Prophecy Line
Dual Prophetic Application
Most have heard the saying: “What goes around comes around.”
This has, for example, been the philosophizing mantra for those on the losing end of sporting events and political contests. The notice is given to let the winning side know they shouldn’t gloat. They might soon be the losers rather than the winners in a subsequent contest, so they shouldn’t be too boastful lest they suffer obloquy equal to that which they are dishing out to their defeated foes.
Another application of this saying is to give a stern heads-up that if you treat someone badly, the same thing will come around to you in the same manner.
In Bible prophecy, this saying might also well be applicable–but with a different nuance of meaning. What goes around comes around can be said of some specific, recurring prophecies I would like for us to consider. For our purposes in this commentary, I want to mention one particular area in the matter of Bible prophecy that has stirred controversy on a number of occasions.
Some who are adamantly–even angrily—against the notion of the pre-trib rapture have often thrown fiery darts my way. The darts are laced with reasons that the pre-trib view cannot be correct. The dart throwers usually add that I’m leading someone to Hell by telling them about a pretribulation rapture.
These angry flame-throwers’ accusations–saying that we who hold that God’s Word put forth that the Church will be taken out of this rebellious world before God’s wrath must fall—utilize Scripture in ways that confuse the reader. This confusion, however, is the fault of the under-studied reader-student–never the fault of God’s Holy, Inerrant Word.
(I’ve never figured out what, exactly, teaching the pre-trib rapture could have to do with “leading” someone to Hell, but the charge is often there, nonetheless. And, they sometimes include that I, too, am going to Hell for teaching false doctrine.)
The example of this “confusion” I will address is Jesus’ words given in the Olivet Discourse, about the time He terms “great tribulation” (KJV). The following is the Lord expounding on this prophecy.
“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand 🙂 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. (Matthew 24:15-21)
This is one of the primary cases in Bible prophecy in which the principle of dual reference is employed. Dual reference, as I define it, is when a prophecy has an immediate–and sometimes a later–future application.
Those flame-throwers I mentioned very often use the above prophecy to point out that we “pre-tribbers” are totally mistaken in our dispensational view of things. This prophecy, they say, was fulfilled in AD 70 when Roman Emperor Vespasian sent his son, General Titus, to destroy Jerusalem and the Jewish temple. It does not, they proclaim, indicate that there will be a time at the midpoint of the Tribulation when the forces of Antichrist will attack the city and sanctuary and make the Jews flee for their lives. We are full of prunes, they charge, because this is a prophecy long ago fulfilled.
Jesus did indeed predict and describe a time that would come within thirty something years when the Jews would have to flee for their lives. We don’t deny that in any way whatsoever. However, the dual-reference principle employed by the Holy Spirit-guided writers of the Bible–in this case, His disciple, Matthew–to look down through the ages and dispensations to prophetically offer an end-time fulfillment of Jesus’ words through this account.
The prophecy was fulfilled in 70 AD. The second application of this dual-reference prophecy will also be fulfilled in the middle of the seven-year era we know as Daniel’s seventieth week, the last of the prophesied seventy weeks of Israel’s playing out its divine destiny (Daniel 9:24). Each week within the seventy weeks equals seven years in prophetic terms, for a total of 490 years. When Jesus was crucified, the 490-year prophecy for Israel’s destiny to be fulfilled was interrupted at the sixty-ninth week (at the 483rd year). The seventieth week will begin to complete the last seven years of the 490 years when Antichrist confirms the covenant with Israel and her enemies.
Daniel the prophet foretold this end-time application of this midpoint-of-the-Tribulation assault by Antichrist as recorded in the following passage:
And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. (Daniel 9: 27)
The principle of dual reference is easily discernable by the consideration of history. Just a couple of instances come to mind where this principle can be ascertained.
John wrote as recorded in Revelation 13:16-18 that there would be a mark on the hand or forehead as part of an economic system of buying and selling that will, during Antichrist’s regime, enslave most if not all the people of the world. Such a system was in place at the very time John was writing the Revelation while imprisoned on Patmos.
The ancient Roman Empire economic model was to stamp the hand and the forehead of people interacting within the marketplaces of commerce. When the shoppers had their hands full, the mark plainly showed on their foreheads that they were approved for transacting business. When they exchanged coinage with the merchants, the mark was visible on the hand as the exchange of coinage for goods was made.
The Holy Spirit obviously inspired John to note that what goes around comes around. The revived Roman Empire of Daniel chapters 2, 9, and other prophetic places in God’s Word will have characteristics of the ancient form of that would-be world order. The principle of dual reference can be sensed in such historical detail.
The final thing I would like to mention in regard to this principle that flows throughout Scripture is the matter that has long been a point of interest. Jesus said that the gospel will be preached into the whole world before the end comes–meaning the time just before His Second Advent (Revelation 19:11). There are arguments amongst the great academicians–the seminary scholars—and even among laypersons about the meaning of the Lord’s prophecy. That foretelling is as follows:
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. (Matthew 24:14)
The word “kingdom” in this prophecy constitutes, in my view, a matter the more erudite among us have squeezed into an overly examined term. These seemingly want to define the term “kingdom” very narrowly so as to exclude the Church Age or Age of Grace.
I don’t believe this is the case. I see here the principle of dual reference at work yet again.
We of the pre-trib camp sometimes mention that the gospel has literally been preached to the whole world. Thus, in that electronic means from short-wave radio to the most sophisticated satellite technologies have been beamed to every place on the globe, the gospel being part of the information disseminated.
We say that, therefore, Jesus’ words have been fulfilled. The academic purists say that this isn’t what Jesus meant, and use Greek and Hebrew to dazzle us to prove we are wrong.
However, it is clear to a plain ol’ layperson such as myself: This is yet another case of something akin to dual reference. The prophecy, in my opinion, is for this dispensation–the Church Age. It is also for the time of Tribulation–Daniel’s seventieth week.
We have the satellite technologies and other means. The Tribulation-era people will have an even more sophisticated mode of getting the Gospel. It is God’s supernatural technology that will reach every nook and cranny of that devastated world.
And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. (Revelation 14:6-7)
When These Things…
God’s Word lays out, in detail in many instances, how things will be as the time of Christ’s Second Advent (Revelation 19:11) nears. We are given specific characteristics of the human condition leading up to the time of Tribulation. This is the time in which this present generation finds itself. We call it the Pre-Tribulation era. We also know it as the Age of Grace, or the Church Age.
As a slight preview of things to come from the James quarter, I’ll announce here my next book, presently scheduled to be released March of this year. I say “my” book, but it is also “our” book.
I and my colleague/friends have put together a volume of fourteen chapters by some of the most outstanding writers, broadcasters, speakers and prophecy experts from the Pre-Trib viewpoint. These are colleagues and friends of many years who have combined their Holy Spirit-inspired thoughts and analyses on a most important topic.
