The end is nigh (Image: Getty)
A Christian ministry has made the extraordinary claim that time is ticking down to the apocalypse… and the countdown timer began more than a century ago.
Lamb & Lion Ministries, a non-denominational church based in Texas, USA, has highlighted a number of ‘signs’ it says indicate that humankind is moving towards the end of days.
As per the Texan church, the first tangible indication that the Second Coming of Jesus was on its way came back in 2017, with Britain’s very own Balfour Declaration.
The historic document expressed British backing for a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine, helping set the stage for the creation of Israel in 1948.
The ministry linked the development to Isaiah 11:11–12, which describes God gathering the scattered people of Judah from nations across the world.
The church also connected the dots between the creation of Israel back in 1948, the return of Jewish people to the region, and the country’s capture of East Jerusalem in 1967 went on to fulfil further biblical prophecies.
The organisation also claimed later signs include increasingly destructive natural disasters, wars, disease, social unrest, religious upheaval and technological advancements are all further signs that what was described in the final book of the Bible may be happening to us sooner rather than later.
It specifically suggested computers could give the Antichrist the means to control global commerce, while satellites could enable people around the world to watch events taking place in Jerusalem.
However, the ministry’s claims represent a disputed religious interpretation rather than an established prediction of when, or whether, the world will end.
The argument features in an article titled 50 Reasons We Are in the End Times, published by Lamb & Lion Ministries on its website.
According to the ministry, there was no ‘single, tangible, measurable sign’ of Christ’s imminent return at the start of the 20th century.
Jesus reveals himself to John (Revelation 1), hand-colored woodcut, 1860. (Image: Getty)
Opening of the first 6 seals (Revelation 6), hand-colored woodcut, 1860, when all hell breaks loose (Image: Getty)
That supposedly changed with the Balfour Declaration, which was issued during the final stages of World War I after British forces began taking territory in the Middle East from the Ottoman Empire.
The declaration stated that Britain viewed “with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”, while also saying that nothing should prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities.
The ministry added that prominent British evangelical preacher F B Meyer immediately saw the declaration as having prophetic significance.
Meyer reportedly invited evangelical leaders to London to consider its implications, declaring: “The signs of the times point toward the close of the time of the Gentiles… and the return of Jesus can be expected any moment.”
Days before that December gathering in 1917, British General Edmund Allenby took Jerusalem, ending 400 years or so of Ottoman rule.
The ministry believes those events began the worldwide gathering of Jewish people and eventually resulted in the establishment of Israel on May 14, 1948.
The church then uses Isaiah 66:7–8, which describes a nation being ‘born at once,’ and Ezekiel 37:21–22, where God promises to gather the Israelites from among the nations and return them to their land to further add fuel to its own Revelations-themed fire.
The group also cited Luke 21:24, in which Jesus says Jerusalem will be ‘trampled on by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.’
The ministry interpreted Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem during the Six-Day War in June 1967 as another stage in that prophecy being fulfilled.
Beelzebub is coming (Image: Getty)
None of those passages mentions Britain, the Balfour Declaration or 1917, however.
When discussing signs from nature, the ministry pointed to Luke 21:11, in which Jesus warns of ‘great earthquakes’ as well as famines and pestilences in various places.
It also referred to Matthew 24:8, which describes such events as ‘birth pains.’ The church has interpreted that line as meaning that natural disasters will increase in frequency and intensity as Christ’s return gets closer and closer.
A state of anarchy will also take over, with rising violence, lawlessness, materialism, drug use and despair all on the cards. Spiritual warnings will include false messiahs, religious deception, occultism and the persecution of Christians.
Some of the Christian group’s most chilling of claims concern technology that did not exist when the Bible was written.
Revelation 13 describes a time when nobody can buy or sell without the ‘mark’ of the Beast. The ministry claimed computers and digital financial systems could create the infrastructure needed for the Antichrist to enforce that control.
It also referred to Revelation 11, which says people around the world will gaze upon the bodies of two witnesses killed in Jerusalem.
The ministry argued that what once appeared to be an impossible scenario became conceivable with the development of television, satellites and instantaneous global communication. However, those connections are interpretations, as computers, satellites, and virtual reality are not mentioned in the biblical text.
The ministry ultimately sets out 50 alleged signs, but does not give a date for the Second Coming.
The Bible itself warns against trying to calculate one. In Matthew 24:36, Jesus says that no one knows the day or hour, not even the angels in heaven.
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