All talk of “signs of the Second Coming” makes me, frankly, nervous. This isn’t because I disbelieve in the Second Coming (I certainly believe in it), and it isn’t because I doubt that the signs spoken of will or do take place (it isn’t difficult to see them happening all around us). It’s because I’m nervous about signs as such. Signs are slippery. There will be earthquakes. There are earthquakes. But there have always been earthquakes. And every age has wondered if its earthquakes are the earthquakes spoken of. There will be wars. There are wars. But there have always been wars. And every age has wondered if its wars are the wars spoken of. And so on. With so much in scripture telling us not to look for signs, it is difficult to make sense of looking for the signs of the Second Coming.

So let me see if I can’t make some sense of that very idea. I’ll try to do so principally by looking at the scriptures—or at least, one scripture in particular—used in this lesson. Read the rest of this entry »