Signs of the End Times: Are We Witnessing Biblical Prophecies Unfold?

Hey, we’re Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your host of the Marriage After God podcast, where we desire to help you cultivate a marriage that chases boldly after God’s will together. And today we’re going to be talking about and looking at some scripture in light of the end times and discussing whether or not we are in the end times.

We’d love to invite you to subscribe to our channel wherever you’re watching or listening. We are on YouTube, which if you guys have been tuning in, well, especially today, I feel like you can really tell that baby’s growing. I got a little round baby on the way. It’s kind of hiding under the table. But anyways, if you’re watching on YouTube or listening on Spotify or iTunes, wherever you are tuning in, we just want to encourage you to subscribe so that you don’t miss an episode. And if you haven’t yet, please take a few minutes to leave us a star rating and review. Not only do these, bless us when we receive them, but they also help reach a bigger audience, new audience, people who haven’t heard of us before. So every time you guys go in there and do leave us a review, it really helps

And it blesses us.

Yes. And for those of you who have already done it, we just want to say a huge thank you.

Thank you so much. And there’s been a lot of reviews and we love reading through those, so thank you

Actually. Oh, sorry. I took the kids to piano today and I sit out in the car with the littles because it’s just too much going in with everybody that has your, when I don’t have them or when you take them, we’re able to go. So I was sitting in the car this morning and I saw another woman with two children walk past me and do a double take and go roll down your window. So I said Hi. She goes, are you Jennifer from Unveiled Wife? I was like, yeah. She goes, that’s so awesome. I just started listening to your podcast, so I thought that was really cool. Little local connection, meetup connection. Yeah, it was fun. It was awesome.

It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes it’s interesting when people recognize us and want to say hi.

It

Was awesome. We do

Love that. We do have some new listeners tuning in and if that was you, hi again. Welcome

To our show. We have some life stuff going on. Of course, we were a little behind on episodes because

Sorry,

We have life happening, we got travels and babies

And between you going on that fishing trip and me being pregnant, I never know if I’m going to have a good day or a harder day. So it’s just been a little miss

Lately. So thank you for having Grace for us. I not being consistent with our weekly episodes, but we got new episodes coming. We have this one of course, and then we got a couple more in this series of prophecies in Jesus. And

I think just one more, I think we’re wrapping up. Which

Is one more? Nope, we got two more. We have seven and eight. Okay.

Yeah,

But it’s okay. We got more coming. But yes, I did do that fishing trip and it was awesome. I got to take white with me and that was a really cool time, just spending time with him and seeing him get excited when he caught a fish and then seeing him wanting to fish more and then just all the time we got to spend together playing and it was really awesome.

That was really cool. And Wyatt had a blast looking back at your pictures afterwards. I was just like, oh man,

I’m glad you guys, he was really excited to try to get next year and I’m trying to think maybe I take all the boys next year. I don’t know. We’ll see. It was a lot of fun. Very cool. So it’s like a, maybe it’s going to be a new thing every year thing. We’ll see how we feel next year.

We’ve definitely been enjoying the summer weather getting out, whether it’s poolside or Riverside or soon to be Lakeside. We haven’t ventured to the lakes yet, but we haven’t. Yeah,

No, but it’s finally warm enough to

Actually go and enjoy the waters here in central Oregon. Some of the lakes are closer to Mount Bachelor. You have to wait until July, August because it’s so cold up there.

Yeah, there’s snow in some

Places until, yeah. So anyways, that’s been really good. I’ve loved seeing things popping up in the garden. Olive have planted like a ton of wildflower seeds and so those are sprouting and it’s just

Been lots of color showing up. We actually have a couple strawberries from our strawberry plants that are just starting to turn red,

Which we should cover because that Raven out there is going to

Probably say, I think it’s waiting for them,

Right? It’s like it’s not rip enough. It’s a big raven too.

But we have those. I am excited for those. That was one of my favorite things about our last house was all the strawberries we had growing and these are actually strawberry starts from our last house, so it’s kind of taking some stuff from the old and putting in the new, which is

Very cool. I’m excited about that. Really

Awesome. But that is just a little bit of updates on us. How far along are you with the baby? I’m sure

25 weeks.

Some of our listeners want to know.

Yeah, I’m about 25 weeks.

25 weeks. We’re getting real close. We’re doing October-ish.

Yeah, I’m getting more uncomfortable.

Still cannot figure out a name. So you’ll be praying.

Yeah, we just haven’t for a

Name for

Us, just it hasn’t been revealed yet to us.

This kind of happens though. It’s like we always will have before we know the gender,

A few that were like,

We’re almost guarantee on, oh, these are the good names for boy. And then we find out to girl like, well, we got to start from scratching now. We literally

Don’t know, but we usually know at least a week or two before at least I like to nail it down by then. I think we will. The kids are eager to know. So if you guys have any name suggestions, feel free to reach out and share ’em with me.

Shoot us some messages on Instagram.

So we are in a series on prophecies and last week we talked a bit about end time stuff, but this week we’re talking about, because I’m sure people are wondering where we land on this, do we believe we’re in the end times? What does the Bible say about it? How can we know? And there’s a lot of people that have fears and anxieties about this topic. A lot of Christians that I’ve known in the past, maybe we just avoid reading revelation. We avoid the topic altogether because it’s like that’s too hard to understand. It’s kind of scary too. It’s like we don’t know how it’s going to turn out and what are we going to endure through all

This? Yeah. I’ve had conversations with other people too where they’re just content not knowing, not digging in, not having putting on the glasses to see type

Because almost don’t see a value in it.

More so it’s just that they’re in the present and they’re just taking it day by day and they feel very confident in their faith and relationship with Jesus that he’s going to take care of it no matter which way it comes about. Right. Do you

Think it’s a necessary thing for Christians to put their minds on?

I do, but I also find it, I’m on the end of, I’m on this end of the spectrum of, this is fascinating. This is so, this is so interesting. But one thing I did wanted to share was because I think people follow us for marriage stuff because we’re a marriage podcast and we’re a marriage, we do blogging and social media and all of that. And so you might have the question, why are you guys even talking about this? It’s because we found that in our marriage we’ve really enjoyed these topics of conversation. So talking about the end times, sending each other articles when something happens, we’re like, Ooh, this could be really important. And it’s because we’ve shared those conversations before together in marriage. And so even though today’s topic is about prophecy of the end times, we want to encourage you guys who are listening to go back to the table with your spouse and say, man, what do you think about all of this? And just continue those conversations. And

I would imagine these things ever since 70 80 ad when the Bible was just about done being completed and people were getting these letters from John and Paul and I would imagine early Christian believing spouses, couples that they probably discuss these things daily. What do you think John meant by that? What do you think Paul was talking about? How can we apply this? How does this, so as believers marriages have been discussing these things since

Jesus, that’s a cool point. I like that

It’s something that we should, I do believe that on some level Christians should be considering these prophetic things that the Bible’s teaching, mainly because the Bible talks about ’em. If God didn’t want us to know, he wouldn’t have put it there, but he gives us

Lots. One, what’s so cool when you think about the Old Testament is the Lord gave them prophecy through the prophets and he gave them something to look forward to. So why would that be different for us today? Yeah, his people we have about the way that the Lord works and his word, that he proves himself over and over again. And I think that’s really cool

And he’s still doing it.

