The Wall
Everyone who has access to any news outlet these days is familiar with the wall mentioned hundreds of times by Donald Trump throughout the presidential campaign season. Now president-elect Trump continues to proclaim that he will build a wall on America’s southern border.
That highly controversial proposed wall involves Mr. Trump’s promise to keep illegal would-be immigrants from entering the United States. Those who support building of such a wall obviously believe this will prevent potential terrorists from entering the country en masse, as they fear is happening presently.
A physical structure of the nature described by some will be a massive and expensive undertaking to be sure, as I perceive the project as proposed. It is to be constructed in order to keep American citizens safe.
There is a wall of another sort I would like to think on for a bit. This is a structure that also involves keeping America safe. However, it is a wall not of physical materials as in the case of the one proposed to stand between America and Mexico. I’m referring to the barrier that has suddenly appeared with this presidential election. Again, it is not a physical wall, but one that is made of much sterner stuff–as Shakespeare’s Mark Antony might put it.
Globalism’s growing invasion into the American way of life has been marching all but unchecked for at least two decades. Its force of movement into all strata of life has increased dramatically during the administration of Barack Obama over these past eight years.
Globalism’s threat is greater than just the hordes of illegals from the south–those illegals being but one ingredient within the globalist elite’s plans of action: to bring America into configuration with new world order as they envision it. The danger implied stretches across the broad spectrum of culture and society of our nation.
The inculcation has been a long time in process. The youth of America in particular have been dumbed-down to the point that they know little of truth about the country’s founding principles.
The churches of America have not, since the days of the Moral Majority efforts, resisted the globalist drive to take the nation as far away from God’s influence as possible. The godless teaching of the corrupted and corruptive educational system from K through the doctorate programs has convinced many that there must be a separation of church and state. That demand has come down, finally, to governmental dictate–approved by the Supreme Court–that opposition to social matters perceived as anti-biblical must be confined to the sanctuaries.
Just as the president-elect plans to put up that wall to stem the physical flow of illegals in to America, there has suddenly been erected an even more spectacular wall.
It is a spiritual wall, as I view it. God, Himself, has put it up for His own good purposes. It is, almost certainly in part, a wall to stop the globalist invaders from continuing to move the United States farther along the pathway toward the new world order being prepared for Antichrist and his regime of horror. I wrote the following in my commentary that immediately preceded the November 8 presidential election.
Although the nucleus of God’s people who hold fast to the Heavenly Father’s precepts and promises might be a dwindling number, we are still here in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. We are engaged in this prayer war for a restoration of sanity in America’s government, society and culture.
We are praying specifically that the evil forces that are raging to make this nation into a state totally apart from all godliness will be, at least on an interim basis, kept from their Luciferian goal.
I say “on an interim basis,” because Bible prophecy plainly foretells that the satanic, globalist forces will for a time one day achieve establishment of a one-world order as Antichrist’s platform of power. It will happen. It’s just a matter of time.
Meantime, however, while the church of Jesus Christ is here, thus the Restrainer (the Holy Spirit) resident within that body holding back evil, it is right and proper–and I believe expected–that God’s people, called by His name, are to pray the prayer of 2 Chronicles 7:14.
God has erected this wall in answer to the prayers of His people. Yet, only He knows the purposes in full. One reason, I sense, is to give the true church (all born-again believers) time and room to carry out the Great Commission. At the same time, as I’ve written previously, this wall seems to offer hope of a brighter economic future. The free enterprise forces seem to be saying this with their optimism.
But, this, if it does eventuate, makes these days just ahead precisely like the time predicted when Christ will next catastrophically intervene into the affairs of mankind.
Jesus indicated, as recorded in Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17:26-30 that business will be good–even perhaps booming–at the time He next intervenes. This will be the Rapture of the church.
There is one more wall I wish to touch on in this essay–the wall that separates lost mankind from God and Heaven in eternity. The wall is made of the awful, soul-killing matter called sin. Man himself constructed this wall with his disobedience in the Garden of Eden. This wall keeps all of the lost of mankind from entering into God’s Kingdom. They are aliens who cannot go through that great barrier.
But, God has provided a Gate in that great wall of separation. It is a narrow gate that leads to salvation, the Scripture tells us.
Jesus put it this way: “I am the door: if by me any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture” (John 10:9).
I believe the reason God has constructed this wall against globalism is primarily to provide time and opportunity to get out this message that Jesus is the only way to salvation. Let us who are called by His Holy Name do our utmost for His Highest in honoring Him for allowing this reprieve.
World Without End
Do you remember the Mayan Calendar hub-bub of 2012?
The end of the world was scheduled for Friday, December 21, 2012, according to the Mayan calendar, as analyzed by some. Many scenarios of what supposedly would happen on that date for months–even years— were predicted by the purveyors of doom for Planet Earth. The Mayan “prophecy” went basically as follows.
