Noah, the movie, was, I believe, an instrumentality meant to put into the psyche (or, if you prefer, the darkest regions of the reasoning process) of mankind the fiction the serpent wants to create. God’s Word is the lie; Lucifer is truth–that is the intentioned brain-washing end goal.

Specifically, the use of the Genesis 6 account, in a perverted way, puts forth in this film that the “watchers” are the angels kicked out of Heaven and confined to earth as stone-like creatures. They intermingle with humankind, but, ultimately, do good instead of evil, repent, and are redeemed and allowed back into Heaven. It is interesting that rather than deny that there was war in Heaven and the fallen angels were kicked out, the Hollywood story-tellers twisted it in this way.

The bad, supernatural guys become the good, supernatural guys, and do their work now for the Lord, as before their “fall.” It is plainly part of fulfilling the prophecy that near the end of human history the fable-makers will call good evil and evil good. This sets up in the minds of the moviegoers who are without a clue of Bible truth that these same “watchers” possibly interact with mankind today and have good intentions to help humanity muddle through this dangerous world.

There are many, many things to which I could point that are part of the end-times stage being set for the wind-up of the age. Like, for example, the way God becomes withdrawn in the movie, becoming the existential deity agnostic philosophers have long claimed God to be. I could point to the egregious treatment of both the Lord and Noah as being vindictive, heartless, and even murderous–for example, when Noah is portrayed as wanting to murder his daughter-in-law. We could dwell to an endless extent on the hellish lie-proposition put forward by the movie that God destroyed all upon the earth because mankind had been environmentally evil–that He wanted to restart the earth only so the animal life could return to an environmentally safe and pristine state.

However, I believe the most important matter for this essay is to point out that the way Hollywood treats the fallen angels in this film is crucial to earth’s prophetic future. The UFO phenomenon plays strongly into my thoughts. Also, the New Age intrusion into these strange times is critical to observe for the Christian. I am convinced that the very deception Jesus prophesied is upon this generation. Noah, the movie, under the guise of “innocent” entertainment, is part of the mesmerizing, hypnotic process that will make people following the Rapture susceptible to the “lie” during that post-Rapture time.

God’s prophetic Word tells of that time in the following scriptural passages. Antichrist is mentioned first: “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.” (2 Thess. 2:8-10).

Next, the prophecy speaks to the lie that will deceive the post-Rapture world of earth-dwellers: “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 Thess. 2:11-12).

Panic and mayhem will explode when millions vanish in a blink of an eye. There will be an outcry for explanations of what happened. This is where the inculcation Satan has been foisting on the world will pay off for the serpent.

We have all seen the documentaries and movies on UFOs, the “space brothers,” and other such claims by those looking for some explanation of how life got here. Alien seeding of planet earth is preferable to the biblical creation account to the fallen minds of mankind. Evolution, to the willfully ignorant, is more believable –that all we see around us just happened to happen, totally by chance.

However, evolution is falling out of favor with the modern, “rational” mindset. The “space brothers” will fit much more nicely into the 2 Thessalonians, post-Rapture time. We see what might take place following the disappearance of millions of Christians, when the second beast–the false prophet–performs a seemingly supernatural feat before the eyes of the left behind world:

“And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.” (Rev. 13:13-14).

I’m of the thought that the “fire” called down might be the “space brothers” the entertainment industry has been inculcating moviegoers with for decades. These might be the same “ascended masters” the New Age gurus have been promising for those same decades. Noah, the movie, is, in my opinion, part of the end- times hypnotism taking place in preparation for Antichrist’s arrival. It will be the time, I believe, as given in the following:

“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Rev. 12:7-9).

It is all preparation for the horror of the Tribulation that is rushing toward this fallen world: “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Rev. 12:12b).

With the ever-increasing effort by Satan to hypnotize the masses with all of the aforementioned, it is a comforting –and legitimate—thing to say that Jesus’ words should ring more urgently than ever in the true Christian’s spiritual ears.

“And when you see all these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your head, for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

There is no more appropriate time that God’s prophetic warning through the apostle Paul applies than at this very moment in human history: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim. 4:3-4).

This generation is in a time of deep, dark, deception. Jesus Himself, before giving the many signs of His Second Coming, forewarned of one specific danger in answer to His disciples’ question about when He would come again to earth. The Lord gave answers while they sat atop the Mount of Olives looking down on the Temple and Mount Moriah: “And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matt. 24:4).