I think we were both going to ask the next question. You go ahead. So just taking a step back, Aaron, how did you grow up considering the end times? Were you taught about it? How did you feel about it?

My mom, my parents and my upbringing. This was constantly talked about, not in the depth that we’re going to talk about, of course, but always talking about, my mom always told me, oh, we’re going to see Jesus. You’re going to see Jesus one day. He’s going to come back in our generation. My mom truly believes that. And I actually believe that. I truly believe that we will see Jesus in our generation. So now you know what I think

As a core

Belief? As a core belief, I

Believe that I’m going to interject with something off topic real quick. We took the kids to see inside out. Is it called Inside out? Inside Out, yeah, too. And the whole premise is around this core belief system. And it was actually really interesting to

That it moved beyond emotions to something deeper,

To something deeper and to see it play out in an animation form. And so it left me like, wow, that was really cool. And I don’t know, I really enjoyed it. Did you like it?

I loved it, yeah. I was very surprised by it. I wasn’t expecting that I was expecting something else, but I was very pleasantly surprised. And there was some interesting things in there. We left the movie theater. I went with Wyatt and he said, dad, what’s anxiety? He’s like, well, it’s something that you might experience right now, but it’s something that you experience more as an adult

Comes on later. Well, as played out in the movie, anxiety comes like

Prete comes in it. Yeah,

Yeah. Wreaks havoc. Which was funny for me as an adult to see all these emotions run her ragged because we can identify, oh, that’s why I’m feeling that. That’s how we feel like that

All

The time. Anyways, we thought it was a great movie if you guys want to see that. But okay, so you grew up having this core belief that Jesus was going to come back

And believing in, we talked about last episode, revelation in a more literal sense, and so looking for things that Revelations talks about. And so that’s where I’ve landed is in a more literal translation of books like Revelation.

So over the last 20, 30 years, would you say your exploration of God’s word you were looking for, what does it say about certain things so that you can keep your eyes out for what’s happening in the world? Or did it kind of more just meld together naturally? I’m just trying to

Understand. I think my viewpoints on it. I’ve only had very small changes like, oh, that doesn’t really make sense anymore because of that thing, these other things that I read about in the Bible. But those are small things like I’ve mentioned in the past, the timeline of Revelation. Is it seven years? Is it three and a half years? And so I used to believe the seven year thing, but that was before I did my own digging in and studying. And I was like, well, that may not be accurate and it seems like this is the right way, but we’ll have to see on some of those things. But I would say overall, I’ve had a pretty consistent viewpoint of it.

I also grew up having that core belief of Jesus coming back and having some changes here and there, but mostly it’s just been what I’ve thought about and what I’ve seen kind of unfold over my adulthood of things lining up to scripture and feeling really excited about that, that we are living in a different time. And I think something that really stood out to me, and I think I shared it in one of the earlier episodes for this series. I had an aunt who when I was around 12, 13, I still have the little note that I wrote it on. She was sharing about how Israel became a nation and that how that was a very big deal. And so that kind of stuck with me. And I think that’s what spurred on this fascination of looking to see what’s happening in the world and trying to see if they mention it in scripture.

And it’s mentioned a lot. We’re going to actually talk about that quite a bit later on. But that is a big deal. And also when it comes to things that we’re talking about, prophecy and times, these prophecies, they’re not just for the believers. They actually are often used in the salvation of people. There was one person you want to talk about specifically that’s been influential in our lives that we’ve known for many years, but not known personally of course, but listened to. But in general, prophecy, there’s been many people who’ve come to know Jesus and have come to salvation specifically because of prophecy, seeing things be fulfilled, looking at what the scripture is saying and then seeing it in real life and being like, well, that lines up and then believing, oh, Jesus is real. And so prophecy is not just for the believer, it’s for the unbeliever as well.

Who you’re mentioning is Jack Hibbs. If you guys follow him, I like him because he’ll do these prophecy updates where he just sits down with someone else, another pastor or

Someone in a field that’s specific,

Influential or even he sits down with someone who lives in Israel, who is a part of the army, who has all this background knowledge and

Is deeply connected still,

Those conversations are really interesting to me. But anyways, so he does those. I think they were weekly, but I don’t know. I think

He does them on Wednesdays

On Wednesday updates. Yeah. So anyways, Jack Hibbs talks about his salvation story and how prophecy played a huge role back in the seventies, sixties or seventies with him. And so he’s made it a big part of his ministry. And I thought that that’s really cool when you’re talking about it’s for the unsaved as well, it’s like it does draw people in.

Well, and if you look in the Old Testament while you were talking, I was just thinking of stories of Daniel and going and sharing the dream to the king, and that’s prophecy. God revealed that to him. And those situations, the king’s like, I’m going to worship your God because your God’s the only one that was able to do this. No one else is. God was. And you see stories like that throughout scripture where prophecy plays a role in capturing the heart of a king, capturing the heart of a ruler, capturing the heart of a person. Even when Jesus was at the well with the woman and the Samaritan woman, he tells her about her own life and she’s like, I perceive you’re a prophet, then believes in him and goes and tells all the people what Jesus did for her.

Yeah. There’s someone else that I was reading about recently, his name’s Mondo Gonzalez, and he said that prophecy played a role in his faith and he said he made a little binder. I think he was in his twenties or something like that, but he made a binder for newspaper clippings back in the day of things that were happening that related to what he thought was prophecy. And he goes, soon enough I realized that my binder was too small because things are some stuff. There’s so much stuff happening, which is kind of what we’re going to talk about today.

There’s a lot of stuff happening I know, but in general, I would say this how we should be thinking about prophecy in the sense of what the Bible teaches is to not be overwhelmed by it, but to be prayerful about it and say, okay, holy Spirit, teach me. Reveal to me. Show me what you want me to get out of this, how you want me to think about this. But one Thessalonians five 20 and 21 says, do not despise prophecies, but test everything. Hold fast to what is good. And essentially a New Testament prophecy, new Testament, the New Testament idea of prophesying or prophecy is to not despise prophecy. So when you read prophecy in the Bible to not be like, oh, I’m just going to throw that out. No, don’t despise it, receive it and say, I don’t understand it, but this is from God and it’s good.

And pray that the Lord would help you understand it.

So prophecy is a good thing, and I think believers, I know believers should embrace it and not despise it.

I just want to share for parents who are listening, when we share about prophecy with our children, we obviously want to share our excitement over what we find interesting and how we come to understand God’s word with them. And there’s that tension of how do you live in the present but also understand that all these things are going to happen, especially if you believe they’re going to happen in our lifetime. And so I just want to be an encouragement to say that for us as parents, we can share those truths with our kids. We can share those things with our kids and tell them we still live for today as it is for today. We can still set goals. We can still,

Yeah, we’re told not to worry about tomorrow because tomorrow has an upwards of its own.

Exactly, yeah. And so we can hold things loosely like goals, things that we desire, but

Still make plans,

But still make plans. And just as one example, I remember growing up with these beliefs but also thinking, oh, I just want to get married first.

