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REVELATIONS Now At Amazon!
Terry James’ just released book, REVELATIONS, is now available at Amazon. You can get it in paperback or in Kindle at the following.
Tyce Greyson is drawn ever deeper into intrigues first begun when an eerie accident in the Isle of Patmos cave changes his life forever…
From chapter 4 of REVELATIONS by Terry James…
The schedule was set. They would fly out of JFK at 12:45 p.m. the next day. But first he would do the news broadcast, preceded by and followed by promotion of the upcoming documentary series: Patmos Apocalypse.
He watched the laptop’s screen as the computer pulled up the document.
Israel, the Sign
The tentative title given the manuscript ran through his mind, whispered by the voice of the Jewish man in the religious garb. It was as if the little man in the religious get-up had dictated the title. Greyson could think of none better.
Bressnick had promised him time and funding for pursuing research on the book. He would do the research in Jerusalem and other places in Israel. He could do so between times of filming the documentary, which he would narrate for the most part. –Telling his story and going over the dramatic prophecies he had uttered since the bite by the viper.
The remembered words of the short, rotund, television preacher he had become fond of watching on Sundays thundered in his head now, while the text scrolled on the laptop’s screen.
“Have you noticed how Israel is condemned by practically every nation in the U.N? Have you noticed that even though Israel does nothing through aggressive actions toward the Palestinians,…and the PLO and other Islamic-Arab actors in the area murder Israeli Jews,…it is the Jews, it is Israel who is called the aggressors…the occupiers…the murderers?”
The questions burned into his reporter’s curiosity. It was always the Arab states, the Islamists, that declared they would completely eradicate the Jewish state. –That vowed to push every last Jew into the Mediterranean.
The Arab coalition had indeed attempted to do just that on the historically notable occasions in1948 at Israel’s rebirth into modernity. The Arab forces, under Nasser then Sadat had tried to destroy Israel in 1956, 1967 and 1973. They continued their blood-vow to erase Israel from being a nation.
Despite these rants, the rest of the world –with few exceptions– continued to declare Israel the problem. Israel must give in to the Palestinian demands that declared they wanted Israeli territory in exchange for peace. Yet the Arab enemies would never even recognize Israel as a legitimate state.
The Texas preacher’s words echoed again in his mind’s ear.
“The world hates Israel because that is the people out of whom the savior of the world…Jesus Christ…came into the world to seek and to save lost humanity. The Old Testament prophet, Zechariah, said it all in giving the end times declaration…”
The preacher had held up the big Bible, then placed it on the pulpit.
“Zechariah the prophet foretold the following,” the preacher had said before reading from the scripture.
“The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. 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.”
Tyce remembered the hours spent at the United Nations building. The constant diatribe against Israel. The delegations that got up from their seats when Benjamin Netanyahu or other Israeli spoke before the assembly. –How the vote against Israel was overwhelming in most every case when the Jewish state was at the center of controversy.
The Zechariah prophecy could already be considered to have come true, he pondered, looking again to the laptop’s screen.
His own life was now being drawn irresistibly into the end of days drama, or whatsoever one might call it. Why and how had it happened? he had always considered such as in the same category as UFOs, ghost stories, and other matters. Things better suited to the fiction writers’ pursuits than to journalists in pursuit of truth.
The Bible… he respected the Bible, having been raised a Catholic. But, as a journalist –a realist– the Bible was to be looked at as a great literary work –not as the very Word of God, as the Texas television preacher would have it.
Yet it was happening to him… Why him?… The Patmos visions, or whatsoever they were… The sudden celebrity from the…prophecies?
They had come true, those predictions… predictions he didn’t even remember making during those news casts.
And the next newscast was now less than an hour and a half away. –The final newscast before heading to Patmos and to Israel and Jerusalem in pursuit of… His Trying to find out what might be his own part in all of this strangeness…
Get your copy of REVELATIONS by Terry James today!
False Accusers
In thinking on Paul’s “perilous times” characterizations of end-times man, we have covered most all of them as they seemed to become most prominent in daily life.
Here, again, is the apostle’s forewarning of things to come in this regard:
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
We have looked at each individually and collectively. Paul’s description of how humanity will be while the wrap-up of the Age of Grace nears its end has proven to be stunningly accurate. Of course, this shouldn’t surprise, because the apostle received the descriptive directly from the mind of the Living God.
Paul tells us that the nearer the Church Age comes to its conclusion, the more self-centered human beings will become.
We have discussed in these commentaries that–in my view, at least, the “selfie” –photos of one’s self–is such a manifestation of Paul’s prophetic characterization.
It is perhaps somewhat of a humorous example, but an example, nonetheless. Combined with social media and the desire of so many to one-up others in lifestyle creation -often fictional–the selfie becomes even more significant in fulfillment of this prophetic element.
