Prophecy Line
Jacob’s Trouble 666 – Life Imitates Art
Going through the news, the headline jumped at me in a startling jolt. Life does indeed imitate art—for certain when it comes to Bible prophecy.
“Whole Foods Ushering in Mark of the Beast with New Palm-Scanning Payment System”
The headline instantly took my thoughts to my first novel, which I started writing in about 1977 and was initially published much later, in 1999. Jacob’s Trouble 666 is the title, and it’s still available on Amazon.com in reprint.
The book was an attempt to portray through fiction what life might be like for the world and particularly for Jewish people during the earlier time in the Tribulation era. Even though the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7) is about the last half of the Tribulation, my story covered basically the first half of the seven-year Tribulation period, following the Rapture. I envisioned—or tried to—the technologies as they might develop by the time that cruel moment of horror inflicts Antichrist rule upon the planet.
Here is a portion of that story written sometime around 1979, as I recall.
An old man shuffled tentatively into the checkout lane, avoiding the gaze of the checker. His broad head was bowed as if he sought to hide beneath the upturned collar of the ragged gray coat he wore. “You got an IN, mister?” Her question cut the air in a tone of disgust.
“Yes… Yes… See here.” The man let his eyes meet hers fleetingly while he pulled back the sleeve on his right arm and moved his hand to a position beneath the countertop Decode scanner, activating an ultraviolet light which made visible a bar code tattooed on the back of his hand. At the same time, the number appeared on the INRU screen:
5DD197920- J
Looking at the screen, the checker pushed a button, and data was added to the display.
5D019792O-J IN5DR – O – CREDIT LINE – D
“You don’t have any drawing rights, Jew! Take these and put them back where they belong!”
The little man shrunk deeper into the oversized coat, although he made a meek protest. “Please— but madam, I…”
“Just get these things back on the shelves, Jew!” She shoved the items roughly at him, cursing beneath her breath. Her outburst drew the attention of others in the Product Center and caused the controller to stiffen to alertness from his position near the exit.
While all eyes were on the frightened man, he moved from the counter and nervously replaced the foodstuffs on their various shelves. His face taking on the bloodless look of a man terminally ill, his only wish was to be gone from the Product Center.
“Are you Jew?” The controller collared him, snarling the question through clenched teeth.
“Answer me, old man!”
He slammed the smaller man hard against a nearby wall, then pushed his elbow into the captive’s throat. Unable to answer and growing dizzy because of pressure exerted on his windpipe, the man ceased to struggle against his powerful captor, who jerked and ripped at the overcoat, sending buttons flying when the coat tore open.
The controller pulled the coat apart, exposing a yellow, thread-stitched Star of David on the gray, tattered shirt.
“Why are you hiding this?” the angry policeman demanded, jabbing his finger into the center of the symbol. “You know it’s forbidden to conceal being Jew!”
Here’s the link to the novel.
The news item, then, as I say, jumped out and smacked my realization. We are at a point no doubt even past the technological development stage of the AI and other advancements which I tried to imagine back then. The following news item excerpt maybe will further enlighten.
Thanks to its acquisition by Amazon, Whole Foods Market is quickly morphing into the grocery store of the New World Order with a new cashless payment system that allows customers to wave their palm over a scanning machine in order to pay for their food.
Instead of having to hand over cash or a credit card, Whole Foods customers can simply wave their hand (and maybe soon their forehead?) through the machine and voila: purchase made.
According to an Amazon FAQ, the palm-scanning technology analyzes “the minute characteristics of your palm – both surface-area details like lines and ridges as well as subcutaneous features such as vein patterns” in order to identify a customer and allow for rapid purchase.
This biometric scanning tool is branded as a faster, easier alternative to paying with a credit card or cash.
The system is officially called Amazon One and it allows for Amazon Prime users to link their accounts and receive discounts and other promotions every time they opt to wave their palm through a kiosk at Whole Foods rather than pay with cash or a credit card… The ultimate goal is to completely phase out paper and coin currency and replace it with a cashless system. Amazon via Whole Foods is paving the way for this by testing out the new system at its Seattle locations. (“Whole Foods Ushering in Mark of the Beast with New Palm-Scanning Payment System,” NaturalNews.com, RR News April 30, 2021)
Technology has caught up to and surpassed my imagination, it is obvious. Bible prophecy manifests for all who are willing to believe God’s truth that the Creator of all things knows the end from before the foundation of this now-fallen world. Life doesn’t really imitate art. Bible prophecy presents life in a story filled with truth only the God of Heaven can foretell.
The end-times electronic economic system of controlling the masses was written about by the Holy Spirit-inspired pen of John the Revelator on the Isle of Patmos.
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. (Revelation 13:16–18)
Let’s pay attention to developments all around us. It is only upon doing this that we can truly anticipate the call we who belong to Christ can expect to hear soon.
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. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17)
Russian Nuclear War Threat?
Russia’s bellicose actions lately have some predicting nuclear war and what would amount to World War III. One blogger who is a long-time commentator on geopolitics as they might relate to Bible prophecy believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin plans an assault on Alaska.
His thinking is that Russians have long sought to recover Alaska from the time they owned and sold the now American state to the US. Josef Stalin was, he says, set to invade Alaska, but the action was preempted by the Soviet dictator’s death in 1953.
The blog pundit throws in the fact that China also has its sights on taking over America, and that Putin needs to prevent that from taking place, because Russia is planning the same thing.
