1. Jesus predicted signs in the religious world–false
Christs. Matthew 24:5 Followers of Jim
Jones of Jonestown, Guyana, and David Koresh in Waco, Texas, were all willing
to die for their self-proclaimed "messiahs." The Rev. Sun Yung Moon
and his Unification Church, Scientology, the new age movement–just a few
examples of the cults and self-proclaimed messiahs that abound today.
2. Jesus predicted signs in the political world–increase
of war. Matthew 24:6,7 History's two
bloodiest wars, both fought within the last century, failed to slow the
proliferation of war on our planet. The Atlanta based Center for
Conflict Resolution counted an average of 35-39 wars per year in the 1990's
alone! When Charles Urey witnessed the first atomic explosion in
1945, he tearfully muttered, "I am standing on the place where the end
of the world began." Iraq, Iran, North Korea, India and Pakistan
are now members of the nuclear weapons community, with no one certain who
joins next or what's happened to the former Soviet Union's nuclear stockpile.
Today's world diplomats have a new buzz word–"destabilization."
3. Jesus predicted signs in the natural world–famines,
pestilences,
earthquakes.
Matthew
24:7 While such things have plagued mankind for millenniums,
the experts who study them report their alarm at the numbers and destructiveness
of natural disasters that are increasing at an unprecedented rate.
4. Jesus predicted signs in the social
world–lawlessness and selfishness abound. Matthew
24:12 Former drug czar and Secretary of Education in the United
States, William Bennett, wrote a warning essay
about the moral free fall in the United States. Since 1960 the population
of the United States has increased 41%, while violent crime has increased
over 500%! Jesus spoke of the last days as a time of great "distress,"
and "perplexity," when "men's hearts" would be "failing them from fear
and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth." Luke
21:25,26
While the problems the problem conditions Jesus predicted would exist
at the end of time are not new in human history, analysts who study such
things say that today we live in the age of the exponential curve with
regard to every one of these problems. "We find that the specifics,
the dimensions, and the threat [of such problems] are all very different
today than ever before," writes Richard Swenson, M.D., in his book Margin.
"What is new," writes George Gallup, Jr., in his book Forecast
2000, "is the intensity with which they [the kinds of problems described
above] demand our attention. . . . I've come to feel a deep sense of urgency
about the Future Forces at work today. . . . I'm sufficiently convinced
that our society is heading in a dangerous direction that I feel compelled
to sound a note of extreme urgency."
We would be as foolish as Harry Truman, "the
old man of the mountain," to ignore the compelling evidence available
today that the end is near. Mark 13:29
God never revealed the exact day and hour of Jesus' return. Mark
13:32 If He had, we might feel we could wait to the last minute
and then cram to get ready, like we used to do during test week at school.
And a relationship with God doesn't work that way. However, Jesus
did
tell us how we could be ready for His return. Read it for yourself–Mark
13:33-37. And that's something you
can start doing right now.