We have gone over other characteristics of end-times man Paul lays out in this prophetic passage. Another example of these characteristics manifesting in our society and culture today is that men will be “without natural affection.”
My own view of this prophetic manifestation in our time is, of course, homosexuality and abortion.
My wonderment has always been: How can anyone consider sexual relations with a person of the same sex as “natural” activity? How can anyone believe abortion to be “natural” in a mother dealing with a baby in her womb? Yet these are two of the most prominent social and cultural manifestations of our day.
We know from our daily news of how “fierce” people can be in dealing with each other. This sort of murderous news seems to be the kind that most interests the viewing public–thus stimulates the news-reporting sources to broadcast it.
All we have to do is consider many of our congressional leaders and other governmental “servants”–such as those within our judicial system–to see the truth in Paul’s condemning words about mankind being “heady” and “high-minded.” These more often than not go against the will of the people in making decisions that “rule,” not “serve,” we the people.
Now we come to the title of the commentary–the characteristic Paul terms “false accusers.”
This characteristic of end-times man has, in my view, become the most manifest of all for this particular hour while the end of the age draws to its conclusion.
The 2016 presidential election has brought this one front and center for all to clearly discern. Any sound-thinking people can–if they simply open their eyes and ears–realize that the effort to destroy this president and his presidency has been the drive of the political left. As a matter of fact, I have characterized it as a satanic rage by both human and demonic minions that come against this administration’s efforts to get America back on track.
Certainly, America has been derailed, moving farther and farther away from God’s directions for life on earth as put forth in His Holy Word. Having been founded on godly principles by the Founding Fathers, it has been Satan’s plan to remove all tethers from those spiritual moorings. He has been phenomenally successful in doing so. The former presidential administration and its deleterious achievements are proof of the fallen one’s success in that regard.
The nefarious work of Satan and the minions continue. They do so through “false accusation.”
There are so many false accusers and false accusations that one commentary could not begin to cover them. So, we will look briefly at the most obvious of the false accusations.
I’m thinking here about Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent who, for payment, apparently, by the opponent candidate’s campaign against Donald Trump, wrote a fictional dossier, falsely accusing Trump of salacious activity while in a hotel room in Russia. This was done, it has been proven through many months of closely examining the facts, in order to give the FISA judge reason to issue permission to open investigation into Trump’s collusion with Russia in the defeat of Hillary Clinton.
It is all totally false, of course, but Muller’s investigation goes on. This is false accusation manifest for all the world to see.
No matter which channel or network that is giving news, this is the number-one story. And, it has proven to be totally “fake news.” That, friends and countrymen, is “false accusers” doing their minion work right in our faces.
This particular characteristic of end-times man, forewarned by Paul the apostle, threatens to create a constitutional crisis, threatens to tear apart the United States by dividing America in a way not even the Civil War could accomplish.
The only comforting thing those who are under the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ can take from all this is that seeing all this in our headlines today means that our redemption is drawing near.
Terry James’ New Book – REVELATIONS – a novel
A blind writer on topics involving prophecy receives a strange visit from a young news journalist. The TV anchor, Tyce Greyson, tells an eerie tale of supernatural dynamics acting upon his life.
His trip to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, then to the Isle of Patmos in the Aegean, sets in motion astonishing intrigues of profound impact upon his career –upon Israel, and upon the whole world.
The blind writer gets wrapped up in the story in a twist that confirms it is all part of human history’s consumation.
It is a story that both he and Tyce Greyson know must be told. All of humanity hangs in the balance.
Terry James says about the writing of REVELATIONS: “I’ve never sensed such personal closeness to characters in a work of fiction. It was as if Tyce visited me each early morning while the telling of the story unfolded. Somewhat disturbing, but very, very cool… as the young people would have it.”
We ask that our Rapture Ready folks really help this story –which is steeped in Bible prophecy truth– get off and running on Amazon! We thank you, in advance! The link to REVELATIONS on Amazon will be posted Wednesday, May 9. Please look for that announcement in just a few days!
Israel’s Vote and Joel’s Prophecy
Listening to the mainstream news talking heads the day after the elections in Israel in 2014 was self-validating. Like so many who try to use common sense in considering these strange times, I didn’t see any way the people of Israel would throw a strong defender of their nation out in order to install a Neville Chamberlain-like leader in such a critical political position at such a crucial time.
Days leading up to the Tuesday, March 17, 2014 vote by the Israeli people brought from liberal journalists every possible reason why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should lose and a more conciliatory government be installed.