The Mayan civilization was extremely advanced in mathematics, engineering and astronomy. They also had an incredible understanding of time and space. Various calendars were in use to track time in linear progressions within cycles. The “Great Cycle” of the “Long Count” calendar equated to 5,125.36 years. The Current Great Cycle was due to be completed on the winter solstice of 2012, December 21. So, it was interpreted that on that day, the Great Cycle would end, Time would end, so the Earth would end as well.
The Mayan “Long Count” concluded on the very day the sun lined up with the center of the Milky Way galaxy. It was said that this stellar event occurs every 25,800 years. The end-of-the-worlders predicted that a number of cataclysmic things would occur at 11:11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on December 21, 2012.
A polar shift of planet Earth would occur, bringing about every sort of tectonic plate shift imaginable, thus oceans washing over all the land masses and perhaps the earth, itself, ripping apart in some way. This was the direst of the predictions, I suppose.
Well, not exactly, on second thought. There was also some sort of planet that was hidden from view from astronomers by our sun, according to some who held to the December 21, 2012, date with destruction. That body might suddenly be in direct collision course with the big blue marble on the Mayan prophecy date in question it was postulated. Such a collision would eclipse even the polar reversal in terms of the severity of impact upon life on Earth.
There are many who prepared for such an eventuality as predicted. Some bought/built underground shelters and did many other things to survive. At the time I heard of these things, I missed something in their thinking, I’m afraid. How does one survive an Earth-size, even moon-size object colliding with Earth? Or for that matter, how in the world–pardon the pun—does one survive when the big ball on which we live suddenly turns upside down? Oh, I’m sure there were the experts who would chide such an ignorant perspective as mine as completely not understanding the physics of such a thing, should it happen.
They would be right. I didn’t even come close to comprehending what would be the chances of survival in such an event. I remain dumbfounded over those who believe a Mayan prophecy–or any other such soothsaying of a now extinct civilization. I am as perplexed over their believing such “prophecies” as many of those doomsday believers were and are now berating and non-accepting of Bible prophecy. To most of these, Nostradamus, or even Rasputin, are given almost mesmerized validation, while Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, and Ezekiel–and especially Jesus Christ—are pushed to the back of the line with regard to credence given to those considered to be prophets.
To determine which of the prophets should be given the label of the true prophet, one needs only to consider history of the Jews. The Jews–the nation Israel—exist despite millennia of attempts to scour their likes from the planet’s surface. That attempt continues. Yet, the nation Israel–the Jewish race—is at the center of attention, a blessing to all of mankind, while being hounded and hunted throughout the eras of human history.
Biblical prophets have both chronicled this traversing of history by the eternal Jew and have foretold their place at the very end of the age and beyond. In every instance, the foretellings can be traceable as 100 percent on the mark, right to the present moment.
Here’s what a couple of God’s prophets, one an Old Testament prophet and the other a New Testament prophet, have to say about the Earth and its longevity: “But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end. For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:17-18).
“Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21).
Get it? It is a world that will never end! It will be changed; it will be transformed at some future point. But, it is a world without end!
The A B C Questions
We are moving into stranger and stranger times, I sense from consideration of recent developments. Chief among those developments is the most obvious–the election of the candidate thought to have no chance at all just a few months previous. Yet here he is, poised to Make America Great Again–as his presidential campaign slogan would have it.
This being the case, I would ask that you indulge me just a bit, as I would like to construct a scenario or two based as much in biblically prophetic truth as in fictional cogitation.
That America has been forced toward movement into the globalist mold over the past several decades is without question in my view. This has especially been the case during the past eight years of the Obama administration. The nation’s sovereignty has been in process of usurpation by the new world order builders through a series of quasi-legitimate executive orders.
It is more than obvious, to me at least, that the United States was moving along an seemingly unalterable course dictated by the globalists’ agenda. This presidential election didn’t just slow that movement; it halted it in its tracks. The president-elect is an avowed antiglobalist. He views America not as the hegemonic superpower that must be brought down to third-world status, its wealth redistributed in order to create some insanely conceived socialistic Utopia, but as beneficent leader of a world of autonomous nations.
My idea isn’t to sing the praises of the future president. He is merely a man who has been thrust into the end-times picture for God’s own great purpose. My thinking here is to explore and examine a bit the possibilities that purpose might include.
Thus we come to the title of this commentary: “The A B C Questions.”
I watch with great interest the uptick in the world’s fiscal markets as the wizards of finance contemplate changes taking place in our country. The records being set in the stock markets, etc., move in synchronization with the strangeness of this election. The whole matter, to my way of thinking, generates questions involving Bible prophecy potentiality.
