What Time Is It?

The first time I ever heard about Bible prophecy and what is known as ‘end times’ teaching, was through a conversation I had with an older neighborhood kid named Chris when I was nine or ten years old in 1979. He was probably only thirteen at the time. His family was not religious, but he had read “The Late Great Planet Earth” by Hal Lindsay. He described the book in detail to me, emphasizing that we now live in the age that was prophesied through the Bible thousands of years ago. 

What was a nine year old boy in 1979 supposed to do with that kind of knowledge? Not much beyond being terrified of the apocalypse. The only thing that came out of that conversation was a nine year old's determination to resist taking the number of the beast on my hand or forehead. That is some scary stuff for a nine year old kid. I was surely not going to do that if the opportunity ever arose. It never did.

To this day, I have never read Hal Lindsay’s book, but Chris’ summary of the book in 1979 was a convincing argument that stuck with me. Throughout the rest of the twentieth century I was reminded of that indelible conversation with Chris through many other channels, some Christian and some not-so-Christian, but all pointed to the times we live in. I might be slightly satirical in the following bullet points, but these things really did speak to me as a non-believer about the end-times. Here are a few:

• My stepbrother had these end-time dreams he would tell me about in the early eighties.

• The end-time preaching of Iron Maiden and Ronnie James Dio. Run to the Hills, Two Minutes to Midnight, The Number of the Beast were amongst many apocalyptic soundtracks recorded by Maiden. The Last in Line, Holy Diver, it seems Dio had a strong theme going through his albums too.

• Countering that was the end-time heavy metal preaching of Stryper.

• The Omen and those Damien movies. Do you remember those?

• Bad VHS copies of ‘A Thief in the Night’

• Sam Kinison’s rise to popularity and his comedy being so blasphemous like nothing before. 
Somehow this really stood out to me, even as an atheist.

• Ronald Reagan and Mikhael Gorbachev's one upping each other with their country’s nuclear arsenal and much talk of the end of civilization as we knew it.

• The Age of Quarrel – that prophetic album by the Cro-mags. They were about as far from Christ as one could get, yet that one album in 1986 had a message that couldn’t be any more pertinent for 2018.

I could go on and on with the cultural staples of that day. The 1970’s and 1980’s were oozing with end-time prophecy themes both in the secular and the Christian culture. It seemed to die down a little after so many of the church and preacher scandals in the late eighties and early nineties. The buzz was in the air at the time, but the convergence of multiple prophecies being fulfilled were not occurring for the return of the Lord like they are today.

Now it is 2018 and the stage is set like never before in history. The buzz is back but it’s so much stronger these days. Even the secular world is acknowledging that we have turned a corner to a different season. Do you listen to Joe Rogan’s mega-popular podcast? He constantly reminds us that these are strange times. He has even titled his current standup comedy tour as ‘Strange Times’. 

I believe we are at the doorstep right now. If there were just a few prophecies coming to pass as in the 1970’s and 1980’s you could say it was time to be on-guard and to begin watching for the Lord’s return. But in 2018, it is so much more than that. It is the convergence of so many prophecies that has the sirens sounding and the alarms telling us what time it is. Here is a checklist of the convergence of things coming to pass in the last century and currently before our eyes, some of them happening just this year:

• The rebirth of Israel in 1948. After being dispersed for 1900 years, the Jewish people came back to form a nation in their previously owned land. This has never happened with a nation in human history. Lookup the scriptures that prophesied this:

o   Ezekiel 37 the entire chapter

o   Hosea 6:1-2 says Israel would be torn down (happened in 70 AD) and after two days, which is 2,000 years on God’s calendar they would be revived.

o   Lookup these scriptures which also foretell the same thing: Psalms 107:2-3; Isaiah 11:12; Isaiah 43:5-6; Isaiah 66:8

•  The recapture of Jerusalem in 1967 and the miraculous 6 day war. Jesus said Jerusalem would be trodden down, which happened in 70 AD, until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled which is the 2,000 years that Hosea prophesied about. See Luke 21:24.

