ENDTIME
Related Index Topics: Future, Antichrist.
1. Both the Old and New Testaments are filled with promises of the Second Coming of Christ. There are 1,845 references to it in the Old Testament, and a total of seventeen Old Testament books give it prominence.
Of the 260 chapters in the entire New Testament, there are 318 references to the Second Coming, or one out of 30 verses. Twenty-three of the 27 New Testament books refer to this great event. The four remaining books include three which are single-chapter books written to individual persons on a particular subject, and the fourth is Galatians which does imply Christ's coming again.
For every prophecy on the First Coming of Christ, there are 8 on Christ's Second Coming.
2. There was an earthquake on July 11, 1927, which shook Palestine from the Sea of Galilee to the border of Egypt and, after the tremors, geologists discovered a fault in Olivet, running from east to west. Prof. Bailey Willis, of Stanford University, said that the land could expect to suffer from seismological disturbances and that the area around Jerusalem was a region of potential danger, a fault line, along which slippage might occur, passing directly under the Mount of Olives. It is evident, therefore, that what Zechariah described is precisely what geologists would expect to occur. (See Zech.14:4)
3. In August of 1967, the British magazine The Christian and Christianity Today printed this article:
Five hundred railcar loads of stone from Bedford, Indiana, considered to be among the finest building stone in the world, are being freighted, pre-cut to exact specifications, and one consignment has already been dispatched to Israel. Shipments are being handled by Pier 26 in New York.
The report from sources in Sellersburg, Indiana, said cornerstones for the third Jerusalem temple are already in Israel. Materials for this temple have been secretly in preparation for seven years, and it is believed American Jews are mainly responsible for financially undergirding the whole project.
Strong rumors from other usually reliable sources say the two freestanding pillars for the new temple have already been cast in bronze.
The report above, however, has been denied by Israeli authorities. It caused some furor among interested people.
4. In 1789 it took George Washington eight days to travel the 200-odd miles from his home, Mount Vernon, to the scene of his inauguration as President in New York City. The fact that it required eight days is not significant. The important fact is that the time was the same as it would have taken two thousand years before. No real progress had been made in transportation in twenty centuries. Moses or Nebuchadnezzar could have traveled just as rapidly. Julius Caesar could have stepped from the first century into the nineteenth more easily than Benjamin Franklin could have stepped into this century. Now, for the first time in history, no man dies in the historical era in which he was born.
5. It is a remarkable fact that Sir Isaac Newton, writing on the prophecy of Daniel 12:4 said that if they were true, it would be necessary that a new mode of traveling should be invented, for knowledge would be so increased that man would be able to travel at the rate of fifty miles an hour.
Voltaire, true to the spirit of skepticism, said: "Now look at the mighty mind of Newton, who discovered gravitation; when he began to study the Book called the Bible, it seems in order to credit its fabulous nonsense, he believed that the knowledge of mankind will be so increased that we shall be able to travel fifty miles an hour! The poor dotard!" Today even a skeptic would have to say, "Newton was a wise philosopher; Voltaire a poor old dotard."
6. Several years ago, Belgium's Premier, P. H. Spock made a statement in the newspaper:
"The truth is that the method of international committees has failed. What we need is a person, someone of the highest order of great energy.
"Let him come and let him come quickly. Either a civilian or a military man, no matter what his nationality, who will cut all the red tape, shove out of the way all the committees, wake up all the people and galvanize all governments into action. Let him come quickly. This man we need and for whom we wait will take charge of the defense of the West. Once more I say, it is not too late, but it is high time."
7. In 1869, the famous French chemist, Pierce Bethelot, wrote these prophetic and startling words:
"In one hundred years of physical and chemical science, man will know what the atom is. It is our belief that when science reaches this stage, God will come down to earth with His big ring of keys and say to humanity, 'Gentlemen, it is closing time.'"
Pierce Bethelot reasoned that the splitting of the atom would mark a point of no return in the history of man.
8. The world's horse population is estimated at 72,600,000, of which at least one half are in Russia.
Although other nations have discontinued it, Russia has continued to be noted for her cavalry. Even before World War II, Russian agents scoured the earth for battle horses and bought them. During the Second World War, Russian Cossacks met and defeated German mechanized forces. In the Korean War, 5,000 mounted Communist troops were able to cross the Yalu River without being detected by UN reconnaissance planes.
