Amplification

By Tom Gilbreath

War, idolatry, sexual perversions, the occult, and people generally behaving monstrously are all biblical signs of the approach of the end of the age. Yet none of those signs is new. Why then do so many consider it reasonable that these could be the times leading up to the Second Coming?

There are many answers, but I’ll focus on only three. I’ll give the two most common answers first — then give a third answer that I rarely hear mentioned. First, the sign that gives meaning to everything else is the 1948 birth of the modern State of Israel. This is the linchpin event of last-days Bible prophecy. Nothing works without Israel.

For instance, the seven-year tribulation is also known in the Bible as “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7) and as the 70th week of Daniel. Jacob is another name for Israel. It will be a time of Israel’s trouble, so the nation of Israel needs to exist. The 70-weeks prophecy begins with the angel saying to Daniel, “Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city” (Daniel 9:24). This clearly refers to the people of Israel and the city of Jerusalem.

The second thing that makes today different is often referred to as “convergence.” Today’s world sees a convergence of almost all the signs the Bible gives for the last days either already happening or set up to happen. The signs now are everywhere. Hal Lindsey told me that prophecy teachers used to scour newspapers in search of signs. Today, if you can find an actual newspaper, tack it to a wall, throw a dart at the page, and you’ll probably find that it has landed on a sign of the end.

After the rebirth of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and the convergence of end-time signs, I would add something else that makes today different: amplification. Technology amplifies actions so that humans don’t have to BE worse in order to DO worse. Here’s an example. Increased levels of deception are a major sign of the end of the age. People 200 years ago may or may not have been as deceptive as people today, but no one in those days had the ways to amplify his or her voice that are available today — in our pockets.

In Luke 21:11, Jesus spoke of “pestilences” as a sign of the end of the age. We got a taste of pestilence with Covid-19, but it hardly compares to the Black Death. That epidemic killed close to half of Europe’s population when it hit in the 14th century. We haven’t seen anything close to that. But today, pestilence hangs over us like no generation before. That’s because technology amplifies the threat. Many labs across the world openly admit to using gain-of-function research. Covid-19 may be an instance of that kind of research breaking free of a lab.

Despite international laws against them, biological weapons are being developed. Such weapons were once used primarily as a deterrent because a contagion released in an enemy country might blow back on the nation that released it. But with today’s understanding of genetics, many biologists believe it is possible to modify a deadly disease so that it attacks people who carry specific genetic characteristics based on the part of the world where most of their ancestors originated. You might call such a weapon race-based — and no race would be safe.

Jesus also said famines would be an end-time sign. Considering the global population, famines today are rare. But the same technology that could allow precision biological attacks against certain people might allow geneticists to attack a single food crop. War has always been destructive, but today’s weapons amplify the destruction. Technology magnifies every human choice. It amplifies humanity’s ability to do good, but also its ability to do harm — taking evil to previously unheard-of levels.

For believers in Jesus, this means, “Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days” (Ephesians 5:16, NLT). It also means, “Look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near” (Luke 21:28, NKJV).