People have vanished all over the world in less time than it takes for light to enter the eye and strike the retina. The chaos is worldwide, but nowhere so profound as within the United States of America. Just a matter of time, however, will prove that the ramifications are geopolitically staggering –for one nation in particular, in addition to America.

The American government, at every level, soon analyzes that every child below–most likely—the teen-age years are gone. Every pregnant woman who was with child, and who remains, has suffered the loss of the baby in her womb. But some other things are discovered that are even more troubling to the officials, the politicos of the nation at every level.

Government is totally disrupted, and the powers-that-be quickly recognize that not even Martial Law is going to be able to reestablish the revenue basis for carrying on government as usual. A huge part of the tax base–a fatally proportionate one–is no longer here to provide the funds to carry on government as usual! Much of the workforce, particularly the most vital, skilled force that was the heart and soul of American industry and fidelity to the good work ethic, disappeared in that stupefying moment.

Carnage alone, caused by the many accidents and other disappearance-engendered problems, will require massive manpower and, in many cases, extraordinary skills to begin restoring order. These people are gone in great numbers.

Europe, on the other hand–while dumbfounded, even extremely worried, over the vanishings—seems to have suffered little infrastructure damage. Economy, well structured by the European Union Parliament, has only minimum glitches in keeping things running. Now, it is bidden by the upper echelon of the American government that is left to advise and assist in helping with things –especially with reestablishing America’s economic base on sound footing.

America’s particularly bad circumstances do not go without notice by others within the nation-states of the world. Russia and China take special notice. They assess how America’s military complex has been affected.

Islamics who want their religion to rule the world are delighted. The great Satan has gotten its deserved punishment from Allah. Although Islamic children, too, have disappeared, the adults who remain in great numbers are still available to make war–and love, in order to replenish the children. The terrorist Islamic organizations are delighted, and immediately see jihad against their enemies –most particularly against the Jews of the world –and Israel.

Israel’s governmental leaders come to two stunning realizations: 1) Their only ally, with the greatest thermonuclear deterrent in the world, is in chaos. The U.S. government officials who remain are doing all within their power just to make deals with the EU in order to –somehow—regain their own power. There is no time, or even facility, to see to Israel’s protection. And, 2) The greatest supporters of Israel and the Jews, in terms of people who supported Israel’s right to exist –their best friends on the planet—are no longer on the planet!

While America’s top leaders who are still around are coming to understand there must be a complete rearrangement of economy and monetary matters, Israel is getting reports of plans for attack by the Arabs, Persians, and other Islamics, who understand what has happened as an opportunity provided them by Allah–an opportunity to once and for all eradicate the hated Jew and the impostor state of Israel.

The Jewish leadership is intact, and the Jews –even those of the Labor Party and the most liberal—know the tiny nation stands alone. Even Mid-East oil exigencies are for the moment off the table for the powers of the west, the industrial nations that must reorganize, not send their troops on ventures into the sands of the Middle East.

What Israel determines to do, it must do quickly. Very quickly. The Israeli leadership realizes one thing beyond all others. They know their blood-vowed enemies will do everything within their power to wipe them –including the Labor Party and other liberal Jews—off Planet Earth. But, there is “the Samson Option,” even the liberal Jews agree. The tiny state that is now in the cross-hairs of practically every Arab state still has perhaps the 3rd or 4th most lethal nuclear weapons force in the world. The Islamic fanatics –the entire world—must be shown that their vow “Never again!” is as strongly in the collective determination of the Jew as in the years immediately following Hitler’s Holocaust.

Next week, God willing, we will unfold the scenario further, with the thought toward setting geopolitical things up for the rise of earth’s last and most terrible tyrant.

Believers are translated, changed in an atomos of time–in a fraction of an element of time that cannot be divided. They now look into the holy, omniscient eyes of their Lord that are fathomless in the depths of God’s love. He leads them through the portals of glory, to the city called heaven.

On earth, millions have vanished into nothingness before the stupefied eyes of billions of others. All earthly things that belonged to the departed ones remain behind, including clothing, jewelry, and prosthetics of every description.

I once heard a nationally known “reverend” –so-called– (I don’t like the word “reverend” in reference to anyone on this fallen planet, because there is only one reverend, and He has just whisked all who are His into heaven for their eternal rewards) say something like this: “A rapture –if it were to be something that really happens—would mean that there would be unbelievable carnage upon the earth. God won’t let that happen.”

Hello, Reverend, but, what about the judgments for the end of days given by the Old and New Testaments? What about the Book of Revelation? The seals, trumpets, and vials don’t exactly give us the warm, fuzzy feeling that the era of apocalypse will be a tiptoe through the tulips.