My questions and ruminations follow.
Question A
AMERICA–Is this nation, rather than being on the brink of imploding economically as most prophecy students thought before this election, now about to enter a time of, perhaps, unprecedented financial boom?
Most who have been responsible for making profit within the private sector know and lament that regulations coming out of the current presidential administration have been deadly to business development. Mr. Obama, himself, has boasted that he has “a pen and a phone”–meaning that he could and would bypass Congress to accomplish what he wanted done. This he has done prolifically. His use of his pen and phone have been particularly ruinous to the free enterprise system in this nation.
Increased taxation, added to the regulatory edicts, have resulted in horrendous job losses because of business down-sizings and closings. The nation seemed poised to go much deeper into the economic abyss. The election of Donald J. Trump, a highly successful business mogul, seems to have suddenly turned things around with promises to roll back taxes and regulations and to introduce a plethora of innovations.
The financial markets are apparently buying the promises, and the uptick in the stratospheric of economic anticipation shows it.
All of this just doesn’t fit the thinking of observers of Bible prophecy. Most seem to look for America to succumb to the forces of globalism. And, as stated before, the nation was certainly headed in that direction prior to this election.
So, it is reasonable to ask whether the United States of America might be headed into another great economic boom instead of descending into depression as feared just weeks ago. This conjecture brings forth another most interesting question.
Question B
BABYLON–Could we now be witness to the beginnings of the creation of the prophetic entity termed “Babylon the Great”?
Revelation chapter 18 presents a stunning portrait of the greatest human commercial entity of all of history. This nation and city is prophesied to dominate all the earth with its commerce and debaucheries. Here’s what is said of this city-state called “Babylon the Great”:
For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. (Revelation 18:3)
This Babylonian system will be destroyed in one hour, God’s Word tells us. It will be a much-deserved judgment. All the world will mourn this destruction.
And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more. (Revelation 18:9-11)
Here you will, I hope, indulge my postulations a bit. If this generation is at the very end of he Age of Grace (Church Age) as most who are well-versed in Bible prophecy from the pre-Trib view believe, there is but one entity on the stage of history that could possibly be seen as doing business in such a mighty way as described in this prophecy.
For there to develop from the ground up such a commercial power, it would take decades, not just seven, or even twenty years. America, if there was a massive jinning up of enterprise, could possibly reach such heights of interaction with the rest of the world in a matter of a year or two. There is simply no nation on the planet that has ever been so materially blessed as the USA. There is no other city on planet earth that has the commercial outreach and influence as New York City.
Seeing as how the timeline seems to be a major factor in this prophecy–this destruction of Babylon the Great taking place within the seven-year Tribulation–we can legitimately ask, I think: Is America to develop into that judgment-bound entity?
Perhaps we might get a clue if the optimistic outlook of the current stock market elites plays out as they, at least at this moment, anticipate.
Question C
CHRISTIANITY —Is Christianity about to experience a Great Awakening like in times past?
I have been hearing for years now preachers and others saying that there will be a great revival before the Rapture. Some of those who don’t hold that there is a Rapture coming also say there will be another Great Awakening, as in times past.
I’ve never held that belief, I must say. However, the strange turn of events–with the anti-God forces of the left and the globalists’ ravenous desire to gobble up the United States being suddenly halted–or so it seems–one has to question” why?”.
Could we be about to experience a final outpouring of God’s great mercy in the form of the true church carrying out the Great Commission in a Holy Spirit directed outburst of supernatural witness?
Damascus and Doomsday
Here we are at the end of November, 2016 and prophetic possibilities are popping all around us. Israel is in the process of –as usual– being pressured as part of trying to divide God’s land, meaning that Joel 3:2 is on the cusp of coming to pass. The “covenant made with death and hell” of Isaiah chapter 28 might not be far distant in the making.
Paul’s “perilous times” (2 Timothy 3:1-5) words describe American culture and society to a “T,” as they say. The “days of Noah” are here, with God’s message of repentance being mocked by rebels of a judgment-bound world. Debased human behavior like in the days of Lot proliferates, so that it now seems to be more the norm than the aberrant.
Many within the ranks of those who are antagonistic to or who ignore the God of Heaven seem to instinctively sense something ominous is brewing. Something isn’t right, and a visceral fear streams just beneath the surface of civility. The behavior of mankind–especially in America—demands correction of some sort, although neither the problem nor the correction can be discerned. A reprobate mind like that forewarned in Romans 1 prevents clear analysis in trying to understand the matters involved.
Ominous predictions like the prophecies of the long-dead French seer Nostradamus pique the interest of many every time his name is mentioned. In the minds of some, at least, a nebulous justice of some sort must demand a penalty for the base things infecting this generation. Guilt feelings fester in the collective consciousness to a degree.
