Is This Gog-Magog?
Zola Levitt and I were talking privately, and Zola was thoroughly exercised about the topic of replacement theology. Some mainline denominations were beginning at the time to adopt the rising theological position termed “progressive dispensationalism.” The “doctrine” put forward that Christ’s throne had been transferred to Heaven with the Lord’s sitting down at the right hand of His Father. Therefore, the Davidic throne (throne of King David,) was also transferred from an earthly throne to Heaven. This meant, according to the progressive dispensationalists, that Israel had, in effect, been replaced in matters involving God’s promises to the nation.
This was not much different than pure replacement theology, and Zola was about to address, as I recall, the Pre-Trib Research Center group at Dallas that December on this topic. Such once-conservative seminaries as Moody and Dallas Theological had begun to go strongly toward the progressive dispensationalist viewpoint.
Zola, as anyone who knew him will attest, was passionate like few others about Israel and God’s dealing with the Jews. I have never seen him quite so animated as during that conversation somewhere around the turn of the century, as I recall. He said that he and Dr. J. Vernon McGee had once “gotten into it” on a television program over whether Israel was back in the Middle East for fulfillment of prophecy. Dr. McGee held that while it was interesting that Israel had its nation restored after more than 1,900 years in its geographical homeland, he didn’t believe this meant that Israel was necessarily there for the final time. They could yet be put out of the land and return again at a later date.
This, of course, was like throwing a glass of gasoline on a raging fire. Zola said they really got crosswise. Zola held that Israel was there for the final time–for the wind-up of this dispensation (Age of Grace) and into the Tribulation. I told him that Dr. McGee knew the truth now, his having gone to be with the Lord at age 84 in 1988. Zola’s only comment was: “Well, I would hope so…”.
Boy! Would old Dr. McGee have done a 180 on his view of the situation, if he could suddenly be shown developments since getting his–as Zola would later say of his own impending going to be with the Lord–promotion to that magnificent realm. As a matter of fact, I sometimes have wondered if they have not again had their conversation, with both now being in complete agreement on the veracity of God’s Word in regard to His promises to His chosen people.
Every day that passes brings into focus that truth. Israel is like a laser pointer indicating with pinpoint precision that these must indeed be the closing days of this Church Age. Stage-setting for fulfillment of Bible prophecy, as we have pointed out many times, literally fills today’s geopolitical, socioeconomic and religious landscape. Culture and society aren’t just headed toward the cesspool–we have arrived in the septic tank.
The world’s economy is poised to implode, with those in charge of the Fed (Federal Reserve Bank) not knowing which way to turn. to raise interest rates will bring the world’s economy crashing down. To not raise interest rates means that dynamic exigencies as part of the intricately linked world monetary system will heat up even further, making the ultimate crash far worse than any in history when it happens.
The pope is traversing the world apparently spouting strange doctrinal changes in his Catholic system and sticking his papal nose in every free nation’s business. He seems to me in cahoots with the Marxist ideology espoused by those who are said to have mentored the current U.S. president.
Russia looks to be making alliances that will one day -perhaps sooner rather than later–form a coalition like that forewarned by the prophet Ezekiel in his Gog-Magog prophecy. Iran occupies the geographical area of ancient Persia. This Israel-hating state of satanic rage is Putin’s client-state, as is Syria–these and other nations of the Islamist sort prophetically destined to be part of a horrendous end-times event.
Specifically, we must ask whether the most recent movement by Vladimir Putin might be, in fact, the actual staging for this great conflict of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39.
Those who hold to the likelihood that a Psalm 83 war will precede the Gog-Magog attack will say this cannot be the time of that great Ezekiel 38-39 conflict. I continue to respectfully disagree with the proposition that such an inner ring of nations as given in what I believe to be an Imprecatory prayer by God’s chosen nation in Psalm 83 indicates a separate military action. I continue to believe that the prayer offered in Psalm 83 will be answered powerfully and unequivocally by the God of Heaven with the all but total annihilation of the combined Gog-Magog forces of all surrounding nations who come against Israel.
That Russia has inserted itself into the Middle East in ways that trouble America’s top military generals goes without saying. The Russians have said they won’t hesitate to send a large contingent of ground troops into Syria if the request is made by the Syrian regime.
The AP reported September 17 that Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Damascus wouldn’t hesitate to ask for Russian troops if needed. At the same time he denied that Russian combat troops were already fighting in Syria. Proof continues to accumulate that the Russians are moving in to stay in the region. Many military and other intelligence officials are asking in television appearances what the build-up means. Ezekiel, we remember, said some would be asking the same question as the Gog-Magog invasion began to take shape.
One respected intelligence advisory writes the following.
The Russian military deployment to the Bassel al Assad air base in Latakia, Syria, is continuing at a rapid tempo, Stratfor can confirm. Previous imagery of the airfield, taken Sept. 4, showed significant engineering works underway. New imagery from Sept. 15, provided by our partners at All Source Analysis, reveals the completion of several large concrete aprons that were previously under construction. A large amount of Russian military equipment has also arrived at the airfield. A battalion-sized Russian contingent now appears to be located at the base, along with artillery and attack helicopter support. Several large Russian transport aircraft are also visible on the runway and the nearby ramps. (Stratfor, “Russia fortifies its position in Syria,” September 17, 2015)
With American fighter jets and other military assets in the same general area, there is growing concern that an incident of dangerous sort could happen whether by accident or by instigation. The Russian and American officials have been shown to be engaging in meetings over developments in the war-torn region.
