With so much controversy involving the topic of the Rapture boiling today, I thought it good to look a little closer at that event internally. That is, it might prove interesting to examine the Rapture within the Pre-Trib view to look at a divide that exists.

Mostly, preachers don’t want to address prophecy or, in particular, the doctrine of the Rapture at all. Since the call of Christ to His Church is next on God’s calendar of events, in the view of Pre-Trib proponents, ignoring this great promise of rescue from human history’s most terrible time is something that both baffles and disturbs.

We who are familiar with that great future event know, at least cursorily, the differences within the various views of when the Rapture will occur. Whether it will happen Post-Trib, Mid-Trib, Pre-Trib, etc. is sometimes hotly expressed by the various proponents. However, the vast numbers of preachers in America’s pulpits today would tell you that the Rapture is a mystery to them, as is most of Bible prophecy.

Indeed it is a “mystery” to them, because they never have opened their Bibles with the thought toward looking into the Rapture–the very thing Paul said is a ” mystery” he was showing us–that is, showing believers. They like to use the joke: “I’m a Pan-Millennialist. I believe it will all just pan out in the end.”

Again, it isn’t the hot debate between the Pre-Trib, Mid-Trib, and Post-Trib views of the Rapture I wish to address. To me, the debate is over. The Pre-Tribulation view is the only one in total context of what the Bible says about that great promise that rings true–that makes sense. Paul’s “mystery” unveiled, from the Pre-Trib perspective, is what I hope to dissect a bit.

The Scripture, of course, that sets up this great event is as follows:

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 Corinthians 15:51-52)

Paul says he is presenting a “mystery.” That is, he is dealing with an heretofore unknown matter–unknown to (not understood by) believers in Christ. And this “showing” of this “mystery” is the nuance of truth I wish to examine within the Pre-Trib view of the Rapture–the view I’m convinced is the one the Bible presents through Paul’s unveiling of this most important doctrine.

The seminaries within fundamentalist-evangelical Christianity hold mostly that the Rapture was never dealt with in anyway whatsoever until Paul “revealed” it. The most academically inclined among these will tell you that this “mystery” was never alluded to in the Old Testament. They go on to say it was never mentioned in any way by Jesus and the prophets. It is, they say, only in the Pauline epistles that the Rapture is unveiled.

I believe this is untenable, except by those who refuse to consider that Paul was “showing” the mystery–the mystery of the Rapture that had already been made manifest. He was explaining it, not just pulling it out of the hat for the first time. Paul was unveiling the Truth about what Jesus, Himself, indeed had alluded to as given in the Gospel accounts.

The first mention of this “mystery”–the Rapture–by the Lord we look at was recorded by John:

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

Jesus said that He will “receive” us to Himself, exactly like Paul reveals in 1 Corinthians 15:51 when he says we will be changed–transformed–for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15: 50). That translation into Christ’s presence Paul further unveils in the following prophecy:

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 4:7)

The next words of our Lord about this “mystery” Paul is “showing” us is found in the Gospel of Matthew–in what is known as the Olivet Discourse:

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. (Matthew 24:36-41)

Jesus further gave prophecy regarding that future, catastrophic break-in on human history as recorded in Luke 17:26-30. I think it is unfortunate that the most purely academic among fundamentalist theologians within the ranks of Pre-Trib Rapture proponents can’t see Jesus’ “mysterion” mention of the Rapture in the Gospels–the “mystery” Paul is plainly unlocking for understanding for all believers.

I believe that we are very near the moment of being the generation of believers who will be beneficiaries of that twinkling-of-an-eye moment when the Lord shouts, “Come up here!” (Revelation 4:1).

The allied forces on June 6, 1944 –known forever thereafter as D Day– wanted to accomplish two things as they steamed toward the coastline of France. They were intent on defeating and destroying the Nazis’ ability to make war. Thereby, they were determined to establish peace that had been taken from the world on a global scale–primarily by the Germans–for the second time in less than a half century.

In reality, however, planet earth has never completely escaped–that is, has never been totally free–of war in recorded history. And, that includes the earliest biblical history. Cain first went to war with his brother, Abel, over jealousy that created rage that ended in the first murder. Man has been killing man ever since, with the slaughter continuing to manifest even on our city streets on a growing scale. I give you as example the streets of south Chicago on which during weekends in particular the black-on-black killing is horrendous.

The governmental authorities, both those in the city of Chicago and the former Obama Administration, hardly even acknowledged during their time of responsibility for assuring domestic tranquility, that a problem existed in the inner cities. The news conglomerate dutifully also ignored, and continues to ignore, the deadly problem.

