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(Matthew 25:13). But the Scriptures make it equally clear that
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Bible Prophecy and Reference But you brethren, are not in darkness, that the
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all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of
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others do, but let us be alert and sober."
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Bible Prophecy Charts This passage asserts that Jesus is coming like "a thief in the
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Creation vs. Evolution true only for the pagan world and not for believers. His return
The Hal Lindsey Report should be no surprise to those who know Him and His Word,
for they have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to give them
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understanding of the nature of the times.
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Ask A Bible Teacher Furthermore, the Scriptures give us signs to watch for — signs
Praise-N-Pitchforks that will signal that Jesus is ready to return. The writer of the
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Commentary & Reference believers should encourage one another when they see the day
Recommended Readings List of judgment drawing near (Hebrews 10:25-27). Jesus also
referred to the end time signs in His Olivet Discourse, given

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Salvation and Eternal Life during the last week of His life (Matthew 24 and Luke 21).
Doctrinal Statement and Beliefs Speaking of a whole series of signs which He had given to His
Christian Links disciples, He said, "When you see all these things, recognize
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that He [the Son of Man — that is, Jesus] is near, right at the
door" (Matthew 24:33).
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A Personal Experience
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Every time I think of "Signs of the Times," I am reminded of a
great man of God named Elbert Peak. I had the privilege of
participating with him in a Bible prophecy conference held in
Orlando, Florida in the early 1990's. Mr. Peak was about 80
years old at the time.

He had been assigned the topic, "The Signs of the Times." He

began his presentation by observing, "Sixty years ago when I
first started preaching, you had to scratch around like a
chicken to find one sign of the Lord's soon return."

He paused for a moment, and then added, "But today there

are so many signs I'm no longer looking for them. Instead, I'm
listening for a sound — the sound of a trumpet!"

The First Sign

One hundred years ago in 1907 there was not one single,
tangible, measurable sign that indicated we were living in the
season of the Lord's return. The first to appear was the
Balfour Declaration which was issued by the British
government on November 2, 1917.

This Declaration was prompted by the fact that during World

War I the Turks sided with the Germans. Thus, when
Germany lost the war, so did the Turks, and the victorious
Allies decided to divide up both the German and Turkish
empires.

The Turkish territories, called the Ottoman Empire, contained

the ancient homeland of the Jewish people — an area the
Romans had named Palestine after the last Jewish revolt in
132-135 AD.

In 1917 Palestine included all of modern day Israel and

Jordan. In the scheme the Allies concocted for dividing up the
German and Turkish territories, Britain was allotted Palestine,
and this is what prompted the Balfour Declaration. In that
document, Lord Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary,
declared that it was the intention of the British government to
establish in Palestine "a national home for the Jewish people."

The leading Evangelical in England at the time was F. B.

Meyer. He immediately recognized the prophetic significance
of the Declaration, for he was well aware that the Scriptures
prophesy that the Jewish people will be regathered to their
homeland in unbelief right before the return of the Messiah
(Isaiah 11:11-12).

Meyer sent out a letter to the Evangelical leaders of England

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asking them to gather in London in December to discuss the

prophetic implications of the Balfour Declaration. In that
letter, he stated, "The signs of the times point toward the close
of the time of the Gentiles... and the return of Jesus can be
expected any moment."

Before Meyer's meeting could be convened, another

momentous event occurred. On December 11, 1917 General
Edmund Allenby liberated the city of Jerusalem from 400
years of Turkish rule.

There is no doubt that these events in 1917 marked the

beginning of the end times because they led to the worldwide
regathering of the Jewish people to their homeland and the
reestablishment of their state.

Since 1917
Since the time of the Balfour Declaration, we have witnessed
throughout the 20th Century the appearance of sign after sign
pointing to the Lord's soon return. There are so many of these
signs today, in fact, that one would have to be either biblically
illiterate or spiritually blind not to realize that we are living on
borrowed time.

I have personally been searching the Bible for years in an

effort to identify all the signs, and it has not been an easy task
to get a hold on them. That's because there are so many of
them, both in the Old and New Testaments.

I have found that the best way to deal with them is to put
them in categories, and in doing that, I have come up with six
categories of end time signs.

