If you were to consider the biblical prophecies as mostly symbolic, than I understand why a person could get frustrated trying to understand things that could have a myriad of possibilities to their fulfillment. Personally, while acknowledging some symbolism is used, I believe in taking the literal approach. If I were to break it down I would say that biblical prophecy in general is 90% literal and 10% symbolic but usually with an explanation given for the symbolism somewhere later in the text.
The most obvious reason to study bible prophecy is in obedience to this verse: 2 Tim. 2:15 – “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
I believe the implication is that we are to study the whole of scripture, not just the parts that are easy or seem obvious to the Christian life. Another reason is this verse: 1 Pet. 3:15 – “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”
Of course having a knowledge of how to present the gospel is important but that’s only the beginning, people will want to know, what’s coming next! Picture this scenario: Poverty levels are at an all-time high, famine and starvation are on the rise, the world economies are collapsing, an earth-destroying war looms on the horizon, there is rioting and looting going on in almost every major city and there you sit seemingly not fazed by any of it. People will ask you, “Why aren’t you scared to death?” “Why are you so calm?” “Why do have a reason for hope?”
Your answer should be, that you’ve been expecting all this as it was prophesied in the bible, thousands of years ago! It hasn’t caught you by surprise because your hope is in God and not in man. You have taken this verse to heart: Titus 2:13 – “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”
The “blessed hope” isn’t in the timing of His return, it’s in the fact of it! Why were you expecting all this in the first place, some might ask and you should be able to reply that the bible practically gives us a play-by-play account of how the end times will unfold and you should be able to tell them.
We also have this verse: 2 Thess. 2:3 – “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first…”
This is known as the “apostasy” and don’t deceive yourself into believing that this is some organized religion like Catholicism or the worldliness of some of the Church in general. For someone to become apostate that had to have had a relationship with God to begin with. They have to do a complete 180 in their beliefs. So when these things begin to happen and people start asking questions, these answers will be unacceptable: “Uh, I don’t know, my pastor taught us that we’d be out of here by now” or “I don’t know, I never thought it important enough to study.”
To be fore-warned is to be fore-armed and the scripture says: Hosea 4:6 – “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” The latter days Church may be the world’s and some Christian’s who may have lost faith, last hope in hearing the gospel message and in being prepared, in all areas, why we have this hope in Christ to begin with and that’s why an understanding of eschatology is vital for all believers.
If you were to take a poll on any given street in America and ask those you spoke to if they have ever heard of various biblical end-times terms such as; the rapture, the millennium or tribulation period, I’m sure most of them would reply in the affirmative. While they may not know exactly what those words meant, the words would be familiar to them.
If you were to ask them their opinions about bible prophecies, the answers would range from them being fairy tales to being the absolute truth from God and everywhere in between, most, however, would agree that the topic holds some interest for them. There have been many tele-vision documentaries about this subject with the majority of them being one-sided affairs against the probability of these prophetic events, mostly from the Book of Revelation, ever actually occurring. The consensus among the intellectuals they interview is; they are either symbolic in nature or just a bad dream from a lunatic named John. The bible does mention that there would be scoffers in the latter days.
Eschatology is the official word that means, the study of end-time events and the purpose of this is to explore what the bible has to say about the end-times, especially the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. This is the proper name but from here on I will simply refer to it as Revelations as that is how most of us refer to it anyways. Many have been taught that it is too difficult to understand on your own but it is not. These are Christ’s last words to His church and He really wants you to understand it, but it does take some study and research to fully comprehend all that He is warning us about. He doesn’t want the church to approach this subject lightly. Revelations is the only book in the bible that offers a special blessing to those who read and understand it:
Rev. 1:3 “ “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.” (NIV)
The bible is loaded with prophetic scriptures in both the old and new testaments. Many prophets foretold of the coming of Christ, the Messiah of Israel. There are over forty OT prophecies that were fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ. These prophecies were given hundreds and in a few cases, thousands of years before His birth. The test as to whether a prophet is of God or not is, 100% accuracy. The biblical prophets have all passed this test so far, however there are several prophecies remaining to be fulfilled.
Old testament prophets such as Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Joel and Zechariah and NT authors such as Matthew, Mark, Luke, Peter, Paul and of course John all wrote about what would happen in the last days or the end of the age. There is an abundance of “doom and gloom” in these prophecies but there are blessings, rewards and victory there as well.
People either believe in Christ’s claim, that He was the Son of God or they just consider Him a great Teacher equal to Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, etc. The problem with this view is also the difference between Christianity and all other religions. These other teachers all said that if you follow this path, you will find enlightenment or if you travel this way you will find Nirvana but the interesting thing is that you can go visit each of their graves and wonder if they were truly satisfied.