Things going on in the Middle East trouble these who are unsure about the source and the reason for their uneasiness. Israel is most often given by mainstream press outlets as the number-one culprit in fomenting hostilities in that incendiary part of the world. However, the usually-pointed-at Israel doesn’t seem an underlying cause of things taking place in Syria, with the massacring of his fellow Syrians by dictator Bashar al-Assad.
There is good reason for fear of things developing in Damascus. It is a city of biblically prophetic import like only two others. Jerusalem is slated for both great turmoil and magnificent glorification, according to Bible prophecy. Babylon–whether the actual city within Iraq or whether figurative, as given in Revelation chapter 18–will suffer destruction as none other in history.
Damascus is prophetically scheduled for similar devastation. With all other signs of the return of Jesus Christ on the end-times horizon, the current developments in this, the oldest occupied city on the planet, is most relevant for those who are “watchmen on the wall.” The fate of the Syrian capital just might be nearly the top indicator of how near is the Rapture of the church.
The verse of great interest among those who watch for Christ’s return is, of course, the following: “The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap” (Isaiah 17:1).
According to the signals given in prophetic Scripture, the present generation of Earth dwellers looks to be in the last of the last days before the first phase of Christ’s Second Coming–the removal of all born-again believers from Planet Earth. This prophetic utterance by the prophet Isaiah has recently and dramatically arisen to prominence amid all of the other indicators pointing to the end of days. Damascus’ destruction fits somewhere within the general time frame of the very end of the age. Whether we have reached that parentheses in God’s prophetic program is the question, when considering news of the current tumult in Syria.
The Syrian dictator, President Bashar al-Assad, it is thought by some of the most in-the-know diplomatic types, senses that his time is about up. He will soon go the way of, at worst, Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi, and at best, Hosni Mubarak. Many of the “experts” believe al-Assad will choose to bring the entire Syrian people down with him rather than abdicate rulership or flee to escape his comeuppance.
The international community powers that be view warily al-Assad’s activities within his capital city and nation. Russia’s asserting itself within the affairs of Syria and the region greatly adds to the portentous uncertainties for the immediate future.
Al-Assad has certainly witnessed what happens to former tyrants in his part of the world in recent times. The question is not without merit. Might the Syrian dictator himself invoke his own “Samson option,” of sorts, and become the instrument of prophecy in making Damascus the “ruinous heap” it is destined to become?
Pre-Tribulation Pondering
Listening to the “experts” thinking aloud on what this election means is exercise in frustration, if not futility. The talking heads across the cable and broadcast spectrum attribute Donald Trump’s win to everything from the late FBI turn of events to news media’s biased poll-taking and misreading of exit polling. These throw in that those in charge of the losing campaign just didn’t understand the people of middle America. They didn’t see the people’s pent-up rage against the Washington establishment–the D.C. insiders.
All of these elements no doubt contributed to this election–as many of the pundits put it–eventuating in a totally unexpected outcome. But, it is the never-mentioned aspect of this election dynamic that is frustrating to me as a Christian. It is this that produces a sense of futility.
No one in media is talking about the 81% – 84% (depending upon the figure you accept) of “evangelicals” who turned out in this election. Christian participation just isn’t figured in at the highest levels of broadcast and cable punditry.
This means, to me, that the experts believe this election had nothing to do with our being fed up with the social debauchery and degradation that has been taking place, particularly over the past almost eight years. The homosexual, transsexual, same-sex marriage agenda, with mandated same-sex, multiple-occupancy public restrooms, had no influence on the voting this election year, the experts are saying with their silence. We, the voters–who are Christians and came out in numbers that have not been seen in many elections–apparently weren’t (according to the pundits) making a statement that we are fed up with our White House being bathed in rainbow colors emblematic of the homosexual lobby. We aren’t sick and tired of having the homosexual rainbow flag flown atop that same American presidential edifice, is the message of the pundits’ silence.
This electoral landslide against the candidate and party that have crammed down America’s throat all of this hellishness–mostly through presidential, executive order-fiat–had nothing to do with the social issues, I guess we are to take away from this silence.
That we are disgusted with small bakery owners being publicly humiliated and fined for refusing to bake same-sex wedding cakes obviously isn’t considered worth mentioning in the analysis of this election results. The absolute horrors and atrocities that we learned about involving Planned Parenthood and the selling of human baby body parts didn’t, in the thinking of the post-election, political analysts, figure in our collective voting statement.
It was all about terrorism, wallet issues, and building back America’s defense, while determining to “drain the swamp.”
These were all important issues in my own thinking, as in the thinking of many other Christians, while election day approached. But, in addition to stopping a further tearing down of America’s founding structure, I wanted–and continue to want–a government that will stop the anti-godliness, down the road of which the administration of the last eight years has deliberately moved this nation.
