Bible Prophecy and Today: An Urgent Wake-Up Call!

By Ted Bates

Do you remember your elementary school days when your teacher held Show and Tell? In my book Bible Prophecy and Today: An Urgent Wake-Up Call! I take you back to those days. I show you how Bible prophecies written thousands of years ago are being fulfilled today! They are happening right before our eyes! I show you how God's word and today's world tell the same story. We are witnessing many end-times Bible prophecies as they come into full fruition. The Bible is alive! It breathes and is relevant to your life. While dark times and dangerous events are already occurring on our planet, there is still a silver lining in the clouds for those who place their hope in Jesus. I want to inform and counsel you as you travel through stormy troubled waters in order to guide you into the safe-haven of the Lord's secure and everlasting arms. He is what our hearts truly desire, and He said, "Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know" (Jeremiah 33:3). Come and see how Bible prophecies are being fulfilled today and what that means for you. Ted Bates- Author

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645591580

Book preview

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BIBLE PROPHECY and TODAY

AN URGENT WAKE-UP CALL!

Ted Bates

ISBN 978-1-64559-157-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64559-158-0 (Digital)

Copyright © 2019 Ted Bates

All rights reserved

Second Edition

Unless noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version; copyright© 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible copyright© 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

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To those who need to know how much they are loved by the true and living God and that should include everyone, in particular—you, my friend!

I am grateful for my dear and special friend, Reverend Irene Esther Jensen. She helped me with the drawings. Without her and left to myself, I would be grievously impoverished in so many ways.

I also dedicate this book to my brother, Jim, and his wife, Becky, and my wonderful nephews, Ryan and Jason.

This is also in loving memory of our dear parents who have gone home recently, Thomas and Betty Bates.

I also share that the Bible makes it clear that whatever we do, if we have not love, it is vanity.

So let us live the life each of us has been called to in a way that honors and expresses love and gratitude for our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ who said, This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you (John 15:12).

My Journey

Hi! My name is Ted. I have followed Jesus for about forty-three years. I came to the Lord as I seemed to be experiencing a presence that was drawing me to Him. One evening, someone shared the Four Spiritual Laws with me; it is a tract that presents the Gospel in a nutshell that was produced by Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ.

I don’t think I understood all of it, but at the end of what this young man shared, he recited a verse: Behold! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him and he with Me (Revelation 3:20).

I was aware of strange coincidences in my life recently, and I wondered if all of this was being orchestrated by God, if I was hearing Jesus’s voice for myself? Is Jesus knocking at my door? While I did not understand the entire message at the time, that one verse stayed with me.

That night when I was home alone, I prayed, Dear God, I don’t even know if You exist. But if You do and Jesus is the way to You, I will follow Him and worship Him for the rest of my life. Then I went to bed.

The next day, I sat on the grass and leaned against a eucalyptus tree on the Cal Poly Pomona campus and read a book for a Conservation of Natural Resources course I was taking there. The author, Aldo Leopold, cited a verse in the Bible from the book of Isaiah.

I thought, Hmm. My brother just gave me a Bible for Christmas. Perhaps I should read it for myself.

Later that day, I opened to Isaiah in the Old Testament and read the first fifteen chapters or so. I noted some interesting verses: one being Isaiah 11:11–12 where Isaiah prophesied the Jews would be scattered to the four corners of the earth, but then God would regather them and bring them back into their homeland.

I realized Israel recently became a nation for the second time in 1948—shortly after World War II—and the Jews had been dispersed across the globe for almost 2,000 years. Amazingly they have kept their Jewish identity and this verse I read was (and still is) being fulfilled before our eyes today!

There were other verses I noted such as Isaiah 7:14 that predicted the virgin birth of a child called Immanuel; I knew that Jesus was said to be born of a virgin. I did not realize this was prophesied long before Jesus was born.

However, this verse about the Jews returning to their homeland revealed to me that the Bible, that I deemed to be out of date, is as much about the very day in which you and I live as it is about life during distant times in centuries past.

I was taught in high school and college that life is meaningless, we are just accidents that came into being by means of mindless physical processes. I was very depressed during my high school and early college years as I tried to find my identity and the reason for my life—but I could not find what was missing. Yet by the grace of God, I came to Jesus, and I cannot help but have a keen interest in Bible prophecy about the end-times before Jesus returns; after all, they are being fulfilled right now! I am also aware that much of today’s generation is so apathetic and could care less about what is going on in the world, including many Christians—and I am amazed!

