John Piper on the Second Coming

The other day I ran across this quote in John Piper’s What Jesus Demands from the World.

“Jesus warned that the days just before his second coming would be in many ways very normal.  It will be, Jesus says, like the days of Noah before the flood came and swept people away who were utterly unsuspecting.  They were not watchful.  Life seemed too normal, so they were not vigilant.  ’As in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark…so will be the coming of the Son of Man….Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.’  Nothing is more normal than eating and drinking and marrying.  The point is that we must be vigilant all the time, not just when the times feel perilous.  They are always perilous.”

What stood out to me was his suggestion that the second coming would happen at a most ordinary time in history.   This surprised me because I think that most people believe that the second coming will happen at a very unusual moment in history.  After all, we’re talking about the end of the world!  So, people read the newspaper.  They study current events.  They talk about Iran and Israel.   Nuclear bombs and global warming.  They try to discern if we are near the time of Christ’s arrival.   However, Jesus said that the end will come suddenly.  Without warning.  It will catch some of us off-guard.

Related articles

• John Piper: Salvation Not ‘A Decision’ (nickbabineaux.wordpress.com)
• FREE Audio Book “Think” by John Piper (faithfulprovisions.com)
• John Piper on the humbling of God as man and the revelation of God as human language. (jdylanparker.wordpress.com)