As a young boy my family would often walk the fifteen minutes to church on Sunday mornings, crossing a bridge that passed over the Potomac river from Maryland into West Virginia.  From the sidewalk we could look through the metal grating and see a river the color of gray paint with thick islands of toxic industrial foam inching by under our feet.  The thought of getting anywhere near that river was a horror to my young mind.  It was an unbelievably polluted and dangerous eyesore.  And yet today that same river hosts fishing rodeos and kayakers enjoying its clear water and gentle currents.   The Potomac has become for me an example of how the world is becoming a more glorious place.  It is a symbol of the progress of the Kingdom.

Concerning Jesus, Isaiah prophesied “… of the increase of His government, and of peace there will be no end.”  (Isaiah 9:7)  But we Believers often get stuck in a negative faith not focused on God’s growing government and peace, but expecting multiplied wars, increased suffering, and a freshly empowered Antichrist in the days ahead.

Is it possible we’ve gotten it wrong?  Did Jesus actually mean for His Kingdom to grow like a mustard seed until it fills the earth, or are we to expect darkness and unleashed chaos in the days ahead?   Consider these four concrete examples of a hope and optimism that just might reveal a growing Kingdom.   There are many others which could be included, (like the condition of our rivers, air quality, violent crimes, child welfare, and racial equality to name only a few).

Poverty:  Although we still have much work to do, world poverty levels have been falling steadily since 1820 when nearly 90% of the world was living in extreme poverty, (less than $1.90 per day adjusted).  Today, as seen in the chart below, that number has fallen to less than 10%!   This is AMAZING progress!

Life Expectancy: In 1900 the worldwide average life expectancy was a mere thirty-one years.  By 1950 it had risen to forty-eight years.  And by 2010 it had reached sixty-seven years.  And of course this is another wildly wonderful thing to celebrate! 

War: In spite of the endless media attention given to war and violence, we have actually seen a sharp decline in the casualties of war over the past seventy years.  Consider this chart from http://www.ourworldindata.org.

The Spread of Christianity: We Westerners tend to judge the health of the church by looking at the condition of our local congregations. But too often we overlook the rest of the world where the church is growing at astonishing rates.  The church in China, Asia, Africa, South America, and even in some Muslim countries is seeing phenomenal growth.

For a little perspective, consider that on the day of Pentecost about three thousand people came to faith in Jesus.  That was an unbelievable number of converts!  But today, according to James Rutz, author of Mega Shift: Igniting Spiritual Power, we are seeing – on a world scale – about 3,000 people coming to Christ every fifty-four minutes!  That’s about 80,000 new Believers every day!

As we face into 2017 lets take heart and believe God not for increasing darkness, wars, and multiplied human suffering.  Instead, may we hitch our confidence to the one who promised, “As surely as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord”  (Numbers 14:21).  Imagine what could happen if we really began to live and labor as if the mustard-seed kingdom was already well on it’s way. 

As a newborn believer The Late, Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey was the first Christian book I ever read.  Bursting with images of growing darkness, the mark of the Beast, and a living hell under the wrath of the Antichrist, it scared the crap out of me.  No sooner had I received the glad news of salvation than I was body-slammed by terrifying projections of what was about to break loose on our doomed planet.

But the gospel of the Kingdom is “good news of great joy to all people“, and those who see the end times through the whole lens of scripture understand that the hope set before us isn’t terrifying at all; It is the expectancy of a Glorious Kingdom filling the earth in these last days. “For as surely as I live, says the Lord, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.” (Habakkuk 2:-4)

Three weeks ago in Eastern Europe a student, (a pastor in a local church), raised his hand and asked, “How long has Youth With A Mission been teaching this new idea about the Kingdom?”  Do you see?  The Kingdom has become a suspicious “new” doctrine while the extra-Biblical idea of the “rapture” is embraced as the storyline of our future. Never mind that the Kingdom has been a Biblical promise passed down from the prophets to Jesus, the Apostles, Saint Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and the Reformers.

Rather, it’s the “rapture of the church” that’s a strange new doctrine.  Introduced in the 1830s by the Scottish Pastor John Nelson Darby, and adopted by C.I. Schofield in his famous Bible notes, this idea  has done unspeakable damage to the church, the world, and the lives of Christians worldwide.  From The Late Great Planet Earth to seventeen installments of Left Behind, the rapture has robbed us of our future, our relevance, and our witness.

Our fathers in the faith would never have recognized this nightmarish idea that re-energizes the Devil and steals the legacy of our children.  If the next event on God’s calendar is the “snatching away of the saints” and a world plundered by the Antichrist, then it becomes a fool’s errand to work for justice, reconciliation, and transformed cities and nations.

For years I had great “faith” for wars, destruction, and a coming hell on earth.  I wasted so much time worrying about the mark of the beast and the latest incarnation of the Antichrist.  How I wish someone would have sat me down as a young believer and said, “Don… this is not the good news of the Kingdom.  This is a Trojan horse that steals the beautiful hope of the gospel.”

The scriptures plainly teach that Jesus is returning for His Kingdom. But living in the expectancy of an earth overrun by darkness stands in direct contradiction to the Lord’s own promise of His glory filling the earth.  Today I am living in the hope of glory.