This is what our kids are now

Saying. And then it was, well, I just want to have a baby first. And so we have these hopes and stuff, but also at our courts, but I also just want to be with Jesus. And so

I feel like that comes more when you become an adult and it’s like now that we are in the midst of life and adult adulting, it’s like, okay, Lord, I’m ready. But our kids go through the exact same thing. They hear about the things that we talk about and what the Bible says, and they’ll say, really hope He doesn’t come until they’re married. And we never said

That to them. They say the same things, but when they do share those things and we can reaffirm them to live in the now, be present and look forward to those things when they come about, but not to be hung up by them,

I always tell ’em, I say, Hey, when the Lord does come, you’re not going to worry about any of these things. I said, but what you want is so good. And our prayer is that you do get to experience those things. And so constantly teaching not to be afraid of the future, not to be afraid of what’s coming, but to also not be afraid of making plans and moving

Forward. I was going to say, I don’t even know if afraid is the right word, but to not do anything, to have a lack of care or concern for the present,

Which some people when thinking about prophecy, do they go the Well, I might as well not do anything. I might as well not prepare, or I might as well prepare for the worst.

So there is the living in both spaces at the same time and we can encourage our children in that space. Yeah.

I want to point out again, our goal for this is not to be like, here’s all the answers. We don’t have ’em all. It’s to reveal things. We’re

Still understanding

That we’re learning reveal things, what we see in the Bible, maybe give some cool revelations, revelations about what’s happening in the world. But in essence, we want you guys to walk away from these excited because the day the Lord does, the Bible puts it this moment when the Lord comes with wrath and dread and it’s going to be terrifying. The Bible tells us it’s not going to be terrifying for believers. It’s going to be terrifying for unbelievers, which is another reason why we should share the gospel and we should be praying for those that are lost, but for the believer, the return of Christ, the coming of the Lord, the day of judgment that’s coming, we should be excited for and rejoicing over. It’s our hope. And there’s some scriptures I wanted to share. We wanted to share that point to this truth. And so the first one’s in Luke 21, 28, and this is Jesus in talking about his return, his coming this day, that’s coming, that’s going to be dreadful for many. He says, now when these things begin to take place, which these things we’re going to talk about later, it says, when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near. That’s a very encouraging statement, not like watch out, go hide. No straighten up. Look up your redemption’s drawing near like be excited about what’s coming. When you read the one in First Thessalonians,

First Thessalonians five, one through 11 says, now, concerning the times and the seasons brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night while people are saying there is peace and security, then suddenly destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers for that day to surprise you like a thief for you or all children of light children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober for those who sleep, sleep at night and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober. Having put on the breastplate of faith and love and a helmet, the hope of salvation for God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with him. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up. Just as you are doing,

This whole section of scripture is specifically talking about this day coming and how it’s not going to take believers by surprise of the day. And so that day isn’t to be received the same way it is for others. And then at the very end, verse 11, therefore encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. We encourage each other, Hey, don’t forget the Lord’s coming. Don’t forget he’s still on the throne. Don’t forget that day is a good day. That’s going to be our blessed hope that’s coming for us. And then specifically this other one that I love that it says that we’re not destined for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. We’re not destined for the wrath that’s coming in revelation. There’s a lot of wrath that happens. And

So we talked about that I think last episode, the difference between just experiencing trials and hardships and trials versus God’s wrath. The wrath

And believers are not going to experience God’s wrath. Jesus did. So we don’t have to. So if you get anything from this episode, we want you to get excited and we also want you to have peace to not let the future events cause anxieties in us and fears in us, but to

Be reminded of them and to encourage each other with them.

So the last thing I want to say about this is the writer of Revelation, John who is getting this message from Jesus himself. He ends the chapter with this. He says, he who testifies to these things says, surely I’m coming soon. That’s Jesus speaking. But then John says, amen. Come Lord Jesus.

I have to say something as you read it. I was thinking about lately one of my kids brought this up and now it’s become like two more kids have said something about it. Mom, when you say soon, it’s not really soon. Are we almost home? Well, mom, when you say we’re almost home, we still have so many streets to go down. But I think what they think

Is yeah, how recent in their minds is different than what we say is

Soon. So in my opinion, I’m like, we are almost home. We will be there soon. But in their little minds they’re like, they want to know seconds before the door.

No, that’s a good point because we’ve believers ever since Revelation was given 2000 years ago, okay, come Lord Jesus, he says he’s coming soon when, and I think the point is that we’ve had this urgency since then. Since Jesus went to be with the Lord. There’s been an urgency. There’s been this idea that he can come at any moment, but also there’s this idea that we have to see certain things take place before. And so our in Jesus today, tomorrow, and forever, and one day we’re going to see ’em face to face and that should excite us.

I can’t wait.

So someone asked me once why I believe, and now you’re going to find another one of my beliefs. Why I believe that we will see the return of Christ in this lifetime. I believe we will. I believe that in my lifetime I I’ll see the return of Christ. Now I could be wrong and I’ll be okay with that because I will see Christ no matter what, either by dying or seeing him come while I’m alive, but while I actually truly could, I can’t possibly know exactly when he’s coming. I don’t believe anyone does other than God. There are things that we can look at. The Bible tells us this. There’s things that we can see. There’s seasons that we can recognize like, oh, we are in a specific season. You look at the seasons, you’re like, now we’re in summer. And it literally felt like summer immediately. It was like sixties ish, maybe a little seventies for the spring. And then it’s first day of summer was 89. It was like summer’s today.

Everyone’s like, that’s not very warm. No, here it’s

89 is hot

Here.

So there’s things that we see, and I believe that we exist in a time in history that’s like no other. There’s things taking place, there’s things happening. And I think I can prove it over the next few things that we’re going to talk about that makes our generation unique among any generation before ours.

At least one that checks more of the boxes off, right?

Well, quite a bit. All the boxes, to be honest, to some extent.

I know.

Okay. And so we’re going to go through these. So I want to talk about what Jesus talks about when he says, when you see these things take place, when he writes about it in the Bible, you’ll know that the end is near. It doesn’t send. The end is now, it says, you’ll know the end is near and it says that these things must take place. And they’re like birth pains and birth pains. Yeah, birth pains. I do. The baby’s here. It means the baby’s coming. And so one of those in Matthew 24, again, these are all from Matthew 24, these birth pains that we’re going to be looking for. And then I’m going to show you evidence of which is going to be awesome. Matthew 24, verse five. One of the birth pains that Jesus talks about is there’ll be many false messiahs, which is a really interesting thing because Christians aren’t looking for the Messiah. We have Jesus. We know Jesus came already. So the false messiahs that are going to be coming are going to deceive those that don’t believe in Jesus, that don’t know the true Christ and Jews because they are currently looking for the Messiah. And so I did some research and these things that I’m going to be pulling up are very interesting. Wikipedia has pages dedicated to those who have claimed,

They themselves said, I am the Messiah.

Yeah, I am the Messiah. And there have been at least 32 since Jesus himself. So at least 32 documented. There’s probably been many more people that claim to

Be

The

Messiah would be popular people or people who had

Some of them. I was going to mention a few of those. Well-known names

That because I’m sure we might more than that, that probably

We’re not written about.

