[Note: This series covers my chapter from Terry James’ newest book, Discerners: Analyzing Converging Prophetic Signs for the End of Days. Available on Amazon! Start with the first segment.]
#8) Space Science
The eighth sign of technology involves our cutting-edge space science technologies, particularly the International Space Station (ISS), that we utilize in our attempt to explore outer space. The source verse reads, “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations!” (Isaiah 14:12). Other translations of this Isaiah passage render Lucifer’s name as the Morning Star.
During the Tribulation, Satan — the Morning Star — will possess and be worshiped through the Antichrist. Because the earth will face utter annihilation due to God’s 21 judgments as described in Revelation, I’ve often wondered where Satan and the Antichrist would feel safe and able to rule unimpeded, insulated from all the disasters ravaging the planet. As the International Space Station orbits over the earth, it can best be viewed from the ground during the mornings, and looks like a bright star sailing slowly across the heavens. That’s lead the ISS to be nicknamed — the Morning Star. How would one escape a world that is being annihilated, to sit safely from on high, in order to rule over the world? Most likely from high up in orbit.
The eighth sign of technology I consider a tentative sign, though. I have no biblical proof that the Antichrist will rule from up in orbit. But, with the space station costing somewhere between 150 billion and half a trillion dollars, the ISS must have more of a long-term purpose than just seeing how earthworms float.
Today’s space science technologies point to the fact that Jesus Christ is returning soon.
#9) Limitations
The ninth and final sign of technology in this list actually has to do with technology’s limitations. Have you ever considered that our technology has limits? It does!
For one, supplies of rare earth metals are running dangerously low. Did you know that the computer, tablet, and smartphone (that are surely an arm’s length away from you) are made out of rare earth metals? The metals used to make these advanced technologies, those technologies that we’ve become so dependent on, can only be found in certain places, and the supplies are quickly dwindling. Nearly 95% of these metals can only be found in hostile countries such as China and Afghanistan. Unless alternatives can be synthesized, our ability to build laptops, cell phones, TV’s, you name it, is quickly going to disappear. Once the limited amounts of these rare earth metals run out, so will much of today’s technology.
Also, are there limits to how far our technology will take us into outer space? It appears, according to the Bible, not very far. The prophet Zechariah prophesied that ALL the nations of the earth will be gathered against Jerusalem in the last days (Zechariah 12:1-3). Once Jesus returns, He will defeat the armies of the Antichrist gathered against the city of Jerusalem. Once these armies are destroyed, Jesus will then send His angels to collect every single person and gather them together for what’s called the Sheep-Goat Judgment (Matthew 25:31-46).
Since all the remnants of the nations will stand before Jesus Christ and be judged, that means there cannot be people living on space stations, lunar colonies, Martian colonies, extra-earth settlements, or safely tucked away on spaceships traveling beyond our solar system. This gathering of every human being against Jesus at Armageddon, and then again at the Sheep-Goat Judgment, means that humanity will still be confined to the earth. Our optimistic hope of settling outer space will not be happening, at least in this age, according to these limits set in the Bible.
Technology during the Tribulation will have also reached its limit. If four prophesied catastrophic earthquakes shake the world apart, what will happen to all the mountains? They will be leveled. What happens to cell towers during earthquakes? They fall over. What happens when solar flares burn the sky? The radiation destroys the satellites and interferes with communications. What happens when the oceans are filled with blood and dead sea creatures clog the waters? Ships can’t bring oil and goods to port, and so distribution channels are disrupted. I could go on and on with disaster scenarios, but you know that even in the tamest of rainstorms our power companies struggle to keep the lights on. Now, imagine the whole world ravaged by endless natural, manmade, and divine disasters. That’s why I believe that by the end of the Tribulation most of our technology, mankind’s last crutch and our own Tower of Babel, will be rendered useless.
The prophets indicated that by the end of the Tribulation, the survivors will be out fighting with bows and arrows and horses again. Certainly, there must still be tanks and other technological weapons of war that I’m sure the Antichrist will protect. But still, God appears to eliminate much of the world’s technology so that by the end of the Tribulation desperate people are left with nothing to kill each other with but primitive weaponry.
Knowledge, travel, the Mark of the Beast, evangelism, the image of the Antichrist, a great population explosion, nuclear weapons, space science, and now the limitations of our technology — they all today point to the fact that Jesus Christ is returning soon.
In the tenth and last segment of this series on the end times sign of technology, we’ll close by downloading some free App-lications.
Resource
In this book, edited by Terry James and including chapters by Dr. David Reagan and Nathan Jones, eighteen “watchmen on the wall” tackle issues that are critical for this generation of believers to understand. Each contributor examines, under the microscope of Scripture, a specific topic, from anti-God movements within religion and culture to satanic geopolitical rearrangements. This, we believe, will help make understandable the madness taking place in this generation.
Order Discerners: Analyzing Converging Prophetic Signs for the End of Days on Amazon! Available in kindle and paperback.
