Prophecy Line
Terry James’ and Douglas Hirt’s new Millennium series “Dream Doors” Now Available
Special Notice to Grandparents: My first thought in wanting to do a series of fantasy on Christ’s 1000-year reign was that this would be a great way for grandparents to get their grandchildren interested in what being a Christian ultimately means. –To teach them who Jesus truly is in all of His Honor and Glory.
Douglas Hirt, my long-time friend and one of the best novelists in the nation and a devoted Christian, and I have teamed up to produce the” Dream Doors Adventures” series.
These stories are set in the time of the Millennium, the most wonderful time of all human history, according to the Bible. Doug and I truly believe the Lord’s Great Hand is in the writing of these adventures of the children who populate that future time.
We prayerfully hope that through these stories the young ones you love so much will get deeper understanding of the Sunday School stories they are taught at church. Our intent is to ignite their imaginations through Holy Spirit Influence when you and their parents read to them –or they read for themselves– the actual Biblical accounts of the stories these tales of fantasy represent.
The first story is “Adam’s Apples”. More about which, below…
I’m confident that you will enjoy these adventures as much as will your Grand kids.
The books are available in both paperback and in Kindle. The links to order are at the bottom.
“Dream Doors Adventures, Book one: Adam’s Apples”
Adam Beam, a young boy, and his sister, Zonia, live in a future time, born in an era of a Utopian world.
The children live in Glorania, the capital city of New Eden, where the Great King rules an almost perfect planet.
There are no dangers to face in this new world. Adam’s pet, Toby, for example, is a Siberian tiger weighing 1000 pounds.
Adam and Zonia go through a “Dream Door” into the past, as part of Adam’s “Explore Time” (school classroom) adventure, the method by which children of New Eden Time learn history.
They pass in and out of Dream Doors by means of the “Dream Doodler,” a marvelous instrument that can draw a picture in midair. The children can jump into the picture they draw, to take them wherever they want to go.
They use the Dream Doodler by imagining the scene, then pointing and waving the Dream Doodler, thereby creating the other dimensional “Dream Drawing.”
Each child chooses which historical era he wishes to explore. He chooses who will travel with him. Adam chooses his sister and Toby, his pet tiger, to go back to the “First Time”.
There they meet with a variety of ancient dinosaurs, and dragon-type beasts. Since these are vision-experiences more than reality, the children are never in actual danger, but can be recalled by Explore Time teachers, or can Dream Doodle themselves out of trouble at any moment they choose.
Adam and Zonia are directed in their adventure by a “Brighton”, supernaturally endowed people of New Eden time, and by “a “Lighton,” a magnificent, huge, glowing figure who can appear when necessary, but who, for the most part, communicates cerebrally with Adam, and sometimes his younger sister.
They are given a mission, to retrieve a sack full of apples, which have supernatural purposes, but which have been stolen by “Evols” and “Slegna”, who are evil counterparts of the Brightons and Lightons.
Adam and his sister meet children of the era, all of whom are terrified, at first, of the tiger, who quickly wins their confidence and affection.
The children of New Eden Time, and of The First Time, soon meet with Grandfather Adam, who tells them of the apples. Adam Beam and Zonia go on a quest to find Grandfather’s lost apples.
There’s never a moment during the Millennial Reign of King Jesus that’s not filled with adventurous excitement!
To purchase “Adam’s Apples” by Terry James and Douglas Hirt:
Paperback:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1641191600
Kindle:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B8YYD8B
Jacob’s Trouble Simmering
Holocaust was approaching, and nobody seemed to notice. It was 1936 and Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime was putting forth its best public relations efforts through the Olympics, held that year in Berlin.
The Führer’s rhetoric and Josef Goebbels’ glowing propaganda presented a dichotomy to the world’s diplomats. On the one hand, there were growing armaments and militarism within the German industrial complex that caused potential Nazi victims to cast a wary glance Germany’s way. On the other, the world was–on the surface–welcomed with open, though swastika-banded arms to partake of the growing glory of the rising Third Reich.
Journalists of the world for the most part were swept up in the vacuum of movement into modernity that promised bigger, greater things through technological wizardry. The Hindenburg flew dominantly and majestically above the landscape of earth, and Germany welcomed all to a transparent view of life in Deutschland. Only, things were not so transparent, as promised to the duped, journalistic world.
War debt–reparations for the havoc the German aggressors wreaked in World War I hyper-inflation–and the fear of a Communist takeover of government had long broiled and brewed just beneath the surface. The German people were ready for their savior. They believed they had found him. The Führer needed a scapegoat to bring the national psyche into a synthesis of sorts–an internal enemy upon which to focus. The choice he came up with consisted of two antagonists: 1) the communists and 2) the Jews. The communists represented an ideological and militaristic threat that came from regions east of the homeland. The Jews represented an economic threat, and a threat to the purity of the Germanic race.
