Are We in the End Times? Biblical Prophecies Involving Israel, Fears of 'Annihilation' and More

Max Lucado has covered a lot of ground over the years as a pastor, author, and Gospel communicator. Most recently, he released a book about the biblical end times titled, “What Happens Next? A Traveler’s Guide Through the End of this Age.”

It’s a subject Lucado felt compelled to tackle.

“I’m getting old, and, so, as I get old, I get curious,” he told CBN News. “I really think I have as many loved ones and friends who have already passed on into the next life as I do … here still on the Earth.”

Lucado continued, “My next birthday will require 70 candles. I don’t know if you can get 70 candles on one cake, and, so, as you get older I think all of us become more fascinated with what is about to happen. Personally, I’m super excited about it.”

Beyond that personal attachment to the subject matter, Lucado said the “condition of the world” and the things happening in Israel, Gaza, Russia, Ukraine, China, Taiwan, and other locations compelled him to action.

“[There is] this sense that the world feels super fragile right now … like we’re one press of a red button away from annihilation,” he said. “There’s just … this angst in the world. So, those two things kind of came together, and I began to take seriously more teaching and study on this topic.”

While the topic of the end times can sometimes spark anxiety and worry, Lucado also addressed why these subjects should usher in peace.

“It has been used to scare people or manipulate people,” Lucado said. “It should not. Jesus, when he wanted to encourage His followers on the night before His crucifixion, He spoke about end times.”

He continued, “[Jesus] said, ‘Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. [In] my Father’s house are many mansions.’ He went on to tell them that He would come and get them, and so He used the promise of His return as a way to lift them out of anxiety and sadness.”

Lucado said Jesus’ return is a “key fixture of Scripture” and that it’s mentioned more than 300 times in the Bible and in nearly every book of the New Testament.

“It’s a dominating, primary theme of Scripture, that Christ will return,” Lucado said. “And it should give us hope. In these days, it feels so dark; it feels so desperate. The promise of the return of Christ, in which the world that’s upside down now will be turned right side up — for some people, it’s the only hope they have.”

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The preacher said his desire is to follow the Apostle Paul’s advice to help others fix their minds on “things above, not things of the Earth.” It’s the promise of Heaven, he said, that should become the focus.

Lucado warned of the dynamics that can sometimes take root when discussing the end times, explaining there is often “one of two extremes” that can unfold. Some find themselves saying the topic is too complex or controversial, and, because people cannot know definitively all the details, some pursue none of the subject.

“That’s to our detriment,” Lucado said. “That’s to our loss.”

But then he pointed out the other extreme.

“The other extreme [is] there’s the person who seems to know everything, or at least they act like they know everything and they love coming across like they’ve cracked the code and know things that no one else can know,” he said.

Ultimately, Lucado stressed the importance of being “smack dab in the middle.”

“That person who says, ‘I cannot know everything, but I want to know everything God wants me to know,'” he said. “‘And so I’m going to read the Scripture, I’m going to pray about it, I’m going to imitate the apostle Paul who said, ‘These present troubles are not worth comparing with the glory that far outweighs them all.'”

Lucado acknowledged the many different views that exist under the end times umbrella today. Some of those views, he said, surround Israel, with the Jewish state remaining central not only to current events but also to theology.

In fact, it’s the role of Israel in the end times that often creates debate.

“For hundreds of years, church fathers and church leaders could not envision Israel being reconstituted as a nation,” Lucado said. “Consequently, many of the prophecies about Israel regarding the reconstitution or repopulation of Israel as a nation were taken allegorically [and] metaphorically. They just couldn’t envision that. Of course, all that changed in May of 1948.”

That’s when the modern state of Israel was created, leaving those who once thought it wouldn’t ever be possible in absolute awe.

“Then, all of a sudden we realized, ‘Wait a second, these prophecies about the return of Israel to the land of Israel, we can take this seriously,'” he said. “I think everything changed when Israel became a nation, and, consequently, our generation is privileged to live in the end of the end times, because Israel is now a nation — and so many of the prophecies — many of the prophecies that could not be fulfilled without Israel as a nation — can be fulfilled.”

Lucado said he personally believes in a pretribulation rapture that will precede a chaotic time on Earth. he said his theology of the end times has changed since he first became a Christian and, in particular, over the past 20 years.

“I was, for many years, what we would call an amillennialist,” he said. “I believed that the teaching in Revelation 20 was symbolic. … I came to change that belief about 20 years ago, as I continued to study, because I found several things in the Scripture that led me to believe there will be a literal 1,000-year reign of Christ on Earth.”

Ultimately, Lucado said he hopes, “What Happens Next? A Traveler’s Guide Through the End of this Age,” inspires readers to more attunely understand God’s love for them.

“I want them to know that nobody believes in them more than God does,” he said. “Satan’s greatest lie is that God is against us; that’s hogwash. God is for us.”

Watch Lucado discuss these issues above.