Prophecy Line
Dawn’s Early Light
This week’s commentary is a reminder for those who believe in Jesus Christ as defined by the following scriptural description of the term “Christian”:
“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” (Romans 10:9).
Tragically, if the reader hasn’t genuinely confessed sin and asked forgiveness of the God of Heaven, and adopted this faith prescription from God’s Word, this essay cannot apply to his or her life. Thankfully, all people everywhere are invited to come to belief in the Son of God, who came to Earth the first time specifically to die so that anyone who accepts Christ’s shed-blood antidote for sin’s deadly venom will be saved from the eternal fires of Hell, and will instead live forever with the Father in Heaven. My prayer is that the reader, if he or she hasn’t done so, will do so right now–for this is the only moment guaranteed to you. You might not have a follow-up second of life. Your last heartbeat might come before you finish reading.
Paul the apostle reported God’s words on the tenuous nature of life and the importance of immediately making the decision in the matter of salvation: “For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
With the gospel message offered, as the Holy Spirit draws, we will proceed with additional good news, something that some accuse is a rarity for a prophecy writer’s commentary. The mention of prophecy often conjures in the imagination darkness and foreboding–a very bleak outlook for America and the planet we call Earth. When considering the troubling course we see narrowing in the distance, while we examine today’s issues and events under the microscope of God’s prophetic Word, we must be truthful and faithful in giving the forewarnings of the watchman (Mark 13: 37).
But, while nearing midnight, the world keeps turning. There is coming a moment after the gore and terrible dangers of the battle at twilight’s last gleaming–like Francis Scott Key wrote—the dawn’s early light. The flag of the United States of America is under attack, and the nation is staggering. It might well fall this time, unlike during the time of its birth as given in the “Star Spangled Banner.”
But, as much as we all love this nation, we look toward a heavenly home, built by the Lord Himself (see 2 Corinthians 5:1; John 14:1-3)–a world without end (Ephesians 3:21). The matters to think upon for you and me as God’s children involve a glorious dawning of unimaginable things to come. Paul the apostle puts it this way, as we have all read many times: “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
While I often express in this column frustration over the fact that the majority of Christians are today inward turned, not at all thinking of things of God, and are asleep in the pews because they get only pabulum from the pastors in the pulpits for the most part, I am of the conviction that this is a malaise that is an important indicator of exactly where we are on God’s prophetic timeline. Jesus said the following: “Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8b). This said, each child of God–whether on fire for the Lord, or living life oblivious to the things of God–needs to know that when Christ’s call “come up hither” (Revelation 4:1) is heard, every truly born again (John 3:3) believer will go instantaneously to be with the Lord. He will then take us to the home He has been preparing for us (John 14:1-3).
Even if the child has not been watching for His coming for them in the clouds–in the Rapture—each and every one will go in that stupendous atomos of time to be with Him, forever!
I know the foregoing will be angrily disputed by many. There is an erroneous visceral belief among many who know the PreTrib view of prophecy to be truth from the Bible. That mistaken belief purports that the watchful Christians will go to be with Christ when He calls, and the slothful, Earth-minded Christians will stay behind to–well, I’m not sure to do what.
Those holding this view just cannot accept the full scope of what the Bible says about God’s love for His family. Christ did it all on the cross at Calvary, so what can we do to make ourselves more secure in Christ?
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4 that ALL will go in that twinkling of an eye. The Word of God didn’t say that some will stay and some will go. Here’s the thing: God knows who is and is not His child; we, His children, are not privy to that knowledge.
My friend, Dr. Dave Breese, used to say that the Lord Jesus will not leave part of His Bride, the Church, here on Earth to be bloodied and bruised during the most horrendous time of human history. He will take a perfected Bride home to the Father’s house. Jesus did the cleaning-up when He shed His precious blood at Calvary two millennia ago. He cried “It is finished!” –And, it was! The translation –the transformation from mortal to immortal–that will take place in that stunning, glorious, split second will make every one of us worthy and acceptable in the heavenly city!
Now, let me say that the child of God living like the devil, with unrepented-of sin, will pay a tremendous price at the Bema Seat (judgment seat of Christ). Make no mistake: there will be an eternal instant when all will look into those eyes of absolute love and understand their Lord’s disappointment. We will at that moment want more than anything we’ve ever wanted to hear Jesus say, “Well done, good, faithful servant.”
The dawn’s early light will one day shine its rays of glory. It will happen as Christ breaks through the dark, death-decaying clouds at Armageddon (Rev. 19: 11). He will defeat all of His–and our—foes. Antichrist will be thrown in the lake of fire, with the false prophet. Satan will be chained for one thousand years. Jesus will clean up Planet Earth.
But, that’s not the really good news for you and me. Just consider…you and I are here at this strange time, and in this foreign land, for purposes the Lord, Himself, has determined. We could have been placed here at any time in history. But, He chose us to serve Him, and now, while all around us breaks the most stunning prophetic possibilities imaginable. For example, no other generation has seen Israel reborn and as hated by the entire world of nations as has our generation –exactly as prophesied. Something is up –and it is big!
