To my way of thinking, things going on at present regarding Israel are most significant in light of Bible prophecy. Intrigues involving the status of Jerusalem are profound beyond any entered into in recent times. A strange setting of the prophetic stage is in process, with Saudi and Israel engaging in unprecedented overtures to each other. A key prophetic player is the chief cause of the strange bedfellows climbing between the geopolitical, diplomatic sheets. We get a flavor of  the Bible prophecy stage-setting from the following news excerpt.

Imagine an Israeli taking a direct flight on El Al airlines to Riyadh, or the House of Saud establishing an embassy in Jerusalem. Previously unthinkable, rumors abound of a desire by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) to normalize ties between the two countries…

Israel’s relationship with the Saudis appears to be warming, with the countries allied in the struggle against a common enemy, Iran…

There are a number of reasons Riyadh and Jerusalem may be cozying up, outside of the desire to stop Iran’s expansionism. Both countries agree, for example, that the “Arab Spring” revolutions were destabilizing and unleashed dangerous forces. They likewise believe that a reduction in American influence in the Middle East left a power vacuum that risks being filled by enemies. (Inside the Prospective Israel-Saudi Arabia Rapprochement, Israel News, Jerusalem Post, By Ian May/ The Media Line)

Many prophetic observers–including yours truly–believe that Sheba and Dedan of Ezekiel 38:13 likely refers to the area possessed by present-day Saudi and surrounding territory. These will not be part of the Gog-Magog assault against Israel given by the prophet Ezekiel.

Instead they will apparently stand on the sideline and issue a note of diplomatic protest, along with others. Certainly recent developments, with Iran (ancient Persia) being the chief nemesis of both Israel and Saudi, have the Jews and Arabs coming together. They are doing so, at least, in their desire to promote their common defense.

At the same time, the Arab/Muslim world as a conglomerate body is making sounds of war. The reason: the rumors that American President Donald J. Trump will move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Another news excerpt frames the situation.

The Trump administration has notified U.S. embassies around the world that it plans to formally recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, according to a report published Thursday by The Wall Street Journal. The plan includes the future relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

According to the report, the plan has not been finalized, but envoys were being notified so that they can inform their host governments and prepare for possible protests…

“The president has always said it is a matter of when, not if, [the embassy will relocate to Jerusalem],” a White House spokesperson said. (White House Notifies US Embassies Around the World of Plan to Recognize Jerusalem as Capital of Israel, The Jewish Press, JewishPress.com, Hana Levi Julian, December 1, 2017, JewishPress.com)

It seems to this observer that we are about to witness the world’s geopolitical players take a sip from that cup prophesied by Zechariah:

Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.

And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. (Zechariah 12:3)

Giving Jerusalem validation as the rightful capital of Israel is a thing that should be done. The president is right to do so, if he does move the American embassy to God’s touchstone city of the world.

But, doing so would almost without a doubt bring consequences–consequences which no American president has been willing to risk since Congress declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel with The Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act of 1995.

God said He will, Himself, make Jerusalem a cup of trembling  to those who deal treacherously with His chosen city and people. The world today is drunk with hatred for God and for the nation of Israel. Perhaps it is this American president who is chosen to be God’s instrument for leading the world to take a sip from that prophesied, deadly, cup.

This week for our blog commentary , I’ve chosen to use a small portion of a chapter I wrote for a book of chapters with colleagues. It is from the book: Blood on the Altar: The Coming War between Christian Vs. Christian (Defender Publishing, 2014).

I believe this is a message the body of Christ–the true church—needs to understand in these ominous times.

The latter part of the twentieth century brought profound changes to this once more morally anchored nation. Regardless of some of the less savory facts that have been brought out in recent times concerning America’s founding, this nation has truly been an experiment in principle based upon biblical precepts.

The year 1963, with Supreme Court decisions determined to try to remove God from public schools, proved to be a pivotal point in the slide toward oblivion that is even now picking up speed. Let’s have a brief review of the early part of that stunning century.

My research in writing the book The American Apocalypse: Is the United States in Bible Prophecy? (Harvest House, 2009) took me back to God’s harsh dealing with America in the 1930s. The things Americans suffered were considered by preachers and politicians alike to be God’s wrath and judgment.

