I preface this commentary by giving credit to my good friend and colleague, Bill Salus, for his recent email newsletter with the subject Top 20 Pre-Tribulation Prophecies.

As usual, I found his analysis to be on the biblical mark—even considering my disagreement with his belief that Psalm 83 is a war involving Israel that precedes the Gog-Magog attack. As I’ve stated in that regard, he could well be right and I wrong on the matter.

Bill gave some good news about the assurance Bible prophecy from the Pre-Trib perspective offers, followed by some bad news for nonbelievers.

About the good news, he offers the following:

The Church is:

• Saved from the wrath through Jesus Christ (Romans 5:8–9).
• Delivered from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
• Not appointed to the wrath (1 Thessalonians 5:7-10).
• Kept from the “hour of trial” of the Tribulation (Revelation 3:10–11)
• We are to comfort one another about the blessed hope of the Rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:18).

About the troubling side, he says:

The bad news is that believers have loved ones who are presently unsaved and at risk of being left behind to experience the most perilous seven years in all of post-Flood history.

Bill then speaks to the attitude that some Christians have developed. The particular attitude he mentions is what I wish to address in this commentary.

He states the following, paraphrasing the words of certain believers, then issuing precaution:

“I DON’T CARE: ‘I’ll be Raptured, so why should I worry about such things that don’t concern me?’”

I would encourage someone who has adopted this position to first realize that you may be here to endure some of the Pre-Tribulation prophecies. If you face off with one or more of these powerful predictions, you will undoubtedly be forced to care! Therefore, be cautious not to get caught up in the trap of thinking that the rest of your days will be persecution free.

Bill Salus’ words are well placed while we observe these darkening times. His admonition hearkens me back to a series of services we called “revival meetings.” I’ve mentioned this a number of times before.

I vividly remember sitting at our First Baptist Church in the mid-1970s. A short-in-stature evangelist was the speaker for those five days of meetings. Each night, he wore a different colored leisure suit—lime green, day-glow orange, bright red, etc. Some of the readers here will remember those flamboyant garments. We joked about his flashy dress, but we didn’t joke about his messages. They were straight from the heart of God, it was progressively obvious as the week proceeded.

The last night of the revival meeting, the evangelist made a prediction that sticks to the memory like rubber cement to two pieces of paper.

He said, “I believe that before Christ calls the Church in the Rapture, this government in America will be reaching with powerfully evil fingers for the throats of Christians. Just as those fingers are about to close on the necks of believers, Christ will blow the trumpet.”

He believed 100 percent in the imminence of Christ’s call to the Church, but he nonetheless issued that prediction. I’ve never forgotten it.

There was no such virulent threat during that mid-’70s time. Such a thing was unthinkable. But here we are in 2021 and developments trending dramatically in the direction he predicted are clearly in view.

Our neighbors to the north in Canada are already starting to feel that icy grip, and that chilling grasp can be sensed even in our nation.

As Bill Salus has admonished, we must not remain indifferent just because we know we will be kept from the most horrendous time to come.

We must do all we can to fight those grasping, evil governmental fingers with prayer and with civil action as provided by the means our Founding Fathers provided under God’s great guidance.

Most of all, we must carry forth with the Great Commissionthe Lord Jesus commanded just before lifting into the heavens.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28:19–20)  

Jesus, if He wasn’t the Creator God of all that is and the Savior of the world from the dread sway of sin, might be considered a person obsessed—especially in one particular area. He constantly and consistently commanded that those who identified with Him “watch.” This seemed all-important to Him.

Because He is, in fact, Creator and Lamb that takes away the sin of the world, it behooves us to examine this obviously most important directive.

Jesus chastised the religionists—the Judaizers of that day—for their inability to discern the times—their failure to “watch” to see what was going on around them.

When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? (Matthew 16:2–3)  

Those He chastised at that time could not discern the times; they couldn’t “watch” for their Messiah in the proper way because they didn’t truly believe in God’s way. That Way was right in front of them, and they wouldn’t believe in Him. So, belief is at the center of any such “watching” process in terms Christ presents.

