As some know, I’ve been totally blind for about twenty-seven years due to retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a hereditary disease in which the rods and cones of the retina degenerate. There is no replacement for them at this point—the retina is brain tissue that doesn’t regenerate. (Some who disagree with my view of Bible prophecy might conclude that brain-tissue degeneration is why I can’t see things their way.) But, as I understand it, degeneration of the tissue that comprises the retina has nothing to do with cognitive dysfunction. So maybe what I’m saying here will make some sense.

When I started experiencing night-vision problems when I was in my thirties, I went to an ophthalmologist, who said he thought I might have this disease. He sent me to a retinal specialist, who indeed, after a quite painful exam that lasted more than forty-five minutes, said I had RP. At the time, it was a malady they knew relatively little about. There was no cure, and he said the prognosis was almost certain blindness.

The Lord was good, and the disease progressed very slowly–compared to many who have RP. It wasn’t until I was around fifty-two that I lost the ability to see well enough to operate fairly normally. My central vision became affected and it was lights-out from then on, so to speak.

The time leading up to that point, however, was the most frustrating time. When I was in my late forties, I could see partially well—and partly terribly. It grew progressively worse, of course.

It was a constant struggle to determine if what I was seeing was reality or imagination. That’s the only way I can explain it. Most movement, whether I was moving about physically or looking at text in books or on a computer monitor, was terribly taxing.

It was only after I completely lost the ability to make out any text on the screen that I had to push back and say to the Lord: “If you want me to continue to write, you will have to intervene.”

Thankfully, He did so, and thirty-something books and hundreds of articles have been the ongoing result of His blessings on my life.

But that period leading up to just giving it all over to Him was the toughest time and the most exasperating. I could see just clearly enough to get into trouble with trying to figure it all out.

Now to the point, I hope.

Here is what the apostle Paul writes.

For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. (Romans 11:25–27)

In the eleventh chapter of Romans, Paul deals with the nation Israel—with the individual disposition of the Jew with regard to their blindness, spiritually speaking.

Lest anyone believes the Jews are condemned forever because the father of lies—Satan—has convinced people that the Jews are responsible for killing Jesus Christ, read the book of Romans. Paul destroys that absolute lie from the pit of hell. He tells that they are blind partially for now. But their future is glorious beyond all imagination, according to the promise of God.

In my own small experience with the physical blindness, the most painful part was trying to do everything myself as I struggled to see through the progression of the disease. To make perhaps not the best analogy, but the one in mind at present, the nation of Israel—the Jews, as nonbelievers in Christ as Messiah—are partially blinded. Religious Jews believe in Jehovah, the Person they see as the One and Only God. They reject that Jesus was and is their Messiah and the Savior of the world from the collective and individual sins of mankind.

This spiritual blindness has caused them great stress throughout history. They haven’t turned this spiritual disease over to the God who can heal them.

This remains their state at present. They can’t understand the world’s hatred or the persecution they are even today enduring. They can’t grasp the division within their own ranks as a people, the sons and daughters of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

That painful progression of Israel’s spiritual blindness—that partial blindness—I think, is made manifest in the news excerpt below.

When asked about American Jews, [Mark] Zell [chairman of Republican Overseas] stated: “75-80 percent of Jews in the United States vote for Democrats. It goes beyond logic. It’s irrational. They vote that way in any election campaign and cannot renounce the Democratic Party. It is against their interests as Jews. I do not spend our time explaining to Jews in the United States who to vote for.”

On the other hand, Zell noted, “there are pro-Israel evangelicals and Christians who look to us to see if we vote for Trump and the Republicans to make sure we are with them.”

Zell firmly believes that a Biden victory would be disastrous for Israel and the Jewish people.

“He [Biden] announced that as soon as he takes office in January he will renew the nuclear deal with Iran. He also said that immediately after entering the White House he will renew funding for the PA and the UN regarding the Palestinians, but beyond that, we see within the Democratic party congressional delegates who are really anti-Semitic. Jews see it, they understand it and just don’t care. They also donate hundreds of millions of dollars to the Democratic Party. I have no words,” Zell said, adding that “in New York there was a Democratic delegate, Eliot Engel, who was a friend of Israel, and they threw him in the trash in the primaries and replaced him with an anti-Semite.” (Mark Zel: If Biden is elected, Jews in Israel will be harmed, Arutz Sheva, U.S. and Canada—Israel National News, October 9, 2020)

The whole House of Israel—it is obvious by considering that the Jews in New York go for politicians and policies that are against Israel for the most part, while Jews in Israel see things exactly opposite—has a blindness that seems inexplicable. They can see only partially and, like my own case of progressive physical blindness, it is exasperating, and gets them into situations in which they can do nothing themselves to bring them into a clear vision of things before them.

Thankfully, as Paul foretells, this blindness is only temporary. They will one day be healed, and will see their Messiah as He comes to rescue them.

Hey! I’m looking for the same Divine Healer, myself! I hope you are, too. His name is Jesus Christ!

“Is it time for a divorce?”

The woman who phoned in to the Rush Limbaugh Show September 29 asked the question. I find it to be a most poignant question, and quite pertinent.

