The Quickening

Most of the world’s population will never experience it, but there is a temperature below which snow starts to squeak under your boots and tires. The air becomes sharp, and there are often ice crystals hanging in the air. It’s a silent world, perhaps because –40°C/F has a way of driving most people indoors, and perhaps because regions with these temperatures are sparsely populated to begin with. Snow has a way of soaking up sound, providing introverts with an ideal world.

Driving under such conditions is far more pleasant than you might expect. Snow drifts into potholes, filling them up and smoothing out the road. Rivers become important shortcuts because they freeze hard enough to drive on. And again, because there aren’t many people, you might drive for long stretches without seeing anybody.

Those long stretches can become boring, however. At one point it occurred to me that I could probably read a book as I commuted. My reasoning went as follows: I have to look down at the gauges occasionally anyway, why not glance down at a book and read a line or two? All you really have to do is place the book high up on the steering wheel and keep the top two corners between the lines on the road. (Do not try this at home; the system completely fails when there’s a moose in the road. I once slid the hood of my van under the belly of a very large bull, stopping only two inches short of disaster. He looked at me indignantly, stepped over my car, and wandered off into the woods.)

Passing the Time

At night it became impossible to read. The northern lights were frequently visible, and the shimmering curtain of green near the top of my windshield—seemingly so close you should be able to touch it—would activate my imagination. To keep things more interesting, some nights (if the moon was full) I’d turn off my headlights and drive in the dark: the dark band between the fields of snow was the road. (Again, do not try this at home; I was young and foolish, and it’s incredibly dangerous—if for no other reason than you need your headlights to spot the eyes of the deer waiting in the trees to sprint out onto the road.)

If all else failed, I could always listen to the radio to wile away the time. Options in the north were limited—you could pull in only a handful of stations. For some reason I could always pull in a few more on a clear winter’s night. Shortly after midnight on one long, lonely drive, I suddenly discovered Art Bell. I could scarcely believe what I was hearing: people were calling into the show to talk about very unusual experiences: Sasquatch sightings, alien abductions, government psychological experiments, conspiracy theories. Mr. Bell took every call seriously. “There’s a Sasquatch in my yard right now, and I’m learning to talk to him!” “Really? Tell me more.”

It was like a car crash on the airwaves; I couldn’t help listening. Over the next few weeks I got an advanced education in conspiracy theory, although I had to turn it off once in a while, because it went places that no faithful Adventist should ever go. If his guest was a psychic who talked to the dead, I was done. Our counsel regarding such things is crystal clear.

In some ways the information was useful. At large evangelistic meetings there were always one or two people who were into this stuff, and they were pleasantly surprised that I seemed to know what they were talking about—and even more surprised that I continued to treat them with dignity. That was part of Art Bell’s success, after all. Sometimes the world does a better job of handling people than we do.

I almost always knew where to start in the Bible with people who had been immersed in such things.

The world we were born into is gone, and it’s becoming more difficult by the day to explain the world we’ve now entered.

No Longer Business as Usual

I didn’t listen frequently, of course—it really was confined to those long late-night drives across the frozen north. But in about the mid-1990s I heard Art Bell start talking about the quickening, a term he coined to describe the angst that many people were feeling about the rapid pace of change in this world. If the civilization felt as if it was coming unraveled, and you were really confused about the future, that meant you were experiencing “the quickening.”

It was a decidedly New Age approach to a very real phenomenon. Most people really are aware that it’s no longer business as usual here on Planet Earth. The world we were born into is gone, and it’s becoming more difficult by the day to explain the world we’ve now entered. From Art Bell’s perspective, that was some mysterious force reminding you that the world is about to evolve from one state of being to the next. For me? It’s a reminder that Jesus was right on the mark when He gave His disciples signs to watch for: famine, pestilence, earthquakes, war.

“Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads,” Jesus told His disciples, “because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28).[1] I’ve had old friends from my youth ask me why I seem so calm when the world appears to be falling to pieces around us. “It’s because it’s exactly what I expected,” I tell them, “and I’ve seen the end of the story. It’s better than you think.”

