by Dr. David R. Reagan
The Bible says we cannot know the time of the Lord's return (Matthew 25:13). But the Scriptures make it equally clear that we can know the season of the Lord's return (1 Thessalonians 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 asserts that Jesus is coming like "a thief in the night."
But 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 (Hebrews 10:25-27). Jesus also referred to the end time signs in His Olivet Discourse, given during the last week of His life (Matthew 24 and Luke 21). 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" (Matthew 24:33)
The First Sign
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 November 2,
1917.
This Declaration was prompted by the fact that during
World War I the Turks sided with the Germans. Thus, 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, called the Ottoman Empire,
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. He immediately recognized the prophetic significance of the
Declaration, for he was well aware that the Scriptures prophesy that the
Jewish people will be regathered to their homeland in unbelief 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. In that letter, he
stated, "The signs of the times point toward the close of the time 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.
There is no doubt that these events in 1917 marked
the beginning of the end times because they led to the worldwide
regathering of the Jewish people to their homeland and the
reestablishment of their state.
Since 1917
Since the time of the Balfour Declaration, 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.
I have personally been searching the Bible for years
in an effort to identify all the signs, and it has not been an easy task
to get a hold on them. That's because there are so many of them, both
in the Old and New Testaments.
I have found that the best way to deal with them is
to put them in categories, and in doing that, I have come up with six
categories of end time signs.
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 pangs" (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. For
example, between October of 1991 and November of 2004 — a period of 13
years — the United States experienced:
- 9 of the 10 largest insurance natural disasters in history.
- 9 of the 10 greatest disasters as ranked by FEMA relief costs.
- 5 of its costliest hurricanes in history.
- 3 of its 4 largest tornado swarms in history.
And keep in mind that these statistics were complied before the Hurricane Katrina disaster in August of 2005!
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 Timothy 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 (Galatians 6:7).
He therefore sees to it that when people chose Humanism, Materialism,
and Hedonism, the payoff is always Nihilism — which is a fancy
philosophical word for despair.
Need I emphasize 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 one
found in 2 Timothy 4:3-4:
"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 in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths."
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 (Matthew 24:5, 11, 24). And in fulfillment of these prophecies, we have experienced an explosion of cults since 1850.
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 Cessationism. This view 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 Azuza 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
re-established in their homeland (Joel 2:18-26).
The latter rain began with the Pentecostal Movement,
just as God began to regather 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.
In addition to the rediscovery of the Holy Spirit,
there are other positive spiritual prophecies being fulfilled today —
like the preaching of the Gospel worldwide (Matthew 24:14), the revival of Davidic praise worship (Amos 9:11) and the emergence of Messianic Judaism (Romans 9:27).
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 again?
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.
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