A few times over the weekend I’ve seen/heard people ask whether the events in Israel over the past few days are pointing to the last days? Will it lead to Armageddon? As I’m also doing some teaching on Revelation for the Faithroots Podcast at the moment, I thought it was worth taking a bit of time to look at that question.
Christians believe that Jesus will physically return bringing the final judgement, that the dead will rise and that Christ will reign forever over a new creation. A lot of Biblical prophecy points to this event and much of it is associated with a time of great distress including famine, pestilence and war. It’s also focused heavily on the Middle East. “Armageddon” is a corruption of Har Megiddo, the Mountain or hill country of Megiddo and refers to a specific plain where battles have historically been fought. Revelation 16:6 speaks of a great battle happening there.
Meanwhile, Scripture also talks about a battle between two powers to the north, Gog and Magog and these references were frequently associated with Russia throughout the 20th Cenury Cold War. Can we put things together and see a conversion of apocalyptic events, the economic crisis which began in 2008 with the Credit Crunch, a worldwide plague or pandemic through Coronavirus, the war in Ukraine and now events in Israel with the potential to draw in Lebanon, Iran, Egypt etc not to mention the US and UK who have both offered assistance to Israel and in the former case has already sent naval vessels to the region?
When described that way, the events do seem to fit the Bible account don’t they? However, this would also have been true of frequent events throughout history. Observers in AD70 as the Romans entered Jerusalem, defiled the sanctuary and destroyed the city and temple might well have asked “Are the prophecies being fulfilled?” Participants in the Crusades may also have felt that they were in the very last days. We might also think of World War 1 and the end of the Ottoman Empire, the Six Day War in 1967, the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago or even the two Iraq Wars of recent times.
So, it is possible to read the events of pretty much any stage of history onto Scripture. There has always been pestilence, plague and war and much of that seems to have centred on the cradle of civilisation. We need to be careful of reading events now into Scripture. However, we also shouldn’t be surprised if we find that things seem to fit. After all, I’ve frequently argued that the Book of Revelation gives us God’s verdict on the whole of history from the perspective of the end. We also see when we come to Scripture that “the last days” speaks of the whole of history from Christ’s first coming until his second.
For those reasons, we cannot simply take events now and use them to extrapolate when the end point will be. I do expect things to intensify as we get closet to the end but we are not in a position to know exactly how intense they may become. It is both equally possible that Christ may return in the midst of these present troubles and that he might tarry for another 1000 years. He is sovereign over history and he will return at the right time.
We are not meant to know the day or the hour and this means we are not to worry about second guessing it. We should live both prepared for the long haul and as though Jesus could return today. Live your day as though it could be your last. Make sure that you have settled any unresolved fall outs with brothers and sisters (as far as is within your power), live a godly life, use every opportunity to share the good news. Keep enjoying God and glorifying him forerever.
Faithroots 
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