Looking at the world around us from so many different viewpoints separates and divides the human community, engendering hatreds, wars, and death. Jesus, speaking on the Mount of Olives one day, prophesied the degree to which the differences would explode in the time just before His return:

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. (Matthew 24:7)

We’ve pointed out often that the word “nation” here is from the Greek word ethnos, translated “ethnic” in English. Jesus was warning that the Tribulation era will produce great hatreds that will be centered on racial and cultural differences of worldview. These unprecedented uprisings of this sort will eventuate in famines and pestilence—the inevitable result of all-out war.

Although this generation is not in the Tribulation era about which Jesus prophesied here, we have diametrically differing worldviews on the national and international scenes that are without question setting the stage for the times Jesus foresaw.

The US is mired in many ethnic problems and cultural differences within the various races themselves. Insistence on embracing multiculturalism by the PC crowd, motivated to their hyper level of championing the melting-pot worldview by mainstream media, throws fuel on the fires of racial divides. The multicultural Nazis want Americans to stay separate, because most of these PC types are socialist-leaning globalists who want us to be citizens of the world rather than citizens of a sovereign nation. Hyphenating, or mixing ethnic with national identities, into unique nomenclature seems designed to make America eventually forfeit national autonomy.

Worldview is being shaped in this nation to reflect the one-world builders’ blueprint for the global village, as one well-known failed presidential candidate put it. The worldview in question has never gone away. It is the perennial worldview that has been with humankind since Nimrod attempted to build the tower to Heaven not long after the Flood of Noah’s day (read Genesis chapter 11). We see that blueprint manifested in the current attempts to bring everyone together in the Middle East–at Israel’s expense, of course.

Jesus also prophesied that humans would get themselves deeper and deeper into trouble, so far as the nation state is concerned, the closer the Second Advent comes.

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring. (Luke 21:25)

There can be little argument against the obvious. Nations are indeed in great distress today, with much perplexity. We don’t have to look at the many nations of earth to prove this. Our own nation is divided right down the middle on most issues of politics and morality. People are so distressed—even perplexed—that many promised to leave the country if they didn’t get their way in presidential election results. Others have written fictional books venting their anger in wishful accounts of the assassination of a president they hate—leading to actual assassination attempts by more than one would-be assassin hate-filled with what has become known as the “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The problems involved all boil down to one issue—worldview.

Any view of life on this planet other than God’s view is—to put it bluntly, but truthfully—wrong, and destined to produce disaster. This is true no matter the area of life. Worldview is all-important in avoidance of trouble and achievement of success. There isn’t space here to go into the many areas in life today to which this truth applies. So, let’s briefly look at one key issue in considering worldview that gets to the crux of the most important prophetic indicator of this late hour. The issue is modern Israel.

The geopoliticians are in perplexity about Israel and its hate-filled enemies. The diplomats have no idea where the anger truly comes from, therefore they can’t begin to understand how to solve the violence and hatred. The world’s diplomats have a worldview—or combination of worldviews—that completely leaves God out of the equation for peace-making. The result has been more than five thousand years of war throughout recorded history. God says, “Be governed by my rules, because I created all that is, and know what is best.” The earthly rulers say, “We can handle it. If there is a God, that God is existential at best. We don’t need or want Him to rule over us.” This doesn’t apply, of course, to Islamic fanatics who slavishly accept the bloody demands of their god to make war.

God says everything is His, including the land of the Middle East He chose to give to the Jews: Israel. The geopoliticians say they will decide who owns the land and who doesn’t. The result: a world that’s quickly moving toward all-out war: Armageddon.

The same error in worldview is within the Church today—i.e., those who have trusted Christ for salvation. The worldview of most mainline denominations today say God is through with Israel. The Church—that worldview proposes—is now the inheritor of all promises that the Lord covenanted with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is through with Israel, and all about Israel that is in the Bible must be spiritualized, allegorized, or treated as history already accomplished.

