Modern Signs of the Times - Christ in Prophecy
(Land and Lion Ministries) – Dr. David Reagan August 24, 2015 Podcast
Do you know that although we cannot know the date of the Lord’s return we can know the season? The reason is because the Bible gives us signs of the times to watch for. What are those signs? Are there any that are unique to our day and time?
We are to live with the expectation of the expectation of the Lord’s return at any moment. The Bible clearly reveals that living with that expectation will have a spiritually cleansing effect on our spirit.
When you live with your heart set on the Lord’s return it will have a purifying effect on your life.
The signs of the times that are revealed in both the old and new testaments concerning the Lord’s second returning are very important and should not be ignored. This was taken from the presentation …
The Bible says that there are end times prophecies that will not be understood until the time comes for us to understand them.
The Bible says that there are end times prophecies that will not be understood until the time comes for us to understand them. Jeremiah was told that. Isaiah was told that. Daniel was told that. In Daniel 12, Daniel was given all these prophecies and he did not understand these prophecies and he was wringing his hands. “As for me I heard but I could not understand. I said ‘My Lord, what are these events?’” and He, God said, “Go your way Daniel, for these words are concealed, and sealed up until the end time.” Daniel said “Lord, I don’t understand what these prophecies mean.” He, God, said “It’s not for you to understand them; it’s for you to write them down. When the time comes, they will be understood”. That’s one of the reasons I know for certain that we are living on borrowed time. We can be confident we are living in the end time because we are understanding prophecies that no other generation in all recorded history has understood. We understand them for one of two reasons.
First reason, we’re understanding them because of historical developments. How could you understand all the prophecies about Israel before Israel even came into existence?
Or, take for example, the C.I. Scofield study Bible, Scofield was a Dallas pastor who wrote the very first Study Bible 1909 where he put study notes at the bottom of the page. About Ezekiel 38 and 39, he said, “I don’t understand it but the Bible says it, I’m going to believe it”, in the end times Russia invades Israel. In 1939 Israel did not exist. There was no prospect that Israel would ever exist. Russia was a Christian orthodox nation in 1909. A Christian Orthodox nation is going to invade a nation that does not exist?
There are many prophecies through the years that we never understood, somehow or other God will bring them all together. Israel now exists, Russia is an aggressive nation. They have just taken Georgia for the purpose of providing their land bridge to come down into Israel. We can see it all coming together. We understand it whereas other generations did not understand it.
Second reason, technical developments.
With that background here’s a few prophecies. In the book of Revelation are prophecies that we have never understood until now, until this generation. They are modern day signs of the times.
- The magnitude of the tribulation’s slaughter in Revelations Ch. 6-9. It says that the seal judgments are going to fall upon this earth through the tribulation that ¼ of humanity will die. There’s 6 billion people today, ¼ is ½ billion are going to die in the initial war of the tribulation. In WWII 60 million died. In the second stage of that war 1/3 of those remaining will die. That is another 1½ billion. By the middle of the Tribulation, in 3 ½ years ½ of humanity will die. 3 billion in 3 ½ years. No wonder it’s called the “Great Tribulation”. It's no wonder that Jesus said that if God didn’t bring it to a halt, all of humanity would cease to exist. It’s going to be a time of absolutely unparalleled horror.
How could this be? How can that many people die? Before our generation it was interpreted by it’s all going to be done supernaturally. God was going to pour our wrath from heaven and kill all these people because they’re rebelling against him ‘cause their refusal to accept the lord as their savior. Today we can understand this in naturalistic terms. All the development of atomic energy with the explosion of the first atomic bomb in August 1945. We can understand that we now have the power ourselves to bring about such a massive destruction upon ourselves. When you read the book of Revelation and our modern viewpoint it suddenly appears that John is talking about a nuclear even that’s going to occur in the end times. He’s describing this nuclear war in first century language. It appears that what’s going to happen is that God is going to pour out his wrath the way he normally does it as in Romans 1. When a society simply refuses to repent and when the entire world refuses to repent, God steps back and lowers the hedge of protection. He says “Alright, if you want to live like that then I’m going to lower the hedge of protection and let evil multiply.” It says that when He does that, the first thing that happens is a sexual revolution which occurred in this country in the 1960’s. Then he says that if the people do not repent, he steps back a second time and lowers the hedge of protection and a homosexual plague happens. Then it says that if they still refuse to repent he steps back a third time and lowers the hedge of protection and he turns the society over to a deceived mind and the society destroys itself. He lets man just destroy itself. I think that’s what he’s going to do in the end times, lower the hedge and people are going to use the weapons we have accumulated, man’s never created a weapon he hasn’t used. Fortunately the atomic weapon’s only been used once in history, at the end of WWII, but we have stockpiled them and they’re going to be used as man’s heart takes over and people start pressing the button. This sounds like what Jesus refers to in Luke 21:26 says “Men will faint from fear over the expectation over the things that are coming in the world for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” … a Nuclear Holocaust in the end times?
