Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10085. A falling away must come before the day of the Lord, according to Paul, and Christians have argued about what he meant ever since. Some read it as a great abandonment of the faith in the last days. Others read it as a technical term for the Rapture itself. The two readings could…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10084. The man of lawlessness is Paul’s name for the final world ruler who will dominate the Tribulation period, oppose God openly, and be destroyed by the appearing of Jesus. He is called the son of destruction in the same breath, and older translations know him as the man of sin. He is not…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10082. The Holy Spirit will not be removed from the earth during the Tribulation, and I want to say that at the outset because few end times questions produce as much confusion. The idea has been repeated so often in popular prophecy teaching that many believers assume it is settled doctrine. It is not,…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10081. The doctrine of imminence is one of those phrases that sounds like seminary furniture until you notice how much of your life it touches. Put simply, it means that the Lord’s coming for His Church could happen at any moment, that nothing in prophecy has to occur first, and that no believer is…
Reading Time: 7 minutesQuestion 10080. Date setting has a long and embarrassing history in the church, and it keeps coming back because the longing underneath it is real. We want the Lord to come. We read the prophetic Scriptures, we glance at the news, and something in us wants to close the gap between promise and fulfilment by…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10079. Can we know when Jesus will return? The short answer is no, and it comes from His own lips rather than from any caution of mine. “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36). That ought to…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10077. The birth pains Jesus mentions in Matthew 24 are the opening troubles of the end times: false messiahs, wars and rumours of wars, famines and earthquakes in various places. Having listed them He says, “All these are but the beginning of the birth pains” (Matthew 24:8). The image is deliberately chosen and it…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10076. The role of Israel during the tribulation is central rather than incidental. That seven-year period is not primarily about the nations, the beast or even the judgements. Jeremiah calls it “a time of distress for Jacob,” and Daniel says the seventy sevens were decreed about “your people and your holy city.” Once the…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10074. What happens to those who take the mark of the beast? Revelation gives an answer of terrible clarity, and it is the most severe warning in the book. Those who receive it drink the wine of God’s wrath and are tormented in the presence of the Lamb, with no rest day or night….
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10073. What signs precede Christ’s return? The answer depends entirely on which return you mean, and that is not a piece of clever footwork. Scripture describes the Lord coming for His people and coming with His people, and the two events are given very different treatment. For the Second Coming in glory, Scripture supplies…