The End of the Age

The Countdown Has Begun

John Hagee

• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780785237679
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

If you knew sudden destruction would fall upon the earth in the next twenty-four hours, how would you spend your last moments? Join New York Times bestselling author John Hagee as he uses Scripture as a guide to count down the prophetic minutes through the events which must occur before every individual faces God on Judgment Day.

Charting international news events, including recent peace agreements in the Middle East, Hagee synchronizes these headlines with the biblical timeline for the last days, producing a compelling argument that life on Earth is about to expire. What else must take place before the arrival of Judgment Day?

This very timely message discusses:

• The reality of virtual terrorism
• The financial crisis and economic crash
• Opposing views of the Rapture
• Recent peace agreements in the Middle East that impact Israel and a potential Russian invasion
• Nuclear wars
• The purpose of the Tribulation and the Millennium

Significantly updated and revised from its previous publication under the title From Daniel to Doomsday, this is quintessential Hagee on Bible prophecy and End-Times teaching. This insightful book is an ideal resource for Christians who are looking for a guide to what the Bible says about the end times--and how to recognize that they are approaching.

Mark it down: The End of the Age is approaching, but it won't be ushered in by space aliens or catastrophic asteroids. Hagee guides us through the timeline before that fateful moment when every unredeemed individual must face God on Judgment Day.

CHAPTER ONE

11:50 PM

The End of the Age

And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Matthew 28:20

The common proverb “Everything comes to an end” assumes that what has a beginning must logically have a conclusion. From the earliest recorded time, man has intuitively believed that the world will end. The Assyrians foretold the end of the world in 2800 BCE. French physician Nostradamus predicted a coming doomsday in his book Prophecies published in 1555. The belief that the world would be destroyed by flood or fire has been found among the writings of the ancient Persians, the natives of the Pacific islands, and past Nordic cultures. Even the Hopi Indians of the Americas prophesied that ashes would fall from the sky at the world’s death.

Modern man is not immune from speculating about the end of the world. Movies like Independence Day, Outbreak, Deep Impact, and War of the Worlds entertain us with rollercoaster thrills and impressive computer graphics, all the while forcing us to think of the end of days. I ask you—If you knew sudden destruction would fall upon the earth in the next twenty-four hours, how would you spend your last moments?

The characters in Independence Day fought fire with fire—they blasted the threatening aliens out of the sky. The lethal virus in Outbreak was countered with a vaccine, and the people threatened by the asteroid in Deep Impact succeeded in shattering the huge stone with a nuclear device. Sure, people died—but the world was saved. In the 2005 remake of the classic 1953 War of the Worlds, Martians succumb to Earth’s bacteria for which humans have built an immunity.

What else would you expect from Hollywood? Lots of drama, piles of dead bodies, but ultimate victory in the end. In the movies, mankind always wins. But what happens when the entertainment ends? When the rise of weapon-grade plutonium disappears into the world community without a trace? When known enemy-nations begin to test nuclear weapons? When the war with radical Islam expands into global battlegrounds? When China, Russia, and Iran begin to flex their economic and nuclear power? When the COVID-19 pandemic gives rise to worldwide speculation of continued biological warfare?

Who wins then?

My friend, in many ways, the end of the world as we know it is here. It arrived neither with a bang nor a whimper but is occurring in stages clearly set forth in God’s Word. In 1 Thessalonians 5:3, the apostle Paul used the analogy of giving birth to describe the beginning of the end: “For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.”

I’ve never given birth to a child, but my wife has, and from her experience I know that certain signs indicate an impending birth. First, even before labor begins, the mother becomes increasingly uncomfortable as the baby grows larger within her body. There is a feeling of increased pressure as the baby drops lower into the birth canal, preparing itself for birth. Next, the mother experiences twinges and sharp contractions, and finally, after days of false starts and unsettling sensations, labor officially begins. The bag of water surrounding the child breaks, and the mother’s contractions intensify, growing sharper and steadier until the baby passes through the birth canal, leaving his or her safe place of quiet darkness for a world of light and sound.

