Middle-Eastern oil reserves look increasingly to be the chief bait for the “hooks” that will draw the Gog coalition force toward Jerusalem. The Scripture is coming more into focus almost daily, so far as its likely meaning.

“And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords…” (Ezek. 38:1-4).

Global economy intricacies are far too convoluted–too complex—to make the leap of speculation that petroleum alone will bring all people to the Valley of Jezreel for Armageddon. The same applies to the Gog-Magog assault outlined in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. However, all evidence that continues to mount points to Mid-East oil as a primary factor in building toward war in that already volatile part of the world.

The new dynamic I see developing in the Gog-Magog build up and to the trends that is moving that region and the world toward Armageddon is the matter of Russia’s increasing hegemony in natural gas leverage. Russian President Vladimir Putin threatens his neighbors consistently with warnings of withdrawing natural gas supply from his immediate neighbors and from Europe. He seeks to exert power not only over Ukraine with military threats to invade, but threatens to freeze all of those who would disagree with his meddling in the affairs of that sovereign nation. His ability to carry out his threats can be seen in Europe’s shyness in supporting any sanctions against Russia. Putin, they fear, will turn off the spigot of natural gas to them. Europe would be in the cold this winter, and industry would suffer greatly if the Russian leader did so.

Europe gives lip service to the sanctions proposed –weakly, I might add—by the Obama Administration. They don’t seem serious in trying to make Putin stop bullying Ukraine, however.

Enter into the picture Israel. They have discovered tremendous gas reserves within their own territory –enough natural gas to supply all of Europe for decades to come. Problem is, they haven’t yet the technology to extract that natural gas and thus transport it to Europe and other places. Their natural gas reserves lie beneath the Mediterranean, within Israel’s territorial boundaries.

If and when Israel develops the technology to begin supplying Europe and other areas with natural gas for the energy needed to sustain life and industry, there will develop a real crisis, I’m thinking. Putin will be furious that his leverage is diminished, even negated, at that point. This could be the “hook in the jaw” that God will use to bring Gog-Magog against Israel, in my view. I think there can be little doubt that Israel, the most innovative people to ever do business on earth, and among the most technologically creative, will indeed soon develop that capability.

Where does this leave the United States, in regard to interaction with the oil-producing nations of the Middle East?

The root of all evil—love of money—can be blamed in part for the lowered opinion of America in dealing with matters vital to oil supply and demand. The blame must be placed on all parties, not just upon the American administration. However, much can be directed toward  Mr. Obama for refusing to do what is necessary to get the oil and gas flowing from Canada, and for not supporting with vigor the innovative new oil production technologies and techniques in the great northwest of the nation.

The oil cartel sheiks quickly turn their favorable opinions away from American dollars and toward the euro and other currencies as the U.S. prime means of exchange continues to weaken. Like in so-called friendships in all walks of life, the friendship too often ends when there’s nothing in it for one party or the other. As a line in one Tom T. Hall song goes, “Friends are hard to find, when they discover that you’re down.” Cynical, but true.

America’s power to influence the world‘s economic trends is still considerable. But, that influence is swiftly lessening. The question of the greatest concern to those who watch these developments from the biblically prophetic perspective is whether future American leaders will continue to be Israel’s chief friend.

Israel’s enemies hold the oil card. How long will the once-mighty dollar continue to buy influence with the cartel “friends,” most of whom want every Jew removed from the Middle East? Will America drop Israel as a friend, to better position the U.S. within the world users of petroleum, which–we are told—is a diminishing resource?

We will keep watch on these things as this generation moves nearer to the time when God himself will put the “hooks” in Gog’s jaw. Since it is perhaps likely that the rapture will occur before the Gog invasion into the Middle East, observing these developments are even more crucial.

Economic matters are central to the unrelenting drive to unify the world. While the movers and shakers of globalism continue their determined course to force all nations into one world government, one world religion, and one world economy, the effort is not all smooth sailing, particularly not when it comes to the region that is key to the unfolding of Bible prophecy.

The covert but assiduous planning by the powers that be, stipulating that Planet Earth be divided into trading blocs yet become economically unified as one, seems an exercise that defies reason. There is considerable resistance both within the European Union (EU) and within the most volatile region on earth. Nonetheless, the implementation of this paradoxical blueprint must not be impeded, according to one leader of recent years who held the presidency of the EU.

TUNIS, April 30 (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must not be allowed to obstruct his planned Union for the Mediterranean, which he said would “change the world.”

Sarkozy aims to launch the new grouping of 27 European Union countries and their southern neighbours in Paris on July 13.

He was forced to scale back plans for a full EU-style “Mediterranean Union” after fierce resistance from Germany, which feared it would split the EU and siphon off common funds… “I know that, inside the project of the Union for the Mediterranean, there is the issue of Israel and the issue of Palestine, Sarkozy said.

“I’m fully aware that all this is in the background … but this should not stop us acting. It should encourage us to act’” (Reuters, RPT-Mideast conflict must not hinder Med Union-Sarkozy., Wed., April 30, 2008).

Since the years the Frenchman held the EU presidency, much has transpired in the world. Europe has, like America and the world, undergone stark economic changes. However, the EU, as well as other nations, continue to pursue regional power bases in order to interact as influentially as possible on the world stage in global economics.

Excessive devaluation of the American basic unit of currency, the dollar–engineered, I’m convinced, by internationalists–might have produced unintended consequences, at least to the extent that have eventuated in recent days. That devaluation was engendered in part by the European currency’s (euro) swift rise.

The dynamic monetary interaction worldwide has thrown unforeseen perplexity into the mix of the world-governance gurus’ attempt to put together the various trading regions, whose seminal concept almost certainly was centered within Europe, with America’s champions of globalism joining in the collusion. In my view, at least, the North American Union (NAU) was born directly from this collusion, and is destined to grow as part of what will become a 10-region global system of commerce.