The spiritual principle for attaining this level of discernment is laid out by the Apostle Paul.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:12–14)

In the case of believers in this Age of Grace (Church Age), the indwelling Holy Spirit provides this discernment. We who have Christ dwelling within us have the ability to “watch” in the way He wants us to observe the times and seasons.

Sad to say, the vast majority of pastors today are themselves not “watchers on the wall” for prophetic stage-setting issues and events literally exploding around them. Thus, Christians in their pews who are true believers are not being instructed to “watch.”

That fact of pastoral neglect is no excuse if you and I are believers. We’re to study to show ourselves approved, so that we will not be ashamed at our Lord’s appearing (the time of Rapture). Such “watching” and working makes us workmen who need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of Truth. And the Truth is that Jesus Christ is about to make that sudden appearing we’re to be watching for. The evidence for that any-moment appearance is in all directions we observe.

Jesus knew that neglecting to “watch” would be a major symptom of apostasy at the end of the Church Age. He knew that people will be more and more caught up in the affairs of an increasingly sinful world the nearer history moves toward the Tribulation era. (Read again Matthew 24:36–42 and Luke 17:26–30)

As a matter of fact, the Lord voiced His thoughts in that regard. He was concerned for the generation of believers who would, like Lot of Sodom, be vexed by the evil all around them. I think His words shows that He would avenge this evil, even though He knew there would be very few believers who were truly faithful enough to be looking for His sudden, catastrophic intervention.

And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:7–8)

This statement makes me hold to the contention that there is no ”Great Awakening” prophesied for the closing days of this age. Certainly, the trend in the opposite direction of such an event seems to be irreversible. That trajectory is easily observable to the spiritually-attuned watchmen on the wall of unfolding history.

Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch. (Luke 13:35–37)

My blog article posted last week on my personal blog, terryjamesprophecyline.com, and on raptureready.com—“A Millstone Milestone”—revolved around evil treatment of children. It examined Jesus’ words about punishment for those who “offend” little children. That passage follows.

And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matthew 18:3–6)

I mentioned at the end of the commentary that perhaps very soon the children who are accounted innocent in God’s great economy because they haven’t reached the age of accountability will be taken out of harm’s way when Christ calls the church to Himself. This, of course, will be the Rapture, as given by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:51–55 and 1 Thessalonians 13:13–18.

It is that twinkling-of-the-eye instant of time when all believers in Jesus Christ will be removed from planet earth to Heaven.

And those little ones are now in harm’s way as never before, as pedophilia and child trafficking are reported to be burgeoning in America and across the globe. And more than sixty million babies in this nation are murdered in their mothers’ wombs, with the number of abortions continuing to grow. It is one more signal of just how near God’s judgment and wrath must be as the Tribulation approaches. It is difficult to imagine anything more wicked and evil as such satanic activity.

So the Rapture will remove these innocents from the surface of this soon-to-be punished world of God-rejecters—those whom God’s Word calls earth dwellers.

So with that in mind, I wanted to again address children and the Rapture, in order to briefly present why these children will be taken to be with the Lord at the Rapture.

I get opposition to this notion every time I write about it, and the following was an answer to an emailer who had told me how wrong I was about the matter.

Thanks for writing.

You have touched on a topic that is a hot issue with yours truly. On this, I give no quarter, whatever. But, through experience in dealing with the issue, I know that no matter what evidence I offer to the contrary, those who accept 1 Cor. 7:14 as dealing with children and the Rapture consider it a verse that stands alone as proving their point that only children with at least one saved parent will go to Jesus in the Rapture. And, most won’t change on that.

I no longer debate the matter, but respond one time and one only.

This is a salvation matter. (an eternal matter—not a matter dealing with physical life and death, so far as the soul is concerned.) It is not a matter of earthly relationship and religion or morality.

Children who have died physically and children who will be taken in the Rapture have in common the fact that they were/will be instantly with the Lord. This is because they are seen in God’s economy as innocents, considering the factors as dealt with in this treatment of the subject.

Most importantly, it is an INDIVIDUAL matter—God’s dealing one on one, not collectively, with the salvation issue.

