Author’s note: Today’s lengthy article is from a chapter I wrote many years ago for one of my books. I find that the stage being set for fulfillment of biblical prophecy has progressed to this time (2023) in a way that validates God’s Word, from which I derived conclusions back in that earlier time. We can be sure that Jesus Christ will yet bring a cessation to all the violence and evil we see around us at present.

–Terry James 

Peace, Be Still

Planet earth was near cataclysm. The atomic structure of all creation strained to explode while the One for whom and by whom all things were created descended the Mount of Olives riding on the donkey.

Apparently, all that kept the building blocks of the universe from flying apart were the hosannas of praise shouted by the people who spread the palm fronds before Jesus.

The indignant Pharisees, seeing and hearing the worshipful adulation, implored Jesus to tell them to stop their praising. The Lord knew their jealous, sin-blackened hearts: They, in their unbelief, considered the praise blasphemy. As He always did, Jesus spoke truth that cut away all superfluous side issues:

I tell you the truth that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out (Luke 19:40).

The King of kings moved toward the holiest of all places on earth to present Himself as Israel’s Messiah. In a short time, those people would reject Him and demand that He be put to death by the cruelest method of execution known in that day. When the praises turned to cursing and the Lamb of God was slain in the once-and-for-all sacrificial act that provides redemption for lost humankind, the skies darkened to midnight black at midday. The earth convulsed mightily and split apart. Corpses came out of their graves and walked the streets of Jerusalem. Nature itself must have screamed in agony when the Son of God and God the Father separated because of humanity’s sin, which Christ became in that awful moment the Trinity was split.

Before Jesus voluntarily gave up His spirit to death, He said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Could Jesus have been asking the Father to restrain the geophysical elements from taking vengeance on that generation of rebellious earth dwellers?

All of creation no doubt felt spasms of the pain the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit experienced. Legions of angels leaned forward, ready for battle if the Son of God had called. But Jesus’ words reflected only compliance with the will of His Father in Heaven: “It is finished” (John 19:30). And the upheaving geophysical universe settled when the veil in the Holy of Holies ripped from top to bottom.

Neopaganism and Its Consequences

Practically every indicator within the scope of human affairs points to restlessness, turmoil, and wars and rumors of wars. Jesus’ words as recorded in Matthew 24:5–8 could easily be applied to our times. The Lord said in that account:

For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled-, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.”

Although He was referring specifically to the Tribulation period, He also said in Luke 21:28 that “when these things begin to come to pass,” we are to “look up, and lift up [our] heads; for our redemption draweth near.” Jesus said these indicators would be “the beginning of sorrows” or birth pangs.

The Lord warned that these symptoms of the end time will increase in frequency and intensity as the time of His return approaches like the labor contractions a woman suffers when the birth of her child nears. His words seemed to emphasize that man’s rebelliousness and wickedness will again be at levels like they were in the days of Noah and of Lot (Luke 17: 26–30). Humanity’s incorrigible rebelliousness will bring God’s wrath.

Certainly, this generation cries out for peace. Most conspicuous is the global outcry for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors. The hue and cry for peace, however, can be heard from every quarter on earth. From nations in conflict with each other, from ethnic groups warring one against another, from communities experiencing ever-increasing violence, from families in turmoil, from individuals who murder and maim each other, every hour of every day, they cry “peace, peace! when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14, 8:11).

This generation seeks to calm the rage, but does so through anything and everything but the one and only source of true peace, Jesus Christ. The poorest among our number seek comfort, solace, and sustenance from governmental bureaucracies. The middle class seeks to keep their noses above the flood of taxes those bureaucracies issue. Yet at the same time, the middle class gropes for temporal pleasures, entertainment, and material goods that might provide moments of peace that never seem to come. The wealthy and elite grasp for satisfaction they perceive as attainable through the pursuit of money, power, and self-aggrandizement.

Idolatry of every sort rules throughout every stratum of every culture and society today. God is pushed farther and farther from the thoughts of people who seek only to praise their gods of this age.

Fires of discontent are the result of people’s refusal to give God the praise and worship He alone deserves. That fire will soon produce seven years of hell on earth. As Jesus warned the Pharisees, “the very stones will cry out.”

The Stones Begin to Shout!

