With nine months to go for President Barack Obama’s presidency, the wait for it to be over is agonizing. There are many reasons, but the chief is the damage this lame duck can do to the one nation on earth America had better never abandon.

Polls continue to show the world that by a wide margin, we the people of the United States believe Israel is not the problem in the Middle East, or anywhere else. By large percentage margins, we have made it known that we want America to continue to embrace the Jewish state as a close friend and ally –the only true ally we have in that violent part of the world. Yet, lame duck, Mr. Obama, and those he sends as interlocutors in that one-sided, so-called peace process consistently lock arms with Israel’s blood-vowed enemies to try to bully that nation to give in to demands that will never end as long as Israel exists.

Israel’s enemies, who encircle the nation except on the Mediterranean side –and that list includes most every Arab state– want Israel destroyed. the God of Israel has promised that will never happen.

This presidential administration has time after time touched the apple of the Almighty’s eye, and continues to do so as Mr. Obama will dispatch his vice president to insinuate his will upon the Netanyahu government in the so-called peace-making process.

A Wall Street Journal report has it that Obama will make a last-ditch effort during his last year as president to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. This pressure is likely to include a UN Security Council resolution which would set a framework for a viable deal.

Any observer with an ounce of understanding must conclude that Vice President Joe Biden’s Israel trip at this time is an integral part of Obama’s lame-duck effort to force Israel’s compliance with the presidents and the U.N.’s demands.

Biden is going for the first time in 6 years to Israel. His main objective for the visit is working to convince Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign a new Memorandum of Understanding between Israel and the United States, which will ensure Washington’s continued security aid to Jerusalem for the next 10 years. Again, any observer of the way this administration has dealt with Israel’s prime minister and the Jewish state over the past 7 plus years cannot not but conclude that the Biden trip will bring with it threats for non-compliance in the administration/U.N. initiatives.

This president is again going to directly dare the God of heaven to do anything about his (Obama’s) obdurate stance against Him. The quaking in the nation’s capital is a mild forewarning of what is to come, if his actions, and lack of action, continue on the course he has chosen with regard to Israel.

We are not currently witnessing God’s wrathful judgment in this nation, in my opinion. When His wrath–His judgment–does descend, it will be, Jesus foretold, a time more horrendous than any that has preceded it. (Matthew 24:21). However, God is letting it be known yet again, I’m convinced, that dealing treacherously with Israel is a deadly serious matter within His interacting with mankind. The closer the time of Christ’s return, the more intense will become His forewarnings.

America has been Israel’s ally and protector, thus has been blessed more than any nation in history. God has given our nation material wealth and godly moorings of Christianity from our very founding to the present. But, the tide is turning, as anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear can discern.

Economic cataclysm looms on the national horizon to such a degree that this great nation’s fall when it happens will literally bring the entire world down. And, it’s not a matter of if that will happen, but when. We have been experiencing an economic earthquake for months–even years–and the shaking is getting worse. Now the quaking is shaking the very foundation of Washington, D.C. in one of the most turbulent political seasons in U.S. history.

But, the tremblers are mild–very mild, my spirit tells me—compared to the shaking that is coming upon this country and world. Much of the quaking–socioeconomic and geophysical–is a direct result of the way America and the world are dealing with the nation that the God of heaven has, in His absolute authority, determined cannot be destroyed. Satanic forces are ratcheting up everything possible to keep God’s promises to Israel from being fulfilled. There is bound to be such titanic shaking as we are presently experiencing while the biblically prophesied battle between what secularists call good and evil takes place. Be assured–the outcome of that battle is already determined.

Mr. lame duck President, please do all within your power to see to it that America comes down on the victorious side –not on the side destined for the dustbin of history.

Those of us who look at world conditions through the lens of the pre-millennial, pre-tribulation scope of things to come believe ours is the correct view of Bible prophecy. We reach that understanding, in part, when considering that 1) Israel must be at the center of world controversy at the very end of the age; and 2) Antichrist can’t be revealed as the man of sin until believers of the Church Age are removed from planet earth.

Now, the details of developments on the geopolitical last-days’ landscape grow ultra-fascinating. We have shown that Israel has become the center of controversy, exactly like Zechariah the prophet foretold that nation will be at the end of the age. We have looked at how this prophetic stage-setting has eventuated, with America’s alliance with and influence upon Israel bringing the Jewish state to the center of the end-times spotlight.

At the same time, we’ve delved into how the United States of America has gone into decline like the deteriorating visage of a terminally ill cancer patient. Why is the U.S. not mentioned in Bible prophecy? Perhaps we are learning why, as previously dissected, with America’s wealth currently being siphoned by the geopolitical power that will one day have a military force that will kill one-third of all peoples on earth at the time China and others of East Asia rampage into the Occidental world across the dried-up Euphrates River.

American tax dollars are paying for the equipping of that future juggernaut, it appears. America’s decline seems related to the country’s movement away from friendship with and close support of God’s chosen nation. Again, America looks to be key to developing prophetic stage-setting when thinking on what’s going on with the area of the world out of which history’s final and most despotic tyrant will emerge. Antichrist’s launching pad will be Europe–the area of ancient Rome, the prophet Daniel foretells (Dan. 9: 26-27).

Europe spawned World Wars I and II, and was in near total shambles following the Allied victory over Germany, Japan, and Italy. The Marshall Plan, conceived, implemented, and paid for by the United States, rebuilt that prophetically destined continent.