The blogger’s conspiratorial analysis goes much deeper, but that’s the overall gist of his suspicion—America is on the brink of being taken over by Russia, China, or both. The inept, even seditious, traitorous Biden administration, as he characterizes it, and its deep-state provocateurs are fomenting this attempted takeover by pushing hard at Russian involvement in the threat to Ukraine. He believes the new administration is doing this in order to provoke nuclear conflict. This, somehow, is so that the new, global order they wish to construct can, with the help of China as a sort of partner in the whole agglomerate matter, leap to world domination.
No, I haven’t a clue how China would ever agree to be part of such an amalgamation. Its goal is clearly total world dominion, not partnership in such.
And China, like the U S Senate’s Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, plays the “long game.” That is, they are extremely patient and will go through the geopolitical gyrations for as long as necessary to—in China’s case—achieve global domination. Only if they see there is no longer a pathway to such domination will they then resort to all-out nuclear war.
They are threatening militarily around the world—like, for example, their constantly running their air force and navy up to the boundaries surrounding Taiwan. And like their nonstop intimidation of US and other naval forces in the China Sea and around the globe. But they know which side their bread is buttered on. They couldn’t win a nuclear conflict with America. They’ll never try—this side of the Tribulation era.
Same with Russia. They wouldn’t have a chance of winning nuclear all-out conflict with the US. Most all experts who study war agree. All would suffer unacceptable devastation in such a conflict.
The threat of nuclear exchanges has existed since the Soviets stole American technology and built their nuclear arsenal. The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was the closest the world has come to such an exchange.
Like in every case, avoidance of such world-changing or even world-ending conflict has been held back by the very hand of God. There is no doubt about this to anyone who is a believer and is spiritually attuned to the supernaturally foreknown movement of human history.
As a matter of fact, God’s Word outlines precisely the final disposition of both of the nuclear powers which the blogger confidently predicts will soon take over the US in a probable nuclear conflict.
Ezekiel the prophet gives us God’s view and His way of dealing with Russia in chapters 38 and 39. The Russian leader, Gog, leads his forces against God’s chosen nation and they are obliterated except for one-sixth of that force.
China is held behind the oriental barrier to the occidental world so far as domination is concerned until they are freed to come across the dried-up Euphrates, as prophesied in Revelation chapters 9 and 16. This force will be annihilated at Armageddon.
God’s restraining hand is in evidence even on the level of this nuclear confrontation matter.
Observers were looking to the potential conflict presented by Putin sending troops to the Ukrainian border en masse. They looked poised to invade. President Joe Biden’s poking at the Russian bear, sending airplanes full of tactical nuclear weapons into Ukraine, supposedly, was meant to provoke that nuclear conflict, whereby all the New World Order stuff outlined above would begin to roll out.
Of course, I see all of that as not possible—not if Bible prophecy is true. And it is. Even if such were the plans of the globalists and the Chinese leadership, God’s restraining hand would never allow it—again, according to Bible prophecy.
We again see a stepping down from the nuclear brink in the following excerpt.
After weeks of tension over a build-up of Russian troops close to Ukraine’s border, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shogun has ordered a number of units in the area back to their bases…
Russia said all along that these were nothing more than military exercises.
But Moscow knew very well that its troop movements close to Ukraine and in annexed Crimea were making a lot of people very nervous: in Ukraine, Europe and in America.
And that was the point.
Moscow may well have been using the build-up of troops to send a signal to Kyiv, Brussels and, especially, to Washington that Russia is a force to be reckoned with. (“Russia to Pull Troops Back from Near Ukraine,” BBC News, April 23, 2021)
Nuclear war involving these end-times nation-state actors will take place. The kings of the east will almost certainly use nuclear weaponry to kill one-third of the world’s population. Nuclear exchanges are inevitable during the Tribulation. No weapon ever invented by the fallen minds of mankind has ever been withheld in the murderous wars of history.
The Christian of this Church Age (Age of Grace) needs not fear suffering through that time of such horrors. Believe in Jesus today and be kept from that terrible hour of evil. Jesus promises the following to those who belong to Him.
Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation [Tribulation,] which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. (Revelation 3:10)
The Great Awakening?
Recently, a well-known evangelist was saying on the TV program he and his wife host that a Great Awakening is coming. This is what I’ve heard over the months since the time the 2020 presidential election approached. “The Great Awakening is on its way” continues to be the declaration by many of the conservative ilk in the arena of government, politics, and the ideological arena of societal and cultural thought.
By this, these proponents of that belief, I infer, mean that the people of the world—particularly those of the United States—will awaken en masse to the evil the radical leftists of the world and nation are perpetrating.
This was the first time, however, that I heard a person I considered to be a truly believing Christian leader of his spiritual magnitude say that a Great Awakening is on the way. I must be fair and tell you that I didn’t listen to the program, so can’t say for certain what he meant by the term; I can only say that he and his wife had as their guest that morning Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas. They were going to talk about Dr. Jeffress book involving Bible prophecy, so I presume the term the host used in his promotion means the same Great Awakening in general, as predicted by the secular proponents of the matters involved in that term. Whether the TV show host was referring to a geopolitical/cultural/societal awakening or one of a spiritual nature, I don’t know.
The fact is, though, that the term “the Great Awakening” is used more and more often in venues outside of mainstream media. The people favoring things proposed by the term look for there to be an uprising by the vast majority. These will, it is believed, grow in such resistance and opposition to the so-called “woke” movement and all attendant to that insanity that the evil it all represents will be forced back into the proverbial box that restrains such deviation from normalcy.