There is a satanic cover-up on the war that is raging, taking peace from life in America. The same forces covering up our domestic conflict are dedicated to the cover-up directed at keeping the world at large from knowing about the true causes and effects of the war going on in the Middle East. And, that conflict is destined to bring all of mankind to history’s final war of this quickly fleeting age.

God’s Word tells us that it is the quest for such a peace that will eventuate in the most terrible time in human history. Jesus said as recorded in the Olivet Discourse that it will be a time so terrible that it would destroy all flesh on the planet if He did not return to put an end to the warfare.

Daniel the prophet said the peace that the world will seek will be indeed produced and enforced by the “prince that shall come” (Daniel 8:25; 9:26-27). It will be, the prophet Isaiah said, a covenant made with “death and hell” (Isaiah 28:15, 18).

It all involves the Middle East, and, as I said, the news media, as well as a goodly portion of  our government–and for that matter, the governments of the world. These refuse to even acknowledge the true causes and effects of the conflict that makes the quest for peace necessary.

This peace is in the making this very moment while you and I consider these matters in this commentary.

This quest for peace, as I and other prophecy observers have mentioned many times, is the number-one signal of where we stand on God’s prophetic timeline. We are watching God’s prophetic Word in the process of fulfillment, as we are seeing other prophesies in process of fulfillment. The Gog-Magog forces, for example, are coalescing; the religions of the world are beginning to amalgamate, agreeing that there are many ways to Heaven; the effort to establish one world order is on the move through Agenda 30,and in other ways.

But, again, it is the desire for a Middle East peace, with Israel held up as the sticking point, that the world intensely desires. The world’s diplomatic community and the global news conglomerate refuse to hear or propose any narrative other than that which declares the tiny Jewish state guilty of holding up the peace process.

The following news excerpt from several years ago  proves the point, in my view. The pressures are more subtle in some instances, but are none-the-less building. Even the Trump Administration is involved in the process.

The Arab league supported on Saturday France’s Middle East peace initiative and all international efforts to create lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, AFP reported… Speaking before the ministers, [Palestinian president Mahmoud] Abbas said that the time has come to “mobilize Arab and international wills” towards creating a Palestinian state, however said in order to do so Israel would have to make serious policy changes.

Abbas called for NATO forces to replace the IDF in the West Bank as part of any peace deal that leads to the creation of a two-state solution. He also rejected the idea of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. (“Arab League supportive of French peace initiative,” JPOST.COM ,TOVAH LAZAROFF, 05/29/2016)

The pressures are great on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to give in to world diplomatic insistence that Israel give land for peace. That is something, of course, God says will, when it eventuates, bring total war upon the whole world (see Joel 3:2.) This will be the cause and effect of that great, fearful conflict we have come to know as Armageddon.

It will be the result of seeking a false, deadly peace, rather than that lasting and perfect peace that can only be instituted by the Prince of Peace.

Pre-Trib belief antagonists are on the rise. Rapture critics, even among those who claim to believe in the eventuality of a Rapture, just not the pre-Tribulation view of that event, purport to present evidence on every side that our times trumpet the obvious: The world is about to enter the Tribulation. Christ’s call to believers, they say, just isn’t going to happen before Christians suffer at least part of the terrors of that beastly era.

They offer that anyone with knowledge of issues and events going on should recognize that the New World Order bunch is transforming America and the world into the kingdom of Antichrist. All is about to come together for the Gog-led invasion into the Middle East. As a matter of fact, many hold that World War III has already begun.

Advanced computer and other control technologies and instrumentalities are in place for locking everyone on the planet into fiscal bondage and physical slavery to the final empire as prophesied by Daniel.

Those of us who believe there is coming a supernatural Rapture-escape from these judgments on sinful mankind are just living in fantasy land is the collective message I infer from emails and articles that increasingly assault my senses. That I, and all of you, should begin prepping with food, water, gold, silver, and finding a good bunker in which to hunker down during these upcoming days seem to me to be the things these Rapture naysayers are presenting. Seldom do I hear coming from our opponents on the question of the Rapture the admonition to be trying to witness with all our might the gospel of Jesus Christ. I guess there will be plenty of time for that once the Antichrist regime is firmly in place.

While the Pre-Trib proponent holds at the heart of his effort winning as many souls to Christ as possible so those saved won’t go through that time of horrors, many of the anti-Rapture antagonists want to do things to make sure they are more comfortable while trying to survive that hellish time.

