Are We living in the End of Times?

This is Andy Thomas from the Masculine Journey Podcast where we discover what it means to be a wholehearted man. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Welcome to Christian Perspective.

I'm Chris Hughes. I'm so thankful that you're here with me today. Each and every morning we're here at the same time at your local radio station.

Just tune in. We are glad to have you with us every single day at Christian Perspective. I want to thank Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary and the College at Mid-America for allowing us to have our Christian Perspective studios right here on their campus in Memphis, Tennessee.

If you're looking for a place to go to school and you want to develop a biblical worldview to take into whatever field or career you're going in, then I encourage you to take a look at the College of Mid-America. And then, of course, if you're maybe a little further along, you already got your college degree or maybe you're later in life and you wonder, what does God want me to do next? Think about going to seminary. Have you ever thought about that?

Pray about it. Because now you can go online and Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary has a great program in Memphis and its branch campuses around the country. But as I said, since COVID came in, while they were way ahead of the curve anyway, they had a great online program already.

So you might want to take a look at that. You don't have to leave home and you can get a seminary degree from a firm Bible believing seminary that believes in the inerrant Word of God. You're not going to get any of that CRT or liberal theology that you get maybe at some other seminaries around the country and around the world.

I encourage you to take a look at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. And of course, where we start today, I want to thank our main sponsors, the Citizens for America Foundation. Citizens for America is a great organization where they educate people to develop a biblical worldview and then encourage them to take that biblical worldview into the arena of public policy and politics. You know, it's time that we understand what we believe as Christians, know what we believe and why we believe it, and then be able to elect godly men and women with those same biblical principles that will write and enact legislation or maybe sit on a bench with the influence of the Holy Spirit upon them and to make and pass laws that will honor our living God. So I encourage you to check out Citizens for America at citizensforamericafoundation.com. That's citizensforamericafoundation.com.

And of course, you want to put on your calendar April 30th. April 30th, we're going to have the largest cultural engagement summit in the history of the nation. It's going to be in Memphis, Tennessee, great airport just 15 minutes away from our venue. And we've got a lot of great speakers like Dr. Robert Jeffers, who's America's pastor. You've seen on Fox News, First Baptist of Dallas. His ministry is on radio and TV all across the world. Mark Meadows, who is the former chief of staff for former President Donald Trump, will be one of our guest speakers.

Trevor Loudon, you see him. He's an investigative reporter and a filmmaker, and he's going to be there. Rick Green with the Patriot Academy and about 20 other speakers. And of course, the great and legendary Todd Starnes, formerly with Fox News and a nationally syndicated radio host will be there. I'm going to be there, too. So I look forward to seeing you at the culture engagement summit at Mid America. And you can learn more at citizensforamericafoundation.com.

That is citizensforamericafoundation.com. All right, we're going to jump into Bible prophecy. And like I said, we will probably look into this over the next few weeks as we have breaks in programming and different things are happening in the world. I just thought it was important for us to look at what God's word says about end times, because as I travel and speak and go to different places around the country and around the world, people say, well, this is happening, that's happening. Certainly as Russia has invaded Ukraine now and a lot of people, that's the forefront of their minds again. And I just want to tell you, we don't need to be scared. We don't need to be nervous. As the old saying goes, I've read the back of the book, meaning the Bible, and we win. God told us all this was going to happen. So if we get in God's word and, you know, we encourage you as listeners to the Christian perspective, you need to get in God's word every single day. That's how God speaks to us.

Have a quiet time where you get along and you pray, you talk to him and you read God's word. That's a way for the Bible is what I mean when I say God's word. The Bible tells us so many things that are going to happen. And the prophecy in the Bible has always been accurate. Everything the Bible said was going to happen has happened exactly like it said it was going to happen.

But a few things still remain to happen before Jesus returns again. The Bible tells us that really it all started with Abraham. He is the father of three different faiths, the Muslim faith, the Jewish faith, and the Christian faith. And Abraham, thousands of years ago, was a man who walked close with the Lord. He was a friend with the Lord. And he, Abraham and God, made a covenant.

Covenant is like a pact or a contract or an agreement. And God said, Abraham, I want you and your descendants, and most of us are descendants of Abraham today, I want you and your descendants to follow me. And if you follow me and you do what I tell you to do and make me your God and honor and serve me all of your life, then one day you'll spend an eternity in heaven with me. But because you're a man and you're born in sin. And by the way, the Bible tells us in Romans 3, 23, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That means every one of us in our lives sin is when we disobey God, when we do something we shouldn't have done. And every one of us, every one of us has either thought a bad thought or lied or stolen something or, you know, you don't have to commit murder to sin. Sin is sin in God's eyes and sin separates us from God. And because we are born into sin and we are sinful creatures, we deserve when we die, you know, we have these human bodies and these human bodies have a limited lifetime.

You know, if you're lucky, you might live 70 to 90 years. But there is a spirit, a soul in our body that is going to live eternally. And the decisions that we make in this world determine what will happen to our souls one day. And we're either going to spend our eternity in a place called heaven, which is with God, or in a place of great damnation and torment called hell. Most preachers don't talk about hell, but it's still real and it's still there.

