Current Signs of the End Coming

(Original picture courtesy of...)

This question was actually taken (with permission) from a conversation I had with a friend on Facebook.  But since several friends have been asking me lately about similar questions, which always led me back to reading this to them, I thought it might benefit others by posting it on here.

Question:  Hi Pastor Andy, I know you must be overwhelmed with the question lately, "Is this the beginning of the end?" But I am curious about what is your Bible-based opinion on the recent mass of animal deaths?  I'm ready whenever Jesus calls on me! Thanks Andy for your time. I just love hearing what you have to say!


My Reply:
Thank you. I always enjoy your comments, for they challenge me to do the research for your answers.
I'm not familiar with massive animal deaths, unless you're talking about the birds that just fell from the sky, and yeah, that was weird!  But there are some other elements from Revelation that I think you'll find interesting:

Now first of all, I believe I mentioned it before, but I strongly believe that Jesus will return in my lifetime (I'm 38 now).  I honestly believe that Jesus has revealed this to me, but just didn't say when.  But I'm  encouraged by His words that He'll come like a thief in the night.

So I looked into some passages in Revelation, and found something interesting (blew me away when I read it, actually):  Take a look at Revelation 16.
Verse 3: Now, some translations say that "the seas turned black".  If you Google "seas turned black", you'll find a lot of suggestions, as well as a page that talks about a native tribe's prophesies about this. But if you look at some other translations, as well as the Greek, they don't actually say "black".  The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead person, and every living thing in the sea died."  When I looked up the color of blood of a dead person, most pages were just about how a body decomposes. The best pages were actually about period-spotting and miscarriages, and an answer on Yahoo Answers. They all said that old blood was a dark brown, or even a black color.
So if we look at the color of dead blood as black, we can actually compare it to the BP oil spill last year. Fortunately though, not EVERY living thing died, but many did, which could be a sign to it (although, we've had other oil spills in the past, and I believe Amoco's in the 70s was said to be worse than BP's).

Verse 8: "The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. 9 They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him."
I'm just taking a stab here, for in a desperate comparison, we may be able to look at this as the Ozone issue we've got going on now. And instead of repenting and glorifying God (accepting Jesus?), people curse it off and call it "global warming".

Verses 12-14 are the ones that blew me away though:
"The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. Then I saw three impure spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. They are demonic spirits that perform signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty."

This blew me away because:
12- "The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East." --- for the past 3 years, the Euphrates HAS been drying up (click on link).  And if you'll look at the map, you'll see that the Euphrates River is in Iraq, and the people from the East is Iran. And yes, such are at war with Israel (still, again, and to come). And to get there, they'd have to cross this river.

13- "Then I saw three impure spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet."
I don't know who the 3 frogs are, but they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
I believe Muhammad is a false prophet. And when I see this, I can see how it was also foreseen as such, for Iran, Iraq, and the countries around the Euphrates are all Muslim countries, at war with Jews.
So maybe, THE false prophet is Muhammad, the beast is Bin Laden (or al queda), and the dragon is Satan...or Al Queda is the dragon, and Bin Laden is the beast. Either way, I believe that Muhammad is the false prophet.
And (14) "They are demonic spirits that perform signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty."

19- "God remembered Babylon the Great (Iraq) and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath."
20 "Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found."  (We're seeing news of many of these tsunamis, earthquakes, sinking islands)
21 "From the sky huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds, fell on people. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible." (It's snowed in Atlanta & Phoenix, both cities that doesn't get snow, and Chicago just beat its record in snow fall.)

Back to verse 15 = “Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed.”
When Paul & Simon (Peter) talk of casting off sin, they talk of it as throwing off your coat as if it's on fire. Also, the early church recognized the renewal of the person in baptism by stripping off their clothes on the way in, and being clothed with new, white robes, upon returning to the land. Also, when Adam & Eve sinned, their eyes were opened and they suddenly recognized themselves as being naked. So in that sense, to be naked is to have our focus' off God. 
Also, to be awake is to work for the Lord. To be asleep is as one who's dead or idle.
Therefore, to remain awake & clothed is to not be idle or spiritually dead, but to keep our focus on Jesus, to remain in Him, and to not be idle in our faith/ministry. But many have become very literal in their faith, even deadened to the world's culture. I can see this as being naked, not awake (or dead), and shamefully exposed.


I also just heard on HLN news that due to the economic debt, the price of food may go up.  This hits on with Revelation 6:6 - “Two (pounds) of wheat for a day’s wages, and six (pounds) of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

I agree with you that whenever Jesus comes is cool with me. It just blows me away each time I see something happen in the news that He said would happen near the end. It's like, I know it's supposed to happen, but wow, it's happening! :)

---Pastor Andy

Predictions about 2012?

Dear Pastor Andy, did you know that the Mayans aren't the only ones that predicted the date of 2012?  In fact, the Pyramids have it carved inside on stone, the Bible Codes are saying it and so are Nostradamus predictions. Isn't that a coincidence?

