GracEmail subscribers from several states ask about the Antichrist or the Abomination of Desolation in biblical prophecy. Will there yet arise such a specific individual on the stage of world history? Need we fear such a one? * * * The Old Testament prophet Daniel originally spoke of such a figure (Dan. 9:27; 11:20-45). Daniel's prophecies were fulfilled first in the Seleucid tyrant Antiochus IV, who persecuted the Jews nearly three centuries before the birth of Christ. Jesus, Paul and John repeated language taken from Daniel's prophetic imagery, probably foretelling the Roman emperors Nero … [Read more...]
70 A.D. AND CHRIST’S RETURN
A gracEmail subscriber heard a preacher say that Jesus Christ returned invisibly and for the last time when the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem and its temple in A.D. 70. This reader asks whether we ought to expect Jesus to return visibly and in person at the end of human history. * * * Indeed we should. Both Scripture and church history tell me that the preacher you heard was mistaken. I will mention but one of many Scriptures. Shortly before Jesus' betrayal, his apostles were admiring the great stones of Herod's Temple. Jesus replied that a time would come when not one stone would be left … [Read more...]
LIFE NOW AND FOREVER
This final week of 2004 has seen what is perhaps the largest natural disaster in the world's history, following an earthquake under the Indian Ocean more than 740 miles long and having the force of a million atomic bombs. The quake, which jolted the earth's rotation, spawned monster waves called tsunamis which swept across the Indian Ocean, killing (says the Associated Press) more than 44,000 people in eleven countries from Thailand to Somalia. Human life is fragile and precious, in the big picture and in our individual cases. Immortality is Christ's accomplishment and the Christian's hope. … [Read more...]