While America, its buying power diminishing, seems moving willingly toward the amero as an alternative to the failing dollar, the nations marked for Mediterranean Union offer the stiffest resistance to the plans to build the global economic order.

The region, with its new-found confidence of indispensability because of realities involved in the growing need for oil and natural gas around the world, feel empowered to resist the European and American fiscal engineers to put them in a regional box of worldwide commerce. Those Mid-East nations and their visceral hatred for Israel are bound to exert pressures on America and Europe to marginalize Israel even more than at present. Make no mistake, the internationalist movers and shakers will show the tiny Jewish state no favoritism in the matter of getting their way in producing the global trading regions they want. Israel’s government, no matter who is prime minister, will find itself under unparalleled pressure to acquiesce to the Mid-East petroleum powers.

It isn’t out of bounds to conjecture whether the oft-examined prophecy of Zechariah might revolve around currently developing matters:

“The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it” (Zech. 12:1-3).

Again, the prophecy toward which this generation rages is clearly delineated by God’s Word: “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast” (Rev. 17:12-13).

The key to the beast system coming forth is the presently developing economic convulsions taking place in America and around the world. This means that Christ’s return for His Church–all born-again believers in Jesus for redemption, for reconciliation, for salvation—will, perhaps very soon, take place in the twinkling of an eye. Then will begin the journey to the Father’s house, their home for eternity.

Periodically taking a look at the developing big picture, in snapshot fashion, is efficacious to best serving as watchmen of the prophetic clock. With this in mind, let’s–in general terms–examine several current matters of interest so far as might concern Bible prophecy.

Pressures are mounting that indicate increasingly swift movement toward accomplishment of the globalist agenda, in my view. This isn’t shocking, considering all of the other end-of-the-age signals we consistently observe in these columns. The unusual thing I find that activates the sirens of alert is that there is no one, attention-grabbing issue or event that stands out while looking upon the march of eschatological possibilities. All are profound, when viewed in prophetic light, yet they meet in confluence and flow through our daily news without raising much of an alarm, even among those of us who make observing these matters our primary area of work.

We are witnessing a flood of such issues and events. It is at the moment a controlled flood, but a flood nonetheless. I’m convinced it is the beginnings of a torrent that will gush ungoverned once Christ says “come up here” to the Church.

Daniel framed the warning of that flood for the generation that would be living witness to the end of the age:

“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).

Daniel was told further: “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased (Dan. 12:4a).

The flood that the prophet was told would come at the end will be a war that will reach its terminus only after desolation is accomplished–i.e., it will end only with Christ’s catastrophic intervention into the murderous affairs of mankind at the end of Armageddon (Rev. 19:11).

We hear these days, even from secular pundits, that we are already in World War Three, but just don’t realize it yet. For my part, I can’t shake the impression that the attacks on America on September 11, 2001 might have been the first of the major salvos from satanic forces opening up the spigots of the end-times flood given Daniel to prophesy to this present generation.

With that as framework, let’s look briefly at the pressures building for bringing in that flood about which Daniel the prophet was given forewarning.

The Babylonian system is with this generation; it has been present within every generation. The system of moving back toward Babel, that is, toward one world government, socio-economics, and religion has never been as evident as today.

The system of humanistic government, represented in prophetic Scripture by the metallic image of Daniel, chapter 2, the weird beast of Daniel, chapter 7, the strange creature upon which the harlot rides in Revelation, chapter 12, and the beast that comes out of the sea in Revelation, chapter 13, is on the rise while the pressures of ancient Luciferian ambitions force end-times prophetic manifestations to the surface of our headlines.

All of it is wrapped in globalist thinking. We are marching back toward the one-world attempts in Genesis, chapter 11, that brought God’s direct intervention those many millennia ago.

Attempts at establishing one world government proceeds full-steam ahead. One world economy is the driving force behind the attempts to recapture the spirit of Babel. Both global government and economy are intertwined with a religious fervor for saving the planet from ecological disaster. The world’s most powerful governmental collective–known as the Quartet (the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia)—are doing their utmost to force their will on the main actors in the Middle East. They strive to construct a peace that will never eventuate, in the true sense. Their purpose is to govern the flow of oil and to prevent Armageddon from igniting. Global economic control is the power that can bring all into compliance –the ability to bring the burgeoning world population into subjugation through the stranglehold of buying and selling. Environmentalism is the religion that looks to be the catalyst for attempting to win the hearts and minds of the peoples of the world. Earth Day seems to be the holiday the globalists have chosen as the sacrosanct day of worship at the altar of the developing Mother Earth goddess.

Regardless of the political, cultural, and societal differences, most all religious systems seem to embrace the call to come together for the unified purpose of making life on this sphere equally livable through sustainable development. Even the Christian evangelical Rick Warren has his own PEACE plan to achieve heaven on earth.

But, all the pressures being brought upon this world to comply with the globalists’ movement toward one world will produce not peace, but fulfilled prophecy. God will again intervene to put an end to the neo-Babel builders.

“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure” (Psalms 2:1-5).

While the subject of Israel is indeed the star of end-times Bible prophecy, so far as the nations are concerned, the title of this week’s article is not used in reference to that fact. Neither is the blue, six-pointed pyramid/inverted pyramid star that is the symbol of modern Israel the subject of this commentary. The flavor of this piece, however, does include the aforementioned factors.

Particularly, by “the Israel star” I mean to liken the modern incarnation of God’s chosen nation to Planet Earth’s own star, the sun. Just as all bodies in this solar system revolve around the sun, so, it seems, issues, events–nations—revolve around this tiny sliver of land in the Middle East. We will look briefly at things orbiting the Jewish state. The orbits of Israel’s satellites are decaying, and the prophetic Word of God forewarns that as Christ’s return nears, all orbiting humanistic matter will threaten to destroy the Israel star.

