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: 9 minutesQuestion 10078. The Olivet Discourse is the sermon Jesus preached on the Mount of Olives during the last week of His earthly ministry, recorded in Matthew 24 and 25, Mark 13 and Luke 21. It is the longest block of teaching about the future that we have from His own lips, and everything else in…
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: 9 minutesQuestion 10075. Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy is, to my mind, the single most remarkable predictive passage in the Old Testament. In four verses Gabriel gives Daniel a measured period of 490 years for the nation of Israel, sets out what it will accomplish, divides it into three unequal portions, and pins its starting point to…
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 10072. The Day of the Lord is the Bible’s name for that extended period when God steps out of the shadows and deals directly with human sin, rescues His people, and establishes His King. It appears more than twenty times in the Old Testament and several more in the New, and it is one…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10071. The battle of Armageddon is the gathering of the armies of the world against Jerusalem at the end of the tribulation period, and its abrupt conclusion when Jesus returns in glory. The word has entered ordinary English as a byword for nuclear catastrophe, which is a pity, because the Bible’s picture is rather…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 10070. Who are the 144,000 in Revelation? John tells us plainly enough: they are sealed servants of God drawn from the twelve tribes of Israel, twelve thousand from each, protected through the judgements of the tribulation period for a purpose God has assigned them. The reason the question generates so much heat is that…