Israel today stands in the bull’s eye of rage. This is true in the case of being targeted by the Jewish state’s perennial antagonists, the Arab and Persian Islamist enemies. It is true in the case of the entire international community, whose constituent nations see Israel as the congestive blockage to regional and world peace. But it is the growing antagonism by United States presidential administration operatives that is most disconcerting while this beleaguered planet wobbles toward a time of unprecedented trouble.

As a matter of fact, that coming time of unparalleled strife that will bring all nations to Armageddon is termed “the time of Jacob’s trouble” by Isaiah the prophet: “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7a).

And, it is Jacob’s trouble—the prophesied end-of-days dastardly treatment of Israel by the nations of earth—that will cause the God of heaven to bring them to Armageddon. This is what the prophet Joel foretells: “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land” (Joel 3:2).

This will be the gathering of the nations of earth predicted in the book of Revelation:

“For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty…And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon” (Revelation 16:14, 16).

This will be the culmination of mankind’s dealing treacherously with God’s chosen people, the Jews. The promise made to Abraham by the Lord includes severe repercussions for anyone who would curse the progeny of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).

God’s declaration is most dramatically validated by looking at twentieth-century history. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime made hatred of and genocide against the Jew their focus of the unalloyed evil they spewed. The ashes of the Fuhrer and of his Nazi colleagues are scattered in ignominious disgrace across the landscape that Josef Goebbels and the Nazi propagandists arrogantly boasted would be über alles the all-powerful homeland for their thousand-year Reich.

Any consideration in research of Germany’s history involving the last two years of World War II and the years immediately following that most terrible of earth’s conflicts to that point must acknowledge that it was as if the very wrath of God was upon the nation. Such documentation includes black-and-white film footage of German men and women forced by Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower to walk by the skeletal remains of thousands of Jewish corpses—thus, Eisenhower stated, so that the German people and the world would never forget the Holocaust. Its aftermath would forever be recorded.

Yet today, even mainstream news journalists are observably fuzzy-minded in consideration of the genocide that took perhaps six million Jewish lives as well as the lives of other peoples. They show their loss of memory by not jumping full-force down the throats of diabolists like the Iranian heads of state, who regurgitate the lie that the Holocaust is a fable conjured by the Jews of the world. Rarely is there a repudiation of such blatant lies coming from the would-be destroyers of the Jewish state and the Jewish people.

Tragically, the refusal to educate generations subsequent to the time of World War II on the truth about the insane treatment of the house of Israel is leading to a future time of even greater atrocities, thus judgment, according to God’s prophetic Word. The God of heaven will react violently—according to Bible prophecy—more violently, even, than He reacted to the death-dealing of the Nazi demoniacs:

“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… it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem” (Zechariah 12:1-3, 29).

We come to the question posed by this article’s title: “Israel Betrayed by U.S.?” The article’s title is in the form of a question because like so much of this American administration’s dealings, the “transparency” presidential candidate Barack Obama and then President Obama promised is not forthcoming. Obama’s intended dealing with Israel continues to be wrapped in an impenetrable fog of political doublespeak.

Next week, we will look into whether America, the nation almost certainly brought into existence to stand with His chosen people during Israel’s rebirth into modernity, is leading the way into setting up the worldwide anti-Israel marginalization prophesied by Zechariah.

God’s Word, the Bible, foretells that the Jewish race as a whole, Israel as a nation, will continue to reject their Messiah, the one who came to them more than 2,000 years ago. This rejection will continue to result in God’s promises being delayed until the moment Jesus returns to put an end to mankind’s final war called Armageddon.

Israel was scattered after the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem and the temple atop Mount Moriah. This was exactly what Jesus predicted in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew Chapter 24, Mark Chapter 13, and Luke Chapter 21.) Jesus prophesied that not one stone of the temple would be left upon another. Titus and the Roman legions saw to the fulfillment of this prophecy.

The Jews lost their temple, their city, and, following Hadrian’s purge in 135 AD, their geographical homeland area, plus their common language (Hebrew) as a cohesive link to one another as a distinct people. Yet God’s Word foretells that Israel will be a nation again at the end of days–the time just before Christ returns.

Again, tragically and sadly, Jews are back in the land for a time that will be worse than any ever experienced by any people. The prophet Jeremiah foretold this:

“Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it” (Jeremiah 30:7).

It will be a time of horrors beyond anything even Adolf Hitler dreamed about perpetrating upon the Jewish race. Can we see a build-up toward that time? Let us consider the words of the prophet Zechariah, and put his prophecies as a template over today’s headlines:

“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).

The peoples of the earth are gathering against Israel. Even some leaders within the U.S., governmental and religious, want Israel to give away land for peace. The “Zionists” are seen as the problem.

Israel is basically isolated today, so far as true allies are concerned. The United States stands almost alone as Israel’s friend. However, it hurts to say that support is eroding, while some within the current administration and recent American diplomatic efforts seem to want to exclude the Jewish state from talks involving the small territory Israel now occupies–territory, incidentally, which is but a fraction of the land the Lord your God granted you through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These negotiators join the so-called international community in wanting to placate Israel’s hate-filled enemies.

This Neville Chamberlain-like, “peace at any cost” maneuvering is not lost on those who want Israel wiped off the map. It is creating a perception of weakness that will tempt them to act on their satanically driven hatreds.

Ezekiel the prophet foretold of a time at the end of days when a northern coalition will invade from the North (all biblical direction is given from Jerusalem). There is not space here to go into detail, but excellent scholarship has determined the chief attacker will be Russia, joined by many surrounding peoples. This attack will include forces from the area of ancient Persia, which encompasses all of Iran, and considerable surrounding geographical areas. This coalition, I am convinced today’s news headlines indicate, is gathering now. This will be the Gog-Magog assault described prophetically in Ezekiel Chapters 38 and 39.