In the world of those who are Bible believers, I perceive a mindset that equates the term “Great Awakening” with the matter many believe is a coming, worldwide revival. These declare that before Christ’s return at Armageddon there will be a tremendous turning to God. In some cases, they declare that a great multitude of souls will be saved in this predicted revival movement.
Many among those who believe that we are seeing a “Great Awakening” in the spiritual sense thought that Donald Trump’s election and subsequent support for faith-based causes was the onset of this “revival.” The economy and many social and cultural changes were, it seemed, poised for things improving to the point that America would be made great again in the sense the Founding Fathers intended. We were to again become a “Christian” nation, as in America’s founding. We wanted to get back to thinking more of the good of everyone rather than the uplifting of the few who rule rather than govern.
That altruistic outlook was a noble one. That was something worthy of longing for, even though the nation has never been truly a “Christian” nation in the purest sense. There have always been the bad and ugly to go along with the good. But the Make America Great Again movement came to a jolting halt with the sudden appearance of COVID-19.
Suddenly, the globalist agenda continues to be on the rise. The insanity represented by the proposals and demands the radical left envisioned for America—which we thought could never be accepted by normal people—became the track the nation seems be following to its perhaps fatal detriment.
So it seems that whether considering the term “the Great Awakening” or the term “great end-times revival,” either’s trajectory is on track to eventuate as thought. The movement is in the opposite direction.
The way things are tracking, however, is in sync with Bible prophecy for the end of the age.
Again, for those who are new as readers of our commentaries, the pre-Trib view of Bible prophecy is that before the Tribulation (the last seven years of this Age of Grace, or Church Age) arrives, Jesus Christ will call all believers to Himself in what is called the Rapture. Paul the great apostle foretells this in 1 Corinthians 4:51–55 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18. Jesus first gave indication of this great event in John 14:1–3, and later gave the promise to us through John in Revelation 3:10.
Jesus, while on the Mount of Olives, just before His crucifixion, answered His disciples as to when He would return and the signs of His return. He gave a number of signals to look for, which we have covered many times.
He said that when we see these things (stage-setting signs) begin to come to pass we are to look up and lift up our heads for our redemption is drawing near.
We’ve given details over and over about the Tribulation (Daniel’s seventieth week). It will be a terrible time, Jesus forewarned, such as never was before, nor will ever be again.
These issues and events are literally in every direction and are proliferating exponentially. We are not witnessing things that look as if we can anticipate a “Great Awakening.” Things don’t in any way appear that people, either the lost or believers in Christ, are turning en masse to God in complete repentance, obedience, or worship.
I wish I could report that I observe otherwise, but I cannot. Just as Paul foretold, evil men and seducers are getting worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. The reprobate mindset prophesied by Paul in Romans 1:28 is front and center through our headlines.
All that said, there is good news, however. God the Father in Heaven and God the Holy Spirit, who is everywhere all the time, is at work restraining wickedness at every level throughout this evil sphere. As bad as it seems, all is being prepared for God the Son—the Lord Jesus Christ—to make His appearance and put an end to the madness into which the world is devolving.
Heaven’s Great Awakening is just around the corner of Bible prophecy. For believers in Christ, that much-wished-for end-times revival is but one twinkling-of-an-eye moment away. The Rapture will bring for each and every child of God an awakening the likes of which is beyond fully knowing at this darkening, earthly moment.
Every believer of this Church Age who has died will, in that glorious moment, awaken to new life that is everlasting. Those who are alive at that instant will have all senses awaken to fantastic vistas that were beyond comprehension while in these earth-bound bodies.
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. (1 Corinthians 2:9)
A Prime Prophetic Indicator
It seems to me that a primary issue is developing, and that Bible prophecy students might be wise to look carefully at it while movement progresses deeper into this year and beyond. It is legitimate fodder for our focus, because it fits the stage-setting for prophetic fulfillment that follows a pattern that can be understood by those spiritually attuned in these closing days of the age.
While it isn’t within our finite comprehension to be able to know precisely God’s controlling hand on things we see shaping for the windup of the age, we can certainly see what’s happening all around us. We believe in His prophetic Word, so we can know from what we see that Heaven’s light is exposing a schism, a division of normal human interaction from perverted, upside-down goings on. And that ripping of cultural and societal interaction is becoming more dramatic and traumatic by the hour, when we consider the minute-by-minute news cycles.
On the one side, there are those of us who want to live under America as founded. And this is a fair way to examine things, because most Americans of a certain age have been brought up under the national construct as founded. That is, we have a Judeo-Christian base as our understanding of conducting ourselves under normal conditions as defined by God-ordained principles. These were built into our Constitution. We were inculcated under a God-ordained blueprint for living.
On the other side, there are those who strive to deconstruct our normality. We are to now accept new normals as our principles. Therefore, the Constitution must be changed.
The party in power—which, in my view, stole the election through the most egregious actions and agencies imaginable—is almost daily bringing to Congress legislative proposals that will fundamentally alter (pervert) the nation as founded under principles God put into the brilliant minds of many of the Founding Fathers.
For example, the past week or two have seen proposals that would change the Supreme Court from nine justices to thirteen. Those doing the proposing say we need this because the nation has grown, requiring more justices to handle the case loads.
This is a totally specious argument, and the people in the majority party know it. They want to “pack the court” so they can negate the supposed conservative votes that now make the court a six-to-three conservative majority.
This is a fallacy. With the chief justice coming down on the side of liberal opinions in almost every case, and at least two of the other members supposedly on the conservative side wishy-washy in leaning one way or the other, it is hardly a definitively conservative court.