• The technology to exist for the entire world to observe the two witnesses in Jerusalem that were spoken of in Revelation 11:1-14. It says of the two witnesses that the entire world would see them and hear their message. In the 1980’s it was said that the technology existed for this to happen because of simulcast transmission and satellite television. How much more true is that now in 2018 with the potential for everyone to witness this event directly on their mobile devices, tablets, and wifi throughout the world.

• The alliance of specific nations against Israel. In Ezekiel 38 (read the entire chapter) there is an alliance of nations that come against Israel. Now there has not been a threat to Israel as of yet, but the alliance has formed and the tension is in the air for sure. Never before in history have these three nations come together for anything – Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Look at what happened just in this past week - https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-erdogan-rohani-ankara-meeting-syria-analysis/29144774.html .
  In the Ezekiel 38 passage, these are the nations mentioned – Magog is modern day Russia, Meshech, Gomer, and Tubal are modern day Turkey, Persia is modern day Iran, and Cush is modern day Libya.
  It also says in that same chapter, that other middle-eastern nations would take Israel’s side in the war. Not that they would fight alongside Israel, but that they would question this multi-national opposing alliance and be in favor of Israel. One of those nations mentioned is Dedan, which is modern day Saudi Arabia. Just this week, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia endorsed Israel (which has never happened before) in the Palestinian/Israeli land controversy. And they are in agreement with Israel concerning the recent threats of Iran.

• Wars and rumors of wars. Jesus prophesied that this would be the state of the world shortly before his return. This is certainly true of 2018. See Luke 21:9; Matthew 24:7; Mark 13:7

• Famines, pestilence and earthquakes in diverse places. These disasters have been with us since the beginning of human history. However, it is the frequency and the scope of these things occurring all over the earth that we should take notice of.
  It seems like every other day we hear of a huge earth quake or a new disease or a natural disaster of some sort. Did anyone notice the continent of Africa starting to rip apart last week?
  Go to this website and you can enter any year to see how many significant earthquakes were recorded. https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/browse/significant.php It is amazing to see the increase in just the past decade.
  Famine is prevalent also in countries such as Yemen, Venezuela, Myanmar, and many African nations. This should not be the case in 2018 given the advancement of technology and knowledge that we have achieved. Corruption is the cause for most of it, but we will save that for another sermon.
  We could write an entire blog about the epidemics in the world today. To see the increasing trend of diseases, take a look at the CDC’s website: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/  

• The rebuild of the Jewish Temple. Not only was it prophesied that Israel would be reborn after 2,000 years but also there is mention of the temple being rebuilt. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is currently in the spot where the temple used to be in Jerusalem. The Jews have not had a temple there, nor have they practiced the traditional Jewish animal sacrifices since the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. For the first time in almost 2,000 years there was an animal sacrifice and a ceremony on the steps of the Temple Mount. This happened last week during Passover. Jews have also not been allowed to congregate or pray there. But, this week there was a gathering of 1,500 Jews to pray at the temple mount. Add to that the announcement by our U.S. President that we as a country now acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and we are moving our embassy there. Things are definitely pointing in that direction.

• The absolute destruction of Damascus. Isaiah 17 prophesied that Damascus will be a heap of ruins, and no longer inhabitable. This has not happened yet, but take a look at what is going on in Syria right now with Russia, Iran, and Turkey getting involved. Couple that with the capability of modern nuclear weapons and we are closer now to that prophesy being fulfilled than ever before.

• Israel becoming a desert and then blooming again. Mark Twain visited the land of Israel in 1867. At that time the land was called Palestine. This was his summary of the holy land tour, “Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it being sorrowful and despondent.” Now compare his description with what the landscape of Israel looks like today. Wikipedia says this about it, “Israel is a major exporter of fresh produce and a world leader in agricultural technologies.” These are the scriptures that foretell of the desert becoming a flourishing land: Isaiah 35:1-2; Isaiah 41:18-20; Ezekiel 36:33-36

• The Gospel would be preached to the entire world. Jesus said in Matthew 24:14 that the end would come after his message of salvation was preached to the entire world. If we are not at that point already, we are getting there very quickly.

o   The YouVersion Bible app alone has 318 million downloads as of yesterday April  5^th.

o   In 2016 there was an estimated amount of 416,000 active missionaries in the world.

o   According to quora.com there are 37 million Christian churches in the world. 