The one bright prospect, and it is a bright spot, indeed, is that the God of Israel will never let Israel be destroyed; we have His Word on that:

“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).

The bottom line is that Israel, the Jewish race, is again destined to become hated and persecuted –this time with satanic vitriol that will make Hitler’s Holocaust look somewhat less terrible by comparison.

Antichrist, the long-foretold, sometime spoofed, but 100 percent Bible prophecy guaranteed to come on the world scene tyrant, will implement genocidal policies against the Jewish race that will go far beyond Draconian.

I didn’t make up this prediction. God’s Word, the Bible, does say it. I accept that Word as the only truth there is. I, and other Christians who know Jesus Christ as Lord, love, or should love, the Jewish people–the nation Israel. God loves them; so must we. They are His chosen.  However, I, and they, can’t change what God has prophesied to take place, I’m convinced, in the relatively near future.

But, I, and they, are charged with showing individuals within Israel the way to escape the coming time of Antichrist’s regime of horror. We implore the Jewish people. Accept Christ now. He is Messiah. And one day, perhaps very soon, He will call His people –Jews and Gentiles who accept Him as Savior– to be with Him forever. This will be the Rapture. (That stunning event, in which millions of people will vanish from Planet Earth, can be found in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, and 1 Corinthians 15: 51-55. Jesus spoke of it in John 14:1-3.)

The Rapture will take place before that time of horror–the era Jesus called “great Tribulation” (Matthew 24: 21). The people of the nation Israel who are unrepentant (the remnant, for most will die in this last holocaust) will accept Christ at the last moment. Here’s what that future remnant’s Messiah says:

“And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zechariah 12: 9-10).

Israel will then be made the head of all nations, with the resurrected King David ruling as co-regent with the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, atop Mount Zion at Jerusalem for 1,000 years –the Millennium! Believe it or not, Jewish friends, that is your nation’s great God-promised destiny.

We who love Israel pray that you will believe.

Israel is the one nation in human history that the Creator of all things chose to be “a people unto himself”:

“For thou [art] an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that [are] upon the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6).

Jehovah made promises to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that are staggering in their implications. He promised to bless those who bless the nation that would spring from the loins of these men, and warned about His curse for those who cursed those people. God said to Abraham, “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).

Certainly, this promise can easily be verified as coming true throughout recorded history. The modern record, as a matter of fact, is contemporary proof of the veracity of the Almighty and His prophetic promises. Historians –except those blinded by the great deceiver, Lucifer—concede, sometime reluctantly, that Israel’s history in ancient times was a record of greatness. David’s and Solomon’s exploits and accomplishments are legendary, but built upon archaeological facts. Israel has achieved greatness among the nations of this earthly sphere.

One point over which secularist historians at the minimum raise eyebrows of skepticism is that man received laws and moral codes through Moses, the son of Abraham. Most give Hamarabi’s Code that honor. But, those who believe that God is who He is know the great human deliverer of the chosen people came down from Sinai with rules for living life, given by the God of Heaven to His creation called man. Particularly, the Ten Commandments were meant for Israel to follow as fealty to their God, and as example to the rest of the world.

God’s promise to make Israel a great nation and to bless all other nations through His chosen people has come true. The United States, for example, has the Ten Commandments upon its walls within government buildings–including the Supreme Court. America, despite the anti-God forces who want to destroy the nation’s moral underpinnings, continues to lead the world in most areas of improvement of the human condition. This is due to the Ten Commandments’ influence upon American ethics and achievement. But, it goes profoundly deeper.

Much of America’s successes in technological, medical, and every other category of progress has been contributed by members of the Jewish race. We don’t have to look far to find them. I’ll just mention the most obvious: Albert Einstein, the German-born, genius-physicist who became an American citizen. No more than a cursory study will show, indelibly, that God’s Word is true, when He followed through on the promise to make the people of the book the head of all peoples:

“And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do [them]” (Deuteronomy 28:13).

Then what about the maltreatment, the genocide against the Jewish race down through the millennia, particularly during the 20^th century? This doesn’t appear to be God making Israel the head of all nations. Here is where God placed some conditions upon the people He chose as destined to become the head of all others. Note the last of the above promise: “…if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do [them].”

God will make Israel the head of all nations, if that people will listen to His instructions and commandments. Not only is that where the nation Israel has strayed; this is where those who say that God is through with Israel–that the Jewish race is no longer God’s chosen—have also strayed. God’s Word says that ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All have strayed–both Jews AND Gentiles.

Israel’s detractors within Christianity say the Jews rejected their Messiah in His first visitation. Therefore, they say, Jehovah has written off the Jews and the nation Israel. The Israel in the land surrounding Jerusalem since May 14, 1948 is not the Israel of the promises, the detractors say. Modern Israel is but an impostor, and God considers it no more within His prophecy for future national or racial greatness than He considers any of modern Israel’s blood-vowed enemies.

Absolutely nothing could be further from the truth. It is true that the Israel of Jesus Christ’s day rejected Him as Messiah. It is equally true that those of His own race, the Jews, cried “Crucify him!” the hierarchy of which convinced the Romans to crucify Jesus. But God’s Word says that every person is a sinner. We are born into sin–thus because Adam, the physical father of mankind, disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden. Again, God’s Word says that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

The Jews, as a race, are no guiltier than my race, which is Gentile. We all, as the human race, put Jesus Christ to death on the cruel Roman cross. He came to earth, sent by His Father, the God of Heaven, to offer himself as the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Jesus the Christ –the Jews’ Messiah—came to fulfill all Mosaic Law –the Ten Commandments. In Christ we can now believe, and our sins are cleansed, washed away by Christ’s sacrifice for all eternity. Through His shed blood, we ALL–Jew and Gentile–are in the family of God forever.