Are we seeing the beginning of a Russian build-up for the fulfillment of the Gog-Magog assault?
I’m of the opinion that this is indeed a point in the staging for that prophesied war. Just what point is anyone’s guess.
My own thinking is that the Gog-Magog assault will take place some time after the Rapture of the Church. This is because this will be a world-shaking, cataclysmic event. Many other lands besides just this region will be affected. This war, in my view, will take the world out of the business-as-usual state that Jesus prophesied will be prevalent at the time He next intervenes into human history in a catastrophic way. Judgment will fall, the Lord said, that very day, just as in the days of Noah and the days of Lot (again read Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17: 26-30).
We see developing a sure signal that the Tribulation period is fast approaching. It it time for believers to work hard to bring as many of the lost into God’s family as possible. At the same time, we must remember to lift up our heads and keep looking up!
Handwriting on the Wall
Think with me for a moment—back to the time on September 11, 2001, when you first learned of the World Trade Center tower being hit by the commercial jet. All eyes quickly went to television screens everywhere in America. Then the second tower was hit, and we were awestruck at the ensuing carnage that took the lives of nearly three thousand people who couldn’t escape the horror.
Remember when the huge monoliths collapsed to rubble with billowing clouds of smoke and dust—a holocaust of flaming fuel and the blood of crushed, burning humanity.
Those of us who look through the prism of God’s prophetic Word couldn’t at that stunning moment help but consider that we were witnessing an event that punctuated the fact that the very end of the age was upon us. The United States of America was somehow, in the collapsing of those giant towers, brought front and center into God’s focus for judgment and wrath about to be unleashed upon a world that has rejected Him.
Think then of what happened just the past week to Islam’s most holy place, as many gathered in Mecca. Another God-rendered exclamation mark seems to have punctuated the handwriting on the wall that began the final sentence of human history.
At least 107 Muslims worshiping at the mosque considered the most holy by Islam died when a gigantic crane crashed from above and crushed the building. Many more were injured.
It seems beyond ironic that this happened on September 11, just this past week.
America and the world have long been holding a debauched banquet to which the God of heaven was not invited. America disinvited Him in 1963 by the judicial act of doing away with prayer and Bible reading in public schools.
The True Deity and His prescription for living life, given through His love letter to humanity—the Bible—has been evicted from all public places, for the most part. Thus with this exclamation point of supernatural irony—Islam’s achieving its mocking tribute to its symbolic conquest of America and the subsequent exclamation Point of anger that looks to have been put on Islam’s fraudulent worship system by the Hand of God—the finger of God might be writing upon the wall the world has erected to keep him out of human affairs. This nation’s and the world’s prophetic fate might thereby be in the heavenly process of being sealed.
Tragically, the message might indeed be one not unlike that Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson, Belshazzar, saw being written across the wall of the Babylonian banquet hall that housed the party during his last day on earth.
And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. (Dan. 5:25-28)
Every indicator that God is about to bring human history for this dispensation to a close is on the prophetic horizon.
The Tribulation hour approaches, as can be witnessed hourly on the minute by minute news flashes from around the world.
Time to do what we can for the cause of Christ might be very short. The time to do the Lord’s business is fleeting swiftly. Whatever contributions we have to put into heavenly bank accounts must be done now. “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work” (John 9:4).
A Dragon by Any Other Name
Some years ago, a film crew from South Korea’s public broadcasting system came to my home to interview me on things to do with Bible prophecy. I remember them as quiet and very polite. We interviewed for about three hours, and I recall that most of my thoughts during that time were along the lines of: “How can these be the same basic people as their brothers and sisters of North Korea?”
The incongruity of these smiling, gentle journalists and film crew as juxtaposed against my perception of Kim Jong-il, his successor and son, Kim Jong-Un, and the people of the “Axis of Evil” couldn’t have been more dramatic. The North Korean dictator was saber-rattling then, as his dictator-son continues to do periodically today. His antics are mixed with the occasional hands-in-the-air, palms-out-in-professional-wrestler-fashion claim to the referee he planned nothing dastardly. These from South Korea were just the opposite—good guys, who even left for my wife a beautifully crafted porcelain dish as their appreciation for our hospitality.
The peoples of both north and south of the 38th parallel on the Korean peninsula being so close racially and in geographic proximity, why, the thought continues to ruminate, does one people move freely and peaceably about the world, even visiting my home, while the other people harbor thoughts of igniting nuclear war for the sake of enabling a tin-horn tyrant?
Bible prophecy leaps to the forefront of the thoughts. The north is under the influence, indeed, of the evil one. George W. Bush had it right, whether it was the term inspired by the president’s own brain or those of his speech writers. The leaders of the North Korean regime have demonstrated consistently that it is under luciferian influence, as are other diabolists with whom they are in league.