Acceptance of Christ is based upon a decision to accept or reject. If a person doesn’t have the ability to accept or reject because he or she doesn’t have the mental capacity to understand, they cannot accept or reject.

The Bible says that those who know to do good and do it not—to them it is sin—i.e., if one doesn’t know they are lost because of sin, they are not condemned. But, when the knowledge comes (and the Holy Spirit draws them) that they are sinners, they must accept God’s offer of reconciliation.

The very character of God—as presented throughout the entire Word of God, is at stake. All in Christ will go at the Rapture. Paul says “all will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye”.

What does this mean?  It means “all” in Christ. The child, before he/she is able to understand God’s salvation provision, is in Christ.

One area of Scripture that addresses the position of all in Christ (that is, the saved) as relating to God’s wrath—thus the Rapture—is found here in 1 Thessalonians:

5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
5:10 Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.

All of the children who have died—before coming to this capability to make decisions—and having heard the message—are now with Christ. All after the Rapture who are born and do not reach the age of understanding—thus accountability—will go to Christ when they die. This is totally in keeping with God’s character, again, as plainly laid out in God’s holy love letter to mankind.

The Scripture that talks about the name being blotted out of the Lamb’s Book of Life deals with this, I’m convinced. Once the child reaches the age he/she knows Christ is the way to salvation, but rejects God’s way (John 14: 6) their names are blotted out. They are written back in, when salvation does occur in the only way God prescribes.

And, I’m convinced that not one child born after the Rapture will ever reach that age—thus all children born following that event will go to be with the Lord—either upon their deaths, or during the sheep/goats judgments following the triumphant return of the Lord Jesus.

As a matter of fact, read Jesus’ words, here:

24:19 And woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days!

The Lord mentions two age classifications. 1)Those children who are in the womb, and 2) Those who are so young they are still at the mothers’ breasts.

No mention of toddlers—i.e., these children have been conceived, or born during the Tribulation period. And Jesus is talking here about halfway through the seven-year period.

All children below the age of being unable to make decisions on the salvation matter will go to be with Jesus—I have absolutely no doubt, after studying the matter for nearly forty years.

Actually, I was wrong about the time I’ve been “studying” the matter. It has been since I was six years old, when saved at Seventh Street Bible Church in Pekin, Illinois. We were taught that this was the Bible’s position those seventy-plus years ago, and I remember hearing it like it was yesterday.

Those little ones will go to Christ when He calls. And, yes there will be other little ones who will be born during the horrendous seven years that will follow that glorious event.

But I have no doubt that the very character of God will bring everyone of those born during that terrible time of judgment and wrath into His Kingdom that will follow, whether through their deaths, or through surviving that time known as Daniel’s Seventieth Week.

There is but one way to avoid God’s wrath and judgment, whether we are alive when the Rapture occurs or we experience death before that time. That only way is the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No person comes to the Heavenly father except through Him we are told in John 14: 6.

Again, here is the heavenly formula for escaping that judgment and wrath:

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)

My friend, the late Dr. Chuck Missler, once wrote a book with the title Alien Encounters. He asked Douglas James Mahr to write the foreword for it. Mahr was author of the 1985 release, Voyage to the New World, an immensely popular book at the time that went a long way toward making New-Age thinking mainstream in the entertainment community.

Mahr tells that he was once totally immersed within the New Age movement. He became close friends with actress Shirley McClain and helped her while she worked on the 1988 TV film Out on a Limb.

It was the story of Ms. McClain’s coming to embrace the New Age movement and become the movement’s chief Hollywood proponent.

Mahr, by the time of the publication of Missler’s Alien Encounters in 1997, had apparently become a believer in Christ. He wrote the following as part of the foreword for that book:

It’s all about the war. An invisible war. A cosmic contest which may, indeed, engulf the planet Earth in ways that very few have any capacity to anticipate. Anyone who has been watching the news, or has been profiling the entertainment media, realizes that our society is increasingly being con­fronted with the “invisible” world—and what was once the domain of science fiction and the lunatic fringe, has now become the preoccupation of serious scientific investigations and has also become a major centroid of policy within the clas­sified government community…

There is a cosmic deception being orchestrated and you are one of its targets…

Mahr was seemingly prescient in his declaration. We are witnessing almost precisely the reality wrapped up in his words: “It’s all about the war. An invisible war. A cosmic contest which may, indeed, engulf the planet Earth in ways that very few have any capacity to anticipate.”

