So what will be 'the signs of the end times', marking the end of this age? That is exactly the question the disciples asked Jesus as they left the temple, in the week preceding our Lord's crucifixion, and to which He gave a fairly detailed answer.
Before proceeding, we really should be wise and balanced in studying the signs preceding our Lord's coming. Yes, our Lord commanded us to 'learn the lesson of the fig tree', and so we must study and know these things. But I would suggest a few 'checks and balances':
We should be studying and growing in non-eschatological topics (general study of the Word, growing in walking in the Spirit, the sermon on the mount heart, etc) much more than we are eschatological topics;
We should be obsessed with knowing and walking with and serving and revealing our God, not the end times;
In studying the end times, we should be strengthening our hearts in the Lord's glorious sovereign victory despite the evil one's best effort to resist Him, not inadvertently glorifying darkness through obsession with things like the antichrist, or stirring fear and anxiety;
If we are getting eschatological studies right, our responses should always be faith and love based, full of hope and an overcoming spirit, not full of fear and trepidation for the future. Yes the devil has a final rage against the Messiah and His people, but all that period reveals is his powerlessness to thwart God's glorious purposes. He is simply a dishonorable vessel for God's purpose of leading all mankind into the valley of decision and then our glorious eternal hope.
Finally, lets appreciate that countless thousands of believers of past centuries have firmly seen the signs of the Lord's immanent return in their day, and been wrong. Lets be humble and wise, learning from all who've gone before us.
But let us also trust the Lord. He said we must learn the lesson of the fig tree. The above cautions don't absolve us of this responsibility and won't rob us of the blessing He has for us in doing so.
When talking about 'the signs of the times', the things most people think of - like the 'mark of the beast', the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, the antichrist (most commonly a new US or EU President, or a new pope, or Bill Gates) and the false prophet - are not strictly speaking good signs to be looking at, when we understand the placement of those events in the end times timeline. For example, the mark of the beast and false prophet only manifest after the abomination of desolation, which all take place after the 7 seals (including most world leaders acknowledging the day of God's judgment has arrived and fleeing to caves to hide - Rev 6:12-17) and the first 6 trumps (including death of another 1/3rd of the world population! Rev 9:15). Since those events will certainly be noticed and have certainly not taken place yet (I realise we can't trust the media to report truthfully, but this I think would be hard to hide!), we can safely say its premature to be looking for the mark of the beast or the false prophet.
So we need to properly understand what signs to be watching for, in different stages of God's eschatological plan. There are in fact 3 sets of 'eschatological signs', as illustrated below:
Working backwards from Christ's return on the bottom right, there are 3 sets of ‘signs of the end times’, relating to different phases of the eschatological ‘Day of the Lord’.
Signs marking Christ’s immanent return. Revelation Ch 8-16, and Matthew Ch 15-31 describe the events that will immediately precede Christ's return. These are the 7 trumpet judgments (Rev Ch 8-9,13-14), including the abomination of desolation and the antichrist kingdom, and the 7 bowls of wrath (Rev Ch 15-16). These correspond to the 7 year time period known as 'The Tribulation'.
Signs marking the Tribulation's immanence: Before the Tribulation, there will be signs that the tribulation's commencement is immanent. Those signs are essentially the 7 Seal judgments, covered in Revelation Ch 6, and corresponding to Mt 24:1-14. Jesus called these 'the beginning of birth pangs' - the early signs that the birthing of the next age has begun.
Signs marking the immanence of the eschatological generation: But are there signs before the 'birth pang signs', or will those commence unannounced? On the one hand, in a sense, they will commence unannounced. In Matt 24, the Lord only gave us an answer to the question 'what are the signs of your coming and the end of the age'. He did not tell us the signs of those signs! We are able to split the signs the Lord gave us in Mt 24:1-31 by deduction when we overlay Rev Ch 6-19 over Mt 24:1-31, and notice the 1:1 correlation of the first 5 Seal judgments in Rev Ch 6 with the 'beginning of birth pangs' in Mt 24:5-14. On the other hand, scripture says a lot more on this topic than nothing . For example, the Lord tells us the gospel will be preached to all nations before His return, and that His inheritance will include people from every tribe and tongue. So we can watch the progress of the gospel as an informative flag. Clearly, in centuries gone by with most of the world's people groups unreached, an imminent return of our Lord seemed contrary to scripture. When the gospel has been preached to every people group, that precondition to the Lord's return will have been fulfilled. It turns out there are (to my knowledge) 13 such 'signs' the scripture gives us: preconditions to Christ's return and / or to the final antichrist empire of the last days. Since the pre-tribulation period is marked by the first seal, the 'rider on a white horse', which is the eschatological Antichrist pretending to be messiah and going forth to conquer the world by deception (more about that later), the signs pointing to the first seal being near are called 'pre-Antichrist signs'.
We will cover those 13 pre-Antichrist signs in the next post.
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