It was April 8, 2024, minutes before the end of the world.

I pulled up a chair and looked skyward. A total eclipse was on the way, stoking the fires of end-times speculators, spiking the fevers of doomsday theorists.

Some forecasters were calling for a great day of judgment, others a new world order, terrorist attacks and nuclear meltdowns.

But for me, it had already been a bad week.

The World Turned Upside Down?

On Friday, while browsing the internet, I clicked on a video. Some guy was talking about AI–the artificial intelligence of machines and software—and how this could bring about the end of the world. Within 10 years, he claimed, machines will be 1,000 times smarter than humans. And if they decide we pose a problem, they’ll simply squash us like bugs. Kablam! We’ll all be stewed. Fricasseed!

It’s a good thing, I thought, that Arnold Schwarzenegger will save us.

Up next was another video with a terrifying title. I clicked on that, too. A smart guy in a smart suit was discussing the magnetic poles of Earth.

“They are drifting quickly and picking up speed,” he said. 

According to his calculations, they could reverse any day, causing Earth to flip upside down, which can put a crimp in your hose. Our planet’s magnetic field would weaken, leaving survivors to fry in the sun’s ultraviolet rays. My eyes grew wider than a clam on a barbecue. 

It’s a good thing, I thought, that Arnold Schwarzenegger will save us. PHIL CALLAWAY

A Peachy Reminder

For thousands of years, humans have been foretelling the end, the meltdown, the apocalypse. They’ve been making predictions like there’s no tomorrow. On an Assyrian clay tablet 2,800 years before Christ, these words are etched: “Our Earth is degenerate in these later days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents and the end of the world is approaching.” 

The end of the world has not arrived, but kids are still misbehaving. 

I have personally survived hundreds of doomsday predictions, including Y2K and the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse. Last September, a study predicted that a new supercontinent could wipe out humans and make Earth uninhabitable. Of course it won’t happen for 250 million years, but one cannot be over-prepared.

Pope Innocent III, Christopher Columbus and Isaac Newton all predicted the end. Martin Luther believed that the world could not last past 1548. He cited the unbelief and indifference of his age, the excessive overindulgence of a pleasure-loving generation, and the wars, storms and tempests on Earth. It led him to cling to a fervent hope of seeing the Lord coming in the clouds of heaven.

One day Martin Luther saw his children standing around the table, their eyes glistening as they looked longingly at a dish of peaches. For him, it was a reminder of the hope he had. He smiled and said, “Oh, if only we would behold the last day with the same happy and fond expectation.”

A New Heaven and a New Earth

The Bible says the end will come. Will it be in my lifetime? I don’t know. 

Genesis 8:22 says, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” 

God knows, and until He pulls the plug, this old world will keep on ticking. And if it stops, may we be found faithful to that which God has called us, loving Him, loving our neighbours, not hiding away worried, watching doomsday videos. 

May we be unruffled because God promises a new heaven and a new earth, one without pain or death or killer robots. 

But back to the eclipse. My wife and I watched far from home, suffering in the Caribbean on a cruise ship. Not a bad place to be at the end. Except that, as we lifted our eyes, all we saw were dark clouds. 

“It’s raining,” said my disappointed wife, pulling up a chair beside me. “I know,” I replied, “but cheer up. It’s not the end of the world.”