Madness that assaults the senses every waking moment continues to expose the lateness of the prophetic hour. This generation is deeply into reprobate mindset the Apostle Paul forewarned will ultimately afflict any person or any generation of people who turn their backs on the God of Heaven.

Not intending to make myself out to have a word of knowledge or other strange wind of supernatural soothsaying ability, I nonetheless must recount a matter that constantly dominates my spiritual senses these days. It involves how the Lord spoke to those senses years ago about things that have proven to be insight with ongoing, unfolding validation.

My series of commentaries I called “Scanning a Fearful Future” covered the emails filled with panic I was at the time receiving on a regular basis. Pundits, including well-known Bible prophecy teachers and TV hosts, were saying that Christians in America faced imminent danger from dynamics taking place within ever-darkening governmental efforts to completely change the nation in deleterious ways. We would, these pundits proclaimed, wake up one morning and find that the America as founded was now a more or less totalitarian regime. Christians would soon be marching off to gulag. At the very least, we would no longer be able to teach and preach or even talk about Bible truth in public.

Just as ominously, these pundits were saying, the economy would completely collapse and we would return to times almost like those before electricity–at least that’s how the dystopian warnings sounded to yours truly. Indeed, the presidential administration then in power seemed to be moving America in the dire direction that was being forecast.

All of this was taking place during the latter part of 2010 and the first part of 2011.

The emails kept coming. Would the United States soon collapse and Christians in America be marched off to FEMA camps for internment? Or worse, would Christians suffer martyrdom as did believers in Christ during the time of the Roman Coliseum spectacles?

Again, even prophecy teachers of renown were intimating that this might be the case. Certainly, many secular pundits were almost in unison in predicting that the American and world economies were on the verge of collapse.

So, in light of the large number of emails I received from those who read our articles –all worried about future prospects—I undertook to write a series of ten commentaries. While writing these, the Holy Spirit, I’m convicted in my own spirit, imparted through those articles the answer to give these worried brothers and sisters.

I’ve written a number of times over the years since that time about the thoughts I believe the Lord gave through that series. The bottom line was and is that there would be no sudden collapse of the United States economy–there would be no incarceration and martyrdom of Christian Americans. I cautioned that there was indeed such incarceration and martyrdom of Christians all over the globe at that very moment. There continues to be this horrendous treatment around the world as I write this.

America, I wrote back then, deserves no special dispensation from such collapse. Christians in America are not, in our own righteousness, immune from the kind of torture and martyrdom being foisted upon Christians who live within evil regimes around the world. Any and all such dispensation is by the grace of God, and that alone. He determines who is born when and where. He, alone, will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy. And this does not mean He favors anyone in particular in the general sense of dealing with mankind.

In the case of America, God has obviously determined that the nation is on the planet and at this time for very specific purposes. We have gone over many times that it is believed those purposes are 1) to be a primary instrument of spreading the gospel around the world, and 2) to act first as midwife for Israel’s rebirth into modernity, then to act as military protector. The Lord can do that Himself, but He has chosen the US, it is obvious to me, at least, to be his human agency in providing that protection over His chosen nation.

In that regard, America is undeniably the apex nation of the world so far as earthly riches are concerned. America is the most materially blessed country of history. It has been among the most spiritually blessed as well.

As I stated in that series, the US has, sadly and tragically, become one of the most wicked nations of all times, as well. The evil stretches from pornography to the abortion of more than sixty million babies. So, our “goodness” as Alexis de Toqueville ascribed to this nation is more than overshadowed by the evil among us. As Ruth Graham is accredited with saying (and I paraphrase): “If God doesn’t hold America accountable for her wickedness, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”

How true this is now more than even when she uttered that thought. We have watched the absolute debauching of society and culture through the LGBTQ and all forms of perversion involving sexuality. We now watch reports of transvestites or drag queens assigned to libraries to teach small children their perverted ways and perversions beyond theirs. We see the Vogue teen magazine instructing, in explicit detail, teenage girls and younger how to indulge in sodomy as a pleasurable means of avoiding sexual interaction that impregnates. We are barraged hour by hour with reports of every sort of inculcation that tries to destroy the institution God the Creator designed involving one man and one woman as husband and wife.

Yet, with all this, including our largest cities becoming infested with filth and lasciviousness that is the antithesis of all God intended, America is still here and not only still here, but far outpacing all other nations of the world in most every area of culture–except for turning back to God to a great extent. There are nations that are seemingly seeking God’s face much more than is our beloved America.

This will, ultimately, bring that judgment, Mrs. Graham forewarned those years ago.

America, as I think the Lord showed me,  is, however, going to be here for His specific purposes until He calls His Church to be with Christ in the Rapture. This is based on Jesus’ own prophecy found in Matthew 24: 36-42 and Luke 17: 26-30. He has put his man of the hour into the office of president of the United States in a miraculous way. Donald J. Trump defied all political odds and defeated the woman who the political world believed to be a sure thing as candidate for the presidency in 2016.

Mr. Trump is a builder perhaps unparalleled in modern history. He is a businessman with acumen few can in truth deny. He is a friend of Israel like no other president. He has accomplished things in Israel no other president has come close to attempting. Some Israelis even are calling him their “king.”

I don’t agree with the Israelis bestowing that nomenclature or the thought, but I put it here just to show the importance of this man who is not a godly one, but who is most definitely God’s man for this crucial hour at the end of the Church Age. No matter what Satan’s globalist hordes try against Trump, he prevails and even thrives. It is astonishing to behold. And, it is at least in part attributable to God’s people invoking the prayer of 2 Chronicles 7:14, I have no doubt.

The “Scanning a Fearful Future” series concluded by saying it is all in fulfillment of Christ’s prophecy as listed in the “days of Noah, days of Lot” Scriptures above. We are in an unprecedented time of economic upturn–of building, selling and buying in this nation, even while the rest of the world is struggling. Thus, also, even though the signals abound that all could come crashing down. And many economic experts say it will do so at any moment. This is what they were saying, remember, back in 2010 and 2011.

