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).

I read an international political thriller many years ago by Arthur Hailey called In High Places. It involved, as I recall, a fictional account of the intrigues of power at the very highest levels of the Canadian government.

I thought at the time about how strikingly appropriate that title was for the ne’er-do-well doings that the protagonist and cronies were attempting to perpetrate upon the good citizens of Canada during the time frame of the novel. In High Places was a perfect title, I thought. Hailey took the title from the ultimate nefarious activities that the Apostle Paul warns are constantly taking place in unseen dimensions and darkened enclaves of this fallen sphere called Planet Earth: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12).

At the apex of those wicked dealings in high places is the grand deceiver, Lucifer the fallen one, as described in the Apostle Peter’s warning: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).

One senses, if spiritually attuned to God’s Word about the last days, that indeed this generation is well into a battle with wickedness in high places. Satan is stalking about the halls and chambers of power of this and every other nation, seeking to formulate a dynamic that will force humanity into the abyss. America, it seems, is at present on the fast track to that nether region reserved for any people who choose to do what is right in their own eyes rather than stay within God’s righteousness.

Luciferian influences were on display in the U.S. House of Representatives several years ago when the House voted 249-175 to grant special rights to those who choose to practice homosexuality, an activity God’s Word, the Bible, condemns as an abominable sin. The U.S. government has since taken tragic steps toward the abyss, with the nation in tow. The powers that be in the high places of this once-great country expressed, even if unwittingly, the desire to consort with the powers and principalities–the wickedness—in those high places.

Through ignorance and/or willful disregard for the Creator whose law declares that sexual activity for humankind must be within God-ordained marriage between one woman and one man, for life, a major portion of the people’s representatives slapped the Lord of heaven–and the vast majority of America’s citizenry—in the face with politically correct acts of rebellion.

The on-going actions bring to mind an American founding father’s remark about what had just been accomplished. Benjamin Franklin was said to have commented to a fellow signer of the Declaration of Independence upon the founding fathers having completed work on the United States constitution: “Well, we have given the people their republic–if they can keep it.”

Bishop Harry Jackson Jr. of the High Impact Leadership Coalition condemned the House of Representatives action after that anti-God vote of a few years back, issuing a warning about the nation’s future:

“Jackson said the action puts ‘sexual orientation’ in a specially protected class under federal law. ‘Based on history, it really isn’t something that needs to be protected,’ he said. ‘There’s a problem that this is going to mark the first time that a protected class status is given to … whatever sexual orientation one has.’ He said the experience in other countries has led to prosecution of Christians. In Sweden, for example, a minister was sentenced to 30 days in jail for preaching from Leviticus…” Since that time, we have seen the degeneration of American morality on many levels.

Good readers, we are about to, as Benjamin Franklin seemed to fear, lose this God-blessed republic if the Lord does not again intervene in the affairs of men as He did when bestowing His goodness on this nation. Alexis de Tocqueville said that America is great because America is good and that if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease being great. America is no longer “good” when her citizenry fails to hold to account their representatives who go so far contrary to God’s will as to make law that approves that which He calls “abominable sin.”

The Antichrist spirit is alive and thriving today in the sin-darkened high places of America and other nations. Humanistic government will bring mankind to Armageddon. Jesus Christ is the only “good” there is. The King of kings and Lord of lords—who sits in the highest of places—will save man from extinction (Matt. 24: 21-22).

Recent facts about drought in America’s western regions hit the discerning observer of the signs of the times between the eyes. Sin is the deadly bane of mankind, and the Creator of all things will not allow any generation to move into an era of His judgment and wrath without considerable warning.

Pointing out this truth is more often than not unpopular. Doing so is often more excoriated by those within the Body of Christ (the Church) than by the secular world. But, when God’s warnings are so direct and dramatic, to do less than attempt to point them out would be more than dereliction of duty. Pointing out such things is what we who “watch” for Christ’s Return are commissioned to do, along with breaking the Bread of Life (God’s Word)–and that gets to the point of a couple of news stories from a number of years ago at which we will briefly look.