1) The Signs of Nature

"...and there will be great earthquakes, and in
various places plagues and famines; and there will
be terrors and great signs from heaven." (Luke
21:11)

This category of signs has always been the least respected,

even among believers. The mere mention of it usually evokes
a sneer accompanied by the words, "Come on, what else is
new? There have always been earthquakes and tornadoes and
hurricanes." But those who have this attitude forget that Jesus
said the signs would be like "birth pangs" (Matthew 24:8).
That means they will increase in frequency and intensity the
closer we get to the Lord's return. In other words, there will be
more frequent natural disasters and more intense ones.

And that is exactly what has been happening. For example,

between October of 1991 and November of 2004 — a period
of 13 years — the United States experienced:

9 of the 10 largest insurance natural disasters in history.

9 of the 10 greatest disasters as ranked by FEMA relief
costs.

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5 of its costliest hurricanes in history.

3 of its 4 largest tornado swarms in history.

And keep in mind that these statistics were complied before

the Hurricane Katrina disaster in August of 2005!

2) The Signs of Society

"Realize this, that in the last days difficult times
will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers
of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient
to parents, ungrateful, irreconcilable, malicious
gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of
good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of
pleasure rather than lovers of God..." (2 Timothy
3:1-4)

This passage sounds like a typical evening newscast today!

Notice the three things it says people will love in the end
times: self, money, and pleasure.

The love of self is Humanism — the belief that Man can

accomplish anything on his own. The love of money is
Materialism. When Humanism is your religion, your god will
always be money. The love of pleasure is the third love that is
mentioned. This is Hedonism, the lifestyle that is always
produced by Humanism and Materialism.

But God cannot be mocked (Galatians 6:7). He therefore sees

to it that when people chose Humanism, Materialism, and
Hedonism, the payoff is always Nihilism — which is a fancy
philosophical word for despair.

Need I emphasize that our world is wallowing in despair

today? We live in a society plagued by abortion,
homosexuality, domestic violence, child molestation,
blasphemy, pornography, alcoholism, drug abuse and
gambling.

Like the days of the Judges in the Old Testament, people are
doing what is right in their own eyes, and the result is that
people are calling evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20).

3) The Spiritual Signs

There are more signs in this category than any other. Many
are evil in nature, but there are also some very positive ones.
Concerning the negative signs, a typical passage is the
following one found in 2 Timothy 4:3-4:

"The time will come when they [professing

Christians] will not endure sound doctrine, but
wanting to have their ears tickled, they will
accumulate for themselves teachers in
accordance to their own desires; and will turn
away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside
to myths."

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Some of the negative spiritual signs that are specifically

prophesied include the following: false christs, cultic groups,
heresies, apostasy, skepticism, deception, occultism, and
persecution.

The one that Jesus mentioned most frequently was false

christs and their cultic groups (Matthew 24:5, 11, 24). And in
fulfillment of these prophecies, we have experienced an
explosion of cults since 1850.

But, praise God, we are told that there will be some very
positive spiritual signs in the end times. The most important
one that is prophesied in many places is a great outpouring of
the Holy Spirit (Joel 2:28-29).

This outpouring began at the dawn of the 20th Century, and

proved to be one of the greatest spiritual surprises — and
blessings — of the century. You see, when that century began,
the prevailing viewpoint among both Catholics and
Protestants regarding the Holy Spirit was Cessationism. This
view held that the gifts of the Spirit ceased when the last
Apostle died. In effect, it was a belief that the Holy Spirit had
retired in the First Century.

The 20th Century had hardly gotten started when a Holy Spirit
revival broke out at a small Bible college in Topeka, Kansas in
1901. Three years later, a similar Holy Spirit revival swept
Wales and began to spread worldwide. Then, in 1906, the
Spirit fell with great power on a humble Black preacher in Los
Angeles named William J. Seymour. The Azuza Street
Revival, as it came to be called, continued for four years and
gave birth to the Pentecostal Movement.

The Bible prophesies two great outpourings of the Spirit and

symbolically pictures them as the "early and latter rains" (Joel
2:23), based on the two rainy seasons of Israel. The early rain
occurred at Pentecost in the First Century when the Church
was established. The latter rain was prophesied to occur after
the Jewish people had been re-established in their homeland
(Joel 2:18-26).

