The Next Voice You Hear is a black and white film released in June of 1950. It starred James Whitmore and Nancy Davis (who would become Mrs. Ronald Reagan some years later). It was sometime in the 1970s, probably, when I watched it as a late night movie on television.

The movie portrayed Whitmore’s and Nancy Davis’s characters as a typical American couple residing in suburbia near Los Angeles, I believe. The husband worked in a factory─building aircraft, I think. He stormed out of his home early one workday headed for the factory. He was ticked-off because he was late, thus in a rush. He was quite irritable as he backed in a rage from his driveway.

A motorcycle policeman pulled him over and gave him a ticket. Whitmore’s character was even angrier, now. He stuffed the ticket between his teeth, put the car in gear, and took off as fast as the old sedan would move when the cop was finished with him. The policeman chased him down, as I remember, and gave him another ticket. The entirety of the stage setting of the film involved how angry people were with each other and how they treated each other in their hectic rush to do their own thing. Everyone was “mad at each other” it seemed.

Suddenly, during a radio broadcast, all broadcasts were interrupted. A voice spoke to the whole world at that moment through radios wherever they could be heard. Whitmore’s character heard it and called his wife to hear the voice. Although we, the moviegoers, didn’t hear the voice, we could see on the puzzled, shocked countenance of our hero that he had just heard something profound. He informed us that the voice said, “The next voice you hear will be God, and He will be with you for the next few days.”

Over those days, the voice (we learn from the Whitmore character and his wife) was that of the Lord giving warning that people must change their ways and begin treating each other better. Judgment was coming, if this didn’t happen. Rain began falling as it hadn’t since the flood of Noah’s time, but then stopped. It was a warning.

How simple was that storyline! Compared to the world and its sins today, the Whitmore character and his family were living in Utopia!

When the film was released, America was a society and culture coming out of being on a war footing. The emphasis was on building families from a moral perspective based upon Judeo-Christian principles as conceived and perceived by the nation’s founding fathers and the U.S. Constitution.

The Next Voice You Hear was produced from a book of the same name─a volume whose theme was that America should move forward as a good, moral people. French philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville put it this way:

I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers─and it was not there . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there . . . in her rich mines and her vast world commerce─and it was not there . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution─and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.

The rabid, voracious, anti-God, anti-America as founded detractor-revisionists are working every day to convince us that de Tocqueville never said or wrote this. When looking on google.com, I found that this is the viewpoint, that search engine seems to harbor. That everything “good” about America must be debunked seems to be at the heart of the revisionist-efforts.

But, de Tocqueville did write it, and it is true: Anything “good” about America is because of what the Lord of heaven has done, and continues to do. Good is found only in Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us. There should be little argument, in Christian circles at least, that in 1950, when The Next Voice You Hear was released, America was more morally in alignment then with its Constitution─which is based upon biblical principles, than it is now. As a matter-of-fact there is little comparison, then to now. The morality deconstructionists (I’m being facetiously polite in calling them such, here) have done their work. America is no longer “good” under de Tocqueville’s definition of the term.

Alexis de Tocqueville’s extrapolation was correct. Each and every day the headlines presenting all of the subterfuge, scandals, profligate mismanagement and spending of this nation’s wealth─every debauched, debased activity chronicled by entertainment and news media─prove that we are no longer a great nation. That a major Hollywood studio would in these times present such a morality tale under a biblical world view is unthinkable.

A prospective film’s depiction of the God of heaven giving warning through reminder of a biblical flood that once “corrected things” would likely never enter the minds of Hollywood producers these days. Or, if the thought of a god giving such warnings ever did percolate in the minds of the entertainment industry geniuses; it would never include thoughts of the true Creator of all that is.

Especially troubling in all of this is that most within the church today─all who are born-again─likely wouldn’t think to consider that such a message as God warning this generation was even relevant to them, should such a movie be made. The church has been so desensitized to what is going on around them, and so caught up in living snuggly within their own comfort zones as to prefer to not think about the dangers of being caught-up in the pleasures of worldly pursuit.

The messages these get from the pulpits are sugar coated. They learn how to go through life ignoring the Holy Spirit-engendered conviction of living like the world during these final days of the age. They are all too comfortable in their blissful ignorance of Christ’s call for repentance. Bible prophecy never enters their thinking; they never hear about it for the most part, and that, it seems, is fine with them. Strive to be among those of Christ’s Bride who are longing for His coming for them. The next voice you hear just might be the one that shouts: “Come up hither!” (Revelation 4:1)

Recorded history’s most powerfully destructive tornado tore through the Oklahoma City area May 31, 2013. The EF3, EF4 and sometimes EF5 twister was as large as two and a half miles wide during some points of its being on the ground for forty-solid-minutes. A number of people died in the vicious, multiple vortexes that raged within and around the central tornado, including three experienced storm chaser/researchers from Colorado.

The monster literally vacuumed even patches of earth and concrete roadways as it raged across the Oklahoma landscape toward the same places that were hit a week or two earlier by another massive tornado. Thirty square miles looked, one Oklahoma State governmental official said, “Like a gigantic lawn mower had cut its swath through the hundreds of homes that were completely sucked from their foundations.”

