Not many people know this, introduced the first readers of this blog to the excitement of eschatology. Here’s what I wrote in November 2011:

‘As you may have gathered from my Welcome, I’m into eschatology – the theological study of the destiny and judgement of nations and all people, even angels!  You may know it as ‘The Last Days’ or, more popularly, as ‘End-times’. The origin of this term is in the ancient Hebrew Torah’s description: Acharit Hayamin, ie. ‘Last of the Years’.

‘Let me take you for a very brief visit into one of my favourite classes where Dr Chuck Missler asks his students, ‘”Why Eschatology?‘

“It is very practical”, he answers himself and explains:

“Apparently, we’re being plunged into a period of time about which the Holy Bible says more than any other period – including the time when Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee!

“Now that’s a preposterous statement – and I challenge you to challenge my statement! To do so you need to do two things:

1  Find out what the Bible itself says about this and – this is a bit harder,

2  Find out what’s really going on – but you won’t get that on the ten o’clock news!

“Fortunately, thanks to the internet, the alternative press and to talk-radio you can do some homework and find out what really is going on. The more you do those two things the more you’ll understand why many scholars are extremely excited about the horizon we’re moving into – because it all deals with the return of Christ to rule earth.

“It really is remarkable how controversial this topic is, but there are:

• over 1800 references in the Old Testament to this event – 17 Old Testament books give prominence to the event.
• over 300 references in the New Testament – 216 chapters in 23 of its 27 books give prominence to this primary issue: the return of Jesus to rule on earth.

“You may not believe what the Bible says, but what’s utterly astonishing is that so very many claim to believe in Jesus yet have no grasp of the idea Christ is to literally return and rule!”

‘I respect Chuck for frequently stressing that we shouldn’t take what he says as ‘Gospel’ but always do a ‘Berean check’ per Acts 17:11; that is, to search the scriptures to find out whether or not his ideas line up with them. Also, I admire his public apology for admitting that, having long taught about an anticipated Middle Eastern war from a certain scriptural stance, he’s gained a better understanding from other passages. So Chuck explained why he’d changed his mind.  For more information visit his website at Koinonia House.

‘What are we to do when mainstream news doesn’t help?  To find out, click here…‘

Update:

In a later repeat of this post I noted these few examples from many developments:

• Events indicate the Bible’s relevance for today (30 Aug 2013)
• World leader tells other leaders Bible prophecies are being fulfilled… (8 Oct 2013)
• Billy Graham: “It’s time to take the news…and Bible…and watch (22 Oct 2013)
• Update on the ‘Ezekiel 38 Alliance’ (21 Nov 2013)

Around the date the second anniversary in 2013 a few events took place in connection with Iran about which I posted a brief trilogy, beginning with A weird mix-up resurrects this blog’s ‘Welcome‘.

Yet another two years pass and we see a peculiar kind of repetition that I will write about shortly.

So, within the past four years there has been an increasing number of eschatalogically-related events across the Middle-East that have been noticed by an ever increasing audience. Furthermore, we’ve seen a rapid acceleration in the number and frequency of such events.

A Prophetic Week of 20-plus Unprecedented Events

This weekend in Koenig’s Eye View from the White House (subscription only) William Koenig remarks under the above heading as having seen and posted a year’s worth of news in one-week! That happens once or twice a year but, says he, he’s never observed a week with so many biblically significant events happening within just five days.

He thinks these will play off each other and become even more significant, and cites Monday and Tuesday as a “breathtaking, prophetically significant 48 hours with Iran, Russia, Turkey, Syria, the United States, the EU, France, the UK, Germany, NATO, Israel and the Palestinians in the news.  The final day nations are taking their positions rapidly” (emphasis mine).