Should we, she was wondering, now agree to split down the middle—or along lines of ideological , political, religious, and other areas of the schism that is tearing the nation apart. The divide is indeed deep and the fabric that once held us together as a people seems to be seen and heard ripping violently as it fractures to pieces in accounts from hour by hour news feeds.

Lanny Davis, the political operative and White House lawyer and spokesman during the years of the Clinton presidency, has proposed such a divorce. He says he and a number of his blue-state think-alikes intend to propose that the nation be divided in two—or in fractured parts, according to their blueness and redness. He says they will take the best part of that division, the East Coast and West Coast, population centers in the cities of the middle country and Hawaii. By implication, the rest—the backward, Bible-clinging gun-toters and hayseeds—can be left to see if they can survive without the brilliance and guidance, as well as the assets, of the glorious blue-state secessionists.

It’s a fascinating proposal, to be sure. Considering that most of the population centers of the nation are now suffering unparalleled violence and carnage from the likes of BLM and Antifa, with no governance of blue-oriented mayors and governors, the proposal is almost appealing—to this Bible-carrying, gun-toting hayseed, at least. Federal taxes taken from us to provide for the common defense and general welfare of such anti-American areas of the nation have little appeal, so far as I can determine.

On the other hand, our Lord told us that a nation divided against itself cannot stand. That truth was taken to heart by Abraham Lincoln, and years of one of the deadliest wars of history saved the Union and thereby preserves the nation to this day.

I, and you, as Americans, have lived in peace. —That is, “peace” relative to the lives lived by those of the rest of the world.

We get up daily, free from fear of government and from our neighbors. Or, that is the way it has been until the election of Donald J. Trump.

The politicians and media prevaricators who are ideologically blue blame this president for the great divide although it is they who have been at the center of the despicable, attempted coup d’état they’ve perpetrated. This fact makes the woman on the Rush Limbaugh program wonder aloud for his forty million-plus daily listeners to hear: “Is it time for a divorce?”

If the coup is successful—if the change-America, blue-state cabalists get their way, we can no longer awaken free from fear of saying the wrong thing or making a misstep that will get us sent off for reeducation camps, gulags, or worse.

But, wait—she is concerned because she already is feeling such persecution. The woman said, as I recall, that she’s now surrounded by “blue-thinking” neighbors who constantly harangue her if she so much as speaks in a way they think is hate speech.

Although she hasn’t a clue she has said any such thing or made any such misstep, she’s been threatened, through unspoken and overt intimidation. She is sick of it, she said, and wonders if we shouldn’t just make the divide that those such as Lanny Davis want.

Her question, I’m sure, must have been made in a non-literal sense—although, I must say, she never indicated such.

A number of pundits I’ve heard have said they see such a civil war to divide the nation as Davis wants. I’ve said before that my own grandfather, Gideon Johnson James, said way, way back there when I was about ten years old that there was coming a great divide in the nation. He said there would be another civil war.

Listening to the debate between the president and the former vice president did nothing to assuage the fear of such a coming conflict. There was a divide right down the middle. Well, I would put the moderator in there as part of the divide, based upon his constant input of assistance at times one of the debaters began to stumble. The media, as I said, as a whole is in the blue-state category. It showed in that September 28 forum.

Make no mistake: a divorce is coming. It will be a much greater a parting of the ways than ever seen in any divorce court at any time in national or world history. Believers will be instantaneously divorced from the evil of this earth.

I’m talking about the moment when believers in Jesus Christ leave this judgment-bound sphere. Those “engaged” to the Lord, the Creator of all things, the King of Kings, will split the heavens to be forever with the Bridegroom in a symbolic wedding that can never be dissolved.

Let us look for this “blessed hope” as instructed in Titus 2:13. But at the same time, let us witness of Christ’s saving grace and God’s desire that all come to repentance (2 Peter 3: 9).

The Rapture is imminent! Even so, come Lord Jesus!

The title of our book to be released soon is LAWLESS: The End-Times War Against the Spirit of Antichrist. Is there any title that could more encapsulate what we’ve been witnessing in our nation for these past weeks?

The apostle John wrote of his own time that the “spirit of Antichrist” was already in the world:

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. (1 John 4:2–3)

The apostle Paul also spoke of this lawless spirit that would prevail at the very end of the age. Its growing manifestation, he wrote, will be a precursor to the Antichrist himself vaulting onto the world stage:

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. (2 Thessalonians 2:2)  

The “day” Paul refers to is the “day of the Lord”—the beginning of the Tribulation, the last seven years of human history leading up to the Second Advent of Jesus Christ, as foretold in Revelation 9.

The great apostle foretold that this “day” won’t begin until there first comes a “falling away,” or “apostasy.” This word can be interpreted several ways, and has also been translated to mean several things wrapped up in one meaning.

One definition of “apostasy” is a “departure,” and it can be either a departure from faith (belief in scriptural truth) or a departure in the spatial sense—that is, literally leaving one place to go to another. I believe that in this case, “apostasy” carries both meanings: Paul is saying that before Antichrist comes on the scene to become the world’s last and fiercest tyrant, people will largely be deep into a state of departure from faith in Bible truth.