One well-known writer, John Steinbeck, even gave his famous novel on that depressed time in America the title The Grapes of Wrath. America had gone through a tremendous time of growth and relative prosperity during the “Gay Nineties.” (For the younger readers, it had nothing to do with the Clinton years, nor with homosexuality. It was the 1890s, and the term “gay” still enjoyed its proper definition.)

Despite the early 1900s bringing about World War I, the nation leaped forward, and soon the “Roaring Twenties” brought forth the flappers and boisterous, even debauched, “good times.” Reformers tried to squash the hedonism, and with the passage of the 18th Amendment instituted prohibition against alcohol manufacture, sale, and transportation. The action only increased rebellion against morality. American gangsters took over, and illegal booze, gambling, and every other type of nefarious activity permeated culture and society.

Then in 1929 came the stock market crash in the United States, and worldwide depression quickly followed. The wrath of God had fallen!

Or had it?

No, it had not. Neither had His judgment against America’s sin fallen upon the nation, thus affecting the world—not in the sense of God’s great judgment that came upon the antediluvians, the wicked, violent, even genetically corrupted earth dwellers of Noah’s day. But God’s mighty hand of correction through the Great Depression and the horrendous “Dust Bowl” era came down hard on the backside of this nation He so manifestly chose to accomplish great things for His great purposes. Those things would include, in particular: 1) developing the technologies that would spread the gospel around the entire world; and 2) acting as midwife for the birth of modern Israel on May 14, 1948, and to become the Jewish peoples’ closest ally—an ally that just happened to soon become the most materially blessed, most powerful, and most influential nation the world has ever known.

America, despite the Great Depression and war that took thousands of young American lives, came to know a standard of living and pleasures—both unsullied and debauched—like no generation of any people in history. The thing to keep in mind is that during all of that degeneration of America and the corrective measures the Lord was employing, Christianity stood firm. The church—the “born again”—faced up to those efforts to totally debauch this United States of America. The Billy Sundays—the great evangelists—were anchors in the pulpits of the nation, as were a vast number of genuine Christians in the pews across the land. Even a casual perusal of the national landscape of morality today evokes the question: Is there such resistance to evil in these troubling days?

Today, other profoundly disturbing questions to ponder are: Will God choose to again correct this special nation called America? Or, will He take His hand off to an extent, allowing the U.S. to find its own way, which is what the majority of the electorate seems to want?

I get email daily from people who fear this nation will now feel the Lord’s hand of wrath. The die is cast, as one of Shakespeare’s characters said. I don’t necessarily subscribe to that “judgment-and-wrath-are-about-to-fall” opinion, at least not in the immediate near term the way many who send the fear-filled emails believe. Nonetheless, God’s wrath is building. It will be unleashed when the “prince that shall come” confirms the covenant with Israel and Israel’s antagonists (Daniel 9:26–27).

That pouring out of God’s anger won’t happen until the church is removed. However, there is almost certainly a heavenly decision that has already been made, and is even now in the process of implementation. It is likely the decision to either take corrective measures as in God’s past dealings with America in order to get this nation back on the moral course to complete its work in His grand prophetic design, or to give rebellious masses what they more and more demonstrate they demand. They demand freedom to choose what is right in their own eyes.

God’s decision to take His hand off to some extent would be far more fearful than His again taking corrective action like world economic depression. To let the rebels do what is right in their own eyes, thus casting God away from any semblance of divine guidance, means America’s work is done. That is indeed a frightening thing to contemplate.

Much of what happens next is dependent upon the true Christian church—born-again believers. How we choose to confront evil might well determine our nation’s—even the world’s—immediate fate.

I must say that I, with reverential consideration, don’t expect immediate meltdown and correction from Almighty God. I believe with all that is within me that He has been demonstrating corrective movements over the past years and months—movements that have gone unheeded by even the majority of His people. These have chosen to bury their heads in the sands of watered-down messages that have practically no relevance to God’s message of doctrinal truth. Rather than revival, there have been false, emotional outbursts that have done disservice to the Lord who purchased each and every one who has been born again. It seems to me that the church’s work, like that of America, has almost run its course.

Dave Hunt once wrote a book called Peace, Prosperity, and the Coming Holocaust. His basic premise was that this fallen world system, and particularly the United States and even the church, would be drawn ever deeper into believing in humanistic salvation by seeming peace and prosperity. He demonstrated, then, through historical precedent and Bible prophecy both past and yet to come, that the world of fallen man will at a future time of unprecedented evil activity on earth endure a holocaust far worse than that perpetrated by Adolf Hitler. The end will bring, he concluded, God’s wrath and judgment on an incorrigibly wicked world.

