Bible Prophecy

• Introduction to Prophecy
  
  A century ago, the teachings of the psychotherapist Émile Coué gave rise to the popular saying, "Every day and in every way the world is getting better and better." People then were giddy with optimism that modern technology and laws would soon eradicate the ills of mankind. They believed that progress was the normal tendency of human history.
  
  But as people today look about them, they see that the world is not getting better and better. It is getting worse and worse. Poverty is swallowing up new millions every year. Economic insecurity is creeping even into the middle classes. And violence fills the earth. Every day brings news of more bloodshed from war, terrorism, social unrest, or sick crime. Besides the disasters that man is inflicting upon himself, every kind of natural disaster besets the world. Starvation is stalking through many lands. Hurricanes and other storms are becoming more frequent and severe. Earthquakes are causing more death and destruction. Summer brings extreme heat and winter brings extreme cold. New scourges like AIDS are emerging from nowhere, and scourges long suppressed, like tuberculosis, are reemerging in more virulent forms. Everyone waits apprehensively for the next flu pandemic.
  
  No wonder that people today are anxious about the future. To what bleak end are all these troubles leading us? What is the outlook for mankind? Can any oracle tell us what is going to happen? No scholar or soothsayer can give us satisfying answers. In all the world we find only one reliable source of information about things to come. That source is the Bible, the book which the Creator Himself bequeathed to mankind as a revelation of His workings in history. Fully one fourth of the Bible consists of prophecy. In fact, the Bible gives a detailed account of the events at the end of the age in which we live. So, to find out what lies ahead, we need only consult the Bible.
  
  
• Signs of the Times
  
  The claim that there are only general signs of Christ's coming has come onto the scene fairly recently. It is a new twist in Bible interpretation. My father's generation firmly believed both in the imminence of Christ's return and in the anticipation of His return by a series of specific signs, and they saw no contradiction between these two beliefs. Which view is correct—the older or the newer? For four reasons I side with my father's generation.
  
  
  • lesson 1: Harmonizing Imminence with Signs
    • The Biblical doctrine of imminence
    • How the doctrine of imminence has become distorted
    • The purpose of signs
    • What is not the purpose of signs
    
    
  • lesson 2: Signs during the Apostolic Era
    
    
  • lesson 3: Other Signs at the Beginning of the Church Age
  
  
• History of Prophetic Study
  
  For more than a thousand years before the French Revolution, all nations of the Western world had professed allegiance to the Christian religion, acknowledging its supreme authority in all questions moral and metaphysical. But the rebels against the Ancien Regime in France set up tyrannies which, for the first time in many long centuries, married civil power to an anti-Christian world view. The new leaders tried to remake society along lines congenial to rationalistic philosophy and dared even "to change times and laws" (Dan. 7:25). But their political experiments bred cruelty and terror. To many believers, the vicious regimes created by the Revolution seemed like a foretaste of the bestial world government that would immediately precede the coming of Christ. In Napoleon, many believers saw a type of the Antichrist himself.
  
  Such events prompted many Christians to take a new interest in Bible prophecy. When they saw that current history was shaping up like the end times pictured in the Bible, they realized that the return of Christ could not be far off. A general expectation that Christ was coming soon swept through the church in the latter half of the nineteenth century and remained strong for over a hundred years.
  
  But in the last twenty years, the expectation has waned. Believers have been losing confidence that Christ will return soon. Now, the sentiment they often hear from pulpits and lecterns is that we cannot know whether Christ will come tomorrow or a thousand years from tomorrow. It is true, of course, that no one should try to predict the date of Christ's return. Yet, as we will show, there are many signs that His return is drawing near, very near.
  
  
  • lesson 1: What Our Godly Forefathers Believed about the Last Days
    • The renewal of prophetic study
    • Expectations rising to a peak
    • Waning expectations
    
    
  • lesson 2: The Recent Shift Away from Expectancy
    • Legitimate concerns about prophetic study
    • Insincere opposition
    • New, pragmatic twists to prophetic doctrine
  
  
• Evidence That We Live on the Verge of Christ's Return
  
  The number found worthy to escape the Flood was exceedingly small—only eight out of the millions then alive on the earth. But some were found worthy. Faith had not vanished altogether from the race of men. So it will be in the years just before Christ's return. After a long period of spiritual zeal and missionary enterprise, the church will go into a steep decline, continuing until the possessors of true faith become alarmingly few. It is this near extinction of true faith that Christ foresees when He asks, "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8). The question expresses the Bridegroom's tender concern for His Bride. But, as in Noah's day, a few will resist the pull of an evil world and stand firm in their commitment to righteousness. When many others are deserting the ranks of true Christianity, a few will remain loyal. How large will the remnant be? We do not know. We need not suppose that the remnant will be exactly eight persons, as in the Old Testament type. Perhaps the number who still espouse true faith will be hundreds, or thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions. But even millions would be a negligible portion of the world's population today.
  
