Living on Borrowed Time Book

Part 1

Dr. Reagan: Greetings in the name of Jesus our Blessed Hope and welcome to Christ in Prophecy. My colleague Nathan Jones and I are going to be discussing my latest book entitled, Living on Borrowed Time, the subtitle is The Imminent Return of Jesus. And that’s what it’s about the return of Jesus. Nathan I am going to turn the program over to you. And I am going to let you put me on the hot seat.

Nathan Jones: I’ve been looking forward to this.

Dr. Reagan: I was afraid of that.

Nathan Jones: Well this is a great book, why did you want to write it? What was the purpose?

Dr. Reagan: Well I tell you it’s a book I’ve wanted to write for a long time because it contains the basic message of this ministry that I have been preaching for 35 years now. And that is that we are living in the seasons of the Lord’s return. I believe that with all my heart. I believe that we could very well be the terminal generation. You know they say that only two things you can’t skip and that’s taxes and death. Well there is going to be a whole generation that will not experience death. And I think we could very well be that generation that will be taken up to meet the Lord in the sky. I believe it with all of my heart and that is why I wrote this book.

Nathan Jones: Amen, amen. Well that’s exciting. Now I notice you broke the book into five different parts. The first one says “Scriptural Principles.” What does that mean?

Dr. Reagan: Well what I tried to do was lay a ground work, a basis for everything else I had to say in the book. And this book is written for the layman. It’s written for the person, it is not written for theologians, it is written for the person who may not know anything about Bible prophecy. And so I had to lay a foundation. So I started off by talking about the promises of Jesus to return. There are many, many prophecies in the Bible, many promises that Jesus would return. In fact I call it, “The Believing in a Rock Solid Guarantee.” And so I do a survey of Old Testament prophecies, New Testament prophecies, promises by Paul, Peter, promises by Jesus Himself, promises by angels and so forth that Jesus is returning. And then I talk about the fact that not only is He returning but the second chapter talks about He is coming to reign for a 1,000 years over this earth to bring peace, righteousness and justice. And that second chapter is important because what most people don’t realize is that the majority of churches on this planet today including the Catholic Church and most Protestant denominations deny that Jesus will ever come back to this earth, put His foot on this earth. That yes He will come but He won’t come to the earth to reign for a 1,000 years. They are what we call Amillennialists they don’t believe in a Millennial Reign of Jesus. And the only way you can get around that is to spiritualize the Scripture. And then what I do is I move from there into talking about why I believe that we are living in the season of the Lord’s return.

Nathan Jones: Now you say season, someone wrote in once and asked us, “You are always talking about season. Is that fall, or spring?” What do you mean when you say season?

Dr. Reagan: Well it’s not fall, spring or summer, no that’s not what it’s about. When I talk about the season of the Lord’s return I am talking about the fact that first of all the Bible clearly teaches that we cannot know the date of the Lord’s return.

Nathan Jones: Yes.

Dr. Reagan: There’s a lot of very deceived people who think they know the date. And there has been a lot of date setters and we are going to see more date setting as we get closer to the coming of the Lord because Satan wants to discredit Bible prophecy. He doesn’t want anybody listening to it. So he encourages people to set dates and then when the dates come and pass people get upset and they get disillusioned with the Bible and with Bible prophecy. And then when a responsible Bible prophecy teacher comes along like yourself and says, “Ok, I don’t know the date but I know we are living in the season.” They say, “Yeah, yeah we’ve heard that before.” But we’re not talking about a date here, we’re talking about a season. We are talking about the general time period of the Lord’s return. And so I have quite a bit of information in here about that. I talk about the fact that we can know that we are in the season of the Lord’s return. And we can know that because there are signs that we are given to watch for. And what I do is I present an overview of those. As you know it’s very difficult to get a handle on the signs there are so many of them. For example there are signs in both the Old Testament and New, there are over 500 of them in the Old Testament and 1 out of every 25 verses in the New Testament has to do with signs. So what I did years ago as I decided the way to get a handle on them was to put them into categories. So that’s what I’ve done in this book. In my overview I present the categories, like the signs of nature, which are probably the least respected of all the signs because people don’t believe God speaks through nature anymore. And I try to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that He does, He always has, He hasn’t changed and He still speaks through signs of nature. Like Hurricane Katrina, or something of that nature. Then I talk about the signs of society. The signs of society; the Bible says that in the end times society will become like it was in the days of Noah, immorality and violence. So I talk about how society is decaying today, and that this is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. In fact as you well know Paul gave a very detailed description of what society would be like in the end times in 2 Timothy 3 where it said, “It will be perilous times,” and he describes it in detail. Then I go to the spiritual signs, and I point out that there are more spiritual signs then there are any other signs, both negative and positive. That’s why there’s so many. The negative signs are very, very negative. They are things like apostasy, and heresy, and demonic influence, and persecution of Christians, and it just goes on and on. But there are some very positive ones. And the most positive one is the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. There was a great pouring out of the Holy Spirit when the Church began. And the Bible always says there is going to be another great outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the end times.