The very end of the age will be a time of great deception, Jesus emphasized. His Holy Name will even be at the center of the deception, He warned. The believer –the born again—was to avoid being deceived, He instructed.

We are examining the Hollywood entertainment offering of a supposedly biblical nature. Noah, film-maker Darren Aronofsky’s high-dollar film, surpassed by far what the movie money gurus expected, grossing over $44 million out of the starting blocks. They had expected perhaps $30 million would come into their coffers from theatergoers.

Many Christian pundits predicted the movie would fall flat because of the total disregard the producers of the film showed for fidelity to truth of God’s Word in its account of Noah and the Flood. That was the hope of many within evangelical Christianity, once the content of the story presented was exposed to the viewing public.

Noah, although by all accounts a technically brilliant film, and one with superb acting–with Russell Crow, a Hollywood heavyweight, as Noah–was an almost complete fabrication–fiction from the get-go. There was little similarity between the story line of the movie and the biblical account.

Was this innocent misunderstanding in a Hollywood attempt to provide entertainment –or something other? This is what I would like us to consider. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi master-propagandist in Hitler’s regime of genocide, had the understanding and technique down pat. You could persuade, could mesmerize an entire nation’s public through on-screen inculcation. All we have to do to know this is true is to watch the black-and- white films shot of the hypnotic looks on the faces of the German people while they watched Goebbels’ films and listened to the Fuehrer’s rants at the massively-attended Nazi rallies.

Hollywood’s capabilities are technologically improved a thousand times over. The special effects, blended superbly with the stories presented, rather than overtly hypnotize the viewers, subliminally infuse into their psyches the worldviews those who control Hollywood worldly thinking desire to infuse.

Lucifer –Satan—is the father of lies, the Scripture tells us. Fiction, although not overt lies in the dictionary sense, nonetheless, are lies in the ultimate, literal sense. That is, fiction is not truth, although it might purport to portray truth. It has been termed the “willing suspension of disbelief”–i.e., the willing are willfully accepting of the lie.

This is what happened to the first two humans, isn’t it, according to the Bible?–If, of course, you believe the Bible. The serpent, remember, created a “suspension of disbelief” moment. He presented a half-truth fiction: “Ye shall not surely die.”

The serpent is still up to creating fiction based on lies meant to do their deadly work on the human mind and soul. He is the father of such… In the movie Noah, first shown in 2014, the suspension of disbelief is rampant. According to the reviews I’ve read –both from secular sources like Rolling Stone and the New York Times, and religious forums— the story from beginning to end is filled with scenes contrary to God’s account. The moviegoer was to put aside his or her preconditioned notions that what the film presented was false theology and history. They were to believe –without thinking too deeply about it–that the story of Noah and the Flood really could have happened as the Hollywood version has it. Regardless, what’s the harm? After all, it’s just a movie –good, Hollywood-quality entertainment.

Especially in the Western world, there is a concerted campaign to dumb down people in every sense. The principalities and powers of Ephesians 6:11-18 and the flesh-and-blood powers–the would-be, one-world order builders—are using every method available to hypnotize, in Joseph Goebbels fashion—the masses. They are determined to bring all back to Babel.

We will examine just how far along we might be in that process in next week’s commentary–Lord willing.

In 2014, Noah did what many Christians hoped it would not do in the movie’s first weekend in the theaters. It was far and away the most watched, beating out the second- place entry, which had led to that point. Noah knocked off Divergent, grossing more than $44 million at the box office, as compared to Divergent’s $22.6 million, according to studio estimates from Rentrak.

Despite calls by a number of ministries for a boycott of Darren Aronofsky’s film, moviegoers turned out in proverbial droves to see what the hoopla is all about. The hoopla, itself, generated greater interest than otherwise would have arisen to give the filmmaker the ticket-sales victory that was achieved. A number of critics, professional and otherwise, predicted at the time that the movie, after the big box office in its week of release, would be the big loser in the second week of its run and beyond. This prediction is based upon the opinion of those making the forecast that Bible-believing people who flocked to the theaters were so turned off by the film’s hit piece on God and Noah that the word will spread and subsequent days of the run will suffer immensely.