Horses are still the fastest and surest means of transporting men, light and heavy artillery, and field equipments over mountainous terrain.
9. Tim LaHaye in his "The Beginning of the End" brings out the following facts:
--The nouns in Ezekiel 38 and 39 have been held for years to be Russia: "Rosh" or "Gog" for Russia; "Meshech" for Moscow; and "Tubal" for Tobolsk, the largest state.
--Genesis 10 is of help in establishing the identity of these names. Magog was the second son of Japheth who settled north of the Black Sea. Tubal and Meshech were the 5th and 6th sons of Japheth, whose descendants settled south of the Black Sea. These people intermarried and became known as Magog, the dominant tribe.
--The name Moscow comes from the tribal name Meshech. The noun Gog is from the original tribal name Magog, which gradually became "Rosh," then "Rus," and today as "Russia."
--These make up the modern Russian people.
10. Lignostone is a product of many uses. It is known that Russia has been using this versatile product for many years in the manufacture of its weapons of war.
For those who may not be familiar with this fairly recent discovery, lignostone was invented by a man in Ter Apel, Holland. It has the quality of being stronger than steel, more elastic, and very applicable for many manufactured products (even including bows and arrows). It resembles many layers of plywood compressed under extreme pressure, and it has another vital use: being a wood product, it burns better than coal. This was a major reason for its original development. Since Holland had no natural gas wells at the time, lignostone was developed for use in the coke-burning plants for the production of manufactured gas.
Lignostone burns better than coke, and thus we see in this product the very real potential for the fulfillment of another marvellous Bible prophecy which could only be foretold by Divine inspiration: that the Russian weapons could be burned for fuel for seven years. (Ezekiel 39:9)
11. Moscow sees in Iran a key to the success of their world revolution in Asia. The heart of their thinking was avowed in 1918 by K. Troyanovsky: "Our object with regard to Persia must be simply a revolutionary democratic policy...We must foment the Persian revolution. The Persian uprisings will be the signal for a series of revolutions that will spread through all of Asia and part of Africa. The Persian revolution is the key to the revolution of all the Orient...This precious key must be in the hands of Bolshevism, cost what it may...Persia must be ours."
12. The personal character of the Antichrist may be described as follows:
(1) High intelligence--Rev.13:18; Dan.7:8.
(2) Great speaking ability--Dan.7:8; Rev.13:5.
(3) Crafty political talents--Dan.9:27; Rev.17:12,13,17.
(4) Strong physical appearance--Dan.7:20.
(5) Military genius--Rev.13:4; 17:14; 19:19.
(6) Morally, the worst personage
(a) Materialistic--Dan.11:38
(b) Blasphemer--Rev.13:6
(c) Against the law--IIThess.2:8
(d) Selfish ambition--Dan.11:36,37; 2Thess.2:4.
(e) Tries to change prophecy and history--Dan.7:25.
(f) Substitutes self for God--Dan.11:36; 2Thess.2:4.
(g) Does not regard the desire of women.--Dan.11:37.
13. "On Friday, January 26, 1951, the weather bureau predicted a cold wave for the northeastern states, due to a high pressure area centering on Canada. On January 27 an atomic explosion took place near Las Vegas. As it passed over Wisconsin, temperatures between 24 and 53 degrees BELOW ZERO were reported. All over the nation, temperatures tumbled, often to new record lows. ...
"On January 28, another explosion at Las Vegas caused an in-rush of a high pressure area from the Arctic circle, bringing freezing rain and sleet as far as the Gulf of Mexico. On February 1st, the greatest of the blasts was set off, and by nightfall, the entire nation was blanketed by the worst storm in many years, with a death toll of 270 persons. The damage to crops was enormous."
Noting that these great in-rushes of cold air were produced by nuclear blasts which were underground, imagine the far greater in-rush of Arctic air fronts that would be produced by the simultaneous explosion of many surface and/or high altitude blasts such as would occur in the case of an all-out thermonuclear attack! (Here could be a secondary reason, or cause, for "great hailstone.") (Rev.16:21)
14. In 1955, Professor Arnold Toynbee, widely called "the greatest living historian" made a statement that was announced to the world by the news channels. He said: "The time for world government has come."