The European Common Market came into being in 1957, engendered by the Treaty of Rome. This followed a number of European nations agreeing to form the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951, which was implemented in 1952. Other agreements moved European nations closer, like the treaties establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). The formation of the European Economic Community (EEC) brought Europe to the point of coming into the prophetic picture as what will one day form the revived Roman Empire. Point is, none of these developments would have happened as they did if not for U.S. rescue of Europe from the ravages of WW II. This isn’t meant to give America undue accolades. The U.S. would, itself, never have existed if not for the God of heaven’s divinely appointed purpose for the American republic in end-times development.

The intricate linkages with the U.S. economy have kept Europe–and the western world, for that matter—at an elevated economic level never attained in history. The interlinkages of America and its dollar with all of these nations mentioned in Bible prophecy are nothing short of miraculous, when one truly studies the details involved. America’s loss of economic power is presently having a deleterious impact on most every nation on the planet–except, perhaps, China, which, again, looks to be the entity assigned by destiny to be the chief agent for siphoning wealth and power from the most materially blessed nation to ever exist.

The ominous bubble of economic catastrophe is building hourly for America and all nations of planet earth. There is almost certainly no human way to prevent it from eventually bursting. It becomes more obvious by the day to those who see prophetic developments from a premillennial, pre-Tribulation viewpoint that it is only God’s staying hand that prevents the explosion that will collapse the global economy.

I believe–again, based on what I know to be the pre-mil, pre-trib view God’s Word presents regarding prophecy yet future–that it will be the Rapture of the church (all born-again believers in Jesus Christ) that will burst that explosive bubble.

All stage-setting factors are in place–in detail—for the coming to power of Antichrist and his regime of murderous tyranny. It will be an economically driven dictatorship of absolute control over buying and selling, as Revelation 13:16-18 clearly presents.

That “prince that shall come” (Dan. 9:26) can’t appear on the world stage (2 Thess. 2:3) until the church is removed to heaven when Jesus Christ calls all believers to be with Him (John 14:1-3; 1 Thess. 4:16-17; Rev. 4:1). It is upon the Rapture that this world’s immense bubble of false security based upon Satan’s lies will burst and the humanistic structures of false hope will come crashing to dust.

The singular, most fascinating detail out of all of prophecy to remember is the following: “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).

His name is Jesus!

Every examination of prophecy about the very end of the Church Age that deals with the nations and their individual and collective fates/destinies must begin and end with Israel. Therefore, we continue looking at details of modern Israel as juxtaposed against all nations–thus to determine how the minute elements of ongoing developments in geopolitics are setting the prophetic stage for Christ’s return.

Previously, we looked at how Israel and Jerusalem are at ground zero for the diplomatic world. The international community correctly sees this as the place on earth most likely to be the ignition point for World War III. It is intriguing to dissect with the scalpel of Bible prophecy each and every layer of development in the geopolitical issues and events of our time that involve the modern Jewish state. Iran is a most fascinating case in point.

Persia, as we have looked at many times, is listed as a key player that assaults Israel in the Ezekiel 38-39 Gog-Magog prophecy. Modern Iran is at the center of what was ancient Persia, as we know.

With Iranian Shah Mohammed Rezā Pahlavi being in power through most of the 1970s, Israel didn’t have to be overly concerned about neighbors to that section of its north. One reason was because America’s military, particularly the U.S. Air Force, worked closely with the Shah’s air force in training and maintenance missions. I can report this from more-or-less personal secondhand information, because my own father-in-law was in charge of all aircraft maintenance for American-made military aircraft in Iran’s arsenal through 1976. The shah was America’s friend, even if sometimes being beastly in treatment of his own people, and looking down his nose at Israel to his south.

Point is, Bible prophecy students were hard pressed to see how the Gog-Magog force could ever be formed, with this arrangement in place. We know what happened, as we think on how quickly things have fallen in place one event after the other since the shah’s fall in 1979.

America, under the Carter administration, was run out of town, literally, with the coming of the Iranian Revolution, as the Islamists came to power under the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Iran became increasingly bellicose against the West, and, of course, became blood-lust determined to erase Israel and every Jew off the map.

Russia and the present Iranian regime have become working partners at many levels, the most troubling at the nuclear level. The Gog-Magog nucleus has formed between Russia, Iran (Persia), and Turkey (Togarmah) within less than two years.

It’s also prophetically amazing to watch a most-asked question among prophecy students in process of being answered by the flood of developing issues and events. Why is America not mentioned in Bible prophecy? It is the most powerful nation ever to exist… Again, it is intriguing to consider that America was instrumental in all of these developments–as one would expect the most powerful nation ever to exist to be, I suppose.

America “defeated” the Soviet Union” through tactics involving cold war attrition–and the heart of that antagonist became again “Russia.” This territorial rearrangement aligns almost precisely with the ancient geographical area called “Rosh,” the leader of which the prophet Ezekiel foretold will be “Gog” of the Gog-Magog war against Israel.

The United States has slipped from its ultimate superpower status since that time of the Reagan-led peaceful defeat of the Soviet Union. Under the Obama Administration, America’s economic standing, thus its fiscal hegemony over the other nations of the world, has declined, some say precipitously. Prophecy students of the premillennial, pretrib perspective can point with a certain amount of credibility to the fact that America’s slippage coincides closely with this nation’s bringing pressure on the Israeli government to give in to demands that they give up land for peace with their Islamist neighbors.

