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What a difference a day makes. A few days, a week or two and the world is vastly different from how it was. Rationing, national lockdowns, schools closed, air travel curtailed and most nations utterly changed from a few weeks ago. For the people of faith, especially those who look to the prophetic future that’s foretold, this is a lot easier to take and to have been prepared for than perhaps for many others.

Recently I wrote an article called “Are we there yet?” which talked about what Scripture says about the times before the return of Jesus. There I went over some of the “signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3) that Jesus Himself mentioned would be apparent before His return.

But even in the short time between when I wrote that and now, things have been changing very fast. Today where I live some major grocery stores have started restricting how many people can be inside the store at one time. There are rationings for many basic staples and the cash register will not allow purchases over a certain amount. This is unprecedented in my lifetime. I think you’d have to go back to World War II in the States to find anything remotely similar to how things are at the moment.

This reminds me of what a friend years ago told me about what he had thought about the Bible, before he got saved. “Just a book for old ladies to cry in,” was his opinion of Scripture. But we know it is so very much more than this. So much more that it has many specific, exact conditions that it predicts will be a part of the world at the end of this age. And that includes economic conditions.

For example, more and more people around the world have become familiar in recent years with the prediction in the book of Revelation that focuses precisely on how shopping for groceries will be in the last years of this age. Speaking of a final demonic world government that will arise at that time, it says that it “causes all, both small and great, rich and poor to receive a mark in their hand or forehead. And that no man will buy or sell unless they have the mark.” (Revelation 13:16 & 17)

Cryptic but clear. Are we there yet? No, not quite. But the technology is already here. I don’t have to tell you how close something like this is now in our times. How simple it will be to implement a cashless society, all connected online and thus able to be controlled in a way unimaginable only a few decades ago. There just has to be an atmosphere, perhaps some international crisis like the present one, to make it easily accepted by the masses.

For the people of faith, this is going to be a major moment of crisis and decision. Because the Bible warns that this “mark of the beast” to come will be utterly Satanic and that the people of God are warned in no uncertain terms not to receive this coming mark that will be enforced in order to buy and sell.

So what will we do? How will we get food and survive? Wonderfully, the same book in the Bible also answers this question, in a somewhat amazing way. I’ll add in the verse, Revelation 12:6, that explains God’s plan and provision for His people in the final days and then examine its meaning. “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.”

That phrase “the woman” is speaking of the saved of God in the final days, the body of Christ out of every nation. The “1260 days” mentioned there equals 3½ years, the period of time of the “great tribulation” (Matthew 24:21) that is referred to in so many places both in the Old and New Testament of the final time before the return of Jesus.

And when something is really important, sometimes God will “sprinkle a little dust on it” to make it have a special shine. That verse, talking about 1260 days, is Revelation 12:6. When originally written in Greek, the verses were not separated like they are now. So this was just one of God’s “little coincidences” that the length of time and the Bible reference were almost identical.

There’s more. Since this provision of our physical welfare that God will have for His people in the final days is so important for us to know about, the Lord even went ahead and said it twice in the same chapter. Here’s where it’s virtually repeated again, in Revelation 12:14: “And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.”

I like to try to limit these articles to not be too long but there’s a whole lot more to all this. So if you want to know more about “the woman in the wilderness” and how this will play out in the not-too-distant end time, I’ll refer you to an article I wrote almost exactly 5 years ago called “Fleeing into the wilderness… in Bulgaria.” I’d been visiting dear friends in a remote part of Bulgaria and was struck by how it felt like a place that could be a refugee for believers in the future. In that article I go into the particulars of “the woman in the wilderness” and God’s world-wide provision for His people in the final days.

And you might also wonder what this thing is about “3½ years” of “Great Tribulation”; where in the world do I get that from? I’ve made a video on this, based on what Jesus of Nazareth said in Matthew 24, as well as the last verse in Daniel chapter 9. That video, called “The Last 7 Years”, can be seen here.

I heard somewhere long ago that there is a Chinese curse that says, “May you live in interesting times.” Well, here we are. I hope you are praying, staying close to the Lord, loving your neighbor and staying in God’s Word. Those things are our only hope in times like these.

