Author’s note: Fears of global war are again at the forefront, as Russia’s Putin promises a nuclear response if NATO’s Western forces get involved in the Ukrainian conflict, as France’s Emmanuel Macron has suggested. So this reposted article from 2023 is still relevant, in my view, as fears of World War III continue to rise.

Through Peace, Not Force

We receive reports each day that war is about to burst forth, that the world will change instantly when things suddenly go out of control. Global diplomats and governors will be helpless to assuage the rage into world war once the attacks begin.

For example, one front-and-center story that warns of war involves an ages-long trouble spot that has threatened to initiate nuclear conflict.

Is China “Massing Forces at Coastal Military Bases” in Preparation for an Invasion of Taiwan?

If the Chinese decide to pull the trigger on an invasion of Taiwan, it will instantly become the biggest news story in the entire world. Because the moment that an invasion of Taiwan begins, the United States and China will be at war, and nothing will ever be the same again. (Rapture Ready News, September 15, 2023)

The Russian invasion into Ukraine and the bellicose rants of some of Vladimir Putin’s military and diplomatic leaders make it clear the former Soviet Empire is again about to raise its ugly head. They threaten nuclear war at almost every opportunity. We can see that things are ramping up for the coming war against Israel, according to Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39.

Many pundits—even from the Bible-prophecy perspective—are warning that America might at any moment be invaded from the northern and southern borders by the Chinese and Russian militaries. This is despite the fact that: 1) there is not sufficient evidence to support the supposed threats, and 2) such hyperbole goes against what God’s Word indicates for both the “King of the kings of the east” (Revelation chapters 9 and 16) and Rosh (Russia), as indicated in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39.

Both of these bad actors on the war-making stage are destined to do their dastardly worst in other places of the world. Both China and Russia will be dealt with in the proper places and times by the Lord Himself, we are assured.

If these diabolists attacked the United States, our military would react, regardless of the feared impotence of the presidential administration and top military of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sort. There are automatic reaction forces in place to, through nuclear submarine retaliation alone, make such attacks by America’s chief enemies a suicide mission for the entire world.

This realized and stated, such potential for making a totally destructive war that threatens to end life on Earth has its place in Bible prophecy. This truth is wrapped up in the one who will become the world’s last and most powerful evil dictator.

Actually, it will be the threat of war that will cause the world to hand this wicked man his dictatorial crown. We are told this by Daniel the prophet:

“And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries. And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant” (Daniel 11:21-22).

Daniel went on to say:

“And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done. Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all” (Daniel 11:36-37).

This is in reference, of course, to the “prince that shall come” of Daniel chapter 9. This evil prince—the son of perdition, the man of sin, the Antichrist—will come in by offering peace. He won’t have to win victories to achieve the control he desires. People will willingly give it to him.

This, of course, I believe, is verified in the prophecy of the first rider on the white horse of Revelation 6. Antichrist has no arrows, but a bow and crown, which are “given” to him.

“And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer” (Revelation 6:1-2).

So this most powerful, evilest despot of all of human history will be, at first, unlike the previous vile dictators on Earth. Each of them—like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and all of the ruthless leaders like the Khans of the ancient past—arose to power by murderous, raw aggression. This final one will come with guile and demonically deceptive powers that will make people beg for him to take the crown of dominion they will gladly offer.

The question is valid: Why will such a man be not only accepted but hailed and given complete adulation by most of the earth’s population?

The answer, of course, is that he will offer peace. This man, through demonic deceptiveness, will offer to take fear of world-rending nuclear war from the fear-filled thoughts of humankind.

We see that fear building even now in preparation for the time when people will have lost reasoning guided by the Holy Spirit’s influence. The “restrainer” of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 will no longer hold back both the madness of humanity and human emotions. The fear will cause hearts to fail, the Word tells us.

This most charismatic geopolitical leader in history will promise peace and prosperity. But it will be “peace, prosperity, and the coming holocaust,” as the title of my friend Dave Hunt’s book so marvelously described.

Here is a further description by God Himself—through Daniel’s vision—of the coming world leader that might even now be itching to take the reins of global government:

“And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand” (Daniel 8:23-25).

