From Newsmax By Cathy Burke

The slaughter, persecution, and denigration of Christians in the Middle East and around the globe has a chilling resemblance to Gospel warnings of “signs of the end of the age,” the Rev. Franklin Graham says.

In a post on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association website, the evangelist — the association’s president and CEO — notes “it seems the world is coming apart at the seams.”

“There appears to be no end to the bad news.”

Ticking off some of the most troubled places on earth, Graham notes the “killing of Christians by Muslims from Indonesia to Bangladesh to Pakistan,” China “tearing down church buildings,” “Christians tortured, beheaded, and crucified in Iraq, with villages burned and churches destroyed, and much the same in Syria.”

In the United States, as well, he writes, “there is great opposition to the church of Jesus Christ. We see this throughout the media, the entertainment industry, government, and politics.”

The signs are unmistakable, he writes.

“Jesus warned His disciples in Matthew 24 when they asked Him about the signs of the end of the age,” he writes. “He said there would be wars and rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, and pestilence. He told them, ‘Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.'”

The Ebola virus outbreak is yet another sign, he said.

Graham also heads the charity Samaritan’s Purse, whose workers have cared for victims in Africa.

“We have seen firsthand the pestilence of Ebola,” he writes. “A medical doctor serving with Samaritan’s Purse in Liberia was infected with this deadly virus, but through the prayers of many righteous, God spared his life.

“I don’t know if we have hours, days, months, or years — but as Christians, God calls us to take the truth of the Gospel to the ends of the earth,” he said.

Franklin’s warning isn’t the first time the crisis in the Middle East has prompted speculation that the prophecy of the end of the world was being fulfilled, The Christian Post noted.

But Robert Mulholland, retired professor of New Testament of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky, was skeptical, saying events in Syria are not connected to prophecies of the “end times.”

“In this case, Isaiah was predicting the demise of Damascus at the hands of Assyria in the eighth century” B.C., Mulholland said. “If one wanted to try to make the case for Isaiah 17 predicting the end times, then Iran [the present day successor to Assyria] would be responsible for Damascus’ demise and not its primary ally.”

Image: Rev. Franklin Graham. (Roger Hornback/Getty Images)

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