Most of the following worries in the Middle East center around a number of factors: 1) Israel’s impatience with threats from its enemies; 2) Iran’s bellicose posturing in threatening to use its missiles; 3) the Syrian regime’s feared ability to wage biological and chemical warfare; and 4) (of particular concern for many Bible prophecy students) the so-called Psalms 83 war.

I term it “so-called” because I remain unconvinced that the Scriptures involved indicate a prophesied war–for reasons I will address in due course. Other factors just mentioned dominate news coming out of the region where Armageddon is foretold to bring the world together for the final and most horrific war of the age.

Israel has good reasons to be short of temper and of patience, although the leadership has shown remarkable restraint to this point. The Jewish state has been threatened with annihilation by all leaders of the Arab League at one point or the other. With the record of that leadership’s predecessors attacking viciously in the relatively recent past, Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu can hardly disregard current Arab League semi-encirclement, the ring of hatred having tightened rapidly with the Muslim Brotherhood-spawned Arab Spring uprisings and now the tremendous growth of ISIS.

The Persian branch of Islamist rage has superseded the Arab rage to the point that Iran now threatens to produce weapons that can indeed do what Arabs from Nasser to Sadat and beyond could not. There remains concern that Bashar Al Assad has weapons of mass destruction in the form of biological and chemical agents that his Syrian regime might rain down on Israel’s citizenry, should the dictator begin to lose in his effort to stay in power. He has shown he can and will wage such   warfare upon his own people.

The Iranian leadership, as well as Russia, and to some extent, China, continues to back Al Assad. The Russians and China do so for the most part by refusing to allow U.N. action against the Assad regime in the Security Council, where each holds veto power. Russia has given somewhat stronger backing by moving some naval military assets into the waters nearby.

Iran, on the other hand, backs Assad with threats of military action, all the while displaying a growing missile arsenal–even demonstrably proving it now has an intercontinental ballistic missile that is capable of reaching the U.S. homeland. Iran’s apparent determination to stand by the Al Assad regime’s refusal to give up power is doubly troubling. Reports of weapons of mass destruction hidden away in Syria’s military arsenal, if more than rumors, make the threat of a Middle East conflict of major magnitude a real possibility. Iran apparently possesses the technological knowledge and hardware to assist Assad in raining terror upon Israel in order to divert attention from his own possible overthrow. He might choose all-out war if he is about to go the way of Saddam Hussein, Mubarak, and Gaddafi.

Enter one more worry voiced by many emailers of late: the Isaiah 17:1 prophecy, which follows: “The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap” (Isaiah 17:1). The Syrian capital city is, like so many other prophetic indicators today, front and center in the news headlines. The question is: Will we soon witness the complete destruction of Damascus as given in the Isaiah 17 prophecy?

Further: Might an attack on Israel on that city bring about the Psalms 83 war, bringing all of Israel’s enemies into coalition that will declare that war on the Jewish state? As stated many times in this column, most every major Islamist terrorist organization is headquartered in this, the longest continuously inhabited city in world history. A single strike of a relatively low yield nuclear weapon could do the job in a single flight of an Israeli fighter-bomber. The heads of the terrorists’ hydra-headed serpent could be lopped off in that single blow.

My belief is that the Psalms 83 matter is a prayer for God’s protection, and that it will be answered when the “many people with thee” of the Ezekiel 38-39 Gog-Magog war will be destroyed, except for one-sixth of those forces. My assessment is that whether the Psalms 83 Scripture indicates an actual war or is an imprecatory prayer for God to vanquish Israel’s surrounding enemies, the attack on Damascus–if the destruction does come from an Israeli attack—and such a war won’t happen until after the Rapture of the church.

Such an event would take the world out of the time of “business as usual,” as Jesus prophesied in Luke 17:26-30 and Matthew 24:36-42, 44, in my opinion.