15. Register III is the name given to Dr. H.J.A. Goodman's world-brain proposal. According to Dr. Goodman, a world brain--a giant computerized information-retrieval network giving access to all the world's knowledge--is perhaps only ten years away.
16. In the frescoes of Signorelli we have "The Teaching of Antichrist"--no repulsive figure, but a grand personage in flowing robes, and with a noble countenance, which at a distance might easily be taken for the Saviour. To him the crowd are eagerly gathering and listening, and it is only when you draw close that you can discover in his harder and cynical expression, and from the evil spirit whispering in his ear, that it is not Christ.
17. Studies have shown that the halfway point of all human knowledge is located less than ten years ago; that is, man's knowledge has doubled within the past decade. Every 60 seconds, 2000 typewritten pages are added to man's knowledge and the material produced every 24 hours takes one person 5 years to read.
18. According to Persian mythology, the ages of the world are divided into periods of 1,000 years. When the cycle of "chiliasms" (1,000-year period) is complete, the reign of Ormuzd will begin, and men will be all good and all happy, but this event will be preceded by the loosing of Dahak, who will break his chain and fall upon the world, and bring on man the most dreadful calamities. Two prophets will appear to cheer the oppressed, and announce the advent of Marmuzd.
ENDTIME FACTS & FIGURES
WARS
19. Jesus said that in the Last Days "ye shall hear of wars & rumours of wars ... for nation shall rise against nation, & kingdom against kingdom." (Mat.24:6,7)
20. In the 55 centuries of recorded history, there have only been 292 years of peace, that is years in which there was no war raging somewhere on Earth. No period has witnessed the escalation of wars as has the 20th Century. In 1969 the Red Cross estimated that 90 million people have been killed in wars since the 20th Century began. Up until 1914, war had never been universal, but in both World War 1 & 2, total war was waged. In WW2 only 12 nations were not actually involved.
21. Preparing for wars: In 1967, the U.S. spent 70 billion Dollars for defence. The 1986 defence budget was about 300 billion Dollars. The U.S. spends about 520 Dollars per man, woman & child on defence each year.
22. The U.S. government spent one trillion Dollars on defence buildup over five years. If someone was going to spend a million Dollars a day from the day Jesus was born until 1982, he would only spend half of what the U.S. spent in those five years.
23. Over 400,000 scientists are now employed on improving existing weapons or developing new ones.
24. The U.S. is the World's biggest arms exporter.
25. UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) reports that governments now spend more in four days preparing for war than in a year helping their neighbours. The annual budget of UNICEF is 75 million Dollars, compared with 125 million Dollars that is spent to build one modern submarine.
26. Nuclear weapons: Presently there are enough nuclear bombs in existence to equal 1.3 million Hiroshima explosions. The UN reports that the World's nuclear arsenals contain enough explosives to blast every man, woman & child off the Earth with the equivalent of 15 tons of TNT each. One nuclear submarine carries more explosive force than all the bombs & ammunition exploded by all the nations in World War 2.
27. Since World War 2, hundreds of international conferences have been held in an attempt to control the nuclear arms race, but not one single weapon has been destroyed by international agreement.
FAMINE "And there shall be famines ..." (Mat.24:7).
28. In spite of record high food production, more people go hungry than ever before. The UN Food & Agricultural Organisation reported that 460 million people are at the brink of starvation daily. Some 200 million children yearly slip into some form of mental retardation & blindness due to lack of food.
29. The WHO (World Health Organisation) estimates that about 4 million people a year die of starvation, or about 30 people every minute.
30. 12,000 square miles in Africa becomes desert each year due to over-deforestation & lack of fertilisers.
31. In 1980 the U.S. Presidential Commission on World Hunger said, "Food shortages may be more serious than shortages of energy within the next 20 years. Millions of human beings live on the edge of starvation. The most potentially explosive force in the World today is a frustrated desire of poor people to attain a decent standard of living. The anger, despair & often hatred that result represent a real & persistent threat to international order."
32. The EEC stores an estimated 800,000 metric surplus tons of butter, as well as 1,000,000 tons of surplus skimmed milk powder and 400,000 tons of beef, rather than sell or give it away.
33. The EEC spends about 14 billion dollars a year to help farmers produce unused farm surplus goods.
34. In the early 1980's the U.S. government spent 6.1 billion dollars over 3 years to buy & store surplus U.S. dairy products.
