500 end times Bible prophecies remain to be fulfilled. You’d therefore expect there to be news, and trends, that anticipate their fulfillment.
That’s why each week we present what we call a Prophecy Update. This is #485 in that series.
Last week I introduced a new technology called CRISPR. It is a genome editing technique. It’s being called, and I quote, “a game changer” in the realm of altering DNA. It allows researchers to quickly change the DNA of nearly any organism – including humans.
It has prophetic significance. Jesus said that the last days would be as the Days of Noah. He described the major characteristic of those days by sayings, “For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark…” (Matthew 24:38).
The one thing Jesus highlighted from the Days of Noah was marriage.
Not just your run-of-the-mill marriage. If you go to Genesis, you can read about the kind of marriage Jesus meant. Genesis 6:1-5 describes fallen angels (called Sons of God) mating with human women to produce offspring called Nephilim, who were, among other things, giants.
It wasn’t so much “marriage” that Jesus was pointing back to as it was these strange offspring. It seems these unions were somehow affecting what it meant to be human at the level of DNA.
CRISPR genome editing is doing exactly that – it is affecting what it means to be human at the level of DNA.
One article I read was titled, Gene Editing: The Next Step In Self-Evolution. One of the researchers using CRISPR, Paul Berg, a genetics pioneer from Stanford, stated bluntly, “We have within our grasp the technology to change evolution. This could change the course of biological life.”
Listen to this excerpt from the article:
CRISPR is so far not following the usual pattern of scientific and technological breakthroughs, which typically take decades or even centuries to perfect, and for society to absorb them.
For instance, it took us thirty or forty years to properly build and learn to use the Internet. Even with genetics, the pace has been one of mostly incremental discoveries over decades, with society very slowly absorbing the basics of the science.
Gene editing, however, is not following the usual, slow-roll-out pattern of most new discoveries. CRISPR is still in its early days, but scientifically is moving at warp speed, playing out in years rather than decades.
A CRISPR frenzy has generated thousands of scientific papers in hundreds of labs around the world.
It has inspired the formation of companies that expect the gene editing market to one day generate billions of dollars.
Last November, doctors began the first human trials in China.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/gene-editing-the-next-step-in-self-evolution
In England, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report found that materials to perform basic genome experiments are now available to what they call ‘garage scientists.’
They are essentially home genome editing kits for do it yourselfers.
This could get out of control very soon.
Just as in the Days of Noah, we are messing with DNA and affecting what it means to be human.
Stories like these are exactly what you’d expect from reading the remaining prophecies in the Bible.
At the same time, we are not looking for any particular prophecy to be fulfilled. Jesus promised He’d return to rapture His church – which entails the resurrection of the dead in Christ of the Church Age, then the translation from earth to Heaven of all living believers.
There are no prophecies needing to be fulfilled prior to the rapture. It is presented in the Bible as an imminent event.
The apostle Paul when he was teaching on the rapture, included himself as thinking it could happen any moment when he said, “we which are alive and remain.”
Are you ready for the rapture? If not, get ready, stay ready, and keep looking up. Ready or not, Jesus is coming!