Until the American presidential election of 2016, I had never heard such announced polling data forecasting a likely win that turned out to be so starkly wrong. Leading up to that Israeli election, the American press predicted a close race with Hertzog, Netanyahu’s opponent for prime minister, to be in the lead right up until the exit polls began on election day. Then it changed to “the election has tightened.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, as it turned out, claimed victory relatively early–so dramatically in his party’s favor had the voting gone. –This, even despite the American president having sent an election advisory team to Israel to help Netanyahu’s political opposition. I must admit that, like I did in the 2016 election of President Trump, I basked in the results of that election. At that time, I envied the people who had the good sense to re-elect the type leader (through their own brand of party politics) that I hoped we in America would be wise enough to elect again one day, should the world wag on in its precipitous state for a time yet.
While contemplating all of this–how pleased I was with the election results–I was brought back in a moment of epiphany to the deeper reality of what it all might mean in terms of God’s prophetic Word.
Benjamin Netanyahu made one campaign adjustment at the last minute that–my spiritual senses reminded–seemed to make the difference in his momentum toward re-election. He promised that if his government was returned to leadership, he would not allow a two-state solution to the ongoing Palestinian conflict with Israel.
We now get a sense of exactly the import of the prime minister’s speech before Congress on March 3, 2014. He laid out his case for why Israel must be on alert at all times against Iran and all of its enemy neighbors. At the heart of the hatred for Israel, of course, is the very point of the two-state solution much of the world of the diplomatic realm wants to force upon the Jewish state. At the same time, the Iranian antagonists and all other of the Islamist peoples surrounding Israel want only a one-state solution. They have voiced it many, many times since the establishment of Israel in 1948. Nasser, Sadat, and most every leader of Arab nations and of terrorist organizations in the Middle East have declared that they want Israel off the land it “occupies.”
They, in fact, have often, like the Nazis, proclaimed that the Jew is the problem with the lack of “peace” in the region and world. Every Jew should, therefore, be expunged from the earth.
There has been conjecture among those who watch the issues and events of the times, analyzing them in light of Bible prophecy. Many indicated they sensed that if Benjamin Netanyahu had lost the election, thus putting a Hertzog government in power, the results thereof would have increased the speed in dividing the land, thus bring on Armageddon.
The prophecy by Joel the prophet reads: “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).
I understand where those considering the prophecy might reasonably conclude that dividing the land spoken here speaks to a future time when, for example, Antichrist causes the land to be divided as part of the covenant of Daniel 9: 26. Or, perhaps the dividing of the land might be thought to mean a precursor agreement such as one made by Obama and John Kerry or some others in the Roadmap to Peace process .
However, in the much greater context, God’s land has been divided for centuries by the world of nation-states. The land has been forced by the Babylonian system of successive governments to carve up God’s real estate covenant with Israel. For this, the world is about to pay a terrible price–be brought to the killing field called Armageddon.
The Obama administration simmered over what it called Netanyahu’s “divisive rhetoric” regarding the prime minister saying at the time that he would not allow two states. If Obama and the rest of the world diplomatic enclave could truly be made to understand the immensely greater danger of their own divisive demands–those demands against God’s chosen nation–they would indeed be trembling instead of continuing in the year 2018 to push for the phony peace that Joel and Isaiah say will destroy much of the world’s population.
We are in the most dangerous times in U.S. history. But, we must also be in the time very near hearing the call from Jesus: “Come up here!”
European-Russian Anti-Trump Collusion
While Iran and Russia continue to merge and coalesce north of Israel, controversy is stirring mightily over the Iranian nuclear “deal.”
The lifting of crippling economic sanctions on Iran in return for limitations to Iran’s forging ahead with nuclear development was at the heart of the deal. The agreement was struck out of fear that the Iranian regime would use their nuclear program to develop nuclear weapons.
With Iran’s Islamist-controlled government constantly and consistently calling for the total annihilation of the “Little Satan”–Israel–the deal continues to be the international community’s idea of the best way to assure that the nukes never reach the level of being usable.
The election of President Donald Trump disrupted the deal-consummating matter. Trump stumping for president, while calling it a “bad deal,” declared that, if elected, he would do away with it and would do a “better deal.”
The new president has said he will not recertify it because it is too weak and Iran has already violated key provisions. He said that it is much too lenient, and that Iran has broken the agreement by, for example, violating heavy-water limits and access to international inspectors.
He wants new sanctions on Iran and, in particular, against the regime’s Revolutionary Guard police force.
He has referred the deal to Congress for changes to the US terms.
Israel has seemingly exercised considerable patience, staying relatively silent, while the Trump administration applies its policy-making to the critically important process. The world of diplomats–particularly in Europe–look with a wary eye not toward the treacherous Iranian-Russian cabal, but at the Jewish state. They see Israel as the most dangerous element in the whole matter. And with good reason.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear that if the world of diplomacy doesn’t get rid of the nuclear threat–a threat directly aimed at Israel–the IDF will.