And if you don't believe in it, that means you don't believe in God's word and you're going to spend an eternity in hell one day. So God said, you know, there's no way for you to go unless there is a sacrifice. A punishment has to be made for the sin. So back then they didn't have letters to write out contracts and a bunch of lawyers like we did today. The custom of the time, when two men made an agreement, which was called a contract or covenant, there were different kinds of covenants. But a blood covenant was the most serious kind. It means if you break this covenant, if you don't do what you say you're going to do, there will be someone put to death as a payment for breaking that contract. And God and Abraham were going to have this covenant, this contract, and God knew there was no way that man could keep his end and not sin. So back then, the two men would dig a ditch and they would kill animals, which is sacrificial blood.

And the blood from those animals would run into the ditch and the two men would walk hand in hand through that blood. And that would signify that they had a blood covenant. If somebody broke that covenant, they would spend an eternity in hell one day.

I mean, they would die. In this case, the breaking of the covenant means they spent an eternity in hell one day. So God knew that Abraham and his descendants could not live a perfect life. So God made Abraham to fall asleep and God walked through that covenant blood twice.

Once for himself and once symbolically for man. God was basically saying to Abraham, I want you to be my people, but I know you can't keep your end of this deal. So one day I will pay the price for the breaking of this covenant with my own blood.

And we know what happened. Years later, God sent his only son, Jesus, who lived a perfect life on this earth and he died on a cross for your sins and mine as a punishment for us sinning for breaking that covenant. But God tells us that we admit that we're sinners.

We confess our sins and we repent means we change from our sin and turn back towards God and promise to serve him and make him the Lord of our lives for all of eternity. That one day when we die or either when Jesus returns again, we will spend an eternity in heaven. And then Jesus died on the cross and three days later he rose again from the grave and a short time after that Jesus ascended into heaven. But before he went to heaven, he told us that he would return again one day. And that time is what we call the second coming. So the Bible has foretold that Jesus is going to come again and to deliver those who have died or are still alive, either way, who trusted and believed in him. The Bible says the dead and the Christ shall arise first and those who will ever remain will return again. We call the beginning of this period of time the rapture. So as Christians, we are looking forward to the time where God is going to come back again in the form of Jesus Christ and deliver his people for all eternity.

But many things are going to happen through that period of time and leading up to that time. So today I want to talk about that and all through the Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament. If you want to learn about this, of course, Revelation, which is the last book in the Bible. It's not very long.

It's easy to read. Revelation, the last book of the Bible, is known for the prophecy in Revelation. And Ezekiel has a lot of prophecy. Prophecy is just a prediction of what's going to happen at a later date. So Ezekiel, the book of Daniel, is full of prophecy. And we're going to cover some of that as we begin to talk about the end times and the signs of the end of the age.

I want to just tell you it's a pleasure for me today to talk to you. It's a subject that I love. I've studied Bible prophecy all of my adult life. And I just love learning about it and watching because in the last 10 years or so, wow, things have moved exponentially as we enter the end times.

We live in a remarkable time. And like I said, today we're going to look at end time prophecy and specifically today we're going to look at the signs of the end of the age. And then later on, I might come back and we might talk in more detail about the rapture and the second coming, which are really not the same event. It's two phases of an event and I will describe that. We'll talk about what is the rapture. When will that happen?

And I want to be very careful to explain to you. The Bible says no man knows the day or the hour when Jesus is going to return. And even though we're going to talk about signs today of what will happen before Jesus returns, I need to be crystal clear. I'm not predicting a date or a time when Jesus is coming. Matter of fact, ever since he left 2,000 years ago, people thought he was coming again pretty soon.

We could be in that same category. He might not come back for thousands of years. But I think when you listen to what we're going to talk about on the show today, you're going to see that things have changed rapidly in the last few years. And the Bible tells us that right before Jesus comes, it's going to be like birth pain. And you know, if you are married or if you are a woman and you've had a child, you start to have contractions right before the baby is born. Those contractions come more and more often, more frequent. And God says that's how this is going to be when Jesus is going to come again for the rapture in the beginning of the second coming period.

That it's going to be like birth pains. So we're talking about is the rapture and the second coming the same event? And they're not really, but we'll get into detail with that. We're going to, at some point, look at the tribulation and the players and the events of the end times and the millennial kingdom and the heavenly home. For 2000 years, people have believed that they'll live in the end times. But if we look at the news around the world today, I mean, you'll see crazy things going on.

There's the teaser. We're going to take a quick commercial break and when we come back, we're going to jump right in to the end times. Stick around. You don't want to miss it. This show is brought to you by Generous Joes, the coffee company with the Christian perspective. This is the answer that Christians and conservatives have been looking for. A coffee company that gives back to causes you care about.

Order your coffee today at ShopGenerousJoes.org and even subscribe to a subscription coffee plan and never forget the coffee you love or the causes you care about. Walk in the footsteps of Jesus and see the Bible come to life. This December, join nationally syndicated radio host and founder of the Citizens for America Foundation, Dr. Chris Hughes, on a life-changing trip to Israel. It's one of the world's oldest and most fascinating travel destinations, learning the faithful from all over the world for thousands of years. Visit Jerusalem's religious quarters and explore Christianity's most treasured religious sites like the Wailing Wall, the Dome of the Rock, and the Via Dolorosa. Walk with Chris through the winding alleyways of Nazareth's old city and visit ancient Bethlehem, the place of our Savior's birth. Float in the Dead Sea, visit the Sea of Galilee and the Jewish fortress of Masada. See firsthand where the events of the Bible took place. Touring Israel with Dr. Chris Hughes is a travel odyssey like no other.

Visit CitizensForAmericaFoundation.com and get ready for an unforgettable trip and memories that will last a lifetime. Do you desire to build family relationships that stand the test of time? Does creating a godly family seem like a daunting challenge?

