Harkening back fifty plus years ago to my time in the United States Air Force, memories of the jet fighter trainers we were responsible for maintaining further stimulates thoughts on Bible prophecy. The words of Dr. J. Vernon McGee come to the forefront of that time a half-century ago.

Dr. McGee once commented in answer to the naysayers about him being an “escapist” in regard to his pre-Trib view of Bible prophecy. He answered the detractors in his typically southern, cornpone, yet brilliantly humorous way.

The arguments of those who poo-pooed the Pre-Trib Rapture usually went something like this.

“Those who preach that that Christians will somehow avoid being part of the Tribulation are pie-in-the-sky escapists. They are preaching and teaching false doctrine. They just hope to escape that terrible seven years of God’s judgment and wrath.”

Dr. McGee would say something like: “You better believe I hope to escape that time of God’s judgment and wrath. If the house is on fire, I’ll go out the door, through the window, or up the chimney. I’ll leave that burning building however I can.”

Then McGee would usually add: “That’s who Jesus Christ is. He is the blessed hope. And He is my way of escape from that coming time.”

“Boy howdy!” as ol’ Dr. McGee might say, were he here instead of with the Lord in Heaven. “Are we ever in a house on fire today!”

As we’ve covered time after time, every which direction we look we see signals that indicate, like the title of a Billy Graham book once read, in a World Aflame!

Societally and culturally, the landscape is so debauched that nothing short of a miracle can bring things back into a normal pattern of life with morality at its center. The Antichrist spirit has brought about a turning of humanity’s back on God. The result is the reprobate mind of Romans 1:28 for the majority across the world.

Consider the gravity of the sexual revolution of the 1960s that has pulled human sexuality ever downward into some sort of insane-asylum configuration. Men can now be women and women can be men. Boys and girls are taught they can be whichever gender they decide, leaving the parents out of any decision-making. Sodom and Gomorrah-level homosexuality and other depravity is not only accepted, but embraced and championed by governmental leaders and mainstream media. Even worse, a large portion of so-called Christian clergy declare it all to come under God’s love, with no condemnation. The Bible is old-fashioned, out of tune with the times, and should be rewritten to be inclusive of all these new ways of sexuality and human behavior.

Governmental and political lies reside at the heart of everything from legislation to judicial decision-making. Deceivers are on the scene as never before, just as Jesus forewarned for the end of the age while sitting atop the Mount of Olives answering his disciples’ questions about when the end would come.

All nations mentioned in Bible prophecy for the wrap-up of human history seem at play at this very moment. Russia is about to assault Ukraine; Iran threatens Israel with utter destruction; and the Europeans are in turmoil, becoming lockdown states as the likes of Emmanuel Macron of France becomes more dictatorial by the day. China is on a tear, threatening all within its sphere of hegemony and promising to bring Taiwan back into its orb, even if it takes kinetic war.

Pope Francis embraces the dark side at every turn. He fires from the Catholic government longtime clerics who don’t go along with his rewriting of the Scriptures to include homosexuality in biblical approval.

It is indeed a World Aflame!

So, this brings me back to ol’ Dr. McGee and my time in the US Air Force all of those decades ago.

Just as McGee said he would go out the door, through the windows, or up the chimney to escape a burning house, so pilots of those high-performance jet trainers we worked on wanted to escape sure death if necessary.

All jet fighters have an egress system. This is that means of escape. The seats in which the pilots sit and in which they, with their parachutes, are strapped tightly, have what was called in my day t-handles. As I recall, there was a metal handle that the pilot could grip on each side of the seat so it was easy to pull if necessary.

The t-handles were painted bright yellow in the T-38 trainer, as I remember. The pilot could pull straight up on the t-handles. When that happened, the canopy was supposed to pop loose and the wind would take it away. Instantly, a small but powerful rocket ejected the pilot high above the doomed aircraft. At least this is how it was supposed to work. There were times when the canopy wouldn’t pop loose and be carried away by the wind stream. The top of the seat above the pilot’s helmet-covered head had a canopy piercer. It was a piece of metal shaped kind of like an axe blade. If the canopy didn’t deploy, the canopy piercer would crash through the canopy bubble when the rocket fired.

As I say, there were cases when the whole egress system didn’t work properly. These sometimes ended with the pilot being caught up in the destruction of the plane.

All this is to say that we are on a planet about to crash, and, like ol’ Dr. McGee, any sane person would want a way to escape any such holocaust that Bible prophecy foretells.

I’ve given the commentary the title “God’s Egress System” because that’s exactly who His Son, Jesus Christ, is. He is the “blessed hope”—the Savior of the world that is aflame. He came to seek and save the lost—all who are headed down into flames if not ejected into the air when Christ calls all born-again believers to Himself.

The crash into judgment and wrath could happen at any moment. This world is aflame with all of the things we have looked at as indicators of the end times. God’s escape is available for all who will grip that blessed hope—the t-handle of God’s egress system.

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. (Titus 2:13–14)

Jesus foretold that one of the great signals of His Second Coming and of the end of the age would be deception and deceivers. Paul, in 2 Thessalonians 2 tells us there will be strong delusion in the last days. He prophesied also that there will be “evil men and seducers growing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”

God’s Word—Jesus Himself—declared that the evil at the core of all the deception is a being full of lies. He said in answer to the Jewish religious zealots who tried to entrap Him:

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he spiked a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44)

There is scriptural proof, therefore, that the charge is based on God’s truth when we say all the lies we see perpetrated in these closing days of this Age of Grace (Church Age) come from the chief minion of Ephesians 6:12. Indeed we have experienced an increase in lies coming at us from many directions.