The house of Israel, like in so many eras of mankind’s anti-Semitic history, drew the attention of demonically inspired leaders. Under Heinrich Himmler’s evil scheming–aimed at centering hatred of the Jews around which to rally the Nazi regime–the Final Solution was formulated and its implementation begun.
Six million died in the genocide we know as the Holocaust. The resultant national battle cries of the reborn Jewish state–“Never again!”–have again brought God’s chosen people to growing world hatred of them. Their stance of defending their right to exist enrages enemies and even supposed allies the world over. Anti-Semitism is literally exploding across the planet. Hatred by Muslim nations across the world is a foregone conclusion. Therefore, its most troubling growth is found in the geopolitical West.
We remember a time not long ago that in a single week eight synagogues were attacked in France. A mob of more than four hundred enraged thugs firebombed a synagogue in Cacelles. A Jewish supermarket and pharmacy were attacked, looted, and greatly damaged. Those who attacked shouted slogans and carried placards. They chanted the same slogans written on the placards, which read “Death to Jews!” and “Slit the Jews’ throats!”
Stone-throwing protesters burned Israeli flags in the Barbes neighborhood of the capital that same weekend. In Germany, Jew-haters threw Molotov cocktails into the Bergische Synagogue in Wuppertal. It was the same synagogue previously destroyed during Kristallnach, the Nazi’s all-out assault that was the beginning of the attempt to eliminate the Jewish Race in November of 1939.
“These are the worst times since the Nazi era,” Dieter Graumann, the then president of Germany’s Central Council of Jew [said]. “On the streets, you hear things like ‘the Jews should be gassed’, ‘the Jews should be burned’ – we haven’t had that in Germany for decades. Anyone saying those slogans isn’t criticising Israeli politics; it’s just pure hatred against Jews: nothing else. And it’s not just a German phenomenon. It’s an outbreak of hatred against Jews so intense that it’s very clear indeed.”
There are so many reports of such hatred against Jews that it would take several articles to list them all. And, America has experienced vandalism and other acts of anti-Semitism, such as the destruction of headstones in Jewish cemeteries and worse incidents.
The point is that anti-Semitism is growing at an alarming rate while the world lurches toward man’s darkest time. Jeremiah the prophet called it the time of Jacob’s trouble: “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 30:7).
Indeed, the Lord will preserve Israel. It will be the apex nation during the Millennium! Today, however, holocaust is approaching, but not many seem to notice. Jacob’s Trouble is definitely simmering, and soon it will boil over to scald all who are left behind when Christ calls the church home to Heaven.
Spirit of Antichrist Surging
Recently channeling through my TV channels, I heard more than one preacher say that we are to get ready for the “anointing” in these last days. The anointing to which they referred, I found out by listening further, meant, according to the speakers, that a special ability will be placed upon the Church (all within the Body of Christ). The anointing will bring about a great revival and a massive move of the Holy Spirit that will bring a tremendous number of souls to salvation.
The preachers I heard didn’t say where in the Bible this promised anointing is found. At least I missed it if they did give scriptural references.
And that’s the problem I have with this last-days great revival I’ve heard about for years. I can’t find a scriptural proof-text that makes such a promise.
There are references that there will be many saved during the Tribulation. For example, Revelation 7:9-17 foretells a time when a tremendous multitude of saints will bow before the throne of God along with the angelic billions. John the Revelator is told that these are the martyrs who came out of Great Tribulation. God will wipe away all their tears and will comfort them forever in his majestic presence.
There are other references to a multitude of souls being added to God’s Kingdom. All such references, however, are to the time following the Church Age. I can find no specific prophecy that there will be either a great end-of-this-age revival, or of a massive number of souls being added because of such a revival.
Now, there might come a revival and an addition to the Kingdom of the magnitude these preachers proclaim. But if so, it isn’t announced any place in the Bible that I can find.
On the other hand, there are prophecies of the times leading up to the Tribulation that tell quite a different story than the prediction of a last-days revival. Jesus, Himself, said that the love of many will grow cold. People will be like they were in the days of Noah and of Lot–i.e., they will be doing evil and thinking only evil thoughts, while business goes on as usual.
The Apostle Paul tells us that “evil men and seducers will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived,” and that even within the Church, people will be falling for false teachers and doctrines of devils. Not only will these be following “strange winds of doctrine,” but they will “heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.”
In other words, they won’t endure sound doctrine, but will follow fables. Much of this very thing is going on in the world of Christendom even as I write this.
Paul lists a litany of the characteristics of end-times man as recorded in 2 Timothy 3. Men will have a “form of godliness” but will “deny the power thereof.” Nowhere does Jesus, Paul, or any other of the prophets tell of a time when men would be turning to the Gospel message en masse for the salvation of their souls.
John implies that in the last days, the “spirit of Antichrist” will dominate the human condition. Here is what he writes under Holy Spirit direction:
1 John 2:18–Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
1 John 2:22–Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.
1 John 4:3–And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that [spirit] of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
2 John 1:7–For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.
Many of the largest church assemblies today fit the portrayal of the Laodicean church. These most dramatically manifest their Antichrist spirit through their 1) turning more and more toward universalism, and 2) embracing replacement theology.
