[Lurking in Kansas]

...World War II and the following Stalinist regime in the USSR. The amount of carnage in the first half of the 20th century dwarfs anything we're seeing today.

Exactly, he should have lived in Europe from 1939 - 1945, or in Japan in 1945. That would have seem like the "end times".

[brytlea]

You guys are missing one key thing. The return of the nation of Israel to the Middle East. Now, I'm keeping my mind open, and not dwelling on it too much, because we need to be about the Lord's work until the last moment, however, we are also instructed to watch for these things to happen. We cannot know the hour or the day, be we may know the season.
Having said that, I don't honestly know, and that's ok.
susie

[JamesP81]

Exactly, he should have lived in Europe from 1939 - 1945, or in Japan in 1945. That would have seem like the "end times".

I have a personal belief on that. The bible speaks of there being many antichrists and then it speaks of the Antichrist. Considering that satan is not equal with God, and therefore cannot know with perfect foreknowledge how things are going to occur the way God does, here's my idea: satan always has an antichrist, maybe even several. None of these antichrists, however, have succeeded in the fulfilling satan's worldly goals and thus is not the Antichrist, capital A. The enemy does not know which of his pet projects will succeed, so he keeps trying. God already has knowledge of this. I submit to you that Hitler was an antichrist. Look at the man and the things he did. He wanted to conquer the earth (one world government). He hated the Jews. He was charismatic and well liked by his people. In fact, some of the old former nazis still alive would tell you that his personal charisma was so strong that even now, knowing everything they know about him, they'd still do as he asked them to. That amount of power over people sounds otherworldly to me. This little antichrist, however, did not become the lawless one spoken of in the Bible because he was stopped before his evil could be realized.

What's the point of all this? The signs of the end times have always been with us, even from the 1st century AD. Because, frankly, satan has been trying to take Christ off His throne and place his lawless servant as the one master of this world and its people.

With all that said there is, however, one, and exactly one, concrete indicator that we are living fairly close to the end times. Israel is a nation again. Now, that doesn't leave us with a time frame for when the Day of the Lord will come. The only thing promised about Israel being a nation again is that God will not permit them to be destroyed before the Second Coming.

[mel]

I agree, although I grieve when I hear that one or two of our guys have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. (I really grieve over those helicopter crashes where many are killed in one day). At any rate, that is not near the death toll of say D-Day. It would be hard to imagine.