Most every indicator points to the likelihood that this generation stands at the very end of the age, when considered from the dispensational view of Bible prophecy.

I will confess at the outset of writing this commentary that I borrow heavily from my good friend, Dr. Mark Hitchcock, in considering these matters. He has expressed thoughts along the same lines of what I was thinking when I began to create the story line of my novel, The Rapture Dialogues: Dark Dimension.

The heart of the story for the novel series (three novels, I prayerfully hope), I determined, would involve the defining moment in modern history when things began to gush like a flood, in fulfillment of the prophet Daniel’s forewarning: “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined” (Dan. 9:26).

The prophecy that Daniel was given for the consummation of man-made governmental control of this fallen world foretold that things would begin winding up for the big finale with the death of Israel’s Messiah. The end would begin with the destruction of the city and the sanctuary (Jerusalem and the Temple on Mt. Moriah). A prince from the people who destroyed the city and the sanctuary, the prophecy said without giving a specific timeline, would come on the world scene. History’s conclusion would then, according to the prophecy, rush in a growing tidal wave of devastating events until it became a flood, and this flood would make all things of Planet Earth desolate.

So, I will get back to telling you about what was my thinking on a watershed event, or events, I might use to build into the novel’s story line before I began writing. It came to me to consider something of our time that is a constituent part of these last days which might seem to have caused a breach in the walls of civilization. A powerful schism-producer that allowed the torrent to grow into a gush that will irreparably burst the dam separating good from evil.

While Dr. Mark Hitchcock expresses it in a different way than I do, we both agree that Daniel’s flood seems to be about to crash through that ever-weakening barrier. The crack in the dam, we believe, has already occurred.

Dr. Hitchcock wrote a number of years back:

“Five years ago, in the solemn wake of September 11, I made the statement in one of my books that it appeared that the events of 9/11 and its aftermath had a major stage-setting effect on the events of the end times. That a kind of ‘prophetic shift of gears’ had occurred on that day. That many of the major players in the Biblical end time scenario appeared to be rapidly ‘shifting’ into place. As I look back over the last five years, and gaze ahead to what’s looming on the horizon, I believe this statement even more today than I did five years ago” (Prophecy Update – News & Information for the End Times, 9/13/06).

I like the way Mark used seven distinct indicators to illustrate the “shifting prophetic gears,” as he puts it. I, myself, liken it to a breach in the endtime barrier seemingly inflicted when those fuel-laden passenger planes crashed into the World Trade towers, the Pentagon, and the field in Pennsylvania. I will loosely use Mark’s indicators to frame my contention that this generation is witnessing the beginning of the last of the last days.

1. I’ve said many times that since Israel was reborn as a nation May 14, 1948, the Middle East has been the focus of the whole world. All we have to do to realize this is to ask ourselves where the news cameras and microphones always turn when things heat up in the Mid-East region. No matter what they had been trained on before the heating up occurred, the cameras and microphones always turn back to that troubled land.

Oil, of course, is the catalyst for this concern, thus the region demands attention, rationale would have it. But ancient, satanic rage and hatred is the true catalyst that galvanizes the fears of those who suspect World War III will break out at or near Jerusalem. The attacks of 9/11/01 put Israel and its enemy neighbors who harbor Islamic fanatic terrorists that are blood-avowed to murder every Jew and anyone who befriends the Jew, directly in the last-days spotlight of Bible prophecy.

Those attacks seem to have torn a gash in the fragile fabric of civilization. Indeed, World War III–Armageddon—might have already begun.

2. The Islamic fanatic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 –in less than two hours of murderous carnage—brought through that breach, and into the open, the Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 Gog-Magog forces. Again, Mark Hitchcock says it well: “As one reads the names of the nations that will invade Israel in the end times in Ezekiel 38:1-7, it looks like a ‘Who’s Who’ of Israel’s enemies today, especially Iran. The close, developing ties between Russia (Rosh) and Iran (Persia) have been greatly accelerated since 2001″ (Prophecy Update-News & Information for the End Times, 9/13/06).

Not many will argue that at this time, with Iran’s ruling Mullahs angrily expressing desire to kill every Jew, and with their terrorist-sponsoring regime trying as hard as possible to produce atomic weapons, Daniel’s last-days flood rages onward toward the apocalypse!