We will see the “dawn” at the close of Armageddon described above as we descend on gleaming, white, heavenly steeds as Christ leads the way.
However, for believers of this Age of Grace, “Dawn’s early light” is scheduled to break brilliantly and instantaneously much earlier–during this darkening hour we presently face. We do not have to wait at least seven years for that other “dawn” as Christ returns at the end of the Tribulation. The Rapture is very near! Serve Him as if He could call in the next second. He just might! Take heart!
Saving the World
My practice each week before beginning to think seriously on the next week’s commentary for this column is to pray for guidance from on high. This week’s essay, I sensed, would require especially intensive beseeching in order to receive direction toward the commentary leading up to Christmas Day. Just the opposite turned out to be the case.
An idea of what the topic should be came almost instantly upon my beginning to think on the matter. Next, within less than an hour into the process, came a message through email that validated beyond any doubt that the topic was chosen from above.
The email was from a regular family member of our website, raptureready.com. Her words were verification that the thought for the Christmas message to be delivered wasn’t mine, but from the One who sent that first Christmas message two millennia ago. I quickly dashed off an email-note thanking her.
I again thank her here and will include some of her words from her most timely cyber message to me.
As many who read these commentaries will know, my articles of late have involved the lead-up to and reporting of presidential election 2016. I view that election, I think I made clear, as being intervention by the Lord–and this for several reasons.
His intervention was to, I believe, answer the prayers of His people who are called by His name, in accordance with 2 Chronicles 7: 14. His response was to begin to turn around the quick slide into the abyss of total moral decay. His action was to stop this nation’s almost certain march to globalism, which, I’m convinced, the losing candidate would have put on an even faster track than America was on, should she have been elected president.
I likened the intervention in the matter of globalism to God’s erecting a wall even more profound than the wall the president-elect has promised to put along America’s southern border. For now, at least, America, apparently, will have a wall of sorts–a return to the constitutional concept of sovereignty and nationhood intended by the founding fathers.
That constitutional concept was formed by Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and all the rest, based upon their strong belief in adherence to Judeo-Christian principles found in the Bible. This, the new world order architects cannot abide. Religion, they rant, is the bane of progressive thought and action. These most often champion the Utopian dream fostered by Karl Marx, who wrote: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
The globalists elite who hate religion and despise Christianity in particular see Communism as the route to Utopia. If only they could have their blueprint for their version of socialism put fully into production, they would create heaven on earth. These have come to embrace fanatically their own version of religion. It is called “environmentalism.”
They were, until recently, calling it global warming. The scientific sophistry behind their claim came to light through exposure to the facts, so they changed the core of their religion to “climate change.”
These are of the save-the-earth cult which holds that man is destroying Mother Earth. Therefore, the globalists elite–the high priests of their religion–must see to it that all nations, all peoples, must be brought under their regulation–else we will all drown beneath the overflowing oceans because of icecap melting, etc. Greenhouse gases and carbon emissions and all of that are produced by evil Western mankind in particular and must be governed. They–the global elitists–of course, are the only ones who can thus save the world.
Pope Francis and some within the Catholic Church have wholeheartedly joined this save-the-earth cult to add their version of religious input. The following excerpted article explains:
Catholic Online reports that new priests will be expected to be familiar with and promote efforts to reduce carbon emissions…
The Church has a responsibility to care for people, and the environment. And care for one is also care for the other…
The new guidelines suggest that in the future, priests will also have a good grasp of the global climate change problem and will share this with their congregation…
It must be said that some committed and prayerful Christians, with the excuse of realism and pragmatism, tend to ridicule expressions of concern for the environment. Others are passive; they choose not to change their habits and thus become inconsistent. So what they all need is an ‘ecological conversion’, whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evidence in their relationship with the world around them. Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience. Therefore, it will be necessary for future priests to be highly sensitive to this theme and, through the requisite Magisterial and theological guidance, helped to “acknowledge the appeal, immensity and urgency of the challenge we face. (Source: Catholic Church: New Priests Will be Expected to Preach Global Warming, Guest essay by Eric Worrall, http://www.clerus.va/content/dam/clerus/Ratio%20Fundamentalis/The%20Gift%20of%20the%20Priestly%20Vocation.pdf)
There has been little reaching out by this pope since he replaced Pope Benedict to proclaim that conversion must be made to belief in Jesus Christ in order to save the souls of people of earth. But the cry at present goes out in every direction that conversion to the dogma of ecological sophistry must be instituted and enforced to save all people everywhere.
With regard to the Luciferian religion called climate change, the words of my emailer say it plainly.
“No matter how much humans try to ‘improve’ on God’s plans, He has the last say. He allows us to experiment but then, rightly shows us that His way is the best way. No matter how much humans try to wreck Planet Earth, God always has the upper (and healing) hand.