It is the first prophetic indicator Jesus, Himself, gave as He sat answering His disciples’ question: “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Jesus, of course, told them–and us by extension–to not be deceived. He went on to say that great deception and many deceivers will mark the very end of the age.
Our book’s title is, therefore, Deceivers: Exposing Evil Seducers and Their Last-Days Deception.
Authors such as Dr. David Reagan, Jan Markell, Dr. Gary Frazier, Gary Stearman, and ten others have combined their talents and insights. They present a truly important work on what is possibly the most discernible signal in view today that we are on the precipice of Christ catching up believers in the Rapture.
Jesus began by forewarning of deceivers. He went through a litany of other signs that would be appearing as the wind-up of the age drew to a close. He then went into what the Tribulation itself would be like, explaining in considerable detail in some parts of the Olivet Discourse. A little later, He folded back into the mix things to come. He gave how prophecy would shape up and lead to that exact moment when He would say to the Church, “Come up here!”
That moment of Rapture will happen, I’m convinced–as I have alluded to on many occasions–when things become like they were in the days of Noah and of Lot (Matthew 24:36-42, Luke 17:26-30). The Lord included in all of this that there will be wars and rumors of war. The nations will be in distress with perplexity. The seas of people will be in a state of constant unrest.
Yet, this greatest of all prophets–because He is the very Creator of all that is–said that at the same time things are building toward the climax of the age, people will be conducting life in an economical uptick. They will be buying, selling, planting, building–doing all the things that are indicative of prosperity.
Folks, with the advent of the Trump presidency, we are, it seems to me, at the very point Jesus said the generation will be that will experience His next catastrophic intervention into the affairs of fallen mankind. The national and world economies are poised for boom, according to most every indicator. Even the mainstream media is beginning to very reluctantly concede this fact. It wants to give credit for it starting with President Obama, not with the actions of Donald Trump. Regardless, the media is reluctantly beginning to admit that America and much of the world are headed into an unexpected boom. This is exactly the condition the Lord prophesied will be prevalent at the time of Rapture, the way yours truly reads it.
The fact that deception is at the forefront of practically every facet of life today adds fuel to the fires of approaching apocalypse. The apostle Paul’s foretelling of how end-times human beings will comport themselves is all the proof we need to point to the deception saturating this generation.
Paul said men (human beings) will be “lovers of themselves.”
There are a number of ways deception can be seen in this end-times characteristic. I point to only one. Forgive me, Facebook fans, but a vast number who use the various social media spend time lying about who they are, their achievements, etc.–so much so, that some psychological studies indicate troubling cultural ramifications from the deceiving going on.
Many take “selfies” to add to self-aggrandized perceptions they wish others to form about them. These can be considered “lovers of self” and deceivers.
Paul prophesied that mankind will be “without natural affection.”
I’ve often dissected this characteristic of end-times man as being involved in both homosexuality and abortion. Neither of these characteristics, championed by the progressives of our time, are “normal.” Or, I should say these used to be considered abnormal.
We remember the deceivers within this end-times characteristic. The doctors and technicians within Planned Parenthood secretly were shown on hidden cameras to be harvesting organs from these tiny, helpless human beings. They were doing so, in some cases, while the hearts of the unborn were still beating. These are deceivers of first order!
Paul foretold that end-times man will be traitors, heady, and high-minded.
To me, all of this can be seen as wrapped up in these thousands and thousands of emails that are electronic conversations within government agencies talking about trying to disrupt the Trump campaign and the Trump presidency. Those responsible then tried to deceive Congress by telling congressional oversight people that the emails couldn’t be found. A deception and a lie.
The 50,000-plus emails have since been found, but not without deep, technological probing and congressional threatening.
One man involved in all of the email intrigue wrote, or was heard saying, that they shouldn’t be released because the American people wouldn’t understand. This is heady high-mindedness and deception of unbelievable magnitude. These deceivers believe they are far above the average American citizen in knowledge and intelligence as to say what’s best and what is not in keeping us ignorant. They are traitorous, heady, and high-minded.
The never-ending Russian-Trump collusion story has been proven a false accusation. The lie–the deception–that generated the special counsel investigation is based upon the so-called Russian dossier that was purely fiction. It was prepared and presented to and by American governmental services like FBI in order to begin the probe. Trump’s political opponents were at the core of the lie. These were and are false accusers.
All of the above proves, to me at least, that we are at the very end of this Church Age. Jesus’ words are appropriate here, like when we’ve used them over and over many times: “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).
If There is No God . . . Part One – By Ed Wood
It’s probably safe to say that 40 years ago most Americans took the existence of God as a given, and even more than that most of them believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Of that majority, most of them were Christians, and of this set, going to church on Sunday was just what one did on a Sunday morning. Fast forward to the second decade of the Twenty-first Century and all of the above are in a dwindling minority. With the denigrating assaults both subtle and overt from those who claim God doesn’t exist, those of us who remain have every reason to feel like a threatened species. Furthermore, those of us who consider ourselves Christians and still believe in the authority of the Bible can probably be categorized as positively endangered. (It certainly feels that way at any rate.) To quote Bob Dylan, “The times, they are a changin.’” To quote yours truly, “They are changin’ all right, but not for the better!”
If you’re reading this article, odds are you are a member of the last group I mentioned and the odds are also good you know at least a few people who think all this stuff about God is a lot of nonsense. The intent here is to give you some questions and thoughts you might bring up the next time the topic of whether there is a God or not comes up in the conversation.
Let’s start by defining two important terms. First, we have “atheists,” which adamantly claim that there is no God. Second, we have “agnostics” which aren’t sure there is one. Either way, these are the people you might want to discuss some of the things we’ll explore together, bearing in mind that what you see here is by no means comprehensive. That’s another way of saying that you should feel free to add topics of your own.
With this introduction now presented, let’s begin!
A Universe Tuned for Life
Before we look into some of the intricacies of life itself, it would probably be a good idea to see what kind of conditions have to exist for any reasonable amount of time. By the way, I’m only going to deal with carbon-based life mainly because it’s the only kind we know definitely exists. Given, there might be some exotic forms based on other elements out there somewhere, but until we find an example of it, anything we say in this regard would be pure speculation.
To the best of our knowledge all carbon-based life needs liquid water somewhere along the line. Water is about the closest thing to a universal solvent that we know. From its simplest to its most advanced forms, water plays a vital role somewhere along the line. Whether immersed in it or carrying around its own personal supply, only liquid water allows the incredibly complex biochemistry of life to take place. Even in creatures or plants which can survive extended periods of inactivity on times of drought, they all had to have water with which to start out and to recover their activity and ability to procreate.
Interestingly, the Bible itself alludes to the importance of water in the creation:
Genesis {1:1-2} In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
2 Peter {3:5} For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water.
Our astronomers looking into the heavens have seen the presence of water in primarily its gaseous and solid forms not only in many of the worlds and satellites orbiting them in our own solar system, but many light years off into deep space in interstellar clouds. Finding it in its liquid state, the prime requirement of life, is comparatively rare and fleeting, Earth being the only exception with its vast quantities, and, not so coincidentally, Earth being the only place where life is known to exist.
