ChristiansUnite Forums

Implants seems to bring us one step closer to the fulfillment of another prophecy found in the Book of Revelation recorded approximately 2,000 years ago.
 

One thousand years ago, one hundred years ago, even a few decades ago, this prophecy was difficult to understand. Today with modern technology this prophecy can now be easily understood.

Consider taking some time to read the Book of Revelation. You may want to acquire a good commentary to help you understand this last and final book of the Bible as clearly as possible.

I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his MARK upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. ~ Revelation 20:4 ~
 
200 MILLION MAN ARMY

And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand (200 million): and I heard the number of them (Kings of the East). ~ Revelation 9:16 ~

Chairman Mao boasted in the 1960's of an army of two hundred million men.

Jesus appeared to John just before the turn of the 1st century, on an island called Patmos, off the coast of Greece. He was in his late 90's and it was at that time that John received the entire Book of Revelation.

EUPHRATES RIVER

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. ~ Revelation 16:12 ~

With the recent developments in Turkey over the dams being constructed on the Euphrates River, Syria and Iraq have stepped up political pressure over water rights in the region. Turkey has the ability to shut down the Euphrates River and completely stop its flow for up to eight months. This project will have 21 dams, 17 hydro-electric plants and a network of tunnels and canals for irrigation.

"The prophet John foretold of a future military highway across Asia that would allow this astonishing army to march toward the final battle in Israel. John describes the building of this highway in these words: "the way of the kings of the east might be prepared' (Revelation 16:12). The Chinese government has spent enormous sums and expended the lives of hundreds of thousands of construction workers building a military super-highway across Asia heading directly toward Israel. This highway has no economic purpose and has been completed through the south of China, Tibet, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. This curious prophecy about ‘the way of the kings of the east" is being fulfilled in the 1990's, setting the stage for the final battle of this age".

(My Note - A Short One: There's never been a 200 million man army until just the last few decades, so this event hasn't happened yet - MOST OBVIOUSLY! It will happen because GOD said it would, and that time might be soon.)

OVER 300 PROPHECIES FROM THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES

There are over 300 Old Testament Prophecies about the Messiah that were fulfilled by the life of Jesus Christ, God's promised Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.

THE MESSIAH AND THE SCIENCE OF PROBABILITY

There are 456 OLD TESTAMENT AND NEW TESTAMENT PROPHECIES about the Messiah that were fulfilled by the life of Jesus Christ. The reason why prophecy is an indication of the divine authorship of the Scriptures, and hence a testimony to the trustworthiness of the message of the Scriptures, is because of the minute probability of fulfillment. Anyone can make predictions, for that is simple. Having prophecies fulfilled is vastly different. In fact, the more statements made about the future, and the more the detail, then the less likely the precise fulfillment will be.
 
For example, what is the likelihood of a person predicting today the exact city in which the birth of a future leader would take place, well into the 21st century? This is indeed what the prophet Micah did 700 years before the Messiah. Further, what is the likelihood of predicting the precise manner of death that a new, unknown religious leader would experience, a thousand years from now - a manner of death presently unknown, and to remain unknown for hundreds of years? Yet, this is indeed what David did in 1000 B.C. Again, what is the likelihood of predicting the specific date of the appearance of some great future leader, hundreds of years in advance? Yet, this is indeed what Daniel did, 530 years before Christ. If one were to conceive 50 specific prophecies about a person in the future, who one would never meet, just what is the likelihood that this person will fulfill all 50 of the predictions? How much less would this likelihood be if 25 of these predictions were about what other people would do to him, and were completely beyond his control? For example, how does someone "arrange" to be born in a specific family? How does one "arrange" to be born in a specified city, in which their parents do not actually live?

Indeed, it may be possible for someone to fake one or two of the Messianic prophecies, but it would be impossible for any one person to arrange and fulfill all of these prophecies. David Greenglass was a World War II traitor. He gave atomic secrets to the Russians and then fled to Mexico after the war. His conspirators arranged to help him by planning a meeting with the secretary of the Russian ambassador in Mexico City. Proper identification for both parties became vital. Greenglass was to identify himself with six prearranged signs. These instructions had been given to both the secretary and Greenglass so there would be no possibility of making a mistake. They were : (1) once in Mexico City Greenglass was to write a note to the secretary, signing his name as "I. Jackson"; (2) after three days he was to go to the Plaza de Colon in Mexico City and (3) stand before the statue of Columbus, (4) with his middle finger placed in a guide book. In addition, (5) when he was approached, he was to say it was a magnificent statue and that he was from Oklahoma. (6) The secretary was to then give him a passport. The six prearranged signs worked. Why? With six identifying characteristics it was impossible for the secretary not to identify Greenglass as the proper contact. How true, then, it must be that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah if He had 456 identifying characteristics well in advance, and fulfilled them all!