The world belongs to God. His Creation. Wonderfully and perfectly made. There is no way He is going to allow some spiritually backward, egocentric lunatic, [to] ruin what He set up. For the RC [Roman Catholic] church to actually believe that they will influence or make a difference to what is happening to planet earth is spiritual ignorance of the highest order. They are implying that action from man can fix stuff. That they (the RC church) are running things. Astonishing!”
Let me be clear in saying that I’m fully aware and agree that we are expected, as Christians, to be good stewards of the earth. However, we are not to worship the earth and make that worship the means of our salvation.
It is the reverse of the true Christmas story that we are witnessing as Christmas approaches. Globalism preaches that it is up to man to save himself by saving the planet.
Like Lucifer told Eve, we are destined to become our own gods. We are to save the world, totally apart from any deity, except, of course, for the gods–he elite–of the globalist agenda.
But the truth of the Christmas story simply, powerfully and wonderfully tells all who will listen–and believe.
“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17).
The Real Crisis
Crises and potential crises surround us during every waking moment. Except for those who are oblivious to what is going on in this nation and world today, the cultural and societal pathway ahead disappears into the anxiety-laden darkness of the unknown. Rather than take on the entire world and its problems in this regard, I will, for our purposes in this commentary, stick to analyzing the fearful future of this nation I love.
Most in America–and sadly, in the church (born-again believers) –falls into that category of the oblivious. Therefore, the crises, from their perspective, don’t exist. All the forewarnings of coming disaster seem issued to ears that will never hear and presented to eyes that will never see. Yet, at the same time, the crises, themselves, do create undercurrents of worry. Even the otherwise diverted masses notice, at least for fleeting moments, when societal dangers disrupt their world of shopping and entertainment–for example, when attacks by terrorists and others upon people going about their daily lives take place. Then, it is back to buying, selling, building, marrying, and giving in marriage, and the thousand and one other things that matter most to them.
Crises dominate the horizon politically, economically, and morally. As a matter of fact, they intertwine in such convolution as to now be inseparable so far as discerning where one aspect begins and the others end. There has developed, because of the incessant progression of assaults by evil actions, desensitization that affects the masses like a venomous bite by a deadly serpent.
The analogy is more than coincidental. It is a precise description of what has happened. The serpent of Genesis, chapter 3, has successfully injected much of America’s population with the same sort of morality-paralyzing toxin that separated man from God those many millennia ago. We have indeed reached the point of becoming a people like those at whom Isaiah the prophet pointed the finger of condemnation: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).
This crisis of moral decay was brought home to me nearly 8 years ago as I listened to the minister who was selected by the 44th president to read a prayer during the Obama inauguration on January 21, 2009. He, we are supposed to presume, prayed to the God of Heaven for Him to bless the gay lifestyle in that prayer for inclusiveness and tolerance in America.
This is the same administration that has made homosexuality and those who fight for the right to openly display the debased, debauched activities of that community in a very public way as the equivalent of the black community crusading for those people’s civil rights. This is the same political entity that will pull all the levers of governmental power at their disposal to protect the young of wildlife, thus to impose as much control as possible over individuals and businesses, under the guise of environmental concerns. These will, at the same time, do everything within that power to facilitate the murder of babies in their mother’s wombs for the sake of placating a voter base that desires to expediently get rid of unwanted fruits of their pleasure-seeking indiscretions.
While America sleeps, liberties are eroded one at a time, and the powers that be viciously seek to marginalize all who would disagree with their seizing by “executive action” constitutional powers the founding fathers built into the nation’s safeguards through checks and balances. Even those who have until recently adamantly opposed such a power grab seem now to be shrugging shoulders and going along with the mainstream media mantra that it is just the new norm.
But the dumbing-down of the American public and apparently, too, many of those constitutionally elected to represent it, in convincing that the new norm is just the hope and change that is the natural progression of such an advanced, sophisticated culture –thus the moral implosion that continues to take its toll– isn’t the real crisis.
The real crisis is wrapped up in the following: the Church in this crucial hour is asleep, and if there is no preacher, how shall they hear? (Romans 10:14).
The Lord of Heaven might have just about reached the limits of His patience with a nation peopled by a populace that has lived the most materially–and even spiritually blessed—existence in the history of mankind. However, we can take hope that with the lord’s direct Intervention –in my view– into America’s election this year, we might have indication that America will yet have a moment of turning from the slide toward the abyss.
Until this apparent turn back to God because of the prayers of those who are called by His Holy Name, Proof that we might be near the outer limits of God’s tolerance for national rebellion was evident in the fact that there seemingly has been a collective mindset developed like that forewarned by the apostle Paul.
Please consider with all gravity the Word of the living God. I believe it is the equivalent of Isaiah’s finger pointed at my beloved United States of America:
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things.
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Romans 1: 21-32)
The Wall
Everyone who has access to any news outlet these days is familiar with the wall mentioned hundreds of times by Donald Trump throughout the presidential campaign season. Now president-elect Trump continues to proclaim that he will build a wall on America’s southern border.