The prophecy is plainly in view, and we have used it many times. It becomes more manifest, more relevant for our time, with each passing second.

“The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it” (Zech. 12:1-3).

The end-time’s satellites orbiting the minuscule nation and city that God himself calls “the apple of my eye” are everywhere one looks on the geopolitical, socioeconomic, and ecumenical/religious skyline. The orbiting geopolitical issues and events are pressing hard against the atmospherics surrounding Israel.

On the geopolitical front, the Quartet (the U.S., EU, Russia, and U.N.), representing ostensibly the international community, pushes forward with attempts to force a peace process upon Israel and her Islamic/Arab neighbors. The “Palestinian problem” is at the center of the whole Mid-East powder keg that threatens thermonuclear confrontation once Iran gets atomic weapons with the capability to rain the warheads upon the hated Jewish nation the Iranian leaders have vowed to erase from existence.

American administration pressures are an everyday diplomatic tactic, while the U.S. secretary of state–and even the president—travel to the region to strongly urge acceptance of the terms of the “Roadmap to Peace.” At the heart of the process is the demand that Israel divide its already small land, and that a Palestinian state, created from donated Israeli land, comes into existence for the hapless Palestinian people.

Socioeconomically, Israel is increasingly blamed by the western and growing eastern industrialized power players for the exploding prices per barrel of oil. The unsettled Middle East, at the center of which sits the Jewish state, has a stranglehold on the great, wealth-producing entities. Israel’s refusal to give in to all demands its oil-rich neighbors desire is at the back of the minds of all who thirst for energy to fuel their industrial bases. Again, the craving for a peace that will settle things is at the heart of all of these exigencies orbiting the Jewish state.

Leaders of the wealthier nations are now feeling fierce pressures of their peoples, the ones who do the work that produces the wealth. Citizenry’s are more and more feeling the pinch of the upwardly raging prices of petroleum–again, the problem festering in the heart of the Middle East. Societal/cultural pressures are almost certainly set to force leaderships to make moves that will assuage the angers of the working classes within America and Europe–those who have become accustomed to less expensive oil and the cheaper offshoot luxuries they’ve enjoyed.

Again, Israel is seen as the core of the boiling, growing problems that afflict the world socioeconomically.

The anti-Israel religious factions that orbit the nation during these end times increasingly are threatening pressures to force the Jewish state into acquiescing to their angry surrounding neighbors. Some clergy within mainline Reform churches–those that broke from Catholicism in Luther’s Reformation—are making their wishes known. They are supporting the causes of those of Israel’s neighbors. At the heart of this is the part of the Catholic dogma from which the Reform movement clergy never broke. That is, they still hold that the Church has replaced Israel as God’s people of His promises.

Modern Israel has nothing to do with prophecy yet future, is the mantra. This lie from the pit of Satan’s lair will, I believe the prophetic Word of God foretells, be at the center of the whole world crushing around and marginalizing this people of destiny–the Jews. Some years ago, the following news set the stage for the recent call by the major sector of the Presbyterian Church to completely divest itself, and urge other churches to divest themselves of any dealing with Israel. They have in effect “cursed” that nation. SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Presbyterian Church is hearing impassioned pleas to declare its solidarity with the Palestinian Arabs by adopting a series of anti-Israel measures, including proposals for divestment and for backing a suspension of American military aid to the Jewish state…[The body’s “peace committee”] voted, 38-26, to endorse the Amman Call, a peace proposal that includes a Palestinian Arab “right of return,” a guarantee that Jewish leaders contend would lead to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state… (“Presbyterians Urged To Side with Palestinians,” Josh Gerstein, New York Sun, June 25, 2008).

A star once pointed the way to Israel, and the Prince of Peace was born into a world needing saving. The Israel star today, though in unbelief, and unwittingly, is pointing to the prophetic fact that that returning Prince is on His way to truly bring tranquility to a world about to self-destruct.

A question that pops up in my email occasionally is along the lines of [assuming it is God’s doing] “Why are Iowa and that region (or any other middle-America region receiving terrible weather) getting all the flooding, having the problems, since the nation seems more sinful in other states and regions than does Iowa and surrounding areas?”

The queries come from people inside and outside of media. The evidence is building that these record-breaking, weather-related events harbor portentous meaning beyond being merely cyclical or random occurrences. The fact isn’t lost on many who have begun to pay attention. Although offered sometimes as tongue-in-cheek questions, the consistent nature of the questions belies visceral and widespread concern among Christians and non-Christians alike.

So, what is the answer? Why, if these weather-caused calamities–the floods, tornadoes, etc.–are of God, do they not strike the places like Massachusetts, where gay marriage has been officially sanctioned by government as equal to heterosexual marriage? Why not Las Vegas, where there is debauched activity of every sort? Why not California, where gay marriage has just been legitimized–where the homosexual populations come together in greatest numbers? Why are the “good” people of the heartland chosen out for punitive actions by the Lord? Why aren’t these things visited upon the more–in the view of many—nefarious regions of the nation?

If I may make our nation, the most materially and spiritually blessed (in the sense of ties to Christianity) somewhat analogous to the human body–we are sick. Sin-sick, and getting progressively sicker.

We have heart trouble. The geophysical problems in the heartland of America certainly seem to confirm the diagnosis concerning the proposed disease. Like in the human body when sick, society/culture exhibits symptoms of the worsening illness. Presently, the malady is manifesting the illness in the American stomach–which we often term the nation’s “bread basket”. Just as the body emits signals of systemic troubles, a collective people suffers pains of things going wrong. Again, America’s trouble is one of its heart. The symptoms are those of swollen rivers, of dead and dying crops under the flood waters that cover the fields of the bread basket that feeds not only the American people, but millions of people in nations around the world.

