Christ pointed to a SINGLE, MONUMENTAL EVENT
more than any other which would warn of His RETURN TO THIS EARTH!
You need to know WHAT IS THAT EVENT — and to WATCH for it!
YOU ARE living in the death throes of civilization! NEVER have there been times such as these! Simultaneously, the world writhes in struggles between the great powers, flames in racial violence and hatred, smolders in "brush-fire" wars in Viet Nam, Angola, Northern India, the Congo; erupts with fiery volcanic explosions, sighs with restive, topsy-turvy weather conditions, and witnesses one of the greatest single religious movements in history!
These are ominous times — and Jesus Christ of Nazareth said it would be this way! He predicted THESE DAYS!
The Olivet Prophecy
Shortly before His crucifixion, Christ was asked to supply His disciples down through the ages with SIGNS of His coming!
He had been describing the great destruction of Jerusalem which was only a few years ahead — His disciples wanted to know: not only when Jerusalem would fall, but also what would be the SIGN of HIS COMING, and of the end of man's civilization on earth.
"And as He sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto Him privately, saying; tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world [age, society]?" (Matt. 24:3).
Countless thousands have assumed Jesus was speaking ONLY of the conditions surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.! But think. If Christ had been describing only the destruction of Jerusalem — wouldn't He have plainly said so? He was not asked to describe only the destruction of Jerusalem — but to describe the SIGNS of real WORLD IMPORTANCE which would herald His imminent second coming to this earth, and the end of man's self-governing rule on earth!
Christ then warned of false christs and false prophets! He said MANY would come "in His name," plainly saying that He, Jesus, IS the Christ — but even with this "Christ-like message," would deceive many! (Matt. 24:5).
Jesus then proceeded to give a step-by-step, event-by-event outline of what would happen prior to His second coming!
The Focal Point of Prophecy
This famous Olivet prophecy provides a KEY to Bible prophecy! Prophecy is DUAL! That is, prophecy has a double fulfillment. The duality of the plan of God is illustrated in many parts of the Bible.
Jesus plainly showed that there was a FATHER in heaven, to whom He prayed. Yet, He said He and the Father were one! There is the "first Adam," and the "second Adam," as the Apostle Paul said in I Corinthians 15. There is the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Bible reveals many basic truths by the use of Bible types, or examples, which are DUAL! There is physical Israel, and there is spiritual Israel, the Church (Gal. 3:29). Just as the ancient Israelites came out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and into the wilderness, so, says the Apostle Paul, the New Testament Christian is to come out of spiritual sin, through baptism, and into his life of trials and testing! (I Cor. 10:1, 11)
Actually, there is no clearer proof of the duality of prophecy than the 24th chapter of Matthew, itself!
Jesus was asked, remember, to show the signs prior to His second coming! This He proceeded to do. Unless Jesus Christ was a liar, a fake, a charlatan and a fraud — or unless He was honestly mistaken, and all of His words were totally untrue — then the 24th chapter of Matthew is absolutely dual!
Why? Simply because MOST all of these prophecies have never yet occurred! If Jesus was talking of the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., then what of His promise to RETURN "immediately after the tribulation of those days" (verse 29) to this earth with His mighty angels, gathering together His ELECT! Has Christ returned? No, He has not! And neither has Matthew 24 yet been fulfilled!
Jesus DID give the definite signs which would announce His second coming. He repeatedly warned in this important chapter "WATCH therefore — for you know not what hour your Lord doth come!" (Matt. 24:42).
Jesus was talking about watching world news — watching world conditions!
What WERE these major world events Christ said we should look for?
They Are Happening Today!
Remember, the very FIRST thing of which Jesus warned was great religious confusion. The apostle Paul asks, "Is Christ divided?" (I Cor. 1:13). In his letter to the Church at Ephesus, Paul stated. "There is one body [the Church] and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, [doctrine — belief] one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all" (Eph. 4:4-6).