But God holds all in His omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent hand.

Just like Jesus said, I believe that it will be just like in the days of Lot when Christ next catastrophically intervenes into the affairs of rebellious mankind. That evil generation was buying, selling, and building. Business was great. But the day Lot and his family went out of Sodom, God’s judgment fell and destroyed the rebellious inhabitants.

As stated near the end of that series, Christians need not fear that coming judgment and wrath. It will be not a fearful future, but a fantastic future we will face when the glorious event we call the Rapture occurs and we are suddenly in the presence of our Lord and Savior.

As I view it, all is still on track to unfold exactly as I believe I was impressed to write those nine years ago.

Only six days into the presidency of Donald J. Trump, the humanistic gurus of the community known as the” Atomic Scientists” raised a ruckus. They lamented that we were within two and a half minutes of nuclear midnight. This was supposed to mean that global catastrophe was closer, perhaps, than it has ever been.

The atomic scientists’ perception as the unthinking–bumbling, or perhaps deliberate evil–of the new president made the doomsday clock time-setters nervous indeed.

Their joint declaration stated that scant few days after his taking office, “Both his statements and his actions as president-elect have broken with historical precedent in unsettling ways. He has made ill-considered comments about expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal. He has shown a troubling propensity to discount or outright reject expert advice related to international security, including the conclusions of intelligence experts. And his nominees to head the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency dispute the basics of climate science.”

I have written in these commentaries for years that the globalists’ key rallying point for trying to bring about the new world order they seek has been global warming. It is now called climate change. The luciferian rant is ratcheting up in every aspect of geopolitical atmospherics. However, we can expect, I have absolutely no doubt, an even more massive uptick in the assault. Climate change will continue to be the spear tip of the campaign against God’s order of things as we move deeper in human history toward the Tribulation hour.

The scientists in question collectively issued the accusation–highly disturbing in their view– that Trump, during the 2016 presidential campaign, talked about the need to increase and upgrade nuclear weapons capability. At the same time, they ranted that he spoke against their and the general, scientific community’s overwhelming consensus that climate change poses a threat beyond any other to the well-being of the planet.

All the while they said nothing of former President Obama’s trying to anger Russia’s Vladimir Putin in the last months of the Obama administration–a thing that gave Putin fodder to proclaim the need to further increase the Russian nuclear arsenal.

Like in every other instance of hypocritical treatment by media and by the humanistic, scientific community, Obama got a pass, while their collective ire descended full force on the one who defeated them in the American electoral process.

They ignored that international relations deteriorated dangerously during the Obama years, rather noted fawningly that the former president in 2010 called for a nuclear-free world.

At the same time, they pointed out angrily their convoluted and quasi-accurate assessment that Trump suggested South Korea and Japan might consider developing nuclear weapons since North Korea and even China represent growing threats. They berated Trump and his six-day-old administration for having no “firm plans” to extend the controversial “Iran nuclear deal.”

The doomsdayers further castigated Trump and laid out their great fear his winning the American presidency wrought.

“The political situation in the United States is of particular concern. The Trump transition team has put forward candidates for cabinet-level positions (especially at the Environmental Protection Agency and Energy Department) who foreshadow the possibility that the new administration will be openly hostile to progress toward even the most modest efforts to avert catastrophic climate disruption.”

Please believe me. Although we have heard week after week of such sophistry to this point, it is nowhere near the last we will hear of the climate change madness.

Those of the now antiquated “million woman march” and the “if- it-feels-good-do-it” crowd lost their “political fast-track to succeeding” they were previously on. These sorts, as we have witnessed, are furious to the point of displaying mental instability. But, the globalists elite of this world, working to bring in Antichrist’s regime–even if unknowingly–are exceedingly more angry and determined that this president will be removed by hook or crook.

We know intimately of the volume increase on talk of impeaching him. There are absolute proofs that a coup d’état have been in the deep state plans of the angriest of the nation’s power brokers.

It does not, nor should it, surprise, that this level of rebellion is raising its ugly, serpent-like head. We only have to go to the great book of Revelation to understand the extremes to which fallen man will go when they don’t get their way.

There will be a rebellion of the most horrific magnitude ever at the end of the Millennium–the thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ. This uprising will occur, we are told through prophecy, after the rule of the only perfect Ruler in all of human history.

And, this gets us back to the Doomsday Clock scientists’ forewarning of Trump causing the destruction of the earth because of his declaring as lunacy their climate change mantra. Well, maybe it’s I–not Trump–who call it lunacy, but he adamantly opposes it–and them nonetheless.

The fact that Revelation 20:7-9 tells us there will be this last, satanically led rebellion in an attempt to dethrone the Creator of all things lets us know that there will still be a planet earth, despite President Donald Trump, and even seven years of Tribulation.

Also, it proves, in my estimation, the lunacy of the doomsdayers diatribe.

One can sense prophetic movement afoot within this presidential election cycle. The globalist agenda, as mentioned a number of times in these commentaries, seems to have been put on hold, or at least slowed.

That is not to say that the forces wanting to set the stage for Antichrist’s rise to power–unwittingly no doubt in most cases–have by any means given up on their agenda. But, in America, for the moment, the people’s decision to put this particular man in the most powerful office on earth appears to have erected a wall of opposition.

It is God, Himself, who in actuality has put Trump in the office of U.S. president, just as He allows any potentate, prince, or president to come to power.

With this in mind, it is most interesting to consider developments as offshoots of the 2016 election–thus in light of the coalescing of prophetic indicators the issues and events of these times have wrought.

One such indicator I’ve written about previously that has potential prophetic overtones in my estimation is the possibility of a coming economic boom. This is the trend in every direction one looks in consideration of the financial markets of late. Most every indicator leading up to the 2016 election year pointed to dire outcomes in America and the world regarding economic prospects. Europe and much of the rest of the world, admittedly, continue to be steeped in somewhat dire such predictions. The United States prospects, however, are looking brighter and brighter as the presidency of Donald J. Trump proceeds.

