My friend Dr. J. R. Church used to end every TV program in Prophecy In the News with the words: “Keep looking up!” He was referring, of course, to Jesus’ command in Luke 21:28:
And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
While the Lord was, without question, talking about being vigilant in watching for all the conditions He said would be prevalent as His time to call His Church to Himself neared, and, indeed, was pointing to His Second Advent, it is perhaps less than a stretch to ask if He was doing one more thing. Was He also alluding to the prophetic signal He mentioned a few verses previous?
And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars. (Luke 21: 25a)
It is a worthy question, considering recent developments. Strange things are going on in the heavenlies, with interest stirred almost weekly with new signs discovered in the region of the sun, moon and stars.
There is more than good reason to be concerned enough to “look up” with regard to signs in the heavens.
Our friend Dr. Thomas Horn of SkyWatch TV has presented a number of programs pointing to astronomical reports from scientists that predict an asteroid of earth-devastating size coming our way. The space rock the size of a stadium, termed Apophis, is on track to possibly impact the earth April 13, 2029. Horn has conjectured whether this could be the space object prophetically scheduled to crash into an ocean during the Tribulation. Such an impact would certainly cause great destruction and cause the death of millions.
More recently, scientists are changing their estimated trajectory-predictions to say that this visitor from deep space might only be detrimental to satellites orbiting earth, thus disrupting the planet’s communications, etc.
This seems a ludicrous conclusion, considering an asteroid of such monumental size. I’m no astronomer or otherwise an expert, but something this big coming this close seems to me to be a cause of possible danger dwarfing the mere disruption of communication by knocking out a few satellites.
And signals from space continue to grab attention of scientists, who seem genuinely baffled. Here’s one story:
A team led by astronomers in Australia has discovered a brand new type of object in deep space that behaves in bizarre and mysterious ways never seen before.
Something about 4,000 light-years away, which is relatively close in our cosmic neighborhood, was seen spinning around and regularly blasting out a massive burst of energy that lasts a full a minute. Even weirder, that bright beam of radiation occurred like clockwork every 18 minutes.
“It was kind of spooky for an astronomer because there’s nothing known in the sky that does that,” astrophysicist Natasha Hurley-Walker said in a statement.
The behavior is similar to that of a pulsar or magnetar, which spin around as they blast out pulses of energy that can be detected here on Earth. But pulsars pulse very quickly, usually every few seconds. An object that sends out longer bursts just a few times an hour has never been seen before. (“Astronomers spy powerful deep-space object unlike anything seen before,” CNET, Rapture Ready News, 1/28/22)
Just as deep-space signals are ramping up interest by the scientists who say they are “spooked” by things they’re seeing, the whole UFO thing is being opened up by those in government who have always been desperate to put a cap on such information.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government is finally getting back into the UFO business.
And depending on which UFO believer you ask, it’s either a historic step forward to getting to the bottom of conspiracies or a ploy to regain control of the narrative — and possibly even prepare for interplanetary war.
The establishment of a new office, signed into law just before New Year’s, to study “unidentified aerial phenomenon” has divided the loose community of activists, researchers and pseudo scientists who hunt for proof that we are not alone in the universe.
Some hail the legislation creating the new office, tucked into section 1683 of the massive National Defense Authorization Act, for bringing new resources, rigor and officialdom to the investigation of a phenomenon — and a potential national security threat — that has long been stigmatized in a way that makes it difficult to study. (“ Historic step forward or cover-up plot? Pentagon’s new UFO office splits ufologists,” Alex Seitz-Wald, 1/8/22, Rapture Ready News, 1/28/22)
With all this “looking up” by scientists and government, there must be something up, so this generation should be “looking out.”
Just as the powers that be have set in motion the machinery of generating fear through the microbial world of virus pandemic, so, too, I’m of the cynical opinion, they are beginning to raise the fear factor in pointing us to things to come from somewhere above.
I’ve pointed before to the thought that the “great delusion” of 2 Thessalonians 2 might involve the lie that extraterrestrial visitors will come to rescue us from planetary disaster. These will, the lie will include, be called down from space by the false prophet. In actuality, it might well be that Satan and his evil hordes are being ejected from the heavenlies for the final time in the war they have lost with God’s angelic forces.
