Prepare for a Really Crappy 2024

What? Were you expecting yet another “Happy New Year”?

Good morning/afternoon on this New Years Day.  I hope you enjoyed bringing in 2024 in a pious dignified manner without any illegal pyrotechnics.  (Truth be told, I repeated my usual NYEve custom of viewing the illegal fireworks across my city at midnight from high ground.)

I slept very well for some reason and woke up ready to cast off my 2023 habit of procrastinating about writing my book on preparation for the Apocalypse through church history.  But then I immediately was given a good excuse for more procrastination.  Rod Dreher’s post this morning presented me this excellent tweet from Katy Faust about the late Admiral James Stockdale:

I recently learned about Stockdale, a prisoner of war in Vietnam who endured eight years of torture- not only surviving, but strengthening those around him.

"Who didn't make it?" He was asked in an interview. "The optimists. The ones who said, we will be out by Christmas. We will be out by Easter." And then they died of a broken heart when the next Christmas or Easter came and went while they were still in captivity. The hopeful (but false) message failed to produce the endurance needed to survive.

In 2023 I took a deep dive into OT greats- Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel. In those books, some of God's most severe punishment are reserved for the false prophets who softened or minimized the coming judgment or current captivity. "God will spare you from the siege." "Don't plant gardens or build houses, we won't be here long." God promised to "set his face against them," which often involved their complete destruction.

Upon first glance, it's overly harsh. After all, these prophets were speaking words of comfort to people living in terror or under a foreign tyrant. Isn't that what leaders should do? Try to calm our fears?

God, and Stockdale, say no. Good leaders, especially the variety who speak for God, will never soft-pedal harsh reality.

Stockdale's philosophy almost perfectly captures the message of the real Old Testament prophets:

"Confront the brutal facts of your reality while maintaining a confidence that you will win in the end and turn the events into the defining moments of your life. Which in retrospect you would not trade."

Being "optimistic" or "hopeful" in anything other than God's clearly-defined plan and truth is not a Christian virtue. It's a characteristic of a false-prophet, and leads to not only personal suffering, but national suffering.

On the other hand, those exiles who accepted the harsh reality of God's judgment spoken through the true prophets were preserved and strengthened. Captivity was a "defining moment" in Israel's history, and had a purifying effect as evident in the renewal recorded in Nehemiah and Ezra.

2024 is going to be crazy. A sober assessment of cultural and legal forces makes clear that we are headed for rough national waters. God expects His people to "confront the brutal facts of our reality while maintaining a confidence that the Lord will win in the end."

Even if "conservative" or "Christian" leaders seek to comfort their followers by telling them to "relax," rather than "repent," we must clearly and boldly speak truth.

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The wisdom of Stockdale and that tweet is very much on target and in line with the book I hope to write before Jesus returns.  And it is part of what Jesus’ Parable of the Ten Virgins teaches. (Matthew 25:1-13) The five virgins that foolishly thought that the wait for their Lord would be quick and easy were utterly unprepared.  The other five who were willing and prepared to stick it out no matter how much time and patience and endurance it took were those who were rewarded and got to greet their Lord’s return.

And, yes, realistic preparation instead of presumption is an important message of the Prophets as Katy Faust notes.  Again and again, they warn God’s people not to relax, not to presume they will easily escape either God’s judgement or the hardship he allows.

But us humans find supposed easy ways out more attractive.  In Jeremiah’s day, one easy way was presuming that the presence of the Temple somehow gave Jerusalem immunity. (Jer. 7:4) When that turned out not to be the case, fleeing to Egypt seemed a quick escape.  Jeremiah warned against the presumption and was not exactly appreciated for it.  No doubt the soothing false prophets were more popular.

Without picking on any particular school of eschatology (I could pick on more than one, but I will restrain myself for now.), people’s eschatology today can be influenced by wanting immunities or quick escapes that probably do not exist.

That is understandable.  Who wants to go through tribulation?  Or who wants the world to get worse and worse before Christ’s return?  But if the world will get worse and the faithful will suffer — and I expect both, and Scripture can at least be interpreted that way — then we best prepare, not presume we get an easy out.  For one message of the Revelation to St. John and of prophesy as a whole is “a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.” (Rev. 14:12 ESV)

The message of the Prophets is to repent, to prepare, and to endure with hope in God, not with presumption.  Trust and hope in God, not in easy outs.  Prepare to endure.  Don’t presume to escape.

What?  Did you expect a “Happy New Year” from me?  Well I think the admonitions of the Prophets and of James Stockdale and Katy Faust echoing them a more useful message, especially during this unhappy time.

Oh, heck, have a Happy New Year anyway . . . but prepare for 2024 and beyond being rather unhappy.