But, each individual human being must accept this grace gift that replaced the sacrificial system of blood from innocent lambs of the physical sort. We must accept Christ as Savior, as Lord one-on-one with God, because He gives each person the free will to accept or reject His grace offer of salvation.

Now, I must come to the sad part–the tragic part of this essay, really–in which I have to address Israel’s prophetic destiny. I will do in part two.

So again, we come to the seeming disconnect–the tremendous number of biblically prophetic indicators from a strange prophetic silence that surrounds these signals.

I, like others, analyze these matters without ceasing. The signs are everywhere that we are at the end times as given by Jesus when He foretold, for example, that it will be like the days of Noah’s pre-Flood time and Lot’s days in Sodom at the moment He will break in like a thief in the night on an unsuspecting world. And, yet, we are all amazed that the “prophetic progression” seems strangely slow–even to the point of causing us to constantly ask why things seem at a standstill.

How can we ask that question when every one of the Apostle Paul’s 2 Timothy 3 perilous-times characteristics of end-times man is observably on the front burner of society today? People are lovers of themselves, boasters, proud. Children are disobedient to parents, with the assisted rebellion built in to the public school systems of America. We are a people–worldwide—who are unthankful and, certainly, unholy. The government-backed–even church-organization-backed–homosexual agenda, with hate crimes being legislated and implemented to punish those who dare to say God’s Word teaches homosexuality is a sin, shows the perilous-times characteristic “without natural affection” is in our face today.

Abortion takes the lives of more than four thousand babies per day in America. This, too, speaks to the characteristic Paul prophesied would mark the end-times generation, “without natural affection.” We only have to look at the divorce rate today to see that the characteristics Paul gave in prophecy are exhibited within marriage. Infidelity is rampant. People are traitorous to their marriage partners, they are false accusers and truce-breakers. We are an incontinent or addictive generation, whether thinking on illicit or prescription drugs, or on pornography that sears the minds of those who spend hours before computer screens. Also, we are addicted to spending money to satisfy ever-increasing and insatiable material desires.

People love pleasures more than they love God. Mankind is fierce, while at the same time many have a form of godliness, but deny Jesus Christ–who is the power of godliness. This is a blasphemous generation, like the one Paul predicted. The holy name of Jesus is used far more as invective than as a term of reverence and praise in this end-of-the-age hour. That name that God says is above every other isn’t even allowed in many of America’s workplaces, public schools, or government facilities–another panoply of reasons the nation’s judgment is certain.

Why do I and other observers see this as a time of slow prophetic progression, considering this avalanche of prophetic markers? How can we say this when Israel is in position precisely as biblical prophets foretold that nation would be as history draws to a close and Armageddon nears?

Isaiah and Daniel the prophets foretold that Israel would be involved in a peace process at the very end of things to come. Zechariah, many other prophets, and the Lord Jesus himself prophesied that Israel would be surrounded by and hated by all nations of earth at the time of the end. All of those developing prophecies regarding God’s chosen people are front and center right now!

There is a prophetic silence at present. But it is a perceived rather than an actual silence, I think. It is part of the strange cognitive malady with which we all suffer, perhaps.

Overload of day-to-day human activity causes desensitization to even the most traumatic of injuries. “Time heals all wounds” is one common explanation of this cognitive condition. We lose a loved one, and while we will often recall memories of him or her and suffer anew, the overloads of life continue to cause the scar to thicken. The pain fades, to some extent.

So it is in the matter of being watchful in the sense of Mark 13:37. We are so saturated with issues and events of our time that look like prophecy in stage-setting for fulfillment that we develop a malaise. We become desensitized to the phenomenal crush of end-times exigencies.

This is so disconcerting to those who work within prophecy ministries I think, because it is a solitary feeling at times that comes from such lack of interest among true believers. One finds oneself almost hoping something dramatic will happen to shake those believers into understanding exactly how late is the prophetic hour.

Come to think of it…Jesus foretold a strange prophetic silence. He said it would be just at such an hour that He would break in upon a world in darkness. Because our time is so saturated with indicators of Christ’s Second Coming, the apathy-ending event isn’t in the offing. Or maybe it will be the most lethargy-ending event possible that will do the shaking up. Maybe the next prophetic indicator that will end this strange prophetic silence will be the Rapture itself.

“Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matt. 24: 42-44).

Some who observe these prophetic times often make the observation that there seems to be a strange lack of prophetic activity; nothing in the news rivets the observer in the dramatic way, say, that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities might grab one’s attention.

This perception of a lull in prophetic progression, as it is called, might seem at first nonsensical, considering the tremendous procession of probable end-times issues and events that we address each week. Geopolitically, there are many signals of biblically prophetic significance. The European Union (EU) continues to consolidate power while remaining at the same time loosely confederated. Certainly, we legitimately can and do make the case for this strange entity being the likely candidate for producing revived Rome–the ten toes of iron and miry clay given in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream-vision of the final world empire (Daniel 2).