You're not alone. I'm Connie Yaupers, author of Parenting Beyond the Rules and host of Equipped to Be. As a mother of five, I understand your struggles. For 35 years, I have been helping families just like yours build lasting relationships.

I'd like to invite you to tune in to Equipped to Be and visit ConnieYaupers.com where I share useful tips and proven strategies to help you navigate the seasons of motherhood, faith, and life with confidence and joy. History was made on today's date. Stay tuned for an American Minute with Bill Federer. Rufus King was born this day, March 24, 1755. He was one of the signers of the U.S. Constitution, a minister to England, and a senator from New York. A Harvard graduate, he was aide to General Sullivan during the Revolutionary War. At age 32, Rufus King was one of the youngest delegates at the Constitutional Convention. In a speech made before the Senate at the time Missouri was petitioning for statehood, Rufus King stated, I hold that all laws imposing slavery upon any human being are absolutely void because they are contrary to the law of nature, which is the law of God. This has been an American Minute with Bill Federer.

For a free transcript, call American Minute at 1-888-USA-WORD. Welcome back to The Christian Perspective. I'm Chris Hughes, and today we are talking about the signs of the time with wars and rumors of war and pestilence and famines all over the world. Even if we don't always see these things in the United States, they're going on around us more than ever before. There was recently a tsunami in Japan, which is like a tidal wave, and things are going on in this crazy time in this world. So many things are happening politically and in the atmosphere and the weather, you know, climate change. Well, the Bible told us all that's going to happen. For 2,000 years, people have believed that they lived in the end times, but if we look at the news around the world, we can see for the first time in human history, things are happening on a global level that really indicate that we could be living in the final days. Never before in history have all the factors been in place for the return of Jesus. And by the way, that is called the rapture. The rapture is a term that we use, and some people say, well, the word rapture is not in the Bible.

Well, you know, none of the English words that we use today are in the Bible when God wrote it at that time. But God talks about a time in the Bible, and we're going to get into all this, when Jesus would return again and take his children home to heaven. Jesus said himself to watch and pray, which means to open your eyes and see what's happening as it correlates to the Bible. We are to watch the news and to let urgency arise in our hearts.

You know, I don't want you to watch the news to get scared. I want you to watch the news to realize that Jesus is coming again, and as believers in Jesus Christ, we need to tell everybody we know about the saving grace of Jesus. We need to lead people to Jesus.

Why? Because we do not want them to spend an eternity in hell. We need to see the urgency by watching the news and know that we need to tell everybody that we meet that Jesus could return very soon.

If you're somewhere today, maybe if you're driving, don't do this. But if you're home, we've got your Bible. Get out Luke 21. We're going to talk about some things from Luke 21. That's the book of Luke. It's in the New Testament of the Bible. The second half of the Bible is divided into two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The New Testament begins with Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Luke is the third chapter. Luke was a doctor, and he was a great writer. He also wrote the book of Acts.

So Dr. Luke wrote the book of Luke and the book of Acts, but we're going to look at Luke chapter 21 here in just a minute. A lot of people watch what's going on in the world, and they wonder, are we living in that time? Folks, I'm telling you, people ask, is this world coming to an end?

The answer is yes. The end of the age is not coming. It's here. The world as we know it is going to end very soon, I believe. Bible prophecy tells us how it will end.

It tells us where it will end. And today, and maybe in the coming weeks as I have time to fit this in our show schedule, we're really going to be able to scratch the surface of what the Bible says about end-time prophecy. But let's start with seeing the importance of studying end-time prophecy. So as I begin this today, I want to be clear, again, I am not predicting when Jesus will return. Every generation since Jesus did believe that Jesus would return during their lifetimes. And what I'm going to show you is that our generation, more than any other generation, has more reason to believe that Jesus could return at any minute. So today and then in the coming weeks, I want to convince you that Jesus could return soon. And I want to stimulate your thinking about the return of Jesus, which is the second most frequently mentioned topic in the Bible.

Did you realize that? The Bible talks about a lot of things. The Bible talks about the return of Jesus is only second to one other topic in the Bible. Most people don't realize how much the Bible talks about the return of Jesus.

Let me give you an example. One out of every 30 verses in the Bible references Jesus' return or end times. One out of every 30 verses. Look, if Jesus mentions you, if God mentions you one time in the Bible, that's pretty important. But if one out of 30 verses mentions Jesus' return, you better know it's important, you better be looking for it, and you better be ready. There are over 300 references to the return of Jesus in the 216 chapters in the New Testament. 23 of the 27 books in the New Testament mention Jesus' return. Job, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and most of the minor prophets all spoke about the return of Jesus. Minor prophets are some of the prophets who wrote about Jesus in the Old Testament. And even Jesus himself promised that he would return.

So it's not just other people talking about it. And Christians, we need to know this, why you need to study the Word of God and know that this is a very, very talked about topic in God's Word. And not only did other people talk about it, but Jesus himself promised he would return someday. So do we believe that Jesus will return?

If we don't, we better wake up because we need to live our lives like we believe it. The lie that Satan wants most of us to believe is that Jesus is coming. He wants you to believe that, but he doesn't want you to have urgency. He just wants you to believe that Jesus is coming someday.

So it's not going to be in your lifetime. You don't need to tell other people about Jesus. You don't need to get your life straight with God now because Jesus could return at any minute. Satan's like, no, you can believe he's coming.

