"Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the son of Man is coming."
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
The Bible says we cannot know the time of the Lord's return (Matt 25:13), but Scripture makes it equally
clear that we can know the season of the Lord's return (I Thes 5:2-6). "You yourselves know full well that the day
of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should
overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night or darkness; so then
let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober."
This passage says that Jesus is coming like a "thief in the night," then it proceeds to make it clear that this will be
true only for the pagan world and not for believers. His return should be no surprise to those who know Him and His
Word, for they have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to give them understanding of the nature of the times. Furthermore,
the Scriptures give us signs to watch for - signs that will signal that Jesus is ready to return. The writer of the Hebrew
letter referred to these signs when he proclaimed that believers should encourage one another when they see the day
of judgment drawing near. (Heb 10:25-27). Jesus also referred to the end time signs in His Olivet Discourse, given
during the last week of His life (Matt 24). Speaking of a whole series of signs which He had given to His disciples, He
said "When you see all these things, recognize that He (the Son of Man - that is, Jesus) is near, right at the door"
(Matt 24:33).
There once was a great man of God by the name of Albert Peak. He had once been assigned the topic, "The Signs
of the Times." He began his presentation by observing, "Sixty years ago when I first started preaching, you had to
scratch around like a chicken to find one sign of the Lord's soon return." He paused for a moment and then added,
"But today there are so many signs I'm no longer looking for them. Instead, I'm listening for a sound - the sound
of a trumpet."
Over one hundred years ago in 1907, there was not one single, tangible, measurable sign that indicated we were living
in the season of the Lord's return. The first to appear was the Balfour Declaration which was issued by the British
government on Nov 2, 1917. This Declaration was prompted by the fact that during World War I, the Turks sided with
the Germans, so when Germany lost the war, so did the Turks, and the victorious Allies decided to divide up both the
German and Turkish empires. The Turkish territories were called the Ottoman Empire and it contained the ancient
homeland of the Jewish people - an area the Romans had named Palestine after the last Jewish revolt in 132-135 AD.
In 1917, Palestine included all of modern day Israel and Jordan. In the scheme the Allies concocted for dividing up the
German and Turkish territories, Britain was allotted Palestine, and this is what prompted the Balfour Declaration. In that
document, Lord Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, declared that it was the intention of the British government to
establish in Palestine "a national home for the Jewish people."
The leading Evangelical in England at the time was F.B. Meyer, and he immediately recognized the prophetic significance
of the Declaration, for he was well aware that the Scriptures prophesied that the Jewish people would be re-gathered to
their homeland right before the return of the Messiah (Isaiah 11:11-12). Meyer sent out a letter to the Evangelical leaders
of England asking them to gather in London in December to discuss the prophetic implications of the Balfour Declaration,
and in that letter, he stated, "The signs of the times point toward the close of the times of the Gentiles and the return
of Jesus can be expected any moment." Before Meyer's meeting could be convened, another momentous event occurred.
On December 11, 1917 General Edmund Allenby liberated the city of Jerusalem from 400 years of Turkish rule, and there
is no doubt that these events in 1917 marked the beginning of the end times because they led to the worldwide re-gathering
of the Jewish people to their homeland and the reestablishment of their state. Since 1917 we have witnessed throughout the
20th Century the appearance of sign after sign pointing to the Lord's soon return. There are so many of these signs today,
in fact, that one would have to be either Biblically illiterate or spiritually blind not to realize that we are living on borrowed
time.
1) THE SIGNS OF NATURE
"...and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrors and
great signs from heaven." (Luke 21:11)
This category of signs has always been the least respected, even among believers. The mere mention of it usually evokes a
sneer, accompanied by the words, "Come on, what else is new? There have always been earthquakes and tornadoes
and hurricanes." But those who have this attitude forget that Jesus said the signs would be like "birth pains" (Matthew 24:8).
That means they will increase in frequency and intensity the closer we get to the Lord's return. In other words, there will be
more frequent natural disasters and more intense ones. And that is exactly what has been happening. It amazes me how natural
disasters have been able to top the previous year. The year 2010 was the deadliest in more than a generation with earthquakes,
heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides, and droughts. We had the same list of natural disasters for this
year. In March, Japan was hit by a massive earthquake, measuring 9.0 in magnitude. It was the most powerful earthquake in
the nation's recorded history. The earthquake is currently ranked as the fifth most powerful seismic event to hit the world in
the past century. The World Bank puts the economic cost of that quake at $235 billion, making it the most expensive natural
disaster in world history.
The United States has more tornadoes than any other place on planet earth. From April to June, we had an endless series
of tornado outbreaks. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said there were 312 tornadoes during the Super
Outbreak from the 27th to the 28th of April. This was a record. The previous record occurred April 3-4, 1974, with 148
tornadoes.
We had historic floods on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. The Missouri flooded from South Dakota to Kansas City.
The flooding on the Mississippi River broke several records set by the great 1937 Mississippi River flood. As the flood reached
Louisiana, it created the most memorable sight. Farms in that state had already been suffering from a severe drought and some
of them had crops that were bone dry right next to fields that were under water.