There’s a good reason for water being rarely found in its liquid form anywhere but here because it requires a very narrow temperature range and certain density of atmosphere to exist. Under the pressure of one Earth atmosphere, liquid water exists only in a range of 100° Celsius or 180° Fahrenheit. It is possible to raise the boiling point past 212° F. by boosting the atmospheric pressure, but at a certain point things just get far too hot for the organic molecules life requires to stay intact. Lowering the pressure in turn lowers the boiling point, but the limit here is that going too low brings it below the freezing point. This is the condition we have with Mars today where the atmosphere is too far thin for liquid water to persist on the surface.
However, considering that temperatures in the universe range from just above -273° C (-459.4° F) in certain interstellar clouds to many millions of degrees (the temperature scale in these extremes no longer being significant) within the interiors of stars and their outer coronas, finding the “Goldilocks” conditions where the environment is “just right” for life is a rare thing, indeed..
But there’s more! If any of the fundamental physical laws of the universe were just slightly different than they are now, “rare” would easily become altogether “impossible.” Against an infinite amount of possibilities, the laws which govern the operation of the universe are “just right” to permit the existence of life.
In another fascinating example of the Bible being far ahead of its time, Isaiah (circa Eighth Century B.C.) recognized this very thing:
Isaiah {45:18} For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I [am] the LORD; and [there is] none else.
Oh, well, maybe it’s just luck that our universe “just happens” to be one in which life can exist at all someplace within it, after all. But can luck accommodate what we will look at next?
Abiogenesis – Life from Lifelessness
According to modern science, the fact that life arose on Earth is the result of the chance meetings of atoms and molecules at the right place at the right time. Now there are 92 naturally occurring elements available to create chemical compounds and of them only hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorous are needed to build the molecules on which life as we know it depends.
Well, if we assume there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy each with at least one planet where liquid water is possible, and 100 billion galaxies in our universe, plus some 13.7 billion years of time, it seems the abiogenesis people have a lot going for them. That sure is a lot of time and places for atoms to form all kinds of molecules. Is even that all enough?
All life on earth depends on molecules of RNA and DNA to exist and reproduce. These, in turn are made of proteins which are in turn made of amino acids. There are some 300 of these amino acids, twenty of which are needed to build the proteins. There are two types of these, left and right-handed, based on how their molecules are formed and as far as we know, only the former are used. Next step is to get the correct ones into the right order to makes the proteins which in turn also have to be the right ones in the right order to make the RNA and DNA needed for life. Again, these two very complex molecules are just components. A lot more is needed to make even the very simplest form of life – and don’t forget that liquid water, either!
If this all sounds complicated, it is, especially to a layperson such as myself. I’ve have read various estimates that life occurred by “accident” would take a lot more time than the universe has existed for everything to come together in the right order for life to come to exist. Perhaps even more convincing than this is there is not a single bit of evidence of life ever arising from inanimate sources, not one, even when attempts are made to do it artificially in the lab. And here’s the kicker – if some scientist ever did succeed, the premise that mere random events could create life are shot to pieces because it required the scientist’s active intelligent intervention to make I happen!
Here’s something you can try on an agnostic or atheistic acquaintance. Next time he or she is over at your house and asks you where you got your TV, stereo, or computer, tell them these things spontaneously came into existence in your back yard out of the mulch pile. If they don’t believe you, you might then ask them how then they can believe life which is, as we have seen is immeasurably more complicated, could come to exist in the same manner.
Really, could we be that lucky?
A Controversy
Let’s take on the subject of evolution verses creationism, because I believe there are elements of both that play into the story of how our universe came to be.
I agree with the Creationist view that God is in fact the Creator of everything just as the Bible claims. Furthermore, I believe he still is actively directing its course across the ages and will continue to do so until the end of time as we know it.
To my mind, part of that direction incorporates what we call evolution. The essential truth of this theory is that life adapts to changing circumstances in varying degrees. The evidence of this seems beyond contradiction as we look at how life adapts to fill in virtually all of Earth’s multiplicity of biomes from its frozen polar regions, to the steaming tropics and scorching deserts, and even to the depth of the sea near geothermal vents where water temperatures soar beyond water’s boiling point with only the immense pressure of the overlying ocean keeping the water in a liquid form.
This evidence appears in the Bible itself in Genesis 3:17-19 where life changed markedly to a changing Earth which was a direct consequence of Adam and Eve’s rebellion in allowing Satan into our world and his subsequent actions to corrupt the perfection Earth and universe formerly had. Weeds sprang into being where none had ever exited before and some animals became carnivorous, not to mention that humans and every living thing becoming subject to age and death.
Another characteristic of evolution is to cause a diversification of species. This is clearly evident in that for most any species of plant or animal we can imagine, there are many different variations. For example, there isn’t a single kind of bird. There are crows, woodpeckers, ostriches, hummingbirds, etc. Same goes for just about everything else. Perhaps this characteristic to create such diversity over time explains how Moses could fit all the land species of his era into the Ark, something that would clearly be impossible to do today.
Perhaps the biggest bone of contention between pure evolutionist and creationist thought is the controversy over the origin of human beings. The former insists that humans are nothing more than very sophisticated ape-relatives (making us being a monkey’s uncle a real possibility?) while the latter maintains God created us independently from the very soil of the ground itself. Though our genetic makeup is indeed very close to that of the primates, there has never been found in the fossil evidence the proverbial missing link which would establish that ancestral connection. Never!
The sharing of similar physical characteristics between humans and primates seems perfectly reasonable in that a bipedal humanoid form with hands which had opposable thumbs works out very well to the surrounding environment, so that’s what God used in both cases.
But it doesn’t end there, as we’ll see next.
No Intelligence Required
Survival for plants is a pretty straight-forward affair. Provide liquid water, the necessary elements from the soil, sunlight (for most plants), and a method of reproduction, and you’re in business. For animals, you again need liquid water, a method to reproduce, and plants, other animals or both and the basic needs for species survival are met.
Of course to achieve these ends for animals requires one more condition: being able to avoid being eaten by other animals and being able to outrun any other animals you might want to eat if you happen to be a omnivore or carnivore. Bottom line it need not take a lot of smarts to do any of these things as the life comprising most of Earth’s readily proves. Viruses and bacteria are not at all Mensa candidates and do very well, right?
This being said, the question for strict evolutionists becomes: “Why intelligence?” The routine answer is that our pre-human ancestors being physically weaker probably slower than the animals they wanted to eat or that wanted to eat them caused them to become smart enough to plan strategies and weapons to overcome this disadvantage. But why go to all that trouble when they could have just “evolved” to become stronger and faster with a lot less effort?
The truth is, the major reason the human race is in such a precarious spot today is because of our supposedly evolution-derived high intelligence. If the direction of said evolution is to increase the odds of the survival of a species, how can this be explained?
