Things To Come
Bible Facts Newspaper Article (Ian C. Kurylyk)

“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass” (Revelation 1:1a). Much of the prophecy of the Bible concerns those things which are in the strictest sense of the word end time events. The Bible teaches that things will not continue in the present order indefinitely but that very soon God will intervene and the things of the last days will be set in motion.

It is the Bible’s account of the end that puts the present in context. The central event of all end time prophecy is the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to this world. This is a very serious matter to those who reject His claims, while those who believe in Him now are promised to escape from the apocalyptic events the world is to experience.

The actual return of the Lord to establish His kingdom on the earth is to be preceded, according to prophecy, by a time of troubling like this world has never seen. “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21).

From the time when sin first entered the human race until the present God has allowed life on earth to feel some of the effects of His displeasure with man’s rebellion. Every drought, flood, famine, war, and disaster reminds us things are out of order. Human sin has rejected the God of Heaven and subjected life on earth to the sorrows of Satan’s rule. Thorns and thistles, death and suffering, tragedy and slaughter have been the witnesses on earth of what it means to be under Satan’s dominion, ever since Adam first sinned. “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22).

But the troubles of the present are just a foretaste of what is prophesied to happen in the next period of God’s dealing with this earth before His Son comes back. The scriptures tell us a time will come when the present age of opportunity and widespread preaching of the Gospel of salvation will come to an end. In its place will come a period of worldwide shaking under God’s Almighty hand. “Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.

And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake. The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again” (Isaiah 24:17-22). Amos wrote “Prepare to meet thy God” in Amos 4:12. These are the same group of prophets that wrote so accurately of the first coming of the Messiah into the world to provide salvation.

The Revelation, written by John in the New Testament is full of alarming detail after detail of that time of tribulation. We are compelled to take these very seriously as we see the course of events leading us up to that time. On the world stage there have been in the last hundred years violent deaths in numbers that stagger the mind. There have been famines, disasters, earthquakes, and especially countless wars. It seems obvious the direction the world is going.

Drastic changes for the worse have taken place in other areas of life, even on this Island have taken place. As a youngster I helped my grandfather and uncles haul fishing trawls in Island waters loaded with codfish and hake. Now we are not allowed to fish them at all. Small family farms used to be all about, and now they are rarities. Families themselves are struggling under heavy burdens and problems while the very fabric of society is bearing the strain of new ideas of morality. Who does not wish for the old days and what some called the Island way of life? The truth is these declines in God’s blessings are just small preludes to what is coming to a world that is on a collision course with the events of Bible prophecy.