In fact, what does the science of probability make of this? The science of probability attempts to determine the chance that a given event will occur. The value and accuracy of the science of probability has been well established beyond doubt - for example, insurance rates are fixed according to statistical probabilities. Professor Emeritus of Science at Westmont College, Peter Stoner, has calculated the probability of one man fulfilling the major prophecies made concerning the Messiah. The estimates were worked out by twelve different classes, representing some 600 college students. The students carefully weighed all the factors, discussed each prophecy at length, and examined the various circumstances which might indicate that men had conspired together to fulfill a particular prophecy. They made their estimates conservative enough so that there was finally unanimous agreement even among the most skeptical students. However, then Professor Stoner took their estimates and made them even more conservative. He also encouraged other skeptics or scientists to make their own estimates to see if his conclusions were more than fair. Finally, he submitted his figures for review to a Committee of the American Scientific Affiliation. Upon examination, they verified that his calculations were dependable and accurate in regard to the scientific material presented (Peter Stoner, Science Speaks, Chicago: Moody Press, 1969, 4).

After examining only eight different prophecies (Idem, 106), they conservatively estimated that the chance of one man fulfilling all eight prophecies was one in 10^17.

Suppose that we take 10^17 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote them in their own wisdom (Idem, 106-107).

In financial terms, is there anyone who would not invest in a financial venture if the chance of failure were only one in 10^17? This is the kind of sure investment we are offered by God for belief in His Messiah. Professor Stoner, from these figures, draws the conclusion the fulfillment of these eight prophecies alone proves that God inspired the writing of the prophecies (Idem, 107) - the likelihood of mere chance is only one in 10^17! Another way of saying this is that any person who minimizes or ignores the significance of the Biblical identifying signs concerning the Messiah would be ignoring all mathematical and scientific logic and reasoning.. But, of course, there are many more than eight prophecies.

In another calculation, Stoner used 48 prophecies (Idem, 109) (even though he could have used Edersheim's 456) and arrived at the extremely conservative estimate that the probability of 48 prophecies being fulfilled in one person is the incredible number 10^157.

According to Emile Borel, once one goes past one chance in 10^50, the probabilities are so small that it is impossible to think that they will ever occur. As Stoner concludes, "Any man who rejects Christ as the Son of God is rejecting a fact proved perhaps more absolutely than any other fact in the world (Stoner, op. cit., 112)."

A GOOGOL IS : 10^100 OR 1 FOLLOWED BY 100 ZEROS

EXAMPLE: Some estimate our known universe to span 16 billion light years. If you counted the gas molecules in 118 Million Light Years Cubed, you would have slightly over a googol molecules.

The number 10^157 is only based on 48 of the 456 prophecies fulfilled by one individual. If you have ever had any doubt about Jesus Christ being who the Bible states He is, absolutely all doubt should be removed at this point.

JERUSALEM AND THE TEMPLE MOUNT

The original Temple location has been hidden and protected for nearly 1900 years. The Third Temple with its inner court will be built soon on the "greatly exalted mountain" in Jerusalem - Ezekiel 40:2; Psalm 48:1-2; 24:3; 2:6 - in the same location as the previous two Temples. According to the following prophecy, the Dome of the Rock and other structures will be left standing on the south - Ezekiel 40:2 - unharmed before, during, and after this great rebuilding project -- a Peaceful Solution!
 
Now a peaceful solution can be seen. We now understand that The Dome of The Tablets is the actual location of the Holy of Holies. With this information the rest of the temple ground can be laid out. What we find is that The Dome of the Rock rests in THE COURT OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE.

Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told 'Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and them that worship therein, but do not measure; THE COURT OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE leave that out, for it is given over to the nations (gentiles) and they will trample over the holy city for 42 months. ~ Revelation 11:1-2 ~
 
These 42 months will be the last 3 ½ years of what has come to be called the 7 Year Tribulation Period prior to Jesus' Second Coming.

TEMPLE INSTITUTE IS PREPARING

It is also good news for the Temple Institute, whose temple vessels and priestly robes are in storage, and whose young rabbis are presently in training for the offices of Temple Priests. Chaim Richman of the Temple Institute has architectural building plans already drawn up and says the temple could be built in less than one year.

THE PURIFICATION OF THE TEMPLE

One of the first red heifers born anywhere in approximately 2,000 years was born in Israel. The heifer's owner contacted the Temple Institute, on Friday, April 5th, 2002. Rabbi Menachem Makover and Rabbi Chaim Richman traveled to the farm where the heifer is located, to inspect and validate her status. The rabbis found her to be kosher and were satisfied that this heifer could indeed be a candidate to be used in the process of purification described in the book of Numbers, chapter 19. This is a prerequisite for the rebuilding of the Holy Temple.

Recently there have been a few pure red heifers born that eventually grew some black or white hairs which disqualified them.

Some feel that Red Heifer Ashes were hidden from the time of Jeremiah the Prophet and will surface, in these last days, to be used to purify the 3rd Jerusalem Temple.


