I was sitting in a hotel restaurant in Dallas where the pre-Trib Study Group founded by Dr. Tim LaHaye had its annual meetings during the 1990s. We were awaiting delivery of our breakfasts, when I watched a friend—a well known Christian-Jewish ministry television host—approach our table.

He sounded chagrined, his face, according to another friend sitting beside me, not the usual smiling countenance we all were accustomed to witnessing. He shook my hand and I said, using his name, “What’s wrong? You have a bad flight?”

He had just returned from Israel, where he had conducted services and did television programming.

He began by saying in a disgusted tone, “I just don’t know why God made Arabs.”

My reaction was, “Well (his name)…”

Before I could say anything else other than express my being unable to say anything, he said in even a more disgusted tone and with greater fervor, “Well d*** it, Terry, I mean it…”

I was both amused and somewhat amazed to hear such foul language from my great friend.

He went on to explain how one Arab Muslim contingent or the other had physically attacked in an act of terrorism while he and his crew were near the Temple Mount, as I recall. This evil activity, of course, wasn’t unusual, and continues to this day, decades later, and even increases in ferocity, as we’ve recently seen with Hamas’ brutal slaughter of Jews and others on October 7 of the year just past.

Without any doubt, my friend, now gone to be with the Lord, knew better than just about anyone on the planet the story of Abraham going to Sarah’s handmaiden Hagar, how his wife told Abraham to produce a child with Hagar because it was obvious to her that at her age she would have no more children.

My famous friend knew Abraham and Sarah got ahead of God’s great plan to bring Isaac into the world through that couple’s union. The birth indeed happened by the time Abraham’s son by Hagar, Ishmael, became a teenager.

So that, of course, was, to answer my friend’s angrily posed question, why Arabs were eventually “made,” as my friend put it. But his demeanor exemplifies to this day the Jewish-Arab raging differences that seem to have no end in sight.

An article somewhat frames the never-ending things involved in that ever more violent and expansive conflict.

[Regarding the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 and its aftermath, the article states:] But the depth and scope of this crisis require a comprehensive cultural and spiritual rethinking of how we perceive ourselves and the enemy, focusing on the question of why the enemy fights and what we are fighting for.

Hamas and Hezbollah fight out of religious belief. By contrast, we are not clear on our reasons for uniting to fight wars beyond our desire to safeguard our existence and survival.

A.B. Yehoshua once posed an existential question: “Nation of Israel, for what purpose do you live?” Later, he clarified: “Survival is considered the most prominent aspect of the Jewish people…but it is not survival that is the prominent aspect, but rather how it is done, what its agenda is, what values it holds, and primarily, what its cost is.” (A. B. Yehoshua, Haaretz Books Supplement, 20.2.2013)

This question must be applied to clarify the central inquiry: Nation of Israel, for what purpose do you fight, and how do you fight? (“A Clear Post-War National Vision Means Returning to the Roots of Zionism,”Gershon Hacohen, Opinion Algemeiner, Rapture Ready News, January 11, 2024 )

The above piece demonstrates Israel’s blindness to what’s going on with regard to the evil perpetrated incessantly against the Jewish race—against Israel the nation. They can’t get a grasp on all the things that are driving and tugging His chosen people and nation back toward the God who loves them with all of His majestic being.

“Why the Arab versus the Jew?” is a monumental and seemingly insurmountable question, to be sure. Some believe it is the holdup to even world peace, not to mention Mideast regional peace. In fact, to those of us who believe God’s Word is absolutely true in every respect, this is the case. The Jewish/Arab problem will eventually involve the whole world and will ultimately bring all the nations into the killing field called Armageddon.

Zechariah the prophet foretells that Israel will become a “burdensome stone and a cup of trembling” to the entire world. Paul the apostle foretold that there will be a great “cry of peace and safety” that will cause “sudden destruction.”

It is obvious that the great conflict between these antagonists–the Jews and the Arabs—is what is now causing the most profound angst within the world’s diplomatic sphere.

These would-be world masters–the globalist ringmasters—constantly try to force a two-state solution to the great conflict they believe more than any other on the planet threatens the ignition of nuclear war and the end of humankind.

And it is this very matter–the tearing apart of God’s land granted to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—by the powers and principalities of the global cabal that will fulfill prophecy that brings everything to a head.

Again, Joel tells of this in the starkest of terms.

For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. (Joel 3:1–2)

Many believe the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, could be a primary catalyst for bringing Zechariah and Joel’s prophecies to fruition. Regardless, our witness of Israel now at the center of hatred practically everywhere on earth–especially hatred by the young in universities across the world—lends credence to the likelihood that pressures to force Israel to make peace from many directions could bring God’s great hand of judgment.

