Many ministries and other forums send me their newsletters/information during the course of any given day. Some time ago I received such an information piece. Its contents hammered home that a profound disconnect exists in the minds of mankind brought on by the original sin in the Garden of Eden. Sin disrupted understanding between God and man to such an extent that it took God coming to dwell among humanity as a flesh-and-blood Person to restore the relationship that was torn when Adam disobeyed and brought sin and death into the world.

The item in my inbox illustrated the problem of denial of heaven’s plan for restitution of the God-man relationship. The words of an emailer to the information forum demonstrate the disconnect wrought by the disruption in Eden.

Isn’t it time to let that poor guy Jesus alone? He lived, he died and he hasn’t been heard from since. He gave his 33 years and just let him rest in peace. Good grief, why try to rebirth him into this crazy world? He would be overwhelmed. He was a poor, illiterate carpenter for heaven sakes. He never traveled more than 50 miles from his home in the desert. He espoused simple truths that anyone and many have also espoused. He didn’t have the only patent on spiritual truths.

Let’s move toward a new spiritual understanding that humans are responsible for their own actions and that they cannot rely on mythical characters or real characters that have been made into perfect myths. The major religions are all desert religions by some very backward and illiterate tribes. For instance, I am from Sweden . I should bow down to Thor as my god because that’s my tribe. Instead, I think for myself and I stand as a beacon of spiritual energy for my own life. Thor had his time and I’ve got mine.

Now we come to the purpose of this commentary. The title, “History’s Most Important Q & A,” encapsulates the problem and the solution manifested in the above-quoted thoughts about Jesus, the God-Man sent from heaven to be the sacrificial Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. The question, the most important ever asked, and its answer are found in the account of the Lord Jesus Christ and His disciples as they engaged in a Q & A while traveling in ministry.

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:12-18)

Jesus first asked His immediate followers who people in general said He was. They answered that people had various opinions about who this miracle-working, itinerate preacher might be. Jesus then asked the question of the ages: “Who do you say that I am?”

Peter, the burly fisherman who was always quick to assert his thoughts into any situation, for once spoke up with the most profound answer ever given and won the total approval of the Lord: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!”

The big, rough-hewn fisherman had breached the gap that had formed when Adam disobeyed in the Garden of Eden. God, the Father, had himself given Peter that understanding. Jesus is the very Son of the Living God!

It seems that at no time in human history has that disconnect been more front and center than today. Jesus Christ is blatantly misunderstood, and that is bad enough. But it is the fact that His Holy Name is dragged through the muck of this fallen cesspool of a world that stabs most painfully the spiritual heart of the true follower of Christ.

One day I was listening to Glenn Beck as he chatted with his radio partner and his audience. I’ve listened many times to the famous Mormon talk-show host use the name of Jesus to claim his being a Christian. I’ve recently covered the points of difference between what God’s Word says about Jesus and Mormonism’s view of Jesus. In brief, that cult holds Jesus to be the created brother of Lucifer. Yes, the same Lucifer (the serpent) who brought about the disconnect between God and man through seducing Eve and tempting Adam to disobey God.

Mr. Beck was intimating how Jesus had no interest in “rapturing” His “people” from this world; rather, He wants His people to make this world a wonderful place of freedom–a heaven on earth.

That is Mormonism. The Mormon Church will be the final authority in any such new world order, according to its eschatology. Beck, in his usual way, became increasingly sarcastic and chiding while he mocked the Rapture. He talked about how if the rapturists wanted to really make a statement, they should, rather than set dates for the Rapture, simply state that they are leaving, go to some spot, and let their clothes drop to the ground as if they had been taken. Then they should stay out of the picture so the world would perceive they were gone. Thus, Beck implied slyly that those who believe in such nonsense would get out of the way so real religionists–the Mormons—could bring about Utopia.

This, as much as anything, proves two things. First, it shows that Beck has no thought of Jesus being the same Jesus in whom I believe and who I follow. Second, it reaffirms that the Rapture is very close because of Beck and others like him mockingly fulfilling a most relevant prophecy for these troubling yet exciting times. Appropriately, it is the same Peter who gave the following prophecy who gave the most important answer to Christ’s all-important question of history: “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Peter 3:3-4).