When Art Bell started talking about his “quickening” theory, he pointed to the bombing of the World Trade Center—most of us have forgotten about the first attempt in 1993—as evidence that our world was crumbling. Little did he realize how small that event would seem after 9/11 (September 11, 2001). He also pointed to social collapse, the rapid advance of technology, pestilence—actually, just about everything Jesus mentioned. He recognized signs without understanding them.

That’s the way it is with most of your neighbors right now. They might not mention it to you, but most of them are paying attention. The promises of the modern world fell apart in the twentieth century when we realized that no amount of technological advancement is going to fix what’s wrong with the human heart. The late nineteenth century was brimming with enthusiasm. The mechanization of war and destruction in the twentieth killed that. Postmodern philosophy has put a massive dent in people’s ability to believe in objective truth. And yet—perhaps because God has put eternity in the human heart (Eccl. 3:11)—we still seem to be able to recognize that something is objectively wrong with us.

Opportunity to Bear Witness

I’ve watched that recognition in action many times over. In evangelistic meetings I have often started at 9/11 and displayed Time magazine covers from then until now—flashing them in rapid succession across the screen. The look on the audience’s faces is not fear; it’s relief—relief that Somebody seems to know what’s going on down here, and He has a plan to solve it. Perhaps that’s why Jesus included this thought in His list of signs to watch for: “This will be your opportunity to bear witness” (Luke 21:13). He originally said it in the context of persecution—you will be able to witness to your persecutors—but I have adopted it as a promise for outreach.

Some people point to the collapse of worldly systems as evidence that Jesus is coming soon, and they are not wrong. But if that’s all you pay attention to, you can easily slip into a world of fear. When that happens, you become prone to dwelling on self: how am I going to survive this? It’s an unbalanced and unhealthy response to prophecy that flies in the face of Jesus’ repeated reminders to “fear not.” Meanwhile, we’ve been told that we do not grow in our faith by making prophetic charts, trying to drill down and divine details of the future. It’s not that prophecy isn’t important; it is all-important—in fact, it’s the reason that I’m a believer today. But how do we grow?

“The only way to grow in grace,” we’ve been told, “is to be disinterestedly doing the very work which Christ has enjoined upon us—to engage, to the extent of our ability, in helping and blessing those who need the help we can give them.”[2]

It’s not one of the ways; it’s the only way.

Jesus is Coming Soon

And it’s on this point that I see the clearest evidence that Jesus really is coming soon. I’m witnessing an openness to our message that wasn’t there a few decades ago. Yes, the world is falling apart, but at the same time, the Spirit of God is opening doors at an unprecedented pace.

Friends used to be merely polite when they heard I’d become a Christian (and a preacher!). Recently—suddenly—they’re reaching out to me in droves. “What Bible should I be reading?” “What does the Bible say about disappointment?” And, after the pandemic, the Russian incursion into Ukraine, and the October 7 Hamas raid. “Does the Bible say anything about what’s going on in this world?”

I’m now giving Bible studies that I couldn’t have imagined giving just a couple of years ago. The response I’m getting? “I have peace of mind for the first time in my life!” It’s as if a massive door of opportunity has suddenly swung open—and I’m hardly the only one who’s noticed it. I’m under no illusion that it’s going to last forever, because prophecy indicates that it won’t. But while it’s here? Cash in on it. It’s more evidence that God is preparing to enter human history for good.

Years ago I found myself trapped in a small arctic village because of blizzard conditions. I had boxes of Bibles in the Inuktitut language that I’d purchased to hand out, and one Sunday morning I noticed people entering a small chapel. I decided to join them. A kind Inuit woman offered to translate what was happening: a lay pastor stood up with the only copy of the Bible they appeared to have in that town, and began to read from Matthew 24. He ended with “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14).

He stopped and looked up at my team, wearing bright-red parkas in the last row of the church. “And why are you here?” he asked. They’re not used to many visitors in those parts.

”Funny you should ask,” I said. “We’re here to hand out Bibles so that the end can come.” It was the beginning of an incredible work among one of the last unentered people groups on the planet.

There is a “quickening,” all right. It’s just not happening the way that New Age radio hosts think. Something is definitely stirring: I can hardly keep up with the sudden deluge of requests for prayer and Bible study. It seems as though Jesus really is about to return.

Don’t miss what’s happening. Just don’t.

[1] All biblical quotations are from the English Standard Version.

[2] Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1956), p. 80.