While this commentary isn’t about how the severity of storms and other natural disasters are causing records to fall in these closing days of mankind’s rush toward the consummation of the age, these phenomena occurring, are, in my estimation, certainly an integral part of the matters I wish to present. Every signal on the scene today, whether considering geopolitics, socio-economics, religion or natural upheaval, is caught up in an unstoppable, titanic end-times storm. At the center of the vortex is the eye around which all other things swirl─the nation Israel.

The incessant call for peace─manifest in the Roadmap to Peace process has been for a time obscured by the dark cloud of global distress and perplexities, but now is back on the radar of the world’s diplomats, it seems. Israel, of course, is viewed by those diplomats─as the hold-up to peace in the Middle East. It is the region of planet Earth prophesied by the Word of God to be at the center of the great humanity-endangering storm at the very end of the age. Observers of these, goings on, especially those who watch for the unfolding of Bible prophecy should take notice with an increased level of fascination. The Middle East is the region of the world that God─the ultimate Forecaster, says will produce the most destruction in human history.

That brewing storm is undeniably upon this generation, as the Bible prophecy student knows, and the tornadic-like winds that it is beginning to produce is vacuuming all of humanity in its every aspect into its massively expanding vortex. All is being drawn toward the valley of Megiddo and the land God promised will be Israel’s forever.

The last days storm had fuel added to  its dynamic when a familiar player chimed in several years ago.

JERUSALEM, June 18, 2013 (UPI) – “The only choice for Israel to remain a Jewish and democratic nation is to work toward a two-state solution,” former U.S. President Bill Clinton said. Clinton was in Israel to attend celebrations marking the 90th birthday of Israeli President Shimon Peres.

You have to cobble together some kind of theory of a two-state solution, and the longer you let this go, just because of sheer demographics, the tougher it’s going to get. I don’t see any alternative to a Palestinian state,” the former U.S. President said in a speech before the Peres Academic Center in Rehovot Monday night. (“Clinton Speaks at Shimon Peres’ 90th birthday Event, Urges 2-State Plan,” UPI.com)

Mr. Clinton, we remember, was at the helm of the U.S. ship of state during the Oslo Accords, in which Yasser Arafat was offered most anything he wanted if he would agree to simply acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and vow to get along. Arafat refused, leaving it all setting on the table─demonstrating to the sane thinking of the world that the rage at the center of the Mid-East storm has nothing to do with rationality or desire to live peaceably with God’s chosen nation.

As of late there seems to be movement away from a “two-state solution”. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seem to be pushing back against the world’s demand that Israel give part of it’s land for installing a Palestinian state. It remains to be seen how things will work out.

One thing we know for sure, the storm is a supernatural one, and God─the only infallible Forecaster─has told us what its course will be as we proceed deeper into history.

“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).

Jesus sat with His immediate disciples upon the Mount of Olives just before His crucifixion. He answered the question that most troubled them, following His declaration that the Jewish temple would be completely destroyed, with not a stone left standing.

Their question–offered in wide-eyed amazement, no doubt–was: “When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (Matthew 24:3).

Jesus then said that there would first come deceivers and great deception, even people declaring themselves to be Christ. Another thing that would signal the end of the world (the age) would, He said, be wars and rumors of war.

So, rumors of war is a major signal, given by God, Himself, that the end of human history is on the verge of reaching its conclusion. We do note that the Lord next said:  “See that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”

The disciples surrounding Him at the moment of His prophecy about the wrap-up of human history were to understand that the “end” was still future, and we know that the future in this instance has extended nearly 2000 years to this point. The end, as we know, is not yet…

But there is now, in these portentous times, more than enough rumblings upon the volatile geopolitical horizon to cause the diplomats of the world to be “troubled.” Nuclear weaponry and its imposition into the present-day mix of the possibility of war-making is something of which the disciples could know nothing.

Diplomats, and the rest of us as well, however, have seen what such weaponry can wreak, since “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” did their war-concluding work on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945.

Possibility of war is much more than mere “rumors” these days. We have the historical experience, prophesied by Christ many centuries ago, to confirm that in this present hour upon planet earth there is reason to “be troubled.”

Wars down through the last two millennia have run their courses, with hundreds of millions dead in their aftermaths. Nuclear war will, if initiated, make all the conflicts of the past pale by comparison. Thus, it is incumbent upon the so-called “peacemakers” to put a bridle on the vicious jaws of tyrants who seek nuclear weapons in order to rein in their megalomania.

We have for years heard about Iran seeking such weapons. Attempts to rein in the Ayatollahs’ nuclear weapons ambitions have been tepid. Iran has basically been given a practically unencumbered pathway to developing not only nuclear bombs, but the means to deliver them anywhere in the world.

Russia has been complicit in helping Iran get its way, with little resistance from the Obama administration or anyone else So, the rumors of a future war loom mightily, if the new president doesn’t deal effectively in the matter.

Now we are facing another building crisis involving a major rumor of future nuclear war. Our other chief antagonist, China, is acting in much the same way in dealing with their proxy state, the North Koreans, as the Russians are in dealing with the Iranians. These matters constitute rumors of war of infinite magnitude. It has been left by previous administrations–particularly the most recent previous–for the new president to deal with these potentially deadly situations.

American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson a week or so ago, while visiting South Korea, refused to rule out a preemptive strike against North Korea’s nuclear facilities. The ongoing fallout has China pushing back against such an eventuality, making veiled and not-so-veiled threats. It is not a lovely picture of international, diplomatic tranquility we see developing, to say the least.

