Are We Living In End Times, Is Bible Prophesy Coming to Pass? Thoughts from Online Christian Counseling Pastor Roland

I believe we may be living in the end times. It is a really big wake up call, and it will separate the wheat from the chaff. If there ever was a time "to get right with God" this is it.
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The Old Testament is full of stories of how God's chosen people turned from God and suffered the consequences. In fact, all you have to do is look around you and you can see countless examples of what happens when we turn from what is right and do things that we know in our heart are not quite right.

I'm sure you have even tried to warn someone you care about when you see them get caught up with the wrong crowd, the wrong person, or when they are starting to use drugs, drink excessively, or toying around with gambling.

You might even see someone who has a nice lifestyle, but whose attitude (resentment, anger, or risk taking for example) will result in everything being lost. You try to warn them. But they won't listen.

Eventually the piper has to be paid and they invite tragedy into their life. Their wrong lifestyle, wrong eating, or wrong attitude result in health, relationship, work, or financial issues that bring suffering on themselves. This is their wake up call.

Is America getting its wake up call? Those who heed the call and wake up, who turn from their aberrant ways and turn to God will be saved.

Another thing. Remember the lessons from the Old Testament. It was not just that they did naughty things. They turned to worship other gods. Are we today guilty of putting our trust and our faith in all manner of helpers, providers, practitioners, and experts. God gave us these helpers to assist us, and it is okay to get their help. But we must be responsible and not to misuse them by looking for them to save us.

Do we look to them to save us? Do we look to them to save us from the symptoms and the consequences of our unwise lifestyle choices? If so, we have turned as a nation from God. And if we turn from God, we become subject to and dependent on and enslaved by those we have given our allegiance and faith to. Moreover, we also become subject to chance instead of Providence.

I'll repeat what I said in a previous article, because it bears repeating.

"I've never been one to cry wolf or play the doomsday card," says Dr. Roland Trujillo PhD who is a pastor and author of 11 books. "But some very obvious events and conditions, or should we say a confluence of obvious events and conditions, are definitely pointing in that direction."

"It is not for us to know the date or the time, but there is a place for prudent watchfulness. We are told to watch, and that is what I am doing.

I'm not saying the sky is falling. When the recent May doomsday prediction of Mr. Camping was in the news, I remained calm and advised people to just go about their life and not be concerned. But having said that, there are some things that should be taken note of--like the elephant in the living room--calling attention to themselves.

Here are some of today's headlines and by- lines
Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from buildings on Tuesday after a 5.8 magnitude quake struck some 90 miles from the nation's capital.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the small town of Mineral, Virginia was was the epicenter of a 5.9 magnitude earthquake earlier this afternoon, making today's quake at least equal in intensity to the State's largest earthquake on record, which occurred in Giles County Virginia in 1897.

"It is impossible not to notice a rare earthquake on the East Coast, the massive flooding of the Midwest, the earthquake that devastated Japan, the spreading radiation from the nuclear reactors, food shortages and talk of famine. We have noted the flooding of New Orleans, the Tsunami in Indonesia, and the earthquake in Haiti.

Some say the growing U.S. and worldwide depression will rival or exceed the Great Depression of the 1930's.

One notices the devastation of Africa through Aids, and some writers and epidemiologists are extending the term epidemic to devastating and increasing conditions such as Autism, diabetes, disability due to mental health issues, Alzheimer's, and cancer.

The state of the economy and the state of our individual and collective health is in trouble, and getting worse with each new shock to the system. With each new piece of bad news, the prior days' or week's, or year's headlines are pushed off the front page. But just because Aids is not on the front page does not mean that its devastation of Africa has gone away. When an earthquake or tsunami somewhere no longer receives coverage, the cholera, the disruption, and the suffering continue.

Pastor, does the Bible make mention of an increase in such such negative contingencies as we are witnessing on an increasingly massive scale today?"

"Yes, in many places. For example, in Matthew 24

And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. 5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. 6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. 10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. 11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. 12And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. 13But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come

"Many of us who are Christians have read these verses or heard these verses many times over the years, but I have to admit that as I read them now, they definitely stand out as if I were reading them with fresh eyes.

Could it be that we are now witnessing the beginning of sorrows? Perhaps so."


"Pastor, you spoke of a confluence of conditions. What did you mean?"

"Two things. First of all, a nation or a people can handle one disaster, maybe two. But when one after another strike--floods, banking crisis, real estate crisis, economic collapse, earthquakes, fires, chronic disease, divorce, cut backs in security nets due to lack of funds, endless wars, returning vets with disabilities, rampant unemployment, massive debt--the resources and the resiliency of the system are taxed to the extreme. This is obvious.

But there is something else that has occurred that is a more subtle but just as devastating--the assaults upon our moral fiber. For example, gambling--whether casinos, internet, sports gambling, and state sponsored lotteries--is just one evidence of societal deterioration. But more importantly, widespread acceptance of and promotion of gambling is palpable evidence of moral decay and evidence of a degradation of character, both of those who partake of the corruption and of those who sponsor, promote or market the vice.

Gangs, drugs, and promiscuity are also evidence of destruction of character. Simply put, the moral person whose character is intact will just not be interested or involved in drugs or gambling.

There has always been an under belly of corruption or back alley vice in society. Someone would be playing craps in an alley somewhere, a certain part of town might have drugs or prostitution, and a certain street might have risque peep shows.

Now the sewer pipe is mainstream, even entering the home through internet and television.

It used to be that the good guys were in charge. You could count on local and corporate businessmen to be God fearing basically decent people who had a line that they would not cross.

They would not put sugar water in the baby formula, questionable additives in the food, nor would they sell, market or use in advertising anything not 100 percent family friendly. Nor would they stand by and sheepishly smile and act like they don't know or care.

Today, you even see elders, once the white haired wise ones, now grown weak minded and characterless, wearing their baseball cap on backwards and chunky jogging shoes, buying lottery tickets and getting on the casino buses. Is it any wonder that brazen and fatuous college students declare that there is no truth ? They are just younger versions of their totally corrupted vacuous leaders and mentors.

As one critic said: "There are consequences to our disregard for maturity." Diana West in her excellent book The Death of the Grown Up puts it this way: “Even as age has been eliminated from the aging process, they have a hunch that society has stamped out more than gray hair, smile lines, and cellulite. What has also disappeared is an appreciation for what goes along with maturity: forbearance and honor, patience and responsibility, perspective and wisdom, sobriety, decorum, and manners—and the wisdom to know what is ‘appropriate,’ and when.”

There is a passage in the Bible, where Paul describes the attitude of many people in the latter days:

"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things.

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

I think that the lack of thankfulness, the arrogance, the immaturity, the selfishness, the indifference, the coldness, the shallowness, the rudeness, and the lack of humility have infected our whole society. No one is sorry anymore, no one wants to admit they are wrong, or to repent.

Like I said, I am not given to prediction, nor do I know what will come. But what I do know is that this nation needs a revival. We need to turn from our wrong way of living and repent.