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We believe and teach everyone the importance of having a biblical worldview. Here is an eye-opening article from the 

Harbinger Daily News Service "Failing To Recognize Bible Prophecy: Examining The Widespread Lack Of Discernment Among Today’s Church Leaders" by Tim Moore, a publication that promotes a biblical worldview. 

"Were you there, when they laid Him in the tomb?”

The somber chorus of the song, “Were You There?” poses a series of reflective questions about the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. The questions are meant to be rhetorical, for no one alive for the past 1900 years was there during Jesus’ life on Earth.

Having said that, the song makes us consider the disciples’ experience as they witnessed what seemed like a catastrophe. From the moment Jesus was arrested, they thought that their world was falling apart.

Matthew and Mark simply say that the disciples left Him and fled. All four Gospel accounts tell of Peter’s vehement threefold denial.

It would be easy to belittle the disciples for their feckless faith, but we have the advantage of hindsight. They genuinely did not understand that Jesus’ nearterm prophecies would converge at Calvary, where He would suffer and die in obedience to the Father’s plan of salvation. Only after His resurrection did they see clearly. Simply put, it is sometimes hard to have perspective in the midst of a storm.

The Blessing of Hindsight

Unlike the apostles, we have the full canon of Scripture and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit—a blessing they did not receive until Pentecost. But, like them, events and circumstances can sometimes overwhelm us in the moment. That is why we need to stay grounded in the Word of God so that we are not buffeted and battered by all that is happening around us. And that truth is even more urgent as the Signs of the Times increase in frequency and intensity.

Consider this: for long stretches of human history, there were few prophetic signs heralding the Lord’s coming. That was true in the intertestamental period and has been true throughout the Church Age. Let’s consider Jesus’ First Advent.

The Old Testament concluded with a promise that ended with a curse. God promised to send “Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD” (Malachi 4:5). The very next verse prophesied that he would restore the hearts of fathers and children to one another, lest He “come and smite the land with a curse” (Malachi 4:6). The not-so-veiled threat of a curse was the alternative to God’s gracious promise of restoration. But the timing of its fulfillment was not specified.

We know that over 400 years transpired before the Messiah came. Several generations lived and died in that period as darkness fell across the land, as first Greece, then Rome dominated the people of Israel. Citing Isaiah 9:2, Matthew describes Jesus’ arrival this way: “The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great Light, and those who were sitting in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a Light dawned” (Matthew 4:16).

Suddenly, as Jesus began to call His disciples, proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom, and minister throughout the region, signs were evident to all who had eyes to see— and even to those born blind, as He restored their sight. When John was languishing in prison, he sent word to ask Jesus to affirm that He was the Expected One. Jesus responded by telling John’s followers to report the fulfillment of a series of prophetic signs: “the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them” (Matthew 11:5, fulfilling Isaiah 35:5 and 61:1).

The authority of Jesus’ teaching and His power over demons was amazing to His followers, and the pace of His activity was breathtaking. Mark uses the word “immediately” 10 times in the first chapter of his Gospel alone, just to convey the urgency of His ministry. And yet, despite the wealth of prophetic signs being manifest, the Pharisees and religious leaders scoffed and grew resentful toward Him.

Even with all the signs evident for all to see, they had the audacity to demand yet another sign from Heaven. Jesus’ response to them stands as a warning to us still today: When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ 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?” (Matthew 16:2-3)

The Lord went on to declare that no sign would be given to such an evil and adulterous generation, except the sign of Jonah. Since He obviously performed other miracles, clearly His words conveyed that no signs would be discerned by those whose hearts were far from Him—except the undeniable sign of His death and resurrection (the “sign of Jonah”).

Almost 2,000 years later, another wave of signs is manifesting today. The blessing Jesus referenced with regard to His disciples is even more true today: “…blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (Matthew 13:16-17).

But many people—including modern religious leaders—seem incapable of discerning the Signs of the Times.

Signs Multiplying Before Our Eyes

At Jesus’ First Advent, only six people in all Judea are recorded as alerted to His approaching arrival: Mary and Joseph, Zacharias and Elizabeth, and Simeon and Anna. (In addition, Magi came from the East because they were students of God’s prophetic Word handed down by Daniel.) Those six anticipated Jesus’ birth because either the Holy Spirit or an angel sent by God revealed His coming to them. The only external sign heralding His arrival was a star—an astrological sign that the Magi discerned in the East.