Such an attack and a war would be catastrophic to the world’s economy, and in other ways that are almost incalculable. Sudden destruction comes, according to Jesus’ words in those passages, similarly to the situation in the cases of the Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah–that is, after Noah and Lot were safely out of range of harm at the time judgment fell. It fell immediately after they were safely in the ark and in the city of Zoar.

He said that as it was at that time, so will it be at the time He intervenes again into the affairs of men in a catastrophic way. Again, Luke 21: 28 are applicable. “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.”

The past number of weeks has brought a ramping up of vitriol against the doctrine of the pre-Trib Rapture to my inbox. The assault seems spearheaded by one blog thrust in particular. I receive as many as three long diatribes from this source in a single day. The accusation is that those who believe in the pre-Trib Rapture are part of what this blog entity calls the Rapture Cult.

A number of emails pour in from various individuals who, close examination uncovers, are likely in cahoots with the blog-entity initiating this latest strategy against pre-Trib Rapture teaching. These emails, without exception, use the “Margaret McDonald” accusatory proclamation. They claim that we who believe the Bible presents a pre-Trib Rapture have been taken in by the hellish vision of the nineteenth century false prophetess who is said to have also caused John Darby to fall for the lie of a pre-Trib Rapture. C. I. Scofield, the DeHaans, and the rest of us have joined and perpetuated this ” Rapture cult.”

The anti-pre-Trib blog writer points an anger-tinged condemnation of the ancient writings such as that of one called Pseudo-Ephraem. This writer from antiquity has been studied by prophecy scholars such as Grant Jeffrey and others in order to find extra-biblical validation that the pre-Trib view of Rapture was held by the early church fathers and by the early church in general.

The blogger insinuates that the very use of the title “pseudo” indicates this is a false teacher. The “genuine” Ephraem, he writes, apparently lived in the fourth century, while the “pseudo” lived in as late as the seventh. Yet he confuses his attempt to make his case by using both Ephraems to claim that they both, in the final analysis, write a firm denial of the pre-Trib Rapture.

The blogger writes of both Ephraems: “Both said the only thing ‘remaining’ is the arrival of Antichrist”–i.e., they both believed, according to him, that the Antichrist coming to power is the next prophetic event to take place. No Rapture is in view.

Grant Jeffrey plainly refutes that claim through his research. Jeffrey wrote the following in a chapter for one of my books:

1. Ephraem’s manuscript lays out the events of the last days in chronological sequence. Significantly, he began with the Rapture, using the word “imminent,” then he described the Great Tribulation of three and a half years duration under the Antichrist’s tyranny, followed by the second coming of Christ to earth with His saints to defeat the Antichrist.
2. Significantly, at the beginning of his treatise in section 2, Ephraem used the word “imminent” to describe the Rapture occurring before the Tribulation and the coming of the Antichrist. “We ought to understand thoroughly therefore, my brothers which is imminent or overhanging.”
3. He clearly described the pre-Tribulation Rapture: “Because all saints and the Elect of the Lord are gathered together before the tribulation which is about to come and are taken to the Lord, in order that they may not see at any time the confusion which overwhelms the world because of our sins.”–Grant Jeffrey, “Rapture, Three Fascinating Discoveries”

The writers of those earlier times used the term “pseudo” as merely a literary device in order to not have their names made public for one reason or the other. The same devices are used today in modern literature, of course. And, there are other factors involved in why such pseudonym devices were employed, but that’s not relevant here.

The point is that very meticulous scholarship examining the writers of that ancient period has proven beyond doubt–to me and many others who study Bible prophecy–that there were many students of God’s Word amongst the early believers who held to a pre-Tribulation Rapture of the church.

Yet the blogger calls the writings by Ephraem the Syrian (A.D. 306 to 373) “false witness” and refers to the writer as a “forger.” This he does without actual proof of his charge, but with high-sounding, pseudo-scholarly phraseology, in my opinion.

The danger in all this is that these assaults on the Rapture deflect the study of many of the true children of God who have a desire to look into Bible prophecy these days. Believe me, these seem to constitute a group that is diminishing in number.

