And the end of the age? Matthew 24:3

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Short Summary
The discourse explores the prophetic significance of the “end of the age,” emphasizing Israel’s restoration as a key sign of Christ’s return, illustrated through biblical symbolism such as the Exodus and the plagues of Egypt. It highlights major world events since the 1870s—including economic depressions, wars, and pandemics—as part of a divine plan leading to the deliverance of Israel and the church, while urging patience, unity in interpretation, and practical preparedness like avoiding debt amid ongoing global turmoil.

Long Summary
Time Management and Introduction
– Speaker named Jim allotted 35 minutes to present, with a 2-minute warning to keep on schedule.
– Topic introduced: the “end of the age,” often translated from Greek as “telos,” but here the Greek word used is syn-telia (συντέλεια), meaning “consummation” or “completion,” implying a purposeful finishing rather than mere termination.

Significance of Syn-telia in Biblical Prophecy
– This consummation involves an accomplished result at Christ’s return, not destruction without gain.
– References suggested for further study: Matthew 13:39 and Mark 13:4.
– Focus on Israel’s restoration as a key sign of the Lord’s return, a sign also used by Brother Russell historically to confirm Christ’s presence.
– Three stages outlined:
1. Development of the priesthood over approximately 2,000 years (still ongoing).
2. Consummation marked by the return of the Jews to Israel, ongoing since the 1870s.
3. Future resurrection and restoration of the world to human perfection, expected to last about 1,000 years.

Caution with Prophetic Dates
– Historically, precise prophetic dates (e.g., 1843, 1844, 1914, 1925, 1954, 1994) have not always yielded expected results exactly as hoped.
– Acknowledgment that prophecy fulfillment timing can be approximate (e.g., 1914 could be plus or minus a few months).
– Encouragement to remain observant and patient with different interpretations, emphasizing humility and willingness to listen.

Exodus as a Prophetic Pattern
– The Exodus story (Exodus 1 to 15:22) is presented as a typology for God’s overall plan.
– Moses, as a leader, parallels Jesus at His first advent.
– The 10 plagues on Egypt symbolize stages in God’s plan:
– First 3 plagues affect both Egyptians and Israelites, representing fall of heathen Rome, Reformation, French Revolution (one possible interpretation).
– Plagues 4 to 10 impact only Egyptians, symbolizing separation of God’s people from worldly influences during Christ’s second presence.
– Israel’s deliverance from Egypt parallels spiritual deliverance and the beginning of Christ’s kingdom.
– The Feast of Unleavened Bread (7 days) corresponds to the church’s journey through trials, including a three-day complete separation from Pharaoh’s influence (symbolizing sin/worldly power).

Major Worldwide Calamities in Biblical History
– First major worldwide calamity: Adam and Eve’s transgression, bringing death to humanity.
– Second: The Flood, truly worldwide except for Noah’s family.
– Subsequent calamities:
– Plague of Athens (5th or 6th century BC)
– Justinian Plague (6th century AD), which contributed to rise of papacy.
– The Black Plague (circa 1348), devastating but not truly worldwide (did not reach Americas, Australia).
– Modern era calamities starting with the Long Depression (1873 onward), considered the first truly global calamity since the Flood.
– Followed by:
– World War I
– The Great Depression
– World War II
– The Cold War
– COVID-19 pandemic (possibly linked to plagues in Revelation)

Israel’s Restoration Linked to World Events
– Long Depression precipitated Ottoman bankruptcy and Jewish resettlement starting 1875.
– WWI led to Ottoman defeat and the Balfour Declaration, supporting a Jewish homeland.
– Great Depression and WWII displaced Jews from Europe, increasing immigration to Palestine.
– Cold War and fall of communism facilitated further Jewish migration.
– COVID-19 pandemic may correspond to the plague of darkness in Egypt (three days of darkness), interpreted as travel restrictions and global lockdowns for about three years.
– Rising anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment in Western countries post-COVID noted, with governments and media often hostile.
– Jews strategically send youth to Israel to rebuild while maintaining financial bases abroad.

