Announcer: This presentation is brought to you by the friends of the Amazing Facts ministry. Coming to you from New York City at the historic Manhattan Center with your host Doug Batchelor. Join this exciting journey of discovery as we learn the truth about Bible prophecy. Explore the timeless wisdom of God's Word and see how it relates to our lives today. Stay tuned, your Amazing Facts adventure begins now.
Doug Batchelor: My name is Pastor Doug Batchelor, and it's been my privilege to be talking about my favorite theme, the Word of God and Bible prophecy for about 45 years now. And I'm just so thankful to be back in the town where I grew up in New York City, and thank you so much, each of you, for coming. Tonight's presentation is among the most important, we're dealing with "Signs of Christ's Return." I use sort of a question-answer method, Jesus used that to teach, and so we're going to go into question number one of our study tonight on "Signs of Christ's Return."
And something happened in 1881 in Scotland, off the coast, in the town of Eyemouth, they had endured a terrible storm and because of that storm, nobody could go fishing for several days. Everybody was tied up in the shore and they were not able to go out and to go fishing. Well, that's their main livelihood, and so finally there was a break in the storm October 14, and this whole harbor full of fishing boats, all the fishermen went out and they began to ready to go out to go catch and try to make some money again and go out fishing. But the harbor master, he used to watch the weather instruments, he hoisted the storm flag and told people, "Do not go out, the barometric pressure is dropping, it looks like there's still a severe storm that's out there."
But the fishermen, they saw their buddies were all going, and one of them said, "I'm going, clear day, calm weather, I got to catch some fish." And they said, "Well, if he's going, I'm going," and most of the fishermen went out that day. They ignored the warning signs of the instruments. As a result of that, they didn't know that they were in the eye of a hurricane and a terrible storm swept through the North Sea at that time, and almost 190 fishermen were lost as a result of that. They still call it Black Friday in Eyemouth, all these families, they lost their fathers and their husbands and their brothers because they did not listen to the warning signs.
In God's Word, the Lord gives us warning signs about what is coming. Jesus said that His coming would be something like as it was in the days of Noah. You know, God told Noah, "There's a storm coming," and Noah told the people, and Noah prepared, and a lot of people said, "You know, I think Noah's right, the world's pretty wicked," but they looked and they didn't see any rain. And even though they saw the signs, sky go black with all these birds that came to the ark, and then the animals came, the clean and the unclean, and they thought, "But there's no rain." And they waited until Noah and everybody had entered the ark, and then the rain started after the door was shut and it was too late. Jesus said that's what it will be like in the day when the Son of Man comes.
God gives us prophecy to save. Noah was a prophet, and he wanted people to be saved by that. In the book of Amos, chapter 3, verse 7, it says, "Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he reveals His secret to His servants the prophets." Now, you look at Bible history, whenever God is getting ready to do anything significant, like the flood in the days of Noah, or when he was about to deliver them from the slavery of Egypt, he sent a prophet, what was his name? Moses, and before the Babylonian captivity there was Isaiah and Jeremiah. Before Jesus's First Coming, who was that great messenger that came? John the Baptist, so you, whenever you've got these critical events in history, God says, "Surely the Lord God will do nothing," meaning nothing of great significance, but he will send a prophet to prepare, to warn, to woo, to win people.
Do you think that God would send prophecies to help us get ready for the Second Coming and the end of the world? Well, He certainly has, we're going be talking about those tonight. But you know, we always think it's interesting when we do a seminar like this to take a little time and just go out on the street and get some input from what we call the man on the street, what do people think out there about will the world end and how might it end? So we're going to go to the screen and listen to some of these comments that came in.
Male: I believe the world will end, I mean, it's a reality, if we look at science as a cause. I mean, eventually it will run its course as a planet. When? Probably significant time from now, I don't think the world is going to end tomorrow.
Female: I'm sure one day it will, I don't know exactly when the earth will end. I mean, it is a really random question, but I would say maybe a couple million years.