The “Kingdom Now” folks, with their replacement theology, however, see these things written in the areas of biblical judgments and God’s wrath as allegory or symbolism. They spiritualize these prophecies, or treat them as already fulfilled. They preach and teach that the Church (Christians) will make this earth a better and better place until Christ can safely return to occupy His earthly throne. Dear readers –they are simply not looking at the same headlines as yours truly. And the headlines I’m experiencing each and every day coincide precisely with what God’s holy, inerrant Word has to say about the end of days –again—as the secular media like to call the end time.

“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:13).

Jesus himself prophesied for the very end of the tribulation: “And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days” (Mar. 13:20).

This world is in for a very rough ride, and the “reverend” was and is wrong in pronouncing that God would not allow carnage, thus a rapture is not in the future of mankind. Nothing could be more ludicrous.

The “thief in the night” prophecy is aimed particularly at the people who will be left behind after the rapture. That great event will certainly take most willfully ignorant Christians by total surprise, but it will not be like a “thief in the night” experience to them. We can know this from Paul the apostle’s foretelling, when he writes to the Thessalonians –to all Christians of the Church Age (Age of Grace): “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness” (1 Thes. 5:2-5).

Note Paul’s use of the pronouns “they” and “them” versus “you,” “ye,” and “we.” He is differentiating between unbelievers and believers during this Church Age. The rapture, for all Christians who are alive at the time, will be an entirely different experience than the “thief in the night” experience of those left behind. We see this in John 14:1-3, and in Paul’s following comforting prophecy: “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ…” (Titus 2:13).

So, getting back to our earth-bound scenarios that we speculate will immediately follow the rapture, let us look at some dark probabilities.

The most immediate things that assault the senses, while people look around them, are the clothing and other things that fall to the ground, the pavement, the floors. The only evidence that those who suddenly vanished were ever on earth are the clothing and other personal items they no longer need. The prosthetic devices, too, of every sort, give the news pundits something to talk about on the programs that are dominated by one subject: the disappearance of millions.

But, in my speculative view, the most frightening, then, as the knowledge sets in, the most agonizing thing that will grip the world will be the fact that every single child who hasn’t reached the age of accountability for his or her soul will be gone from the planet in that millisecond of time. Every womb, of every left behind woman who was with child at the time of the disappearances will be instantaneously empty. God, in that astonishing moment, will make a monumental, and unmistakable statement about His opinion of when life begins in the conception process!

Can we even begin to imagine the excruciating emotional explosion that will take place all over the world?

With the intimately personal cataclysms still raging, other just as staggering considerations flood the fear-filled thoughts of men and women left behind. Again, in America, Martial Law is immediately invoked. But, before the much-denuded military and law enforcement personnel can regroup to enforce Martial Law, looters of every sort move freely throughout decimated society, pillaging, destroying, and raping whatever and whoever they find in their rampaging.

The consciences of man are no longer under the governance of the Holy Spirit, as in time just before the disappearances occurred. Homes, empty of their vanished occupants, are open game, and the looters don’t stop to give a second thought to the horrendous future mankind now faces. They think, as I heard Dr. Charles Stanley say, they have died and gone to their warped picture of heaven.

Well, we are again at the limits of our space allotment for this commentary. And, we’ve only begun to explore, through our Bible prophecy postulations, what the left behind world will be like, and the likely dynamics that will rearrange Planet Earth for Antichrist’s appearance.

We have seen that Jesus forewarned that the time of His coming again to Planet Earth will be “as it was in the days of Noah.” That is, the characteristics of the endtime generation will be like in the days presented in Genesis, chapter 6. When we look at that chapter, we conclude that it must have been a terrifying time. This must have been true especially for Noah and his seven family members while the time just before the Flood surrounded them. But, the whole generation of earth-dwellers must have lived under threat of violence. Violence filled the whole earth, God’s Word reports (Gen. 6: 11, 13). Even though business was moving along at a good, even accelerated pace, violence–terroristic activity–filled the earth.

Does this sound familiar? What did President Bush call the war declared upon an almost unidentifiable enemy following the 9/11 attacks? That’s correct,he called it “the war on terrorism.” And now the whole international community continues to be uptight about the possibility of ramifications of the terror–the violence—that threatens to ignite war in the Middle East.

Every time such sparks begin to fly, members of the media begin to contact writers and teachers of Bible prophecy, as well as others who have studied and expounded upon Armageddon and the “end of days,” as media like to frame the endtime. Violence of the deadliest sort fills the world with terror, and the cry for peace and safety from media and government diplomatic types proves it.