I also believe he is saying that Antichrist can’t come on the scene until there is a spatial departure—that is, a removal from one place to go to another, literally. This will be the Rapture of the Church (all true believers in Christ for salvation).

When the departure (as wrapped up in both meanings) is complete, the “man of sin”—Antichrist—will leap to the end stage of history for his horrendous reign of terror.

He is also referred to, like his father, Satan, as the “man of lawlessness.” The word departure also has within its meaning the thought of being lawless—denying the Creator who laid down how mankind should live.

The “spirit of Antichrist” has at its God-denying center the evil of complete lawlessness. That’s why God’s Word calls end-times man, as expressed in the KJV, “earth dwellers.” Those in unbelief are “earthy”—they care only about things that are of this sin-saturated existence on earth.

Paul the apostle, again, said that this “falling away” (apostasy) will first appear on the scene before Antichrist will be manifested before the world. The departure from faith will include increasing lawlessness, preparing the way for the most lawless one of all—Antichrist.

The following excerpt, I think gives a deep look into the “spirit of Antichrist” making literal inroads into the evil we see exploding in our cities.

In a June 13 conversation between Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder Patrisse Cullors and BLM-Los Angeles chapter co-founder Melina Abdullah, Abdullah discusses how the two of them have “become very intimate with the spirits we call on regularly,” and Cullors talks about how using a hashtag for BLM is “almost resurrecting a spirit so that it can work through us.”…

In the interview, Abdullah states, “maybe I’m sharing too much but we’ve become very intimate with the spirits that we call on regularly.  Right?  Like, each of them seems to have a different presence and personality. You know, I laugh a lot with Wakiesha [Wilson].  You know?  And I didn’t meet her in her body.”…

Wakiesha Wilson was a black woman who suffered from bi-polar disorder and reportedly hanged herself while in LAPD custody.Her death has become a cause célèbre among BLM activists.

Cullors responds, saying that she was raised a Jehovah’s Witness but, “as I got older, ancestor, ancestral worship became really important.”

Cullors then explains how the hashtags such as #SayHerName and #BLM are a means to honor the dead and invoke them. (Alexander Watson, “BLM Leaders Discuss ‘Resurrecting a Spirit So That It Can Work Through Us,’” CNS News, September 24, 2020)

Based on what we see on the evil streets of America and the world today, can there be any doubt that we’re witnessing the spirit of Antichrist manifesting at this time so near the end of the age? The departure—in every sense—has begun in earnest. It will soon have its conclusion. That conclusion will mean God’s judgment and wrath for earth dwellers, and glory beyond all imagination for believers in Jesus Christ.

One of the prime points of Bible prophecy, at least from the pre-Trib view, is that America isn’t mentioned in it by name or even in cursory reference. (That’s unless, of course, one sees the reference to the “young lions” in Ezekiel 38:13 as meaning the United States as offspring of “the Merchants of Tarshish,” referring to England.)

This is made even more intriguing when we consider all that we believe is going on in setting the stage for the soon fulfillment of prophecy.

We believe most, if not all, of Paul’s “perilous times” (2 Timothy 3) forewarning is now taking place everywhere we look in our nation—i.e., people are “lovers of themselves,” “without natural affection (abortion and homosexuality)”; they are “fierce” (think “BLM” and “Antifa”), and they’re “traitors” (in reference to the Deep State and others subverting the Constitution), etc.

All these things are, as I like to term them, “America-centric,” in their composition. America seems to be at the center of all the earlier-mentioned stage-setting.

Then we have this president stunning the world, really, with a peace arrangement that no one but perhaps he and a few others saw coming. It’s a stage-setting reality that is indeed profound.

To convince so many within the Arab world to come along with the plan Mr. Trump, Kushner, and the others of the administration have put together is just nothing short of phenomenal. It’s phenomenal when we think about the absolute volatility of the Israel haters within the Arab world, which is so heavily influenced by the chief terrorist regime, Iran (ancient Persia).

So America is at the center of most all primary activity as far as the current ebb and flow of issues and events. That makes it more than a curiosity, really, why God chose not to make this apex nation of history (so far as worldly achievement is concerned) the main focus of prophetic national disposition. Yet America is overtly omitted by name in biblical prophecy.

Why did I title this commentary: “America’s Diminishing Role”?

Again we come to what I see as the strangest presidency in our history. Certainly this is true, it’s reasonable to conclude, because we’re so near the end of this age (Age of Grace/Church Age). The prophetic Word tells us it will be so as the time of Christ’s return nears. Looking around, we’re not disappointed. Things are getting stranger and stranger.

One of the ironies, if that’s what we may call the strangeness, is that this president exerts the most powerful influence on the issue of Middle East peace as any leader ever. At the same time, he’s determined to pull out of that region to an extent that no other leader has attempted since much earlier days when isolationism ruled within American diplomatic spheres of influence. For example, he has announced troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and other areas, much to the chagrin of those in the defense department who are supposed to serve at his pleasure.

