Jesus proclaimed the Signs of the Times, is now ...

The Time of the Signs

If we are living in the end-time of man's occupation and misrule of planet Earth, what would you expect the "signs of the times" to be? And can you do anything about it?

That master newscaster of all time, Jesus Christ, predicted today's news with uncanny accuracy. Also, through the prophets of Israel he inspired an open window though which to view those momentous events and conditions that would be signs of the tumultous end of our age.

We live in that end-time, in the "time of the signs".

Earth's billions, if we have eyes to see, now live in the time when these predicted signs would burst on the world.

Against astronomical odds, all these events - predicted from two to three thousand years ago - will take place together within a single generation. A cluster of events that has never happened until now. Only a very few of the following predicted signs have not yet happened.

Can you discern which ones? Keep this list of 48 signs handy and check them off when you see them happen!

1. Increased capacity to make war through technology
2. Widespread and horrific bloodshed between and within many nations
3. A movement to conformity of religion worldwide
4. Gross deviation from Bible teachings
5. Appearance of a globally acclaimed religious leader
6. Heavy influence from eastern religions, the occult, astrology
7. Expectation of peace, with no peace
8. A viable Jewish State in Palestine
9. A peace treaty in the Mid East
10. Continuing overt hatred of Jews by Arabs
11. Talk of, and then action on, the building of a place for sacrifice in Jerusalem
12. The restoration of sacrificial worship in Jerusalem
13. Military invasion of Israel by international forces
14. Famines due to upset weather, wars, pollution, population pressure
15. Large-scale and life-threatening man-made pollution
16. Economic decline and megadeaths because of disease
17. Destructive natural convulsions: quakes, floods, fires, heat, cold
18. Asteroids etc devastating huge areas of the earth
19. The moral and economic decline of the Anglo-Saxon nations
20. Serious health problems in these nations, including birth defects
21. And massive inner-city problems
22. With decline in agricultural output
23. Massive military defeat of Britain and the USA with over two-thirds of the population dead or exiled
24. A mass deportation of Jews from the land of Israel
25. Unwise, weak and vascillating leadership in the democracies
26. The appearance of a powerful and dynamic leader in Europe
27. The neglect of justice: bad laws, unbalanced judgments, favor to the rich, neglect of lone parents, the sick and the poor
28. Decline in civil values and human character
29. Disrespect for the elderly, for parents and for the young
30. Increased leisure/unemployment
31. Notable corruption at all levels of society
32. Increased criminal activity including murder and assault
33. A short-lived union of ten European nations, led by a united Germany, in a military alliance against the Anglo-Saxon nations
34. The call for a strong leader to solve massive world problems
35. International military co-operation
36. A movement towards establishing a world government
37. Europe, a vast international trading place
38. A move towards an economically controlled society worldwide
39. The growth of anti-semitism
40. Burgeoning scientific development and fast communications
41. Civil strife in Eurasia - China, the CIS states, India etc. - leading to massive and destructive, possibly nuclear, war there. Accompanied by terrible famine, disease, wild animals on the rampage.
42. The rise of Islamic militancy and anti-Western sentiment, with a huge federation of Islamic nations, centered in Iran-Iraq
43. Many claiming to be a Messiah
44. Superficial religiosity without true religious substance
45. The ability by mankind to destroy all life on earth
46. Spectacular events in the skies

Remember! All these events are predicted to occur within the generation that sees the return of Jesus Christ.

A glance at these predicted situations will make clear that we are surely in the time of the signs prophesied in the Scriptures. Most of them are preoccupations of our daily news!

Unprecedented troubles yet lie ahead for the world. And more specifically for those nations descended from the Biblical patriarch Jacob. The near future harbors the "time of Jacob's trouble".

You, too, will be embroiled in the coming holocaust - but only if you refuse to make the changes in your life that God demands.

"Seek you the LORD all you humble of the land who do his commands... perhaps you may be hidden in the day of the wrath of the LORD" [Zephaniah 2:3]

Remarkable prophetic odds

Dr Peter Stoner [Science Speaks, 1958] estimated the odds against just 48 of the 300 or so Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah being fulfilled in one person. He calculated the odds at 1 in 10 to the power 157.

The fact of Jesus' Messiahship is "proved perhaps more absolutely than any other fact in the world" he says.

The odds against all these 48 prophesied end-time events here listed taking place in one generation is surely equally great, and equally astonishing.

Stoner calculates that if you were to count at a rate of 250 per minute, it would take 190 million years to count a line of electrons one inch long. A cubic inch of electrons would take 190 million x 190 million x 190 million years to count. Stoner says that if we took one electron. marked it and stirred it into that one cubic inch, then asked a blind person to find it - his chance of success would be the same as any one man fulfilling even 48 of the 300 Old Testament Messianic prophecies! Or of all 48 of the prophesied events listed here taking place within one generation.

To comment on this article or request more information, please contact James McBride by e-mail at the comment form below.

For PDF or mailed copy, see CGOM. Excerpt from New Horizons Volume 1 Issue 5, September/October 1997. Edited by James McBride of the Churches of God, United Kingdom.

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