I’m not deluded–nor should you be–that all is well. It isn’t. But, a boom, I believe, was prophesied by the Lord Jesus Himself. It will be a time of buying, selling, building, marrying, planting, and doing all the things that say good times are here again.

Jesus said as recorded in Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17:26-30 that times will be booming economically at the time judgment will fall. Anytime the Lord prophesied–such as in His Olivet Discourse foretelling–the things He foretold announced an especially accelerated or more pronounced state than normal circumstance would indicate. When He said people will be buying, selling, building, etc., “like in the days of Lot,” He was, I’m convinced, predicting a boom in wealth, etc.–i.e., economic circumstance well beyond business as usual.

We see, at this present hour, a movement into economic boom times for this nation. Trump is an acknowledged business whiz, and the financial markets almost without exception give indication they have confidence he will “make America great again”–at least economically speaking.

This optimism of the money changers of Wall Street and other echelons of fiscal power inspired me to meander a bit through the Revelation chapter 18 prophecy in which the entity known as Babylon the Great is described. The ruminating in my mind raises the question, despite the longstanding seminary declaration that this entity will rise from the geographical area of ancient Babylon. Is it possible the prophecy might involve the United States of America?

I’m not saying it will be thus–just that it is legitimate to raise the question. I’m aware that great theologically prophetic minds–some belonging to dear friends–say there is no such possibility.

Another such prophetic indicator flowing from this presidential election–the subject of this essay–is the matter of the president’s moving the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Actually, candidate Trump long ago made this declaration during many stump speeches. It is more than noteworthy, therefore, that his selection to be ambassador to Israel had at the center of his thinking the move of the American embassy from to Jerusalem.

Trump’s choice, David Friedman, an orthodox Jew, stated at the time that he looked forward to serving as ambassador to Israel at “the US embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.”

Former Republican National Committee chairman and, at the time, President-Elect Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, was told in an interview on the December 18, 2016 FOX News Sunday program by Chris Wallace, the show’s host, that Freidman has said he was against the two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This, Wallace indicated, was against the international community’s determination to make such a “solution” part of a peace deal. The upshot of Wallace’s thought was that this was going to be a highly controversial stand by Friedman and Trump. This, it was implied, would prevent the peace from eventuating, which the globalists want to impose upon Israel and the region.

Zechariah’s prophecy might here come into play as we look forward to the coming months of the Trump presidency. The establishment of America’s embassy in Jerusalem, thus making recognition of that most controversial city on earth as Israel’s capital ironclad, it was feared, almost certainly would both drive the Arab-Islamists of the region into a frenzy and cause massive diplomatic headaches for the globalist, international community sort. It remains to be seen just what the ultimate effects will be.

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)

Like in the prophecy involving Jesus’ days of Noah, days of Lot foretelling, Zechariah’s prophecy regarding Jerusalem looks to be forming. Stay tuned…

Global order plans are up in the air while the would-be one-world architects plot against the imposition to their plans represented by America’s 45th president. The leader of the free world has made it clear he intends to keep America–at least–free of their insidious grab for America’s wealth through their climate change and other such liberty-diminishing machinations.

The new-world-order builders fear monger that America’s refusal to submit to their plans is a formula for guaranteeing the demise of the planet.

Israel is, as usual, at the center of concern in the minds of the world’s diplomats. This president vowed to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He then did so. This, the one-worlders rant, put the U.S. stamp of validation upon Jerusalem as the undivided capital of the Jewish state.

This rates as a threat to world peace in the minds of most all U.N. leaders. The Palestinian President declared there would absolutely be no chance of peace between the Palestinians and Israel if this happened. Yet the negotiations continue.

Russia has popped up as a perceived threat so great that some think Vladimir Putin could start World War III before the Trump Administration reaches its conclusion.

Even Christian writers within pre-trib prophecy who are touted to be highly regarded journalists–observers of tensions that might lead to war–fear that Putin is on the verge of starting a conflict that might go nuclear at some point. To me, this flies in the face of things as they are foretold to be at the time of His next intervention into the affairs of mankind (the Rapture). The Lord said it will be a time of life going on possibly more robust than usual at the time He breaks in on the world like a thief in the night (Matthew 24:36-42, Luke 17:26-30).

This prophecy by Christ Himself precludes nuclear war occurring before the Rapture, from my perspective. However, the fear is expressed by some such as Joel Rosenberg that we are likely to, in the immediate future, face war that will take the world out of that think-not time Jesus talked about in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:44).

The president himself is so feared as an incompetent and out of control by the political left that nearly half the nation seems to be having a collective nervous breakdown in thinking about Trump’s daily activity while in office.

This has been the case since before the president took office. In one instance,a man was arrested in Ithaca, New York for shooting to death a UPS delivery man, then running over the body. He did so, he told those who interrogated him, because he thought the man was Donald Trump, the president-elect.

There are hundreds of reports of people who have become mentally unhinged over the 2016 election result. We remember, for example, the man and his “husband” who verbally assaulted the president’s daughter on a commercial flight, shouting that her father was going to destroy the nation. Those who see the Trump victory as the worst possible thing for life on planet earth, like the globalists and those who have near phobic fears of Russia, continue to see the Trump years as unprecedented threat.

Wall Street and the economic gurus, on the other hand, seem to be seeing an opposite effect regarding Mr. Trump’s rise to power. The years since he took office –despite ups and downs of the stock market–  apparently look pretty good to these supposed wizards of the financial world. And, that market has set new records since he took office, showing these vote with their investments as a matter of displaying confidence in his leadership acumen in finance.

Additionally–and this is the most telling, prophetically speaking, I think–the great, collective sigh of relief by other members of American society is overtly obvious. The sigh of the evangelical Christian segment of this half of the American populace leaps out–or should do so–at those who are students of Bible prophecy from the pre-trib view.