For years, Hollywood presented films like The Day the Earth Stood Still, The War of the Worlds, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and many others. Sightings, even by presidents of the United States, were reported of unidentified flying objects and other phenomena that appeared to be extraterrestrial. Yet the whole time, news organizations, government officials, military officials and every other entity within officialdom pooh-poohed these as imagination or as something of non-importance.

Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force official look into the UFO and USO (Unidentified Submerged Object) reports, was shut down with more or less the declaration that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to probe further. All that has suddenly changed. It seems even our government is taking notice. And the sudden interest comes at a fascinating time—when most every prophetic indicator for the coming Tribulation era is in view. We who observe these indicators appearing at the same time call the phenomenon “convergence.”

There is to be coming soon a release of reports that have been kept from the public for decades. The following excerpt explains.

There are reasons to be skeptical. After decades of stonewalling on the issue, suddenly American military chiefs appear to be giving credence to claims of UFOs invading Earth.

Clips purporting to show extraordinary flying technology have been “confirmed” by the Pentagon as authentic. The Pentagon move is unprecedented.

The videos of the Unidentified Flying Objects were taken by U.S. air force flight crews or by naval surveillance and subsequently “leaked” to the public. The question is: were the “leaks” authorized by Pentagon spooks to stoke the public imagination of visitors from space? The Pentagon doesn’t actually say what it believes the UFOs are, only that the videos are “authentic”.

A Senate intelligence committee is to receive a report from the Department of Defense’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force next month. That has also raised public interest in the possibility of alien life breaching our skies equipped with physics-defying technology far superior to existing supersonic jets and surveillance systems…

The military people who take the videos in good – albeit misplaced – faith about what they are witnessing are not the same as the military or intelligence people who see an opportunity with the videos to exploit the public in a psychological operation.

Fomenting public anxieties, or even just curiosity, about aliens and super-technology is an expedient way to exert control over the population. At a time when governing authorities are being questioned by a distrustful public and when military-intelligence establishments are viewed as having lost a sense of purpose, what better way to realign public respect by getting them to fret over alien marauders from whom they need protection? (“Is the Pentagon’s UFO PsyOps Fueling Russia, China War Risk?” ZeroHedge by Tyler Durden, May 22, 2021. Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation)

A legitimate question is: Considering all the things we’re witnessing—in convergence of indicators for the windup of this Age of Grace—might the sudden desire to alert the public to planet earth’s likely being visited by extraterrestrials have a luciferian purpose at its heart?

I’m thinking, of course, of 2 Thessalonians and the “lie” people who have rejected the truth of Christ and salvation will believe when they’re sent “strong delusion”—by God, Himself!

And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thesssalonians 2:10–12) ­ 

So the question to consider is whether the sudden UFO information release has prophetic significance in this regard. Could it be but one more indicator of where this generation stands on God’s prophetic timeline? Is this but one more item being used by Satan and his minions to set up earth’s inhabitants for when the Church is gone in the Rapture and the Antichrist is revealed?

I believe it is quite possible that this is the case.

Remember that in Revelation chapter 12, Satan and his fallen horde are kicked out of Heaven for the final time. In Revelation 13, the False Prophet calls down fire from Heaven in the sight of the first beast and of the world’s populace. Might this be the long-anticipated “space brothers” the False Prophet will claim come to earth to save the planet?

Certainly no developments we see almost hourly in these strange times should be off limits for consideration as to prophetic significance. The present UFO hubbub is no exception.

