The Bible is full of many prophecies and predictions about the future that were written by God’s prophets thousands of years ago.—Prophecies that accurately describe world conditions and events that are taking place in our world today. We are now living in the period of time the Bible calls the last days, which refers to the period of human history before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the kingdom He will establish on earth.
The Bible warns us that a powerful one-world government will arise at the very end of the last days, ruled by a dictator known as the Antichrist, who will try to force all the world’s people to worship him. (See 2 Thessalonians 2:2–12.) People who have rejected Jesus Christ will be deceived by this Antichrist and will be given the “mark of the Beast” in their right hand or forehead. Without the Beast’s mark or number, no one will be allowed to buy or sell. The Bible tells us that his number is 666 (Revelation 13:16–18). The Antichrist’s seven-year reign will bring about the worst time of trouble the world has ever known. (See Matthew 24.)
But during this darkest night of world history, the brightest dawn will suddenly occur! For at the end of the Antichrist’s reign, Jesus Christ Himself will return “in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” to rescue His children from the persecution of the Antichrist and his forces (Matthew 24:29–31). All Christians who have already died will then receive immortal resurrection bodies and will rise up from their graves. Those who are still alive on earth will be instantly changed as they receive new eternal bodies too. Then we’ll all rise up into the sky “to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:14–17).
After we are all united in heaven, Christ and His followers will return to earth to defeat the forces of the Antichrist in the supernatural Battle of Armageddon (Revelation 19:11–17). Then Jesus and all of His resurrected children will organize and run the world with truth, justice, and righteousness—the kingdom of God on earth (Revelation 20:4).
After a thousand years of this wonderful reign of Christ on earth, God’s great heavenly city will descend onto the beautiful, re-created new earth where we will all live with Him forever (Revelation 21:1–7). And that is the happy ending.