Male: Absolutely, it's coming soon, Luke 21, verse 10 to 19.
Male: I don't think the world is going to end, but, I mean, I'm a Christian, yeah, I think the world is going to end one day, yeah. You know, it's either we're going to go to hell or we're going to go to heaven. I know I'm going to heaven, so.
Female: What would bring this world to an end? The hatred.
Female: Nuclear.
Female: Pollution.
Male: Maybe Satan, I don't know.
Male: I'm going to go with climate change.
Male: Probably just war, politics, something like that, people arguing and causing like nuclear destruction.
Male: He's coming back, yes, of course, ask every Christian.
Male: No.
Female: No.
Female: Yeah, I think so, yeah.
Male: No.
Male: Because I believe Jesus is coming back and all that stuff, but then there's different people with different thoughts, you know, like there's some people that said the Rapture already happened already. And there's people that say there's no Rapture in the Bible, but it's a lot.
Doug: I think you'll agree with me that the answers are sort of all over the map, amen? So, how do we know the truth? Do we just take a camera on the street to learn the truth, or do we go to the Word of God? "Heaven and earth will pass away," Jesus said, "but My Word will not pass away." I want to make you a promise, in this seminar, what I'm going to share with you is from the Bible. We're going to be giving you Scripture. I don't want you to believe what I say, I want you to believe what the Bible says, and I'll be sharing with you what the Bible says on these very important issues. So, you check it out, by the way, it's the best-selling book in the world, and it stood the test of time and began to be written about 3,500 years ago by 40 authors on three continents. Some were shepherds, kings, scribes, fishermen, all different backgrounds, and yet it has stood the test of time. There's a reason: it is an inspired book.
So, all right, question number one in our study, how positive was Jesus that He was going to come again? What does the Bible say? Christ said in John 14, I hope you've memorized this promise. He said, "I go and prepare a place for you, and I will," what's it say? "I will come again," He didn't say I might, He said, "I will come again." Now keep in mind, God told Adam and Eve, "A Savior's going to come," and all the patriarchs knew the Messiah would come the first time as a Lamb, He'd come the next time as a Lion. And it took a while for Him to come as a Lamb, but He came. And Jesus said, "I'm coming back now as a King. I'm going to come as a conquering King, as a Lion next time." There are 1,800 passages in the Bible that talk about the Second Coming of Jesus.
Some people say, "Why do you focus on prophecy?" Well, Jesus did, the Bible does, and you can find 318 of those passages in the New Testament. And all the way from the time of Enoch before the flood, Enoch said, "Behold, the Lord comes with 10,000 of His saints," and who knows what are the last words in the Bible? "Even so come Lord Jesus," so is the coming of Christ a biblical theme? Then we need to talk about what the Lord talks about, right?
All right, another verse, Matthew 16:27, "For the Son of Man," what's it say? "WILL COME in the glory of His Father with His angels, and He will reward each one according to his works." The Lord made it very clear He will come.
Next question, what can we know about the time of Christ's return? Now here's where a lot of people have gotten in trouble. What does the Bible say about this? Jesus said Matthew chapter 24, it says, "But of that day and hour," what? "NO ONE knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only." Now some are saying, you mean Jesus didn't know? Well, no, when He was on the earth, He didn't have all knowledge swimming around in His head as a little baby and through His earthly life, but He certainly knows now. I can't imagine that God the Father and the Son are sitting up there in heaven and Jesus is saying, "So when am I supposed to come back?" "I got the envelope here, but I can't show it to you yet." Of course He knows now. On earth, Christ laid aside a lot of His knowledge.
Furthermore, Matthew 24, verse 44, "Therefore, be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect." Did you notice what He said? He's coming, but it's going to surprise a lot of people. So, when someone said, I've calculated the date, how many of you have heard of a pastor or ministry that picked a date for the Second Coming or the Rapture? Do you realize so far they've all been wrong? You know why the devil does that? Do you all know the story about the boy that called wolf? The devil wants a lot of ministries and people out there setting dates so when they get all excited and then Jesus doesn't come, they jettison their faith completely. And then when someone else says there are signs of His coming, they say "Oh, I used to believe that," and it makes people lose faith in the Word of God.