The analogy of childbirth is a good one, for our world and everyone in it is undergoing a similar experience. Paul, writing in the eighth chapter of Romans, explained that the earth itself waits for the new world to come: “Because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now” (vv. 21–22).

Two features of birth pains are universally true: First, when they begin, there is no stopping them. Second, the pain becomes more intense and more frequent as time passes until the child—in this case, the new era—is born. As the Dispensation of Grace races toward its conclusion, there is no denying that the birth pains have begun.

Notice the pattern of increasing “groans and labors” since the early twentieth century:

• 1914–1918: World War I
• 1929–1939: The stock market crashed causing worldwide economic havoc.
• 1939–1945: World War II
• 1950–1953: The Korean Conflict
• 1953–1962: The Cold War
• 1960–1972: The Vietnam Conflict
• 1990–1991: The Gulf War
• 2000–present: Natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis have exponentially increased in both number and intensity.
• 2001–present: Radical Islamic jihadists crashed planes into the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon, creating a worldwide war on terror that has no end.
• 2020–present: A global pandemic begins to sweep the world, taking the lives of more than 4.4 million souls by August 2021.¹

From the beginning of the last century until today, there is no doubt that rumors of wars, earthquakes, pestilence, and signs in the heavens have increased. The new age is about to be born, but the most severe contractions are just before us.

As of this writing, we are almost a quarter of the way through the twenty-first century, and doomsday scenarios are as abundant as dandelions in an overgrown pasture. Some scientists believe a Yellowstone volcano eruption that will shroud the sun and destroy crops worldwide is long overdue. NASA offers continued reports of devastating asteroids in deep space, potentially headed toward Earth. Seismologists have long predicted the inevitable recurrence of the San Francisco earthquake. Politicians keep the media debates heated with warnings that climate change will render our planet uninhabitable within a few years. These and other doomsday predictions are nothing new.

In the 1890s, one prognosticator predicted that New York City would be abandoned as unfit for human habitation by the 1930s. He correctly projected that the city’s population would grow from four to seven million but then stated that the number of horses necessary to provide transportation for so many people would result in a public health hazard—manure would pile up to the third floor of every window in Manhattan!² A Newsweek editorial written a century later addressed the same subject:

Long before Bill Gates, John D. Rockefeller made the word “monopoly” a household term with the bullying tactics of Standard Oil. A series of financial and industrial mergers in the last years of the century . . . only fueled the public’s fears about the power of big business. [Can anyone say Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Twitter?] The depletion of the Western frontier had Americans concerned about environmental preservation, while the telegraph and automobile were seen as exciting—but ominous—new technologies. Meanwhile, tuberculosis, the 19th-century equivalent of AIDS, continued to baffle physicians and ravage entire towns.³

The article went on to say that doomsayers were in full battle dress, predicting disaster on midnight of December 31, 1899. The New York and Chicago newspapers featured full-page ads announcing the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. A story in the New York Times quoted scientists’ predictions that the sun would eventually go out, leaving the solar system in darkness and the earth an uninhabited ball of ice.

Sound familiar? We’re hearing the same types of stories today. I found a story online by David Nicholson-Lord of London’s Independent newspaper. Nicholson-Lord asked an oddsmaker, William Hill, to formulate odds for various end-of-the-world scenarios. The bookie’s report was fascinating:

Odds that the world will end by natural causes like a “big bang”: 50 million to 1.

Odds that humanity will be wiped out due to overpopulation: 25 million to 1.

Odds that the human race will be wiped out by pollution: 1 million to 1.

Odds that the world will be conquered by aliens: 500,000 to 1.

Odds that life as we know it will be destroyed by climate change: 250,000 to 1.

Odds that humanity will be wiped out by drought: 100,000 to 1.

Odds that the human race will be starved out by famine: 75,000 to 1.

Odds that life as we know it will be snuffed out by anarchy: 50,000 to 1.

Odds that the world will be wiped out by an asteroid: 10,000 to 1.