2) THE SIGNS OF SOCIETY
"Realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful,
arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal,
haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God..." (2 Tim 3:1-4)
This passage sounds like a typical evening newscast today. Notice the three things it says people will love in the end
times -- self, money, and pleasure.
The love of self is Humanism - the belief that Man can accomplish anything on his own. The love of money is Materialism.
When Humanism is your religion, your god will always be money. The love of pleasure is the third love that is mentioned.
This is Hedonism - the lifestyle that is always produced by Humanism and Materialism. But God cannot be mocked (Gal 6:7)
He therefore sees to it that when people choose Humanism, Materialism, and Hedonism, the payoff is always Nihilism - which
is a fancy philosophical word for DESPAIR.
It is not hard to see that our world is wallowing in despair today. We live in a society plagued by abortion, homosexuality,
domestic violence, child molestation, blasphemy, pornography, alcoholism, drug abuse and gambling. Like the days of the Judges
in the Old Testament, people are doing what is right in their own eyes, and the result is that people are calling evil good and good
evil. (Isaiah 5:20)
3) THE SPIRITUAL SIGNS
There are more signs in this category than any other. Many are evil in nature, but there are also some very positive ones.
Concerning the negative signs, a typical passage is the following: "The time will come when they (professing Christians) will
not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers on
accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths." (2 Tim 4:3-4)
Some of the negative spiritual signs that are specifically prophesied include the following: false christs, cultic groups, heresies,
apostasy, skepticism, deception, occultism and persecution. The one that Jesus mentioned most frequently was false christs and
their cultic groups (Matt 24:5, 11, 24) And in fulfillment of these prophecies, we have experienced an explosion of cults over the
years.
But. praise God, we are told that there will be some very positive spiritual signs in the end times. The most important one that
is prophesied in many places is a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Joel 2:28-29) This outpouring began at the dawn of the 20th
Century, and proved to be one of the greatest spiritual surprises – and blessings -- of the century. You see, when that century began,
the prevailing viewpoint among both Catholics and Protestants regarding the Holy Spirit was Cessationalism. This belief held that
the gifts of the Spirit ceased when the last Apostle died. In effect, it was a belief that the Holy Spirit had retired in the First Century.
The 20th Century had hardly gotten started when a Holy Spirit revival broke out at a small Bible college in Topeka, Kansas in
1901. Three years later, a similar Holy Spirit revival swept Wales and began to spread worldwide. Then, in 1906, the Spirit fell with
great power on a humble Black preacher in Los Angeles named William J. Seymour. The Azusa Street Revival, as it came to be
called, continued for four years and gave birth to the Pentecostal Movement.
The Bible prophesies two great outpourings of the Spirit and symbolically pictures them as the "early and latter rains" (Joel 2:23),
based on the two rainy seasons of Israel. The early rain occurred at Pentecost in the First Century when the church was established.
The latter rain was prophesied to occur after the Jewish people had been reestablished in their homeland (Joel 2:18-26). The latter
rain began with the Pentecostal Movement, just as God began to re-gather the Jews to their homeland under the visionary leadership
of Theodore Herzl. But the rain did not become a downpour until after the re-establishment of the state of Israel in May of 1948, just
as prophesied by Joel.
First came the anointing of Billy Graham's ministry in 1949, followed by the Charismatic Movement of the 1960's. Today, most of
Christianity, whether Pentecostal, Charismatic, or Traditional, fully recognizes that the ministry of the Holy Spirit is alive and well in
Spirit-led worship -- the continuing validity of spiritual gifts, the reality of spiritual warfare, and the importance of a Spirit-filled life in
winning that warfare.
Another remarkable positive sign is the understanding of Bible prophecy. You see, the Hebrew prophets often did not understand
the end time prophecies that the Lord gave to them. A good example can be found in Daniel 12:8-9 where the prophet complains to
the Lord that he does not understand the prophecies that have been entrusted to him. The Lord's response was, "Don't worry about
it. Just write the prophecies. They have been sealed up until the end times." In other words, the Bible teaches that many of the
end time prophecies will not be understood until the time comes for them to be fulfilled. And that is exactly what has been happening
in the past 100 years. Historical developments and scientific inventions are now making it possible for us to understand end time
prophecies that have never been understood before.
Take Israel for example. All of end time prophecy revolves around the nation of Israel. But how could those prophecies be
understood as long as Israel did not exist and there was no prospect that the nation would ever exist? This is the reason that Hal
Lindsey's book, "The Late Great Planet Earth," became such a phenomenal bestseller in the 1970's. For the first time it explained the
events prophesied in the book of Revelation in natural terms that people could easily understand.
4) THE SIGNS OF WORLD POLITICS
"You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars...for nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom..."
(Matt 24:6-7)
The Bible prophesies a very specific end time configuration of world politics. Israel is pictured as being re-established
(Ezekiel 37:21-22) and surrounded by hostile Arab neighbors, intent on its destruction (Ezekiel 35:1 - 36:7). This, of course, has been
the situation in the Middle East since the Israeli Declaration of Independence in May of 1948. Daniel prophesied that the Roman
Empire would be revived (Daniel 2:36-41), something many men – like Charlemagne, Napoleon, and Hitler - tried to do through force.
