Over $100 billion spent in the USA alone to fix the computer bug.  Dire predictions of the end of society, (maybe the end of the world with great social upheavals and the breakdown of civilized systems) flooded books and talk shows.  Preachers & self-styled prophets poured out their fear producing warnings.

    “Was it all for nothing?”, asked one commentator.

    No, it was not for nothing.  It sold hundreds of thousands of copies of a number of books about the Y2K predictions.  It sold electric generators, power tools, flash lights & lanterns, dried foods, barrels and bottles of water, camping stoves, tents, lots and lots of guns and a great deal of ammunition!  No, it was not for nothing!

    To be sure, there probably would have been some problems in various areas had nothing been done.  But the predictions could not have been further from the reality we all experienced!

     One of the policies at Guardian Ministries, and in the pastorate of this church, is that a religion is neurotic when it appeals more to people’s fears and cowardice than to the virtues of love and courage.  So, you didn’t hear dire warnings from this pulpit or read them in the letters from Guardian Ministries.

Why do so many “religious” people become fearful and stampeded to latch on to these fear producing beliefs?  Mostly as a response to misguided efforts on the part of leadership in this or that group to prove they are “right.”

       If you are trying to serve God, love Him, obey Him and you live a particular lifestyle that is different from those around you, it is easy to want others to know that you are right.  What better way than to grab on to a prophecy of some sort that will “show them” that you knew the true way all along.  They’ll know you are right when they see all the suffering and calamity you believed would come and, you, like Noah, were prepared for.

    Furthermore, it is true that many of the Bible prophecies are about calamity and destruction.  But we know there were not real prophets among the Y2K predictors.  We also know that there were no real prophets earlier this century among the Churches of God!   Because no one predicted all the changes that have taken place!  One leader many years ago ridiculed “science and industry” when they predicted a push-button world of luxury and ease by 1975.  Rather, he predicted (some would say implied) that the USA would be conquered and our peoples in captivity and the true people of God whisked off to a place of safety.

     Who was more correct, looking back 25 years?

     Caution and a healthy skepticism is our approach.  Anyone predicting evil for the future (15 to 20 years into the future) will draw many believers because of the nature of the unknown future.  It cannot be disproved ahead of time.  But the love of God and that love reaching to others must dominate over the wrongful need to be “right.”