The LORD thy God will have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee. ~ Deuteronomy 30:3, Ezekiel 37:21-22 ~

ISRAEL WAS RE-ESTABLISHED AS A NATION ON MAY 14, 1948.

Jews today are still being gathered back to Israel.


On Sunday, April 4, 1999, at the semi-annual"Priestly Blessing" ceremony at the Western Wall, a booth was erected nearby for the genetic testing Kohanim (priests), to see if they have what is now called "The Priestly Gene". Two years ago, an American geneticist found that all Kohanim's share a common gene, supporting the belief that they have one common ancestor (presumably Aaron the Priest). Rabbi Nachman Kahane, said that 17 Kohanim's have already been tested. Thirteen tested positive, one negative, and three cases were inconclusive.

AUTHOR UNKNOWN
________________________________

(My Note: You will need a background of studying Bible Prophecy to appreciate this document. Regardless, you will assign a value of somewhere between "Great" and "None". I'll simply suggest that you study the listed portions of Scripture.)

i think that the antchrist is the son of kaddafi! just a thought that i believe since 1983!!

Good every body,Tom I will be reading you  attentively tomorrow now  i am alittle tire I must go to my rest..in Jesus (++)

Goodnight Sister Def - Sleep Well.

Love In Christ,
Tom


 

China currently has 7,024,000 active duty personnel but they have an availability of 281,240,272 according to CIA 2005 conservative figures. It is also estimated that there is over 13 million more that are reaching military age each year in China.  The time is ripe.





The Temple Institute's latest project, the construction of King David's lyre, was completed just this year bringing to a close all that is necessary to reinstitute the temple and temple worship with the exception of the Ark of the Covenant. The corner stone of the new temple has been selected and is ready for installation. The incense used required a specific mixture of which no one had the precise "recipe" required until just recently when a vast amount of it was found in a Qumran dig.

It was believed that the hiding place of the Ark was said to have been located but there has been all sorts of uncontrollable blocks that have been preventing the further search in that area for it. It is the same area in which the incense and other temple artifacts were found. If it is there then I am sure that this hold up is due to it not yet being the correct time for it's presentation. It does appear that the time is nearing though.

Pastor Roger,

Brother, all of these events put together is like being hit in the head with a 2' x 4' and hearing someone say, "Wake UP!"

In fact, I think that many threads already on Christians Unite point to the same thing. The time is getting short, and ALMIGHTY GOD will soon pour out HIS Righteous Wrath on evil.

In terms of the time being "short", there are many ways to define this. This life is "short" for us any way we look at it, and we have no idea what might happen in the next hour or day in terms of health, accidents, natural disasters, etc.

However, it should also become apparent that the remaining time in this Age of Grace is also getting short, regardless of how long we physically live. Time is an important factor to consider for the lost and for the Saved. For the Saved, we should know that we don't have unlimited time to witness to our friends and family. For the lost, they should know that NOW is the time to accept JESUS CHRIST as LORD and SAVIOUR. It just isn't wise to keep putting this decision off. People physically die all the time when nothing was expected. The number of causes are almost unlimited. At the best, this short life is very uncertain, and important decisions should not be put off.

We have all kinds of examples recently where people have died in floods, storms, violence, and you name it. Many of them were "absent from the body and present with the LORD". Sadly, many of them died in their sins without hope. Regardless of how they physically died, it's too late for them to make decisions now that impact their ETERNITY in either Heaven or Hell. What could be more important than this? - NOTHING!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Excellent study in Biblical Prophecy brother.


AMEN!!


That is what I've been trying to show, in the "Prophecy - Current Events" forum. In also know Pastor Roger has been trying to show in the "Politics and Political Issues" forum the same thing. 

Though none of us know when, the Father calls us home.

Matthew 24:36 But of that [exact] day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

I don't understand or know much about the prophecies of the end times. I don't understand alot of things about anything actually

Brother this are links on Tribulation, they are in my web pages, in my sigline.

Signs of the Times. (http://www.freewebs.com/christanityrocks/signsofthetimes.htm)

Tribulation (http://www.freewebs.com/christanityrocks/tribulation.htm)

 Anti-christ, false & prophet (http://www.freewebs.com/christanityrocks2/antichristfalseprophet.htm)

The NWO Babylon, and others (http://www.freewebs.com/christanityrocks2/thenwobabylonandothers.htm)

Looking at this, I really need to reorganize my web pages. :o

Hello Dreamweaver,

Brother, we do have a fascinating collection of events and facts to show that the Age of Grace is near to the end. In fact, things appear to be escalating and accelerating by the day.

I'm thinking back to many lengthy studies done by many sweet Christians who really reached the same conclusions. It's now almost a matter of common sense and comparing world events with Bible Prophecy. However, most of the world doesn't appear to be paying any attention. In fact, the RUSH appears to be hastening away from GOD - NOT toward GOD. BUT, people are still accepting JESUS CHRIST as LORD and Saviour, so the harvest isn't over yet.

