"The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything, except our modes of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." -Albert Einstein
All my life I’ve heard it said, “The end of the world is coming!” We have all seen those folks on the road side holding signs, “Repent for the end is near!” Many have talked about a time when the world will be no more, including Pope Gregory the First, “Beloved ladies and gentlemen, realize what is true: this world is in haste and the end approaches: and therefore in the world things go from bad to worse, and so it must of necessity deteriorate greatly on account of the people’s sins before the coming of Antichrist, and indeed it will then be dreadful and terrible throughout the world.”
Eight hundred years before Christ, Joel the prophet wrote, “In those days and at that time, when I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations … and I will enter into judgment with them….” Joel looked 2800 years into the future and saw the Jews back in their homeland. The Jews returned to Israel in 1948. According to Joel the end of the end is near.
About 50 days after Christ’s crucifixion the Apostle Peter announced, “It shall come to pass in the last days, says God, ... I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh.” Peter acknowledged that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the early church marked the beginning of the end of time. Today, 2000 years later, we’re now living at the end of the end. Hebrews 1:1-2 says, “God ... spoke in time past ... by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.” The end dawned on the world in Christ’s day. The sun is now setting on the history of the earth. Apostle John proclaimed, “It is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming ... many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.” The Apostles believed they lived in the End Times and worked diligently to prepare the hearts of people for Christ’s return.
“Christ indeed,” Peter declared, “... was manifest in these last times for you.” Peter, one of the Lord’s 12 disciples, believed that Christ’s work on earth marked the beginning of the end. The end of all things is at hand … be serious and watchful in your prayers (Peter).
God spoke to the prophet Daniel saying (12:4), “Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall in- crease.” Two things the Lord said would be prevalent at the end: travel and technology. Airplanes and computers have changed the world. God told Daniel this would transpire 2500 years before the Wright brothers were born. We’re living at a time, in the history of the world, when God is preparing to fulfill the prophecies given to Daniel, John, the apostles, and the prophets. The world is on a collision course towards self-destruction. The end of the end is upon us and our hope now, as it has always been, is faith in God through Jesus Christ our Lord.