The prophet Malachi refers to “the great and terrible day of the LORD” (Malachi 4:5). The prophet Joel refers to “the great and dreadful day of the LORD” (Joel 2:31, NIV). Why does each prophecy use such divergent terms to describe the same event? Why would the coming of the Lord be “great” on the one hand and “terrible” or “dreadful” on the other? In one sense, the Second Coming will be great in terms of its enormous scope and magnitude. Yet in another sense, the Day of the Lord will be great for those who have received Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord and thus are excited about his return and his loving and benevolent rule over the earth that will follow. However, the Scriptures also indicate that the Day of the Lord will be terrible and dreadful for those who have rejected Jesus as Messiah because the time for accepting him will have expired. Those who are not at that moment born again (as explained in John chapter 3) will go to hell. That’s how high the stakes are. This is why the Scriptures put such a heavy emphasis on the importance of believers sharing the good news of Christ’s love and forgiveness with the whole world and urging them to receive Christ as Savior before it is too late.
It should be noted here that all truly born-again followers of Jesus Christ believe that the second coming of Jesus Christ will occur at some point in the future. All the major Christian denominations around the world—and all independent Bible-believing and Bible-teaching congregations—hold the second coming of Christ as a fundamental, essential, and nonnegotiable element of orthodox Christian doctrine. To deny the second coming of Christ, which is taught clearly and unapologetically in the Bible, is heresy. The return of Jesus Christ to earth to be reunited with his followers is, therefore, an event that should unite all sincere Christians as something very much to look forward to.
That said, while all faithful Christians believe Jesus Christ is coming back, not all sincere Christians agree on all aspects of biblical eschatology, or End Times theology. There are differences of opinion on how to correctly interpret the Scriptures that describe what will happen in the last days and in what order these events will take place. These are important debates, and it is worth familiarizing yourself with these concepts from the Bible, but my purpose here is not to painstakingly go through every element of End Times prophecy. I do, however, recommend that you undertake your own study of these critical concepts. Why? Because these events are coming, and people need to know what’s ahead and be prepared. This is why we were given these prophecies: to offer us advance warning of the storms that are approaching so we can be ready and prepare others to be safe and secure through faith in Christ Jesus.
As I have pointed out, my intention here is not to attempt to settle disputes among Christians with regard to the specifics of the last days. It is, rather, first to acknowledge to those who have never seriously studied Bible prophecy that there are disagreements among men and women of goodwill. And second, I want to encourage you to study the Scriptures very carefully for yourself, pray and ask the Lord to reveal the truth to you, discuss these prophecies with family and friends, and seek to honestly discover their meaning.
What Are the Signs of the Last Days?
The good news is that the Bible provides a list of geopolitical, spiritual, and environmental signs that will be visible in the last days as we get closer to the return of Christ. The most famous and detailed explanation of these signs was given by the Lord Jesus himself on the Mount of Olives, just outside the city of Jerusalem. Shortly before his arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection, Jesus was asked by his disciples, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3). The disciples, eager to understand the future, were hoping Jesus would give them at least one sign that would help them know when the “end of the age” would occur and the reign of the Messiah on earth would begin.
The conversation that ensued, often referred to by Bible scholars as the Olivet discourse, was so important that it was recorded at length in three of the Gospel accounts. Jesus could have given a very political answer, like “No comment. Next question.” Instead, he answered their questions. But rather than giving them just one sign of the last days, he described numerous signs.
Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 give us three vantage points on Christ’s teaching about the signs of the last days. When one carefully studies all three accounts of the Olivet discourse, along with the other passages in the Old and New Testaments that refer to the last days, a fascinating and sobering list emerges.
Here are twenty signs Bible prophecy tells us we will see in the last days:
1. Wars and rumors of wars
2. Uprisings and revolutions and kingdoms being shaken
3. Famines
4. Earthquakes
5. Pestilences and plagues
6. Terrors and growing fears
7. Great signs in the heavens and bloodred moons
8. The roaring of the sea and the waves
9. Persecution of the church
10. Apostasy of the church
11. Betrayal
12. Lawlessness
13. False prophets and false teachers
14. False messiahs
15. Increase in knowledge and travel
16. The State of Israel being reborn and increasingly becoming the epicenter of international attention
17. The gospel being preached to every nation
18. A spiritual awakening in Israel and among the Jewish people
19. A spiritual awakening in Iran
20. An increase in mockery of Bible prophecy
That’s quite a list—yet these signs are just the beginning. “But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs,” the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 24:8 (see also Mark 13:8). In other words, the Bible teaches that while all of these signs will be visible in the last days as we approach the Day of the Lord and the Second Coming, these and other events will radically accelerate and intensify as the time of Christ’s return draws nearer.
Are We Seeing the Signs Come to Pass?
Is there any sign on that list we haven’t seen come to pass over the course of the last century?
