What Time Is It?

We are living in tumultuous times. I cannot recall days such as we witnessing presently. War, famine, anti-Semitism spreading across the globe, the natural world in disarray, rampant disease, militant religiosity, civil unrest, random acts of violence inflicted on total strangers, economic depression, racial hatred, intense, often fatal, persecution of Christians in many regions. The list of tribulations is almost endless. In the "West" the Church is slumbering, seemingly unaware of the crises embroiling us all. 

Pestilence stalks the world, accompanied by panic, xenophobia, rampant and illogical stockpiling of basic commodities. The stock-market is in free-fall, airlines across the world are in serious trouble, many will file for bankruptcy within weeks.        

Are these the days that we are warned about in 2 Peter chapter 3? (read it here) 

Ask most Christians if these are indeed "The End Times" and you get as many different answers as people you ask. Unlike the early Believers in Jerusalem and ancient Israel, there is no definite consensus!   

Destruction of Jerusalem AD 70; David Roberts 1850

There are so many "signs" today that's it's difficult to know which ones to look for, and which ones apply to our age! 

Many of the "signs" that Jesus spoke about in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, often called "The Olivet Discourse" clearly referenced the not-too-distant future (for the Disciples) 

Jesus clearly and unequivocally prefaced their questions by stating that the Temple and Jerusalem would be destroyed. This happened in 70 AD   

This obviously piqued the curiosity and concern of the Disciples, and they asked Him, ..."When will these things be (i.e., the Destruction of the Temple and the Sacking of the city of Jerusalem), AND what shall be the Signs of your Coming, and of the End of the Age"  (Matt. 24:3). Jesus then preceded in loose chronological order the Events to follow. He told of many who would come in His Name,  claiming to be the Messiah, or Christ.  The historian Josephus, tells in some detail, of the many who did this, as also references in the very Scriptures indicate ( Acts 5:36-37; and 21:38...on which Bible Commentator Albert Barnes elaborates), that this phenomenon was already occurring.

                           

The Titus Arch in Rome that celebrates the destruction of the Temple
in 70 AD by Titus as Matthew 24 prophesied.

Jesus told also of political unrest, rebellions, wars, and natural disasters that would happen. These events would precede the Desolation of Jerusalem, the Destruction of the Temple, and the Dispersion of the Jewish People, known as the "Diaspora,"  by the Roman Army, which was predicted by the Prophet Moses in Deuteronomy 28. 

These "Curses for their national disobedience" have been fulfilled upon the Jewish People in A.D. 70 and are specifically referred to in the same chapter of  Deuteronomy, in verses 49-57.  Again, Josephus documents these very judgments, or "curses" upon the Jews  in  his chronicles of the Roman invasion of Palestine. Christ was referring  to these  Judgments  of  the  Jewish  Nation, when He told His Disciples to pray for specific conditions so that they might be able to escape from Jerusalem before being trapped inside by the invading Roman Army.

 

From God's Word. 

My son, keep my words and store up my commandments within you. Keep my commandments and live; and keep my law as the pupil of your eye. Bind them upon your fingers; write them upon the tablet of your heart. Proverbs 7:1-3 MKJV