Plagues and Their Spiritual Meaning
– Six plagues identified, with the final plague being Armageddon, destroying “firstborn” of Satan’s kingdom (the heirs).
– The church (spiritual Israel) will be delivered and not subject to death in that final judgment.

Impact on Christianity and Religious Institutions
– Long Depression weakened denominational influence.
– WWI ended support for ecclesiastical kingdoms (e.g., Kaiser Wilhelm’s exile).
– The Great Depression shifted theological power from Protestant fundamentalists to liberals.
– WWII weakened liberal theology; evangelicalism regained some ground.
– Post-WWII, Roman Catholic Church was seriously challenged, especially by communist infiltration.
– Pope once remarked that the Church may be fated to die, showing the severity of the crisis.
– COVID-19’s corresponding plague may be the drying up of the Euphrates (Revelation), signaling a coming deep depression possibly bankrupting institutional Christianity.

Scriptural Assurance and Application
– God permits current global chaos and uses it for His purposes.
Psalm 76:10 quoted:
*”Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.”*
– Despite turmoil (starting with Long Depression), God is:
– Restoring Israel to its land.
– Perfecting the church.
– Punishing Babylon (symbolic of corrupt worldly systems).
– Warning against joining anti-Jewish or anti-Israel sentiment.
– Practical advice if a deep depression comes (symbolized by Euphrates drying):
– Get out of debt and remain debt-free.
– Be prepared financially to endure trials without blaming others.

Closing and Prayer
– Prayer offered thanking God for the opportunity to study His word and seeking blessings on the symposium and attendees.
– Encouragement for fellowship and further discussion after the presentation.

—

Key Bible Verses Mentioned or Referenced:

– Matthew 13:39 – reference to the consummation or harvest.
– Mark 13:4 – reference to signs of the end.
– Daniel 12:1 – “time of trouble,” “day of wrath,” “day of vengeance.”
– Psalm 76:10 – “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.”

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Summary:
The discourse explores the biblical concept of the “end of the age” as a purposeful consummation involving Israel’s restoration, the church’s perfection, and the defeat of evil. It uses the Exodus typology and world history calamities to illustrate stages and fulfillment of prophecy. The speaker urges patience in interpreting prophecy timing, warns against anti-Semitism, and advises practical preparation for coming trials, all within the framework of God’s sovereign plan.

Transcript

But, Jim, you have 35 minutes. I’ll signal to you two minutes before, if that’s okay. Just so we go on time. Thank you. That’ll be fine.

So this part is to do with end of the end of the age, as it is translated in King James and many other translations. But we should note that that word for end is not the word telos, the Greek word for just simply termination. But it’s sin, telos, S, Y, N, talia, and the significance of that is that there is something to be accomplished and that will be accomplished. It won’t be simply the.

At Christ’s return, everything is smashed up and nothing is gained from it. But there is something that comes out of it, and we might consider what things come out of it. We can consider it a consummation or a completion. Now, the thought of the centellia is given in Matthew 13:39, Mark 13:4, if someone wants to look at it further. I’m going to choose largely Israel’s restoration as a sign of the Lord’s return, because this is something that Brother Russell could use also as his sign to be confident that the Lord had returned.

It took him a little time to be sure, but there are three stages. First is to develop the priesthood, and that takes 2,000 years. Hasn’t quite finished yet. Second is this. The consummation is the return of the Jews to Israel, which is happening now ever since the 1870s.

And then we look forward after that to. To something that is partly a result of Israel’s restoration, and that’s the resurrection of the world to life and its restoration to human perfection, and that takes another thousand years.

So with that, we’ll go on to the next slide, and here is where I have to make my confessions. When I’m talking about prophetic interpretation, sometimes dates don’t bring us what the Christian expects. Like 1843, then 1844 for the Will Miller movement in this country, 1847 for Joseph Wolf, the missionary to the world, 1925, JFR, 1954, many others, and 1994.