In my view, the reason our unique intelligence exists is that for some reason God wanted us to have it. Contrary to the evolutionist view, it did not slowly come to pass as humans developed from an off-shoot of a common ancestor shared with the apes, but was present in the very first people God created, as the book of Genesis tells us.
Conclusion
In this article we’ve endeavored to take a look at the reasons that the creation of the universe, our world and all the life upon it requires a lot more than just random chance to the end that should this subject come up with an acquaintance who adheres to a “no God” creation you’ll have some points to make that might just cause them to consider the weakness of their position.
To be sure, some will never be convinced, but it is possible that it might just cause a few to consider the possibility that you might be onto something here. If that does happen, you will have at least opened a door that they considered walking through before and beginning a journey that might just one day lead them into the gates of heaven itself!
Next time, we’ll explore how the some of the very basic premises of our society are affected if one subtracts God from the equation.
Stay tuned!
Rapture or WW III
All of fundamentalist Islam has one goal: world dominion. North Korea constantly badgers South Korea and threatens to send its several launch-ready, nuclear-tipped missiles in our direction. China seeks hegemony over all its Asian sphere of influence. Iran declares it will have its nuclear program, while at the same time promising to wipe Israel off the planet. And Vladimir Putin threatens everyone who opposes his way of doing things with the launch of Russia’s 5,000 nuclear missiles. President Obama’s administration responded to all this by drastically cutting America’s military capability, even to the point of unilaterally depleting US nuclear weaponry until it exists no more.
It’s enough to cause one to wonder if there is even a modicum of possibility for one to exist much past the next few years.
There has never been a weapon developed that hasn’t at some point been used, is the saying I’ve heard many times. I don’t recall any case of the neutron bomb being employed in warfare or, for that matter, the hydrogen bomb. However, the very use of these weapons of mass destruction in testing them means they have at least been used in the psychological aspects of potential warfare. This, in fact, is a part of hostilities between the great superpowers known as MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). I guess they, in this manner, have been used to prevent warfare so horrific as to threaten the end of all flesh on planet earth.
Jesus told us about this possibility, didn’t He?
And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. (Matthew 24:22)
He was speaking about the Tribulation era–the last seven years of human history just before He will return in the Second Advent. That is the instant He will break through the blackness of the last moments of the war of Armageddon as described in Revelation 19:11. So, at least those of us who believe the Bible and in Jesus Christ for salvation, are assured there will not be all-out nuclear warfare that will end life on earth. From the description of some passages in Bible prophecy, however, it certainly does appear that nuclear weaponry will likely be unleashed to some degree.
For example, Zechariah the prophet foretold:
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)
That description can, of course, mean that this is a supernatural affliction of some sort that the Lord will use against Israel’s enemies. Most who know the science of these horrific weapons in today’s nuclear arsenals, though, think Zechariah here described the effects of nuclear war on the human body. Particularly, I’ve heard it expressed, this describes almost perfectly what would be the effects of the neutron bomb–a weapon that is designed to destroy flesh and blood, but not other materials, such as buildings, etc.
Those of us of a certain age remember well all the threats of nuclear war. Those of my generation remember the old “duck and cover” television and movie theater public service announcements. These were for us kids, telling us to “duck and cover” if we heard air raid sirens or saw the bright flash of a hydrogen bomb.
We laugh at these ludicrous exhortations now. We were to jump off our bicycles and jump in a ditch or behind a garbage can when a 10-plus megaton hydrogen weapon discharged over our town!
We survived all those years of the Cold War. Our leaderships of nations who possessed those bombs were of sufficient sanity to know that there would be no winners, only losers, in such an exchange. Judging the madness surrounding this generation, we must seriously ask the question: Are today’s leaders capable of avoiding use of these civilization-ending horror weapons?
If we look at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the answer is a resounding no, I think. But, even that paunch-bellied little tyrant must know somewhere in the back of his evil brain that he would end up melted into the glass parking lot his domain would become if he decided to launch his very limited nuclear arsenal.
On the other hand, the macho Vladimir Putin is quite another matter. He threatens nuclear war almost routinely these days. And, he has probably the most plentiful stockpile of such weaponry on earth. He once said, when he was opposed in the matter of trying to pull Ukraine back into the Russian orbit like when the Soviet Union existed.
“We hope that our partners will realize the recklessness of attempts to blackmail Russia, and will remember the risks that a spat between major nuclear powers means for strategic stability.”
The Russian president has bragged about his arsenal of more than 5,000 nuclear weapons when talking with other leaders. He remains particularly chagrined over the sanctions imposed over his treatment of Ukraine. Falling world oil prices–due in part to fracking taking place in North Dakota and other places, which are diminishing Russia’s leverage in petroleum markets in the region he wants to dominate–are also contributing to his bellicose attitude and to not-so-subtle threats these days.
The difference between days of the Cold War and these times is that there has been no superpower willing to stand up to the Russian strong man, like when Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, et al, were willing to look Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and the likes in the eye and draw lines across which no dictator dared cross. That is, not until one Donald J. Trump, who seems to have the resolve his most recent predecessors have lacked.
Which brings us to the title of this commentary: “Rapture or WWIII.”
My own studied and prayerfully considered opinion is that while threats (rumors) of war and even hostilities like we are witnessing from North Korea, Iran, and occasionally other volatile players around the world will continue, there will be no world-rending war this side of the Rapture of the church. When the church is taken into Heaven by Jesus Christ, madness upon planet earth will likely be more the norm, rather than the exception. We can already see that trend developing, even at this late hour as the Lord of Heaven slowly, measurably, takes His Mighty Hand off the affairs of rebellious mankind.
When the Holy Spirit removes and sin is allowed to run wild, the notion of Mutually Assured Destruction will no longer inhibit the thinking of power mad dictators.
Undoubtedly, it will be threatened, all-out, nuclear war that will bring the false man of peace to his earthly throne. Antichrist will supposedly have the answers to stop the coming holocaust. But, he, of course, will ultimately throw fuel on that conflagration.
The true Prince of Peace–the Lord Jesus Christ–will then ride to the rescue.
Like a Snare…
Most of the world, it can be said, is not prepared for the wrap-up of human history as prophesied in the Bible. This is especially true of the apex nation of world history in which we are privileged to live.
America is afflicted by great turmoil in the political sense. We are divided almost down the middle, so far as our choices for social and political directions are concerned. As a matter of fact, I’ve used the word “schizophrenia”–correctly, I think–to describe the nation’s malady.
One side seems to want freedom from moral constraint and government that is like a rich uncle who provides everything. The other wants morality more sensibly controlled and a return to government founded under constitutional restraint as put in place by the Founding Fathers.
Like the rest of the world, however, neither side of the political divide–or I should say none in America, of most social and political stripes–is prepared for the wrap-up of human history as given in God’s Word.
