As the second millennium was drawing to a close, the publishing industry poured out a flood of books about the end—not just the conclusion of a thousand-year period, but the ending of everything imaginable.

James Gleick has pointed out that analysts of our culture have been prophesying the end of acting, aging, the alphabet, architecture, art, beauty, bureaucracy, capitalism, certainty, Christendom, . . . well, the list is far too long for us to reproduce here in its entirety. While Gleick doesn't concern himself with biblical prophecy, he writes that all these publications "suggest a kind of destiny in human affairs, a one-way path toward fulfillment or climax."

Scripture, of course, has much to say about endings, especially the end of history. Jesus Christ promised to return and bring an end to the present order of things (Matthew 24).

Important as it is to study what the Bible reveals about the endtimes, it's even more important for us to pray as David did: "Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am" (Psalm 39:4). We are to ask God to give us an understanding of the vapor-like brevity of life. This can motivate us to seek God's will and to put His interests first (Matthew 6:33).  — Vernon C. Grounds