Last Days

A new reformation is needed. The first, 500 years ago, was derailed. It did not complete its objective of creating a praying-missional people. This paper is a excerpt of the book, published in 2019, The New Apostolic Epoch: God's Determination to have a Praying Missional People. In it are a new 95 theses for the church to consider, a view of apostolic history, and a call to reformation. This paper is an overview of the book's dominant themes.

A major share of the Reformation and puritan era held to post-millennialism, that only after the majority of the nations convert to Christianity (in the Millennium, Ps. 22:26-31; Isa. 2:2-5; Rev. 20:4; etc.) will Christ come again.

It is sometimes posed as an objection to this that Christ may come back at any time; therefore post-millennialism is not true. Yet most of Church history has recognized from Scripture that there are prophecies which must occur before Christ comes again; hence Christ cannot come at any time.

This article demonstrates from the Scriptures that the Lord’s standing at the door and coming quickly is consistent with a robust postmillennialism.

In this article we will examine Old Testament and New Testament prophecies predicting the concurrence of the rapture with the second advent of Christ. The goal will be to achieve a time sequence understanding of the resurrection of the dead and events mentioned in the tribulation and wrath periods. Thirty-six different second advent passages will be examined with a focus of aligning repeated themes and elements to obtain the prize that awaits completion of this study.

Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya)

Throughout history, human beings have understood the majesty of the mountains and the vastness of the heavens, even through the use of their primitive methods of observation. Though, they mistakenly thought these things would exist forever. This superstitious belief formed the backbone of polytheist and materialist Greek philosophies, and of the deviant religions of Sumer and Egypt.

The Qur'an tells us that those who believe this are in grave error. One of the things that Allah (God) reveals in the Qur'an is that the universe has been created and that it will come to an end. The universe will, as will human beings and all other living things, come to an end. This ordered world, which has functioned perfectly for billions of years, is the work of our Lord, Who created everything, though it will come to a grand end at His command, and at a time that He has determined.

The appointed time when the universe and every creature in it, from microorganisms to human beings, including stars and galaxies, will come to an end, is called the "Hour" in the Qur'an. This "Hour" refers to not just any hour; but is a word used specifically in the Qur'an to refer to that time when the world will come to an end.

Along with the announcement of the end of the world, the Qur'an contains detailed descriptions of the process of that event: "When the sky bursts open," "When the oceans surge into each other," "When the mountains are pulverized," "When the sun is compacted in blackness…" The horror and panic that people will experience at this dreadful calamity is related in detail in the Qur'an; the verses emphasize that there will be no escape and no place to hide. What we can conclude from this that the end of the world will be a catastrophe such as the world has never experienced before. Details of that even may also be found in other books of ours entitled, The Day of Resurrection, Death Resurrection Hell. This present book will treat the events that will happen as the Last Day approaches.

First, it must be stated that it is clear from a number of verses of the Qur'an, that the subject of the inevitable end of the world has excited interest in every period of history. In certain verses, it is related that people had asked the Prophet Muhammad (saas) about when the end of the world would come:

They will ask you about the Hour: when is it due? … (Surat al-A'raf: 187)

They ask you about the Hour: "When will it come?"  (Surat an-Nazi'at: 42)

Allah commanded the Prophet (saas) to answer this question in the following way: "… Knowledge of it rests with my Lord alone..."  (Surat al-A'raf: 187), meaning that only He knows the date of the Hour. Furthermore Allah has revealed in the Qur'an that He will grant this hidden knowledge to those Messengers whom He wills:

He is the Knower of the Unseen, and does not divulge His Unseen to anyone – except a Messenger with whom He is well pleased, and then He posts sentinels before him and behind him.  (Surat al-Jinn: 26-27) Allah has revealed us that He had not kept that knowledge completely out of the reach of humans with the words "I almost keep it from the knowledge of others." (And Allah knows the truth.)

The Hour is coming, I almost keep it from the knowledge of others so that every self can be repaid for its efforts. (Surah Ta-Ha: 15)

Nobody can have knowledge of the Last Hour unless Allah wills otherwise. However, one can make an estimate as to its century based on the hadiths of the Prophet (saas) and signs in the Qur'an, and say, "the Last Hour will come when there are no believers left and disbelief reigns." As a matter of fact, the great ahl al-Sunnah scholars al-Barzanji and as-Suyuti state, based on the hadith of the Prophet (saas), that the life span of the Ummah will not exceed the Islamic year 1500, in other words it will end before Islamic 1600s. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi says, again according to the information given in the hadith, that Muslims will remain on Allah's true path and will be victorious until around Islamic year 1506 with the Last Hour probably taking place in 1545 (2120 according to the Gregorian calendar).

There are many verses that tell of the Hour, and when we examine them we encounter a great truth. The time of the Hour is not indicated in the Qur'an, but those events that will happen prior to it are described. In one verse Allah relates that there are several signs of the Hour:

What are they awaiting but for the Hour to come upon them suddenly? Its Signs have already come. What good will their Reminder be to them when it does arrive?  (Surah Muhammad: 18)