You might say that it is quite a stretch to compare the geophysical to the physiological–comparing weather disturbances assaulting cornfields and wheat fields to a disease attacking a human body. Perhaps so, but it certainly seems to some of us who observe God’s methodologies of dealing with sin down through the corridors of time that making the comparison is a valid exercise in addressing the question: Why do the “good people” of heartland America suffer these things–if they are God’s judgments—while the sinful people of the hedonistic regions seem to be free of the geophysical assaults?

King David, who almost certainly wrote many of the Psalms, seems to have made similar laments, saying, for example: “I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree” (Psalms 37:35).

That the anti-God bastions of this world seem almost insulated against ramifications of their evil works is the lamentation even today. Why do those hard-working, salt-of-the-earth folks of the Midwest suffer such loss while the evil goes unpunished?

The problem is one of lack of understanding the Creator in His most basic methodology in dealing with man. The question projects the lack of apprehension. The question presupposes that God looks at the troubles in our national heartland in the same way the one doing the questioning views what is going on. The Great Physician knows, intimately, the nature of sin. He knows how deeply sin affects the nation. He knows how to deal with the infection. The questioners, whether derisive and mocking skeptics or believers who seek answers about why the “good people” suffer while the wicked apparently prosper, fail to understand and/or acknowledge that the flooding and the winds are allowed by the Creator not as punishment, but as symptomatic forewarnings.

Iowans and Californians are in the same proverbial boat. One state is not “good” and the other “evil”. The American national body –indeed the world of humanity—is suffering a terminal infection. The wages of that sin is death. This has always been the plight of civilizations since the time of the fall in the Garden. Heart trouble…the human heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, God’s Word tells us. Scriptures tell us further: “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not” (Ecclesiastes 7:20).

 The Lord of Heaven deals individually with His children–those who are born again into His family through Jesus Christ (John 3:3). But, in the context of His dealings with mankind, all, both saved and lost, live under His corrective regime, until the time His cup of divine wrath will be full: ”…for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45b).

All suffer sin’s debilitating effects while in this life of fallen flesh. I chose a poem attributed to Judge Roy Moore, the Alabama judge removed from his court for his stance for God’s prescription for righteousness–The Ten Commandments, a prescription fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ.

The poem portrays vividly, I think, the truth of our sin problem in this much-blessed nation. America the beautiful, or so you used to be. Land of the Pilgrims’ Pride; I’m glad they’ll never see.

Babies piled in dumpsters,

abortion on demand,

oh, sweet land of liberty;

your house is on the sand.

Our children wander aimlessly

poisoned by cocaine

choosing to indulge their lusts,

when God has said abstain.

From sea to shining sea,

our Nation turns away.

From the teaching of God’s love

and a need to always pray.

We’ve kept God in our

temples, how callous we have grown.

When earth is but His footstool,

and Heaven is His throne.

We’ve voted in a government

that’s rotting at the core.

Appointing Godless Judges;

who throw reason out the door,

Too soft to place a killer

in a well deserved tomb.

But brave enough to kill a baby

before he leaves the womb.

You think that God’s not

angry, that our land’s a moral slum?

How much longer will He wait

before His judgment comes?

How are we to face our God,

from Whom we cannot hide?

What then is left for us to do,

but stem this evil tide?

If we who are His children,

will humbly turn and pray;

seek His holy face

and mend our evil way:

Then God will hear from Heaven;

and forgive us of our sins.

He’ll heal our sickly land

and those who live within.

But, America the beautiful,

if you don’t – then you will see,

a sad but Holy God

withdraw His hand from Thee.

~~Judge Roy Moore~~

The wickedness of the human heart is the heart trouble within America today that also afflicts all of humanity. Soon God’s corrective forewarnings will become His wrath unleashed. For those who ask why the wicked seemingly get away with their wickedness, the preacher of God’s great wisdom says the following:

“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him: But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God” (Ecclesiastes 8:11-13).

One doesn’t have to listen too hard to hear the distant hoof beats if attuned to issues and events of our time in a biblically prophetic way. The horsemen of apocalypse outlined in Revelation chapter 6 are mounted. The world can’t yet see them upon looking across terrain littered with the hills and valleys of everyday life. But the spiritual ear can hear them rumbling beyond the immediacy of these quickly waning days of the age.

The first horseman is riding forward and will be in position to dismount and take over the reins of world government sometime after the disappearance of those who are living at the time of rapture. He will step from his white steed of prestige and promise to sign the covenant of peace that apparently will already be in place. Israel will believe this “prince that shall come,” and sign on to the covenant with the thought that now there will be peace and safety.

The rider on the second horse canters not far behind the self-aggrandizing prince on the first. This rider, on his red horse, will await his time for only a brief moment. Already, he makes noisome saber-rattling that tells us he and his war horse are chomping at the bits to inflict violence upon the earth like that which was present in Noah’s day, during the antediluvian era leading up to the worldwide flood.

Behind the second rider is a skeletal rider beneath a black hood, his fleshless grin foreshadowing his plans for the inhabitants of Planet Earth. The black horse of famine snorts its determination to carry his balances-and-scales-wielding rider to his destination. That destination is the last seven years of human history leading up to the second advent of Jesus Christ. The rider is called famine; his intention is to destroy through starvation.

The not-so-distant hoof beats are heard coming at this generation as an agglomerate rumble of portentous news. We will try to isolate one particular set of thundering, pounding hooves–that of this third rider. Actually, this horse of the apocalypse has within the last few weeks been rather easy to detect.