Enter the chief diabolist state of the Asiatic evil empire that Bible prophecy foretells will one day rage into the occidental world:
Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, “Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.” And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. (Rev 9: 14-16)
China is touted today as the merging industrial entity that will eventually overtake the U.S. as the economic superpower of the world. The woolly-minded predict in some quarters that China’s newfound economic clout will ultimately make it a responsible world citizen. However, God’s Word almost certainly refers to the great Chinese behemoth when foretelling a massive force that could be spawned by no other nation-state.
China is asserting itself not only in building islands and claiming territorial waters through aggressive expansion of its bases in the South China Sea and other waters close to its territory. It now is moving into territorial waters in regions much more concerning to American defense planners.
Five Chinese naval ships are currently positioned in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska, US officials confirm.
It is believed to be the first time Chinese military vessels have been seen operating in the area. Officials say they have been monitoring the ships’ activities, but said they were operating in international waters. In recent years Beijing has taken a more assertive stance on maritime territorial disputes with Japan and South East Asian nations. (Five Chinese ships seen off Alaskan coast, Pentagon says, BBC News, September 3, 2015)
There is coming a time when the huge forces of the Orient will become deadly in their aggression.
And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. (Rev. 16: 12-14)
It is more than ironic that China, put forward by some “progressives” as a budding good neighbor because of its need to foster good will within the global economic community, has for eons been depicted as a dragon. Shakespeare wrote, “A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.” Call this brutal regime—like that of North Korea, over whom it exerts hegemony—a good neighbor, budding industrial giant or whatever…Bible prophecy seems to be forewarning that a dragon by any other name smells just as dangerous.
Big Brotherism
Marxism, communism, Nazism, fascism–these evoke thoughts of tyrants and dictatorships. Well, Marxism and communism might be wishful utopianism to some within political ideology circles in these days of movement toward socialism. But for the most part, thoughts of these isms generate study-related memories of the likes of Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, and other such humanity-destroying beasts.
The matters involved within the recollection include revolution, war, torture, gulag, genocide–any and all systems of governing that should be avoided at all costs. Fear and apprehension over dictatorships were the very reason the United States Constitution was written. Specifically, the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to that Constitution, spells out the rights of each citizen that government cannot usurp. These rights are, the shapers of the Constitution meticulously wrote, “inalienable.” That is, these are rights given by God, thus cannot be taken away by men–and/or women–in government.
Another ism has developed that threatens the inalienable rights of man. Its ominous construction continues at a torrid pace and will ultimately be worse than any of the aforementioned isms. As a matter of fact, it will be all of those tyrannical nightmares rolled up into one system of utter decimation. George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, authors of well-known novels, played upon fear of such governments in their futuristic books, 1984 and Brave New World. The swiftness of movement of the developments of late makes their works of fiction look ever more prophetic.
Orwell used London and Britain in 1984 as the genesis of a world of ruthless control. “Big Brother is watching you” is a phrase the author used with portentous effect. It continues to be used by those who warn of the exponentially-encroaching surveillance technologies. Again, Orwell’s vision was almost prophetic in the biblical sense.
A friend who is a well-known journalist in Great Britain recently e-mailed me with the following troubling, though fascinating, information:
I was putting together some slides for one of my presentations yesterday and discovered that Britain has 1.5 times as many surveillance cameras as China! We now have cameras that talk to people, bossing them around in the streets! They are being installed in twenty cities. They are also getting listening devices. Some places also have face-monitoring systems so they can scan for people the authorities are interested in.
The average Briton is now filmed about three hundred times per day! We also have camera cars patrolling the streets, filming whatever takes their fancy and harassing motorists.
We are years ahead of America in plans to put GPS systems in cars, etc. They also want even more speed cameras, speed-averaging cameras–you name it. All of them are being linked into one enormous grid. The records of journeys are logged and kept. As you drive down the main highways, your number plates are scanned every few miles. Our son and I spent a day in the control room where all this information is monitored–an astonishing operation, with screens showing all the main roads. The EU is now planning to store all e-mails, log every web page visited, every phone call, etc., which Britain has done for years.
My friend has told me–has told the world–that cameras train on his home from right across the street, atop a telephone-type pole. It is just a matter of time until all of England is under a surveillance system much more sophisticated and intrusive than our 1940s author, George Orwell, could have imagined. All of Europe is sure to follow suit, and we can see more than cursory evidence that America is coming into Big Brotherism’s orbit of control.
The whole world is on track for super-sophisticated tracking. And a familiar name pops through the inky blackness of cyberspace to make this a readily observable fact. The familiar name is google.com.
Who in the world knows as much about you and your private thoughts as Google? That’s the question Katherine Albrecht, radio talk-show host and spokeswoman for Startpage, a search engine that protects user privacy, posed some years ago to American Internet surfers.
“It would blow people’s minds if they knew how much information the big search engines have on the American public,” she told WND. “In fact, their dossiers are so detailed they would probably be the envy of the KGB.” (Chelsea Schilling, “Life with Big Brother: Killer Way to Slay the Google Beast!” WorldNetDaily, 1/27/2010)
Albrecht detailed how Google and other search engines gather and maintain dossiers on everyone who uses the service. The information is released to governments–to, for example, America’s Homeland Security Agency–when such information is requested. It seems the Bill of Rights is cast aside, without a constitutional amendment of any sort even being considered. Such ability to collect data on their victims was merely the dreams of such people as those in Stalin’s secret service and Hitler’s Gestapo.
