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What the Bible says about Time of the End
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Isaiah 42:12-13

This provides the time that this will take place—when God goes forth. This is the time of the end, and we may be able to pinpoint this to "the day of the Lord," the sounding of the seventh trump, the pouring out of the seven last plagues of God.

John W. Ritenbaugh
A Place of Safety? (Part 2)

Jeremiah 30:5-7

Jeremiah 30:5-7 alerts us to consider that the time of the end will be unique and horrific to experience, but it concludes with a comforting hope that we can persevere through it.

Though broad, this declaration forces us to realize that in all of man's history, no other time can fully compare to "the time of Jacob's trouble" and the universal and intense fear it will cause. In His Olivet Prophecy (Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21), Jesus provides greater detail concerning specific events of that same period, leaving no doubt that His second coming will be preceded by frightening and tumultuous events.

On a general worldwide basis, many wars, earthquakes, famines, and disease epidemics will occur with increasing frequency as events approach their climax at His return. These will be accompanied by heart-breaking, fear-driven betrayals of one Christian by another and by outright hateful persecutions of Christians from the world. It will be an intensified, larger-scale repetition of what happened before the Noachian Flood. God's pledge to deliver Jacob from it promises that He will oversee events just as He did with Noah, his family, and the animals in the ark (Genesis 8:1).

Noah is surely the Bible's most outstanding example of persevering through a long and dreadful experience. The Flood was also unique, universal, and devastating to the earth and everyone caught in it except for those on the ark. Not only did Noah have to persevere through the Flood itself, but also through 120 years of events during his preparations for its arrival. We need to be fully aware that Noah's salvation was ultimately God's doing, but we should also thoroughly and thoughtfully consider that Noah was fully involved with God in carrying out all that God told him to do for that 120-year period (Genesis 6:22; 7:5).

John W. Ritenbaugh
Persevering to the End

Hosea 4:11-12

A crucial key to understanding the application to us, in both Hosea and Amos, is that they prophesied in Israel (the ten northern tribes) during a time similar to today—that is, in the last generation before a major national calamity fell on them, a "time of the end."

Hosea and Amos were among the last prophets God sent to Israel so that the nation could never say (including after their resurrection) that God did not care enough to give them a chance. No, He gave them an overwhelming number of chances to repent. In their case, the time was just before Israel fell to the invading Assyrian armies, who removed from their homeland and scattered them to the four winds, never to return to the land of Israel.

Historical records and archeological findings show that Israel was quite prosperous during the time of Amos and Hosea. It was a major power in the world. But at the same time, the nation was rotten to the core morally, and social injustice was the order of the day throughout the land.

These people had a problem with getting literally drunk, since Amos reports of them drinking wine by the bowls—not cups, but bowls. Hosea directly calls Ephraim, "the drunkards of Ephraim." Besides this, they practiced their ritual harlotry within the pagan religion they had adopted. But the lesson for us is spiritual. God is saying that at the end-time, it is as though a demoniacal power seizes the nation and destroys loyalty to God.

Drugs destroy a person's capacity to think clearly and break down resistance to evil. They cloud the mind so that one becomes morally stupid and incapable of thinking straight. In like manner, so does the spiritual drunkenness that results from over-imbibing in Babylon.

Please understand the parallel. In Revelation 17:2, the world's people are reported as being "drunk on the wine of her fornication"—a spiritual drunkenness, not a physical one. Hosea is talking about both. This drunkenness is an escape into the fantasies of this world's attitudes and conduct. It deprives people of their understanding. It undermines the heart and removes inhibitions. Why? Because people want to join the excitement that everybody else is having.

This drunkenness fills a person with false confidence. Such people say, "Oh, things are going to be all right." "Everything is going to work out." "You don't have to worry about AIDS or any of those other sexual diseases." This is false confidence, even bravado—"I am the man!"

It plays havoc with modesty and restraint. Women's hems rise and necklines fall. They are imbibing in Babylon. Worse, it destroys loyalty within relationships, both with humans and with God.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Laodiceanism and Being There Next Year


 




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