Really?

They proclaim–through their worldview—that the Church is going to make the world better and better, until they’ve made it good enough through the political and diplomatic process—in conjunction with religious, do-good projects—for Jesus to come back and take over.

Really?

They aren’t reading the same headlines I am. If the Lord has given up on Israel, then it sure is some coincidence going on. We are expected to believe that Israel just happens to be on the front page headlines every day, in the center of a desperate cry for peace, just like God’s prophetic Word forecast. Worldview is all-important in God’s economy. God’s worldview is–as legendary football coach Vince Lombardi once put it in talking about winning—not everything. It is the ONLY thing!

People throughout the world have been reporting the strange lights from the heavens for millennia. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and most every other civilization and culture have recorded sightings that are unusual.

However, today, an increasing number of anomalous sightings is reported nearly every hour of every day. Many are recorded with and through the ever-improving technologies for catching the UFOs, now called “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAPs).

The 1947 reports of a crashed extraterrestrial flying disc at Roswell, New Mexico, opened the modern world to setting the stage for what has come since. The movie industry has greatly expanded public awareness of and fascination with the things from “out there” somewhere.

From the 1952 film The Day the Earth Stood Still to the Star Trek TV series and movies and the Star Wars franchise of films, ET, and others to all the recent US governmental probing into all things extraterrestrial, the strange things taking place in the heavens are front and center in the headlines today. Gary Ritter’s and my series of novels beginning with The Rapture Dialogues (hope you will consider getting them on Amazon) is meant to lay out developments in past and coming stellar prophecy unfolding.

One such front-and-center report of things appearing in the skies is presented in the following:

The Mysterious Interstellar Object Appears to Be Pulsing in a “Heartbeat Pattern”

The pattern is repeating every 16 hours.

The mysterious interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is just weeks away from reaching its closest point to Earth: it’s expected to pass within just 170 million miles of our home planet on December 19, giving astronomers an unprecedented opportunity to take a closer look as it whizzes past.

As Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb points out in a new blog post, they’ll be building on intriguing existing observations from ground telescopes — including a paper published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics in October by a team of researchers in Europe and Africa that found signs that it’s radiating a “heartbeat” pulse of light that repeats every 16.16 hours.

While that may sound like an intriguing new fold in Loeb’s longstanding efforts to support the theory that the object could be an extraterrestrial spacecraft visiting the solar system, there’s likely a much more mundane explanation: that it’s spinning, pulsing us with light like an interstellar lighthouse.…

Though most scientists hold that the object is probably a natural comet, Loeb is still holding out hope that 3I/ATLAS’ jets could be technological in nature.

“For a technological object, the direction of the pulsing jet could be arbitrary and not necessarily pointing towards the Sun,” he wrote.

Regardless, getting a better sense of how these pulses change over time could shed more light on the matter. For one, its spin may have changed since it reached its perihelion, or closest point to the Sun, in late October.…

in the published literature,” Loeb wrote. “A movie showing the periodic brightening of the jets around 3I/ATLAS over several days can reveal whether the jets are natural or technological based on the orientation of the heartbeat pattern relative to the Sun.” (“The Mysterious Interstellar Object Appears to Be Pulsing in a “Heartbeat Pattern,” Victor Tangermann, senior editor at Futurism, Rapture Ready News, December 2, 2025)

We recently looked at the following prophecy given by Jesus:

And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring. (Luke 21:25–28)

We previously dealt with the latter part of the prophecy–“nations in distress, with perplexity” and “the sea and the waves roaring.” We looked at all the rioting among the peoples of the US and other tumultuous cities of the planet, and at how the people seem to have been given over to the “reprobate mind” of Romans 1:28.

Now we examine the first part of Christ’s prophecy—”And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars” (Luke 21:25a).

Jesus said that as the time of His return to establish His millennial kingdom on earth nears, there would be unusual signs in the heavens.