So it is that President Trump has yet another pressure point to his multitudinous pressure points since taking office.
There is rumor–speculation–that he will renege on his campaign promises and presidential promises to drop the Iran nuclear deal and do a “better deal.”
Europe sent to America the leader they consider to be closest to having Trump’s proverbial number.
France’s young president, Emmanuel Macron, and the American president seem to have formed a mutual admiration society of sorts. While the president has rubbed most of Europe’s leadership the wrong way, especially the EU’s most economically powerful leader, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump and Macron seem to hit it off, personally and diplomatically.
The same reports that say Trump might be about to change his mind on his campaign opinion, and that since becoming president, regarding the Iranian nuclear deal, he is about to face a dual assault in an attempt to sway him into keeping the deal as is.
Both Macron and Merkel are scheduled, as of this writing, to present their unified message. That message, it is said, is save the deal.
The French president has done some stage setting for the meetings with his close friend, as the media pundits would have it.
a sort of North Korea-type situation.”
MOSCOW – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday he had agreed with his Chinese counterpart that Moscow and Beijing would try to block any U.S. attempt to sabotage the Iran nuclear deal, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
“We are against revising these agreements, we consider it very counter productive to try to reduce to zero years of international work carried out via talks between the six major powers and Iran,” TASS quoted Lavrov as saying after talks with Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, in Beijing.
“We will obstruct attempts to sabotage these agreements which were enshrined in a U.N. Security Council resolution,” Lavrov was cited as saying. (Jerusalem Post Breaking News, “LAVROV: RUSSIA AND CHINA TO OBSTRUCT U.S. ‘SABOTAGE’ OF IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL,” Rapture Ready News, April 23, 2018).
The strange bedfellow situation, however, in this case, isn’t really so strange, when considering things from the perspective of Bible prophecy. All who are involved against this president are under the master director of the globalist cabal. That cabal belongs to Satan, who desperately desires to construct the platform from which his coming man of the hour–Antichrist–will launch planet earth’s deadliest conflict.
Beware, Mr. President. Russia is definitely colluding–and with America’s so-called friends, at that.
Antichrist Assumptions
Declarations about Bible prophecy’s most evil (likely human) character are slashing through this time of end-of-the-age stage-setting. I say “likely human” because there is a looming question mark within my own cogitations about whether Antichrist will indeed be strictly human. Those who continue to hold to the beast of Revelation chapter 13 as eventually emerging out of the revived Roman Empire are increasingly being viewed as in error. Many prophecy watchers now see that evil entity as a Muslim in waiting somewhere in the foreboding future. The deadly violence that is growing by the day, with ISIS (or ISIL) at the core of militant Islam’s rage across the region that beastly horde infects, is proof that it will be an Islamist Antichrist who will one day soon be the man of sin of 2 Thessalonians 2: 3 –the Muslim Antichrist chroniclers declare.
These eastern-leg Antichrist adherents hold that the Bible prophecy students and scholars who have for centuries interpreted Daniel 9:26-27 as indicating the prince that shall come is to be of Roman geographic origin have been and now are demonstrably wrong. The horrific events of today’s Islamist, genocidal rampage as proof, is implicit within their railing against the long-held Roman Antichrist view. These give as their scriptural proof the fact that the world’s final, evil dictator is referred to as “the Assyrian.” And, there is absolutely no denying it. God’s Word does indeed call this coming tyrant “the Assyrian.”
One such adherent to the Muslim Antichrist view gave the following Scriptures as proof the view is the correct one.
Isaiah 10:24-25 – Therefore thus says the Lord GOD of hosts: “O My people, who dwell in Zion, do not be afraid of the Assyrian. He shall strike you with a rod and lift up his staff against you, in the manner of Egypt. For yet a very little while and the indignation will cease, as will My anger in their destruction.”
Isaiah 14:25-26 – That I will break the Assyrian in My land, And on My mountains tread him underfoot. Then his yoke shall be removed from them, And his burden removed from their shoulders. This is the purpose that is purposed against the whole earth, And this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations.
Micah 5:3-6 – Therefore He shall give them up, Until the time that she who is in labor has given birth; Then the remnant of His brethren Shall return to the children of Israel. And He shall stand and feed His flock In the strength of the LORD, In the majesty of the name of the LORD His God; And they shall abide, For now He shall be great To the ends of the earth; And this One shall be peace. When the Assyrian comes into our land, And when he treads in our palaces, Then we will raise against him Seven shepherds and eight princely men. They shall waste with the sword the land of Assyria, And the land of Nimrod at its entrances; Thus He shall deliver us from the Assyrian, When he comes into our land And when he treads within our borders.
The modern territories that encompass those geographic areas out of which the Assyrian (Muslim) Antichrist will come conquering like in ancient times–according to the adherents’ view–include the following: Israel, parts of Iraq and Iran, Armenia, sections of Egypt and Turkey, Syria, and Jordan.