I continue to perhaps bore you with my belief that America has reached the “think-not” time expressed by Jesus as recorded in Matthew 24:44: “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”
I have observed nothing in these times to indicate my sense of direction is amiss about how things are going, prophetically speaking. This is in no way neither to claim infallibility in the area of diagnosing our times, nor to claim perfect prognostication for the future. I’m just saying that things continue to move in direction exactly as I have thus far thought they would, if we are at the end of the age, as I believe this generation to be.
The Trump presidency has seemed to me to accelerate this movement into position for the prophesied end of this Church Age. We are entering a time of economic boom despite all of the minions of global order and anti-God forces coming against Him.
The latest assault, of course, is the forcing of the government shutdown by a 100 percent vote against a proposed alternative by the so-called opposition party, the political party that admits to be the party of absolute resistance.
That party, the Democrat Party, quickly backed down from their resist-at-any-cost stance when they realized the voting public across the nation saw them as placing taking care of illegal aliens above taking care of the military and the American people.
While many economists have been claiming the nation and the world were on the verge of entering a depression worse than in the 1930s, Trump’s innovations, regulation rollbacks and the tax cutting has every economic indicator imaginable looking as if a true boom is beginning. This, despite the mainstream media refusing to present almost any news whatsoever about the economic uptick.
Again, I believe all this will come crashing down at the time of Rapture, when Christ next catastrophically intervenes into the affairs of wicked, rebellious, mankind.
Jesus told us how it will be when He does so. He said it will be like in the days of Noah and the days of Lot. The people of those days were enjoying prosperity, not abject poverty and hard times. This, despite the world wagging on as usual with wars and immorality that invited God’s judgment and wrath.
Jesus said of those days: “ For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:38-39).
Jesus forewarned that this time of apparent prosperity would come like a snare upon the whole world: “And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth” (Luke 21:34-35).
The Lord was, in my opinion, talking here about the Rapture, not, as some claim, about the Second Advent (Revelation 19:11.) Thus because this will be an any-moment, unknown microsecond of time, whereas the Second Advent is calculable to the very day as given by Scripture: “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew 24:36).
Jesus gave instructions for the believer alive at the time of this break-in on a world of unaware, uncaring earth dwellers: “Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come” (Matthew 24:42).
Everything looks to be in preparation for that great snare to be activated by the very Creator of all that is. He will shout “Come up here!” to those who have spiritual ears to hear His command. All others will be left behind to suffer seven years of horror, the likes of which the world has never experienced.
Here is how to avoid being left behind to face Antichrist and his regime of evil: “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).
Beast Spirit Among Us
Prophetic undertones flow with increasing swiftness just beneath the surface of civility in America. That stream has surfaced in many places around the world and is coming at us. We can sense it; we can see it in news reports and hear it in the constant punditry that tries to analyze its nature and future course.
Two specific prophecies come to mind to form sort of one conclusion–at least, in my thoughts–when considering some particular reports I’ve gotten through both normal news services and in private briefing.
The prophecies to which I refer are the following:
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be…fierce…” (2 Timothy 3:1-2, 3).
“And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” (Revelation 13:4).
There is a term that has long been familiar to most of us. It is most often used to brand one person or the other as acting alone, and usually has derogatory connotation. The term implies, for example, that a perpetrator of a robbery acted alone.
The term is “lone wolf.” The perpetrator, we say, is a “lone wolf,” in such cases.
It is an appropriate term in those instances. The wolf is feared in the wild as a predatory animal. Wolves are beasts. They more often than not hunt and do their predatory killings in packs. The “lone wolf” in nature is usually one that is separated from the pack for one cause or another. He does his killing–his nefarious activity–as a solitary, individual beast.
In the case of the actual animals, the wolves, they do what comes naturally and haven’t the conceptual level of functioning to know better. As a matter of fact, since the Fall of man in the Garden of Eden, they have no choice but to act the way they do in order to survive. They are hungry; they kill.
There is another sort of beast, and this is that sort to which the prophecies mentioned above relate–to which today’s punditry more and more refers in analyzing reports from the Middle East.
I was listening to some such punditry one morning when a so-called “expert” on the Middle East was asked by the morning show host what he meant by using the term “lone rat.” The guest was referring to those individual terrorists sent out from ISIS–or urged by ISIS–to go to families’ residences in America and slaughter the family members. Those to be murdered and beheaded are family members of the Americans in the region–especially family members of American soldiers–who are assisting in any way in opposing the ISIS butchers.
News media types use the term “lone wolves,” but the “expert” was calling them “lone rats,” because the wolf is a noble animal compared to the likes of the murdering thugs of radical Islam.
The information from the daily briefing I receive read at the time:
U.S. Army Soldiers and their families were warned that ISIL called on its followers in the U.S. to use social media to “find the addresses of service members, show up [at their homes] and slaughter them,” according to the Army Threat Integration Center (ARTIC). “ISIL has called on lone offenders in the U.S. to use the ‘yellow pages,’ social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to find the addresses,” states the ARTIC published Sept. 25. [1]
With the current open-borders policy that calls it a politically incorrect matter to profile those, or even oppose their entering the nation illegally, our article title is, tragically, quite appropriate. Actually it is a little weak as a title. The title “Beast Spirit among Us” might have been more correctly put, “Beasts among Us.”
I have long been bent toward not accepting the conspiratorial rants that say terrorists are now sitting in every city ready to set off suitcase nukes. And, I still think that sort of hyperbole is counterproductive. But, with our formerly porous borders and what went on in the Obama Administration, with thousands daily pouring into the nation with no checks whatsoever–including no health checks–I’m looking at the words of the conspiracy-laden rants with just a bit more concern. We must wonder what kind of deadly plotters are among us.
The apostle Paul, in his “perilous times” prophecy, said that men in the very last days will be ”fierce” (KJV). Even that term is looking mild, when we consider the YouTube videos of the beheadings carried on by the beasts in the Middle East. We remember the lone rat who beheaded a person in America’s heartland and about another such rat who was jailed for threatening to do the same.
The Antichrist is termed a “beast” in Revelation 13. Certainly, the Antichrist spirit is right here, right now–not only in Syria, Iraq, and those regions, but here in our midst. The deadly beasts this spirit spawns are likely still scurrying through our borders, while the party of resistance prefers that we look the other way, hoping to create political advantage through adding new voters to their side.
The president of the United States promises upon his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of this nation. Within that Constitution is the responsibility to provide for the common defense. To fail to live up to that oath is to invite impeachment. The former president failed in this duty. Thankfully, the president holder of that office is doing all within his power as president to see the people of America are protected. God’s Word, the Holy Bible, puts it in even stronger terminology, and uses a word even the Islamist terrorists understand very well, as we know:
“But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Timothy 5:8).