With reports such as the one above and many others, even if just considering that we now have the technological capability to record them, the words of the Lord certainly ring true. There are indeed “signs in the sun, moon, and stars.”

Undoubtedly, we’ve only begun to see this particular signal of the coming Tribulation and the return of the King of Kings. Such signs will almost certainly increase in the days and nights just ahead.

As I’ve said on many occasions, I believe the reports of the strange sights in the skies are prophetic. They are the warnings Jesus gave. I believe they’re setting the stage for when the False Prophet (Revelation chapter 13) calls down fire from Heaven in the sight of the image of the Beast.

And the signals are for His Second Advent, which, of course, will follow the seven terrible years of Tribulation.

This all means the Rapture of believers from this fallen planet must be so near that we can almost reach out and touch it!

Jesus, again, said: “When you see all these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your head, for your redemption draws near” (Luke 21:28).

While one is inundated hour after hour, day after day, with the profusion of news from around the world, there is one profoundly important element missing in the reportage.

The troubles, the problems, the carnage, come at us in an avalanche of bad news. At the same time, proposals by governments and by top-flight individuals within the atmospherics of politics and governmental authority promise to solve the deluge of pending catastrophes –promises that never come to fruition.

The element that is left out of the reportage, of the promises, is deafening in its silence. As a matter of fact, this element is the very cause of the pending calamity that hangs above every nation on earth like that Damocles’ Sword of mythology. Except there is nothing mythological about the threat of cataclysm the world –that every nation of Planet Earth—resides under at this present moment.

The threat isn’t from the human dimension or even from the demonic. Here is the threat in a Heavenly Nutshell, without meaning to trivialize its Origin.

“He that rejected me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48).

These are the Words of the One who is destined to Judge all the world. To ignore His Words is to invite Calamity beyond all imagination. His name, of course, is Jesus Christ, the Lord of all lords and the King of all kings.

Jesus is The Word (John 1:1).

Every Word Given in God’s Love Letter to mankind –the Holy Bible – was first Uttered in the Heaven of Eternity Past. Every Word in this Holy Volume is Truth that is in the far distant Reaches of Eternity Future.

The Author of this Word –of these Words—is the Creator of all that is. It is this Author who literally Holds the very matter that constitutes what He Created in place. Without Him, nothing could exist that exists.

Nothing, that is, except the evil that came with man’s rejection of God’s Order at the time of Eden.

This evil is the Cause for the catastrophe that hangs above Planet Earth. And we who Watch Prophetic stage-setting for Christ’s Judgment must forewarn all who participate in the rebellion first infused into mankind by the great deceiver –the father of lies—Lucifer the fallen –Satan.

Mankind’s ignoring Heaven’s Influence and Governance by not considering God’s Word –the Words of His Son Jesus –is in danger of Eternal Damnation.

That God’s Holy Word is ignored to this extent around the Globe today is in full display, as the following news item reports.

Nearly Half the World Restricts or Bans the Bible, Report Warns

An analysis by the organization Open Doors revealed that the Bible is banned or restricted in 88 of the world’s 195 countries, meaning that nearly half of all nations limit access to the Holy Scriptures. Among the most serious cases is China, where—despite its image of economic openness—state control, direct government intervention, and social surveillance mechanisms continue to persist.

Additionally, Cardinal Joseph Zen has called on the faithful to “return to the catacombs,” warning that in China, religious worship is not only strictly regulated but that there is also a state-authorized form of worship. The prelate discourages attending these official churches and urges believers to practice their faith freely, remaining “faithful to the truth that makes us free.”

[Source: Almost half of the countries in the world ban or restrict the Holy Bible – Gateway Hispanic, Rapture Ready News, November 29, 2025]

While there are some in Congress who occasionally mention God’s Name or who read a snippet from the Bible, it is rare indeed to find any mention of God’s Word in proposals to fix what ails humanity within the U.S. or around the world.

