The Gift that Keeps on Giving! Part V
The Return of Jesus

NYC career expo highlights faces of joblessness | A medical technician executed his wife, five young children and himself Tuesday after claiming in a note to a TV station that he and his wife both had just been fired.

The Condition of the World

The condition of our world is declining at record speed. While we continue to make technological, scientific, and medical advances that change people's lives dramatically, we still are seeing changes that no one seems to know why they are happening. Why is our economy getting so bad? Why are so many people homeless? Why is there so much disease? What about the natural disasters that seem to be happening more often and in major catastrophic proportions? If things are the way they are now, what is in our future?

What's Next?

The Bible is full of prophecies about our future. We have looked at a lot of prophecies that have already been fulfilled through the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is no reason to believe that if all those were fulfilled, that the end of the story will not come to pass as well.

Before Jesus left this world and ascended to heaven, He told the disciples that He would be back.

He gave a little indication of how He will return in these words to the disciples. He also gave them an indication of when he would come.

He made it very clear to them that no one could know the exact hour when He would return. He did let them know that they would recognize the signs that are prophesied throughout the Bible when His return was getting close just like we recognize the coming of new seasons by looking around at nature. He must have said this for a reason. He did not want us to get caught up in trying to predict when He will come, but He does want us to be watchful and prepare for His coming. In order to do that, we have to be familiar with the prophecies that speak of his coming and the signs surrounding His coming.

(Hover you mouse curser over the scripture references to read the verses.)

Signs of the Last Days:

1. Condition of Man

• Many will fall away:
  Matthew 24:10, 12
  
  
  Adults who claim to be Christian in America: 1990 - 86%, 2001 - 77%, 2005 - Below 50% | At the present rate of change, most Americans would identify themselves as non-religious or non-Christian by the year 2035
  
  
• Blinded by Self:
  2 Timothy 3:1-5
  
  
  An 11-year-old Pennsylvania boy charged with killing his father's pregnant fiancee
  On Sunday night, Mr. Whelchel told his grandmother he was tired of waiting for her to die naturally, and according to the sheriff, asked her if she wanted to die. Mr. Welchel then allegedly tried to break her neck, beat her until she was unconscious, and left her in a field near Ada.
  
  

2. Condition of Nature

• Natural Disasters:
  Matthew 24:7b
  
  
• (Un)Natural events that cause anguish and perplexity:
  Luke 21:25-28;     Joel 2:30-31
  
  
  The trend over the last three decades shows a sharp increase in the number and frequency of natural disasters significantly increasing in the number of affected populations. In 2005, the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) reported 360 natural disasters killed over 90,000 people and affected more than 150 million lives. In 2006, CRED reported 395 natural disasters (226 floods) with 21,342 deaths and over 134.5 million people affected. Unfortunately, experts expect this trend to continue; particularly global warming, which is likely to create more 'extreme' weather events.
  (http://www.savethechildren.org/emergencies/global-disaster-trends.html)
  The number of people affected by natural disasters jumped from 177 million a year on average in the late 1980s to 270 million annually since 2001—a more than 50 percent increase.
  (http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4840)
  
  

3. Condition of the World

• Deception:
  Matthew 24:5, 11, 24;   2 Peter 3:3
  
  
  She [Oprah] states, "I believe in the FORCE-I call it God." She also said if you believe in a rhythm of nature and in love, then you believe in God.
  Oprah also related that, "One of the most important books I've read is Eric Buttterworth's (a New Age Unity leader) Discover the Power Within You. In it he said "Jesus did not come to teach us how divine He was but to teach that divinity was within us." Later she said that "It (claiming exclusive Divinity) would make Jesus the biggest egotist that ever lived."
  ...Oprah positively alluded to the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, stating in summary, "..that one of the biggest mistakes humans make is to believe that there is only one way. Actually, there are many diverse paths leading to what you call God."
  Tragically, America is almost obsessed with celebrity idol worship. Recent Gallup polls demonstrated how true this is when it asked Americans to list and rank the most influential women in recorded history. Oprah Winfrey ranked fourth! There is a common recognizable refrain that "When Oprah speaks, people listen."
  (http://www.wfial.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=artNewAge.article_1)
  
  
• Wars:
  Matthew 24:6
  
  
  As of Monday, May 18, 2009, at least 4,297 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
  The Minnesota Army Reserve says 140 of its soldiers from the Fort Snelling-based 372nd Engineer Brigade will deploy to Afghanistan in October.
  Pakistani soldiers were locked in heavy fighting with Taliban militants in their Swat bastion on Monday, the army said, as the government won broad support for the offensive from political parties.
  (http://www.1stheadlines.com/)
  
  
• Persecution and Death:
  Matthew 24:9;   Luke 21:12-13, 16-17
  
  
  Of the first 108 universities founded in America, 106 were distinctly Christian, including the first, Harvard University, chartered in 1636.
  It wasn't until the early 1960's that prayer in public school was "outlawed" by a new interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. In fact, the history of the U.S. includes prayer and Bible readings in all sorts of public places, including schools.
  (http://www.allaboutpopularissues.org/prayer-in-public-school.htm)
  In a very important ruling, a Federal district court in Missouri has ruled that allowing the Gideons to come into elementary schools and distribute Bibles to students is a violation of the establishment clause. This is a key ruling that could be replicated nationwide, where many schools still allow the Gideons to go into schools and do this.
  Canada has already passed a law to protect homosexuals against hate speech. This puts the Bible into a catagory of hate literature.
  In Sweeden, a pentacostal pastor was sentenced to 30 days in jail because it was deemed as hate speech to preach against homosexuality. Fortunately, this was later overturned.
  Miss California was persecuted for her stance against same sex marriage. She was asked to apologize for her comment (she didn't) and almost lost her crown.
  
  
• Gospel accessible from all parts of the world:
  Matthew 24:14
  
  
  Christian Television Broadcasts: TBN, Sky Angel, CBN, CTN (Christian Television Network...Just to name a few.)
  
  
• Ability to destroy the whole earth:
  Matthew 24:21-22
  
  
  A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter; a modern thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than a thousand kilograms can produce an explosion comparable to the detonation of more than a billion kilograms of conventional high explosive. Even small nuclear devices can devastate a city. Nuclear weapons are considered weapons of mass destruction, and their use and control has been a major aspect of international policy since their debut.
  Those who possess nuclear weapons: United States, Russia (successor state to the Soviet Union), the United Kingdom, France, and China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Israel is also widely believed to have nuclear weapons, though it has refused to confirm or deny this. Others who might have nuclear weapons: Iran and Syria.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon)
  
  
• Ability to reach (seen by)the whole earth with news:
  Rev. 11:9-10
  
  
  YouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload and share video clips, and view them in the MPEG-4 format. Three former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for US$1.65 billion, and is now operated as a subsidiary of Google.
  The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS and the BBC and other organizations offer some of their material via the site.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube)
  
  
• Globalization:
  Revelation 13:3b;     Revelation 13:7-8a;     Daniel 7:23-24
  
  
  The G-20 summit, which will focus almost entirely on the global economic crisis, on Thursday will bring together leaders of the major developed economies of Europe and Asia, as well as the European Union and such emerging economic powers as China, India, Indonesia and Brazil.(Los Angeles Times)
  
  

These are just some of the signs that Jesus told us to watch for, so that we could know that the time for His return is soon. The news is full of headlines that point to many of these signs. That tells us, according to the words of Jesus, the time is near. Things are pretty bad now: business after business shutting down, people losing their jobs, people killing themselves and their family because they can't pay the mortgage, kids killing their parents and other kids. Will it really get much worse than this?