Jesus PRAYED that His true Church would be kept ONE, and absolutely guaranteed by His own power that it WOULD BE!
But how would you answer this ancient question of Paul's, today? Is CHRIST divided?
No! Christ is not divided. But the churches of this world are!
Look around you. How do you describe or come to understand this unusual phenomenon of hundreds of differing, disagreeing, arguing churches, schisms, sects and cults — EACH ONE disagreeing with all the others — yet ALL claiming to get their practices and beliefs from the same book?
Remember, Jesus warned there would come a time of great religious confusion — of DIFFERING doctrines which He said would DECEIVE the many!
Never has this been truer than now.
Jesus said the very NEXT major world event His true disciples should watch for would be world chaos and wars as never before!
Think of it! Just since the great chaotic shambles of World War II, culminating in the explosion of the world's first known atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this world has groped its way blindly through more than EIGHTEEN small WARS!
At the moment of this writing — there are MANY WARS being fought on earth! There are ominous rumblings of far MORE wars to be fought! And above and beyond it all — the world waits with bated breath in terrible fear of the possibility of a great NUCLEAR disaster, perpetrated by either of the two big powers, or even by an accident!
NEVER have world conditions any more accurately and perfectly fit the description Jesus gave of the times just before His return!
FAMINES!
It is easy to delude ourselves by the permanent-appearing present into believing these striking predictions of Christ's are not actually happening! But they are!
As never before in human history, this world faces the dread specter of a monstrous FAMINE unknown since nations began! Thirty-nine Nobel prize winners called upon the United Nations for an immediate world-wide program on birth control under the direction of the United Nations, because they said, "Unless a favorable balance of population and resources is achieved with a minimum of delay, there is in prospect a dark age of human misery, FAMINE, under-education and unrest which could generate growing panic, exploding into wars fought to appropriate the dwindling means of survival!" (Emphasis mine)
Certainly, recommendations from a body of men so respected, and to a source so high, cannot be dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders and a casual opinion to the contrary!
A well-known newspaper columnist said recently, "If there are no accidental wars, then my guess would be that one will be started by design no later than 1970. IT WILL BE A FOOD WAR. The populations of the nations are increasing so swiftly that some of the big ones will begin to feel the pinch of starvation within 10 years. When that happens, either the people revolt or the government goes to war . . . If you lock 10 men in a room," he continued, "and there was no way out, and enough food was sent in for 6, do you think that you would have trouble? No matter how peaceable the 10 might be, the craving for sustenance would overcome the men and they would have to fight to the death!"
This writer went on to describe how the world, in a sense, finds itself "in a room!" The only way out of this "room" of overpopulation and lack of foodstuffs is by DEATH!
Perhaps the most startling warning of all was from a Dr. Georg Borgstrom of Michigan State University's Department of Food Science who warned "The food gap is a bigger threat to civilization and peace than H-bombs, germ warfare and intercontinental missiles!
Dr. Borgstrom declared we ought to seek disarmament — but that a far greater, more urgent need is for "a gigantic rearmament to wage the sinister War for human survival" by providing FOOD "to give the human race a future!"
From his knowledgeable analysis, he concluded, "If all the food of the world — including surplus stores-were distributed equally and each human received identical quantities, we would all be malnourished!"
According to Dr. Borgstrom, mankind is facing the alternatives of EXTINCTION or SURVIVAL — based upon the awesome portent of world-wide FAMINE, alone!
Think of it! If Soviet Russia did not exist as a "political" threat, if the world did not have its gigantic headaches of germ warfare, nuclear bomb stockpiling, racial tensions, religious confusion, or the topsy-turvy conditions in the weather — these frightening statements of Dr. Borgstrom and dozens of others who specialize in these fields would still be too striking to ignore! This world stands in terrible danger — from the threat of FAMINE unchronicled in the experience of man!
Jesus Christ meant what He said!