Don't get "left behind"!

I've been doing this plan where you read through the OT once and the NT and Psalms twice in a year, and right now is my first go-around with Revelation. I'm becoming more aware of how bogus I think current pop eschatology is. Everyone is trying to find out when the "rapture" is going to take place and what the signs are for how things are progressing toward The End. Movies, books, and TV shows have all been dedicated to this and received with lots of fanfare and dollars. I think it's a total circus. Jesus' disciples asked him, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?" His reply: "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth" (Acts 1.6-8). In other words, "Don't waste your efforts trying to figure it all out. I'm gonna come like a thief in the night and--Shazzam!--the shit's gonna hit the fan. Instead, spend your efforts doing the one thing that must happen before the end: making disciples all over the globe" (Matt 24.14).

Here's the reality, folks: You want to figure out the "millenium"? You're wasting your time. It's right now. During the "thousand years" Jesus will restrain Satan's sphere of influence so that he no longer deceives the nations. ("Bound" means restricted, not impotent; cf. Paul in 2 Tim 2.9.) If you're a Christian and not Jewish, you and I are living proof that this is happening. Satan is bound, so now we can and should do the one and only thing that will determine when Christ will come back: preach the gospel and plant churches in unreached places.

And yet, with all my brash talk, I'm still a pansy at heart, unwilling to give up the comforts of the English language, other Christians, and my library. Dang it.