CRITICALLY READING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES IN THE LAST DAYS
This is an important posting. Please do not tune out and ignore what is happening now at increasing speed. We need to be able to read the signs of the time and that is biblical, from the Lord Himself – {{Matthew 16:3 “and in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today for the sky is red and threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky but cannot discern the signs of the times?”}} The Lord chastised the people for being able to do all manner of things, but they were not able to read the signs of the times.
We live in critical times and dangerous times. Surely you must be concerned about your nation and what is happening in the world? Do things seem to be spinning out of control?
There is such an advance of evil in our times. In fact wickedness advances on steroids. In the free world changes are being implemented at such a rate, it is astounding. Any honest thinking person must ask, “Where is all this going to end?”
WHAT DOES THE TERM “IN THE LAST DAYS” MEAN?
Before we go any further there are a couple of things that need to be addressed. The first of these is the term “IN THE LAST DAYS”. What does this tern mean?
THERE ARE TWO USES OF THIS TERM. The first one applies to all that concerns Israel. For example in this verse – {{Ezekiel 38:16 “and you will come up against My people Israel like a cloud to cover the land. It will come about IN THE LAST DAYS that I shall bring you against My land, in order that the nations may know Me when I shall be sanctified through you before their eyes, O Gog.”}} – the armies of Gog/Magog (Russia, Iran, Libya, Ethiopia and all the nations to the remote north of Israel), will invade Israel.
Every single one of the Old Testament references to the last days – and there are so many of them - are prophetic and concern Israel. They speak of trial, blessing and the coming of the Lord to the nation Israel. Every single one of these references remains in the future and CAN NOT HAPPEN while the Church is still on earth.
Many of them are connected with “the end of the age”. For example, the disciples asked Jesus in Matthew 24 verse 1 what the signs of His coming would be, and when would be the end of the age. The end of the age regarding Israel is when the Lord returns at the Second Coming.
The second use of the term “In the last days” is more New Testament and applies to the last days of the Church age. This verse relates to that time – {{2Timothy 3:1-2 “Realise 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, unholy,”}} (etc.)
Let us make that very clear. There are two ways the term “In the last days” or just “last days” is used in scripture. The first use is to the last days of the Jewish age and for the world society. That ends at the Second Coming. It means the end of the age for the whole world and that will end after the Tribulation at the Second Coming when Jesus returns to establish His kingdom on earth.
The second use – usually found in the New Testament references is the last days or the time before the Rapture, when the Lord returns in the air to catch up His believing people as we have in these verses – {{1Thessalonians 4:16-17 “for the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord.”}}
Where are we today? We are living in the Church Age, actually right at the end of the Church Age. This is why it is so important to understand that; we are right at the end. This is not a time to be slack in our Christian witness and living for the Lord. The time is short – very short! Students of bible prophecy know that to be the case.
CHURCHES HAVE FAILED IN BIBLICAL PROPHECY
It is a very sad thing that so many churches neglect the study of biblical prophecy and relegate it to the unimportant. That attitude dishonours God, and Christians who go along with that ought to be ashamed. Those churches have no expectation of the Lord’s return or the redemption of the believers at the Rapture.
Churches, even denominations, do not teach the Rapture because they can not be bothered or don’t believe it, yet the imminent coming of the Lord for the believers in the New Testament days was an essential doctrine called “the glorious hope”. The “coming of the Lord” is what inspired godly living and gave hope to the martyrs who were being killed for the name of Christ. The neglect and dismissal of the Rapture understanding is a cunning insertion of Satan into doctrines, especially at and after the time of Constantine and in the Reformation. The Reformation did not go far enough. This is what God says about it (the church at Sardis represents the Reformation period) – {{Revelation 3:2 “Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain which were about to die, for I HAVE NOT FOUND YOUR DEEDS COMPLETED in the sight of My God.”}}
In a survey done on Rapture teaching in the churches, I present this, a quote from Daymond Duck – [[In early March 2023, prophecy teacher Amir Tsarfati wrote, “According to those who gather such statistics, of the 2.42 billion people who bear the label ‘Christian’ today, only 6.6% believe in the Rapture of the church.”]] The reason for that low percentage is the fault and neglect of churches and their minister and denominations who are too careless about the bible. It might be one thing to be caught up to believe error, but it is almost criminal in God’s eyes to keep believing it.
The Rapture will end our current Church age and the times we live in. The Church will be translated to heaven before the great and terrible Tribulation breaks out over the earth for 7 years. Any of you people who are skeptical of the Rapture and believe there is just one coming of Jesus in the future, please read the New Testament carefully and even check out material that proves all this, such as this (series on the Rapture) – https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon-series/eschatology-rapture-bible-prophecy-and-current-affairs-sermon-series-from-ron-ferguson- https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon-series/eschatology-rapture-bible-prophecy-and-current-affairs-sermon-series-from-ron-ferguson-22819?_gl=1*19ft8o6*_ga*MjA4NjkxMzQ5Ni4xNjcyNzM5NjA2*_ga_TRT0ERDR3P*MTY4MTM0MTQ1OC4yMTAuMS4xNjgxMzQxNDcxLjQ3LjAuMA..