That judgment will begin with His calling all believers in His Son, Jesus Christ, out of this world of rebels, to safe harbor in the Rapture. Here is how to be within that safe harbor, while wrath and judgment ravage the planet.

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 great prophet Daniel was given immense prophetic foreknowledge. He saw the rise of kingdoms and their leading protagonists. He saw the end of all these world kingdoms and their kings, or hierarchy.  Yet he wasn’t allowed to know the finale of things with regard to either his beloved nation Israel or of the planet—at least not in significant detail.

He wasn’t permitted to see what I believe you and I are presently allowed to witness regarding the wrapping up of “all these things,” which Jesus told us to look for as recorded in Luke 21:28. And anyone who is biblically centered and “watching,” as we are told to do by the Lord, according to Mark 13:37, is witnessing phenomenal stage-setting for the end of the age and the beginning of Daniel’s seventieth week—the Tribulation.

Here is what the prophet was told by the angel in their exchange when Daniel desired to know what would be the end of his people:

But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. (Daniel 12:4) 

Daniel responded as follows:

And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. (Daniel 12:8–9)

Many observers of the times—including yours truly—believe those words and that book are now being opened for us to discern these end-of-the-age hours leading to the triumphant return of Christ.

One of the most fascinating aspects of “watching” all of the developments, to me at least, is the rise of dictators and their being allowed by Heaven to do their wickedness. And, I include in that evil group many of the leaders within the American political power structure, both elected and appointed, or even just inserted within that structure because of the influence their wealth gives them.

We have watched them do all within their deception and conniving efforts to change this nation into one totally ruled by insane policies and would-be tyrannical enslavement. They haven’t yet reached the level of an Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, or even a Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping. But they want to bring America into their own view of what the world should look like. And that view is them at the top, with the rest of us here to serve them. This is the human minion element within the Ephesians 6:12 cabal against which we who name the name of Christ wrestle, as Paul put it.

So, in hearing the new speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaking , his words tripped my curiosity meter that maybe is a bit like the prophet Daniel felt, regarding his wanting to know the end of all this worldly wickedness.

Speaker Johnson’s words were as follows.

“I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a [matter] like this,” Johnson said during his Oct. 25 acceptance speech in the House chamber. “I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear that God is the One that raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you, all of us, and I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment in this time. This is my belief. I believe that each one of us has a huge responsibility today to use the gifts that God has given us to serve the extraordinary people of this great country, and they deserve it, and to ensure that our republic remains standing as the great beacon of light and hope and freedom in a world that desperately needs it.”

Now, Mr. Johnson is an outspoken devout Christian, and I applaud his standing up and declaring that God’s way is the way business should be done. I’m thankful he has been placed in that important position at this critical time in our nation’s movement through history.

But the thought struck. Yes. I believe God raised up Mike Johnson for this moment. And I believe that God raises up all men who achieve powers to govern. Johnson’s belief is based upon Daniel’s words.

Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. (Daniel 2:19–22)

Daniel, the great man of God, had it right, of course. He affirms with all his heart that God is in complete control at all times, and nothing is done without His being in control.

But the key here for purposes of our commentary title are the prophet’s inspired words: “he removeth kings, and setteth upkings.”

God does indeed raise up leaders, as Mike Johnson told those in his audience–some of whom are themselves deeply into that wicked Ephesians 6:12 cabal. And the question piques my curiosity, like it probably does yours.

Why, if God controls everything, does He permit these evil sorts to achieve power and do the dastardly things they do? Like, for example, why were the leaders of that Hamas terrorist pack of demonically-inspired horde allowed to plan and carry out such blood-drenched atrocities October 7?

The answer that comes to me isn’t one that takes away the intense fervor of the question. But it does provide comfort. I think that while our finite minds can’t understand fully such an Infinite dealing by a sovereign God with such an absolutely incomprehensible evil as wrapped up in the thing called sin, to accept that God is in control, no matter how things look otherwise, is a faith-building matter. Daniel’s story of his faith is most relevant to acceptance that God is using all the sin-saturated activities by even the most evil of world leaders to ultimately bring all things back to perfection that was lost when iniquity entered Lucifer’s mind.

So God, who knows the end from the beginning, raises dictators as well as godly people to do His bidding. Antichrist will come on the scene and will accomplish God’s great purpose. Like Daniel counted on that truth–we can count on it too!