Nathan Jones: Praise the Lord.

Dr. Reagan: And I believe we are in that right now. In fact in Joel 2 it says that final outpouring of the Holy Spirit is going to occur when Israel is back in the land. Well they are back in the land; re-established in 1948 and so we are in that great out pouring of the Holy Spirit. I think the tremendous ministry of Billy Graham was an example of that out pouring of the Holy Spirit. The understanding of Bible prophecy is part of that. This preaching of the Gospel all over the world through technology, one of your favorite topics, that’s a sign of the time. And then I go on to point out that the next one is the sign of world politics. There is a certain configuration of world politics that the Bible mentions of Israel being back in the land which didn’t happen until the 20th Century.

Nathan Jones: I know, wow.

Dr. Reagan: Being surrounded by a hostile Arab nations, Russia to the north, the rise of the old Roman Empire which we’ve seen in the form of the European Union. And then the fifth category I talk about are the signs of technology which are some of your favorites you know being the nerd that you are and all the stuff you love about the website.

Nathan Jones: Hey, wait a minute.

Dr. Reagan: And all that. Well praise God for the abilities you have there. But the signs of technology are one of your specialties and I talk about that also, and how those point to the fact.

Nathan Jones: No doubt yeah.

Dr. Reagan: You know those prophecies, as you know Nathan there are prophecies we’ve never understood before until now because of technology. Give me an example.

Nathan Jones: Well think of the two witnesses during the mid-point of the Tribulation, they are killed by the Antichrist as they are preaching. They die, the whole world celebrates, and it says the whole world sees them being resurrected. Now how does the whole world watch an event that happens in Jerusalem unless we have the technologies of satellites, television?

Dr. Reagan: And see nobody has ever understood that prophecy in natural terms, only in supernatural, but in natural terms until our generation, not until the mid-60’s when we got satellites positioned all around the world could we do that. Now we can understand it. And then the sixth sign I give is the most important of all the cornerstone sign, and that of course is the sign of Israel. Israel.

Part 2

Nathan Jones: Welcome back to Christ in Prophecy and my interview of Dr. David Reagan concerning his latest book, Living on Borrowed Time. Dr. Reagan I noticed in section 2 you call it, “A Prophetic Forum.” What is a prophetic forum?

Dr. Reagan: Well that’s an idea I got when I was writing my last book. The last book I wrote was one about the Antichrist it was called, The Man of Lawlessness. And while I was writing it I got the idea that it might be very interesting to put a prophetic forum in the middle of the book. So what I did was I wrote to about 30 Bible prophecy experts and I said, “Would you be willing to participate in a forum and answer five questions concerning the Antichrist?” And 22 of them responded. And so I found their answers absolutely fascinating and what I did was I put in a prophetic forum in the middle of the book where I summarized their answers. What they agreed on what they disagreed on and all. And people seemed to like that very much. So when I got ready to write this book about the signs of the times I decided to do the same thing again. I sent out letters to about 30 Bible prophecy experts and once again I ended up with 22, not the same 22, but 22. I don’t know why that number keeps on coming up. But I asked them a number of questions.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, like what kind of questions did you ask them?