That highly controversial proposed wall involves Mr. Trump’s promise to keep illegal would-be immigrants from entering the United States. Those who support building of such a wall obviously believe this will prevent potential terrorists from entering the country en masse, as they fear is happening presently.
A physical structure of the nature described by some will be a massive and expensive undertaking to be sure, as I perceive the project as proposed. It is to be constructed in order to keep American citizens safe.
There is a wall of another sort I would like to think on for a bit. This is a structure that also involves keeping America safe. However, it is a wall not of physical materials as in the case of the one proposed to stand between America and Mexico. I’m referring to the barrier that has suddenly appeared with this presidential election. Again, it is not a physical wall, but one that is made of much sterner stuff–as Shakespeare’s Mark Antony might put it.
Globalism’s growing invasion into the American way of life has been marching all but unchecked for at least two decades. Its force of movement into all strata of life has increased dramatically during the administration of Barack Obama over these past eight years.
Globalism’s threat is greater than just the hordes of illegals from the south–those illegals being but one ingredient within the globalist elite’s plans of action: to bring America into configuration with new world order as they envision it. The danger implied stretches across the broad spectrum of culture and society of our nation.
The inculcation has been a long time in process. The youth of America in particular have been dumbed-down to the point that they know little of truth about the country’s founding principles.
The churches of America have not, since the days of the Moral Majority efforts, resisted the globalist drive to take the nation as far away from God’s influence as possible. The godless teaching of the corrupted and corruptive educational system from K through the doctorate programs has convinced many that there must be a separation of church and state. That demand has come down, finally, to governmental dictate–approved by the Supreme Court–that opposition to social matters perceived as anti-biblical must be confined to the sanctuaries.
Just as the president-elect plans to put up that wall to stem the physical flow of illegals in to America, there has suddenly been erected an even more spectacular wall.
It is a spiritual wall, as I view it. God, Himself, has put it up for His own good purposes. It is, almost certainly in part, a wall to stop the globalist invaders from continuing to move the United States farther along the pathway toward the new world order being prepared for Antichrist and his regime of horror. I wrote the following in my commentary that immediately preceded the November 8 presidential election.
Although the nucleus of God’s people who hold fast to the Heavenly Father’s precepts and promises might be a dwindling number, we are still here in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. We are engaged in this prayer war for a restoration of sanity in America’s government, society and culture.
We are praying specifically that the evil forces that are raging to make this nation into a state totally apart from all godliness will be, at least on an interim basis, kept from their Luciferian goal.
I say “on an interim basis,” because Bible prophecy plainly foretells that the satanic, globalist forces will for a time one day achieve establishment of a one-world order as Antichrist’s platform of power. It will happen. It’s just a matter of time.
Meantime, however, while the church of Jesus Christ is here, thus the Restrainer (the Holy Spirit) resident within that body holding back evil, it is right and proper–and I believe expected–that God’s people, called by His name, are to pray the prayer of 2 Chronicles 7:14.
God has erected this wall in answer to the prayers of His people. Yet, only He knows the purposes in full. One reason, I sense, is to give the true church (all born-again believers) time and room to carry out the Great Commission. At the same time, as I’ve written previously, this wall seems to offer hope of a brighter economic future. The free enterprise forces seem to be saying this with their optimism.
But, this, if it does eventuate, makes these days just ahead precisely like the time predicted when Christ will next catastrophically intervene into the affairs of mankind.
Jesus indicated, as recorded in Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17:26-30 that business will be good–even perhaps booming–at the time He next intervenes. This will be the Rapture of the church.
There is one more wall I wish to touch on in this essay–the wall that separates lost mankind from God and Heaven in eternity. The wall is made of the awful, soul-killing matter called sin. Man himself constructed this wall with his disobedience in the Garden of Eden. This wall keeps all of the lost of mankind from entering into God’s Kingdom. They are aliens who cannot go through that great barrier.
But, God has provided a Gate in that great wall of separation. It is a narrow gate that leads to salvation, the Scripture tells us.
Jesus put it this way: “I am the door: if by me any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture” (John 10:9).
I believe the reason God has constructed this wall against globalism is primarily to provide time and opportunity to get out this message that Jesus is the only way to salvation. Let us who are called by His Holy Name do our utmost for His Highest in honoring Him for allowing this reprieve.
World Without End
Do you remember the Mayan Calendar hub-bub of 2012?
The end of the world was scheduled for Friday, December 21, 2012, according to the Mayan calendar, as analyzed by some. Many scenarios of what supposedly would happen on that date for months–even years— were predicted by the purveyors of doom for Planet Earth. The Mayan “prophecy” went basically as follows.
The Mayan civilization was extremely advanced in mathematics, engineering and astronomy. They also had an incredible understanding of time and space. Various calendars were in use to track time in linear progressions within cycles. The “Great Cycle” of the “Long Count” calendar equated to 5,125.36 years. The Current Great Cycle was due to be completed on the winter solstice of 2012, December 21. So, it was interpreted that on that day, the Great Cycle would end, Time would end, so the Earth would end as well.
