1. Believers need to be able to read the times

Jesus criticised his followers for being able to read the signs of nature yet not being able to recognise the time of His coming (Matt 24).  Although nobody will know the hour or day of Jesus’ second coming, Jesus surely wants us to be able to ‘read’ the times of his coming and to be prepared for it.

In this seminar we tried to understand what forces are working in our world and the events around us in these gripping end-times.  The church needs to understand what is going on and be capable of equipping God’s people for the challenges ahead.

2. Antichrist time – a time of deception

The end-times will be antichrist times.  It will mean an enormous accumulation of the works of the devil, Satan.  The serpent of Genesis 3, which was the most subtle of all beasts of the field, became a great red dragon (Rev 12-13) that swept away a third of the stars of heaven with its tail and threw them to the earth.

In Revelations, Satan – the great dragon, the serpent of old – with the help of the beast coming out of the sea and the beast coming out of the earth, performed great signs which deceived and amazed the world into worshiping the dragon and following the beast.

Jesus (Matt 24) and Paul (2 Thess 2) confirm that there will be a time when Satan’s activities will escalate and be accompanied by signs and wonders, falsehood, deception and wickedness as never before.

3. Some of the things which will be of crucial importance, are:

3.1  Faith in Jesus Christ, God’s Holy Son

In a postmodern and global world, our faith in Jesus Christ will always be severely challenged.  This truth is more than a cognitive fact in our minds, it is a conviction of faith that has become part of our lives and in our daily living.  In a Christian’s daily life God will allow for one’s faith to be tested and pushed to the limit so that: “we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raised the dead” (2 Cor 1:9).   It is thus reasonable to assume that personal hardships may increase during this time.

3.2  Truth – what is right and what is wrong?

We are living in a postmodern world where all truths become relative and the Bible is perceived as a book written by humans only and thus all God’s truths are questioned.  (Keep in mind that this is the time of the greatest deception and you will realise the risk associated with the current world-view of our times.)

In this world, the fear of God, a high regard of the Bible, and obedience to God’s will, are of utmost importance.  Pastors and all Christians must strive to be experts in understanding the Bible.

3.3  Power of the Holy Spirit

In the context of the challenges of the end-times, it becomes important to envisage Paul on his knees before God the Father, praying that Christians be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man (Eph 3:16).  We seriously need to rethink and recapture the power of the Holy Spirit in the personal life of all Christians.

Maybe from a Christian’s perspective, the concept ‘end-times’  is not correct.  The end-times refer to the end of sorrow, pain, sin and Satan.  But for a Christian it is a beginning.   Jesus said that the end-times will only be the birth pains of the new heaven and earth – God’s dream for us over the ages… something marvelous!

Your friend,
Jan Hattingh