  
  • Thirty Signs Already Fulfilled
    
    Besides the many signs that appeared to the church in antiquity, many more have emerged in the last two centuries, especially in the last fifty years. God has furnished these signs of the times to alert us that the Lord is at hand. He stands at the door, waiting to enter this world again. His return cannot be far off.
    
    
    • one lesson:
      • Signs in the modern era
        • Prosperity of the church
        • Rebirth of Israel and other ancient nations
        • Globalization
        • Apostasy in the church
        • Corruption in society
    
    
  • Signs Furnished by the Church Prospering
    
    In James 5:7-9, the writer is clearly saying that the Church Age would continue until there is a final period of growth to balance the growth at the beginning. Then he tells us what will happen after the latter rain. The waiting will be over and the husbandman will come. Where do we stand in history? In the worldwide evangelism of the last two centuries, we have seen the latter rain. The rain has fallen for generations, but now it is subsiding. Missionary work is being scaled back. The churches in many countries are at some stage of drift into apostasy.
    
    
    • lesson 1: The Kingdom Parables
      • The currently fashionable interpretation
      • First and eighth parables
      • Second and seventh parables
      • Third and fourth parables
      • Fifth and sixth parables
      • Another erroneous interpretation
      
      
    • lesson 2: Jesus' Predictions of Future Success
      • Sign/ Christianity becoming the leading world religion
      • Sign/ Christianity becoming worldwide
      
      
    • lesson 3: Sign/ a Second Great Harvest
    
    
  • Signs Furnished by Israel
    
    The founding of the state of Israel in 1948 greatly strengthened the conviction of Bible-believing Christians that these are the Last Days. But has the church correctly understood prophecy? Has prophecy been fulfilled through the return of Jews to Palestine and the rebirth of a Jewish nation? Has God planted these events in history to serve as signs that the Church Age is winding down? To see whether the modern history of the Jews has prophetic significance, we must start with what Jesus Himself taught about the future of His people.
    
    
    • lesson 1: The Parable of the Fig Tree
      • The place of Israel in Christian hope
      • The Olivet Discourse
      • The fig tree
      
      
    • lesson 2: Prophecies of Jewish Restoration to Palestine during the End Times
      • Sign/ the second return to the land
      • Sign/ rebirth of the Jewish state
      
      
    • lesson 3: Israel as God's Prophetic Clock
      • The future of Jewish religion
      • Dating the revival of Mosaic religion
      • Current preparations to rebuild the Temple
      • Times of the gentiles
      • Sign/ Jewish reoccupation of Jerusalem
    
    
  • Signs Furnished by Globalization
    
    One of the most important signs that we have entered the Last Days is the emergence of world government. The first halting steps in that direction followed World War I, when the nations weary of defending democracy banded together to form the League of Nations, intended to prevent another world war. Although the first experiment in world government failed, the second—the body known as the United Nations, founded after World War II—has established itself as a major force in world politics.
    
    
    • lesson 1: Sign/ World Government
      • Nebuchadnezzar's nightmare
      • The fifth kingdom
      • An unusual kingdom
      • Events giving rise to the period of the feet and toes
      
      
    • lesson 2: Sign/ Regional Associations
      • End of an era
      • Among the toes
      • Fulfillment of the number ten
      • A perfect fit
      • The revived Roman Empire
      
      
    • lesson 3: A Global Society
      • Sign/ mixed marriages
      • Sign/ multiculturalism
      • Sign/ ethnic conflict
    
    
  • Signs Furnished by Apostasy in the Church
    
    Unfortunately, on many questions concerning the future, students of Bible prophecy do not agree. They differ, for example, on what the state of the church will be when Christ comes to gather His saints. Some say that He will find a victorious church; others, that He will find the church defeated. In an effort to resolve this question, we will look closely at what the Bible says about the last stages of church history, and we will show that our own age precisely matches the description.
    
    
    • lesson 1: The Third and Fourth Kingdom Parables
      • Misguided optimism
      • Parable of the Mustard Seed
      • Parable of the Leaven
        • The leaven
        • The lump
        • The woman
        • Patterns in church history
      
      
    • lesson 2: The World Christ Will Find at His Coming
      • The disappearance of faith from the earth (discussion of Luke 18:8)
      • The great falling away (discussion of 2 Thess. 2:1-8)
      
      
    • lesson 3 : The Last Days
      • Paul's description of the Last Days
      • Peter's description of the Last Days
      • Jesus' description of the end time
      
      
    • lesson 4: The Days of Noah
      • The apostasy before the Flood
      • Ultradispensationalism
      • Rebuttal
      • Conclusion
      
      
    • lesson 5: Sign/ Modern Apostasy
      • Apostasy in the church
      • Secularization of society
      
      
    • lesson 6: Special Features of Modern Apostasy
      • Sign/ ignorance of impending judgment
      • Sign/ moral corruption in the church
      • Sign/ disbelief in the Second Coming
      • Sign/ disbelief in the Biblical account of origins
      • Sign/ false Christs
      
      
    • lesson 7: The Seven Churches in Asia
      • Their prophetic significance
      • The identity of each church
      • The message to each church
      • Laodicea's tragic self-deception
    
    
  • Signs Furnished by Corruption in Society
    
    Jesus in the Olivet Discourse draws a comparison between the days before His return and the days before the Flood. A study of the antediluvian world finds four characteristics replicated in our own time: 1) eating and drinking; 2) marriage and giving in marriage; 3) growing power of evil forces; and 4) violence. Jesus also highlights wars and rumors of war as features of the end time.
    