The Mayan “Long Count” concluded on the very day the sun lined up with the center of the Milky Way galaxy. It was said that this stellar event occurs every 25,800 years. The end-of-the-worlders predicted that a number of cataclysmic things would occur at 11:11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on December 21, 2012.
A polar shift of planet Earth would occur, bringing about every sort of tectonic plate shift imaginable, thus oceans washing over all the land masses and perhaps the earth, itself, ripping apart in some way. This was the direst of the predictions, I suppose.
Well, not exactly, on second thought. There was also some sort of planet that was hidden from view from astronomers by our sun, according to some who held to the December 21, 2012, date with destruction. That body might suddenly be in direct collision course with the big blue marble on the Mayan prophecy date in question it was postulated. Such a collision would eclipse even the polar reversal in terms of the severity of impact upon life on Earth.
There are many who prepared for such an eventuality as predicted. Some bought/built underground shelters and did many other things to survive. At the time I heard of these things, I missed something in their thinking, I’m afraid. How does one survive an Earth-size, even moon-size object colliding with Earth? Or for that matter, how in the world–pardon the pun—does one survive when the big ball on which we live suddenly turns upside down? Oh, I’m sure there were the experts who would chide such an ignorant perspective as mine as completely not understanding the physics of such a thing, should it happen.
They would be right. I didn’t even come close to comprehending what would be the chances of survival in such an event. I remain dumbfounded over those who believe a Mayan prophecy–or any other such soothsaying of a now extinct civilization. I am as perplexed over their believing such “prophecies” as many of those doomsday believers were and are now berating and non-accepting of Bible prophecy. To most of these, Nostradamus, or even Rasputin, are given almost mesmerized validation, while Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel–and especially Jesus Christ—are pushed to the back of the line with regard to credence given to those considered to be prophets.
To determine which of the prophets should be given the label of the true prophet, one needs only to consider history of the Jews. The Jews–the nation Israel—exist despite millennia of attempts to scour their likes from the planet’s surface. That attempt continues. Yet, the nation Israel–the Jewish race—is at the center of attention, a blessing to all of mankind, while being hounded and hunted throughout the eras of human history.
Biblical prophets have both chronicled this traversing of history by the eternal Jew and have foretold their place at the very end of the age and beyond. In every instance, the foretellings can be traceable as 100 percent on the mark, right to the present moment.
Here’s what a couple of God’s prophets, one an Old Testament prophet and the other a New Testament prophet, have to say about the Earth and its longevity: “But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end. 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” (Isaiah 45:17-18).
“Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21).
Get it? It is a world that will never end! It will be changed; it will be transformed at some future point. But, it is a world without end!
The A B C Questions
We are moving into stranger and stranger times, I sense from consideration of recent developments. Chief among those developments is the most obvious–the election of the candidate thought to have no chance at all just a few months previous. Yet here he is, poised to Make America Great Again–as his presidential campaign slogan would have it.
This being the case, I would ask that you indulge me just a bit, as I would like to construct a scenario or two based as much in biblically prophetic truth as in fictional cogitation.
That America has been forced toward movement into the globalist mold over the past several decades is without question in my view. This has especially been the case during the past eight years of the Obama administration. The nation’s sovereignty has been in process of usurpation by the new world order builders through a series of quasi-legitimate executive orders.
It is more than obvious, to me at least, that the United States was moving along an seemingly unalterable course dictated by the globalists’ agenda. This presidential election didn’t just slow that movement; it halted it in its tracks. The president-elect is an avowed antiglobalist. He views America not as the hegemonic superpower that must be brought down to third-world status, its wealth redistributed in order to create some insanely conceived socialistic Utopia, but as beneficent leader of a world of autonomous nations.
My idea isn’t to sing the praises of the future president. He is merely a man who has been thrust into the end-times picture for God’s own great purpose. My thinking here is to explore and examine a bit the possibilities that purpose might include.
Thus we come to the title of this commentary: “The A B C Questions.”
I watch with great interest the uptick in the world’s fiscal markets as the wizards of finance contemplate changes taking place in our country. The records being set in the stock markets, etc., move in synchronization with the strangeness of this election. The whole matter, to my way of thinking, generates questions involving Bible prophecy potentiality.
My questions and ruminations follow.
Question A
AMERICA–Is this nation, rather than being on the brink of imploding economically as most prophecy students thought before this election, now about to enter a time of, perhaps, unprecedented financial boom?
Most who have been responsible for making profit within the private sector know and lament that regulations coming out of the current presidential administration have been deadly to business development. Mr. Obama, himself, has boasted that he has “a pen and a phone”–meaning that he could and would bypass Congress to accomplish what he wanted done. This he has done prolifically. His use of his pen and phone have been particularly ruinous to the free enterprise system in this nation.
Increased taxation, added to the regulatory edicts, have resulted in horrendous job losses because of business down-sizings and closings. The nation seemed poised to go much deeper into the economic abyss. The election of Donald J. Trump, a highly successful business mogul, seems to have suddenly turned things around with promises to roll back taxes and regulations and to introduce a plethora of innovations.
