Prophecy

I hope you’ve seen the pictures. Three-year-old Aylan washed up on the shore, drowned while escaping. Masses of refugees crowding streets under the shells of bombed out buildings. Inflated rafts spilling over with people fleeing war-torn Syria. The seventy-one suffocated bodies found in a refrigerated truck, all victims of human trafficking. Refugee camps stretched out acre upon acre of makeshift tents.

2 Timothy 3:1 states, “In the last days perilous times shall come.” The word perilous means “difficult to deal with.”

Prophecy is not like angelology—a doctrine that is approached with a tepid response. Prophecy has its strong advocates, but it also has its strong detractors. It appears that there is no middle ground.

Syria’s “Arab Spring” has become much more than an internal political unrest. With other nations taking sides in the conflict, Syria becomes another link between Iran and Russia—a force prophesied to strike against Israel in the last days.

“Is that all?” newly elected Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou asked his budget committee in 2009 during a meeting to find out exactly how much the government was spending. A series of financial scandals led to the ousting of the incumbent party and ushered in a new Greek government—one which would count the money it spent instead of assuming they spent what they had budgeted.