Jesus also said in His Luke 17 prophecies that things of society and economy would be pretty much business as usual at the time of His return at the end of days. People will be eating and drinking. Men and women will be marrying, divorcing, just like nothing fearful was going on in their world. Daniel the prophet said in Daniel chapter 12 that great progress would be made in technology, travel, and communications at the time of the end.

Again, does any of this sound familiar? As we can see from the position of the American economy relative to the rest of the world, things continue to go along pretty much as always, despite the fact that we are now a debtor nation at an unprecedented level. The United States is inarguably the most materially blessed nation-state in the history of the world. The greatest king of Bible times lived at nowhere near the level of luxury and comfort as do even lower middle-class Americans today.

So, in that sense, business is going along, in this country at least, better than merely business as usual. It is just at such time as described that Jesus will step out on the clouds of glory and shout “Come up hither!”

Bible prophecy tells us that the day of the Lord will come (will begin) as a thief in the night. A thief suddenly breaks in. He doesn’t say “Hey! I’m coming to break in!” That is how we can know that the thief-in-the-night-coming analogy is for another coming, not for the second advent –the time when Jesus’ foot will touch down on the Mount of Olives, which will then cleave in half and create a rift all the way to the Mediterranean. Nearly two-thirds of the world’s population will have perished in God’s full-blown wrath by the time of that Revelation 19:11 coming back to Planet Earth. Everyone on the planet still alive will see Christ’s coming to the earth’s surface.

The coming as a thief reference is to the rapture. It will be sudden, it will be stunning, it will be catastrophic.

Let us look at the potential calamitous things that will likely immediately follow the twinkling-of-an-eye intervention into this humanistic, last-days world of earth-dwellers.

In the United States, a young mother, pregnant with her second, and with a small daughter riding in the basket, will be walking down an aisle in a supermarket. A truck driver will be steering a semi-tractor/trailer rig onto a superhighway in order to merge with the heavy traffic flow. A 757 captain will push the throttles to full power, headed down a runway at JFK in New York. A surgeon at a major hospital in Minnesota will begin to make the initial scalpel cut that will open a heart patient’s chest for a bypass procedure. A funeral director will straighten a collar of the starched white shirt worn by a corpse, w hose funeral is next on the services schedule.

In less than the time it takes for a neuroelectrical synapse firing in the brain to take place, the young mother’s womb is empty. She sees her little girl vanish as she, herself, starts her fall to the floor from the shock of the physiological changes that are taking place in her body. The 18-wheeler is careening into the traffic, driverless, out of control, crushing and demolishing vehicles and their passengers, while raging ahead in its ungoverned course.

The 757 on the JFK runway is at full take-off speed, but the pilot and co-pilot are not at the controls, while the right wingtip dips toward the runway and catastrophe. The surgeon in Minnesota finds the scalpel cutting air, rather than flesh, because the patient is gone. The funeral director staggers backwards, astonished, because the burial apparel he has been making just right for presentation has collapsed, and the corpse is no longer in the casket.

We will have to leave, until next time, those scenario snippets as still-frame snapshots of the paradigm-changing dynamics of the rapture. Those will geometrically burgeon from the instant this stunning event takes place. It will be the most powerful occurrence of human history since Christ’s first advent intervened into the affairs of mankind.

The rebelliousness of the creature called man was, in my view, manifest blatantly for the student of God’s truth to discern in a particular news story of several years ago. The media and politically correct crowd’s uproar over the U.S. chairman of the joint chiefs of staff making the comment –when asked his personal opinion– that he thought members of the same sex in the military who engage in sex with each other are committing immoral acts was quite telling. The voracious feeding frenzy to start the drumbeat for having that general removed from his position in the Pentagon fueled vitriolic invective against those who hold to such “unenlightened” prejudices that eventuated in a full acceptance, even embracing of homosexuality in the U.S. military today.

God, incidentally, is obviously included in our ranks of the”unenlightened”. His Word, the Bible –the instruction manual for the creature, mankind, whom he made from the dirt upon which we stand—says about homosexuality:

“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was [fitting]” (Rom. 1:26-27).

The Creator’s Word against homosexuality is even more powerful in an Old Testament prescription for those who engage in that activity. (If it makes you angry, get mad at God, not me. I don’t make the rules. He does.)

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [shall be] upon them” (Lev. 20:13).

I know what will be one of the objections: This was for the Israelites, not today’s people. Really? Well, in giving the prescription for living, God hasn’t changed for any people at any time. Jesus, we have established, is Creator of all things, and by His power holds all things together. This, God’s Word says about the Lord of all creation: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Heb. 13:8).

