Understand Times and Seasons

“But watch out for yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils, and you will be beaten in the synagogues. You will be brought before rulers and kings for My sake, for a testimony to them. And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations.” (Mark 13:9-10 NKJV)

What does the end time look like? Surprisingly enough, it will be as perfectly usual as the days of Noah. The imminent judgment of God was at hand in Noah’s time. While Noah and his families were building the ark, the people were eating, drinking, and marrying and being married. That is the picture of what is really going on right now. There is nothing wrong in eating, drinking, and marrying at all. They are the perfectly normal activities in every human societies and communities. The real problem is that they did not take heed to the warnings of God’s impending judgment which was repeatedly announced and demonstrated by Noah and his life of witnessing so long years.

The flood of Noah is the landmark of what would be happening to all people on the earth. While people live as usually and normally as yesterday and today, the judgment of God comes so suddenly and stealthily that no one can resist or delay of its coming. Jesus says that He will be coming like a thief at night. No one knows the time of His coming. But when He comes, He comes like when a woman travails she travails. There is no way back at that time. Once He comes, it is it.

 Although the people on earth live usually and ordinarily throughout the centuries and centuries since the flood of Noah, it doesn’t nullify the upcoming judgment of God. No one knows the time of His coming, even the Son of Man. However, the signs of the end times are given for us to be ready and prepared for the Lord’s coming. It is so significant to understand it in Christian living not to be fooled or deceived at all. The signs are deception, wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, and troubles. Many has come in the name of Jesus and deceived many. But the end is not yet, so do not be troubled, because these are beginnings of sorrows, says Jesus (Mark 13:3-8).

The scripture is not written in the chronological order. It is all blended together both time and eternity, judgment and salvation, and blessings and curses. Prophet Isaiah says that it is the way how God teaches His children, saying “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little.” (Isaiah 28:10 NKJV) The end time has already begun even in the first century. We have all the evidences of false and evil teachings intruded in the church which are recorded in the epistles of the apostles. Many false messiahs has come and deceived so many believers even now. Look at the Mormons, the Jehovah’s witnesses, the Scientologists, the Moonies, and many others.

“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-7 NKJV)

The deceivers have already been working throughout the centuries and centuries. Then Jesus jumps to the signs of the end time. The gospel must first be preached to all nations, and then will the end come. “But watch out for yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils, and you will be beaten in the synagogues. You will be brought before rulers and kings for My sake, for a testimony to them. And the gospel must first be preached to all the nations.” (Mark 13:9-10 NKJV) This scene of prophecy is for the nation Israel. See the word synagogues, not churches which means the last tribulation to the descendants of Abraham. By this time, the remnants of Israel will return to the Lord and saved through the price of death.

John saw the vision of returning of the remnants of Israel and recorded in the Book of Revelation. “And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed:” (Revelations 7:4 NKJV) “Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His Father’s name written on their foreheads.” (Revelations 14:1 NKJV) These mean of Israel altogether one hundred and forty-four thousand will be preaching the gospel to all the nations during the seven years of tribulation period. Then shall the end come. Christ Jesus will return in glory and honor as the Lord of lords and the King of kings with the loud trumpet calls and thousands and thousands of angels.

“Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Matthew 24:30-31 NKJV)

Knowing and understanding the signs of the end time lead us to watch and be alarmed because no one is not allowed to know times and seasons. “And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.” (Acts 1:7 NKJV) Each believer shall experience the coming of the Lord Christ Jesus instantaneously at the last breath. So, indeed we’re living in the end time.

One obviously reasonable reaction to the knowledge of the end time is readiness and steadfastness in the faith of Christ by diligently seeking the truth day and night, by being filled with the Spirit, and by buying the time of opportunity to obey the commandment of God, love one another.