Jesus said, "Don't set dates. No man knows the day or the hour." Only God knows that, but what can we know about the Second Coming? Jesus said in Matthew 24, verse 33, "So you also, when you see these things, know that it is," what? IT'S NEAR--even at the door!" So, can we know when it's at the door and when it's near, according to Jesus? Yes, well, friends, I tell you it is at the door, it is near. We're going to go through some of the reasons from the Bible that we believe that now. Only God knows the exact timing and date, I'd stay away from anybody that says that they have found the date, or they can calculate it.
Question three, what signs does Jesus give us to indicate that His coming is near? Now first we're going to talk in this lesson--we've divided this lesson in two parts. We're talking about signs of the nearness of Jesus's coming, and then we're going to be talking about how He's coming, so we're not deceived because Satan's going to impersonate that. What are some of the signs? For one thing, tell you what, let's go to the Bible. I want to just read a passage to you from the Bible, and you can look this up, make a note if you want. I'm going to Matthew chapter 24, where Jesus talks about the Second Coming, and just to give you the background, the disciples are showing Jesus the beautiful stones in the renovated temple of Herod the Great. He's renovated their national treasure, the sanctuary.
And Karen and I and so many of our team have been there, and we've been down below the level and we've seen some of the stones. They got one stone there that weighs more than a fully loaded 747, and you think, "How did they perfectly cut?" And even back then the disciples are saying, "They marveled at the stones," and you know Jesus shocked them, He said, "Do you not see all these things? I say unto you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down," and the disciples were thunder struck. And they said, "Lord, when will these things be? What will be the sign of Your coming and the end of the world?" So, they asked Him several questions, all of them were asking Him questions. He then coalesced His answer into one discourse. You'll find that discourse in Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 17, and Luke 21, the signs that Jesus gives so we can know when His coming is near.
So, Christ told His disciples, first thing, verse 4, Matthew 24, verse 4, "Take heed that nobody deceives you." What did Jesus warn about His Second Coming? First thing, there'll be a lot of deception, "For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am Christ,' and deceive many. And you'll hear of wars and rumors of wars." We have that today, "See that you're not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, and pestilences," that's plagues, "and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of labor pains. Then they'll deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you'll be hated of all nations for My name's sake. And many will be offended, and betray one another, many will hate one another. Many false prophets will rise and deceive many."
That's why we do these seminars so people can read the Bible for themselves and not be deceived. Because let's face it, there's a lot of religious voices out there, they're not all telling the truth. "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold, but he that endures to the end, the same will be saved," is the promise. So that's just the beginning of what Jesus said, and we're going to go into that in some detail now. Nation will rise against nation, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, well, let's talk a little bit about earthquakes.
National Geophysics Data Center, the earthquakes between 1940 and 2020 have gone up 4.9 times. And that's even accounting for better equipment, it's not just because they've got better seismic equipment. There are more problems, more earthquakes that are taking place, greater magnitude. You realize the tsunami that they had that affected Indonesia was an earthquake. The earthquake in Haiti, thousands have died in the last few years, it seems like they're mounting. Natural disasters, He tells us that, that will increase. Here's actually a report according to BBC, the number of weather-related disasters has increased by a factor of five over 50 years. Now this is not a religious report, this is a report of an insurance company based in Munich, and they want to know how to insure, and they look at the natural disasters because the more disasters, the more money they lose and they see a trend, it's not a religious organization.