Universalism is the burgeoning belief system that teaches that there are many ways to God the Father and Heaven. It is a direct turning away from Jesus Christ as the only Way, Truth, and Life (John 14:6).
Replacement theology is the satanic lie accepted by more and more so-called mainstream Christian ministries that hold that the Church has replaced Israel as recipient of God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This, of course, is a massive part of the very satanic ploy that will ultimately bring all peoples of planet earth to Armageddon.
We don’t have to hear of ABC’s The View host Joy Behar mocking Vice President Mike Pence’s hearing Christ speaking to him to know the spirit of Antichrist is surging. Mocking anything and everything to do with the Name of Jesus Christ is rampant, even within much of a large percentage of those who claim Christianity as their spiritual platform. One great example of this is Catholic Pope Francis, who has a number of times proclaimed that there is more than one way to heaven.
This is a blatant display of the Antichrist spirit surging in these closing moments of the Age of Grace.
Winds of War
Planet earth is again in an era much like that time leading up to World War II. Beyond that, one senses that the time of the thawing of the Cold War era is at an end and that the prospects for nuclear winter, as John F. Kennedy once proposed was setting in to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, is again in the offing.
Author Herman Wouk wrote about the time leading up to the Second World War in his novel, The Winds of War. A 1983 television miniseries based upon that book chronicled, through a fictional family and others, the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. The nearly fifteen-hour-long productions captured the essence of the geopolitical atmospherics of the time. The Winds of War was the perfect title for Wouk’s novel and for the miniseries.
Such a story could be written about these times presaging the buildup to an even more troubled time of human history. Much of our news today deals with North Korea and potential nuclear conflict in the part of the Middle East where Israel must deal with hate-filled enemies. There still seems a general sense that the truly dangerous powerhouses of potential war-making are still in the Cold War thaw. Nothing could be more misunderstood.
Actually, thanks to the totally out-of-control former American presidential administration, the United States is the only nuclear powerhouse which was continuing the Cold War thaw. While Russia, under a macho, ego-driven former KGB thug, was and is going at breakneck speed to increase Russia’s nuclear arsenal–and every other element of their military complex– Mr. Obama wanted America’s total nuclear stockpile reduced to around 300. This, he strove to do unilaterally. China, at the same time, was and is developing a nuclear submarine force and many other military assets–funded, may I say, by the US Treasury.
Both Russia and China have been flexing their burgeoning military muscle power. Russia has sent nuclear bombers near borders of northern Europe and along some coastal areas of Alaska, to test, it is thought, 1) defensive warnings and capabilities of those military powers Russian planners consider top enemy; and 2) to see just how far they can push, as is Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin’s proven way of being a bully.
China is constantly making incursions into areas of the Pacific and other places that the Chinese leadership and military strategists know are considered territorial waters that represent danger zones for producing potential conflict. Russia has built and continues to upgrade a huge complex in preparation for command and control in case of nuclear war, according to experts on such matters.
The National Defense Control Center (NDCC) replaces (is an upgrade of) the central command of the general staff, a nerve center that monitors all military threats to Russia and utilizes state-of-the-art technologies to deal with such concerns. The facility is the counterpart to the US National Military Command Center, the Pentagon’s monitoring and response center to military nuclear threats.
I attended the twenty-third annual Pre-Trib Prophecy group gathering at Dallas several years ago. Current events were top priority in the discussions and presentations during those sessions. Dr. Thomas Ice, the group’s director, gave a presentation in which he addressed things going on in the Middle East as they might portend things to come.
I inferred that Dr. Ice believed that while modern nations aren’t mentioned by their contemporary names in the Ezekiel 38-39 prophesied Gog-Magog war, developments in the region involving Russia, Iran, and other present-day national entities are almost certainly preparation for that end-times invasion. We are witnessing the winds of war–the Gog-Magog War, and the war called Armageddon. That is what I took from Ice’s presentation. And, I concur completely, as anyone who reads these commentaries is aware.
A major point I took away from those meetings is that we are to understand our roles as Christians in today’s world as we see these wars and rumors of war in our headlines. It is God’s desire that we play a most important role, collectively and individually. To do less is to shirk our responsibilities. Sadly, many within the Church are asleep. We are in the “think-not” time about which Jesus forewarned as recorded in Matthew 24: 44.
The banquet speaker for the Pre-Trib group that year was Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas. He summed the purpose we as believers are to serve as these winds of war blow across this end-times landscape.
He used the analogy God’s Word uses, and with which most are familiar. He said we must be salt and light. There’s nothing new in that exhortation.
However, his in-depth explanation was most interesting–particularly the part about being salt.