At the same time, China, which most students of the premill, pretrib viewpoint of Bible prophecy believe is the chief nation that will make up the “kings-of-the-east” force that will one day kill one-third of the world’s population, is draining U.S. economic power while buying up American assets. America is, in effect, funding the development of the awesome military force predicted in Revelation 9:16 This would have been flabbergasting to even consider during those Reagan years, and that hasn’t been that many years ago. China! Of all nations on earth–China has answered the question: Why is America not mentioned in Bible prophecy? The United States can also be seen as instrumental in the details of developing Bible prophecy regarding the region that is foretold to spawn the world’s most despicable dictator.

Daniel the prophet said that this “prince that shall come” will emerge from the people that “destroy the city and sanctuary.” Most premill, pretrib students of Bible prophecy view this to mean that Antichrist will come from the area of Rome–from Europe, in general—as the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple in A.D. 70. Again, the viewpoint is important to recognize, because the premill, pretrib view–in almost every instance of examination of prophecy yet future–provides logical placement, thus explanation, of what we have watched develop in world headlines–especially since Israel became a nation again May 14, 1948.

America’s influence has been absolutely profound in bringing the modern Jewish state into prominence. My book, The American Apocalypse: Is the United States in Bible Prophecy?, details the intricacies of America’s part in that rebirth. The United States’ influence in bringing modern Europe into prophetic configuration is only slightly less profound. Next time, Lord willing, we will continue looking at the many facets of those and other developments toward fulfillment of the final prophecies leading up to Christ’s Second Advent.

We have been observing prophetic developments in these commentaries for years. So, why present an article on prophetic matters in an over-all sense as if it was covering something new?

I hope, in this multi-part essay, to do something significantly different. Rather than look in a broad, general way at the major issues we cover so often, I want to take a look at the fascinating, specific way these prophecies have been brought into focus at a time I believe is the very end of this dispensation, the Age of Grace (Church Age)–i.e., I want to look at some of the more intricate details of the dynamics and circumstances that have shaped each of the major prophecies for this very hour.

Geopolitical Details

Modern Israel, as we consistently say, is the number-one signal of where this generation stands on God’s prophetic timeline. That nation is, therefore, the best example in the geopolitical arena to use for focusing on details of issues and events shaping the stage-setting for Bible prophecy fulfillment. The student who watches Bible prophecy develop from the premillennial, pretrib viewpoint has, with clarity others can’t see, I think, seen Israel come back into its own land, with its ancient national language restored. It did so following a miraculous rebirth into modernity on a single day, just as prophesied (Isa. 66: 6-9). The intricate details of the amazing rebirth are there to be gleaned by the hundreds, if not thousands.

Pressured in AD 135 through genocidal action by Roman Emperor Hadrian to leave their homeland given them by God, the Jews scattered into many nations of the world. God’s chosen people never truly found peace; rather, they mostly encountered persecution and death during the intervening centuries leading to coming back in large numbers following the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

Hitler’s perpetration of genocide upon the Jews during the time leading up to and through World War II, culminating in the Holocaust, shamed the world into allowing a Jewish state to be reborn. What Satan meant for evil in trying to thwart God’s promise to Israel being fulfilled, God turned into good. However, demonic rage by the false religion of Islam continued to fester, breaking into all-out warfare against Israel on numerous occasions. God Gave Israel the victory in every instance that nation was attacked.

Now, to look at the clearly observable, detailed kinds of prophetic movement wrought by recent events involving the modern Jewish state. Zechariah the prophet declared the whole world will turn against Israel and Jerusalem, in particular, at the end of human history. Israel’s refusal to give in to demands by the Palestinian Authority (PA)–merely the proxy entity for all of Israel’s Islamist Arab and Iranian antagonists– has brought condemnation of practically every nation on earth.

We’ve all watched the anger spew from the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, and from the leadership of practically every nation represented in the UN General Assembly. They threaten to grant the PA its request for nationhood, using much of Israel’s land, including East Jerusalem, in which to establish the new country’s capital. The U.S. presidential administration has thus far, in my estimation, shown little more than token interest in opposing this assault on Israel’s sovereignty.

Israel’s only true friends left on the planet consist mostly of evangelical Christians, particularly those who see with the clarity mentioned above through the premillennial, pretrib prism. When the Church–the Body of Christ—is called out of this fallen planet, Israel will be alone, or so it will seem.

But, not so.

At that moment when all seems lost, Michael the archangel will stand for that chosen people (Daniel 12: 1). God Himself will deal with and for His chosen people and the city He equates to the “apple” of His eye. All is shaping into the prophetic picture, with details filling in moment by moment the matters involved in getting to the total fulfillment of every jot and tittle that is foretold. The intricacies of the peace process provide details that fascinate the student of Bible prophecy, for example.

The development of the atomic bomb (an invention of Jewish scientists, incidentally) and the hydrogen bomb, for that matter, has caused a worldwide furor stemming from the Middle East. Israel is at the center of the controversy, of course. Israel has nuclear weaponry and is threatened with extinction–as the Jews always are. They have vowed, “Never again!” Never again will they be subjected to genocide without fighting to the death with those who want every Jew on the planet dead.

Israel is, as of a year ago or so, completely surrounded on all but the Mediterranean side by those whose avowed intention is just that–to eradicate the Jews, thus the nation of Israel.

The world knows that the end of the human race through nuclear war could easily begin at Jerusalem. Thus, that city is ground zero for the entire world’s attention, just as Zechariah and other prophets foretold. Isaiah prophesied that a peace covenant will be made over this very city. It will be a covenant that will, in fact, be made with “death and hell.” It will bring the wrath of God down on the whole world for forcing such an agreement upon His chosen people and upon His most beloved city. (Read Isaiah 28: 15, 18.)