Yet, there is comfort in all of this rumors of war business, I can happily report, based not upon my word, but upon the Word of God. Jesus’ words “but the end is not yet,” still apply to our time upon this much-bedeviled sphere.

As a matter of fact, Jesus said life would be pretty much as usual right up until the time He next catastrophically intervenes into the affairs of mankind. It is God, Himself, who is holding back all the evil of the world (read 2 Thessalonians 2) until that moment of intervention Jesus spoke of as recorded in Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17:26-30.

When the Church (all born-again believers, according to Romans 10:9-10) goes to be with Christ when He calls us to “come up hither” (Revelation 4:1-2) as detailed by Paul the apostle in 1 Corinthians 4:51-55 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, then the red horse of war, according to Revelation 6, will gallop forth.

That’s a long, rambling sentence, I realize, but well worth your taking apart and analyzing from the pages of your Bible. It is a matter of great comfort to read and study such promises. Such comfort–to those who know Christ for salvation–more than neutralizes the troubling, even terrifying rumors of war we now face.

Today’s liberals, like progressives since the time of Woodrow Wilson, have most often viewed the U.S. Constitution contrary to the way it was held by America’s founding fathers. “Truths” in the document that has made the nation the most envied ever to exist are not so “self-evident” to those who would take it apart and reconstruct it to fit their every ideological wind of doctrine.

The Constitution is, to them, not a solid pillar of security to which to tether the ship of state on the exceedingly dangerous waters of the times. It is a living, breathing organism─or, at least in their thinking should be — that changes–or should do so─with the changing morality and social mores of any given period in the country’s history.

Shaped by entertainment media of our time and pushed along by the propagandist mainstream news media of the past half century, the assaults on our founding documents have been made in ways not unlike the assault these same entities have inflicted on our culture─through the pseudo-science they champion. I refer to, of course, their religion─evolution.

Their audience, the American people, is not without fault in the societal dissipation. We are all at fault for allowing the persistent undoing of the Judaeo-Christian model within which Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Washington and the rest framed this republic. Like the Reverand Jeremiah Wright correctly stated (even though in a totally skewed context), “America’s chickens have come home to roost.”

We are now on the fast track to enslavement foretold in fiction by British writer George Orwell in his famous novel 1984. Over the years, this column and many others have presented biblical prophetic truth about the eventual coming of Big Brother, the fictional dictator of Orwell’s story.

We now have seen the evolution of that character as he came to life on our front pages. As a matter-of-fact, “evolution” is the very term the most recent chief architect of the Orwell, Big Brother construct uses to shmooze us with his political rhetoric. He explained to us his changing coming of age in his thinking upon the issue of homosexual marriage, as but one example:

As “a presidential candidate, Barrak Obama’s position hardened. In 2008, he visited the Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., where the pastor Rick Warren asked him to define marriage. ‘I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman,’ Mr. Obama said. ‘For me, as a Christian, it is also a sacred union.’” (Gay Stolberg, “Obama’s Views on Gay Marriage,” New York Times June 18, 2011)

The former president’s “evolving” has brought him since that 2011 declaration, of course, to full support for “gay marriage”─which, in God’s economy must be considered an oxymoron, at the very least. It should now be increasingly obvious to even the most casual observer that the former president, and many of both major political parties have “evolved” in their understanding of the Constitution of the United States of America. There is simply so little pushback on the overt intrusions into the citizens’ rights and privacy as to be the equivalent of a complete lack of resistance.

The exposure of IRS vile intimidation of the Tea Party and others who opposed Obama’s re-election in 2012 would have, had it been a conservative core of IRS operatives working against a Democrat candidate, brought any Republican president down. The media propagandists would have been non-stop in the diatribes, as they were in the case of Richard Nixon and the Watergate break-in. Nixon’s cover-up and involvement never came close to this grab for power and influence over America’s political process.

Likewise, the Benghazi matter, with the subsequent lying and cover-up far exceeded any political evil in Nixon’s day. Nobody died in the Watergate scandal. At least four Americans serving our nation honorably died as a result of ineptitude, deliberate refusal to intervene, or both, in the Libyan massacre.

The Big Brother-like data collection apparatus and process used against U.S. citizens, exposed some years ago by National Security Agency (NSA) consultant Edward Snowden should have had every U.S. Senator and congressman up in arms. But, with few exceptions, government officials during the last administration was in lockstep with the obfuscation of the facts.

We were told by the administration and by the slavish national mainstream news media that all three branches, executive, legislative, and judicial were well briefed on the fact that NSA gathered such data. Trouble is, none of us knew about it. It was done all in the name of the war on terrorism we were told–an enemy the Obama Administration refused to identify–the Jihadist-Islamists world.

And, yes, George W. Bush and his administration’s culpability in all of the liberty-destruction involved with the Patriot Act deserve a proper part of the shame. Der Fuehrer could have provided the manual for the march toward the installation of Antichrist that we see happening in America and the world to the present hour. Hopefully, the Trump Administration will change course.

The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes can be reversed. (Adolf Hitler, from a speech delivered on 6 November 1933) [1]

I’m in agreement with Hal Lindsey, that point of non-recoverability has been reached and America’s demise is likely irreversible. But, we who name the name of Christ have “hope” that is not a gamble, but a sure thing. “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

This president is doing his best to fulfill campaign promises. His “best” is something to behold. He is getting it done at breakneck speed and despite opposition–much of that opposition satanically inspired.