Dr. Reagan: Well, let me first of all just say we quiet a variety of people here and I wanted to mention who some of them were.

Nathan Jones: Oh, ok.

Dr. Reagan: For example Gary Fisher, whom we’ve had on this program a number of times. A person like Al Gist who has been on here. Phillip Goodman who is a great Bible prophecy expert up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We had Jeremy Hall from Canada, you know Jeremy. And Mark Hitchcock who is considered to be one of the foremost Bible prophecy experts in America today, along with David Hocking. We had Kenneth Humphries from Northern Ireland participate in it. We had Terry James from Rapture Ready.

Nathan Jones: Oh, Terry James, yeah.

Dr. Reagan: And Jack Kinsella who died shortly after he answered these questions, he was called home to be with the Lord. And we had two ladies Jan Markell, Caryl Matrisciana. And we had Tim LaHaye. So we had quite a variety of people including yourself.

Nathan Jones: Including myself and one new person right?

Dr. Reagan: Well yeah, that’s true.

Nathan Jones: Brian Thomas.

Dr. Reagan: That’s right.

Nathan Jones: New to the Bible prophecy scene.

Dr. Reagan: New in the sense that he is new to Bible prophecy, he really knows it. But he is a new person on the Bible prophecy scene. Now you asked me about the questions.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, remind me.

Dr. Reagan: Well there were a bunch of them. I asked 11 and I was surprised that anybody had the time to sit down and really respond to them, but they did.

Nathan Jones: They were hard questions.

Dr. Reagan: Some of the questions were like this: Do you believe we are living in the season of the Lord’s return, if so why? And what do you consider to be the single most important sign of the times? What do you consider to be the second most important sign of the times? Boy did I get a lot of different answers on that one. How do you interpret Matthew 24:32 and following which is of course the parable of the fig tree? And there’s a lot of issues involved in that.

Nathan Jones: Oh, yeah.

Dr. Reagan: Such as does the fig tree really represent Israel? And what is a generation? And when does that generation start? And so forth. I also ask them to interpret Daniel 12:4 which talks about people running to and fro in the end times, and knowledge increasing. And what did they really believe that meant? And I talked about Daniel 12:8-9 where it talks about Daniel you’re not going to understand these prophecies and nobody will until the end times, and are we in those times? When people are understanding the prophecies of Daniel that they’ve never understood before. (7) Do you believe God is speaking through signs of nature today? (8) Do you consider, what do you consider to be the most important technological development from an end time prophetic viewpoint? (9) Do you believe the development of the European Union is a fulfillment of end time prophecy? (10) Do you believe there are signs of the times that are unique to our day that never existed before? And finally (11) The Bible speaks of spiritual signs of the end times both positive and negative in nature, which do you consider to be the most important and why?

Nathan Jones: Well with such a variety of speakers and all I am sure you got some pretty surprising answers at times, right?

Dr. Reagan: Well I did and actually the biggest surprise I got was on the very first question that I asked. And that was the question about: Do you believe we are living in the season of the Lord’s return, and if so why? Well I expected of the 22, I expected at least 18 or 19 to say, “Yes, I believe we are living in the season of the Lord’s return and here’s the reason, Israel, the cornerstone of end time Bible prophecy.” That is what I expected. That is not what I got.

Nathan Jones: Really?

Dr. Reagan: All 22 said absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt we are living in the season of the Lord’s return, we are the terminal generation, all 22. But they did not point to Israel as I thought they would. Now some did, seven of the 22 said, “Yes, that Israel is the sign that convinced them that we are living in the season of the Lord’s return.” But the rest of them by far said, “No, there is another thing that has convinced us we are living in the season of the Lord’s return. And that can be summed up in one word convergence.” They used it over, and over, and over. And Ron Rhodes who is a great Bible prophecy scholar was the one who probably gave the most eloquent explanation of what he meant by that. What they are talking about is this: the thing that has convinced them the most is that for the first time ever in history we are seeing all the signs that Jesus talked about coming together at one time.

