¿WHO HAS HEARD THE END-TIME SIGNS THAT ARE ALREADY OVER US?

 

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to destroy, but to complete.

Because truly I tell you: Heaven and earth will pass before a single iota or tittle of the Law passes, without everything being verified.” (St. Matthew 13; 19)

The book of the Apocalypse is written not for other times but for the present ones, they are revelations of divine character contained in the Divine Revelation that will inexorably be fulfilled as long as God is God.

Our ignorance and sentimentality prevent us from seeing the truth of these eschatological professes and this will be the perdition of many souls who, when it happens, will appeal to the "mercy of God" and will be answered with those words of the rich Epulon: "There you have the Law and the Prophets if they do not pay attention to them, less will they pay attention to a dead person. God willing that this writing will have many eyes and realize the unfortunate course that humanity is taking today and amend their bad life.

Upcoming signs in the world

  1st) Voices or rumors about the next coming of Christ, of which Christ Jesus himself said : “Then if someone tells you: here is the Christ or there, do not believe it; for false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will give great signs and will do wonders, so that they will deceive, if possible, even the very elect. So, if they say to you: Behold, he is in the desert, do not believe it; behold, it is in the precincts, do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the East and appears to the West, so also will the coming of the Son of man be.” (Mt. 24, 23-26; Mk. 21. 22; Lk. 17, 23-24).

2nd) Another sign will be, according to the words of Christ already quoted, the appearance of false Christs and false prophets, who will not be like Mohammed, who did not perform any miracles, but who will perform pretended and apparent prodigies or portents, with which they will induce error and will deceive men. The prodigies and portents are absolutely not part of the miracle as such, they are found within nature or within the preternatural order.

3rd) The spirit of apostasy and irreligion and rebellion that Saint Paul speaks of in his second letter to the Thessalonians (2, 3). Regarding this issue, today this spirit of apostasy is more palpable due not only to free thought but also to the heretical modernism professed by the very hierarchs of the Church. How many have not apostatized from it from 1965 to date? How many have not abandoned the Church thanks to this apostate and atheistic modernism? Only God knows, but no one can deny that we are experiencing a profound crisis of faith.

4th) The coming of the two witnesses who, according to the interpretation of many Holy Fathers, are Elijah and Enoch. The coming of Elijah is expressly predicted in the prophecy of Malachi (4, 5-6): “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of fathers to children and the hearts of children to fathers; lest I come and strike the earth with destruction.” And Christ Jesus himself also predicted the future coming of Elijah (Mt. 17, 11): "Elias will come and restore all things."   Elijah and Enoch, then, will preach to the Jews and to the Gentiles. These two witnesses, according to Saint John, sent by God, will preach and prophesy for one thousand two hundred and sixty days, dressed in sacks:

“And if anyone wishes to harm them, fire comes out of his mouth and devours his enemies. And if someone wants to harm them, it is necessary that he be dead. And these have power to close the sky, so that it does not rain in the days of their prophecy, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague as many times as they wish. And when they have finished their testimony (that is, after the twelve hundred and sixty days), the beast that ascends out of the abyss (that is, the Antichrist) will make war against them and will overcome and kill them, and their bodies will lie in the square of the great city, spiritually called Sodom and Egypt where their Lord was crucified. (It is the city of Jerusalem, but he does not call it that because of its wickedness.) And those of the various peoples and tribes and languages ​​and peoples, will see their bodies three days and a half, and they will not allow their bodies to be placed in graves. And the inhabitants of the earth will rejoice over them and rejoice and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. But after three and a half days the spirit of life from God entered into them and they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them: Come up here, and they went up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies saw them. And at the same time there was a great earthquake throughout the earth, and a tenth of the city fell, and 7,000 men died in the earthquake and the rest, full of fear, gave glory to the God of heaven " And the inhabitants of the earth will rejoice over them and rejoice and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. But after three and a half days the spirit of life from God entered into them and they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them: Come up here, and they went up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies saw them. And at the same time there was a great earthquake throughout the earth, and a tenth of the city fell, and 7,000 men died in the earthquake and the rest, full of fear, gave glory to the God of heaven " And the inhabitants of the earth will rejoice over them and rejoice and send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. But after three and a half days the spirit of life from God entered into them and they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them: Come up here, and they went up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies saw them. And at the same time there was a great earthquake throughout the earth, and a tenth of the city fell, and 7,000 men died in the earthquake and the rest, full of fear, gave glory to the God of heaven " great fear fell on those who saw them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them: Come up here, and they went up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies saw them. And at the same time there was a great earthquake throughout the earth, and a tenth of the city fell, and 7,000 men died in the earthquake and the rest, full of fear, gave glory to the God of heaven " great fear fell on those who saw them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them: Come up here, and they went up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies saw them. And at the same time there was a great earthquake throughout the earth, and a tenth of the city fell, and 7,000 men died in the earthquake and the rest, full of fear, gave glory to the God of heaven "(Rev. 11, 3-13).

5th) In short, another sign will be the Antichrist, so called par excellence, the one that Saint Paul calls a man of sin or rebellion and son of perdition, "he who opposes and rises up against everything that is called God or that is called God ." he adores, to the point of sitting in the temple of God and showing himself and appearing as if he were God; that wicked one, whose coming will be, according to the operation of Satan, with great power and with signs and lying wonders and with all deception of wickedness” (2 Thess. 2, 3-9).