But the exact precision with which we may calculate a particular date just doesn’t justify whatever we expect to happen at that time. Like October 1st of 1914. Well, it happened in 1914, but you can give or take about two months, no problem. Now, although we might be. We might be absolutely sure how prophecy will be fulfilled yet let’s keep our eyes open to see what actually does happen.

Now, there’s some temptation to make most of the prophecies happen right after the church is complete. Maybe in a very short time, and there is an advantage to interpreting what’s going to happen after the church is complete, and that is, no one can ever prove us wrong, because we, the church, will be gone by that time.

Now, if we have been mistaken to some degree before, I have, let us all be patient with someone who has a different interpretation, and I want to listen at least as much as I want to talk.

So significant to us is the overall plan, God’s overall plan, which he has revealed to us many places, many pieces. But I think the one which is really remarkable is the Exodus picture. From Exodus chapter 1 to the second part of chapter 15, verse 22, first we must. It starts when Moses comes to Egypt. That’s in Exodus 4:20.

Moses, the leader of the Lord’s people, corresponds to Jesus, and that’s like Jesus at his first advent, and that’s where the period of the plagues begins. Then there follow 10 plagues on Egypt, and that spans the Gospel age until the last utterly destructive sacrifice of the firstborn of Egypt.

Now we can Notice that the 10 plagues are divided into two sets. First, the first, second and third plagues fall on the Egyptians and the Israelites alike, and at that point, chapter eight, Moses takes the dominant role and the Lord separates between the peoples, the Egyptians and the Israelites, so that from that point on, the plagues fall only upon the Egyptians, and at that point, it’s no longer say unto Aaron, thy brother, do this, do that, do the third thing. But Moses takes the dominant role for plagues four through 10.

The significance of that. Let’s see. First, the first three plagues, that’s the fall of Rome until Christ’s return. If someone wants, okay, we’ll just suggest that it’s the fall of heathen Rome through Constantine, and then the Reformation and then the French Revolution. Someone else may have a different interpretation, but that’s a suggestion.

Plagues 4 to 10, where the peoples are separated, come out of her, my people, that she be not particulars of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues. That would be those plagues happening during Christ’s second presence, and then at that point, Israel leaves Egypt and leaves Pharaoh behind. That would suggest the binding of Satan, that he no longer has influence over them for the next day or two or three, and that would suggest the beginning of Christ’s kingdom.

At that point we have this feast of unleavened bread. It lasts for seven days, three days, completely out from under the influence of Pharaoh until they reach the sea, and then Pharaoh chases after them. The Lord’s people are delivered across the sea and Pharaoh and his hosts are drowned in the sea, and then the last three days, the feast of unleavened bread.

They do what they’re called to do from the very beginning, to go three days journey into the wilderness to serve the Lord their God. So that is the overall picture given to us in the Exodus. Now we’d like to look and see what’s been happening.

Let’s take a look at the major worldwide calamities that have happened since the Garden of Eden. Now in human history, the first major worldwide calamity was when Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit. They lost life not only for themselves, but also for all humanity to follow them. The next truly worldwide calamity since that time was at the time of the flood. Yes, I do believe it was worldwide and it affected all of humanity, save the eight who are on board the ark.

Since that time, there hasn’t been another worldwide truly worldwide calamity for thousands of years. Now there was a major worldwide event that would be Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. But that’s on the plus side as we see here, Christ at his first advent.

There have been other big calamities. There was the plague of Athens and the, I guess that would be 5th century BC, maybe it’s the 6th century BC, and then there was a bigger plague, the Justinian Plague, which led to the establishment of the papacy, and that would be in the 6th century A.D. still bigger, though perhaps seemingly for a shorter time around 13:48 was the black Plague, and hundreds of thousands, maybe, actually perhaps many, many millions died at that time. Yet still it was not a worldwide calamity.