Some of us who watch and analyze issues and events we think might have prophetic relevance have for years believed that petroleum–particularly oil in the Middle East—might be the catalyst that will bring the world powers to conflict at Armageddon. God himself has said He would put hooks in the jaws of one leader to draw him into the Middle East. He will then, prophecy tells us, bring all nations into the region for the final battle of man’s most horrendous war: “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land” (Joel 3:2).

Petroleum is in the news because of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group’s moving toward the oil fields of Iraq.

Within the past weeks, the likely skyrocketing of oil prices –if Iraq is lost to this group– have brought home the troubling reality that is already affecting the most basic need of man: food supply. Regions of the world such as the Sudan, Ethiopia, and many others have long since heard the rider of the third horse of apocalypse approaching. But, the most blessed nation on earth–in terms of material goods, which includes hosting the bread-basket of the world—can, without listening too carefully, here the black horse’s hoof beats. The beast that will carry its deadly rider of starvation, it seems, has broken from its cantering gait into a gallop.

Stories of the petroleum-based food problems reverberate in the memory from a few years ago, when the world’s top retailer went into crisis mode because of rising oil prices. Top retailer Walmart’s Sam’s Club unit limited the amount of rice individual shoppers could buy at one time, as rice prices hit new records around the world. Walmart sources assured at the time that other commodities were “currently” in no danger of being affected. Despite the attempt at reassurance, however, it was a most profound matter. Only in war time has food been rationed to any extent. Rumbling from the hooves of the black horse of apocalypse might be detectable based upon the conditions from a few years back that have only become more portentous.

U.N. sources consistently warn that the world must urgently increase food production to ease skyrocketing prices. The organization even set up a task force to deal with what they see as an on-going crisis threatening to destabilize developing nations. The cost of food has increased by around 40 percent since mid-2007 worldwide, and the strain has caused riots and protests in countries like Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Egypt. A number of years ago, the U.N. put out the warnings of things to come, mentioning their view of solution. “We must make no mistake, the problem is big. If we offer the right aid, the solutions will come,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban K-Moon said at the opening of a five-day U.N. conference on trade and development in Ghana’s capital, Accra. “One thing is certain, the world has consumed more than it has produced over the last three years,” he said. Ban blamed a host of causes for the soaring cost of food, including rising oil prices, the fall of the U.S. dollar and natural disasters (“U.N. chief warns world must urgently increase food production,” www.news.yahoo.com, April 25, 2008).

The secretary general mentioned at that time, but didn’t dwell specifically upon, the rise in oil prices, but blamed, in large part, the dollar’s falling value. Make no mistake, the U.S. currency faces devaluation at some point that will be profound. That devaluation will be linked inextricably to oil in the Middle East.

The black horse and its rider with the balances and scales in his hand will one day be at full gallop upon an incorrigibly wicked world of earth dwellers. From the tide of events inundating the news today, that time cannot be far distant.

Global elitists continue their drive to bring all nation-states together into a one-world economy. National sovereignty must go by the wayside so that economic equity can be achieved. Stability can thus be brought to pass so peace will reign supreme throughout Planet Earth.

All of this, of course, is–from our pre-trib prophecy perspective–the constructing of the beast regime of Revelation, chapter 13.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR,) some years ago, weighed in on the need for moving away from national sovereignty and autonomy in monetary matters.

“The director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations has launched a scathing attack on sovereignty and national currencies. Benn Steil, writing in the current issue of CFR’s influential Foreign Affairs magazine, says ‘the world needs to abandon unwanted currencies, replacing them with dollars, euros, and multinational currencies as yet unborn.’ In the article, ‘The End of National Currency,’ Steil clearly asserts the dollar and the euro are temporary currencies, perhaps necessary today. He argues ‘economic development outside the process of globalization is no longer possible.’…” (The New World Disorder, Goodbye U.S. dollar, hello global currency. CFR chief: Monetary nationalism, sovereignty should be abandoned, Posted: May 09, 2007, By Jerome R. Corsi, © 2008 WorldNetDaily.com).

It is more than merely interesting that the model for preparing for the transnational exchanges that will, the global elitists hope, eventuate in one-world economic order, was instituted a number of years ago in the area of the reviving Roman Empire.

I received an article, parts of which are excerpted here, that was clipped and sent to prophecy watchers by Alan Franklin. He is a British journalist and author/lecturer on the European Union and how that governing authority looks to be the heart of the beast system prophesied in the 13th chapter of Revelation.

Franklin said: “…this is a huge step towards a cashless society with a one world currency to follow – the SEPA programme launched by the European Central Bank…”. He pasted the following article:

“[It is] A single currency–with a single set of payment instruments–in a single euro payments area. With SEPA, this becomes a reality. And we, as euro area citizens, will be able to make euro payments as cheaply, as easily and as safely as we do national payments. All euro payments will be ‘domestic’; finally, there will be no difference between sending a payment from Rome to Dublin or from Brussels to Antwerp. We can now make payments not only with euro notes and coins, but harmonised electronic payments by European credit transfer, direct debit and payment card as well. An important milestone has been reached today with the launch of ‘SEPA Credit Transfer’. We are now able to send euro payments quickly, and in the same way, to any beneficiary in Europe.

This will be followed by ‘SEPA Direct Debit’ before the end of 2009. As a result, we will be able to make direct debit payments across Europe, as if no borders existed” (Speech by Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB Launch event organised by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the European Payments Council Brussels, 28 January 2008, http://www.ecb.eu/press/key/date/2008/html/sp080128.en.html).

Considering developments involved with the North American Union (NAU), it is prudent to look at the EU implementation of this system of electronic funds transfer as a prototype for such a system lurking in wait for the North American continent. Such a system in its most virulent form will control all commerce on earth during the tribulation:

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six” (Rev. 13:16-18).

It apparently seems to most of the world –including most within the professing Christian church– that there is nothing in the news to be concerned about with regard to Bible prophecy on the brink of bringing on tribulation.

