Ringo
A WATCHMAN
What are the end times signs that signal Jesus' imminent return?
The Bible provides signs we are to watch for that will signal the season of the Lord's return. Today, one would have to be spiritually blind to not discern the fact that the future has arrived. The ancient prophecies pointing to the season of the Lord's return are being fulfilled before our very eyes. The signs are literally shouting the Lord's soon return. And yet, most Church leaders seem to be blind to the signs. Speaking of signs of the times how, for example, can a person ignore the supernatural regathering of the Jewish people back to their homeland from the four corners of the earth? This regathering in unbelief is the most prolific prophecy in the Old Testament, and it is always pictured in an end time context. Jeremiah proclaims two times that when history is over and done, and the Jewish people look back on it they will consider the current regathering to be a greater miracle than their deliverance from Egyptian captivity. This regathering began in the late 1890's and continues to this day from 40,000 Jews in Israel in 1900 to over 6 million today.
No other people in history have been so widely scattered all over the world. No other people in history have been so hated and so systematically persecuted. No other people have been submitted to such an unspeakable atrocity as the Holocaust. No other people have been so devoid of hope. Yet, God miraculously preserved them, as He said He would. And He has regathered them, just as He said He would. But Christian leaders write-off these miracles of their preservation and regathering as an "accident of history" with "no prophetic significance." Incredible! We are blessed to be the generation that is witnessing the fulfillment of these prophecies, and yet the average Christian seems totally unaware of them, and even worse, many who are aware of them have the unmitigated audacity to deny that they are a fulfillment of prophecy or that they have any spiritual significance.Twenty-five hundred years ago the prophet Daniel said that in the end times the last great Gentile Empire - the Roman Empire - would be revived and that the Antichrist would rise out of it. Is the revival of the Roman Empire today, in the form of the European Union, an accident of history? I don't think so.
The prophet Zechariah said that in the end times the nation of Israel would come back into existence and that all the nations of the world would come against it. Is the rebirth of the state of Israel in May of 1948 an accident? What about the way in which all the nations of the world are coming together against Israel over the issue of who will control Jerusalem? The prophet Ezekiel said that in the end times all the Arab nations would attempt to take the land of Israel. Are their attempts today an accident of history? Jesus said we were to watch Jerusalem. He prophesied that the city would be destroyed and the Jews dispersed, but He also prophesied that in the end times the Jews would return and occupy the city. Was the re-occupation of the city of Jerusalem by the Jews in June of 1967 for the first time in 1,897 years an accident of history? I don't think so. New Testament prophets warned that one of the foremost signs of the end times would be an epidemic of apostasy in the Church. Is the present gross apostasy we are experiencing today an accident of history? I don't think so.
Satan's Strategy
What's the problem with the Church today? Why are so many Christians and their leaders ignoring the fact that Jesus is at the very gates of Heaven waiting for His Father's command to return? Why is the Church so spiritually blind? Why are so many pastors more focused on church growth than on sounding the alarm that Jesus is coming soon? Again, the lackadaisical attitude that prevails about the Lord's imminent return is a fulfillment of end time prophecy. Listen to these words from 2 Timothy: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths." We have arrived at the end of the end times which began with the establishment of the Church on the Day of Pentecost. Again, we are living on borrowed time. Satan is working overtime to camouflage the fact. He is deceiving people into believing that the end times prophecies do not mean what they say. He is motivating well-meaning people to set dates for the Lord's return in order to discredit Bible prophecy. He is convincing pastors that Bible prophecy is pie-in-the-sky, with no relevance to the here and now. He is convincing both Christians and their leaders that Bible prophecy is some sort of a Chinese puzzle that no one can understand, and thus it is a waste of time to study it. In short, there is a satanic conspiracy to keep the truths of Bible prophecy in the dark.
Satan does not want anyone to know that Jesus is about to return. Nor does he want anyone to know that Bible prophecy reveals that when Jesus returns, Satan will be totally defeated and Jesus will be gloriously victorious and completely vindicated in history.
Dr. David R. Reagan
Maranatha!!