I many times wonder what percentage of Christians realize the time we are living in. It's a fascinating time to watch, listen, and study as fact after fact is being confirmed from the Holy Bible. I'm talking about discoveries of a scientific nature that are providing PROOF right now that the Bible is TRUE. It's sad that many of the lost are running too fast in the other direction to notice.

I have a several more documents that are very brief and bold that I would like to post. At least one is like a time chart, and I'll have to work on a way to post them. GOD has shown us many things through the ages, but I don't know if mankind was paying attention at the time. In fact, we see repeats of similar situations with mankind not paying attention. Common sense has shown that we can learn much from history, but how much attention has the world shown to Bible History? The world is still arguing about what the Bible is, much less learning from the recorded Bible History. World Time is set by the life of CHRIST, yet many are still arguing about whether HE is real over 2,000 years later.

I honestly think that many people reject CHRIST because they don't want to acknowledge the absolute ruler of the Universe and our CREATOR who has every right to tell us how to live. I've thought about this several times and wondered about how accurate this might be. As a smaller example, look back in your childhood and ask yourself if you liked the idea that your parents had every right to tell you what to do and how to act. ANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS?

Love In Christ,
Tom

Well brother, I was raised by the paddle, belt and hand (not love).  I wasn't allow to think for myself, and didn't, till I turned 18.  And then it was because I left home. 

That is a part of the problem with the world today.  Parents aren't allowed, to punish bad behavior today.  They punish but, NOT through love of Christ.

It didn't take me long to come back to Christ, after a short time in the real world. Thats when I learned the truth of the LOVE OF CHRIST.  Part of that I can thank to my present wife Lizzie.  Both of my children (before Lizzie) were raised with love given freely, through love of Christ.  Both of them are doing very well in the world today.

Hello Brother David,

The single most important thing is knowing JESUS CHRIST and knowing that you belong to HIM. Lot's of people have never studied Bible Prophecy, and lots of people have rejected JESUS CHRIST. If I remember correctly, you've said many times that JESUS CHRIST is your LORD and you belong to him. There is nothing more important.

Brother David, I want to quote a portion of Scripture from the Apostle Paul. I think that he was a great Bible Scholar, and he spent a good portion of his life learning the Old Testament. However, he first rejected CHRIST and persecuted Christians. ENJOY - I think this is one of the most beautiful portions of Scripture in the Bible.
__________________________________

1 Corinthians 2:1  And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.

1 Corinthians 2:2  For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

1 Corinthians 2:3  I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,

1 Corinthians 2:4  and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

1 Corinthians 2:5  so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

1 Corinthians 2:6  Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away;

1 Corinthians 2:7  but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory;

1 Corinthians 2:8  the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory;

1 Corinthians 2:9  but just as it is written, "THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM."

1 Corinthians 2:10  For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

1 Corinthians 2:11  For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.

1 Corinthians 2:12  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,

1 Corinthians 2:13  which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.

1 Corinthians 2:14  But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

1 Corinthians 2:15  But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.

1 Corinthians 2:16  For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.

The days we live in it is becoming more so than ever before. It is an immoral free for all. It is even to the point that many refuse to obey even secular laws because they do not want to have someone telling them what to do. This tied in with the teaching that is being given in our public schools that is simply amplifying this behaviour through the teaching that we are nothing more than animals and there is nothing but our current life.

Brother Bob,

I'll have to say that I was raised fairly harshly, but it was in Love and definitely in the things of the LORD. In fact, I deserved that paddle quite a few times when I didn't get caught.   ;)   I'll just say that I give thanks for strict, Godly parents who tried very hard to raise me in the LORD. Without them, I have no idea how I would have turned out.

I know that many people have mixed emotions about physical punishment that involves pain. I know that I was never abused, and I doubt that anything else would have worked. I was determined and bone-headed, especially as a teen. In reflection, I don't know if GOD would have let me live in Old Testament times.   ;)   I was simply stubborn and rebellious, so I'm not hinting that I committed an Old Testament death sentence offense. However, there was an Old Testament death sentence for teens who had not learned to obey by the age of 18. By memory, I think it was 18.

I think that I'll just say that I needed the punishment I got while growing up, and I deserved more than I got.   ;D

I was a preacher's kid, and I caused my dad quite a few BIG problems that he didn't deserve. I love and respect my parents, spankings and all. I didn't say that I understood everything right then at the time. We should also know that our Heavenly Father is not always gentle in pulling us into line with what HE wants, but HIS corrections are in ultimate love even when the correction is harsh.

Right now, I will say that I like the fact that GOD leads and directs us. I also love the fact that my Heavenly Father is the KING OF KINGS, the CREATOR HIMSELF!

Love In Christ,
Tom


 

Brother Roger,

This is yet another sign of the end days of this Age of Grace. As a career police officer, I remember countless comparisons between parents and children in the 1970s with after the year 2000. I'll just give a couple of examples and try not to bore anyone.