In actuality, the circumstance couldn’t be more diametrically opposite than that perceived. The peace process, with America and others pressuring Israel to give up even parts of Jerusalem; the Russian/Iranian axis forming; Now, Iran and Iraq coming closer in alliance against the ISIS threat; China growing and exerting economic, if not yet military, hegemony; the Church in an almost mesmerized state of euphoria with its stadium-sized congregations’ inward-turning, feel-good doctrines of devils –the stage is set for apocalypse.

It is just at a time like this, Jesus forewarned, He will come for believers: “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matt. 24:44).

John the apostle’s words are ringing louder and more succinctly than ever in the senses of those alert to the deceptive siren song of replacement theology.

“Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (1 Jn 2:18-19).

It was already the “last time” when John wrote this under inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The apostle who was so close to Jesus told us just how near is Christ’s return. Even though it has been almost two millennia, in God’s economy of time that is nothing. Proof of it being the last time was the fact that there were many antichrists in and around Jerusalem. The coming of antichrist–the final, ultimate Antichrist, was on the way. But, John goes on to say:

“And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world…” (1 Jn. 4:3).

Many, following the crucifixion of Christ, were at first claiming they believed that Jesus had been the Jews’ Messiah. They seemed genuine followers of Jesus among the true believers for a time. But, the further away the time of Christ’s death, burial, and well-known resurrection got, the more these drifted away from the truth that indeed Jesus of Nazareth had come into Jewish flesh–the God/man—to die on the cross, thus to provide a once-and-for-all sacrifice for sin.

Now, these who had claimed to be a part of the body of believers were feeling the pressures and heat of the atmospherics surrounding the Ressurection. The Romans would tolerate no god but Caesar. The Jewish high-minded religionists persecuted and pursued all who accepted, followed, and worshipped this imposter Jew who had claimed to be Israel’s Messiah. The Judaizer Saul, of course, was one who persecuted true believers, but who would soon become Christ’s most fervent evangelist.

John said, again, under inspiration of God the Holy Spirit, that this denial that Jesus had come in the flesh–as a Jew—the God/man to seek and save the lost, were “antichrists”. They had the “antichrist” spirit.

This “spirit of antichrist” is more and more in view today. This comes to my attention not just on a weekly basis these days, but on a daily, even hourly, basis. There is a massive denial among those who say they are part of Christ that Israel, the Jews in the modern nation and around the world, are any part of God’s plans for the restoration of all things. As a matter of fact, many of these attribute the terms “Jew” and God’s promises to that people to themselves.They go so far, in some cases, as to attribute the designation “Israel” to the nations of, for example, Great Britain and the United States. They are, they say, part of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. They, in other words, claim that they and/or these nations are the true Jews, and that the people who claim to be Jews are–well, like those of the antichrist spirit in John’s day claimed Jesus to be–imposters.

These are doing the same thing that the Judaizers–the hierarchy of the Jewish religionists—were doing in John’s day. They are denying linkage between the Jews and God’s coming to earth in the form of Jesus the Christ. This is a denial that Christ has come in the flesh–Jewish flesh. This is the spirit of antichrist.

This “spirit” is the one that caused the progeny of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be pursued, hated, and murdered down through the centuries. This is the “spirit” that Satan has used to rage against the chosen people since the promise of the seed that would be raised to destroy him (Gen. 3:15).

It is the spirit of antichrist that boils within Islam today. It is the spirit of antichrist that brought Hitler’s holocaust to the flesh and blood Jews–a thing that, unbelievably, is being denied as ever having happened by those who claim to be Christians.

And this is the reason for my rant in this commentary. The following excerpt is taken from an article I received a number of years ago. It was one of many I get from around the world. Most who send them claim to be Christians, and, I might add, to be the true Jews today, replacing the Jews that can claim genetic ties to Jacob, who became Israel.

The diatribe was much longer than I can devote to this limited space. But, this is the gist, and typical of what I continue to get incessantly these days from those who say we who believe in the rapture, and who support the rights of a phony Israel to exist are, well, headed for a devil’s hell. The person sending this follows a “ministry” that holds to the British Israel theory, or to a theory that the Church has replaced the Jews–modern Israel—in God’s promises. He tells about a man who gives the following “testimony”:

“I have done my own research, and I have been to the concentration camp Dachau four times; once in college, and three times when I was in the military. I had some problems with what I saw, and with what I was told. I am going to attempt to clarify myself hopefully in an outline that is understandable. First: I stood in what I was told was the gas chamber; but it was concealed as a large shower room. One question I had was very simple. Why would the Germans use a shower to conceal the gas chamber? If your going to kill the people with gas; then just do it, don’t try to disguise it. There I stood in the middle of this large room looking at the shower heads; and I could smell gas; but was it coming from a vent, an outside source, or what. I couldn’t tell. I thought this was somewhat strange. I even went outside the building looking for an outside source, or some kind of piping that would funnel any foreign objects into the building, but I couldn’t find any. Actually, the gas smelled like the gas that came from the canisters that we used in combat training when I was in the military.

It wasn’t until 12 years later when I was in the Air National Guard; and I went to Widmund Germany to support a Tactical Command fighter unit out of North Carolina, that I really started questioning what I was told earlier. I was in a combat communications unit, and in 1985 I had to go to the Air Force combat communications training school at Tinker AFB Oklahoma…

I went through training in the classroom; being trained in CPR, First Aid, Geneva Convention, and so forth, and then I went out into the field for three weeks training in combat.

This was the first time I was ever in the full MOP suite (gas mask, boots, and the entire ensemble) while in training. I was in a fox hole for six hours under the hot Oklahoma sun. One thing I was taught was that in order to have a successful gas attack; there has to be nearly perfect weather conditions.