This is the beast that Saint John speaks of in the Apocalypse, chapter thirteen (not that it is to be a beast, but an evil man), the beast to whom the dragon (the devil) gave all his power and his throne and his throne. power and one of its heads as if it were wounded to death, and the wound to death was healed, “and the peoples of all the earth marveled and worshiped the dragon that gave power to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying: ¿Who is like the beast? ¿And who  can fight her? Saint John says that four things were given to the beast, thus allowing God. (The beast that comes out of the sea or world, according to  the interpretation  of the seventies, has the legs of a bear, the belly of a panther or a tiger and the mouth  of a lion and the dragon comes  and gives him his strength. can also be  interpreted as follows: the feet of a bear is Russia, the belly of a panther or tiger is Iran ,  which is typically  Muslim, and finally, the dragon  is China, which has currently formed an alliance)

– He was given the power to act for forty-two months (that is, three and a half years or one thousand two hundred and sixty days, as it is said in other texts).

– Gave him a mouth that speaks great things and blasphemies; "And he broke out in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven."

– He was given, by divine permission, to wage war against the saints and to defeat them.

– Finally, all tribes and peoples and languages ​​and peoples were given power: “and all the inhabitants of the earth worshiped him; all whose names are not written in the book of life of the lamb that was slain from the beginning of the world.”

To this beast, the Antichrist, is added the second beast, the False Prophet, who will be the lieutenant of the Antichrist. Saint John says, then, that he saw another beast that had two horns similar to those of a lamb, but spoke like the dragon:

“And this one exercised the power of the first beast in his presence, and caused the earth and its inhabitants to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he performed great signs, even to the point of causing fire to come down from heaven to earth before men, and with the signs that he performed he deceived the inhabitants of the earth, commanding them to make an image of the beast, which had the wound of death, and lived (the Antichrist). And it was given that he gave spirit to the image of the beast (no doubt by diabolical art) so that the image of the beast could speak. And he will cause any who do not worship the image of the beast to be killed. And he will cause everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to put a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one can buy or sell, but he that has the sign or the name of the beast or the number of his name. And this number is six hundred and sixty-six.” Undoubtedly, this number is symbolic, as the words of St. John suggest (Rev. 13, 12-18).

Such is the character of the Antichrist and the False Prophet and such is the terrible persecution that they will raise against the good ones. Some of these characteristic features of the Antichrist, the blasphemies or words against the Most High, the violating of the saints of the Most High, we also find in Daniel's prophecy about the four beasts (Dan. 7, 23-28). According to this, then, the Antichrist will be a powerful king who will receive the power of the dragon or the devil, by divine permission, who will have the False Prophet as his lieutenant and will reign in all the earth and will be adored by all the inhabitants of it except by God. the elect, those who have their names written in the Lamb's book of life; and therefore he will persecute the saints, but not without punishment from God; for as it is said there: “He who leads others into captivity will himself go into captivity;

 But the Antichrist will not be the only king on earth, since Saint John also speaks of ten other kings who will have power together with the beast, who have the same council and will give their power and authority to the beast (Rev. 17 , 12-13).

Then there will be other calamities and plagues or punishments from God that Saint John describes in chapter 16, and there will also be great wars. Because the ten kings and the beast or the Antichrist, will take and destroy and burn the city of Babylon, metropolis of vice, the great city that has its kingdom over the kings of the earth and with which the kings of the earth have transgressed (Rev. 17), whose ruin and punishment is described in Rev. 18. Finally, the kings and the Antichrist will come together to fight against the Lamb (Christ) and the Lamb will overcome them because He is the Lord of lords and the King of the Kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen and faithful (Rev. 17, 14).

And so, Saint John says that he saw three unclean spirits in the form of frogs that came out of the mouth of the dragon and of the mouth of the beast and of the mouth of the pseudo-prophet, and that they made signs to go to the kings of the earth and of all the world to gather them for the battle of that great day of God Almighty. And he assembled them in the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon (Har Mageddo: “mountain of Megiddo”).

Antichrist and kings and armies are not likely to join together to fight against Christ in his person, since Christ will still be in heaven; but rather to fight against Christ in the person of his servants and followers; which seems to indicate that a nucleus of resistance will have already been formed, of supporters of Christ against the Antichrist. This nucleus will probably have been formed in Jerusalem, perhaps among the Jews converted by Elijah, and this seems to be indicated by the prophet Zechariah, chapters twelve and fourteen, since it says that the Lord will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem, and the city will be taken and destroyed. Their homes will be plundered and half the city will go into captivity. And the Lord will go out and fight with those nations like him in the day of his battle.

 “And his feet will stand on that day on the Mount of Olives, which is opposite Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will split in the middle, to the east and to the west, making a very large valley”; and then he adds: “And it shall come to pass that on that day there will be neither clear nor dark light. It will be a day, which is known to the Lord, which will be neither day nor night; but it will happen that in the evening there will be light.” (Zech. 14, 4; 6-7).

And this is insinuated in Joel's prophecy, chapter 3, where he says that the Lord will gather all nations and will bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, because of his people and Israel, his inheritance. When, then, the Antichrist with his kings and his supporters get together to fight against the Lamb, that is, against the followers of Christ, the converted Jews and their helpers, then Christ himself will come down to defend his own, to conquer and break and overthrow the Antichrist, and then it will be the Parousia.