It is particularly disconcerting to note the absence of mention of the Prince of Peace in all the talk of peace going on at present.

My hope is that this president of the United States lends his ear to those, such as Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee (who understands Bible prophecy and Foretelling involving Israel) when it comes to trying to come up with a peace plan to resolve the millennia-long conflict between God’s chosen people and the surrounding enemy peoples. But if such an ear is given in the Abraham Accords or other peace talks, we aren’t privy to such inside information.

And it is only a peace plan that does not include Israel giving into a 2-state solution that has a chance of success. It is dividing God’s land (the land given Abraham and his progeny through his son Isaac) that will bring all of the nations of earth to mankind’s final war, God’s Holy Word Foretells (Joel 3:2).

Thinking on the ignoring of God’s Word, there is a serious dearth of putting forth that Word within much of the Christian churches at present. Rarely in the pulpits of America is there a ringing declaration of Truth from Scripture laying out the wickedness of societies and cultures.

There is, however, an overabundance in too many cases of messaging about how to get along with environments surrounding everyday life. i.e., teaching how to not rock the proverbial boat, so as to not disrupt personal and/or church tranquility. –Teaching that ignores the primary Purpose of the church –of Christianity—that without adhering to God’s Word and Acceptance of Jesus Christ in all His Truth, the individual and the world are destined to Eternal destruction.

Jesus Christ will one Eternal Day be the Judge of all who reject His Word. We who name His Holy Name must proclaim Him now, while He Offers Salvation from the sin that Forever separates fallen mankind from the Heavenly Father.

Jesus said: “…I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me…” (John 14:6).

This is the one Statement by the Lord Jesus that must not be ignored. For to do such will bring the ultimate calamity down in the form of God’s Judgment and Wrath –either upon the individual or the nation that does the ignoring.

Here again is how to obey rather than ignore God’s Call, through His Son’s Sacrifice on the cross at Calvary for Redemption.

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

As the former president and presidential candidate spoke to a large rally gathering at Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, 6 rifle shots rang out. Donald J. Trump immediately fell to the platform floor and then stood, his fist pumping in the air. He shouted, “Fight, Fight, Fight!” while blood poured from his head. But it was not a JFK-type wound. The former president’s ear had been struck by the high-power bullet meant to kill him.

Even Mr. Trump himself has stated that he knew that God had spared his life that evening. He has stated that he felt as if a gigantic, invisible hand had slapped him to the floor following the rifle shot, while others were wounded and one person was killed.

The incident, no doubt, was part of the catalyst for galvanizing the vote on election day in putting him back in office as President number 47.

In my view, the assassination attempt was the resultant effort at murder of the one person those desirous of protecting their base of control couldn’t allow back into the most powerful political office on the planet. And I believe that a spiritual assessment of matters points out that the effort had demonic influence at the Ephesians 6:12 level. But Heaven’s Protective Secret Service obviously negated the intrigues of that cabal of powers and principalities in high places. 

God raises kings, and he brings them down, the scripture tells us (Daniel 2:21). Donald J. Trump, no matter what you think of his being in office, was God’s choice in the 2024 presidential election in the United States. Not even satanic power could prevent the man’s reassuming that office.

Anyone who is honest in their assessment must see the never-ending assaults from every possible angle of attack. It seems only a matter of time until another deadly assassination attempt is forthcoming.

However, in the meantime, the same wickedness in high places–the powers and principalities—continue to do all they can, using human minions within that dark cabal to oppose God’s choice for the office at this moment. The rage to establish Satan’s man on the throne of world power won’t cease. Such established power will eventually be achieved, and the results will be seven years of hell on earth.

But one can sense in process a different tactic used by the prince of this world to continue the assault on this president. And the attack, in my view, again involves Donald Trump’s ear.

It is a slower process than was the .223 round that cut through his ear in Butler, Pennsylvania that evening of July 13, 2023. But the assault entering his ear at this time can be witnessed slowly doing its damage. The results of the attack might well prove far more deadly in damage in terms of prophetic import. As a matter of fact, the president’s ear might play a significant role in the wrap-up of this end-times era –these last of the last days.