Russia is a brooding giant to Israel’s north, and at every opportunity, Iran threatens the Jewish state with oblivion. These nations combine with Turkey and others to constitute a coalescing agglomerate that has the characteristics of the foretold Gog-Magog military machine of Ezekiel 38 and 39.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin openly displays ambition that easily qualifies him as one who might aspire to be the Gog of the Ezekiel prophecies. Iran’s leaders spouts the kind of hatred for God’s chosen people that the prince of Persia no doubt will use to inspire Iran’s (Persia’s) fanatical tyrants to join with Gog in raging against Israel in that satanic attack (Daniel 10:20).

Recently, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has brought his nation into the Iranian and Arab world’s mantra for Israel to, in effect, be neutralized–be eradicated as an entity in the Middle East. Thus, Ezekiel’s prophecy about the Gog-Magog forces continues to congeal, with the ancient area of Togarmah now firmly within the foretold mix of peoples that will storm over the mountains of Israel to meet their God-ordained doom.

So, again, it seems nonsensical to say that there is a lack of prophetic progression, based upon such spectacular developments. Yet some clearly see the strange disconnect, and, I must say, I agree with this assessment. And, still the signals of this being the very end of the age continue to accrue.

Socioeconomically, the end-times signals are prolific, with the whole world in distress. The U.S. and world-wide monetary crises are nothing short of earth-shaking. With the global financial structure intricately linked to the U.S. dollar and its economy, America’s possible banking meltdown and all attendant to such a potential disaster, had the international financial gurus who are in the know poised in the near-panic position. The panic is unabated, despite America throwing trillions of dollars that don’t really exist into the fiscal fiasco.

Rioting in Greece, Spain, Italy, and other so-called “civilized” countries displayed in blatant fashion the economic turmoil. Rage over government-provided social services being withdrawn and jobs cut from government, along with unions losing their funding, caused–and continue to cause–withdrawal spasms like those suffered by addicts needing their heroin fixes.

The nations are in distress with perplexity, just as Jesus prophesied as recorded in Luke 21:25. There is a call for a rearrangement of the economic order. It is just such an order that will serve Antichrist’s dastardly regime as he sets about to enslave the world. His 666 numbers-and-mark system as found in Revelation 13:16-18 can be seen in the making in these very days in which we live.

The electronic means to produce such a system exists, too. The computer-satellite capabilities and linkages–with Internet connecting practically every place on earth–doubtless will be all brought together in some spectacular way to produce the Beast’s system of economic gulag.

Ironically, about the only area of the world that seems to be progressing economically is part of Asia–particularly one specific nation that almost certainly has a prophetic destiny. While the economic and technological apex nation of the world–the United States of America—is suffering, causing the other industrial nations and socialist countries to suffer, that great prophetic Oriental region of the world benefits mightily from the distress and perplexity. China holds much of the debt owed by the most economically powerful nation ever to exist!

China will almost certainly be the “king” of the “kings” of the east mentioned in Revelation chapters 9 and 16. It is even now apparently acquiring the level of wealth that will assure the accumulation of military strength with which to (along with demonic assistance of major magnitude) kill one-third of the world’s population (Revelation 9:15-16, 16:12).

It seems beyond irony that it is the U.S. that is funding most of the Sino-monster. It is the American technological/wealth base that has been primarily instrumental also in providing the financial wherewithal for paving Antichrist’s future kingdom. It is perhaps within these fiscal facts that can be found America’s own ultimate judgment for straying so far from the godly founding principles upon which it was based. Yet there is this strange silence of prophetic progression that is quite disconcerting. Let us further examine the matter next time.

The great industrial nations of the West and new, burgeoning industrial nations of the Middle East and Far East have and are creating power bases for governments that seek to put off the bands of the heavenly authority. This same material–the thing the KJV terms “slime”–is the geophysical building block that has been used to build these massive political entities. It is almost certainly this basic element that we call petroleum today that God will use to bring all of these anti-God politicians and their kingdoms to man’s final battle: “And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon” (Rev. 16:16).

God Intervenes

God scattered the people, who were of one mind and one language. Technologies such as ever-advancing computers, linked with satellites to bridge continents and oceans, are swiftly circumventing the Lord’s earliest scattering, as recorded in those passages just mentioned. There is an effort to go back to Babel–to again build one world. Antichrist’s kingdom, as forecast in Daniel, chapters 2, 7, 9, 11, and in Revelation, chapter 13, will be as close as man will be able to come to rebuilding such a geopolitical structure as Nimrod attempted to construct.

Return to Babel

We see that drive to return to the spirit of Babel-building during the present hour. Most every governing asset wielded by those at the heads of the nation-states of the world are aimed at globalization.

Technological wonders, again involving the computer-satellite linkages around the globe, makes this effort at one world a possibility in one aspect in particular: economics. It is the trading in one specific commodity that binds all together…you guessed it: petroleum.

Oil has brought the Middle East into the world as a major center for global economic interaction. The riches beneath the sands of that vast region has made Dubai the wealth center of the world. The money powers-that-be gravitate to that newly born metropolis as to no other place on earth, despite the present down-turn in oil prices, including New York, London, and Paris. It shouldn’t go without due notice that the tallest towers in the world are constructed there. Some are talking in terms of a building one mile high. Shades of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel!

Islamic Plague

No matter which direction one looks in consideration of where the love of money is driving mankind, the spokes from every financial center on earth lead back to the Middle East hub. The oil sheikhs are rapidly becoming the holders of American assets, as well as holders of the wealth of many other western nations. Politicians and their politics, therefore, must more and more pay homage to Middle Eastern realities. Great Britain, for example, is moving toward becoming steeped in Mid-East Islamic cultural and religious demands. Church buildings and massive cathedrals that were once the homes to Christian worship now are turned into mosques.

