The Book of Revelation describes natural disasters that we have only recently come to know about: coronal mass ejections, global wildfires, asteroid impacts. Could it be that they lie not far in the future? The vision of the four horsemen came to pass in 1870-1945. Nineteen centuries after the Romans drove the Jews from their land, Israel in 1948 was restored to statehood, and Jesus foretold that there would be people alive then who would still be alive when he returned. Revelation refers to the Arab-Israeli wars that in 1967 and 1973 threatened to destroy the new state; also to a time, still in the future, when the country will be conquered. Like the picture on a jigsaw box, John's prophecy enables us, the last generation, to fit the scattered pieces of Old Testament prophecy together (much of it unfulfilled) and look back on what God has been doing through all history, from Creation to the present day. The present age climaxes with the resurrection of Israel's dead and a global earthquake that destroys civilization-our civilization. Unprecedented suffering lies ahead, and we need to be prepared for it. After these things the kingdom will come.