READING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES
So far we have spoken about the last days as they apply to Israel and to the Church, and about the Rapture, so we must address the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. I am reluctant to say it, but they are blind who can’t read the signs of the times. When Jesus upbraided those who did not know the signs of the times, don’t you think you have a responsibility to do that? Or do you think it does not apply to you?
We live in such evil times and the things that concern us are getting worse. Listen to what Paul said about the last days of the Church age – {{2Timothy 3:1 “Realise this, that in the last days difficult times will come, (etc).”}} That means “days or hardship” – difficult times” (NASB) and “perilous times” (AV). In examining the signs of the times we need to understand what is meant by “difficult times”.
Difficult times must be understood as something different from what has been in the past. Horrible things have featured in the past like wars and famines and persecution and death and other things, so what makes our times difficult or unique?
Let us look at some of this. So much of what is happening is now in the global arena.
[A]. MILITARY EXPANSIONISM
Have you not seen how the world seems primed for war? Putin, a declared war criminal, wants to dominate and take all Europe. Xi of China, another war criminal, wants Taiwan and then expand through Asia and Biden won’t stop it because he is weak and not in his right mind. The “Rocket man” from North Korea wants to go to war against anyone. Nations are arming to the teeth to use that well-known expression.
Some people think there will be a World War 3, but I feel confident none of that will happen before the Rapture (that is imminent).
Now I want to add something else to the mix. How many remember the wars that happened among the former members of the Yugoslavian communist Federation after Tito? Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and others? These were ethnic wars. What of the upheaval of civil wars when PEACE IS TAKEN AWAY? My thoughts go immediately to the USA and the racial civil war that could happen, repeated all over the world, especially in these days of mass migration of displaced peoples.
Note this very carefully. After the Rapture of the Church in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1Corinthians 15, the world will find itself in a measure of chaos. When the Church is raptured it goes to heaven and Revelation chapters 4 and 5 will happen. Then immediately after that, the Tribulation starts with the breaking of the first seal in Revelation 6:1 and that one is the revealing of the Antichrist/world leader.
BUT the next seal, the second, is this one – {{Revelation 6:3-4 When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come,” and another, a red horse, went out, and to him who sat on it, it was granted TO TAKE PEACE FROM THE EARTH, AND THAT MEN SHOULD SLAY ONE ANOTHER, and a great sword was given to him.”}} Dear readers of this article, do not dismiss this. We are very close to this event. The nations of the world are primed for war. It just needs a trigger, and that trigger will be the Rapture.
[B]. DESTRUCTION OF GOD’S DECLARED ABSOLUTES FOR MAN
What am I speaking of here? Well, God instituted marriage between man and woman, but wickedness has turned that on its head by making it the perversion of homosexual marriage. It is sick but that sickness proceeds from the corrupt nature that makes up what mankind is. The degrading aspects of homosexuality are now enshrined in the law courts of Australia and the USA and are so radical, that people are now persecuted for disagreeing with it and are losing their jobs and freedoms. It is satanic, just one more sign of the times.
God established true sexuality, that of male and female; man and woman. He created them in the image of God and for all this last 6 000 years the world recognized male and female genders. However in the last few years we have the great confusion and perversion of sexuality and gender. Some of us know this terminology from hell - LGBTQIA +, and there are more of these distortions. They call it gender identity and gender diversity, gender fluidity. I call it demonic gender corruption. God will not allow this evil to continue for much longer and as the flood came crashing on the ancient world, so shall the Tribulation burst onto the earth.
[C]. THE SEXUAL DESTRUCTION OF CHILDREN
This is monstrous. Firstly the abortion of the unborn is straight from hell again, for Satan hates the human race and seeks to destroy whatever he can. There are over 70 million abortions performed worldwide yearly and God said, “Be fruitful and multiply”, but evil says, “be aggressive and annihilate”.
Then those who are born, are subject to a destruction of true sexuality in the education systems. In some cases young children are exposed to all sorts of perversions at school in the sex education classes and told nothing is wrong and go out and experiment with your sexuality. What sort of demonic monsters have gained access to these programs? How long will God continue to persevere with this evil?
[D]. NATIONAL TRENDS IN THE WORLD
Those who study the signs of the times are noticing several very disturbing trends. The first is that incompetent men and women have accumulated in governments and there is awful incompetence in governing the nations. It is as if morons now run the show.
The governments of the world are turning more and more to the left, to socialism and Marxism and all those systems are built on humanism. This is not really a surprise as they are all being drawn in to globalism, the one world system. More and more arrogant people are found in government forcing their constituents to conform to a restrictive control, and those who object or disagree are cancelled out in many different ways. In Australia in the past 10 years thousands of freedoms have been removed through legislation and penalties. Crime is out of control and the government refuses to address it.