As expressed previously in these commentaries, it was God’s people praying the prayer of 2 Chronicles 7:14 that turned this election so dramatically. This is the answer the pundits are seeking when they ask incessantly about what happened that the news media types missed. How could this election have turned out so differently than expected right up until 9 p.m. EST Tuesday, November 8?
The fact is that the throne room of Heaven was deluged day and night with God’s people imploring Him for mercy–asking that He hear from Heaven and answer our prayers. This, of course required repentance–not of America’s population, but of God’s people. It is more than obvious that He did hear and answered in a spectacular way. God cannot lie, and He promised He would answer such prayer–uttered under biblically prerequisite conditions.
Now, the question is: Will we who are called by His name continue to pray and to follow up on those prerequisite conditions? How we respond will determine how our nation–and our lives–fare over the coming days, months, and, perhaps, years.
We have proof that our Lord answers prayers in a spectacular way. The pundits will never see it, but we who did and are doing the praying certainly understand.
We can further understand God’s influence in this election by the truly Christian people He has placed among the soon-incoming power elite.
So, in this pre-Tribulation time, we have a window of opportunity to honor our Lord’s merciful answer in giving us a leadership that promises a return to founding principles. Along with that merciful action, it is also obvious that we have been given a course-correction, a return to the moral pathway–out of the depravity foisted on us in recent years.
We don’t have to wonder about how to honor His mercy and kindness in having answered our prayers. His number-one priority has always been and will always be the salvation of souls. We are expected to honor His decision to give America a reprieve–I have no doubt–in order to, first and foremost, lift Jesus Christ so that the Holy Spirit draws all to Christ for salvation.
Just beneath that all-important mission for God’s people in America is to let the pastors of our churches know that the true, Christ-believing bodies of worship should be devoted to teaching and preaching truth. That is, we are now, more than ever, to be the Philadelphian church and not the Laodicean church (read Revelation chapter 3).
There is no doubt that we see this gracious, merciful, moving of God’s hand in America. However, there are also signals that are growing stronger by the day that we are in times at the very end of the age.
Jesus forewarned in the Olivet Discourse that there would be great ethnic strife. We have been seeing it manifested in American cities. The seas and waves of humanity are “roaring” in America and in Europe. This election has intensified that roaring, I believe.
People who refuse to accept the election results are exemplifying the apostle Paul’s perilous times characteristic “incontinent”–or, “out of control.” Jesus said societal conditions will be exactly like now when He intervenes catastrophically into the affairs of mankind. That will happen with the Rapture.
With the United States now seeming to be headed back toward the America we once knew and loved, with the promises of the new administration, we can enjoy our moment of gratefulness this Thanksgiving season.
However, this time of national renewal is also likely to be a time like described by Jesus–a time that will bring His next catastrophic intervention into the affairs of mankind. That time might just be upon us.
“Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” (Matthew 24: 44)
Heaven’s Media, and You
This election year has made manifest the satanic nature of the mainstream media in America. The practitioners of supposed news gathering and dissemination have thrown off all pretense of unbiased journalistic endeavor in the news business.
We have just entered, I am convinced, a time long ago prophesied. We are about to witness an unstoppable, super-accelerated movement into the beginning of the darkest era of human history. Every signal points to America and the world gushing toward the establishment of the regime of the most despotic dictator who will ever rule on earth.
Adolf Hitler, during his rise to power, had his media, the most effective propaganda machine that had existed to that time. There has developed a similar although much more powerful media machine–worldwide—that has for months and years been preparing the way for the lawless one–the first beast of Revelation chapter 13.
Lies have been laid down as truth for so long and in such profusion that they are now accepted as fact by massive numbers of people. Billions throughout the world are increasingly eager to embrace any government–any leader–offering things that will take care of their needs with little to no effort on their own parts.
In the United States, the end-times media conglomerate has been profoundly successful in deluding the American populace. The tipping point has been reached, and sufficient numbers of such like mindset can now vote themselves largess from the public treasury–as Alexis de Tocqueville forewarned in 1835.
Although alternative media now disseminates news alongside deluding, mainstream media, the alternative news journalism is demonstrably inadequate to serve as antidote to the poison polluting the thought processes of the masses. And the alternative media are woefully inadequate to counteract the distortions and lies, because they, too, are steeped in thinking from the mind of the great deceiver–the father of lies.
Judgment is coming. Bible prophecy clearly lays out the fact that this rebellious world must and will be judged for its blasphemous, anti-God, Antichrist-spirit-filled rage. I believe that judgment is slated for sooner rather than later, according to the swift movement forward of global world order as mentioned above.