The bloggers that are virulently against the truth about the pre-Trib Rapture brought to us by Paul the apostle in his letters to the Thessalonians and the Corinthians, and indeed by Jesus Himself as given in John 14:1-3, send their seemingly well-studied dogma in mass mailings on an ever-increasing basis. People are all too quick to take the sophistry thus delivered, usually unsolicited, as factual. Like those who get their news from cyberspace venues who twist truth that is not news at all, but fable, those marginally interested in Bible prophecy often take the lazy way and choose the blog presentations from the purveyors of anti-pre-Trib Rapture propaganda.

This is a primary reason I wrote my latest book, Rapture Ready…Or Not: 15 Reasons This Is the Generation That will Be Left Behind. My prayerful desire was and continues to be to get the book into the hands of as many as possible in order to counter such satanically spawned attacks. My special prayer is that we get the book to as many pastors and teachers within churches that are still of the Philadelphian rather than of the Laodicean sort.

My thanks to all who have seen to it that your pastors and teachers now have this book in their possession. For those who haven’t yet seen to it that these ministers of your acquaintance have copies, I ask that you consider providing each a copy.

Time looks to be running out in this Age of Grace. Pray, if you will, that these will begin using their pulpits and teaching opportunities to deliver truth about Christ’s imminent coming for all believers. As chapter 1 of Rapture Ready…Or Not puts it: “The end isn’t near, it’s here.”

My laptop was new, just out of the box. There wasn’t time enough to program it with the things I needed in order to use it before leaving on a trip to San Antonio, Texas. I am, as Dr. J. Vernon McGee used to say, “a back number” when it comes to acumen and literacy. I need all of the assistance I can get in navigating the Net. On top of that, I need JAWS (Jobs Accessible Word System)–a voice synthesis computer program–to tell me what I’m doing on my computer, because I’ve been blind since 1993.

So it was that I didn’t have my anytime-I-want-it Internet access and email available to me while on the trip. This was quite disconcerting, as I am constantly online and using email during the course of any given day. I felt at times imprisoned at the loss of liberty to get into cyberspace any time I wished.

I reflected during those hours without my computer much like we old-timers sometimes get hung up on nostalgia about our days of yesteryear when we didn’t have air conditioning in the hot summers. How in the world did we ever do without those environment-controlling technical wonders? I wouldn’t have to worry about returning to those humidity-filled, sweat-inducing days of yore, I was pretty sure. And, at least I knew I could hang on until I returned to the computer, Internet, email, and the like. My time in lock-up, away from Internet access, was not permanent.

However, an executive order by the president of the United States could, at any moment in the future, end freedom from worry about loss of ability to conduct business through such electronic communications. According to some experts, liberty’s last gleaming, so far as cyberspace is concerned, is as near as the next crisis deemed severe enough to invoke pulling the plug on our Internet availability.

The presidential dictate of Friday, July 6, 2012 gives government unprecedented new authority to take over wired and wireless private communication networks under pretext of national security. The White House edict will permit such national security entities as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Defense, Department of State, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to formulate, implement, and direct policy recommendations and plans for ensuring continuity of government communication capabilities in time of crisis.

The Obama directive authorized the establishment of a National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Committee (NS/EP). Representatives from each of the agencies constitute the crisis-management system for controlling all communications within the nation.

According to the executive order, “The Federal Government must have the ability to communicate at all times and under all circumstances to carry out its most critical and time sensitive missions.”

A watchdog group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), issued a statement that said, “The problem with the executive order is that it also grants the DHS new authority to seize private communication facilities when necessary and to effectively shut down or limit civilian communications in a national crisis.”

Amie Stepanovich, associate litigation council at EPIC, said the provision that grants the government such encompassing control over private communications is troubling. She maintains that the complete takeover of private networks for government communications purposes during a crisis could degrade or severely compromise the civilian population’s ability to communicate in an emergency.

