We live in an age of anxiety. Some worry about global warming. Others fear the rising threat of a nuclear Armageddon from North Korea or Iran. Others are alarmed about escalating world population and the strain of humanity on global resources. Are we nearing the end of the age?

There are a great many prophecies in the Bible that have come true precisely as predicted. Others await future fulfillment. The angel Gabriel revealed to Daniel in the sixth century B.C., for example, a chronology linking the death of the Messiah and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple (Dan. 9:24-27). Jesus himself also predicted His own demise and the invasion of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. Within forty years of His death, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and leveled the Jewish temple in A.D. 70.

Jesus’ followers asked him about signs of the end of the age (Matthew 24). Jesus listed off a number of things that would occur. There would be false Messiahs, wars, international disturbances, famines, and earthquakes. “But,” he said, “that is not yet the end.”

But then Jesus listed something very specific. When they would see “the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains ….” That, Jesus said, would mark the beginning of “a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will.” Jesus continued, “Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved …”

Jesus’ prediction is sobering indeed. Clearly He predicted a world-wide series of catastrophes, not merely the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, devastating as that was.

So this defiling of the Jewish temple and the ensuing Great Tribulation which Jesus predicted are still future to our time. How close are we to the events Jesus predicted? Consider this. Jesus knew that the temple of His day would be destroyed. He knew Jerusalem would be devastated. He knew the people of Israel would be scattered all over the world, and that Israel would cease to exist as a viable nation for many centuries.

For over eighteen centuries, there was no state of Israel. But something remarkable has happened. The prophet Isaiah asked, “Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Can a land be born in a day? Can a nation be brought forth all at once? As soon as Zion travailed, she also brought forth her sons” (Isaiah 66:8). In my lifetime, the unthinkable has happened. Israel was reborn as a nation on a single day, May 14, 1948!

The most important piece of the jigsaw puzzle of the end of the age is now firmly in place. There could be no fulfillment of end-time biblical prophecies without the existence of the State of Israel. The end is drawing nearer. Are you ready for the end?

Signs of the End of the Age, Part 2: The Emergence of the European Union

Prepared by James T. Bartsch
August, 2009
Published Online by WordExplain.com

Email Contact: jbartsch@wordexplain.com

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE ®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)