The Common End Days Scenario Isn’t Biblical and Doesn’t Match Our Time

Before the main body of this post, I must admit my speculation was incorrect about recent events. And I couldn’t be happier about it.

All right!

Cooler heads have prevailed, and Iran has been handicapped to the point of being unable to pursue a nuclear weapon.

I will leave my posts about this issue from the last month because when I’m wrong, I’m mistaken, and I must admit it.

A paper trail of speculation, if you will. Speculation is, well, speculative.

I am so happy there is a ceasefire. Hopefully, it will last.

But having said that, this would be a wonderful time to go over why the common Christian notion of the End Times is not correct.

And prefacing this, I DO NOT HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS. I’m a fallible human being, someone who studies these things because I find the climax of history interesting, even if I don’t believe it will be in my lifetime.

I am writing a book on this subject matter and will shadow drop it before the end of this year. It will be full of citations and references heavy. My first foray into nonfiction (well, some atheists might disagree, but they also believe in magical singularities that become complex, life-forming universes, so….).

No Typical Rapture Scenario

The Bible does not teach a rapture before a time of seven years of tribulation. You won’t find it anywhere.

What the Bible teaches is a 42-month Great Tribulation, beginning with the Abomination of Desolation. This event is in the Book of Daniel, chapter 11, which Jesus quotes about the sign to know for sure He is returning to Earth in that generation.

That event could be in 50 years or 7,000 years. We aren’t told the specifics.

Some Christians look at that number and think, “There’s no way Jesus is returning 7,000 years from now.”

But you don’t know how long it will be. Every generation of Christians thinks it will be in their lifetime. And every generation has been incorrect about this.

Don’t get me wrong.

One of these generations will have the End Times unfold, and the marker, I believe, that signifies the beginning of the End Times is the building of the Third Temple.

Coupled with Daniel 8 and 11.

Once those events happen, we are in the End Times proper, according to the angel Gabriel. I trust his opinions on history more than clickbait pastors who think the end is everything.

Modern Political Structures Don’t Line up with the Biblical End Times

The ten-king kingdom must be here before Antichrist ever rises, and he doesn’t rise until the Kings of the North and South have generations of battles with each other (see Daniel 10, 11, and 12).

The final King of the North is the Antichrist, the final world ruler who will fight Jesus Christ.

The time this will take to develop is at least, by my estimation, 200 years.

Could it be faster? Yes.

But it’s not likely.

The End Times has monarchs in play, not presidents (see Revelation 17, Daniel 7, Daniel 2).

The world will be different from what we are accustomed to in our generation.

The world of kings is foreign to democracies.

But crowns and royalty are important to the Bible’s version of the end of history.

The exiled Persian crown prince may be one of the first of these kings if regime change takes over soon in Iran.

Time will tell, and we have but to wait to find out, though I suspect most of us will be long gone by this time.

Cities Don’t Exist Now Where They Should for Bible Prophecies to Happen

Much of the prophetic geography doesn’t line up with the Bible yet. Edom needs to have multiple massive cities, which aren’t even close to being built yet (i.e. NEOM, Edom, Mt. Seir etc.).

The Book of Revelation hints that humanity may live on the sea by the time these events happen (Revelation 12).

With an increasing population, that doesn’t sound farfetched. Floating cities might become a common occurrence by the time the End Times occur.

Mystery Babylon will be the world’s greatest city in the End Times, in Saudi Arabia according to multiple prophecies. I’ve seen strong cases for Jerusalem, but Jerusalem is not a port city, and Jesus reigns from Jerusalem for 1,000 years while Mystery Babylon is destroyed forever.

It doesn’t line up, in my opinion.

NEOM will probably become that city in the far future, because let’s face it, that city won’t be completed and ready to dominate the economy until at least 2045-2060.

This timeline dashes the hopes of many Christians, but we have so much time left to help save the lost. I don’t say that to dilly-dally. We should act like time is short.

But if the landscape doesn’t line up with the prophecies yet, then we don’t have the End Times starting soon.

Date Setters Teaching a Pre-Trib Rapture are Mistaken

The Bible teaches that the first resurrection includes those who did not worship the Antichrist or his image. It says they were beheaded for their witness to Jesus.

The Apostle Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 that the dead in Christ rise first, and the group from Revelation 20 is part of the first resurrection.

Paul says those who are alive and remain until the coming of the LORD will by no means precede those who are asleep.

In other words, the pre-trib rapture is impossible. This argument is impossible to defend against.

How can they be part of the first resurrection if there had been an earlier rapture with the resurrected dead? It makes no sense.

Any time you hear someone date-setting, run the other way.

Jesus is not returning based on these wrong assumptions.

If 2028 were the end, we’d already be in the Great Tribulation as I type this.

There’s nothing showing Jesus will return in the next 40 years, let alone less than 3.5 years from now.

Concluding the Discourse

I look forward to that blessed hope, because even if it isn’t my lifetime, I get to make memories now and cherish with gratitude the things God has done in my life, and the things He has yet to do. Then, when He returns, I will be raised to eternal life with a perfect, immortal body with dimension-breaking effects such as no decay or entropy. And shining like light, as Daniel 12 says.

The common Christian End Times scenario is incorrect, and I pray those who subscribe to it see the Bible gives us what the world will look like, and we aren’t there yet.

“But the gays!” I suggest doing a deep study on why gay people aren’t a sign of the End Times, and fully capable of coming to Christ with their sexuality. Sodom and Gomorrah’s sins weren’t about the people being gay. They were awful people and tried forcibly raping angelic visitors. Made laws against helping the poor, attacked strangers, had no hospitality (see Ezekiel 16:49).

“But the wars!” Even Jesus said wars and rumors of war are not the end.

“But imminence!” Imminence applies to the End Times signs of the sun, moon, and stars going dark. At that sign, when the universe is darkened and no light is shining, Jesus’ return is imminent.

“The world is so bad right now!” And people in the ancient world used to sacrifice innocent people to their gods (think of the Mayans). That’s not a common occurrence today and back then wasn’t the End Times.

That is far worse than much of what is happening in our world.

When we enter the End Times, it will be plain for those of us who study Scripture during that generation if they’re paying attention.

May the LORD bless you and keep you, and most of all, give you shalom.