When the 22-pound Mars rover named Sojourner began its work shortly after landing on that planet July 4, 1997, scientists began proclaiming almost with one voice that the geological pattern was telling the story of a catastrophic planetary flood. Many of these same scientists could discern and exclaim loudly that a planetary flood had occurred millions of years ago on the planet Mars 119 million miles distant. They cannot, however, bring themselves to admit that the catastrophic global flood reported in God’s Word ever occurred on earth. They deny the flood of Noah’s day even though the geological record attests to the truth of the biblical account and is readily observable all around them on their own planet.

The stones cry out from 119 million miles away, making manifest the foolishness of those who profess themselves to be wise. The so-called scientific community can claim with absolute authority that microbial life once existed on Mars because of formations they think they see inside a meteor fragment they speculate came from Mars. They can say with certainty that man evolved out of primordial soup without producing a single link of proof that one specie has ever made the evolutionary leap to become another. Yet, when millions upon millions of sea-life fossils (seashells, etc.), are found on the highest peaks on earth, the so-called empirical method is thrown out the door. Rather than admit that these mountain ranges were once under water due to a great flood that covered the whole earth, they choose to believe and put forth the unsubstantiated claim that the mountains have been somehow rising for many millions of years from a starting point below sea level.

Human beings lie because their foolish hearts are darkened. God’s marvelously made creation cries out the truth where humankind fails to do so. The apostle Paul, writing under inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, spoke to the heart this disbelief and its consequences:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness, Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shown it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse; Because, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, Who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen (Romans 18-25).

Our generation voraciously devours the evolutionary dogma with the same gusto the ancients had in their hunger for their self-fashioned beastly gods. Idolaters of today differ from ancient idolaters only in that neo-pagans worship gods that are a bit more interactive. They excitedly praise Hollywood entertainers and shout their adoration to sports stars and sports teams from pews at the temple-like stadiums and arenas and through television altars in their homes. They fashion their objects of worship into shiny automobiles, pleasure boats, and other usable forms. Like the pagans of old, they give their hearts, time, and money to their idols, which they name after birds, four-footed beasts, and creeping things.

Evolution has become the foundation upon which humanistic agendas are built. God has been kicked out of our classrooms and our courtrooms. He has been replaced by relativism, which makes the individual a god unto himself.

Evolution says that all began in chaos, but is getting better and better as the human animal progresses toward becoming the ultimate man. But, in actuality, evolution creates chaos because it puts forward “values clarification” that says all people have a right to know and do what is right in their own eyes. The ultimately evolved human will be the incorrigibly wicked and rebellious people of the apocalypse. The Antichrist will personify the lies wrapped up in the false faith that so-called scientific minds of today term “evolution.”

Total chaos, the opposite of true peace, is unregenerate humankind’s destiny. America’s decline since the 1960’s Supreme Court decisions to legalize abortion and outlaw God in classrooms and courtrooms and many other public places proves that chaos results from a godless, humanistic system.

Perilous Times in America

Often, in discussions involving the state of the world, it is said that societies such as those in Communist China, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, or the various brutal regimes in Africa have no regard for human life. Such accusations imply that America and Western Europe are the truly civilized societies and cultures of the earth. However, with more than one million children legally murdered while still in their mothers’ wombs every year in the United States, the assertion that America honors life more than do the barbarous nations of Asia or Africa is hypocrisy. The hypocrisy is magnified many times over when we consider that this nation has had God’s grace shed upon it in ways no other nation, with the possible exception of Israel, has ever experienced.

Darkness hasn’t come upon America because of wicked regimes suppressing gospel truth. Darkness is engulfing us because we, as a people, are turning our backs on God. We are deliberately and methodically turning off God’s light so we can do our sinful deeds under cover of darkness.

American money has inscribed on it “In God We Trust.” Today, it would be more accurate to say our slogan is “In Money We Trust.”

With the Dow Jones stock market figure over the 8000 mark as of the time of this writing, we live under the euphoric bubble of economic prosperity that causes national irrationality. While leaders at the highest levels of the United States government are examined in congressional hearings for alleged influence peddling to Communist China and other avowed enemies, polls show that same leadership enjoys high approval ratings among Americans.

National news media, unlike during the Watergate hearings three decades ago, push information about the influence peddling to the back pages and middle of broadcasts—when indeed they cover them at all.

