Z: The Final Generation

Jesus promised his first disciples, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” (John 16.13)

You might not believe in the concept of absolute truth, preferring to define truth as whatever you choose to believe or ‘what works for you’. But the main point in this verse is that Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would tell his disciples what was going to happen in the future. I believe that if the Bible does tell us when this immediate age will end – and I do say if it does – then the end will almost certainly happen around AD 2030. And I’m pretty sure that I’ll get you to agree with me on that if you keep reading.

My reason for thinking that the Bible leads us to a date around AD 2030 is not based on dubious interpretations of the meanings of symbolic beasts nor on complicated codes assigning numbers to letters, nor even on some of the more traditional signs that the Bible associates with the end times such as wars, earthquakes, or blood-red moons. (For the record, neither volcanic eruptions, earthquakes nor deaths from warfare appear to have increased in frequency during the last 50 or 100 years. They may do so nearer Christ’s return, but at present they do not provide any evidence that he is near.) My principal reason for believing that Christ’s return is near is actually based on some rather simple deductions from what is plainly written in the Bible.

My plan

So here is my plan. According to the Guinness Book of Records the Holy Bible is the best selling book of all time. I hope to persuade you that it tells us, at least in outline, what is going to happen in the years immediately preceding Christ’s return, and that it tells us when all this will take place.

I am not an astrologer, psychic, UFO hunter or mystic, nor am I a member of any religious cult. I am naturally rather rational and sceptical. This means that I don’t readily believe what other people say unless it is supported by convincing evidence based on facts. I am accustomed to dealing with facts, having been engaged in engineering research and development for 20 years. I consider that I have a sound understanding of the Bible, having been a Bible scholar and teacher for a further 20 years. And I have university degrees in both engineering and theology.

Furthermore I am not trying to sell you anything apart from this book, and very few books make a profit for their authors. So I haven’t produced an ‘Armageddon Survival Kit for only US$39’, and I won’t be inviting you to buy a small plot of land on the Pitcairn Islands far away from the coming nuclear war. I have written this book simply because I believe that the Lord wants me to share with you what I believe he has shown me, and to convince you of its truth. He wants you to know what’s coming and to realize how important it is to be ready for it. Then you will not only survive beyond the year 2030 but will live for ever! Yes, I did say that. God has told us what is to come so that you and I will survive and live for ever, in accordance with his original intention when he made the world. If this book helps you to get on board it will make me very, very happy. And I’ll be even happier if you will encourage all your friends to come on board by reading it too!

In this first main chapter I simply want to survey ten world trends that suggest the age we are living in is truly and objectively distinct from any preceding age in history. Something awe-inspiringly significant is coming to a head! So let’s start with the world’s population.

Now what Isaiah said about the young woman was most peculiar. In the first place, to call her son ‘Immanuel’ amounted to blasphemy, because ‘Immanuel’ means ‘God with us’. It was like calling her son ‘God’. And imagine how the little chap would have felt when he went to school and told his teacher what his name was. It’s unthinkable! Secondly Isaiah said that the young woman would name her child. In Hebrew culture that was always the father’s job. In fact, the way that Isaiah put it without any mention of a father suggests to me that he really did mean ‘a virgin shall conceive’ as the Authorized Version translates it, rather than ‘a young woman shall conceive’ as the Revised Standard Version does. In that case the birth of this child really would have been a miraculous sign to convince King Ahaz that Isaiah was telling him the truth about the invading kings.

As you may have realized, although Isaiah was speaking about something that was going to happen almost immediately, his words were an uncanny prediction of the birth of the Lord Jesus, who was indeed conceived by a virgin and was truly ‘God with us’.

So why have I been telling you all this? Because in the book of the prophet Hosea, chapter 6 and verses 1 and 2, Hosea declares, “Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn, that he may heal us; he has stricken, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.” Hosea was encouraging his own nation to come back to a life of obedience to God by telling them that if they did so God would restore their fortunes. But like Isaiah’s prophecy, his words, “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him” sound rather peculiar. Hosea himself must have wondered as he uttered these words, “What am I saying? Are the fortunes of our entire nation to be transformed within two days, i.e. by next Monday? Why is the Lord putting such words into my mouth?” In theory a prophet whose words didn’t come true could be put to death. (Deuteronomy 18.22) Yet Hosea was so certain that his words were from God that he wrote them down, and he kept them written down even though the northern kingdom of Israel whom he was addressing never did return to the Lord and experience revival and restoration. So was Hosea wrong? What was going on?

Peter explained it in his first letter. ‘The prophets… inquired what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things which have now been announced to you by those who preached the good news to you…’ (1 Peter 1.10-12) Ah! So the Spirit of Christ speaking through Hosea was really speaking to us, or at least to Peter and the first generation of Christians. All we have to do then is to insert into Hosea’s words Peter’s ‘key’ that a day is equal to a thousand years, and read them like this: “After two thousand years he will revive us; on the third thousand years he will raise us up, that we may live before him.” Now Hosea was prophesying the forthcoming day when believers in Christ would be raised from the dead, and the subsequent one thousand-year reign of Jesus when they will live before him in his presence. (Revelation 20.4)

So Resurrection Day will be ‘after two thousand years’. The question is, two thousand years after what?