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

Our title for this commentary could have just as easily been something like “Quartet Sips on Poison.”Either title would be appropriate. This is because the powers that be in world geopolitics are involved in tampering with things that are guaranteed to injure them and the entire world of nation-states. This we know from the very Word of God, who does not slumber or sleep when it comes to His chosen nation, Israel:

The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. 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 12:1–3)

This should be no surprise to Bible prophecy students. Israel is the key to understanding the lateness of the hour, as has been pointed out many times. Many who study from the pre-Trib perspective of prophecy believe that the rebirth of Israel (often represented as the fig tree) on May 14, 1948, unleashed the prophecy Jesus gave as recorded in the book of Matthew.

Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. (Matthew 24: 32–34)

If this prophecy is indeed about the reforming of Israel in 1948 for the wind-up of this Age of Grace (Church Age), then we are very late into that prophecy. There should be some proof when observing our times and season, if there is any validity to this proposition by those who hold to this scriptural passage as relating to this generation. I believe we might just be witness to that prophecy proving just how late we are into the final stage of human history immediately preceding Christ’s call to His Church in the Rapture, based upon the world beginning in earnest to “burden”itself with God’s chosen nation. In this regard, I refer to the large power bloc that represents the nation-state epicenter of global influence—the so-called Quartet. This group has designated themselves as the nucleus of geopolitical power. They’re making known that they intend to assert that power by doing some heavy lifting in making God’s chosen nation-state comply with their version of how things ought to be. The following illustrates this assertion of this group’s powerful influence in the matter of Israel and its blood-vowed enemies.

Canada and the Middle East Quartet (the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia) condemned on Sunday the violence that took place on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and called on Israel to halt eviction plans for Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood as violence rises in the country’s capital. The EU and the US also issued a statement against the violence and the pending Sheikh Jarrah evictions, as did Jordan, Turkey, Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Individual European countries, as well as South African, have spoken out as well… Tensions were heightened as thousands of Muslim worshippers flocked to the Temple Mount – al-Haram al Sharif in Arabic – to pray there on Islam’s holy night of Laylat al-Qadr (Night of Power). Further violence is expected on Sunday night as Israelis celebrate Jerusalem Day, which marks the day that the IDF captured the eastern part of the city from Jordan during the Six Day War…The Quartet also issued a joint statement. While it has [been] largely dormant during the final years of the Trump administration, it has since been revived now that US President Joe Biden is in office. “The Envoys express deep concern over the daily clashes and violence in east Jerusalem, in particular last night’s confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli security forces at Haram Al-Sharif/Temple Mount,” the Quartet stated… “We call upon [the] Israeli authorities to exercise restraint and to avoid measures that would further escalate the situation during this period of Muslim Holy Days,” the Quartet stated. “We call on all sides to uphold and respect the status quo at the holy sites. All leaders have a responsibility to act against extremists and to speak out against all acts of violence and incitement.” (“Canada, Quartet Slam Jerusalem Violence, Int’l Pressure Grows on Israel,” by Tovah Lazaroff, Jerusalem Post, May 9, 2021)

If God’s Word is true—and it is—then we should witness the ramping up of this global power against this nation, chosen by God as a prototype nation in His dealing with all of his creation called man. Satan fuels the hatred that is scheduled to develop—already is developing—to energize the human powers and principalities as they sip from that “trembling cup” and try to lift that “burdensome stone” the prophet Zechariah was directed to foretell. It all means that our redemption is drawing very near indeed! (Luke 21: 28)

Jesus’ forewarning of how things will be at the moment of His next catastrophic intervention into the evil affairs of mankind should reverberate within our ears.

And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. 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 17:26–30)

God’s prophetic Word speaks to our generation. Jesus’ description of times at the very instant of His coming for believers in the Rapture begins with the “days of Noah” reference.

Things will be like they were then when He is next revealed to the entire world, the Lord is saying—although He doesn’t say that all the world will recognize Him.

How do we know it is the Rapture He is referring to in this passage, and not the Second Coming (Second Advent) as given in Revelation 19:11? Because of the context of His prophecy.