Coincidentally–or perhaps not–these just happen to, in some cases of TV and other ministries who openly disdain the thought of Rapture, offer for sale all of these things for survival. The packaged food items invariably are proclaimed to have shelf lives of three decades or longer. So, we can, if we survive, have these supplies to partake of well into the Millennium, I suppose. This, based upon the general theme that they believe the seven-year Tribulation, not the Rapture, is imminent. There have been over the past few years a number of debates taking place on whether there will be the Pre-Trib Rapture or not. The best I’ve heard was the one at the Pre-Trib study group meetings when Dr. Mark Hitchcock completely destroyed the anti-Rapture arguments of the Bible Answer Man.

There are some such debates scheduled for prophecy conferences in the near future. These will perhaps offer new food for thought, but I doubt whether they will change minds on either side of the controversy.

Personally, I believe the time for debate on this matter is past. It is time now to just offer the assurance of that soon to come exhilarating moment when Christ will say “Come up here!” (Revelation 4:1).

There are so many scriptural assurances of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture that we could fill many articles with them. As a matter of fact, we have done just that on the Rapture Ready website.

I wish to mention only one Rapture factor here, because I believe it is the most reassuring of all truth in God’s telling His children that they are not appointed to His wrath. Here we interject the question proposed in our title: Where’s the Comfort? By that we ask: What comfort is there in the argument that Christians will go through the Tribulation?

Paul the apostle first assures us of this fact: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:9). But, it is the next thought from the mind of God that should cause warm reassurance in the spiritual heart of every believer: “Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

Get it? We are to “comfort” ourselves, not wring our hands looking for these things to destroy us or to look for Antichrist. We are to be looking for our “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13).

There is no comfort –nor is there directive in God’s Word–to be had in anticipating going through the time of God’s wrath and almost certain martyrdom (probably by beheading). There is no comfort in looking for the worst dictator in the planet’s history to hunt us down and lop off our heads.

Here is what God’s Word promises instead of the dreaded scenario proposed by the Rapture antagonists:

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. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18)

Thinking on the rise of Adolf Hitler to power in the Germany of the 1930s immediately produces realization that the bringing together of ruthless enforcement entities was key to establishment of der Fuhrer’s dictatorship.

It started with the brown shirts, headed by Ernst Rhome, a homosexual thug who did Hitler’s bidding in creating chaos and fear in a failing German republic. When the future Fuhrer began to consolidate power through eliminating opposition, the German Wehrmacht (Germany’s army) soon had to share controlling authority with the Waffen-SS, the black-uniformed, select group of supposedly Aryan troops assigned as Hitler’s personal body guard. The brown shirts were eliminated, and the SS, headed by the now infamous Heinrich Himmler, began the implementation of the final solution—the genocidal war on all Jews in Europe.

At the same time, the civilian police establishment was turned into the dreaded Gestapo, the police force that locked the Nazi regime into place. The Nazi military and civilian policing establishment became, in effect, a single force against which there was little resistance.

And, this brings us to the crux of things going on in that same geographical area from which Hitler terrorized the world.

There is seen by some the development of a movement to establish similar tyrannical controls within the European Union (EU) at the present hour. An article of recent vintage frames the growing threat the concerned observers fear. It states the following to begin the piece.

As the European Union and the establishment behind it become increasingly totalitarian, paranoid, and unstable, the EU super-state is raising up and training its own transnational military-police force. According to reports and its own propaganda material, the EU “Gendarmerie,” as the force is known, will apparently be charged with putting down protests and civil unrest, raiding illegal political meetings, propping up foreign governments, and even confiscating weapons. (“EU Building Potentially Tyrannical Military-Police Force” by Alex Newman,http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/23163, May 10, 2016)

The article states that the EU’s military-police force is merely one component of the broader transnational police-state apparatus being quietly imposed on the formerly sovereign peoples of Europe. The force includes the bringing together of “transnational police” with “transnational army units” and “EU air and naval operations.”

The bringing together of the forces has all been accomplished in the shadows, but is now being thrust into the light of geopolitical reality, according to the concerned observers reporting–those of Breitbart’s U.K. operation.

It was a controversial training operation taking place in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia in April that sparked concern and alarm within Europe and beyond.

Media reports stirred fears of the rise of a tyrannical, controlling force. According to those reports, the training consolidated 600 troops and police officers in order to prepare for crises of the international and civil war sorts.

The EU military-operation information branch reported about its training scheme that the aim of the [April 15, 2016] Comprehensive Live Exercise will be capacity building of police and gendarmes who will participate in international stabilization missions and projects with a police component. The force is aimed at preparing the hybrid military-police force for “future” missions.