The financial markets are apparently buying the promises, and the uptick in the stratospheric of economic anticipation shows it.
All of this just doesn’t fit the thinking of observers of Bible prophecy. Most seem to look for America to succumb to the forces of globalism. And, as stated before, the nation was certainly headed in that direction prior to this election.
So, it is reasonable to ask whether the United States of America might be headed into another great economic boom instead of descending into depression as feared just weeks ago. This conjecture brings forth another most interesting question.
Question B
BABYLON–Could we now be witness to the beginnings of the creation of the prophetic entity termed “Babylon the Great”?
Revelation chapter 18 presents a stunning portrait of the greatest human commercial entity of all of history. This nation and city is prophesied to dominate all the earth with its commerce and debaucheries. Here’s what is said of this city-state called “Babylon the Great”:
For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. (Revelation 18:3)
This Babylonian system will be destroyed in one hour, God’s Word tells us. It will be a much-deserved judgment. All the world will mourn this destruction.
And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more. (Revelation 18:9-11)
Here you will, I hope, indulge my postulations a bit. If this generation is at the very end of he Age of Grace (Church Age) as most who are well-versed in Bible prophecy from the pre-Trib view believe, there is but one entity on the stage of history that could possibly be seen as doing business in such a mighty way as described in this prophecy.
For there to develop from the ground up such a commercial power, it would take decades, not just seven, or even twenty years. America, if there was a massive jinning up of enterprise, could possibly reach such heights of interaction with the rest of the world in a matter of a year or two. There is simply no nation on the planet that has ever been so materially blessed as the USA. There is no other city on planet earth that has the commercial outreach and influence as New York City.
Seeing as how the timeline seems to be a major factor in this prophecy–this destruction of Babylon the Great taking place within the seven-year Tribulation–we can legitimately ask, I think: Is America to develop into that judgment-bound entity?
Perhaps we might get a clue if the optimistic outlook of the current stock market elites plays out as they, at least at this moment, anticipate.
Question C
CHRISTIANITY —Is Christianity about to experience a Great Awakening like in times past?
I have been hearing for years now preachers and others saying that there will be a great revival before the Rapture. Some of those who don’t hold that there is a Rapture coming also say there will be another Great Awakening, as in times past.
I’ve never held that belief, I must say. However, the strange turn of events–with the anti-God forces of the left and the globalists’ ravenous desire to gobble up the United States being suddenly halted–or so it seems–one has to question” why?”.
Could we be about to experience a final outpouring of God’s great mercy in the form of the true church carrying out the Great Commission in a Holy Spirit directed outburst of supernatural witness?
Damascus and Doomsday
Here we are at the end of November, 2016 and prophetic possibilities are popping all around us. Israel is in the process of –as usual– being pressured as part of trying to divide God’s land, meaning that Joel 3:2 is on the cusp of coming to pass. The “covenant made with death and hell” of Isaiah chapter 28 might not be far distant in the making.
Paul’s “perilous times” (2 Timothy 3:1-5) words describe American culture and society to a “T,” as they say. The “days of Noah” are here, with God’s message of repentance being mocked by rebels of a judgment-bound world. Debased human behavior like in the days of Lot proliferates, so that it now seems to be more the norm than the aberrant.
Many within the ranks of those who are antagonistic to or who ignore the God of Heaven seem to instinctively sense something ominous is brewing. Something isn’t right, and a visceral fear streams just beneath the surface of civility. The behavior of mankind–especially in America—demands correction of some sort, although neither the problem nor the correction can be discerned. A reprobate mind like that forewarned in Romans 1 prevents clear analysis in trying to understand the matters involved.
Ominous predictions like the prophecies of the long-dead French seer Nostradamus pique the interest of many every time his name is mentioned. In the minds of some, at least, a nebulous justice of some sort must demand a penalty for the base things infecting this generation. Guilt feelings fester in the collective consciousness to a degree.
Things going on in the Middle East trouble these who are unsure about the source and the reason for their uneasiness. Israel is most often given by mainstream press outlets as the number-one culprit in fomenting hostilities in that incendiary part of the world. However, the usually-pointed-at Israel doesn’t seem an underlying cause of things taking place in Syria, with the massacring of his fellow Syrians by dictator Bashar al-Assad.
There is good reason for fear of things developing in Damascus. It is a city of biblically prophetic import like only two others. Jerusalem is slated for both great turmoil and magnificent glorification, according to Bible prophecy. Babylon–whether the actual city within Iraq or whether figurative, as given in Revelation chapter 18–will suffer destruction as none other in history.
Damascus is prophetically scheduled for similar devastation. With all other signs of the return of Jesus Christ on the end-times horizon, the current developments in this, the oldest occupied city on the planet, is most relevant for those who are “watchmen on the wall.” The fate of the Syrian capital just might be nearly the top indicator of how near is the Rapture of the church.
The verse of great interest among those who watch for Christ’s return is, of course, the following: “The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap” (Isaiah 17:1).