My Reply:

So what of the predictions about 2012? Well, first of all, Nostradamus wasn't always correct...for example, he never predicted the place or year of a supposed great California earthquake, and his "famous" prediction of the rise of Hitler is said to be "sketchy".

Second, I've always wondered about the "knowledge" of the Mayans, for if they knew when the end of the world was going to come, then why are they (almost) extinct today? I mean, if they could predict the end of the world, then why didn't they know when their end would come, or that it would, and work to prevent it? For all we know, they may have just run out of writing space on their calendar.

And as for the Bible Code, they figure everything out after the fact...they can't tell when things are going to happen or even what's going to happen. It's like they find a letter in one word, then another one in the sentence below it, then so on until they have a word spelling out the event of something that happened, then say the code predicted it. It's really quite bogus.  To see how crazy the Bible code is, click here to see where somebody found "predictions" of famous assassinations in the novel, "Moby Dick".

The thing about predictions is that there has to be a method to tell if such is a true event to happen or not.  God gave such measurements in Deuteronomy 18:22: "If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken...so don't be alarmed."  But what about psychics and those who consult demons? Well, we know that Satan knows that his time is coming soon, yet he does NOT know when. So if Satan doesn't know when the end will occur, then neither can his demons. And if his demons don't know, then anything that somebody speaks that's not of the Lord cannot be correct in their predictions. This includes the Egyptians, for we know that at the time of the building of the pyramids, they were worshiping their king, as well as many other false gods.

So why the "coincidence" of 2012? Satan's an idiot, but he does a great job of misleading people into believing his lies. So what better way to mislead people into believing that the world will end in 2012 than to place hints everywhere? And when you look at the predicted dates, they all have the same year, but the months are in conflict (May 21, October 21, December 21). So which one to choose?

Bottom line, nobody knows when the end will actually occur. In fact, when Jesus' disciples asked Him, Jesus said that only the Father knows the date. Jesus also gave signs of what's to come before it happens, and told us to watch (as did Daniel, Zechariah, and John's Revelation). So when you look at the events that have taken place up to this point so far, it only makes sense that it'll be soon - which may also explain why so many churches are currently doing Bible studies and sermon series on Revelation, and people like you are asking about 2012.

But as for an exact date revealed, there's really no way of knowing. Jesus may return today, tomorrow, next week, or 50 years from now. OUR job until then (as Christians) is to watch for the signs, share Jesus with others, and be ready.

---Pastor Andy

Robot Domination?

Question: I've heard that by the year 2050, the world will be taken over by robots.  What do you think about this supposed prediction?

My Reply: 
In 1949, there was a book written called "1984". In it, it was believed that by the year 1984, we'd be flying to work in jet packs, robots would be in control, a new type of government would be in place, and a whole bunch of other stuff that never happened (except for "Big Brother", which was a pretty close prediction).
Also, if you're a fan of Star Trek, the supposed year when space travel and the Starship Enterprise all began was 2151. But today, we're still collecting rocks from the moon and Mars...far from the proposed technological advancements.
And finally, in the movie "The Terminator", they believed that by the year 2029, Skynet would take over and wage war on humankind.
Of all those, we're probably closer to the Terminator story. But when you look at all the other predictions, to set 2050 as the date it'll all happen, I think is pure (science) fiction.

 ---Pastor Andy

Picture courtesy of...

Noah's Ark and believing in 2012

Question: Why didn’t people listen to Noah when he was building an arc?  Isn’t that like not believing in 2012?

My Reply:

First, 2012 (December 12 or 21, too, correct?) as the end of the world is unbiblical because Jesus said that His return will be like a thief in the night.
Second, many of the predictions for this date were not from God, but other sources. But Satan doesn't even know when the end is, he just knows that his time is short (and yes, time does fly). This gives us the understanding that such, which is not from God, and is therefore from another source, cannot be true for it can only be false information from the liar. If anything, I wouldn't doubt it becoming like another 2K incident: "Wait for it...wait for it....huh, nothing."
Third, the Jehovah's Witnesses and 7th Day Adventists are notorious for falsely prophesying and preparing for the wrong end of the world or rapture dates (I'm actually surprised they haven't jumped on this date yet).

I think if you truly want to understand the situation with Noah and everybody else' disbelief, the movie "Evan Almighty" gives a good point of view.

---Pastor Andy

December 21, 2012 (part 1)

Question: Is it true that the Bible says the world will end in 2012, on December 21?

My Reply:
No, the Bible doesn't say this at all.
Actually, December 21, 2012 comes from the Mayan calendar.  But I have to wonder, if that's a prediction, then why didn't somebody predict the end of their race before that happened?
Nostradamus also predicted a date, something like 2050, but people only tend to look at the few predictions that he got correct (and even those are said to be vague), versus the many more that were wrong, and choose to  believe he's correct with this one.
Jesus said that only the Father knows the date of the world's end.
Satan knows his time is short, but he doesn't know how short.  But you've got to think, if we knew, then Satan would know also...but he doesn't.  No doubt he's just as freaked out about the final date, and has confused people with such predictions in order to gain company in his own anxiety.

---Pastor Andy

Oh, hey! I found an old post from one of my previous blogs (on Xanga) that you may find interesting.