We are Thankful to get a “reprieve,” as it has been termed. It appears, at least, that Christians who stand upon biblical principles and openly display their faith have experienced a more tolerant acceptance from this administration and the federal courts that Mr. Trump is shaping as a result. However, it must be noted that along with the sigh of relief there is developing a settling-back into comfortable complacency.

Based upon the level of observation I’ve done and the kinds of email and news stories I receive, it seems to me that the fervency of the prayers of God’s people and concerns for aggressively pursuing a biblically moral agenda is just about nonexistent.

This, to my way of thinking, based upon prophetic Scripture, presents the greatest threat of all as we proceed toward the presidential election of 2020.

Again, Jesus forewarned of just such a time, I believe.

Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. 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. (Matthew 24: 42-44)

For this reason, the threat to the world, populated mostly by those who don’t know Christ for salvation, is at great risk. A complacent church is a threat greater in this way, perhaps, than the threats we most often consider.

Let us vow to make these days, weeks, months and years just ahead a time dedicated to actively carrying out the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20).

An old apothegm applies, I think, in considering where this generation stands and what it faces: “What goes around comes around.”

This nation, in particular, is beginning to revisit times like experienced early in the twentieth century. I refer to the era termed the “Roaring Twenties.”

The 1920s in America–and in France and other places–saw an outbreak of loosened morals and observable detachment from common sensibility. Also called the “Flapper Era,” because it featured young women scantily dressed and exhibiting comportment totally foreign to earlier modesty, America seemed poised to throw off all shackles of godly influence.

It seems that as we go into 2020 and beyond–the “Roaring Twenties” of these latter days–we’ve reached the point on that turntable of “what goes around, comes around.” That is, we are watching while America is shedding any modesty left and is casting off its common sensibility. The next step on that turntable of history repeating itself isn’t a pleasant prospect.

History shows that judgment of a sort followed the 1920s of a hundred years ago. The judgment was in the form of a corrective action from Heaven. The Dust Bowl followed in the wake of the Roaring Twenties. The Great Depression brought America to her knees and nearly choked the life out of everyone who went through that terrible time.

It took a horrific World War, with the lost lives of millions, to start this nation on the road to recovery from its sinful, life-debilitating addictions.

So it is that we are about to enter the twenties of the twenty-first century. The addictions are not on the cusp of afflicting the people of America; they’re already full blown, with nearly half of the nation seemingly in full-blown rebellion against the God of Heaven. If this generation is at the end of this Age of Grace as I believe it to be, there will be no time for remedial or corrective action by Heaven’s hand. The judgment and wrath will finally put an end to the rebellion of the incorrigible among God’s creation called man. 

In terms of Bible prophecy given for the Tribulation, the words of Jesus come to mind: “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring” (Luke 21:25).

That nations are currently in “perplexity,” there should be no question. We’ve dissected matters involved many times in these commentaries, as have journalists of every type in their own forums. Whether considering things geopolitically, socioeconomically, religiously, or any other way, governments are “perplexed” as to what to do about mounting financial distress and violence among the masses they seek to govern/control.

To touch briefly on the latter of these worldwide problems, let’s look at Jesus’ forewarning about these very times, which I’m convinced we find ourselves in today.

The Lord said the nations would be in distress with perplexity with “the sea and waves roaring.”

There are differences of opinion, some believing that Christ was talking here of the physical sea and waves, while others believe He meant the peoples of earth would be raging in wave-like motion. I believe He meant both.

It is the symbolic meaning I wish to look at briefly.

Politically in this nation, we have seen an uproar of epic proportion. The anger and rage over the last few election cycles have been phenomenal–unprecedented in the history of America, as far as I can discern.

But, we’ve looked at all of that many times here. I want us to consider the things going on at this moment not just in our nation, but around the world.

France has seen multiple uprisings against the French government of Immanuel Macron for his confiscatory taxation. The governments of Greece and Italy have been in flux for years due to the mismanagement brought on by social spending insanity.

The people of Great Britain have been roaring against the sovereignty-robbing impositions of the EU. They voted to remove their nations in what has come to be known as Brexit.

Protesters by the thousands have ignited an uproar in Hong Kong as their government has moved toward giving the Chinese Communist government control over previously promised self-government. Many observers fear that a Tiannanmen Square-type massacre could take place in the near future.

We remember the roaring going on in and around Venezuela, with the people trying to take back their nation from the communist-influenced dictatorship.

The masses were raging recently in Puerto Rico, demanding the resignation of their dictator-like governor, Ricardo Roselle.

We are too familiar with the roaring in recent days, with masses of South and Central American citizens trying to illegally break into the U.S., and this administration’s efforts to combat the assaults. As of this writing, despite President Trump’s best efforts, the roaring of the masses from the south continues.

The videos have gone viral–often to the laughs and applauding of many on social media–of New York City policemen being doused with water and hit with buckets and other objects.

Flash mobs continue around particularly America’s big cities, with thugs stealing thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from stores.

Now, gangs of young women–mostly teenagers–in the inner cities of the country have formed and are attacking those with whom they come in contact, beating their victims senseless for no reason.

The sea of humanity is definitely roaring, with wave after wave of violence that, it seems to me, matches the violence of Noah’s day as given in Genesis chapter 6.

Jesus’ foretelling of this very hour at the end of the age appears to be right in front of us. We see it all developing in these viral videos and even through our hourly news. It all indicates that we’re nearing the midnight hour of human history.

Christ is about to call the Church–all born-again believers living and dead—to Himself. Christians don’t face gloom and doom because of having to endure God’s judgment and wrath; believers can look forward to a truly glorious prospect indeed!

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

My practice each week before beginning to think seriously on the next week’s commentary for this column is to pray for guidance from on high.

This week, an idea of what the topic should be came almost instantly upon my beginning to think on the matter. Next, within less than an hour into the process, came a message through email that validated beyond any doubt that the topic was chosen from above.