America is at the heart of just such a covenant-producing process. The “Roadmap to Peace” has been a part of world diplomatic jargon for more than a decade now. Jerusalem, with the strong-arming of the diplomatic world to make Israel stop building in that city and with the PA (the Islamist world) demanding that Jerusalem be given over to them, is at the epicenter of the coming earthquake of wrath as foretold by God Almighty through His prophet, Zechariah.

“And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth” (Zechariah 14:12).

God willing, we will continue to look next time at the fascinating details that are filling in more and more of the end-of-the-age prophetic puzzle.

Mr. President, tear down this wall…What wall? The wall your administration has erected between the American people and the nation Israel.

The Gallup Poll told within the recent past that by a wide margin, we the people of the United States believe Israel is not the problem in the Middle East, or anywhere else. By a margin of more than 60%, we have made it known that we want America to continue to embrace the Jewish state as a close friend and ally –the only true ally we have in that violent part of the world. Yet, you, Mr. President, and those you send as interlocutors in that one-sided, so-called peace process consistently lock arms with Israel’s blood-vowed enemies to try to bully that nation to give in to demands that will never end as long as Israel exists.

Israel’s enemies–and that list includes every Arab state to one degree or another—want Israel eradicated.

The massive snow and ice your White House and D.C. received the other day is a not-so-gentle reminder that the God of Israel will never let that happen.

You have touched the apple of the Almighty’s eye, and continue to do so by your joining the nation of Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement that seeks to marginalize Israel.

You directly dare the God of heaven to do anything about your obdurate stance against Him. The current shaking your fist in the face of the Almighty is but the latest of such defiance.

Almost at the same moment you took step towards joining the European Union in an boycott of Israel, D.C. was blasted with near-record blizzard conditions.

The U.S. is now requiring goods originating from the West Bank (also known as Judea and Samaria) to be labeled separately from products from the rest of Israel, following the European Union’s crackdown on products from the disputed territories.

Such weather and “natural phenomena” have manifested after many egregious actions against Israel, as has been documented by John McTernan and Bill Koenig. The snow storm came as a departure from normal winter weather in the area of the nation’s capital. To be sure, it was a mild forewarning of what is to come, Mr. President, if your actions, and lack of action, continue on the course you have chosen with regard to Israel.

We are not currently witnessing God’s judgment and wrath with this snow event, or with other such “acts of God.” When His wrath–His judgment–does fall, it will be, Jesus prophesied, a time more terrible than any that has ever existed on planet earth (Matthew 24:21). But, God is warning yet again, I’m convinced, that dealing with Israel is a deadly serious matter in His interaction with mankind. The closer the time of Christ’s return, the more intense will become His forewarnings.

America has been Israel’s friend, her protector, in human terms. America has, therefore, been blessed of God beyond any nation in history, with material wealth and godly moorings of Christianity at our very foundation. But, the tide is turning, as anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear can discern.

Economic catastrophe looms on the national horizon to such a degree that this great nation’s fall will literally bring the entire world down, when it crashes. And, it’s not a matter of if that will happen, but when. We have been experiencing an economic earthquake for months–even years–and the shaking is getting worse. But, the shaking is mild–very mild, my spirit tells me—compared to the shaking that is coming upon this country and world. Much of the quaking–socioeconomic and geophysical–is a direct result of the way America and the world are dealing with the nation that the God of heaven has, in His absolute authority, determined cannot be destroyed. Satanic forces are ratcheting up everything possible to keep God’s promises to Israel from being fulfilled. There is bound to be such titanic shaking as we are presently experiencing while the biblically prophesied battle between what secularists call good and evil takes place. Be assured–the outcome of that battle is already determined.

Knowing that this request isn’t likely to produce the desired answer, ultimately, I still must make the plea as one given the commission to forewarn during these prophetic times. Mr. President, please do all within your power to see to it that America comes down on the winning side. Regardless, Israel will be the winner. We have the Word of the Creator of all that is who has made the following promise: “This is what the Lord says, ‘He who appoints the sun to shine by day, Who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar — the Lord Almighty is His Name; Only if these ordinances vanish from My sight,’ declares the Lord, ‘will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before Me.'” (Jeremiah 31:35-36)

A perhaps not-so-shocking, but certainly attention-getting, news item points to the ugly head of anti-Israel action arising. The stark growth of Israel and Jew-hating is front and center in the heart of Europe, where Adolf Hitler did his worst to eliminate all of God’s chosen –where Antichrist will arise to try to finish the job the Nazis began.

Although the rise in anti-Israeli sentiment might seem subtle with it coming from the halls of European academia, the world-wide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the Jewish state is growing more incendiary. The academic community urges that all join the BDS movement.

The Italian academics and researchers, who belong to seven separate universities across Italy, claimed in their petition that the Technion engages in military research and develops weapons that the IDF uses to “repress the Palestinian people.”

The petition continues: “We, the undersigned scholars and researchers at Italian universities are deeply troubled by the collaboration between the Israel Institute of Technology “Technion” and Italian universities.

“Israeli universities collaborate on military research and development of weapons used by the Israeli army against the Palestinian population, providing undeniable support to the military occupation and colonization of Palestine.”…

The committee of university heads in Israel responded: “Israeli universities are under attack from the BDS movement as well as other parties, who are distributing deceitful and inciting material against Israel and its higher academic institutions.

