There’s a growing sense among believers today that something isn’t right in the world. Chaos, moral breakdown and increasing danger seem to be everywhere we turn. But what if this isn’t just a sign of the times—what if it’s a sign of ‘the’ times?
According to Rabbi Kirt Schneider in his book series, Revelation Decoded, the answers to today’s questions about the end times aren’t just in the New Testament’s book of Revelation—they’re deeply rooted in the Old Testament.
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“There’s so much in the Tanakh and in the words of the ancient Hebrew prophets that speak about the end times that oftentimes we haven’t been taught,” Rabbi Schneider says. For many Christians, the Old Testament feels like ancient history. But Rabbi Schneider insists these Scriptures hold keys to understanding what’s happening in the world right now.
Take Genesis 49:1, where Jacob blesses his sons and says, “Gather yourselves together so that I might tell you what will befall you in the last days.” Right from the beginning, God was revealing the reality of the last days.
Rabbi Schneider’s approach is simple but profound: “I’ll be teaching the book of Revelation… through the eyes of the Hebrew prophets.” By connecting John’s vision in Revelation to the prophecies in the Tanakh, he paints a fuller picture of the end times.
This isn’t a new idea—Jesus Himself spoke about the importance of understanding both the old and the new. In Matthew 13:52, He said, “Every scribe who is discipled for the kingdom of heaven is like a man who is a master of the household who brings out of his treasure new and old things.” Rabbi Schneider reminds us, “Yeshua said, ‘Do not think I’ve come to abolish the law. I’ve come to fulfill it or to fill it full.’”
So why does this matter now? For nearly 1,700 years, from around A.D. 300 to 1948, there was barely a whisper in the church about Jesus’ return. “From the time of Constantine, when he made Christianity the state religion of Rome… we see almost nothing in the writings of the church leaders about Jesus’ return,” Rabbi Schneider notes.
One key prophecy was the return of the Jewish people to their homeland. In Ezekiel 36:24, the Lord says, “I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries and will bring you into your own land.” After the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the Jewish people were scattered across the globe. But in 1948, something miraculous happened: Israel was reborn as a nation in a single day.
Rabbi Schneider points to Isaiah 66:8, which asks, “Who has ever heard of such things? Who has ever seen things like this? Can a country be born in a day, or a nation be brought forth in a moment?” That’s exactly what happened on May 14, 1948. “When Israel was birthed… the stage was set and people began to recognize, those that had eyes to see, that we are now at a place in prophetic history that the stage is set for Yeshua, the Messiah of Israel, to return.”
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James Lasher is staff writer for Charisma Media.
