Understanding Jesus' Teachings on the End Times

Jesus predicted four signs of the end times: an increase in earthquakes, wars, famines, and plagues.

These signs are already happening, but we should not be troubled because they must come to pass.

The end is not yet, and we should be patient and not try to predict the exact timing of Jesus' return.

The increase in these disasters is a sign of the lead-up to Jesus' return, but it is not a cause for alarm.

The Prophesy of Jesus For more than 50 years, I've heard one particular prophecy, one from Jesus himself, being preached in churches wherever I have attended. That prophecy is virtually word for word the same in the 24th chapter of Matthew, the 13th chapter of Mark, and the 21st chapter of Luke. It predicts four generalized world events, which together, are called the beginning of sorrows. They are an increase in earthquakes, an increase in wars and worries about war, an increase in famines, and an increase in plagues. While there may yet be a more dramatic and instantaneous fulfillment of this prophecy, what I have seen in the panorama of world history over the past 50 to 60 years of my lifetime has been more or less an increase in all four of these areas of activity. It is no wonder that so many preachers, when talking about Bible prophecy, have pointed this out. Some of this increase can be explained simply because our knowledge of what is happening in the world around us has increased dramatically over the past 50 years. There may, for example, have been times in the early history of the world when earthquakes were much more frequent than they are now, but we have little or no record of most of them. Today we know, for example, that as many as half a million earthquakes occur every year, and we have written records for most of them. We had no such records even a hundred years ago, So it may not be so much an increase in activity that we are witnessing, but it is definitely an increase in our awareness of such activity. In 1935, the Richter scale for measuring the magnitude of earthquakes was developed. And since then, we've been able to make more meaningful comparisons between one quake and another, as we talk them up in the media in everyday conversation. But listen to what we can say about earthquakes since the Richter scale was developed. The two biggest earthquakes ever recorded were about 60 years ago, in 1960 and in 1964, in Chile and Alaska. They had magnitudes of 9.5 and 9.2 respectively. Then, in 2004 and 2011, little more than 15 years ago, two earthquakes of magnitude 9.1 and 9 caused huge tsunamis in Indonesia and Japan in particular. In 2018, Indonesia was hit with nine significant earthquakes, one after the other. More than two million people were affected. We also know that from 1990 to the present, there has, in fact, been a measurable increase in significant earthquakes. One graph showing, year by year, the number of earthquakes which have caused historically significant damage, caused quite a sensation among conspiracy theories when it was released, because the increase was so dramatic. The link below is to a website which challenges the extent of increase, as indicated by the graph. It gives a more balanced interpretation of the data, but it still acknowledges that there has been a definite trend toward more earthquakes over the past 40 years. More recently, that is, over the past five years, there have been reports of increased smaller earthquakes in oil fields around the US, Although independent studies have not yet been made in other areas where oil sources are being depleted, it is likely that similar activity is happening in them as well. But earthquakes are just one of the four signs of the times, which the Bible asks us to watch for. Another sign to watch for is an increase in wars and something called rumors of wars. Newspapers and the mass media were unheard of in Bible times but there can be no denying that talk about war that is rumors of war is being heard read and watched by millions of people all over the globe virtually every day of the year in the 21st century And it is not all just talk. All-out war features heavily in the last hundred years or so as well. There were more deaths from war in the first half of the 20th century than in all the wars throughout recorded history, Even when adjusted to reflect the human population, the death rate from war in the first half of the 20th century was far more than 10 times the death rate at any other time in recorded history. But there is a paradox with regard to this prediction about war. True, the Bible predicts a time when there will be greater suffering than at any other period in history. Many people are deeply worried about that at the moment. However, there are also prophecies which suggest that in the period immediately prior to this period of great tribulation, there will be greater peace than has happened previously. It says that through peace, the coming world ruler will be able to deceive much of the world into a spirit of complacency. So, perhaps for now, in the lead-up to a one-world government, there will be a shift to little more than rumors about war, until the Great Trouble itself comes crashing down on everyone in a sudden surprise military takeover. A third sign to watch for is famines. Ironically, there is a deeply disturbing link between some of the worst famines in history and the prevalence of totalitarian regimes, which have deliberately inflicted those famines on their opponents in the past 60 years or so. This is unique throughout history. Our World in Data, a website dedicated to the collection of data about world demographics and history, had this to say about famines in the 20th century. Paradoxically, over the course of the 20th century, famine was virtually eradicated from most of the world, while, over the same period, there occurred some of the worst famines in recorded history. This is because many of the major famines of the 20th century were the outcome of wars or totalitarian regimes. Such famines include the Great Chinese Famine, under the Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, from 1959 to 1961. That famine, is widely regarded to have been the worst famine in history, with upwards to 50 million people dying as a result. Millions of Africans have starved to death in the past 50 years as well, including millions of deaths in Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Niger, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. These were all caused or exacerbated by totalitarian governments. And finally, we have, in the Bible, a prediction about plagues, or pestilences, increasing in the last days. Back in the 1970s, I recall having commented that it seemed like there had not been an incident of a worldwide plague for more than 50 years, and that pandemics were the main sign of approaching sorrow, which had not been increasing. Since that time, however, we have had AIDS, Hong Kong flu, Asian flu, swine flu, MERS, SARS, and Ebola pandemics, not to mention our present experience of COVID-19. These eight pandemics, while relatively small by comparison to the Black Plague of the 14th century, are each listed in the top 20 most deadly pandemics of all time. Rapid transportation is one of the major contributing factors toward the spread of plagues, although things like the overuse of antibiotics have the potential to create superbugs, which will continue to cause even more deaths in the years