According to the signals given in prophetic Scripture, the present generation of Earth dwellers looks to be in the last of the last days before the first phase of Christ’s Second Coming–the removal of all born-again believers from Planet Earth. This prophetic utterance by the prophet Isaiah has recently and dramatically arisen to prominence amid all of the other indicators pointing to the end of days. Damascus’ destruction fits somewhere within the general time frame of the very end of the age. Whether we have reached that parentheses in God’s prophetic program is the question, when considering news of the current tumult in Syria.
The Syrian dictator, President Bashar al-Assad, it is thought by some of the most in-the-know diplomatic types, senses that his time is about up. He will soon go the way of, at worst, Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi, and at best, Hosni Mubarak. Many of the “experts” believe al-Assad will choose to bring the entire Syrian people down with him rather than abdicate rulership or flee to escape his comeuppance.
The international community powers that be view warily al-Assad’s activities within his capital city and nation. Russia’s asserting itself within the affairs of Syria and the region greatly adds to the portentous uncertainties for the immediate future.
Al-Assad has certainly witnessed what happens to former tyrants in his part of the world in recent times. The question is not without merit. Might the Syrian dictator himself invoke his own “Samson option,” of sorts, and become the instrument of prophecy in making Damascus the “ruinous heap” it is destined to become?
Pre-Tribulation Pondering
Listening to the “experts” thinking aloud on what this election means is exercise in frustration, if not futility. The talking heads across the cable and broadcast spectrum attribute Donald Trump’s win to everything from the late FBI turn of events to news media’s biased poll-taking and misreading of exit polling. These throw in that those in charge of the losing campaign just didn’t understand the people of middle America. They didn’t see the people’s pent-up rage against the Washington establishment–the D.C. insiders.
All of these elements no doubt contributed to this election–as many of the pundits put it–eventuating in a totally unexpected outcome. But, it is the never-mentioned aspect of this election dynamic that is frustrating to me as a Christian. It is this that produces a sense of futility.
No one in media is talking about the 81% – 84% (depending upon the figure you accept) of “evangelicals” who turned out in this election. Christian participation just isn’t figured in at the highest levels of broadcast and cable punditry.
This means, to me, that the experts believe this election had nothing to do with our being fed up with the social debauchery and degradation that has been taking place, particularly over the past almost eight years. The homosexual, transsexual, same-sex marriage agenda, with mandated same-sex, multiple-occupancy public restrooms, had no influence on the voting this election year, the experts are saying with their silence. We, the voters–who are Christians and came out in numbers that have not been seen in many elections–apparently weren’t (according to the pundits) making a statement that we are fed up with our White House being bathed in rainbow colors emblematic of the homosexual lobby. We aren’t sick and tired of having the homosexual rainbow flag flown atop that same American presidential edifice, is the message of the pundits’ silence.
This electoral landslide against the candidate and party that have crammed down America’s throat all of this hellishness–mostly through presidential, executive order-fiat–had nothing to do with the social issues, I guess we are to take away from this silence.
That we are disgusted with small bakery owners being publicly humiliated and fined for refusing to bake same-sex wedding cakes obviously isn’t considered worth mentioning in the analysis of this election results. The absolute horrors and atrocities that we learned about involving Planned Parenthood and the selling of human baby body parts didn’t, in the thinking of the post-election, political analysts, figure in our collective voting statement.
It was all about terrorism, wallet issues, and building back America’s defense, while determining to “drain the swamp.”
These were all important issues in my own thinking, as in the thinking of many other Christians, while election day approached. But, in addition to stopping a further tearing down of America’s founding structure, I wanted–and continue to want–a government that will stop the anti-godliness, down the road of which the administration of the last eight years has deliberately moved this nation.
As expressed previously in these commentaries, it was God’s people praying the prayer of 2 Chronicles 7:14 that turned this election so dramatically. This is the answer the pundits are seeking when they ask incessantly about what happened that the news media types missed. How could this election have turned out so differently than expected right up until 9 p.m. EST Tuesday, November 8?
The fact is that the throne room of Heaven was deluged day and night with God’s people imploring Him for mercy–asking that He hear from Heaven and answer our prayers. This, of course required repentance–not of America’s population, but of God’s people. It is more than obvious that He did hear and answered in a spectacular way. God cannot lie, and He promised He would answer such prayer–uttered under biblically prerequisite conditions.
Now, the question is: Will we who are called by His name continue to pray and to follow up on those prerequisite conditions? How we respond will determine how our nation–and our lives–fare over the coming days, months, and, perhaps, years.
We have proof that our Lord answers prayers in a spectacular way. The pundits will never see it, but we who did and are doing the praying certainly understand.
We can further understand God’s influence in this election by the truly Christian people He has placed among the soon-incoming power elite.
So, in this pre-Tribulation time, we have a window of opportunity to honor our Lord’s merciful answer in giving us a leadership that promises a return to founding principles. Along with that merciful action, it is also obvious that we have been given a course-correction, a return to the moral pathway–out of the depravity foisted on us in recent years.