Just don't get urgent about it and don't worry about it. He wants to tell you that there's no need to live our lives with urgency because it's been over 2,000 years since Jesus left earth. Oh, he'll return one day, but not now. Church, Christians, I'm telling you, the day has become complacent and indifferent. Christians today are complacent and indifferent about the return of Jesus.

And it's time for us not to be complacent anymore. We need to have an urgency and understand that Jesus could return at any time. The devil doesn't want you to become convicted and convinced that time is running out and that Jesus could return soon. Satan fears someone.

I want to tell you, you want Satan to fear you? Satan fears someone who believes that Jesus could return at any time. Because someone who believes that Jesus will return at any time, someone who believes in the imminent return of Jesus will be something different. You know what that person is going to be? This is a Christian I want to be. That person who believes in an urgency that Jesus could return at any time is a prayer warrior. That person is a bold witness for Jesus. That person will live a holy life.

That person will tell everyone they know about Jesus. God wants to use a study of Bible prophecy to help you live every single day in light of the eternity and to encourage you to make a life's daily decision to tell others about Jesus Christ and to have eternity on your mind at all times. The signs that we're going to be looking at today are given to us to let us know what time it is. We need to know what time it is because time is running out. And I believe that we could very possibly be living in the terminal generation on this earth.

I don't know for sure. God didn't say that. I'm just telling you, when I look at the signs, that's what Chris Hughes believes. Today, from the pages of God's Word, from the pages of world history, from the front pages of the world's newspapers, I want to paint for you the prophetic signs that we're racing towards the end of the day. Today, I want to give you nine prophetic signs proving that God's clock is ticking and that we could be living in the last seconds of the dispensation of grace.

I want to start. I told you to get your Bible if you're somewhere where you can get your Bible and look at Luke chapter 21. That's Luke chapter 21. And I'm going to read verse 29. Jesus was giving a parable. The parables are just stories He shared so people could understand things. And He said, look at the fig tree and all the trees.

When they sprout their leaves, you can see for themselves and know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. I tell you the truth. This generation will certainly not pass away until all things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away. This is Jesus talking, verse 34. Be careful of your hearts will be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and anxieties of life and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap where it will come upon those who live in the face of the whole earth and be always on the earth and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen.

He's telling us by knowing God's word we can escape all that's happening and that you may be able to stand before the Son of God because we know one day there's going to be a judgment and we're all going to stand before God one day and before Jesus one day. So the first sign that we're in the end of the age is that terrorism is occurring all over the world. So the first sign and there are a ton of signs y'all.

I'm only covering nine if we get to them today. The first sign is that terrorism is occurring all over the world. Luke chapter 21 verse 26 says men's hearts shall fail them for fears of things that are coming on this earth. You know America a while back experienced the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. We've experienced the Twin Towers bombing in New York City. We've seen bombs in Paris and Belgium, attacks in Boston and Miami and all over the country and all over the world. There are bombings in Israel and around the world every week and look at what's happening in the Ukraine every day almost every hour. There's different kinds of bombings taking place there. But the greatest terror in our history is just before us and the message for us is that we're not safe.

We're very vulnerable to terrorism. Our hope, folks, is not in some world superpower or some person who flies in on Air Force One. Our only hope is in the living God. The second sign of the end of the age is an increase of knowledge on earth. Daniel 12-4 says, remember I told you the books we want to look at for Bible prophecy are Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation. Daniel 12-4 says, but thou Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book. Live until the time of the end when many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be greatly increased. That phrase in Hebrew literally means that there shall be a knowledge explosion. Okay, folks, now some of the younger people are not going to know what I'm talking about, but our generation is the only generation that's had a knowledge explosion, which verifies what Daniel said and I believe that we're living in the end of age.

Just think about this for a minute. Living until 1900 there was no increase really of knowledge. Men on rode on horses just like David and Julius Caesar. Then came the automobile, the jet, the supersonic flight. You know, I was reading the other day about a flight, a plane that's been designed that can carry you from the United States to Europe in less than an hour and a half.

It's unreal. From the garden until 1900, men used like lit torches on sticks for light. Then they got the light bulb and then laser beams that can cut through steel two feet thick.

Or even think about someone the other day was telling me they had cataract surgery and how these lasers from lights can just do delicate eye surgery on our eyes. From the garden of Eden until 1900, communication hadn't changed that much. Men used smoke signals or beating drums, but then came the telegraph, the radio, telephones. Now we've got Facebook and Snapchat and the Internet.

It's incredible, folks. The knowledge explosion staggers your mind as your kids or even you can get on a laptop. We don't even need a laptop anymore.

We can get on our phones, get on the Internet, and we can drown in a sea of knowledge. Just another sign that Jesus could return at any time. We've got to take a commercial break. Stick with us.

We're talking about the signs of the time. The United States of America has a strong Christian heritage, but most Americans don't know the truly important role that God in the Bible played in the founding of this great nation. This June, join nationally syndicated radio host and founder of the Citizens for America Foundation, Dr. Chris Hughes, for four amazing days in our nation's capital. With Chris, you'll embark on a journey of discovering the hidden secrets of Washington, D.C., and rediscover much of America's forgotten Christian heritage. Your tour will include an up-close and personal look at the nation's establishment and how it's evolved over the centuries. Learn about the government and the men who helped forge this new kind of republic, one that acknowledged the Creator from its very inception.