The email was from a regular family member of our website, raptureready.com. Her words were verification that the thought for the message to be delivered wasn’t mine, but from the One who sent that first Christmas message announcing the Savior’s arrival two millennia ago. I quickly dashed off an email-note thanking her.

I again thank her here and will include some of her words from her most timely cyber message to me.

As many who read these commentaries will know, my articles of late have involved the lead-up to and reporting of presidential election 2016. I view that election, I think I made clear, as being intervention by the Lord–and this for several reasons.

His intervention was to, I believe, answer the prayers of His people who are called by His name, in accordance with 2 Chronicles 7: 14. His response was to begin to turn around the quick slide into the abyss of total moral decay. His action was to stop this nation’s almost certain march to globalism, which, I’m convinced, the losing candidate would have put on an even faster track than America was on, should she have been elected president.

I likened the intervention in the matter of globalism to God’s erecting a wall even more profound than the wall the president-elect has promised to put along America’s southern border. For now, at least, America, apparently, will have a wall of sorts–a return to the constitutional concept of sovereignty and nationhood intended by the founding fathers.

That constitutional concept was formed by Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and all the rest, based upon their strong belief in adherence to Judeo-Christian principles found in the Bible. This, the new world order architects cannot abide. Religion, they rant, is the bane of progressive thought and action. These most often champion the Utopian dream fostered by Karl Marx, who wrote: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

The globalists elite who hate religion and despise Christianity in particular see Communism as the route to Utopia. If only they could have their blueprint for their version of socialism put fully into production, they would create heaven on earth. These have come to embrace fanatically their own version of religion. It is called “environmentalism.”

They were, until recently, calling it global warming. The scientific sophistry behind their claim came to light through exposure to the facts, so they changed the core of their religion to “climate change.”

These are of the save-the-earth cult which holds that man is destroying Mother Earth. Therefore, the globalists elite–the high priests of their religion–must see to it that all nations, all peoples, must be brought under their regulation–else we will all drown beneath the overflowing oceans because of icecap melting, etc. Greenhouse gases and carbon emissions and all of that are produced by evil Western mankind in particular and must be governed. They–the global elitists–of course, are the only ones who can thus save the world.

Pope Francis and some within the Catholic Church have wholeheartedly joined this save-the-earth cult to add their version of religious input. The following excerpted article explains:

Catholic Online reports that new priests will be expected to be familiar with and promote efforts to reduce carbon emissions…

The Church has a responsibility to care for people, and the environment. And care for one is also care for the other…

The new guidelines suggest that in the future, priests will also have a good grasp of the global climate change problem and will share this with their congregation…

It must be said that some committed and prayerful Christians, with the excuse of realism and pragmatism, tend to ridicule expressions of concern for the environment. Others are passive; they choose not to change their habits and thus become inconsistent. So what they all need is an ‘ecological conversion’, whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evidence in their relationship with the world around them. Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience. Therefore, it will be necessary for future priests to be highly sensitive to this theme and, through the requisite Magisterial and theological guidance, helped to “acknowledge the appeal, immensity and urgency of the challenge we face. (Source: Catholic Church: New Priests Will be Expected to Preach Global Warming, Guest essay by Eric Worrall, http://www.clerus.va/content/dam/clerus/Ratio%20Fundamentalis/The%20Gift%20of%20the%20Priestly%20Vocation.pdf)

There has been little reaching out by this pope since he replaced Pope Benedict to proclaim that conversion must be made to belief in Jesus Christ in order to save the souls of people of earth. But the cry at present goes out in every direction that conversion to the dogma of ecological sophistry must be instituted and enforced to save all people everywhere.

With regard to the Luciferian religion called climate change, the words of my emailer say it plainly.

“No matter how much humans try to ‘improve’ on God’s plans, He has the last say. He allows us to experiment but then, rightly shows us that His way is the best way. No matter how much humans try to wreck Planet Earth, God always has the upper (and healing) hand.

The world belongs to God. His Creation. Wonderfully and perfectly made. There is no way He is going to allow some spiritually backward, egocentric lunatic, [to] ruin what He set up. For the RC [Roman Catholic] church to actually believe that they will influence or make a difference to what is happening to planet earth is spiritual ignorance of the highest order. They are implying that action from man can fix stuff. That they (the RC church) are running things. Astonishing!”

Let me be clear in saying that I’m fully aware and agree that we are expected, as Christians, to be good stewards of the earth. However, we are not to worship the earth and make that worship the means of our salvation.

It is the reverse of the true Christmas story. Globalism preaches that it is up to man to save himself by saving the planet.

Like Lucifer told Eve, we are destined to become our own gods. We are to save the world, totally apart from any deity, except, of course, for the gods–he elite–of the globalist agenda.

But the truth of the Christmas story simply, powerfully and wonderfully tells all who will listen–and believe.

“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17).

Everyone who has access to any news outlet is familiar with the wall mentioned hundreds of times by Donald Trump throughout the 2016 presidential campaign and right up to the present. Now president, Trump continues to proclaim that he will build a wall on America’s southern border.

That highly controversial proposed wall involves Mr. Trump’s promise to keep illegal would-be immigrants from entering the United States. Those who support building of such a wall obviously believe this will prevent potential terrorists from entering the country en masse, as they fear is happening presently.

A physical structure of the nature described by some will be a massive and expensive undertaking to be sure. And, the angry debate over it’s construction shows it won’t be an easy thing to get it built. But it, in my opinion, needs to be constructed in order to keep American citizens safe.

There is a wall of another sort I would like to think on for a bit. This is a structure that also involves keeping America safe. However, it is a wall not of physical materials as in the case of the one proposed to stand between America and Mexico. I’m referring to the barrier that has suddenly appeared with the election of this president. Again, it is not a physical wall, but one that is made of much sterner stuff–as Shakespeare’s Mark Antony might put it.

Globalism’s growing invasion into the American way of life has been marching all but unchecked for at least two decades. Its force of movement into all strata of life increased dramatically during the administration of Barack Obama.