The America as founded side can but watch while freedoms are attacked and eroded. The other side of the schism, the new normal side, cheers while America is taken farther and farther away from those godly, founding principles.
Black is called white, sweet is called bitter, and good is called evil, while the reprobate thinking increasingly controls and deconstructs constitutional safeguards.
While the efforts to bring America as founded into a configuration conducive to constructing Antichrist’s platform of control, the evidence of swift movement toward the Tribulation era is observable at the national and global levels.
One prime matter involves the sophistry termed climate change.
This, you will remember, has become the mantra of the political left. They had to change it from global warming to climate change because the temperatures kept getting a bit cooler, not terribly warmer, and the ice of the polar regions wasn’t melting. There were no polar bears floating around on six-foot squares of ice because their habitat was destroyed—like the global warmists portrayed in heart-tugging videos.
Just a week or so ago, a CNN technician was secretly recorded by a Project VERITAS operative. The CNN guy was boastfully saying that CNN had been instrumental in lying and slanting everything of an accusatory sort toward Donald Trump in order to destroy his presidency and give the Democrats the 2020 presidential election victory.
The CNN technician was then recorded bragging that now that that had been accomplished, they planned to turn to climate-change issues and the dangers they present. These, he intimated, would be presented to the viewing public in the same deceptive way as was the Trump presidency.
The fact is this deception and subterfuge of the American constitutional way has begun.
John Kerry is in cahoots with America’s greatest enemy to begin the sophistry. The following sheds some light.
China and the US say they are committed to working together and with other countries on tackling climate change.
It comes after several meetings between Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua and his US counterpart John Kerry in Shanghai last week.
They both agreed on further specific actions to reduce emissions, a joint statement on Sunday confirmed…
Ahead of his trip to Shanghai, Mr Kerry told CNN that China’s co-operation was “absolutely critical” to battle the climate crisis.
“Yes, we have big disagreements with China on some key issues, absolutely. But climate has to stand alone,” he said. (“China and US Pledge Climate Change Commitment,” BBC News, April 17, 2021)
Yes. The climate-change matter is all important in the reprobate minds of the new administration. China is building a massive military presence surrounding Taiwan and threatening America with military attack, but we must buddy up to these greatest of the world’s polluters on the matter of an issue that has no scientific validity that has been shown—only models of what might happen thirty years down the proverbial road.
Climate change (Mother Earth worship) is destined, many believe, to be the religious centerpiece of the prophesied false prophet’s demand that Antichrist be worshiped.
Interestingly, this is one of Pope Francis’ greatest rants—that the climate-change “problem” must be under the complete control of a changed world order.
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:13)
Golden Cup or Cankering Cesspool?
Disturbing statistics about the nation I love bring again to mind the question: Why is America not mentioned in Bible prophecy?
It is the apex nation of history so far as concerns achieving material wealth and moving forward technology that defines the term “modernity.” America has been, as we’ve noticed on many occasions, among history’s most spiritually blessed and God-centered nation-states. Of course, we’re quick to recognize and state the obvious. That seems now a thing—for recent generations, at least—of the distant past.
Every day and in most every way it can be said that the US as currently constituted has turned our back on God and most things of the Heaven-directed sort. We watch on an hourly news-cycle basis while the political power wielders who committed electoral larceny work incessantly at trying to take apart this nation one constitutional safeguard after another. And they do so without seemingly significant push-back from all but a very few.
Sadly, it appears that a majority of we the people, rather than oppose things going on to destroy this once-great republic, just fall in line like proverbial lemmings. Evidence of this acquiescence is the very large number of people who accept an almost totally unproven and non-FDA approved vaccine. With government-engineered, fear-engendered COVID-19 at the center of the coercion, they are willing to give in to government directives to comply, if they want to be able to be American citizens in the same sense as before the so-called pandemic. Only, there is little chance of that ever being allowed to happen. Implied in this government demand that all be vaccinated with an unproven injection is that a vaccine passport is forthcoming. All will have to have it—or else stay sequestered within the confines of one’s home, I presume.
I don’t intend by this rant to advise in any way that one should or should not take the vaccine. That is a personal decision (at this point at least.) I’m more than implying, however, that I object strenuously to government, by proxy, forcing us to be jabbed, as it is termed by some.
I say “by proxy” because the politicians, very wise in their end-times deceit and treachery, are in league with big-business interests. They will, no doubt, let the business entities take the blame for requiring the vaccine passports that are undoubtedly on the way.
This is to say that in the near future you might not be allowed to go to Walmart or any other place to shop, or ride in public conveyance without your papers—yes, much like Nazi Germany began the Reign of Terror during der Führer’s rise to dictatorship.
The papers of vaccination are the new normal the powers that be want us to accept. And this while Dr. Anthony Fauci says we need to keep the masks on in public and avoid gathering.
All this, in my view of Bible prophecy, demonstrates the terrible effects of turning one’s back on God, which we mentioned at the beginning.
Is America the Babylon of Revelation 18? This is a query we’ve been over many times here, and others have explored on many occasions in Bible prophecy studies. I’ve indicated that I believe there are parallels that are hard to dismiss between that doomed, future city-state that will be destroyed in one hour and our beloved America. Time factors show, in my view, that it would be hard for another all-dominating empire-type state such as America has been to develop in the area of ancient Babylon—if Christ’s return is close.
I don’t hold that America and the prophesied Babylon are one and the same. I simply weasel out by saying it looks to me like there is a possibility that they are.