Know the truth about the creation of the United States of America, about the faith of the founding fathers, and how Christian principles were used to establish this form of government. Visit CitizensForAmericaFoundation.com today and secure your spot to join Chris Hughes in Washington, D.C. this June. This show is brought to you by Generous Joe's, the coffee company with the Christian perspective. This is the answer that Christians and conservatives have been looking for, a coffee company that gives back to causes you care about.

Order your coffee today at ShopGenerousJoes.org, and even subscribe to a subscription coffee plan and never forget the coffee you love or the causes you care about. The Conservative Baptist Network is a dynamic movement of Southern Baptist pastors, churches, and Christians committed to standing for the sufficiency of God's Word in the face of a culture of compromise. The passion and prayer of the Conservative Baptist Network is that God would help Southern Baptists stay bold for the gospel, so that we might see revival in America and the world reached for Christ. Visit our website today at ConservativeBaptistNetwork.com to learn how you and your church can join and support this exciting movement. Welcome back to the Christian perspective.

This is Chris Hughes. Today we're talking about the signs that Jesus could return at any time. When you look at what's going on in the news and around the world today, you just open your Bible to Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation and know that God told us a long time ago that this was going to happen and that as these things got closer together that Jesus could return at any time for what we call the rapture. And we're going to be talking about this off and on over the next few weeks, but today I was specifically talking about nine signs, and there are many more than nine, but I'm just talking about nine signs today that Jesus could return at any time.

I've given you two, and one was terror and one was a knowledge explosion on earth. Now the third sign of the end of the age is the birth of nuclear warfare. Before the birth of nuclear weapons, there was a body of prophetic scripture that was an absolute mystery. And now that scripture is clear as we race towards the battle of Armageddon. In the Old Testament, there's a book called Zechariah. Zechariah 14, verse 12, that's a book probably most of you have never looked at, but I encourage you to read the inspired Word of God.

Zechariah 14, 12 says, And this is the plague that the Lord shall send on all those who come to fight against Jerusalem. So what the Bible is saying, there's going to come a point where there's going to be an attack against Jerusalem. And people worry about that.

I'm going to take a break from the scripture here for a minute. Both people worry about that right now. That's part of the reason there's a great concern about Iran developing nuclear warfare is because there's a belief that they could develop a nuclear weapon and attack Israel. Another concern with Russia going into Ukraine is that many people believe that Vladimir Putin and Russia won't stop there.

They'll continue to work their way into Europe and maybe even down to Israel. And so Zechariah, in chapter 14, verse 12, says, And this is the plague that the Lord shall send on all those who come to fight against Jerusalem. Their flesh shall melt away while they stand on their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongues shall consume away in their mouths. Zechariah is perfectly describing what happens to a human body in a nuclear blast.

The flesh melts off the bones before the corpse can hit the ground. We have nuclear and hydrogen and other kind of bombs. And just think about World War II, what was happening then. The most powerful hydrogen bomb can produce a heat of about 150 million degrees and one millionth of a second. My son is studying aerospace engineering and weapons systems, and we've been talking a lot about the devastation that weaponry can cause. And that's how your tongue, when something is burning that hot and that fast, that's how your tongue can be consumed away in your mouth and your eyes melt in your sockets before your body hits the ground, which is what Zechariah thousands of years ago predicted.

And he didn't know anything about nuclear weapons at that time. There's a second scripture, and that's found in the New Testament, in 2 Peter 3.10. That's 2 Peter 3.10, and that verse says, The day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night, which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Let me describe for you the three scientific phases of a nuclear blast.

This is just one megatox, which is very small compared to what we have today. The first is the sound of the blast that 2 Peter 3.10 calls that great noise. In other words, we hear a boom. Then people, everything, buildings for miles in all directions from the epicenter are just atomized and blown away. They're blown to bits, and you can't find them. Then for about eight or nine miles, everything catches fire instantly. It's a raging inferno, a hell on earth. Remember, radiation breaks down at 35 miles, and for the next 100 years, the ground is no good for absolutely anything.

That's why they have the problems over there where these nuclear facilities, not even just weapons but power plants, when they overheat or superheat, that's why nobody can live in those areas. The fourth evidence that we're approaching the end of the age is the message of the parable and the fig tree. We read that just a minute ago in Luke 21. Remember, I told you that was a parable. That's a story that Jesus said. And prophetically, many theologians believe that the fig tree that Jesus is talking about in Luke 21 is symbolizing the nation of Israel. Jesus said in this parable, here's what the Bible said.

We'll read it again. When you see the fig tree bloom again, know that My coming is soon at hand. Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away until all is fulfilled. Remember a while ago, I told you that Jesus said that He was coming again one day. And here's an example of where Jesus said that Himself in Luke 21. If you have a red letter Bible, meaning red letters indicate the words that Jesus Himself spoke, those words are in red letter. A generation could be 50 to 90 years. If you added 90 years to 1948 when Israel became a nation, that you know that we're looking face to face with possibly the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

It could be here really before this radio show is over today. There's a second translation to this verse. And remember Bible prophecy, God's not telling us exact day or hour, so there's a little bit of looking into it, know what the Bible really says. The second translation could be that the plant is tender and putting forth its shoot. It's come to bloom. Many other Bible scholars believe that Israel did not come to bloom until Jerusalem was under the control of the Jewish people for the first time, really since Jesus' day.

