Hunker down or look up?

There’s a question I often get from my subscribers and when I talk to people at conferences and events. They ask me if I think we need to store up food, water, supplies, etc. In other words. Should we hunker down for what’s coming?

I really don’t see anything in Scripture that tells us to do this. When we carefully study the Olivet Discourse we learn several things both by what Jesus DID say, and what he DIDN’T say. Jesus only said “when you see these things begin to happen, look up!”

Contrast that with his advice to Christians who lived in Jerusalem before AD 70 (when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans) and his instructions to Jewish people who will be in Jerusalem during the tribulation period. To both of those groups, Jesus DID give survival instructions. He told both groups to flee Jerusalem as soon as possible once they see the city being surrounded.

The first century historian Josephus who was not a Christian recorded that though roughly 1.5 million Jewish people died in Jerusalem in AD 70, no Christians died because they fled the city when there was an open window. This was, no doubt, because of Jesus’s instructions in the Olivet Discourse.

I think it is wise to have normal stores of food and water as if needed for potential natural disasters (like if you live in an area of frequent flooding or hurricanes, etc.). But beyond that, I don’t see any indication in scripture where we need to prepare to go through any part of the tribulation period. That’s not to say things may not get tough here as we experience what Jesus called the birth pains which will lead up to the rapture and into the tribulation period.

Jesus said the time of the end would be “like the days of Noah”. That has levels of meaning but one key aspect, I believe, is that things will continue as usual. Jesus said people would be carrying on normal commerce and that marriages would be still taking place. There will be increased danger and creeping evil, but I do not believe there will be a global financial collapse or 3rd World War prior to the rapture. 

After the rapture? Different story. There will be both. I believe the rapture will be the thing that collapses it all and starts the dominos that lead to the tribulation period shortly after.

Since I’ve had that question asked several times, I wanted to answer it here on my blog because I’m sure many more people have the same question.

Let me know what you think? In all things let Scripture inform your views, not fear, opinions, current events, or anything else. Only Scripture. Or to say that fancy in Latin—Sola Scriptura. :o)