But the prophecy had to await God's timing for its fulfillment, and that came after World War II with the formation of the European
Common Market that has since morphed into the superpower called the European Union.
The Bible pictures a great power located in the land of Magog in the "remote parts of the north." This nation will menace Israel
in the end times and will ultimately lead an invasion of Israel, together with specified allies, all of which are modern day Muslim states
(Ezekiel 38:1 - 39:16). Russia with all its Muslim republics and its Muslim allies fit this description precisely. All the nations of the
world are prophesied to come together against Israel in the end times over the issue of the control of Jerusalem (Zech. 12:2-3) - a
prophecy being fulfilled today.
The magnitude of warfare in the 20th Century is another fulfillment of end time prophecy related to world politics. The 20th Century
was one of unparalleled war. Like birth pangs, the frequency and intensity of war increased exponentially. It is now estimated that
more people died in wars during the 20th Century than in all the previous wars throughout all of recorded human history.
5) THE SIGNS OF TECHNOLOGY
"Men will faint from fear over the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens
will be shaken." (Luke 21:26)
The development of nuclear weapons seems to be foreshadowed by this prophecy in Luke 21 that speaks of people "fainting from
fear" due to the "powers of the heavens being shaken.” The incredible carnage of the Seal and Trumpet Judgments portrayed in
chapters 6 and 8 in the book of Revelation indicates that the Antichrist will conquer the world through the use of nuclear weapons.
We are told that one-third of the earth will be burned and that one-half of humanity will be killed. Further evidence that this is a nuclear
holocaust is found in Revelation 16 where we are told that at the end of the Tribulation the survivors will be covered with sores that
will not heal. (Revelation 16:11).
As I pointed out earlier, there are many end time prophecies that simply cannot be understood apart from modern technological
developments. Consider the prophecy in Revelation 11 about the two witnesses who will call the world to repentance during the first
half of the Tribulation. When they are killed by the Antichrist, we are told that their bodies will lie in the streets of Jerusalem for three
and a half days, and the whole world will look upon them (Revelation 11:9). How could anyone understand such a prophecy before the
development of satellite television in the 1960's?
Likewise, how could the Antichrist control all buying and selling worldwide (Revelation 13) without the aid of computer technology?
How could the False Prophet create the illusion of giving life to a statue (Revelation 13) without the technology of holograms, virtual
reality, and robotics? How could an army of 200 million come out of the Far East (Revelation 9) before the population explosion that
was produced by modern medical technology? How could the Gospel be proclaimed to all the world (Matthew 24) before the invention
of motion pictures, radio, television and the Internet? The list goes on and on.
6) THE SIGNS OF ISRAEL
"And it shall come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely
injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it." (Zechariah 12:3)
The signs that relate to Israel are the most important of all because the Jews are God's prophetic time clock. What I mean by this is
that the Scriptures will often tie a prophesied future event with something that will happen to the Jews. We are told to watch the Jews,
and when the prophesied event concerning them occurs, we can be sure that the other prophesied event will also occur. An example can
be found in Luke 21:24 where Jesus prophesied that the Jews would be dispersed from Jerusalem and be led captive among the nations.
But then He added that one day they would return to re-occupy Jerusalem, and when that happens, the end time events will occur that
will lead to His return.
There are many prophecies concerning the Jews in the end times, many of which began to be fulfilled in the 20th Century, but there are
four key ones:
1. First is their worldwide re-gathering in unbelief (Isaiah 11: 11-12). In 1900, there were only 40,000 Jews in Palestine. By the end of World
War II that number had risen to 800,000. Today, there are more than 5.7 million who have come from all over the world. Very soon there
will be as many Jews in Israel as died in the Holocaust. The prophet Jeremiah says twice that when history is completed, the Jewish people
will look back and conclude that their worldwide re-gathering was a greater miracle than their deliverance from Egyptian captivity
(Jeremiah 16:14-15 and 23:7-8). We are truly living in momentous times!
2. The second key prophecy concerning the Jews is a natural consequence of their re-gathering. It is the reestablishment of their state, which
occurred on May 14, 1948 (Isaiah 66:7-8).
3. The third key prophesy is the re-occupation of Jerusalem on June 7, 1969 during the miraculous Six Day War (Zechariah 8:4-8).
4. The fourth key prophecy is the one whose fulfillment we are witnessing today -- the re-focusing of world politics upon the nation of Israel
(Zechariah 12: 2-3). All the nations of the world, including the United States, are coming against Israel over the issue of the control of that
nation's capital -- the city of Jerusalem. The Vatican wants the city put under its control. The United Nations wants it to be internationalized.
The European Union is demanding it be divided between the Arabs and the Jews. The Arabs want all of it.
And so you have it -- six different categories of signs, each category containing many prophecies concerning the end times, all of which
are being fulfilled before our very eyes.
Wishing you God’s very best as you look up, for your Redemption is drawing nigh.
Until next time,
Michael Ayers
Columbia, South Carolina
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
www.michaelayersministries.com
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