The troubling reports said that forces from Islamic Turkey, and Tunisia, as well as the African nation of Cameroon, participated in the “scheming.”

There remains, of course, considerable resistance to the reuniting of Europe. There is at the same time all of this is going on, a strong trend toward nationalism. The threat from the Islamist world, with deadly attacks in places  such as Brussels, make the populations, if not the one-world order leaderships of EU nations, deeply concerned about a reviving, unified, European empire that takes protection against dangerous, Islamist, “migrants” out of the hands of local and national authority. Yet, crises that loom, particularly involving Greece-type financial meltdowns and rioting, make probable over-arching EU police controls and military involvement inevitable.

Remember, it was severe fiscal crisis that brought Hitler to power, along with and through his all-controlling military/police monstrosity. There are those who agree with George Santayana that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

God’s Word foretells that history repeats time after time. Every empire has eventually fallen, even, arguably, the greatest of all world empires, the Roman Empire. The same basic ingredients have constituted most every such collapse.

While Santayana’s bit of philosophy has been proven true time after time, he left out a key element in phrasing his thought. It should be: “Those who do not acknowledge God and cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Every world empire has ignored the true God of Heaven. Prophecy tells us that the final empire–that of Antichrist, the Roman prince of Daniel 9: 26-27—will be the most God-hating empire of all history.

Along with all other signals of Christ’s soon return on the world-scene today, the reviving of the Roman Empire is more and more coming into view. It is a sure signal that this generation is at the end of the Church Age and that Christ’s call to His Bride must be near indeed.

We come to the question “Israel Betrayed by U.S.?” The article’s title is in the form of a question because like so much treachery that has gone on within American presidential administrations’ dealings with Israel, Washington’s overall disregard for that nation well-being continues to be troubling.

The “transparency” presidential candidate Barack Obama and then President Obama promised was never forthcoming. Obama’s intended dealing with Israel for 8 years was wrapped in an impenetrable fog of political doublespeak throughout.

Mr. Obama began his administration almost from the very first day by treating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu like a White House exterminator–having him come in a door other than the front entrance reserved for dignitaries who are honored with official reception by the president.

The president, shortly after that first meeting with Netanyahu, abruptly left the prime minister and went to have a private dinner, presumably with his family. It was an undeniable snub.

If this was meant to be within keeping with his promise to have “the most transparent administration ever,” It was certainly transparent that Obama had an utter disregard for Mr. Netanyahu and for Israel, our number-one ally in the Middle East, if not our top ally in the entire world.

Subsequent snubs and disrespectful attempts to bully the Israeli leader and the Jewish state were too numerous to get into. Obama’s attempts to intervene within the sovereign affairs of Israel did not abate throughout his years as president. In fact, they increased dramatically as that administration moved forward.

With 9 months left in his presidency left, he doubled down on attempts to intervene into the sovereignty of the Jewish state.

In an audacious display of intrusion into the affairs of Israel’s dealings with its internal enemies–many of whom plot and carry out deadly attacks against Jewish citizens– Obama’s diplomatic enforcers were at work. Ordered to do so, America’s State Department minions joined with those determined to force Israel to bow to international demands in the matter of housing construction in volatile areas of contention at the time.

One news item reported at the time:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Diplomats say the U.S. will endorse a tough new tone with Israel in an upcoming international report. The report is to take the Jewish state to task over settlements, demolitions and property seizures on land the Palestinians claim for a future state…

The harsh language marks a subtle shift. Washington has traditionally tempered statements by the so-called “Quartet” of mediators with careful diplomatic language…(Source: Matthew Lee and Bradley Klapper, “US to Take Tougher Tone on Israeli Settlements in New Report,” Associated Press, 5/7/16).

Early on in the first Obama administration, the pressure to force Israel to give in to diplomatic pressures of land for peace became a driving force in U.S./Israeli relations. The effort ramped up from that time. It is as if Obama had an obsessive compulsion to impose his will before his time was ended in the White House.

My personal sense was at the time, and is now, that it was indeed the president’s compulsion that was in play. Because it is the nation Israel we are considering, however, there were then and now are far more powerful intrigues involved. Ephesians 6:12 is at the center of this last minute drive to make the rearrangements that Israel’s greatest hater wants accomplished, it seems to me.

But, my personal sense of prophetic importance of what all of this vitriol pointed toward Israel means is of little consequence. What matters is what the prophetic Word of God says about His chosen nation and its destiny, both near-term and in the ultimate sense.