- The size of the Asian army. In Revelation 9 and 16 it to the fact that in the Tribulation an army of 200 million Asians will march across Asia towards Israel. Will these be Asians in revolt against the Antichrist? When the Antichrist takes over the world, the Bible says he will take over every nation of the world. He’ll do that through military force. He’ll rise to power in Europe through his charisma, his dynamism, through all that but, he’s going to have to conquer the rest of the world through force. The world’s not going to come and bow down to the antichrist and say we want you to rule us. Asia, Africa, and Latin America have not been 200 years getting out from underneath European rule to say to a European ruler and say “Come and Rule us.” He’s going to have to conquer them. I think that in the middle of the Tribulation, when he begins to focus on one thing, to destroy the Jewish people, his empire is going to start falling apart and that army of 200 million is going to start walking across Asia to destroy him.
Now why is that a modern day sign of the times?
Let’s say that this chart (left) is the population of the world at the time of Jesus. If you were to plot the population of the world century after century after century it would be almost a level line. It took 1650 years for the population of the world to double. Do you know what the population of the world was at the time of Jesus? The population was, at the time of Jesus, 200 million. This prophecy says the army of 200 million is going to walk across Asia. How can an army of 200 million cross Asia when there are only 200 million people on the earth? John didn’t understand the prophecy. Nobody understood the prophecy until now. It wasn’t until 1650 that the population reached 40 million. It wasn’t until 1850 that the population of the world reached 1 billion. Here’s a chart pulled out the UN showing the exponential curve of the growth of world population. The curve starts at about 1900 when it starts up.
We enter the 20th century with 1 billion people. We ended the 1st century with 6 billion people. That is an exponential curve.
The question is what caused this? Why in the world did this happen? It’s due to modern medicine. Most of us don’t realize how modern “modern medicine” is. The reason why so many people died in the civil was from infection from the smallest of nicks, you’d probably die from lockjaw. And in WWI and in the flu epidemic that killed 40 million people. Flu, if it turned into pneumonia, you died. It wasn’t until 1832 that the germ theory was discovered. It was 1867 when antiseptic operating procedures were developed. 1895 x-rays were discovered. 1897 aspirin was discovered. Could you imagine people lived 5000 years without aspirin? 1900 the developing of blood typing, 1921 insulin. 1928, the greatest medical discovery of all time, the very first antibiotic was discovered, penicillin. “Thanks to penicillin, he will come home.” The result is astounding. Did you know that if you were over 35 years old then (1928) you have lived longer than the vast majority of all who ever lived on planet earth. Did you know that the beginning of the 20th century life expectancy of an American was 47 years. 100 years later, it was 77 years. If you had been born in the 19th century and had an appendicitis attack, you were dead.
Amazing … 2/3 of all the people who have ever lived to 65 are alive this moment!
They’re alive this moment. Life has been short and brutal throughout most of history and the key to all this, again, is modern medicine.