“The beast” will, they proclaim, emerge from the Middle East, not Europe. Scripture and current geopolitical, religious, and military trends are in agreement, they declare. Antichrist will be Muslim –or at least will initially hold to the religion of Mohammed and Allah as long as doing so is to his advantage while he acquires power.
Yet, his ancestry, it has been determined through research, is from that region with which Antichrist is associated according to the prophets Isaiah and Micah.
That future fuehrer must have a resume compatible with Bible prophecy regarding the prince that shall come.
I concluded quite some time ago, after studying the son of perdition’s genealogy –admittedly only in a cursory way–that Antichrist will be a Roman by geographical birth/ residence. At the same time, I’ve believed he will come from the Middle East–be an Assyrian–by ethnic extraction.
It is altogether appropriate to propose that Antichrist will be of Middle Eastern ethnic origin. It is always wrong to name anyone as definitely the coming Antichrist, no matter his geopolitical, religious or ethnic resume. I would never make such an assumption, as we as believers of the Church Age have no basis upon which to make such a claim. We are to look for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, not the beast of Revelation 13. We will be kept out of that time when Antichrist wreaks havoc on a judgment-deserving world.
We are, however, commanded by the Lord Himself to “watch.”
We will keep doing just that while the road to Antichrist’s regime continues to be paved by current issues and events.
The Isaiah 17 Question
Inevitably the questions came. They came in various derivations of: “Do you think this bombing of Damascus is leading to Isaiah 17: 1?”
President Trump’s decision to keep his promise to Bashar al Assad that if he used chemical weapons again, there would be a price to pay. It was a promise kept to Russian President Vladimir Putin as well. He told the Russian leader that the missiles were coming. They would be “shiny” and “smart.”
Trump’s actions were a far cry from his predecessor’s drawing “red lines” in the Middle-Eastern sand. Time after time, the tyrants of the region crossed Mr. Obama’s lines with no consequences forthcoming.
It quickly became obvious that at least one leader believed he was dealing with a different sort of president. Putin wasted little time removing eleven of his ships from harm’s way–from the warm-water port in Syria he had connived to secure for his navy. This achievement–a warm-water port for Russia’s navy–of course, had been one long desired by the Soviets and by Russia, once the USSR fell during Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika time as Soviet leader.
So, Damascus, Syria, has long been in the thinking of the geopoliticians of all stripes. The Assads, both Hafez and his son Bashar, ruled with iron fists, just as Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq. They ruled with more or less autonomy until, in my opinion, the rush of prophetic times overtook them.
And, who among any watchman on the wall, observing stage-setting in the Middle East (and around the world, for that matter) can deny that the crush of issues and events on a global scale has destroyed normal geopolitical equilibrium, opening the end-times door to prophetic fulfillment?
Israel is in headlines every hour. Russia, Iran, and Turkey, the Gog-Magog force leaders, according to Ezekiel 38-39, are coalescing due north of the Jewish state the prophecy says these diabolists will attack. China is already the king of the kings of the East and growing more powerful and hegemonic with each passing news cycle.
And now, Damascus is on the front pages of newspapers, Internet headlines and every other news venue, with smoke still rising from the damage the 100-plus cruise missiles inflicted.
The question, or derivatives thereof: “Do you think this bombing of Damascus is leading to Isaiah 17: 1?” is relevant.
The reason for the question, of course, is the prophecy that is one yet future, scheduled for the time near Christ’s Second Advent:
“The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap” (Isaiah 17:1). It is a prophecy, considering the aforementioned prophetic stage-setting realities, that rightfully makes the student of eschatology take notice–and, take notice they have–since even before the attack of April 13.
So, I’ll address the question of whether the attack by the America, Britain, France coalition is leading to the Isaiah 17 prophetic fulfillment.
I am of the conviction that everything going on in and around that whole region, and Damascus in particular, has prophetic significance. There can just be no doubt about it. I, however, like anyone, can’t say specifically at what stage of the stage-setting for the Damascus Isaiah 17 destruction we are in at present.
My own thinking always gets back to Jesus’ words about the days of Noah and days of Lot (Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17:26-30). I believe there will be no world-rending prophetic fulfillment–such as the Gog-Magog attack, such as the total destruction of Damascus–before the Rapture of the Church.
Jesus tells us in the prophecy that things will be going along as usual–particularly with emphasis on a good-performing economy– at the time He catastrophically intervenes into the affairs of mankind.
He said that the cataclysm will fall the very day He intervenes. I believe it is just after the Rapture that these specific, horrendous prophecies are fulfilled.
Keep observing and asking the questions. This is incumbent upon the true Bible prophecy student. But, keep looking up at the same time (Luke 21:28). That’s the prophecy we truly wish to see fulfilled!