Dr. Jeffress said that there is no hope–humanly speaking–for America, or for the world. All is dying, decaying. That is, there is nothing any politician or political process can do to save this nation or any other. All are passing into the dust bin of history. Salt, he said, cannot “permanently preserve” food–for example, meat. All it can do is to “delay” the decay of the meat. The meat is destined to desiccate.
Our purpose in the case of the Church–all born-again believers–is to act, individually and collectively, as a preservative agent. We can act only to delay the decay, the degeneration into the sin-darkness of mankind’s eventual, God-rejecting, human history.
This is the answer to the question: Why should Christians get involved in the political process? Why even bother to vote? The answer is that we are commanded to stand in the struggle against the gathering darkness. We must fight to the very last second just before we go to be with the Lord, whether in death, or in the Rapture. We are to act as preservative against immorality and all other evil, taking on the whole armor of God as given in Ephesians chapter 6.
We are to be light in this darkening sphere. We are to preach and teach the gospel and all other principles within God’s Word. The Founding Fathers implanted much of that Word within our Constitution. It is therefore, a Christian’s duty to stand for those founding principles, always putting God’s holy letter to mankind–the Bible–at the center of all our thinking and actions.
The winds of war are blowing. It’s time to be good soldiers of the cross in every respect.
“Well done…”
Billy Graham went to be with the Lord Wednesday, February 21, 2018. Since then, he has been quoted a number of times commenting about his own passing from this life. He made the declaration in one of his crusade sermons many years ago:
“One of these days you’re going to hear that Billy Graham has died. Don’t you believe a word of it…I will be more alive at that time than I am right now… I will be with the Lord in my home in Heaven. I will have just simply changed addresses.”
I heard Dallas First Baptist Church pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress, say of Billy Graham upon hearing of the evangelist’s death, “He is hearing the Lord say to him ‘Well done, good, faithful servant.'”
These quotes are reflective of absolute Bible truth. The very Word of God tells us that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We are advised that every believer should want to hear his Lord say to him or her, “Well done, good, faithful servant…Enter into the glory of your new dwelling place.”
One day each of us will come face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ, if we have accepted His death, burial, and resurrection as the only way to redemption and to God the Father. Sadly, tragically, those who have rejected God’s salvation plan will come face to face with Him as judge of their unredeemed souls.
So only the saved of the ages can look forward to having the Lord Jesus say to them, “Well done…”.
Billy Graham, as Dr. Jeffress pointed out the other day, surely has now heard those wonderful words from the One whose Holy Name the evangelist spoke in hundreds of crusades across America and the world. His homecoming must continue to be glorious indeed.
As we think on Billy Graham’s departure for his new address in Heaven, it is apropos, I should think, to consider our own time of coming face to face with our Savior and Lord. What should we be doing to strive toward one day, perhaps soon, hearing Jesus say, “Well done, good, faithful, servant”?
Each of us who name the name of Christ must work in His great cause in the way He directs. That is, we must do our best to do His will in serving the purpose He has chosen for our time on earth. This service is individual, of course. But, it can also be done in a collective way.
And, this is the reason for this particular approach to our Rapture Ready donation drive for this quarter. This ministry–designed to lift the name of Jesus so that many will be drawn to Him, and to proclaim His soon return–provides a opportunity for all of us, together, to serve our lord in a powerful way. Those who contribute financially to our effort to alert many around the world to God’s salvation message and to the prophetic truth of Christ’s soon return are performing service that will one day bring forth the words we all want to hear from our Lord: “Well done, good, faithful servant!”
The challenges are great, and are growing more so while we move deeply into the very end of the age. Our financial needs have expanded with increased efforts to give the website a more powerful and effective outreach. As example, it was necessary to spend three months on updating the board. Since the software was old, it took endless hours for two design teams to update the software from version 4 to version 5. Todd says that if he had known it was going to be such a costly and time-consuming affair, he would have started over with a whole new website model.
As Dr. J Vernon McGee would say, I’m a back number, and understand none of the technological aspects with which Todd has to deal. However, I have listened to him as he has worked to make Rapture Ready everything the Lord wants it to be. He continues to work diligently. The effort and financial expense, likewise, continue to be considerable.
So, thanks for joining us in this most worthy endeavor while the coming of our Lord nears.
Time is short to work toward pleasing our Lord and Savior, who gave His all for us. What an experience it will be one day to–like no doubt Billy Graham has just done–look into Jesus’ loving, omniscient eyes and hear Him say, “Well done, good, faithful servant. Welcome into the magnificent abode of your eternal joy.”
As we get closer to the Tribulation hour, it is important for every Christian to have an end-time mindset. Prayer is essential at this crucial time. We appreciate those prayers more than we can express. If you truly believe the Rapture is drawing near, you should be more focused on endeavors that will contribute to the Kingdom of God.
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An easy way to support RR is with an automatic monthly donation. The PayPal subscription service and allotments set up through a bank are convenient ways to send funds to the site. We hope you will sign up as soon as possible. You can find the link on the Donation Depot page. Donations can also be sent to our PO Box at:
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As Billy Graham used to say: “May the lord Bless you real good!”