Endnotes:
[1] http://www.armytimes.com/article/20141003/NEWS/310030070/)
[1] http://www.armytimes.com/article/20141003/NEWS/310030070/)
Sounding of Sirens
When that funny, irritating noise coming from your TV set goes off, what is your reaction? I’m talking about that grating OINK!…OINK!…OINK! sound that disrupts whatever program you are watching or happen to have the television on while you do other things.
The noise is followed by an announcement: This is a test. This is only a test. If this had been an actual emergency… Well, you know what I’m talking about.
When that goes off, what is your reaction? I must admit that my first, instantaneous, thought is still: Could it be a nuclear attack?
This automatic reaction comes, I have little doubt, from the time of “duck and cover!”–the warning/instruction that dominated my days as a kid. We were told to get under our desks if at school, should the sirens sound announcing nuclear attack. We were told to jump off our bikes and try to get under something, get flat into a ditch, or hide behind anything available if we were out and about.
I’ve mentioned before in this column that when I was a sophomore in high school, the rumor had it that atomic war with the Soviets would happen on a certain Friday. It was cause of angst for some, but not all paid any attention to the rumor–or to the warnings to “duck and cover,” for that matter. I guess I’ve always been a bit geopolitically sensitive…
So it was that I tried to imagine what the people of Hawaii must have experienced when their devices and televisions announced there were incoming nuclear missiles. The announcement said this wasn’t a test–everyone should seek immediate shelter.
There was crying and gnashing of teeth, if I might use biblical language. People got under mattresses with their families or boarded themselves in garages. One grandfather herded his grandchildren into a sewer manhole. It was a time of anxiety far beyond anything I experienced as a child or have experienced since.
We think of how, if it had been an actual nuke headed to the beautiful islands of Hawaii, there would be no beauty remaining following the impact. It is almost unimaginable as to what that part of the islands would have looked like. But, it isn’t beyond our imaginations, because we have the films of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs to graphically remind us of the results of such weaponry. We have the films of the Bikini tests in the 1950s that demonstrated the horrific destructiveness of nuclear devices far more powerful than the bombs used on Japan to end the war.
Thankfully, the feared attack on Hawaii was a false alarm. The people between the mattresses, in their garages, and in the manholes could emerge to consider how things could have ended so differently. We can hope that the accidental siren alert will serve as a wake-up call to everyone of just how short a time (less than twelve minutes from time of the alert) such devastation can come upon us.
There is devastation coming that has a much, much shorter time of arrival than 10-12 minutes upon a totally unsuspecting people. There will be no alert to forewarn those under this incoming destruction. That is, no OINK!…OINK!…OINK! will disrupt TV programs or announce on various devices what is about to occur.
However, the siren is blaring, warning that the catastrophic impact is about to take place. The siren has been sounding for some time. As a matter of fact, this column and a number of others have been sounding the siren alarm.
The devastation will far surpass what that nuclear-tipped missile would have caused, had it been an actual attack. The sirens of Bible prophecy have been sounding–especially in these end of days the secularists call the end times. The devastation, following this imminent, catastrophic event, will result in as much as three-fourths of people on earth perishing over a period of seven years.
Those upon whom this calamity is about to fall are oblivious to the sirens of warning. It’s sad to say that many who should know about the coming time of destruction and should be issuing the warning refuse to do so. Not only that, they refuse to believe the impending disaster is a prophetic fact. They even make fun of the notion.
I’m referring, of course, to the preachers who claim to name the name of Jesus Christ, but who don’t believe He is returning in a catastrophic way to planet earth.
These, if they have any opinion or care one way or the other, believe Christ will return and take over from the Church. The Church, they believe, will have made worthy His Kingdom, over which He will then reign.
Only, that’s not what the Bible says. That Revelation 19:11 return is to a war-torn planet where most of its inhabitants have died in the violence and wrath of seven years of Tribulation.
Many of these type theologians will tell you they don’t believe the book of Revelation even belongs in the canon of Scripture. There is, they will say, no Rapture–no time of great trouble ruled over by somebody known as Antichrist. That stuff is all to somehow be taken in a spiritual way, not literally.
Jesus will indeed come back to rule and reign over a planet that is much like it was in the time of Eden before the fall of man. But, He–not the theologians who think they will prepare the way for Heaven on earth–will do the restoration. When Christ calls all believers to Himself at the Rapture, that very moment devastation will begin to fall. It will be just like in the time of Lot, when he was removed from Sodom. (Read Jesus’ words in Luke 17:26-30).
So, the siren of Bible prophecy goes unsounded, unheard by the vast majority of humanity. But, that siren is sounding more loudly every day in the Christ-sensitive ears of those spiritually attuned. That’s why we present these commentaries. We want to sound the siren a devastating time is coming–and it could come at any moment.
One siren-signal is most prominent. Israel is being forced by Satan’s globalist minions to give in to demands to divide God’s land further. The Lord is on the cusp of taking the Church Home with Him. He will then again begin dealing with His beloved Israel. It will be a time of His wrath, while He purges those who are rebellious earth-dwellers and rescues for Himself a people to populate the millennial earth.
The sirens are sounding!
Triad Foretelling Tribulation
Jesus’ prophecy, given upon the Mount of Olives just before His crucifixion, is that which presents things to come with the most profound gravitas, to use a word once bandied about in the American political melee of some years ago. Certainly, the direct foretelling by the Creator of all things must command attention of those of us who have believed in Him for our souls’ salvation. There can be no greater security and comfort than that found in God, Himself, telling us the end from the beginning, as He has done in His love letter to mankind, the Holy Bible.
The bottom line, of course, is that regardless of all we might see happening around us–this planet seeming to be coming apart at the seams—God is victorious. We who belong to Him, through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, are victors! To put it on a more personal level, some who read this might remember that I experienced clinical death in 2011–on Good Friday, of all days—and was instantaneously in the presence of a jubilant throng of cheering, young people.
They bid me to come to them. Each of the first two times in their presence, my heart having stopped each time, I started to join them, totally fixated (and joyfully so) on their bright, broadly smiling faces. Each time, though, I returned to the cath lab, where the members of the cardiologist team were working on me.
The third time I went to that realm, I did join them and we were running, as if in a victory lap. They were thrusting their hands in the air, and they were looking at me as I ran with them. We were celebrating a victory of monumental importance. Then the procedure was successful, and I was back again on the cath-lab table. (Incidentally, I haven’t had one moment’s indication of heart trouble of any sort since that day the “widow-maker” struck. Thanks be to our Lord!)
So, we who know Christ for salvation are victors, ultimately. That is one message I’m convinced I was given in that experience. Jesus, in His Olivet Discourse, told of some pretty frightening things to come. I believe we are witnessing these things as never before running concurrently at the very moment of your reading this essay. Thus, the title of this article. I primarily want to deal, as indicated, with three things Jesus said we should look for during the season when His return to planet earth at Armageddon nears.
The following quite familiar prophecy is what I want to look at for a bit:
For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. (Matthew 24:5-8)
The “triad”–as I put it–that foretells Tribulation (the last seven years of human history leading up to Christ’s return) is wrapped in this prophecy. This issued from the very mouth of God. Therefore, if the end of this Earth Age is near, we should see evidence of what He predicted in things taking place all around us.