Iran and Nukes at the Brink
Crisis is building while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forewarns of the dangers of a nuclear weapons-possessing Iran. The world of diplomats and geopoliticians–who are proclaimed as earth’s smartest people–see Mr. Netanyahu as the instigator of the crisis, not the Iranian Islamist mullahs, ayatollahs, and war planners who have as their stated intention wiping Israel from the map. It is as if complete Chamberlain-like naivete has metastasized in the brains of those who are supposed to know how to best govern –and protect–the rest of us.
The Iranian nuclear weapons development has been allowed to continue while the likes of former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry proudly blusterd that he has assured that Iran’s nuclear weapons achievement had been postponed for ten years. This, he says, was “guaranteed” through the signatures of Iran’s Muslim leaders. These are the same leaders whose “holy” book, the Koran, tells believers in Allah that they may lie, cheat, or do anything that is necessary if it puts forward Mohammed’s directive that every person on planet earth must be made to bow the knee to Allah or else die.
According to those in the know, all of this deal-making has been done without the significant input of Israel, who is first in line to receive the terrifying products of the Iranian nuclear program, should it reach fruition. Likewise, it is relatively common knowledge among those possessing the wherewithal to know that verification of the ten-year pact of non-nuclear weapons production has at best a verification process that makes the many broken deals made with Russia and China over the years of the cold war look like unassailable agreements made with the saints of Heaven.
The Obama Administration had no comparable philosophy within its strategic planning that I’ve been able to detect like that of President Ronald Reagan when making deals with those who want to do away with you –“Trust but verify.”
Mr. Reagan was reportedly a Bible reader and a believer that Bible prophecy is truth from the Creator of all things. He surely had at the center of his thinking in this regard the following admonitions/exhortations: Mark 3:2: No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.
Luke 11:21-22: When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: But when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils.
Benjamin Netanyahu is a practicing Jew, thus bases his beliefs on Old Testament teachings. However, he is said to conduct Bible studies within his home, and includes thoughts from New Testament teachings. Doubtless, he has perused the above Scripture, which, after all, is based upon Old Testament truth. He knows beyond any doubt that you cannot “trust” unless you “verify,” as Ronald Reagan put it. The very fact that Netanyahu came to the U.S. Congress as early as 2015 to lay out the critical nature of dealing with Iran shows (me at least) that the Israeli government is very close to a devastating, preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear production facilities.
Implicit within his many speeches, has been the intimation that he does not trust the U.S. State Department’s internationalist version of how to “verify,” in the matter of dealing with those who want more than anything to completely destroy every Jew on planet earth.
It is just a matter of time, he has forewarned, until not only Israel but all of the west, including the United States, will be in the Iranian nuclear crosshairs. This should be a prognostication that is unnecessary to even verbalize. However, the fact of such a bleak future didn’t seem to register with even now dismissed Secrretary of State Rex Tillerson –although when plainly stated by the Israeli prime minister. This is primarily, apparently, the prime reason Tillerson was fired by President Donald Trump. He continued to make back-room efforts to maintain the same dangerous policy as involved in Kerry’s dealing with the Iranians. with
The Israeli prime minister came down adamantly against the Obama-Kerry deal with the Iranians. He gave clear, unequivocal reasons why he is so opposed to this “bad” deal, as he put it on several occasions during the speech.
The Obama Administration’s intention to lift restrictions after a ludicrous ten-year period of the Iranian’s agreeing to hold off on producing nuclear weaponry was met by Netanyahu’s following response–each point given tremendous applause by most in the U.S. congressional chamber during his powerful address a few years ago.
The Israeli leader said that before lifting those restrictions, the world should demand that Iran do three things. First, stop its aggression against its neighbors in the Middle East. Second, stop supporting terrorism around the world. And third, stop threatening to annihilate my country, Israel, the one and only Jewish state.
There was left little doubt after that speech–directed at the Islamist hordes more than at those in Congress or President Obama at that time– hat Israel’s security is his all-consuming intent. As Iran, with 119 nuclear centrifuges in action, is on the brink of producing weapons that could indeed accomplish their vicious leaders’ goal of destroying the Jewish state, Netanyahu made his own determination unmistakably clear in his warning.
I can guarantee you this, the days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over.
We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves.
This is why–this is why, as a prime minister of Israel, I can promise you one more thing: Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand.
Again, we notice with great interest that the prophet Ezekiel foretells that Persia (Iran) will come with the forces of Magog (Russia and others) in an all-out assault on Israel. They do so with conventional forces, not nuclear. They obviously have not nuked Israel by the time they launch this attack. I conclude that somewhere along the line Persia (Iran) has either failed to develop nuclear weapons, or that capability has been neutralized in some way. If they get those weapons they will almost certainly use them, and their first target will almost just as certainly be Israel.
