[IGotTheCottons]

Hi... A bunch of you have asked me for the prophecies that have come true regarding the end times... This first post will be a copy of one I posted a while ago about the 4-fold prophecy given in Matthew 24. I will post one right after about the return of the Jews to the land of Palestine and how it signifies that we're living in the end times...

EDIT: Plese be sure to read these posts in their entirety. If you do not have a long time to read, or the patience to read a couple of very long posts (the second one is the longer one), then wait until you do. Also, Please pay very careful attention to what is being said. You'll miss it if you don't.

"And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows." - Matthew 24:3-8.

Here we can see Jesus gives a pretty clear description of what the world will be like at his return. In verses 4-6 there is given a few events that aren't really connected with the end times. He gives descriptions of false Christs, and wars and rumours of wars. These have been occuring throughout history, but if you'll notice he says "all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet." So we can see here that these particular events aren't signs of the end.

But let's move on to verses 7 and 8. Here we can see a 4-fold sign of the end. All four of these things must happen all around the same time, and they must be the worst in history. The signs are "nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows."

We can tell that they must happen together because it says "all these are the beginning of sorrows."

Now, let's go into this a little more. I'm going to go through each sign and show when it happened.

WORLD WAR

When Jesus said in verse 7 that "nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom," He used an Old Testament idiom, found in two passages of Scripture (2 Chronicles 15:6, and Isaiah 19:2), which describes a war which begins with one nation coming against another nation, and growing to include all the nations before the eyes of the prophet. The whole world is before the eyes of Jesus in Matthew 24, and He sees a war which will include all of the major nations of the world. In 1914-1918, World War I involved all the nations of the world with the exception of the seven minor nations: the three Scandinavian countries, Spain, Portugal, Holland, and Switzerland. All of the other nations where enveloped in World War I - 93 percent of them. According to the Encyclopedia Americana and the book Why Wars Must Cease, in World War I the combined armies totalled 65,000,000 men, and there were 37,500,000 total casualties. One out of every four soldier died. One English statistician, Crammond, sets the direct cost of that war at $210,000,000,000 and the direct and indirect cost at $370,000,000,000.

FAMINE

Famine always follows war. Following World War I came the great Chinese famine in 1920, about which the London Times gave a summary on December 15, 1920: "The population now totally destitute in Chihli is 6,000,000; in Shantung, 2,500,000; in Honan, 3,500,000; in Shensi, 1,000,000; in Shansi, 500,000 - a total of 13,500,000." Then, only eighteen months later, the Volga Valley in Russia was swept by famine. Louis S. Bauman quotes statements by contemporary observers:

The Archbishop of Canterbury said at the time: "Never in the history of the world has a condition of things existed comparable to the ghastly death by famine of the whole millions of men, women, and children." The famous Doctor Nansen, having accurate knowledge, said, "The famine is beyond all doubt the most appalling that has ever happened in the recorded history of man." ... "Thirty thousand Russians are dying of starvation every day," D.M. Panton of London wrote. In 1929 the Chicago Tribune wrote of another great famine in China: "Latest reports on the famine indicate 30 million persons are afflicted instead of the 20 million first reported ... Competent authorities expressed fear that 15,000,000 persons might perish." ... In North China alone, the China Famine Relief, U.S.A., with headquarters in N.Y., printed in its appeal: "The tragedy of over 8,000,000 human beings having starved to death is one of the most terrible in history."

PESTILENCES

Terrible pestilences followed World War I. The London Times reported that six million people died in twelve weeks' time from what was called the "Spanish influenza," and they reported, "This plague is five times more deadly than war. Never since the Black Death has such a plague swept over the face of the world."

**{{{On a side note, the black death primarily struck Europe, the Spanish flu struck the entire world}}}**

In India five million died because of it; in the Arctic whole Eskimo villages were wiped out by it; in the Fiji Islands 85 percent of the people were stricken; in the United States of America, 500,000 people died; and the total figure given for those who died because of this pestilence is 20 million. No country on earth escaped its ravages. Major Norman White, sanitary commissioner for India, declared, "It is an epidemic in many respects without parallel in the history of disease."

EARTHQUAKES

Jesus said there would be "earthquakes, in divers places." The greatest earthquakes that have ever shaken this world have all come since the close of World War I. Several of them shook the whole earth.

An official report of the earthquake in China in December, 1920, gave the loss of life around the Ching Ting Choo district as three hundred thousand, and a C.I.M. missionary said that "working on this proportion, it would mean that between 500,000 to 1,000,000 lost their lives." The World Encyclopedia said this earthquake was three times as deadly as any earthquake ever recorded before World War I, and that others since that time have been far more destructive than any recorded earthquake before that time.

Now, we can see that all these things have happened together in the same period of history. They have also been the worst in recorded history. This has a striking similarity to the description given by Jesus in Matthew 24. But that's not all, now only do these prophecies point to what to look for at the end, they also tell us that not everyone who was alive to see these things will be dead when Jesus returns. We can see this a little further in Matthew 24.

In verses 32-34 Jesus comes back to the subject He left off in verses 7 and 8 and says: "Now learn a parable of the fig tree; when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."

The Greek term for "all these things," found in verses 33 and 34, is panta tauta, which is the same term found in verse 8, "all these." So when we see "all these things," we can know that the coming of Christ "is near, even at the doors."

Then Jesus made a very important statement which has been misunderstood by some Bible scholars through the years: "Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled" (v. 34).

"this generation" in the Greek is he genea haute. The demonstrative pronoun haute that ALWAYS refers to the one person or thing last mentioned before it - when in the singular (which it is in this case). The thing we see last before he genea haute (v. 34) is "all these things" which refers back to the four-fold prophecy (isn't Greek helpful?). This clearly shows that some of those who are alive to see the four-fold prophecy be fullfilled will still be alive to see Jesus' return (which begins the tribulation period, armageddon, and the end).