The problem is, as we’ve seen with this one issue, fallen mankind will not have the God of heaven rule on Planet Earth. Since the fall, man has determined to do what is right in his own eyes. This is an attitude for catastrophe. Human government is fatally flawed. These have tried to create a utopian earth for millennia. All efforts to do it their way –apart from God—have met with abject failure.

The earliest attempt of human government, which followed the flood of Noah’s antediluvian era, was Nimrod’s attempt to build the tower to heaven (read Genesis chapter 11). The Lord knew this would end in disaster for mankind, so He came down and separated the one-world builders by giving multiple languages, thus driving them to diverse places around the globe. But man has spent the millennia since that time circumventing God’s intervention. The one-world drive is again being pursued in a concerted effort by the powers elite. When things reach a certain point of depravity, God always has intervened. A prime example was when He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. (Read Genesis, chapter 19 to learn about both the depravity and the Lord’s intervention.) Which gets us to the thing about end-of-days scenarios I would like to explore.

Jesus himself set the prophetic stage for a future time when He will again intervene–catastrophically—into depraved man’s playhouse of lasciviousness. He said: “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all” (Lk. 17:28-29).

This is a description of a society, a culture, a generation going forward with business as usual. Jesus prophesied that it would be just like this, when judgment from heaven would fall, at the time of His end-of-days intervention. It is not, however, description of the tribulation era when Jesus comes physically to earth, as foretold in Revelation 19:11. At that time, as many as two-thirds of the earth’s population will have died in the apocalyptic judgments. It will not be business as usual, like the Lord describes here. The things that transpire here, though not as disastrous as things will get later in man’s last grasp to rule himself, will still be calamitous. And, the possible scenarios presented are mesmerizing. Let us look at my postulations, based upon the pre-trib view of the rapture, which, of course, I m convinced is the correct view, from God’s perspective.

Jesus’ description of Lot’s being removed from that condemned city is almost certainly a picture of the rapture of the only good God sees on this earth…born again Christians… the church Jesus began building, and which was born at Pentecost (in Acts, Chapter 2). Lot, Abraham’s nephew, although not a perfect example of living a godly life, was nonetheless considered a “just” man in God’s eyes. That is, the Lord saw Lot as righteous, a believer –one who accepted God’s governance over his life, accepted God’s salvation plan. Lot and his family lived in a society that was–well—much like ours. It was wicked to its black core. Incidentally, homosexuality had, in that society, become accepted as, even expected to be, part of life in Sodom.

God removed Lot, and His wrath began to fall upon that wicked, ungovernable people. Jesus indicated that this is exactly what will happen near the time

of His coming again. It will happen at the rapture –at least seven years before He comes back and touches down on the Mount of Olives. The first part of God’s wrath, I’m convinced, will be His removal from the consciences of earth-dwellers. The people left behind will have rejected God’s governance. Now, raptured saints will perhaps, from the balcony of heaven, be given a God’s-eye view of whether the rebels’ claim that they don’t need God to govern them is true.

Millions will vanish in a millisecond –an “atomos” of time– the prophecy tells us. This nation, the United States of America, which had at the same time more gospel light than any other nation of history and access to more filth and depravity than even ancient Rome at its decadent, orgiastic worse, will experience an implosion that, upon its contemplation, staggers the imagination.

We will look at my scenarios, in this regard, next week.

Again, I state that the end-of-days scenarios I lay out in this essay are speculation–postulation based upon my years of prayer, study, observations, and thought. I’m sure there are many who view things to come in a much different way, even among we who hold to the pre-mil, pre-trib view. So, I present this for your consideration, as, in my view, likely possibility, not as set in biblical stone. 

First, let us look at the way the world is configured.

The United States of America is –for the moment, at least– the world’s lone superpower. Whether looking at military, economic, societal, technological, or whatever category we want to look at, America stands alone at the top of the nation-heap. I use the word “heap” because this world is built upon garbage–filth from the heart and mind of its father, the devil. Boy! I know how cynical that seems. But, God says there is none good but One: “And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? [there is] none good but one, [that is], God” (Mk. 10:18).

Since sin entered the world, man is fallen. Mankind must have redemption found only in God, the Son. People must be born again or they cannot even see the kingdom of God: “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:3).

Jesus’ words, here, have dual meaning to me: 1) those who refuse Christ by rejecting their need for a new, spiritual, birth will not go to heaven upon death; and 2) they cannot even understand heaven and things of God without the new birth into God’s family. I base this latter assessment upon the following words of the Apostle Paul: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).

This is going to sound even more off-putting, but it is true nonetheless. Christians are the only “good” in this downward-spiraling world. Now, am I saying that I, in my fleshly efforts, am better than the one who does not claim Christ as Savior and Lord? No, absolutely not! I must say that in one regard, I am like Paul. But it is not his lovely Christian side, rather is the other. Paul said: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but [how] to perform that which is good I find not” (Rom. 7:18).