So when did that happen? When it was planted in 1948, the sap was not running, they believe, but in 1967 when Jerusalem became under the control of the Jewish people, they believe it was running. So Israel became a nation again, remember 1948, but Jerusalem was not under the control of the Jewish people until the 1960s, and part of the Jerusalem area on the Temple Mount is still not under control of the Jewish people today. So if you add 90 years to that, we're still looking at the imminent return of Jesus Christ. Those are two translations and neither could be true, but there's a third group of people who believe that prophecy in Luke chapter 21 has not come to fruition because, as I said, the Dome of the Rock, which is there are two Muslim houses of worship that are basically on the area of what we call the Temple Mount today, where the temple used to be, and so the third group of belief is that these Bible verses have not come to fruition because the Jews do not control the entire area of Temple Mount.

So there are three translations. Did it happen in 1948? Did it happen in 1967 when Jerusalem came under control of Israel and the Jewish people? Or does that time clock not start ticking until the Dome of the Rock and those two mosques in that area fall under control of the Jewish people?

So I don't know. God's going to have to lead us, but that's something for you to look at and think about. The fifth evidence that we've reached the end of the age is the regathering of Russian Jews to Israel. Jeremiah 23.7 says, again Jeremiah has a lot of prophecy too, in Jeremiah 23.7 the Bible says, Therefore the days are coming, saith the Lord, that they shall no longer say as the Lord lives which brought us up out of Egypt, but they shall say as the Lord lives that brought us up out of the north country. Many people believe that the north country is Russian, and the Bible goes on to say that they shall dwell safely in their land. Remember in Exodus chapter 2 God told the people of Israel that their land would be that area which is Israel today.

And so this verse could possibly be talking about, we don't know for sure, but the Bible says that as the Lord lives that brought us up out of the north country and a lot of people believe that the north country is Israel. You remember about 70 years after Jesus died there was something called the diaspora where Jews were run out by Rome out of Israel and they dispersed all across the world. That's why you have concentrations of Jewish people in different countries and there were a lot that went to Russia and other countries. You have a lot of Jewish people in the United States and there's a large concentration in New York. When the nation came back as a nation in 1948 a lot of those people began to come back. And even in the 70s and 80s it was a big move to help people from other countries come back to Israel and a lot of them came from Russia and that's just a fulfillment.

Many scholars believe of that prophecy thread. The sixth sign that we're coming to the end of the age is the fact that Jerusalem is no longer under Gentile control. When you see the word Gentile in the Bible Gentile just means someone who is not Jewish. So I wasn't born in Israel and I have a Jewish faith. I'm a Gentile.

You were probably in that same case if you're listening to the show today. From 70 AD, which I was just talking about the diaspora when the Romans attacked Jerusalem and this is not just, although the Bible is always true, this is not just in the Bible. You can go back and study historians from that time. The Romans attacked Jerusalem and they destroyed the Temple Mount and the Jews were not in control of Jerusalem until the Six-Day War of 1967.

You can go back and learn that happened in my lifetime and that's not that long ago. You can go back and find out when the Jewish people took control of Jerusalem again. Luke 21, verse 24 says, And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled. That means that God's time of emphasis is now in the city of Jerusalem and the Jewish people. Look, we need to pay attention to what's going on in Jerusalem because that's God's throne. That's the city of David, as the Bible says.

That's where Jesus will rule one day. David said in Psalms 102 16, the Bible says, When the Lord shall build up Jerusalem, He shall then appear in all His glory. He's telling again that Jerusalem is going to come back in glory and Jesus is going to be there. Zephaniah, excuse me, which is a book in the Old Testament, Zephaniah 3 16 says, In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not, for the Lord thy God is in the midst of thee. He is mighty and He will rejoice over with you. Look, folks, God gets emotional over Jerusalem.

Why? Because it is the future throne of His Son, Jesus Christ, of whom He said to David in the Bible, the Bible says your seed will rule in the holy city forever and forever and forever. That's why Jerusalem and Israel are so important to Christians. Not only is it where Jesus lived in Israel and spent His life, and His ministry from the Bible is recorded from things He did in Israel, but the Bible tells us that Jerusalem will be the future throne, the place where Jesus will come again and rule forever and ever, and it should be an important place for every Christian. It's one of the reasons they're so solidarity between Christians and the nation of Israel.

That's why there's such constant friction over there, because there's a battle between light and darkness, between Christ and the future Antichrist. Jerusalem is the city where the Antichrist, the Bible tells us, if you read Bible prophecy, the Antichrist, three and a half years into the tribulation, will set up his image and make the whole world worship him one day, and that's going to happen in Jerusalem, the Bible tells us. It's the city where kings and queens and presidents will come and bow down before Jesus Christ when He sits on the throne of His Father David. And the Bible says every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. David told us, the Bible says, to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love thee. Folks, Jerusalem holds the key to the future of the world for this moment forward until the end of time. The whole essence of tomorrow is Israel, and specifically to Jerusalem. Let's take a break when we come back where I'm going to look at the last three sides of we're living in the end of age.

Stick around. In a world crowded with viewpoints and voices, only one voice matters, God's. At the College at Mid-America and Mid-America Seminary, we equip leaders to think from a biblical worldview, online or on our Memphis campus. Check out the College at Mid-America and Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary at mabts.edu and be equipped to light the way.

or the causes you care about. to help you navigate the seasons of motherhood, faith, and life with confidence and joy. The United States of America has a strong Christian heritage, but most Americans don't know the truly important role that God in the Bible played in the founding of this great nation. This June, join nationally syndicated radio host and founder of the Citizens for America Foundation, Dr. Chris Hughes, for four amazing days in our nation's capital. With Chris, you'll embark on a journey of discovering the hidden secrets of Washington, D.C. and rediscover much of America's forgotten Christian heritage. Your tour will include an up-close and personal look at the nation's establishment and how it's evolved over the centuries. Learn about the government and the men who helped forge this new kind of republic, one that acknowledged the Creator from its very inception. Know the truth about the creation of the United States of America, about the faith of the founding fathers, and how Christian principles were used to establish this form of government.