The assault being waged is seen most pointedly in Mr. Trump’s desire and attempt to bring about peace. Jesus Himself has said: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” So the desire to bring peace is a noble gesture. And I have no doubt that this is the president’s motive –to bring about peace to the most dangerous region of the planet in terms of possibly igniting nuclear conflict and even World War III.

But there is a peace which God’s Prophetic Word says will be deadly.

“And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many…” (Daniel 8:25c).

This is the Peace that Antichrist will falsely promise to Israel. It will be the false peace that will bring Satan’s man, the beast, to power during the Tribulation (Daniel’s seventieth week).

So this deadly peace revolving around God’s chosen nation, Israel, is the major factor I wish us to consider. It involves the assault we can perceive as the ongoing satanic attack on the president’s ear. This time, on Mr. Trump’s ear-gate into his thinking –his thinking particularly on the most relevant element wrapped up in prophecy that Foretells the fate of all nations of the world upon the killing field called Armageddon.

Here is the prophecy about where that future false peace will lead.

“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).

President Trump, those who Watch as Jesus Commanded as given in Mark 13:37 notice has a desire to make peace even at the price of giving up part of Israel’s land. The process has him seemingly listening to voices other than the Voice of the One who returned him to the presidency. A recent example is when the reigning monarch of Saudi Arabia visited the White House.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) was being disingenuous whilst sitting in the White House with President Trump on 18 November.

MBS told the assembled Press Corps:

“We want to be part of the Abraham Accords, but we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path of two-state solution. And today we have a healthy discussion with Mr. President that we’re going to work on that to be sure that we can prepare the right situation as soon as possible to have that.”

President Trump pointedly disagreed with MBS’s summation:

“I think we’re — you know, I don’t want to use the word commitment, but we’ve had a very good talk on the Abraham Accords. We talked about one-state, two-state — you know, we talked about a lot of things; in a short period of time we’ll be discussing it further, too. But I think you have a very good feeling toward the Abraham Accords.”

[Source: Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine: Clearest path to peace since 2022, All Israel News, November 24, 2025]

More and more in his dealings with the peace matter involving Israel, the president leaves open the thought that a 2-state solution might be offered within his Abraham Accords. In this, he is listening to the wrong voices who seem to have his ear –his ear-gate to his thinking. This spiritual projectile of peace proposal suggestion is far more deadly than the literal round that damaged his physical ear that evening as he spoke.

We who understand where a two-state dividing of God’s Land will lead must say to President Trump the following:

Mr. President, we implore that you let those such as Ambassador Mike Huckabee, Dr. Robert Jeffress, and Dr. John Hagee, and others who understand Bible prophecy have your ear. Listen to these voices rather than to the voice of the one who comes only to steal, and to kill, and destroy–the evil one whose man of sin –Antichrist—awaits in the shadows of history yet future.

One prophetic element stands out in considering the seven-year Tribulation era regarding the Antichrist regime. That is the economic platform prophesied to be at the heart of the Beast system.

With so many signals in view that point to the brewing Tribulation tempest, we should expect—if we’re reading the end-times signals correctly—that this heart of the Beast should be well along in its construction. We’ve covered all the indicators found within current issues and events that we believe are signals like those given by Jesus and the prophets. National and world economies have been dealt with in our efforts to make prophetic sense of the dynamic rearrangements taking place in recent times.

America’s staggering weight of debt and threat of economic decline, despite the Trump administration’s determination and successful efforts to begin restoring fiscal responsibility and produce recovery, is front and center in pointing to the fact that this is the generation that stands at the end of one dispensation (the Church Age) and upon the precipice of the next (the Tribulation). Each hour seems to bring additional confirmation that the Tribulation storm is about to break upon an uncomprehending world. We see such confirmation in abundance in the realm of geopolitics and global economics.