Only through Christ is any Christian viewed as “good” in God’s sight. Only through Jesus does a person become fit to inherit an eternal home in heaven. All humanly born and humanly-devised matters are due for God’s judgment and for eternity apart from God because He cannot abide sin. Sin must be dealt with, and Jesus is the way sin is forever eradicated.

When it comes to the future, all hinges upon the person and presence of Jesus Christ as redeemer.

So, why all that, to get to the speculation of what will happen from here to eternity? Because Christians are the key, in my stream-of-consciousness unfolding scenarios for the end of days. God’s final wrath and judgment will not begin falling until the only good there is in this world is removed. This Bible prophecy truth is found in the words of the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thes. 5:9).

When Christians are removed in the rapture (read 1 Cor. 15:51-55 and 1 Thes. 4:13-18), the things on Earth will change dramatically. We get a prophetic glimpse of that removal of Christians from the planet in Paul’s additional words to the Thessalonians: “And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way” (2 Thes. 2:6-7).

The word “he” in verse 7 refers to God the Holy Spirit removing from His office as He interacted with mankind during the age of grace (church age –which is this present dispensation). The Holy Spirit, resident in the church during this present dispensation, will, in the moment of rapture, no longer work in exactly the same way as now. He will interact with the human creation much as He did during the time before the church was born at Pentecost (Acts, Chapter 2). (I know some believe the church was born on the shores of Galilee earlier, when Christ called forth the first disciples. I disagree.)

God the Holy Spirit, living within Christians, is the only “good” to be found in people. The rapture will take that “good” to be with Jesus Christ for eternity. All who are “born again” (see John 3:3) will go to the heavenly homes (dwelling places) Jesus has been preparing for them since He ascended to the right hand of God the Father (read John 14:1-3). These will include everyone–dead and living–who have accepted Christ for salvation of their souls. There will be no good people left on the planet –that is, none that are “good” in God’s holy view.

With the Holy Spirit no longer acting to influence the consciences of humans in as powerful ways as He does at present, mankind’s actions and reactions will be exponentially accelerated for the worse. We will begin to explore likely scenarios for the period immediately following the rapture in next week’s commentary.

Time has arrived, I believe, to put together a postulation introspective on biblically prophesied things to come, in scenario fashion–i.e., to offer, in a stream-of-consciousness way, based upon trends in today’s news, a possible course the world might take while we trudge through the end of days toward Armageddon and Christ’s second advent. 

As always, when entertaining such thoughts in a public forum, I must state up front that these are nothing more or less than speculations on my part. However, the speculations are undertaken with considerable years of study, writing, and most of all, praying about matters foretold by Jesus and the Old and New Testament prophets. Although I have not received a “word of knowledge” or been given a vision or dream in the Old or New Testament sense, I do believe my thoughts are given here with Holy Spirit-directed thought and insight.

So, where do we begin? Well, maybe at the beginning, the moment when linear time seems to have been introduced for this marvelous story of God and man to begin its run through history. I say it is good to begin at that point, because we have–it is obvious to any student of Bible prophecy who is alert to present day goings-on—come to the point that the very one who created time for mankind is now under satanic attack as a liar and/or a lunatic. Jesus, you see, is the creator of this thing called time, of the being called man, of all that is. The Scriptures say:

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Clear enough, right? God, not evolution, or any other method born of man’s sophistry, brought this world into existence.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (Jn. 1:1-4).

About Jesus, the Apostle Paul wrote: “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Col. 1:16-17).

Jesus himself said: “…I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (Jn. 14:6).

The Bible says that Jesus Christ is God, himself. He said that He and His Father are one. That is, they are the same. When the pious Jewish religious leaders asked Him if He was God, Jesus said: “…Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn. 8:58). This refers to His being the God of His people of His promises –the Israelites, as seen in Exodus 3:6.

The world of entertainment, e.g., “The DaVinci Code” fiction of a few years ago, has been saying Jesus was a mere man who faked His crucifixion, living on to father a child with Mary Magdalene. Entertainment, under pseudo-archaeological auspices, have told us that they have found the ossuaries and even the DNA of Jesus’ relatives, and possibly of Jesus himself in a tomb near Jerusalem. Jesus addressed this matter in part when He said during His Olivet Discourse: “Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24:25-27).

Matthew 24:25-27 is, I realize, Jesus’forewarning of false christs and false prophets that will deceive all but God’s elect during the tribulation era. Just like in all other endtime signals of significance that are in view today, however, the lying–saying Jesus is not the soon returning God of Heaven–is already underway for setting up prophetic fulfillment to come.

