Signs of the Second Coming

 Question 1) If deception is one of the early signs of the coming of Jesus, what things have you seen today that lead people away from a knowledge of God and His Word? Do you feel that the idea of truth is attacked today? How? 

 The Lord then went on to warn us about those who will come proclaiming they are the Christ (v. 8). This warning is undoubtedly a characteristic of the age in which we live. Many have already come proclaiming themselves as saviour and thinking they alone have the answers to the world’s problems. I am convinced that more is ahead. There will be one who will claim that he is God (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4) and will look to be worshipped as God. 

Along with him, there will be a religious figure, a man doing signs and proclaiming himself a lamb, but inwardly he has the nature of a dragon. He will demand that the world leader, the Antichrist, should be worshipped: 

 11Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. 12He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. 13And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men. 14Because of the signs he was given the power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth (Revelation 13:11-14). 

Even though this man, commonly called the False Prophet, will perform great and miraculous signs, also causing a fire to come down from heaven to earth, we must ignore such signs and hold to what is taught in the Word of God. We must not be deceived! Even though there will be those seeking to trick us into following them, Jesus tells us that this is still an early sign: “These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away” (v. 9). 

Deception, false leaders, wars, and revolutions are all early warning signs. Jesus warned us that nation would rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom (verse 10). The statistics for those who died in the First World War is 31,508,200. For the Second World War, those who died amounted to 52,199,262.[3] Over eighty-three million people died from just those two world wars in the Twentieth Century; that's without the many other conflicts fought by various nations against one another. 

During the Second World War, more than six million Jewish people were killed by the Nazis. This war brought about the return of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland of Israel.

Since then, the Jewish people have fought five significant wars since becoming a nation in 1948, i.e., 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982. This is not to infer that Jesus was speaking about signs just in the nation of Israel. The prophetic signs spoken by Jesus are world events (Luke 21:35), but Israel has certainly had her share of wars and revolutions. The Lord said that there would be not only wars but also revolutions. 

When then Prime minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, controversially visited the Temple Mount on September 28, 2000, to pray as a Jew on their holiest site, the Palestinians rose up in revolution. Even though Jerusalem was recaptured from Jordan in 1967, the Temple Mount is still in Muslim hands. This act by Sharon started what is called the Second Intifada. Some Palestinian representatives dismiss Ariel Sharon’s visit as the reason for the Intifada; instead, they feel that the catalyst for the violence was the breakdown of the Camp David negotiations on July 25, 2000. This uprising or revolution in Israel is only one of many that have happened in recent years. All over the world, we hear of unrest.

The word revolutions are a translation of the Greek word, Akatastatos. It means: A fixed or settled condition, the establishing or settling of something. Commotion, tumult, unruliness, disruption, disorder. It is used of political or social revolution, insurrection, sedition; riot, uprising, and disturbance.[4]