Since Bible prophecy clearly says the Antichrist government, thus the economic engine that will power that absolute dictatorship, will emerge from Europe, we need to keep our prophetic antennae pointed in that direction. In other words, we must be especially alert to news involving movement within Europe to cause significant changes to the global economic structure.

The following excerpt from the European Union hierarchy registers an interesting blip on my own end-times radar screen.

“Geopolitical shifts and heightened policy uncertainty remind us that no currency’s global position is guaranteed,” Christine Lagarde told EU policymakers…

The European Union must “do its homework” and seize the unprecedented opportunity to strengthen the global role of the euro at the expense of the US dollar, European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde urged on Monday.

Speaking to the European Parliament’s economy committee, the ECB chief said that current geopolitical instability provides EU policymakers with a “unique opportunity … to strengthen the euro’s role on the global stage”.

“The world is in transition,” Lagarde added. “Geopolitical shifts and heightened policy uncertainty remind us that no currency’s global position is guaranteed. It has to be earned.”

The remarks come as US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs and attacks on the US Federal Reserve’s independence have sparked deep investor unease about the future of the US dollar, which has dominated global finance since the end of the Second World War…

Many non-Western countries, including the ‘BRICS’ group of nations – which includes China and Russia – have [like the EU] sought to “de-dollarise” the global payments system in recent years, despite Trump’s threats to impose 100% tariffs on nations seeking to move away from the US dollar.

A more “global” euro would allow businesses, households, and governments in the 20-country single currency area to enjoy lower borrowing costs, Lagarde said – much as global demand for dollar-denominated assets has afforded Washington the “exorbitant privilege” of consistently low interest rates despite years of widening budget deficits.

But for this to be achieved, “Europe must do its homework and strengthen its foundations” by integrating capital markets, safeguarding central bank independence, deepening trade links with third countries, developing a “digital euro” that isn’t dependent on US payment infrastructure, and issuing a “safe and liquid pool of EU public debt,” Lagarde said.

“The euro can be more than the currency of a continent and a symbol of unity; it can become a global anchor of trust,” she said, adding that the bloc’s policymakers should help “transform that vision, that dream into a reality.” (“EU must seize ‘unique opportunity’ to supplant US dollar dominance, says ECB president,” https://www.euractiv.com)

Prophecy scholars and others have long pondered why the US, the most powerful nation in history, isn’t mentioned by name—or even by significant reference—in God’s Word. We continue to flounder in attempts at finding an exact answer for that question. However, with the recent astonishing changes nationally and abroad, the answer seems to be in the process of forming.

Monetary manipulation is at the root of the change taking place. The American dollar must be removed as the currency standard so that a global currency not underwritten by any national monetary unit can be established. This is precisely the Beast economic order I’m convinced Bible prophecy describes as outlined in the following:

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)

This speaks to me of a computer system—a hybrid Internet whereby all citizens of the global economic order will be absolutely controlled at every level of life. Probably, it will consist at its heart of electronic funds transfer (EFT)–a system of special drawing rights (SDR)—all governed, no doubt, by an ultra-advanced AI technology along with Antichrist’s demonic evil. Anyone refusing to toe the mark of the Antichrist’s regime will face having his or her SDR account blocked or entirely removed from the system. Fear of starvation is a mighty motivator to comply.

Pressures are mounting for a completely changed global economic order. Even the king of the kings of the East, China, is at the center of the dynamics driving the changes.

Most economists who are honest will admit that the current building economic heap of debt cannot continue to accumulate. They are amazed, in fact, that everything hasn’t already collapsed into total, worldwide depression. I again offer my belief that it will be the Rapture that causes the ultimate implosion and collapse.

The great world leader called “the Beast” in Revelation will be there to implement a satanically inspired economic scheme that will at first offer hope; it will, for a time, “cause craft to prosper” (Daniel 8:25). But Antichrist’s plan will achieve what it will be designed to do: enslave most of the world in electronic bondage.