Let’s briefly consider a few of these “birth pangs.”
Wars and Revolutions
Jesus told his disciples that in the last days there would be “wars and rumors of wars” when “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” (Matthew 24:6-7). Surely there have been wars and rumors of wars throughout history, but have any been as widespread and destructive as the wars in the last century? They were, after all, called World War I and World War II for a reason—because they were unprecedented in their scope and devastation. The first led to at least 37 million casualties (injuries and deaths), including 200,000 American casualties.[109] The second led to at least 46 million deaths alone—including 6 million Jews exterminated by the Nazis—though some historians believe the number of worldwide military and civilian deaths tops 60 million.[110] Add to this all the other wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and a ghastly picture emerges unlike any other period in history, yet consistent with the prophecies.
Jesus also said there would be uprisings and revolutions and geopolitical disturbances in the last days (see Luke 21:9-10). Surely there have been uprisings and revolutions throughout history, but there has never been a span of history with more sweeping, bloody, and internationally game-changing revolutions as the last hundred years or so. One country after another has experienced unprecedented upheavals, from the Mexican Revolution of 1910, to the Russian Revolution of 1917, to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, to the Cultural Revolution in China from 1966 to 1976, to the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, to the pro-democracy revolutions that brought down the Warsaw Pact countries and the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, to the multiple Palestinian uprisings, to the 2011 revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya that led to the downfall of each of those Arab countries’ tyrannical yet long-serving dictators. The list g
oes on and on, including revolutions in Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Bosnia, Rwanda, Liberia, and beyond. These trends are all consistent with Bible prophecy.
Earthquakes
Jesus said in the last days there would be “earthquakes” and “great earthquakes” (Matthew 24:7; Luke 21:11). Can anyone reasonably deny that this has been happening in the past century or so?
The top five most intense earthquakes in all of recorded history have occurred since 1900, each 9.0 or higher on the Richter scale.[111] Three of the top five deadliest earthquakes in human history have occurred since 1900.[112] The 2011 earthquake in Haiti “only” registered 7.0 on the Richter scale, and thus isn’t in the top five, or the top ten, or even the top hundred most intense earthquakes in history in terms of magnitude. It actually ranks number 352.[113] Yet it was the deadliest earthquake in nearly five hundred years and the second-deadliest earthquake in all of recorded history.[114]
Given increasing urbanization around the globe, an earthquake doesn’t necessarily have to be a 9.0 magnitude or higher to cause apocalyptic levels of death and destruction. The 2005 earthquake in northern Pakistan, for example, measured “only” 7.6, yet tragically 86,000 people died, and some 4 million people were left homeless. Likewise, the 2008 earthquake in eastern China measured “only” 7.9 but killed more than 87,000 people and displaced more than 5 million people.[115] Again, such trends are consistent with Bible prophecy.
The Remarkable Advance of the Gospel
The good news, Jesus said, was that in the last days, “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). In other words, Jesus’ return won’t occur until every man, woman, and child in every nation on the planet has had the opportunity to hear the salvation message of Jesus Christ and has had the opportunity to either receive Christ or reject him. Church congregations, denominations, parachurch ministries, and missionaries around the globe have worked hard over the past several centuries to accomplish this task of giving everyone the opportunity to hear the gospel. With the advent of radio, broadcast television, satellite television, the Internet, and new developments in transportation and translation technology, the most dramatic advancements in the history of the gospel have been made over the past century. Some pastors and missions experts say we still have a ways to go to reach everyone on the planet. Others, however, believe we may actually be there already.
Consider, for example, the reach and impact of just two ministries: the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the JESUS film project. Two Time magazine reporters published a book in 2007 noting that “Billy Graham is believed to have spoken face-to-face with more people in more places than anyone in history, having preached the gospel to 210 million people in 185 countries in 417 crusades over the course of more than half a century. Not even Billy Sunday or Dwight L. Moody or any of the great evangelists going back to Saint Paul had spread their message so far; it was Billy Graham alone, inserted into history at just the right moment, who became the unrivaled global ambassador for Christ.”[116]
At the same time, the JESUS film—produced in 1979 by Warner Brothers and Campus Crusade for Christ—has been translated into more than five hundred languages and dialects. It has been shown by Campus Crusade and more than 1,500 other Christian agencies in every country on the planet. According to the JESUS film project’s website, the film “has had more than 6 billion viewings worldwide since 1979” and “as a result, more than 200 million people have indicated decisions to accept Christ as their personal Savior and Lord.”[117] These trends too are consistent with the fulfillment of Bible prophecies.
Skeptics and Cynics
Are there skeptics out there, people who are cynical about the possibility that we may be living in the last days? Are there those who mock followers of Jesus Christ for believing in the Bible and in the prophecies of Christ’s second coming? Of course. But that should come as no surprise. Indeed, Bible prophecy tells us there will be mockers in the last days. “Know this first of all,” the apostle Peter wrote, “that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation’” (2 Peter 3:3-4). Such mockers are all around us, and we should expect their numbers to grow.
