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HOUSMAIL HM#041 - SIGNS OF THE END OF THE AGE                     28 September 1999
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HOUSMAIL No 40 ended with a promise to say a little more about whether Jesus actually prophesied that earthquakes would be one of the major signs of his coming!

If we read the Olivet Prophecy carefully, we will easily discover that Jesus didn't say anything at all, about INCREASE in either frequency or magnitude of earthquakes!

When he did mention earthquakes (along with wars, and famine, and pestilence) it was to say clearly that these things are NOT SIGNS of the end of the age! "The end is NOT YET ....all this is but the beginning of the birth pains". (Matt 24:7-8) and "This must first take place,but the end will NOT BE AT ONCE." (Luke 21:9)

Recorded history tells us that from earliest times, those things have always been a part of human experience. And just as Jesus predicted, they have continued unabated for nearly 2000 years since the Olivet Prophecy, with the clock still running!

In the last days, it seems likely that it could be things like that which SCOFFERS will use to say "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were since the beginning of creation." (2 Pet 3:4) Of course the scoffers are wrong! But there is no need for us to fuel the fires by quoting Jesus incorrectly.

To recognise the REAL SIGN which Jesus gave, the important thing to notice is that he told Peter, James, John, and Andrew, that they would all be dead long before the end of the age! (Matt 24:9) There was ONLY ONE SIGN amongst all the other things that Jesus said, that has any relevance for them, or for the countless other believers who also sleep with them in the dust of the earth.

For Peter, James, John, and Andrew, THE SIGN OF THE END OF THE AGE is in Matthew 24:31. (It is also mentioned in 1 Cor 15:52 and 1 Thess 4:16)

Some of us are now old enough to believe that it is MOST LIKELY that we also will be dead before Jesus returns. We will EXPERIENCE the sign that Jesus is back, and the end of the age has arrived, and the Age To Come is beginning, when we hear the trumpet which wakes us from the dead! And those who remain alive at that time, will also experience it when they see people alive again, who they know were dead!

WHEN will it be? The Bible doesn't have an answer for that question! All we do have is the statement contained in the last words Jesus spoke to his disciples, just before he was taken up to heaven.

Allon

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