Have you noticed the trend is going up for both geophysical, meteorological, hydrological, and climatological catastrophes are increasing. And with more people, more people in the world are affected by those. Jesus said, "there'll be plagues, pestilence," same word. Does anyone remember something that happened between like 2019 and 2023? A global plague, and it wasn't the most deadly, you go back to 1918, somewhere between 30 and 50 million people died from the Spanish flu. And so, you know, of course, the leaders in that field are saying there could be something worse on the horizon. Jesus said these things will accelerate in the last days. And thousands of people died from the Ebola outbreak in 2011, and we know COVID kind of paralyzed the world for a while. Jesus gives us another sign of the last days, he said it will be as it was in the days of Noah, that because of the hardness of people's hearts, their love will grow cold and there's more violence.
Now, I know you are good people, but not everybody in New York City is as good as you are. And Karen and I were just watching the news last night and some of you saw, where just some random man went up and clobbered an old woman that he didn't know, knocked her to the street and walked away. That's called crazy violence. Jesus said that would be one of the signs as it was in the days of Noah. What does it say about the days of Noah? You can read there in Genesis, "The earth was corrupt before God and violence.
Now, let me tell you something, just it's kind of a personal pet peeve of mine. Everybody's trying to figure out why is there so much violence? And I'm not saying that the multiplication of guns and more deadly guns is not a factor, but I think it's something even bigger. If you have a society that is entertained by violence, if you have a generation of young people that grow up playing games that involve shooting digital characters, they soon lose the separation between fiction and reality. The value of human life is diminished if we're all being entertained by watching bloodshed that gets worse and worse with every new program in order to keep the audience, and we wonder, why is violence increasing? Well, maybe it's because people are feeding on it and it's affecting our natures. I appreciate more than one amen on that because I just told you the truth. If we spend all of our time--you become like what you behold. If you have a culture around the world--and whatever we produce in America is imported internationally, and if we are importing violence internationally, wonder why is violence increasing? Men's hearts are growing cold.
We need the gospel, friends. Immorality increasing, not only in the breakdown of marriage, but even the definition of marriage. Friends, I told you I'm going to tell you what the Bible says. You want me to do that? I'm going to tell you what the Bible says, Jesus said, "Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot... Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man has appeared." Do you know that there are about 200,000 Americans that are classified as porn addicts. Here, I've got some statistics here, I can't remember them all, but I have some notes I jotted down in the front of my Bible to share with you on these statistics. Forty million American people-- there's only 340 million total-- 40 million American people regularly visit porn sites. The pornography industry earns $97 billion worldwide every year, that's more than Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and the top ten tech companies combined. Thirty-five percent of all internet downloads, when you wonder why your internet is slow, 35% of all internet downloads are related to pornography, think about the bandwidth that would increase. Thirty-four percent of internet users have experienced unwanted exposure, and the earliest happens at 8 years of age, so 8 to 11 is when it's first exposed. One third of porn viewers are women, and it plays a significant role in all divorces. I'm a pastor and unfortunately, we have to do marriage counseling and I can testify that that's true. It is an epidemic and Jesus said, you know, the problems in Sodom and Gomorrah were sexual immorality on all scales. But I think that we agree, Jesus said, "From the beginning, God 'made them male and female.'" He didn't give us 20 options. I still believe Jesus, I'm sorry. You have to take that up with him, don't get mad at me.
Mushrooming population around the world, by the year 2050, the Earth's population is going to be 9.5 billion. I've got another note that I want to read you, this is just fantastic when you think about it, because this is another reason I think it just cannot go on forever. Listen to this, it took all of human history, until about 1800, to get the first billion people. That's, you know, roughly 5,000 years of Bible history to get the first billion people. Then it only took 130 years, back in 1930, to get the second billion. The third billion took 30 years, the fourth billion took 15 years, the fifth billion, 13 years. Now there are over eight billion people in the world, and during that same time that humanity is developing and sprawling across the world and using incredible amounts of resources, and I want to remind you, friends, I've traveled all over the world. Just this year, Karen and I've been India, Pakistan, Dubai, Indonesia, China is, I actually had the privilege of preaching in China. We were in Panama, Guatemala, Russia, just, Australia, we've been in Fiji, New Guinea, we've been all over the world and I see what's happening. I'm also a pilot, so I fly over the country, and I see places I used to fly that were forests, it's sprawl now, and you wonder how long can that go on?