The hatred toward him and even his family is unlike anything witnessed in our nation’s post-election history. Donald J. Trump forges ahead as if he doesn’t notice the fierceness and threats of the haters screaming their vitriol from every quarter. At least the rage doesn’t seem to bother him much. He doesn’t turn the other cheek, of course. His Tweets can be as devastating as slaps across the face. For example, his Tweet that asked the question: Isn’t it terrible the way Obama had my phones tapped in the Trump Tower?

He responds immediately in most cases to the written words of the hostile news media and spoken words of political antagonists. He is a New York City street fighter, and can obviously handle himself amongst the political and media street brawlers in spite of the fact that he is a political neophyte–but one that is quickly attaching himself to the learning curve.

Mr. Trump can be very kind, generous, and compassionate, as well as tough. We have seen these traits demonstrated on a number of occasions before and since he became president. He gets no notice of approval for this side of his personal deportment from any of his opposition of course. Neither does he seek it. He just…well…forges ahead and accomplishes what he has promised.

Although I’ve received criticism even from brothers and sisters in Christ who read this column for being “too caught up in worldly politics,” I don’t mind being perhaps overly transparent that I’m an ardent supporter of our new president. This doesn’t mean I approve of some of his NYC street jargon or his every word uttered or action taken. But for the most part, I think he is a man of honor, determined to do exactly what he promised the voter who supported him. I have no doubt that he is God’s chosen man for the job at this critical time in history.

The larger part of what makes this a critical time is Israel’s position on the world stage. That stance is becoming more front and center –more focused– with every hour that passes. This, as we have said many times in these essays, is a prime indicator, if not the prime indicator of where this generation stands on God’s prophetic timeline.

I believe this, in conjunction with the convergence of many prophetic indicators at this late hour constitutes the number one signal that the Rapture of the Church is very near.

After all that positive assessment of President Trump to this point, I must project an exhortation, almost an admonishment, in his direction. Rather, more to the point, I am issuing such to a select few people who orbit him, on a personal basis, I’m presuming.

I’ll mention five men specifically. These, I believe, have a responsibility the Lord Himself appointed for influencing this president. Each, I know absolutely, has biblical knowledge of God’s Word regarding the wind-up of human history. They must, if they have opportunity–and I have no doubt they do have opportunity–inform Mr. Trump, in detail, what Bible prophecy has to say about anyone dealing with Israel.

These men whom I believe have this responsibility are Franklin Graham, Dr. Robert Jeffress, Dr. David Jeremiah, and Mike Huckabee. One other might be Jerry Falwell, Jr. Each is thoroughly familiar with the futurist view of biblical prophecy. Each understands Israel’s role in the final disposition of prophetic fulfillment.

I’m not certain about Huckabee as to how in-depth is his stance on prophetic details regarding Israel. Sadly, Southern Baptist seminaries are now egregiously weak in prophecy teaching. Huckabee, however, was inculcated as a budding Southern Baptist minister when that denomination was on the money in God’s truth surrounding eschatology. Falwell surely must adhere to his late father’s viewpoint in matters concerning Israel’s future.

These people have apparently been embraced as evangelical leaders friendly to and accepted by the president. Thus, their responsibility to advise him is profound.

My reason for addressing the matter stems from President Trump’s meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Trump’s subsequent comments. The following news excerpt frames my concern.

US President Donald Trump is mulling the option to hold a peace conference in the Middle East in an effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after speaking on Friday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas…

“The president emphasized his personal belief that peace is possible and that the time has come to make a deal,” the White House said…”The president noted that such a deal would not only give Israelis and Palestinians the peace and security they deserve, but that it would reverberate positively throughout the region and the world,” the White House clarified. (Source: Trump Mulls Middle East Peace Conference, Annette News -Israel news by Orly Azoulay & Elior Levy, 3/12/17)

So, the question comes: What’s wrong with the president of the United States trying to make peace? Another question: Didn’t Jesus say, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will inherit the earth”? The problem isn’t the effort at peacemaking by Mr Trump or anyone else. The problem is that the attempt at making peace between Israel and her enemies always involves Israel having to give up its land for peace–something that God says will bring mankind to the battle of Armageddon.

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)

God will not abide the dividing of His land–which the world, in effect, has already done. To further divide the land, after God has brought the Jews back from dispersion will, undoubtedly, be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

God’s Word prophesies about peace deals that involves His chosen people and nation He forewarns His people, Israel:

Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves… And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it. (Isaiah 28: 15, 18)

Antichrist will make that final peace deal with Israel (read Daniel 9: 26-27). The results, as you see from Isaiah’s prophecy, will be catastrophic for Israel. Joel, in his prophecy, makes it clear that it will be equally disastrous for the whole world.

President Trump, like all presidents before him, receives daily briefings on the important matters he must consider. There is no matter more important than the way he deals with this nation so close to God’s great heart.

The gentlemen I’ve mentioned have an awesome responsibility to give the president the most important briefing he will ever receive: forewarning from God’s prophetic Word regarding Israel.

The TV teacher was finished with his first hour of “teaching” from the Bible. I know this, not because I watched the first half hour of the one-hour daily Monday through Friday program, but because I know the schedule. The program has aired for many years and I have on occasion flipped through the channels and stopped just to hear what this man happens to be saying.