Albrecht said Americans unwittingly share their most private thoughts with search engines, serving up snippets of deeply personal information about their lives, habits, troubles, health concerns, preferences and political leanings.
“We’re essentially telling them our entire life stories–stuff you wouldn’t even tell your mother–because you are in a private room with a computer,” she said. (ibid.)
Big Brotherism, of course–in my view–is another way of defining the ideology that is heading up the drive toward establishment of the regime of Antichrist, found in Revelation 13:16-18. With government’s groping for control in ways that totally disregard the wishes of U.S. citizenry, more often than not throwing constitutional safeguards to the winds of political expediency, the ideology becomes ever more manifest through our daily headlines.
All of this shows how very near this generation must be to the Tribulation hour–thus, that much closer to Christ calling His Church to be with Him (John 14:1-3; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
Jesus’ Critical Question for End-Times Believers
A news item of a few years ago about certain polling data grasped my attention. I’m sure many who peruse the news had their curiosity piqued and read it as well at that time.
After looking into the matters reported, I found the poll wasn’t as thorough as I would have liked–but it was fascinating nonetheless. Also, it was too one-sided in ethnic make-up. However, I give it enough credence to examine it here because I believe it revolves around a concern the Lord Jesus Christ expressed while teaching about conditions that will prevail at the end of the age.
A new survey finds that Americans are divided over whether they believe Jesus Christ will return by the year 2050.
Among respondents to the survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and Smithsonian Magazine, 41 percent said they expect Jesus’ Second Coming in the next forty years, while 46 percent said it probably or definitely won’t happen.
The poll suggests that 58 percent of white evangelicals believe Jesus will return by 2050, compared to only 32 percent of Catholics, and respondents with no college education were three times as likely as those with college degrees to expect Christ’s Second Coming in the next forty years. (“Many Americans Expect Jesus’ Return by 2050,” Associated Press/Israel News, 6/23/10).
To be honest, I was quite surprised that 58 percent of white evangelicals believe Christ will return by 2050. This disconnect in my mind comes from the fact that in looking for interest in Bible prophecy with in the church today (by this I mean, of course, born-again believers–see John 3:3), my colleagues and I find no evidence to support that percentage.
Perhaps I should speak just for myself, but if my colleagues are honest, based upon conversations we’ve had among ourselves, they will confess that the interest just isn’t there in those kinds of numbers.
So, a few cynical (I suppose) thoughts regarding the poll come to mind:
1) The poll was a complete “guesstimate”–even a prefabrication.
2) The poll was skewed because it was taken from among a limited group of believers thoroughly educated in Bible prophecy.
3) The poll reflects a flippancy that will agree that Christ could return within the next forty years because the possibility is far enough in the future that the respondents need not worry about changing their personal conduct.
4) My colleagues and I are wrong and the church–“white evangelicals,” in this case–is expecting the Lord’s return in majority numbers.
If the last point is true, then the fact that so many are looking for Christ is well hidden. I’m a blind guy, as many know, so I can’t see things all that well. But interest in Christ’s return–and in Bible prophecy in general, according to everything I hear–is confined to an extremely small number of folks in relationship to the tremendous number of people who claim the name of Christ.
Clicking through Christian TV networks (yes, we blind guys “watch” TV), I rarely come across a prophetic message. The majority of the viewing fare consists of the prosperity gospel or entertainment that is for the most part a rather poor knockoff of secular entertainment. The preachers who do present a sound gospel message and sound doctrine seldom-to-rarely speak on Bible prophecy. And they certainly don’t touch upon the pre-trib return of Christ in the Rapture.
When I’ve personally asked some of the preachers and teachers why they avoid presenting prophecy, they have said things like: “The people just don’t understand Revelation”; “The subject is just too scary to most people”; or ” We just concentrate on getting people the gospel so they will be saved.”
The honest such preachers and teachers say: “I just don’t know anything about prophecy. I’ve not studied it enough to preach on it.”
What a tragedy, a travesty, this is! There is a singular hope (Titus 2:13) that God’s people have in this swiftly degenerating age. Yet, their shepherds–the preachers and teachers, their suppliers of spiritual food–use every conceivable excuse for not telling Christians about their returning Lord.
Some accuse those of us whose mission we believe it is to concentrate on Bible prophecy in these times of doing so to the point that we ignore Christ’s love and the Bible’s life lessons for His people.
We in no way believe that prophecy should be taught exclusively. However, prophecy constitutes almost 30 percent of the whole Word of God, so the Heavenly Father obviously means for prophecy to be a generous part of the mix for His children’s spiritual sustenance. This is especially true in these days when the signals of Christ’s coming again are every direction in which one looks.
Bible prophecy is being marginalized by those who are supposed to shepherd their flocks, but who don’t want to study it and/or don’t want to risk scaring people out of the pews. This is because it is the feel-good and do-good, entertainment-oriented sermonettes that tickle itching ears and build many of the elaborate end-times edifices.
Understand that I recognize there are huge churches that hold to doctrinal truth and include God’s prophetic Word as part of feeding their attending flocks. This is not to castigate these wonderful pastors, teachers, and staffs. God bless them! But these are in the minority. The dearth of interest in Christ’s coming back in the Rapture, then in the Second Advent, demonstrates the lack of faith resident within Christ’s body at this crucial hour.