And when I see the description in Revelation chapter 18—“has been a golden cup in God’s hand”—I think of this Heaven-blessed nation.
As stated many times, we have spread the Gospel—carried out the Great Commission—as no other nation to ever exist. We have been blessed with the technology and travel capability to do so.
America has blessed God’s chosen nation Israel as no other nation has blessed that people. The US was instrumental in bringing about Israel’s rebirth in 1948 and has stood as a sort of big brother to protect the Jewish state since.
This blessing of Israel, too, is now on the dangerous side of down-trending with the Biden administration and a seeming increasing hostility toward Benjamin Netanyahu and the Jewish state.
The “golden cup” nation called America, it seems, is now cankering—rusting and deteriorating by the day. As a matter of fact, it has become rather a cesspool of Sodom-like activity in a significant way.
The following somewhat frames this truth.
There are a lot of things that we want America to be great at, but spreading sexually-transmitted diseases is not one of them.
And the numbers tell us that cases have been rising at a particularly frightening pace since 2015…
For 2019, health departments across the U.S. reported 1.8 million cases of Chlamydia, an almost 20% increase since 2015; 616,392 cases of gonorrhea, more than 50% higher than 2015, and 129,813 cases of all stages of syphilis, a whopping 70% increase, the CDC said.
So why is this happening?
Well, an NPR article on this subject is pointing out that dating apps have made finding casual sex easier than ordering a pizza…
There are many factors that contribute to the rise of STDs, and syphilis in particular.
In the gay community in San Francisco, for example, the rise of mobile dating apps like Grindr and Tinder made finding a date “faster than getting pizza delivered to your home,” says Dan Wohlfeiler, an STD prevention specialist and co-founder of Building Healthy Online Communities, which uses these apps to improve gay men’s health.
These dating apps are particularly popular among young people and in the gay community, and this is clearly showing up in the case numbers…
Additionally, gay and bisexual men and younger people also faced an increased burden. According to the report, gay and bisexual men made up nearly half of all 2019 primary and secondary syphilis cases and had gonorrhea rates that were 42 times higher than heterosexual men in some areas, whereas people aged 15 to 24 years accounted for 61% of chlamydia cases and 42% of gonorrhea cases.
It is important to keep in mind that chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis are just three pieces of a much larger puzzle.
According to the CDC, there are dozens of STDs currently spreading in the United States. Approximately 20 million new STD infections occur in the U.S. every single year, and at any moment in time approximately 110 million Americans are dealing with a sexually-transmitted disease. (“We’re #1”: Yet Another Ignominious All-Time Record High Is Established In The Late, Great United States,” by Tyler Durden (article by Michael Snyder), ZeroHedge, April 15, 2021)
America, in significant, wicked ways, has now become like the sexually debauched days of Sodom of Lot’s day. There seems no turning back, although we should pray and work toward that changed trajectory.
This all means that Jesus, and His time for stepping out on the clouds of Glory to call His Church to be with Him, might be even at the door of Heaven. We who are called by His Holy Name can take comfort from His own Words. We can take comfort because all we are seeing might mean that things are now like they were in Lot’s day when God intervened. The next Intervention, I believe Jesus is saying, will be the Rapture!
Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. (Luke 17:28–29)
Restrainer as Covert Operative?
Seeing all the wickedness proliferating exponentially and knowing the subterranean evil that is unseen, we might throw up our collective hands. “What hope is there?” might be a seemingly legitimate question. It looks forever more like Satan has already reached his goals of turning everything upside down, of thwarting all efforts to stand in his wicked, lawless way.
We’ve gone over all of the cultural and societal rot—all the perversion that has seemingly permeated every aspect of life. Even children—little children—are now, for example, targets of the devilish minions, both human and supernatural, that have public school officials and many courts agreeing that parents can’t intervene with their very young kids being inculcated, or even transgendered. This seems to be perhaps the last or most satanically insane accomplishment that is taking place as this generation approaches the Tribulation era.
Yet there is doubtless much more to come, and there seems no opposition to what we fear will eventuate. And the avalanche of absolute evil, it appears, will arrive sooner rather than later.
Like in recent commentaries, we point again to the world building toward war—war that, it is almost certain, if it comes to full fruition, will result in nuclear annihilation for most, if not all of the planet’s population.
Thanks be to the Creator of all that is—to the very Word of God, we, as believers in Jesus Christ for salvation can be assured. This world is on a controlled demolition schedule—like one of those huge, ancient hotels that must be brought down so something new and beautiful can be constructed in its place. This is exactly what is happening, in prophetic terms.
The world and all we see happening of a deleterious nature, as my friend Jan Markell has stated, isn’t the world falling apart. It is all falling into place.
Perhaps that was a paraphrase of Jan’s comment, but you get the gist. The Lord is in charge of this demolition—or at least he is in complete control of how He long ago foretold how things would fall into place so a new, beautiful, Heaven-directed earth construction can take place.
Our commentary’s title is “Restrainer as Covert Operative?” By this, I ask if God the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Godhead (Trinity), is acting as an unseen agent in keeping this satanically driven demolition of the world’s infrastructures a controlled such action. Is He keeping it from crumbling to complete rubble through His supernatural engineering? That is, is God still acting as restrainer, as promised?