Increasingly, Europe moves toward Islamic domination while the politicians and politics of the continent and England seek to appear friendly to the oil-rich monarchs of Saudi Arabia and other Arabian potentates. Even the United States’ local, state, and national politicians in some cases seem to want to placate Islam, for example–in the name of cultural assimilation– by allowing Islamic studies within some public schools, where Bible reading and prayer in the name of Christ are held as illegal.

End-Times Politics Dominate

End-times politics pervade every aspect of life in the United States today. We are all aware of the commercialism that drives the American psyche. Media, whether news or entertainment, hold up the wealthy and the glitzy before the bedazzled eyes of the celebrity-worshiping segments of our citizenry.

Many of the youthful celebs of the hour are the focus of the young, while sports heroes and entertainment celebrities hold the attention of many of the older viewers. We are a nation that is entertainment mad. This is, itself, a form of strange politics because we vote with our remotes on the celebrities we worship, giving the networks the ratings that make them commercially viable. The more votes, the higher they can charge for advertisements aired during commercial breaks.

Politics of the Church

However, as worrisome as politics of the hedonistic entertainment industry is, it is the politics of the churches within Christianity in America today that is most troubling…and, at the same time, most indicative of where this generation likely stands on the end-times timeline.

Deadly Politics

Politics of a dangerous sort now runs rampant throughout Christianity. The danger comes from  the fact that the politics involve poking God himself in the “apple” of his eye: “For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye” (Zech. 2:8).

The Almighty speaks somberly about any dealings with the “Daughter of Zion”–Jerusalem in particular, and Israel in general. The Lord God will not tolerate those who would try to force His chosen into molds that don’t conform to His plan for Israel. And, Israel is the whole house of Israel, the progeny of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Pressuring Israel

We witness the daily reports of American and European efforts to pressure the leaders of modern Israel into giving up land in order to convince its Islamic neighbors to live peaceably. And, presently, we see concerted pressure to get the Israeli leaders to allow the dividing of Jerusalem, thus permitting the eastern part of that city to become the capital of the new Palestinian state they plan to create.

America is in a most precarious position, because of the Obama administration’s part in all of this. And those of the Republican Party are, in some cases, culpable, too. It would behoove America’s leaders to read carefully God’s Word on matters involving the people He calls His chosen.

Those through history who have failed to take into account the Lord’s will concerning Israel–the Jews—lie scattered in the desolation of the dark past. As serious as is the matter of human governmental politics being played against Israel, there is a more egregious such political sword jabbing and slicing at the apple of God’s eye. The political doctrine is also theological in its constituency. “Replacement theology” is the term. Much of  “Christianity” today holds to the luciferic doctrine that the Church, Christians, have now replaced Israel –the physical progeny of Israel’s patriarchs. The politics of the false belief system comes into play when human governing bodies infer from church leaders’ holding to replacement theology that there is nothing biblically prophetic about this tiny, though powerfully “disruptive to world peace” nation. Modern Israel has nothing to do with ancient Israel, thus Bible prophecy isn’t to be considered in dealing with the dangerous problems swirling around Jerusalem.

The political entities dealing with the problems of the Middle East thus cannot see, or won’t acknowledge where forcing man-made peace on Israel and dividing Jerusalem is leading.

Here is God’s Word on where it is leading: “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land” (Joel 3:2).

Human Government Forewarned!

No matter the outcome of the presidential elections, let the American president and the leaders of other nation-states who deal with Israel take heed. God, because of the touching of the apple of His eye, Jerusalem and Israel, will banish the perpetrators to shame and desolation. End-times politics was predicted to bring–and is in the process of bringing–all offenders to Armageddon.

Every election season in America brings the same troubling thought: “This is the most critical election this nation has faced.” The declaration can be validated as true in the case of each, because the world moves ever deeper into the end of days, and humanity’s future becomes more precarious with each decision made within the political process.

Powerful dynamics impact our present time, and are forcefully shaping our future in ways that can’t be fully anticipated. End-times politics are upon this generation, as is understood by those with spiritual eyes and ears to see and hear. But, to senses caught up in the ephemeral forces that gush society and culture along at breakneck speed, such matters of eternal consequence are beyond comprehension.

Internal politics of each nation of the world move this generation of earth-dwellers inexorably toward the final seven years of human history that will culminate with the return of Jesus Christ. Yet the politicians and the self-iconizing politics the majority of them practice generates hubris that prevents them from thinking in terms other than those that flow from humanistic pridefulness.

Love of Money the Common Thread

Proof of the man-centered governance that runs throughout the nation-states is evident in the accumulation of personal wealth almost every head of state, whether dictator or legitimately elected leader, garners to himself. Whether considering the Saddam Husseins of the world who build billion-dollar bank accounts for themselves simply by raiding their national treasuries at will, or congressmen in the United States who vote themselves pay increases and special perks in late-hour sessions away from the glare of public scrutiny, the avarice is there, pulsing with greed that validates the Word of God: “For the love of money is the root of all evil…” (1 Tim. 6:10a).

This will be viewed by some as cynicism of the first order. But, the cynicism is based upon well-known common practices by the politicians of all stripes, although the robbery is for the most part accepted without opposition by the victim-citizenries throughout Planet Earth. Government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” has never truly been the case. The concept is impossible to achieve because of the very nature of both those who govern and those who are governed.

Governing the Heathen

Perfect governance was established by the Creator of all things upon a pristine planet. Man has struggled to remove God’s tether of restraint since the first man chose to do what was right in his own eyes. The planet itself suffers as a result. Prophecy  from God’s Word foretells the final actions by the rebellious politicians and their politics, and spells out the tragic result:

“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure” (Psa. 2:10-5).

