If the horrors of AD 550 were insufficient to herald the Great Tribulation Jesus warned of, what should we be?
looking for? AD 550 was so catastrophic, Christians the world over were convinced Armageddon was starting. Dendrochronology supports the 12 to 18 months of a thick dust cloud that darkened all the skies between Europe and Asia Minor. It blocked sunlight and caused the temperature to drop so crops failed. It stretched as far east as China, where frosts and snow were recorded in the summer. Tree ring data across Europe, Siberia and Mongolia, and as far sough as Argentina and Chile, reflect notable diminished tree growth that lasted more than a decade. Due to crop failures, famine and drought, upwards of 7 out of 10 people were killed in northern China and Scandinavia due to famine or disease. Imagine if anything like that happened today – 7 out of 10 people dying! This dust cloud coincided with ‘the Justinian plague’ which may have been exacerbated by the weakened immunity of the population, caused by malnutrition. The Annals of Ulster [Ireland] record: “A failure of bread in the year 536 DA”. The Annals of Inisfallen also say, “A failure of bread from the years 536-539 AD.” The Byzantine historian Procopius recorded in a 536 AD report on the wars with the Vandals, “During this year, a most dread portent took place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness... and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear.” Michael the Syrian wrote, “The sun became dark and its darkness lasted for one and a half years... Each day it shone for about four hours and still this light was only a feeble shadow... the fruits did not ripen and the wine tasted like sour grapes.” Imagine – the sun being ‘darkened’ for one and a half years!!! Since when has such a sign ever been experienced on Earth? If you had been living in that decade, would you not have been convinced that Luke 21:25 was unfolding? Surely worse events will have to happen before we can claim the Great Tribulation has begun?
Anonymous2013-01-05T00:24:28Z
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The example you give of world disasters, and others provided by Grey Tower, might better be called the signs we are NOT to look for! Every generation since Christ was resurrected seems to have had catalogues of catastrophes which brought tribulation on them. I was amazed at seeing volumes of books printed in the 1800s, claiming that Napoleon's wars were the fulfillment of end-time prophecies, and that calculations about Jesus returning in the 1800s were based on Napoleonic dates. But is that not what Christ warned us would happen?
"Don't let anyone mislead you, for many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Messiah.' They will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don't panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won't follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come." Matthew 24:4-8 NLT
In other words, "Stop looking for earthly disasters; stop listening to people who claim to be me (or my mouthpiece). Realise that world conditions will lurch from bad to worse - but the end is not yet." Even the one sign that seems to be unambiguous - preaching the good news about the Kingdom throughout the whole world - is not clear enough to say, "Now is the time!" Why not? Because only God knows when he will be satisfied that the gospel has, indeed, gone global. We are told that the end will come once the gospel has been sufficiently preached, but we don't know when that point will have been reached (verse 14).
You quoted from Luke 21 and that contains one point that I, personally, would take to be more significant than just general worsening world conditions. Jesus said that when the period of the Gentiles comes to an end, "there will be strange signs in the sun, moon and stars" affecting events on earth (verse 25). Things will be so extraordinary that peoples' hearts will fail them for fear of the things coming upon the earth (verse 26). If the heavenly signs of AD 550 were lesser than what will happen just before Jesus returns, then we may be sure that nobody will ever have seen anything like it before.
What troubles me about any preoccupation with trying to second-guess God's timetable is that this is a detraction from sharing the good news about Jesus with the lost. Explaining to sinners what we believe will happen in the future was NEVER the gospel message. The gospel is not about what God will do in the future - it's what he did in the past, on Calvary's hill and at the empty tomb. Until people grasp just who Jesus is and why he had to die and be resurrected, they will not benefit one whit from wrestling with Bible chronology and end-time predictions. Nobody is going to be saved because they had the right interpretation of end-time prophecies! We can only be saved by bending our knees in Jesus' name! "To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to be children born of God." John 1:12-13
Christians must be devoted to pointing to the empty cross and the empty tomb. It seems foolishness to so many in the world. But if they understood that God, in Christ, did everything necessary to save sinners back in time, their future will be taken care of as repentant sinners trust utterly in the finished work of Christ to be saved.
This means that the answer to your question is not that Christians should be looking for worse events on earth than those of AD 550 (or any other year); they should be engaged in the world-wide proclamation of the good news of the kingdom! They should be pointing people to the risen Saviour, not calculations and explanations about end-times!
The first of the Cursades began in the year 1065 or there about. The black plague started in the year 1348 AD and killed an estimated 30 to 60 percent of the worlds population, but from 1680 AD until 1948 AD more than 300 million people lost their lives, from wars. ending with the most devasting war and single reason for loss of life in all of history, World War II in which an estimated 60 to 120 million people lost their lives in less than 8 years.
The Great Tribulation is only evident in the 6th Seal at the very end of the 6th earth age, which was the age and war where bombs were dropped from the sky as an untimely wind scatters the figleaves from a fig tree.
The Tribulation is only evident in the 5th seal, and is brought on by the birth of Jesus as spoken of in Matt 11:28-29. .
Those horrors were like a dress rehearsal for the real end times. Now there are 7 billion people on this earth and many evils going on all over the world, and it has been escalating at a fast rate. The prophecies are coming true from the Bible also.
You are 100% correct the events then have not been repeated anything like that since and as they were not the teething signs of the end time then we are no where near it now.
I believe we are within 20 years of the end time but as one day is like a 1000 years to the Lord that is only just over 7 million years away, I am worried it is too close.
Luke 21:25, signs in the sun, moon, stars. Revelation 20:4, I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And i saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to live and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 20:5, The rest of the dead did not come to live until the thousand years were ended. this is the first resurrection. 20:6, Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.