Remember the explosion of lies following the presidential election of 2016. The accusation of Trump’s campaign and election being in cahoots with the Russians—with Vladimir Putin himself—was in our faces for Trump’s full four years as president. The lies kept coming, and were front and center on every mainstream news outlet and left-wing social media every hour of every day for those years.

Then it was proven that that the Russian collusion charge was all lies, based upon a phony, political dirty trick. The opposing presidential campaign paid operatives to concoct and distribute a false dossier involving charges accusing Mr. Trump of paying Russian prostitutes to do salacious things in order to spew vitriol against Barack and Michelle Obama, his predecessor and former first lady.

The same political party concocted lies against a Trump administration Supreme Court candidate. We remember the weeks and weeks of that parade of prevarication. The president was subjected to a daily barrage for weeks and months in impeachment efforts—all based on lies.

Mainstream newscasts, social media blogs, and other platforms made up lies about the Black Lives Matter and Antifa destruction of cities across America being peaceful protests rather than riots. The same news and entertainment media, while ignoring those destructive, anti-American insurrections, now accuse Trump supporters who protested—mostly peacefully—in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, as being insurrectionists. The vice president declared the protest and march to be the evil equivalent of December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001.

Lies of less magnitude, but progressing geometrically on an hour-by-hour basis in order to maintain the political power they achieved through one of the biggest lies—those involved in the stolen election of 2020—continue to do their destructive work against the republic.

We have covered a number of times the fact that the globalist minions, both human and demonic, are working incessantly to set the stage for the coming Antichrist regime. I’ve pointed out that two prongs of this evil effort are primary in Satan’s blueprint. One is the climate-change mantra and the other is the COVID pandemic that, it is becoming obvious, isn’t likely to end anytime soon. Both are based largely on lies generated by the principalities and powers in high places.

The initial effort was the lies of global warming. That morphed into climate change, when the ice cap at the North Pole didn’t melt and submerge New York City in the waters of the Atlantic after the first prediction of such catastrophe some thirty years ago.

Reports have it that the University of Alabama at Huntsville data set presented from satellite reconnaissance has shown that there has been no global warming at all for the last seven years. Based on the HadCRUT4 data set, there has been no statistically significant global warming for more than nine years—August 2012 to October 2021.

Before the findings, the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confidently said in its First Assessment in 1990 that global warming is a great deal and a climate emergency. But given the succession of long periods without global warning as shown by HadCRUT4 data set, it is safe to say that the IPCC’s warning is way off the mark.

One writer renders judgment on the climate-change hoax.

Journalist and blogger Christopher Monckton noted that the West is self-destructing due to its belief in global warming, which has benefited China and Russia…

Monckton noted that totalitarian administrations, such as that of the United Kingdom, is imagining climate emergency–giving as example the situation in rural Cornwall. He predicted that the first political party to find the courage “to oppose the global warming nonsense root and branch” will sweep the board at the next elections.

“There is no more of a climate emergency today than there was in 2012, so the only reason for declaring one now is not that it is true (for it is not) but that it is politically expedient,” wrote Monckton.

The political leadership in the West, said Monckton, is committing economic suicide as it allowed high-energy industries to be wasted because of the fear of imagined global warming. “Whole industries are have already been or are soon to be laid waste – coal extraction, distribution and generation (and, therefore, steel and aluminum); oil and gas exploration and combustion; internal-combustion vehicles; and a host of downstream industries which will create joblessness and hardship to income earners,” he wrote. (“Global warming statistically insignificant: Climate emergency is imaginary,” Matthew Davis, 1/6/22, Rapture Ready News)

With regard to the pandemic that has the entire world in fear of facing death, the deception—the lies involved—are beyond our ability to comprehend at this point. I’m of the conviction that could be at the center of the prophesied lie that leads to enslavement of the populations of planet earth following the Rapture of the Church.

Never has there been such a global effort among the leaders of the world’s nations in attempts to bring their peoples into subjection. Demanded compliance in the matter of vaccinations and mask-wearing constitutes a powerful mechanism that could soon force all into the one-world mold Antichrist will impose.

The big lie—the great delusion of 2 Thessalonians 2—might spring from the present delusion being foisted—that the jab will bring freedom from pestilences and freedom to be an accepted citizen of the new order.

What we are witnessing might be the catalyst for Antichrist’s underlings—his liars—to bring about control over humanity which the father of lies has desired for millennia.

Before that can happen, the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life will step out of the heavenly throne room and call those who belong to the eternal family of God the Father to Himself. You don’t want to miss that magnificent reunion in the clouds of glory.

Again, here’s how you can make sure you will go to Christ when He calls the saints.

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)

Lou Dobbs, a long-time broadcast pundit on issues and events of the day, and his guest, Eric Metaxas, were discussing the guest’s new book, Is Atheism Dead? The conversation turned to the way culture in America has become victim of insane thinking wrapped in the term “woke.”

Dobbs offered, optimistically, that he had seen his own church and his pastor beginning to awaken. The congregation was awakening to the evil of things going on that were, through the insanity of woke wickedness infecting American culture and society with a deadly virus spawned by neo-Marxists, determined to change the nation into a Soviet or Maoist-style tyrannical state. He said that we are awakening to what is happening. The attempted Marxist cultural revolution is being made manifest for Americans to see. There is, he believes, still a considerable majority of such patriots to prevail against the globalist efforts to bring America down. The founding fathers, he said, knew that we the people need God, thus built into the founding documents that reality and provided ways thereby to deal with such assaults. God has His hand on the nation, but we must exercise our courage to keep the nation as founded, was his exhortation.

