Is it REALLY possible to understand the “End Times”?

I was SO blessed recently whilst listening to a powerful message about “The Final Generation”.  It was challenging and so clear.

This brings me to a trend that seems to have been developing amongst Christians over a number of years ... and getting worse, and that is to discard the discussion of the Second Coming.  People are buying into the idea (wrongly so!) that it is a “confusing” topic, that it is hard to understand.

This is simply not true … do you think for one minute that the Lord would have written His Word and made it “unclear”?   Of course not!   The book of Revelation starts out by saying, “Blessed is the one who reads this and understands”.  This therefore assumes that you can understand it.     Just think about it for a moment, the books of the New Testament were written to a generation of new believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and they could understand it.

The problem is, “man” has complicated things!  Man has strayed away from allowing Scripture to interpret itself.  Man has planted the doubt and confusion, where there was clarity.   Reminds me a bit of the serpent in the Garden of Eden … “Did God say …. ?”    The Bible, all of Scripture, has One Author, that is God, and He never contradicts Himself.  2 Timothy 3:16-17 states: “16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17 God uses it to prepare and equip His people to do every good work“

Of course there are things we don’t fully understand yet because they haven’t taken place as yet, BUT what we do know is that up till now, if God has promised something, He does it. With prophecy, we cannot know all the finer details of the fulfilment, but that it will happen as the Bible says is for real!

And when it comes to the return of Christ, the prophecies are in fact VERY clear indeed – no need for the “confusion”.    Human history as we know it culminates at the return of theLord Jesus Christ to earth.   (I’ll be sharing more about the return of the Lord Jesus in future blogs, so if you want to know more about this subject, make sure you click “follow” and you will get to know when the new blogs are published).

I’ve had a deep and real interest in eschatology for more years than I care to remember. What on earth is eschatology?  Theologically speaking, the term refers to “the study of final things” in the Bible. It concerns both personal eschatological issues such as death and the intermediate state as well as themes with a more general focus such as the return of Christ, resurrection, judgment, tribulation, the millennial kingdom, and the eternal state, etc.

I have a growing concern that people in general have little knowledge or understanding of end-time prophecy.   Even worse, if that were possible, people – even fellow Christians – have little interest in it and prefer not to discuss it.   Is it important?  Of course it is!!  If Christians are not bothered, why should those who don’t know the Lord as their Saviour be worried.   It is that very blessed hope of the Lord’s imminent return that should fire us up into sharing the Gospel of Jesus to a lost world – while there is yet time!   It is so important to understand this and to understand just how near the end of history as we know it is!  Are there consequences of not being ready for His Return?   Yes … serious consequences. (More about that in one of my next blogs)

We actually have nothing to fear about the future (if we know the Lord as our personal Saviour) because the Bible tells us clearly how it will all end. It is described clearly and with much detail in Scripture. And, the truth of the Second Coming literally fills the New Testament – introduced by our Lord Jesus Himself in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke in particular.   We need to study all of Scripture and get the whole picture.   I’m looking forward to His Return.  Are you?

Find out more about His Return in my future blogs.

” You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected” (Matthew 24:44)

Day Ashton