Visit citizensforamericafoundation.com today and secure your spot to join Chris Hughes in Washington, D.C. this June. Welcome back to The Christian Perspective. We're talking today about signs of the end times and when we see what's going on in Ukraine and we see tidal waves taking and famine like never before across the world and deadly disease and then plagues like COVID-19. We need to wake up because the Bible tells us and one out of every 30 verses in the Bible screams that Jesus is coming again and we need to understand that as Christians and the Bible tells us that we need to live with an urgency and tell everybody we know about the saving grace of Jesus Christ because Jesus is coming again and if we have not confessed our sins and repented and turned from our wicked ways and promised to serve Jesus and God alone and made Him the Lord of our lives, if we have not done that we will spend an eternity in hell one day.

Here's the seventh sign that we're approaching the end of the age is the invention of not just television but the internet and communication tools that we have today. Revelation 11 9 and 10 describes two witnesses, two men that are going to be killed by the Antichrist during the time of the tribulation. The tribulation is a seven year period after the rapture of the church where terrible things are going to happen on this earth before the second coming of Jesus and during that time the Bible tells us there will be a world leader. This man will appear to be a nice guy in the beginning and then he will be the devil incarnate and the Bible refers to him as the Antichrist. These two men, these prophets, these preachers are sent by God to wave witnesses unto the saving grace of Jesus Christ and the Bible tells us in Revelation 11 9 and 10 that these two witnesses are going to be killed by the Antichrist. They're going to eventually rise again three days later and show the power of God but they're killed by the Antichrist during the time of tribulation and here's the verse of scripture that mystified every generation until ours. The Bible says that the whole world will see them in one hour. The Bible says that in one hour the earth will see these two bodies lie in the streets of Jerusalem. Folks, that wasn't possible 2,000 years ago. It wasn't possible in 1900, it wasn't possible in 1960 but now we can watch these two witnesses because we see things happening live. The Antichrist can do these things and we can see it live night and day because of the communication capabilities we have today.

It's now possible. Hasten the day of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said in Matthew 24 14, the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to the nation and then shall come the end.

That's what I'm doing right now. I'm preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not only can it be heard on radio across the United States but later today when it's released on a podcast literally anybody in the world can get access to this message. I'm telling that other preachers are telling around the world today before what Matthew 24 14 said the gospel pre-preached around the world was not really possible until today but now with the internet people are able to reach the entire world. It amazes me when I travel around the world even people are about to starve to death in the poor countries but they have cell phones that are a lot cheaper in other countries than they are here in the United States and they can hear what's going on at any time. Because of this the gospel is being spread around the world which is a fulfillment of the prophecy in Matthew 24 14. The eighth sign that we're approaching the end of the age is famines and pestilence and signs in the earth and signs in the sky. We're now experiencing the most severe famine in the history of the world. We don't see that necessarily in the United States but it's happening all over the world.

Why? Because Bible prophecy is always accurate. Those famines got even worse during COVID-19 because farmers were not able to get their products crops were rotting in the fields because they couldn't get the crops of the people. Revelation 6 says that there is a rider on a black horse. This is symbolism of course.

And this rider is death with a pair of balances in his hand. He's saying a measure of wheat for a penny. I just heard again just a few days ago because of the conflict with Russia and the Ukraine a lot of the world's wheat comes from Russia and Ukraine and how's that going to affect the rest of the world if there's a shortage. The fact is that people are giving a day's wage for not enough to eat for one day. But we don't have the farming capabilities we want to have in the United States.

You're seeing farmland scorched by historic summer heat. The world is racing towards the greatest famine it's ever known. The Bible tells us this. And then the Bible talks about pestilence. Pestilence says the Bible is a sickness that cannot be cured. Look at COVID-19. They don't have a cure for that.

It's a pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands maybe even millions around the world. A few years ago people mocked at this. They laughed at this prophetic sign. They said, oh, we're so smart. We've got such great scientists and pharmaceutical companies. That will never happen.

And look what happened. AIDS came really hard in the 80s and 90s that there's still no cure for and then COVID-19 hit. Don't tell me that God's word is not always true and it's not always accurate. Death through AIDS, they don't talk about it much but that's going to restructure Western civilization. The World Health Organization says that more than 40 million people have died from AIDS. And then look what's happened with COVID-19 around the world.

The millions of people who have died from COVID-19 and new variants are popping up all the time. This should not be news to Christians. God told us it was going to happen. Jesus said there will be signs in the sky. There are unusual weather patterns all over the world. Just recently there was a terrible tsunami that hit Japan because of an earthquake. There are earthquakes going on all over the world right now. Jesus said himself there will be signs in the sky. We talk about climate change. That's nothing new. God told us it was going to happen.

There are unusual weather patterns going on. Why? Because God is sitting in the heaven and God is saying I'm still in charge here. I control the sun, the moon and the stars and my son is getting ready to come back to earth. Jesus Christ is going to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We need to prepare to meet him.