Trump doing so, as a matter of fact, constitutes one of the reasons the so-called Deep State opposes his every move. They like to determine such things and have always been able to do so with the cooperation or the acquiescence of those occupying the White House. It’s all part of the power wielded by the military-industrial complex President Dwight Eisenhower forewarned about.

America’s influence in the world, then, despite it being front and center in most every prophetic signal of the approaching Tribulation, is diminishing. The very president put in place by God to serve at this crucial time is an “America-First” chief executive, yet he also is withdrawing the nation from the most focal area of Bible prophecy—even while formulating a peace initiative that might lead to the very covenant Daniel prophesied.

The following news excerpt highlights this dichotomy within Mr. Trump’s presidential action.

Turkey and Iran are engaging in new operations in Africa… It is important to understand that this is in the context of the US generally reducing its global role and comes around 60 years after European colonialism was rolled back…

An article at The National in the UAE in May revealed that Iran has begun to play a role with military proxy groups in the Central African Republic (CAR). The article revealed that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Quds Force has played a role in cultivating “terrorist cells.” It has operated, funded, trained and directed proxy groups. Its role and influence in Africa is still far from mapped and known but the article implies it has recruited figures in the CAR and elsewhere. Iran has also been active in Nigeria and also in South Africa and Hezbollah has been active in West Africa…

An article at Al-Ain also asserts that Turkey and Qatar are now working to exert influence in Africa. The article asserts that Qatar has been trying to do influence peddling in Tunisia and that Qatar’s Defense Minister Khalid al-Attiyah has been coordinating with Turkey’s defense minister in discussions about Libya and Tunisia. They want to establish a “joint military training center” in Libya. (Seth J. Frantzman, “Turkey and Iran Are Engaging in New Operations in Africa,” Rapture Ready News, September 18, 2020)

With the key Ezekiel 38–39 players blatantly moving to fill the vacuum developing in the region because of America’s withdrawal—Iran (ancient Persia) and Turkey (much of what comprised ancient Togarmah)—it becomes quite clear that America, although prophetically scheduled to diminish, is nonetheless most prominent in this pre-Rapture era. It will, it’s therefore logical to conclude, take a dramatic set of circumstances to remove the nation so influential in the world power arrangement.

Each succeeding week that produces fodder for another commentary brings with it the thought that things couldn’t be more in place for setting in motion the Tribulation.

The perception is always proved wrong.

This week is no different; prophecy stage-setting is still ramping up.

While many issues and events we explore seem at the moment to be critical in setting the stage for fulfillment of Bible prophecy, they most often turn out to be peripheral to the most crucial signals. The things developing now, however, are anything but minor.

Israel and the peace process can never be seen as a subject that’s on the outer edges of Bible prophecy. And what we’re seeing now certainly must be considered as profound a sign as any of where we stand on God’s prophetic timeline.

With all else that’s going on in this nation (which, by the way, is overtly omitted by name in biblical prophecy), we see the strangest presidency of our history at the very heart of astonishing prophetic stage-setting. And who can deny that this president moves the needle on history’s tachometer each and every news cycle?

Never has President Trump been as instrumental in so moving that needle as this past week or so. It’s as if the engine of biblical eschatology has revved once again to near max. I see this as a matter to be viewed as seriously as any we’ve yet seen—i.e., it seems to take us as near Christ’s call to His Church as any movement we’ve known.

With President Trump’s acting as an instrument of such profound prophetic movement comes danger, however. It’s a danger that we all should recognize.

The peace currently being brokered by the Trump administration between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) presents one of the two areas of danger about which the president must be cautioned.

The statement by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to reporters frames one of the dangers. Kushner said recently: “We were trying to save the two-state solution… If we kept going with the status quo… ultimately, Israel would have eaten up all the land in the West Bank.”

Kushner, husband of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, is a Jew who apparently has little knowledge of, or else not much regard for, God’s promises to His chosen people. The Lord gave the Jews all the Land of Promise, including all the land in the West Bank. Mr. Kushner acts as if this is negotiable.

In God’s view, no area of land He gave Israel is negotiable. There is no room whatsoever for a “two-state solution to any problem Israel’s surrounding neighbors have in failing to be at peace with the Jewish State.

Here are the Almighty’s words on the matter:

And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. (Genesis 17:7–8)

I would urge men with Holy Spirit-provided savvy regarding Bible prophecy, such as Dr. Robert Jeffress, who have the president’s ear to counsel Mr. Trump about this promise and the serious consequences of attempting to interfere—whether wittingly or not—with that covenant.

Here is what God’s prophet, Joel, foretold more than two thousand years ago regarding the fate the nations of the world will suffer for doing exactly what this administration is trying to do. We’ve looked at it many times.

I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. (Joel 3:2)

This of course speaks of Armageddon, the killing field where the rebellious armies of the world will be slaughtered.

The second of the cautions I put forth here to this president—whom I very much support in most every way—concerns his possibly making the mistake of listening to those who push for mandatory vaccinations against COVID-19.