My Jesus is God, who cannot lie. My Jesus says He, not the Mormon Church, will establish a glorious millennial reign. My Jesus keeps His promises, and He promises this: “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:1-3).

The question that is the most important in all of human history is the one posed by the Lord Jesus, himself. It is asked directly to you who are reading these words. Who is Jesus to you? Who do you say He is?

Glenn Beck, like so many others, believes Jesus is something other than who the Bible says He is. The Bible, through the words of Peter, whom Jesus said gave the God-inspired answer, said Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Jesus is not a created being. He is God, who came to planet earth in the flesh to save you and me from sin that has all of lost mankind headed down the broad way to the lake of fire (Revelation 20:12-15).

Jesus said: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

Jesus asks you: “Who do you say that I am?” How you answer this most important question of history will determine whether you go to heaven or to hell for all of eternity. Answer wisely.

Like it does from time to time while lurching toward the end of this troubled age, the world, prophetically speaking, seems to be pausing to catch its breath.

We’ve sometimes called it a “lull” because prophetic progression appears to be on hold. It’s kind of like in the south when a severe springtime storm is about to produce a big tornado. Everything gets eerily still.

What is actually happening, I’m told, is that the big super-cell thunderhead is sucking the surrounding atmosphere into its building vortex. All turns a greenish-yellow color and not a leaf is rustling.

One of the mistakes we who observe things on a global scale with regard to Bible prophecy make is to view things too much from our American perspective, I think. Things seem to be whirling around us, but the larger picture presents a different view.

You hear the rumbling and see the lightning flashing on the black horizon, but all is perfectly still, as if the complexion of the earth has taken on a sickly pallor. It seems that this humanistic system is holding its collective breath in somewhat of a perceived pause in these scary moments.

Presidential politics right now in the U.S., on the other hand, are anything but eerily calm. For example, the campaign rhetoric and vitriol are raw rough and tumble. Americans who see things through a strictly political prism believe this is a storm we are in–one that will determine where our world will be torn apart, depending upon who wins the presidency. The atmosphere is turbulent. We are in the midst of a terrible, national storm with the nation’s future at stake.

That might all be true, but on a global basis, thinking in terms of Bible prophecy, there seems to this eschatological weather observer to be an environment surrounding us with an ominous pallor that harbors far greater lethality. There portends within the building storm clouds far greater dangers than those given off by the political winds that are whipping us all into a frenzy here in America.

Internationally, the powers and principalities of Ephesians 6: 12 are working quietly behind the scenes. They are striving as hard as ever before to bring about that great, end-times tornado the Lord terms Tribulation.

One can sense, if spiritually attuned to the pre-storm goings-on, the very corruptive atmosphere of fallen man being drawn into the coming Tribulation vortex. Yet there seems to be for the moment an eerie calm, despite evidence everywhere one looks of brewing trouble.

The president of the United States is reportedly working with the United Nations to bring about a  two-state solution to the “Palestinian-Israeli problem” before he leaves office. Israel, itself, remains basically in a lull, while looking in every direction at a storm that is gathering against it. Russia and its headstrong president are making strange, unanticipated withdrawal gestures and movements in and around Syria and other entrant points to the Middle East. North Korea blusters ahead with nuclear and missile tests, actions intended to threaten it’s immediate neighbor, South Korea, and the rest of us as well. China builds islands in international waters then claims them as their territory, while building military bases upon the newly formed land to threaten anyone who dares question its intentions.

Iran continues to silently work on a nuclear program that it no doubt thinks will one day be used against the Great Satan and the little Satan–the U.S. and Israel.

The world’s building economic disaster expands by the hour like an embolism within the human brain. The silent bubble could erupt explosively at any time, bringing the global, financial catastrophe many fear.

Agents of the Father of Lies work feverishly and incessantly to implant within the fallen minds of mankind that Christianity is a viper’s nest of hatred. Just to our northern border, Canada’s supreme judicial body has ruled in a number of cases that biblical text can be construed as hate speech that must not and will not be tolerated. One pastor spent 10 years and more than $200,000 to finally get a reversal of such a charge against him. Americans would be foolish to assume that such a devilish invasion of evil jurisprudence isn’t in Satan’s plans for this nation. As a matter of fact, we’ve already  experienced such evil at some level. The cases involving the homosexual agenda and bakeries and flower shops that refuse to provide services for same-sex marriages come to mind.

