The Biblical test of Disclosure Day

Usque ad finem

Did you ever think that Richard Dreyfuss’ character was a really terrible dad in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind?” I didn’t when I first watched it (I was a teenager), but as a dad, I think leaving your family in order to join little aliens in their journey through space is being a heel. I can turn that entire movie on its head, because it wasn’t Roy Neary (who Dreyfuss played) who decided he wanted to go away from earth forever; that thought was planted in his brain by the aliens, who chose him to kidnap just as if they’d abducted him in the “normal” movie way, by beaming him up to their mothership in a cone of light.

In fact, I think it’s far more pernicious for aliens to mess with your mind, overriding your humanity in order to make you their slave, or at least a docile accomplice in your own abduction, than for them to simply snatch you.

Photo by keshan jalota on Unsplash

Forty-nine years after Steven Spielberg made “Close Encounters,” he has circled back to what I’d say is his favorite topic: alien life on earth. If you dismiss three of the four Indiana Jones movies, as the first one was a favor to George Lucas and two of the others were to make bank (and work with Sean Connery), aliens is Spielberg’s top plot topic. After “Close Encounters,” there was “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “War of the Worlds,” “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” and the newest, “Disclosure Day.”

Out of 32 Spielberg-directed movies (again, not counting three of the Indiana Jones films), no other topic is returned to again and again more than aliens. Many of the movies have the same elements: a government agency that knows the truth, a hero who makes contact and escapes or thwarts the antagonist, and with the exception of “War of the Worlds,” the knowledge or contact with aliens improves mankind. But “War of the Worlds” is itself a remake, and I’d say Spielberg was true to the original—the aliens were terrifying, and the ending was exactly as the story demanded.

“Disclosure Day” is more like a fusion of “Close Encounters” and “E.T.” which, by what I’ve read (I have not seen the movie) comes out looking like “Men in Black” as a horror film. The world finds out that aliens exist, and the mysterious “Wardex” organization is thwarted in its mission to keep that information secret. Good movie stuff, and as usual, exquisitely directed by Spielberg, the master storyteller.

It’s Sunday, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t link this to faith.

Movies are fun, but there’s a spiritual element to the stories we enjoy and tell ourselves over and over again. Are there aliens? I don’t know. A better question is “are there aliens that people on earth know about and haven’t told us?” I’d say no. Alien life would be the biggest story in the history of news, and other than the resurrection of Jesus Christ, would occupy a singular point on a calendar where the world was changed forever. There is no way this story could be covered up. “Disclosure Day” is more accurate in its plot that someone, somewhere, would seek to leak it.

Where the world and movie stories differ is that there would be no way a government agency, or a multi-government consortium, would be able to control, murder, or otherwise silence people who know this truth, were it true. There would be no possibility of herding enough cats to keep the aliens story under wraps. Their best play would be to put it all out there and let people not believe it. There’s plenty of people who don’t believe we landed on the moon. If the government released pictures of actual aliens and their technology—especially this administration—a large number of people would dismiss it as lies.

The fact that the current administration has released files regarding aliens and it’s a big nothingburger indicates to me that there’s no story there, no actual news. There is no government or agency on earth that has definitive proof of alien life, otherwise it would be known. That’s my argument and I’m sticking to it. Feel free to disagree.

But the spiritual aspect of this is also evident. The Bible says that at the second coming of Christ, we will all know of His arrival, all over the world, at once. And at that moment, “the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.” And then, “we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” This was recorded by Paul, in his first letter to the church at Thessaloniki. He said we are to encourage one another with these words.

It’s always been a mystery how the entire world will know of the Lord’s return at the instant it happens. In Romans 14, Paul quotes the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 49:18:

Lift up your eyes around and see;
they all gather, they come to you.
As I live, declares the Lord,
you shall put them all on as an ornament;
you shall bind them on as a bride does.

Paul wrote, “For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God,” then “each of us will give an account of himself to God.” (Romans 10:10-12.)

It’s been a bigger mystery to me how the entire world will be under a massive delusion. In 2 Thessalonians, Paul wrote extensively in the first 12 verses of chapter 2 “concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him.” Those verses conclude with “Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” In what manner will the delusion arrive?

You might think I’m crazy, but I see the delusion is already here. The world has instant global communication. Nearly everyone has a smartphone, and information can be delivered simultaneously throughout the entire planet. This has never been possible through all of history, but it is now, and it’s becoming so pervasive that there will soon be nowhere on earth we can go without instant access to information.

The return of Jesus Christ will certainly be the biggest news story in the world. So will the appearance of aliens. I believe these stories will happen nearly simultaneously. And while not every Christian believes the rapture of the church will happen in a particular time—before the tribulation and the great tribulation, where awful things happen on the earth and many will perish—what would the world of unbelievers think at the disappearance of possibly a billion people? Is it aliens? Is it the fulfillment of scripture?

Either way, the entire world will know, instantly.

The delusion is not a new idea in scripture. King David wrote of it in Psalm 62:9; the prophet Jeremiah wrote of it three times, in 3:23, 10:15, and 51:18. Isaiah wrote:

Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know,
and beforehand, that we might say, “He is right”?
There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed,
none who heard your words.
I was the first to say to Zion, “Behold, here they are!”
and I give to Jerusalem a herald of good news.
But when I look, there is no one;
among these there is no counselor
who, when I ask, gives an answer.
Behold, they are all a delusion;
their works are nothing;
their metal images are empty wind.

(Isaiah 41:26-29.)

In Jerusalem, and to the ends of the earth, we will have two competing stories, that will consume the entire world. There will be the story that Steven Spielberg and so many others are obsessed with, that aliens exist and will make themselves known, and the other story that Jesus Christ has returned for His church, and at that point, what each person believes will determine their eternal destiny. For at the time of His revelation to the world—the real disclosure—every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess, every mind will understand, that the end has come.

For centuries none of this was decipherable. It simply could not happen. But “in the fullness of time” that Paul wrote of in Galatians 4 regarding the birth of Christ, and when the time will arrive for His coming, it is more plausible, even likely, that we will know how we will learn of it. The “trumpet of God” could mean many things, but there is no doubt we will know of it.

Steven Spielberg’s alien tale may be a story of secret organizations and “disclosure,” but all has been written down two millennia ago. Christians only need to wait and remain faithful to the Word of God. When the aliens are in the kitchen, I am convinced we will know the truth.

Or believe in aliens. Your choice.