The troubling statement, “character doesn’t matter,” seems to sum up the majority of opinion in America so long as the economy continues to give us the good times we want as entertainment, recreation, and pleasure-seeking people.

America’s governmental leadership is not the source of America’s problem. Rather, America’s leadership is a manifest symptom of the sin-darkened hearts of a growing majority of our citizens.

God’s Word speaks bluntly to people who reject Him and choose instead to do what is right in their own eyes:

The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished; But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they; self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities….

But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption, And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. Spots they are and blemishes, reveling with their own deceivings…. Having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls; an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children, Who have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray…. These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever… For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. (2 Peter 2:9–21).

America’s founding fathers determined to set this nation upon a foundation of God-given principles. Yet one federal judge can command that those godly principles, the Ten Commandments, be removed from a schoolhouse or courtroom wall. The Supreme Court of the land can declare God’s Word null and void and His Son, Jesus Christ, an undesirable entity by declaring Christianity too narrow and bigoted to be presented within America’s educational process alongside pagan deities and pgan forms of worship which, in many cases, have governmental approval. The results of such foolhardiness are inevitable.

This disregard for God’s truth is disregard for life. Such disregard is, in some sense, worse than atrocities committed by those we consider barbarians in regions that have not been so blessed by God as ours. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). To reject and blaspheme the only begotten Son of God is to display the ultimate disregard for life. Rejecting Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, brings the opposite of peace-chaos and war.

War in the Home

Humanism, the system embodying humanity’s determination to construct the world in our own image totally apart from God’s authority, is making an indelible imprint upon American family life. Homes are ripped apart by selfish actions that cast aside the notion of personal responsibility.

A generation has arisen from the chaos of evolution-based education. Humans are but the highest evolved form of animal life, the hellish doctrine goes, and, like the lower animals, have needs that supersede any obligation to some nebulous concept of morality.

Hollywood portrays the supposedly liberated man or woman as a sexual creature not unlike a dog in the street who can simply mate on the spur of the moment, then separate after having satisfied their primal urges. There are no consequences, only self-satisfaction and contentment until the next urge wells within.

Sexual innuendo and outright reference are everyday fare on sitcoms and regular TV programming. It’s just good fun, the defenders offer when critics speak out. There is no real harm, they proclaim. Yet many who create the sexually oriented programs are among those who cry the loudest in the fight against sexual harassment in the military, in business, and in society. This sort of convoluted reasoning—that it’s okay to program the minds of people with scenes of sexual debauchery in the name of “fun” entertainment but it’s is not okay for these same programmed men to put their fantasies into action by assaulting women in the workplace—is called in God’s Word “reprobate thinking.”

Growing numbers are following the “if it feels good, do it” tenets taught by humanism and vividly portrayed by Hollywood. Divorce rates continue to climb, the majority of them due to men leaving wives and children to pursue relationships that require of them little or no responsibility. This isn’t to say women are not culpable as well. Statistics show a growing number of women deserting husbands and children for the same self-centered reasons.

Why get married? is another attitude that pervades American culture today. Single mothers who have never been married constitute a rising tide of irresponsible behavior that portends great trouble in the near future. Gangs of youth without fathers to nurture and discipline them cling to each other and rage against a society that neither understands nor seems to care except when crimes committed by the gang members on occasion directly touch our lives.

Abortion proponents give unwanted children (such as those who end up in gangs and who might predictably produce future gang members) as good reasons for ending pregnancies. Such children, if allowed to be born, they say, will only suffer the abuse of America’s gang culture or worse. The truth is, however, that abortion imprints upon the minds of our children the idea that human life is a commodity like any other commodity and can be discarded without a second thought. Humans, not God, it is implied, have authority over life and death. The message clearly has gotten through to the young gang members who slaughter each other each night across America.

War in the Streets

Americans have for decades heard of civil conflicts in third-world countries where people face bodily injury and even death because of bloody fighting in the streets of their neighborhoods. Such murderous rampages continue to inflict millions of casualties. Wars resulting from civil unrest are perhaps more horrendous in nature than those in which uniformed armies oppose each other on battlefields. Helpless women and children who carry no weapons most often fall victim to roving marauders in these civilian versions of war. Jesus’ prophecy that there will be wars until His return certainly has been proven accurate.

