What to Do as the End of the Age Approaches

The invasion of Ukraine six months ago has claimed more than 100,000 lives of not only military but civilians including many children. The Russians have destroyed over a trillion dollars worth of Ukrainian infrastructure including roads, bridges, ports, and utilities. They have also destroyed homes, apartment blocks, public buildings, shopping centers, hospitals, schools, and pre-schools. Seven to ten million people have fled the country (up to 20% of the nation) and are scattered throughout Europe and the world. It has been a total war fought with Russian-style ruthlessness, barbarism while committing unspeakable atrocities. The Russians have also callously disregarded the lives of their own soldiers. Millions are suffering as I write.  

Graduating high school students in Chernihiv, Ukraine pose on destroyed Russian tank in town.

Almost every day I speak with people in Ukraine about what’s going on in the war. 

I just received a report from farmers in the Kherson region near the mouth of the Dnieper River. This is an area that has been occupied by a large Russian military contingent since March where there has been continual heavy fighting. My sources tell me that the Russians make the local farmers dig trenches to bury the Russian dead and heavily wounded soldiers (they shoot them) in what they call “brotherhood graves.” They are also burning dead and wounded comrades at the local cemeteries. They try to destroy all the evidence so that no one keeps track of how many Russians have died. Ukrainian soldiers claim that the Russians are constantly attempting unsuccessful attacks on Ukrainian positions, but each time they retreat leaving many dead. They don’t take the bodies of their comrades from the battlefields.  Ukrainian soldiers find it psychologically difficult to understand what kind of people do this. What kind of country would treat their own people in this manner?

Another report came to me from the director of the “Revival” Centre of Rehabilitation of Disabled Children in Chernihiv after Ukrainian Independence Day August 24.   He told me that on Independence Day Russians fired rockets into a nearby city killing 22 people including two children. This is not an uncommon happening.

The killing just goes on and on. We may get tired of hearing this and can become increasingly numb to the horrors that devolve into mere statistics.

People continually ask me to comment about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  I speak to churches and public service organizations such as Rotary International who ask me to give perspective to the suffering as well as give my opinion on how this will all turn out.

The first questions are usually about the geopolitics of the war. The conflict may be represented as a multi-colored map with invasion arrows pointed at Ukraine with symbols of tanks and soldiers lining the border. I am queried on what this conflict means and what will the fallout be for Europe, the world and for us specifically?  How will this affect the world economy and  the availability and cost of food and fuel for us?

Then I have those asking me from a biblical perspective where the current war is found in Bible prophecy. Through the years, my Church has emphasized prophecy as one of its cornerstone pillar Gospel messages. When events like this occur, with nuclear annihilation possible, we want to know what the Bible may have to say about these eschatological, even apocalyptic happenings. In editorial meetings where I have been present our vocabulary is laced with words and phrases such as: Beast Power, Anti-Christ, King of the North/South, Great Tribulation, Sorrows, Israel, Heavenly Signs, Captivity, Horns, Heads and many more like biblical terms.

Over the years I have heard almost every conceivable scenario trying to answer the same question that Jesus’ disciples asked Him on the Mount of Olives days before His crucifixion: “What will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age” (Matthew 24:3)?  Jesus then reveals a sequence of events that signal the feared end of the world—all events over which we have no control.  Various pundits attach identities to epic biblical entities of various kings, and unions of nations.   

In the next chapter Matthew 25, which is the continuation of the Matthew 24 narrative, Jesus continues to speak imperatively and dogmatically about Christian duties and responsibilities over which we DO have control.

When I’m invited to speak about current events and their meaning. I tell my audience that I know that they want to hear most is the geopolitical/prophetic answer.  It is interesting and even exciting to speculate. But, the end-time events that are prophesied in the Book of Revelation are more horrific than any current or past war. Billions more will perish in war and other disasters. Blood will flow in torrents.  When an angel gave the Apostle John a scroll with some of these prophesies and was told: “Take and eat it; and it will make your stomach bitter, but it will be as sweet as honey in your mouth” (Revelation 10:9).  So, while speak excitedly knowing what’s ahead, John was told that the content of those prophesies would make him sick as he was privy to the worst of human depravity in all history. It will make you want to puke! 

The context of Jesus’ address in Matthew 25 is the “end of the age.”  In the parable of the ten virgins, He admonishes His followers to continue to be supplied with God’s Holy Spirit as we prepare to meet our Lord.  Half did.  But, half didn’t and were turned away from salvation.  In the next parable He told His followers to develop and use the talents that God has given them. Two of the servants did. One didn’t.  He buried it in the ground and then blamed God for alleged injustice. He lost his gift and salvation.

It’s the third parable in this chapter that I want to emphasize.  It is about caring for the needs of hurting people.  It is significant that this parable is linked to catastrophic end-time events and advises how a Christian should juxtapose himself to tragedies in our midst. 

At the final judgment Jesus welcomes His saints into His eternal Kingdom with these words: 

 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me’”  (Matthew 25:34-36, English Standard Version).

How did they do this?  “And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me’”  (Matthew 25:40, ESV).

Conversely, those who didn’t show care and compassion to those who were hungry, homeless and hurting were denied access to eternal life (Matthew 25:41-46). In my appeals for support for the suffering I see a divide between those who care from the heart and those whose hearts are cold.

It is noteworthy that in Jesus Christ’s most well-known prophecy, His discourse ends with a humanitarian message.  Chapter 24 is about what’s ahead.  Chapter 25 is what we do. Both chapters are part of the same speech that gives perspective to the world we live in and what we should be doing..

Compassionate humanitarian aid is my focus.  This is what I am devoting my life to because it make a difference in the lives of sufferers in the horrors of our times. I do this primarily through LifeNets, an international humanitarian organization that my wife Bev and I founded more than 23 years ago.  During this tine we have provided millions of dollars of aid to all continents and now focus on the victims of the war in Ukraine.  You can follow the latest blog entries at https://lifenets.org/category/ukraine-war/.  

You can see our full history on our Website at http://lifenets.org/