Globalism’s threat is greater than just the hordes of illegals from the south–those illegals being but one ingredient within the globalist elite’s plans of action: to bring America into configuration with new world order as they envision it. The danger implied stretches across the broad spectrum of culture and society of our nation.

The inculcation has been a long time in process. The youth of America in particular have been dumbed-down to the point that they know little of truth about the country’s founding principles.

The churches of America have not, since the days of the Moral Majority efforts, resisted the globalist drive to take the nation as far away from God’s influence as possible. The godless teaching of the corrupted and corruptive educational system from K through the doctorate programs has convinced many that there must be a separation of church and state. That demand has come down, finally, to governmental dictate–approved by the Supreme Court–that opposition to social matters perceived as anti-biblical must be confined to the sanctuaries.

Just as this president plans to put up that wall to stem the physical flow of illegals in to America, there has suddenly been erected an even more spectacular wall.

It is a spiritual wall, as I view it. God, Himself, has put it up for His own good purposes. It is, almost certainly in part, a wall to stop the globalist invaders from continuing to move the United States farther along the pathway toward the new world order being prepared for Antichrist and his regime of horror. I wrote the following in my commentary that immediately preceded the November 8 presidential election.

Although the nucleus of God’s people who hold fast to the Heavenly Father’s precepts and promises might be a dwindling number, we are still here in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. We are engaged in this prayer war for a restoration of sanity in America’s government, society and culture.

We are praying specifically that the evil forces that are raging to make this nation into a state totally apart from all godliness will be, at least on an interim basis, kept from their Luciferian goal.

I say “on an interim basis,” because Bible prophecy plainly foretells that the satanic, globalist forces will for a time one day achieve establishment of a one-world order as Antichrist’s platform of power. It will happen. It’s just a matter of time.

Meantime, however, while the church of Jesus Christ is here, thus the Restrainer (the Holy Spirit) resident within that body holding back evil, it is right and proper–and I believe expected–that God’s people, called by His name, are to pray the prayer of 2 Chronicles 7:14.

God has erected this wall in answer to the prayers of His people. Yet, only He knows the purposes in full. One reason, I sense, is to give the true church (all born-again believers) time and room to carry out the Great Commission. At the same time, as I’ve written previously, this wall seems to offer hope of a brighter economic future. The free enterprise forces seem to be saying this with their optimism.

But, this, if it does eventuate, makes these days just ahead precisely like the time predicted when Christ will next catastrophically intervene into the affairs of mankind.

Jesus indicated, as recorded in Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17:26-30 that business will be good–even perhaps booming–at the time He next intervenes. This will be the Rapture of the church.

There is one more wall I wish to touch on in this essay–the wall that separates lost mankind from God and Heaven in eternity. The wall is made of the awful, soul-killing matter called sin. Man himself constructed this wall with his disobedience in the Garden of Eden. This wall keeps all of the lost of mankind from entering into God’s Kingdom. They are aliens who cannot go through that great barrier.

But, God has provided a Gate in that great wall of separation. It is a narrow gate that leads to salvation, the Scripture tells us.

Jesus put it this way: “I am the door: if by me any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture” (John 10:9).

I believe the reason God has constructed this wall against globalism is primarily to provide time and opportunity to get out this message that Jesus is the only way to salvation. Let us who are called by His Holy Name do our utmost for His Highest in honoring Him for allowing this reprieve.

We are moving into stranger and stranger times, I sense from consideration of recent developments. Chief among those developments involves the most obvious–the election of the presidential candidate thought to have no chance at all in the 2016 election. Yet here he is, embarked upon Making America Great Again–as his presidential campaign slogan would have it.

This being the case, I would ask that you indulge me just a bit, as I would like to construct a scenario or two based as much in biblically prophetic truth as in fictional cogitation.

That America has been forced toward movement into the globalist mold over the past several decades is without question in my view. This was the case during the eight years of the Obama administration. The nation’s sovereignty has been in process of usurpation by the new world order builders through a series of quasi-legitimate executive orders.

It is more than obvious, to me at least, that the United States was moving along an seemingly unalterable course dictated by the globalists’ agenda. The 2016 presidential election didn’t just slow that movement; it halted it in its tracks. President Donald J. Trump is an avowed anti-globalist. He views America not as the hegemonic superpower that must be brought down to third-world status, its wealth redistributed in order to create some insanely conceived socialistic Utopia, but as beneficent leader of a world of autonomous nations.

My idea isn’t to sing the praises of this president. He is merely a man who has been thrust into the end-times picture for God’s own great purpose. My thinking here is to explore and examine a bit the possibilities that purpose might include.

Thus we come to the title of this commentary: “The A B C Questions.”

I watch with great interest the uptick in the world’s fiscal markets as the wizards of finance contemplate changes taking place in our country. The records being set in the stock markets, etc., move in synchronization with the strangeness of Trump’s election. The whole matter, to my way of thinking, generates questions involving Bible prophecy potentiality.

My questions and ruminations follow.

Question A

AMERICA–Is this nation, rather than being on the brink of imploding economically as most prophecy students thought before the presidential election of 2016, now about to enter a time of, perhaps, unprecedented financial boom?

Most who have been responsible for making profit within the private sector knew and lamented that regulations coming out of the Obama administration were deadly to business development. Mr. Obama, himself, boasted that he had “a pen and a phone”–meaning that he could and would bypass Congress to accomplish what he wanted done. This he did prolifically. His use of his pen and phone was particularly ruinous to the free enterprise system in this nation.

Increased taxation, added to the regulatory edicts, resulted in horrendous job losses because of business down-sizings and closings. The nation seemed poised to go much deeper into the economic abyss. The election of Donald J. Trump, a highly successful business mogul, suddenly turned things around with rolling back taxes and regulations and introducing a plethora of innovations.

The financial markets by and large have bought the promises, and the uptick in the stratospheric of economic anticipation shows it.