“The committee of university heads is acting with everything it has against this ugly phenomenon. But it’s not quite enough. We request the involvement of the state to act via all possible means to stop this dangerous process.” (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4759523,00.html)

Current issues and events that look to be harbingers of the biblically prophesied apocalypse bombard this generation of earth’s inhabitants. Jesus’ Olivet Discourse prophecies, foretelling things to come in the time of “great tribulation,” seem to leap from news reports that are becoming so routine that they no longer shock. No signal is more prophetically significant than present circumstances involving the state of Israel and city where Jesus was crucified nearly twenty centuries ago.

Jerusalem is at the center of satanic rage, and the rage is bursting forth at the center of supposedly civilized Europe, where Islam is in the process of taking over. This is as the Old and New Testament prophets said it will be just before Christ returns to a planet that is home to a world of rebels against God. That rebellion is scheduled, the prophets forewarn, to culminate in history’s final and most destructive war. Armageddon will be triggered because of both Satan and fallen mankind’s determination to install themselves upon the single spot on earth dearest to the heart of God.

Mount Moriah sits at the southern end of the ancient city, crested by a golden dome that represents 1.5 billion people whose religion demands of its adherents blood-vowed opposition to God’s chosen nation, Israel. This is the place God picked to have His temple on earth constructed. It is the precise location where the Third Temple will sit–the Temple that will be desecrated by Antichrist, earth’s last and most beastly tyrant.

Even more importantly, the Temple Mount will be the home of Christ’s Millennial Temple. Moriah, then to be known as Zion, will be supernaturally elevated by the tremendous topographical changes caused when the Lord’s foot touches the Mount of Olives at His return.

Diplomats of the world have, for the past four decades, engaged in effort after effort to bring stability to the region, at whose heart the city of Jerusalem sits. We remember the many settings to and from Washington D.C., Jerusalem, and other capitals of the Mideast. From Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, James Baker, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice to, now, John Kerry and even Barack Obama–America’s secretaries of state and a most strangely assertive president have burned mega-gallons of jet fuel in trying to find the formula for peace that would defuse the Armageddon bomb.

All of that diplomatic shuffling is mere prelude to the fretting that is about to take place over this, the most important, thus most volatile, nation and city on planet earth. Zechariah the prophet foretold the end-time anxiety that we believe is, observably, now on the precipice of gripping the international community.

The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth The spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. (Zechariah 12:1-3)

There is good reason for the building anxiety. Israel’s terrorist-sponsoring neighbors to the north strive mightily to develop nuclear bombs and missiles that will deliver them. No one doubts in which direction these missiles will be pointed should Iran be successful in producing such weapons of mass destruction. Israel’s one, common declaration amidst all of the political infighting remains the core of its defense. “Never again!”

The following summary of atrocities to the Jewish race presents compelling evidence why “Never Again!” must be their passionate declaration, backed by nuclear strength.

Due to [Israel’s] disobedience the Jews have suffered terribly.

They were ruled by Rome in Christ’s day but rebelled in A.D. 70 and 250,000 were killed. They rebelled again in A.D. 135 and again Rome smashed them, killing even more and scattering them throughout the empire. Since then they have been bitterly persecuted. Forcibly expelled from England in 1290 and from France 1306. In 1298 more than 100,000 were killed in Europe. From 1648 to 1658 some 400,000 were massacred. From 1939-45 Hitler’s Nazis killed more than 4 million… In its history Egyptian pharaohs, Assyrian kings, Babylonian rulers, Persian satraps, Greek Hellenists, Roman Caesars, Holy Roman emperors, Roman Catholic pontiffs, Medieval monarchs, Christian crusaders, Spanish inquisitors, Nazi dictators, Communist commissars, Arab sheiks and United Nation delegates have all turned against the Jew yet they still survive. (Charles L. Monk, “A Look at Bible Covenants and Their Meanings,” posted 2/22/03, Sugar Land Bible Church, Category: Bible Study, COVENANTS – 1987)

The Jewish people of Israel collectively declare they will never again let themselves be enslaved within regimes that want them erased from the earth. Never again will they allow the genocide they have suffered through the centuries. Their national vow is backed by the ominous “Samson Option.” This last-ditch military imperative is not lost on the leaders of the international community, which is headed by the G-8 nations.

These leaders of this enlightened age might not believe the Bible is the word of God, but, they know the story of Samson and what happened when he was finally put in a predicament in which he could no longer be free. The world’s diplomats–at least those of the western world—have no doubt that the Israeli Defense Force will bring the house down around them, if it comes to that as Israel’s only viable option. The international community –once termed “the new world order”– has developed a systemic neurosis involving the bleak outlook for the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The “Roadmap to Peace” seems to be the nerves-soothing therapeutic course of action upon which the powers-that-be have chosen to eliminate the possibility of nuclear conflict being triggered over earth’s most coveted city.

World leaders are obsessed with Jerusalem. They consider Jerusalem the trigger to Armageddon; they will do whatever it takes to diffuse that trigger.

A country song from way back in the 1960s and 1970s, during the Vietnam War era, plays through my mind these days.

The chorus goes as follows:

God bless America again.

You must know the trouble that she’s in.

Wash her pretty face, dry her eyes and then,…

God bless America again.

The war was raging while Walter Cronkite read the mainstream view of the news to us at dinnertime. Film of bloodied American GIs and corpses of black-pajamaed Viet Cong projected from our TV screens while we downed our evening meals.

B-52s dropped hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives, carpet-bombing an unseen enemy many thousands of feet below. Rolling Thunder, as it was called, churned up killing fields of earth mixed with flesh and blood night after night–day after day.

