Jesus teaches that scripture contains prophecy so that we will not be caught unaware when Jesus returns.
I’ve been asked recently if I believe that Jesus is going to return soon. My answer is always, “Yes and I don’t know.” We should live as if Jesus will return at any moment. We don’t know the exact day but we do know the season.
Lately I’ve been answering, “Yes” along with, “I don’t know.”
Jesus indicates there will be increasing symptoms before His return. He describes the signs as birth pangs.
I teach that in the end times, “Difficulties will increase with frequency and difficulty.”
Below is a checklist of my favorite end-times prophecies. They get on my list — though they were prophesied thousands of years ago — because they can only be fulfilled right now.
Israel was established as a nation in 1948. I believe Jesus prophesied that He would come back within a generation of the restoration of Israel. It’s 72 years … with a 70 year generation … is the soon return of Jesus really soon?
The Hebrew language would be restored. I heard a woman speaking Hebrew during a recent trip to Israel. She was talking in ancient Hebrew. You can’t go to Greece and hear a man speaking ancient Greek. But you can with ancient Hebrew — the only language ever to be restored after being lost.
Travel. The Bible says that people will travel back and forth. Until the Covid crises, people travelled back and forth. The phrase indicates casual or leisure travel — which has been possible and widely practiced recently.
God would call the Jews back from the lands of the North right before His return. There are about 1.5 million Russian-speaking Israeli citizens now .. almost 15% of the population.
World-wide impacting events. The Bible predicts a one-world government; one-world economy; one world instant video communication; one world pandemics and world-wide fear. Since 2012, smartphones have been exponentially available. Only today is it possible to have an instant world-wide audience.
I used to be a theologically ‘amillennial’. I thought prophecies were figurative imagery. I changed my mind when I noticed that prophecies for the first coming of Jesus were literally fulfilled.
My thinking: if they are literal for the first coming they are probably literal for the second coming.
I know … all of you are impressed with my intricate logic.
When the Magi came from the east to find Jesus. They went to Herod and asked where the great king was. Herod thought they were referring to him but before he puffed up his pride, the Magi said the great king had just been born. The chief priests were able to tell the Magi the exact location.
Prophecy said that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem.
Wow! A literally fulfilled prophecy. It is the same with end-time prophecies. They have literal fulfillment.
At no other time in history, can we have so many literally fulfilled prophecies.
Only now! Is the soon return of Jesus sooner that imagined?
(Boredom Game … all of the prophecies listed above are found in the following verses. I challenge you to spend today reading scripture and matching them to the prophecies. Luke 21.34; Luke 21.26; Luke 12.56; Luke 21.29-30; Matthew 24.32-36; Matthew 24.8; Amos 9,14-15; Zechariah 3.9; Revelation 12:18; Revelation 11; Revelation 6; Revelation 15-16 & Jeremiah 31.8