All of this just doesn’t fit the thinking of observers of Bible prophecy. Most seem to look for America to succumb to the forces of globalism. And, as stated before, the nation was certainly headed in that direction prior to the 2016 election.

So, it is reasonable to ask whether the United States of America might be headed into an even greater economic boom instead of descending into depression as feared just over two and ahalf years ago. This conjecture brings forth another most interesting question.

Question B

BABYLON–Could we now be witness to the beginnings of the creation of the prophetic entity termed “Babylon the Great”?

Revelation chapter 18 presents a stunning portrait of the greatest human commercial entity of all of history. This nation and city is prophesied to dominate all the earth with its commerce and debaucheries. Here’s what is said of this city-state called “Babylon the Great”:

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. (Revelation 18:3)

This Babylonian system will be destroyed in one hour, God’s Word tells us. It will be a much-deserved judgment. All the world will mourn this destruction.

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see he smoke of her burning, Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more. (Revelation 18:9-11)

Here you will, I hope, indulge my postulations a bit. If this generation is at the very end of he Age of Grace (Church Age) as most who are well-versed in Bible prophecy from the pre-Trib view believe, there is but one entity on the stage of history that could possibly be seen as doing business in such a mighty way as described in this prophecy.

For there to develop from the ground up such a commercial power, it would take decades, not just seven, or even twenty years. America, if there was a massive ginning up of enterprise, could possibly reach such heights of interaction with the rest of the world in a matter of a year or two. There is simply no nation on the planet that has ever been so materially blessed as the USA. There is no other city on planet earth that has the commercial outreach and influence as New York City.

Seeing as how the timeline seems to be a major factor in this prophecy–this destruction of Babylon the Great taking place within the seven-year Tribulation–we can legitimately ask, I think: Is America to develop into that judgment-bound entity?

Perhaps we might get a clue if the optimistic outlook of the current stock market elites plays out as they, at least at this moment, anticipate.

Question C

CHRISTIANITY —Is Christianity about to experience a Great Awakening like in times past?

I have been hearing for years now preachers and others saying that there will be a great revival before the Rapture. Some of those who don’t hold that there is a Rapture coming also say there will be another Great Awakening, as in times past.

I’ve never held that belief, I must say. However, the strange turn of events–with the anti-God forces of the left and the globalists’ ravenous attempts to gobble up the United States being suddenly halted–or so it seems–one has to question” why?”.

Could we be about to experience a final outpouring of God’s great mercy in the form of the true church carrying out the Great Commission in a Holy Spirit directed outburst of supernatural witness?

I have heard Dr. Charles Stanley and other great preachers I trust exhorting God’s children to pray for such an outpouring of Holy Spirit revival. Stanley says he’s talking about revival meaning Christians turning their repentance and faithful obedience back to God, rather than meaning many souls being saved. Salvation of souls would result from God’s Family being “revived.” Part of that revival would be being faithful to carrying out the Great Commission.

Whatsoever the things going on in this late hour of the age, God is up to something big, Dr. Stanley says. I agree. Let us Watch and work while these times come to a close.

“What I say unto one, I say unto all. Watch” (Mark 13: 37)

Listening the last 2 years to the “experts” thinking aloud on what the last presidential election meant is exercise in frustration, if not futility. The talking heads across the cable and broadcast spectrum have consistently attributed Donald Trump’s win to everything from the fake news of a Trump-Russian collusion to news media’s biased poll-taking and misreading of exit polling the day of the election. These throw in that those in charge of the losing campaign just didn’t understand the people of middle America. They didn’t see the people’s pent-up rage against the Washington establishment–the D.C. insiders.

All of these elements no doubt contributed to that election–as many of the pundits framed it–eventuating in a totally unexpected outcome. But, it is the never-mentioned aspect of that 2016 election dynamic that is frustrating to me as a Christian. It is this that produces a sense of futility.

No one in media has talked about the 81% – 84% (depending upon the figure you accept) of “evangelicals” who turned out in that election. Christian participation just isn’t figured in at the highest levels of broadcast and cable punditry.

This means, to me, that the experts believe the 2016 election had nothing to do with our being fed up with the social debauchery and degradation that took place, particularly over the Obama years. The homosexual, transsexual, same-sex marriage agenda, with mandated same-sex, multiple-occupancy public restrooms, had no influence on the voting in that election year, the experts are saying with their silence. We, the voters–who are Christians and came out in numbers that have not been seen in many elections–apparently weren’t (according to the pundits) making a statement that we were fed up with our White House being bathed in rainbow colors emblematic of the homosexual lobby. We aren’t sick and tired of having the homosexual rainbow flag flown atop that same American presidential edifice, is the message of the pundits’ silence.

That electoral landslide against the candidate and party that crammed down America’s throat all of this hellishness–mostly through presidential, executive order-fiat–had nothing to do with the social issues, I guess we are to take away from this silence.

That we are disgusted with small bakery owners being publicly humiliated and fined for refusing to bake same-sex wedding cakes obviously isn’t considered worth mentioning in the analysis of that 2016 election results. The absolute horrors and atrocities that we learned about involving Planned Parenthood and the selling of human baby body parts didn’t, in the thinking of the post-election, political analysts, figure in our collective voting statement.

It was all about terrorism, wallet issues, and building back America’s defense, while determining to “drain the swamp.”

These were all important issues in my own thinking, as in the thinking of many other Christians, while election day approached. But, in addition to stopping a further tearing down of America’s founding structure, I wanted–and continue to want–a government that will stop the anti-godliness, down the road of which the Obama administration deliberately moved this nation.

As expressed previously in these commentaries, it was God’s people praying the prayer of 2 Chronicles 7:14 that turned that election so dramatically. This is the answer the pundits are seeking when they ask incessantly about what happened that the news media types missed. How could this election have turned out so differently than expected right up until 9 p.m. EST Tuesday, November 8, 2016?

