Will the world end today? How Satan uses end-times speculation

“On April 23, the sun, moon, and Jupiter will align in the constellation Virgo to bring on the start of the biblical Rapture, according to the latest claims.” So the UK’s Daily Mail headlines, reporting that Planet X, sometimes called Nibiru, will bring about the end of the world.

We’ve been here before. Last September, I discussed a similar prediction that “the world as we know it is ending.” We had a comparable conversation back in 2012, when we survived the purported Mayan prediction that the world would end.

My interest today is not in discussing such speculative theories, but in considering their effect on our culture–and our souls.

We should prepare for eternity today

Let’s begin with a fact: this day could actually be the last day of history.

Jesus was blunt: “Concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36). Our Lord could come back to our planet today. Or any of us could go to him. Tomorrow is promised to no one.

We need not fear the fictitious Planet X. But we need to admit the reality that we are one day closer to eternity than ever before. And we have only today to be ready.

When the prophesied end of the world passes yet again, such fakery dulls our cultural consciousness to the real urgency of death and eternity. It seems to me that our spiritual enemy is pleased with this state of affairs.

One of our most powerful weapons against Satan is the fact of our mortality. The tragic shooting yesterday morning at a Waffle House near Nashville reminds us that no place in the world is truly safe. Today’s guilty verdict for the surviving ISIS member behind the 2015 Paris attacks shows that no city is beyond terror.

Nearly a thousand people gathered last night to mourn Jennifer Riordan, who died after her Southwest Airlines plane blew an engine in midair last Tuesday. Her tragic death shows that no mode of transportation is without risk.

Every…