The Lord of Heaven never proceeds with His judgment and wrath before first issuing forewarning of His actions to come. The mainstream and alternative media of this nation and world report signs of the times, but not from God’s omniscient perspective. As mentioned, their perspectives are skewed by the fallen minds that are influenced heavily by the father of lies.
God will always forewarn of impending judgment. That’s why we are in business–the Lord’s business–of getting prophetic truth out in these closing hours of the Church Age. You are interested in learning truth about things to come, or else you wouldn’t be coming to this website on a regular basis. You see the power grab by the world’s elitists that is leading to America’s demise and the forming of a globalist order that is destined to be ultimately ruled by Antichrist.
That’s where you come into the picture in these absolutely crucial days just ahead. You are a fellow watchman on the wall. You believe and want to obey Jesus Christ, who said as recorded in Mark 13: 37: “What I say to one, I say unto all. Watch.”
We are thankful to have such brothers and sisters in Christ to help in serving as God’s heavenly media. The Lord has chosen this and other prophetic forums to be His “forewarning news service” in this, what must certainly be the very last days of this Age of Grace.
We have an awesome responsibility as we watch the satanic forces of this planet attempt to quench freedom’s light and enslave peoples everywhere. The Creator of all things views our mission in this regard as an eternally important matter. Ezekiel the prophet stated the gravity with which the Lord considers our duty in these troubling although exciting days: “But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand” (Ezekiel 33:6).
So, how do we “blow the trumpet”? By doing exactly what we are doing. We sound the warning of judgment and wrath to come, something the world’s media will never recognize, much less about which they will “blow the trumpet” of forewarning.
Thank you for being part of this all-important effort in our Lord’s Royal Service.
Heaven’s Post-Election Priorities
News pundits are pontificating in every direction about what President-Elect Donald J. Trump’s priorities will be come January 20, 2017.
We are told about building the wall on our southern border. There is much talk about repealing and replacing Obamacare. We hear about the new president’s intention to power up the faded U.S. military and to do away with many of the executive orders that he believes have helped bring the American economy and social structure to an unacceptable status.
The new president’s priorities are, of course, important. We welcome new direction as we sense reprieve from the God of Heaven this election has brought. The prayers of God’s people, as I’ve pointed out previously has, I believe, helped win that reprieve from what seemed impending judgment.
Perhaps correction would be the most appropriate term. God’s people prayed that God would hear from Heaven and would put the nation on a course correction.
This, He seemingly has done.
He intervened a century ago to make a profound course correction following the raucous Gay Nineties and the debauched era following World War I termed the Roaring Twenties.
Writer John Steinbeck captured this corrective era in his novel, The Grapes of Wrath. And, it was indeed an era when the crops of corrective judgment, whose seeds of refusing to follow the God-designed course for America had been planted more than a decade earlier, came to fruition.
Again, the tremendous Dust Bowl of the 1930s, I’m convinced, was a corrective measure while God prepared the American people for the Second World War–a conflict God didn’t cause, but certainly used to temper and harden this nation to make it ready to meet its destiny.
That destiny was primarily to bring modern Israel to birth on May 14, 1948. Also, to spread the gospel to the world through advancing communications technologies. The United States was blessed, economically, from that point, making it the wealthiest and most technologically advanced nation that has ever existed.
So, while Mr. Trump’s political agenda is important, even critical, to achieving worthy, laudable goals in turning America in the right direction, Heaven’s priorities are truly the matters for which God’s reprieve have been so mercifully given.
Of course, the Church (all born-again believers) should take this reprieve as a mandate to recapture moral ground–to roll back some of the social evils the Obama administration has brought forth–most through executive fiat. It is that very Church which has, in my estimation, allowed this slide toward the moral abyss through her acquiescence.
However, that said, I am convinced that the same two major issues are involved in this God-given reprieve.
Heaven’s post-election priorities again involve 1) seeing to it that the gospel message is carried forth throughout the world; and 2) that the nation Israel continues to have the most powerful nation on the planet as an ally and protector.
It is beyond argument that God doesn’t need the United States to protect Israel. But, it is also beyond argument–to my way of thinking, at least–that the Lord has used America to act first as midwife in birthing Israel into modernity and then to act as guardian during decades since that rebirth. The Lord of Heaven has chosen America for this specific function, it is likely, for as long as the planet remains in the pre-Tribulation era.
There will come a time when Israel will be under the wrathful hand of Antichrist and the rest of the world. God will intervene directly at that time. Daniel the prophet, passing along the angel’s words, puts it this way:
“And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” (Dan 12: 1)
So, while we watch the unfolding of post-election aftermath, let us view things through the prism of Bible prophecy. We are not about to go into an era that offers prospect of the Church building Heaven on earth as the Kingdom-Now purveyors would have it. All is further stage-setting for the Rapture of the Church and the appearance of the son of perdition .