Now, add to those things the millions of online sermons, blogs, YouTube messages, Christian television programs, and printed literature.  Can you see we are getting close to this message being spread across the entire world?

•       Society in the end times would be similar to society in the days of Noah. Jesus said that in Matthew 24:36-38 and Peter also referenced it in his letter to the churches, 2 Peter 3:1-8. What did the days of Noah look like? See Genesis 6:1-6. Wickedness was filling the earth and the people had no clue that a judgment was coming. They were going on about their business, buying and selling, marrying, and partying right up until the rain started to come down. They scoffed at Noah for being righteous and did not heed his warning.

• Men’s hearts failing for fear. Jesus said in Luke 21:26 that this would be a common thing because of the stress and condition of the world, that people’s fears would cause their hearts to fail. You can look at the stats on numerous websites. It appears that heart failure is the number one cause of death in the world.

• Perilous times would come. Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:1-5 that the last days would be perilous. If we have to take our shoes off to enter the airport, if we need armed security guards at our elementary and junior high schools, if we can’t go to a concert or a major event that is supposed to be fun without being on guard, could you conclude that these are perilous times? Paul then goes on to mention and describe the mindset of the world in the last days. Lookup the scripture for yourself. There is a long list that pretty much describes our culture in detail - 2 Timothy 3:1-5.

• The exponential increase of knowledge. In Daniel’s prophesy of the last days he said that knowledge would increase at a rapid pace- See Daniel 12. We can definitely say that is the case for the last one-hundred years, but even more so it is true of this last decade.

• The roaring of the waves and the sea. In Luke 21:25 Jesus prophesied about the increase of the roaring oceans in the last days. You can look at many websites that show the vanishing coastlines in the last 50 years or so. Also, it seems like every week now we hear reports of hundreds of dead sea-animals washing to shore. We can also include the crazy hurricane seasons we’ve been having of late. And don’t let me forget to mention that we’ve had four nor’easter storms in the month of March 2018 alone.

• The distress of nations with perplexity.  Jesus prophesied about this also in Luke 21:25. Have you been following the crisis and collapse of Venezuela this past year? Here are some other nations that seem to be in a state of distress, and they are perplexed about how to recover to a plateau of social stability: Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Haiti, Uganda, Liberia, Somalia, Philippines, Myanmar.

• Signs in the heavens above. There are several scriptures that mention a change in the heavens during the last days: Joel 2:30-31, Acts 2:19, Luke 21:25. There have been some pretty strange happenings in the skies lately: multiple blood moons, the great eclipse across the US, increase in solar flares, that long object from another solar system that passed our planet recently (apparently that has never happened before?), and many other signs in the sky, people hearing loud trumpet sounds, etc.  Go to YouTube.com and type in the search window “signs in the sky” and you can see all sorts of crazy videos that people have captured. Some are not legit, I realize that, but there are a good chunk of YouTube videos that are real. Judge for yourself.

There are many other things I could list here, but I think we covered enough of the major signs of the times to show you that we are getting really close to the Lord’s return. There are so many crazy theories and speculations out there about the day of the Lord’s return. It is clear from scripture that no man knows the exact day or hour it will happen.

The Bible compares the event of His return to a thief in the night, most people are not expecting that. However, as believers, that day is not supposed to catch us unaware. We don’t know the specific day, and I would not pay attention to anyone who claims to, but we are supposed to know the season. The closer it gets, the more on watch we should be. 

If you read this entire post, I give you props. Here is one last passage from our Lord that I will leave you with:

“When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”

Luke 21:28-32

Which generation is Jesus talking about? I believe it is us, right here, right now, the generation that sees all of these things coming to pass. We are that generation!