Prophecies fulfilled, or to be fulfilled
The display of two witnesses. In Revelation 11 it says that in the end times there’s going to be two witnesses of God who will be in Jerusalem, preaching the gospel, calling the world to repentance and the whole world will hate them with a passion. Every night, you can imagine, the news commentators saying, “Well here comes what the two witnesses had to say today.” And everybody’s sitting there griping, “we don’t want to hear this.” They hate them with a passion but they’re supernaturally protected by God. Then in Revelation 11 it says that when the antichrist goes to Jerusalem and declares himself to be God, the first thing he does is kill these two guys. The whole world rejoices. The only rejoicing you’ll find in the tribulation. They’re so happy they exchange gifts. There’s a satanic Christmas in the middle of the tribulation. It says that their bodies lie in the streets of Jerusalem three days. On the third day as the whole world is watching he bodies lay in the streets of Jerusalem, they are suddenly resurrected and raptured up to heaven and the whole world is astonished. How can the whole world look upon two bodies lying in the streets of Jerusalem? We understand that because of the development of satellite communication technology. Modern thing. So modern that in 1956 there was 17,500 students in the university, in 1957 the Russians put up the first satellite, Sputnik, mid 60s we started to put up communication satellites. Today we have satellites for everything. It’s no problem seeing two bodies lying in any streets. Before our generation, nobody understood this prophecy of how the whole world could look upon such a thing. It is a modern day sign of the times.
- The animation of the antichrist image. In revelation 13, it says that in the end times the false prophet, right in the middle of the tribulation it’s going to create an image of the antichrist “while the whole world is looking on” he’s going to do some mumbo jumbo and the image is going to come alive and begin to speak. People will become convinced that it must be god and the false prophet must be true because he has the power of life and death. Satan does not have the power to give life to anything. I believe that this is going to be an illusion, a deception that has never been possible until now, through animation and technology. We can do that now. We are the first generation that can make things look completely believable. Photo-shopped images.
- The “Mark of the Beast”. It will be taken in the end times. People will not be able to buy or sell without this mark. The antichrist will be able to control the whole world? Now we have computers and laser technology. It is now within the realm of possibility.
- The reunification of Europe prophesied by Daniel thousands of years ago. Throughout history person after person after person has tried to rebuild the Roman Empire. Alexander the great, Hitler and his third Reich, Stalin, Napoleon, and so many others tried, never were they able. Jean Monee finally said the only way to do it is to come together and cooperate and now we have the world’s great superpower, the European Union. When it was God’s timing, it happened. The Bible says in the end times the Roman Empire will come back together before our very eyes. It’s a miracle second only to the re-establishment of the nation of Israel in the 20th century.
- The pouring out of the Holy Spirit. The Bible talks about, in the Old Testament and the New Testament, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the early reign and the latter reign. The early reign was pentacaust. There will be a great pouring out of the Holy Spirit in the end times AFTER Israel is re-established in the land (Joel chapter 2). There’s a civil manifestation of this. The rediscovery of the Holy Spirit. In the beginning of the 20th century both Catholicism and Protestantism believed in what is called cessationalism. This is the belief that at the end of the first century when the last apostle died the gifts of the holy spirit ceased, the work of the Holy Spirit ceased, the work of the Holy Spirit went into retirement and it was not until the 20th century that through the Pentecostal, charismatic movement, that people began to believe that the Holy Spirit is still alive and well, active, gifting people, even the most conservative churches believe in that today.
- The preaching of the gospel worldwide. We are living in exciting times. The Bible says that in the end times the gospel will be preached all over the whole world. 70% of all missions work in history has been done since 1900. 70% of that since 1945. 70% of that since 1985. Because of modern technology. On radio you can hear the name of Jesus in every language.
- The emergence of Messianic Judaism. 1967 when the 6 day war occurred there was not one single messianic congregation on planet earth. Today there are over 500. There are over 70 in Israel alone. Jews by the 100,000’s, even by over a million have come to the Lord Jesus Christ in a great move of the Holy Spirit. These are the first fruits of the great Jewish remnant that’s going to accept Jesus in the end times.
- And then the understanding of Bible prophecy. We are understanding things we never understood before. We are living in the season of the Lord’s return. It’s another manifestation of the Holy Spirit. The message is that we are living on borrowed time. Jesus is returning soon and are you paying attention to the signs? Are you really paying attention?
- How about the acceleration of life. The explenential curve. Every aspect of live, power, violence, communication, transportation, all on the explenential curve. The Bible says that will be the case in the end times. It’s a sign that we’re living on borrowed time.
We need to get our lives in order to get ready for the coming of the Lord.
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