End-Times Leadership
Study of powerful leaders throughout history has always fascinated me. The fact that such study intrigues others, too, is demonstrated, I think, by the obsession with Adolf Hitler my cable TV system seems to harbor. It’s all Hitler, all the time–or so it seems.
I can’t seem to pull myself away from the presentations, despite the fact that I have “viewed” these same documentaries multitudinous times–and me totally blind since 1993! Perhaps that is one reason they still fascinate. Most of the documentary film of the rise of Hitler and his diabolical regime, up to and including World War II, replays in my mind’s eye almost like I was physically seeing it all again.
So, you see, I’ve been “fascinated” with this most terrible tyrant, literally, for numerous decades.
However, it isn’t just the grisly history of der Führer that piques my interest. It is leadership throughout history, from the times of Nimrod and the building of the Tower of Babel, to Nebuchadnezzar, to Alexander the Great, to Julius Caesar and all of the beastly Roman emperors, to the more modern era of Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Tojo, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Nasser, Hafez al-Assad, Saddam Hussein, Khomeini, Vladimir Putin, et al, that draw my interest.
My fascination is not with the horrors of war. These are heart wrenching and not in any way intellectually stimulating or edifying–at least not for me. The intrigue that enthralls comes from the fact that these human beings are allowed power over the people. This power is given to them by the people themselves, through acquiescence.
But, it is the fact that the Lord of Heaven allows that they attain such power that continues to truly spellbind me, I think.
Allowing the millions upon millions of people enslaved and murdered by these seem incomprehensible to reconcile with the great character of the one and only God I know and love through the Lord Jesus Christ–His Son—who made my own soul’s reconciliation possible. The question that most of us who name the name of Christ have when considering the evil of this world is: Why does God allow such to take place?
How can the Lord of Heaven seemingly sit by and watch while these atrocities–this genocide—take place throughout the eons of history? We sometimes forget when thinking on such things that our God has provided leaders of the sort that are people after His own heart, as the Bible puts it. David comes to mind, as do some of the “good” kings of Israel and Judah during the alternating times of good versus bad kings throughout certain periods of the history of those Northern and Southern kingdoms of the Jewish people.
Other great leaders of the world’s nations, who were not necessarily people after God’s own heart, have ruled the people under their authority with benevolence. Such societies and cultures have thrived, most often, under such rulers.
Certainly, in these modern days when nuclear weapons could end civilization with the press of a few buttons, God’s staying hand on the leadership of the nations of planet earth is all the more important to recognize. To place the blame on the Almighty is to place blame wrongly. He has kept us from destroying ourselves, despite our best efforts to do so, restraining evil that comes from our own sin-blackened hearts.
There is coming a time, and I believe very soon, when that restraining influence will remove–according to 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2. We can see indications that our collective rebellion has already caused the Lord to somewhat take his Mighty Hand of restraint off this world. We can see it through the more than obvious confused thinking that this end-times era has wrought among the leaderships of the nations on a global basis.
In my view, our own nation demonstrably manifests this restraint being removed. There are many instances of the apparent reprobate (upside-down) thinking I could mention. I will mention only the fact–to reiterate for the hundredth time—the former US president and his secretary of state moving heaven and earth to placate the blood-vowed enemies of America and Israel whom they call the “Great Satan” and the “Little Satan.” At the same time, the Obama Administration moved ever farther away from Israel, our staunchest and most trustworthy ally on the planet.
Sin-insanity has infected the highest echelons of US and other earthly governments. Leaders can’t seem to find their way to their cocktail parties, much less to the table of common sense, while they interact diplomatically in these strange times, which are almost certainly near the very end of the age. So, why has the Lord allowed such leaders in such high places–those who are showing themselves in most cases to be the very minions of Satan? I believe that at least part of the answer resides within what God has told us as follows:
For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? (Romans 9:17-24)
Israel and Invincibility
The shooting down of an Israeli military jet over Syria as it apparently attacked an Iranian military site seems to have exposed a long-held fear of Israel’s enemies of the region.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, following a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, chided that the shooting down of the fighter jet on February 10 had shattered the myth of Israel’s “so-called invincibility.” It is thought to be the first loss of an Israeli military plane to hostile fire since 2006.
Zarif, in his glee over the shoot-down, said, “Israel uses aggression as a policy against its neighbors,” accusing Israel of “mass reprisals against its neighbors and daily incursions into Syria, Lebanon.” He added, “Once the Syrians have the guts to down one of its planes it’s as if a disaster has happened.”
His caustic remarks came following Netanyahu’s holding up a piece of what he called an Iranian drone and accusing Iran of desiring to impose an empire across the Middle East.
The Israeli engagement with Syrian and Iranian military as of late has some quite astute prophecy watchers speculating that the Isaiah 17 destruction of Damascus, the Psalm 83 war, or even the Gog-Magog war of Ezekiel 38 might be in the making.