Mainstream news people—I am reluctant to call most of them journalists these days—have gotten the scent. Their reporter-curiosity olfactory senses seem to have kicked in. They sniff the present state of decay in culture and societal interplay, and a prophecy of sort has emerged from among their ranks.

I sense myself that this particular reporter is chosen by others among her ranks to express what her fellow mainstream news media folks don’t want to individually verbalize for public consumption. –Thus the collective dystopian narrative.

It is, to be certain, an unusual forewarning coming from the American propagandist cabal, among whom reside deception and deceivers, the likes of which I believe the Lord Jesus spoke of in the Olivet Discourse in answer to His disciples’ question: “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

The following is a rather astonishing prediction, considering it is from a mainstream news reporter–even though Ms. Herridge is less offensive in regard to bloviating left-wing ideology than most of the others, from my perspective.

CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge made a “dark” prediction that 2024 will produce a “Black Swan Event” which shocks the world.

Herridge made the call during a round table discussion when she was asked by host Margaret Brennan about what we could expect to see unfold over the coming year.

“Well, mine’s a little dark,” Herridge stated.

“I just feel a lot of concern that 2024 may be the year of a black swan event. This is a national security event with high impact that’s very hard to predict.”

A black swan event is defined as a major catalyzing event that seems unpredictable at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight seemed inevitable.

The event must have an extreme impact when it occurs…

A black swan event can also be positive, but in this context Herridge asserted that it would have negative consequences for America.

“There are a number of concerns—concerns, I have that factor into that,” explained Herridge.

“Not only this sort of enduring, heightened threat level that we’re facing, the wars in Israel, also Ukraine.”

“And we’re so divided in this country in ways that we haven’t seen before. And I think that just creates fertile ground for our adversaries like North Korea, China and Iran. And that’s what concerns me most,” she added.

Host Brenna agreed with the investigative reporter, responding, “A lot of people are up at night with that concern, Catherine. At least in this town.” (Tyler Durden, “CBS News Reporter Makes ‘Dark’ Prediction of’ ‘Black Swan Event’ in 2024,”  ZeroHedge, 12/27/23; Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news)

With Barak Obama’s recent input into the extremely dark, dystopian film in which he and Michelle are said to have producer interest, Leave the World Behind, and mainstream media joining in the gloom-and-doom outlook, it’s prudent to ask a prophetically pertinent question: What’s up? What on earth is going on with all the Utopian, New World Order types looking toward apocalypse?

It is a very good question at this time when we see all the biblically foretold Tribulation clouds gathering.

A “swan dive” event is given in some dictionary definitions as a suicide, a headlong plunge into a fatal impact. It might be described as a dive into oblivion.

It is more than interesting that those in charge, the New World Order builders, seem to be forecasting such a future for America and the world. I myself wonder if it might be Satan working to prepare those who will be in charge of post-Rapture governments for what is coming. Certainly, Lucifer , knows God cannot lie. He knows the time of Daniel’s seventieth week is on its way.

Rather than describing what is coming as a black swan dive into terrible times, the Lord Jesus Christ put the coming darkest of times on planet Earth as  follows.

And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. (Luke 21:34–36)

Here, I believe the Holy Spirit is urging me to appeal to you if you are a nonbeliever. Jesus is the answer to all of your anxieties, to all of your worries. He is willing and ready to forgive all sin that separates you from God the Father in Heaven. Simply do the following. I have put it in today’s English this time, rather than the King James Version.

If you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart (your mind and spirit) that God has raised him (Jesus) from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart men and women believe and are made righteous by God, and with your mouth confession is made that saves you from sin and its consequences, which separates the soul of the unbeliever from God for eternity.) (This is my paraphrase of Romans 10:9–10)

Accept God’s grace-gift offer today. It is a decision you will never regret for all of eternity.

“Unbelievable…it’s already 2024.” That’s what we hear today, or have maybe heard or said ourselves on this or any previous new year. Indeed, the days, weeks, months, and years seem to roll around faster and faster—at lease to those of us who are of somewhat advanced age.

The conversation always seems to include something like: “When I was young, time seemed to just drag on, especially during school days. Now time just flies by, doesn’t it?”

Nowadays we still say: “Happy New Year!” to those we see and talk to at this time of year. But just like in the case of those younger days in our view of time versus our elder days of thinking on time’s swift movement, whether it’s a Happy New Year, or otherwise, is truly a matter of perception.