Stepanovich said, “This specific authority is something that should have been granted through Congress, rather than through executive order.”

And therein resides the reason for the phrase liberty’s last gleaming for the title of this commentary. This president has taken every opportunity, it seems to me, to dilute American liberty through presidential edict, as opposed to seeking approval through constitutional means. We have watched this process take place time after time, even to the point of foisting Obama Care upon a population that overwhelmingly disapproves of the enslaving legislation–legislation that was found unconstitutional under the guise of which it was congressionally proposed and approved–as a mandate to require the purchase of health insurance.

It took a Supreme Court chief justice to find a surreptitious way to make it constitutional by calling the legislation not a mandate, but a tax, in order to get the forced payment strapped upon the backs of the already national-debt-laden American people.

Another deep gully –that of impending, internet tyranny– materialized in America’s landscape of liberty, caused by the flood of executive orders that are eroding our freedoms. No doubt, the biblically prophesied great world leader that is soon to appear will completely control all communications, ostensibly for purposes of instituting measures that the people of planet earth will believe are the answer to the great crisis of the time.

I’m convinced that the crisis that will be too good for Antichrist to waste will be the crisis created in the wake of the Rapture of the church. But, for believers who go to be with Christ, it will mean true liberty forever.

Doomsday talk is on the rise. It brings to mind the 1964 movie filmed in stark black and white on the topic of nuclear war, entitled Dr. Strangelove. This was a darkly humorous film that captured the fearful times at the height of the Cold War involving America and the Soviet Union.

A U.S. general, in this fictional account, went a bit nutso and ordered a strike on the Soviet Union by the B-52 bombers under his command. (Yes, Hollywood was liberal and saw the U.S. as more evil than the Communist world in those days, too.)

The president, played by Peter Sellers–who also played Dr. Strangelove, the former Nazi scientist in the employ of the U.S. Department of Defense–did all he could to direct the Soviets to bring down the final B-52 as it began its assault. But, alas, the bomber, although crippled by a nearby anti-aircraft missile strike, managed to unleash a multi-megaton hydrogen bomb.

This strike set in motion all-out nuclear war because the Soviets had developed a doomsday machine nobody within the U.S. Defense Department knew about. It became at that point a final war that could not be controlled or stopped.

Back to reality… President Ronald Reagan’s peaceful defeat of Soviet designs for world domination was believed to bring the Cold War to an end. Immediately the cries by the “progressives” went up to convert all of the Cold War military spending to social, do-good causes.

This call for ever-decreasing spending in America’s military roared during the Clinton years and again during the Obama administrations so that the U.S. military, in many of its aspects is now said to be at pre-World War II levels.

But, it is obvious to those who view things through the lens of reality that America’s old, Cold War foes–Russia and China–are building military war-making machinery. They are doing so technologically, if not in war-capable hardware, and now are reaching out to achieve super-power status. Other diabolist states are doing their best to establish their niches in the world’s nuclear power structure.   

We know all about Iran wanting to develop nuclear weaponry and the missile capability to deliver them. The Ayatollahs have even forewarned time after time just who these weapons when completed will be used against.

North Korea makes no bones about wanting to hit any target they can when they achieve the capability to accurately launch them.

All of this has brought the world to renewed fears of the world possibly meeting its end in fiery, nuclear doom within a decade or sooner.

European doomsday worry-warts are ginning up ultra-Cold War fears by warning citizens to prepare for disaster. With the prospect of the influx of millions of hostile militants migrating to Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, as I reported last week, said, “We must give priority to security, so let’s start setting up a joint European army.”

The German government has instructed its people to prepare for disaster by stockpiling ten days’ worth of food and five days’ worth of water. Berlin is also considering re-instituting conscription (a military draft) in view of the tremendous surge of Muslims entering Europe.

One thing we haven’t heard much about in this volatile political season is that President Obama is also speaking in such terms. In June he said that Americans must be prepared “–by having an evacuation plan,” as well as “having a fully-stocked disaster supply kit.”  