I believe America and the world can yet have another burst of so-called peace and prosperity—although I see it as highly unlikely. The “change” the country and the world are clamoring for through trust in human governmental entities rather than God’s moral governance will certainly, if not rejected, as my friend Dave Hunt wrote, swiftly bring the holocaust of the Tribulation.

Let us, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, pray for the president—even when it seems to do no good—and for all governmental leaders, so that we might lead peaceful lives. This is commanded of us by the Lord. But, let us work to complete whatever He puts in front of us to do for the kingdom. Let us, as Oswald Chambers entitled his book of devotions, do “our utmost for His highest” while our fleeting time remains upon this fallen sphere.

Much has ben made over the deaths of celebrities such as in the case of actor Robin Williams, who commited suicide at age 63 some years ago. Truly, he was a talented man, with the gift of making people forget the darker moments of their lives with his comedy. Sadly, he could not escape his own dark moments. He tried to do so on Monday, August 11, 2014, but learned in the second following the cessation of his heartbeat that eternity was there to either embrace or imprison him. Like all others throughout history who made the choice to end their own lives, the decision was final and forever.

Is this going to be a piece saying that if one commits suicide he or she is to suffer the damnation of eternal punishment? Absolutely not, for there is only one criterion for eternal bliss in Heaven or torment in Hell. His name is Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world for mankind.

How one answers the question aimed at Jesus’ immediate disciples–and to each of us—determines where one spends eternity. It has nothing to do with what brings our life to an end.

Jesus asked each of those around Him: “But whom say ye that I am?” (Matthwe 16:15). This is the most important question ever posed to the individual human being. To repeat–how you and I answer this all-important question determines where we will spend all of hereafter. The answer to that question determines if your and my personal forever will involve never-ending joy and fellowship with God or never-ending torment, totally alone and in darkness beyond any that can be imagined.

Jesus asked the question to make His disciples–those present with Him, and those of us who would follow down through the centuries—understand the soul-salvation wrapped up in His coming to die, taking the sins of the world to the grave, then resurrecting to new life. He buried all of our sins that separate us from God the Father with His death and burial. The Lord assured with His resurrection a new spiritual birth (that one can be born again—John 3: 3). His sacrifice provides eternal life in Heaven for all who will do as Paul the apostle wrote later under divine inspiration: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

Peter answered Jesus’ question, saying, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Peter believe this with all his heart, and Jesus said in response: “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 16:17-18).

We have heard of many self-inflicted deaths within the Hollywood community and in the so-called pop-culture musical community. Many overdoses, both intentional and accidental, have ended the lives of some of America and the world’s most famous, and, in the worldly sense, beloved people. Each year these deaths dominate the headlines as Robin Williams’ did in 2014.

Today’s social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feed the young and not-so-young egos of America and the world with desire to achieve acclaim. They seem to sense somehow that they are destined to become the stars they worship. Many devote their every hour to telling all about their lives–even making up much of the “biographies.”

Psychologist report that there is growing fear that such instantaneous and widespread acclamation as the suicides of celebrities such as Robin Williams’ death produced is contributing to suicides within those communities of self-seeking self-aggrandizement. We have all heard the news reports of social media inducing teens to commit suicide because of being ridiculed by their peers in those media forums.

The threat to youth that promises one can instantly become celebrated rather than ridiculed by taking one’s own life is real and growing. Satan, the destroyer, lures the young and not so young to the glitz and glitter of entertainment celebrity. He is a liar and the father of lies, God’s Word tells us. He stalks about seeking whom he may devour.

The devil tells us to do what is right in our own eyes, but the Bible tells that the wages of sin is death. Tragically, it is a broad way that leads to destruction, and many choose that pathway of least resistance.

There are two first eternal seconds, as the title of this commentary headlines. One is the first second after the heart of a Christian stops, and the other is the first second after the heart of a person who doesn’t know Christ for salvation stops.

I can speak firsthand for the Christian’s first second after the heart stops. Mine stopped three times and required defibrillation paddles to restart it on Good Friday, April 22, 2011. Each time my heart ceased to beat, I was in the presence of heavenly young people instantly in that spectacular moment that is in my thoughts constantly. It was a glorious experience beyond any I can adequately describe–although, as many of you know, I have tried to do so.