We need to get ready and we need to get ready today. Give you the night sign and again there are many, many more. I could spend all day talking to you about signs that Jesus is coming again. But the last one I'll give you today, the ninth sign that we're approaching the end of the age, and we've been talking today about what's going on in the world, sickness, disease, earthquakes, climate change, wars and rumors of wars. Are these signs that Jesus could return at any time?

And they are. Finally, I want to give you the last one we're going to talk about today. But this is by far the last of signs. And by the way, I want to tell you a lot of this information, of course I gleaned from God's Word and I'm giving you the verses because that's really what's important. But if you want to get some good books to help you understand, Tim LaHaye. He had a whole series of fictional books based on signs of the times that were coming. But he wrote a lot of factual books. My dear friend Gary Frazier is probably one of the preeminent scholars on end time prophecy alive today. And I've read a lot of his books.

Some of this came from Gary. And then John Hagee, a pastor from San Antonio, Texas. And John Hagee's written a lot of books and preached a lot of message on end times.

And others too. You know, I'm not saying this is original to me. Really, it's original to God's Word. But I've read a lot of the works of these other men so I want to be clear.

If you've read their books or read it, I want you to know and give them credit of where I've gotten this information. But I'm showing you in the Bible where I've gotten it. And you can know from God's Word standing alone that that's where it is. In Matthew chapter 24 verse 37 the Bible says, As in the days of Noah, so shall it be, the coming of the Son of Man.

Okay, I'm going to make some people mad here and I'm going to get some phone calls. I'm quoting what God's Word says so you take it as it is. Either you believe it's the Word of God or you don't. There are three biblical distinctives of the generation of Noah. One is that they were eating and drinking, meaning they were given to gluttony. And that's happening around the world today. Second, they were buying and selling, meaning they were mastered by materialism.

Through things like online buying, we have a way to buy things we've never had before. And thirdly, and here's the one that's going to get y'all mad, there was an aggressive homosexual community that surrounded Lot's house and demanded his male guests. They threatened him if Lot did not give them those male guests on the spot. The homosexual movement in America and around the world today is stronger than it's ever been before. I don't blame homosexuals for demanding that they won't. I blame cowardly Christians for not standing up for what they believe.

You hear me? I blame the Church of Jesus Christ and Christians for not taking a stand on the Word of God. Less than 10% of humanity should not control 90% of humanity unless we are silent. And that is what the Church has been.

Look at what's happening. The traditional family has been torn apart. Marriage is not an institution of man. Marriage was created by God. It's an institution of God. And God intended in God's Word, you can look in His Word, for a marriage to be between one man and one woman forever. He also did not intend for the rampant divorce rate that is taking place in America and in the Church among so-called Christians.

Marriage was a blood covenant, meaning you stayed married or you died. And the Church is not stood up. And what's happening now, just like the Bible said, just like the time of Noah when there were aggressive homosexuals in that community, the same thing has happened today. Homosexuality has become an aggressive movement in the United States and around the world.

If you dare say anything about it, I'm going to get bad emails today. They might even try to cancel my show because they will take a stand and we will not. They are transforming the minds of young children.

I heard that there's a place in North Carolina. Someone called me yesterday and said, Look, your show needs to get over here in North Carolina and talk about this. Their community is paying homosexuals to come in and do another one of those series of transgender story hours. That is trying to teach kids that aberrant sexual behavior is normal and to be admired.

It is not. It is a disgrace against God. We are living in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. And it's a sign that the world's about to end. Look closely at these nine prophetic signs that I've talked about today. It tells you that we're headed towards the end of the world. And because of that, I believe that we should be ready. Again, it doesn't matter if Jesus is coming today, a thousand years from now, as Christians, we should live our lives with an urgency that Jesus could return at any time. We're living in the final moments of what many refer to as the seventh day, talking about a prophecy from the book of Daniel. So let me review the things that we've talked about today. I encourage you to share this show with your friends.

The podcast will be released later today. And you can share it over the Internet for people all over the world to know that they don't need to be scared because God said this was going to happen. We need to get our hearts and minds right with God. What were those nine things I talked about? Number one, men's hearts are failing them for fear of things that are coming upon the earth. Number two, we talked about the increase of knowledge.

And you know that's happened. Number three, we talked about the invention of nuclear weapons. Number four, we talked about the rebirth of the nation of Israel that Jesus himself predicted that happened in 1948. Number five, we were talking about the gathering not only of Russian Jews, but from Jews around the world. Number six, we talked about how Jerusalem is no longer under Gentile control.

Number seven, the invention of international means of communication. Number eight, famine, pestilence, signs in the sky, COVID-19, AIDS and so many other things, climate change that are going on. Number nine, the reliving of the days of Noah and sexual perversion. Time is up and the world will end forever. And when it ends, you're going to step into eternity. Folks, where are you going to be when that time comes?

There's only two choices. You'll be in heaven with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Or you will walk the corridors of hell forever lost and without Jesus Christ.

The question is not if Jesus will return, but when. Jesus is going to return and we need to be ready. I've told you today, as clearly as I can speak, I can tell you that we could be raptured this very day. We could be gone before you put your head on the pillow tonight.

We're that close. Thank you for listening today. We hope that you'll tune in to your favorite radio station and listen to me on the Christian perspective each and every day.

Folks, we're living in the end times. The Bible tells us we need to tell everybody we can about the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Now let's go invite the culture for Jesus. Thank you for listening. The Christian Perspective with Chris Hughes. Learn more about impacting the culture for Jesus. Visit citizensforamericafoundation.com. This is the Truth Network.