Do you think we are reaching the end of the age?
In the words of Christ Jesus:
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the world as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:14
This gospel of the kingdom, in short:
“The seventh angle sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of the Lord and his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.” Revelation 11:15
Authors note:
You may ask, as I have, is it audacious to write fiction about the days before and after the return of Jesus Christ to the earth? What would the historical Gentile leaders of the church age have to say about the literal return of Messiah Christ to rule the earth from David’s throne, in Jerusalem? The following great men shaped much of our Christian doctrines: St Augustine, Martin Luther, John Wesley, or even John Nelson Darby who has opened the way for modern dispensational evangelical teaching. When these leaders read through prophetic scriptures, could they have imagined the world of today? In their day, Christ’s Olivet Discourse or the book of Revelation would have seemed beyond comprehension.
Those of us born during the Second World War have seen unimaginable changes in technology and culture. We began life while Jews were being killed on an industrial scale during the Holocaust. Israel had not yet become a nation after being scattered across the earth for two thousand years by God. Atomic weapons, television, computers, and instant satellite communications did not exist. Those of us who experience the emergence of these advances, have, if we try, the ability to see the prophetic scriptures with greater insight than our grandparents who had been born before electrified cities, automobiles, and jet aircraft transportation.
The prophets of both the Old and New Testaments had prophesied the future return of God’s chosen people Israel to their homeland. The book of Revelation predicts a single future war that will destroy one-third of the earth with fire and pollution. Could Christ have given the apostle John a vision of global war during this atomic age we now live in? In the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24), Jesus predicts that in the days just before his return, many would fall from the faith and the love of most would grow cold. When we consider the breakdown of the family since the 1950s, the global decline in church attendance, the increase in teenage suicides, and other dismal statistics, we must ask ourselves this question: Are we the generation that witnesses these events meant to be the generation that will not pass until all these things are fulfilled? (Matthew 24:34)
Secular humanism has been gradually replacing Judeo-Christian for the ideological standard of Western civilization. With the knowledge of man replacing the wisdom of God, should we ask, are these the days that mark the end of the age of man’s rule? (Revelation 11:15)
Looking at more hopeful developments, as the church declines in numbers at the end of the church age, there is a maturing. More Christians stand with Israel than perhaps any time of this age. Is this, the budding Z generation, the one that will deliver the gospel of the coming king to the nations?
This may be the moment. We can be a ready bride, take courage, be a messenger, and herald the gospel of the Messiah’s coming. (Matthew 24:14)