For the person who doesn’t know Jesus Christ as Savior, I can only pass along what the Word of God has to say about the one whose heart stops beating for the final time. Jesus, who died on the cross at Calvary so that no one has to go to the horrible place of punishment for eternity, said the following in telling of an unbeliever who died:

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seethe Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. (Luke 16: 22-24)

I’m not judging Robin Williams or any other person. I don’t know the disposition of their souls. Only the Lord in Heaven knows. I do know, however, that the first second after the heart stops beating is a matter of enormous eternal consequence.

Colorado Springs is a beautiful and fascinating place to be sure. My brother-close friend, Mike Hile, and I had a “room with a view,” as is said in hotel rhetoric.

The fourteen-thousand-foot peaks filled the skyline just outside our seventh-floor window in the Marriot. Of course, being blind for many years due to a hereditary retinal disease, I couldn’t see the scenery, but the descriptive I heard from Mike and others filled my memory and imagination with more than enough visual reality to convince me of the vista that lay just outside.

We were there for me to speak at the second annual Prophecy in the News Pike’s Peak prophecy conference. The rarified air–and I mean literally as well as spiritually– was troubling on the one hand and fortifying on the other. Literally, I could just not adjust the second year to the thinner oxygen level as the first when I spoke there. It seemed almost as if the air had changed–that my body just couldn’t quite catch up to the oxygen intake level required to be comfortable.

However, the human ambience and fellowship were fortifying and refreshing. The speakers were up to the task of filling our need for rejuvenation of mind and spirit. The renewing of friendships and acquaintances more than met our expectations.

The conference, held at seven thousand-plus feet above sea level, seems, in retrospect–for me, personally–a sort of metaphor for this strange moment of history. With all of the powerful dynamics going on in the world at this moment, life for the prophecy student is both troubling and at the same time exciting. The times that are pressing in on us sometimes make it hard to breathe in the sense of the anxiety produced when thinking on what’s coming down the proverbial pike that might adversely affect our lives.

Knowing that just outside our cocoon of earthly angst, however, lies the most beautiful scenery imaginable– and knowing that we will soon be inheritors of the glory that vista represents–is exciting and uplifting to our born-again spirits.

Bible prophecy from the pre-trib viewpoint makes understandable much of the troubling aspects of things transpiring all around us. This viewpoint makes these troubling times negotiable–i.e., able to get through until Christ shouts “Come up hither!”

The speakers at that second prophecy summit described in vivid terms the vista that Bible prophecy presents. They spoke superbly of the things that are leading to the brilliant time that awaits the Christian. Like in the matter of my own inability to see the beautiful Colorado Rocky Mountains surrounding our hotel, our earthly, physical limitations prevent our seeing the magnificent reality that is our future. The Power Point words and pictures the speakers presented lit our imaginations the way the descriptive of those marvelous mountains I was given made my memory of once seeing those scenes come alive.

The stormy times we are currently going through serve only to make us know just how near might be Christ’s shout that will set us upon our journey with Him as recorded in John 14:1-3.

The conference presenters spoke to issues and events of prophetic matters both familiar and to those rarely explored. Some who study Bible prophecy are off-put, even disgruntled, when, for example,  such matters as those of the Genesis chapter 6 story are fully explored. But, Jesus, Himself, spoke to the fact that times will be like they were in the days of Noah when He returns to planet earth. Despite the fact the seminaries teach almost exclusively that the “sons of God” of Genesis 6 are not fallen angels, even a cursory study of Hebrew terms show in crystal-clear fashion that the “sons of God” are exactly that rebellious horde. The giants of those antediluvian times, like it or not, believe it or not, were a part of Noah’s day. The very genetics of mankind were totally corrupted, biblical description affirms.

That particular Pike’s Peak Prophecy Summit addressed some of these lesser-explored things of earth’s past and what it all portends for earth’s future. At the same time, other prophetic indicators we see all around us were thoroughly explored. Chief among those signs of the end times examined was the nation Israel and its increasingly becoming the focal point of world hatred.

Anti-Semitism is on the rise, as shown by movement within Europe. Likewise, America is more and more exhibiting hatred for Jews.

One of my Power Point presentations at that Colorado Springs conference was on Israel and the satanic rage that is growing throughout the world today. This, I am convinced, is the number-one signal of just how far advanced this generation is in nearness to the Tribulation. All the Bible prophecy student who adheres to the pre-trib view has to do to know we are on the very cusp of entering that glorious realm just outside these bonds of this fallen planet is to observe treatment of God’s chosen nation hour by hour. We are almost there!