Odds that humanity will be wiped out by disease: 5,000 to 1.

Odds that humanity will be annihilated by war: 500 to 1.⁴

As I look over William Hill’s list of possible doomsday scenarios, I am struck by the realization that many of the situations on this list will come to pass. The earth will shudder through several calamities before it is reborn. The Word of God describes famines, disease, war, climate changes, earthquakes, drought, and fire from heaven. Who but God could have predicted the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, which brought the world to its knees in less than sixty days—shutting down universal economic engines and taking the lives of millions?

Mark it down: the End of the Age is approaching, but it won’t be ushered in by the advent of space aliens or catastrophic asteroids. It will come like a woman in travail, and each intensifying contraction will signal the earth’s imminent destiny. These birth pains are only the beginning of a series of events unlike anything the world has ever seen. They will precede the final judgment day—when the ungodly must stand before the terrifying Great White Throne and give an account for their lives. The staggering significance of that moment makes all catastrophes seem like insignificant footnotes in the scroll of life.

THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK

Faced with the threatening possibility that mankind’s bent toward evil just might result in total annihilation, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock to remind the world how close we could come to destruction. Eugene Rabinowitch, an American biophysicist and cofounder of the Bulletin said:

The Bulletin’s clock is not a gauge to register the ups and downs of the international power struggle; it is intended to reflect basic changes in the level of continuous danger in which mankind lives in the nuclear age.⁵

In 1947, when the clock first appeared, the hands were set at seven minutes to midnight, with midnight being the moment of ultimate doom. As mankind alternated between hostility and peace in the succeeding years, the hands of the Doomsday Clock have moved back and forth, constantly reminding us that, if left unchecked, nuclear annihilation is only a few moments away.

God has a similar clock; however, its hands never move backward. In designing the layout of this book, I’ve taken a cue from the inventors of the Doomsday Clock. The hands on the clock pictured at the beginning of each chapter do not represent an actual moment, of course, but rather the order in which a predetermined event will come to pass. God’s prophetic timepiece is currently approaching the stroke of midnight when the world as we know it will end.

Even before the creation of man, the Almighty devised a plan that allows free choice, accounts for man’s natural disposition for sin, and provides a means for a loving, compassionate Father to draw wayward men and women back into fellowship with Him. This plan began in the Garden of Eden and will end with the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. The crimson thread of God’s redemptive plan is woven into Holy Scripture from Genesis to Revelation and at times comes together to create prophetic images of astounding clarity and beauty.

Nowhere is God’s prophetic plan more fully illustrated than in the book of Daniel. Here we see, with startling accuracy, how God allows each individual to choose their eternal destiny while future events unfold.

THE PANORAMA OF PROPHECY

During the 1990s, there was much speculation of what the beginning of a new millennium would bring. Was it the end of an age or the dawn of a new one? Prognosticators of all stripes, from Edgar Cayce, Ruth Montgomery, Sun Myung Moon, and even various Christian leaders predicted that the year 2000 would either reveal the Antichrist, initiate the Tribulation, ignite Armageddon, bring about Christ’s Second Coming, or usher in the New Millennium of Revelation.

One such theory involved members of a millennial cult based in Denver called Concern...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Chapter 1—11:50 PM: The End of the Age
• Chapter 2—11:51 PM: Messiah the Prince Enters Jerusalem
• Chapter 3—11:52 PM: And Knowledge Shall Increase
• Chapter 4—11:53 PM: The Great Escape
• Chapter 5—11:54 PM: Russia Invades Israel
• Chapter 6—11:55 PM: The Time of the Tribulation Begins
• Chapter 7—11:56 PM: For Then Shall Come Great Tribulation
• Chapter 8—11:57 PM: Inching Toward Armageddon
• Chapter 9—11:58 PM: The Millennium Dawns
• Chapter 10—11:59 PM: The Earth’s Final Conflict
• Chapter 11—Midnight: The Great White Throne
• Chapter 12—Eternity: Heaven and Earth Reborn
• Notes
• About the Author