Rumors of war, the second part of Jesus’ prediction about deadly fighting that will mark human history as His return nears, rumble ominous warnings from America’s inner cities. Although fighting in the streets of this nation has so far been confined to youth gangs sporadically shooting it out in our larger cities, troubling reports of increased drug dealings and other criminal activities in suburban and even rural areas should serve as a wake-up call. Rumors of wars threaten to turn into actual wars if peace is not forthcoming.

So-called gangbangers—inner city youth gang members—sometimes now receive something akin to diplomatic recognition by city officials and other leaders who desperately wish to negotiate an end to gang crime and gang war. Although such overtures to these juvenile thugs are well-intentioned, they give gang leaders and the gangs themselves increased prestige, power, and authority, thus making the gang life more attractive to youngsters. Rarely is peace made, and never is peace maintained through these “summit” negotiations.

The apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3 that in the last days, perilous times will come. He wrote in that account that many people will be fierce in those closing moments of human history. Death-dealing carried on by the gangs and the drug dealers who rove our streets late at night and make thousands of new gang members through death threats and thousands of new customers through addictions indeed prove we live in a time when growing numbers among us are of fierce demeanor. How long can it continue at the present rate of increasing ferocity until every street in America becomes a battle zone like those streets in so many third-world countries?

The Seas and the Waves Are Roaring

Jesus foretold:

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)

The Lord alludes to humanity’s intense interest in and preoccupation with things taking place in space. It seems hardly necessary to ask whether that prophetic reference fits this generation. All eyes turned heavenward when Sputnik first traversed the space above earth. Then Uri Gagarin’s trip into space sent the US Congress, the news media, and many worried citizens into orbit and America was pronounced woefully behind in the space race. US scientists were given carte blanche to pursue the Soviets. Then came Alan Shepard, John Glenn, and all the rest. America’s space program reached its zenith when Neil Armstrong dropped onto the moon’s surface and issued the now-famous proclamation, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Telescopes in space have recorded spectacular stellar events—for example, comet fragments slamming into the planet Jupiter with stupendous impact. The space shuttle program routinely draws our attention to the fact that our future points toward the stars. We witnessed the awful, yet awesome spectacle of the Challenger exploding, then falling ten miles to the ocean’s surface, plumes of death streaming behind it.

Progress toward reaching into the heavens hardly skipped a beat, however, and now the great enemies of the Cold War, Russia and the United States, are supposedly allies in the quest for reaching those stars with cosmonauts and astronauts sharing the Mir space station and shuttle rides on a regular basis. Great plans are in the works for manned missions to Mars and beyond.

Jesus’ prophecy has already been fulfilled, and He was foretelling events scheduled to be most pronounced during the Tribulation.

The next part of the Lord’s prophecy, “and upon the earth, distress of nations with perplexity, ” could be used as a bold headline on the front page of every major newspaper in the world on any given day to encapsulate the present state of world affairs. No nation on earth is without distress. Leaders are perplexed as to how to remedy the overwhelming distress.

The United Nations, supposedly instituted to deal with such problems, is proven ineffective time and time again. The nations continue to cry “peace, peace,” when there is no peace.

UN leadership vies for power and influence within that confused body. More often than not, the most horrendous distress among nations goes unnoticed because the oppressed are overlooked by the heady, high-minded diplomatic elite who seek first and foremost to secure funding for their bureaucratic power bases.

The southern part of Sudan in North Africa, for example, is perhaps the greatest point of human stress on the planet. According to Kevin Turner, a missionary with the Voice of the Martyrs organization, millions of Christians have been murdered in that region and continue to suffer such horrific deaths as crucifixion and being buried alive. He reports that children are routinely taken from Christian parents and are sold into slavery and prostitution. Turner said he recently gave slave traders $1,000 for 15 children, stating that although it distressed him to in any way encourage slave trading, his higher duty was to see to it that the little ones were redeemed.

He then reported in a trembling voice and with a breaking heart that some slave traffickers are now engaging in the hellish business of harvesting the organs of the children they take from Christian parents.’

Is it any wonder that God’s wrath is building while the seas and waves of human depravity crash upon this world? How terrible the judgments described throughout the book of Revelation will be upon the generation who turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to such atrocious inhumanity.

