Are the end times near?

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Baraq said:
Apostasy doesnt justify Apostasy
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OK, maybe instead of saying “justifies”, it is rather that Christian division and scandal on all sides makes it “somewhat understandable” and something to partially “sympathize” with. Again, I don’t think the modern apostasy is fully damnable. I think that only after God heals the sin and division and bring a temporary but great age of peace and religious tranquility, coupled with the full scientific dominion, will man then not have an excuse when they fall away **after **that.
 
Is this the call of our generation, to evangalize as fervently and dedicated as the Apostles did so many centuries ago? What do you think?
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YES!!!
 
I think that Richard Salbato wrote some excellent essays on the End Times. I have agree with him — except that I think the Great Chastisement could be now, that it’s not taking the form of a great war as he proposes, but that God’s allowing us to wallow in the fruit of our filth: pornography, addictions, violations of the Natural Laws, diseases, etc … I take a more Thomasonian view of God’s Wrath.

Anyway, these are good essays. The last is by a different author:

unitypublishing.com/aug24_98.html
“The Chastisement and the Great Monarch” by Rick Salbato.

unitypublishing.com/Newsletter/KingdomTwo.htm
“The War of Two Kingdoms” by Rick Salbato

unitypublishing.com/prophecy/EndOfWorld.wps.htm
“Evidence the World is Near End Times Major Events” by William Pola.

But then again … keep in mind that we will not know the day, nor the hour. Could be tomorrow. Could be a five thousand years from now.

God Bless!
 
I have to laugh about this “End Times” nonsense. What do you think the people were thinking during the holocaust when millions upon millions of jews were being put to death. Or how about all of Europe during World War I and World War II, where hundreds of millions of people were killed, do you think they were talking about the end times then? Probably so just like they are now . I can go on to a Protestant website and this is all they want to talk is the Rapture. I finally did some research on the subject and read Paul Thigpins book titled “The Rapture Trap.” This is a great read especially if you want to debate the subject with Evangelicals or other protestants. The Rapture isn’t even close to being biblical and was bascially invented by a Jesuit Priest in South America a couple of hundred years ago. A pastor in England got a hold of one the Jesuit’s writings on the subject, changed a few details and now we have the Rapture. Over the years there are been various versions of the subject within Churches to where you will have Pre-Trib, Post-Trib versions along with some who believe in a secret rapture. Some enterprising men took this idea and ran with it. They created the “Left Behind Series” of books which aren’t even close to be thological accurate, but must be entertaining. They have sold millions of copies and have became very wealthy in the process. What a joke.
 
The Bible says the gospel must first be preached to all the world before the end would come.

I believe I read somewhere where Joh Paul II said he thought that the new millenmium–bertween 2,000 and 3,000 would be when that would be accomplished.

It’s just a guess but I really think that we’re maybe 200 or 300 years from the end.
 
**Matthew 24:3 – (the apostles ask of Jesus) What shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?

Matthew 24 :36 – But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels but my Father only.-- But as the days of Noe (Noah) were, so shall the coming of the son of man be.

Matthew 16:3 – O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?
Code: 
* signs - Greek: semion - indication; mark or signify; to distinguish persons or events
I Thess. 5:2, 4, 6 – For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night – But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you as a thief. – Therefore let us not sleep (spiritually) as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
Code: 
* watch - Greek: gregoreuo - keep awake; stand alert or watch.
Jesus said no one knows the exact time of his coming. However, we can know the approximate time by the signs he has given us in the corresponding chapters of Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.

**
 
But there have been signs which could have been taken as those pointing to the end times since the time of Christ.

I think the main point in the Bible, is to give us comfort during times of crisis, knowing that God is there waiting for us, he has not abandoned us.
And also telling us to keep the faith, and not fall apostate because we never know when He will come.

Yes all those things will have to happen, but I really don’t think it is profitable for people to sit and worry about it, we should be spending our time living and spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
 
This reminds me of supermarket tabloids, “Bible predicts massive hurricane this year!”

I visualize walking into the kitchen and seeking John and Luke, and Moses and all the boys scribbing away. “What are you boys working on so hard?”

