The first reason Russell Moore gave was that people have “itching ears,” that is, a desire for “something interesting, to have the code that unlocks what’s really going on, to know that one is part of the terminal generation left standing at the end of everything. That can be exhilarating and terrifying.”
Moore referenced Titus 3:9, which says, “Avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.” He also quoted 2 Timothy 4:3-4, which says:
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
These Bible teachings can refer to people who promote heresy, but these passages can also describe people who have an unhealthy desire for controversy, who want something shocking and a little scary to talk about. “It’s like a horror movie or a roller coaster,” said Moore.
While focusing on catastrophes can cause anxiety and fear, doing so can also give people a sense of purpose and meaning in their lives. Moreover, said Moore, “People like the easy equivalence of current events to prophecy charts.”
Correlating current events with specific Bible passages is easier than walking by faith in God and acknowledging how little we understand. “The life of faith is difficult,” Moore said. “What it means to live by faith is to walk forward following a voice that one cannot hear audibly into a future that one cannot control.”
“A certainty about where events that we already care about fit into the ultimate plan, and a provable certainty that we’re on the right side of it all, can make faith feel almost like sight, at least for a little while,” he continued.
Israel’s war against Iran is “a scary situation that is clearly outside of our control for almost all of us,” said Moore, validating the fears that people have about the war. “It’s not irrational for someone to worry about a potential World War III.”
Moore cautioned that Jesus himself did not encourage his followers to connect world events to specific statements in the Bible. In fact, people will be living their normal, ordinary lives when Jesus returns, said Moore, pointing to Matthew 24 where Jesus said “people will be marrying and having children and working jobs.”
