Covid. War with Iran. False doctrines, moral degradation circulating everywhere via the web. What are the signs of the end times, without complicated interpretations of Scripture? Can we avoid common errors in popular Bible prophecy teachings?

So many Bible prophecy interpreters have been so wrong so many times that they have sown confusion into the body of Christ. Do they ever stop and reflect?

Can we hit the reset button and start over?

But before we hit the button, let’s give a very short list of disasters and deaths, which were not, as it turns out, signs of the end before the Lord returns. But people suffered through them.

Historical Natural and Human-Caused Disasters

Natural disasters are not human-caused. But other deaths are. Here’s a very short list, as we march through history.

In 536, Europe and parts of the Middle East and Asia were covered in darkness from ash and smoke, for eighteen months. The temperatures plunged. Crops failed. People froze without enough sun. One science journal said it was the worst year to be alive. It probably came from volcanic eruptions in Iceland.

Genghis Khan (1162-1227) rampaged across Asia and caused millions of deaths, and he committed terrible atrocities against the living victims.

From 1348-1352, one-fourth to one-third of Europe died from the Bubonic plague, in four+ years. The same numbers probably fell along the trade routes. America has 340 million people. One-fourth to one-third dying would add up to 85 to 113 million, in just four+ years. All of Europe has a population of 740-745 million, and 450 million live in the European Union.  The number of deaths from another plague taking out one-fourth to one-third of such a huge population in four years would be staggering.

In 1755, 40,000 to 50,000 died in the earthquake on the Iberian peninsula, notably in Lisbon, Portugal. Voltaire refers to it in his novel Candide.

On August 26-27, 1883, the volcano Krakatoa erupted with such force that people heard the noise halfway around the globe. The ash and smoke also spread around the globe.

From 1918-1920, the Spanish flu epidemic killed 17 to 50 million, worldwide.

From 1915 to 1923, Turks committed genocide against the Armenians, killing an estimated 750,000 to 1.3 million people. Turkish armies also committed atrocities elsewhere in their past march through humanity.

During WWI 15-22 million died, and 70-85 million died in WWII.

In 2003, 23,000 died in the Bam earthquake, in Iran.

in 2011, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan caused about 20,000 deaths, and consider the destruction of property.

From 2019 to 2022, Covid caused 7.1 million deaths worldwide.

In the twentieth century communism has wiped out tens of millions in less than a hundred years.

Islam has also caused the death of millions and committed atrocities for 1400 years. Muhammad was a false prophet, and look what confusion and human devastation he has sown.

No doubt throughout all of those natural and human-made disasters, preachers or priests who read the Bible proclaimed that the end was near. The Second Coming would happen at any time.

They were wrong.

Eschatology and Over-interpretation

Can we avoid complicated predictions derived from complicated Bible interpretations, as the eschatology specialists jump around from one passage to the next, with their complicated, ad hoc systems? Then they cobble together verses from the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21), the Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and numerous other places throughout Scripture. The result? Complicated end time events that don’t seem ever to be fulfilled. The Second Coming (or the pretrib rapture if you hold to this theory) does not happen.

Jesus has still not (yet) come back.

What’s going wrong? Maybe our Bible interpretations are misguided.

Signs of the End

I can find only these signs in the Gospels, Acts, and epistles :

• Degradation of society, as in the days of Noah and Sodom (Matt. 24:37; Luke 17:26-29)
• An antichrist figure or a man of lawlessness, who will be able to work satanic signs and wonders (2 Thess. 2:8-12). We could also place here false prophets and messiahs, who seem to emerge in every generation because of universal sinful human nature. They too can work satanic signs and wonders (Matt. 24:24). Please note, the Olivet Discourse is about the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple (see Luke 21:20).
• Great apostasy (2 Thess. 2:11)
• Revival and growth of the true body of Christ, as God fills and purifies his bride (Eph. 4:7-13). A pure and spotless bride will happen (Eph. 5:27).
• God will pour his Spirit out in the last days, which began in Acts 2 and the first generation of Christians and is promised for later generations (you and me) (Acts 2). All of the Book of Acts is about empowered evangelism in the Roman empire. Let’s expect the same in our entire globe.
• “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.” (1 Tim. 4:1-2, NIV) These verses look like the degradation of the days of Sodom and Noah. 

The Revelation and Natural Disasters

Revelation 1:1 tells us how John intends us to read his book: it is an apocalypse which signifies what is to come shortly. The verb signifies is related to the noun sign in John’s Gospel. (It startled me and better commentators when they and I first saw the verb.) The images John is about to see in the Revelation have a deeper meaning, pointing to other meanings, much like the signs in John’s Gospel do. We should not read his apocalypse with wooden literalness. He would say no to this method. We must instead nonliterally but symbolically interpret or “decode” the signs or images in his apocalyptic genre. He would say yes to this one.