Jesus Christ, however, is the only one who said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me.” John 14:6. (NIV) (emphasis mine) You can’t, however, visit Christ’s grave because He is risen and has ascended up to heaven until the appointed time of His return.
In the near future all humanity will have to decide whether they will follow Christ or an imposter we have come to call, the Anti-Christ. I urge you to not take this topic lightly because I believe we will see the culmination of these prophecies in our lifetime. The world is heading towards destruction at an alarming rate. No previous period in history has seen so many world-wide changes in war, economics, weather, geography, seismology, politics or religion than has the twentieth century. Now that we are in the twenty-first century the pace is ever increasing towards the fulfillment of God’s plan.
Remember; 2 Peter 3:9 - “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (NIV)
God doesn’t want anyone to perish or die, however that is the fate for those who continue to reject the truth that Jesus Christ is His Son and refuse to worship Him as such. When man first sinned in the personhood of Adam, through the temptation of Satan, God declared that man’s sin could only be covered by a blood sacrifice. God set up a plan whereby all mankind could receive forgiveness for their sins through the life and death of one man. One perfect man who had never sinned. There was only one problem. Mankind, since the fall, has possessed a basic sin nature that renders him incapable of perfection. Seeing as how humanity can never evolve to the point of being totally sinless, who could ever be the perfect sacrifice?
Jesus, being part of the Godhead said, in effect, “Here I am Father, send me” and God in His bountiful goodness and mercy towards man said He would. The only thing left was to await God’s perfect timing so the forces of evil would be thoroughly defeated.
God waited as history unfolded then founded a nation, through a righteous man named Abraham and called it Israel. This would be the bloodline through which Jesus Christ would be born for the benefit of sinful humanity. As history continued to unfold, he spoke to several of His faithful servants and told them to write down the words that He spoke to them. This is how the book we call the bible was created. Included were the stories of creation and how God first judged the earth and destroyed most of humanity because of their wickedness. We know this story as Noah and the Ark. Other inclusions are historic accounts of the nation of Israel, the Ten Commandments and biographies of various personages throughout Israeli history. After thou-sands of years; the time finally came for the Messiah to be born but despite all the prophecies that He fulfilled in His lifetime; the nation of Israel rejected Him as Messiah. That rejection paved the way for the salvation of all of humanity. They rejected him because many of the prophecies about the Messiah were not fulfilled during His life on earth. They didn’t realize that His coming was a two stage event, first as the suffering Messiah, then as the conquering Messiah.
Presently, the prophecies seem to tell us that we are nearing the time of His second advent (coming). The time when prophesied events will begin and Christians the world over should be watching as all the signs He forewarned us about; begin to occur.
The most obvious reason to study bible prophecy is in obedience to this verse: 2 Tim. 2:15 – “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
I believe the implication is that we are to study the whole of scripture, not just the parts that are easy or seem obvious to the Christian life. Another reason is this verse: 1 Pet. 3:15 – “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”
Of course having a knowledge of how to present the gospel is important but that’s only the beginning, people will want to know, what’s coming next! Picture this scenario: Poverty levels are at an all-time high, famine and starvation are on the rise, the world economies are collapsing, an earth-destroying war looms on the horizon, there is rioting and looting going on in almost every major city and there you sit seemingly not fazed by any of it. People will ask you, “Why aren’t you scared to death?” “Why are you so calm?” “Why do have a reason for hope?”
Your answer should be, that you’ve been expecting all this as it was prophesied in the bible, thousands of years ago! It hasn’t caught you by surprise because your hope is in God and not in man. You have taken this verse to heart: Titus 2:13 – “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”
The “blessed hope” isn’t in the timing of His return, it’s in the fact of it! Why were you expecting all this in the first place, some might ask and you should be able to reply that the bible practically gives us a play-by-play account of how the end times will unfold and you should be able to tell them.
We also have this verse: 2 Thess. 2:3 – “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first…”
This is known as the “apostasy” and don’t deceive yourself into believing that this is some organized religion like Catholicism or the worldliness of some of the Church in general. For someone to become apostate that had to have had a relationship with God to begin with. They have to do a complete 180 in their beliefs. So when these things begin to happen and people start asking questions, these answers will be unacceptable: “Uh, I don’t know, my pastor taught us that we’d be out of here by now” or “I don’t know, I never thought it important enough to study.”
To be fore-warned is to be fore-armed and the scripture says: Hosea 4:6 – “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” The latter days Church may be the world’s and some Christian’s who may have lost faith, last hope in hearing the gospel message and in being prepared, in all areas, why we have this hope in Christ to begin with and that’s why an understanding of eschatology is vital for all believers.
If you were to take a poll on any given street in America and ask those you spoke to if they have ever heard of various biblical end-times terms such as; the rapture, the millennium or tribulation period, I’m sure most of them would reply in the affirmative. While they may not know exactly what those words meant, the words would be familiar to them.