And they look up and say, “A weather report.”😃
 
Again, I don’t fully agree with the typical Catholic response, which is what is being given on this thread. There ARE legitimate questions about the apocalypse, it’s just that because the Fundies mostly ask irrelevant questions, it has created a stigma that pushes other Christians to the opposite extreme, that is, “there are no legitimate apocalyptic questions, because the end for you is your death.” This is only partly true. Admittedly, all of us must place our personal sanctification and that of the immediate persons in our lives first, above all else.

But this does not then mean, “the apoc is completely irrelevant.” The Scriptures themselves speak, as does the CCC, of the revealing of the “mystery of iniquity”, and, no, before some typical person stigmatized interrupts, it is not “the exact date when Christ will return”. It is rather apparently that just before the Second Coming, in the times of the very end, the CC will formally recognize that the irreconcilable apostasy is at hand, and it would seem that to be able to recognize this, the Church must look back on ALL of Salvation history, from Eden to the end, and see the spiritual meaning of human history, to see that God will have given everything He could within His Plan to give to man the full fruits of the Redemption of His Son, which is mediated in its fullness alone through the Catholic Church. But so then to ask what this fullness will be is to precisely examine the various categories of spiritual conditions that exist in humanity and to ponder what will become of them, for this is inseparable from that very question, “What will the fullness of the Catholic redemption be in the Gentiles?” For it is a bare fact that to the degree that spiritual deficiencies exist in humanity, whether through lack of truth, erroneous beliefs, or lack of grace, such deficiencies impede the full attainment of peace in the world. So the real questions that the apoc must somehow address, coupled with the whole of Sacred Tradition, is to ponder what will become these categories: the Muslims, the Orthodox, the Prots, the children of the Enlightenment, as well as the full apostate materialists. This is a pertinent question to ask in modern times, for, as I indicated before, the spiritual deficiencies will have growing implications for humanity.

toward this end, I believe to those to whom it is given, the probe the depths of Sacred Scripture and Tradition, and maybe even at least examine certain of the fully approved Private Revs to ponder what God’s Plan will be.

for there is the reality that how one interprets history depends precisely on one’s religious view. In view of this, if the Church permits the level of historicism in the apoc, I think we need to take a closer look at this level, for if indeed the Scriptures veil the meaning of Salvation history, and in particular the Church Age, then that history will seen from a Catholic viewpoint, and vinidicate Catholicism, and this would be more effective in ecumenism than just staying in preterism, for Church history progresses beyond the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, and the center of that history is the Church, so that negative imagery in the apoc will then mirror opposition to that same Church.
 
Curiouse said:
, the accuracy of the St. Malachi prophecy, Pope Benedict XVI setting off the Muslims, perhaps the end times are near. I’m?
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why lump spurious “prophecies” that have been exposed as a fraud ages ago in with current events? no wonder people are confused about the signs of the times.
 
Really now, people have been saying the end times are near since Christ ascended into Heaven! Every catastrophe brings speculations from pastors who think they know when that time is. Not even Christ does! The Reformation, the Revolutions in France and America, WW1, WW2, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, etc. People just don’t know! Day by day we are closer - sure we are, but so were the Apostles! This is NOT meant to belittle anyone, but only to correct the false teachers:( in different “Christian” circles.

Prayers and petitions,
Alexius:cool:
 
You know I was listning to Scott Hahn last night and he mentioned something in responce to a question about the rapture which coinceded with the end of the world. He said something the effect of God spent thousands and thousands of years preparing the world for his Son, so why would only after 2 thousand years would the end be here. He went on to say that people will look back on today thousands of years from now and laugh just as we do today to others from the past. He went on to say the time we live in IS the end of an era, the era of christendom, and look around…I think he makes a good point. Does anyone else as I do think the earth will continue to go on and on for a few more thousand years, while the church dwindles and dwindles but never ceases, with no persecutions like the romans did but certainly with persecutions (like you getting made fun of for your faith).
 