Sin is at the heart of man’s thirst, the Bible tells us. There is drought where the water of life that comes only from God is disregarded–that is, refused. Certainly that water of life is wrapped up in God’s prescription for living here on this fallen planet. We can get perspective on this matter in the following excerpt of a story from a number of years ago about California lawmakers dealing with homosexual issues. Particularly, the “gay marriage” issue hits home in this regard:

I am convinced that the ramifications from decisions made in that time-frame are inflicting trouble on this generation today.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California’s Supreme Court gave the final green light on Wednesday for gay marriages to begin later this month, turning down requests for a delay. The most populous U.S. state’s highest court ruled last month that refusing homosexuals the right to wed violated the state constitution…The court voted 4-3 to deny the petition to stay the decision. The same judges voted the same way on May 15 in the landmark decision, hailed by gay activists and condemned by social conservatives. The court’s original ruling becomes final at 5 p.m. on June 16, opening the way for gay marriages to start the next day (“California court says gay marriages can proceed,” Adam Tanner, Reuters, June 4, 2008).

Following hard on the heels of the decision at that time, in effect, to validate gay marriage as a norm for California, came the announcement by the Terminator. Well, not God, who will indeed terminate all sin with judgment and wrath at a point perhaps not too distant, but by the California governor at that time, Arnold Schwarzenegger:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – After two years of below-average rainfall in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought on Wednesday…

“For the areas in Northern California that supply most of our water, this March, April and May have been the driest ever in our recorded history,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement…” (“California governor declares state in drought,” June 4, 2008, Jim Christie).

The connection between the decision to defy God’s design of one man and one woman in marriage for life and the governor’s declaration that what followed was the worst drought in the state’s history is at the very least fascinating to consider. I will be so bold as to postulate that it is not coincidence at all.

While California continues to thirst (despite recent torrential rains that are but a drop in the bucket of what is needed to refill aquifers), hunger grows on a worldwide scale, bringing about stated concerns from the very body that many who study Bible prophecy believe is the organization that harbors the greatest rebellion against the Almighty. The U.N. will likely be a part of establishing Antichrist’s power base during the most horrific time of famine in the history of man.

The following story from that same time-frame makes the point.

ROME – World powers must act quickly and boldly to control soaring food prices that threaten nearly 1 billion people with hunger and could trigger global social unrest, the United Nations said yesterday… “Nothing is more degrading than hunger, especially when man-made,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told more than 40 world leaders gathered here (“UN warns of food shortage and unrest, Urges world leaders to work to control prices,” Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2008).

There is increasing rebellion to God’s designed way for man to comport himself upon this planet. People more and more are directed to worship the creation more than the Creator, such as is involved within all of this “green” nonsense. Mankind majors on the minor do-good things, and gives little attention to the truly major issues in God’s omniscient view–like living within His marriage guidelines. The result is God’s warnings that will be increasingly commensurate with the seriousness of the transgressions, and lateness of the prophetic hour.

An instant cure is at hand for the thirst and hunger that plague this generation. It is a cure of a spiritual nature. Jesus Christ is the Word, and the Word of God is the Bread of Life. Water that assures eternal life is available, the Bible promises. “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17).

Evolution, the chief tenet of the religion called humanism, now has a unifying doctrine, and it is a color. Want to guess the color? That’s right, we are hit between the eyes today with the doctrine often when we watch TV, listen to a radio, or read a newspaper or news or other magazine. Oh, and we must not forget that the doctrine is ubiquitous on the internet when we light up our monitors and log on.

Green was once popularly used to express the unattractive color of envy, of jealousy. The phrase “the greened-eyed monster” was unflattering when applied. Today, a green-eyed monster is assaulting us from every angle. It comes at us with the incessant hue and cry that America is the most evil national entity of all when it comes to harming Planet Earth. We use most of the world’s energy sources is the rave, thus we are chiefly responsible for polluting humankind out of existence, according to the ecological priesthood who police the rest of us. The green-eyed monster is focused on America, because we won’t simply divide up this nation’s wealth and distribute to the have-not peoples of the world.