More than fifty thousand American soldiers and airmen went through the horrific,  grinding process of becoming casualties of war their country’s leaders, it turned out, never intended to bring to total victory–giving their last measure of devotion for America the beautiful. At the same time, the ugliness of political warfare was being uncovered and displayed in a news media orgy of, in my view, pro-Communist gleefulness.

A U.S. president of the United States was turned out of office  in disgrace–and, rightfully so. Watergate became forever an ingrained term within the American-English lexicon.

Would America ever recover? Would the curse that had descended since the time of Korea, with America’s young men and women dying in a “police action” purposely fought to stalemate rather than to complete victory, ever lift from our nation?

There have been moments of seemingly possible national egress from the plunge into the abyss of political corrosiveness. It looked like the nation might pull away from the cultural rot begun in earnest during the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the legitimization of murdering babies in their mother’s wombs.

The Moral Majority appeared for a brief, shining, moment to be making headway in engendering movement toward moral sanity. Somehow, however, a national, cultural darkness began descending following the Reagan years. An almost tangible veil separating America’s formerly flawed but Judeo- Christian-governed morality from a new immoral malignity fell with the Clinton years, the White House intern’s stained, blue dress and all the rest.

Jeremiah Wright, Barack Hussein Obama’s black-liberation theology “pastor,” from his Chicago pulpit, spewed a venomous rant that America’s chickens had come home to roost and implied that the Lord of Heaven should damn America–using God’s name in vain with the invective. Wright was, I infer, talking about the Islamist attacks on the Trade Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

As much as I detest “Reverend” Wright’s hate speech against the United States, I must admit that indeed, America’s chickens appeared to have come home to roost, suffering on that September 11, 2001, Tuesday at least some degree of God’s judgment. In my view, the past seven-plus years of Wright’s best-known parishioner’s time in the Oval Office has brought an intensification of that judgment.

The year 2016, I sense strongly, is going to be a truly pivotal year for this nation and the world. It is proper, I believe, to wonder whether God’s judgment is now on track to preclude that of the corrective sort, such as in the past. I’m thinking of times like the Great Depression of the 1930s, following the debauched era of the Roaring Twenties, as it was called.

Is God’s judgment now entering a destructive rather than another corrective  phase? Is it entering a time such as when Sodom and Gomorrah came to their end–i.e., is it possible that God will ever bless America again?

Like that country song tells throughout its lyrics, I, too, love America and don’t want to ever let it fall because of my not doing my part in helping keep it upright in every sense.

All of this said, spiritually enlightened Bible students know that neither the leaders of this nation nor of any other will rectify the rapidly mounting problems. Only Jesus Christ will solve the otherwise unsolvable, sinister evil that is at humanity’s core.

There are, within the community of Bible prophecy observers, those who wonder whether America is the most likely candidate for being the Babylon of the eighteenth chapter of Revelation–according to the Bible, the country that will be the most materially accomplished of all nations of earth’s history. I am one of those who ponder this possibility more seriously with each passing news headline involving America’s president and State Department dealing with Israel.

God, it is abundantly clear, has through His dealing with America more than lived up to His promise to bless those who bless the progeny that would come from Abraham through Isaac. America, acting as midwife in the rebirth of the Jewish state into modernity in 1948, has been the recipient of bountiful material blessings beyond measure. God has truly blessed America.

Conversely, God has promised to curse those who curse His chosen nation, Israel. The cultural war is observably causing the loss of America’s former striving to promote Judeo-Christian values the Founding Fathers infused into the Constitution. Just as troubling is the obvious disdain this president and those around him have for Israel, even choosing to champion Israel’s enemies at every diplomatic opportunity, it seems to me.

Such continued folly will not perhaps, but will certainly, bring national disaster the likes of which our previously blessed nation has never experienced. If indeed forgiveness of our national sins  is possible, given the lateness of the prophetic hour, let us who name the matchless name that is above every name implore God to bless America again. This must be done, however, not with vain repetition in the idle words “God bless America” often used by presidents and politicians when ending their meaningless speeches.

There is but one heavenly Rx for obtaining an answer to such a prayer:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

God does not change. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That call to repentance to His people is still in effect–and it is for Church Age saints, just as it was for His chosen people of ancient Israel. But, time is swiftly fleeting.

“We will make America great again!” is a current presidential politics proclamation. No, “we” won’t. We have proven, through our actions and lack thereof, that as a people, we want to take America in the other direction. “We” didn’t make America great in the first place, and we certainly can’t make it great in the future.

“God bless America again,” when offered in genuine spiritual, obedient humility–not in politically-prideful demand–before the throne of Almighty God, is the only petition that has a prayer of a chance to save our nation.

Economic emergencies in the news turned my thoughts to Rome and its place in the final unfolding of Bible prophecy. Following the trail of great world empires to today’s news headlines leads inescapably to the conclusion that the birthplace of the Caesars figures to be at the very center of end-times turbulence.

Daniel the prophet gave a sweeping panorama of the major empires that would appear in the time of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar and conclude with the world system of government being broken to dust (Daniel 2:26-45). This prophecy of humanistic dominion over the world and its dramatic end came through Daniel’s interpretation of the king’s night vision about a gigantic, metallic man-image.

Those who have studied the appearing, dominion, and destruction of each succeeding kingdom within the prophecy almost without exception believe the iron legs of Nebuchadnezzar’s man-image to represent the Roman Empire. That powerful empire divided into the two legs–the western leg, with Rome as capital, and the eastern leg, with the capital being Constantinople (now known as Istanbul).