 

 

Are we there yet? Are we now actually in the very final events just before the second coming of Christ? Some utterly mock that whole concept. But many millions know what Jesus said would happen before His return. I’ve studied these things all my adult life and looked almost daily at “the signs of the times” to try to find where  exactly we are in relation to what Godly prophecy reveals of the final signs before the end of this age.

But I’ve often shied away from getting into “the signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3) when it comes to current events and daily occurrences. So many teachers have gone out on a limb about something, only to find that they’ve prematurely predicting some specific final event in the Word of God which didn’t happen as they’d come to think it would. And they were made fools of while the truths of Bible prophecy were made to look false because of their misguided pronouncements. I made a video about some things like this called “Famous Failures of Prophetic Interpretation.”

However, common sense will tell you that simply because someone has falsely called “Wolf, Wolf!” and been proven wrong, certainly that doesn’t mean there are no such things as wolves. And if you know the end of that little story, eventually there did turn up a wolf when the people had come to no longer believe because of the false cries of “Wolf!” that they’d heard for so long. And the wolf had his way because the people, calloused and hardened in unbelief, didn’t take heed when the real wolf appeared among them.

Are we there yet? Where are we? In the videos I’ve done on this subject, mainly based around the prophecies of Daniel, I’ve tried to keep to the most explicit, definite things that Scripture points out will happen in the last years of this age.

Personally, one of the things that I watch most closely is the possible rebuilding of a Jewish temple in Jerusalem , “the third temple” as it’s called. I believe that a temple like that, and subsequent animal sacrifices there, will be one of the most significant and definite signs that the final months and years before the second coming of Christ will have definitely started.

And you ask, “How’s it going with that?” Well, it’s surprisingly very far along. You could do a Google search on “The third temple” or “The Temple Institute” to discover how much work has already been done towards this in modern Israel. There are even reports of some who’ve begun to offer animal sacrifices again there. However, I don’t think that it’s yet fulfilled what is spoken about this in Scripture.

But now there are also many other things. Jesus told His disciples, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations. Then shall the end come.” (Matthew 24:14) Certainly for 18 or 19 centuries that verse had not been fulfilled. Just as certainly, now in the last 30 to 100 years it has been.

And other verses about the final days are also becoming more and more relevant. Jesus said, “There shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places” (Mathew 24:7). The problem I’ve always had with these verses is that it’s very easy for skeptics to just say, “Yes, but that has always been happening”. And of course in some ways they’re right.

It’s just that in our times, right now, there really are a lot of things going on. It remains to be seen how this current crisis with the Corona virus will go. Some say it will all just blow over and we’ll go back to business as usual. But many in the scientific community are saying that it’s just about time to call it a worldwide pandemic and to prepare accordingly. Already, at the time of the writing of this, substantial changes are happening daily in the economies of nations around the world in response to the Corona virus.

It was just a few weeks or months ago that Australia experienced the worst fires they’ve ever had. At the same time, the unprecedented melting of the permafrost in the Arctic religions is releasing huge amounts of CO₂ into the atmosphere, contributing to the climate change that is already a major concern of much of the world.

As you know, I could go on. It is common knowledge that here in America the country is as politically and socially divided as it has been since the Civil War over 160 years ago. Another concern that many parents are only now coming to realize is that there are agendas being relentlessly pursued in most Western nations now to make mandatory indoctrination of elementary school children in the most explicate elements of the “gay” perception of sexuality to be something that parents’ of these children have no legal rights to oppose. This gets almost no news coverage but it is pervasive everywhere and ongoing.

This would also tend to fulfill another of the things that Jesus pointed out would be a sign of His imminent return, “As the days of Lot, so shall also the coming of the son of Man be. But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.” (Luke 17:28 & 29) So it would seem that elements of Sodom and Gomorrah are also predicted by the Lord to be a part of the spirit of the times, just before His return.

And to go back to my original question, “Are we there yet?” Recent events have caused me to look again at how I’ve been viewing these things. I’ve always expected that there would need to be some kind of major international economic/social crash or war to bring on conditions that would be ripe for the final days of the endtime. But there are just many increasing earmarks on every side that certainly look like the things I was expecting to see many years ago. It all very much bears watching closely, as well as being prepared for, both spiritually as well as physically.