One night in the spring of 2011, while I was taking a break from working on this book, I was scanning through the TV channels and saw MSNBC talk show host Lawrence O’Donnell mocking the Bible. “The book of Revelation is a work of fiction describing how a truly vicious God would bring about the end of the world,” O’Donnell said. “No half-smart religious person believes the book of Revelation.”[118]
In his 2000 book, The End of Days, Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg mocked belief in biblical prophecies of the End Times as a “fantasy” and “dangerous.”[119]
Bill Moyers, the longtime PBS journalist and former White House press secretary for President Lyndon Johnson, mocked American Christians during a 2004 speech, saying that evangelicals care nothing for the environment because the last days are here. “Why care about the earth when the droughts, floods, famine, and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the Rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?” he sneered, quoting a left-wing journalist who had caught his attention. Calling End Times beliefs “bizarre,” Moyers was incredulous that there are actually “people who believe the Bible is literally true” and that they are trying to shape the future of America.[120]
Kevin Phillips, the former Republican political strategist, wrote in his bestselling 2006 book, American Theocracy, that Americans who believe in Bible prophecy are “overimaginative” at best and “radical” at worst, asserting that “the rapture, end-times, and Armageddon hucksters in the United States rank with any Shiite ayatollahs.”[121]
Over the years, I’ve met similar skeptics, cynics, and mockers. Occasionally they’ve challenged me during speaking events. Often they e-mail me. I have been interviewed by some of them on radio and television and for various newspaper and magazine articles and for books. Fox News Channel analyst Alan Colmes once asked me on his late-night radio show whether Jesus was coming back so soon that he needn’t bother picking up his dry cleaning or buying green bananas.
A few years ago, I was interviewed by a Cambridge- and Princeton-educated professor of history from Great Britain named Nicholas Guyatt. He said he was writing a serious book about American evangelical Christianity and Americans’ interest in Bible prophecy. I was happy to answer his questions, even knowing he was, at best, a skeptic. The final product, unfortunately, did not turn out to be a serious look at the beliefs of sincere Christians, as Guyatt suggested.
Guyatt’s book, Have a Nice Doomsday: Why Millions of Americans Are Looking Forward to the End of the World, turned out to be part mockery, part incredulity that so many Americans could believe such ridiculous things. He wrote, “It’s easy to imagine Bible prophecy as a playpen for lunatics” and that “the temptation, when considering these notorious cult leaders or the avid audience for the Left Behind novels, is to dismiss End Times thinking as deranged.”[122] Yes, people have believed in Bible prophecy through the ages, he conceded, but he argued that it’s worse now because “apocalyptic Christians” are trying to persuade officials in Washington to bring about the end of the world. He warned that Christian interest in the last days, and specifically in the reconstruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, is not only “kooky” but “lethal.”[123]
Bottom Line
We are living at an extraordinary moment in human history. The Bible gives us a list of signs to be watching for that indicate when the return of Jesus Christ is in
creasingly close at hand. Remarkably, we have seen all of these signs come to pass over the past century or so, and we are continuing to see them come to pass in our lifetime, up to and including this present time. From this preliminary assessment, is it reasonable to conclude that we are living in what the Bible calls the last days? I believe it is. But let’s go further.
CHAPTER SIX
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE REBIRTH OF ISRAEL
The most definitive and conclusive sign that we are living in the era the Bible calls the last days was the miraculous rebirth of the State of Israel in 1948, the return of millions of Jews to the Holy Land after centuries of exile, the wars and rumors of wars that have engulfed the Jewish state for the last half century and more, the rebuilding of the ancient ruins in Israel, and the increasing international focus on the nation of Israel as the epicenter of the momentous events that are shaking our world and shaping our future. Some Bible scholars have described the rebirth of Israel as the “super sign,” and I agree.
Many people did not see the modern resurrection of the Jewish state coming. Many thought it would never happen and shouldn’t. For centuries, world leaders had cruelly scattered and persecuted the Jewish people and denied their right to return to their ancient homeland. Sadly, even many church leaders throughout history came to believe in a pernicious doctrine called “replacement theology,” which denied the veracity and legitimacy of Bible prophecies that said Israel would be reborn in the last days. Such replacement theologians, and the pastors and laypeople who read and followed their conclusions, said God had rejected the Jewish people and would no longer honor the ancient covenants to give the Jewish people the heretofore “Promised Land.” Unfortunately, many people in the United States and around the world also vigorously opposed the creation of the modern State of Israel. Indeed, most of the Arab and Islamic world was willing to use any means necessary, including war, to strangle the reborn infant nation in her cradle, as they demonstrated time and time again.
Implosion: Can America Recover From Its Economic and Spiritual Challenges in Time? Page 8