SPOILER (click to view)

One is where Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, and his disciples asked him about what to look for "at the conclusion of the system of things."(Matt 24:3) The King James Version uses the expression, "end of the world," in that verse.
Jesus went on to give a composite sign. In other words, a sign consisting of many parts. If you read Matthew 24, you find that he speaks of wars on a global scale, famine, pestilence (sickness and disease), lawlessness (crime), people having no love for one another, and earthquakes. We have seen these events occurring since 1914 and World War I. There is a parallel account in Luke chapter 21. While we have seen such events before 1914, it has only been since that year, that we have seen all these events occurring at the same time, and on a worldwide scale. Every person on Earth is affected by these events, in one way or another. In fact, now even the very exsistence of life on Earth is threatened.
2 Timothy Chapter 3, verses 1-5 indicates how people would act in the last days. Here we see that "men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness,�betrayers, headstrong, puffed up [with pride], lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power." We see that occurring now, and that has increasingly been the case for many decades.
But there is hope. Jesus, in Matthew 24:14, spoke of "this good news." How could all this be good news, since it all sounds bad? It is because, thus sign indicates we are living in a time when God's Kingdom is very soon to correct all these conditions.
Daniel 2:44, indicates a drastic change on the world scene, when it says,"And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom itself will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite."
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Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying: "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"
And Jesus answered and said to them: "Take heed that no one deceives you.
For many will come in My name, saying, "I am the Christ," and will deceive many.
And you will hear wars and rumors of wars.
See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will raise against nation, and Kingdom against kingdom.
And there will be famines,
pestilences,
and earthquakes in various places.
"All these are the beginning of sorrows.
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There are some general conditions in the late twentieth century-- I wouldn't necessarily call them signs of the end--but they have provided a context through which one could read the Book of Revelation more literally.

For example, the Book of Revelation talks about the massive and sudden destruction of millions of people. Well, this couldn't have been done in the past by ancient means of warfare, swords and arrows and so forth, and yet now it could be. The Book of Revelation presupposes some kind of world wide communication system. For example, when the martyrs, the two witnesses, are killed in chapter 11 of Revelation, it says the whole world will gaze at their dead bodies. I've seen many interpreters quote that and say, "Well, see this is CNN and Global News networks and satellite TV.". ... I think most prophetic interpreters of the Book of Revelation who read it literally and expect it to be talking about the near future, would point to the following things: the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb, which make mass destruction capable on the levels that you read in this book, a death count that high. Asteroids potentially hitting the earth, there's a lot of attention now about that. A geo-political power or force that could actually control the entire world with global communications.

[However], the things that are supposed to happen, by a literal reading of the book, that would really bring it on, are not on the horizon. I think you could say a stage has been set, as these interpreters would understand the world scene. That is, Israel does exist. The Israelis do control Jerusalem. Therefore, there's the possibility of other things happening.

In terms of what's supposed to happen, I think it's mainly three things--none of which have happened. There has to be a third Temple built in Jerusalem. There has to be a military ruler coming from the north, perhaps from Europe, to invade the Middle East, and enforce a world-wide system of religion on the world. That's certainly not happened. And there's got to be these two prophetic figures showing up, speaking from God's side, that would cause all sorts of droughts and plagues to come up on the world as reported in the Bible from the time of Moses and Elijah. None of those things have happened, and until those things happen, you really don't get going with interpretation. It's as if you're waiting and expecting and wondering--could these things happen? But nothing's moving on the stage you might say. It's all just in place, but the drama hasn't really begun...
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