Jesus, after the “days of Noah” reference, says that it will also be like when Lot was taken out of Sodom. The moment Lot was removed, God’s judgment fell upon the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

In the Second Coming, God’s judgment and wrath will have been deluging planet earth since the confirming of the covenant by “prince that shall come” (Antichrist) as given in Daniel 9:26–27. Jesus, we must conclude, therefore, was likening the time of His next intervention to an earlier time than the Second Advent at the end of the Armageddon conflict.

His coming to remove Lot and his family, whom God considered just, or righteous, because of their belief, was at a time that life—as far as societal and cultural matters, buying, selling, planting, marrying, etc., was concerned—was going on at a normal pace. It is true that there was wickedness in those places probably equal to the wickedness of Noah’s day just prior to the Flood. But society and culture proceeded along that evil-norm-for-the-times trajectory until the angel of God snatched Lot and his family out of Sodom and took them to Zoar.

We can also know that the Lord was speaking of the Rapture because He says (in Matthew chapter 24, just before He mentions the “days of Noah”), that no person or angel knows the exact time this intervention will take place. Only the Heavenly Father knows. We’ve seen before in these commentaries that the exact time of Christ’s Second Coming can be known by counting the days the Bible gives, following the midpoint of the seven-year Tribulation. Jesus certainly must be foretelling the Rapture in these “days of Noah, days of Lot” references.

So let’s look at those days briefly. Here is God reporting what those days were like.

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6: 1–4)

The Lord continues the disturbing report.

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. (Genesis 6: 11–12)

The key thing to consider is that the earth had been corrupted. This indicates it had gone far beyond the sin Adam committed, dragging all of his progeny into a direction opposite of the Creator’s plan for mankind. This is saying that the corruption by the outside influence of fallen angels had completely spiritually and physically changed the order of mankind. The Lord, therefore, appears to be sorry for creating man. But I don’t really believe this is what is meant by He “repented” that He had made man. I really don’t think any of us with mere finite ability to cogitate can know all that’s entailed in His words in the matter.

But this description of Noah’s day does make it clear that we are in a similar time. Satan’s attempt to corrupt the very nature—including the physiology—of man is obvious. The “sons of God,” the bene elohim, had mixed their seed with that of mankind. The whole earth, with the exception of Noah and his eight family members, had become corrupt—and that means genetically, it is clear.

In that regard, we see stark evidence that the very genetic structure of the human creation is being assaulted. This time it isn’t by sexual intercourse between fallen angels and human women that is Satan’s tact. The assault comes in the form of science—which, under the guise of purporting to benefit us, is wickedness that attempts to replace the Creator God and produce things that God ultimately will not tolerate.

The following demonstrates this surreptitious act of trying to produce God-like benevolence, which will prove to be, in effect, malevolent wickedness.

Scientists have figured out how to modify CRISPR’s basic architecture to extend its reach beyond the genome and into what’s known as the epigenome—proteins and small molecules that latch onto DNA and control when and where genes are switched on or off.

In a paper published April 9, 2021, in the journal Cell, researchers at UC San Francisco and the Whitehead Institute describe a novel CRISPR-based tool called “CRISPRoff,” which allows scientists to switch off almost any gene in human cells without making a single edit to the genetic code. The researchers also show that once a gene is switched off, it remains inert in the cell’s descendants for hundreds of generations, unless it is switched back on with a complementary tool called CRISPRon, also described in the paper…

When CRISPRoff silences a gene, not only does the gene remain off in the treated cell, it also stays off in the descendants of the cell as it divides, for as many as 450 generations. (“New CRISPR technology offers unrivaled control of epigenetic inheritance,” ScienceDaily, University of California, San Francisco, April 16, 2021, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210416131923.htm)

Despite assurances that man’s basic DNA won’t be changed, we should question genetic engineering. Make no mistake, the devil has not altered his evil intentions. His tactics have changed to some extent it seems. But the corruption and ultimate destruction of mankind continues to be his goal.

This is one reason it can be argued that demands to take a vaccine that is unapproved by significant testing, as have most all previous such vaccines, should be viewed under wary, even highly skeptical examination.

We are, I’m convinced, in “days of Noah” prophesied by the greatest of all prophets. That’s reason enough to be on the lookout for Lucifer’s never-ending evil.

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)

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)

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.