Some degree of what he “teaches” is in accordance with Bible truth as best I can tell. However, much is almost anti-Semetic in its presentation in that he is of the view that the nation of Israel has been replaced in God’s economy by the church. His view of Bible prophecy could hardly be more wrong. His almost total disregard for modern Israel having any place in God’s prophetic plans brings his whole ministry into question, in my opinion.

The TV “teacher” says this generation is presently in the era of the sixth seal as given in the book of Revelation. He says that the prophetic trump of Revelation is as follows:

“And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15), is the same spoken of by Paul the apostle in the following passage:

“Behold, I show 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).

In other words, he teaches that believers will be changed into spiritual bodies at the end of the Tribulation period. When I heard this familiar television pontificator make this equally familiar proclamation, this past Tuesday morning, rather than click to the next station as I would normally do, an inner tug at my spirit caused me to “stay tuned,” as they say.

What happened next was quite revelatory to me. I determined that it was worthy of passing along to you who read these commentaries. It was such a strong impression, that I consider it yet another of the epiphanies I’ve received from the Good Friday April 22, 2011 widow maker heart attack, when my heart stopped beating on three separate occasions during a forty-five minute rush to the hospital and in the heart cath lab.

For those who aren’t familiar with what I term my HeavenVision, I invite you to look into the archives of the “Newest Articles” at raptureready.com and read my article of the same title. For an even deeper review of what happened on that day, my bookHeavenVision:Glimpses into Glory is available.

Briefly, each time I heard an electronic-sounding blip, I stood instantaneously before a huge throng of magnificent young people, men and women who looked in the prime of life. They were beckoning me to come and join them.

Their hands were raised above their heads in a gesture of corporate victory, and the jubilation and warmth I viscerally felt at my very core made me never want to leave them. But I did leave them, only to return two more times to the same throng, each time my heart stopped again. The third time I was in their midst─we were running, hands raised-high in the air, and it felt like a great victory lap.

Then I was hit with the defibrillation paddles for the third time, and I was again in the cath lab, the blockage to the major artery having been removed. Tuesday morning as I watched the TV preacher as he again proclaimed that the Rapture was a fraud─as he does every chance he gets─I saw in my mind’s eye that group of cheering, jubilant young people─heavenly beings with their hands in the air in an unmistakable gesture of victory.

My irritation with the anti-Israel, anti-Rapture TV “teacher” instantly dissipated. Warmth not unlike the sensation that gave me peace beyond any I’ve felt before, or since that Good Friday made me know, gave reassurance that the Pre-Trib Rapture is truth from God’s Word.

Okay, I know that some will accuse my “epiphany” as being just an ecstatic rant from an emotional moment─thus not a valid proof of anything. I understand those who might accuse in that manner. If they truly knew me, they would know that I am among the least likely of individuals to embrace “experiential” Christianity─in the ecstatic sense. But few personally know me, so I will add some other considerations to this account of my again being influenced, I’m convinced: By that cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Today, there are a considerable number of Bible prophecy, anti-Rapturists like the gentleman I’ve just mentioned. Most include within their teaching, in addition to vitriol condemning all who teach and believe in a Pre-Trib Rapture—that:

1) Israel, in the modern sense, has no relevance to Bible prophecy yet future. The church has now been given all of Israel’s promises.

2) Many of these sorts, teach that Britain and America are where the “lost tribes of Israel” settled. Thus Britain and America are now the Jews of God’s promises.

3) They spiritualize and allegorize much of prophetic Scripture whenever it is most convenient, to fit within their false prophecy teaching/preaching schemes.

4) Many include─like the TV preacher I mention above─that we are already in the Tribulation era, usually proclaiming this generation is likely somewhere within the first six seal judgment.

Israel, alone, is enough to show the foolishness of their teaching. The Jewish people are again a nation after nearly 2000 years of dispersion throughout the whole world, precisely as Bible prophecy foretells. They are at the center of hatred among all the nations of the world.

The U.N. body is almost totally against everything about Israel. Israel is seen as the occupier and aggressor against their neighbors, despite the absolutely undeniable fact that the tiny Jewish state has been attacked en masse by its neighbors in 1948, 1956, 1967 (Israel preempted Arab forces) and 1973. There have been many other less major-attacks against this state.

Most spectacular of all as proof that the anti-Israel teachers are wrong is the fact that Israel has never been defeated in a major way. God has promised to Israel that they will be His nation forever. He still has His Mighty Hand on His chosen people!

For sake of brevity, I’ll skip to the final category I mention that the anti-Rapturists most often claim. They believe we are in the Tribulation already─usually claiming this generation is somewhere within the six seal judgments. Some proclaimed that Barack Obama was to be the Antichrist, and even gave dates for when he would desecrate a future temple. Some, in fact, have claimed dates Antichrist would take power, dates, which, of course, have already passed.

In total context, the Pre-Trib Rapture view of unfolding Bible prophecy is proving daily to be the true biblical course of fulfillment. Every geopolitical, socio-economic, religious and technological indicator fortifies the sense that there is coming a catastrophic event that will bring all crashing down upon this world so ripe for judgment. I welcome, nonetheless, the reassurance that my throng of young, heavenly, friends continue to give─in validating God’s promises to call His people home before His wrath must fall.

Bible prophecy is in motion with stage-setting for the wind-up of this present dispensation clearly in view. Manifestation of issues and events pointing to the end of the age isn’t merely a sense among prophecy watchers that things are shaping for fulfillment. Hard news attests that Christ’s return in the Rapture must be very near indeed.