The first matter of the three is the prophecy that deception will mark the era of His soon return. Jesus prophesied that many would come in His name. These deceivers would claim that they were Christ themselves, in some cases. I believe that even more profoundly to consider is the thought that many would come claiming to know Him as their Lord, and would even preach and teach under his banner, but would be liars of first order.
At this moment, we don’t have to look at just the growing cults around us to discern the deception involved in ministries and religions claiming that He is Christ, but denying the power of His lordship–even of His deity. And, the “deception” goes much deeper than that of how Christ is viewed and His message extolled. Deception will, I believe Jesus was saying, be the rule rather than the exception of days leading up to His coming to put an end to the devilish deportment of mankind.
One example, in my view, is the “transparency” promised by Barak Obama during the presidential campaign leading to his first election. We were to experience the most “transparent” administration in history. Yet he bypassed the Constitution in a lawless way at every opportunity–and, in secret, used that infamous pen to institute executive orders to fundamentally change America into something other than what the Founding Fathers intended.
The only “transparency” shown was when he spoke publicly, as do his secretaries of state, and telegraphed every military move that were to be made against the likes of ISIS (ISIL, as he would have it for whatsoever secretive reason). He then announces proudly what he has done to the world–to be “transparent,” I suppose.
Deception of every sort is everywhere we look today.
The second of the “triad foretelling Tribulation” I would like to consider is really a spin-off of the first. “Wars and rumors of war” come upon mankind from the deception surrounding the Holy name of Jesus and the truth of His deity–that He is the only Way to God the Father and eternity in Heaven.
Being called “intolerant” and hate-filled rhetoric and/or bigotry open societies and cultures to demonic invasion. Keeping people from coming to Christ, through deception or anything other brings satanic incitement and murderous intent to the human heart. Wars and rumors of war are the results–the harvest of millions dead in war across the world.
We are witnessing these exact fruits of rejecting Christ at this very moment. The monsters of ISIS reportedly beheaded children and infants as the beastly horde rampaged –for the fun of it, and to terrify those in their path into bending to their demands that their victims agree with their satanic view of religion. This degree of atrocity continues in many parts of the world at the time of this writing.
The third of the “triad” is the growing threat of pestilence–one of the signals Jesus said would point to His coming again being very near. The black death (Buebonic Plague) is a horrific disease reportedly again on the scene. That disease has those who study pandemic outbreaks worried that it could do what it did to medieval Europe and beyond. Pestilence might not yet be at the level of forewarning the end of the age as are the first two indicators, but many reports come to my attention, and, I’m sure, to yours that tell of any number of budding pestilences. The opening of American borders to practically uninhibited entrance to illegal peoples whom no one knows about, as far as their state of health, makes Jesus’ words in this prophecy particularly relevant, in my thinking.
How long might it be before we experience, literally, an explosion of such viral and bacterial detonations in the U.S. and across the world?
We can take comfort. These are, Jesus assured, “the beginning of sorrows,” the time just before He returns to put an end to the madness. Again, the love and comfort are there in the Savior’s words: “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).
We who know Christ are already victorious through our Lord!
Last-Days Sorceries
It’s almost like watching a war in much the same way people used to observe Civil War battles. The towns people would, in some cases–particularly early in the conflict–get their picnic goods together and sit in what they thought to be secure positions with their families to watch the blue and gray combatants go at it.
I feel sort of like that at the moment.
There is an end-times war going on–building toward Armageddon–and the individual battles are fascinating.
I’ve noted with amusement and a degree of schadenfreude the leftist, Hollywood types have their accusations against Donald Trump bounce off his administration and stick on them. The sexual harassment charges have made manifest their hypocrisy.
Satan has appeared to have been losing the battle as of late on several fronts. Of course, we know that neither he nor his minions, whether demonic or human, will ever give up their assaults until the war is over. They will seem to win many battles right up until the gathering at Armageddon.
Evidence of the battles Lucifer and his legions will continue to fight is observable in the conflict Attorney General Jeff Sessions has initiated regarding marijuana sales. It is a civil war in its own right.
The old devil never ceases to amaze in his ability to deceive and cajole. He not only has a majority of people clamoring to make “Mary Jane” accessible on a national scale, thus eventually making the nation unable to think clearly, he finessed the controversy into a political poison dart aimed at the president he is desperate to see removed from the reigns of power. The following hate-Trump news outlet piece illustrates my point, I hope.
As of late Friday, POLITICO Magazine could not find a single member of Congress who had issued a statement in support of Sessions’ actions. In the end, this is a self-inflicted pot crisis that could prove to be a critical test of Trump’s ability to maintain his base.
“There’s a lot of old white men who are marijuana users, and the marijuana is keeping them alive,” Segerblom said from his cell phone while driving around Las Vegas. “Trump is going to have fewer to vote for him if he doesn’t keep marijuana legal.”
Sessions’ antipathy for a drug that has lost much of its stigma among a wide cross section of Americans has only galvanized disparate factions in Congress to protect an industry that is expected to generate $2.3 billion in state tax revenue by 2020. (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/06/jeff-sessions-marijuana-legalization-congress-216251)
I’m sure that among that 70 percent of Americans who are said to support legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes are many who regularly read this column. There are those within my own family who think it is something that should be allowed without resistance.
I don’t.
It is the so-called recreational usage that is embedded within the satanic ploy that makes the battle plan an end-times issue in my view. It is the proverbial slippery slope to open more and more avenues to national inability to think rationally.
America already is plagued with that malady to an unacceptable degree. A glaring example is that at least half of the nation has been deluded into believing that supporting the murder of babies in their mothers’ womb and same gender partners engaging in sexual relations is natural and not abnormal.
The prophetic Word of God has things to say about this drug-induced delusion at the time of Christ’s Second Advent approaches.
John wrote about those rebellious earth dwellers who would populate the planet at the very end, as Armageddon nears:
“Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts” (Revelation 9:21).
Again, John, with dictation from Jesus Christ, writes the following: “And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived” (Revelation 18:23).
The word “sorceries” here is from the Greek pharmakeia (#5331 in Strong’s). There is some connection here to the word “pharmacy.”
The following is informative about the use of the Greek term chosen for use.
Okay. Now lets ensure that we correctly understand this:
The root meaning of this group of Greek words [magos, mageia, pharmakeia, pharmakeus] is “druggist,” “poisoner,” or, “giver of potions.” These particular “sorcerers” were persons able to prepare and dispense potions. But why did they dispense these potions? Was it in order to give relief from illness?
