Is the Refugee Crisis an End-Times Event?
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to a new week on the Ask Pastor John podcast with John Piper.
00:00:10.200 | Listener Brittany writes in to ask this, "Dear Pastor John, I currently live in Hungary and
00:00:15.520 | am experiencing firsthand the current refugee crisis.
00:00:19.200 | There has been so much talk and debating among Christians here about how we are to view the
00:00:24.000 | refugees and how we are to view this situation in light of the end times.
00:00:29.800 | Everyone seems to think that this crisis is the end to Christian freedom in Europe because
00:00:34.760 | of the influx of Muslims and a sign of the end times.
00:00:39.040 | Pastor John, do you see this situation as a start to the beginning of persecution for
00:00:42.920 | Christians in Europe?
00:00:45.260 | People think that because there will be many more Muslims, that Europe will become a Muslim
00:00:50.000 | continent.
00:00:51.600 | What is your opinion on this?"
00:00:54.240 | I am reading at the moment Philip Jenkins' book, The Next Christendom.
00:01:01.280 | It's about the massive changes, especially in the last hundred years, as the preponderance
00:01:08.360 | of Christians has moved from the old established churches in the West, including Europe and
00:01:14.080 | the United States, to the global South of Asia, Africa, Latin America.
00:01:20.600 | And part of this change is owing to the increased secularization of Europe and America.
00:01:26.240 | Part of it is owing to the stunning vitality and spread of Christianity in the global South.
00:01:33.800 | Part of it is owing to the drastic drop in birth rates in modern secular states compared
00:01:40.440 | to the comparatively huge population growth in the global South.
00:01:45.040 | And more relevantly here, part of it is owing to immigration as millions of people move
00:01:52.320 | around, move from North to South or global South into Europe and America to form problems
00:02:00.320 | or blessings.
00:02:02.160 | And both are probably true.
00:02:04.080 | And some of that is owing to crises like in Syria today and the present situation in Europe
00:02:10.600 | with the influx of immigrants.
00:02:14.060 | This has been happening for a long time, this movement from what were formerly two-thirds
00:02:21.860 | world or Muslim world or pagan world or newly Christian global South into the formerly old,
00:02:34.240 | large established Christian lands.
00:02:37.440 | 95% of the population of London is non-white British.
00:02:45.100 | That statistic is kind of snuck up on the world, I think.
00:02:48.540 | The biggest churches in London are gatherings of African and Caribbean worshippers.
00:02:55.740 | Those immigrants who are flooding into America, into Europe, bring with them their own religion
00:03:02.100 | and customs and will inevitably shape the cultures into which they move.
00:03:07.880 | If they're Christian, they may bring vitality and power of Christianity in a dying West,
00:03:14.520 | but they may be viewed as a threat if they bring another religion like Islam to the heart
00:03:18.360 | of France or Germany or Hungary.
00:03:21.620 | And yet, on the other hand, they may be the economic salvation of those very lands because
00:03:27.580 | the birth rates have so precipitously fallen that those lands cannot in the generations
00:03:34.360 | to come sustain the economic burden that the aging populations need support with.
00:03:40.760 | And these lands are the most socialistic in the world except for the communistic countries
00:03:46.140 | that still remain.
00:03:47.380 | And that creates an expectation of government provision and heavy taxation and there'll
00:03:52.400 | be nobody to tax if they don't have more workers and so there are positive sides to this influx
00:03:59.900 | as well as negative ones as they might see them.
00:04:04.160 | So Brittany says, this is really her question, that she's talking to people and they're saying,
00:04:11.840 | number one, this may be the end of Christian freedom in Europe if Muslims take over and
00:04:18.700 | establish Sharia law, presumably.
00:04:21.920 | And number two, is this the sign of the end of the times, the end of history?
00:04:27.520 | And she wonders my opinion.
00:04:28.680 | My opinion is, and it's a pretty strong opinion, it's a conviction, the present movement of
00:04:34.200 | peoples all over the world may, underline that word, result in the disestablishment
00:04:41.000 | of Christianity from its prominent place in certain Western countries and may result in
00:04:47.000 | a sweeping predominance of Islam or even Sharia law and that this influx may not result in
00:04:57.040 | the diminishing of Christianity or the establishment of Islam but in fact may result in a massive
00:05:03.920 | spread of the Christian message among more and more peoples so that at the end of the
00:05:08.480 | 21st century, Europe is the most authentically Christian that it has ever been.
00:05:14.140 | That's my conviction.
00:05:15.140 | Both of those may happen.