MCS7474 said:
You know I was listning to Scott Hahn last night and he mentioned something in responce to a question about the rapture which coinceded with the end of the world. He said something the effect of God spent thousands and thousands of years preparing the world for his Son, so why would only after 2 thousand years would the end be here. He went on to say that people will look back on today thousands of years from now and laugh just as we do today to others from the past. He went on to say the time we live in IS the end of an era, the era of christendom, and look around…I think he makes a good point. Does anyone else as I do think the earth will continue to go on and on for a few more thousand years, while the church dwindles and dwindles but never ceases, with no persecutions like the romans did but certainly with persecutions (like you getting made fun of for your faith).
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I’m not really sure that I can at all agree with your hypothesis, not that I think that the end is now, because I think the faith will be restored. I cannot imagine that the late Holy Fathers proclamation of the New Millennium can be based on anything except the hope that all the spiritual darkness of mankind now will be nearly totally resurrected into Catholicism.

if you think this world could continue in general secular apostasy for some 3000 years, you must be a complete idiot about the consequences of sin. It’s not just simply you go to hell for fornicating, contracepting, aborting, and divorcing and remarrying, and being materialistic. There are also PHYSICAL consequences for sin.

When a young person is getting drunk and fornicating in high school on a regular basis, he is having alot of fun. By college, he’s chemically dependent. By the time he’s 48, he’s been several divorces and is in rehab. He looks twice his age? Why do you think the suburbs keep spreading out in L.A.? Hint , it has to do with SIN. When people only live for pleasures and superificial accomplishments, when women are degraded as objects through rampant immorality and abortion, gangs and drugs are the main results. But when basically most people live a totally spiritually depraved life, where will the suburbs be to run to? answer, no where!

If there is not peace between man and wife, family’s are disrupted. If families are disrupted, children are disrupted. If there is not peace in families, there is not peace in communitities. If there is not peace in communities, there is not peace in cities. And since cities provide the primary component of national populatoin, if there is not peace in cities, there is not peace in nations. If there is not peace in nations, how can the world be at peace?

Now, I did not say the end is now. I do not believe we are at the end yet. I conjecture that there we may yet have a great prosperity in this millennium, but let’s get one thing straight, it sure ain’t gonna happen unless Catholicism is restored throughout most of the world. But that’s never going to happen unless Christian unity is restored, because the 36,002 denominations is a scandal and an impediment to the acceptance of the Gospel. Hence, only Christian reunion can bring prosperity to the world. The mystics, based on ETWN research, say it will happen after the current minor apostasy and possible chastisement. That is my hope that the world CAN on much longer.

But If you think the world can continue is general materialistic prosperity with the majority of persons living as though God does not exist, accepting a general norm of fornicatoin, art. birth control, abortion, euthanasia, and a general hedonistic and materialistic mindset, with no regard for religion, I would say that you are seriously deceived.
 
You know I dont see the problem with thinking the world cannot go on like this for a few more thousand years. I mean is there really a differance in the way the world works now and the way the world worked a few thousand years ago? How is this being decieved? The world is full of bad and will continue like this till the end or so, so i dont see the problem with thinking the the world will continue like this. The secularism of the world i think will only grow and grow, of course the church will win in the end, but who knows when and how.
 
MCS,
I have a great deal of respect for Dr Hahn, and feel a few thousand more years is certainly possible. Who can know the mind of the Lord? Is not that day unknown to all creatures? Dr Hahn, as educated in the Westminster Confession of Faith and now a Franciscan theologian, certainly can understand the Soveriegnty of God and is unbent by dispensational heresy.
 
dear MC7474,

I am very sorry for calling you an idiot. Please accept my apology, that was totally uncalled for, and I was wrong. I ask that you please forgive me, I get carried away many times.

It’s just that I get frustrated sometimes.

Again, asking for your mercy,
scott
 
To seek to predict the end through Biblical prophesies is a heresy.
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Amen. It is sad how many sects are convinced God the Father has revealed to them what He has not revealed to God the Son!!!

Sadly many devotees of ‘end times prophecies’ do not understand the Book of Revelation. It is not what they take it to be. Much of Revelation that they are ‘waiting to be iminently fulfilled’ has already occured, having done so, nearly 2000-years ago.

Be grateful, the JW’s are now teaching that ‘the end has been and gone’. We it seems ‘missed it’! Christ is alleged to have came in 1914 [having sneaked back when no one suspected it, and took the elite with Him to wherever He is]!

So it would appear from a JW perspective, we are living in the day after the last day!! One may therefore speculate that there are from a JW perspective ‘days after the last day’. The question to ask therefore is when will be the last day of the days after the last day…the whole thing becomes a nonsence.

Chill out, stick with Mother Church. live and enjoy what God has given us. As Christ commended us ‘worry only about today’!
 
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