Absolutely not! It was in order to stimulate hallucinations or visions! We must understand that it was long part of pagan religious practice to administer potions, or drugs, which would encourage hallucinations! There is, of course, a direct parallel here to modern illicit drug taking. But these original “pharmacists” were involved in the black arts and in demonology; the basic idea was that taking certain potions could bring one into contact with the spirit world, and that this was to be desired. But the fact that the modern English word “pharmacy” happens to be derived from pharmakeia frankly proves absolutely nothing! Do people visit doctors in order to be given drugs which will bring them into contact with the spirit world? Of course not!! People visit medical practitioners in order to have an illness diagnosed, to be treated for sickness, or to gain relief from illness! Yet there are some extremist charismatic ministries around today which teach that we sin when we visit a doctor just because the word “pharmacy” happens to be related to these Greek words!
We must understand that on several occasions the Bible backs up the principle that sick people should look around for remedies for their sickness. This is a very clear biblical principle!…
While the English word “pharmacy” is indeed derived from a group of Greek words used to describe those pagans who used potions to encourage hallucinations in those who wanted to contact the spirit world, to suggest that modern medical pharmacists are in any way associated with the “black arts” is as ludicrous as to suggest that when my friend took penicillin for a very serious infection, he was really more interested in contacting spirits!!! (By the way, my friend was healed and gave the full glory to God who alone is our healer). (Robin A. Brace-2005, Sorcery in the Bible, Pharmakeia and Modern Medicine www.ukapologetics.net/pharmakeia.html)
The battle waged by Satanic forces to bring in last-days sorceries, according to Bible prophecy, will be a victory in their column. We are, in my opinion, witnessing the beginning of their winning that battle in our beloved nation. But, one battle won’t win this war. We have God’s Word on that truth!
Antichrist’s Incubator
Mulling over the astonishing end-times stage-setting we are witnessing for the coming Tribulation, I came to a realization that one of the most prominent signals given in Bible prophecy is strangely on the periphery at the moment. Every other signal God’s Word gives for the end of the dispensation of grace and the beginning of Daniel’s seventieth week (the Tribulation era) is front and center. But, the prophecy about the entity I call for purposes of this essay “Antichrist’s Incubator” is almost so low profile at present as to be virtually invisible.
I’m referring to the entity we have long considered the reviving Roman Empire.
The European Union (EU) is at present not much written about as being the matrix out of which will come planet earth’s final diabolical dictator. However, the subject has previously long been at the heart of eschatological profferings. Dr. Dave Breese, for example, did a great deal of study, writing,and speaking on the subject of Antichrist and his origins as coming from the area that is now known as the EU.
About the only mention of that area of the world of consequence during these days of Mideast turmoil, Russia-Trump collusion fake news, and the North Korean nuclear threat is that More than 6,000 people joined members of the British parliament in demanding that American evangelist Franklin Graham be banned from the U.K. This demand is made over his views on homosexuality and Islam. And, of course, Britain is supposedly withdrawing from the EU, so even that news isn’t about the EU.
Back-burner status of the EU has opened up the study of things to come in a way I would have thought not possible just several years ago. Middle East machinations have simply overwhelmed the headlines, causing many prophecy observers to push all else from the headlines so far as consideration of traditional eschatological viewpoint about the first beast of Revelation is concerned. Antichrist’s point of origin has changed in the minds of these observers–at least in the viewpoints of a considerable number of those who didn’t have an alternative view all along.
To clarify, there are those who have believed all along that Antichrist will come from the Middle East–will be a Muslim. Others held to the view that Daniel 9:26-27 indicates that Antichrist will be a European–out of the revived Roman Empire— but now believe the son of perdition will be an Islamist. This change in viewpoint for these came because of the stunning movement of ISIS that, of course, has now been rolled back.
I have a degree of due respect for these alternate views to the traditional premillennial, pretrib model. Certainly, there is a strong case that Antichrist will spring from Middle Eastern roots. My close friend, Phillip Goodman, of Bible Prophecy as Written, for example, has a superb work on the subject –The Assyrian Connection (1993). He is one of the most excellent scholars of Bible prophecy on the scene today, and I heartily suggest you get the book and read it.
My own view continues to be that the first beast of Revelation 13 will emerge from the area surrounding Rome–from the European Union. I do believe he will be of Middle Eastern genetic extraction, however. Bible prophecy plainly teaches he will be “the Assyrian.”
However, I am equally convinced that this most horrific tyrant of human history will be born and raised in the area of Rome. There is no doubt in my mind that Bible prophecy also plainly teaches this regarding this man of sin. Further, the title of my essay, ” Incubator,” carries with it, in my prayerfully considered thinking, a more sinister possibility than his merely being born somewhere in the heart of Europe. It carries also the conjecture–and I’m about to get into trouble with some here—that his genetics will also include that which isn’t human at all.
Jesus said things will again be like they were in the days of Noah when he next catastrophically breaks into the affairs of fallen mankind (Matthew 24 and Luke 17). He spoke of the judgment of that time upon a world filled with iniquity when people were carrying on with business as usual despite the wickedness of the time.
The most pronounced wickedness, I believe, was that mentioned in Genesis 6 about the fact that the genetics of man were contaminated by fallen angels, who “married” human women. The results of this union were the Nephilim offspring, part human and part supernatural (demonic).
Jesus, remember, said things will again be like in those days. He was talking about at the time of Rapture, I’m convinced. Here’s the application I wish to make to my title: “Antichrist’s Incubator.”
The son of perdition–Antichrist—will, I’m contemplating, possibly be a Nephilim, a part-human, part-demonic entity. This won’t necessarily be by a “Rosemary’s Baby” sort of sexual union, but, perhaps, the result of genetic manipulations in man’s laboratory settings, under demonic “inspiration.”
Antichrist’s Incubator, in this sense, might well be considered in this, admittedly, strange manner.
I bring this conjecture forward because God’s character and justice demand that He allow every human being ever born to have his or her trial for their comportment in life conducted before His throne. The trial will either be a time of distribution of rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Bema) or for eternal punishment and separation from God at the Great White Throne judgment.
However, the angels who rebelled are allowed no such trial, just as they have no chance for redemption. Thus, the “corrupted flesh”–the Nephilim offspring of fallen angels—had no chance for redemption, but was doomed without remedy in the Flood of Noah’s day.
The first and second beasts of Revelation 13 also have no trial. Antichrist and the false prophet are the first to be cast into the Lake of Fire. They do not stand before Christ at the Bema or before God at the Great White Throne. Their fate is sealed before these judgments.
It is theologically reasonable, therefore, to believe that these two individuals are not fully human, rather likely are Nephilim–the result of a union between the seed of mankind and the seed of the fallen ones, the angels who rebelled, just as happened in the days of Noah.
Today we are witnessing the incubation of Antichrist and his future partner in crime in the sense of the world being prepared for their appearance upon the world stage.
All of this said, take heart. If you know Christ for salvation, you won’t be here to see them emerge from their incubation chamber –where ever they are spawned. Christ is about to say, “Come up hither!” (Revelation 4:1). Even so, come Lord Jesus.
Terry James Prophecy Line 