There was a time when police officers could take many young people home on minor offenses and tell the parents something like, "please take care of this or I'll have to." At the time, many of the kids would have rather gone to jail. The problem was handled, and there was a good chance that teen would not be dealt with by the police again.

Many like incidents today go quite differently, and police are reluctant to trust mom and dad to handle anything. In fact, the police officer might even face problems in trying to give the teen a break. The parents turn on the police officer instead. I'm not hinting that all of the police officers are right, but they ARE the vast majority of the time. It's the same with teachers and other authority figures, but some parents almost require a video before they will believe their little angel did anything wrong. If you found out that these parents commonly did dope and other illegal activities, do you suppose that you might be able to guess where some of the kid's problems came from? It's a wild and strange world that we live in now, and there's no comparison between 1970 and 2000. In fact, there is little comparison left between 2000 and 2007 because things are changing so rapidly. Has anybody dreamed that things would be such a mess in such a short period of time?

BUT, the worldly folks who love wallowing in the sewer think that things are going just fine. They just want more of the same and less control. The number and types of victims don't make any difference at all.

Yes, brother it is another sign of the end days. The falling away (apostasia, the turning away from the truth of God's word) that we see even in many of our churches.

It is finish!  (+_+)  ..Def

I find end-times prophesy to be extremely interesting.  The Real ID has made me think of the scripture quoted concerning the mark of the beast and not being able to buy or sell without it.  It's exciting to be alive during these times.  It's even more exciting to know that Jesus will be returning soon, and that I will be one of the saved.   ;D

TEACHINGS of JESUS
from: the Gospel of Matthew
(originally written 1998 )




Since this passage was already addressed back in January, 97 as a Commentary, "5 Wise - 5 Foolish", I'm going to insert that writing here in this series, and make a few modifications for this study.

Let us take a brief look at Jesus' parable of the 10 virgins. And, as is appropriate with parables, we look at the primary surface (obvious) issues illustrated, not attempting to teach doctrine from all of its little details. [Ed: ... like we began our understanding of chs24-25, of the "broad brush" strokes of the 'impressionistic painting'.] He's not
describing the "bride" or the Jewish traditions of who the virgins might have been. This parable talks about getting into heaven, and what it takes to "get in".

All 10 virgins had lamps. They had the label that they "belonged." They all APPEARED to be "Christians."

But you notice, only 5 had oil with them. Oil symbolizes the Holy Spirit. The 5 foolish, "taking their lamps, did not take oil with them"(vs3), were Not Christians. "Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His."   (Rom8:9b)

The announcement was made, "Behold the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!" Jesus said, "Now when these things BEGIN TO happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near."(Luke 21:28 ) What are "these things?" To anybody with open eyes, we see prophecy being fulfilled right and left as things are prepared for what is to happen, as foretold, during the time of God's wrath and judgment upon the world.

So, the 'proof' of having the Holy Spirit (oil) is when the wick can be brought to flame. Jesus said of Believers, "you are the light of the world". (Mt5:14) How do we know there is true faith? When something is manifest in the outworkings. (Jas2:17-18 ) And so, as the Lord returns for His own, the outworkings are tested to see of what sort they are. (1Cor3:13) In the case of a lamp, if there is -no- oil, there isn't going to be any flame, is there. There is -no- "work", good or bad, to manifest the Faith. There is no work, because there is no Holy Spirit. But there is the -perception-, because they are carrying the lamp.

When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, it says that the appearance was like "tongues of fire". (Acts2:3) Can you grab a 'tongue' of fire and put it in a box? Can a flame be contained? Jesus explained the Holy Spirit like the "wind blowing". (Jn3) You cannot see the -actual- wind. You cannot take a 'piece' of wind and put it in a container. But you see it is there, because the grass is leaning, flags are fluttering and you wrap your jacket around you tighter to keep warm. If the flag isn't fluttering, there is no wind. If a flame cannot be ignited in a lamp, there is no oil. The person is minus "light". If all you have is a lamp, but no Holy Spirit, your "light" is no -light- at all; you might as well be carrying a flashlight without any batteries, all the good it will do you. When a person is minus the Holy Spirit "..how great is the
darkness!" (Mt6:23)

The wise keep preaching to the foolish to "get oil"; "repent and believe in the gospel" (Mk1:15) and "receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts2:38b) Now, in our 'impressionistic painting' the way people back then could get oil, was to go "buy" it. Jesus says to today's "church" "..I advise you to buy from Me gold having been fired by fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, and your shame and nakedness may not be revealed. And anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see." (Rev3:18 ) And so, people go about "buying"; stock-piling -physical- supplies to "go through the tribulation". But you see, what Jesus offers "for sale" is "with no price". (Is55:1) It is "a gift of God, not of works." (Eph2:8-9)

You see...these people have heard the midnight cry, and rather than having the Holy Spirit, and looking for Christ, are back in the villages buying up what they think they need. And while they are thus engaged, the Bridegroom comes (appears) and the Wise (with the Holy Spirit) follow Him in to the banquet hall.

