I've lived more than half of my life outside America now, and the rhythms of life that were once so familiar are becoming less and less distinct with every passing year. For instance, I found out just this morning by scrolling through my news feed that the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series. I had so completely lost track of things that I didn't even know the World Series was going on, much less which teams were playing in it.
But it got me thinking about the greatest World Series of all time back in 2016, when the Chicago Cubs beat the team from Cleveland (I've also lost track of what the mascots are these days, and whether we're allowed to call them by their former names). It was a thrilling series for all kinds of reasons, including because the Cubs were down 3 games to 1 and then came back to win the whole thing, and it was decided by one run in the 10th (overtime) inning of the seventh game.
But that's not why it was the greatest World Series of all time.
It was the greatest World Series of all time because it ended the longest dry spell in professional sports, as the Cubs had not won a championship since 1908. No other professional sports team in existence had gone so long without winning it all.
Nevertheless, the Chicago Cubs, despite being one of the worst-performing professional sports teams in the entire world, had one of the largest and most loyal fan bases of any professional sports team in the world. At the end of every season, no matter if the Cubs made it to the post-season playoffs (which was rare) or even if they managed to win more games then they lost during the season, there would always be confident predictions made that "we'll win the World Series next year". There are literally people who lived their whole lives saying that same thing every year, and they died having never seen it come to pass.
That's why, when they finally won the World Series again in 2016, the celebrations were so huge.
All of that has been on my mind today, and it makes me very sad, because I compare it to something that's kind of similar, but which is proceeding on a very different track.
I am talking about the Second Advent of the Lord God Jesus Christ to this earth, which was prophesied to happen almost 2,000 years ago. There are today around 2.6 billion people walking this earth's surface who identify as "Christian" in one denomination or another, and every single one of them has been told that "Jesus could come back at any time" just like Chicago Cubs fans tell each other "next year we'll win the World Series."
The prophecies about His Second Coming appear in the pages of the Bible, especially the Book of Revelation, and some of them are very specific. For hundreds of years, people who call themselves Christians have been looking forward to this event with eager anticipation. Sometimes they were too eager, getting ahead of themselves and talking themselves and others into believing that they'd figured out the exact date it would happen, and that has led to a lot of damaged people as well as a great deal of damage to the reputation of the Bible and those of us who point to it as a source of Authority.
This last part is a great tragedy, because the truth is, someday the Rapture will happen. Someday, Jesus Christ WILL return to this Earth, and many of the signs that these events are drawing closer are observable for all to see, but a VERY large percentage of the people walking this earth's surface in November of 2025 are not paying the slightest bit of attention to these things.
Can you imagine if all those millions of people who called themselves Chicago Cubs fans, who said every year, and apparently believed it, that "next year the Cubs will win the World Series" were unmoved in the summer of 2016, when the Cubs had a great regular season, winning 103 games, then advancing to the playoffs and eventually winning the National League Pennant and earning the chance to play in the World Series? Can you imagine all those fans shrugging their shoulders and saying "there's more to being a Chicago Cubs fan than watching as they actually go to the World Series for the first time since before my parents were born. I'm busy. I've got lots of stuff going on in my Chicago Cubs fandom. I can't be expected to get excited just because this is happening."
That, obviously, is an utterly absurd scenario which would never play out in the real world.
But that EXACT scenario is playing out in the world today among Christians.
The signs of the culmination of this Age in human history, which the Bible tells us will come some day, are all around us. The most tangible, visible and undeniable sign is that the State of Israel is back on the map after 2,000 years. That state is doing things that are impossible to explain naturally, and can only be a miracle of God. It is winning wars that it has no business winning, producing inventions that it has no business producing and it has a GDP which is orders of magnitude larger than it has any business having. Last but certainly not least, there is a revival of the Gospel today among Jews, both in Israel and around the world, like we have not seen since the First Century.
Many other events that were prophesied to happen in the Last Days, just before the Second Advent of Jesus Christ to this earth are happening all over the world. But the percentage of professing Christians who appear to be paying attention is very low. Those who are speaking out about it are dismissed as "looney toon" or whatever. To be fair, the previously mentioned false prophets, frauds and charlatans who have confidently declared the date of the Rapture or even Jesus' Second Advent have given Bible prophecy a black eye, and made others hesitant to be seen as making a big deal out of it.
In particular, Christians who support Israel are beginning to face some very strong headwinds in general society and even within the Church.
Tucker Carlson recently called Christian Zionism a "mind virus" and is speaking out more and more forcefully against the idea that Christians should support Israel.
As sad and infuriating as it is to see a man who has such vast influence in American Christian circles saying such things, at least he's talking about it. At least he's taking note of this phenomenon and drawing people's attention to it so that they can have the opportunity to think about it for themselves if they have the courage and ambition to do so.
So many other Christian leaders and pastors are simply ignoring Israel, not to even mention the Revival among Jewish people, not to even mention the large and growing revival in traditionally Muslim countries in the Middle East and beyond.
If you try to bring these topics up, or even talk about those parts of the Bible that provide the prophetic revelations about the Last Days, many pastors shut down. They don't teach their congregations about it, they don't talk about it even amongst themselves. They say it's "too confusing" and "too divisive." They claim that Israel is a "political subjects" and they don't want to bring politics into their congregations.
It is simply mind-boggling.
Going back to my earlier analogy, it would be like someone saying they're a fan of a certain sports team, but they think the regular season will go on forever. There will never be a post-season. There will never be regional, league, or national championships. Just an endless regular season, in which it doesn't even matter much who wins and who loses this or that game, as long as the teams all just keep showing up for the next game.
The whole idea of a "post-season" in which some teams will advance and others won't, and there will eventually be a final event that will culminate in the eternal separation between winners and runners-up up is just "too controversial" or "too political" or whatever for these pastors. So they pretend like it's never really gonna happen, we'll just have an endless regular season forever.
Brothers and sisters, please hear me.
Life has proceeded on this planet for the last several thousand years at a pretty slow pace, just as the regular season of Major League Baseball usually does. But just like the regular season of Major League Baseball has a beginning, middle and end, and is then followed by the post-season, the playoffs, the pennant races, and then finally the World Series, which ends with one team or the other walking away with the trophy, and then baseball season is completely over for the year, so with human history.
The metaphor isn't perfect (no metaphor ever is) but you get the point.
This is not my personal opinion. This is what the Bible very clearly and unambiguously tells us.
It tells us that "in the beginning," God created the physical universe and everything in it, including this planet and the human race. Then, for several thousand years, we had days and seasons, years, decades, centuries, etc., during which there was uneven progress in many different areas of human endeavor in different places all over the world. That was the "regular season" of human history.
For many reasons, which I wrote about in a blog several years ago, I believe 1860 was the year that human history entered the "post-season" and the pennant races and then, with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, that was the beginning of the World Series.
Brothers and sisters, I can't be certain but it sure does feel like we're in Game 7.
I don't know which inning we're in, but we're getting very close to the end. The signs of this are everywhere, and the Church of Jesus Christ around the world, especially in the West, DESPERATELY needs to wake up. Like I said before, Tucker Carlson is making the wrong call, but at least he's got his eyes on the ball.
What about you?