Whether the Israeli Defense Force takes them out–an action that would almost assure Israel would instantly reach Zechariah 12: 1-3 status–or it is an act of God, it appears from Bible prophecy that Iran and their grand plans to use atomic weapons against the Jewish state will never happen.
America is at a crossroad in its dealing with God’s chosen nation. There is no such God-guaranteed prophetic protection given any other nation than Israel.
Our Congress–at least a great portion of that body– responded for the most part with tremendous approval of the things Bibi spoke Tuesday March 3, 2015. I’m encouraged by that response.
A Strange Thing?
We’ve all heard it, or said it ourselves. “A strange thing happened to me.”
It’s something we say for anything out of the ordinary. For example, when you pick up the phone (especially back in the old days when everyone had a land line) and you haven’t talked to a certain person in weeks. You dial the friend’s number and there is no ring. Then someone on the other line speaks the word “Hello.”
It is your friend–the one you haven’t talked with on the phone for days or weeks–maybe even months. It’s your friend’s voice.
You say his or her name in a questioning inflection. They say, “Yes, it’s me,” and ask if it’s you.
Then you both say almost simultaneously: “I was just calling you.”
The phone didn’t ring because you dialed simultaneously and connected at precisely the right time that prevented a ring on either end.
That “strange-thing” scenario plays out in our brains over the course of our lifetime. We have deja vu moments–sensations that make us sense that we are reliving a previous moment in time. The brain glitches, or whatever they are, are rare, but they happen to most of us.
We might say, “I had a funny thing happen to me,” rather than, “I had a strange thing happen to me,” on these deja vu moments and other occasions when extraordinary occurrences take place in our lives. A movie with a title reflecting this sensation is the film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
But what we really mean when we use the word “funny” is that the occurrence is very out of the ordinary.
The above is to preface the telling of a strange thing that happened to me a week and a half ago. It is among the strangest of my experiences–perhaps second only to my brief visit to somewhere within the heavenly realm on Good Friday of 2011 due to my heart stopping three times because of a “widow-maker” heart attack–an event about which you are doubtless tired of my recounting…but it was so out of the ordinary and so absolutely a vision, not a dream, that I can’t help recounting it.
A friend of mine since junior high school days and I have kept in touch over these many years. He is a guy who is full of good humor, yet serious-minded when sound thinking is called for by life’s circumstances. He is one thing more. He is lost–doesn’t know the Lord for salvation.
My friend went to Vietnam, was a second lieutenant, led a squad of twelve men into the tunnels beneath those killing fields. They were charged with cleaning out the tunnels of Vietcong, the term for North Vietnamese, black pajama-clad jungle fighters.
He did his job, and, miraculously, after many missions, made it back home to America. He did get into drugs, not an unusual thing for those who fought in that war. He suffers traumatic psychological disorders. However, he is a very sound thinker, and always under control, having received much psychological help over the years since returning home. He earned a law degree during the early years of his return.
I have prayed for him for all these years–that he would be brought to the point that he would hear the words of my witness to him.
He always listened to my talk about Christ, yet, although very politely listening and agreeing that he acknowledged there is a God, never seemed to go deeply beyond a cursory acknowledgment of needing God in one’s life.
About six months ago, he called to tell me he was under a doctor’s care. He had been diagnosed with a form of lung cancer. They were attacking it with chemo and radiation. They had hope for cure.
I prayed more and more that he would come to genuinely want to accept God’s way to salvation–a thing I had gone over with him many times. I prayed the Lord would draw him to Christ in whatever way necessary.
To go back a bit farther in our lives, a friend of ours since childhood–a very healthy guy of about 70 at the time–suddenly developed a strange heart malady. This friend was a Christian, and very close to both of us over the years.
Howard, this friend with the heart disease, died in 2013 right before Christmas. My friend and I have talked about Howard many times since.
I continued to pray that the Lord would use Howard’s death, somehow, to bring my friend to understand what is needed for his own time of death, if he is to go to Heaven.
Mike called me about a month ago to tell me that he was now in hospice. The doctors told him they were out of options, which means he will doubtless pass away soon.
I prayed all the harder in the manner mentioned above.
A week and a half ago, Mike called me. There was a strange lilt to his voice. He said, “Terry, guess who I just was visited by this morning before dawn.”
I hesitated, not having a clue. My dying friend, his voice unusually serious, yet strangely expressive, made seemingly a hundred thoughts race through my head. I was silent.
“Howard,” Mike said.
“Howard?” I tried to think of who he was talking about.
“Howard was here. Right here at the end of my bed,” Mike said. “He talked to me.”
“What did he say?” It was all I could think to say. I knew he meant our friend who had died had, Mike thought, talked with him. I was then stunned into silence.