It reached Africa, it reached Asia, which may be where it in fact it started and was devastating to Europe, but it didn’t affect the Americas, as far as we can tell, or Australia or New Zealand and so forth. So the first truly major worldwide calamity since the flood has been the long depression. It started in the 1870s. Now the effect on Israel, you can say it started in 1873 when the Long Depression began, or perhaps 1874. The crops planted in the fall of 1874, that led to a desperately poor harvest in the Balkan Peninsula in 1875 and finally the Ottoman bankruptcy after that.

The next major world event was World War I, less than 40 years after, and then the next was the Great depression, World War II, the Cold War, and now dispose that. Maybe the CO has had something to do with the six of seven plagues. I think we’re getting closer to the end of the harvest. But it’s a consummation also.

Not only the deliverance of fleshly Israel from the world to its land, but also the deliverance of the church from sin and death. So if we consider the major worldwide calamities, one, when Adam was created and Eve, two, the flood, and now we’ve had five or maybe six in a short time. Do you think that something special is happening now? What could we call that? Perhaps the time of trouble, like in Daniel 12:1, the day of wrath, the day of vengeance, the second presence of Christ, the harvest of the Gospel age.

Let’s go further.

Everything that has happened since Christ’s return has contributed one major step towards the restoration of Israel to its land. The long depression from 1873 to the 1890s. It produced in 1875 the Ottoman bankruptcy, and then there’d be 1878, November 3rd, if you want to be precise. Petitva.

The first establishment of the new Jewish community with Jews from Romania and from Jerusalem. Then within a year, Guy only, and then almost every year produced another new Jewish community.

So.

After that, World War I produced the defeat of the Ottomans and then the Balfour Declaration for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Next world event, the Great Depression reduced Nazism. It drove the Jews from Germany. Well, that was good for the population of Jews in Palestine, wasn’t it? World War II drove the Jews not only from Germany, but generally from Central Europe.

Then after World War II, we had the Cold War for a long time, over 40 years, 1945 to 1989. Then the communism of the east, particularly the Russian Communism, drove Jews not only from Russia. There were, I think it was a hundred thousand in just a single year and tens of thousands for years before and after that drove Jews from Eastern Europe.

And what’s been happening since the COVID may be interesting that remember that the corresponding plague in Egypt was a plague of darkness, thick darkness that could be felt and no man could leave his place for three days. That would seem perhaps to suggest that no man was going around freely for three years. There were three years when international travel was highly restricted. 2020, 2021, 2022. There was a brother from South Africa, Israel Ogi, who pointed out fairly early in 2022 that they had relaxed the travel restrictions.

And by later 2022, most of those travel restrictions were abandoned by the West. But we see something else that’s been happening. It’s gotten bad before that, but even worse since the COVID pandemic, and that is the hatred of The Jews in so many of the Western countries, especially governments, hating the Jews, hating Israel. Now, that doesn’t mean the majority of the population, but it certainly means the majority of the population that has seen, whether it’s politicians or the media, Hollywood, whatever, what will it do? It has already started driving some of the Jews from America, more so from Western Europe to increase the population.

Israel is rising. Now, the Jews during all of this time have done wisely that they don’t all leave the Western countries. They send their youth who have the power and the strength to rebuild the country in Israel where they stay behind, continue to earn money and fund their children who are returning to Israel.

Now, if that is plague number six, that leaves only one. That would be the Armageddon plague. Don’t think there’s much question about that. The Egyptian firstborn are damaged, destroyed, killed, slain. That would mean the heirs of Satan’s kingdom are destroyed because there will be no more kingdom for them to inherit.

But Israel’s firstborn are delivered. The church will be complete in the spirit nature, especially in the divine nature. They’re not subject to any of the death that comes about through Armageddon.

I think we have just enough time that we’ll go to another. By the way, anyone who’s interested in these slides is perfectly entitled to them.

We’ll also see something else going on as a result of every major world event in the past 150 years.

When the long depression came, the denominations and when the Lord’s people were called, come out of her, my people. It hurt their ability to resist it. They were preoccupied with their financial problems and they were not able to exert their full influence against those who wanted to come out or were unhappy with what they had. World War I came along and the kings that supported the ecclesiastical systems, the last of them, they were gone.