Rome is most important to think upon in Daniel’s overall prophetic unveiling because it is the “people” out of whom the one called “the prince that shall come” will emerge to step onto the stage of history as dictator of earth’s final human government (Daniel 9:26-27). This brings us to some logical conclusions, I think. Since most all other indicators are now on stage for human history’s final act, should Rome not be front and center as the end-times spotlight illuminates?

To set that stage again–as we have done so many times in these commentaries —here are some of the main signals that we are near the end of the end times:

The Kings of the East–Revelation 9 and 16–China and the powers of Asia are on the rise as potentially earth’s most powerful entities. Gog-Magog –Ezekiel 8-39—Russia, Iran, Turkey, and others have formed alliances that continue to grow in strength. The European Union (EU)–Daniel 9 is forming the revived Roman Empire. The U.N.–Psalm 2 personifies mankind’s globalist desire to throw off God’s restraints. Israel–Zechariah 12-14–is at the center of hatred, both its Arab neighbors and the UN as a whole seeking to destroy God’s chosen nation. Cries for peace–1 Thessalonians 5:3–are coming from the international community which is attempting to impose peace on Israel that would divide the land God gave the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

There are many more specific signposts that indicate the present world is at the end of the Age of Grace (Church Age). So, with all of the stage-setting for Christ’s return in view, should Rome, the geographical as well as historical system that will produce the world’s last and most terrible tyrant, not be front and center?

The answer of course, is yes, it must–and that geographical entity just happens to be at the center of one of the great end-times indicators not mentioned above, but most important to consider.

The love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). This world system, whose would-be masters love the power wealth can generate, is caught up in what I believe is the catalyst for bringing Antichrist’s regime to its prophesied position of satanic control. Most who believe they are destined to control the world don’t have a clue that the great upheaval in economics they are struggling with is the result of the master manipulator–Satan himself—fomenting the tumult. The only way to ever reestablish any degree of control from this point is for there to take place a complete rearrangement of all matters monetary.

This rearrangement can’t happen as long as national sovereignties exist–as long as there is relative liberty left on the planet. Therefore, it will take a crisis of monstrous proportion to bring everyone into compliance with controls of a completely changed world–a new economic world order.

Rome is at the very center of the great economic storm. Its financial stability has come under great stress over the past decade and it’s economy –like that of all of Europe and much of the world—is in sharp decline with danger of imploding.

At the same time, Pope Francis and his strange handling of Vatican orthodoxy, changing things almost as radically as Barack Obama has radically transformed America, adds increased surreality to the influence this prophetic reviving empire has on end times stage-setting.

I firmly believe that the Rapture of the Church is the crisis that will convince the world–the western world, at least–to forfeit what little freedom there might be left, and give power and authority to the Beast. Antichrist, son of Rome, Satan’s ultimate dictator, will derive his power and control through a perverted economic system as foretold in Revelation 13:16-18.

Rome’s place in prophecy is taking shape before the eyes of God’s watchmen on the wall.

It seems at least forty years ago that I read Salem Kirban’s novel, 666. A major portion of the fictional account of the times at the end of the Church Age dealt with the Ezekiel chapters 38-39 Gog-Magog attack into the Middle East by Russia and all of the nations the prophecy foretells will storm toward Israel to destroy that nation and plunder the land.

Ezekiel prophesied a vicious coalition of anti-God, Israel-hating hordes that will rage in full fury, taking peace from the earth. Among the chief people mentioned who are to be part of that assault is “the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands” (Ezekiel 38:6b).

Author Kirban portrayed with powerful imagery, I thought, the warlord the Bible calls “Gog” and many of the other characters God’s Word forewarns will attempt to inflict murderous damage on the chosen nation and on the world. His account was particularly interesting, in retrospect, because he seems to have been somewhat prescient with his fictional presentation that the attack would be undertaken with ancient, not modern, weaponry–i.e., Kirban’s novel account had the Gog-Magog forces storming over the land using the literal war-making tools Ezekiel reported in his vision of that future invasion.

And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. (Ezekiel 38:1-3)

I say Kirban was seemingly prescient, because his novelistic scenario included a technological breakthrough, as I recall, that had neutered conventional weaponry. The engines of modern warfare–as the author would have it— could no longer be employed. It was something along the lines of what has come to be known as EMP (electromagnetic pulse) technology–a weapon touted to have the capability of frying the electronic circuitry of modern machinery.

So, in the author’s story, Gog led his forces down toward Israel, where, of course, the evil ones met their complete destruction when the Lord intervened, as the prophecy says He will do when the actual attack occurs.

Turkey‘s history is replete with accounts of its cavalry exploits. Its armies are famous–or in some cases infamous–for their use of horses in warfare. Its horsemen are legendary in, for example, firing arrows while at full gallop. Even today, some of the finest horseflesh is found in the region Ezekiel calls Togarmah.

While I find fascinating the fact that Kirban could look a bit into the future to anticipate progression of modern weaponry, I’m still of the opinion that the weaponry Ezekiel saw in the vision God gave him was the weaponry of today, not actual horses and accoutrements. As a matter of fact, I’m not fully convinced that EMP truly is capable of doing what I’ve read time after time in emails it will one day do to, for example, America’s power grids and its sophisticated tools of war.

Such “warnings” have been issued as attacks about to strike for decades. I’m not saying some such things can’t happen, but it’s becoming akin to the little boy who cried wolf. It is incumbent upon us who are watchmen to weigh carefully things that are shaping that will likely be prophetic in nature–then report with responsible accuracy.