Jesus asked the following profoundly troubling question in that prophetic context: “Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8b). The Lord had a somber message for God’s people who will be alive at His sudden, unannounced coming. I once wrote the following as part of a chapter for one of my books that I believe gets across the gist of this commentary:
The indifference so prevalent within the church is, itself, an end-times signal, it seems. The Lord obviously spoke to the fact that God’s own children will in large part be indifferent to the prophetic signals. They will not be living as they should at the time of His coming for them, as He promised in John 14:1-3. As a matter of fact, He forewarned: “And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” (Luke 21:34-36)
I pray more born-again pastors, Bible teachers, and God’s children of this nation and the world will awaken en masse to the staggering implications of Christ’s Second Coming.
EU as Reviving Rome in Question
Is the European Union (EU) on its way to dissolution? Do the developing economic cracks that seem all but impossible to repair mean that it’s over for the EU?
More to the point of our concern here—if the EU were to fail, does it mean that we who believe we are seeing the Roman Empire reviving in the EU are wrong? Thus, will the area out of which Antichrist is foretold to emerge not be western Europe, rather, from somewhere else?
Are those correct who as of late proclaim the “prince that shall come” of Daniel 9:27 will emerge from the eastern leg rather than the western leg of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream-vision (Daniel chapter 2)?
These questions cross my email quite frequently these days. Europe’s economic problems are worse than those of the United States, it is generally agreed by monetary experts. Could it be that Humpty-Dumpty, who fell apart with the decline and fall of the ancient Roman Empire, who was then patched together in the 1950s and has been coming back together in a major way since, is now on its way to taking another great fall?
I defer in matters of high finance to the experts, such as my friend Wilfred Hahn, when it comes to precisely laying out the case for what is likely to happen in Europe’s, America’s and the world’s precarious economic positions. But there are some important matters within what I believe we see happening, from biblically prophetic standpoint that should be interjected.
Hahn writes:
The Bible tells us that a group of ten ally together out of common self-interest. They have one purpose and will give their power and authority to the Beast (Revelation 17:13). The large multinational nation groups of today simply have too many conflicts of interest to be any effective consequence in today’s geopolitical environment. Developments in Asia today also, we believe, play a decisive role in these last-day machinations of ten kings. (Wilfred Hahn, “European Union: Is the Revived Roman Empire Finished?)
It makes perfect sense that the many turf fiefdoms held by the powers large and small across the planet will never—under anything approaching normal circumstances—give in to a central authority. Such acquiescence will have to be wrested from their grip in a painful manner.
One thing is sure: The beast system of Antichrist (Rev. 13: 16-18) will manage, ultimately, to get all governmental entities to give him their power and authority (Rev. 17: 12-13). That power and authority will consist, at its base, of economic control. Hahn correctly surmises, because he relies upon Bible prophecy, that ten entities (called “kings”) will ally out of common self-interest. Seven of the ten will willingly give up their power and authority, and three will have it ripped from their grip by the most powerful tyrant ever to draw breath (Dan 7: 24).
Whether the power is taken by willing acquiescence of the seven heads of the entities involved or it is taken by force, as seems to be the case of the three kings having their power and authority stripped from them by the beast in Daniel 7:24, the deed will be done.
It is no surprise. Recent crushing fiscal issues and events point to the inescapable reality that something is going to have to happen soon, or world economic implosion will result. Again, Wilfred Hahn writes:
Recent events are therefore of no surprise. What is always unpredictable in crisis situations, is the specific catalyst that prompts a reappraisal of risk…the sudden awakening to reality. (Ibid.)
I believe that catalyst—the crisis that will cause all sovereign leaderships to realize they must come together to give up their desperately held-onto turf kingdoms—will be the Rapture. The ensuing chaos will cause most everyone left behind to re-think their worldviews. The prince that shall come will have the answers they seek—at least, they will believe him to have the answers.
As expressed before in this column, I’m convinced that a completely changed economic order, based upon Special Drawing Rights (SDR) or a system of electronic funds transfer (computer units, not hard currency of any sort) will be acceptable to most leaderships around the world. The ten kings of Revelation 17:12-13 that correspond to the entities of Daniel 7: 24 will perhaps be, in my scenario, ten pan-continental trading blocs modeled on the Eurozone prototype. Thus, Daniel’s prophecy of the ten-toes final humanistic system of government that Christ’s return will smash to pieces will be fulfilled.
I agree with Wilfred Hahn that the current apparent crumbling of Europe in no way means the EU is finished as the prime candidate for the Reviving Roman Empire. The crisis that will bring everything into perfect prophetic alignment, in regard to the 666 beast government, will, I’m more and more convinced, be the shout from heaven: “Come up here!” (Rev. 4: 1)
In Search of Peace
Each Christmas we come to another time of proclaiming peace on earth. Many aboard spaceship Earth send tidings of peace and good will. But the prospects for such, sadly, are anything but joyful upon this tremulous sphere–now or at Christmas time, no matter the year. The only one who can spread such tidings –and make joyous times a reality–is relegated to the status of one religious figure among many by those who cry for peace. They, as a matter of fact, do all within their politically correct power to remove mention of Him from the season of celebration that has for centuries bore His holy name.