All of this comes with increasing alarm by some military analysts who report that Russia is developing and testing new “hyper-weapons.” Russian TU-22M3 long-range Backfire bomber aircraft will now be armed with the new Russian Kh-32 cruise missile. The capabilities of this missile are astounding: It can fly at speeds of up to 600 mph to an altitude of almost 25 miles, and when it reaches the proximity of its target, fly downward at a speed of almost 3,000 mph with a total range of almost 600 miles.

There are unsubstantiated reports within some fear-forewarning supposition that “doomsday bunkers” have been prepared for Russian citizenry. Some of the fearful postulation is that many within Russian officialdom are taking to the especially prepared doomsday bunkers in the Yamantau Mountain complex that has been constructed.

Add to this increasing reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin is in the process of purging all upper-echelon officers within his military that oppose future war with Europe and the U.S.

Turkey is said to be making tremendous changes within its military planning, in conjunction with Putin’s own maneuverings, as preparations for an eventual war in the Middle East and beyond are becoming more manifest.

Chinese leaders are all but declaring war on China’s neighbors in creating islands in the South China Sea–which it now claims for the most part to belong to China. The Chinese navy consistently challenges any commercial and other ships that want to pass through what the world still considers international waters.

China, like Russia, is believed to have produced weapons of a defensive nature that are designed to thwart nuclear missile strikes in retaliation for their own offensive assaults–thus in violation of longstanding agreements against such military technological development.

So, it looks like the old Dr. Strangelove Cold War fears are back. Despite the hyperbole and conspiracy theories, there is enough reality-based concern to be alert to the worries wrought by all this doomsday speculation.

All that said, the bottom line is that the God of Heaven will have the final say about the fate of nations–of planet earth. As a matter of fact, He has already given us all we need to know about that which this generation is now facing so far as the likelihood of doomsday is concerned.

This world is not at its end. It won’t be at its end until at a minimum 1007 years from now–and that is if the Rapture occurred within the next fifteen minutes.

“Doomsday” is a matter that must be viewed in terms of degree. It is true, biblically, that earth’s total obliteration will never take place by human use of the hydrogen bomb or any other device or doomsday machine. It is equally true, prophetically speaking, that earth as we know it will one day be done away with, then remade. That will perhaps take place through nuclear fission or some other phenomenon of natural physics. However, it is done, it will be God who remakes the heavens and the earth.

To most all of those who will be left behind and live through the Tribulation era following the Rapture of the Church it will be the time of doom. Most believers (those who accept Christ after the Rapture) will be martyred. Theirs will not be “doom” but severe persecution–and, in most cases, death. But, those who die will go instantly to an eternity of bliss beyond all imagination.

To the reader: You don’t have to concern yourself with “Doomsday.” Jesus Christ died on the cross at Calvary two thousand years ago to assure that your place of heavenly safety is forever secured. Again, the following is the way God has provided for you to escape the terrors the doomed unbelievers of the ages must face:

“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).

The year 2016 has, like those years just previous, brought with it strange geophysical manifestations. The heat and storms of recent days were once called unprecedented in many cases, in terms of records falling. Now the unusual weather is becoming considered the norm.

The tremendous rainfall in several regions of the U.S., particularly in southern Louisiana, have taken lives and devastated property along it’s swath. People are forced to move to safer ground and will likely have to completely rebuild their homes and their lives in the areas affected. Wild fires in California are even more destructive, with thousands left homeless, their lives thrown into chaos.

This outbreak of devastation is joined by myriad earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other geophysical phenomena that seem to be ratcheting up by the hour around the world.

Paul the apostle’s words provide the thought-provoking impetus for this commentary: “This also know, that in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall…have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:1, 2, 5).

My own cerebral meanderings on what’s going on conjured the thought. This generation, through denying even the mention of the power of God’s dealing with mankind, might be resulting in an increasing lack of power of the electrical sort to energize the households and businesses of large parts of America.

