There are people who teach the prophecies of this time with great confidence, as if they can decode Revelations, and their model fits the text, sort of. And then there are the more common teachers who ignore prophecy altogether, which is probably the greater error.
For the one thing we can learn from the teachings of the end is that the end exists. This world is not eternal. The second teaching is that our ability to predict the timing of the end is akin to those mathematical models that assume a linear or geometric progression without sufficient data.
And that the main teaching is a warning: things will happen a bit like Murphy’s law: at an unexpected moment.
“From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”
We know a few things. That which cannot go on, will not: the bankrupt will become poor, the undefended country is more likely to be conquered (or function as a vassal state: I should know, for I live in one). And none of us know when the end will be.
It is our job to be awake. To not be seduced by the delusions of this time. And to warn: as the shark bell is useless if no one is trusted to ring it only at need, it is also useless if no one is awake.. or all are blinded.
But, again, that which cannot continue will not do so.
