For my more seasoned readers, let’s say you could travel back in time and revisit a moment in your life. You’re not going back to change the past, but simply to sit as a silent guest and listen in on a conversation you might have had back then. Let’s say you decide to go back to the year 1993 when you and a friend are in a restaurant having lunch. At some point, the conversation steers into the signs of the times and when you think the Lord will return.
Your friend might mention the fact that the year 1993 is exactly seven years from the end of the millennium, which means the Rapture is near. One of you might add in Hosea 6:2 for good measure to seemingly shore up this idea that there is some significance to the coming year 2000.
You overhear yourself confidently mention the fact that the nation Israel is the supersign, and it’s been 44 years since Israel became a nation again. You discuss the merits of a forty-year generation, but it seems since the 1948 date didn’t pan out in 1988, perhaps the time might in fact start from the unification of Jerusalem in 1967. However, the idea of waiting until 2007 seems very unpalatable and too far off to be taken seriously.
Now the conversation turns back to the signs of the times. The discussion turns to the recent and unexpected presidential election of a relatively unknown Democrat governor named Bill Clinton. While you don’t really see America in Bible prophecy, you are not really sure how she disappears apart from the Rapture because the economy is strong, the nation still largely self-identifies as a ‘Christian nation,’ and America still seemed like America.
You might mention the recent Gulf War in Kuwait as a fulfillment of wars and rumors of war and how Saddam Hussein could easily fill out the role of the Antichrist. You might even mention the increasing use of credit cards to make purchases and the potential for UPC barcodes to be the fulfillment of the mark of the beast.
However, as you begin to go over the signs in more depth, you and your friend realize there are still so many things that don’t make sense. There are things you aren’t quite sure about because you can’t see how they happen. Things like how this relatively new thing called the internet will play into the Antichrist’s coming kingdom. Things like how the barcode gets on your hand or forehead, and how that controls all buying and selling around the world when cash was still king.
Things like how the collapse of the evil empire (the Soviet Union) just left a messy and uncertain future for mother Russia. You still can’t see how Iran, Turkey, and Russia come to form some monstrous Magog coalition when Turkey and Israel are still friends, and Russia is now becoming democratic. You don’t even mention Iran, because you both know that nation is still recovering after a devastating eight-year war with Iraq. Furthermore, you don’t know which of the 11 nations in the European Union will drop out to make it an even, ten-nation confederacy?
As fascinating as this conversation has become, you both come to the conclusion that there are still too many unknown variables for it to make sense. You both admit that you were in the last days (in the Hebrew 1:1 sense of the word), and if that is true, then the end didn’t seem quite as bad as you thought it would be. The picture was there, but there were still too many unanswered questions.
www.raptureready.com
Your friend might mention the fact that the year 1993 is exactly seven years from the end of the millennium, which means the Rapture is near. One of you might add in Hosea 6:2 for good measure to seemingly shore up this idea that there is some significance to the coming year 2000.
You overhear yourself confidently mention the fact that the nation Israel is the supersign, and it’s been 44 years since Israel became a nation again. You discuss the merits of a forty-year generation, but it seems since the 1948 date didn’t pan out in 1988, perhaps the time might in fact start from the unification of Jerusalem in 1967. However, the idea of waiting until 2007 seems very unpalatable and too far off to be taken seriously.
Now the conversation turns back to the signs of the times. The discussion turns to the recent and unexpected presidential election of a relatively unknown Democrat governor named Bill Clinton. While you don’t really see America in Bible prophecy, you are not really sure how she disappears apart from the Rapture because the economy is strong, the nation still largely self-identifies as a ‘Christian nation,’ and America still seemed like America.
You might mention the recent Gulf War in Kuwait as a fulfillment of wars and rumors of war and how Saddam Hussein could easily fill out the role of the Antichrist. You might even mention the increasing use of credit cards to make purchases and the potential for UPC barcodes to be the fulfillment of the mark of the beast.
However, as you begin to go over the signs in more depth, you and your friend realize there are still so many things that don’t make sense. There are things you aren’t quite sure about because you can’t see how they happen. Things like how this relatively new thing called the internet will play into the Antichrist’s coming kingdom. Things like how the barcode gets on your hand or forehead, and how that controls all buying and selling around the world when cash was still king.
Things like how the collapse of the evil empire (the Soviet Union) just left a messy and uncertain future for mother Russia. You still can’t see how Iran, Turkey, and Russia come to form some monstrous Magog coalition when Turkey and Israel are still friends, and Russia is now becoming democratic. You don’t even mention Iran, because you both know that nation is still recovering after a devastating eight-year war with Iraq. Furthermore, you don’t know which of the 11 nations in the European Union will drop out to make it an even, ten-nation confederacy?
As fascinating as this conversation has become, you both come to the conclusion that there are still too many unknown variables for it to make sense. You both admit that you were in the last days (in the Hebrew 1:1 sense of the word), and if that is true, then the end didn’t seem quite as bad as you thought it would be. The picture was there, but there were still too many unanswered questions.
The Tyranny of the Present :: By Pete Garcia
For my more seasoned readers, let’s say you could travel back in time and revisit a moment in your life. You’re not going back to change the past, but
www.raptureready.com