Since this column is devoted to dealing in matters involving God’s Word, and in particular, dealing with God’s prophetic Word, perception is important, even crucial, to understanding to what degree this is a Happy New Year–or otherwise. In considering all this, there are massively divergent perspectives at hand, thus enormously important questions that need to be answered. So let’s dive in to this 2024 new beginning, in terms of what we face now and just ahead. Let’s look into whether it is, in fact, to be a Happy New Year! Or not…

Now, again, I’m going to be more America-centric than global-centric, because for most of planet earth, the term Happy New Year isn’t even thought of in such terminology. For most peoples, the majority under dictatorships, there is little thought of this year–or any year—as being “happy.”

Our nation is by far the most materially blessed of all human history–at least so far as we know. That is, some believe the antediluvian world possibly had technologies beyond our own advanced technology. I personally doubt it, so far as human beings developing technology to the extent we have now. There were, I believe, certain supernatural interventions into the human condition by the demonic world, according to God’s Word. So I proceed from the view that America and the Western world in general today have material blessings beyond any other civilizations of human beings.

Material blessings—i.e., cars, refrigerators, homes filled with comforts and conveniences of every sort—I realize aren’t necessarily things that produce the emotion we think of as happiness. And this is where the matters of perception and perspective come into relevance.

What constitutes, in our America-centric perception and perspective, a New Year—2024—that will be a truly Happy New Year?

Perception/Perspective of Most Americans

Americans, for the most part, seem focused only on the moment. This includes secular and religious people alike–believers in Jesus Christ and nonbelievers. Those in this category go about life just, as is said, keeping heads above water economically and in other ways that don’t disrupt routines of life. Barring personal and family catastrophic events, or the dire outlook of those in deep poverty, the perception and perspective is of and from the “all is well” viewpoint. The upcoming year, for these, usually is projected verbally as a Happy New Year in that sense.

However, looking from the perception and perspective of things going on, viewed under the revealing light of God’s Word, the Bible, it is quite a different and troubling reality.

The greeting “Happy New Year” doesn’t guarantee such a future for the coming year. It simply expresses hope that things of life track in a trajectory that doesn’t include any sort of unpleasant issues or events. Since such a trajectory doesn’t exist in an imperfect world full of pitfalls, wishes for a truly Happy New Year can never be fulfilled–at least not a Happy New Year in the truest sense.

So what is a Happy New Year in the truest sense? The question involves a matter worthy of exploration during this darkening time of Sodom-like cultural and moral decline.

Perception/Perspective of Those with Prophetic Enlightenment

Those who use the template of God’s prophetic Word to view the world as it is and as it looks to be projected to be for the year 2024 cannot see a particular happy outlook. That is, not in the sense that others with the view that “all is well” see things, both at this moment and in the year just ahead.

We look at the absolute adulteration of the culture in this nation as a departure from godliness. The youngest children are subjected to the most wicked forms of perversions, while parents who object are pursued by federal law enforcement as domestic terrorists.

We view the murder of millions of babies in the womb, and even after being out of the womb, through the abortion process, as the equivalent of the ancients sacrificing their infants and small ones upon the pagan alter of Moloch.

We look at the great deception going on with government and corporate entities, as well as journalists in media, lying to us as the fulfillment of Jesus’ words when he told his disciples that deception will be great just before He comes back in power and glory. The American political process is ongoing validation of the Lord’s foretelling in that regard.

The wars are rampant, just as Jesus said they would be at the end of the age. Rumors of wars are even more prolific in their assault upon our eyes and ears with each news cycle. Think Ukraine and Hamas and Israel’s determination to survive wars being perpetrated against the Jewish state.

And Israel being at the center of all controversy at this very moment leaves no doubt to those who watch from the biblically prophetic perspective that the world is on the very precipice of the Tribulation.

World War III and thermonuclear annihilation threatens each and every hour today.

So it isn’t time to forecast a Happy New Year for 2024. Not in the sense that it will be a time of joy in our nation or upon the earth. Quite the opposite is true.

That said, we who look at these things through the prism of God’s prophetic Word have peace about all the ominous societal, cultural, economic, geopolitical, and apostate religious darkness that is quickly gathering. We understand, through God’s promises, that all the evil we see coming now and in the year 2024 means one thing: The Lord Jesus Christ is about to shout from the clouds of Glory: “Come up here!” (Revelation 4:1)

Paul the apostle described what happens following that shout:

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–18)

With this stupendous prospect in our spiritual perspective and perception, 2024 just might be the happiest of Happy New Years!

If you want to be a child of God who can truly say “Happy New Year!” in the way herein presented, this is how:

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, 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)