"And the door was shut." (vs10) And then the foolish come along, discovering they were wrong, and too late. And the Lord says, "Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you."(vs12)

So... you were wrong, and the Rapture happened, and you are left behind? You might think, "Oh, I can always 'get saved' ...THEN."

SORRY, FRIEND!! It doesn't work that way! When the "lawless one" comes he will display "signs and lying wonders..with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they DID NOT receive the love of the truth [when they had the chance]. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned WHO DID NOT believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2Ths2:9-11)

Yes, many will be "saved" during the Tribulation. (Rev7:14) But, if you knew the Truth before the Rapture, and refused to believe, don't count on any "second chances" when all hell breaks loose!

For He says: "In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you." Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. (2 Cor 6:2)

The ones with the lamps will come and say, 'See?? We have lamps. We're christians. Didn't we do all sorts of wonderful things "in Your name"?

"Then surely from their fruits you shall know them." If their lamps have oil, they will glow with a flame; if not, they won't. "Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of Heaven, but the ones who do the will of My Father in Heaven." (Mt7:20-21) And "This is the work of God, that you believe into Him whom that One sent." (Jn6:29)

And if you truly believe into Christ, you will also believe His promises when He said that He would come to "receive [us] to Himself". (Jn14:3) And so, He exhorts, "Therefore, watch [be prepared and vigilant], for you do not know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man comes." (vs13)

After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up,  That we may live in His sight. (Hosea 6:2) 

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is  as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not  slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is  longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all  should come to repentance. Therefore, since all these things will be  dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and  godliness, (2Peter 3:8-11)
 
And he said to me, "Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book,  for the time is at hand. "He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he  who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be  righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still." "And behold, I am  coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according  to his work. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the  First and the Last." Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they  may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates  into the city. (Revelation 22:10-14) 

But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and  idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie. "But the cowardly,  unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers,  idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns  with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." (Revelation 22:15,  21:8 ) 

"Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?" says the Lord  GOD, "and not that he should turn from his ways and live? "For I have no  pleasure in the death of one who dies," says the Lord GOD. "Therefore turn  and live!" (Ezekiel 18:23,32) 

NOTE: The following preface and article are taken from an original copy of the very first edition of Pastor O'Hair's "Bible Study for Bereans" magazine published in August 1935.  We hope you enjoy this excerpt from deep within the Grace archives.


We are sending forth this first edition of Bible Study for Bereans with the purpose, desire and hope that we may stimulate, encourage, or provoke, real honest, diligent Bible study among the children of God.  The profound ignorance of the Bible among church members is appalling.


We earnestly solicit and covet the prayerful cooperation of every spiritual child of God who appreciates God's Grace Gospel and who really desires to receive and search the Holy Scriptures without the fear or favor of man or religious organizations.  It is needless and useless to appeal to believers for whom denominational loyalty and pride, or preconceived opinions, interfere with honest, intelligent and unprejudiced study of the Word of God.  So our Bible study is for Bereans.


It has been repeatedly claimed that more than ninety-five percent of church members permit church leaders to do their thinking for them, and that ninety-five percent of their instructors have been so influenced by the traditions of church fathers and by denominational church creeds that fewer than five percent of either leaders or followers are willing, if able, to study the Bible with unbiased minds and with open and honest hearts.


Let us ever bear in mind that no servant of the Lord has any new truth to present.  Progressive revelation ceased with the close of The Revelation more than 1800 years ago.  Since that time, "anything that is true is not new" and "anything that is new is not true", so far as the inspired Word of God is concerned.


No believer, or group of believers, receives any special revelation of Divine truth, or interpretation of truth, as did the holy men of old who were moved by the Holy Spirit to give to us the Holy Scriptures.  The humblest, most ignorant member of the Body of Christ, the new-born babe in Christ, has just as much of the Holy Spirit as has the most gifted Bible teacher.  Men are not led into truth by the Holy Spirit independent of the written Word of God.  And most assuredly the millions of church members, who are in doctrinal error, have not been led by the Holy Spirit into the misinterpretation of the Scriptures.


Human systems of interpretation leave us with inconsistencies and seeming contradictions in the Bible, with unholy mixtures which are displeasing to the Lord.  "All Scripture... is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness."  But all Scripture must be rightly divided for the true interpretation, appropriation and application.
____________________________________

A Simple Principle in Bible Study



We are told in I Peter 1:10 that Israel's prophets foretold the sufferings and glory of Christ.  In Ephesians 3:9 we are told that the "dispensation of the mystery" and the "unsearchable riches of Christ" were hid in God and not made known to Israel's prophets.  All through the book of Acts and through the Epistles of Peter, Paul, James and John we must differentiate between that which Israel's prophets foretold would come to pass and that which none of them even hinted would come to pass: "not made known to the sons of men in other ages"; "hidden from generations" (Colossians 1:25 and 26; Ephesians 3:3 to 5).