Israel is again moving to the center of the spotlight on the world stage. In a strange twist of geopolitical interaction, the Jewish state is reaching out to do diplomatic business with one of the chief antagonists Ezekiel the prophet foretold will lead an attack on God’s chosen people.

Not only is Russia being consulted in an effort to improve Israel’s security, but another key enemy that will join Russia in the Gog-Magog assault is involved in the attempt at negotiation. Iran (Persia) is the primary antagonist of contention that Israel is asking Russia to influence so that the Israeli people will achieve an added degree of peace and safety.

Israel hopes to reach “specific understandings” with Russia to prevent Iran from permanently setting up a base of operations in Syria against Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the cabinet on Sunday.

At the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu announced that he will be traveling to Moscow on Thursday for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the focus of the discussions will be on current efforts to put together new arrangements in Syria. Those efforts have taken place in recent weeks in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, and Geneva.

“With the framework of these arrangements, and even without them, there is an Iranian effort to become firmly established on a permanent basis, either through Syria, the presence of ground forces, or naval forces,” Netanyahu said.

He also said the Syrians are involved in a “gradual attempt to open up a front against us on the Golan Heights.”

The prime minister said that he will express Israel’s fierce opposition to this in his discussions with Putin. “I hope that we can reach specific understandings in order to decrease possible friction between our forces and theirs, as we did successfully until now,” Netanyahu said. (Source: “Benjamin Netanyahu to Urge Russia to say ‘nyet’ to Iranian Ops Near Israel Border,” Israel News, Jerusalem Post, March 5, 2017)

At the same time, Israel is dealing with an enemy it apparently can’t fully recognize, there is movement afoot to bring the Middle East to a potentially explosive point–even though well-meaning, potentially conflict-producing plans are going ahead to at some point soon move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

An official United States delegation led by Congressman Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is briefly visiting Israel on Saturday and Sunday to study the possibility of relocating the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The delegation is in Jerusalem to learn firsthand what it will mean to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,” said Ruth Lieberman, a friend of DeSantis and a political advisor in Israel. (Source: US delegation in Israel to study relocation of embassy to Jerusalem , Rapture Ready News March 5, 2017)

The move, promised by Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, would almost certainly help bring to the forefront the “cup of trembling” prophetic scenario of Zechariah 12: 1-3.

All the while things are setting up for Israel to play its phenomenal end-times role on the global stage, we get a glimpse here in our own nation of the coming time of Jacob’s Trouble (Jeremiah 30:7).

Headstones were found toppled in Brooklyn’s Washington Cemetery on Sunday morning. It is the fourth in a rash of vandalism at US Jewish burial grounds.

The cemetery is located in the Mapleton neighborhood, located between Borough Park and Bensonhurst…

New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind tweeted photos of some of the downed headstones on Saturday night. He said he was alerted to the vandalism by the Boro Park Shomrim organization, a Jewish security patrol.

It is not known who toppled the headstones or why. In 2010, some 200 headstones were toppled in the same cemetery, also over a Friday night and Saturday, when it is closed. (Source: Jerusalem Post, Reuters March 5, 2017)

Antichrist will be the most virulent Jew-hater of all time, his rage against God’s chosen people far surpassing that of Adolf Hitler and his murderous regime. Anti-Semitism is on the rise in America as well as in Europe and other places. Antichrist’s platform of genocidal rage is being constructed!

There is tremendous prophetic shifting taking place in every direction at this moment. We, as ambassadors for Christ, have been put here at this time and in our specific places in order to witness the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must make the greatest use of the time to present Christ to the world during this prophetic movement.

International spy-thrillers have always been among my weaknesses. I’ve spent far too much time over the years enmeshed cerebrally within one such story or another. Robert Ludlum was perhaps my favorite author within the genre, with such enthralling tales of espionage at the highest levels as The Bourne Identity and The Matarese Circle. I was also hooked at one point on fiction involving Blackford Oakes CIA intrigues authored by William F. Buckley, Jr.

It’s difficult to find such books in electronically-presented form (in Word document) that my synthesized voice, computer program can read for me. I’m now blind due to a retinal disease, and the JAWS (Jobs Accessible Word System) program reads to me most all correspondence and other written materials over the Internet.

It’s just as well that I can’t easily access such books, because these, though entertaining, would be time-wasters for me, especially considering the compression of time I believe we are presently operating within─as we move quickly toward the consummation of human history. There are far more important things to accomplish than being entertained by fictional stories of clandestine doings within top-echelons of governments.

On second thought, we read in our headlines almost hourly of just such intrigues taking place in reality, that if not entertaining─certainly are quite thrilling, in the frightening sense at many levels. So as a fellow watchman with many of you who are reading this column, I, like some of you, am really not missing anything but the love of fiction factor. And, things of factual import are developing at a pace and in fashion precisely the way the greatest of all authors─the Lord Himself─has foretold for all to read.

One such spy-thriller comes to mind that helped bring out in me the interest in Bible prophecy that would in later years transform my thinking in a profound way. That 1960 novel’s title is, In High Places. Its author, Arthur Hiley, a British/Canadian writer who was among the first to produce such novels that later, writers like Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy would take to great book marketing heights.