For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he [the Restrainer or Holy Spirit] who now letteth [Restrains evil] will let [Restrain evil], until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. (2 Thessalonians 2:7–8)
We who understand Bible prophecy through the prism of the pre-Tribulation view believe this means that the Holy Spirit will hold back, or “restrain” evil until He withdraws in that restraining of evil office. This will happen when the Rapture occurs. At that electrifying, “twinkling-of-an-eye” moment, those whom He indwells, believers of the Church Age (Age of Grace), will be called by Christ into Heaven. It is then that the demolition of the earth and its evil, humanistic, systems will crash totally to rubble. God’s wrath and judgment will fall like it did on Sodom and Gomorrah in Lot’s day.
So fear not, believers. God is in full control of the demolition you and I are witnessing. He is indeed acting as a covert (undercover) operative in all of this cesspool of evil that the globalists elite—the minions (powers and principalities) of Ephesians 6:12—are perpetrating. How can we be sure? By understanding that the Lord neither slumbers nor sleeps. This is observable by examining how He has kept the matter of the Iranian nuclear weapons development under complete control.
We’ve explored several times how Bible prophecy predicts that the mountainous area currently being used to work on Iran’s nuclear designs will be destroyed. In the Elam prophecy, it is foretold that it will become uninhabitable. This, to me at least, portends a nuclear strike, or nuclear radiation escaping as a result of an attack.
This hasn’t happened despite great tensions we’ve all seen in the news. President Trump put in place many options to hold back Iran’s deadly intentions to produce weapons that would eliminate the hated Jewish state. President Biden has, tacitly, given the Ayatollahs permission to resume their development—which they say are for peaceful use only. This is an attempted deception that even Mr. Biden’s administration State Department people certainly know is a lie.
This, of course, is to the great consternation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his IDF generals. The following news excerpt frames this angst.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will never allow Iran to develop “nuclear capability to carry out its genocidal goal of eliminating Israel” during a joint press conference with visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Jerusalem on Monday.
“My policy as prime minister of Israel is clear. I will never allow Iran the nuclear capability to carry out its genocidal goal of eliminating Israel. And Israel will continue to defend itself against Iran’s aggression and terrorism,” said Netanyahu. (“Netanyahu to Austin: Israel Will Not Allow Iran to Carry Out Goal of Nuclear Genocide,” The Jewish Press—JewishPress.com, JNS News Service, April 12, 2021)
The prime minister has stated on many occasions that the IDF will use all means necessary to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon. Nuclear action would seem necessary, if the laboratories within the Bushehr Mountains are to be destroyed. But, I believe that God the Holy Spirit, as a covert operative, has given Israel the means to at least delay the more devastating and possibly prophesied nuclear strike option. The Restrainer is at work!
Iranian media reported an electrical problem at the Natanz, the country’s main uranium enrichment facility.
Natanz: new centrifuges in contravention of deal
“The incident caused no casualties or contamination,” Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said, adding that “electricity was affected at the Natanz facility.”
The incident comes one day after President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated a chain of 164 advanced 164 IR-6 uranium enrichment centrifuges at the site in a televised event commemorating Iran’s National Day of Nuclear Technology. (“Iran’s main nuclear site mysteriously suffers power outage right after advanced centrifuges go online,” by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, Israel News Mid East, April 11,2021)
It has been determined by the experts in such things that it was without doubt a cyber attack by Israeli covert forces. So Iran’s design on eliminating Israel is again thwarted—at least delayed. It is God’s staying hand at work!
Believers, be assured. God remains busy behind the scenes. Despite election cheating and all the other evil that looks to be winning in Satan’s end-times quest, the Restrainer will continue to restrain until Christ calls His own to be with Him.
Terry James: Strange (and not so strange) Signs of the End Times
Today on Stand Up For The Truth, Host David Fiorazo speaks with Terry James ,. He is the author of LAWLESS: End Times War Against the Spirit of Antichrist, and his brand new novel, MICHAEL: Last Days Lightening.
We discuss prophetic end-times scenarios, the spirit of antichrist, and ‘strange stellar signs;’ we also touch on big tech censorship, and the power grab by Democrats in Congress moving to pack the Supreme Court with liberal justices.
Podcast: Strange (and not so strange) Signs of the End Times with Terry James
MICHAEL–Stunning new novel by Terry James
These are the end of days.
The prophet Daniel’s message from the throne room of God, delivered to today’s generation by a mighty angel named Michael, bursts with supernatural pyrotechnics to shatter the black, satanic veil of deception.
Terry James’ just-released sequel novel, MICHAEL: Last-Days Lightning, slashes thunderously through actual, unfolding events of our times in a biblically factual story of Heaven’s most powerful angelic warrior and his prophesied end-times mission.
From the first novel, REVELATIONS, we meet again Tyce Greyson, a journalist who’s had strange visions ever since he was bitten by a serpent while on Patmos—the Aegean island where the prophet John received the visions he recorded in the biblical book of Revelation.
Greyson’s story picks up in MICHAEL with a car accident during a powerful rain storm. As his vehicle launches uncontrollably from the Maryland interstate, a gigantic, winged creature of lightning-like effulgence fills his windshield. He’s pulled from the wrecked car—astonishingly, without serious injury—and is shown a strange, golden sarcophagus being transported in the back of the tractor-trailer rig that caused the accident.
Later, Greyson learns that the golden burial chamber is part of an archaeological project the Israeli government asks him to investigate and write about. In reality, he is expected to surreptitiously find out what malevolent globalists plan for the creature found within the sarcophagus. –Plans that are diabolical and involve evil world-wide, deep state machinations designed to enslave earth’s inhabitants.
Greyson, because of the unusual powers he possesses, is marked for clandestine use by American-Israeli and evil, otherworldly forces. He is visited from time to time and guided by a mysterious, heavenly being from the moment of the auto accident during the rainstorm until the end-times intrigue reaches its climax at the end of 2020.
