the Olivet prophecy isn’t quite as clear to me as I one time thought. Yes, I get the correlation between the 7 seals of Revelation and the details of this prophecy, and it is an attention grabber for sure, but the fact remains that the wars, famines, pestilences and earthquakes of which Jesus spoke are on the decline.

It was one time typical for about 10% of deaths to be by violence, but now it is only about 1%. Wars are greatly on the decline and so are murders.

More people die now from too much food than from too little. Famines just don’t exist any longer except where men have caused them for political or military reasons. Then it isn’t an issue of lack of food production, but of food distribution.

Pestilences no longer are the issue they onetime were. We have nothing like the Black Death or the Spanish Flu that killed tens of millions of people. Even the potentially genocidal Ebola plague only killed about 10,000 people.

Earthquakes are waning. The 1970s had about 4 times the seismic activity we have today if I understand the facts.

Maybe Y’shuah was listing conditions that would occur before his coming, but not meaning they would last right up that momentous event. In fact, there is only one condition that he seems to say will always be happening through history: false religious teachers claiming his authority (Mt 24: 4-5, 23-26). 

In the end, he says that the main thing is to be ready. You don’t know when he is returning, so be ready for it to happen at any time (vs. 44-51).

Choosing My Feelings and Behavior

I am not my behavior, and you aren’t yours.  I am awareness.  I’m not just aware, but I am aware that I am aware.  I can observe my behavior.  What I observe is that I have thoughts, and these thoughts are filtered through my addictions to trigger emotions. These emotions impel me to action. My actions become habits, and my habits become my basic behavior. 

It is a programmed process.  As such, it can be fairly automated: I become like a robot.  My emotions seem predictable when I am operating with security, pleasure or power addictions.

If I am programmed, I can be reprogrammed. If I am to be set free from my automated emotional responses, I have to be reprogrammed.  Paul says in Romans 12:2 that I should not be conformed to how this world behaves (they suffer from the same addictions), but that I should change the way I think --- have my mind transformed through a renewal.

To reprogram, I should first be aware of what I need to change.  I need to be aware of my addictions.  How can this be done? 

Since, addictions trigger separating emotions, I need to be on the lookout for them.  Whenever I feel a separating emotion, it is a red flag. It’s a warning that somewhere there lurks an addiction.

This is not just an occasional opportunity.  It’s a continual thing. Minute by minute, I have experiences that can trigger my robotic emotional responses, and minute by minute I am given the chance to find something I need to reprogram.

Every time I feel an emotion that tells me I am rejecting the here and now of my life, I need to consider what triggered it.  What was the thought, and what is the addiction that was triggered by that thought? 

Sometimes a thought can trigger a basic need which is not an addiction, such as the need to be loved. For example, if I am feeling unloved, what are the thoughts upon which I have been dwelling?  They haven’t triggered an addiction, because needing to be loved is hard-wiring, not programming. 

At times like this, it is good to remember that we can choose our emotions by choosing our thoughts.  Just because I feel unloved, it doesn’t mean that I am.  Perhaps I am just being selective in my thoughts, and need to direct my attention to better ones --- ones that will trigger better feelings.  And if I have been selective, then why?  What addiction has led me to that bias?  Some fear of being rejected?  Some other security addiction?