However, there are some people, like me, who are seeking purpose and meaning for their lives. In their hearts are the questions: Who am I? Why was I born? What is life all about? Like me they desire to know that their lives matter; that they have reason, purpose, and personal value; that a loving eternal being created them out of His goodwill and for His good pleasure.

In the following chapters, I explore how Bible prophecy and the world of today are aligned with each other. I ask that you consider what I share. In a sense, I want to open the eyes of the blind so others might see what is staring them straight in the face! You may come to know the reason for your life too.

God is not distant. He speaks, and it is my desire for you to hear His voice for yourself and come to Him even as I have. Jesus is my Lord, my Savior, and my greatest friend. If He is not yours already, I pray that He will be. He wants to be.

God’s motive for sending us His Son was His deep abiding love for people like you and me. He takes lost and broken lives, empty and downtrodden people—as I can attest to myself—and gives them hope and purpose, life that is rich and worth living.

No! He does not promise that life on earth will be easy—all sunshine and flower-strewn pathways. However, His calling, fellowship, and indwelling Spirit make for a life that is purposeful and exciting. His main purpose for those of us who follow Him is to conform us to the likeness of His Son, Jesus (Romans 8:28–29).

When Jesus walked among us on the earth, He suffered in many ways. Because He was willing to give His life as the sacrificial atonement for mankind’s sins, we can know that great love God has for each and every one of us who call upon His name. Jesus said, Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends (John 15:13). Then Jesus showed us such love. He took the punishment for all of your sins and mine upon Himself and died upon the cross in our place.

Sometimes in walking with Him, we experience great joy; and sometimes this joy is transformed into hope, trust, and persevering faith when we are under our own times of trials, difficulties, and hard experiences.

Many people think, If there is a God, He must be distant and does not care about people like me. The fact is He cares, knows and loves you, for He formed you in the womb, and He wants you to be His and for Him to be yours. I encourage you to pursue Him.

Let me share a little about how today’s world and God’s written Word (the Bible) are in harmony when they are read with both an understanding mind and a hearing heart.

Bible Prophecy Being Fulfilled Today

Who has heard such a thing?

Who has seen such things?

Shall the earth be made to give

birth in one day?

Or shall a nation be born at once?

For as soon as Zion was in labor,

She gave birth to her children.

—Isaiah 66:8

Some people think the Bible is about ancient times and is not relevant for today. They are wrong. Many Bible prophecies are about the end-times before the return of Jesus Christ. These Bible prophecies are being fulfilled right now!

The Rebirth of Israel

The foremost sign in the Bible that we are living in the end-times is the rebirth of the nation of Israel. Several Old Testament prophets who lived from about 1550 BC to 500 BC prophesied that the nation of Israel would be dispersed worldwide but would then return to their homeland. The southern Hebrew kingdom, Judah, was taken captive one time to Babylon which today is in Iraq. This captivity was for seventy years. Jeremiah prophesied to a stubborn, stiff-necked people (Deuteronomy 9:13) that they were about to be taken captive. In Jeremiah 29:10, we read: For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you and cause you to return to this place.

This is the first time that Israel was taken captive as a nation. (This is Judah—the southern Hebrew kingdom; the northern Hebrew kingdom had already been conquered by the Assyrians.)

Later in Jeremiah 31:8, the same prophet said:

Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the ends of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and the one who labors with child, a great throng shall return there.

Earlier Jeremiah prophesied about a local dispersion to Babylon, but here he prophesied the return of God’s chosen people who would be dispersed from the ends of the earth.

The prophet Isaiah prophesied between 740 and 683 BC, which was well before the first dispersion of the Jews. In Isaiah 11:11–12, he wrote:

It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people who are left, from Assyria and Egypt, from Pathros and Cush, from Elam and Shinar, from Hamath and the islands of the sea. He will set up a banner for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

At this time, the nation of Israel (the southern kingdom, Judah) had not even been taken into captivity to Babylon. However, Isaiah said "a second time". This second time occurred in AD 70 when Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish descendants have been dispersed all across the globe. Then recently on May 14, 1948, the nation of Israel was reborn in one day.

Ezekiel was a prophet who was taken captive to Babylon. While there, he prophesied. There are a variety of places in the book of Ezekiel where he prophesied about the worldwide dispersion and then return of the Jews. This one place I am reading from is Ezekiel 36: 23–25. It reads:

And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

These are just a few places in the Old Testament that proclaim that the Jewish people would be taken into captivity and would be dispersed throughout the earth but then would return to their homeland. Some other places include: Deuteronomy 30:1–6; Ezekiel 37; Amos 9:14–15; Zechariah 10:9. This great miracle has happened and continues to happen before our very eyes! Is not seeing, believing?

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