All of the above and much more give evidence of the very atmosphere of liberty we have enjoyed since the country’s founding being sucked into the building thunderhead that will produce the greatest storm in human history.

While the world catches its breath, the  power of the storm continues to build. Satan seems as if he will have his way against all of humanity in this great destructive era that now rumbles upon earth’s angry horizon.

But, Jesus said:

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

The Lord promised the believer who is alive at the time this end-times storm threatens:

Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. (Revelation 3:10)

It is altogether fitting and appropriate to echo the words of John the revelator: “Even so, come Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20b).

A science fiction film of 1956 called Invasion of the Body Snatchers riveted me as a kid of fourteen or so. Sinister, unseen—even unknowable—diabolical entities were taking over the personhood, bodies and all, of earthlings. The protagonist, a physician, was frightened and frustrated as to how to deal with the situation, and was unable for most of the movie to convince those around him that something disastrous was being set up to destroy humanity.

Almost the whole town was replaced by the invaders before…well, you will have to see the movie—I don’t want to spoil it for you.

The storyline was a grand scheme of delusion and deception. You wanted to shout at the big screen for the people to recognize what was going on. You are being set up for falling victim to the body snatchers! But, the course of the storyline could not be changed. It was inevitable that the other-worldly beings would soon take over, as they say, lock, stock, and barrel.

I find the movie and what is happening today in real life to be analogous in several troubling respects. I’ve given this commentary the title “Invasion of the Mind Snatchers” because it has become evident that the thought processes of people of this generation are being set up for the most profound deception ever perpetrated—well, that is, except for the original deception, when the serpent beguiled Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Jesus had told His followers He would be going away from them, but would return. He answered His disciples’ questions about when things He was prophesying would come to pass. They wanted to know when the end of the age would be, and when He would return.

He began His lengthy and in-depth answer with the words: “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matthew 24:4–5).

So began what has become known as the Olivet Discourse. This section of Scripture is considered perhaps the most important of all prophecies in the Bible because it is from the mouth of God in the flesh. And, the very first thing Jesus told those disciples—and by way of His recorded words to them that day told us—was that deceivers would mark the very end of the age. Great deception would characterize the time just before He comes back. Jesus forewarned that His disciples must be on high alert for this particular societal condition.

The invasion by the mind snatchers is here. No matter which way we who observe the prophetic picture look, we see the delusion settling upon the thinking processes of men, women, and children. It has completely changed the character of our nation.

In America, it is relatively easy to look back and see that the entertainment industry has been a tool used by the master deceiver to pollute the common sensibility of the people. Hollywood has caused the suspension of disbelief to such an extent that the lines between fiction and fact have been catastrophically blurred. Morality guided by biblical principles has gone by the wayside in our society and culture.

The film industry, for example, has propagandized us to accept that it is okay to sleep around with other than one’s legally sanctioned spouse. As a matter of fact, the very term “sleeping with” is an entertainment industry-spawned term invented to help avoid the stigma attached to the sinful activity of having sex outside the God-ordained union of wedlock.

Deception is the progenitor of delusion—a mental illness that robs one of the ability to discern what is moral and what is not. Values clarification and situational ethics, through incessant inculcation, especially by the political, judicial, and educational progressives (liberals) since the 1960s, have declared that there are no moral absolutes (the Bible is irrelevant). The supreme evidence of how this has deleteriously affected life in the United States is seen in our political process and the results the lack of discernment has produced.

Socioeconomically, geopolitically, and every other way, deception has invaded and taken the minds of humanity farther and farther from God, thus from sanity. No element of this deceptive assault has been more deadly than has the false teachers and preachers of this Laodicean age. Strange winds of doctrine have joined forces with the humanist agenda to blow away every semblance of true spiritual discernment. These satanic psycho-babble concepts have constituted the ingredients for deception that has brought much of society to the point that it is now ready for suffering the great delusion of Bible prophecy yet future.