The fear of all-out nuclear war will clutch the reprobate mindset of most of humanity and will cause them to give Antichrist his crown. He won’t have to fire a shot—at least, not at first. His military firepower and much worse will be used later in his satanically driven holocaust we call the Tribulation.

Antichrist’s great power and authority will come through the false peace he will promise. That delusion that mesmerizes the masses will bring on the worst time of all human history, according to Jesus (Matthew 24:21). Paul, the great apostle, said the following:

“For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:3).

You want to escape that time of horror that humanity faces—perhaps in the very near future. Here’s how to go to Christ when He calls God’s family to Himself to escape Antichrist’s dictatorship:

“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).

If these are the last of the last days we are experiencing, we who are believers should possess the capability to know just how near is our Lord’s Return. A powerful scripture that makes this so is the Command Given by the Lord Himself.

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

Jesus, when using the phrase all these things, was referencing the prophetic signals that would immediately precede His breaking in on this incorrigible world of rebels against God. The signs would be, he forewarned, prolific and ubiquitous. That is, these prophesied things will be tremendous in terms of their happening and swiftness in coming to pass. These will be in every direction one looks. It will be a time of a prophetic horizon filled with unmistakable indicators that the believers alive at the time cannot miss.

This generation of the Redeemed is to be looking up for His coming to bring Fulfillment of their Promised Redemption. I.e., the Rapture will, the Lord Promises, be on the very cusp of happening when all the indicators will be flashing brightly into the spiritual eyes of those who are in God’s Family.

One of the most profound prophecies given in God’s Word concerning the very last days before Christ’s physical Return to Planet Earth involves that of the world’s final dictator, the one John called Antichrist.

There have been volumes written on this foretold tyrant that will, for a short time, rule much of the world.

We are told in Revelation chapter 13 that he will cause all to receive a mark and number in order to survive. This has, at its core, the infamous 666 numbering system. It will no doubt be the outgrowth –the greatly developed technology—involving digital currency and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).

That technology is, at this point, a worldwide reality because of satellites connecting all continents with instantaneous transacting capability.

So, the Antichrist’s technologies are on the scene now, as is the entirety of the societal, cultural, geopolitical, and religious stage-setting for the coming Tribulation era.

There are differing views regarding from what area of the ancient Roman Empire will come the one who will be Antichrist. My own view –which I believe has been for many decades the view of solid Bible prophecy scholars such as Dr. John Walvoord, Dr. Dwight Pentecost, Dr. Henry Morris, Dr. Tim LaHaye, and many others, is that this final world dictator will come out of Western Europe. –Thus, because he will, according to Daniel the prophet, be the prince that shall come out of the Roman force that destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple in A.D. 70. Here again is the prophecy that helps draw this conclusion.

“And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate” (Daniel 9:26-27).

Antichrist, that prince that shall come, we are convicted, will not be from the eastern leg of the old Roman Empire, that is, not from out of Constantinople, the eastern capital, but from Rome, the capital of the western leg of that monstrous dream vision Daniel interpreted for King Nebuchadnezzar, as recorded in Daniel chapter 2.

It is from out of Rome that General Titus, sent by his father, Roman Emperor Vespasian, led the Roman legions in destroying Jerusalem and the Temple.

In consideration of this and taking into account that all other signals now are in place, setting the stage for that man of sin’s coming to power, we must take a serious look at a recent matter that is in the process of developing.

We must examine whether Antichrist’s western European stronghold –his inevitable geographic base location, can now be determined. The following news brief is interesting in that regard.

Horizon Europe is the European Commission’s plan to implement “adapting our way of life” for climate change; funding digital, genome collections and cybersecurity projects under the guise of tackling cancer; a digital twin of the oceans; smart cities for which two UK cities have been selected; and, a “soil deal for Europe” which is another means of achieving the European Green Deal and UN Sustainable Development Goals.

This is the advance of technocracy. The UN Sustainable Development Goals is technocracy.

(“UKSTF”). Launched in March 2023, the UKSTF is the UK government’s plan to cement the UK’s place as a science and technology superpower by 2030…. Where is all of this leading to? Technocracy…

Governments are increasingly exerting control over citizens, eroding rights and freedoms. Centralization of power is on the rise, which is undermining the role of local governments.