ahead. Scientists have been predicting such problems for years. So we are almost guaranteed more serious outbreaks of disease many of them new strains of old viruses But now I want to point out something about this overall prophecy from Jesus the one about the increase in the number of four different types of disasters in the lead-up to His return. What I am going to say should put what I have just said into better perspective. There are five words from the prophecy that I showed at the beginning of this video, which I never recall having been mentioned in all the sermons that I heard on that prophecy over the past fifty years. Listen to them. You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you not be troubled, for all these things must come to pass. But the end is not yet. In our impatience, and in an attempt to excite people emotionally, there has been a tendency to overlook that almost contradictory prediction from Jesus. The end is not yet. Those words are vitally important for professing Christians everywhere to consider, as we talk up Bible prophecy at the moment. For many, the present interest in signs of the end of the age seems like a good indication that people everywhere are turning their attention to God and to matters of eternal significance. But so much of it pivots on one relatively minor aspect of prophecy, which Jesus specifically said does not signal the end of the world. And are we really turning to God, or just looking for a way to save our own skin? People apparently don't want to hear the full truth. They are having too much fun with an exaggeration of what Jesus actually said. And they want to believe that I am a false prophet for pointing out their error. After all, there is this fantastic momentum, a veritable tidal wave of enthusiasm about the mark of the beast, about world dictatorship, about people losing their jobs and not being able to buy or sell, and about people supposedly dying for their faith. All of that hysteria is assumed to be a good thing. How dare I or anyone else say that it's all based on a lie? How dare we ridicule them for pretending to be martyrs? How dare we challenge their long line of false prophets? Yes, false prophets. The ones that said that Donald Trump was going to be re-elected in 2020. The ones who said that Covid was a hoax. the ones who created a hoax of their own by saying that COVID vaccines were going to wipe out a large portion of the world's population, the ones who even now are sending people to their deaths with the false belief that God is going to miraculously protect them from a deadly disease for which God has actually provided, through genuine medical scientific research, in an honest and transparent search for truth, several vaccines which can greatly increase our chances of surviving this present pandemic. These false prophets are the ones who have turned what is definitely a serious pandemic into one that is many times worse than it needed to be because of their totally false predictions. I'm hammering this very hard at the moment because in a year or two, there will have been so many followers of these false prophets in their graves that a large portion of the survivors in the institutional church are going to be deeply disillusioned about not just prophecy but very likely about God's existence as well. When that happens, I want to be available to pick these people up and show them where they went wrong. They took a prophecy which was only ever meant to point out trends leading closer to the end, and they tried to make a single plague in one quarter of the four things predicted in that prophecy to become the virtual fulfillment of everything we read about in the Revelation and in the prophecies of Daniel. There is a one world government coming, brothers and sisters. Yes there is And there is a very popular world ruler coming There is a mark coming too But it will not be a mark that goes into your shoulder It will be one that goes into your right hand or into your forehead And it will not be one that protects you from infection by a very dangerous disease. It will be one that you use for all of your buying and selling. One that activates a global database, a database which records every purchase and sale that you have made, always keeping track of your cash balance along the way. These things are coming, but they are coming AFTER all the hype about COVID has died down. Wait for it. And don't be afraid to call a lie a lie when you hear people trying to tell you that vaccines to protect the world from COVID-19 are the mark of the beast, or that following very simple health rules, ones that are virtually identical to the ones that appear in the Bible itself, when they tell you that following those health rules means you are denying faith in God, stand up to their superstitious fears. I'll tell you who and what is denying faith in God. It's all those people who are listening to these false prophets. You can find them almost everywhere in the churches today. Have the courage to stand up to them and rebuke them in the name of Jesus. In case I haven't made myself clear, let me say it again. I am expressing myself in the strongest possible terms right now because I want you to remember me when the dust settles on these liars, and when you want answers. Literally thousands of subscribers have unsubscribed from this channel with dramatic flourishes, but I will not cheat on the truth in order to get them back. This channel is here to promote the teachings of Jesus, and not the teachings of QAnon, or Donald Trump, or Kenneth Copeland, or John MacArthur, or any of the other false Christs being promoted out there. I don't have all the answers, but I know who does, and I have listened to what he has said. He is not against medical science. He is not afraid of medicine, but he is against greed. And I think that is what people everywhere do not want to confront. What we should be doing right now is weighing up just how prepared we are to live without money when the mark of the beast really comes in. Stop crying your eyes out about losing your job because you refused to get vaccinated. It may be the best thing that could happen to you. In fact, go ahead and get vaccinated, and then quit your job, so that you can start living by faith now, the way Jesus and his first followers did. God is showing those of us who are following Jesus today just how easily He is able to meet our needs, and we are gearing up to what is to come shortly here upon the earth. But it's not about whining to the government over having to wear a mask, or starting a revolution over having to exercise social distance for the good of our neighbors. God is calling people to come out of the system, but not so that we can cower in a corner someplace in fear of a little needle. He is calling us to take on the entire world system with the good news of the eternal, universal kingdom of heaven. We are fully prepared to die for our faith, but we also have some hope that we may be counted worthy to escape into the wilderness where God will miraculously provide for us for three and a half years. But only, only if we are prepared, first, to follow Jesus, the Lamb, now, wherever He goes. Are you ready to do that in company with us? If so, please contact me today at the address on the screen. Tell me what country you live in and share a little about your own spiritual journey. I look forward to hearing from you. God bless you. Thank you.

Playlist coming soon.