WOKE. We have all heard it. From the Guardian Newspaper – “The word woke loosely refers to a social media-fuelled, left-wing political ideology that emerged in the English-speaking world in the early 2010s.” Anything WOKE is not Christian. It began with radical racism. It is another deep decay in society in these last days.
[E]. DELUSION WITHOUT JUSTIFICATION
We are having our lifestyles altered because the false delusion of climate change is unbounded. The whole world except the Communist nations are forced to conform to this climate untruth. Costs are rising and the nations become ungovernable. Never do these fanatics and cunning destroyers ever use TRUE science to justify a climate crisis because there is no crisis. People can’t pay electricity bills and manufactures are being brought to their knees by costs they can not recoup. National debt is so high it can not be repaid.
Reader, where do you think this is all going? Have you considered it? That is not a difficult question. The purpose of all this is to bring the whole world under centralized control when nations are weakened so that they are no longer viable. Satan has his men in top government positions and the heads of the USA and Australia and France and so many more, are doing the bidding of their masters. The bible is clear about this. Straight after the Rapture comes a man and this is said about him – {{Revelation 13:3 “I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed and THE WHOLE EARTH WAS AMAZED AND FOLLOWED AFTER THE BEAST.”}} The whole earth will follow this most evil man ever to set foot in the world (the Antichrist). Things are falling into place. This is NOT time for unbelief or mocking or dismissal. The signs of the time indicate the Rapture is very close. Are you living for the Lord Jesus Christ?
World alignments are falling into place. The World Economic Forum and the World Health Organisation are the fore-runners in this New World Order, The Great Reset. It is advancing at alarming rates. I suspect those who dismiss the Rapture might also dismiss the lining up of world events – the Signs of the Times. The people in Jesus’ day could not read them and I suspect the same today.
AND WHAT OF THE CONCERN FOR JUSTICE?
You Americans, have you been following the huge injustice in your nation that has caused Congressional and Senate hearings? There is corruption right through government and the White House. Innocent people are dismissed from their jobs and penalized and arrested for not accepting the pride flag, but the grossly criminally guilty are not charged. Australia is much the same, even worse. I fear this is a worldwide trend. The denial of justice is everywhere.
The righteous have a sensitivity to justice that is not generally found in an unsaved man. It is justice we must pursue for it is the justice of God that led to our conversion.
The prophet Isaiah was so burdened that the Spirit of God wrote through him – {{Isaiah 59:8-15 “They do not know the way of peace and THERE IS NO JUSTICE IN THEIR TRACKS. They have made their paths crooked. Whoever treads on them does not know peace. Therefore, JUSTICE IS FAR FROM US, and righteousness does not overtake us. We hope for light, but behold, darkness; for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope along the wall like blind men. We grope like those who have no eyes. We stumble at midday as in the twilight. Among those who are vigorous we are like dead men. All of us growl like bears and moan sadly like doves. WE HOPE FOR JUSTICE, but there is none, for salvation, but it is far from us. Our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us for our transgressions are with us and we know our iniquities: transgressing and denying the LORD, and turning away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving in and uttering from the heart lying words. JUSTICE IS TURNED BACK AND RIGHTEOUSNESS STANDS FAR AWAY FOR TRUTH HAS STUMBLED IN THE STREET, and uprightness cannot enter. Yes, truth is lacking and he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey. Now the LORD saw, and it was displeasing in His sight THAT THERE WAS NO JUSTICE.”}} So much of what Isaiah wrote we see and know to be in today’s world. When the Lord returns at the Second Coming His justice will flow through the earth.
CONCLUSION – IT IS ALL IN GOD’S TIME
It is not my purpose to highlight the afflictions of our times and leave it at that. All I want to do is to cause you to think about the Signs of the Times as Jesus expected his nation to have done when He was on earth. It is so important we understand our times because then we understand the times that are ahead.
The coming of the Lord for His Church is so very close. Once the Rapture happens it will be too late to do the Lord’s will. You should be doing that today as if the Lord comes tomorrow. Be busy about service for the Master. If you have been lazy, then arise and get busy!
All things are falling into place, and quickly too. The last days of the Church age will see increasing turmoil and disgraceful behaviour from people, for Paul stated that wicked men will proceed from bad to worse. {{2Timothy 3:2-4 “for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”}}
I will close with a few verses about the Lord Jesus Christ and here they are -
{{Isaiah 30:18 “Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you for THE LORD IS A GOD OF JUSTICE.”
Isaiah 42:1 “Behold, My Servant whom I uphold, My chosen one in whom My soul delights, I have put My Spirit upon Him. HE WILL BRING FORTH JUSTICE TO THE NATIONS.”
Isaiah 42:4 “He will not be disheartened or crushed until He has established JUSTICE IN THE EARTH and the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law.”}}
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