Bill Salus of Prophecy Depot Ministry, for example asks: “an Israeli F-16 was shot down by the Syrian Air Defense Force after conducting an air raid on Iranian-backed positions inside Syria. Does this set the stage for the fulfillment of the Isaiah and Jeremiah prophecies concerning the doom of Damascus?”
Many who write are concerned about Israel and its precarious position amongst the Mid-East haters. Particularly, there are concerns about Benjamin Netanyahu and the political intrigues by which he is surrounded.
Not unlike in the case of our own president, it seems the enemies of sound thinking, democracy, and sanity are assaulting Netanyahu at every turn. So far, the globalists and all the others who come against these men are failing in their attempts to bring them–and their nations as democracies–down so that the world order can become reality in order to achieve their evil desires.
The Iranian’s snarky remark about the myth of Israel’s invincibility having been shattered betrays a deeper-seated anger. It involves the same sort of resentment the so-called “deep state” and Swamp “establishment” harbors for Donald Trump and Bibi’s hate-filled enemies have for him.
The resentment and hatred seems to me to marinate in anti-God vitriol. Satanic fury is at the bottom of the rage.
It’s as if Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif knows–or at the very least strongly suspects–that God has provided Israel with some degree of invincibility. The loss of a single plane to anti-Israeli, military fire in 12 years is reason to jubilantly proclaim Israel’s invincibility is smashed. They mockingly call that invincibility “myth.” But you have to know that down deep in the Arab-Islamist psyche, they sense that it’s not a myth.
The devastating Arab forces losses of the 1948 war at Israel’s rebirth into modernity, the 1956 war and 1967 wars led by Gamul Nasser, and the 1973 Yom Kipper war led by Anwar Sadat amount to strong evidence. Israel’s seeming invulnerability to defeat must make invincibility seem far more to them than “myth.”
I’m convinced that Egypt’s Sadat came to the conclusion that Israel’s God indeed assures Israel’s invincibility. He thus wisely made peace with Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin while President Jimmy Carter looked on all those years ago.
God does assure that Israel will be a nation forever. But, at the moment, the Jewish state is not God’s nation in the sense of being the eternal Israel, as promised. Israel is the Lord’s chosen nation–chosen to one day be His people and His nation. This will happen when the remnant of surviving, believing Jews at Christ’s return look upon their Messiah.
There is coming a time before then when they will seem anything but invincible. The Tribulation –the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7)–will be the worst time ever for Israel. Satan, through his tyrant Antichrist, will wreak more devastation on the Jewish race and the nation Israel than have all the tyrants down through human history.
But, in the truest sense of the word invincible, the Jewish race–the nation Israel–is the one national entity God-guaranteed to never perish from the earth.
“This is what the Lord says, ‘He who appoints the sun to shine by day, Who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar — the Lord Almighty is His Name; Only if these ordinances vanish from My sight,’ declares the Lord, ‘will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before Me.’” (Jeremiah 31:35-36)
Kings of East Prophetic Empowerment
It is not out of the realm of possibility to wonder whether we are witnessing the empowerment of a force that will one day kill one-third of the world’s population.
I’ve conjectured a number of times in this column about developments in China we have seen taking place over the decades since the Cold War supposedly ended. Remember that as part of the era when the Berlin Wall was removed when President Ronald Reagan told the leader of the Soviet Union, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” the brutal murder of many Chinese protesters took place in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
While the cameras of the world’s news services were focused on that scene, with the mostly college-age people mounting their protest, the Chinese government had its thugs smile, put up their hands in front of the cameras, and force coverage to cease. The massacre then began.
Too easily–too quickly–the news organizations dropped the matter and moved on to other stories they could better manage to control. They certainly have never been able to successfully make headway with the communist Chinese regimes since the time of Mao Tse-tung. Mao, himself, told the international news conglomerate that his massive nation could easily field an army of two hundred million troops. The boast never held water in the eyes of many because that number of troops could never, because of the tremendous cost, be outfitted with modern war armaments. At best, they would have to fight–at least most would have to fight–with sticks and stones.
Yet, Scripture tells us the following:
And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. (Revelation 9:15-16)
And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. (Revelation 16:12)
There will be a two hundred-million-troop army come from the East–the Orient–which China dominates more with each month that passes. We can count on it. God’s Word says so.
The argument that the Chinese could never have the wherewithal to outfit such a gargantuan force is out the window. As I’ve questioned before, guess who has made it possible for that regime to completely militarize? Guess who has made it possible for the thugs who gave us the Tiananmen Square massacre to now fully arm a force of two hundred million?