Across the world, regimes, such as the European Union, are constructing a worldwide enslavement grid that has not been possible before as the technology was not available.

Several different technologies are being implemented over time and in different places. It’s easy to lose sight that it is all connected…

Throughout history, dictators and tyrants have been constrained by various factors, such as logistical difficulties, fear of resistance, or the intervention of other nations. However, as technology advances, these limitations are becoming increasingly weaker, allowing dictators to push people further than ever before…

Source: Horizon Europe is a euphemism for technocracy BY RHODA WILSON ON FEBRUARY 29, 2024 – EXPOSE, RAPTURE READY NEWS, MARCH 1, 2024]

So it is prudent to look at this development in Europe as likely being the constructing of that future and final world dictator’s stronghold. Horizon Europe is yet another brick in the neo-tower of Babel Lucifer is building. “Build Back Better” is the slogan that globalists such as the World Economic Forum (WEF) and others are proclaiming in demanding a “Great Reset.”

These anti-God minions of Ephesians 6: 12 will have their construction pathway when Christ Calls believers to Himself in the Rapture. Those left behind to face the penultimate evil flowing from Antichrist’s stronghold will endure the worst time of all human history, according to Jesus Himself (Matthew 24:21).

You need not be in those numbers left behind. Here is how to instead go to the Safe Heavenly Shelter the Lord has Prepared for those who love Him and accept God’s Grace Gift Offer.

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10).

Recently, a 66-year-old man in my state was investigated upon reports of his being a pedophile. According to the report of his arrest, he had computer files taken from his online perusing of the Internet involving child porn. At the center of his wicked fetish, the report says, was sado-sexual activity. For his crime, upon his pleading guilty to the charges, he was given 40 years of imprisonment –if I heard the report correctly. Certainly, this is a death sentence in that, without parole, he will die incarcerated.

Like you, his crime is, to me, unthinkable. Such evil must be secured against ever coming to the forefront of human comportment. Yet the question must be examined. Why do the same justice systems, whether national, state, or local, look at this man’s wickedness as criminal activity that must be dealt with as harshly as possible yet look upon the murder of children in the wombs of their mothers as deserving no punishment? As a matter of fact, governments have, since Roe v Wade in 1972, called abortion “the right of choice.”

The reason for justification of this death-dealing has been tied to a term that the fallen minds of men have come up with that makes it okay to kill children in ways they prescribe. That term is “the unborn.”

In the most egregious form of use of the term, it is applied to any child before he or she has taken his or her first breath. All before this are considered unborn, thus are viewed as not yet alive. Various states have, over the years, modified the permissive time frame for aborting. It is different in states regarding the number of months when there is life in the womb. When the number of months has been reached, the abortion can no longer be performed. Those who govern that industry have come up with their own ideas of when babies in the womb become yet another term in their vocabulary of taking the lives of children in the womb. The term is “viable.” When the baby becomes viable, it is no longer fair game for the abortionists.

To this point, that which we who believe in God’s View of what constitutes a human being –the person when conceived— has no standing in the world of those embracing the right to abort. The right-to-choose belief system declares the fetus as it is forming and beyond to looking like a human being to be nothing more than a blob of biological material to be removed, much like an unwanted tumor.

But God, Who Created all that is –including human beings— declares something quite the opposite. Here is what that All-Powerful, all-Knowing God says through inspiring the Psalmist to tell Truth about human life.

“For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book, all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them” (Psalms 139:13-16).

The God of all Creation has declared that He knew each and every individual who has ever been born or will ever be born before the person was ever conceived in the womb. It is somewhat encouraging that at least there is now significant realization and acknowledgment of the Truth about the unborn – that the baby is fully a human being from the moment of conception and that each human being was fully a human being in God’s Omniscient mind even before mother and father ever joined in the child-producing union.

Here is a recent decision that seems to give hope that sanity still survives in this maddening world of anti-God, reprobate thinking.

A ruling from the Supreme Court in the state of Alabama has released a stunning verdict: That embryos are “children” under state law and protected by the same laws that apply to children already born.

The decision essentially determined that unborn children are a person. The question posed was whether a state law protecting children excluded those unborn.

“Under existing black-letter law, the answer to that question is no: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location,” the court said. “The relevant statutory text is clear: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies on its face to all unborn children, without limitation.”