Is God green? Is there any way to find the mind of God on the environment, climate change and our relationship to this earth we live on? These subjects are some of the most controversial and perhaps the most pivotal in our times. Not surprisingly, powerful forces fight for control of the dialogue and even the facts on this issue. This is seen in the media worldwide every day.

For me, long ago I escaped the “left-right” dichotomy. This has helped me to more easily recognize the agenda-driven narrative that dominates the present debate on the environment. But what saith God? The vast majority would gladly say that we should just leave God out of it, if they even gave a thought of Him in the first place. Big mistake.

But… there is a God, there is a spiritual world, God’s got a whole lot going on this issue, as well as knowledge of how it all should and will turn out. We can see this plainly if we turn briefly to His Word, the truth He’s given His prophets and messengers for thousands of years. One of the most poignant and (to me) relevant things God has spoken concerning the present boiling debate on the environment is found in the last book in the Bible, called in many languages “The Apocalypse”.

In the book of Revelation we find the angels speaking to God in the very last days of this age, saying that He should “destroy them that destroy the earth.”  (Revelation 11:18) Someone is going to be destroying the earth in the final days of this age? And God doesn’t like that?

“Mark, surely you won’t use that verse to support an idea that God is green!”

Well, there are more like that. God spoke to His disobedient people through the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah, “I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof. But when you entered you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.” (Jeremiah 2:7) And in the laws of Moses they were commanded to not cut down all the trees in a land “for the tree of the field is a man’s life.” (Deuteronomy 20:19)

Again in the Apocalypse, we find strong references to our physical earth in the final days of this age, for example where it says of those times, “a third part of trees was burned up, and all green grass.” (Revelation 8:7) So I believe it does matter to God what we do with this earth. His original commandment from the beginning in the garden was that we were to “dress and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15)

But don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean that I think God is green the way the present Green movement often turns out to be. Those on the political “right” worldwide, often called Conservatives (and where many Christians feel they should align themselves) will say that God gave us the earth and it is ours to profit from, to use for our necessities and to further the progress and wealth of mankind. There’s some truth to that and plenty in God’s Word to indicate that this is His Will, within reason.

In the Green movement, there are “techno-optimists” who believe that mankind can find solutions through technology and ingenuity to make it through the changes that are upon us, if enough effort is made. But many other Greens are not optimistic. They’re already in a thoroughly apocalyptic view that it is too late, that the Rubicon has been crossed and the die is cast. They often end up having a similar view to the millions of “Preppers” here in the States who feel it’s only a matter of time before social collapse and the end of this world as we know it happens. But the Green apocalypse people see this coming through ecological devastation.

And it’s a little ominous to note what those on the edge of the spectrum in the Green movement see as our only hope. They say that some of their fellow Greens mistakenly are “trying to save Capitalism.” Chew on that a little. You mean the only way to save the earth from ecological extinction is to overthrow Capitalism? And replace it with…? Some form of neo-Marxism or State-controlled totalitarianism?

Wonderfully, I’ve found that there is a God who is above all this, more powerful than we are, infinitely smarter and more able as well. As bad as some things are getting, as uber-polarized as things get day by day, our Father in heaven is neither asleep or even sick. I don’t doubt at all that part of the curse on this earth and its inhabitants for their sins in these last days is because of the exploitation and destruction of this earth that’s come to pass through the greed in man’s heart for centuries, which is now coming back to bite us throughout the earth in the ecological changes going on.

Most Christians will tell you that we are not to “defile the temple of God” which we now consider our own bodies. “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” (I Corinthians 3:17) Equally, God is not going to let us get away with defiling this earth we live on through greed, lust and lack of concern for His creation.

So I expect that in the coming final days of man’s rule on the earth, before the return of Jesus to set up God’s Millennial reign through Him, we will see the increasing collapse of our beloved earth itself as it groans under our sins of greed and thoughtless exploitation of the environment.

I think God is green, at least as far as it comes to caring for this earth He created for our benefit. Sin is at the root of the environmental crisis, and yes there is one. Is there time enough left to pull the cookies out of the fire? Like so many things, I believe it will ultimately take the coming of the Lord to save us from ourselves.