Here is a news item that encapsulates to some extent the issue:

President Donald Trump announced several weeks ago that the US government will purchase 100 million doses of Moderna’s experimental coronavirus vaccine, which is currently in late-stage human trials.

In addition to Moderna, AstraZeneca and the Pfizer/BioNTech alliance are also working on a vaccine.

Trump recently estimated that a vaccine for coronavirus may be produced ahead of the US presidential election on November 3.

The US has registered more than six million cases of COVID-19—almost a quarter of the global total—and 185,000 deaths, according to Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University. (“US States Told Be Ready for COVID-19 Vaccine by November 1,” US & Canada—Israel National News, September 4, 2020)

There is more than just conspiracy theory behind fears that some folks in high places have suggested that a computer tracking nanochip or something like that be injected along with the coming COVID inoculations. There is ample documentation that such ideas have been exchanged between Bill Gates and others who contemplate vaccinating the entire world.

I don’t pretend to suggest that this will be part of such vaccinations, nor am I saying this has something to do with the Revelation 13 “mark of the beast,” “666” system of buying and selling. No one needs to fear that they will take that mark this side of the Rapture, no matter what else the proposed COVID vaccine might mean.

But it all does smack of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four and Big Brother, in which the ruling class is in complete control of the hapless masses and wields absolute power.

Mr. President, be aware. Christians who understand Bible prophecy as it is meant to be understood will strongly resist such “mandatory” impositions upon personal liberty.

Crucial issues and events involving the fate of the nation and world are discussed in-depth in these four programs. Bible prophecy is at a critical moment in human history, and things brought to light in these programs speak directly to where we stand on God’s prophetic timeline.

WHAT IS HAPPENING!? IS THE WORLD FALLING APART? OR IS A WELL PLANNED ANCIENT SCHEME UNFOLDING NOW!?

DO VATICAN AUTHORITIES BELIEVE POPE FRANCIS IS THE FINAL POPE OF THE APOCALYPSE? SURPRISING ANSWER!

SATAN’S PROXIES? Senior Pentagon Analyst On Those Undermining God And America, Some Surprising Names

Is This The Fourth Turning? Pentagon Insider Issues Stark Warning Over Anti-Americanism, Anti-Family

Senator Rand Paul appeared on Fox and Friends Friday morning, August 28. He was quite upset at what he had experienced the night before.

He told about the terror he, his wife, and two female friends had experienced upon leaving the White House grounds. They had been there to hear President Trump give his acceptance speech and to be part of other festivities wrapping up the 2020 Republican Party Convention.

Paul said that there was a mob of probably thirty protesters gathered outside the White House grounds. The Secret Service advised that they take a bus to get around the protesters and approach, from another side, their hotel that was several blocks away.

They took the advice, and when they got off the bus, there was another group of protesters. Paul thought about not risking getting near them, but said he made the decision to walk the couple of blocks to the hotel rather than solicit a ride to avoid the protesters.

It was a decision he said he very much regretted.

The crowd saw him, recognized him, and immediately came toward him and the women with him. The protesters were screaming obscenities and threats, including threats to kill them all. They screamed for Paul to bow to their demands to say the name of someone for whom they were supposedly rioting.

The DC police got between Paul’s group and the mob, which had now grown to three times its initial size and was now pushing and shoving forward, trying to push aside law enforcement. The senator reported that the number of officers was grossly fewer than the number needed to handle the now probably 120 rioters that had turned violent.

Senator Paul said he genuinely feared for their lives, and that if the brave police officers, few though they were, hadn’t put themselves in harm’s way, he was convinced he and his party would have been seriously injured or even killed.

Paul said that he, himself, had to help one officer to his feet after he had been knocked off-balance by the surging rioters.

The ironic thing, the senator said, was that the very thing the mob was demanding that he declare was something he had led the way in trying to get done in the Senate. It was the matter of legislation, which passed, due to the killing of Breonna Taylor in a no-knock raid.

Their enragement completely negated any chance of the thugs listening to the facts, to being subjected to reasoning.

The story relayed by Senator Paul is but one of hundreds, some even more egregious. Such lawlessness is now being experienced in larger cities across the nation. Even smaller cities and communities have had spillover incidents.

We hear of such reports daily and nightly in the hourly news cycles. The rebellious thuggery has proliferated over the past months and shows every indication that things will get much worse. Signs of rebellion, of lawlessness, are continuing to spread.

These times of lawlessness, of course, have not gone without notice by God, who knows the end from the beginning. This was predicted by Jesus Himself for this end-of-the-age moment in human history: “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12).

Paul the apostle told of the rebellion that I’m convinced this generation is experiencing at this very moment:

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a [rebellion] first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. (2 Thessalonians 2:3)

Early manuscripts indicate the word apostasia as having several meanings, according to some scholars. It can mean the falling away, in terms of departing from the faith. It can mean a spatial removal or departing. And, it can mean a rebellion against God. I believe it involves all three meanings in the present supernatural movement we’re experiencing toward the Second Coming of Christ.