If you were to ask them their opinions about bible prophecies, the answers would range from them being fairy tales to being the absolute truth from God and everywhere in between, most, however, would agree that the topic holds some interest for them. There have been many tele-vision documentaries about this subject with the majority of them being one-sided affairs against the probability of these prophetic events, mostly from the Book of Revelation, ever actually occurring. The consensus among the intellectuals they interview is; they are either symbolic in nature or just a bad dream from a lunatic named John. The bible does mention that there would be scoffers in the latter days.
Eschatology is the official word that means, the study of end-time events and the purpose of this is to explore what the bible has to say about the end-times, especially the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. This is the proper name but from here on I will simply refer to it as Revelations as that is how most of us refer to it anyways. Many have been taught that it is too difficult to understand on your own but it is not. These are Christ’s last words to His church and He really wants you to understand it, but it does take some study and research to fully comprehend all that He is warning us about. He doesn’t want the church to approach this subject lightly. Revelations is the only book in the bible that offers a special blessing to those who read and understand it:
Rev. 1:3 “ “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.” (NIV)
The bible is loaded with prophetic scriptures in both the old and new testaments. Many prophets foretold of the coming of Christ, the Messiah of Israel. There are over forty OT prophecies that were fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ. These prophecies were given hundreds and in a few cases, thousands of years before His birth. The test as to whether a prophet is of God or not is, 100% accuracy. The biblical prophets have all passed this test so far, however there are several prophecies remaining to be fulfilled.
Old testament prophets such as Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Joel and Zechariah and NT authors such as Matthew, Mark, Luke, Peter, Paul and of course John all wrote about what would happen in the last days or the end of the age. There is an abundance of “doom and gloom” in these prophecies but there are blessings, rewards and victory there as well.
People either believe in Christ’s claim, that He was the Son of God or they just consider Him a great Teacher equal to Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, etc. The problem with this view is also the difference between Christianity and all other religions. These other teachers all said that if you follow this path, you will find enlightenment or if you travel this way you will find Nirvana but the interesting thing is that you can go visit each of their graves and wonder if they were truly satisfied.
Jesus Christ, however, is the only one who said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me.” John 14:6. (NIV) (emphasis mine) You can’t, however, visit Christ’s grave because He is risen and has ascended up to heaven until the appointed time of His return.
In the near future all humanity will have to decide whether they will follow Christ or an imposter we have come to call, the Anti-Christ. I urge you to not take this topic lightly because I believe we will see the culmination of these prophecies in our lifetime. The world is heading towards destruction at an alarming rate. No previous period in history has seen so many world-wide changes in war, economics, weather, geography, seismology, politics or religion than has the twentieth century. Now that we are in the twenty-first century the pace is ever increasing towards the fulfillment of God’s plan.
Remember; 2 Peter 3:9 - “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (NIV)
God doesn’t want anyone to perish or die, however that is the fate for those who continue to reject the truth that Jesus Christ is His Son and refuse to worship Him as such. When man first sinned in the personhood of Adam, through the temptation of Satan, God declared that man’s sin could only be covered by a blood sacrifice. God set up a plan whereby all mankind could receive forgiveness for their sins through the life and death of one man. One perfect man who had never sinned. There was only one problem. Mankind, since the fall, has possessed a basic sin nature that renders him incapable of perfection. Seeing as how humanity can never evolve to the point of being totally sinless, who could ever be the perfect sacrifice?
Jesus, being part of the Godhead said, in effect, “Here I am Father, send me” and God in His bountiful goodness and mercy towards man said He would. The only thing left was to await God’s perfect timing so the forces of evil would be thoroughly defeated.
God waited as history unfolded then founded a nation, through a righteous man named Abraham and called it Israel. This would be the bloodline through which Jesus Christ would be born for the benefit of sinful humanity. As history continued to unfold, he spoke to several of His faithful servants and told them to write down the words that He spoke to them. This is how the book we call the bible was created. Included were the stories of creation and how God first judged the earth and destroyed most of humanity because of their wickedness. We know this story as Noah and the Ark. Other inclusions are historic accounts of the nation of Israel, the Ten Commandments and biographies of various personages throughout Israeli history. After thou-sands of years; the time finally came for the Messiah to be born but despite all the prophecies that He fulfilled in His lifetime; the nation of Israel rejected Him as Messiah. That rejection paved the way for the salvation of all of humanity. They rejected him because many of the prophecies about the Messiah were not fulfilled during His life on earth. They didn’t realize that His coming was a two stage event, first as the suffering Messiah, then as the conquering Messiah.
Presently, the prophecies seem to tell us that we are nearing the time of His second advent (coming). The time when prophesied events will begin and Christians the world over should be watching as all the signs He forewarned us about; begin to occur.
