As a crazy fundamentalist Christian, I believe in the end of the world. Interestingly enough, I don’t get a lot of disagreement from most people, at least in principle. Even hard-core materialists, believe the world will end eventually, like when the sun goes nova in 10 or 15 billion years. But what I mean is something that will happen substantially sooner, perhaps in my life time.

I base my belief on prophecies found in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament book of Matthew, Chapter 24. Jesus is on the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem, and His disciples are trying to get insider information on the future. Here’s the passage:

Jesus went out and departed from the temple [very shortly before His arrest], and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down [this happened literally in 70 A.D., some 38 years after Christ was crucified]." Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"

Christ had taught His followers that He was God, and then proceeded to prove it by performing some 38 recorded miracles, ranging from changing water into wine to raising at least 2 people from the dead (not counting Himself after the Crucifixion). He also told His disciples that He was going away for a time, but would return. They didn’t get it right away. They couldn’t quite understand that He meant He was going to be killed, rise again after 3 days, and then ascend into Heaven for some unspecified period of time. It’s not that Jesus didn’t come right out and say these things, because He did; it’s that they just weren’t hearing Him. (Has that ever happened to you?)

Anyway, by the time of this Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, the disciples understood enough to ask 3 questions: 1) when will these future things occur; 2) what will be the sign of His return; and 3) how can we tell when the end is coming?

That word, age, quoted in Matthew 24, is the Greek word, cosmos; you know, where we get the English word, um, cosmos, from. It can mean age, or everything, or world. It’s a pretty ambiguous noun in that sense, but taken in view with the rest of the New Testament, it is pretty accurate to see it as meaning age in the above context. So technically speaking at this point, I have to modify my first sentence from; I believe in the end of the world, to, I believe in the end of the age. On the one hand, this refinement is significant because it says the physical planet itself won’t come to an end, but rather that the current age will terminate. On the other hand, as we’ll see, this distinction between the end of the planet versus the end of the age is relatively meaningless. (Incidentally, I also believe that the age in question, is the Age of Human Control, but more on that later.)

Christ answers the disciples’ last question first (how can we tell when the end is coming?), and let me just summarize his response in bullet points. The end will be characterized by:

• Deceit
• False Messiahs
• Wars and Rumors of Wars
• Nations Rising Against Nations
• Kingdoms Rising Against Kingdoms
• Earthquakes
• Famines
• Pestilences
• Lawlessness

Jesus goes on to say, “[for] then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved;”

Did you catch that? This Man, who proved Himself to be God in the flesh, warns that the end of this age is going to entail so much destruction and death, unlike any seen since the beginning of the world, that unless those days were supernaturally cut short, no life would remain. So while the earth will remain intact and not be completely destroyed, there will be unprecedented and widespread death and devastation. Additional gruesome details are provided in the New Testament book of Revelation, particularly chapters 6 through 19.

By the way, there has been no period in human history where such global catastrophe could occur by human hands... until now.

You might ask why I believe that the Bible is an accurate source for anything, let alone predicting the future. There are many reasons, but let me give you just one: Israel. Dispersed from its homeland more than 19 centuries ago, as per Biblical prophecy, and brought back into the land and declared a nation once again in 1948, as per Biblical prophecy, this tiny nation is the center of world attention today. This is no accident, or the result of happenstance. It is precisely as foretold throughout the Bible. In fact, Israel is the greatest argument for the existence and power of God. No other people group in history has been preserved and reconstituted in this way, despite millennia of exile. That says something, because Israel’s history was written in advance in the Scripture.

And as for deceit, false Messiahs, wars, earthquakes, famines, pestilences (a.k.a. pandemics like AIDS, bird flu, e. coli, not to mention the plethora of available manmade epidemics from bio-warfare), and lawlessness, well, unless you’ve been on Mars lately, these things are prevalent and increasing throughout the world.

If you’ve bought all this up until this point, the question may arise, “So, great! What do I do about it?”

I have an answer and I’ve got more details, but that will be reserved for a future post.