The fact is that the throne room of Heaven was deluged day and night with God’s people imploring Him for mercy–asking that He hear from Heaven and answer our prayers. This, of course required repentance–not of America’s population, but of God’s people. It is more than obvious that He did hear and answered in a spectacular way. God cannot lie, and He promised He would answer such prayer–uttered under biblically prerequisite conditions.

Now, the question is: Will we who are called by His name continue to pray and to follow up on those prerequisite conditions? How we respond will determine how our nation–and our lives–fare over the coming days, months, and, perhaps, years.

We have proof that our Lord answers prayers in a spectacular way. The pundits will never see it, but we who did and are doing the praying certainly understand.

We can further understand God’s influence in that stunning election by the truly Christian people He has placed among the power elite that govern us.

So, in this pre-Tribulation time, we have a window of opportunity to honor our Lord’s merciful answer in giving us a leadership that promises a return to founding principles. Along with that merciful action, it is also obvious that we have been given a course-correction, a return to the moral pathway–out of the depravity foisted on us in recent years.

We don’t have to wonder about how to honor His mercy and kindness in having answered our prayers. His number-one priority has always been and will always be the salvation of souls. We are expected to honor His decision to give America a reprieve–I have no doubt–in order to, first and foremost, lift Jesus Christ so that the Holy Spirit draws all to Christ for salvation.

Just beneath that all-important mission for God’s people in America is to let the pastors of our churches know that the true, Christ-believing bodies of worship should be devoted to teaching and preaching truth. That is, we are now, more than ever, to be the Philadelphian church and not the Laodicean church (read Revelation chapter 3).

There is no doubt that we see this gracious, merciful, moving of God’s hand in America. However, there are also signals that are growing stronger by the day that we are in times at the very end of the age.

Jesus forewarned in the Olivet Discourse that there would be great ethnic strife. We have been seeing it manifested in American cities. The seas and waves of humanity are “roaring” in America and in Europe. The 2016 election has intensified that roaring, I believe.

People who continue to refuse to accept the election results are exemplifying the apostle Paul’s perilous times characteristic “incontinent”–or, “out of control.” Jesus said societal conditions will be exactly like now when He intervenes catastrophically into the affairs of mankind. That will happen with the Rapture.

With the United States now seeming to be headed back toward the America we once knew and loved, with the promises of the Trump Administration, we can enjoy our moment of gratefulness.

However, this time of national renewal is also likely to be a time like described by Jesus–a time that will bring His next catastrophic intervention into the affairs of mankind. That time might just be upon us.

“Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” (Matthew 24: 44)

News pundits have pontificated in every direction since President Donald J. Trump’s election in 2016.

We have been told about building the wall on our southern border –how it is inhumane. We hear about the president’s powering up the Obama-era, faded U.S. military –how it makes us a bully on the world scene. We were told his doing  away with many of the executive orders that he believes have helped bring the American economy and social structure to an unacceptable status will be detrimental to the have-nots of the nation.

The president’s achievements in accomplishing many of his  priorities, of course, have turned this country around, economically and in other important ways. We welcome new direction as we sense reprieve from the God of Heaven that 2016 election has brought. The prayers of God’s people, as I’ve pointed out previously has, I believe, helped win that reprieve from what seemed impending judgment.

Perhaps correction would be the most appropriate term. God’s people prayed that God would hear from Heaven and would put the nation on a course correction.

This, He seemingly has done.

He intervened a century ago to make a profound course correction following the raucous Gay Nineties and the debauched era following World War I termed the Roaring Twenties.

Writer John Steinbeck captured this corrective era in his novel, The Grapes of Wrath. And, it was indeed an era when the crops of corrective judgment, whose seeds of refusing to follow the God-designed course for America had been planted more than a decade earlier, came to fruition.

Again, the tremendous Dust Bowl of the 1930s, I’m convinced, was a corrective measure while God prepared the American people for the Second World War–a conflict God didn’t cause, but certainly used to temper and harden this nation to make it ready to meet its destiny.

That destiny was primarily to bring modern Israel to birth on May 14, 1948. Also, to spread the gospel to the world through advancing communications technologies. The United States was blessed, economically, from that point, making it the wealthiest and most technologically advanced nation that has ever existed.

So, while Mr. Trump’s political agenda is important, even critical, to achieving worthy, laudable goals in turning America in the right direction, Heaven’s priorities are truly the matters for which God’s reprieve have been so mercifully given.

Of course, the Church (all born-again believers) should take this reprieve as a mandate to recapture moral ground–to roll back some of the social evils the Obama administration brought forth–most through executive fiat. It is that very church which has, in my estimation, allowed this slide toward the moral abyss through her acquiescence.

However, that said, I am convinced that the same two major issues are involved in this God-given reprieve.

Heaven’s priorities with the 2016 election, again, involves 1) seeing to it that the gospel message is carried forth throughout the world; and 2) that the nation Israel continues to have the most powerful nation on the planet as an ally and protector.

It is beyond argument that God doesn’t need the United States to protect Israel. But, it is also beyond argument–to my way of thinking, at least–that the Lord has used America to act first as midwife in birthing Israel into modernity and then to act as guardian during decades since that rebirth. The Lord of Heaven has chosen America for this specific function, it is likely, for as long as the planet remains in the pre-Tribulation era.

There will come a time when Israel will be under the wrathful hand of Antichrist and the rest of the world. God will intervene directly at that time. Daniel the prophet, passing along the angel’s words, puts it this way:

“And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” (Dan 12: 1)

So, while we watch the unfolding of post-election aftermath, let us view things through the prism of Bible prophecy. We are not about to go into an era that offers prospect of the church building Heaven on earth as the Kingdom-Now purveyors would have it. All is further stage-setting for the Rapture of the Church and the appearance of the son of perdition .

But, it is a reprieve from Heaven we are witnessing and living, so let’s keep in mind Heaven’s priorities.

The Great Commission is still the top priority. Bringing as many lost people as possible into God’s family before the time of tribulation is our 2016 election mandate. Let us pray that the Lord sees fit to continue the reprieve He has granted until He calls the church to Himself.