During this same time, humanity has wiped out, since 1970, 60% of the animal population in the world. Now there's more cows than there ever have been and there's probably more pigs and chickens than there ever have been, because what would we do without McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken, right? But the other wildlife, you know, I read history books when Lewis and Clark crossed North America, took a day and a half. They had to wait for a buffalo herd to cross a river, they had to wait a day and a half, millions of them. Now if you see a buffalo, you go, "Oh look, a buffalo." The sky used to be black with carrier pigeons, they're all gone. The world cannot go on.
You know what Jesus said? Except those days be shortened, speaking of the last days, no flesh would be saved. The word flesh there means that nothing's going to survive unless He comes, because there'll be nothing to come for. Eventually man will self-destruct, so we've got the diminishing resources. The UN released its global resource outlook for 2024, "We are consuming resources much faster than the Earth can sustainably provide them." Some things can't be re-provided, we're not making new oil. "By 2050, it will require 3 Earths to meet the world's demand."
Political instability and nuclear weapons is something just to think about. You realize that man has never made a weapon he did not use. And instead of decommissioning all the nuclear weapons, the US and Russia principally have the largest number, but of course, India, Pakistan, Israel, Europe, they're all over the world. North Korea has got them, China's got them, they haven't stopped making them because they say it's a deterrent, but knowing human nature, and some people get extreme, and some people out of vengeance, eventually through accident, folly, or madness, somebody is going to set something off if Jesus doesn't come. Now, I'm not trying to fright--yeah, I am a little bit, I guess, just because I want you to know Jesus has to come or we're going to destroy ourselves eventually.
The other thing I think is very interesting is thinking successful people around the world, how do they view the future? I just read this, this year, Mark Zuckerberg, of course, who's the founder and principal owner of Facebook and Meta, he's bought a huge ranch in Kauai, a beautiful island in Hawaii and he's building a 5,000 square foot bunker under his ranch on an island. Why would you build a bunker under a ranch on a volcano? But they're, and they're, you know, of course they're supplying it with everything, so it's self-sufficient, it's independent, off the grid. But he's not alone, you can go down the line and look at millionaires like Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel and the others, they are buying property in New Zealand and remote places, and they're building Doomsday bunkers.
Now, this is not something Pastor Doug is making up, here's a headline we just captured the screen from CNN. "Super-rich Building Doomsday Bunkers," and this is a picture of decommissioned missile silos, I think it's North Dakota. And they've got, you know, the bedrooms and all the food and generators, and it's amazing the money, now why would billionaires do that?
Doug: You know, Jesus came into our world for three reasons. First of all, He came as our example, to live a life that we might follow His steps. He came to show us the Father. He said, "If you've seen Me, you've seen the Father." And then He came as our sacrifice, He died on the cross as a substitute for all our sins, but we must come to Him. We repent of our sins, we confess, He'll receive us with loving arms, why don't you ask Him now?
Doug: Hi friends, I trust you're being blessed by what you're watching. If you want to be doubly blessed, then you're going to want to get the "Prophecy Odyssey" study guides that go along with these presentations. There's 15 study guides, they're beautifully illustrated, and they will greatly enhance your Bible comprehension. So, if you'd like to get them, simply follow the instructions that you see on the screen, you will be glad you did.
Doug: Hi friends, if you'd like to learn more about the signs of the end times, then you're going to want to get "The Day of the Lord," Amazing Facts' 52 page full-color magazine that'll give you an in-depth look at what the Bible really says about Christ's soon return. To get your copy, simply follow the instructions on your screen, and we're going to send it to you absolutely free of charge, no cost.
Doug: What you've seen just now is only part one in this presentation. Make sure and join us for part two in our next broadcast for some of the most important points on this topic and to complete the corresponding study guides. Until then, God bless.
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