We’re not written about. Yeah, that’s what I was

Thinking. And then there’s a whole page dedicated to those who claim to be the reincarnation or second coming of Jesus himself, which is also very interesting. Not just the Messiah people claim to be the Messiah, not Jesus. And then there’s people that claim to be Jesus in his second coming again. Yeah, Jesus again. But at least 54 times there was people that claimed to be Jesus. And so that may not sound like a lot, but think about claiming to be Jesus, Charles Messiah. That’s a big deal.

Checks the

Box. Some of the famous names that are on this list is Krishna Venta, Jim Jones and Charles Manson. Not Jesus. These were not good people. So this sign has been taking place since Jesus resurrection. This sign couldn’t exist before Jesus because there wouldn’t be people trying to be Jesus. But this sign definitely does now exist after Jesus that this season we’re in since Jesus, we’ve seen more and more and more people claiming to be the Messiah, be Jesus. So you can jump in wherever you want. I know that I did all this. No, this is great. Some of these big things, but if you have any reactions to some of ’em are really crazy.

I was going to say something that popped into my mind as you were talking. You said the name Jesus, and I thought His is the only name in history since he’s come to be repeated by literally every person, even if they don’t believe because they use his name, even Inmy. Yeah. You hear it on tv, you hear it everywhere. Oh, Jesus Christ. That’s interesting is of value. Even if people are not using it the right way, the right way, they acknowledge that there was this man who changed history.

Well, but even when it’s used in a derogatory, it’s showing recognition that this name is famous something.

Yeah.

Here’s another one, and I want to make mention, my brother used to say these things. When I would talk about this to him, he would say, Aaron, it’s always been this way. Everything you’re talking about that already existed. There’s always been wars, there’s always been false messiahs. There’s always been the things that we’re going to talk about. And the Bible even says this. It says, people will say

And mock it

And mock it, that the days have always been the same. Everything’s the same.

People have always thought that he was going to

Come soon. It’s so funny that the Bible even mentions the very thing that even Christians today say, like, well, you say it’s different today, but it’s not different. Everything’s always been like this. I will prove you wrong. So the next verse, it says, there will be wars and rumors of wars, and I’m going to go through and break down some timeframes and talk about wars. Because if we look at the world and say, oh, there’s always been wars. Well sort of, but has there always been the same amount of wars, the same kind of wars?

Real quick before you go on, you have each of these verses set aside, and I think you mentioned that we’re in Matthew 24, but did you read the bulk of what he’s saying in that

We can read it real quick. Yeah, let’s do, I think we should. Okay, so I’m going to go

To, sorry, I just realized that we kind of jumped right in, but it’d be good for you guys to hear where we’re pulling this from.

Okay, so this is Jesus in Matthew 24 verse starting verse three. It says, 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 them. See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name saying I am the Christ, and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed. I love that. He encourage us, don’t be alarmed for this must take place, but the end is not yet for a nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are, but the beginning of birth pains, they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death. And you’ll be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will rise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold, but the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as the testimony to all nations. And then the end will come. And so he gives this look for all these things. They’re birth pains. And that’s

What I’m going through. I wonder what stimulated the disciples to even ask when the end of age will be.

Well, just before this, Jesus walks them by the temple and he says, see this temple, it’s going to be destroyed and I’m going to raise it up in three days. And they’re like, what? And it started making them think about all of these things, everything. And so I’m just going through these signs

Kind of point by point.

These birth pains, which point by point, so wars and rumor wars was one of those birth pains in verse six. And it says, don’t be alarmed. They’re going to

Happen. Well, he says, wars, everyone perks up.

So again, going back to people said there’s always been wars. Let’s look at this. This is according to britannica.com. So I didn’t just find this on some random site britannica.com. So from 1300 BC to 100 bc. So that’s like 1200 years before Christ, a 1200 year span. There was about 12 recorded wars. There might’ve been other things, but only 12 of them were significant enough to write down. So in a 1200 year span, so this is leading up to the birth of Christ after Christ, there were 28 recorded wars between 100 BC and 1700 bc.

No, 1700 ad,

I’m sorry, 100 BC and 1,780. So about a 1700 year span, there was 28 recorded wars. This is including the ones with Rome that were taking place around 70, 80.

Okay, so double what it was before,

Double before. What was this? 1200 years prior, before Christ, the next 1700 years. These are long spans. That’s 1700 years.

Yeah, it’s like one every hundred

Years. So this is where you start seeing why we live in a generation that’s very different. Remember? So 28 wars double from before. This is post Christ, post-resurrection from 1700 to 2000. Okay, so that’s only 300 years. 97 recorded wars.

That’s a lot more in a shorter amount of time.

Yeah. What four x? Almost like three and a half times the amount of wars in just 300 years. Now listen to this, 37 of those wars were in the 100 years between 1900 and 200, 2000 in 2000, sorry. So 37 of the 97 were in 100 years. Wow. Now listen to this. In the last 24 years, there’ve only been three wars. Isn’t that

Weird? Recorded official wars? Yeah. It seems like there’s been more than that

There. And so what’s interesting about this is that there were so many over these years, and then all of a sudden, there’s almost none in these last three years, it’s been even less. And it reminds me of the people will be saying there’s peace and security and then sudden destruction. So not only were there wars, less wars, and then significantly more wars from the time of Jesus till now all of a sudden they’ve drastically slowed, which I think lines up with scripture. But like I said, you look at these numbers and it was like almost none, double hundreds.

I know some people will ask the question, well, is that because recording got better or because things changed socially? That

I don’t know. A war is a pretty large thing. So we’re going to talk about earthquakes in a little bit. And so you’ll see kind of the

Same thing.

But it wasn’t things that were, we have recorded history from that way beyond this. That’s true. And so recorded history, we have going back for thousands and thousands of years, ancient Sumerians, ancient Egyptians. And so these are actual recorded wars, which means they were significant enough in the small amount of people that were on the earth to write about it. Yeah. So first Thessalonians five, three through two, it says, well, people are saying there’s peace and security. Remember I brought that up. That’s that verse. And it makes sense that wars have slowed and now they’re getting quieter. And now everyone’s like, oh, we’re in a time of peace. Even under the last president, we had historical peace documents being signed in the Middle East. Yeah, that’s true. Which people had wanted for decades. And so more than decades, nearly a hundred years, it’s been how can we get peace here, which we’ll talk about that. So that’s just one of the birth veins. Why don’t we go into the next birth vein? These get even more intriguing. There’ll be famines and earthquakes. So mainly I couldn’t find much about famines because famines have been just happening forever. There’s lots of them. But earthquakes are specific, which is very interesting because even when Jesus died, there was an earthquake recorded that took place when he gave up his spear, when that moment of death.

It also says that when he comes back and touches the Mount of Olives, it splits,

It’s going to be an earthquake. So this is a very specific and significant event. And we used to live in California,

We grew up with them.

We know

Earthquakes. We found them exciting.