In other words, too much wind could blow the gas that you directed at another country right back at you; and also, the rain has a way of dissolving or nullifying chemical, bacterial, and nuclear gas agents. One thing I learned was that water and steam could very well nullify any gas in the area. I started thinking, than how could the German’s gas the Jews while they were taking showers?. They couldn’t, the water and steam would dissolve the gas to the point that the gas would be neutralized.

I realize that it is a terrible thing to come against the Jews; after all, wasn’t Jesus Christ a Jew? Wasn’t the Jews God’s chosen people? And wasn’t the Word of God given to the Jews for them to study, and use to bring the light of the Gospel to the world? The answer of course is, NO!!!…”

This same “spirit of antichrist” is flagrant among those who claim devotion to Christ. It is the denial of the flesh and blood people –the “chosen people”—into which the son of God was born. It is this spirit that will bring about the ultimate beast –the antichrist. Jeremiah spoke to this in his prophecy about Israel during the Tribulation: “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it” (Jer. 30:7).

The spirit of antichrist is on a rampage, even in subdued ways among the Church, by refusing to address the hatred coming against modern Israel. It does, indeed, tell us where we are on God’s prophetic timeline.

While listening to a television program (I’m blind, but I do “watch” TV in my own way) I heard the program’s host –of whom I’m not exactly a fan because he is a “prosperity preacher”—say something that is nonetheless very true. He said his wife told him, when he began wondering out loud whether this is the “last generation,” that for him it is indeed the last generation, because when he leaves the planet, whether in the rapture or at death– it will be the last for him, personally.

The somewhat amusing truism was stated in the context of how Christians should live in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

The program’s guest that morning was David Barton, who, in my estimation, has done some great work, from a biblical perspective, in the area of holding political leaders’ feet to the fire regarding truth about America’s founding principles as laid out by the founding fathers. He receives much praise, but also considerable criticism, for his work.

The praise comes from all who want a return to sane thinking in matters of how to govern this once-great nation. When I say great, I mean great in the sense of its leaders and people realizing that the one, true God of heaven should be at the center of life for any people, whether it is the life of an individual, a family, or a nation.

The criticism comes from some of those who believe that what will be will be–that prophecy will play out, regardless, and that no efforts are necessary to try to elect people or develop and institute laws that will make things better, in terms of personal or national life.

I was doing an interview some years ago for an audience that consisted largely of those who view Bible prophecy as, at best, the second-class citizen of God’s Word. That is, they believe prophecy has been fulfilled already, is to be considered primarily as allegory or literature, or is to be spiritualized as mere concept that really doesn’t have any relevance to life now or for the future.

The host hit me with the argument I hear incessantly from critics of the rapture “theory,” as they put it. He said something to the effect that he finds that when talking to people who believe in the pre-trib rapture of the church, these people always indicate that they don’t worry about living by strict Bible rules, or about world conditions, because they know Christ will come and take them out of this world before the tribulation, and His wrath and judgment fall.

I told him –and it is absolutely the truth—that I know of no one within my circle of acquaintances within pre-trib believers–all who truly believe in the pre-trib rapture– who think the way he described. On the contrary, our belief in the pre-trib rapture makes us more desirous of doing God’s absolute will in our lives. We want to hear our Savior say “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

No Christians who really believe they might stand face to face with the Lord Jesus at any moment can have the attitude that they can live any way they want because they are automatically secure. The Christians who know they will stand before Jesus –who truly understand and believe this—rather want to do all they can to kneel before Him in that great judgment hall of the BEMA and cast the crowns earned in physical life upon earth at His feet. These will be the many crowns He will be wearing when He returns to this self-destructing planet at Armageddon (Rev. 19: 11).

We are to be busy upon this sphere where we have been placed. Christians are to be working at every level of our influence to make this a more godly place. That activity begins and ends with our introducing people to Jesus Christ, the ONLY way to God the Father and heaven for eternity. Our influence is to permeate all, and everyone we touch. We must lift up Christ so that all men, women, and children will be drawn to Him for salvation.

We are to be salt and light to a decaying, dark world. Jesus spoke to this mission upon which each of us who name the name of Christ has been sent, while here in this flesh. Jesus’ disciples thought He was talking about bringing in the Kingdom of God immediately, as the Lord spoke of that coming time. They expected this to happen immediately, because they were nearing Jerusalem, and they knew this is where the Kingdom would be centered. Jesus told the parable of the nobleman who went away after providing those under his charge the mission of handling his wealth. I’ll let you read the parable; it is found in Luke 19: 11-27.

The story was of servants given different amounts of money, and different talents. Some servants, his lord called evil because they sat on these talents/monies –i.e., did nothing with them. The other servants, their lord commended, because they used the talents and wealth he left them with while he was gone to increase their master’s realm, etc.

Jesus was telling His immediate disciples, and those who would come down through the centuries, that this is what He expects of those of us who call Him Lord.

The specific Scripture that makes this clear is the following: “And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come” (Lk. 19:13).

He was saying that Christians are to not be twiddling our thumbs, or be self-absorbed in the luxuries of this world. His telling us to “occupy” includes his instruction that we are not to neglect doing all we can to work within the governmental process to help assure that we can worship and spread the Gospel as freely as possible. As a matter of fact, I’m convinced that’s why America was founded: to act as a bastion of freedom so that followers of the true God of heaven could spread the salvation message of Christ alone throughout the sin-darkened world.

Yes. Our primary mission is the Great Commission of Matthew Chapter 28, but within those marching orders are Jesus’s words, “…occupy until I come”. We expect Christ to come at any moment. All of the signals of the tribulation are already in view, and since we know the rapture will take place before the tribulation (God’s wrath) begins, we must be very near that stunning moment when Jesus will shout “Come up here!”