But, it is a reprieve from Heaven we are witnessing and living, so let’s keep in mind Heaven’s priorities.
The Great Commission is still the top priority. Bringing as many lost people as possible into God’s family before the time of Tribulation is our post-election mandate.
Restrainer at Work
In presenting this week’s commentary, I must be careful to preface my thoughts. This is to make clear that I fully realize that the nation of which I am a citizen has no special, private, import, or status within God’s prophetic dealing with mankind, so far as its people being a restraint against the influence of evil is concerned. I can say only that I believe America is, very likely, the nation in which the highest number of Christians reside.
By “Christians,” I mean people who are “born again” in the sense of the words Jesus spoke on the matter of salvation as recorded in John 3:3-7. As a matter of fact, the United States has descended from being the most Christ-centered to, perhaps, the most base nation on the planet, in terms of exportation of the world’s entertainment filth. With the constitutionally legalized murder of more than 4,000 babies in the womb per day, we have spit in the face of the Almighty, telling Him that His love for the human race means nothing in view of expediency in the matter of lust for pleasure.
That established–that America is no longer the shining city on the hill to be admired–the United States still possesses the residual vestiges of greatness. The nation retains, I believe, remnants of the Christian ethic sufficient to be an influence in these closing days of the Age of Grace.
What I am saying–at least it is my intention to say–is that the born again within this nation do, indeed, have a special and private duty to perform in these times that look to be very near the first phase of Christ’s Second Coming. Because of American Christians and their position within present history as the Church Age closes, I’m convinced that we can examine a specific prophetic section of God’s Word and receive insight as to precisely where we stand as a generation on Heaven’s prophetic timeline. That specific prophetic section is found in the following verses:
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. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. (2 Thessalonians 2:6-8)
The reference “he who now letteth” in this passage is to God, the Holy Spirit–the third Person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit, Paul is prophesying, has been and is acting as restrainer of evil in the present world. God, the Holy Spirit, will continue to restrain the end-times evil until God removes from acting as the restraining influence during this Church-Age dispensation.
We who believe in the pretribulation, premillennial view of Bible prophecy hold that the Holy Spirit indwells each born again (saved) person during this Age of Grace (Church Age). Christians are thus known, collectively, as the church. The church, indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, is the Body of Christ, individually and corporately. It is this body of believers who act as salt and light for a world of corruptive evil that would otherwise bring about total decay, causing every area of human existence to implode.
The Holy Spirit will, therefore, the above prophecy informs, live within and exert influence through believers in Jesus Christ until the moment God no longer acts as restrainer of this world’s evil. This truth provides the answer to the question that is being asked prolifically in one form or another: When will all of the evil that is threatening America and the world bring civilization crashing down?
Some of that evil that looms threateningly over our daily lives brings worried glances from even the most ardent skeptics of Bible prophecy. An economic storm of unprecedented magnitude hangs angrily above America, with national debt that just turned $20 trillion as the Democrat Party–chief among contributors to the fiscal madness asks us once again to put its ultra-liberal candidate into the presidency.— (The Republican Party, it must be said, contributed mightily to the staggering debt load as well.)
It amazes even the global gurus of finance as to why the world isn’t already crushed by the impending economic crash. Iran’s leadership tells Israeli leaders practically every day that they intend to wipe the Jewish state from the face of the earth. They do little to hide the fact that they are in the process of bringing into reality nuclear weapons that can make their destructive wishes a fait accompli.
With such an avowed, blood-thirsty enemy, missiles trained on Israel and, some believe, on the very brink of producing atomic weaponry, it astonishes many observers that the Israeli Defense Force hasn’t already risked initiating all-out war by destroying Iran’s nuclear production facilities.
Absolute evil pervades every strata of society. The days like those of Sodom and of the antediluvian times of Noah inflict debauchery and violence that only a decade ago would have seemed far distant. Islam is allowed to usurp, in some cases, the U.S. Constitution, favoring Sharia Law in order to show tolerance. At the same time, Christianity is pushed to the margins of society and held up as intolerant by the tolerance police–through the insane institutions many of the federal courts have become.
Yet, the world holds together, while seeming to be on the very cusp of “Implosion,” as the title of Joel Rosenberg’s book would have it.
The Restrainer is at work. I believe that’s the answer to why the implosion has not happened, bringing total devastation to this judgment-bound earth. When the Restrainer removes and the church is called to be with Christ, I’m convinced the impending horrors that have for so long engendered the questions about the end will fall instantly upon a Christ-rejecting world.
Are you Rapture Ready?
Which Way America?