Regardless of how it all plays out, it is time for all believers to be looking up, while “watching” all going on around us, for our redemption—our Lord and Savior—must certainly be drawing near!
Terry James Prophecy Line 
I so respect and am blessed and taught by your writings, Terry James!! Father, continue to enlighten, teach and use Terry to your glory! Thank you, Terry!
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Terry, at the moment I do not know enough to know whether I like this post or not.
As you say this could easily be another distraction. There is only One whom we should be looking up for and I do believe that you are correct – He, Jesus Christ of Nazareth IS coming soon and we must be so focused upon Him that we have no time for distractions.
Could it be we should look for distractions, too?
I think Bible-literate people would be able to sort out false signs from true ones. One of the qualities a true sign would have would be that it would be followed by some kind of confirmation, based on the biblical multiple-witness rule. (Numbers 35:30; 2 Corinthians 13:1)
Just a thought.
You are certainly right about making the return of Jesus for his people the top priority. I totally agree.
That made fascinating reading and to extrapolate the cynicism further, when the Rapture occurs those left behind will be told the aliens took us away because we were not good for Mother Earth! We can already see ‘western society’ at least being deceived into believing that Christians are the true stumbling block to the earth’s obvious great, and rapid, next evolutionary push which, of course, will include transhumanism.
“Aliens Remove Evil Christian “Haters” and Earth Polluters – New Age of Tolerance and Plenty Coming Soon”
Wouldn’t surprise me i the world’s newspapers carried headlines like these, post-Rapture.
Jesus could not come soon enough. The evil and delusion in this world is just stunning. Every filth and perversion that humans can think of is being touted as “good”. “And they will call evil good and good evil”. Absolute proof of the bible and people will still deny what is right in front of them as “coincidence”. Unbelievable blindness.
Dr. Horn could very well be right about Apophis.
At this point, it is estimated to come within a little over 19,000 miles of Earth on April 13, 2029. This is below the 22,000 mile height of geosynchronous satellites (ones that have a 24 hour orbit which places them over the same place on Earth all the time). 19,000 miles is really a near-miss, astronomically speaking. It would not take too much of a change in its trajectory to have it hit the earth.
Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona measures ¾ mile in diameter and was likely caused by a meteor only about 150 feet in diameter. Doing the math, that means the hole this thing made was 26 times bigger than the thing that caused it. Apophis is some 1200 feet in diameter and could therefore blow a hole 6 miles in diameter if it hit land and certainly cause a massive tsunami if it hit the ocean. It would look like a burning mountain as it hit the atmosphere and the shock wave would be tremendous. It is a scenario right out of Revelation 8:8-9 and if Apophis isn’t it, we can be reasonably certain another one will be.
The “long pulsar” is extremely unusual. Many of these have a flash rate of milliseconds so for something to beam to project a beam of 1 minute at 18 minute intervals is not something readily explainable. That is should be spotted now, of all times, may be significant.
Terry’s conjecture that the expulsion of Satan and demons out of heaven could appear as a UFO event is one I never considered. Sounds very plausible to me.
Thanks, Terry, for another great article!
Maybe the conjecture about apophis is correct, I don’t know. I’m skeptical about specific predictions like this for a few reasons. When they fail to materialize as predicted by humans, it can injure people’s faith. It also tends to lend a natural explanation to what is going to be a very supernatural period of time. The judgements of Revelation seem supernatural but, I guess we’ll see…
I think what upcoming approach with Apophis shows is how something CAN happen, but not necessarily how it MUST happen. I do certainly agree with you that most of what happens in Revelation is supernatural in origin, but since God often also uses the “tools at hand,” I think it is safe to include them, too. (Examples: Using the Israelites to judge the evil of the previous occupants of the promised land and then the Babylonians to judge Israel when they became wayward, using Mary to come to Earth as a human via childbirth, etc.)
My faith is based primarily the Bible evidence, historical, philosophical, and prophetic. It just continues to be proven right all the time and that’s enough to convince me that my faith is not in vain.
Seeing so many of the signs prophesied in the Bible materializing before our eyes is much stronger evidence than any isolated event. Because of this, I think the odds favor us not being around for the Apophis approach, anyway.
Well said and very good point. Whatever the details are, as psalm 91 says, “we will only look on with our eyes And see the recompense of the wicked.”
Amen to that!