“He said, ‘Mike, you’ve gone to Sunday School and church your whole life. But, you’ve not heard a word. But, Mike it’s going to be okay. You’ve got to listen, though, in order for everything to be okay.”
Instantaneously, I jumped in. I said, “Mike, I believe you have had a genuine visitation from Heaven.”
I believe this, because at that moment I knew without any doubt what the words Mike had heard from Howard–or whomever the heavenly visitor was– meant. They were to give me an opportunity to speak directly to him in a way I had never been able to do so before.
I said, “Mike, I have to tell you that this is a message from God Himself, from the Lord Jesus Christ, who wants you to accept Him for salvation. You must listen to what I have to tell you. The Lord wants you to listen.”
I said, “You know I love you. I would never lie to you or hurt you. I want only the very best for you.”
Mike said, “I know that, Terry. I believe you.”
I said, “Then listen carefully, because this is directly from Jesus to you.”
I then went through the plan of salvation–how Jesus said He is the only Way to God the Father and Heaven.
Mike listened, and said he believed I was telling him the truth.
I said, “The Lord sent Howard–or whomever the heavenly being was–to you to make you realize this message is from Heaven above.”
Mike said, “When I started to ask Howard about what was going on with this…standing at the end of my bed, he said. ‘Mike, where do you think I am?'”
Mike said he knew then that Howard had come to him from Heaven. He knew Howard was a Christian–had taught Sunday School and lived a Christian life all the years of our lives together.
Let me tell you, by this time, I had chill bumps running all over me, chill bumps of happiness. The Lord had used our friend Howard’s heavenly image, in whatever way, to get Mike’s attention. God had directly intervened–had answered my prayers that Mike would truly listen to what God had been prompting me to say to him.
When we hung up, Mike had not yet committed to Christ for salvation–not verbally, at least. I told him that Paul the Apostle wrote that if he will confess with his mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in his heart that God has raised Him from the dead, he will be saved–will go instantaneously to Heaven and to Jesus when his heart stops in this life.
“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved,” I told him in the simplest terms the Bible uses.
So, it was a “strange thing” that happened to both my friend Mike and me a week and a half ago.
But was it “strange,” really? God has moved Heaven and Hell to bring sinners to repentance by sending His Son to die for us. He is not willing for any to perish. For God to move in this way is not at all strange in God’s love for us. Miracles can be commonplace in His divine view of things.
Mike and I have just been blessed to be part of God’s increasingly miraculous interventions into this world during this time so near Christ’s return. He is about to intervene in an even more thrilling way–through the Rapture!
Pray that Mike will soon call again with some really good news.
Dream Doors Book Two – Noah’s Navy
The second book of the Dream Doors Adventures series—Noah’s Navy—by Terry James and Douglas Hirt has been released!
We remind you grandparents, in particular, that this is a series of exciting stories for your grandchildren.
The setting is the Millennium–that 1,000-year reign of King Jesus upon planet earth.
The stories are fantasy adventures enjoyed by children living in the Millennial age. But your grandchildren will be swept along in the excitement and joy right along with that future generation that will be thrilled by everything the Lord has planned for those who love Him.
Dream Doors Adventures
Noah’s Navy
The Millennial Kingdom is a wondrous time and place to be born. The world is at peace and has become like the Garden of Eden: beautiful, exciting, and ruled by the Great King Himself, who sits on His throne in the golden street city of Glorania.
In such a perfect place, who would expect thieves to prowl at night?
It’s those two fumblers again, Lester Mudd and Castor Grout.
This time, the troublemakers intend to steal a special gift entrusted to Adam Beam by the Great King. Luckily, Adam is startled awake during the burglary. Lester and Castor panic and escape through a carelessly drawn Dream Door, accidentally landing on Noah’s Ark at the time of the Great Flood. It doesn’t take Adam long to figure out where the thieves have gone. At once Adam, his sister Zonia, and their pet Siberian tiger Toby are in hot pursuit to recover the stolen treasure, only to learn that the gift has fallen into the raging flood waters and is permanently lost.
Well, maybe not permanently.
Adam has an idea about how to find the precious gift, but it will take some clever Dream Doodling, the help of Noah and his family, a navy of friendly sea creatures, and…a submarine Dream Doodled from the far future. Naturally, the evil Evols intend do all within their power to stop Adam from completing his mission.
Doug has grandchildren and I have “honorary” grandchildren (although they are a bit older at this stage of my life). We are living these stories ourselves through what we perceive as spiritually attuned senses that create imaginary adventures. We want each Dream Doors adventure to influence youngsters–yours and ours–in God’s most wonderful ways.
Dream Doors series can be ordered here: Noah’s Navy at Amazon
Terry James Prophecy Line 