Nathan Jones: Yes.

Dr. Reagan: In World War II for example many people said, “Hey we are living in the end times because wars, and rumors of wars, and wars are going on. And Mussolini is from Italy and he must be the Antichrist and all.” But Israel was not back in existence. They’re weren’t Arab nations trying to take the land away from them. The Roman Empire had not been revived. Throughout history people have seized on this sign, or that sign, or this sign, and said, “Hey we’re in the season of the Lord’s return.” But we are the first generation to ever live when all of these signs have converged and come together. So convergence was the thing that most of them mentioned.

Nathan Jones: Amen, I mean that is huge.

Dr. Reagan: Yes I would say amen to that also.

Nathan Jones: Well I noticed in your second question you asked the forum members to identify what they considered to be the most important individual sign of the Lord’s soon return and what was their response?

Dr. Reagan: Well as you could well imagine all but three of them mentioned one sign as the most important of all the signs and what was that?

Nathan Jones: Israel.

Dr. Reagan: Yes. And of course the reason for that is because end time Bible prophecy focuses on Israel. Phillip Goodman had a great comment about this and I want to share it with you.

Nathan Jones: I can imagine.

Dr. Reagan: It was very illustrative he said, “Every major prophetic passage in the Bible presupposes Israel at the center of the end time map and the centerpiece of the last days. Israel is the hub of end time Bible prophecy. All of the other signs are the spokes, the end time is the rim. The end time, the rim, cannot happen without the signs, the spokes. Yet the signs have no prophetic significance as signs apart from the existence of Israel at the hub of the whole thing.” So Israel by far was the cornerstone sign of the end times.

Nathan Jones: That sounds like Phillip always very eloquent. Your third question concerned what the forum members believed was the second most important sign? Was there unanimity in their responses to that question?

Dr. Reagan: Well now that it all began to spread out.

Nathan Jones: Ok, ok.

Dr. Reagan: The unanimity disappeared. We got all kinds of answers on the second most important sign.

Nathan Jones: Ok.

Dr. Reagan: The number one second most important sign that six people selected was spiritual corruption in the church. The gross apostasy that exists in the church today. I mean you can understand that, 20 years ago would you have believed it when somebody said, “Twenty years from now all the major denominations will be performing same sex marriages, or ordaining homosexuals as bishops of their churches?” It was beyond comprehension, and yet that is happening today. The apostasy in the church today. People everywhere teaching there are many roads to Heaven, Jesus is not the only way and so forth. It is just unbelievable. We had some very, very eloquent answers to that because people were really fired up about it. So that was the number one second sign that people selected. Now the second most frequently mentioned signs was the rise of the old Roman Empire, some four people selected that one.

Nathan Jones: That is understandable.

Dr. Reagan: They said the appearance of the European Union in fulfillment of Daniel prophecies was the second most important sign. And to me I would agree with that. I think that is the second most important sign. Then the other one there was kind of a tie for third place. There were three people who selected two different signs, three of them selected the Ezekiel alignment of nations. Ezekiel says there is a certain alignment of nations that will come down against Israel in the end times, and they said hey, that alignment has happened. It is an alignment of Iran, with Russia and all these Muslim nations and the alignment has occurred and they pointed to that one. Three others guess who is included in this? Yourself, was the explosion of technology. That technology the explosion of it, the way it has helped us to understand prophecies we never understood before, they felt like that was the second most important sign.

Nathan Jones: Definitely.

Dr. Reagan: Ok.

Nathan Jones: Well then that might affect the tenth question here, I am going to skip up to number 10.

Dr. Reagan: Oh, number 10.

Nathan Jones: Yes, you asked the forum whether or not they believed there are any signs that are unique to our day and time? How did they respond to that?

Dr. Reagan: Well, yes, overwhelmingly they said, “Yes, there are signs that are existing today that have never existed before in the history of mankind.”

Nathan Jones: Such as?