Dobbs and his guest, like we do in presenting these commentaries over the months and years, discussed the upside-down thinking of the leftist radicals at the forefront of the woke insanity: how it all got started with the takeover of the public educational system, with Marxist becoming ensconced in the institutions of learning, and the ideological contamination then spreading from K to 12.

Study of the real disciplines—reading, writing, arithmetic, biology, etc.—under woke-ism has been cast to the rear of educational prerequisite. Now it has come to be that CRT (Critical Race Theory,) GLTBQ, and other crazy inculcation grips children in years as young as kindergarten.

Parents are attacked by the governing elements at every stratum, from the federal level to the local school board, for daring to assert that they, the parents, should influence curriculum. Concerned parents have been labeled as “domestic terrorists” for showing up at school board meetings, demanding that their children not be taught CRT or not be subjected to boys and girls sharing the same restrooms or locker rooms at the same time.

We have all been aware of these news stories. And unless we’ve tuned to mostly secondary news sources, not mainstream news outlets, we’ve been bombarded by news slanted so that we are made to seem like the lunatics for disagreeing with the woke culture, and the perpetrators of the woke culture are made out to be the enlightened, sane ones in today’s America.

Lou Dobbs and his guest had to admit that with the ubiquitous mainstream news and the governments in the hands of mostly woke types in many cases, it would indeed be a fight to awaken the numbers of Americans necessary to overthrow this evil. However, such a revolution of change back to sanity was possible with the awakening taking place because of the woke evil in our faces constantly.

One such news item seems to somewhat support the contention.

A majority of Americans say that male and female are the only two genders, and that schools shouldn’t be allowed to counsel children about gender or sexuality without parents’ consent, according to the results of a survey released Monday.

The survey was conducted by Rasmussen Reports among 1,000 American adults from Dec. 21 to 22, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points at and 95 percent confidence level. It comes amid a social media firestorm sparked by Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling, who was accused of engaging in “hate speech” for insisting that there are only two biologically distinct genders.

“Transgender activists have accused J. K. Rowling of ‘hate speech’ for saying it, but most Americans agree with the Harry Potter author that there are only two genders,” the report said. (“Most Americans Don’t Trust Teachers, Schools With Children’s Gender Identity: Survey,” by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times, ZeroHedge, December 30, 2021)

Despite the encouraging survey result mentioned here, I must say I can’t match Mr. Dobbs’ optimism. I believe that the year 2022 finds this generation in America and on the earth too far into the reprobate mindset of Romans 1: 28. Rather than seeing a great move within our churches and among our pastors to begin rectifying the cultural rot through turning to God in all the Heaven-prescribed ways, the church as a whole looks the other way to different priorities. The evil and wickedness manifest through this thing called woke run rampant. Our God, through Isaiah the prophet, put it this way.

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! (Isaiah 5:20–21)

This condition of seemingly incorrigible corruption as we face 2022 seems to match Jesus’ words about His sudden intervention into the affairs of mankind, when things will be like they were in the days of Noah, and again in the days of Lot.

It is incumbent upon each Christian who reads this to seriously consider whether we are woke or awake. There might not be a Great Awakening taking place as secular pundits such as Mr. Dobbs and some religious personages apparently believe. As a matter of fact, I’m convinced there is no such movement coming. But it is time for each Christian to awaken to the fact that Christ’s Second Advent is blazing across the prophetic horizon.

First there must come a time of horror such as has never been or will ever be—according to Jesus Himself. That is the reality facing all of humanity–with the exception of those in God’s family.

It is time to be awake to how near is Christ’s call to His own in the air above this judgment-bound planet. This individual awakening should inspire each of us to do our utmost for His highest, as Oswald Chambers put it.

What a glorious eternal day it will be to hear our Lord and Savior say, “Well done, good, faithful, servant!”

Twenty something years ago, Pat Robertson was on his network, Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). I remember him saying in an almost amused, mocking tone that there would be no Rapture of the church. He declared that if that were to happen, it would completely disrupt all of the human condition across the world.

Planes would be crashing, cars would be wrecking, trains would run wild, and destruction of every sort would take place in such a moment. That’s not going to happen, he said. There will be no Rapture. He implied rather that there will be a “rupture” of all culture and society across the world. The Tribulation would be the implosion that wrecks everything, rather than the explosion a so-called Rapture would cause.

I remember distinctly Pat talking with his then co-host Sheila Walsh, the Scottish Christian broadcaster. As a side note, I presume Sheila has since moved on from agreeing with Mr. Robertson and his dismissing the pre-Trib Rapture “theory,” as he called it. I’ve heard her just within the past year on air with Dr. David Jeremiah, who teaches solidly on the pre-Trib Rapture of the church. She seemed to agree totally with all he said on the prophetic topic.

Over the years, there has been banter coming from those who adamantly hold that the pre-Trib Rapture is a myth. These sometimes use the word “rupture” to sneer at the idea of a Rapture, which we believe is Bible truth as taught by the Apostle Paul—and, by the way, by the Lord Jesus as well. He said the following as recorded by the Apostle John.

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:1–3)  

In these words of the Lord we are told, I’m convinced, the same as the Apostle Paul foretells.

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)

For all the fun-making against pre-Trib Rapture and those of us who believe it to be the next catastrophic intervention by Christ into human affairs, they can’t erase these powerful promises. That is, they can’t without spiritualizing and allegorizing as they make their case. They have to conclude that neither Jesus nor Paul meant what they said in a literal sense.

There is, however, a biblically prophetic passage that speaks, I believe, of a rupture. It is a key prophecy that will take place immediately after the Rapture of the Church. As a matter of fact, we’ve seen this rupture beginning for some time. It will be the tear in the fabric of this world system that will rip civilization the way Mr. Robertson once feared.