The story is an intriguing convolution of supernatural vision and contemporary, geopolitical reality—with a mixture of occultic and advanced technological factors thrown in.
Here’s what some readers are saying about the book:
- “A compelling,-riveting page-turner.”
- “Prophetic in tone, yet strangely familiar.”
- “Powerful in its possible portent for mankind.”
And here’s what the author says:
“With the stage-setting that’s taking place at a blistering pace, and Israel being the number-one signal of where this generation stands on God’s prophetic timeline, Michael’s divine assignment must now be about to begin.”
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book… 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 12:1, 4)
That “book” has almost certainly now been opened.
To order MICHAEL: Last-Days Lightning, either in paperback or in Kindle, go to the following:
Joyous Look at Life’s Gloom
Stresses of life that sometimes seem to build every minute of every day assault us, depress us, bring about a sense of gloom—even doom, on occasion. This truth of the human condition seems to be a growing affliction as hourly news reports appear almost designed to cause feelings of hopelessness.
Just a quick scan on one day of our Rapture Ready news briefs, although necessary and invaluable in keeping us informed, makes us know that impending wickedness our way comes, as Shakespeare might put it. The world is preparing for war—and that possibility is quickly growing beyond being merely rumor, as Bible prophecy forewarns. Here a few such headlines that portend things that could break out into global warfare.
- Russian Gunboats Head to the Black Sea to Join Military Buildup Near Ukraine
- China in New Threat to Taiwan: “Island’s Military Won’t Stand a Chance”
- US Warships to Deploy in Black Sea until May 4
- Japan Lashes Out at China On Uyghurs, Hong Kong ahead of US Visit
- Iran Is Testing Nuclear-Capable Missiles, Israeli Ambassador Reveals
- 2 US Warships to Deploy Near Ukraine until May amid Russian Military Buildup
- German Chancellor Merkel Demands Putin Pull Back Troops from Flashpoint Border as War between Russia and Ukraine Seems Imminent
These were all posted on one day’s Rapture Ready News—Saturday, April 10, 2021. If we included the less prominent potential conflicts, we wouldn’t have enough space for making the points I wish to make with this commentary. Suffice it to say that just going through the many potential military confrontations Israel faces against its enemies on any given day would itself fill a commentary-length article.
We know, as believers in God’s Word, that it is only the Almighty’s staying hand that has prevented all-out nuclear war since nuclear weaponry came on the scene. Every weapon ever created has been used to make war. So has the atomic bomb, but not since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. It has to be the God of Heaven who has prevented such horror.
Certainly, Bible prophecy indicates that nuclear weapons will at some point be used. The Tribulation era likely will see millions killed through use of such weaponry. China, which likely will be the leader of the “kings of the east” forces, will wipe out one-third of humanity. This implies nuclear warfare.
The last part of our title in this commentary—“life’s gloom”—fits this point. It is a time of gloom, thus depression, that we face with regard to possible warfare in our future. And considering all the other things confronting us or potentially confronting us in our daily lives, the gloom and depression just deepen.
COVID-19 has disrupted our lives like nothing in memory, even for my generation. We each have things in our lives—cancer, accidents, deaths of loved ones, prodigal children, unfaithful spouses, economic loss and many other depression-producing things—with which we must deal. Even when those who are without Christ in their lives, who have wealth, fame, and position, are seeming to have a great time of living it up, as they say, there come moments when severe depression sets in. The drugs, sex, illegitimate gain or ill-gotten wealth can’t provide the constant high on sinfulness to assuage coming down into the inner-darkness that the conscience tells one that he or she faces with regard to a bleak future.
So let’s look now at the first part of article’s title—“a joyous look.”
If I may give a personal example of the reason you can expect joy in the face of impending doom and gloom, maybe you can at least begin to understand. I, myself, do indeed understand how good my God is, and would like to just pass along the good news that is missing all too often in people’s lives today.
And the “good news” is all wrapped up in the “Good News”—that is, the news that Jesus Christ came to die on the cross at Calvary, was buried, and arose on the third day to take away your sins and mine. All who believe in Christ’s sacrifice in order to redeem (save) them from the consequences of sin can be assured not of gloom and doom, but of comfort and joy in this for all eternity. If we could just truly understand—all of Heaven’s riches belong to the believer!
When I learned at thirty-five years of age I would go totally blind due to a retinal disease, I was, to say the least, devastated. I had a young family with a child to raise. The gloom and doom was overwhelming. But it lasted only several days. Like Paul the apostle, I asked the Lord to take the disease—to restore my eyesight back to normal. I received no healing, no comfort. I then asked the Heavenly Father to take away all fear and anxiety that was so agonizing—remembering Paul’s answer from the Lord that God’s grace was sufficient. The healing was instantaneous. All fear was gone, and it never has raised its proverbial ugly head again.
When the total blindness came fifteen years later (a miracle in itself, as most victims of RP lose vision much more quickly) I had to push away from the computer screen and lament, “Lord you will have to do something if I’m to continue writing.”
Actually it wasn’t a demand, but a plea. Within several days I had my answer. My God-provided editor showed up on our doorstep after answering an ad for help because of my blindness. Angie is now my editor of going on twenty-nine years, I think, and is now, in the deepest reaches of my heart, my daughter. Together we have produced a number of books in our Lord’s service.
Joy again replaced gloom and doom.