If there has been no change in God's program since the Epistles were written to the Ephesians and Colossians, then this is still the Dispensation of the Mystery which means the Dispensation of that which had been a Mystery until it was revealed by the glorified Christ to and through His Apostle Paul.  For the students of the Word of God, for the members of the Church which is the Body of Christ, there should be nothing mysterious, mystical or hidden concerning the dispensation of Grace and the mutual inheritance of the Head and members of the Body, made alive together, seated together in the highest heavenlies, constituting the One New Man which God is now making, while His program and purpose concerning Israel have been temporarily abandoned (Ephesians 1:9 to 22; Ephesians 2:4 to 17).  Aside from the Divine preservation of Israel in the world today, God has suspended His covenants and promises with Israel and the other nations, until He shall have accomplished that which He purposed in Christ Jesus ages before He made any covenants concerning His Nation and their land of promise (II Timothy 1:9; Ephesians 3:11).


Israel's hope is identified with the sufferings and glory of Christ foretold by Israel's prophets.  That hope will be realized when Christ shall be the Son of man on the throne of His glory (Matthew 25:31).  There the twelve apostles will be seated with Him (Matthew 19:28).  The Son of man is coming in power and great glory (Luke 21:27 to 31).  He will bring about the restitution of all things (Acts 3:21).  Moses, Samuel, and all of the prophets, spoke of "these days" (Acts 3:24).  "These days" were promised in the covenants (Acts 3:25).  At that time Christ will govern from David's throne (Isaiah 9:6 and 7).


"These days" of grace, "these days" of the Body of Christ, are not the "these days" of Israel's hope, foretold by Moses, Samuel and others.  "These days" were foreordained before the foundation of the world, but not foretold by Israel's prophets.


None of the twelve apostles, in their "Acts" ministry, spoke of these days.  They referred to a hope and blessings promised by the pen of David, Joel, Amos, Moses, Samuel, and others.  Let us be careful not to confuse prophetic promises with the mystery.  Let us not confuse the hope of the Body of Christ with Israel's hope.

    As we approach the new millennium, many are anticipating the Lord's soon return, which is sure to generate paranoia about the end times. In fact, this obsession with "things to come" is probably going to be unprecedented from any thing we've witnessed in the past. The predictions of these so-called modern day prophets will range from setting dates for the Rapture to receiving a special revelation that the Church is going through part or all of the Tribulation period.


    Of course, the state of confusion that the Church finds itself in is largely a product of its own doing. You would think that after so many failed attempts to accurately predict the Rapture those who make such claims would be reluctant to appear in public. Yet the Church persists in its rejection of the Mystery that was committed to Paul, giving it only halfhearted acknowledgement.


    "And to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come" (I Thes. 1:10).


    According to Paul's gospel the Rapture is imminent, that is, it could take place at any moment. There are no signs, times, or seasons that will precede this glorious event. It could be the year 2000 or 2005; then again it may be 2075. We simply don't know how long the longsuffering of God will be extended to the Gentiles. God may well extend His grace for another two thousand years, although this seems unlikely.


    The secret coming of Christ for the Church is unrelated to prophecy. This explains why biblical chronologists always humiliate themselves when they attempt to predict the Rapture based upon the prophetic timetable. If they included the Mystery in their calculations they would receive the following message, "unknown period of interruption." You see, God must first complete His plans and purpose among the Gentiles, which terminates with the imminent return of Christ for the Church.


THE HYSTERIA OVER THE ANTI-CHRIST



    "And then shall that Wicked [one - the Anti-Christ] be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders" (II Thes. 2:8,9).


    Those who underestimate the importance of rightly dividing the Word of truth normally end up drifting into a Mid, Pre-wrath, or Post-Tribulational Rapture of the Church. It is somewhat understandable how Acts 2 dispensationalists could be swept into these camps simply because they believe Paul's apostleship and message are merely an extension of the kingdom gospel.


    But this is inexcusable for someone who understands Paul's unique apostleship and message, although, sadly, it does happen from time to time. We should probably brace ourselves because these types of departures from the faith will become more and more common as the days grow more evil. We've often said that those who depart from the doctrine of the Pretribulational Rapture of the Church never fully understood the nature of Paul's gospel to begin with. If the Rapture is near, as some predict, or the Body of Christ is going through the coming Tribulation, as others teach, this explains the present day mania over the identity of the Anti-Christ.
_________________________________

    One popular prophecy teacher is convinced that the Anti-Christ is Bill Clinton. He points out that the number equivalent of his name is 666. Through elaborate charts, diagrams, and genealogies he somehow draws the conclusion that Mr. Clinton is a direct descendant of the Emperor Nero, and heir to the Rothchild fortune. According to him, Mr. Clinton could be, might be, probably is the Anti-Christ, the last great world dictator. He's the seventh head1 of John's apocalyptic vision (Rev. 13:1 cf. 17:9), which, by the way, this self-ordained prophet surmises the heads to be:


