From Here to Eternity
By David Brandt Berg
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The Bible and the words of God’s prophets are actually the only real newspapers or news books. Newspapers tell you what already happened yesterday, so they’re not really newspapers; they’re history papers. But the Bible tells us what is going to happen in the future. It is full of detailed prophecies describing specific people, places, times, situations and events thousands of years before they came into being.
Many of these prophecies are about the final period of world history, just before Jesus returns to set up His kingdom of love and peace on earth. These latter days of man’s kingdoms on earth are known in the Bible as the “time of the end,” the “latter days,” the “last days”—the time in which you and I are now living.1
When Jesus’ disciples wanted to know the future and asked Him, “What shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?” He didn’t reply with only one sign, but with dozens. In fact, the Bible gives hundreds of “signs of the times,” signs and signals that we are to look out for so that we can know how close to the very end we are.2
These signs include “famines, pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places,”3 “the gospel being preached in all the world for a witness to all nations,”4 a drastic increase in international travel, with “many running to and fro, wandering from sea to sea, as knowledge is increased.”5 A great “falling away”6 from the faith as “evil men and seducers grow worse and worse, deceiving many”7; “the love of many growing cold,”8 resulting in “distress of nations upon the earth and men’s hearts failing them for fear.”9 We are seeing the fulfillment of many of these signs today more than ever before.
One of the most important and final signs of the very end that the prophets predicted is the rise of a totally godless anti-Christ world government led by a dictator who will be possessed by Satan himself. He will come on the scene with a seven-year agreement or covenant in which he will promise the world peace and religious freedom, and he will somehow settle the current crisis in the Middle East.10
During the first half of the Antichrist’s seven-year covenant, people are going to think that he is wonderful, as he will have brought peace, restored the world’s economy, solved the Middle East crisis, etc. But suddenly, halfway through his seven-year reign, he will break the covenant, invade Israel from the north, and will forbid and abolish all traditional religious worship, declaring that he is God and demanding that all the world worship him.11
At this time he will place an idol, an image of himself, in the Jewish temple area, an “abomination of desolation” which may be some kind of a computerized robot, as it will speak and somehow even cause those who refuse to worship it to be killed. Jesus Himself said that when you see this idol, this abomination of desolation, standing there, then would begin the last three and a half years of man’s rule on earth, a time of “Great Tribulation.”12
During this three-and-a-half-year period people won’t use paper money anymore, because the Antichrist government is going to set up a one-world credit system, and all members of the system who worship this Antichrist will be permanently branded with a credit number in their hands or foreheads. The Antichrist government will use this new credit system to try to force everybody to either worship the Antichrist or starve to death, because no one will be able to buy or sell without this number or “Mark of the Beast.” But God’s children will refuse to worship him or receive his mark, and the Lord will take care of them, even if He has to drop manna from heaven to feed them.13
During this Tribulation period, ten “kings” will join the Antichrist and together they will destroy and “devour with fire Babylon, the great whore.”—A final judgment which, according to many scriptures, sounds like a nuclear first strike that will destroy this modern Babylon in one hour.14
This great atomic war, along with the Antichrist’s worldwide suppression and persecution of all who refuse to worship him, will make this Great Tribulation period a time of trouble such as the world has never known! That’s why God, in His Word, repeatedly tells us how long this period of Great Tribulation will last—exactly three and one half years, or 42 months, or 1260 days from the time that the Antichrist sets up his image in the temple—to encourage His followers to hang on and keep going for Him.15
Because at the end of that last three and a half years, just when the fiendish Antichrist thinks he has the world in his grasp, suddenly like a bolt from the blue, Jesus will return and snatch all of His children out of this world! Just after that darkest night in world history, we are going to have the brightest dawn. Jesus is going to come back and rescue His own, His church, His people, everyone who loves Him and knows Him and has received Him in their hearts.16
All of the Christians who have already died and gone on to be with Jesus will come back with Him to pick up their new resurrection bodies. And “the earth shall cast out her dead.”17 Then those who are alive and remain, having miraculously survived throughout the Antichrist’s reign of terror, will instantly be changed, transformed, and receive new, miraculous, supernatural, resurrection bodies—just like Jesus’ body after He was resurrected! And up we’ll sail toward the sky, “to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”18
All of the Antichrist’s people will be shocked as they see the Lord coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, lighting up the whole sky like permanent lightning! The powers of the heavens are shaken as the Lord descends with a great shout. A terrific blast sounds on the trumpet of God, and the graves of the saints burst open as the dead are raised! All of God’s children who are still alive will be transformed before their eyes, flying upward to meet Jesus. “Every eye shall see Him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him.”19