00:05:17.680 | So no, I don't have any sense of authority to pronounce that this is the end of Christianity
00:05:24.460 | in Europe or the beginning of a Islamic state.
00:05:30.040 | Who knows?
00:05:31.040 | God knows.
00:05:32.040 | And we should pray earnestly for the sweeping of the Christian gospel in power across all
00:05:38.060 | the peoples who are coming in and all those who have already forsaken it who live there.
00:05:43.040 | Which is simply to say that I believe in the sovereignty of God.
00:05:46.080 | Jesus said all authority in heaven and on earth, in Hungary and in France and in Germany
00:05:51.400 | and in Syria, all authority is mine.
00:05:54.840 | So go make disciples.
00:05:56.840 | There is no historical circumstance that exists today that could possibly prevent a great
00:06:02.620 | Christian revival in Europe and a great spread of Christian preponderance if God in his sovereignty
00:06:10.020 | willed it to be so, and that's what we should pray.
00:06:13.820 | And therefore, my opinion with regard to how the present situation relates to the end times
00:06:20.280 | is that we may be on the brink of a final—underline the word "may"—we may be on the brink
00:06:27.760 | of a final great outbreak of persecution that would lead to the completion of the Great
00:06:34.400 | Commission by the blood of the martyrs, the in-gathering of God's elect, the great conversion
00:06:39.660 | of the Jewish people, and the revelation of our Lord Jesus in the clouds to establish
00:06:44.680 | his kingdom on the earth that is fully possible in the next years because, again, God is sovereign.
00:06:54.200 | It is not ours to know the times and the seasons.
00:06:56.640 | It is ours to witness to the ends of the earth no matter the cost.
00:07:00.600 | Here's what I think we can say with certainty regarding the end times, namely that we are
00:07:06.400 | in them now and have been in them since the coming of Christ because that's the way the
00:07:12.600 | New Testament talks, and it talks in this way about the persecution of the church in
00:07:21.400 | every age.
00:07:22.400 | Let me read this passage from 1 Peter 4:12 because it is so pertinent to this question.
00:07:28.600 | It says, verse 7 of chapter 4, "The end of all things is at hand."
00:07:33.560 | Okay, that's the end of the first century.
00:07:35.760 | The end of all things is at hand.
00:07:37.840 | "Therefore, be self-controlled, so reminded for the sake of your prayers."
00:07:42.000 | Verse 12, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that comes upon you to
00:07:47.120 | test you as though something strange were happening to you.
00:07:50.200 | This is what you expect when the end is at hand.
00:07:52.660 | But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be
00:07:57.720 | glad when his glory is revealed.
00:08:00.320 | If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the Spirit of glory
00:08:06.720 | and of God rest upon you.
00:08:08.760 | "For," here it comes, "for it is time for judgment to begin with the household
00:08:14.440 | of God.
00:08:15.760 | And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome of those who do not obey the gospel
00:08:21.040 | of God?
00:08:22.040 | And if the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?"
00:08:28.880 | So I think Brittany and the believers in Hungary and other European countries should press
00:08:36.000 | on with every possible means of spreading the gospel and displaying the justice and
00:08:43.720 | the mercy of Jesus and how they relate to their post-Christian culture on one hand and
00:08:49.360 | these ever-increasing Muslim neighbors on the other.
00:08:52.600 | I think they should pray earnestly that God would turn this wave of immigration into a
00:09:00.560 | great gospel advance in ways that no one perhaps can even imagine.
00:09:07.560 | That's the kind of God that we have.
00:09:10.000 | Amen.
00:09:11.000 | Yes, it is.
00:09:12.000 | Man, may this be true.
00:09:13.280 | What a fascinating and faith-building perspective, Pastor John.
00:09:16.000 | Thank you.
00:09:17.000 | And thank you for the question, Brittany.
00:09:18.920 | In this episode, Pastor John earlier mentioned a book, it's a book he commends, and it's
00:09:23.000 | titled The Next Christendom, the Coming of Global Christianity by Philip Jenkins.
00:09:28.720 | Be sure to check that out.
00:09:31.040 | Also in the news is Bernie Sanders.
00:09:33.240 | And when Bernie Sanders is in the news, socialism is in the news.
00:09:37.680 | And the listener wants to know how Christians should think about socialism, which is exactly
00:09:41.200 | what we'll do tomorrow.
00:09:42.200 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:09:44.480 | For more on this podcast and to send us your questions, visit us at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:09:52.680 | We'll see you tomorrow.
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