First Political Superstar

The earliest attempts by human governors and government to conduct human affairs apart from God’s authority was recorded by the inspired writer of Genesis. Nimrod was the first superstar of politics upon Planet Earth following the great flood of Noah’s day:

“And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar” (Gen. 10:8-10).

Key Ingredient to Empire Building

Genesis 11:1-9 tells the story of this first king who established a powerful kingdom following the flood. It is more than merely interesting that the same basic material that gave Nimrod and his government the ability to build the tower, which was the primary manifestation of his kingdom and its attempts to usurp God’s authority, is the same material that is so important today to the building of power bases of governments within nation-states.

“And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:3-4).

“Slime” is the word in the King James Version of the Bible to consider here. Oily pitch bubbled up from the ground in the region even then, and this material was used in firing the bricks for the construction of that infamous tower of Babel. God scattered the people who wanted to, in effect, cast off the bands of the Almighty and build a tower of great height that would, symbolically, at least, reach into heaven so those rebels could shake their fists in the face of the Creator. The Lord confused their language, breaking apart even the continents, apparently, during the time of Peleg (read subsequent passages in Genesis).

Ancient/Modern Ties to Mid-East Petroleum

One can’t help but make the analogy to, and draw the parallels of, those times to this end-times era. We will look at some of those parallels with the next commentary.

Christ’s words indicate something of humankind-ending power. This statement follows His warning of wars and rumors of wars for the very end of the human history timeline that immediately precedes His second advent. All flesh will die if Jesus doesn’t return upon His divinely scheduled appointment time!

The question naturally emerges: Do we see any such power upon the world scene today? I, perhaps, don’t even need to go into answering that–at least not very deeply. That power to destroy all flesh has been on the scene as a major sign of where we are on God’s prophetic timeline since 1945. The first atomic bomb test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, flashed that sign across the night desert sky in a stupefying instant. Soon “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” incinerated and blew apart almost 200,000 Japanese citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The hydrogen bomb tests, coupled with intercontinental ballistic missile developments, made the whole world aware that the planet’s inhabitants could well be living on borrowed time. These weapons, yielding unfathomable power to destroy, continue to scream from the billboard of forewarning while this generation nears the denouement of the age. Weapons of such horrific magnitude must certainly be the subject of and reason for Jesus’ “wars and rumors of wars” sign being issued for the terminal generation. And this prophetic sign must, it follows because of that world-destroying weaponry being ubiquitous today, refer to our present generation of earth dwellers.

Third World powers and terrorist organizations lust after weapons of mass destruction. Potential for developing atomic weaponry is on the agenda of governments. North Korea, Iran and other nation-states race forward with nuclear programs, defying the international community as the G-8 and others try to prevent World War III.

Sign 3: Nations and Kingdoms in Distress 

The most obvious category given by Jesus  that we are in the time of the signs is that involving the geopolitical disposition of nations. No observer of the world scene today who believes that God has told the end from the beginning can look at the way countries are prophetically juxtaposed and not see the end times are upon this generation. Let’s look more closely at this third end-times prophecy Jesus put forth while on top of the Mount of Olives, overlooking the Jerusalem of His time while still in His flesh body: “Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” (Lk. 21:10).

The Lord forewarned tremendous ethnic upheaval at the time just before His second advent. We’ve looked many times at the Greek term used here, translated into the KJV as “nation.” The Greek term is ethnos, meaning “ethnic” in English. Jesus said that the end times would be marked by ethnic hatred and strife. “Kingdom” against “kingdom” can be interpreted nation-state entities or countries will be at war or about to go to war. These wars and rumors of war will present unprecedented levels of danger to the peoples that inhabit the “kingdoms,” is the implication. We have looked at why this is so. The nuclear and other threats from weaponry of mass destructive capability brings our time to this level of concern.

Jesus, when considering the Luke account of His Olivet Discourse, goes on to express this fact in expanding upon the time of the signs: “And there shall be…upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity…” (Lk. 21:25b).

Threat of calamitous destruction, should there be all-out nuclear war, is obvious. Worry about such potential catastrophe certainly fits Jesus’ prediction of end times perplexity and distress among the nations. The causes of this Armageddon-like potentiality, however, seems to be now coming into focus.

During the Cold War, there seemed little rhyme or reason why kingdom should rise against kingdom and want to destroy each other and the rest of the world with thermonuclear warfare. The unofficial doctrine termed “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD), in fact, kept the superpowers, with their potentially world-ending nuclear stockpiles, from doing the unthinkable–attacking each other just for the sake of empire building or stopping empire building. Again, there was no rhyme or reason–at least not enough–that convinced the leaderships of the superpowers to pull the nuclear trigger. Warfare on such a horrific scale was absolutely a no-win scenario for all concerned.

The Catalyst

Now, in this, our generation’s time of the signs, a reason to go to Armageddon-like war might just be in view. The catalyst that just might be a large part of galvanizing the nations of the world into a collective mindset that throws MAD out the window of sanity, thus bringing all into the valley of Jehoshaphat (Joel 3:2), isn’t so far fetched to contemplate.

The thirst, thus the lust, for petroleum looks more and more like a potential reason to cause all to gather at Megiddo on the plain of Jezreel. The nations in distress, with perplexity, exactly describes the industrialized nation-states of Planet Earth while they scramble to secure for themselves the black liquid gold that can fire their engines of wealth production.

While there is talk of alternative fuels, none of practical development and implementation looks to be in view for decades ahead. The oil-rich Middle East is the logical  place to look first in the attempt to secure energy producing fuels. Oil in the region surrounding God’s chosen nation, Israel, is the quickest, most accessible such arena of supply.