In that regard, the things we are seeing –like the movement of the American Embassy to Jerusalem –like pressure ratcheting up to force a 2 state solution as part of making a peace covenant can be of profound significance. And in the world vs Israel struggle, we can find little reassurance that anything good can come forth.

America has entered a most dangerous time. Our nation is at risk, based upon the upside-down thinking that is increasingly observable within Washington, D.C.

President Trump, I feel, is a reprieve, but the future beyond the next 2 years indeed looms ominously.

Mid-term elections 2018 are over. Civility is the talk of the pundits. Both sides of the great divide are calling for America to find common ground. Only one side, however, is serious about the proposal, in my view.

Political dynamics make it impossible to bring the incivility into a non-polarized, American kumbaya. One side has become so sin-sickened that rationality no longer applies to the discourse – nor can it. The reprobate mindset foretold by the Apostle Paul is nearing the saturation point in American culture.

The similarities to ancient Sodom came into focus, I think, following this election. The radical elements of the opposition to the Trump Administration – to the president personally – didn’t settle down with winning control of the House of Representatives. They doubled down. The mob became an even more determined force. They started acting much like the description of the mob in Genesis chapter 19.

The mob enragement reached new levels of the already incendiary assault on domestic tranquility. The attackers moved from the more public environs where protests have always been confined – to the quiet, suburban, private family setting.

I wondered just how the wife and children of Fox program host Tucker Carlson must have been traumatized when the door to their home was being pounded on by the mob. Was it similar to the way Mr. and Mrs. Lot might have felt on that night in ancient times when the insanely lustful, enraged mob banged on their door, demanding that they give up the strangers who had entered the home?

The society and culture have been building toward this moment for some time – since the 2016 election in particular.

We have observed news of senators, of White House workers and many others being assaulted verbally in restaurants and in public places. We have seen one political party’s congressional members attacked with semi-automatic gunfire while readying to have a baseball game. Now the hordes, driven to unhinged frenzy by some unseen force are, like the depraved mob that assaulted Lot’s home in Sodom, trying to break into the private residence, threatening the safety of his wife and kids.

Jesus foretold it would be this way, did He not? He said it will be like in the days of Noah and the days of Lot when He next breaks into this sin-sickened world of Sodom-like rebellion.

Paul wrote that evil men will grow worse and worse. Is there any doubt we are witness to these prophecies beginning to come to pass in these volatile times?

It is somewhat heartening that some within the leftist ideology have called the Sodomite-like attempt to crash the door of Tucker Carlson’s home a “monstrous thing.”

Comedian Steven Colbert said something to the effect that those in opposition to Trump and his Make America Great Again agenda should not “feed” the monsters who try to break into private homes. He said that to feed monsters just makes them bigger and more violent.

Those are wise sentiments. Let us hope his words are sincere and not proffered merely to make political hay as America proceeds toward the 2020 presidential election.

As Robert Bork wrote, society and culture seem to be slouching toward Gomorrah. We are indeed nearing the time like it was in the days of Lot.

Jesus promised that He will intervene catastrophically into the world of incorrigible rebelliousness at just such a time. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Upon clicking through the religious channels at any given hour of the day –and there are many on my Direct TV set up– there are certain catchphrases I hear consistently.

The most prominent, I’ve found, is the term “plant a seed.” Another is “seed faith brings harvest.” The phraseology is issued forth by the prosperity propagandists, as I term them. These invariably twist and convolute scriptural truth in pursuit of their gullible followers’ contributions.

While there is usually a “seed” of factuality in their pontification that claims planting financial seeds will bring increase, the whoppers I’ve heard some of these “preachers” tell are far beyond anything promised in God’s Word.

For example, I heard not long ago one man with whom most would be familiar because of his constant presence on the fund-raisers say that he once sowed $100,000 into a ministry. This greatly pained him at the time because of his amazement that the Lord would “tell” him to do such a thing.

He complied, despite his pain, and the result was a return of $100 million within a month or so. That’s right. The man said he received $100 million for his $100,000 seed.

That was the only reference I’ve heard to this phenomenal “harvest,” so I presume this sort of return isn’t all that unusual in the prosperity circles…or else such claims are just part of the pitch. Looks like, though, that this amazing sort of miracle return on investment should have made the financial news or something.

Another phrase the prosperity preachers are prone to issue on a rather regular basis is that, in the name of Jesus, they “bind Satan.”

Now, this is even more amazing than the $100,000 being turned into $100 million within a month. This implies not a promise based upon biblical return for faith in planting a financial seed, but claims for any human being who is a Christian direct, supernatural power to completely paralyze almost certainly the most powerful being God ever created.