But I’m going to do this same thing. I’m going to break down. So there’s a website I didn’t put my reference on here, it’s silly. Oops. I think it was also on Britannica, but it also could have been Wikipedia. So I dunno. But it breaks down earthquakes by eras. So from 1920 BC to 60 bc, that’s a long period, nearly 2000 years before Christ seven recorded earthquakes. Now of course, they didn’t have recording devices. Of course earthquakes could have been happening in places that were unpopulated, but one’s large enough near people to be recorded. There was seven. So that’s pretty significant that these seven were even recorded. There was 20 earthquakes from 1780 to 980. So again, nearly a thousand years, you had 20 recorded earthquakes significant enough to write down from 1080 to 1,780. So 700 years, 57. These numbers keep increasing. Increasing and recording devices. Devices, I’m going to tell you weren’t developed until 1901.

Okay?

So this is all pre-recording devices from 1700 to 1900. So 300 years, 200 years, 100. So it doubled again. Now these are people that are experiencing earthquakes significant enough that someone wrote it down or multiple people. So this is all before measuring and tracking and tracking. Yeah. But now let’s look at tracking. Someone might say, of course we’re going to have more when we have tracking, which we do. But I want to still show you the exact same progression now that we have tracking. So 1901 to 2,398 in less than one year. Now.

Less than a hundred years. You keep saying these facts so fast. You said less than a year.

Less than a hundred years. Sorry,

Less than a hundred years.

Now someone might say, well, that’s recording all earthquakes, like little ones tremors. You’re right. But the 398 in that a hundred years are all over 6.0. That’s pretty big. Those are significant large earthquakes. Big.

Yeah, that’s huge.

And then nearly all the deadliest earthquakes in recorded history happened in this time period, not in the past when they could have been recorded in this time period. So how many of you think there have been since 2000 in the last 24 years?

Well, I can’t answer because I’m looking at the numbers

I you’re looking at

It. You guys can stop and think about that.

We’ve had nearly double that first number, not double, but close 571, all 6.0 or larger. So the numbers still, even though have at more accurate recording, the numbers are still increasing.

So wow, that’s a lot of earthquakes in just the last two decades.

Well, and then if you wanted to look at things like eruptions, because earthquakes growing up, there was one major eruption, earthquake eruption, volcano eruption. But in the last 10 years, it’s almost like every year there’s a massive, massive volcano eruption. I seen videos.

Yeah, I’ve seen videos.

So there’s all these statistics about this. And so if someone’s to say like, oh, it’s always been the same, it hasn’t always been the same. You can look at the recorded numbers.

Well, just in the last 24 years alone,

We had more than the last a hundred years before that, which

They’ve been recording and we’ve been

Recording. So

That in itself,

And again, there’s been way more earthquakes in this, but these are all 6.0 or higher. I just wanted to give the most significant ones, ones that actually caused damage, ones that actually caused may ham and death. So this next one is really sad, and it has to do with Christians. And it says that Christians will face persecution and death. And that did take place right after Jesus resurrected. There was massive Christian persecution for a season of time, but that lasted for a short season. And then Christianity for many generations flourished. Our country was founded on Christian values, Christian beliefs, the pilgrims came over because of it. But nowadays, Christians are one of the most persecuted faiths in the world. On open doors.org, there’s an article that says more than 365 million Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith.

That’s a huge number.

And this other stat that it has right over here in a big red box, it says 4,998 Christians were killed for faith related reasons last year alone. And so Christianity,

Real quick, that doesn’t even document the things that happen. Maybe if you just look at school systems and personal relationships and those small ways of feeling persecuted or maybe even social media, people who get backlash online for sharing something. Those things happen all the time.

So there’s the, I’m

Not calling it death,

But iion of death. And then there’s persecution of social persecution that’s currently happening, which is only the beginning. It builds up, and that’s happening more and more and more than it ever has. So there was a very short period of time of intense Christian persecution in a very localized spot right after Jesus died. But now there is globally Christian persecution on scales that never existed in history.

Sad.

So this next one, this is in verses 11 and verses 24 of Matthew talking about false prophets who will deceive the masses. And I just wanted to talk about this for a moment because this one’s a little bit more hard to track. That’s okay. I’m not trying to give all the answers here, but there’s, over the recent decades, there’s been a growing number of Christians and non-Christians who claim to be prophets. Not just saying they have the gift of prophecy or prophesying in a moment or something like that,

But it’s something I didn’t really hear growing up, people claiming that phrase that term.

But it’s happening more and more. And so it’s something that we just need to be careful of specifically because there’s a difference in the Bible clearly about Old Testament prophets, people who heard the voice of God and were to go do something for him specifically. And New Testament prophecy, there’s the gift of prophecy in the New Testament. And again, the Bible says not to despise prophecy. So I’m not saying that there is no prophecy anymore. There is definitely prophecy. But New Testament prophecy and Old Testament prophets are drastically different things. Mainly Old Testament prophets. If they were wrong, what happened to them?

Well, they were like spiritual leaders.

Not always. They not always. There was prophets like Jonah who was not that great of a person who was, but

Even still, he went to Nineveh and he was a spiritual leader to them,

And he did, and he obeyed God and the people of Nineveh heard them and obeyed God, and God bless that. Then you have all sorts of prophets in the Old Testament where God goes to them and says, you say this. They go and say that thing. If they were to say something else, they were to be stone to death. If they were to give a prophecy that didn’t come true, that wasn’t fulfilled. Remember we talked about near and far prophecy that was intentional so that the prophet would be trusted for the far prophecy that they would see the near prophecy fulfilled. New Testament prophecy is not like that at all. If someone comes up and says, oh, I feel like God’s given me a word for you, and that person’s wrong, we don’t stone them to death. We’re told to test everything. Evaluate. We hear something and we run it against the word of God and we say, God is this from you? Oh, this lines up with what you’ve already said. That’s encouraging and we receive it. So New Testament prophecy and Old Testament prophets, very different things. And there’s a lot of people these days, Christian and unchristian alike who are claiming to be actual prophets. I hear from God directly, I’m going to tell you what God said. That’s a very dangerous thing. And we be very careful as believers when we hear that, that we immediately always test everything said

According to His

Word, according to God’s word. So again, I don’t have statistics on this, but this is something that as believers we should be aware of that it is happening more and more. There’s going to be people that come and they say, oh, God’s told me something and you must listen to it. And that the New Testament does not teach Christians to do that. As in if someone comes to us and says, God told me you must do this, you should do it. No. As individuals, we get to walk in wisdom and the council of the Word of God and other believers getting the full gambit, getting ideas, and then running it through the word of God to test it all. And so I just wanted to give this one as a warning to us as believers. So do you want to talk about this one?

Yeah. This is mentioned in verse 12. So Matthew 24, verse 12, wickedness will increase.

Yeah, not in this generation. We’re good.

Well, this is happening, being facetious. I mean, we don’t even have to prove it with stats. I mean, you guys know because you see it yourselves. There’s so much more access to evil. I mean to just, if you think about even just the entertainment industry and the way it highlights it or exposes it, it’s in front of us all the time.

I think about television. There was a season, if you guys ever grew up watching, I Love Lucy. I Love Lucy was one of the, it was the first show, not one of the, it was the first show to show an on-air pregnancy

Taboo, which they didn’t do back then taboo because it meant that the couple, they did something so they would avoid it.

It was also the first episode to show them in bed together. They were married. Now in our minds, we’d be like, oh, that’s appropriate. They’re married. But the values back then, were so much more conservative, so much more like, Hey, we can’t show that because we don’t want it to be inappropriate. Nowadays it’s like PG 13 on any show. It’s like you have to be careful.

