David Jeremiah - The Prophecy Answer Book

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2010 by Dr. David Jeremiah
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Unless otherwise stated, Scripture references are taken from the NEW KING JAMES VERSION. 1982, 1992, by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Other Scripture is taken from HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV). 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.
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The
Prophecy
ANSWER
BOOK

DAVID JEREMIAH

Table of Contents

A ny study of the End Times can create a variety of questions, concerns, and even confusion in our minds. Sometimes it is difficult to see how obscure passages, distant places, and unfamiliar symbols can have any significance for our lives. After all, if we cant understand what the Bible is teaching, how in the world can it have any relevance to what we are experiencing today?

I dont want you to miss the rich truth God has provided for us in the Bible.

To help you understand and appreciate this topic, I have compiled a list of questions and answers to the most frequently asked questions about biblical prophecy. I hope these answers about current events, the Rapture, the Tribulation, the Second Coming, and the new heaven and the new earth will help you live with confidence and hope in a time that is filled with all kinds of uncertainty and trouble.

We must remember that prophecy is important to God and He desires us to understand His plan for the future. There are more than nine hundred prophecies in the Bible concerning the second coming of Jesus Christnearly three times as many compared to His first coming! In the Bible, God has taken great care to communicate this to us in a way we can understand.

Jesus tells us to keep our eyes open so we are not fooled by the signs indicating that the End Times are near. As we get closer to the End Times, many people are going to claim to be the Messiah and claim to have the answers for a troubled world. Additionally, the book of Revelation tells us to expect a period of ceaseless, unending, terrible war. It appears that we are already preparing for this time as fifty percent of all research scientists today are involved in arms development and there is at least one military weapon and four thousand pounds of explosives for every man, woman, and child on earth. Finally, there will be more and more disease and devastation. Today, as you read this, millions of people in the world are being afflicted by insufficient food, the spread of new diseases, and the devastating effects of natural disasters. As we get closer to the End Times, there will be more and more famine. There will also be an increase in earthquakes and natural disasters. Christ also spoke of pestilence: the spread of new diseases. Our world will experience a spate of tragic new diseases that we will be unable to control.

Seeing these signs played out in the newspaper and on television, over the Internet and even in our own lives, can cause despair, anxiety, and confusion. When Jesus tells us to open our eyes, He does so in order to encourage us to gaze upon Himnot because this will cause all of the worlds problems (and ours) to disappear but because He is the Prince of Peace. In the pages that follow, I encourage you to study Gods plan for the future with me as I open the Scriptures. I am confident you will find, as I have, that studying and understanding the events of tomorrow will help you live with confidence and hope today.

Awaiting His return,
David Jeremiah

THE BIBLE HAS PROVEN TO BE

ABSOLUTELY DEPENDABLE. THEREFORE

WE CAN TRUST IT AS THE SOURCE OF

RELIABLE INFORMATION ABOUT THE

MEANING OF THE EVENTS OF OUR DAY

AND WHAT THOSE EVENTS TELL US

ABOUT OUR HOPE FOR THE FUTURE AS

WE LOOK TOWARD THE RETURN OF

CHRIST. THE LORD JESUS HIMSELF

SPOKE OF THE WISDOM OF

DISCERNING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES

AND OF TAKING APPROPRIATE ACTION

AS WE WAIT FOR HI S RETURN

(MATTHEW 24, MARK 13).

Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?

Matthew 24:3

Why is a fledgling country [Israel] with a population of slightly more than seven million and a total land space hardly larger than New Jersey mentioned in the nightly news more than any other nation except the United States and why is Israel important in prophecy?

F or answers we must turn not to the evening news or the front page of the newspaper, but to the Bible.

Israels story begins with Gods sovereign purpose revealed in the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Apparently God finds Abraham and his descendants to be of enormous importance. The very proportion of the coverage tells us something about the importance of Israel. Only two chapters are given to the whole story of creation. One chapter records the fall of man. Eight chapters cover the thousands of years from creation to the time of Abraham. Then we find that fully thirty-eight chapters deal with the life stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacobthe progenitors of the Jewish race.

Israel is important because the fulfillment of Gods covenant with its founder Abraham greatly affects every one of us. The playing out of prophetic events concerning Israel places us in the last days of historys timeline. The miraculous survival of Gods covenant people, the Jews, demonstrates Gods providence and His ability to accomplish His purpose in the face of what seems to human minds impossible odds. The existence of Israel today is exhibit A in the lineup of convincing evidences that the Bibles prophecies concerning the future will be fulfilled. To this day, the issue of who controls Israel, the Promised Land, is the most volatile in international politics.

Do the boundaries of present-day Israel fulfill Gods promise to Israel in the Old Testament?

T he land promised to Abraham covers much more area than what the present nation of Israel occupies. Genesis 15:18 tells us that it stretches all the way from the Mediterranean Sea on the west to the Euphrates River on the east. Ezekiel fixes the northern boundary of Israel at Hamath, one hundred miles north of Damascus (Ezekiel 48:1), and the southern boundary at Kadesh, about one hundred miles south of Jerusalem (v. 48:28).