It is my usual procedure to not respond to the virulent email I get almost daily from those who don’t believe in the pre-trib view of the Rapture. These days the hate email is coming from those who sometimes even write that they hope we who do believe that God’s Word teaches this doctrine be sent to Hell–the same place where they scream we are leading people with our “false teaching.”

There are a number of these anti-Rapture flame-throwers who send out their rants on a regular basis. They have extremely limited audiences, and they are no doubt hoping beyond hope that their angry protestations will somehow make it in front of the massive audiences such as that with which Todd Strandberg and my website ministry raptureready.com has been blessed.

Perhaps I am granting their wish by writing on the matter. However, the anger has reached such a fevered pitch that I sense it should be addressed. The rage is, I’m convinced, a sure signal that we are indeed at the very end of the age.

In fairness, there are those who have scriptural arguments for another view of the Rapture, or for the position that there will be no Rapture. These are, most generally, gentle and rational in presenting their cases. Those who present their cases in those instances are not of the group that I’m attempting to address in this column.

I will present here the full text of one email I have received. It is actually one of the milder of the sort of which I’m addressing. I prefer to not give those more radical than this one any space in this forum.

I’ve watched this particular blogger change from one who in earlier times seemed to at least present a scriptural case worthy of consideration to a person of scathing rants full of irrationality and outrageous invective. Again, he is one of the milder Rapture-position detractors I find in my inbox almost daily.

Here is his most recent commentary.

THE RIDER OF THE WHITE HORSE IS IDENTIFIED……………………. Revelation 6:2

This Scripture is describing a RELIGIOUS DECEPTION of a CROWNED rider on the deceptively WHITE horse having a BOW, which is a WEAPON OF WAR without arrows to kill the body, but rather to kill the mind with anti-Christian deception . He is CONQUERING MINDS with anti-Christian false doctrine. He is waging war, in the later years, against the doctrine of Jesus Christ as it is recorded in the Holy Scriptures.

The CROWNED RIDER’S name is C. I. Scofield. His BOW, without arrows, is the Scofield Bible. He has been CONQUERING the minds of ignorant Christians who are being deceived into believing the anti-Christian FALSE DOCTRINE OF THE PRE-TRIBULATION RAPTURE.

Jesus explicitly states, in His Olivet Discourse, that the rapture will occur as recorded in Matthew 24:31 “AFTER THE TRIBULATION” which He states will occur before the rapture as recorded in Matthew 24:29, If your mind has been “conquered” by the rider on the white horse into believing the anti-Christian false doctrine of a pre-tribulation rapture you had better wake up and repent because “Many are called, but FEW ARE CHOSEN.”

2 John 1:9

“Whoever transgresses and does not abide IN THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST does not have God. He who abides IN THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST has both the Father and the Son.”

Well, maybe this writer is not so “mild” as I thought on a second reading. Seems we who believe in the pre-trib Rapture are, according to his thinking, headed… well, not headed to heaven.

C. I. Scofield–the Antichrist, huh? Perhaps Billy Graham, another teacher of the Rapture, is the False Prophet–you think?

Again, I feel that I should apologize for giving such unscriptural nonsense so much space before such a wide audience. But, there is a point in doing so. I believe this gravitation toward–a free fall, really—into hatred for the pre-trib Rapture position shows just where this generation stands on God’s prophetic timeline. We are, I believe, in a prophesied period of false teachers and false accusers among the flock.

The apostle Paul foretold that the last days would produce perilous times that would bring false accusers (2 Timothy 3: 3). The apostle Peter said there would come scoffers mocking Christ’s coming again (2 Peter 3: 3-4).

God’s Word forewarns those who make falsehoods their message: “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).

The Scripture says further in defense of those–like C.I. Scofield–who proclaim the prophetic Word in truth: “Saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm” (1 Chronicles 16:22 and Psalms 105:5).

Jude, through inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has ominous words for those who make it their priority to wreak destruction within the body of Christ. His words are given as what to watch for at the very end of the age, when Christ’s return nears:

“These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.” (Jude 1:12-13).

“But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.” (Jude 1: 17-19)

I prayerfully urge the angry, anti-Rapture detesters to reconsider their ungoverned use of rhetoric against a most important Promise made by the Lord Jesus.

“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).