This accusation that the U.S. is the most culpable in destroying earth’s ecology comes against America, even though we are first and with the most in assistance any time there is a major disaster anywhere in the world. For example, we are providing, or have offered to provide –when the dictators allow—almost the entire needed disaster relief, through supplies and funding, in the wake of the cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in China. The oil-rich middle eastern monarchs and dictators give next to nothing while piling up the petrodollars paid them in large part by the citizenry of the United States of America.

The world envies America with green-eyed jealousy, and at the same time has its hand out for all it can get from this nation. It holds a stiletto in its collective clenched fist behind its back desiring to stab America with thrusts of vitriol from the United Nations and from every other quarter that wishes us ill.

The evolution/humanism doctrine of “greening”–the rant that constantly seeks to inculcate the world with the specious claims that we must come together to save Mother Earth’s ecology by doing all things environmentally safe—is indeed “greening” us. We remember the term used in movie-makers’ attempts to recreate jargon that was part of the lexicon of days of the old West. John Wayne would call someone a “Greenhorn.” Or, he would ask someone trying to con him: “Are you “greening me?” This would usually be followed by the Duke’s right fist flattening the one trying to take advantage, or “green” him, in those old movies.

One dictionary definition of “green” is the following: “(of a person) inexperienced, naïve, or gullible (The Oxford Pocket Dictionary). Those global elitists who are determined to fund their grandiose changed world order by picking America’s pocket in trying to get us to join the Kyoto protocols and other “green” endeavors’ call to “save the planet” are “greening” us, dear reader. Even though they don’t truly realize the purpose of the new world they want to shape, they nonetheless serve the true conspirator, Lucifer, who wants to get things ready for his man of the tribulation hour–Antichrist.

America, if naïve, if gullible, will succumb to the same siren call of great cultures of the past. Here’s what God says about this oft-repeated “greening” by Satan throughout the annals of human history:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen” (Rom. 1: 18-25).

This recent version of the doctrine of Satan’s eco-worship is, like the color of the fourth horse of the apocalypse, chloros green, the color green of a decayed corpse. The doctrine is deceptive; it is deadly.

Does this mean that Christians should ignore our environment, and treat it like a refuse dump? Of course not, and a true child of the Living God would never treat the planet God gave us to live upon in such a manner. But, that’s the diatribe of all who are attempting to “green” us. If we won’t fall for their con job like greenhorns, we are out to destroy the planet is the mantra with which they try to shame us.

We should keep Planet Earth clean by our daily efforts to personally not treat it like a garbage dumpster. We must not, however, worship “Mother Earth”–a beast that exists only in the minds of those who worship the creation more than the Creator.

Don’t let them “green” you.

Fear is on the rise in America and the world at the moment. It is a type of fear that comes upon humankind almost like nervous milling about that stirs within the wildebeests of the Serengeti just before predators set them to flight. There are many reasons this is so. But one reason in particular especially agitates the simmering fear. It is the culprit more than all of the other reasons combined for the building anxiety today.

Before we address that most profound reason for fear of things to come, let’s look at the many other causes that make fear levels rise across the nation and the world. Those causes involve a myriad of issues and events. We and others who consider our times in light of Bible prophecy continually attempt to analyze those matters and present our findings to anyone and everyone who will stop, look, and listen.

For the masses of humanity in third-world regions, such as vast areas of Africa, Asia, and other bleak places, panic is a daily search for the next bite of food and swallow of water. We see the frail bodies, the distended stomachs, the flies on the faces of those whose wide, searching eyes look to the cameras filming them for their next life-sustaining morsel.

These suffering souls are not often demonstrative with their fear because their circumstances have denuded them of energy, and have robbed them of the ability to know how near to starvation they have come. The world turns a blind eye, for the most part, to the plight of these emaciated hordes. The group of people who are looking the other way too often includes even those of us who are watchmen on the wall for the signals of Christ’s return.

Starvation, nonetheless, is one of the sure signs of where this generation stands on God’s prophetic timeline. That millions of people are caught up in growing famine dramatically forewarns that the black horse of the Apocalypse will one day, perhaps soon, ride forth. But growing famine is not the greatest reason for the geometrically progressing worry around the globe.

