Warnings of The End Times

Chapter 3

Day 5

As His children, God wants us to know what the future has in store for us. He didn’t inspire these scriptures for use as a threat to the unsaved, but as a warning to His children against going astray. If God had told us when these things would happen, many Christians would not heed the warnings.

              The End Times, for many, will be a very violent and ruthless end. However, God’s intention was to let His children know that He would be there to see us through. These scriptures will help us to recognize the end times and give us the opportunity to know God as the loving person He really is.

Many believe that Revelation 1:19 is the key to understanding the book. That verse records words spoken by Jesus to John telling him to write “what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later.”

According to this division the vision of Jesus recorded in Revelation 1 is “what you have seen.”

“What is now” is reflected in the message to seven existing churches found in Revelation 2–3.

“What will take place later” is in the bulk of the book, chapters 4–21.

In this study we look at both “what you have seen,” John’s vision of Jesus, and at “what is now,” his letters to seven churches.

Many commentators see these churches as representative of churches in every age. Their strengths and weaknesses are typical, and we are to gain insight into our own congregations by studying them. Others see the churches as representative of the ages of church history, with the first, Ephesus, representing the apostolic church and the last, Laodicea, representing the church of our own day. Whatever one’s view, there are many insights we can gain as we learn how Jesus Himself evaluates His people—and there are many warnings we can heed.

What a privilege for you and me to lead others in a study of this book which uniquely unveils Jesus, not in His humanity, but in the glory we shall see when He returns.

With chapter 4 of Revelation, the scene shifts. Here is how John describes it:

After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with Someone sitting on it.

Revelation 4:1-2

In these two verses we have moved from earth to heaven, and from the then present to what is to come. We have moved from Christ standing among the candlesticks (churches), to the Father on His eternal throne.

From this point on in the Book of Revelation, we are thrown ahead in time.

The question most Bible students ask is, “How far ahead?” Do we see in Revelation an unfolding of church history, as some have argued. Or are we seeing events associated with history’s end?

              Whichever position we take, the powerful images and terrible descriptions continue to remind us that our God is a flaming fire; a God whose righteousness and whose justice will surely strike terror in the hearts of those who reject Him.

These final chapters of the Bible give us Scripture’s clearest portraits of eternity. In them we see the destiny of saved and unsaved alike.

One stereotype of Christianity that is found in literature and the media is the “hellfire evangelist.” He is usually portrayed as an Elmer Gantry: someone so twisted by his own sins that he finds release only by laying a burden of guilt on his listeners. He frightens them with visions of a God who seeks any excuse to drag people away to endless torment.

Often Christians, captivated by the vision of God’s love in Jesus, turn away from the picture of a lake of fire and the idea of eternal damnation. A few theologians have also looked for other ways to describe the destiny of those who resist God’s grace to the end. Some have suggested annihilation—the idea that for the lost, death is simply the end. The evil people of this world slip into death as into some endless and dreamless sleep; they simply cease to exist. Others have supposed a final reconciliation of all with God. Colossians 1:20 is taken to mean that the evil people of this world will find a place in glory with those they massacred.

But the Bible affirms the existence of a real heaven—and a real hell. And the Bible also answers the question, “How could a loving God condemn anyone to a lake of eternal fire?”

Yet we do not need to fear hell. In Jesus, our destiny is heaven. But let us also remember that Revelations is not the only book in the bible that contain warnings of the end times.

Daily Bible Readings:

Revelations Chapter 1