Certainly, Turkey has the history and the ability to raise a cavalry that could do battle if modern war machinery was rendered useless. Does that scenario look to be the likely unfolding of Bible prophecy regarding the Gog-Magog assault? I, at least, don’t think so. The world is facing a truly massive event as given in the Ezekiel 38-39 prophecy. Any threat horseflesh might present seems puny in comparison to the horrendous carnage described.

One development that should be most mesmerizing to the observer of things taking place for the wind-up of this present dispensation does involve Turkey, the region Ezekiel called Togarmah. Until very recently, Turkey was one of a few of Israel’s friends in or around the Middle East. The relationship has changed in ways that can only be described as portentous.

Following Prime Minister Erdogan’s Islamist AK party landslide election of several years ago in Turkey, that region began a metamorphosis with prophetic undertones.

Already the nation in the region with the largest army, it has worked toward doubling that military.

Presently, Turkey’s army has over 500,000 troops. Its army is larger than France, Germany and England combined. It reportedly intends to add another 500,000 paid soldiers.

It is a legitimate question to ask: Is Turkey in the process of preparing for the fulfillment of its Magog moment?

A power vacuum exists today that was foretold almost two thousand years ago. Its effects on this generation and beyond are profound, and are destined to make an even more deleterious impact on America and the world in the days just ahead. The apostle Paul prophesied the following:

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come… [Men] Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof (2 Timothy 3:1, 5a).

Many pastors within Christianity today, I am sorry to have to say, are complicit in helping fulfill this prophecy on an hourly basis.

First, let’s define the term “Christian pastors.” Within the context of Paul’s prophecy that I wish to examine here, I refer to those pastors who truly preach and teach that Jesus Christ is the only way to redemption, to reconciliation with God the Father. All others who claim to be clergy within Christianity I completely disregard, because God’s Word discounts them as false prophets, as defined by the following Scripture, to give but one example:

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. (2 Peter 2: 1-3)

Again, to be clear, when I say “Christian pastors,” I’m referring to genuine pastors: Bible-believing preachers who lift up Christ as the only way to salvation.

Some will say that Paul’s “perilous times” warning of men who would display the end-times characteristic of “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” applies to the false teachers of Peter’s prophecy, not to true preachers called by God to be shepherds of His flock. I agree that Paul’s 2 Timothy prophecy applies to those interlopers who deny Jesus Christ as the only way to redemption.

However, the accusation against those who have a “form of godliness, but deny the power thereof” can apply as well to God’s true shepherds. The condemnation is in some ways even more to the point than when leveled at the false preachers and teachers. It’s my contention that Christian pastors today–and, sadly, I believe this includes the majority of them–deny the power of God when they deliberately cast aside prophecy given in the Bible that is for time yet future.

We have written in these commentaries, and many others have written and spoken on the fact that God’s Word, the Bible, consists of at least 27 percent prophecy. Half of that prophecy has been fulfilled; half is yet to be fulfilled. Although it can be proven through study of the Scripture and by examining history that the Bible is always accurate in putting forth prophecy in past instances, pastors–preachers and teachers—consistently and persistently ignore preaching and teaching things to come.

By this willful disregard for presenting this vast body of scriptural truth, men of God–called and anointed by the Lord as guardians of His truth and shepherds of His flocks–deny the great power wrapped up in the astonishing reality that our God is the only One who knows the end from the beginning–and in excruciating detail, might I add.

For the most part, preachers of today seemingly avoid the prophetic Word at any cost. And, in God’s holy economy, the cost must be astronomical. These shepherds of God’s precious people are denying those people the assurance of the hope that He promises. Jesus Christ, their Lord and Savior, is the fruition of God’s magnificent plan for their journey into forever. With the knowledge of Christ’s return plainly given as imminent in God’s love letter to mankind, the born again should be living victoriously, not with cringing fear or, even worse, in almost complete apathy.

The prophetic Word says:

Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. (Titus 2:12-14)

The majority of those who aren’t informed about what is going to happen next in this judgment-bound world, or who are totally unconcerned about things of God, are fed pabulum rather than meat for living life in the way the Lord intended. These are as often as not force fed the prosperity, name-it-and-claim-it false teaching that is anathema to truth from the Word of God. The only ones accumulating wealth are the preachers of such spirit-dulling poison.

To the pastors and teachers who do in fact teach doctrine and sound biblical principles, may the Lord bless you to the extent to which you remain faithful to break the Bread of Life in the way it should be fed to your flocks. But, if you don’t include prophecy as an important and generous part of your messages–that Jesus is coming again, and might come at any moment–you are falling far short of deserving full commendation. You are denying the true power of God. You are exhibiting only a form of godliness.

Respectfully, please pay attention, you who are the truth-bearing pastors of our Holy God. These are the times to which all of Bible prophecy has pointed for millennia. These are perilous times. Signals are rampant that this generation is the generation that will almost certainly see the Lord’s return in power and glory. Israel and the peace process, with all nations beginning to turn against that state, dear pastors, is the number-one signal that we are bumping up against the very end of this swiftly fleeting age. Christ’s shout, “Come up hither,” is imminent!

You will be held accountable at the judgment seat of Christ for how you treat His whole Word in feeding your flock. Jesus spoke to the great power and importance resident within prophecy while addressing the churches. John recorded what the resurrected Lord directed him to write:

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw…Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. (Revelation 1:1-2, 7-8)