Luke 21:29-31 (Matthew 24:32-33, Mark 13:28-29) says,Ģ9 And He told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees: 30 as soon as they put forth leaves, you see for yourselves and know that summer is now near. Hopefully we will show how all things stated by the Scripture in this matter are unashamedly true without contradicting one another.Īll three synoptic gospels tell us with the same parable that we will be able to tell the signs of the end times and the coming of the Lord Jesus. At face value, the Scripture seems to contradict itself on whether or not we will be able to tell when we are in the end times.
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Knowledge of the end times is one such case.
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In other words, if two facts seem to contradict one another, find the interpretation which allows each fact to be true without contradicting the other. However, in many cases, we can find the deepest truths of Scripture by allowing these paradoxes to stand. When two contradicting truths arise in Scripture, many of us tend to gravitate toward one side or the other. Many matters in the Scripture often seem paradoxical. He Himself said that His words to “many” (Matthew 7:22) would be, “I never knew you, leave Me, you who practice lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:23)ĬAN WE ACTUALLY KNOW WHEN THE END TIMES ARE ON US? The Scriptures surely tell us that many would seek the coming of the Lord Jesus - but by doing so, they are actually hoping for their own destruction.Īmos prophesied that many who “are longing for the day of the Lord” will be confronted with “darkness and not light” (Amos 5:18) - simply acknowledging the Lord Jesus and hoping for His coming does not automatically mean that it will go well for us when He returns. Due to their worldly material discomfort - as Satanic world-power tightens its grip - they hope for the end times in fear. Biltz received a lot of media attention - including an endorsement from John Hagee - and sold many copies of his book Four Blood Moons prior to the supposed coming of the Lord.ĭespite these many demoralizing failures to predict the second coming, most Christians nevertheless eagerly await the “end times” - interpreting any daily event that shakes up their material comfort as a divine “sign” of the apocalypse.
END OF TIMES SERIES
Based on this idea - and sticking to their guns - they went on to form the Seventh-day Adventist Church.Ĭhristian pastor self-styled prophet, Mark Biltz, took the blood moon described Joel 2:31 and arbitrarily connected it with a series lunar eclipses that appeared to coincide with some Jewish feast days - starting on 15 April 2014 and ending on 28 September 2015. Based on some so-called “prophecies” their members had, they instead claimed that the Lord Jesus had cleansed the sanctuary in heaven - rather than returning to Earth. Needless to say, the Lord Jesus did not return, leading to what is referred to as the “Great Disappointment.”įrom there, the Millerites rationalized that they were in fact not wrong about the date of the prediction. His followers added yet more specificity to the prediction, claiming that the Lord would return on exactly 22 October 1844 - they had calculated that the Day of Atonement fell on that day, so it made sense to them that the Lord would return on the Day of Atonement. He then assumed the proclamation of Artaxerxes in Ezra 4 was the beginning of the 2,300 years it would take for the Lord Jesus to return. He applied the “day-year principle” from 2 Peter 3:8 to the “2,300 evenings and mornings” in Daniel 8:14, assuming that each day refers to a year.
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William Miller assumed that restoration of the sanctuary in Daniel 8:14 was a reference to the return of the Lord Jesus.
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The Millerite movement of the 1800s is one such example of this. Apparently, a massive comet appeared over Europe in 1,000 AD which threw gasoline on the general panic. In 999 AD, a “millennial panic” arose in many Christian circles - as many penitents flocked to their local churches and monasteries with their worldly possessions to get rid of them in anticipation of Christ’s imminent return at the turn of the new millennium. Sadly, the eagerness for many to see the end times in their own lifetimes has created a “boy who cried wolf” effect worldwide - making many understandably skeptical of any such claims - and of Christianity itself. Many denominations have invented their own versions of the end times over the last 2,000 years - mostly to suit their own agendas. We would like to discuss the implications of this statement in the context of the “end times.” As Christians, we should be “looking for and hastening the coming day of God” (2 Peter 3:12), which - in the same breath - Peter says “will come like a thief” (2 Peter 3:10).