Kaiser Bill, Kaiser Wilhelm from Germany. He was winding up in the Netherlands. He couldn’t even go back to Germany. Then came the Great Depression and it was the Protestant fundamentalists who were too rigid to be merciful to the people and their problems during the Great Depression, and they lost favor.

That liberals then became in power in all of the major theological schools and seminaries, and fundamentalism was relegated to only the fringes of Protestant thought until World War II. The liberals have been saying that World War I was the war to end all wars, and now we are evolving into a great society. The Great Depression was simply a difficult time en route to that.

But when World War II came, and it was just as bad as World War I, the Liberals had the rug pulled out from under them. The Protestant fundamentals. Fundamentalists made a partial recovery under evangelicalism. Now that takes care of what had been the two Protestant theologies. But now it was the Roman Catholics turn.

They claimed to be built equally on Scripture and tradition. Well, the. We know that they’re not built on Scripture, but when the Russians were infiltrating into all of the Western countries, it was especially against the Roman Catholics that their attention was trained, and as a result, Catholic traditionalism was severely wounded.

And that was quite worldwide, and some of you, and as I do remember it at the time, that the Pope at one point said that the Church seems fated to die. Well, it hasn’t died yet, but it has certainly been given a big setback.

So what will be the effect of COVID What was the revelation plague that corresponded to it? The Egyptian plague was the deep darkness. That was for three days. But the revelation plague seems to add something different, and that is the river Euphrates being dried up. The river Euphrates is the one on which Babylon depended on.

So will that suggest then that there’s a deep depression that results from the COVID problems and that it will bankrupt institutionalized Christianity.

And there will be perhaps one more plague, and we’re only told of seven. So that suggests the Armageddon plague, to which will destroy the nations and their organized religions entirely, so that the sun is darkened, the moon is not seen, nor the stars.

That would be the great theologians and preachers.

They will not be retained. So we’ll go back to the applications for us, Jehovah or Jehovah, God permits then the current chaos and is using it to his purposes.

So might think just a moment about that. Psalms 76, verse 10. Look that up.

Psalms 76, verse 10.

Surely the wrath of men, the wrath of man shall praise thee. The residue of wrath shalt thou restrain.

So how is this happening?

We see a lot of chaos in this time of trouble, starting with the Long Depression 1873, 1874, 1875 era, and it lasted for roughly two decades, and it as to whether slightly more, slightly less than 20 years, depends on which country was recovering.

So we need to look at it that it’s not by accident that we are having five or six major world events that have happened pretty much in our day, a century and a half, that in spite of all the chaos, the Lord is bringing Israel back to the land.

And he is completing his church and he is bring, and he is also punishing Babylon.

So a lesson number two, that we might use for ourselves. We see the anti Jewish bandwagon gaining steam, the anti Israel bandwagon gaining steam, and the lesson for us is to stay off it.

Now if here’s an if, if a deep depression is coming, like the River Euphrates drying up, then there are two pieces of advice. Get out of debt and stay out of debt.

I wouldn’t want somebody in the Kingdom to say I could have gotten through that deep depression if that blankety blank Bible student hadn’t had paid me back my debts.

So that I think is the best advice for us now to do as best we can. Get out of debt and stay out of debt, and so I think my time has expired, and back to you, Brother Michael.

Jim, thank you. Appreciate the thoughts.

I think some good application for us here, and so on the third question, what will be the sign of the age, of the end of the age? But Jim, would you please close with a word of prayer?

Our dear Heavenly Father, hallowed be Thy wonderful and most holy name. We thank Thee for the privilege to gather together to consider Thy word and to harmonize the scriptures on it and the time we live and the things that we’re supposed to do. As a result. We ask these things as we ask for Thy continued blessing on the symposium and everyone present here. We ask in Jesus precious and most worthy name.

Amen.

Amen. Okay, so Jim was kind enough to finish his talk on time. That gives us more time for fellowship. So please feel free to come off camera.

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