The incessant plea for there to be peace is, itself, prophetic in nature. The peace today’s earth-dwellers seek above all other is centered around the terrifying prospects of war that threatens to erupt from the most sensitive geographical location on the planet. God considers this place the center of the world. He deals with man based upon their treatment of how they deal with Israel in general, and with Jerusalem in particular.
The Bible is replete with those who deal treacherously, seeking to establish hegemony over the region. The Lord will not allow tranquility to reign so long as that tranquility is based upon establishing governance that does not include Him as sovereign in the matter. One prophecy about such surreptitious “peace” powerfully thunders God’s Word on the matters involved.
“[To wit], the prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions of peace for her, and [there is] no peace, saith the Lord GOD” (Ezek. 13:16).
The Lord God condemns all who try to establish their wicked man-made peace within His land.
“The way of peace they know not; and [there is] no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace” (Isa. 59:8).
Israel’s God states in no uncertain terms the truth about the false peacemakers: “[There is] no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked” (Isa. 48:22). His judgment is certain, and He minces no words in pronouncing what will happen to those who force man-made peace upon Israel and to the people of Israel herself who sign on to that pseudo-guarantee of peace and safety.
“For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape” (1Thess. 5:3).
The prophet Jeremiah speaks for the Lord in pointing the finger of judgment at Israel, which has throughout history turned to others than their God for security.
Although a time will come when Israeli leadership will seek peace-making by the one, satanically driven man who will betray them, for the moment, Israeli leadership is resisting attempts to make them conform to what the world wants for them. And what the world wants is elimination, ultimately, because the world’s ultimate leader during the present time is none other than Lucifer. He directs the minds of world leadership toward antisemitism, as is easily observable as we near the end of the age.
There is more and more invective against the Jewish state’s increasingly unpopular position, hurled by leaderships of earth’s nation-states. God speaks directly about these trying to force peace upon His chosen people: “For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when [there is] no peace” (Jer. 8:11).
The present road to false peace will eventuate in devastation –to which the prophet Daniel speaks. The ultimate false peacemaker is the subject of Daniel’s forewarning. The Antichrist.
“And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many…” (Dan. 8:23-25c).
But, thankfully, that isn’t the end of the story for Israel or the world. Daniel gives the outcome of Antichrist’s false peacemaking that results in unprecedented devastation.
“…he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand” (Dan. 8:25d).
Antichrist and all of the phony peacemakers of history will be crushed and ground to powder. They will be blown away by the winds of history into the dustbin of eternity. Daniel foretells the final destruction of the false purveyors of peace talk through interpreting Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar’s strange dream of a man-image that represented the four great kingdoms that would rule over earth until Christ’s return:
“Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Dan. 2:34-35).
Nahum the prophet gives the final Word of God about the resolution to the long search for peace. Again, peace on earth centers around Israel, Jerusalem, and the Prince of Peace, that great earthly power-crushing stone–the Lord Jesus Christ.
“Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows: for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off” (Nah. 1:5).
PEACE is the purpose for which the Christ-child was born–to bring peace to humanity by providing sin-destroying reconciliation to God the Father through Christ’s shed blood on Calvary’s cross. God chose that the Redeemer, His Son Jesus, would become the God-man through Israel. That’s why we are commanded to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6). Only when the Prince of Peace reigns and rules will there be peace on Earth, good will toward men.
EU: Partly Strong, Partly Weak
It seems observably true—to me, at least—that this generation stands on God’s prophetic timeline very near the time Daniel the Old Testament prophet described, as recorded in the following:
And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. (Daniel 2:40-43)
Daniel was given by God both the dream-vision that Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar had one troubling night and its interpretation. The dream was of a huge, metallic, man image. The image, Daniel interpreted, was of four world powers, and a final, fifth world power, which would come on the scene at the very end of human history just before God judged earth’s rebellious governments. Then, the prophecy indicates, a new regime—headed by God himself—will rule and reign:
And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. (Daniel 2:44)
Daniel prophesied that the fifth world power will come out of the fourth. We know the order of world empires from history. The first Daniel interpreted, at the time he was giving the interpretation, was Babylon. The second would be the Medo-Persian. The third would be the Greek Empire, and the fourth would be the Roman Empire, represented in Nebuchadnezzar’s night-vision by the legs of iron. The fifth empire—the final empire, and the only one that is yet to come into being as fulfilled prophecy—is represented by the feet and toes of that metallic monstrosity.
To my understanding, at least, the five world empires given to Daniel in metallic representations—i.e., gold for the head, silver for the breast and arms, brass or bronze for the belly and thighs, and iron for the legs, feet and toes—is indicative of money and the power to rule over the inhabitants of planet earth. Metals have most always been at the center of any economy throughout history. And when the metals represented the power to mold and construct weaponry—e.g., spears, bullets, bombs, war craft like tanks, planes, ships, etc.—the power of the metal and the economies of the world powers become understandable. Money is power, and power is control. These are inextricably linked.
The fifth world power will come from the Roman Empire, which disintegrated but is reforming, we who observe prophecy from the pretrib view believe. We believe that the European Union is almost certainly the nucleus out of which this last Gentile power is emerging. This is the area of central Europe in particular. Rome is the very heart of that nucleus.