Our book to be released sometime in late September, LAWLESS: The End Times War Against the Spirit of Antichrist, has many top prophecy writers, broadcasters, and speakers presenting tremendously relevant chapters on these issues and events involving the lawlessness of these end times. We will announce more about this book in the near future.

We are, without doubt to this observer, witnessing stage-setting for the coming to power of the chief lawless one’s—Satan’s—son of perdition.

Like in the story Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Forum, when slave Pseudolus runs into all sorts of side-tracking interferences as he tries to win his freedom from Roman slavery, something funny has happened to Satan’s plans to enslave the world on the way to the consummation of the age.

Not only did a major actor in Satan’s script that was meant to pervert history slip from his genocidal grip, but that script has become totally convoluted. I’m referring here to Israel–the nation and the chosen people—the destruction of whom Satan’s minions, the Nazis, and their Fuhrer, failed to complete in implementing the Final Solution.

Like the creators of Something Funny… I use the term “funny” in an oblique definition—to say that an odd thing has happened to the devil’s plan to completely eradicate the Jews of the world.

Not only did Hitler fail to complete his satanically assigned task to forever destroy the Jewish people through the Holocaust, but he unwittingly accomplished the following:

• Hitler and his Third Reich brought on God’s Genesis 12 curse, and they were themselves completely destroyed.
• Hitler’s actions brought about the rebirth of Israel in a single day, fulfilling prophecy.
• The Fuhrer’s vaunted Luftwaffe, which terrorized all of Europe, now has become an ally of the military of God’s chosen nation.

The following news excerpt frames the story.

Germany welcomed military aircraft from Israel to its airspace on Thursday in their first joint combat exercises in German territory as both air forces praised the intensive cooperation between the two countries.

“It was very emotional for us when, one after the other, the first Israeli jets arrived here in German airspace,” a spokesman for the German Luftwaffe told the German news agency DPA

“Nowadays, we have a very intense partnership with the Israelis,” spokesman Thorsten Weber said. “We work closely together, we do exercises together, German soldiers are being trained in Israel.”…

During the Third Reich, Nazi Germany murdered 6 million European Jews and others in the Holocaust. Relations between Israel and Germany were difficult in the first decades after the end of the war, but have been growing closer together over the years…

Nowadays, Germany is one of Israel’s staunchest supporters. (“Germany Welcomes Israeli Air Force for First Joint Exercise,” AP, August 20, 2020)

It seems a strange, convoluted, turn of events to be sure. Thinking on the death camps and the horrors of the crematoria across parts of Nazi-occupied Europe, it hardly seems that enough time has elapsed to allow such an alliance.

But in strange times we are. Bible prophecy foretells that an even more horrific time is coming for Israel than it suffered in time of WW II. There is a holocaust that awaits fulfillment, regardless of the present-day alliance between the Jewish state and the nation that perpetrated unspeakable atrocities three quarters of a century ago.

The prophetic Word tells that the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7) is yet to produce another effort at Satan’s Final Solution. It will take place during Daniel’s seventieth week, the last seven years known as the Tribulation. Jesus said that it will be the worst time in human history (Matthew 24: 21).

Most of this generation has forgotten Hitler’s all-out assault against the Jews–the matter he called “the Jewish problem.” Even many Jews in America and around the world seem to have forgotten—despite their progenitors who lived through the horror and who declared “never again!”

But it will happen again, and it will be exponentially worse, according to Christ’s own forewarning.

Because so many know little to nothing about that time of World War II or of that time Jesus said will be the worst time of evil ever upon the earth, we decided to produce a book dedicated to explaining all involved in Hitler’s first genocidal “Final Solution” and of Antichrist’s even more horrific “Final Solution” that is soon to come.

Dr. Thomas Horn contacted me several months ago, and we discussed just how crucial it is that this truth about Satan’s murderous plans for the Jews and all of humanity be brought to this unknowing generation. The results are our book, just released.

ANTICHRIST and The Final Solution is the result of intensive research that thoroughly covers every important detail, from Hitler’s first attempt at the Final Solution to Antichrist’s terrible attempt at completing Satan’s hellish assault on humanity.

We carry through in a detailed and easy-to-follow unfolding of prophecy what will happen next as history moves forward toward Christ’s Second Advent, the Millennium, and the remaking of the heavens and the earth.

We believe this explanation of things soon to come should be in the hands of every member of the younger generation, many of whom have little or no idea of why things are getting more chaotic and where it’s all going. Tom and I hope that many, upon reading this book, will be convicted that only Jesus Christ truly has the “Final Solution that can bring peace and salvation to the people of this sin-doomed world system.

To read more about the book and watch a program of our discussion of these matters, go to the following.

“Antichrist and The Final Solution”

Authors note: This article was first posted a number of years ago. The Bible Truth here was never more relevant than right this moment. Thus it is timely as a reminder of just how near must be the great event called the Rapture.

No scriptural proof-text in God’s Word more clearly points to the first of the two phases of Jesus Christ’s second coming than does the following: “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:2).

We who hold to the pre-trib rapture viewpoint are often accused of being deceivers. We are condemned by our detractors as leading astray Christians alive now –if they live to see it–  who will be required to endure the tribulation, thus to wash their robes clean in preparation for inheriting God’s Kingdom.

