Considering answers to those faith-questions we all ask…
Category: BIBLE PROPHECY
I will speculate for my own curiosity but never claim that "the Lord told me", or that "The Bible says..." when it doesn't. However, I've asked myself numerous times in recent years how our world might pass from its present state of affairs to the one foretold in Revelation and other passages of Scripture. Here's a collection of rambling thoughts on the subject, guided by over forty years of interest and observation.
I spent the first two years of my Christian life telling my non-Christian friends and family that Jesus was coming back "in the next few years". That was forty-four years ago. Having been proven wrong at least in their eyes, apparently fulfilling their conviction that I was a gullible idiot, I could have tossed my Bible long ago in sheer embarrassment, had I allowed myself to be defeated. Thank the Lord, my faith persisted and I was blessed with a little insight, so that here I am still in love with my God and with all the Bible has to offer. Additionally, certain central facts relating to end-times prophecy have maintained my hope in the soon - coming of Christ, except perhaps with more caution.
In the seventeenth chapter of Revelation John is shocked to his core at the sight of a woman riding a dragon or "beast". She is named, "Mystery Babylon, mother of Harlots", and the horror of her appearance easily matches her title. The beast has seven heads and ten horns. As I've noted in previous parts of this series, the beast's seven heads represent kingdoms or empires in chronological order, and as a rule in Scripture they're epitomised by specific kings who defined those kingdoms or are icons of them.
Jesus and his apostles (the real ones) gave a clear picture of societal and cultural conditions which believers would experience in the times before Jesus' return. Some like to point out that New Testament references of the "last days" or "the day of the Lord" are referring to the entire time period from the resurrection of Christ, or from Pentecost onwards. We've always been in the "last days" they say. In a way that's true, but there's more to come. Go to any passage of Scripture where someone is speaking of end times things and you'll find they're speaking of the future, not their own time.
In his "Olivet Discourse" Jesus spoke of things to come both in the near future of the disciples' lives and in the far future. When they asked him, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3b) his first words were, “See to it that no one misleads you" (verse 4b NASB).
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 