Daniel also prophesied about the last world empire’s leader who would leap to center stage at just the right moment in Satan’s plans to bring him to power:
And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. (Daniel 9:26-27)
Antichrist, “the beast,” as this vicious future tyrant is termed, will come to power and rule ruthlessly. His power will emanate from economics—the ability to call all to worship him through a mark and numbering system that will control buying and selling. (Read Revelation 13:16-18 to understand this 666 system of absolute control.)
We are witnessing economic rearrangements at present like no other generation has seen. Even the United States—as anyone with any sense of what’s been going on in the news will attest—is being forced into a mold of one-world economic order. It is all leading toward the mark and numbering system that will give Antichrist his power. (Read Revelation 17:12-13 to learn of the ten economic power blocs that will develop, then give power and authority to the beast—Antichrist, the ruler of the fifth and final world empire.)
Europe today is in dynamic upheaval, struggling to stand on the feet and toes that will give the eventual Antichrist system its balance, its equilibrium. But just as Daniel the prophet foretold, the feet and toes are not made of purely a metal of strength. The EU is made partly of the governmental strength that was the ancient Roman Empire, but also is constructed of weakness intrinsic within the governments of contemporary times. This makes the whole structure that is the final form of all worldly economic-governmental power subject to crashing to final collapse. This is exactly what Daniel foresaw as given above in Daniel 2:44.
A news story exposes, I believe, the prophesied struggle the reviving Roman Empire is having. The problem of everything not fitting together well is obvious in considering the economic situation.
The European Commission said on Monday that talks between Greece and its creditor institutions on a third bailout had begun in Athens after a delay of a few days.
“Teams from the institutions are now already on the ground in Athens, and work is starting immediately as we speak. Work has started, meaning that the institutions are talking to the Greek authorities”, a Commission spokeswoman said.
Talks were due to have started last week, but were delayed because of organizational issues. (Negotiations for new bailout deal start in Athens, World Bulletin / News Desk)
Europe is caught in powerful monetary winds of change. Greece, the 10th nation to join the EU is at the center of this change. It all portends an eventual forcing by the master manipulator –Satan—of Europe, and most of the rest of the world, into the 666 system of control.
Paul the apostle wrote of the economic reality that drives the world toward God’s judgment and wrath: “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:9-10a).
Certainly, the truth of God’s Word frames what is happening at this time in history, and where it all is heading as the rulers of this fallen sphere grasp for the wealth of this world and strive to cast off the bonds of governance God wisely placed upon the would-be masters of planet earth.
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you. (James 5:1-6)
We are in the end of the age era of the toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s night-vision.
Jerusalem and the End of Days
Israel is the one nation, and Jerusalem is the one city on the planet God personally reserves unto himself. He doesn’t equivocate; it is His nation and city, and anyone or anything that tries to wrest it from Him will suffer eternal consequences.
We ascertain this when reading verses such as follows:
“…for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me” (Lev. 25:23). “…then I will uproot you from My land which I have given you…” (2 Chron. 7:20) “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it (Zech. 12:2-3).
The God of Creation, who in reality owns every atom of existence, clearly tells the inhabitants of Planet Earth that these are His geographical places He reserves for himself. The Lord, in warning those who would harm Jerusalem, refers to that city this way: “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).
Jesus, the Messiah, said about this city, while weeping, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [thou] that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under [her] wings, and ye would not!” (Matt. 23:37).
These and many other Scriptures make it undeniably clear that God loves Israel and Jerusalem. He considers them His personal earthly real estate. He loved them in the past, and has great prophetic plans for them. Therefore, He loves Israel and Jerusalem today.
This being the documentable case, I’ve always had a question within the milieu of eschatological consideration in which I’ve engaged for a number of decades.
The question: Why the following reference to this divinely designated real estate?
“And their dead bodies [shall lie] in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified” (Rev.11:8).
The reference here is to the two witnesses who will preach to the earth dwellers of the tribulation era. The question that has always ruminated in my mind is why God calls this beloved city and nation, “spiritually,” “Sodom and Egypt”?
The people of Israel, before its dispersions and after its modern regathering in the land, have been wicked and done things contrary to God’s will. But, so has every other city and nation that has ever existed on Planet Earth.
The condemnation in this Revelation context, seems, to my mind, reference to prophecy yet future. Jerusalem is destined to become as wicked as the ancient city of Sodom and the idol-worshipping ancient Egypt, in God’s holy view. This shouldn’t surprise, considering how the devil is working overtime in every city and nation of the world today. Satan wanted to usurp the throne of God, e.g., Isa. 14:13-14. It stands to reason –and to scriptural analysis–that the wicked one would want to usurp Christ’s future earthly throne as well. And, for a fact, not even the unbelieving heathens of the world can deny that Jerusalem and the nation Israel are at the center of global conflict today. It is the most feared potential point for triggering nuclear conflagration on this old troubled sphere.