The prominently observable fact that the deity of Jesus is under attack is, in other words, a profound signal that we are bumping up against the very end of this Age of Grace. The attack is scheduled, prophetically, to become even more hateful as we degenerate toward the end of days. Having laid the groundwork for showing that Jesus Christ’s deity and God’s veracity are under attack from our great enemy, the devil, and his supernatural and human minions, we will next examine the many developments and what they portend for the future, so far as concerns Bible prophecy. Next week, we will begin looking at end-of-days matters that are in our daily, even hourly, news–overlaid by God’s always 100%-accurate Word, the Bible.

There is a scent of endtime things in the air. The media seems to sense this odor that presages apocalypse, while the churches that name the name of Jesus Christ, for the most part, are apparently oblivious to the last days in which this generation, I’m convinced, finds itself. Or, as DR. Mark Hitchcock puts it, there seems to have been a shift of prophetic gears.

Until very recently, I got media inquiries and requests for interviews on a regular basis.  There has been a lull for some reason, as of late. But, I suspect the flood-gates will soon be opened prophetically, and the interview requests will come again in profusion. And, that is with good reason. Journalistic types –whether one agrees with them so far as world-view is concerned—must be given credit for having talented “news noses” for things that have happened, are happening, or seem about to happen. Again, there is something in the air. The newshounds know it. It’s something that portends paradigm change in this troubled world.

As pointed out in last week’s column (Part 1 of “The Beginning of the Last of the Last Days”), that shift seemed to have begun surging through the breach in the dam separating good and evil. Instead of the steady, but controllable flow from the dark waters of Daniel’s prophesied endtime flood of issues and events, there now gushes a torrent into civilization. I, like Dr. Mark Hitchcock, as mentioned in last week’s commentary, believe that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 represent the explosion that produced the breach in that dam.

We pick up where we left off, loosely using Dr. Hitchcock’s seven indicators of this shift, to frame the last days picture of Daniel’s flood (Daniel 9:26).

3. The modern nation Israel has been under the microscope since its rebirth in 1948. Its existence in the heart of the Holy Land has continued to grow as a bone of contention. That people have been the target for major war-making in several horrific attacks, in addition to the attacks upon its birth on May 14-15, 1948. There was the Nasser-led attack in 1956, the 1967 “Six Day War,” and the 1973 Yom Kippur War led by Anwar Sadat and his Egyptian forces.

Israel continues to be assaulted in vicious attacks, with rockets loaded with explosives being launched against it at every opportunity. The relentless campaign by the terrorist organizations of the Middle East are testimony that Israel is at the center of the flood that is sweeping the world toward Armageddon.

Dr. Hitchcock has stated it correctly: “Israel and Jerusalem will become more and more of a burdensome stone to the nations in the days ahead as the world faces increased threats of terror (Zech 12:1-2).” (Prophecy Update – News & Information for the End Times – 9/13/06).

4. The United States of America was caught in the explosion that was September 11, 2001. As a matter of fact, this nation was and continues to be at the center of the bull’s-eye in the terrorists’ determination to bring satanic chaos into all the world, until all people on the planet agree to worship the terrorists’ god. America supports Israel’s right to exist; indeed, has and does defend that tiny nation. It is little wonder that Satan directs the minds of the genocidal maniacs into their religious rage to convert or die. Most troubling is the inexplicable tolerance which the world in general extends to these bloodthirsty avengers of fanatic Islam, while at the same time seeming to have disdain and hatred for true Christianity, whose God wants only peace –real peace—for mankind.

5. A most disturbing ramification of the attack on 9/11/01 has been the changing mindset of both government and citizenry about protection against dangerous, liberty-suppressing movement toward Big Brother technology implementation. Fear of future terrorist attacks, even worse than occurred on September 11, 2001, has seriously eroded American’s vigilance against those tendencies that might produce freedom-damaging measures that will eventuate in enslavement.

Again, using Dr. Hitchcock’s words: “Since 9/11, there’s been a dramatic increase in surveillance, searches, and security. Almost immediately after 9/11, all kinds of talk erupted about national ID cards, biometric scanners, etc. This situation is ripe for a person to come on the scene and adapt this developing technology to exercise iron-fisted control over the world” (Prophecy Update, 9/13/06).

6. Globalism is another side effect of the breach that was created when the planes struck in New York City, Washington, D.C., and in that Pennsylvania field. International anxieties and fears have begun bringing the world together in a rush of cooperative initiatives. We saw these in action when the threats against the London subways occurred. Instant global restrictions were instituted when it was learned that as many as 10 passenger jetliners were the targets for terrorists, who intended to destroy them while they headed for the United States.