A stretch, you say?

The supposition/postulation isn’t as far-fetched as might be thought at first assessment. To begin, we must ask: Using Paul’s perilous-times indicator, what is the “power”–albeit of spiritual nature–within the “form of godliness” that this generation is denying? The answer is found in the following Scripture. That power is He “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence” (Colossians 1:15-8).

The name is Jesus. It is the name above every other name–now, and in the ages to come (see Ephesians 1:21; Philippians 2:9). Come to think of it, it is totally relevant to analyze these matters in this way. The One who owns that holy name holds in His mighty hand all power, whether of the natural or supernatural variety, according to God’s Word as given above. Without the Lord Jesus Christ, there would be nothing whatsoever upon which to cogitate–nor would you and I be here to think upon anything.

But, this is not the way many people in America now view the God of all creation. Jesus, in this country whose founders and other leaders invoked that holy name in many of their writings, is now considered persona non grata. His name can be used as a curse word in film and other public entertainment venues, and in private conversations. But, He isn’t to be mentioned in the public school systems, nor can public prayers be ended with His name for fear of offending those of other religious belief systems.

As a matter of fact, the Supreme Court ruled in 1963 that God will no longer be allowed in public classrooms. Our leaders have turned their backs on God, and, sadly, many of America’s citizenry prove by their daily way of life that they indeed follow the leaders. Jesus, as we’ve written before in these commentaries, spoke to the very conditions we see developing with regard to geophysical upheaval. While the Lord rode the little donkey toward Jerusalem to offer himself as Israel’s Messiah, the people laid palm fronds before the animal’s path. They praised Jesus, shouting, “Hosanna!” They were shouting, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

The pharisaical religionists told Jesus to make the people stop their praise of Him. These considered it blasphemous for the people to attribute the title of Messiah to this carpenter from Nazareth. The Judaizers hated Him and wanted Him dead. They would shortly get their wish, because Jesus would soon be crucified upon Golgotha.

The modern-day religionists and those who hate the name of Jesus Christ, because He represents to them a narrow-minded way of righteous living to which they will not conform, are doing all within their power to keep the people of the nation from seeing Jesus as the Savior of the world. The name of Jesus is suppressed at every level they can manage to influence.

Luke recorded Jesus’ words to the God-despisers of those times–those who had a form of godliness but denied the power thereof: “And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” (Luke 19:40).

Jesus is again about to interject His majestic presence into this Christ-rejecting world. It seems to me that nature is shouting, “Hosanna!”

A time is coming, according to Bible prophecy, when the world will experience the most powerful leader to have ever lived upon the planet. He will far surpass in military capability any president of the United States of America who has yet held the reins of power.

The people of planet earth will literally become awestruck as they witness his exploits. The prophecy regarding the amazement over this future military man-marvel is seen in the following:

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)

We have looked many times at this future tyrant John calls through Holy Spirit Inspiration “the beast.”

He is the first of two beasts that John, through his Revelation vision, sees coming into world history. This beast will make his appearance during the period Daniel the prophet indicated will be the seventieth week that will wrap up premillennial human history. That will be the last seven years leading up to the return of Christ at Armageddon (Revelation 19:11). We know him better, perhaps, as Antichrist.

It is good to think for a bit on that Scripture about this man-beast. The Bible says the question will be asked by the populations of the world–who will actually worship him: Who is able to make war with him?”

In other words, it will look to everyone who witnesses Antichrist’s military exploits and other miraculous accomplishments that he is a god. It will appear, the prophecy says immediately preceding the question, that he is killed by a wound in his head and comes back to life. This is obviously, from our understanding and perspective today, a false resurrection. However, the world at that time of great delusion won’t see it that way.

The question “Who can make war with him?” will be one asked with mesmerized stares of eyes more glazed and glistening than were those as recorded on the black-and-white films of Hitler’s worshipers during the 1930s.