    
    • lesson 1: Days of Noah Revisited
      • Characteristics of Noah's Age
      • Sign/ eating and drinking
      • Sign/ marrying and giving in marriage
      • Sign/ growing power of evil forces
      • Sign/ violence
      
      
    • lesson 2: Time of the End
      • Sign/ many wars
      • Sign/ general knowledge of wars in the world
      • Sign/ general apprehension of war
      
      
• Things to Come
  
  
  • The Antichrist
    
    The idea that the Antichrist will come from Iraq is not a fanciful concoction influenced by recent events in the Middle East, but a sound deduction from Scripture. The many modern expositors who have named Syro-Iraq as his place of origin include S. P. Tregelles, George W. Davis, Arthur W. Pink, William L. Pettingill, Arthur Petrie, and Philip R. Newell. Most expositors during the early centuries of the church held the same view.
    
    
    • lesson 1: The Last Horn in Daniel 8
      • The time when the Antichrist will appear
      • Vision described in Daniel 8
        • The ram
        • The goat
        • The last horn
      • Proof that the last horn is not Antiochus
      • Proof that the last horn is the Antichrist
      • The dispensational break
      
      
    • lesson 2: His Place of Origin
      • The Antichrist as a ruler of former Seleucid territory
      • Antiochus as a type of the Antichrist
      • The king of the north
      • The seat of the Beast
      • The Assyrian
      • The dominant historic interpretation
      
      
    • lesson 3: His Religion and Name
      • First feature of his religion
      • Second feature of his religion
      • Third feature of his religion
      • Fourth feature of his religion
      • Fifth feature of his religion
      • His name
    
    
  • The Rapture
    
    Now we come to the most important question you will ever face. This is it. Are you ready for Christ to come? Are you watching for Him always? Are you praying always that He will find you worthy to take? Or have you turned your eyes downward to see only the things of this world? Are you living for the sake of the next good meal, the next good time, the next good video? Is your mind constantly agitated by problems in the family? Or is the theme of your thoughts the hope of soon meeting the precious person of Christ?
    
    
    • lesson 1: The Worthiness Test
      • Importance of watchfulness
      • Pretribulational rapture
      • Worthiness test
      • Laodiceans
      • Three obsessions of the self-deceived
      • Meager harvest
      
      
    • lesson 2: The Church of Philadelphia
      • Seven churches of Asia
      • Proof that the promise to Philadelphia speaks of a rapture
      • The true identity of Philadelphia
      • Are we Philadelphia?
  
  
• Commentary on the Book of Daniel: Chapter One
  
  The prophecies in the Book of Daniel are the most specific and comprehensive to be found anywhere in the Bible outside the Book of Revelation.
  1. They tell exactly what will happen to the Jewish nation for the next 370 years after Daniel's time—in other words, from about 535 B.C. to 165 B.C.
  2. They tell exactly when the Messiah will come.
  3. They give God's program for the rise and fall of nations from Daniel's time until the end of the age in which we live.
  4. They give an overview of the key events during the Tribulation, the period at the end of the present age.
  
  The following lessons present the commentary on chapter one. The entire commentary is also available.
  
  
  • lesson 1: The Assault on Jerusalem
    • Aftermath of Carchemish
    • Spoils and captives
    • Disposal of the spoils
    • Fate of the captives
    
    
  • lesson 2: Exile of the Four Hebrew Children
    • Babylonian education
    • Usefulness of the captives
    • An old prophecy fulfilled
    • Four heroes introduced
    
    
  • lesson 3: Refusing the King's Food
    • Daniel's moral dilemma
      • What Daniel tolerated
      • What Daniel refused to tolerate
      • Three tests to distinguish right from wrong
      • Why neither the name nor the education was unscriptural
      • Scriptural objections to the diet
      • Why Daniel could not accept the diet with a pure motive
      • Defiling effects of the diet
    • Daniel's decision
    
    
  • lesson 4: Daniel's Wise Conduct
    • Excuses for sin
    • Two objectives of Daniel's protest
    • Conduct Daniel avoided
    • Steps Daniel took
    
    
  • lesson 5: Daniel's Vindication
    • Outcome of the test
    • Purpose of the test
    • Limits to diplomacy
    • How Daniel and his friends distinguished themselves
    • How God rewarded Daniel
    • How God rewards every believer
  
  

© 2007, 2012 Stanley Edgar Rickard (Ed Rickard, the author). All rights reserved.