Dr. Reagan: Well they gave a great variety of them, 13 of them again pointed to Israel because again you know when the 20th Century started and you had people saying, “This is going to be the century when we believe that God is going to regather the children of Israel to Israel.” People laughed, they laughed at that, they thought that was the silliest thing in the world, they are scattered all over the world, they’re not coming back.” Well He did it, so they pointed to that. Some mentioned, some nine mentioned technological developments, you were included in that group.

Nathan Jones: I’m a one trick pony.

Dr. Reagan: Some six focused on political alignments coming into existence that haven’t existed before. There were a number of things, some of them didn’t mention just you know one of two, they mentioned several. We had seven who stressed the rapidly growing apostasy in the church. We had three who pointed to nuclear weapons. We had some mention the European Union. The exponential increase in population. Decay of society. The increasing frequency and intensity of natural calamities. Preparations being made for the reconstruction of the Jewish Temple, now that was an interesting one.

Nathan Jones: That is interesting.

Dr. Reagan: One that people quiet often overlook. But you know the Bible says that the Temple is going to be rebuilt in the end times. We don’t know if that is going to be before the Tribulation begins, or after the Tribulation begins, but there is going to be a Temple rebuilt. And what most people don’t realize is that the Jewish Orthodox Jews in Israel are preparing to rebuild that Temple. They have made all the preparations, they have drawn the architectural plans. They are preparing the priests. They’ve prepared all the implements. They’re ready to go, they are ready to go, and that is certainly one of the signs that we are living in the season of the Lord’s return.

Part 3

Nathan Jones: Welcome back to Christ in Prophecy and my interview of Dr. David Reagan concerning his latest book, “Living on Borrowed Time.” Dave we are now at the third section, “The Key Signs.” Can you tell us what do you think some of those key signs are?

Dr. Reagan: Well what do think are some of the key signs?

Nathan Jones: Of the end times, that we living on borrowed time?

Dr. Reagan: Yup.

Nathan Jones: Well…

Dr. Reagan: I know it’s going to be technology.

Nathan Jones: No, no, people are going to think that is all I answer is just technology, but that’s not the case.

Dr. Reagan: What would be some others?

Nathan Jones: I believe sincerely like you said that the super sign is Israel. That Israel back in the nation after almost 1,900 years of not existing. I am amazed when I talk to people how many of them say that Israel is unimportant, that is a modern mistake that’s an accident. But have the Hittites become a nation again? You know has ancient Scotland rose to become a nation again? It doesn’t happen. But when it is God’s people, Israel becomes a nation again, it means something. It is important.

Dr. Reagan: And I would agree. And I am also mystified by people who tell me that they just can’t see it. I mean when the Bible specifically, specifically prophesies that the Jews will be regathered in the end times. That the nation will be reestablished. That Jerusalem will be re-occupied by the Jewish people. And that all the nations of the world would come against Jerusalem, and it is happening. Duh.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, it is important. Obviously God has a purpose for it. What are some of the other signs you said. Obviously that is the super sign. What are the other signs?

Dr. Reagan: Well you are going to keep me on the hot seat aren’t you?

Nathan Jones: Yes, I am.

Dr. Reagan: Well the second one I selected which I’ve already mentioned was the revival of the Roman Empire.

Nathan Jones: Roman Empire, yeah.

Dr. Reagan: Because Daniel prophesied that very clearly that in the end times it is going to revive. And you know Nathan over the years, over 2,000 years many people have tried to do that, they have tried to revive the Roman Empire and they have always tried to do it by military force. Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Hitler, Napoleon tried to do it. They all tried to do it and they all failed. And yet it was accomplished peacefully, peacefully after World War II when a Frenchman by the name of Jean Monnet in 1950 just simply said, “Hey, we have been so devastated by this war there is no hope for recovery, unless we cooperate. We have got to stop this national bickering between the English and the French, and the French and the Germans, let’s get together and cooperate.” And peacefully in God’s timing the whole thing came together. It is quite a miracle when you consider the hatreds that have existed in Europe all these many, many centuries. And so the Old Roman Empire has come back in to being through the resurrection of the European Union. Now what I did in selecting key signs is there were many I could select, I selected nine, nine key signs.

Nathan Jones: Ok.