That prophesied delusion is outlined, of course, in 2 Thessalonians, as the apostle Paul writes:

For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:7–11)

Like disease that causes dementia to progress within the human brain, the deceptive tendrils of willful godlessness are pushing this generation toward the strong delusion prophesied for the Tribulation hour.

With nine months to go for President Barack Obama’s presidency, the wait for it to be over is agonizing. There are many reasons, but the chief is the damage this lame duck can do to the one nation on earth America had better never abandon.

Polls continue to show the world that by a wide margin, we the people of the United States believe Israel is not the problem in the Middle East, or anywhere else. By large percentage margins, we have made it known that we want America to continue to embrace the Jewish state as a close friend and ally –the only true ally we have in that violent part of the world. Yet, lame duck, Mr. Obama, and those he sends as interlocutors in that one-sided, so-called peace process consistently lock arms with Israel’s blood-vowed enemies to try to bully that nation to give in to demands that will never end as long as Israel exists.

Israel’s enemies, who encircle the nation except on the Mediterranean side –and that list includes most every Arab state– want Israel destroyed. the God of Israel has promised that will never happen.

This presidential administration has time after time touched the apple of the Almighty’s eye, and continues to do so as Mr. Obama will dispatch his vice president to insinuate his will upon the Netanyahu government in the so-called peace-making process.

A Wall Street Journal report has it that Obama will make a last-ditch effort during his last year as president to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. This pressure is likely to include a UN Security Council resolution which would set a framework for a viable deal.

Any observer with an ounce of understanding must conclude that Vice President Joe Biden’s Israel trip at this time is an integral part of Obama’s lame-duck effort to force Israel’s compliance with the presidents and the U.N.’s demands.

Biden is going for the first time in 6 years to Israel. His main objective for the visit is working to convince Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign a new Memorandum of Understanding between Israel and the United States, which will ensure Washington’s continued security aid to Jerusalem for the next 10 years. Again, any observer of the way this administration has dealt with Israel’s prime minister and the Jewish state over the past 7 plus years cannot not but conclude that the Biden trip will bring with it threats for non-compliance in the administration/U.N. initiatives.

This president is again going to directly dare the God of heaven to do anything about his (Obama’s) obdurate stance against Him. The quaking in the nation’s capital is a mild forewarning of what is to come, if his actions, and lack of action, continue on the course he has chosen with regard to Israel.

We are not currently witnessing God’s wrathful judgment in this nation, in my opinion. When His wrath–His judgment–does descend, it will be, Jesus foretold, a time more horrendous than any that has preceded it. (Matthew 24:21). However, God is letting it be known yet again, I’m convinced, that dealing treacherously with Israel is a deadly serious matter within His interacting with mankind. The closer the time of Christ’s return, the more intense will become His forewarnings.

America has been Israel’s ally and protector, thus has been blessed more than any nation in history. God has given our nation material wealth and godly moorings of Christianity from our very founding to the present. But, the tide is turning, as anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear can discern.

Economic cataclysm looms on the national horizon to such a degree that this great nation’s fall when it happens will literally bring the entire world down. And, it’s not a matter of if that will happen, but when. We have been experiencing an economic earthquake for months–even years–and the shaking is getting worse. Now the quaking is shaking the very foundation of Washington, D.C. in one of the most turbulent political seasons in U.S. history.

But, the tremblers are mild–very mild, my spirit tells me—compared to the shaking that is coming upon this country and world. Much of the quaking–socioeconomic and geophysical–is a direct result of the way America and the world are dealing with the nation that the God of heaven has, in His absolute authority, determined cannot be destroyed. Satanic forces are ratcheting up everything possible to keep God’s promises to Israel from being fulfilled. There is bound to be such titanic shaking as we are presently experiencing while the biblically prophesied battle between what secularists call good and evil takes place. Be assured–the outcome of that battle is already determined.

Mr. lame duck President, please do all within your power to see to it that America comes down on the victorious side –not on the side destined for the dustbin of history.

Those of us who look at world conditions through the lens of the pre-millennial, pre-tribulation scope of things to come believe ours is the correct view of Bible prophecy. We reach that understanding, in part, when considering that 1) Israel must be at the center of world controversy at the very end of the age; and 2) Antichrist can’t be revealed as the man of sin until believers of the Church Age are removed from planet earth.