Jesus will come back to catch His bride, His church, out of the evil clutches of the enemy and then whisk them away to the grandest, most glorious and thrilling wedding party that’s ever been held, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in heaven. Then, right after the Lord rescues and raptures His bride to be with Him, the seven vials of the wrath of God are going to be poured out upon the Antichrist and his followers in terrible plagues such as the world has never known.20
God will pour out His judgments and wrath upon the Antichrist and his forces until the final wrath of all, when the wicked gather together at Armageddon in Israel to try to fight the very forces of God. Then Jesus Himself, along with His resurrected, glorified, heavenly forces, will return to earth on majestic white chargers out of heaven to utterly defeat and destroy the Antichrist and his forces in the supernatural, catastrophic Battle of Armageddon.21
Then the saints of God, along with our king Jesus Christ, will take over the world and organize it and rule it and run it the way it should have been run if man had yielded to God. We’re going to set up the kingdom of God on earth and restore the earth to the beauty of the Garden of Eden again! This amazing period will last for one thousand years, and therefore it is known as the Millennium.22
The Devil will be bound and cast as a prisoner into the bottomless pit for this thousand-year period, and God is going to be supreme and Jesus will reign from shore to shore, and His saints will rule and reign with Him. Then and only then, under the supreme and powerful rule and reign of Christ and God’s children, will all wars finally cease and the world will at last be governed fairly and well with true justice, liberty, peace, plenty, and happiness for all.23
During the Millennium, all the born-again, resurrected saints will be in new supernatural bodies, with miraculous powers such as indestructibility, no pain, sickness, or death. The rest of the people, those who have been spared and blessed enough to survive into the Millennium, are going to still be in their old natural bodies. Everyone on earth will see God’s glorious power and kingdom and everybody will believe then. So there won’t be any unbelievers, but I’m afraid there will still be some unreceivers who won’t yield and won’t obey and will still be stubborn, rebellious, and defiant.24
Therefore, as a final test and a final sifting, at the end of the Millennium Satan is going to be released from his prison in the heart of the earth for a “little season,” just long enough to deceive the unconverted wicked. These rebels will again follow him to the full, in open rebellion against the Lord and His government, resulting in the catastrophic Battle of Gog and Magog in which God sends down fire out of heaven to devour them completely.25
In fact, He will cause such a fire to come down that it will completely wipe out the entire surface of the earth, and the heavens shall be rolled back like a scroll and depart with a great noise! It’s all going to explode and be burned up, and the entire surface of the ball is going to be completely purged, cleansed, burned up, and re-created into a beautiful new earth.26
After this climactic battle of Gog and Magog, the unsaved of all ages will be raised to stand before God Himself in the final judgment in which “the books are opened,” and they will all be given their final sentences according to their works and will be assigned to their final places in the hereafter.27
God’s great heavenly city will then descend from above to the beautiful, re-created, Garden-of-Eden-like new earth. And God Himself will dwell with us right here on earth. It will be like God taking over the world by invading it from outer space, bringing down His heavenly city and restoring Himself as the King of kings forever!
It will be a better world then with better people, who will have learned their lessons of the law of the love of God and will be happier than ever before, because at last they will be purged and purified of their sins of rebellion against Him and healed by the leaves of the trees of life, which we shall minister to them from where they grow by the river of life within the City.28
If you truly want to know the things that will come to pass and if you hunger for the righteousness of God and thirst for His living waters that bring eternal life through His love and the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, you can find the truth in the Bible.29
Prepare for the future today by receiving Jesus now! Simply pray, “Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and forgive me for all my sins. Help me to love and live for You, to hunger for Your truth, to learn Your Word, and to tell others about Your love. In Jesus’ name, amen.” God bless you!
Compiled from the writings of David Brandt Berg, originally published November 1983. Adapted and republished June 2015. Read by Simon Peterson.
1 Daniel 2:28; 8:23; 12:4.
2 See Matthew 24.
3 Matthew 24:7.
4 Matthew 24:14.
5 Daniel 12:4; Amos 8:11–12.
6 2 Thessalonians 2:3.
7 2 Timothy 3:13.
8 Matthew 24:12.
9 Luke 21:25–26.
10 Daniel 8:23–25; 2 Thessalonians 2:1–4; Daniel 9:27.
11 Daniel 9:27; 8:9–12; 11:21–24, 28–31, 36; 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4, 8–9.
12 Daniel 11:31; 12:11; Matthew 24:15–21; Revelation 13:14–15.
13 Revelation 13:16–18; 12:6, 14.
14 Revelation 17:12, 16–17; 18:1–10, 17–19.
15 Matthew 24:21–22; Daniel 7:25; 9:27; 12:7; Revelation 11:2–3; 12:6, 14; 13:5.
16 Matthew 24:29–31.
17 Isaiah 26:19.
18 1 Thessalonians 4:14–17; 1 Corinthians 15:51–57; Philippians 3:21.
19 Matthew 24:27–31; Revelation 1:7 NKJV.
20 Revelation 19:6–9; 14:14–20; 16:11–21.
21 Revelation 19:11–21; 17:14; 16:12–21.
22 Daniel 2:44; 7:18, 26–27; Revelation 20:4.
23 Revelation 20:1–3; Isaiah 2:2–4; Psalm 22:27–28.
24 Habakkuk 2:14; Isaiah 25:7; 29:18–19; 32:1; 40:5.
25 Isaiah 26:9–11; Revelation 20:7–10.
26 2 Peter 3:10–13.
27 Revelation 20:11–15.
28 Revelation 22:1–2.
29 John 5:29; Acts 17:11; Matthew 5:6.
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