I remember back then not being so certain… I must preface this essay by saying that this is a blind guy writing about a movie he never saw, and whose sound track he’s not even heard to this day. I haven’t “seen” a movie–or anything else—in more than twenty years, due to retinas that no longer function. So, I must offer analysis based upon what others who have, in fact, seen the film are saying about it. In that regard, I assure that I have read everything of pertinence, by way of reviews, that I can find.

Before you delete from your cyberspace files my effort, however, I will tell you that I possess/offer perhaps some small degree of gravitas in the matters involved in the Genesis story of Noah.

I have written or coauthored somewhere around thirty books, many of which deal in-depth and directly with the story of the Flood and with the Genesis chapter 6 account of what really happened during that antediluvian time. I say “what really happened,” because what I’ve learned from the plethora of reviews of Aronofsky’s Noah–both religious and secular reviews–is that it diverges from the real story so greatly as to defy any claim the movie makers had to this being a Bible-based film. As a matter of fact, the movie might have better been called Divergent, the name of the film it dethroned during its debut weekend.

All of that said, this is not an opinion piece on the many literal aspects of the making of this Hollywood version of what happened during those pre-Flood times. We should expect no more or less than what the movie-going masses got from the world’s glitter capital for their big-ticket bucks. What is crucial, in my view, is to try to dissect the intricacies of what was going on with this film and what has gone on since with all other efforts to inculcate this generation.

We–Americans in particular—are face to face with Ephesians 6:12–the battle that’s not with flesh and blood, but with powers and principalities in high places. It is spiritual warfare of the first order as we rage toward the end of this decaying age.

The same supernatural entities that caused the Lord to finally have to destroy all flesh in the Flood of Noah’s day are at their nefarious work at this very moment. They are doing all within their considerable power to reeducate, inculcate, hypnotize each and every individual on the planet who hasn’t put on the whole armor of God.

Sadly, that is an enormous number of human beings–a massive majority of people who don’t know Jesus Christ as Savior. Perhaps even more depressing is the fact that this great number of people who aren’t prepared to stand against Satan’s last-days assault because they haven’t been fortified by their pastors and teachers in their churches includes Christians. They haven’t been trained to fight the spiritual battles they face, using God’s armor, given in Ephesians 6:11-18. Neither are they aware of the devices being used to attack them.

We are witnessing at this late hour in man’s Church-Age history plans by the supreme enemy being laid at every juncture. None of his schemes are cleverer than the preparation he is laying for what comes next in the battle of good versus evil.

We will look deeply into this scheme next week–Lord willing.

Today’s sense of impending nuclear exchange hearkens somewhat back to when I was a teenager. I remember sitting in the high school library looking at a daily newspaper. The headline was about Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premiere, threatening the use of hydrogen bombs if his plans for eastern Europe were resisted by the West.

Rumor had it amongst us high schoolers that nuclear war would commence on this particular Friday I was in the library thinking on such possibility. The world would end this very day, so the tale was told.

I guess I was sort of into issues and events of the times, just as I am these many decades later. Although a kid, I was concerned, but certainly couldn’t let on to my fellow students–especially not my macho pals, who all were saying “bring it on” to the Ruskies.

They seemed to have no fear or regard for what would happen if ol’ Khrushchev decided to nuke America. I did think about it and was, frankly, quite worried.

Now we have a 30-year-old, north Korean despot even uglier than was Nikita, threatening to send his newly developed, nuclear-tipped missiles to Guam and even to somewhere within the U.S. homeland. I haven’t paid much attention during the current “crisis” to the threat, even though issued by a true lunatic rather than the calculating, totally aware Khrushchev–i.e., the Soviet dictator realized what it would mean for him, personally, should he be so foolhardy as to initiate nuclear war. I’m not certain Kim Jong-un has the same degree of realization.

Being three-quarters of a century old currently might make the difference in my degree of concern–then, in 1958, versus now. Even though sense of my own mortality at 16 was almost nonexistent, I was fearful. The present threat has many people today thinking like I did back then. The current nuclear threat doesn’t concern me at all, although my knowledge of my own mortality now is with me every waking hour.

