the end of the world is near

One of our local mega-churches is running a "we are in the final days" series, complete with TV adds showing a ticking clock.

Do you think the congregation realizes that people have been convinced we were in the final days for two *thousand* years? It's clear that the early disciples were generally convinced that the world would end in their lifetime.

I am convinced that, had I been alive in 1940, I would have been absolutely convinced it was the end. Adolf Hitler seemed to fit the "anti-Christ" model so well, that I can't believe he wasn't. The persecution of the Jews, the alliance of nations build on the rubble of the Roman Empire (it was the Germans who sacked Rome, after all), the mark of the beast (Nazi flag), the persecution of Christians (Bonhoefferand others), how could you think otherwise. The whole 666 thing was not quite as simple, but just about everything else seemed to fit.
But, the best information I can find is that the world didn't end in 1945. Perhaps we will look back from eternity and find that this was the beginning of the end -- the starting of the Jewish state, the ushering in of atomic war. Or perhaps we will find it was not.

But I wonder whatever happened to the bookcases filled with books about the end of the world being in the year 2000 or in 1988 or 1955 or 1970 or whenever.

And I wonder if the people in the congregations actually think that maybe the pastor may not know the exact day or the hour or even the century. And if he doesn't, he would be in the company of 20 centuries of others just like him