Are We Nearing Armageddon? -HOW WE KNOW WE ARE GETTING NEAR

 When Jesus spoke of the coming "great tribulation," he also foretold some of the evidence that would indicate its approach. On one occasion his disciples asked him what would be the "sign" of the "conclusion of the system of things." (Matthew 24:3) Jesus spoke of a particular generation of people who would begin experiencing problems on a scale never before seen. He foretold for that generation international war, disease, epidemics, food shortages and earthquakes" in one place after another." He called these "a beginning of pangs of stress." So intense would be the difficulties be that there would be great anguish of nations not knowing the way out," with many people becoming "faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited earth. - MATTHEW 24:7, 8, 34; Luke 21:10, 11, 25, 26. 

About 32 years later, the apostle Paul, under the inspiration of God's holy spirit, wrote prophetically about the "conclusion of the system of things," saying: "In the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up with pride."  The prophecy also says that "wicked men and imposters will advance from bad to worse, "showing that after the beginning of the "last days" there would be continued degeneration of human affairs, to be climaxed by the outbreak of the "great tribulation." - 2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5, 13.

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