There have been books sold by the hundreds of thousands telling of how this “binding” can be done. Most all of the prosperity ministries hold this teaching close to their statements of faith. This is often a declaration I’ve heard made as a reward for one ministry or the other receiving a large “seed faith” contribution. The on-air person will declare that he or she binds Satan in Jesus’ name for the benefit of the contributor.

Only–I can find no place in Scripture where Christians can “bind Satan.” The old serpent certainly doesn’t seem to be bound these days–does he?

The Bible tells us: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5: 8).

There is no chain on our adversary, according to God’s Word. There is restraint, to be sure, upon the old devil’s activity, but that comes from one source and one source only. The Bible reports the following incident, which gives clue to this restraint on our great enemy.

“Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee” (Jude 1: 9).

There will come a time when a chain will be used to bind Satan. We learn of this future binding in the following account which is prophecy yet future:

“And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season” (Revelation 20:1-3).

So, that we can “bind Satan” is a false teaching. But, we are confronted constantly by the serpent and his minions. Here is the Scripture that tells about this constant confrontation. How then, can we deal with this powerful enemy in the biblically-prescribed way? God’s Word has the answer, of course.

First, we are told how to deal directly with that roaring lion–the devil.

“Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world” (1 Peter 5: 9).

We are to do certain things to prepare for this “resistance” against that old serpent, the devil. Here are our instructions:

“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:11-17).

We as God’s children cannot and must not claim to “bind Satan.” This is the most powerful instruction for the battle in which we find ourselves the nearer we get to Christ’s call to His Church.

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4: 7).

Road rage has always been something that has confounded me. My first exposure to the phenomenon came in a humorous fashion. It was presented on The Wonderful World of Disney in animation. One of Mickey Mouse’s close pals–the floppy-eared, buck-toothed Goofy–was the featured character.

The narrator talked about the Goofy character, while the human-like canine went about preparing for work one morning. The narrator told the viewer that this was the gentlest of creatures–a person who wouldn’t harm a fly.

Goofy was polite to his wife and children; he peacefully read his newspaper at the breakfast table while sipping his coffee at a leisurely pace.

Goofy got up from the table, wiped his mug with a napkin, folded the newspaper, and put it beneath his arm. He grasped his briefcase, put his fedora on his head, kissed Mrs. Goofy goodbye, hugged the little Goofies, and opened the door to his garage.

All the while the narrator was telling the viewer just how soft-hearted and, indeed, how wonderful a husband, father, and citizen was our about-to-be work-commuter. Mr. Goofy opened the driver-side door to his sedan, sat in the seat–all the while a tranquil, most pleasant half-smile on his mug.

Then it happened! The moment he grasped the steering wheel, a profound transformation took place. His mug contorted into a vicious, snarling countenance. His smile became a fang-bearing scowl of evil. His eyes widened and became red with bulging blood-veins popping to the surface, his black eyes shifting angrily while drool seeped from the sides of the jowls and he snorted flames and smoke from his big snout.

Goofy became the supreme picture of rage. The narrator described the transformation and gave the viewer the complete account of Goofy the maniac’s trip into the city of his workplace.

Soon after that program aired, I became a regular driver, having reached the age of getting a driver’s license. However, I can’t recall at the time having experienced road rage myself, or even having seen it take place in the real world. But, the creators of that Disney program obviously had experienced the phenomenon.

A little later in life I certainly witnessed the fact that road rage exists. The phenomenon seems to be less and less a phenomenon–rather, has turned into a “new normal” for driver comportment.

One such incident we might recall is when a former NFL football player was shot to death while he and a female passenger were on a city street. The former player apparently bumped a car in front of him for blocking him from proceeding. He then steered the car around the car he had bumped.

The driver of the car that was bumped sped after the offending vehicle. When he caught up with the former player’s car, the offended driver fired several shots into the other car, resulting in the former player being fatally wounded.

Such reports are not at all uncommon today. It’s as if the human mind has lost all control of reasoning ability while behind the wheel. I believe the phenomenon–now the new normal–might be part of the apostle Paul’s perilous timesof 2 Timothy chapter 3. There seems little doubt that today men (and women) drivers are increasingly “fierce” and “incontinent,”as the KJV puts it. That people are without ability to govern their tempers is a bottom-line characterization of the human condition that could legitimately be concluded. Angers flare out of control over the slightest perceived personal disrespect. Too often, such incidents end with bloodshed.

All of the above is but representation in microcosm of the larger manifestation of the ferocity and incontinence (lack of control) that is raging across the world at present.