The Nations in this Time of the Signs

The alignment of the nations pertinent to Bible prophecy, as they are presently positioned and are dynamically rearranging, are eerily similar to the configuration Jesus and the Bible prophets forecast for the time just before Christ’s return to put a stop to Armageddon, and to prevent the end of all flesh on Planet Earth.

Rosh (Russia) sits due north of Jerusalem. The nation who will produce the evil leader called “Gog,” those of us who hold to pre-trib rapture eschatology believe, struggles internally and externally to become again a superpower to rival the United States. To do this, that prophetic nation will need energy to fire the engines of its industrial base.

Iran, the area where ancient Persia largely sat, is in the throes of international turmoil while it seems unalterably determined to produce nuclear weapons. At the same time, it is allying in many ways with Russia, in keeping with the Ezekiel 38 and 39 prophecy that foretells its joining forces with Gog to attack over the mountains toward Israel. All the while its leader declares his desire is to erase all Jews from the Middle East.

Nations of the area of the ancient Roman Empire have put aside centuries of disputes and warring to form a reviving Roman Empire. The EU looks more and more to fit the prophetic Daniel 9: 26-27 template in a way that can be denied only by those who refuse to acknowledge that Bible prophecy is to be interpreted as literal.

The great dragon nation, China, is perhaps the oil-thirstiest of all of the industrial giants. The prophetic scenario is not difficult to embrace that this behemoth, which by itself could field the astonishing, prophetically stipulated 200-million-troop force, will move toward the Middle East at some point yet future.

Despite recent attempts to slow the use of petroleum a degree, this emerging industrial titan, with its one-and-a-half-billion people, looks to be developing into becoming the king of the kings of the East of Revelation 9 and 16.

Modern Israel, the greatest sign in this time of signs, is positioned almost precisely where the prophet Zechariah foretold, as recorded in Zechariah 12:1-3. Most all of the distressed, perplexed nations of the world seem focused on God’s chosen people as the key to war and peace in the Middle East, thus the key to world peace. Again, modern Israel sits at the center of the region where the planet’s greatest pools of petroleum reside beneath what the world calls the Holy Land. It is a land destined for man’s most destructive war, then to become the heart of Christ’s glorious 1,000-year kingdom.

This generation of passengers on Planet Earth is passing through a corridor John the apostle and prophet called “the last time” (1 John 2:18). More to the point, we are somewhere near the very end of that corridor, and signs the size of billboards are on either side of the broad way that leads the world’s inhabitants toward Armageddon. The only way to miss those gargantuan signs, for the true child of God, is to deliberately ignore them, choosing instead to focus on things of this world that perspective hides in the distant blackness.

We are, as my good friend Chuck Missler says, in the time of the signs. They are signs so dramatic, so blatant, that the whinnying and violent snorting of the four horses of the apocalypse can almost be heard as they angrily paw the earth with rage, straining to burst to full gallop, determined to carry their death-dealing riders on their missions of globe-shattering devastation.

Jesus Christ, the Creator of all things and the One who holds all of creation together (Colossians 1:16-17), gave the signs that would be most prevalent at the time just before His return to earth. These primary signals are found in three of the  Gospels: Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. We will first look at the Matthew account of the signs He gave for the final generation of human history, just before His second advent.

Sign 1: Deceivers who Claim Christ

Jesus was directly asked  by His disciples: 1) When would the things Jesus prophesied be? 2) What would be the signs of His second coming? and 3) When would be the end of the world?

He gave  the following answer: “…Take heed that no man deceive you, For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matt. 24:4-5).

Jesus gave “deception” as the first major sign that will alert the spiritually attuned believer that His second coming is near. Jesus, as recorded a few verses later, amplified His words on “deception” that would be manifest at the very end of the age:

”And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many” (Matt. 24:11).

The Lord begins by saying that Many will come in His name. This means, I think, that these end-times deceivers will claim to come as true believers in Jesus Christ. They will use His holy name to convince the undiscerning that the individuals making the claim are of the Church, the body of Christ. These are those who will be among the individuals Jesus condemned, as recorded in the following Scripture: “But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all [ye] workers of iniquity” (Lk. 13:27).

However, this prophecy that Jesus gave as the first sign of the very end of the age goes, I’m convinced, much deeper. These deceivers will be declaring that they, themselves, will be Christ-like, not in the sense of being a true Christian who is a Spirit-filled follower of Jesus Christ, but in the sense that they have powers and abilities  like Jesus himself. They will claim to be the special conduit from God, used by the Almighty to read minds, receive special telepathic words from Him upon command, and even to raise the dead.

But, it will all be smoke and mirrors. There will not be a single validated case of any of these supposed miraculous activities direct from the portals of heaven to the mortals of Planet Earth. The question to ask, then, while considering the time of the signs and whether we are indeed at the very end of the age as predicted by Jesus is: Do we see today any sign, any indicator, that there are such “deceivers” among us?

There have always been deceivers and those specifically claiming to be Jesus Christ. Some have been certifiable lunatics, some have been proven charlatans, and have faded into the darkness of  the exposed and deposed. Today, it seems to me at least, they are announcing their Christ-like powers from the very billboards mentioned earlier–the ones lining either side of that broad way that leads to destruction during these troubling days.

We see many of them as glitzy, projected TV images calling the gullible to give their money to special  programs they proclaim God has told them about, which can make the members of their audiences healthy, wealthy, and wise beyond their wildest imaginations.