The decision reversed a lower court ruling that tossed a case brought by three couples over the destruction of their embryos at a clinic. [Source: State Supreme Court Rules Embryos ARE Children! By Guest Contributor Feb. 20, 2024, WND.com]

I remain convicted with all within my spirit that God is going to make a world-shattering Statement at the Moment of Rapture. He will take every child below the age of being accountable for knowing to accept or reject Jesus Christ for Salvation of their souls. This will include, I’m convinced, every child just conceived and every baby gestating in the womb of his or her mother.

What a Judgment that will be upon a fallen world of anti-God rebels. You don’t want to be a part of that left-behind world. Here is how to go to Jesus when He Shouts to His Church –all born-again believers: Come up here!” (Revelation 4:1).

“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).

We have looked at Restraint and Derision by the Lord against the anti-God wickedness of these evil, current times on a number of occasions in these commentaries.

That this Intervening action from Heaven would be the order of the last of the last days of the Dispensation of Grace (Church Age) is, of course, found in Psalms chapter 2 of the Old Testament and in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 in the New Testament.

“The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.’ He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision” (Psalms 2:2-4).

We have looked before at truth regarding God’s Omniscient analysis involving the human minions of wickedness in high places that are, wittingly or not, doing Satan’s bidding.

A careful dissection of things going on over recent years shows time after time that the Lord has intervened to slow down the Ephesians 6:12 minions, both demonic and human, in their effort to hurry the process of bringing Antichrist to the end-times world stage.

Again, without intending to get deeply into the weeds of politics, I believe we see Heaven’s Intervention each and every day to slow the process of, for example, bringing this nation down from the Judeo-Christian principles the founding fathers intended.

We remember when Democrat party attendees years ago during their convention gave a resounding “No” when the proposition was brought up to keep the mention of God in official declarations of party campaign rhetoric. The “Nos” clearly dominated the voice vote, but those in charge didn’t dare try to kick God out because of the political damage that no vote would have inflicted.

Of course, kicking God out of anything isn’t possible with the omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent God of Heaven. To that end, He continues to have that anti-God party in “derision,” just as He indicated He will do to anyone against Him.

They kept the word God in but definitely haven’t included Him in actuality in any way I can detect.

The anti-God opposition continues in that now more than ever radical, leftist, ideologically driven political party that governs. What I’ve written in the past in regard to God’s having such wickedness in derision applies more than ever while we move ever more quickly toward the Tribulation. I wrote the following some time ago:

These—the president, the vice president, and the press spokesperson—have actually become almost laughingstocks to observers outside their political party, their leftist ideology, and the mainstream media (which, mentioning in the same breath, is perhaps redundant). Their mental acuity is, it seems to me, inadequate to the challenge in addressing legitimate issues on the national and international scene.

These are avid adherents of the platform presented by the political party that verbally shouted God out of their midst.

As we’ve often looked at in considering how both political parties, along with every other aspect of American culture and society, including business, public education, and even woke military insanity, we see that our so-called leadership has almost without question been turned over to the reprobate mindset of Romans 1:28.

The result of the growing anti-God actions by most all of America’s day-to-day activity is eventuating in a madness that is inexplicable apart from Psalms chapter 2 as given above.

And the leaderships of most every nation on earth observably have fallen victim to the same reprobate infection as America’s governmental leadership. All of this aided and abetted by news reporters and institutions, which makes Hitler’s Goebbels look less wicked and evil by comparison.

Rebellious mankind, driven literally mad by their own back-turning to the God Who is not willing that any should perish but all should come to Repentance, are setting the stage for fulfilling prophecy of the most frightful sort. Jude was given to foretell this most terrible outcome for those whom God has in Derision at this very moment.

“But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

“And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage” (Jude 1: 10-16).

To those who are unbelievers in God’s Grace Gift Redemption Process and who are within these doomed anti-God rebels, upon which the Lord must one day, perhaps very soon, Pour His Righteous Judgment and Wrath, please understand the following: God has Provided a Way to be Reconciled to Him and to become part of His Family in Heaven Forever. This is the One and Only Way to escape the horrendous disaster, the Judgment and Wrath that is surely coming.

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).