35. At the beginning of 1985, the U.S. Agricultural Dept. was storing 24 million metric tons of edible farm commodities. Farmers store about 7 million more tons of surplus grains.
36. The U.S. government stores in limestone mines in Missouri, about 61 million pounds of unused surplus dairy products. This would fill a train stretching from N.Y. city to Toledo.
37. U.S. taxpayers pay 275,000 dollars an hour to buy more surplus, and it costs 5,000,000 dollars a month to store it.
38. In 18 black African countries 20 million people face starvation. 60% of all Africans eat less than what the UN considers a daily survival diet.
EARTHQUAKES "And great earthquakes shall be in diverse places ..." (Luke 21:11).
39. In our times the earth has trembled & been convulsed as never before in history. The number of destructive earthquakes occurring in the first half of this century was more than twice the number of the whole 19th century, & the number continues to increase.
40. In 1976 an estimated 695,000 people died because of earthquakes. 25 of the 49 largest earthquakes in recorded history occurred from 1960 to 1980, in only two decades.
PESTILENCES & DISEASES "There shall be pestilences ..." (Mat.24:7).
41. According to the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, 35% of the World's food is being lost to insects, weeds & animals prior to harvest, & an additional 10% is being destroyed by pests after reaping in storage. A U.S. Dept. of Agriculture official said that there are 364 types of "super bugs" worldwide, which have developed resistance to the many poisons used to destroy or keep them in check.
42. There are five billion rats on the Earth--more rats than people. They cause two million Dollars of damage yearly.
43. There are still 11 million lepers on Earth, most of them in Asia, Africa & South America.
INCREASED KNOWLEDGE & COMMUNICATION "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, & seal the book, even to the Time of the End: Many shall run to & fro & knowledge shall be increased" (Daniel 12:4).
44. The halfway point of Man's knowledge is less than 10 years ago. Until a few years ago, it was estimated that the sum total of Man's knowledge was doubling every ten Years. The experts now estimate that it takes 5 years for Man's store of knowledge to double.
45. Alton Toffler in his book Future Shock says that the World today is as different from the World of 50 years ago as 1923 was different from Julius Caesar's day.
46. Over 15,000 scientific journals are being published today.
47. Every 60 seconds, 2,000 typewritten pages are added to Man's knowledge, & the material produced every 24 hours would take one person five years to read. About 500,000 new books are published every year.
48. Scientist Robert O'Brien said: "A man takes 1-1/2 minutes to multiply two five-digit numbers, & a computer does it 30 million times as fast."
49. When Apollo 13 was lost in space, computers worked out in an hour & a half a way to bring it back. It's reported that it would have taken a scientist working with pencil & paper over a million years to figure out how to perform the same feat.
50. The NASA Space Center in California has a computer that is able to make 12,800,000,000 complex calculations per second. There are now about 1,300 operational satellites whirling around the Earth.
51. Television: By the time a child has graduated from high school, he has seen 17,000 hours of television, giving him an impression of the world & universe that no child of previous generations ever had. The average American watches 17 hours of television a week. Calculated over his life period, this would be about 18 years. Television is considered the most powerful social force in America today.
52. 90 years ago Mankind was travelling in a state little different from Adam. Today, Man can not only drive at enormous speeds, but also fly & even go to the Moon.
53. Horseback was probably the fastest speed of all men until about the mid-19th Century. Today cars can travel at 600 m.p.h., planes at 2,000 m.p.h., & spaceships at 24,000 m.p.h. A space craft can cover the World in 80 minutes, & in less than one second a radio message can reach the ends of the Earth.
54. In the U.S. alone over 300 million passengers were carried by domestic airlines in 1979, an increase of 75% in a decade. The World's busiest airport is the Chicago International Airport with a total of 700,000 take-offs & landings a year, or one plane movement every 45 seconds around the clock.
55. International tourism involves 200 million people travelling outside their own countries every year throughout the world.
56. Cars: In the U.S., 75 billion Dollars is spent by Americans on the purchase of new cars annually, with an additional 50 billion going into maintenance & repairs.
57. Space Travel: Only 60 years elapsed from the time of the first Kitty Hawk flight, which was an early airplane, to the development of the Apollo spacecraft.
FALSE RELIGIONS & CHRISTS (Mat.24:23-26)
58. A Syracuse University professor who researched the contemporary religious situation in America announced that there are over 2,000 practising gurus calling themselves Christ.