Now, the details of developments on the geopolitical last-days’ landscape grow ultra-fascinating. We have shown that Israel has become the center of controversy, exactly like Zechariah the prophet foretold that nation will be at the end of the age. We have looked at how this prophetic stage-setting has eventuated, with America’s alliance with and influence upon Israel bringing the Jewish state to the center of the end-times spotlight.

At the same time, we’ve delved into how the United States of America has gone into decline like the deteriorating visage of a terminally ill cancer patient. Why is the U.S. not mentioned in Bible prophecy? Perhaps we are learning why, as previously dissected, with America’s wealth currently being siphoned by the geopolitical power that will one day have a military force that will kill one-third of all peoples on earth at the time China and others of East Asia rampage into the Occidental world across the dried-up Euphrates River.

American tax dollars are paying for the equipping of that future juggernaut, it appears. America’s decline seems related to the country’s movement away from friendship with and close support of God’s chosen nation. Again, America looks to be key to developing prophetic stage-setting when thinking on what’s going on with the area of the world out of which history’s final and most despotic tyrant will emerge. Antichrist’s launching pad will be Europe–the area of ancient Rome, the prophet Daniel foretells (Dan. 9: 26-27).

Europe spawned World Wars I and II, and was in near total shambles following the Allied victory over Germany, Japan, and Italy. The Marshall Plan, conceived, implemented, and paid for by the United States, rebuilt that prophetically destined continent.

The European Common Market came into being in 1957, engendered by the Treaty of Rome. This followed a number of European nations agreeing to form the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951, which was implemented in 1952. Other agreements moved European nations closer, like the treaties establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). The formation of the European Economic Community (EEC) brought Europe to the point of coming into the prophetic picture as what will one day form the revived Roman Empire. Point is, none of these developments would have happened as they did if not for U.S. rescue of Europe from the ravages of WW II. This isn’t meant to give America undue accolades. The U.S. would, itself, never have existed if not for the God of heaven’s divinely appointed purpose for the American republic in end-times development.

The intricate linkages with the U.S. economy have kept Europe–and the western world, for that matter—at an elevated economic level never attained in history. The interlinkages of America and its dollar with all of these nations mentioned in Bible prophecy are nothing short of miraculous, when one truly studies the details involved. America’s loss of economic power is presently having a deleterious impact on most every nation on the planet–except, perhaps, China, which, again, looks to be the entity assigned by destiny to be the chief agent for siphoning wealth and power from the most materially blessed nation to ever exist.

The ominous bubble of economic catastrophe is building hourly for America and all nations of planet earth. There is almost certainly no human way to prevent it from eventually bursting. It becomes more obvious by the day to those who see prophetic developments from a premillennial, pre-Tribulation viewpoint that it is only God’s staying hand that prevents the explosion that will collapse the global economy.

I believe–again, based on what I know to be the pre-mil, pre-trib view God’s Word presents regarding prophecy yet future–that it will be the Rapture of the church (all born-again believers in Jesus Christ) that will burst that explosive bubble.

All stage-setting factors are in place–in detail—for the coming to power of Antichrist and his regime of murderous tyranny. It will be an economically driven dictatorship of absolute control over buying and selling, as Revelation 13:16-18 clearly presents.

That “prince that shall come” (Dan. 9:26) can’t appear on the world stage (2 Thess. 2:3) until the church is removed to heaven when Jesus Christ calls all believers to be with Him (John 14:1-3; 1 Thess. 4:16-17; Rev. 4:1). It is upon the Rapture that this world’s immense bubble of false security based upon Satan’s lies will burst and the humanistic structures of false hope will come crashing to dust.

The singular, most fascinating detail out of all of prophecy to remember is the following: “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).

His name is Jesus!

Every examination of prophecy about the very end of the Church Age that deals with the nations and their individual and collective fates/destinies must begin and end with Israel. Therefore, we continue looking at details of modern Israel as juxtaposed against all nations–thus to determine how the minute elements of ongoing developments in geopolitics are setting the prophetic stage for Christ’s return.