There is no such leader with that kind of power anywhere in view today. There are many, many military leaders and their armies who can and do make war with anyone and everyone in this present geopolitical climate. That future beast will be indeed an animal of unprecedented military capability and authority.

Besides the United States military–still the most feared on the planet despite the current president’s efforts to, in my view, greatly diminish its strength–Russia and China continue to build tremendous war-making machines. Iran, Turkey, and others constantly aspire to more powerful militaries. There will have to occur massive changes in the military power structures of the world to bring about this singular most monstrous war-making leader, against whom no one is thought to be able to fight.

We often conjecture about what happens to the United States. Why isn’t it in Bible prophecy? If there, it certainly is in a greatly changed configuration, because its military is nowhere in sight, prophetically speaking.

We believe that the militaries of Russia, China, and many others, such as Iran and Turkey, are in prophetic view. We believe we see many of these within the Gog-Magog assault into the Middle East toward Israel as given in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39.

Our own view within the pre-Trib camp concerning the Rapture holds that the great changes needed to reconfigure things in alignment with end times Bible prophecy will unfold during the post-Rapture era. At least, that is my understanding at this point in time.

After that great Rapture event, the United States might fit into being aligned with those nation-entities that stand on the sideline as the Gog-Magog attack begins and simply make a diplomatic protest.

Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil? Have you come to take a great spoil? (Ezekiel 38:13)

At any rate, the coalition that assaults into the Holy Land environs will be powerful, and unopposed–by human agencies, that is. God, of course, will completely destroy all but one-sixth of that Gog-Magog army in that future attack. After that destruction, only the great “kings of the East” juggernaut will remain as a force with which to be reckoned.

So, how does the great beast of Revelation 13 accumulate such awesome strength as to have the whole world ask: “Who is able to make war with him?”

In my own cogitations upon the matter–and it is supposition to be sure–there is somehow a dividing line set between the occidental and oriental worlds. This is true to this point in history, I think. But, in that day there seems to be a supernatural demarcation–the Euphrates River or thereabouts. When it is “dried up” as given in Revelation chapter 16, the kings of the East–led no doubt by China–will invade at the time of Armageddon, it seems. At that time the demons appointed especially for that moment will be released from their holding places and will supernaturally indwell those hordes from the orient. These will kill one-third of earth’s inhabitants, the prophecy tells us. However, all of this will happen later, at the very end of the Tribulation–Daniel’s seventieth week.

At that earlier time of the Gog-Magog attack, I believe that Antichrist, resident within the nations who will send a note of protest (Ezekiel 38:13), will understand Bible prophecy to the point that he will think slyly to let the Gog-Magog forces go to their destruction by the God of Heaven. He will then move into the military power vacuum and build his mighty army–an army supernaturally enhanced by the dark powers of Satan.

Again, it is the view of most who hold to the pre-Trib view of the Rapture and to pre-Millennialism that this beast–Antichrist–is to come out of the geographical area now known as the European Union. He will come from the people who were at the heart of the ancient Roman Empire -the people who destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple in AD 70. I do not believe the beast will be a Muslim, although I do believe his ethnic make-up will be from the area of ancient Assyria. He will, nonetheless, I’m convinced, have been born and raised in the area of Europe, likely somewhere near Rome.

Today there is movement toward beginning a military establishment in that very region. The following excerpt is interesting in that regard.

The leaders of the Czech Republic and Hungary say a “joint European army” is needed to bolster security in the EU.

They were speaking ahead of talks in Warsaw with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. They dislike her welcome for Muslim migrants from outside the EU.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said “we must give priority to security, so let’s start setting up a joint European army”.

The UK government has strongly opposed any such moves outside Nato’s scope.

The Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Slovak leaders are coordinating their foreign policy as the “Visegrad Group.” (“Czechs and Hungarians call for EU army amid security worries,” BBC News, 8/27/16)

With the UK (Britain, possibly “the merchants of Tarsish”) leaving the EU in the so-called Brexit, the way might be clear to generate great interest in such a powerful military–absent NATO–as the beast can one day build upon. One thing sure, such a military monster will one day be constructed.