As for the natural disasters in the Revelation (and in Matthew 24:29 and parallels), they are a reworking of the natural disasters in many passages in the OT, some of which says the earth split in two, the stars fell from the sky, or the sun went dark, for example. They are not to be taken literally, or else the entire universe and our globe would have been shredded and ruined, irreparably, long before now. Those passages are about apocalyptic images revealing God’s judgment on nations, just like the Revelation is about God’s judgment on evil empires or systems (e.g. Rome). Of course images of cosmic natural disasters would likewise be depicted in the final book of the Bible, more powerfully than in the OT. The Revelation ends old creation and starts over with new creation.

And while we are in the Revelation, I cannot find the verse that teaches a seven-year tribulation. No verse in the entire Bible teaches it, either. But based on the list of biblical signs, I believe times will get tougher, morally and spiritually. And Christians will suffer for the gospel, perhaps some becoming martyrs. Consider Nigeria.

Please see this post for many passages showing cosmic disasters in the OT:

Cosmic Disasters = Apocalyptic Imagery for Judgment and Major Change

The Antichrist

I mentioned him in the bulleted list, but here is a longer look.

The word antichrist, with its prefix anti-, can mean either “in place of Christ” or “opposed to Christ.” The Antichrist will say he is the Christ, the one who comes in the place of the true Christ. Replacing Christ is about the same as opposing him. Either way, the man of lawlessness will work signs and wonders and deceive people:

⁹ The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, ¹⁰ and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing.  (2 Thess. 2:9-10, NIV)

First John 2:18 assumes that the Antichrist is coming, but many of them have already appeared:

¹⁸ Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. (1 John 2:18, NIV)

The many antichrists will deny that Jesus is the Son of God. Islam denies this. Be on the look out for those who deny the Son.

However, is the man of lawlessness the same as the Antichrist? Probably. Paul writes:

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, ² not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. ³ Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. ⁴ He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God. (2 Thess. 2:1-4)

No one can know who or what stands in his way (2 Thess. 2:6). Over 31 theories have been advanced.

In addition to the appearing of the man of lawlessness, another sign of the end times is the great rebellion. It could better be translated as apostasy. Most importantly the coming of Jesus and the Thessalonians and Paul being gathered with the Lord assumes that these Christians will be alive when the Lord returns to destroy him, as seen in this verse that continue from the previous passage:

⁸ And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. (2 Thess. 2:8, NIV)

He is probably the same as the beast in Revelation 13. In Revelation 20:9, a fire will come down from heaven and devour Satan and his cohort, much as it says in 2 Thessalonians 1:7 and 2:8.

So what about the third temple being rebuilt, so the man of lawlessness can appear in it? It is possible to interpret various passages as a literal temple. But I believe the temple has been fulfilled in the body of Christ. The church is the new temple, where God’s presence dwells. Therefore the man of lawlessness–probably the Antichrist–will minister within a strange, fake church and deceive its members.

The Church Fulfills and Replaces Old Testament Temple

The Bottom Line

The signs of the end times have to do with humans. They will reproduce and are reproducing other Sodoms and Gomorrahs. They will reproduce and are reproducing the times of Noah, when violence and human degradation filled their world.

In the church, deception and false doctrine and even doctrines of demons will infiltrate and are infiltrating it. The Antichrist will appear within a form of the church and perform satanic signs and wonders. Those church members will fall away from the pure and simple gospel.

So the shock for American Bible prophecy watchers is that natural disasters like diseases, volcanic eruptions, floods, and earthquakes are not signs of the end times. Not even wars are necessarily signs, unless they come under the category of human wickedness. Not even wars in the Greater Middle East are necessary signs (sorry!).

The signs of the end times are the increase of human degradation and the increase of God’s global revival when the gospel goes around the world. In the book of Acts, particularly Acts 2, the 120 being filled with the Spirit actually go around their known world, in the Great Commission(s) (Matt. 28:19-20; Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8). God is doing this now, slowly and inexorably.

The Kingdom of God Grows Slowly

The Kingdom Starts Small and Grows Big

Sadly, the worldwide web increases iniquity, exponentially. Happily, the web also increases the spread of the gospel, exponentially. It’s a battle.

We are called to be watchful of our souls and bodies. The temptation will be to fall asleep, both morally and spiritually. We must not let that day, the return of the Lord, catch us like a trap or a thief in the night. We don’t know the day or the hour when he returns.

The good news is that according to the book of the Revelation the Son of God will return and crush all the evil that humans dump into the world. He will win the Final Battle.

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