You do. I was going to say it’s pornography

Equal across the board. It’s pornography. So lawlessness or wickedness is absolutely increasing. And if you don’t think it is, I think you’re in denial. And it’s now more than ever

The violence of people, the aggression, just the way you see people communicating online. I do it just in following certain people in their comments. I’m like, how does somebody have the nerve to respond that way?

There’s no general courtesy anymore. No general kindness.

To me, it’s really sad.

Which leads to the next one. It says, because this is in verse 12, also because lawlessness will be increased. The love of many will grow cold lawlessness. If you live in America right now, if you live in actually any country, laws are quickly becoming obsolete. No one

Wants to buy them. I would say optional.

Optional. That’s great. They’re

Optional, not obsolete, optional. Some people are rule followers. They want to follow the law, they want to do the right thing. And there’s some people who just don’t care, don’t want to do it.

But lawlessness also, not just by country’s laws, but biblical laws, also biblical laws, also lawlessness is increasing.

There used to be an upholding of values, values and laws. And now it just seems like there’s not much care.

And this is super sad because even the love of believers is growing cold. When more and more people are lawless, when lawlessness is celebrated, when laws are being upheld unequally, like, oh, we’re going to put this law and we’re going to persecute you, prosecute you for that law, breaking the law. But these people over here, we’re not going to touch. They’re protected. They’re allowed to break the law. When that happens, then there is actually no law and people begin to walk that way and act that way. You lose general trust, you lose general patience. You lose general kindness, gentleness to your neighbors, to your friends, to other believers. Because think about it, how can you trust people? When lawlessness is abounding, you get fearful. We just talked about this. You were encouraging me. You’re like, I don’t want to be afraid of people just because of this thing.

And there’s this sentiment in us of like, well, I can’t trust anyone anymore. And people aren’t generally good, like we quote unquote think people used to be. And so there’s lawlessness is increasing now more than ever. We’re not nations of laws anymore. We’re not nations of internally. People don’t just have the same moral compass that the majority of people had. It’s gone. Everyone has their own moral compass, and that’s dangerous. And because of that, love is a very hard thing to come by. True, genuine, brotherly, familiar, affectionate of like, Hey, I’m just going to care for my neighbor. I’m going to do the genuine kindness, courtesy, patience, all the things that love is defined as is getting harder to find in normal everyday life. This last piece,

Yeah, go ahead. In verse 14, it says, the gospel will be preached to the whole world, which is cool. And I think it’s been a huge motivator for when you hear of missionaries and people have traveled the world to get to the most remote places in order to get the word out, get the word out,

The good news. And we talked about this in the words series about the Bible being translated into nearly every language. Much of the Bible, not all of the Bible has been translated into nearly over three, 3000, 600 languages, which constitutes 97% of the world, which means

Most of the world,

The majority of the world, 97% has access to at least some of the Bible. And usually when they translate the Bible, they actually start with the gospels. And so 97% of the world has access to the gospels. That’s so

Cool.

There’s only probably a couple tribes left that haven’t been reached by the outside world, mainly because some are protected in South America. They’re protected by laws to keep the outside world from talking to them. And I actually watched this clip of one of the lawmakers saying, we don’t want the missionaries going in. We want to keep Christianity from them. And so there is a general sentiment of we don’t want these unreached people groups reached specifically because of Christianity, but we want to keep them from being reached generally too. And there’s actively missionaries trying their hardest

To reach them. I think it’s really cool. I always think the technology side of things and how over the last a hundred years, how technology has really ramped up and given missionaries the tools that they need to get to some of these rural places. Do you ever ever think about all the little, all of it things that gps, airplanes, communication? Yeah, I mean it’s pretty awesome. And

Then that there’s been enough smart people able to translate the Bible into other languages, brave people. That’s insane. That’s insane to me. To be able to take the word of God from the original languages and transfer them to a language that someone else speaks is just amazing.

And I love that God has put that mission in people’s hearts. And there’s a reason it’s happened now.

It reminds me of just talking about it. When God was calling for the tabernacle to be built, he’s skilled, all skilled, skilled in gold, skilled in bronze, skilled, and we

Skilled,

And he’s looking for them to volunteer their skills to build his kingdom.

It’s so cool. When I think about our kids, I always, because I homeschool, so I see them all the time. I was just filling out for this next year. It said, what are their strengths and their weaknesses? And I was filling that out. And I pray for their purpose, and I ask God to reveal it to me. What kind of skills will they have? What will they do? What purposes will our kids fulfill for his kingdom? And I get really excited about that.

It’s really cool seeing them grow into these skills and giftings that you can’t just give. It’s not like we can force something on someone maybe a little bit, but they have natural gifts. It’s really awesome. So again, all these things that we just talked about, the Bible says they’re merely birth pains. He’s like, the net end’s not here yet. These things must take place. Everything we just talked about,

And if you guys know about birth pains, they start out what, 10 minutes apart and then gradually get closer, get closer together and more intense and last longer. So buckle up,

Which doesn’t that sound reminiscent of the growth of earthquakes, the growth of all those things that we talked about. It started off they’re far apart and now it’s like,

I remember when I was in the hospital with Elliot to give birth. We were newbies, but you would look at the little monitor and you could tell by the way it was scratching on the line that I was going to have another one about contraction. And you only get so many seconds between each contraction. And I remember trying to take a breath and you’re like, okay, another one’s coming. And I’m like, please stop telling me. Stop telling me. Oh, it’s really

Funny. True. But it could be discouraging knowing they’re coming. But it’s also encouraging. It means you’re almost there.

And I was so close.

So we’re going to move on to another piece. You probably get the most excited about this one. There’s just something about Israel that you love.

I do love Israel,

But this is the most shocking piece of evidence for us being in a season of the world that I believe will consist of the coming of Jesus.

Totally.

And it’s the rebirth, I should say, of Israel. Israel was once a nation ceased to be a nation, 2000 years later,

It’s a nation again. I think that’s a miracle. It’s absolutely a miracle. I think it’s a miracle.

And we talked about this, I think we talked about it last episode or maybe the episode before, about for 2000 years, since Israel was no longer a nation. A lot of the stuff in Revelation and scripture when it talks about a temple that the antichrist is going to occupy would make no sense. You would have to allegorize it and say, well, there is no Israel and there is no temple. So this must not be talking about an actual Israel and an actual temple. So people that would be thinking those things, that would be very logical. But all of a sudden in 1948, Israel’s a nation again. Yeah,

Wild.

Nearly exactly as it was 2000 years ago. The streets have the same names, the cities have the same names. This is the other crazy thing. They speak the exact same language. We don’t even speak the same English that our forefathers spoke. It’s so far

Different, the cultural preservation of a nation. It had to have been a miracle.

It’s never happened in the history of the world. There’s never been a nation that was totally destroyed and dispersed and spread out in such small numbers, and then all of a sudden it’s a nation again, speaking the same language, having the same culture. This is absolutely a miracle.

