The question I probably get asked the most when it comes to speculation about the end of the world is this: Do you think that the increasing environmental problems we’re experiencing and the general moral collapse in society are signs that the end is near?
One of the biblical texts people sometimes cite is Matthew 24 where Jesus talks very powerfully about the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and his return at “the end of the age.”
These are the topics I explore in Part 3 of the Armageddon series. I offer some historical context to Jesus’ words, and try to put the metaphor of a mother being in labour into the foreground of our thinking about end-times signs.
Why? Because Jesus tells us to.
As he describes various signs leading up to the end, he says that these “are the beginning of birth pains.” At the end of labour, a wonderful thing arrives: a new baby! But leading up to that delivery, it is a time of increasing difficulty for the mother. That’s the metaphor Jesus gives us about the times leading up to the end of the world as we know it. One day, God will deliver “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1), but the time leading up to that new birth will be characterized by increasing difficulty.
Here’s the audio to the message:
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