The End of The World

I have been reading a very interesting book about the end times, called Win the World or Escape the Planet.  I usually avoid diving too deeply into things like end of the world prophesy, since I worry about that type of stuff enough already.  Focusing on it less is usually better, regardless of the context, and just take one day at a time, as the Lord provides them.  But this book has a very different approach than I am used to, and is fairly comforting in most aspects.  The author's definitely take the approach that most of the specifically predicted events took place in the first century, and only the final pieces still await us.  They make some pretty strong arguments for that case, and I can agree with most of them.

They deliberately try to be overwhelmingly positive, and while they do acknowledge that certain negative things clearly are coming, they sort of blow by those issues as quickly as possible.  They expect the world, and the spread of the church, to increase and improve, contrary to the prevailing Christian attitude.

The talk a lot about dispensationalism, which is a term I had never even heard.  They present that in a very negative light, so I am biased against it, but even without their commentary, I am confident I would be that way.  The underlying beliefs that those ideas stem from seem ridiculous to me: that God would change the rules (or ways of "dispensing" grace) repeatedly throughout history, and even more so that Israel and the church have separate destinies.  I had never heard them explained that way, but I had heard of most of the resulting ideas, including the rapture, the millennium, etc.  I just didn't know the variety of ideas that some people believe are associate with those possible future events.

Positive or not, I would rather not see any of that stuff take place anytime soon.  I'd prefer to live to a nice old age, right here on earth.  Heaven is supposed to be "better" than here, but God created this life to be experienced as well, in its own unique way.  Mortality adds a unique level of meaning to life, which I expect will be quite different in an eternal state.  Plus I am under the illusion that I know what to expect here on earth, while the afterlife is largely unknown.  From a Biblical perspective, life is inherently good, so I would prefer to avoid ending it anytime soon, regardless of whether from death or "the Second Coming."  But I have little control over any of that, and will have to take it as it comes.  The only thing I can do is pray about it, which probably isn't a bad idea.