59. The Occult--1Timothty 4:1: The film "The Exorcist" gained 70 million Dollars in a year, & the book by that title had 10 million copies in print.
60. There are between 5 to 10,000 astrologers in the U.S. today. There are about 10,000 practising witches in the U.S. & over 2 million Ouija Boards are now sold annually.
A FALLING AWAY OF THE CHURCHES (2Tim.4:3; Mat.24:12)
61. It has been estimated that probably 95% of all church members have never led anyone to Christ.
62. In America, more money is spent on tobacco in one year than both the U.S. & Canada have spent on missions since the White Man discovered America.
63. A survey taken of 520 clergy & laymen of the NCC (National Council of Churches), showed that only a little over half believed Jesus to be divine, & only 62% believe in an afterlife.
64. McCall Magazine took a survey of 3000 Protestant clergymen. The article stated that "A considerable number rejected altogether the idea of a personal God. A majority of the youngest group cannot be said to believe in a Virgin birth or to regard Jesus as divine."
65. In the U.S. in high schools the word "Christmas" has been eliminated. One high school principal says, "We do not use Christmas, instead we use the word holiday. When we plan holiday activities we must ask ourselves, does the activity create a religious observance? If the answer is yes, then the activity will not take place."
66. It is illegal in U.S. public schools to read the Bible, but many states require that a Bible is provided for every convict in jail. So if the children can't read the Bible in school, they'll be able to read it when they get to prison.
WORLD EVANGELISATION (Mat.24:14)
67. Christianity is the leading religion in the World with some one billion followers.
68. In 1960 there were an estimated 42,000 Protestant foreign missionaries throughout the World.
69. Christianity in Africa is growing so fast that by the year 2,000 , the Continent may have the greatest concentration of Christians in the World. About 16,000 Africans a day become Christians. Almost every president in Africa is a product of missionary education.
70. The Bible is the most translated book in the world. There were 109 new translations of the Bible in 1972. The complete Bible has been translated into more than 240 languages, & the New Testament into more than 320 languages. The Bible is still the World's most distributed book. In 1978 alone, the United Bible Societies distributed 9.3 million complete Bibles in 150 languages.
MODERN LIFESTYLE & MORALS
71. The late Supreme Court Justice, Frederick Moore, said, "Nothing is more certain in modern society than the principle that there are no absolutes."
72. Valery Giscard d'Estaing, former president of France commented, "The World is unhappy. It is unhappy because it doesn't know where it is going, & because it senses that if it knew, it would discover it is heading for disaster."
73. The Houston police chief said: "Fear of crime is slowly paralysing American society. We have allowed ourselves to degenerate to the point where we are living like animals. We live behind burglar bars & throw a collection of door locks at night & set an alarm & lay down with a loaded shotgun beside the bed & then try to get some rest."
74. In all the American wars, 530,000 U.S. combatants have been killed. But since 1900, deaths from guns in the U.S. alone have totalled more than 800,000.
75. The Surgeon General for the U.S. said, "Violence in all forms, from murder to child & wife beating, is now the nation's number one public health problem."
76. The population of the jails in the U.S. has doubled in the last ten years & there are now nearly 400,000 people in jails in the U.S., one out of 600 Americans.
77. Drugs: Marijuana may now be the third most valuable cash crop in the U.S., worth something in excess of $10 billion a year. About 30 to 80% of the military personnel of the U.S. Armed Forces are or have been involved in drug use of some form.
78. Alcohol: Almost half the 5.5 million arrests annually in the U.S. are related to alcohol abuse. For every hardcore heroin addict in the U.S. today, there are at least 15 hard core alcoholics. Alcoholism is blamed for 80,000 deaths a year.
79. Abortions: There are more than one million legal abortions performed in the U.S. annually. In 1978, nearly 30% of all pregnancies in the U.S. were terminated by legal abortions. Worldwide, for every 5 births in the World there are now 2 abortions.
80. Television Violence: By the time the average child is 15 years old he will have witnessed the violent destruction of more than 13,000 human beings on television, many of them late at night. Crime & violence occur 10 times more often on television than in real life.
81. Health: The UN has estimated that up to 30% of the World's population is suffering from some form of mental trouble. The popular tranquiliser Valium is prescribed 5 million times per month in the U.S.