On a much more profound scale of uncontrolled fury, a corpulent little tyrant In North Korea, even while being pressured by President Trump to change his ways, starves his people, while pouring money into military and nuclear technology with which to threaten the world. The mullahs of Islam incite hatred, encouraging all-out jihad against Israel and all who won’t bow the knee to Allah. In American inner cities, organizations devoted to anarchy and mayhem for the sake of acquiring and/or maintaining power over their ethnic masses go about tearing down the societal fiber of America’s culture. The political left have lost their collective mind as anyone who has been observing the madness can attest. Total chaos appears to be but a major crisis away–perhaps in the very near future.

Economic conditions on a national and global scale are greatly improved since President Trump took the reins of control in the U.S. However, the global elitists who want to bring all peoples back to Babel and a one-world order of absolute rule search for avenues to reach their Utopian goals. The lengths to which they are  willing to go to get their way is insane.

This world, with its myriad building troubles, should have by now imploded from untenable, economic pressures or else exploded in nuclear fire because of road rage-like insanity in planetary conflict.

But, planet earth wags on. The uncontrollable is for some reason still under control.

God raises up kings and nations, and He brings them down. Nothing within all of creation is ever beyond His controlling hand. The presidential election of 2016 is absolute proof.

Whether considering worries about fear of North Korea and its nukes, Iran and its nuclear program and barbarous terrorism, or the fearful diagnosis of a devastating illness or loss of those we love on a personal basis, all is under control at all times. There is no situation, no matter how profound or how personal, that the Lord of Heaven doesn’t control.

The key to being at peace within the safety and assurance of God’s control of all circumstance is to be within the heavenly Father’s family.

This relationship is achieved, of course, only through acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior (Romans 10: 9-10). The Lord appeals to all of mankind to consider the matter of His absolute control and authority over all that exists.

“Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble. To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.” (Isaiah 40:21-26)

Springtime in the Arkansas-Louisiana-Oklahoma-Texas region evokes somewhat precautionary thought of nature’s most singularly powerful storms. By that, I mean storms that can do the most complete devastation within the areas across which they sweep.

These, of course, are the huge tornadoes almost certain to occur in one or more of the aforementioned states from April through June. Oklahoma, particularly, is prone to produce the most powerful of the twisters. We remember a couple of 300-miles-per-hour tornadoes within the last several decades in that state. One of them was considered by the weather experts to have contained the strongest wind ever recorded on planet earth. I believe that 318 mph was the figure.

My friends just outside Oklahoma City lost everything except their lives in one such monster storm a few years ago. Some of the readers of my commentaries very generously contributed to a fund to help those folks–the family of a great personal friend of mine who is part of a team that heads a major prophetic ministry in Oklahoma City.

When I was last in that city, someone with me pointed out a company that manufactures and sells tornado shelters that was very near the TV studio where we taped some programs. It was a stark reminder of the fact that we were right in “tornado central.” Without a “fraidy hole” (as we in the south call them) to go down into, one is on his or her own. People are subject to the vicissitudes of the winds that come sweeping down the plains in springtime, as the musical, Oklahoma would have it.

As we point out constantly and consistently in these commentaries, there is a storm brewing. It is a supernatural storm, and it is a certainty. It will strike. It can be clearly seen gathering on the prophetic horizon.

Whether considering matters involving geopolitics, socioeconomics, religion, or any other aspect of the human condition, the forecast looks bleak indeed. No shelter of the human-manufactured sort can protect against the boiling, chaotic tempest that the Lord Himself predicts for times just ahead.

Daniel the prophet forecast the storm that approaches:

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. (Daniel 9:27)

Jesus zoomed in more specifically to forewarn about the power and destructiveness of the coming supernatural storm:

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. (Matthew 24:21)

The entire book of Revelation, of course, is a detailed, blow-by-blow description of that coming Tribulation tempest. John outlines twenty-one specific destructive aspects of the storm in a series of seven scrolls, seven trumpets, and seven bowls of judgment.

Again, there is no human manufacturer that could produce a safe place against what is certainly scheduled to be the worst time of destruction the planet has ever known (and that’s saying a lot, considering all life was destroyed by water in the Flood of Noah’s day). But, thankfully, there is a superhuman shelter that is readily available to each and every person alive today.

In thinking on that shelter, my own ruminations caused me to wonder more deeply about God’s promises.

Jesus prophesied that the time He next intervenes into the affairs of mankind–revealed by His catastrophic interaction–the world will be exactly like it was in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot. (We read of that prediction in Matthew 24: 36-42, for example.)