We are castigated for foisting upon innocent, gullible believers a “secret rapture” that will somehow lead these Christians to take the mark of the beast(Rev. 13:16-18).

I’m not precisely sure of their “reasoning,” but I think they claim this because they are convinced that the ones who fall for the rapture viewpoint won’t be able to recognize Antichrist when he comes to power. We who teach the pre-trib rapture, so the accusation goes, would have falsely led these people to think the Church would not be here when Antichrist is on the world scene.

Almost all who are antagonistic to the pre-trib rapture doctrine teach that the “elect” will have to endure part or all of the seven-year tribulation era.

Those who hold to a post-tribulation rapture, or a no-rapture position, believe that Christ will come back at the end of the tribulation, at Armageddon.

They hold to the notion that that is His only return in the second coming. There are other views of the second coming that have Christ returning when the earth is perfected and made ready, but we won’t go there in this essay.

Let us look at only the pre-trib rapture and the post-trib rapture positions for the purpose of exploring what is meant by the “thief in the night” references in 1 Thessalonians 5:2 and 2 Peter 3:10.

These two viewpoints–the pre-trib, and the post-trib–offer the greatest contrast to examine in consideration of the second advent of Jesus Christ, within the overall belief that rapture will, according to Bible prophecy, happen before Christ’s foot actually touches down on Planet Earth.

The pre-trib view of rapture says that Christ’s second coming is in two phases, separated by at least seven years. The post-trib rapture view says that the rapture and Christ’s coming back to the Mount of Olives will occur almost simultaneously–certainly with no more than a matter of days separating the two events. The post-trib position says there is no “secret” rapture. Christ’s coming again will be fully seen in the heavens by all, including Christians who will be watching for Him to break through the darkness of that hour.

We agree that the rapture of the Church (all born-again believers in Jesus Christ for salvation since the Church Age began at Pentecost) will be anything but a “secret”. The world will instantly go into cataclysmic chaos at the moment that stunning event takes place. The imagination is hard-pressed to fathom the ramifications of what will happen when millions suddenly vanish. Every child below the age of accountability will be gone in that mind-boggling instant of time. I am convinced that all babies (including those in the wombs of their mothers) will be instantly in the presence of Christ in the clouds of glory. Every corpse of every dead Christian will be raised to join with his or her soul to meet Christ in the air in that atomos of time.

The rapture will be mystifying, and to some an inexplicable phenomenon, but it will not be a secret. It will happen before the eyes of a stupefied planet of left-behind earth-dwellers. This declaration that Jesus will call His Church to be with Him seems audacious to many. But, it didn’t seem so to the Apostle Paul. He was quite confident–even adamant—in his prophecy concerning the “mystery” he had been given by the Holy Spirit to instruct all believers down through the Age of Grace (Church Age).

“Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51-52).

He explains what will take place next, in that stupendous fraction of a second: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 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 Thess. 4:15-17).

Jesus himself told of this “mystery” Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 15:51. The Lord explains what happens after believers –both the bodies of the dead and those who are living– are caught up in the air to be with Him: “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” (Jn. 14:1-3).

So, the rapture will take place. Believers and the bodies of those who died during the Church Age will be “caught up” in one single moment of time. “ALL,” not “some,” will go instantly to be with Jesus, who will then take them into heaven, where He has been preparing their dwelling places since He ascended from the Mount of Olives.

Again, the pre-trib position on this joyous event is that it is imminent (could happen at any moment), and will happen before the tribulation period begins.

The post-trib position says that it happens at the end of the most terrible time in human history, just as Jesus Christ is returning from heaven at Armageddon.

The pre-trib view holds that it will occur at an unknown time. It will be a stunning, sudden, and unannounced-to-the-world-at-large break-in upon business as usual on Planet Earth. The post-trib proclaims that it will occur following all of the horrors of the judgments outlined in Revelation.

The pre-trib view says that the world at large (left-behind earth-dwellers) won’t see it coming. The rapture will cause all left on earth to wonder what has happened. The post-trib view says that all eyes will behold Christ’s coming again to a hellish planet, and the living and dead saints will then be gathered to Christ.

The defining thing to consider in thinking on the two diametrically different views of the rapture and second coming is wrapped up in the term “thief in the night”. The Apostle Peter again uses this mysterious term, first used by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:2: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10).

Peter is saying here that the day of the Lord–that time when God and His Christ, His Son, takes over this fallen planet—will begin like a thief in the night.

It will be a sudden, catastrophic break-in upon a world doing business as usual. (Read Luke 17:26-29 to understand how things will be going along as usual when Christ comes back.)

This description hardly fits the post-trib view, or any other view that says Christ will rapture His Church during a time of unprecedented trouble (Jer. 30:7; Matt. 24:21). This indicates that it will be a total surprise, because a thief in the night doesn’t announce his coming with great, cataclysmic fanfare.

The break-in is swift, stealthy–a totally unexpected event.

Peter foretells in these passages that the “day of the Lord” will then run its course, until the remaking of the heavens and the earth. The rapture will begin this “day of the Lord,” which will then run at least 1,007 years.