The prophet Zechariah forewarned of this coming rupture.

And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. (Zechariah 12:3)  

The prophet is saying here that when the world takes on Jerusalem and Israel–God’s chosen city and nation—it will be a load too heavy to lift. They will be injured severely, or ruptured, in their attempt to remove the city and nation from being in the place where God put them.

We’ve seen almost daily leaders from countries surrounding modern Israel declaring they will destroy the tiny Jewish state. Those such as Nasser and Sadat have tried to do so. Israel not only remains, but is now in a stronger position than ever, even though constantly threatened.

Antichrist and his juggernaut will finally manage to invade Israel, following all of Israel’s surrounding enemies being destroyed in the Gog-Magog attack of Ezekiel 38 and 39.  But the man of sin will, too, be severely injured and ultimately bound in chains and removed to eternal punishment. Israel will become the chief nation of the entire world during the Millennium—Christ’s thousand-year reign on planet earth.

Thankfully, all who accept Christ now, this side of the Rapture, will not endure the rupture the whole world will suffer when God again begins dealing with His chosen people, the Jews.

Here again is how to avoid being part of that future injury—that rupture—that will condemn the soul to eternity apart from God.

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)

When Hal Lindsey’s book, The Late, Great, Planet Earth, was released in May of 1970, the information startled even more than informed those who read it. People by the millions were suddenly given biblical teaching they, except for very few among them, had never heard.

Bible prophecy was presented as relevant in such a way as to make clear where the world stood in history and where it was headed. The results were a spiritual awakening for many.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say that they were saved as a result of reading Hal’s book. I agree with the encapsulating description promoting the book:

The Late Great Planet Earth cannot be overstated. The New York Times called it the “no. 1 non-fiction bestseller of the decade.” For Christians and non-Christians of the 1970s, Hal Lindsey’s blockbuster served as a wake-up call on events soon to come and events already unfolding—all leading up to the greatest event of all: the return of Jesus Christ.

The book was—as they say—cutting edge. It did indeed give some current events as viewed through the template of Bible prophecy.

For example, Lindsey and his coauthor C. C. Carlson wrote about how the region of Russia and surrounding USSR states were likely the nucleus of the Gog-Magog force that would, according to the prophet Ezekiel, attack Israel from the north. They detailed the development of the European Union and how it was likely destined to morph into the final Antichrist kingdom as given by Daniel the prophet.

Again, current events and issues of that time in the 1970s were shaping along the lines of God’s Word with regard to prophecy for the end of the age.

Lindsey pointed out many other facets that gave evidence that Christ would soon call the Church into His Presence. This would be the Rapture.

Some accused him of date-setting in that he implied 1988 might be the year of the Rapture or of some calamitous occurrence in earth’s history—based upon Israel having been reborn as a nation in the year 1948.

I don’t find anywhere that Lindsey actually predicted the Rapture, but only that he offered supposition—again, based upon the Bible giving the number of years as forty for a generation. The Lord saying that “this generation shall not pass until all these things are fulfilled” and Israel’s rebirth into modernity being 1948 was offered as the basis for this thought.

Yet, with the ground-breaking evidence he saw through issues and events of the time, viewed through the prism of Bible prophecy, planet earth continued. It did not become the Late, Great, Planet Earth.

So we come to the year looming before us. The year 2022.

We might wonder how can we possibly truly look at the horizon of humanity and proclaim “Happy New Year!” The issues and events faced by humanity during the 1960s and 1970s were daunting in many ways for America and the world. However, those that confront humanity at this time as we begin 2022 are formidable indeed.

Of course, like most folks around at the time of Lindsey’s book release, the masses of humanity are looking in other directions than at the horizon they, in actuality, are facing. This is the case, even though the issues and events of our time far exceed the virulence of the Cold War, oil crises, and the free-love generation.

Not only are the issues and events of these troubled times more ominous in many respects, but they point almost certainly at the coming Tribulation—Daniel’s seventieth week and the year 2022.

Let’s consider but a few as we peer into what the current occupant of the White House once termed “a dark winter.”

Israel

If Israel was a central indicator of the lateness of the prophetic hour in the time of The Late, Great, Planet, Earth’s release, that nation and people are in an intensifying diplomatic spotlight at this hour. It is swiftly becoming the “burdensome stone” of Zechariah chapter 12.

Fear of Israel striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, for example, engenders great concern from the global puppet masters—the UN, etc.

Russia, Iran, Turkey

These nation-state entities represent the heart of the Gog-Magog attack. They are coalescing above Israel in the precise configuration Ezekiel prophesied.

China

The CPC is preparing the Chinese people for something dramatic. They are increasing China’s hegemony over the other regions of Asia. This is shaping for the moment they and other “kings of the east” will kill a third of the earth’s population.

New World Order

The globalists, who in my view are the human minions in consort with the demonic minions of Ephesians 6:12, are preparing the way for Antichrist’s 666 dictatorship.

COVID has served as a tool of gathering control over the entire planet. Vaccine and mask mandates are making lemmings out of people across the globe. The devil’s blueprint for enslaving the planet at some point in the not-too-distant future is well into the construction stage.

Economic tyranny is driving the richest nation to ever exist on the planet toward collapse, with trillions of dollars printed out of whole cloth—nothing to back those dollars. Complete collapse is inevitable.

Culture and Society

The culture isn’t just coarsening, it is corroding and corrupting at a pace the folks of the 1960s and 1970s, despite the sensual evil of that time, could not have fathomed.

This era’s beastly, cultural minions are doing such things as insisting that children age 5 and younger be given hormonal and other treatments in order to change their genders.

They are having perverts teach grade schoolers and younger sexual activities and deviancy that people of the 1960s and 1970s would have deemed worthy of public hanging for the perpetrators.

