“Truly I tell you, some of you standing here will not taste death before they see that the Kingdom of God has come in power” (Mark 9:1)
As you likely believe, Jesus wasn’t talking about a kingdom that would come when people died and went to “heaven”. It was a literal earthly kingdom.
You also are familiar with Mark 13:30, “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away before all these things take place”.
This kingdom would come while some of the disciples were still living to see it.
Most Christians agree this did not happen. The core of Jesus’ message was his claim that the kingdom was to arrive soon. He was wrong.
So why do Christians still follow him?
Because they use apologetics. “The kingdom refers to heaven”.
Or,
“That generation refers to those who saw 1914”
but that generation passed away, so now what?
”Well, there must be overlapping generations!”
Wrong. It is simply making cover and excuses for what happened. Or more precisely, what did not happen.
Jesus said that earthly kingdom was coming “soon”, within the lifetime of those standing in front of him, and it didn’t happen.
Jehovah does not get the last word at Armageddon either. Because he does not exist.
Good will not necessarily triumph over evil. Pain and suffering and injustice are going to be with us for a very long long time. “The poor you will always have with you”, and death is the end of the whole story. Period.
So then what hope is there with such a bleak outlook?
Knowing that there is no Jehovah/god to destroy evil allows us to look at ourselves!
We can make meaning for ourselves in a world full of the meaningless. We can make sense out of the senselessness.
We can pursue and live a happy life. We can be fulfilled right now. We can be productive and successful. We can live life with the volume all the way up and we can help others achieve all these things too.
Jesus was wrong with his apocalyptic kingdom message but he was right about fighting the forces of evil. Those forces of evil were not supernatural or demonic. They were natural and human. Today right now we can fight for good.
Don’t become a marshmallow waiting for a god that does not exist to make everything right. Do it yourself now.