Dr. Reagan: Israel number one, the Revival of the Roman Empire number two. After that I don’t really have any particular order. But the order which I presented them the next one I did was the proliferation of the cults. And the reason I did that is because when Jesus mentioned the end times signs in His Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 the only one He mentioned more than once was cults. He mentioned it three times, “Watch for the cults, watch for false christs and these cults, there is going to be an explosion of them in the end times.” And that began in the 1800’s in the formation of what became the largest cult in the world the Mormon Church. And following that came the Jehovah’s Witnesses. And then in this century just a literal explosion. I mean you can go out to Los Angeles and on every corner you are going to find a different cult, and some really weird ones.

Nathan Jones: I get excited about that one as terrible as that is that is means even Satan knows that Jesus is coming soon.

Dr. Reagan: Oh, yes.

Nathan Jones: Because he is trying to mess up and confuse the message of the Gospel by putting lots of noise and false teachers, and false prophecies.

Dr. Reagan: Absolutely.

Nathan Jones: So if Satan even recognizes it.

Dr. Reagan: Yeah, we know from the book of Revelation that he really knows Bible prophecy because it says in the middle of the book of Revelation it says in the middle of the Tribulation he is going to try to take Heaven one last time. When he thrown down to earth he will know his time is short, because he knows Bible prophecy. And he knows when he is thrown down to earth his access to Heaven is cut off, time is short.

Nathan Jones: And that is the end of the cult’s right? Because there will only be one religion, his religion.

Dr. Reagan: Well you got that right. The next one I mentioned was what I call the convulsion of nature.

Nathan Jones: Ok.

Dr. Reagan: And that is one I really believe in that most people just laugh at, or give no significance to. But I really believe that God works through signs of nature and I believe that He is doing that today. I believe that He is speaking to this nation through the natural calamities that we are having. The forest fires, the hurricanes, the tornadoes that are happening in greater frequency and intensity than ever before. Another one I mentioned was one that our forum really focused on and that was the growth of apostasy. I am just appalled at the rapid growth of apostasy in the church today. It is one of the things that I have sort of focused on in my writings is keeping up. And it is hard to keep up with it, it is just exploding and spreading so rapidly. Another one I focused on that I love is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the fact that the Gospel is being preached all over the world today.

Nathan Jones: Yes.

Dr. Reagan: The Bible being translated into many different language. The Jesus film being shown all over the world. Another one I mentioned was the impact of change that we are understanding baffling prophecies that we’ve never understood before and that was certainly to be one of the signs of the end times. And then I get to one of my favorites what I called in here the accelerator principle, but it is really called the exponential curve. How the Bible says that in the end time everything is going to be on the exponential curve, it is all going to be going like this. Apostasy will go like that, the natural calamities will go like that, the world population everything. All that happened in the 20th century and is a clear indication that we are living in the season of the end times. And then another one I mentioned was the decay of society how society is just falling apart in terms of immorality and violence. Those were the nine key signs that I mentioned here. And those I believe are the signs that are the most important of all. There are many, many others but those, in fact at the beginning of the book I list 50 signs of the end times and I don’t even cover all of them then. For example I didn’t mention the preparations for the Temple, but there are so many. But those are the nine key ones that I think clearly indicate we are living in the season of the Lord’s return.

Part 4

Nathan Jones: Welcome back to Christ in Prophecy and I hope you’ve enjoyed our interview with Dr. David Reagan concerning his latest book, “Living on Borrowed Time.” Well Dave do you have any parting words for our viewers?

Dr. Reagan: Well I do. I have a number in this book, in fact part four and five of the book are messages to the Church and to Christians and basically you know what that message is? The message is Jesus is coming soon, wake up and get ready.

Nathan Jones: Amen. That sums up our entire program here. Ok. Well folks in just a moment our announcer is going to tell you how you can get a copy of Dr. Reagan’s newest book. And that’s our program for this week. We hope it’s been a blessing to you. Until next week, the Lord willing, this is Nathan Jones with Dr. David Reagan, saying, “Look up, be watchful, for our Redemption is drawing near.”

End of Program