Apostasy

Even Catholics are appalled at the pope’s antics in these times.

He condones homosexuality; he says Christ is not the only way to salvation; he makes nice in trying to bring all religions together—a thing Bible prophecy tells us will be central to Antichrist and his system of world control.

Yet with all this and much more wickedness developing, I can say “Happy New Year!”

That’s because the Lord Jesus Christ is still sitting at the right side of God the Heavenly Father. The Father is about to say to the Son, “Go get my children.”

I can assure this, because all of the signals are in place that point to the Tribulation and Christ’s Second Advent.

Unlike in the time of Hal’s release of his book, they are all in place. That is a happy prospect indeed for 2022!

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)

Significant proof of advanced end-times prophetic progression recently leaped to the forefront of communications coming from some within the Roman Catholic Church.

I have mentioned before that I receive on a regular basis a newsletter from These Last Days Ministries, a Catholic group. It is especially interesting to me because those presenting the news and commentary do so from a viewpoint remarkably like that of us who hold to the pre-Trib view of Bible prophecy.

To put it mildly, they are no fan of the current pope. As a matter of fact, they have even communicated several times that they see him as a candidate for the false prophet, the second beast of Revelation chapter 13. With Pope Francis’ latest action, he brings to the forefront, for those willing to see, that he is deserving of such accusation. His action is Antichrist—anti-biblical—at its very core.

The pontiff is a supporter of abortion. He recently publicly gave President Biden and, in effect, the entirety of the Democrat Party, a blanket pass on the killing of babies in the womb—a matter long seen as great sin by the Roman Catholic Church.

We have written before this pope’s predisposition to support things that portend Antichrist’s arrival.

He has said on more than several occasions that there are ways to God, Heaven, and salvation of the soul other than through belief in Jesus Christ alone. He has backed up those political minions in high places within the Catholic Church, giving them a pass on the murder of millions of babies through abortion. He has embraced at every opportunity the climate-change madness and the worship of Mother Earth and the Gaia mantra that we must all come together to save the planet.

He joins the totally reprobate purveyors of insanity who demand that all must either submit to an experimental, highly questionable injection or be excluded from the formerly normal activities of the compliant human community.

Now Pope Francis has moved into the area of anti-God activity that Jesus, Himself, indicated will mark the moments leading up to His intervention into human history. The pope has sanctioned homosexuality in no uncertain terms and those in the Catholic Church who know this is anti-God at its black heart are pushing back.

The word “sanction,” like so many English words, has more than one meaning. It can mean a prohibition against or a punishment for defying or violating a regulated matter (for example, when the US sanctions Iran for not abiding by agreements on atomic weapons development). But the use of the word in the sense that it means to approve or accept an action or conduct is how this pope has “sanctioned” homosexuality, despite God calling it “abomination.”

And this is the gist of the newsletter I recently received from the Catholic group that I mentioned earlier.    

Following is an excerpt that explains their displeasure with this pope’s action.

Francis has written to pro-LGBT New Ways Ministry, praising and thanking the group and its founders, despite its long-standing opposition to Church teaching on matters of sexual morality and consequent censorship by Church authorities.

On December 8, the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) revealed that Pope Francis wrote two letters to the group’s executive director, Francis Deeryard, on May 3 and June 17. The NCR stated that the letters were on official “Vatican stationary,” and written in Spanish.

The first letter, dated May 3, was in response to an April 21 letter DeBernardo had written to the Pope, explaining the nature of the pro-homosexual New Ways Ministry (NWM). The organization claims it “educates and advocates for justice and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Catholics, and reconciliation within the larger church and civil communities.”

According to NCR, Francis wrote of a discernible “attitude of shepherd closeness” in NWM, saying that DeBernardo’s letter had “helped me a lot to know the full story you tell me…”…

The second letter from the Pope to DeBernardo – a long-time advocate of homosexuality, and a 29-year veteran with New Ways Ministry – again praised the NWM head while also honoring NWM’s co-founder Sr. Jeannine Gramick.

“Thank you for your neighborly work…[your] heart, open to your neighbor,” wrote the Pope, before praising Gramick, who has a long history of dissenting from Catholic teaching on homosexuality and abortion…

“The Holy Father’s warm letter to New Ways Ministry is not only another step in his outreach to LGBTQ people, but the beginning of a kind of rehabilitation for New Ways, and for Sister Jeannine [NWM’s co-founder Sr. Jeannine Gramick] as well, in recognition of their important ministry in our church.” (“Francis Praises Dissident Pro-LGBT ‘Catholic’ Group Previously Condemned by the Church,” by Michael Haynes, LifeSiteNews, December 9, 2021)

We are now well into times “as it was in the days of Lot” in the wicked city of Sodom, as the Lord Jesus forewarned (Luke 17:26–30). Homosexuality and all forms of sexual perversions marked that time. The “falling away” of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 is manifest starkly for all who can discern the lateness of the prophetic hour.

It’s time to “watch” (Mark 13: 37), but it is even more imperative that believers witness as never before to bring lost souls to Christ before the shout is heard from above, “Come up here!”

“And when you see all these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your head, for your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21: 28)

Throughout the past weeks, months and even years, we’ve looked at the evil of the principalities and powers of Ephesians 6: 12.

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 6:12)

We’ve addressed how the wickedness within this cabal is ratcheting up for the conclusion of the age. The cabal includes both demonic and human diabolists that are determined to lay groundwork of the most disastrous kind. It is preparing the way for the reign of Antichrist, which will be the most despotic, tyrannical regimes of all human history.