Jesus offers the opposite of what the counterfeit, Antichrist, will produce. Jesus promises: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). We must at every opportunity lift up the Holy name of Jesus before the eyes of a world headed into the terrors of the Tribulation.

“Peace” is a word whose true definition has eluded this planet since the time recorded in Genesis 3:6–7:

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

The cry for peace is futile, in the human sense, because since the disobedience in the Garden of Eden, humankind has continued to descend more deeply into sin. The heart is deceitful above all things, the Bible says, and desperately wicked. Therefore, there is, rather than tranquility within the lost human soul, warfare that is never ending: “[There is] no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked” (Isaiah 48:22). And, James the apostle says: “From whence [come] wars and fightings among you? [come they] not hence, [even] of your lusts that war in your members?” (James 4:1).

The prophet Isaiah spoke to Israel and—through his God-given words—the whole human race:

The way of peace they know not; and [there is] no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. (Isaiah 59:8)

So, in this time of the season when many across the world (although I concede it’s a diminishing number of people) use the phrase, “Peace on earth, good will to men,” let us think a moment on peace.

We recall the grainy, black-and-white newsreel of Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waving a document containing the peace arrangement he had just made with the German Führer, Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain said at that time that the agreement guaranteed that there would be “peace in our time.”

Those who know the history of the time know that almost before the ink on the pact was dry, Hitler ordered the first attack that began bringing the whole world to war.

There came a time when Japan surrendered, and General Douglas MacArthur declared the matters of World War II concluded. But the issue of warfare was and remains far from concluded. Many thousands of Americans, not to mention people from other nations, have since lost their lives in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and numerous other far-flung areas around the world.

Today, the world’s diplomats, news cameras, and microphones are focused on the most problematic spot on earth regarding the threat of the possible ignition of World War III. It is the same area where true PEACE will one day break out. But, for now, it is the lack of the humanistic version of peace in the Holy Land that is the cause of angst for earth’s powers that be. God’s prophet, Ezekiel, spoke to the dearth of peace involving God’s chosen nation:

[To wit], the prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions of peace for her, and [there is] no peace, saith the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 13:16)

No matter which direction we glance today, evidence of earth-quivering anxiety mounts. This is at present, more than at any time in recent memory, a world without peace. The seas and waves are roaring, the nations are in distress with perplexity, precisely like Jesus said they will be when He breaks in upon a sinful, incorrigibly wicked world of earth-dwellers.

The Middle East is, as it has been perennially, in a failed peace process. Terroristic threats never cease to plague Israel. And terrorism is a spreading infection that has invaded most all of Europe and now threatens America’s major cities.

There is no peace because government leaders concentrate on acquiring and increasing authority to control, financial leaders and the money powers strive to attain more wealth by whatever means necessary, and most of the rest of humanity looks in every direction except toward Heaven for the peace they cannot find.

Religions of earth, too, are in turmoil, proclaiming that they are peaceful while at the same time they are hating each other. The religionists are making efforts to establish their own brand of peace through ecumenism. Certain of some who claim to have Christ at their center have joined the ecumenical movement toward establishment of a religious conglomerate within which all can live in peace.

PEACE–true PEACE—however, is in fact already here upon this troubled sphere. It came in the form of a Baby nearly two thousand years ago. We will celebrate His birthday this December 25. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, in truth IS here in the forever of eternity past and the forever of eternity future. He is the great I AM who is here in the present, and who chose to come in the flesh to suffer and die, then to resurrect so that fallen men, women, and children can be given the PEACE the human soul of each person on the planet must have to be resurrected from the death sin wrought.

Jesus ascended to the throne room of Heaven and is coming again:

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my father is greater than I. (John 14:27–28).

Rejoice! Take heart! Lift up your head and watch. PEACE will yet have the victory upon Planet Earth!