Jesus Himself described the plight of the generation of apocalypse:

Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. (Luke 21:26)

 Waves were breaking over the little vessel that rolled in the violent sea of Galilee. The terrified men did all they could to keep the boat from being swamped, probably shifting their bodies to offset the buffeting from one side and then the other. The storm got worse and all appeared to be lost. Despite their best efforts, they had lost control of their circumstances. Finally, they turned to the One who, astonishingly, was sound asleep in one corner of the boat.

Jesus of Nazareth awoke and calmly surveyed the heaving, tumultuous sea which threatened to destroy the tiny craft. (Read Mark 4:35-41.) You and I stand today within a sea even more violent than that stormy sea nearly 2000 years ago. It will get worse. Much worse. As a matter of fact, it will become so violent, God’s Word says that if Christ Himself did not return, all life on earth would end. Humankind would destroy itself.

Half of earth’s population will die during the Tribulation. Many will be killed through humanity’s own murderous efforts when God removes His restraining hands for a time. Billions will die as a direct result of God’s wrath during the last three and a half years of the apocalypse. Great armies will march and roll and fly into the Valley of Jezreel. More than 200 million men will come from the east while millions upon millions more invade from west, north, and south of Jerusalem. All of unregenerate humanity will, through sin-engendered insanity, determine to battle to the final breath of the last man standing. Blood will literally flow and pool for many miles at depths up to three or four feet, according to God’s prophetic Word.

When the rage intensifies to a level that God can no longer tolerate, the dark, sulfurous clouds blanketing earth’s atmosphere because of the terrible carnage of that dark hour, the very fabric of space itself, will scroll apart. A blinding, laser-like path from heaven to earth will thrust forth. Heaven’s armies will descend, led by the King of kings and Lord of lords.

While the sea of humanity on the planet’s surface viciously roars in an attempt to prevent the heavenly intervention, those warring forces will turn from battling with each other to curse God and all His righteousness. Then Jesus Christ, mounted upon a stunning white steed, will speak words sharper than a two-edged sword.

I am convinced they will be the same words Jesus of Nazareth spoke to that raging sea of Galilee nearly two millennia ago. They are the same words He speaks today to everyone who turns to Him, acknowledging that there is nothing and no one but Christ who can save them. He speaks those words to all who accept Him and trust Him to save them from their sins and to make them born-again children of God.

Just as His words instantaneously calmed that violent sea, thus saving the men in the little boat, Jesus’ words will instantly end the warfare and rebellion at Armageddon. Christ’s words to your troubled heart likewise will bring tranquility and joy to your soul. You will never be the same when He speaks those life-changing words:

Peace, be still. (Mark 4:39)

Revelation’s thunder rumbles in the distance. Before the coming storm is full-blown, Christ will come for those who trust Him and Him alone for salvation. It will happen in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

George Santayana’s aphorism, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” has never been more apropos than at this moment. Developments are leaping to the forefront at this late hour of the age leading to the Second Advent of Jesus Christ—developments that are mind-boggling.

Yet vast numbers of people, particularly in America, seem oblivious to the absolute madness of the building rage of hatred toward the Jewish race. The insane rants of college students are mind-boggling to my generation, but regarding much of the rest of the nation, the call for genocide—and that’s what it is, make no mistake—isn’t registering. At least, major nationwide disgust over the atrocities perpetrated isn’t being reported by mainstream media.

And mainstream media is at the sin-darkened heart of the dementia. That is, mainstream media —news and entertainment as well as left-wing blogosphere forums—have so hidden truth about the Israel/Hamas conflict as to cerebrally and spiritually incapacitate much of the American populace. Particularly, the college-age population has largely been either inculcated to view Jews as evil or dumbed down through such media truth-blocking. For example, they are falsely reporting that the Hamas attack on October 7 was not genocidal hatred being carried out by insanely evil terrorists, but is an understandably passionate and legitimate movement designed to fight against Jewish occupiers of Palestinian land “from the river to the sea.”

Thus we have the cerebral and spiritual dementia—the forgetfulness of which George Santayana wrote—apparently infecting the entire country and much of the rest of the world as well. We therefore can now understand the Truth of God’s Word and the words of His prophet Zechariah, who said Jerusalem and Israel will become a “burdensome stone and cup of trembling” to the whole world.