The human minions within the high places have little to no idea that they are working to help Satan complete his destructive mission. However, these are every bit as much his Tribulation demolition force as the demonic principalities and powers of the supernatural sort.

There is no doubt that the stage is being set for Daniel’s seventieth week—the seven years of Tribulation leading up to Christ’s Second Advent. The avalanche of deception and wickedness that we see being foisted upon end-times mankind we term “Satan’s blueprint,” and it is drawn up and implemented by the ultimate architect of evil.

We’ve looked at how the US is the number-one holdup to this luciferian plan coming to full construction. By that, I mean that in human terms, this is the case. It is, of course, God the Holy Spirit resident within the Church (all born again believers) who restrains the evil, as pointed out in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.

But in human terms—in geopolitical terms—it is America and our constitutional adherence to national sovereignty that offers most resistance to the New World Order builders. That’s who brings the hellish drive to deconstruct national borders that we see plaguing our country. It is why the present presidential administration is sometimes openly, sometimes covertly, bringing illegal aliens across our borders and flying others in the early morning hours into places like Florida from places like Afghanistan. Satan wants no national borders. He is determined to establish one-world rule as soon as his blueprint is fully implemented.

The devil’s blueprint has been cleverly drawn, and was begun earnestly, in modern times, during the mid-twentieth century. With Hitler and Tojo defeated in 1945, the minions of Ephesians 6: 12 created the United Nations in succeeding years. Where Wilson and the one-worlders had failed with the League of Nations following WWI, the UN sprang to life and now makes its powerful presence known in every aspect of life on planet earth.

Satan even had in his blueprint to plant this one-world organization in America’s most influential city—influential not only within the US, but effectively in most every nation on earth.

The devil’s determination to tear down America’s boundaries–in every area of existence, not just in terms of geography—includes in his blueprint the following you will recognize.

In terms of society and culture, the satanic plan has divided the nation to an ever-increasing extent. He has fomented racial, political, class, religious, and economic chaos and division in other ways. The “seas and waves” are roaring in this nation that once was the world’s greatest experiment in liberty of human history. The republic that Benjamin Franklin once was said to have told a woman: “We have given you your republic, if you can keep it,” we have now lost.

One of Satan’s human minions, whom we are told is most notorious in helping create this condition of decline–George Soros, along with other ultra-rich one-worlders—has completely corrupted our lawmakers (Congress) and our constitutional guardians (Supreme Court judges). Washington, DC, has rightly been called “the Swamp.”

The satanic blueprint has replaced the Bible and moral coding with educational corrosiveness that has caused the majority of college students to hate America rather than claim it proudly as that great experiment in liberty Franklin and the other founders intended. This deception and wickedness have separated the young from their parents in many cases. Even the youngest students in kindergarten are now taught disgusting things about their sexuality and that one race is superior over another. The mainstream media glorifies the burning and looting of cities and the killing of police—a thing that is also acclaimed by the party of the political left. At the same time, anyone with a countervailing political, social, or cultural view can be placed in prison and vilified–held in an unconstitutional gulag—for months, even years. Not a governmental finger is lifted to help in their plight.

The blueprint has deceived much of the nation in the matter of what is right. The blueprint says one can be whatsoever gender they want to be. Anyone who disagrees is held up to ridicule and, in some cases, is threatened with physical harm and even death.

The devil and his blueprint have arranged for a very small percentage that makes up LGBTQ, etc., to completely dominate the national landscape. Mainstream news and entertainment powers that be seem to be all in with the insanity. And insanity is what the nation has come down to–the reprobate mind of Romans 1: 28.

So we are now, perhaps, at the point Jesus spoke about in framing the very end of the age. His words tip off those who are watching for Him to rescue them/us from the fulfillment of Satan’s blueprint.

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 17:28–30)

This is for those who are believers in Christ and who believe what God’s Word says about things to come. Not that I intentionally want to leave out those believers who don’t study God’s prophetic Word, or those who are lost because they haven’t accepted God’s grace offer of salvation through Christ’s sacrifice.

However, without a firm grasp of what the Bible has to say about things to come, and without acceptance of God’s grace gift by those who are spiritually lost, Heaven’s message contained herein cannot assuage the intensifying fear spreading across the globe.

Because of the dire prospects facing the inhabitants of planet earth, many, perhaps most, turn inward and do their best to ignore the darkening foreshadowing that intrudes upon their lives.

That intruding evil includes such things as supposedly the worst pandemic since that of 1918. And the variants of that disease just keep coming, according to the would-be world controllers who want everyone forced to take vaccines that are at best experimental.

Their effects in preventing or making the disease less life-threatening are yet unproven. And the vaccines are not held to the same degree or level of lab testing as others of history. As a matter of fact, some claim they aren’t vaccines at all, but ingestible of unknown materials.

There is credence to this charge, because full disclosure of ingredients is not forthcoming. The vaccine producers are protected against any liability from the proliferating cases of adverse reactions being experienced across the globe.

Because of the COVID paralysis, the nation and world face dire economic prospects. Supply chains for goods are severely disrupted. Deliveries are greatly delayed or not being made at all because of people who refuse to take the vaccines losing their jobs for not complying with governmental and company mandates.

Millions are walking off of their jobs in protest of the threat of loss of personal liberty. Their children are facing diminished education because of the COVID-spawned tyranny.

Education, itself, is in a darkly evolving trajectory. Critical Race Theory and other evil inculcation has caused upheavals across the country, with parents standing up against the cancel culture in schools and the insane rules and restrictions coming from leftist, radical school boards.

Inflation has raised its ugly head to levels near the time of the Carter administration’s “malaise” of the 1970s. This is predicted to get much, much worse as the economy shuts down, fewer products are on the shelves of stores, and inflation explodes.