The answer is still the same. America, through its trade imbalances and other economic and diplomatic malfeasance, has given the most dangerous regime on the planet carte blanche to build its military power to the point it can fulfill the Revelation prophecy. One of the theories is that if we just bring the inscrutable Chinese dragon into the civilized world of international commerce, it will begin acting like a good global citizen. Some even say it is working.
former President Barack Obama is one who apparently believed it is working. He went to Beijing courting Chinese President Xi Jinping, offering him more US wealth if he would just put aside hostilities against the occidental world and become a good, global, economic citizen. It was a characteristic of this president–he offerd to make love to our most dangerous enemies, while treating our most loyal and honorable ally–Israel–with his utmost disrespect. We recall that during those days his secretary of state, John Kerry, was reported by sources to have called Israel’s prime minister a “chicken ****.” It was one of the rare times this administration truly lived up to its promise at its outset of being “transparent” for all the US citizenry to see. The White House denied the allegation, but Kerry nonetheless apologized for the remark.
It is also transparent–to this writer, at least–that Mr. Obama was part of setting the stage for the “kings of the East” assault force to, during the Tribulation, invade across the dried-up Euphrates and lay waste to one-third of the earth’s population.
Do I think he knew this prophetic scenario will be the outcome of his bending over backwards to provide the economic power necessary to generate that sort of military power? No, of course not. He, like most of today’s world leaders, was being used as a pawn as he was moved around on Satan’s chessboard as the devil prepares to do final battle with the returning Lord of Lords.
Thankfully, the outcome of that conflict is a foregone conclusion. Jesus wins!
Globalism’s Religious Rider
All the beautiful pageantry was there. Excitement and joy were on the faces of the colorfully clad athletes from around the globe. Attention of the world’s media focused on how wonderful was the fact that the two Korean youths were marching together and getting along as if peace and love had overruled hatred and division–all in all, a kumbaya moment in the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.
Not far into the ceremony, a familiar anthem to the brotherhood of man swept everyone involved into a euphoric high. The music invited us all to Imagine all the world as one…
Neo-Babel builders construct even their music in a way that clearly demonstrates the luciferian desire to usurp God’s throne. John Lennon’s universally popular song could easily be mistaken as portraying the biblically prophesied millennial reign of Jesus Christ. But Lennon, like Lenin, preached man-made heaven on earth–an imitative mockery of the true Messiah’s coming kingdom. The words and melody are infectious.
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one…
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one.
Lennon, who once assured us that the Beatles were “bigger than Jesus Christ,” is a bit off in his assessment given through his lyrics. He says “no religion too.” He wanted us to “imagine” a world without religious restraint. Only then could we all “be as one.”
That particular sentiment–“no religion too”–will have to be rewritten if it is to fit what is coming when the first beast of Revelation chapter 13 and the second beast bring their version of heaven on earth to the planet.
It will be a religious system of the most intrusive sort. Here is a brief look from Scripture about that system:
So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. (Revelation 17:3-6)
The angel who showed John the Revelator these things told him–and us–that this whorish woman who rides the beast sits upon seven mountains or hills. The beast she rides is a composite of world kingdoms of the past and one that is yet to come. The last kingdom and the one who rules it will be Antichrist.
We know from Revelation 13 that his sidekick will be a false prophet–a religious leader–who will orchestrate the worship by everyone on earth of this eighth king who will come up from the bottomless pit.
My friend Dave Hunt wrote all about this eventuality in “A Woman Rides the Beast.”
All of this said, it is more than interesting that the world’s most lauded religious leader in Christendom has waded in on how America needs to be brought under the world community’s control if there is to be heaven on earth at any time in the future.
Pope Francis told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that the United States of America has “a distorted vision of the world” and Americans must be ruled by a world government, as soon as possible, “for their own good.”
The Pope made the observation in an interview with La Repubblica reporter Eugenio Scalfari.
“Last Thursday, I got a call from Pope Francis,” Scalfari reported. “It was about noon, and I was at the newspaper when my phone rang.”
He said Pope Francis had been watching Putin and Trump at the G20 and had become agitated. The Pope demanded to see him at four that afternoon, according to a Google translation of the Italian report.
“Pope Francis told me to be very concerned about the meeting of the G20,” Scalfari wrote.
As translated into English by Agence France Presse, which picked up the story, the Pope said “I am afraid there are very dangerous alliances between powers who have a distorted view of the world: America and Russia, China and North Korea, Russia and Assad in the war in Syria.”
“The danger concerns immigration,” the Pope continued to La Repubblica. “Our main and unfortunately growing problem in the world today is that of the poor, the weak, the excluded, which includes migrants.”
“This is why the G20 worries me: It mainly hits immigrants,” Pope Francis said, according to AFP.
Pope Francis’s idea that Americans would be better off under a world government doesn’t stop there. The radical leftist pontiff also went on record stating that Europe should become one country under one government. (“Pope Francis: World Government Must Rule U.S. ‘For Their Own Good,’” JEWSNEWS, Rapture Ready News, Feb. 11, 2018)
As we near the midnight of world history on God’s prophetic clock, we see the four horsemen of Apocalypse getting set to ride. Might we be seeing the woman that rides the beast of Revelation chapter 17 getting ready to sit upon its back?