So let’s talk a little bit about what scripture has to say about this. So again, in Matthew 24, in verses 32 through 35, it says, now learn this from the fig tree. As soon as it’s twigs get tender and its leaves come out, that summer is near even. So when you see all these things, you know that it is near right at the door. Truly, I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

This is one of those verses that people have used as a prophetic signpost or like

A, yeah, because it doesn’t mention Israel becoming a nation in this specific set of verses,

Right? Yeah. People have used it to say, well, this generation won’t pass away. Well, what generation,

Right? That’s the big

Question. The ones to see the fig tree bloom. And so that’s kind of where people get this idea that the fig tree is a symbol of Israel

And the reason why. So I looked up on a blog called Facts about Israel uk, and it said this, why did Jesus associate a fig tree with the end times, signs, some argue that Jesus was just using a simple horticulture observation. Quite simply, the fig tree is one of the last trees to bud in the spring. And so when it leaves our budding, we know that summer is just around the corner. I thought that was really interesting. I thought that was a cool little note that he did use that fig tree to tell you how close you are. And then it says, so they argue, Jesus was simply saying, when the fig tree buds, you know that summer is near. Likewise. When you see all these things happening, know that the end is near,

Which is true because that’s exactly what Jesus said. When you see, just like you can recognize the season of the tree, you can recognize by the season of the world what’s happening. But others believe that this is a reference to Israel becoming a nation. Again,

Like a very specific thing,

Which makes sense because before Israel became a nation, you would never have thought that. But the moment Israel becomes a nation, you start seeing things in scripture, you’re like, wait a minute,

It’s coming back to

Life. That makes sense with what Jesus said. Yeah.

Also, I try to look up a couple places in the Bible where it relates Israel to a fig tree,

And I love these scriptures. I read these and I was like, whoa, I don’t remember these. So

In Hosea nine 10, it says like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel like the first fruit on the fig tree. In its first season, I saw your father’s, it’s mentioning Israel on a fig tree right

There. Israel is the fig tree with this first

Fruit. And then in Jeremiah 24, it starts out saying this, after Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon had taken into exile from Jerusalem, Jeconiah, the son of

JE Kim, JE Kim, king of Judah, together with the officials of Judah, the craftsmen and the middle workers, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me this vision. Behold two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the Lord. What was the figs again? One basket had very good figs like the first ripe figs, but the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten. And the Lord said to me, what do you see, Jeremiah? I said, figs, the good figs very good and the bad figs very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten. Then the word of the Lord came to me, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, like these good figs. So I’ll regard as good the exiles from Judah whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. I will set my eyes on them for good and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down. I will plant them and not pluck them up. I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord and they shall be my people and will be their God for they shall return to me with their whole heart.

What’s awesome about this is not only is it referring to the figs as Israelites, which means that the tree would be Israel, where they come from, it talks about them. The exiles coming back talks about him not taking them apart again, and based off of what revelation is saying, Israel’s not going away and they are going to turn their hearts back to God. So

That’s pretty cool. So

He’s telling, he’s speaking prophecy right now. So there is scriptural basis for Israel being represented in the fig tree. And so us and many other believers look at this prophecy that Jesus gives us saying when you see the fig tree and its leaves freshly sprouting, which is also interesting that the fig tree is the last tree to bloom in the season. It’s almost like Israel’s. What has there been any other new nations forming in

The last 80 years? I looked it up and because of certain splits, wars and splits and borderlines and all of that, there have been, but

That’s not the same thing as a nation being born again, north and South Korea, it’s still Korea. They’ve split into two nations. But when

You just use that word born again, I was just thinking how interesting that spiritually in our faith we become, we become born again, born again, and now we have this nation that’s been born again. Which leads me to the last verse that I wanted to share, or not the last one, but this other one. Isaiah is 66, 8, 7 and eight, seven and eight. Before she was in labor, she gave birth, which here we go again. Birth pain. I like the correlations. Sorry, lost my spot. Before her pain, before her pain come upon her, she delivered a son who has heard such a thing. Who has seen such things. Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth? In one moment, for as soon as Zion was in labor, she brought forth her children.

And this is exactly, I mean, this is exactly how Israel became nation again. It was in one day there was a resolution in the UN to declare Israel a sovereign nation. Yeah,

Pretty cool. Yeah. And so its rebirth was in a single day. It’s amazing that God talks about this and Amos, this was written about 760 bc. It was a long time before Jesus. Behold, the days are coming declares the Lord. When the plow man shall overtake the reaper and the shredder of grapes, him who sows the seed, the mountains shall drip sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it. I’ll restore the fortunes of my people, Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I’ll plant them on their land and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them, says the Lord your God. That has happened.

Israel’s literally flourishing right now with the way over the last 75 years, 76 years, they have integrated and implemented ways of doing agriculture and planting vineyards and trees, and it’s been so cool to see the fruition of this land coming back to life.

So we can look at this and just realize, wow, Israel become a nation. This is a serious sign of the times. Jeremiah 30 verse one through three says, the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, write in the book all the words that I’ve spoken to you for. Behold days are coming declares the Lord. When I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judas says the Lord, and I will bring them back to the land that I gave their fathers and they shall take possession of it. This is all thousands of years ago was written about, and here we are just not even 80 years ago, we see this take place, fulfillment of prophecy.

So not only is the land flourishing, not only have exiles from all over the world been coming back to Israel. What is it called when they have plane fulls of people who

I don’t know, but it happens and they celebrate when they get off the plane.

Yeah, I can’t think of the word. It’s happening right now, but people are coming back and claiming citizenship and wanting to be there. But also, and this ties into in times when we talked about Daniel and the wrath and all of that stuff that we already mentioned, but there are preparations happening right now for the building of a third temple,

Which

In Jerusalem,

This is crazy again, revelation talks about a temple. Jesus talks about the antichrist entering into a temple and he wasn’t talking about the one that existed when he was alive because he said that was going to be destroyed, which it was, and it was destroyed. There’s currently no temple.

No temple right now.

You would never have imagined for 2000 years without Israel being in place. It’s not a nation anymore. They don’t own it. It’s overrun by who knows what, that there would be another temple. All you could assume is this is allegory, but it’s not. The third temple must exist for things in revelation to make sense. And it’s going to exist

Even for sacrifices for those of the Jewish faith they haven’t been doing because they don’t have a temple. And so there’s this motivation to, Hey, let’s get this going. There’s support for this. And I think

That’s really what are they doing instead of this? Because they can’t sacrifice animals anymore, yet they will. But right now they don’t. For the last 2000 years, they haven’t. What are they doing

Instead? I don’t want to sound like I know because I am not familiar with it, but I did look something up and it said that they offer, it’s called Tela, which is prayer, which is repentance and sah, which is charity. So there’s ways that they have a belief and they have a way to justify no more animal sacrifices. Since we can’t do that. We’ll do all of these other things. But I think that as the temple comes to be, they will be able to resurface all of those other, and

They want to, they’ll restart temple sacrifice, which goes into some of these other things that we’re talking about right now

And what we’re sharing with you guys, this has been like over the years, Aaron will find an article or I’ll see something on social media and we’ll send ’em to each other because we’re like, oh, check it out. They just finished this thing or this thing and it’s just continually increases. And it’s been really,

Do you still have that temple coin I bought you? Yeah. So a couple years ago, I actually don’t know when I bought a temple coin from the people I’m about to talk about to give Jennifer’s a gift. And it’s really cool because it has a picture of the temple on it and it is awesome holding something that only exists in our time, in our time. And so the building of the third temple, this isn’t just an idea. It’s not just like, oh, Israel’s a nation, that means one day they can have a temple. This is something that’s been in preparation for decades. There’s actually a group called the Temple Institute, and they’ve already produced plans for the temple. They raised money and they have the actual plans, the engineered plans to build this thing. And they’re already creating the items to be used in temple worship. So they have the golden altars of incense, they have the showbread table, the temple menorah. It’s all made of 24 karat gold, many other vessels that are necessary for the worship. So when you look at the Old Testament, when God gave the commandments of you need to make these and you need to make that,

They also had specific ritual garments that the priests are going to wear. Yep. They’ve already created those.