Lucifer, the fallen one, is certainly working his devilish plan to bring all to Armageddon. This includes his all out-efforts against the apple of God’s eye –the city of Zion –Jerusalem. He will indeed succeed in making Jerusalem, spiritually, like Sodom. Proof that Satan’s plan is far along in its progress toward that goal is in today’s news, as follows:
On the anniversary of the destruction of the two Jewish Holy Temples in Jerusalem, Tisha B’Av, an Israeli Arab lawmaker insisted in a radio interview that neither ever existed. Joint Arab List (Ra’am Tal) Knesset member Masoud Ganaim made the statement during an interview Sunday (July 26) on Galei Tzahal Army Radio. Ganaim was asked – as was Jewish lawmaker Yinon Magal from the Bayit Yehudi party — about violent riots that were being perpetrated by Muslim Arabs in the Al Aqsa mosque on the site of the Temple Mount. The rioting Arabs hurled rocks, cement blocks, firebombs and other explosives at Israel Police and even Waqf Islamic Authority security personnel from inside the mosque.
When asked about the violence, Ganaim said that the rock-throwing was not the problem: the real issue, he said, was the “incitement” caused by Jews wanting to pray at the site, considered the holiest in the Jewish faith. Ganaim also said during the conversation that no Jewish Temples ever existed on the Temple Mount – and that he knows this for a fact because he is a history teacher. “The State of Israel knows that Jews and Israel have no legitimacy to the site except for their legitimacy as an occupier – a legitimacy won by force,” he said. (The Jewish Press » » ‘Jewish Holy Temples Never Existed’ Says Israeli Arab MK , Rapture Ready News 7/27/15)
Regardless of all lies by Israel’s enemies to the contrary, things are prophetically setting up for the moment when the man of sin, Satan’s false messiah, Antichrist, sits in a temple atop Mount Moriah, precisely above the spot where the Ark of the Covenant once sat (2 Thes. 2:3-4). He might even sit upon the same Ark, if it is found, or a counterfeit one, declaring himself to be God, and demanding worship (Rev. 13). Israel’s prideful enemies pervert at every turn the order God has established for the Jews and for Israel. Antichrist will be the ultimately evolved pridefulness against God’s Holy Will. Here’s what God says about mankind’s pride –especially that which perverts His creation order:
“The fear of the LORD [is] to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate” (Prov. 8:13).
Can there be serious doubt that this rebellious generation stands poised upon the precipice of the end of days?
Is the Lull Really a Lull?
Terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon being always in our thinking, it is perhaps appropriate to reflect upon where this generation might stand while the prophesied apocalyptic storm approaches.
My colleagues and I often discuss these days the apparent lull in birth pang-like contractions the world seems to be in at this time. Other than the tsunami of December 2004, the catastrophic hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, and the current ISIS rampages across the Middle East, major convulsions that might be harbingers of the tribulation have seemed minimally significant. But, upon closer examination, is the supposed lull really a lull?
Scripture verses like the following come to mind, when thinking on end-time activity prophesied, with regard to the “time of sorrows” spoken of by the Lord: “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring” (Lk. 21:25).
Jesus said world conditions just before His return will be like a woman in travail with child. Geopolitical, geophysical and societal/cultural matters will be in a state of wave-like flare-ups. Yet there seems a dichotomy in His Mount of Olives discourse prophecies. Jesus’ words indicate that the time of His coming will be preceded by, at the same time, a worldwide perception that lulls earth’s inhabitants into a sense of things being as usual. Here is what He said in a couple of prophetic passages: “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matt. 24:44). “And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Lk. 17:26-30).
Perhaps a bit earlier–in the late 20th century— we were left to wonder why this dichotomy. Why Jesus foretold a time of tremendously increased troubles for the world –that come in birth pang-like fashion—and yet at the same time gave a picture of a day when no one will really see the birth pangs, except those who are truly watching for end-time things that are occurring. How can it be that these painful contractions are going on, while they are, for the most part, not noticed, just before Christ intervenes with catastrophic results?
The answer is, I think, that the contractions are so frequent now that the world has by and large become desensitized to what is happening. The quaking earth, the raging seas–both literally and figuratively (the seas of humanity), the signals of societal collapse, and all the rest assaulting our brains day and night through reports from the ever-present news media simply overload the senses. Thus there is at the same time the birth pang-like convulsions and the ho-hum attitude –even among God’s people—that things are the same as always. So, the perceived lull is really no lull at all. We reflect on what’s really going on at present.
- The world’s economy is as near collapse as the next financial default of any number of nations.
- The highest court in America has over-ruled God in the matter of His making marriage between a man and a woman, forcing upon the American people what God’s Word calls Abomination.
- America’s president embraces the tyrants of the world yet flagrantly demonstrates his dislike for Israel, threatening to pull America away from close alliance with the Jewish state.
Yet the world wags on, with America – in spite of rumors of serious economic and social ills that could disrupt not only the U.S., but the world’s economy, continuing to carry on business as usual.
We can definitely begin to understand the two conditions co-existing that seem in such diametric opposition one to the other. We begin to comprehend the paradox —both the great upheaval, and the sense of business as usual.
Obviously Jesus Christ, who is God, foresaw this incrementalism that will dull the perception of most alive on Planet Earth just before He intervenes catastrophically into the affairs of mankind in the end of days. He knew all about the lull that will in actuality not be a lull at all, but a situation not unlike the proverbial frog who does not realize it is being boiled alive because it can’t perceive its precarious, even lethal, circumstance.
That is why Jesus instructed those who are called by His holy name: “And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.” (Mk. 13:37).
Terry James Prophecy Line 