In High Places is a story of a fictional Canadian prime minister and his political machinations while trying to maintain power, during the time of the cold war─that was fraught with nuclear threat and Canada’s troubled dealings with immigration. The author attempted and did a good job at showing the evil, wicked and even perverse interactions of politicians at the very top of power politics and in governments at the highest levels.

Even as a very young man reading the novel, I noticed Hailey’s use of biblical reference in selecting his title. The phrase, “in high places” of course is found in the apostle Paul’s passages on spiritual warfare:

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).

I realized even as a young man of 18, upon reading the book and thinking on its title that the Bible’s use of the phrase was infinitely different in scope from Arthur Hailey’s. Yet at the same time, what I didn’t understand at the time was that the malevolent forces in the fictional realm of Hailey’s geopolitical thriller reflected and represented evil, other worldly forces at work in real life.

I’m not so sure that the author of the novel, In High Places fully realized it, either. One thing for sure, no one in government in the highest of places today where true wickedness is happening, nor the journalists of our world who are supposed to be the watchdogs on behalf of the citizenry, indicate in the slightest way that they understand the true source from whence the wickedness this way comes.

If they do understand it, they must be in collusion with it, because they aren’t letting us know. But, that’s really a kook-conspiracy notion, is it not? (Human beings in power at the top levels in cahoots with the likes of Satan and his minions!)

Yet, I believe this is precisely what the apostle Paul was saying under inspiration as he penned the words to the Ephesian Christians, and to us─who would follow.

The ultimate battle is being waged in the very highest places. The devil and his minions are using every device at their disposal that is allowed by the God of heaven, who is always in complete control. Those include human beings, who do the demonic entities’ bidding, whether realizing it or not in many cases─probably most cases in these end of the age days.

Look for the demonic influences in high places to become ever more evident while evil men and seducers grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived (2 Timothy 3:13).

Author’s note: This week, I’m doing something I’ve done only once before during the course of writing for this Nearing Midnight column. I’m repeating a commentary I wrote previously –this one on January 16, 2006.

I am doing so because I believe the Lord impressed upon my spirit that the Departure is so very near, and our minds and spiritual hearts are too often far from that stunning event that can take place at any given second. It’s time to “look up” is the exhortation of the hour.

The Scripture is haunting. It echoes and reverberates throughout the spiritual hallways of the Church with each passing hour.

“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils”(1 Tim. 4:1).

This forewarning fits into the last-days pattern, also given by the Apostle Paul, in the familiar prophetic passage: “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of Perdition…” (2 Thes. 2:3).

The “falling away,” apostasia in Greek, means a “departure from.” Paul prophesied in the 2 Timothy 4:1 passage that there will come a time at the end of the Church Age when people will depart from the “faith.” He foretells in 2 Thessalonians that this will be a general “falling away,” the apostasy of the endtime. What is this “faith” from which people will fall away, and who are the “people” who will fall away? Another crucial question is: Can the departure that God, through Paul, forewarned about be recognized when it occurs?

“Faith,” as here defined, must, by context, be the faith in the One who is at the heart of the Gospel–faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God, chosen from the foundation of the world to be the propitiation for the sin that separates fallen man from God. It is the faith you and I must have in order to confess with our mouths that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, and to believe in the deepest part of our spirits that God raised Him from the dead.

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:9).

A person can’t fall from a position (doctrinally speaking in this case) he never has attained. The “people,” then, whom Paul the apostle is writing about in his prophecies of 1 Timothy 4:1 and 2 Thessalonians 2:3 are those who have believed in Jesus Christ for salvation of their souls.

This brings us to the question: Can the departure God, through Paul, forewarned about be recognized when it occurs? To recognize that “falling away”–that apostasia, or apostasy— when it begins to happen, will almost certainly give the Christian attuned to God’s will a heads-up on the nearness of the Tribulation era, thus to the nearness of the rapture of the Church.

We have looked at the “faith” as faith in Jesus for salvation, and at the “people”who will “depart” from the faith as being the Church–that is, the true Christians who are alive at the time of the end, when the apostasy takes place.

Although there are those who think this departure includes the possibility of one losing one’s salvation, the “falling away” of 2 Thessalonians 2:3 cannot include that meaning. A quick look at Romans 8:38 and 39, to name just one security-of-the-believer passage, shows that God’s Word teaches that the believer can’t depart from the Heavenly Father to the point of losing his or her family status. Jesus, in John chapter 17, makes that absolutely clear. I suggest that if you have questions about this, read the Scriptures I just mentioned.

What, then, is meant by “departing from the “faith”? Glad you asked. The “faith” mentioned in 2 Thessalonians and 1 Timothy 2:3 is a collection of faith principles wrapped up in the Lord Jesus Christ. These principles are doctrines put forth by the Word of God. The Word of God is none other than the Lord Jesus: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

“People” at the time of the “falling away” will “depart” from the “faith” –the doctrines put forth by the Word of God, who is Jesus Christ. This departure will mark the generation of Christians at the very end of the Church Age.

The question that applies most relevantly to us today is: Are we seeing signals of the departure about which Paul forewarned?

We have analyzed, dissected, examined, and inspected every endtime signal found in God’s Word many times in these raptureready.com webpages: Israel again in the land of promise; the EU looking to be the reviving Roman Empire; Russia, Persia (modern Iran) and other nations looking to be a nucleus that will one day form the Gog-Magog force of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. These, plus, all of the other endtime characteristics of this generation.