Thinking on fear burgeoning within the civilized areas of the world, we briefly review the more familiar causes. These involve topics we have exhaustively examined in recent days:

• Iran is on the verge of becoming a possessor of nuclear weaponry. Israel can’t and won’t let this happen. The potential for war—nuclear war—breaking out in the Middle East is not just possible, but likely, considering the realities involved.

• North Korea is a loose cannon that already has nuclear capability, according to some experts. Even China, its chief governor in the nation-state sense, can’t seem to control the North Korean madmen and their threats.

• ISIS, perhaps the most beastly force on the planet at the moment is on the move in the Middle East. They behead children –even infants—and rape and murder women as part of their means of earning salvation when they go to their god, Allah. The American administration isn’t willing to take the lead in destroying this hellish force. It’s a matter of time until Israel will be forced to deal with them, as is the case with the threat from Iran.

• Pakistan, a nuclear power, is in disarray, with constant threats of overthrow against its decreasingly pro-American position within its leadership. Terrorists threaten to blow up things and kill people in every part of the world. New York and other major American cities and their large, densely-congregated populations are in the bull’s eye for attack by terrorists with possibly horrific weapons, including those that are nuclear, biological, and chemical.

• The United States of America daily experiences assaults from within, chipping away at individual rights and national sovereignty. The U.S. Constitution is under constant assault, and the system of checks and balances is out the window. Congress shrinks from its responsibility to the American people, while there is observably a power grab of unprecedented proportions. Morality plummets, while entertainment madness infects old and young alike, taking thoughts of preserving the republic far from the citizenry. U.S. leadership in economy, diplomacy, and most every other category is on the skids. Corporate America has become a sick, dying entity—thanks to elected officials who seem intent on the government owning/running private enterprise. By their constant striving to meld the American economy with the socialist economic structures of Europe, they are destroying this nation—whether wittingly or not. These, by running up multi-trillion dollar deficits, are giving away hope for future generations to know the prosperity of past generations of Americans. The neo-Babel builders herd America’s great wealth, technology, and influence toward end-times Babylon—the long-anticipated New World Order. President Obama’s administration and the leaderships of most other G-20 nations are violating at every turn God’s prescription for interacting with His chosen nation, Israel. The world’s diplomatic community, of course, has no idea of the prophetic ramifications of dealing treacherously with Israel, so it has no qualms about trying to force a peace that can never truly be made this side of Christ’s Second Advent. However, there is a sense of extreme danger that even the international community of nations feels in dealing with Israel and its enemies in the “Roadmap to Peace” plan. Most fearful of all—from the perspective of those of us who watch the stage-setting for biblically prophetic things to come—is the fact that the church as a whole is oblivious to America’s dealing treacherously with Israel. Most in this late hour, in fact, think the church has replaced Israel as inheritor of God’s promises given to the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Today, much of the church is in total prophetic ignorance, and is so fat, lazy, and lethargic that I almost wonder if she can be lifted at the Rapture, even by the Lord Jesus.

All of the foregoing, however, does not account in total for the almost tangible fear about the future. The one, all-encompassing reason for the fear that is driving people to look anxiously at what’s ahead for themselves and their children is the spirit that pervades this generation of earth-dwellers. It is the spirit of Antichrist.

The world has cast God aside. This has been happening in the U.S. since 1963, when prayer, Bible-reading, and things of a religious nature—meaning Christianity—were suppressed in public schools. Today, the crops sown in that decade are being reaped in the generation that saw American leaders assassinated, its economy bankrupted, a war that eventually took 50,000 American lives, and a drug culture develop that continues to plague the nation.

To deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh to seek and save the lost is to invite another one to step in and fill the void that exists when attempts are made to keep God out. We have seen and heard the raves in recent times, with media using words like “messiah” and “savior” to describe the type of adulation attributed to a political candidate. One day, the one called “the Beast” will step into the spotlight of end-times history to fulfill the role of that long-prophesied Man of Sin.

Because Christ is denied, fear saturates all of mankind today. It is an insanity born of Christ-rejection. It is the development of reprobate spiritual dementia in a world of people ripe for God’s judgment: “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Romans 1:28).

There is an antidote for the madness that infects humanity in these end of days: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). Jesus Christ is the antidote to the fear-insanity rampant today. He is coming back—perhaps today!