Waiting For Jesus and Tornadoes

ONTO THE COMPUTER SCREENS of millions of suspecting Facebook users flashed the prescient post: "The weatherman tells us that a storm is coming, and everybody panics. The preacher tells us that Jesus is coming and nobody cares". Stipulated is that people who post pithy profundities consider themselves to be the purveyors of percipience of the most profound sort. My response was: Based on two thousand years of waiting for the fulfillment of prophecy, based on the statement of Jesus himself that he would return within the lifetimes of hos followers, with all due respect to Biblical prophecy, the prediction of an approaching storm seems not only much more certain and reliable, but also much more immediately relevant to the near future well being and survival of many people". When one considers how drastically weather forecasting has improved over the last half century, primarily due to orbiting satellites and computer projections and sustained studies of weather and climate over long periods of time, including accurate record keeping, when the local weatherman says a storm is coming, a storm is most definitely coming, and there is every reason to panic, notwithstanding the fact that it does no good to panic, but rather, to take cover, immediately. Meteorologists never tell us a storm is coming unless one is coming. the modern science of meteorology has become nearly infallible. In fact, it is arguable that within the next century the human species will attain the ability to not only predict the weather, but to control it. In a sense, it already does precisely that, but only be accident, and only with disastrous consequences. Jesus, for all his beauty, truth, and wisdom was, according to the bible, quite mistaken about his return to earth, unless of course he has already made his return, anonymously, quietly. he indicated tat he would do the opposite; not with an olive branch, but with an avenging word. Charlatans and prophets of doom have, since the time of Jesus, been predicting the end of the world, the return of Christ, and, beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century , it has become fashionable to predict the imminent 'rapture' of the saved into heaven. For this give at least partial credit to the minister William Miller, who made this prediction for October, 1843, then again for 1844, after the event failed to manifest the first time. All over American people, having sold everything they owned, stood on hilltops, waiting, in the autumn of 1843. they did the same thing in 1844, as the great rapture of the second great awakening of American religious fervor faded to own up to expectations. Miller and the Millerites, like all purveyors of prophecy, faded into history, quietly, without further proclamations concerning the future, to their credit. Invariably, those who believe in Biblical prophecy claim that all Biblical prophecy comes tur, has come true, and will come true. As proof of this they offer tangled, convoluted words and twisted reasoning, combined with vague bits of scripture taken entirely out of context. No examples of prophecy, from the Bible to Nostradamus, can verifiably be demonstrated to have eventuated. Jesus has not returned, contrary to his own promise, and we await as always. In the meantime, when your local weatherman predicts a storm, your best bet is to head for the storm shelter.