This is the first phase of Christ’s second coming. The rapture occurs like a “thief in the night”. The second advent, when Jesus’ foot touches down on the Mount of Olives, is the second phase of His second coming.

There are those who say with vehemence that it is blasphemous to equate Christ’s coming again as being like the break-in of a thief in the night. How dare we liken their Lord to a “thief”!

Really? Here’s what Jesus, the Creator of all things, said about this matter: “But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matt. 24:43-44).

Looks like a pretty good case for the Lord’s sudden intervention into the nefarious affairs of this increasingly wicked world, does it not? That thief-in-the-night moment could happen, literally, at any moment. Certainly, signals of the tribulation are beginning to come to pass.

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

One major signal just leaped to the top of God’s prophetic timeline. Israel and her traditional enemies, the Arabs, have agreed to full normalization of relations.

While the agreement, to be soon formalized at a White House signing, isn’t an agreement of peace in terms of a full peace treaty between Israel and all its Arab neighbors, it is the first time in twenty-five years that such an agreement has been reached. The first was between Israel and Egypt, when Jimmy Carter, Israel Prime Minister Menachem Began, and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat came together in 1978. The second was in 1994 when Israel and Jordan signed a similar agreement. Both treaties have held relatively firm since their signings.

This agreement is between the UAE (United Arab Emirates)—a Gulf state—and Israel. Israel agreed to suspend its planned extension of sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria to facilitate relations with the UAE and potentially other Arab and Muslim countries. The action has, as might be expected, brought praise and condemnation from various parties involved in international relations.

Among prophecy watchers, it has stirred much punditry, as does any activity involving Israel and the peace process. The big question some are asking: Is this peace signing the one that will eventually bring about the covenant made with death and hell as foretold in Daniel 9:26–27 and Isaiah 28:15, 18?

According to the Jerusalem Post:

The agreement will include establishing embassies and exchanging ambassadors, investments into the Israeli economy, trade, direct flights between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi, an investment in Israeli efforts to develop a corona virus vaccine – as first reported in The Jerusalem Post last month – and cooperation in matters of energy and water. An important element of the deal for the UAE is the expectation that its citizens would be able to visit the Al-Aksa mosque in Jerusalem. (Lahav Harkov, “Third-ever Peace Treaty between Israel and an Arab State Includes Embassies, Direct Flights; Agreement “Suspends” Annexation, but Netanyahu Says: ‘I will never give up on our right to our land,’” Jerusalem Post, Omri Nahmias, 8/14/2020)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the deal “full, formal peace” with “one of the strongest countries in the world.”

“Together we can bring a wonderful future. It is an incomparably exciting moment,” he said. “I have the great privilege to make the third peace treaty between Israel and an Arab country, the UAE.”

In a post to his Twitter account, President Donald Trump said: “Opening direct ties between two of the Middle East’s most dynamic societies and advanced economies will transform the region by spurring economic growth, enhancing technological innovation, and forging closer people-to-people relations.”

Speaking further in the Oval Office, Trump indicated he anticipated “many more countries” in the region normalizing ties with Israel and “some very exciting things including, ultimately, with the Palestinians.”

The Israeli prime minister said he has “reason to be very optimistic that the announcement with the UAE will be joined by more countries in this expanding circle of peace.”

Palestinian leadership and Iranian leadership are among those not happy with the peace-making effort. But others of the Arab world believe it to be in their best interest to see stability in the region that such an arrangement will bring.

Most Arab leaders who see the advantages are pleased that Israel has put on hold the annexation of much of the Jordanian territory they had been seeking to implement.  Netanyahu made it plain that the agreement in no way is giving up Israel land for a peace arrangement. In this regard, making the agreement, which includes no giving up of Israeli territory, breaks tradition of other efforts at peace, in which the Jewish state had to agree to give away parcels of land to get Arab agreement.

The agreement “ushers in a new era of peace between Israel and the Arab world,” Netanyahu said.

Many Bible prophecy students who observe developments see this as a major event in bringing about the wrap-up of the age. Considering all the other issues and events that seem to be converging at such a torrid pace, it is more than understandable that Israel making such an agreement brings sharp observation and commentary.

One such pundit believes that French President Emmanuel Macron is the number-one candidate to be Antichrist. According to many, Macron exhibits many of the characteristics of that future man of sin.

Macron immediately asserted his strong support and intention to get involved in the new peace agreement in several statements. The French president’s comments brought some strong opinions including from the aforementioned writer, who writes the following:

Emmanuel Macron has now officially inserted himself into not only the Middle East on multiple levels, he has also just given himself a seat in the “Abraham Accord” announced by President Trump and Jared Kushner yesterday…

This is the beginning of the Daniel 9:27 covenant with “death and Hell.” This is it, and Emmanuel Macron is the man of sin.

While I’m not prepared to make bold declarations such as naming Antichrist, nor even to declare this to be the beginning of that apocalyptic false peace, I can certainly join in the exuberance in pointing to where this generation almost certainly stands on God’s prophetic timeline.