All the Old Testament signs regarding the Messiah’s First Advent were fulfilled upon His arrival, during His ministry, or by His death, burial, and resurrection. That includes over 300 different prophecies, or 107 separate and distinct signs. But the Old Testament contains 500 prophecies concerning His Second Coming. And the New Testament is filled with promises to the Church regarding its Rapture and signs regarding Jesus’ coming again to reign on the Earth.

That multitude of signs—coupled with the Holy Spirit, who Jesus sent to “guide you into all the truth…[and to] disclose to you what is to come” (John 16:13)— means that we have the ability to discern when we are living in the season of His return. “You, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief” (1 Thessalonians 5:4).

So, with that assurance of discernment and a firm reliance on the Holy Spirit to guide us into truth, let’s consider the signs and how they are converging as never before.

We readily confess that some of the signs have been evident in the past. There have always been natural disasters, famines, pestilence, and plagues. Wars and rumors of wars have become the norm instead of the exception. Nations and empires have risen and fallen as societal upheaval and flagrant sin have left them in the dustbin of history. But those categories have been steadily increasing in frequency and intensity for the past 100 years.

While I was serving in the Kentucky Legislature, Governing magazine carried a cover article in its September 2014 edition entitled, “A Climate of Change.” The subtitle drew my attention, because it proclaimed, “Governments throughout the country are touting the need for ‘resilience’ in the face of ever-more-frequent natural disasters.” I am quite certain that the editors of that magazine had no idea that [they were not testifying to “climate change,”] they were testifying to the fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

Similarly, the purveyors of secular humanism who are hell-bent on eradicating Christianity in the public square of our nation will never realize that they are fulfilling Paul’s prophetic warnings in Romans 1. Although our nation “once [knew] the ordinance of God,” many of our national leaders not only behave in ways that are abhorrent to God, they “also give hearty approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:32). Is it any wonder God has “given them over” to lusts and impurity, degrading passions, and depraved minds? And that same trajectory is evident around the world in nations where Christianity once thrived.

The same could be said of spiritual signs, world politics, and technology. And yet, true to Bible prophecy, scoffers have also multiplied, in essence saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:4). Most tragically, the context of Peter’s warning has also proven true: those scoffers come from the ranks of those who profess to follow Christ.

Discernment in the Midst of the Storm

Some feel so overwhelmed by the pace at which change is occurring (and society is degenerating) that they cannot make sense of the chaos. But students of Scripture understand that all these things (and the acceleration in prophetic signs) were foretold long ago. The rapidity and the acceleration merely confirm that the End is near.

What is also recognizable by those who study Bible prophecy and have been tracking these signs for many years is the unprecedented overlap or convergence of the various signs. Like marbles sent spiraling down a large funnel, they are growing closer together and impacting one another as they approach the final terminus. Natural disasters stoke increased fear, and advancing technology leads to hubris. Thinking we have the knowledge and means to finally control nature, mankind is actually losing control because it lacks wisdom. Societal breakdowns are leading to a realignment of nations into the configuration foretold in the end—with Russia and Turkey threatening Israel from the North, along with Iran (Persia) to the East. On another front, technology is expected to soon offer government (or one powerful individual) the ability to control people’s buying and selling on a global scale.

All of these signs began to go into overdrive, with the intensity and frequency increasing exponentially, about the time God started regathering the Jewish people and reestablishing Israel as a modern nation. That is why Israel—the “greatest sign of all”—is the key to God’s prophetic time clock. Even the sudden resurgence of hatred against Israel that has been evident since October 7th, 2023, offers yet more evidence that all the alarms are sounding at once.

Jesus is coming soon.

But Why Convergence?

There is simply no denying the reality that events are swirling faster than ever before. It’s as if Moore’s Law (Intel co-founder Gordon Moore’s proven prediction that computing power and efficiency would double every 18-24 months) now applies in every category of prophetic signs.

Signs of nature, society, technology, world politics, and Israel (as well as spiritual signs) are increasing in frequency and intensity—and converging—as never before. The inevitable conclusion is that the “birth pangs” Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24:8 are taking place. That reference highlights the fact that no one— not the mother or father or doctor—can predict exactly when a baby will be born. But when the birth pangs begin, everyone knows that the baby is coming soon.

Likewise, even as the birth pangs have begun and herald that the End is coming soon, we still cannot know the exact day or hour. But we know that at any moment “the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

As the rest of Paul’s letter to the church at Thessalonica explains, that promise and that recognition is why we can “comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18).

Obviously, God the Father wants us to discern that He is about to tell His Son to “Go and get Your Bride” (the clear inference of John 14:1-3 and Revelation 19:7-9). When we see the world and understand the signs from God’s own perspective, all the prophetic pieces really will fall into place.