We don’t have to wonder about how to honor His mercy and kindness in having answered our prayers. His number-one priority has always been and will always be the salvation of souls. We are expected to honor His decision to give America a reprieve–I have no doubt–in order to, first and foremost, lift Jesus Christ so that the Holy Spirit draws all to Christ for salvation.
Just beneath that all-important mission for God’s people in America is to let the pastors of our churches know that the true, Christ-believing bodies of worship should be devoted to teaching and preaching truth. That is, we are now, more than ever, to be the Philadelphian church and not the Laodicean church (read Revelation chapter 3).
There is no doubt that we see this gracious, merciful, moving of God’s hand in America. However, there are also signals that are growing stronger by the day that we are in times at the very end of the age.
Jesus forewarned in the Olivet Discourse that there would be great ethnic strife. We have been seeing it manifested in American cities. The seas and waves of humanity are “roaring” in America and in Europe. This election has intensified that roaring, I believe.
People who refuse to accept the election results are exemplifying the apostle Paul’s perilous times characteristic “incontinent”–or, “out of control.” Jesus said societal conditions will be exactly like now when He intervenes catastrophically into the affairs of mankind. That will happen with the Rapture.
With the United States now seeming to be headed back toward the America we once knew and loved, with the promises of the new administration, we can enjoy our moment of gratefulness this Thanksgiving season.
However, this time of national renewal is also likely to be a time like described by Jesus–a time that will bring His next catastrophic intervention into the affairs of mankind. That time might just be upon us.
“Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” (Matthew 24: 44)
Heaven’s Media, and You
This election year has made manifest the satanic nature of the mainstream media in America. The practitioners of supposed news gathering and dissemination have thrown off all pretense of unbiased journalistic endeavor in the news business.
We have just entered, I am convinced, a time long ago prophesied. We are about to witness an unstoppable, super-accelerated movement into the beginning of the darkest era of human history. Every signal points to America and the world gushing toward the establishment of the regime of the most despotic dictator who will ever rule on earth.
Adolf Hitler, during his rise to power, had his media, the most effective propaganda machine that had existed to that time. There has developed a similar although much more powerful media machine–worldwide—that has for months and years been preparing the way for the lawless one–the first beast of Revelation chapter 13.
Lies have been laid down as truth for so long and in such profusion that they are now accepted as fact by massive numbers of people. Billions throughout the world are increasingly eager to embrace any government–any leader–offering things that will take care of their needs with little to no effort on their own parts.
In the United States, the end-times media conglomerate has been profoundly successful in deluding the American populace. The tipping point has been reached, and sufficient numbers of such like mindset can now vote themselves largess from the public treasury–as Alexis de Tocqueville forewarned in 1835.
Although alternative media now disseminates news alongside deluding, mainstream media, the alternative news journalism is demonstrably inadequate to serve as antidote to the poison polluting the thought processes of the masses. And the alternative media are woefully inadequate to counteract the distortions and lies, because they, too, are steeped in thinking from the mind of the great deceiver–the father of lies.
Judgment is coming. Bible prophecy clearly lays out the fact that this rebellious world must and will be judged for its blasphemous, anti-God, Antichrist-spirit-filled rage. I believe that judgment is slated for sooner rather than later, according to the swift movement forward of global world order as mentioned above.
The Lord of Heaven never proceeds with His judgment and wrath before first issuing forewarning of His actions to come. The mainstream and alternative media of this nation and world report signs of the times, but not from God’s omniscient perspective. As mentioned, their perspectives are skewed by the fallen minds that are influenced heavily by the father of lies.
God will always forewarn of impending judgment. That’s why we are in business–the Lord’s business–of getting prophetic truth out in these closing hours of the Church Age. You are interested in learning truth about things to come, or else you wouldn’t be coming to this website on a regular basis. You see the power grab by the world’s elitists that is leading to America’s demise and the forming of a globalist order that is destined to be ultimately ruled by Antichrist.
That’s where you come into the picture in these absolutely crucial days just ahead. You are a fellow watchman on the wall. You believe and want to obey Jesus Christ, who said as recorded in Mark 13: 37: “What I say to one, I say unto all. Watch.”
We are thankful to have such brothers and sisters in Christ to help in serving as God’s heavenly media. The Lord has chosen this and other prophetic forums to be His “forewarning news service” in this, what must certainly be the very last days of this Age of Grace.
We have an awesome responsibility as we watch the satanic forces of this planet attempt to quench freedom’s light and enslave peoples everywhere. The Creator of all things views our mission in this regard as an eternally important matter. Ezekiel the prophet stated the gravity with which the Lord considers our duty in these troubling although exciting days: “But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand” (Ezekiel 33:6).
So, how do we “blow the trumpet”? By doing exactly what we are doing. We sound the warning of judgment and wrath to come, something the world’s media will never recognize, much less about which they will “blow the trumpet” of forewarning.
Thank you for being part of this all-important effort in our Lord’s Royal Service.
Terry James Prophecy Line 