Energy costs, already increasing day by day, are projected to get much worse in the near future. Gasoline prices at the pumps are entering uncharted territory in rising costs per gallon.

Threats from the “open borders” policy of the Biden administration bodes ill for American life in more ways than can be adequately analyzed. The invasion is being used by those of the leftist mindset to distribute the hordes of illegal aliens in order to, they intend, change the voting of future elections in their favor.

People thus look for hope in direction other than the darkening horizon. But, sadly, most look inward, as stated previously, not in the direction they should look in seeking a brighter prospect for their lives.

Sadly, too, even the pulpits of America are filled by pastors who point congregants to cope with their daily troubles in societal and cultural ways–to the exclusion of prophetic hope.

Teaching to cope is well and good, if done with Christ at the center of the messages on how to best get along in this life on a deteriorating, disintegrating planet. But people in the pews and across the nation and world virtually never are shown the magnificent future that awaits those who truly understand the majesty and promises wrapped up in the name that is above every other.

In that name resides a future of incomprehensible life and prosperity beyond imagination. His is the only name that can comfort the demonically savaged souls of these closing days of the age.

Preachers who are truly messengers of Jesus Christ should be shouting from the elevated platforms of their pulpits. We should be doing the same at every opportunity.

All the things surrounding us that point to planet earth’s most wicked time of destruction are a holy siren of alert. Jesus is about to step onto the clouds of glory and shout, “Come up here!” When we see all these things we have seen–and continue to see—we are to look up and lift up our heads. For He is on the way for His own. This is the ultimate promise from the Creator-God—from Jesus Himself.

What promise! What incomparable comfort!

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)

Billy Graham once told of being invited to a banquet at which celebrities from Hollywood and other segments of society would attend. The evangelist said a certain person was speaking and told an off-color joke. Billy said he, himself, smiled while all the other guests were laughing uproariously with delight over the joke.

At that moment, Graham said, he looked directly across the large banquet table from where he sat. His eyes immediately met the beautiful, famous, violet eyes of a friend. It was those of Elizabeth Taylor, one of the legends of Hollywood history.

They were staring almost sleepily at him. Her beautiful features were a mask of disappointment as she almost imperceptibly shook her head negatively, showing her disapproval.

“You shouldn’t be condoning by your smiles such ungodly conversation,” was her meaning.

Billy said he never forgot that lesson: that the believer is under constant surveillance by the world around us. It was a lesson well-learned, taught by a person, although his friend, who was by all accounts caught up in a wicked, show-business.

We sometimes—at least yours truly does—get frustrated and even angry when the media types, whether in news or entertainment, attack a minister or other Christian for one perceived misstep or another. As a matter of fact, there doesn’t even have to be a true misstep. The media people will just make up things while supposedly reporting the story.

Yet those within their own ranks who do truly wicked things, more often than not –unless there is a political purpose in condemning those acts—refuse to report the incident. Those among their own ranks are given passes, with no reportorial consequences.

We know that it is Satan and his minions, both human and supernatural, who are at the heart of fomenting such unfair, hypocritical vitriol against those who claim the name of Christ.

But is it really unfair?

The very fact that there is such a hypocritical stance in being held to a different set of standards offers proof of the fallen state–the depravity of man.

The world is becoming an increasingly stench-laden cesspool. The difference between good and evil, between the godly and ungodly, is painfully discernable. The good seems to be losing–the wickedness seems to be winning.

It is by “witness” that we present the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have no choice in this time of growing corruption at every level of human activity but to be in this cesspool environment.

We cannot be effective witnesses if we close off our ears, eyes, words, and actions from all that is going on around us—i.e., we must be in the world, but not of the world. It is our commission to go unto the entire world with the Good News–the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This was why Billy Graham told the true story of his own failure–or perceived failure—by Miss Taylor. Perhaps the greatest evangelist of modern times, Billy was not wrong in being among those hedonist banquet goers. He was wrong, he thought, by appearing to not condemn the speaker’s dirty joke.

His friend, Liz Taylor, was holding him to a different standard–a much higher standard. And, Graham concluded, this was not unfair. Christians being held to a higher standard by the lost of this world proves they are convicted of their sin. They might cast their condemning mockery in our direction, but all it proves is that they are without excuse. They know the difference between godliness and ungodliness.

By all accounts, Elizabeth Taylor truly loved her friend and admired his always adhering to Bible truth. She was rightfully disappointed when she saw him smile–out of the awkwardness of the moment, no doubt, but smile he did, nonetheless.

Now this takes us to the point that brings out another failure of recent days within the community of believers. And, to me, it is an egregious failure because it opened the great cause of Christ to media mockery of every sort.

Everyone knows of the chant that went viral and remains at the forefront of the political world. “Let’s go Brandon,” is the chant, produced by a reporter interviewing a race driver after his victory. The background chant that was heard in her interview with the driver was one I won’t put here, but most readers know its verbiage. It was invective against the present occupant of the White House.

The unedited version–the one the reporter quickly changed to avoid embarrassment of her network—is now heard at many college football games and in other venues. A word that not long ago would never be spoken –or rarely so—in so-called mixed company, now is used brazenly among many of the fairer sex, as well as by the male population.

For me to even state such shows the generation of which I’m a part. There seem to be no guardrails, and it is troubling to me.

Now we hear the congregation of a church with a national and international audience chanting the so-called cleaned-up version of the original chant. The media has played it incessantly. The media, which is itself proving every news cycle to be as wicked as any part of this debased culture, is pointing to the fact that this church, representing the Christian community that claims God’s message that you must be saved, is using the same ungodly language as found on the streets that church claims as sinful.