The latter rain began with the Pentecostal Movement, just as

God began to regather the Jews to their homeland under the
visionary leadership of Theodore Herzl. But the rain did not
become a downpour until after the re-establishment of the
state of Israel in May of 1948, just as prophesied by Joel.

First came the anointing of Billy Graham's ministry in 1949,

followed by the Charismatic Movement of the 1960's. Today,
most of Christianity, whether Pentecostal, Charismatic, or
Traditional, fully recognizes that the ministry of the Holy
Spirit is alive and well in Spirit-led worship, the continuing
validity of spiritual gifts, the reality of spiritual warfare, and
the importance of a Spirit-filled life in winning that warfare.

In addition to the rediscovery of the Holy Spirit, there are

other positive spiritual prophecies being fulfilled today — like

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the preaching of the Gospel worldwide (Matthew 24:14), the

revival of Davidic praise worship (Amos 9:11) and the
emergence of Messianic Judaism (Romans 9:27).

Another remarkable positive sign is the understanding of Bible

prophecy. You see, the Hebrew prophets often did not
understand the end time prophecies that the Lord gave to
them. A good example can be found in Daniel 12:8-9 where
the prophet complains to the Lord that he does not understand
the prophecies that have been entrusted to him. The Lord's
response was, "Don't worry about it. Just write the prophecies.
They have been sealed up until the end times."

In other words, the Bible teaches that many of the end time
prophecies will not be understood until the time comes for
them to be fulfilled. And that is exactly what has been
happening in the past 100 years. Historical developments and
scientific inventions are now making it possible for us to
understand end time prophecies that have never been
understood before.

Take Israel for example. All of end time prophecy revolves

around the nation of Israel. But how could those prophecies
be understood as long as Israel did not exist and there was no
prospect that the nation would ever exist again?

This is the reason that Hal Lindsey's book, The Late Great
Planet Earth, became such a phenomenal bestseller in the
1970's. For the first time it explained the events prophesied in
the book of Revelation in natural terms that people could
easily understand.

4) The Signs of World Politics

"You will be hearing of wars and rumors of
wars... for nation will rise against nation, and
kingdom against kingdom..." (Matthew 24:6-7)

I taught international politics for 20 years before I entered the

ministry full time, so this is an area that is particularly
fascinating to me.

The Bible prophesies a very specific end time configuration of

world politics. Israel is pictured as being re-established
(Ezekiel 37:21-22) and surrounded by hostile Arab neighbors
intent on its destruction (Ezekiel 35:1 - 36:7). This, of course
has been the situation in the Middle East since the Israeli
Declaration of Independence in May of 1948.

Daniel prophesied that the Roman Empire would be revived

(Daniel 2:36-41), something many men — like Charlemagne,
Napoleon, and Hitler — tried to do through force. But the
prophecy had to await God's timing for its fulfillment, and that
came after World War II, with the formation of the European
Common Market that has since morphed into the superpower
called the European Union.

The Bible pictures a great power located in the land of Magog

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in the "remote parts of the north." This nation will menace

Israel in the end times and will ultimately lead an invasion of
Israel together with specified allies, all of which are modern
day Muslim states (Ezekiel 38:1 - 39:16). Russia with all its
Muslim republics and its Muslim allies fits this description
precisely.

All the nations of the world are prophesied to come together

against Israel in the end times over the issue of the control of
Jerusalem (Zech. 12:2-3) — a prophecy being fulfilled today.

The magnitude of warfare in the 20th Century is another

fulfillment of end time prophecy related to world politics. The
20th Century was one of unparalleled war. Like birth pangs,
the frequency and intensity of war increased exponentially. It
is now estimated that more people died in wars during the
20th Century than in all the previous wars throughout all of
recorded human history.

