The entire premise of the This Generation Series is that the post-World War II generation is the group of people prophesied to see dramatic, perhaps climactic world changes. The obvious question is why “this generation” … this group of people?

The starting point for me is Biblical end-times prophecies that all center around the rebirth of Israel as a nation. For close to 2,000 years, Jews and Christians looked for an allegorical interpretation of these prophecies because a literal interpretation seemed beyond belief. But in May of 1948, Israel was born in a day, just as foretold by the prophet Isaiah. Hebrew, a long-dead language, was resurrected as the lingua franca of the new state, just as foretold by the prophet Zephaniah.

The major sign, the nation of Israel, is joined by others predicted in the Bible. The confluence of these signs really builds the case:

• The prophet Daniel describes the end days as a time when knowledge will increase greatly and people will travel rapidly to and fro. Think about it. In the last century, we have gone from horses to jet airliners. For most of mankind’s history, knowledge doubled every hundred years. Now the entire body of human knowledge doubles EVERY year!

• Psalm 83 describes Israel surrounded by a group of neighbors committed to wiping the nation off the face of the earth. While listed by their ancient names, these people groups are pretty easily traced to the Muslim states surrounding Israel today.

• The prophets say the reborn Israel will have a very powerful enemy to its farthest north. This enemy is prophesied to form an alliance with Persia (which changed its name to Iran in the 1900s) that eventually will result in them attacking Israel. The nation to the farthest north of Israel is Russia. If you draw a line due north from Jerusalem, your line will cross Moscow.

• In the book of Revelation, John describes the last days as a time when people will transact business with numbers rather than currency. Until the 1960s, credit cards were a rarity. Now the majority of our transactions are cashless.

• John also describes events that seemed unreal or supernatural to his first century mind. These include images that seem as if they are alive and every person on earth witnessing in real time prophesied events for the Middle East. With the advent of computers, television, and satellite transmissions, these are common-day events.

• John also gives a very vivid description of atomic bombs and the subsequent ecological nightmare. He describes stars falling from the sky, followed by the atmosphere “rolling up on itself like a scroll”, and then followed by a thunderous earthquake. Sounds like a nighttime nuclear detonation, doesn’t it?

So, from a Biblical perspective, the intersection of all these prophecies would indicate a time after Israel becomes a nation with hostile neighbors and Russia as a looming enemy … a time when computers and television exist, when humanity has the potential to ruin the ecology with nuclear weapons, and a time of exponential increase in knowledge and travel. Kind of gets your attention, doesn’t it?

Add to these Christian beliefs the narrative of other cultures all looking to this period of time:

• An increasing percentage of Jews believe that Messiah is about to appear. A few years ago, Yitzhak Kaduri, a famous old Israeli rabbi, left a letter to be read after his death. In this letter, Kaduri maintained the Lord told him the Messiah would come shortly after the death of Ariel Sharon. Prime Minister Sharon died in January 2014.

• Islamic prophecy indicates it is time for the latter day appearance of their messianic figure, the Mahdi. A few years ago, a video from Iran looked at these prophecies and noted that the Mahdi’s appearance is predicted shortly after the death of a king named Abdullah. Some are looking at the recent death of the Saudi king as a fulfillment of that condition.

• Native American Hopi tribes believe we are at the end of an age. They tell us to look to the sky for two signs to signal coming destruction. The first is a blue sign; the second is red. The Hopi prophecies also indicate that our space brothers are due to return in this general timeframe.

• A curious parallel to the Hopi prophecy is the belief held by many that our sun has a twin. Most stars in the sky are not “only children”. Our sun would be normal if it had a twin. With too many reasons to flesh out here, these people believe our sun’s red/brown dwarf twin is entering the part of its 3600-year orbit that brings it closest to the sun. As it approaches, it will look like the red sign predicted by the Hopi. Photos allegedly leaked from observatories in Antarctica show this failed star to have several planets, one of which is believed to correspond with the Hopi blue sign.

• People who studied the Mayan calendar cautioned us not to put too much stock in the belief that some climactic event was destined to occur on its end date of December 21, 2012. They tell us this date was the end of an age, or a cycle, and the beginning of a new one. However, the Mayan belief also indicates that the transition from one age to another often involves devastating earth changes and political turmoil. By their reckoning, we’re in transition now.

• Finally, what’s up with deep underground military bases? There are reports of governments all over the world building and stocking huge underground cities to protect society’s elite from an impending disaster. What do they know that they aren’t sharing with us? How much have these bases cost America? Eighteen trillion dollars, maybe?

So, adding Bible prophecy, the prophesied events of other cultures and some apparently reckless spending from the nations of the world, it looks to me like This Generation is about to see a great shaking.