When the world feels like it’s falling apart, it’s tempting to chase conspiracy over compassion. But not every end-times voice deserves your attention; some will leave your heart cold and your hope dim.
Photo credit: Unsplash/Justin Luebke
I remember sitting in a diner, the vinyl booth sticking slightly to my arm. The man across from me—a good, faithful man—was mapping out the end of the world with his deep knowledge. You could tell that he had it all figured out from how he spoke and what he said. Every symbol, every date, and every player on the global stage was identified and condemned. There was a fervor in his eyes, but it wasn’t holy. It was hungry. It was the thrill of being right about the coming wrong.
And I felt that familiar knot tighten in my gut. Not because I feared the tribulation. But because I feared the posture of a heart that worships the spectacle of collapse rather than the God who holds it all.
We are living in days that feel frayed at the edges. The air is thick with prophecy and panic. And in such times, our greatest danger is rarely the obvious catastrophe. It’s the slow, subtle drip of the wrong company. It’s the spirits we allow to speak into our anxiety.
The words of God warn us of this. They speak of “perilous times” and describe the people who will thrive in that atmosphere. But we’ve often read it wrong. We think it’s a list of villains to spot out there. But honestly, I’m starting to believe it’s a mirror. A checklist of the shadows that whisper in every one of our own hearts. And a guide to the voices we must gently, firmly, avoid if we want to keep our souls soft and our lamps lit.
So, who are these people? They are not monsters, obviously, and not cartoonish evildoers. They are your neighbors. Your friends. Most importantly, we need to hear the voice in the comment section and sometimes the voice in our own heads.
The Spectator of Suffering: Why We Must Avoid the Doom-Enthusiast
You know this one. They are the architects of the apocalypse, always ready with a new theory or a fresh conspiracy. They feast on fear. Their currency is dread.
They don’t just report the news; they revel in it. A new conflict isn’t a tragedy of human fallenness—it’s a “sign.” A proof point. Their language is littered with excitement masked as concern. “Did you hear about x? It’s happening! Just like it was foretold!”
There’s a lack of lament. A missing tenderness.
Mind you, this spirit is a seductive one. It offers a potent cocktail: the intoxication of secret knowledge and the illusion of control. And you’re no longer a victim of chaos when you can connect the dots. You’re an insider. You’re in the know.
But it’s a hollow addiction. It hardens the heart. It makes us spectators to human suffering, more interested in fitting it into our prophetic timeline than weeping over it.
The apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, who were also obsessed with the end, and offered a different path. He didn’t give them a new chart. In 1 Thessalonians 5:5, he gave them an identity. “Ye are all the children of light and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.”
What do children of the day do? They are awake. They are sober. They are aware of the night, but they do not become it. Their primary orientation is not to the darkness they resist but to the light they belong to. On the other hand, the doom enthusiast is fixated on the falling night, while the child of the day is focused on keeping the wicks trimmed and the oil ready. There’s a world of difference.
Therefore, we must avoid the spectator, not because their facts are wrong, but because their spirit is. It is a spirit that will leave you paranoid, cynical, and oddly empty—watching for the Antichrist but blind to Christ’s presence in the very next moment.
The Deceiver of Hearts: Why We Must Avoid the Smooth Operator
This one is more subtle. More dangerous. While the spectator shouts, the operator whispers. They don’t deal in fear; they deal in counterfeit comfort.
They are the ones who, in times of high anxiety, offer a gospel of ease. A path of least resistance. They have a polished answer for everything, a way to bypass the suffering, the waiting, and the wrestling. They preach a crown without a cross.
Their message is always appealing. It often sounds like wisdom. Like grace. Theirs is the voice that says, “God wouldn’t want you to struggle. Just speak your victory. Claim your blessing. If you had more faith, you wouldn’t be sick, poor, or afraid.”
This is typical of theology that removes the ache. In doing so, it removes our need for a Comforter.
Paul’s warning is severe. In 2 Timothy 2:18 He calls out those “which say that the resurrection is past already and overthrow the faith of some.” That’s the core of it. A teaching that removes the future hope, the tension of waiting, the “not yet.” It tries to resolve the story too early. It offers a resurrection without death.
This spirit is deadly because it targets the weary, the ones who are tired of the fight. It offers a shortcut, a spiritual bypass.
But the way of Christ is incarnational. It sits in the dust. It sweats blood. It asks us to take up a cross, not a credit card, for a miracle breakthrough. The smooth operator would have us bypass Gethsemane. But it is in Gethsemane that we learn to pray, “not my will, but thine, be done.” (Luke 22:42).
Avoid the smooth operator because they trade the deep, rugged truth of the gospel for a cheap, comfortable replica. They will numb your soul when it needs to be most awake to the reality of its pain and God’s profound, sustaining presence within it.
The Un-Mourner: Why We Must Avoid the Spiritually Callous
This may be the most common and, in some ways, the most telling. This is the person for whom the end times are an intellectual or political sport. Their faith has no emotional register. No grief.
They can debate eschatology with cold precision. They can parse Greek verbs and outline prophecy. But they cannot sit with you in your sorrow. They are uncomfortable with tears. They see mourning as a lack of faith, a failure to “rejoice always.”
They are, in the words of the King James, “without natural affection.” (2 Timothy 3:3). The phrase is jarring. Natural affection. The innate, human capacity for tenderness. For connection.
This spirit is one of profound disconnection. It severs the heart from the head. It can talk about the love of God all day long, but it cannot embody it in a moment of human pain.
Jesus’s most scathing words were not for the sinners or the doubters, but for the religiously callous. He says in Matthew 23:27, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness.”
A whited sepulchre. Beautiful, pristine, and polished on the outside. A monument to correctness. But inside them is death. The callous heart is a tomb. It has the form of religion but has lost the substance: love.
Avoid the un-mourner. Their company will not make you stronger. Instead, it will make you brittle. It will quietly teach you to amputate your own humanity, to see your doubts and your sorrows as enemies to be defeated, rather than parts of your heart to be offered up to a God who is acquainted with grief.
The How: Discerning the Spirit, Not Just the Person
This isn’t a call to a new Christian isolationism. It’s not about drawing up a holy hit list. It’s about cultivating a spirit of discernment.
This focuses on asking a different question when we engage with someone. Not “Is their doctrine airtight?” But “What is the spirit behind this? What fruit is it producing in me? After I listen to them, am I more or less loving? More or less hopeful? More or less attentive to the actual person in front of me?”
This is the work. This is how we navigate.
We remember that our fight is never against flesh and blood. It’s against spirits. Against principalities. Against the powers that seek to twist and corrupt even good things. Our quarantine is not of people, but of postures. We quarantine the spirit of fear. The spirit of deception. The spirit of callousness.
We become, then, people of a different spirit, like Caleb. Who had another spirit with him and has followed me fully,” God said in Numbers 14:24.
What is that other spirit? It is the Spirit of Christ. The spirit that is sober, yet hopeful. Truthful, yet gracious. Courageous, yet tender. It is a spirit that can look at the darkness without becoming dark. It can acknowledge the fear without being ruled by it.
The spirit knows a fundamental truth: the end of the story is not a question mark. It is a person. And we are not called to predict him, but to await him. Faithfully. Gently. With lamps lit and hearts soft, ready to greet the dawn not with a triumphant “I told you so,” but with the quiet, joyful words of a friend finally coming home.
And isn’t that the kind of person we most need to be?