5) The Signs of Technology

"Men will faint from fear over the expectation of
the things which are coming upon the world; for
the powers of the heavens will be shaken." (Luke
21:26)

The development of nuclear weapons seems to be

foreshadowed by this prophecy in Luke 21 that speaks of
people "fainting from fear" due to the "powers of the heavens
being shaken." The incredible carnage of the Seal and
Trumpet Judgments portrayed in chapters 6 and 8 in the book
of Revelation indicates that the Antichrist will conquer the
world through the use of nuclear weapons. We are told that
one-third of the earth will be burned and that one-half of
humanity will be killed. Further evidence that this is a nuclear
holocaust is found in Revelation 16 where we are told that at
the end of the Tribulation the survivors will be covered with
sores that will not heal (Revelation 16:11).

As I pointed out earlier, there are many end time prophecies

that simply cannot be understood apart from modern
technological developments. Consider the prophecy in
Revelation 11 about the two witnesses who will call the world
to repentance during the first half of the Tribulation. When
they are killed by the Antichrist, we are told that their bodies
will lie in the streets of Jerusalem for three and a half days,
and the whole world will look upon them (Revelation 11:9).
How could anyone understand such a prophecy before the
development of satellite television in the 1960's?

Likewise, how could the Antichrist control all buying and

selling worldwide (Revelation 13) without the aid of computer
technology? How could the False Prophet create the illusion
of giving life to a statue (Revelation 13) without the
technology of holograms, virtual reality, and robotics? How
could an army of 200 million come out of the Far East
(Revelation 9) before the population explosion that was
produced by modern medical technology? How could the

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Gospel be proclaimed to all the world (Matthew 24) before

the invention of motion pictures, radio, television, and the
Internet? The list goes on and on.

6) The Signs of Israel

"And it shall come about in that day that I will
make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples;
all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the
nations of the earth will be gathered against it."
(Zechariah 12:3)

The signs that relate to Israel are the most important of all
because the Jews are God's prophetic time clock. What I
mean by this is that the Scriptures will often tie a prophesied
future event with something that will happen to the Jews. We
are told to watch the Jews, and when the prophesied event
concerning them occurs, we can be sure that the other
prophesied event will also occur.

An example can be found in Luke 21:24 where Jesus

prophesied that the Jews would be dispersed from Jerusalem
and be led captive among the nations. But then He added that
one day they would return to re-occupy Jerusalem, and when
this happens, the end time events will occur that will lead to
His return.

There are many prophecies concerning the Jews in the end

times, many of which began to be fulfilled in the 20th
Century, but there are four key ones. The first is their
worldwide regathering in unbelief (Isaiah 11:11-12). In 1900
there were only 40,000 Jews in Palestine. By the end of World
War II that number had risen to 800,000. Today, there are
more than 5.7 million who have come from all over the world.
Very soon there will be as many Jews in Israel as died in the
Holocaust. The prophet Jeremiah says twice that when history
is completed, the Jewish people will look back and conclude
that their worldwide regathering was a greater miracle than
their deliverance from Egyptian captivity (Jeremiah 16:14-15
and 23:7-8). We are truly living in momentous times!

The second key prophecy concerning the Jews is a natural

consequence of their regathering. It is the re-establishment of
their state which occurred on May 14, 1948 (Isaiah 66:7-8).
The third key prophecy is the re-occupation of Jerusalem
which occurred on June 7, 1967 during the miraculous Six
Day War (Zechariah 8:4-8).

The fourth key prophecy is the one whose fulfillment we are

witnessing today — the re-focusing of world politics upon the
nation of Israel (Zechariah 12:2-3). All the nations of the
world, including the United States, are coming against Israel
over the issue of the control of the nation's capital — the city
of Jerusalem. The Vatican wants the city put under its control.
The United Nations wants it to be internationalized. The
European Union is demanding it be divided between the Arabs
and the Jews. The Arabs want all of it.

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Summary
And so you have it — six different categories of signs, each
category containing many prophecies concerning the end
times, all of which are being fulfilled before our very eyes. Let
me conclude by specifically listing 50 of those prophecies.

1) Increasing instability of nature.

(Matthew 24:7 & Luke 21:11)

2) Increasing lawlessness and violence.

(Matthew 24:12)

3) Increasing immorality.
(Matthew 24:37)

4) Increasing materialism.
(2 Timothy 3:2)

5) Increasing Hedonism.
(2 Timothy 3:4)

6) Increasing influence of Humanism.