Previously, we looked at how Israel and Jerusalem are at ground zero for the diplomatic world. The international community correctly sees this as the place on earth most likely to be the ignition point for World War III. It is intriguing to dissect with the scalpel of Bible prophecy each and every layer of development in the geopolitical issues and events of our time that involve the modern Jewish state. Iran is a most fascinating case in point.

Persia, as we have looked at many times, is listed as a key player that assaults Israel in the Ezekiel 38-39 Gog-Magog prophecy. Modern Iran is at the center of what was ancient Persia, as we know.

With Iranian Shah Mohammed Rezā Pahlavi being in power through most of the 1970s, Israel didn’t have to be overly concerned about neighbors to that section of its north. One reason was because America’s military, particularly the U.S. Air Force, worked closely with the Shah’s air force in training and maintenance missions. I can report this from more-or-less personal secondhand information, because my own father-in-law was in charge of all aircraft maintenance for American-made military aircraft in Iran’s arsenal through 1976. The shah was America’s friend, even if sometimes being beastly in treatment of his own people, and looking down his nose at Israel to his south.

Point is, Bible prophecy students were hard pressed to see how the Gog-Magog force could ever be formed, with this arrangement in place. We know what happened, as we think on how quickly things have fallen in place one event after the other since the shah’s fall in 1979.

America, under the Carter administration, was run out of town, literally, with the coming of the Iranian Revolution, as the Islamists came to power under the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Iran became increasingly bellicose against the West, and, of course, became blood-lust determined to erase Israel and every Jew off the map.

Russia and the present Iranian regime have become working partners at many levels, the most troubling at the nuclear level. The Gog-Magog nucleus has formed between Russia, Iran (Persia), and Turkey (Togarmah) within less than two years.

It’s also prophetically amazing to watch a most-asked question among prophecy students in process of being answered by the flood of developing issues and events. Why is America not mentioned in Bible prophecy? It is the most powerful nation ever to exist… Again, it is intriguing to consider that America was instrumental in all of these developments–as one would expect the most powerful nation ever to exist to be, I suppose.

America “defeated” the Soviet Union” through tactics involving cold war attrition–and the heart of that antagonist became again “Russia.” This territorial rearrangement aligns almost precisely with the ancient geographical area called “Rosh,” the leader of which the prophet Ezekiel foretold will be “Gog” of the Gog-Magog war against Israel.

The United States has slipped from its ultimate superpower status since that time of the Reagan-led peaceful defeat of the Soviet Union. Under the Obama Administration, America’s economic standing, thus its fiscal hegemony over the other nations of the world, has declined, some say precipitously. Prophecy students of the premillennial, pretrib perspective can point with a certain amount of credibility to the fact that America’s slippage coincides closely with this nation’s bringing pressure on the Israeli government to give in to demands that they give up land for peace with their Islamist neighbors.

At the same time, China, which most students of the premill, pretrib viewpoint of Bible prophecy believe is the chief nation that will make up the “kings-of-the-east” force that will one day kill one-third of the world’s population, is draining U.S. economic power while buying up American assets. America is, in effect, funding the development of the awesome military force predicted in Revelation 9:16 This would have been flabbergasting to even consider during those Reagan years, and that hasn’t been that many years ago. China! Of all nations on earth–China has answered the question: Why is America not mentioned in Bible prophecy? The United States can also be seen as instrumental in the details of developing Bible prophecy regarding the region that is foretold to spawn the world’s most despicable dictator.

Daniel the prophet said that this “prince that shall come” will emerge from the people that “destroy the city and sanctuary.” Most premill, pretrib students of Bible prophecy view this to mean that Antichrist will come from the area of Rome–from Europe, in general—as the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple in A.D. 70. Again, the viewpoint is important to recognize, because the premill, pretrib view–in almost every instance of examination of prophecy yet future–provides logical placement, thus explanation, of what we have watched develop in world headlines–especially since Israel became a nation again May 14, 1948.

America’s influence has been absolutely profound in bringing the modern Jewish state into prominence. My book, The American Apocalypse: Is the United States in Bible Prophecy?, details the intricacies of America’s part in that rebirth. The United States’ influence in bringing modern Europe into prophetic configuration is only slightly less profound. Next time, Lord willing, we will continue looking at the many facets of those and other developments toward fulfillment of the final prophecies leading up to Christ’s Second Advent.