One of my duties is to work with the www.raptureready.com website. That means we are expecting that stupendous harpazo event at any second. However, Rapture Ready also means that we are to be prepared to look our Savior in His wonderful eyes and know that we have done all we could while laboring in His service –while serving as royal ambassadors on this fallen planet. We are to occupy until He comes.

My take on the possibility of God’s sending geophysical judgment-like warnings of correction to America (or any people, for that matter) has been called, in no uncertain terms, “crap theology” –if you will pardon my repeating the condemnation jabbed at yours truly by someone not long ago. So, this commentary will doubtless not be well received by those who see only coincidence in relationship between the horrendous fires breaking out in California and other places where drought is becoming an ever more serious factor in this nation, and the insane movement of government edict that is forcing all of us into Sodom-like societal and cultural environment. –Edicts that put forward reprobate propositions such as boys and girls must be allowed to choose which of the gender-marked restrooms they wish to utilize, based upon their perception of their own gender identity.

Sorry, my dear friends of the contrary mindset in this matter, but I see a dramatic instance of God’s mighty finger of His displeasure pointing through the headlines we watch, read, and hear almost hourly these days. I believe with all that is within my spirit that God is pointing in growing anger to the fact that America is continuing to slap him in His face with down-spiraling disobedience to His holy ways of righteousness. It is in this context that I’ve titled this commentary: “U.S.A. – God’s Parenthetic Nation.”

God works in strange but wonderful ways with parentheses. For example, there is a monumental parenthesis in God’s dealing with mankind between weeks 69 and 70 of Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy. I won’t go into detail here for sake of brevity. But, to learn all about the prophet Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy, look up the many articles written by Dr. Thomas Ice by that title on www.raptureready.com.

God’s Word skips right across time–to this point almost 2,000 years from the time of Jesus’ crucifixion until some point in the future when that same crucified and resurrected Jesus will shout: “Come up here!” The intervening period of years is that parenthesis of which I write. We call it the Church Age, or the Age of Grace. When the Church goes to be with Christ as outlined in 1 Corinthians 15:51-55 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, the parenthesis of the Age of Grace will be closed. Daniel’s 70th week will begin, then, when Antichrist signs a peace contract between Israel and her enemies.

By analogy, America, in my view, is a parenthesis in God’s dealing with mankind. God has seen fit to not mention this, inarguably the greatest nation to ever exist, so far as technological development and wealth is concerned. The United States is a mystery of sorts. It is mentioned nowhere in the Bible by name–nor even by inference, in my thinking.

I know that many see America in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other books of prophecy. I see America in type in those books, but I don’t see the prophets actually and specifically pointing to this nation. Yet God has so obviously chosen America for spectacular feats. Again, for brevity, I mention the most spectacular–acting as midwife for the birth of modern Israel, and as her protector, in human terms, to this point in history. Also, this nation has disseminated the Gospel message throughout the world –a thing no other nation has done.

A prudent question to ask is: Since God has so obviously chosen the U.S.A. to do such an important job, would He not then bless it? Also, would He not hold it to an extremely high standard, in keeping with His unchanging edict: “…For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required…” (Luke 12:48b)?

Now, here is where I get in trouble with the “crap theology” flame throwers who see the events of headlines as coincidence.

I believe God has put this nation in parentheses of a different sort in recent times, and continues to do so. On the left coast have been  the fires of perhaps unprecedented scope –certainly unprecedented in modern times. On the right coast has been some weather related problems of unusual circumstance, for example the strange storm –Sandy—the storm convergence the most optimistic meteorologists are calling an event of the 100-year sort.

As if underlined by God’s finger of corrective warning, we don’t have to go back too far to remember Katrina, from which much of that region hasn’t fully recovered. (That hurricane and subsequent flood coming while the pro-homosexual horde planned a massive parade/rally in New Orleans.)

Is it mere coincidence that God’s most profound judgments have been, and will be, with water and fire? The antediluvian flood of Noah’s day. The fire of Lot’s day. The fires that will burn much of Planet Earth’s greenery during the tribulation. Fire that will remake the heavens and the earth.

Am I intimating that the fires in California and elsewhere, the strange storms along the easternmost borders, or the horrific storm that was Katrina are God’s wrath upon America? No. His wrath –His judgment–is reserved, is building, for that time of tribulation (Revelation chapters 4-18). But, the Lord of creation is, I’m convinced with great conviction, putting his finger of corrective warning upon this nation, the nation to which all others look with envy and aspiration to attain like standard of life.

America has been markedly in societal/cultural decline over the last 100 years or so. The year 1963 and our leaders’ choosing to kick God out of public schools, followed 10 years later by the decision to make legal murdering babies in their mothers’ wombs, began a veritable free-fall into our present state of debauched, debased affairs. Homosexuality is “normed” in our most populous state; the American government becomes the enemy of God by turning from protecting Israel to pressuring Israel’s leaders to give its land –even to the dividing of Jerusalem, the one place on earth the Lord calls the apple of His eye.

And, now the nation is framed in corrective parenthesis by the God who has used this country as a golden cup full of His blessings for the spreading of the Gospel through the communications technologies U.S. genius has produced. The parenthesis will, perhaps, soon dissipate, and things will again seem “as usual.” But, listen, Christians. Listen to the whisper in the ears of your spirit. Hear our Lord speak the words meant not only for His chosen nation Israel those millennia ago, but also for a special nation chosen by Him for these closing days of the age.

Judgment begins in the house of the Lord, the Scripture warns. Turn from the feel-good, do-good self-immersion, inward-turning false doctrine/theology that tickles your itching, egocentric ears.

Our Lord is talking to Christians in America perhaps more than to any other people who have walked the planet’s surface. It is a Scripture we always hear in times of crisis. I really believe that we had indeed better heed it this time. It was issued not just for His people, Israel, but for His people, which include you and me: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14).