While listening to a program early one recent morning, I heard the words of a British soldier in a documentary of several decades ago. He was speaking to the interviewer, telling of his being part of the D-Day invasion to destroy Hitler’s Nazi regime and end war in Europe.

He said he had, during many battles during World War II, seen many, many horrendous scenes—literally, blood and bodies torn asunder. Before that, he worked in hospital settings in England. He had seen terrible human carnage of every description. So he wasn’t squeamish, but battle-hardened. But when his British Army group reached the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, he and every battle-hardened veteran became physically sick. They all became totally silent as they observed the walking skeletons—skin barely draped over walking, corpse-like victims of the Nazi Holocaust. It was, he said, something he wished every person of every generation could see so they would believe it happened and would therefore stop such inhumanity to their fellow humans whenever it again raised its ugly head.

Well, it is raising its ugly, satanic head again. And the youngsters haven’t seen the black-and-white films of the walking dead described by this old, war-hardened, British soldier, as he expressed he wished would happen.

The college students—and others who have forgotten, or haven’t been taught, prefer the lies. They prefer, rather, to keep their noses in their smartphones and instead attend exciting “protests” against the much-hated Jews. We are witnessing the rising of another holocaust. It is the holocaust Jesus and the prophet Jeremiah spoke about in warning about what is coming on this judgment-bound world of anti-God rebels:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. (Matthew 24:21)

Jeremiah the prophet said:

Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness. Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. (Jeremiah 30:6–7) 

This generation is about to experience the ramifications of “forgetting the past,” as Santayana warned. Treatment of God’s chosen people is at the heart of bringing God’s righteous judgment and wrath down on a world whose inhabitants have rejected His Son, Jesus Christ, whom He sent as the sacrificial lamb slain from the foundation of the world for the redemption of sin-fallen humankind.

Satan, the devil, was at the nucleus of the Nazi-engendered Holocaust of the 1930s. He is at the heart of the genocide being called for by many of America’s college students and much of the world’s populace today. Because of the treatment of His chosen nation and people, God will, according to the prophet Joel, bring all to Armageddon:

For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, 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 3:1–2)

Make sure you recognize the present rage against Israel (which isn’t a perfect nation by any stretch, but whose people God loves) is satanically inspired and driven. Christians should have this understanding, but, sadly, not all do.

Unbelievers have an excuse, perhaps, for not understanding, but it is an excuse that nonetheless won’t assuage the judgment and wrath that are coming.

Here is how to avoid the judgment and wrath, which God in His righteousness will bring against all who reject His Son for personal salvation of their souls:

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)  

Again listening to Dr. David Jeremiah’s message on the Rapture, one of my most adamant pre-Trib Rapture beliefs came to mind.

The question in my thinking isn’t: Will all children below the age of accountability go to Christ when He shouts “Come up here!?” My question revolves around how anyone who believes in what God’s Word teaches on salvation and the pre-Trib Rapture does NOT believe everyone below the age of accountability will go to Christ at that moment.

Objections to all children going to Jesus in the Rapture revolve around one verse of Scripture:

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. (1 Corinthians 7:14) 

Even the great Dr. John Walvoord believed these words indicate that only those below the age of accountability who have at least one “saved” parent will go to Christ when He calls the Church to Himself.

I’m name-dropping, I guess, but I asked (in an open Q & A session) my good friend, Dr. Walvoord (he wrote a number of chapters for my books and we were indeed good friends and talked by phone and in person on occasion), if he could give any other Scriptures that backed up the contention that this verse indicated as he believed.

He thought for a moment and shook his head no. “No, I can’t,” he said somberly.

I no longer debate the matter when given a contrary opinion, but respond one time and one only.

This is a salvation matter between Jesus Christ and the child (an eternal matter—not a matter dealing with physical life and death). It does not concern earthly relationships (child to parent), religion (church affiliation), or morality (personal conduct).

Children who have died and those who will be taken in the Rapture have in common the fact that they were/will be instantly with the Lord. This is because they are seen in God’s merciful economy as innocents.

Most importantly, it is an INDIVIDUAL matter—God dealing one on one, not collectively or corporately with the salvation issue.

Acceptance of Christ is based upon a decision. If a person doesn’t have—and has never had—the ability to accept or reject a relationship with Him because he or she doesn’t have the mental capacity to understand, they cannot accept or reject.