What’s the difference in the young Terry’s concern and the old Terry’s lack thereof, do you think? It must be more than merely naïveté about geopolitical, diplomatic interaction that might bring on or avert nuclear catastrophe that caused me at 16 to worry. It can’t just be that I can now, through reasoning ability guided by experience, assuage fear because I’m much wiser at this advanced age about how nuclear-armed states always pull up short of using those weapons of mass destruction.

One thing sure…I have no such confidence in those human agents who have their fingers on the nuclear triggers. I have no doubt whatsoever that one day those triggers will be pulled.

Preparation is underway in every direction one looks. Nuclear war is looming like the mystical Sword of Damocles over this powder-keg world.

Pakistan and India threaten each other with their nuclear stockpiles. The big, nuclear-muscle boys–America, China, and Russia–look warily at each other through satellite-computer guardians 24/7.

Israel stands ready at all times to invoke the Samson Option. If it looks like the use of nuclear weapons is all that will stop an attack that would mean the end of the Jewish state, they will go to any such length necessary.

And this brings us to the title of our commentary today: Ezekiel 38-39 and Nukes.    

Iran stands on the brink of developing nuclear capability even more threatening than that of the North Koreans. Previous U.S. presidential administrations–particularly those of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama–made “deals” they promised would make the whole world safer from nuclear proliferation–from nuclear war. The deals they made with both North Korea and with the Iranian regimes, however, have brought us to now having to act perhaps precipitously, or else face certain nuclear war in the not-too-distant future.

Iran, as Bible prophecy students know, is the nation that occupies that area that was ancient Persia. Persia is foretold by the prophet Ezekiel to mount an all-out assault against Israel as part of the Gog-Magog coalition.

It is strongly expected that North Korea has provided the Iranians with nuclear warheads or with the technology necessary to produce nuclear weapons. Iran is far advanced in missile technology and it is only a matter of time until they will be able to fit nuclear warheads to those missiles–presuming they haven’t done so already.

The Trump administration has led the way in imposing sanctions on Iran to stop development of their missile program. If it can’t be halted, Israel will almost certainly at some point take military action to try to destroy Iran’s nuclear development capability.

America’s most recent action has caused the Iranian regime to ramp up its call for the destruction of America and Israel. The following tells of that rogue nation’s anger:

DUBAI – Iran’s parliament gave initial approval on Sunday to a bill to boost spending on Tehran’s missile program and the elite Revolutionary Guards in retaliation for new sanctions imposed by the United States.

Lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the outlines of the bill to “counter America’s terrorist and adventurist actions” as some chanted “Death to America,” the state broadcaster IRIB reported.

The measure came in retaliation to legislation passed by US Congress and signed by US President Donald Trump in early August to impose new sanctions on Iran over its missile program. (“Iran eyes more funds for missiles, troops after US sanctions-Middle East,” Jerusalem Post, 8/13/17)

With one of the primary Gog-Magog force members about to go nuclear, there should be reason for greatly increased worry. Like the North Koreans, they are a regime blood-vowed to destroy its enemy. In the case of North Korea, it is South Korea–and America–that constitutes the enemies that inspire the blood vow. With Iran, of course, it’s Israel and America that must be obliterated.

However, in the case of Iran, we know from prophecy that they are going to act on their blood-oath. In North Korea, if they are a factor in bringing the world to nuclear Armageddon, it will be much later, in consort with the “kings of the east” of Revelation chapters 9 and 16.

So, why am I the calm (old) Terry as opposed to the 16-year-old, fearful Terry in the high school library, reading magazines and newspapers instead of studying in study hall? The danger is imminently more grave now than then.

The answer, of course, is Bible prophecy. The old Terry knows and believes what God’s Word has to say about what will be the outcome of all this nuclear saber-rattling.

Bible prophecy tells me that Iran is not destroyed by the time of the God-Magog attack, which is yet future. Israel is not destroyed at that time–or ever.

Bible prophecy tells me that Iran, Russia, Turkey, and all the others of that force come in a conventional –not nuclear attack. Something has obviously happened by that time to cause nuclear weaponry to not be used–at least not in a world-rending way.

The other nations, we are told by Ezekiel in chapters 38 and 39, are there, too. They send only a diplomatic note of protest when they see that great, satanic, Gog-led force descend toward Israel. Nuclear weaponry, again it is obvious, hasn’t yet been used in a world-destroying way by that time.