Earth’s Nuclear Destiny
There is increasing talk lately of fears of nuclear exchange. Critics of increase in nuclear armaments are also ramping up their rhetoric.
Russia has been found to have violated several elements of various nuclear anti-proliferation treaties and agreements. The latest is development of a nuclear-tipped torpedo weapon that can be launched into the shores of a country. North Korea is known to be acquiring technology that will speed up and greatly enhance their nuclear weapons capability. They are being aided and abetted by the likes of Russia and China, who have promised to act in concert with the international community to prevent Kim Jong-un from obtaining such technology and material.
Yet with all the illegal weapons procurement by America’s antagonists and enemies, the criticism is of the Trump administration. The diatribe is aimed at the president because he has determined the U.S. must play catch-up in the arena of weapons development. This is because the previous president was on an eight-year-long campaign to decrease America’s nuclear armaments–thus to, it was supposed, lessen the chances of a future nuclear conflict.
While America decreased in nuclear capability, the other side went on a tremendous building program, increasing their stockpiles and technological capabilities–even while having entered into agreements and treaties that were supposed to bind them to cutbacks in line with America’s decreases and those of other Western nations.
Trump’s decision to go in the opposite direction of Obama in the arena of nuclear development has, of course, evoked resistance just as has everything else he has done since the 2016 election.
President Trump’s Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette explained at a Pentagon news conference why the United States is changing course.
“Over the past decade, while the United States has led the world in these reductions, every one of our potential nuclear adversaries has been pursuing the exact opposite strategy…. These powers are increasing the numbers and types of nuclear weapons in their arsenal.
“The president, during the State of the Union address Tuesday, February 30, declared that the U.S. will build a deterrent force “so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression.””
Mainstream news media are accusing the president’s actions–increasing the nations’ nuclear forces–as reckless. They say, in addition to other things, that he is deliberately bringing the prospect of nuclear war back into the American psyche for the first time since the Cold War.
Those mainstream outlets are almost as one in declaring that it is dangerous for this particular president to have the sole authority to launch nuclear war. But, thankfully, Mr. Trump forges ahead, assuring that America’s security, with strength through deterrence capability, is sufficient.
All that said, this is a dangerous world–as our current president recognizes. It is more than prudent to maintain such strength. It is absolutely crucial.
But, in the final analysis, it is the God of Heaven who continues to hold the key to the lock on the trigger to nuclear Armageddon. The Lord of all creation has determined that the most horrific of all weaponry hasn’t been unleashed. If one studies the many near-accidents involving nuclear weapons, it is astounding that catastrophe hasn’t resulted. Only God’s staying hand has spared us.
In 1980, for example, a missile in a silo in northern Arkansas exploded because a wrench was dropped and ruptured the missile’s thin metal skin. If the weapon at its tip had been armed, yours truly might not be here to write this piece.
There are still unexploded nuclear bombs off the eastern coast of America. Some were never found. These were deposited there because of accidental drops or aircraft accidents.
There have been false missile launches indicated on America’s NORAD radar screens. Those with the launch codes had less than 10 minutes to decide whether to launch a retaliatory attack.
A Russian crew once came within minutes of launching a nuclear strike based upon a false command accidentally issued.
The Lord is still in control. He will be right up until all of the weapons in the nuclear stockpiles are released. Yes. I do believe they will be used–practically every one of them.
Descriptions within the Revelation and the Old Testament books of prophecy indicate death on a sudden and massive scale. The effects of nuclear horror on the human body, some scientists believe, is graphically given by Zechariah: “And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth” (Zechariah 14:12).
The kings of the east as given in Revelation chapters 9 and 16 will kill one-third of all people living on the planet. This can be done only by employing nuclear weaponry.
Jesus said that if He doesn’t return when He does, “there will no flesh be saved.”
Further indication that the nuclear stockpiles will be used is something I heard Hal Lindsey say. It makes sense, although it could result from a supernatural rather than a nuclear event.
Hal said that during the Bikini tests in the 1950s, they put in the test areas old navy ships to be sunk because of their obsolescence. The military and scientists wanted to see the effects of an H-bomb on these vessels. In addition to the devastating explosion causing massive damage, huge chunks of ice, like hailstones, fell from the tremendous heights the nuclear cloud reached. These weighed 100 pounds and more, falling into the ocean and denting the solid, steel hulls of the ships.
Hal then reminded that the last great judgment of the twenty-one given in Revelation will be 100-pound hailstones falling upon mankind.
He believes–and I concur–that these falling on the millions of military personnel at Armageddon could well be the reason blood will flow to the height of bridle reins and for so many miles. The melting hailstones, having fallen from the sky because of nuclear explosions, mixed with the pulverized human carnage, could make such a “winepress event” exactly like God’s Word describes the Lord’s punishment for rebellious earth dwellers at that time as being.
Planet earth is destined for nuclear devastation, I have no doubt. But there is no need for anyone alive to have to endure that hell-on-earth experience.
Again, here is the divine formula for protection against such a destiny: “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).