Then, on Good Friday of 2011, I had the “widow-maker” heart attack. It came out of nowhere—not a hint of health problems.
I died clinically at least three times on the way to the heart cath lab, and was given a heavenly vision of three trips to somewhere on the periphery of Glory. My cardiologist, who took the case while I was in coronary ICU that Easter, told me just a few weeks ago that I was in superb condition for my age. It’s now ten years (and at least ten books later) after the type of heart attack that I was told 95 percent never survive.
Again, joy prevails over gloom.
But the most spectacularly wonderful thing for the believer in Jesus Christ to know concerns our eternal destiny. No matter how much wealth or good things of this life you accumulate or acquire—or, conversely, how much you lose or never gain—the joy that awaits you cannot be adequately imagined. The following from God’s Word should, if fully grasped in the deepest reaches of your spiritual understanding, take away all fear of troubles of this life, and give comfort straight from the supremely loving heart of our God.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. (Romans 8:14–19)
Israel’s Angel Standing By
Evil being perpetrated today by the satanic minions, both demonic and human, is made manifest for all to see. At the same time, the dynamics behind what we can easily discern tell us that powerful forces rage in prophetic stage-setting while the final battle between good and evil continues to take shape. The scope displaying this wickedness, however, allows us to only peer through that “looking glass darkly,” as the KJV puts it (1 Corinthians 13:12).
These factors were among my motivation for writing the story I believe I was given the impression to present in fictional form. While I realize many–actually most—among our Rapture Ready and Terryjamesprophecyline.com blog family rarely care to delve into fiction, I’m hoping those of you who fit in those categories will make exception in this case.
Like in using this commentary space to offer my and Gary Ritter’s The Minion Protocols a few weeks ago, this article, too, is admittedly, to some extent, a promotion for my new novel.
By way of perhaps trying to somewhat buffer the appearance of crass commercialism, I offer this explanation. I present my novel with the strong sense that much of what is happening in the world today—in the unseen, spiritual realm—can be revealed to a considerable degree through fiction.
And the interaction in that dimension must be absolutely stupefying. Maybe that’s why the Lord has us looking through that glass darkly, concerning the cataclysmic clashing going on, from which we are protected by Heaven’s power. I believe that a fictional rendering is what is now called for as a buffering, although revealing, depiction to help us see where things stand from the supernatural perspective. I hope at the same time it will entertain, which fiction, in part, should do in every case.
MICHAEL is the novel’s title. Last-Days Lightning is the subtitle. As we have gone over a number of times in these commentaries, Israel is the primary signal of where this generation stands upon God’s prophetic timeline. That supernatural nation is at the very center of the prodigious battle that will bring the epic conflict of all ages to a conclusion. It is the horrendous warfare the great Apostle Paul wrote about as recorded now in Ephesians 6:12. All who name the Name of Christ are engaged in this battle whether we realize it or can’t spiritually perceive what’s going on all around us.
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Ephesians 6: 11–12)
That hell-spawned warfare will carry on through the campaign of Armageddon, and even arise again for a brief moment at the end of the millennial reign of Christ. Israel is the primary target the devil and his forces have in their crosshairs in their rage to destroy the house of Israel, thus to make God a liar. God has said that Israel will be a nation forever, and will be the head of all nations in the Millennium. The Jews have been the target of the evil forces of this fallen world down through the centuries–thus because it is that people through whom the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world was born.
The hatred is again building at a rapid rate. Globalism, anti-God, one-world-order ideology, is the chief stronghold of the powers and principalities in the high places of wickedness. The present American president and his administration have done and are doing all within their power to reverse any and all advantageous things the previous administration did for the Jewish state. Israel’s enemies, such as Iran, sense a renewed opportunity to destroy the nation by developing their nuclear weapons programs.
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is among the top military entities on the planet. They have the capability, both in battle ready forces and in covert operations, which have made the nation to this point seemingly undefeatable.
From relatively current history, we know about the major wars in which Israel was attacked, their enemies completely routed, despite the Israeli military facing overwhelming odds in every case. But was it their military that assured those victories? Many experts in warfare still scratch their heads, and many have to admit that those victories must have had elements of supernaturalism involved, so overwhelmingly strange and complete were the victories.
This is where I believe Daniel’s prophecies for these very days in which we find ourselves come into view—not that I mean the great prophet’s prophecies have totally unfolded. But, from things we have seen in Israel’s modern history and all the geopolitical gyrations involving the Jewish state continually taking place, to me it is clear that Daniel’s prophecies for the time near Christ’s return at Armageddon are beginning to manifest, and have been for some time.
Daniel’s foretelling, given him through his spectacular encounters with a heavenly messenger, are worthy of examination.
First, the prophet was given the following directly from the throne of God. I’m convinced the time referred to is the time we have entered, probably when Israel was reestablished as a nation on May 14, 1948. The Tribulation era—the time of trouble the angel mentions—isn’t yet upon us, but things have been set in motion that will rapidly lead to that horrendous time.
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. (Daniel 12: 1)
The angel then gave the prophet the following to write:
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)
Based upon the electrifying unfolding of issues and events involving prophetic portent at this time, we must conclude that the book likely has been opened.
MICHAEL: Last Days Lightning will be available this Wednesday, April 14. Please look for the promotion on that day to get links to the book.
Again, I believe the story gives an entertaining but discerning look behind the evil going on in recent times. And I prayerfully hope it will, even though presented fictionally, give encouragement and comfort that there is nothing to worry about—the Lord has everything fully under control within His mighty hand.
Terry James Prophecy Line 