Like in those two instances, God’s children–those who are righteous in His holy eyes–who are alive at the time of the Rapture will be taken out of harm’s way. The terrible storm of His judgment will then fall. All believers will go into that supernatural storm shelter prepared for them in Heaven, while there is great chaos and carnage on the planet that is ripe for God’s wrath.

Many new believers who were left behind when the Rapture happened will come out of that Tribulation storm, some as martyrs and others as flesh-and-blood survivors to repopulate the millennial earth during the reign of Christ upon His Second Advent.

And, there is a second supernatural storm shelter that will be provided during the Tribulation tempest itself. I believe the following prophecy and promise applies to both the saints who will be raptured and to another group of believers –the believing remnant of Jews who will find shelter through God’s divine direction. This protection will likely include Tribulation-era Gentile believers to some extent, too.

Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be over past. For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain. (Isaiah 26:20-21)

Jesus, Himself, points the way to the supernatural storm shelter. It is the ONLY way to assure that we can be safe while the coming Tribulation tornado ravages a judgment-deserving world.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)

Sin infection spawned from man’s disobedience has metastasized globally at this late point of the final dispensation leading to Christ’s return. It is not far-fetched to think of things that are happening in such biological terms, or to express them as such, while two major players in Bible prophecy bring the terminal situation into focus.

The European Union (EU), thought by many observers of prophecy in Scripture to be the global nucleus out of which will come a revived form of the Roman Empire in accordance with Daniel 9:26-27,  continues front and center in relevant news. The most central national entity of eschatology for the wind-up of human history, Israel, is, of course, always the key player in today’s news of prophetic portent, in my estimation. Of all developments in the milieu of end-times things going on, it is as if some master pharmacologist has upon his lab table a petri dish within which broils a deadly mixture prophesied to explode in a breakout of human history’s deadliest era.

Effervescing within that dish are the virulent ingredients that threaten to take peace from the earth in the form of war unlike there has ever been on planet earth. That war will not be brought about by the players most often believed to be the instigators of man’s final war. Quite the opposite.

Armageddon will be brought about by the One the false religionists of the world of Christendom proclaim could never judge sin harshly. He is love, and no loving God could react with such hateful, punitive action, these purveyors of prevarication promise. Here, again, is what God’s Word says about the very end-times things that are taking place within that petri dish I use as analogous symbolism.

“For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, 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: 1-2)

That, my friends, is Armageddon that the Lord is prophesying through Joel. The nations of the world are going to pay a terrible price for their rebellion against Him and for the treatment of His chosen people, the Jews–Israel.

The intention to divide God’s land–land He gave to Israel forever–is at the heart of the prophesied simmering brew. The world–including much of Christendom, is turning against Israel in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction (BDS) piling-on. This, of course, involves economically punishing Israel because they refuse to give up land in order to give the Palestinians a nation within current Israeli borders–land won by Israel in several wars that already belonged to them by divine promise in God’s holy eyes.

The EU, out of which the one who will be Antichrist will emerge, many prophetic observers believe, has consistently spoken out of both sides of its official mouth. Its spokesmen seem to obliquely defend Israel, while at the same time holding the Jewish state responsible for the hold up to a peaceful solution to the Israel-Palestinian so-called problem. A news item within recent years makes the point.

Without the Israeli-Palestinian conflict there would be no Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, the European Union’s envoy to Israel said Monday, arguing that the best way to fight BDS is to take steps to advance a two-state solution…

“The most effective antidote against the BDS movement is to solve the Palestinian issue. If there were no Palestinian issue, there would be no BDS movement,” [EU] Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen said at a conference in Jerusalem…

Earlier during the conference, which was organized by the Yedioth Ahronoth daily newspaper, Faaborg-Andersen expressed the EU’s desire to see Israel thrive and said the union completely rejects any efforts to boycott Israel. “Let me make one thing 100 percent clear: The European Union is against BDS. Our policy is totally opposite of BDS. Our policy is one of engagement with Israel.”…

But it is important for Israel not to be seen as undermining a two-state solution, he said. “If more effort is put into showing a will to move forward and to obtain progress in this process, it would greatly weaken the BDS movement.”

(Source: The Times of Israel , Boycotts will disappear when Israel advances peace, EU envoy says, by Rapheal Ahre, March 28, 2016)

The all-out effort to “divide” God’s land–that given Israel in perpetuity– is underway. Even though America’s present president has chosen to support Israel in most every respect, the Jewish state remains at the center of this dangerous petri dish mixture. Certainly the world must be near the time when the final prophecies will begin manifesting. That means the Rapture of all born-again believers is even nearer!