(2 Timothy 3:2)

7) Depraved entertainment.
(2 Timothy 3:4)

8) Calling evil good and good evil.

(2 Timothy 3:3 & Isaiah 5:20)

9) Increasing use of drugs.

(2 Timothy 3:3)

10) Increasing blasphemy.

(2 Timothy 3:2)

11) Increasing paganism.

(2 Timothy 3:1-4)

12) Increasing despair.

(2 Timothy 3:1)

13) Signs in the heavens.

(Luke 21:11,25)

14) Increasing knowledge.

(Daniel 12:4)

15) Increasing travel.

(Daniel 12:4)

16) The explosion of cults.

(Matthew 24:11)

17) The proliferation of false christs.

(Matthew 24:5)

18) Increasing apostasy in the Church.

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(2 Timothy 4:3-5)

19) Increasing attacks on Jesus.

(Romans 1:18-19)

20) Increasing attacks on the Bible.

(Romans 1:18-19)

21) Increasing persecution of Christians.

(Matthew 24:9)

22) Increasing occultism.

(1 Timothy 4:1)

23) Wars and rumors of wars.

(Matthew 24:6)

24) Weapons of mass destruction.

(Luke 21:26)

25) Increasing famine.

(Luke 21:11)

26) Increasing pestilence.

(Luke 21:11)

27) Computer technology.

(Revelation 13:7)

28) Television.
(Revelation 11:8-9)

29) Satellite technology.

(Revelation 11:8-9)

30) Virtual reality.

(Revelation 13:14-15)

31) Unification of Europe.

(Daniel 2 & 7)

32) Far Eastern military powers.

(Revelation 9:16 & 16:12)

33) Movement toward world government.

(Daniel 7:23-26)

34) Regathering of the Jews.

(Isaiah 11:10-12)

35) Re-establishment of Israel.

(Isaiah 66:7-8)

36) Reclamation of the land of Israel.

(Ezekiel 36:34-35)

37) Revival of Biblical Hebrew.

(Zephaniah 3:9; Jeremiah 31:23)

38) Re-occupation of Jerusalem.

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(Luke 21:24)

39) Resurgence of the Israeli military.

(Zechariah 12:6)

40) Re-focusing of world politics on Israel.

(Zechariah 12:3)

41) Russian threat to Israel.

(Ezekiel 38 and 39)

42) Arab threat to Israel.

(Ezekiel 35 and 36)

43) Denial of the Second Coming.

(2 Peter 3:3-4)

44) Denial of creation by God.

(Romans 1:18-22)

45) Outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

(Joel 2:28-29)

46) Translation of the Bible into many languages.

(Matthew 24:14)

47) Preaching of the Gospel worldwide.

(Matthew 24:14)

48) The revival of Messianic Judaism.

(Romans 9:27)

49) The revival of Davidic praise worship.

(Amos 9:11)

50) The understanding of Bible prophecy.

(Daniel 12:8-9)

This list could be greatly expanded, but the 50 examples

above should be sufficient to show that we are living in the
season of the Lord's return.

The Bible clearly teaches that God never pours out His wrath
without warning for He is a just and loving God who does not
wish that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9). That's why He has
provided so many signs to alert us to the fact that we are
living on the threshold of the Tribulation.

The Message
The bottom line message of the signs is that we are living on
borrowed time. And the crucial question for every human
being is "Are you ready?" Are you ready for the return of
Jesus? Will He come as your Blessed Hope or your Holy
Terror?

It will be one or the other, for God is determined to deal with

sin, and He does so with either grace or wrath (John 3:36). If
you have put your faith in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then

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you are under God's grace. Your sins have been forgiven and
forgotten, and you can look forward with confidence to that
glorious day when Jesus will appear in the heavens.

But if you have never received Jesus as your Lord and Savior,
you are under the wrath of God, and you have nothing to look
forward to except the terror of His wrath.

The choice is yours. I personally cannot understand why

anyone would turn their back on God's free gift of grace
through faith in His Son. I have placed my faith in Jesus, and I
therefore am able to look forward to His soon return with
great anticipation and expectation. All that is within me cries
out, "Maranatha! Come quickly Lord Jesus" (1 Corinthians
16:22).

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