A respected megachurch pastor addressed the confusion over end times prophecies in his new book by differentiating what the Bible clearly says about topics such as the rapture, the Antichrist, and the millennium rule of Jesus, and what is left to speculation.
Dr. Jim Dixon, senior pastor of the 10,000-member Cherry Hills Community Church in Highlands Ranch, Colo., wrote Last Things Revealed with the aim to help Christians better understand the Bible’s core teachings about the last days, overcome their fears of the end times, grow in their faith, and share the love of God with others in the time they have left on Earth. The book is based on Dixon’s eight-part sermon series called “The Last Things.” Bestselling author and apologist Lee Strobel, who is a member of Cherry Hills Community Church, wrote the foreword to the book.
“I think it is important for every generation to study eschatology, to study the events that are prophesized,” said Dixon, a respected scholar who helped found the Evangelical Presbyterian Church denomination in the 1980s, to The Christian Post on Thursday. “I am not saying that we are the last generation. [But] I think that I would be surprised if Christ doesn’t come back soon. By that I mean perhaps in my lifetime, perhaps in my children’s lifetime, or certainly in my grandchildren’s lifetime.
“I am not trying to set the day or the hour. I’m just saying I think there are many signs that we are in the season of his return.”
Agreed Upon End Times Signs
While scholars disagree on many details about the end times, Dixon said there are signs that most agree upon. Most scholars agree that the Bible clearly says that in the last days there will be apostasy, or false ideas and lives within the Christian community.
Dixon separates apostasy into two forms: doctrinal apostasy, regarding what believers’ think and believe, and moral apostasy, what followers of Jesus do. He cited 2 Timothy 4:3-4, where Paul says, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (TNIV).
“I think we are seeing apostasy in our time in an unprecedented way. I think we are seeing more church leaders leaving orthodoxy,” said Dixon. “I think that is the key sign. I think we see mainline denominations leaving the historic Christian faith. We see Christians questioning the deity of Christ, questioning the meaning of the crucifixion, denying substitutionary atonement. We see Christians questioning the reality of hell and the eternal judgment.”
Another key sign is natural calamity, Dixon said. He pointed to the “amazing” numbers of earthquakes, including the ones in Chile, New Zealand, and most recently Japan, as examples.
The Denver-area pastor noted, “A 9.0 earthquake is seismologically apocalyptic. The largest one ever recorded was in Chile in 1960 and it was 9.5.”
Other end times signs include pestilence and famine. Scientists are now creating genetically-engineered pestilence and there are about 2 billion people who make $1-2 a day and are starving. There are also the signs of moral erosion of Judeo-Christian values in the world and the rebirth of the nation of Israel in 1948 and the return of the Jewish people to their homeland.
“All these things are certainly signs of the time. I think there are many indicators that the return of Christ could be relatively soon,” remarked Dixon.
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