This is a fair accusation. The media in this case is right in condemning the hypocrisy.

To have allowed the congregation to get the chant started was bad enough, in my view. But to let them continue, while broadcasting before a national and international audience, was a horrendous thing.

We are to be in the world. We have no choice. But to be of the world is something to be avoided at all cost.

The church body in question has done the equivalent of diving headlong into the cultural cesspool. I hope there is repentance forthcoming for this body of believers and its pastor, both of whom have been followed and respected across America and throughout the world.

Moving ever deeper into the end of the age, it shouldn’t surprise that signs that we’re “nearing midnight” are manifesting in increasingly profound ways. Seeing those signals proliferating at an alarming rate is nonetheless troubling.

We who watch prophetic progression from the pre-Trib viewpoint are troubled more than most. We’re perturbed by what Bill Koening of “Koenig’s Eye View from the White House” calls “the clueless church.”

Koenig says:

I continue to hear from many Christians that a majority of the church, even evangelicals, have no awareness of the biblical and prophetic significance of these days. The replacement theology part of the church was in the 100 million range according to my 2004 study.

For those of us who are sensitive to these times, this is hard to comprehend. Moreover, many pastors have no understanding of Bible prophecy. In some cases, those who have some understanding don’t want to scare their flock. Others have no interest.

With all this said, only the God of Israel knows how these biblically significant days will play out. (https://www.watch.org/subscribers/koenigs-eye-view/article/83238)

Once again, I sense I almost should apologize for presenting this commentary from the America-centric position. But as the nation that has been for most of its brief life considered Christian, at least in its founding, the fall from that admittedly overstated position demonstrates profound prophetic implication.

Our culture, steeped in its perceived youthfulness, has until its fairly recent past matured in a common-sense way toward full recognition of its Christian heritage. The young adults gravitated toward responsibility in planning their own lives and families. That trajectory changed without a doubt beginning in the 1960s.

National leaders seem to have lost their collective minds during that era—a wickedness that still is herding the nation toward the “reprobate mind” of Romans 1:28. They removed Bible reading and prayer from the public classrooms and have tried since to remove any mention of Jesus Christ from all facets of American life.

How could we expect our youth to continue in the American tradition that started with the country’s founding? How could we expect that, since those responsible for governing in a way that keeps us on the constitutional track the founders gave us have abdicated that responsibility?

Not only have a large number of leaders legislated and enacted anti-God governance, many of these have led by example, in many cases blatantly presenting some of the most hedonistic lifestyles imaginable.

Satan’s blueprint for destroying the nation began to reconstruct America’s national architecture in a big way with the above-mentioned removal of Bible reading and prayer. The result in the 1960s was the loss of the nation’s youthfulness. “Free love” came with the hippies, a young American president was assassinated—as were his brother and a top black minister and civil rights leader. Fifty-something thousand of America’s youth were lost in the bloody Vietnam war.

Although most of today’s Millennial generation know little of that history of fifty years ago, they are its victims. This doesn’t excuse their movement into behavior that rivals the behavior of those who lived during the days of Lot in that wicked city, Sodom. Each individual is responsible for his or her own acceptance or rejection of God’s way—through belief in Jesus Christ, who is the Way (John 14:6).

The point is, a large portion of this Millennial demographic is now well down the pathway that brought God’s judgment in Lot’s day in Sodom.

The following news item is quite disturbing:

While most millennials view Jesus and the Bible as at least “a little positive,” nearly one-third of America’s largest, most educated and misunderstood generation also identify as LGBT, and 75% of them admit to “searching for a sense of purpose in life,” a new report from Arizona Christian University shows.

The report, New Insights into the Generation of Growing Influence: Millennials In America by George Barna, who leads research at Arizona Christian University’s Cultural Research Center, explains in an analysis of the findings that a number of the daunting challenges faced by the generation of 78 million—defined in this report as those born from 1984 through 2002—are deeply connected to their spiritual perspectives.

“For understandable reasons, millions of millennials reject organized religion, or have qualms about religious leaders, and especially about religious people who may prove to be hypocritical. Their experiences, observations and assumptions regarding religion, spiritual beliefs, and faith practices have produced a turbulent spiritual experience,” wrote Barna, who’s also an ACU professor focusing on worldview assessment, development and cultural transformation…

Barna suggested that a solution to the challenges being faced by millennials including their lack of purpose in life can be addressed by shifting worldview.

“Your worldview is the foundation of your decision-making. Every choice you make emerges from your worldview, which serves as the filter through which you experience, observe, imagine, interpret, and respond to reality. And every one of the thousands of choices you make every day have consequences. That means worldview is at the heart of everything we are considering in relation to the well-being and development of the young adult generation,” he wrote.

“Given the centrality of worldview to the human experience, there can be no improvements to the life millennials lead without addressing the fundamental role of worldview,” he explained. “And because worldview is developed and carried out in the competitive marketplace of beliefs and behaviors, think about the pervasive consequences for millennials of rejecting the biblical worldview in favor of other, more popular alternatives.” (“Most millennials like Jesus and the Bible, but 30% identify as LGBT: study,” Leonardo Blair, Christian Post Reporter, 11/4/21)

The nation has taken a nosedive into the cesspool of swamplike societal godlessness. Can we expect the young, with their hormones raging and their zest for constant exhilaration, no matter how it is attained, to be the guardians of the American future?

The church—all born-again believers—has failed in many ways, thus allowing the developments we’re experiencing. There is a way back to godly sensibility. He is the Way, Truth, and Life. His name is Jesus.  He is coming soon to call believers to Himself. Meanwhile, let’s do our best to put that name back into our classrooms—and our public as well as private life.

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9–11)