July 4, 1976 brought the bicentennial celebration of America’s birth. The nation was, at that time, like in most every era of modern U.S. history, facing challenges at home and abroad. The Soviet Union was at full strength and threatening to exert hegemony over territory even beyond the post-World War II nations it had dominated for more than three decades. China threatened its neighbors and the world. Our nation was considered to be in moral decline even then, having come out of the hippie generation and the sexual revolution and drug culture produced from the time before and since Woodstock in 1969. Roe v. Wade had just been instituted by the Supreme Court decision and all looked to be on the fast track to degeneration into a moral abyss.
The pastors and evangelists of the time were preaching from the pulpits against the many debaucheries going on. There was pushback against the evils of the day that seemed to permeate every stratum of society and culture.
My own memory of the time is wrapped up into a single recollection. Our pastor at the time, who was an eloquent speaker—and a died-in-the-wool patriot—brought into our sanctuary sermons that rang with passion for restoration of the founding fathers’ Judeo-Christian based principles. Dr. Russell J. Clearman also wrote a book, whose poignant title I chose for heading this commentary as we emerge into the post-election light—”Which Way America?”
Dr. Clearman’s book was, like his spoken words from the pulpit, a moving clarion call, through the question implicit in the title, for America to choose which way it would move. Would the nation choose to continue the road that would lead to oblivion, or the road that would return to a Godly course?
Our nation went into severe economic recession shortly after that 200th birthday celebration, the Jimmy Carter years bringing fiscal distress and disrespect from nation-entities around the world. Iran turned from being an ally to, after overthrowing the Shaw, holding hostage Americans in the American embassy in Tehran.
Then, with God’s people’s appeal to Heaven through movements such as the Moral Majority, with much prayer, the nation went into an era of relative peace and prosperity.
But, alas, America has again determined to walked down that descending slope of anti-Godliness, toward its doom.
Today, with the election of 2016 just concluded, God has again answered prayers for national rescue. And, make no mistake, it was the God of Heaven—listening to His people—who answered prayer and saw to the outcome of this election.
This is, of course, a foolish assessment by those who haven’t spiritual discernment, but is true, none-the-less.
Just as was the 1976 celebration of America’s birthday, this election of the 45th president of the United States seems a place to ask the question, “Which Way America?”
The nation is much deeper in its descent into the abyss of anti-Godliness than it was during the 1970s. Back then, homosexuality still had a moral leash. Public restrooms being shared by both sexes simultaneously was unthinkable. Same sex marriage condoned and institutionalized by the U.S. Government was unacceptable. Christians being forced to serve customers whose demands went against the business owners’ Christian principles was unimaginable.
We, as a people in America, have a much sharper turnaround to accomplish than during that earlier era. The effort will require more resolve this time. The spiritual battle is much more intense and will become even more profound as we proceed into the next 4 years of this new presidential administration.
Which way we choose to go will depend directly upon God’s people becoming staunchly resolute. –In how devoted we are to Heaven’s directives in our prayer closets and on the frontline of these satanically spawned battles we face in this end of the age war.
With all that said, I sense a very possible prophetic scenario developing, which I share here with the caveat that it is only a scenario, not a “word of knowledge,” as some would claim.
We have coming into the office of president on January 20, 2017, a person who has a certain degree of business genius. I have no doubt of that, having observed him over many decades of his empire building.
He is God’s man for this troubled hour in this nation and world, I have absolutely no doubt. I say “God’s man,” not in the sense that he is devoted to Godliness. I mean by this that I believe he is appointed to this prophetic hour for God’s own purposes. There are profound things afoot.
Globalism has been put briefly in the pause position upon the engine of world dynamics. The president-elect is a nationalist—one who holds firmly to national borders—to national sovereignty. He has vowed to “Make America Great Again.”
Whereas, I certainly don’t know the future in its detailed unfolding, I can, based upon studied, scripturally-based exploration, speculate and postulate just a bit about things to come.
We now have one of history’s proven, great builders in the business world about to take the reins of power in the United States of America—the most materially-blessed nation of human history. We have in Revelation chapter 18, a description of the most powerful and materially dominant entities in all human history. “Which Way America?”
I know this flies in the face of traditional, seminary teachings, but might we be witnessing the beginning of the final development of this entity that will eventuate in becoming the mystery Babylon described in that most astounding prophecy?
This is not to imply that Donald J. Trump—or anyone else—is a satanic plant. I’ve been a “Trumper” all the way, since he won nomination.
However, God lifts kings (leaders) to power and He brings them down. Could this genius builder be about to help build a national entity that is destined to fulfill a specific prophecy? We can only stay tuned—and spiritually attuned.
But, we won’t see the final product, in any event, if we know the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. There is an even greater event—that destruction of Babylon event scheduled for the tribulation era. We are looking for our blessed hope (Titus 2:13).
Even so, come Lord Jesus.
Terry James Prophecy Line 