Daniel was given the prophetic preview of a coming final world kingdom with King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Daniel 2) and with his own vision (Daniel 7).

The humanists are determined to circumvent language and cultural barriers, as well as erase national borders in their drive to go back to the tower of Babel (Genesis 11). Ten kingdoms are prophesied to be formed, with powerful heads of each, who will give their power and authority to the beast –Antichrist (Rev. 17:11-12). One world is Satan’s goal, over which he intends to establish his demonic rule. He has his minions –both supernatural and natural—hard at work to bring his supreme tyrant to that throne.

7. Peace is the issue that has been thrust forward on the world diplomatic stage as never before, due to the prophetic shift that took place on 9/11, unleashing Daniel’s last-days flood. The tyrant mentioned above, which Satan will, according to Bible prophecy, put on his throne for a brief time (2 Thessalonians 2; Revelation Chapter 13) will offer that peace the world is so desperately searching to find. Whether it’s the “Roadmap to Peace” proposed by President Bush and Tony Blair or some other formula that will be the nucleus of this endtime peace, a peace is coming. But God says it will be a peace that will be destructive beyond any war of history, save Armageddon itself (read Isa. 28:15, 18). Actually, this peace brought by the rider on the first horse of Apocalypse (Rev. 6:1-2) will set in motion man’s final war, which will climax at the place called Megiddo. It will bring about Armageddon.

The attacks of September 11, 2001 seem the first salvo by General Satan against all that is godly in this world. Christians –all who believe in Christ, and Him alone for salvation of their souls—are God Almighty’s royal ambassadors while living here on earth. There is coming a moment in time when the King will withdraw his royal diplomats who preach and teach true peace from the Prince of Peace. Then, the Lord will make war against the godless. I didn’t say this; God says it in His Word. You can count on what He has said in His Word, the Bible, because He cannot lie.

Almost certainly this generation looks to have entered the last of the last days.

Most every indicator points to the likelihood that this generation stands at the very end of the age, when considered from the dispensational view of Bible prophecy.

I will confess at the outset of writing this commentary that I borrow heavily from my good friend, Dr. Mark Hitchcock, in considering these matters. He has expressed thoughts along the same lines of what I was thinking when I began to create the story line of my novel, The Rapture Dialogues: Dark Dimension.

The heart of the story for the novel series (three novels, I prayerfully hope), I determined, would involve the defining moment in modern history when things began to gush like a flood, in fulfillment of the prophet Daniel’s forewarning: “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined” (Dan. 9:26).

The prophecy that Daniel was given for the consummation of man-made governmental control of this fallen world foretold that things would begin winding up for the big finale with the death of Israel’s Messiah. The end would begin with the destruction of the city and the sanctuary (Jerusalem and the Temple on Mt. Moriah). A prince from the people who destroyed the city and the sanctuary, the prophecy said without giving a specific timeline, would come on the world scene. History’s conclusion would then, according to the prophecy, rush in a growing tidal wave of devastating events until it became a flood, and this flood would make all things of Planet Earth desolate.

So, I will get back to telling you about what was my thinking on a watershed event, or events, I might use to build into the novel’s story line before I began writing. It came to me to consider something of our time that is a constituent part of these last days which might seem to have caused a breach in the walls of civilization. A powerful schism-producer that allowed the torrent to grow into a gush that will irreparably burst the dam separating good from evil.

While Dr. Mark Hitchcock expresses it in a different way than I do, we both agree that Daniel’s flood seems to be about to crash through that ever-weakening barrier. The crack in the dam, we believe, has already occurred.

Dr. Hitchcock wrote a number of years back:

“Five years ago, in the solemn wake of September 11, I made the statement in one of my books that it appeared that the events of 9/11 and its aftermath had a major stage-setting effect on the events of the end times. That a kind of ‘prophetic shift of gears’ had occurred on that day. That many of the major players in the Biblical end time scenario appeared to be rapidly ‘shifting’ into place. As I look back over the last five years, and gaze ahead to what’s looming on the horizon, I believe this statement even more today than I did five years ago” (Prophecy Update – News & Information for the End Times, 9/13/06).

I like the way Mark used seven distinct indicators to illustrate the “shifting prophetic gears,” as he puts it. I, myself, liken it to a breach in the endtime barrier seemingly inflicted when those fuel-laden passenger planes crashed into the World Trade towers, the Pentagon, and the field in Pennsylvania. I will loosely use Mark’s indicators to frame my contention that this generation is witnessing the beginning of the last of the last days.