Again, Jesus said it will be business as usual at the time of His “revealing.” That is, people will be doing business as usual, according to the Lord’s Days of Noah/Days of Lot prophecy (Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17:26-30). At the time of the Rapture, therefore, there will have been no world-shattering nuclear conflict–or major catastrophic event on a global scale, either.

If only that worried, 16-year-old Terry had studied Ezekiel 38-39 in that study hall in 1958…

A prophetic picture emerged in my mind some years ago when considering Russia’s rumbling and snorting along the borders of Ukraine and within Crimea.

“And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.” (Dan 7: 5)

Now, I am aware that this refers to the empire combination in prophecy known as Medo-Persia. However, the scripture points starkly to the nature and the power of the beast we know as the bear. It is this I would like to address somewhat in this commentary.

I have a friend living in Montana who told me that the Grizzlies, when out of hibernation, sometimes amble into the sparsely populated neighborhoods looking for something –anything—to eat. She has an apple orchard near her and the thousand pound plus animals come down to shake the trees for the apples. She is concerned for her little dog, and, of course, for herself, during these times when the Grizzlies, and even Black bears, are ravenous, having just emerged from their long winter’s naps. She has a friend that has had her front door knocked off its hinges with one blow by a giant Grizzly paw. Another friend, she says, had to shoot a Grizzly with a high-powered rifle through a window when it tore the window out, frame and all.

The bear is one of the top predators and certainly one of the most dangerous of all of earth’s animals.

The Russian behemoth has been well-assigned its animal lookalike. As of late it is again living up to that kindred spirit it shares with the massive Grizzly. The old Soviet Union certainly was as voracious as its animal lookalike, gobbling up Hungary, and every other nation within its sphere of influence.

We are witnessing at this time the Russian bear coming out of hibernation following its long winter when the cold war ended and it went for a time into a more or less dormant stage, thanks to the strong stance taken by leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. They stood with the equivalent of high-powered rifles, ready to deal with the Soviet bear should it raise to devour much national flesh in the geopolitical sense. Reagan and Thatcher –and anyone like them, are long gone. The bear is out of its cave, and it is hungry to reestablish its territory.

Vladimir Putin, of course, represents the head of that bear, in my analogy, with massive jaws, terrible teeth, and a hunger that, I believe, will not be satiated until the bear has its fill. Bible prophecy tells us that Rosh –which we believe to be Russia—will eventually look southward toward the Middle East in order to satisfy its appetite. You don’t put down a thousand-pound bear with a flyswatter. You use a high-powered rifle to defend against such a powerful beast. Until the Trump Administration changed the way things are done, those of the former administration were intent on using a flyswatter on Putin’s overtly obvious ambitions, as he began what I’m convinced will be a continuing attempt to reestablish the Soviet bear’s territory.

Putin has said he believes the West cheated and did great injustice to Russia –to the U.S.S.R—when Reagan and the others forced Gorbachev to cower under the threat of the so-called Star Wars Missile Defense initiative. This KGB Colonel hasn’t forgotten that perceived injustice –just like Adolf Hitler never forgot how, in his thinking, Germany was mistreated in the forced surrender of Germany following World War I.

Putin is continuing to act much like the Fuehrer acted in beginning to annex and threaten to invade surrounding territories. He still has thousands of Russian troops gathered along the Ukrainian borders. There is no doubt in my mind that he will invade full-force someday, if he isn’t granted what he wants without firing a shot.

President Trump and some within congress are proposing increased sanctions to hold the bear’s ambitions in check. Those sanctions, however, won’t affect Putin’s decisions –guaranteed. It might make additional hardships on the Russian people, but, Vlad Putin and his cronies will still have the multiple mansions, the limos, the perks –like in the case of all dictators. And, as long as Putin controls the natural gas of his region and of Europe, he isn’t worried about sanctions.

Israel’s massive natural gas deposits to his south do concern the Russian leader, however. These threaten his hegemony, and, like any tyrant, he will do whatsoever it takes to eliminate the opposition –especially as long as he receives no resistance, militarily.

Mr. Trump, I’m convinced, will oppose the Russian bear’s aggression. however, Bible prophecy foretells a time when the world will send only a diplomatic note of protest in opposition to the bear’s design.

You don’t swat a Grizzly with a flyswatter. Ezekiel chapters 38-39 tell us the result of such weak leadership.