These promote the outward turning message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ only in a minimal way, their messages designed to turn thoughts inward to the feel-good message that God wants them to materially prosper. Viewers are deceived, because they can see, through glazed, mesmerized eyes, that the wealth message certainly works for the rich and famous purveyors of the prosperity gospel. Their desire to obligate the God of heaven to provide overflowing wealth and health, based upon the TV magicians’ special formulas for success, make the deluded open their wallets with glee.

Paul the apostle’s prophetic words ring true for our time: “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. 4:3-4).

Others, appearing more sophisticated and high-minded, claim to have Christ within their pontificating, but are turned far from truth found in God’s Word. These ecclesiastical elitists fit the mold of false prophets/teachers found in forewarnings of Paul and Peter:

• “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come…For men shall…[Have] a form of godliness, but [deny] the power thereof…” (2 Tim. 3:1, 5).

• “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” (2 Pet. 2:1).

These, though under the guise of Christian clergy, join the ecumenists who proclaim that there are many ways to God and heaven. By this heresy, they deny the Lord Jesus, who said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the father, but by me” (Jn. 14:6).

Sign 2: Wars and Rumors of Wars

The second sign of the very end of the age given by Jesus is in His declaration: “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: See that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet” (Matt. 24:6).

“What is so different about hearing of wars and rumors of war?” one might ask. Such has been part of the human condition since history first began to be recorded. The key to what makes this profoundly different is found in Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:21: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” The Lord himself said that the time of the end will be worse than any in history. This declaration, by its very nature, makes the “wars and rumors of wars” He predicts well beyond the norm. We see just how far beyond the norm they will be, as recorded in His next statement: “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matt. 21:22).

We will look more deeply into the time of the signs in part 2.

Bible prophecy students who hold to a literal interpretation of prophecy yet future–futurists, as we are sometimes termed—have long speculated how America might figure into the ultimate system of control of the beast regime. That Antichrist economic/worship system is foretold in the following:

“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six” (Revelation 13:15-18).

America–but not Al Gore, as he has claimed–was at the heart of developing the internet. The internet is a type of medium that more and more looks to be one a hybrid of which might deliver on the globalist elite’s ambition to intricately link everyone on the planet in a person-to-person system of governance. More than coincidentally, such an internet hybrid will almost certainly produce, through electronic bondage, the Antichrist dictatorship that will enslave everyone on the planet.

We should expect, based upon the many proliferating end-of-days signals now occurring in birth pang-like frequency and intensity, that there should also be found on the prophetic horizon such an enslavement system in the making. Sure enough, there is such a system developing, and, again, the United States of America is at the forefront, just as the nation is at the forefront of the gush toward globalism.

The once mighty U.S. dollar is being systematically rendered the equal of all other of the world’s currencies. This is being done through printing trillions of dollars that have nothing of substance backing them whatever, and by U.S. leadership intentionally melding America’s sovereignty with a swiftly changing global monetary order.

The great tax-and-spend powers that be have been turning up every stone known to the fiscal world to find a way to exact tax revenues from use of the internet. Believe me when I tell you that they will be able to do this at some point in the near future. The voracious tax grab must first, of course, be shown to have a dramatic reason to be done. A crisis must be at hand, you see, in order to justify such invasion into the individual liberty intrinsic within the internet. No doubt, the crisis must involve national security so that we the people will be afraid not to go along.

Try this on for size, my fellow citizens…

The President has likened threats to the internet to that of a nuclear attack. The White House should take direct control of US cybersecurity, the woman once tipped to be President Obama’s net security czar has said. Melissa Hathaway told a conference in San Francisco that the net had not been built with safety in mind. She has just completed a review of cybersecurity for the President. “This poses one of the most serious challenges of the 21st century. Cyberspace won’t be secured overnight on the basis of one good plan,” she said.

President Obama has made the issue of cybersecurity a top priority and ordered this 60-day review to determine how the government should dramatically restructure how it handles the internet and security… Recent breaches have targeted the US power grid and the Pentagon.

To date, the government has kept its own counsel on the shape of its new cybersecurity establishment. However it has been reported the administration has finalized plans for a new Pentagon cyber command to coordinate the security of military computer networks…” (“US ramps up cybersecurity focus,” Maggie Shiels, BBC News, RSA Conference San Francisco, 4/24/09).

Since that time, there has been a never-ending call for control over internet from this presidential administration and from western governments. The American administration’s determination to bring the internet–and all involved within the medium–under strict government control proves there are plans for new bureaucracy on the drawing board of ever bigger government. It is only a matter of time–a very brief time, I suggest—until such bureaucracy will be constructed globally. It is just such a construct from which I believe the 666 mark and numbering system of Revelation 13:15-18 will ultimately emerge.

The super internet will have at its core the use of Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) monetary units. Such will eliminate, the developers and implementers will claim, theft of money that the hard currencies have presented. The problems that are part of national currencies will also be eliminated, or at least made controllable, they will assure, such as problems involved with the rates of exchange of one national currency against another.

The ultimately evolved super internet system will have at its heart a computer marking and numbering system that will electronically link the individual with a central controlling entity whereby all people can be monitored and instantly dealt with as necessary. Bible prophecy foretells this whole diabolist ball of wax will revolve around worship of the beast–Antichrist. This will take place during the tribulation era, the time of God’s wrath against rebellious earth dwellers (Rev. 6: 17). However, Satan’s scheme to ultimately have all of humanity worship him will not touch saints of the Church Age (Age of Grace).

Jesus said that the gates of hell would not prevail against his Church (Matt. 16:16). The Apostle Paul said: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do” (1 Thess. 5: 9-11).