1. I’ve said many times that since Israel was reborn as a nation May 14, 1948, the Middle East has been the focus of the whole world. All we have to do to realize this is to ask ourselves where the news cameras and microphones always turn when things heat up in the Mid-East region. No matter what they had been trained on before the heating up occurred, the cameras and microphones always turn back to that troubled land.

Oil, of course, is the catalyst for this concern, thus the region demands attention, rationale would have it. But ancient, satanic rage and hatred is the true catalyst that galvanizes the fears of those who suspect World War III will break out at or near Jerusalem. The attacks of 9/11/01 put Israel and its enemy neighbors who harbor Islamic fanatic terrorists that are blood-avowed to murder every Jew and anyone who befriends the Jew, directly in the last-days spotlight of Bible prophecy.

Those attacks seem to have torn a gash in the fragile fabric of civilization. Indeed, World War III–Armageddon—might have already begun.

2. The Islamic fanatic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 –in less than two hours of murderous carnage—brought through that breach, and into the open, the Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 Gog-Magog forces. Again, Mark Hitchcock says it well: “As one reads the names of the nations that will invade Israel in the end times in Ezekiel 38:1-7, it looks like a ‘Who’s Who’ of Israel’s enemies today, especially Iran. The close, developing ties between Russia (Rosh) and Iran (Persia) have been greatly accelerated since 2001″ (Prophecy Update-News & Information for the End Times, 9/13/06).

Not many will argue that at this time, with Iran’s ruling Mullahs angrily expressing desire to kill every Jew, and with their terrorist-sponsoring regime trying as hard as possible to produce atomic weapons, Daniel’s last-days flood rages onward toward the apocalypse!

Weariness sets in at the end of each day for most of us. Under normal circumstances –i.e., if we are basically healthy in body and attitude—we awaken each morning with a fresh outlook, ready to begin the day. This approach to life, I realize, can vary with us, individually, from time to time, with even the most optimistic among us. 

In our minds, many of us begin a new “day” (clean page in our lives) on January 1 of each year. It is, for many, a time of resolutions, promises, and a new determination to make the new year better than last. And, we don’t have to put too much effort into reflection to know that this year could be improved over the one just expired. Again, some are excepted from that generalization.

On the other hand, from a prophetic perspective –and, after all, that is most generally the theme of this column—things are scheduled to get worse from this point forward. Much worse, as a matter of fact. Think with me for a moment in terms of dispensations, which, despite detractors from dispensational viewpoint, is precisely the way God deals with this earthly realm, so far as human history is concerned.

This present dispensation–the Age of Grace—or “the Church Age” as some would have it, can be likened unto a single day in the life of the human race. According to all of the signals given in God’s prophetic word, we are in the late hours of this single day God has given humankind to live upon this mortal sphere. Like in the literal 12-month periods we call years, we don’t have to reflect long or hard to know that the next dispensational day could stand improvement over that which is now passing into history.

Those who look at current issues and events –at history of the last 2000 years in general—must conclude, if looking through a prism of reality, that ours has been a day of bloody conflict and rage. Just as the Apostle Paul prophesied: “But evil men and seducers shall [become] worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:13).

Paul’s forewarning is fulfilling in our time. Dictators abound, whether looking at North Korea, Iran, Syria, or –some are convinced—China and even Russia, evil men and seducers are indeed growing worse and worse.

It might be difficult to imagine these types getting worse than the likes of Nero, Ivan the Terrible, or even Hitler, Stalin and Mao Tse-tung. But, the technologies available to today’s mass murderer dictators are so ghastly that they cause the swords, arrows, bullets and bombs of the past to pale by comparison. For example, the now executed Iraqi genocidal maniac, Saddam Hussein, murdered 180,000 people in one chemical/gas attack. Basher Al-Assad of Syria is thought to have murdered even more of his own people in that heinous fashion.

There are those in the world today who would wreak even greater havoc, had they the capability. And indications are they might soon have the means. So, as we look to a new year, with a clean slate upon which we can write a better personal history than 2013, let us remember that we are in a fatally flawed–even deadly–world.

There is a Person –and only one Person—who can guide us into a better future. We celebrated His birth just a couple of months ago. His name is Jesus. Jesus is calling out a people for himself from this quickly downward-spiraling world. He, alone, can see to it that we who name Him as our Savior and Lord will awaken into a bright new day, rather than move into the next dispensational day reserved for God’s wrath –the seven-year tribulation era.

Here’s what Jesus Christ tells all who will heed His call for redemption: “Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).

“And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful” (Rev. 21:5).

Let us put Christ at the forefront of our lives while thinking on the new year. He truly assures a new beginning –both now, and for eternity.