It will take the Lord Himself, returning from Heaven with the saints of glory, to bring Antichrist’s ability to make war to an end. Thankfully, Jesus Christ will do so. I believe our Lord will end the beast’s war-making capability with the same words He used that day on the stormy Sea of Galilee. “Peace. Be still.”

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

The G-20 meets occasionally to try to reach some degree of consensus on how to globally govern the rest of us. The phrase “some degree,” in combination with the word “consensus,” in my view, constitutes what is known as a non sequitur, or nonstarter. The sentiment, thus expressed, does not follow. Consensus is just that–consensus; i.e., it strongly implies harmony without substantial opinion to the contrary.

In international community diplomatic parlance, however, “some degree” is as close to consensus as it gets. And, this quandary is at the heart of the distress and perplexity world leaders face in trying to govern the rest of us in a global way. Globalism–as it has always been attempted–has been an abject failure. The contentiousness is just too great when efforts are made to get the nations of the world to agree on anything, much less on things as monumental as creating a one-world order. All such monolithic projects have failed miserably since the Babel builders saw their attempt at world order under one man, more or less, come crashing down when God destroyed the tower under construction and scattered the would-be, new-world-order masters and their subjects to different locations around the world (Genesis 11). There simply is no consensus in the matter of globalism.

The individual egos among world leaders are themselves monumental–as titanic as the tower of that Genesis 11 account. The lyrics in a country song sum up the gargantuan egos of today’s national leaderships: They are “legends in their own minds.”

Because of the pride and arrogance–not to mention the greed and lust–rampant within so many countries, neither consensus nor anything close to it can ever be reached to produce a single, governing global entity. Yet those of us who study God’s prophetic word believe there is ultimately to be a global order under one dictator, the man of sin, the Antichrist.

Since there can never be harmony on a worldwide scale that will bring order like that indicated in Revelation 13:16-18, how will the beast’s regime come to fulfillment? While thinking on such things, I was struck with the realization–upon reading an article by my friend Wilfred Hahn—that globalism is, itself, a non sequitur, a nonstarter.

Hahn, an expert on global economic matters whose articles appear on Rapture Ready, wrote the following, quoting Moisés Naím, the well-known former editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine and former executive director of the World Bank:

When was the last time you heard that a large number of countries agreed to a major international accord on a pressing issue? Not in more than a decade.… These failures represent not only the perpetual lack of international consensus, but also a flawed obsession with multilateralism as the panacea for all the world’s ills. It has become far too dangerous to continue to rely on large-scale multilateral negotiations that stopped yielding results almost two decades ago. So what is to be done? To start, let’s forget about trying to get the planet’s nearly two hundred countries to agree. We need to abandon that fool’s errand in favor of a new idea: minilateralism. By minilateralism, I mean a smarter, more targeted approach: We should bring to the table the smallest possible number of countries needed to have the largest possible impact on solving a particular problem. (Wilfred Hahn, ” The Bible on the Next World Leader,” Eternal Value Review, www.eternalvalue.com)

This recommended minilateralist approach seems to precisely foreshadow the global configuration that will vault Antichrist to his dictatorship and sustain his power. It will be constructed by the principalities the apostle Paul exposes as recorded in Ephesians 6:12. We see this global arrangement for the climax of history just prior to Christ’s return in the following scriptural passage: “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast” (Revelation 17:12-13).

Since the prideful human power wielders will never easily come to consensus on governing on a worldwide basis, the most powerful dictator ever to be upon planet earth will use his demonic force of will to wrest control from the holdouts.

After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things. (Daniel 7:8-9)

Watching the G-20 in action –or perhaps watching the inaction of the G-20 would be more appropriate terminology– makes ever more obvious that the minilateral approach is likely the methodology that will be used by the powers and principalities of Ephesians 6:12 to bring about Satan’s final form of globalism.