The Bible says those who know to do good and do it not, to them it is sin. Conversely, I believe that the whole body of Scripture presents the case that if people don’t know they are lost because of sin, they are not condemned. But, when maturity that brings understanding comes (and the Holy Spirit draws them, convicting them of sin), they must accept God’s offer of reconciliation.

The very character of God, as presented throughout the Word of God, is at stake. All in Christ will go at the Rapture. Paul says “all will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” What does this mean—”all” who are “in” Christ? It refers to the fact that all who are redeemed by the shed blood of Christ are a part of the Body of Christ—the Church. The child—even though born into sin because of Adam’s disobedience—is “in” Christ before he/she is able to comprehend God’s salvation provision. None who are in Christ will have to face the wrath of God during the coming Tribulation.

There is a specific heavenly book that is vital to the position of the soul of every person ever born, with the exception of the Lord Jesus Christ’s immaculate conception.

Here are the scriptural passages that speak to this.

He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. (Revelation 3:5)

And there shall in no wise enter into [the heavenly abode] any thing that defileth, neither [whatsoever] worketh abomination, or [maketh] a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life. (Revelation 21:27)

God’s Word is telling us here that there is a volume in which every human being’s name is written at some point. No one whose name isn’t written in this book can enter God’s holy presence for eternity. The word “Life” in the title of this book is “eternal” life. Every human being who has been conceived in the procreation process has his or her name written in the “Lamb’s Book of Life.” But, there is obviously the chance that one’s name can be blotted out of that book, according to Revelation 3:5. Since it isn’t possible to lose one’s salvation once a person has “believed” in the only begotten Son of God (Jesus’ words in John 10: 27–29,) the term “blot out” in Revelation 3:5 needs to be explained. The meaning becomes clear, when thinking on the fact that each and every individual’s name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. The name remains there until the person is shown that he or she is a sinner, and is convicted or called by the Holy Spirit to repent of sin—to “believe” in the Lord Jesus Christ. When the person fully realizes that call, and that Jesus is the ONLY way to reconciliation with God the Father, but refuses or rejects God’s grace-gift offer, that name is “blotted out” of the Lamb’s Book of Life. The individual who rejects that gift of salvation will die in sin and spend eternity apart from the Creator. Those who have reached the age of accountability will also be left behind when the Rapture occurs.

The name will be written back in that book when the individual subsequently accepts the Lord Jesus as Savior. Jesus Christ’s shed blood is the only payment God the Father accepts. But, once a person accepts that gift, he or she is a member of God’s family–forever.

So, our position in Christ is the all-important thing, whether considering going to Heaven when we die or at the Rapture, when Jesus comes to take us to our home, which He, personally, has prepared for each of us (Read John 14:1–4). This is the only collective family gathering that counts in God’s economy, in consideration of the matter of the Rapture and salvation. We will, at the Rapture, go home to be in God the Father’s house. Here on earth, our relationship with our earthly parents is tremendously important, of course. But, it is our place in our heavenly family, in our heavenly home, that is absolutely crucial. This is an eternal matter. And, it all relies upon our position in Jesus Christ, not upon our position in our earthly home, or upon the spiritual condition of our parents.

All of that considered, what, then, is meant by the Scripture that most all seminaries teach governs which children will go in the Rapture?

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. (1 Corinthians 7:14) 

To put it as simply as possible, here is what I believe is meant by this greatly misused Scripture. I believe it means that the saved partner in the marriage will make the marriage a legitimate union in Heaven’s economy. The saved partner makes it so in God’s holy eyes, therefore the marriage bed is undefiled, as the Scripture says in another place.

Thus, in the case of the marriage of one saved parent and one unsaved parent, a child is a legitimately conceived one—again, in the Lord’s holy eyes—i.e., the child is not seen in Heaven as having been conceived out of wedlock.

When the Rapture happens, there will be no children on earth—not even those just conceived and gestating in their mothers’ wombs. I believe the God who created mankind will make the most dramatic statement possible about His view of when life begins.

There will be great chaos on this judgment-bound planet like at no other time in human history. The sudden evacuation of all little ones below the age of accountability (and only God knows that age for each child) will make that chaos terrifying beyond comprehension.

You don’t want to be left behind to face that chaos, judgment, and wrath. Here again is how to make sure you go to be with the Savior when He calls.

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)