However, I believe the most insidious of all the things taking place under the clever, devious hand of the devil –Satan—is the falling away, the departure from the faith being currently orchestrated by Lucifer, the fallen one.

This departure is evident to the spiritually discerning when looking at the church growth movement. This “seeker friendly” approach to both the saved and the lost (all who don’t know Christ) through New Age, corporation-type seminar seductiveness and brainwashing techniques that water down or completely eliminate true Bible doctrine is leading in a profound departure from the “faith once delivered” (see Jude 1: 3).

The new paradigm instituted by the champions of the church growth movement is the shift from New Testament Christianity to “New Spirituality-Driven Christianity.”

Like in the modern corporate organization, invented in large part by German economic guru Peter Drucker, who mentored some of the leading designers of the church growth movement, the system is more an organism than an organization –adopting Drucker’s model based upon Freudian psychology and Darwinian evolutionary principles. The individual is assigned a value, and he must fit in, or be removed from the system. To put it as I heard one person of the movement say: “Pillars just hold things up. So, they need to be moved out of the way.” So, those who hold to doctrine must get out of the way so no one will have their feelings hurt by talk of sin, and blood atonement, and eternal punishment in the place called Hell, if repentance is not forthcoming. Again, the Apostle Paul wrote God’s view of this watering down of doctrine:

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8).

Are we at the point of departure from the faith that is prophesied for the very end of the Church Age? Maybe we can get a better sense by looking at one more area of Scripture pertaining to the matter: “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim. 4:1-4).

There is another prophetically scheduled departure to consider. It’s the one we should be looking forward to. It is a God-ordained departure that will remove every child of God of the Church Age –living and dead—from Planet Earth in one millisecond of time:

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ” (Tit. 2:13).

Dark, spiritual forces in high places are at work. There is no groundbreaking revelation in that statement regarding life in this nation and the world today. However, the true nature of the demonic delusion being foisted upon us is something even the most biblically mature among us will continue to miss─I’m convinced─if spiritual antennae aren’t properly attuned.

Additionally, it is time, like no other time before, to put on the whole armor as outlined by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:12-18. Even more profound than the political insanity of the lunatic left that splits America, I perceive a most troubling schism developing amongst the brethren. I refer to those who watch –like the Lord commanded (Mark 13: 37) — end-times developments in what many believe are the closing hours of the Church Age.

Reports, leading up to this presidential election, came at us on an increasingly regular basis of behind-the-scenes activities that appeared to be─to say the least─bizarre. I’m talking about things the equivalent of claims/reports of the U.S. Government actually planning and carrying out the assassination of John F. Kennedy,─of George W. Bush’s administration being behind the planning and attack on the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2011.

I’m certain that, over recent years, the reader of this essay has read the many articles of such mind-boggling reports─all written/presented as if they were unassailable truth. These accounts sprang from unseen fly-on-the-wall sources that gave the impression they personally witness the making of plans to imprison believers or to implant us all with computer chips while we sleep, or…whatever the conspiratorial imagination might conjure.

I will already have angered those who send such email with that word-portrait, no doubt. But before my thoughts on your side of the issue raise the blood pressure with words of anger, “I’ll never send him another article,” please hear me out. There is the other side of the developing schism. It, too, is deleterious to the task of being a watchman on the wall in these critical days leading up to our Lord’s catastrophic intervention into the affairs of mankind.

I’m talking about the mindset that writes off as complete lunacy every report issued by the likes of Alex Jones crossing their computer screens. To fold up the antennae of discernment and simply lump all things that don’t slip smoothly through one’s anti-conspiratorial filter, just might, in my view, constitute a deadly delusion in the making.

The rift, I sense developing between the watchmen during these fleeting days of the age is, inflicted by the father of lies, himself. It is all part of the great, spiritual, wrestling match Paul warns about in Ephesians 6:12. The devil likes to pit one side against the other, and it is easy for him to do, if the spiritual armor isn’t the battle gear of choice.

One side of the divide most often sees only collusion of governmental diabolists at every level, thus is, understandably, accused by the secular world and fellow Christian watchmen alike of being: conspiracy kooks.

The devil, it cannot be denied by those with discernment, has made great strides in dividing this nation along many lines. Abraham Lincoln, we remember, once used Jesus’ words to warn that our nation “…divided against itself cannot stand.”

The danger we face in this hour of apparent triumph, with the new presidential administration now in place, is that Christians on each side of the divide, out of apathy, sometimes fail to recognize the ways Satan directs his human minions to plot his end-times mischief.

Paul, mentioned at the beginning of this piece, must have, with his words of Ephesians 6: 12-18, been given his inspired thought particularly to give to this generation so near the return of Jesus Christ. Each Christian should daily put on the whole armor of God. This, obviously, hasn’t happened, and likely won’t happen.

The vast numbers within the body of Christ are turned inward, or in directions other than watching and yearning for the Lord’s coming back to put an end to this evil world-system. If we are honest, we must say that the body of Christ, as a whole today, isn’t even pursuing the Great Commission left to us by Jesus─to carry the gospel to the whole world and to do whatsoever He taught and instructed.

Let’s not wrestle violently, angrily against each other, but combine, with reasoned purpose, against our true foe. Here is how to dress for the battle that will surely grow more intensive by the hour as the Rapture of the church approaches.

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. 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: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints” (Ephesians 6:10-18).