These are on display. If you were to go to Israel, you can go to the museum that actually houses all of these things and you can go see them. They have the golden menorah. It’s a huge candelabra. It’s massive. I couldn’t even wrap my hands around it. And they crafted all of these things based off of the biblical commands on how to do it. So they’re even, why don’t you, this is a cool thing. Why don’t you talk about this one.

It says the Temple Institute School is training certified DNA tested Cohen, which are descendants of the high priest. Aaron, this is crazy, to perform the temple duties.

So they’re doing DNA testing to find, because finding the tribal lineages in Israel is actually very difficult. It’s been 2000 years,

But they’ve also kept a, I mean out of all the cultures in the world, I mean they

Actually can figure it out,

Preserved a lot of things

So they can identify people who are in the line of Aaron, the first high priest. And so they’re training them these DNA tested line of high priests to be priests in the service of the temple

Along those same lines of just trying to fit genetic, every detail. They had been working with breeders in Texas and they brought over red heifer cows that they have to be blemish free within one to three years. And that’s what they needed.

And they need these red heifers. In the Old Testament, the inauguration, the commencement of the temple was done with a red heifer sacrifice.

So they’ve been looking for one,

They’re actively breeding them, and so they will have one eventually, and they’re getting everything ready so that the moment they are able to build, it’ll happen. And to be honest, it’ll probably happen in a year. They’ll be able to do it so fast, have so much, I don’t know how long it’ll take, but this is unprecedented times and it’s pretty awesome. If you want to look up any of this stuff, just go to the Temple Institute, I think it’s dot com maybe or.org, and you can just Google it and see all the things that they’re doing.

What’s hard about this is knowing that scripture talks about these things, seeing it unfold in the news, what we get through social media and the news, and then knowing that it does create tension and animosity over there between all the other cultures and people living there because of the split, the divide of religious beliefs. And so we do want to share that. I remember reading an article about these red heifers and them coming over to Israel and that being a stimulus for

It was one of the

Reasons, one of the attacks in October

Last year that Hamas is at war with Israel, that one of the leaders said, this wasn’t said right away, but it was said later on in an interview. It’s because they’re bringing red cows to Israel

Because they all holy land, no prophecy as well. They have the same access to what everyone’s doing over there. And so it is hard when you think about all the things that come to be in the end times and what will take place. So it’s weird because it’s hard to say, oh, it’s exciting to see all these things unfold, but yet it’s also really devastating.

And it’s not for us to, we can’t possibly finish the puzzle. We can’t take all the peas and be like, oh, look,

We don’t know exactly how it’s all going to play out. We

Can see them just like a farmer can look at the sky the Bible says, and know that rain’s coming or look at the ground and be like, oh, I need to amend the soil. We can understand by looking and not be, it tells us to be sober minded. It tells us to put our heads up, so be aware of what’s taking place so that we can be prepared and not be ashamed at the second coming of our Lord that we would walk rightly, we’re like, oh, God is doing what he said he is going to do. I can trust him. And that we continue on taking the next right step that we continue on in faith and in hope, and get into the word of God and prayer and be with believers and tell people about God and about Jesus. And so it’s not there to cause fear. It’s there to cause urgency, emotion, and urgency. Yeah,

Totally. And excitement. And excitement. We mentioned earlier just about how we as parents can provide our children some help in navigating prophecy and scripture and what is coming to be as we see news unfold or things happening in the world. And I just want to also make a note that it’s okay also to tell them that you don’t understand fully these things and maybe use it as a stimulus for, especially as your children get older, as they start to navigate these things, do it with them. Become to study with them, to study with them, and it be a thing that you guys can do together and find common.

Develop your worldview in times worldview together, but do it in the word of God. Yeah. There are some resources you can start looking at.

So again, if you guys have more interest on these topics and want more regular news on them, I would highly recommend Pastor Jack Hibbs. He talks about this often. He does, if you’re interested in the Israel stuff. And the third temple, the Temple Institute has some information. Our friend, it kind of was, I don’t know exactly when she started, but it was a few years ago. I think it was 2020, but she started sharing on her Instagram about prophecy, and it’s been super encouraging. And that’s Jessica Spies. So you can look her up on Instagram. She doesn’t know that I’m going to share. Do

You follow her on your Instagram? Yeah. So you can go to Unveiled Wife’s Instagram and find her through your friend’s.

And she has a really cool PDF of a Bible timeline of history, of different events that have taken place. And I thought that was really cool that she did that for us. Not for us, but for everyone. For everyone. I got one. And then when I was chatting with her recently, I just asked her, Hey, do you have any more recommendations for our listeners? And she suggested Mondo Gonzalez, which is the person that I mentioned earlier with the small binder that turned into a big binder for prophecy. And so you can just look him up and check him out.

And then also, I went through lots of data and stats, to be honest. I went on Google and I looked at the S script here and it says, there’s going to be earthquakes. So I typed in how many earthquakes have there been over history? And people have documented this stuff. And you can actually test, you can go to the word of God. And then with the technology we have today, you can actually go research. You can go read historical books that talk about things that took place back then and things that take place now. And so it’s not always good to just turn on the news, but the news is also a really good indicator of things that are going on. But just taking it, taking everything you see, even if you start following people on Instagram that talk about it, or if you follow Jack Hibbs, even when any one of those people, my wife and I, we always go back to the word of God.

Like, okay, that sounds right, but does that line up with what we know? The word says, and so just looking into the word of God and then comparing everything we see to it as best as we can. So I’m going to end with a prayer. Lord, we love you and we thank you that you revealed to us not just who you are, who were, but what’s coming. You show us in your word, the hope that we have in the future and the hope that we have today. And I love also that you never change God, that you are the same yesterday, today, and forever. And that one day, your son, Jesus, he’s coming back for his church, for his bride, and we’re going to see him face to face, Lord. And we long for that day. We look forward to that day. We are excited about that day.

But I pray that in the meantime, God, that we would have an excitement, a zeal, a passion for you, for your word, and for walking with you, God, that would be excited and know that because we have a hope in the future, that we have a hope today. And I just pray that everyone that was listening, everyone that’s watching God would be encouraged by the things that we shared, that they would be encouraged to go into your word themselves, to discover the truth for themselves, to discover what you speak of in your prophecies, in the Word of God, God, that they would know you, that they would seek you. We thank you that you don’t leave us hanging, that you show us things to look forward to. And we thank you that you’re with us now in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. We just want to thank you for joining us on this long episode. We look forward to having you next time.