    (1) Nebuchadnezzar

    (2) Cyrus

    (3) Alexander the Great

    (4) Antiochus Epiphanes

    (5) Nero

    (6) Hitler

    (7) Clinton - Anti-Christ



    Wow! This sounds like a riddle wrapped in an enigma to me. If there's one thing that the past should have taught us, it would be this: it is extremely dangerous to interpret the Bible according to current events. Those who lived through World War II will recall how well-known Bible teachers confidently declared Adolph Hitler to be the Anti-Christ, only to find that they had to recant their position after the war. While it could be said Hitler was anti-Christ, he was not the Anti-Christ foretold by the prophets.


    During the Nixon administration many believed Henry Kissinger was the man of sin - they, too, found themselves in an awkward situation trying to explain that it was apparently a case of mistaken identity. Now we are being told President Clinton is the Anti-Christ. Mark these words and mark them well, those who teach this will also be running for cover in the very near future.


    Incidentally, we know Mr. Clinton could not be the son of perdition for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the last three world leaders referred to by this prophetic teacher, Nero (54-68 A.D.), Hitler (1939-1945), and Mr. Clinton (1992-2000), have all ruled and reigned during God's parenthetical period of Grace. But the Anti-Christ is inseparably bound to prophecy; therefore, his reign cannot begin until the close of the age of Grace.


    Truth always exposes error. This is why in my personal ministry I have never spent a lot of time familiarizing myself with false teaching. I spend the lion's share of my time studying the truth - it makes error stand out like ink on a white shirt.


    They say the Federal Reserve never train its agents with counterfeit bills for obvious reasons. Instead, they take actual currency and make each agent memorize the minutest detail of each denomination. This is done over and over again until it makes an indelible impression upon them. Consequently, when counterfeit bills are intermingled with the real thing, they are able to detect the forgery every time. The same is true in regard to spiritual things; darkness cannot withstand the light of God's Word.


WHAT THE SCRIPTURES SAY ABOUT THE ANTI-CHRIST



    The prefix "anti" means against and/or instead of. Both are true concerning this future dictator. He poses as the Messiah, but opposes Christ by executing all that name His name. The Anti-Christ will have a winsome personality that the world will find irresistible. The prophet Daniel says:


    "And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done. Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all" (Dan. 11:36,37).
____________________________

    In this narrative, the prophet Daniel gives us a biographical sketch of the Anti-Christ. As we know, the Tribulation is said to open with wars and rumors of wars. It will be a period of unparalleled lawlessness (Matt. 24:6 cf. II Thes. 2:7). Like Hitler, the Anti-Christ will take full advantage of the times. In fact, they will provide the platform for him to "prosper politically" and become a household name.


    During the forty days in which Christ was tempted, you will recall the devil took our Lord up into a high mountain and "...showed unto Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto Him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve" (Luke 4:5-8 ).


    Notice that the world lies in the lap of the evil one. The devil gained power over the nations when Adam fell. Clearly he has control of the kingdoms of this world if he offered them to Christ. Of course, our Lord exposed the devil's desire to overthrow the plans and purpose of God by quoting the Scriptures. But the Anti-Christ, whose coming is after the working of Satan, will happily receive control of the nations (Rev. 13:1,2,7). While we know him to be a ruthless dictator who opposes the righteous ways of God, he begins his reign of terror as a man of peace. And, sadly, the world will be predisposed to accept peace at any price.


    Having control of the kingdoms of this world, the Anti-Christ negotiates a peaceful solution with those nations that are at war with one another. Eventually, he forms an alliance with these nations which serve as his seat of authority (Rev. 13:2 cf. 17:9-13). At the same time, the Anti-Christ strikes a covenant with the nation Israel, which allows her to re-establish the Old Testament sacrificial system. This brings peace to the Middle East.


    "And he [the man of sin] shall confirm the covenant with many for one week [7 years]: and in the midst of the week [middle of the Tribulation] 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..." (Dan. 9:27).


    We believe the Anti-Christ will seek to conceal his identity for as long as possible at the beginning of the Tribulation. In other words, he would never be so foolish as to say publicly, "I have come to deceive and rob the nations of their autonomy." This isn't how deception works. Notice that Daniel states: "He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week...." This dynamic impostor will establish this peace agreement with "many" in Israel, but not all. While he may deceive the religious leaders and their followers as to his true identity, apparently some in Israel will suspect that he has evil intentions, and rightfully so.


    Thus, the initial agenda of the Anti-Christ will be to bring peace to the world, as uncertain and fleeting as that may be. As this false sense of security sweeps across the landscape, the world will wonder after the beast, saying, "Who is like unto the beast?" (Rev. 13:4). But "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" (I Thes. 5:3). It quite literally is going to be hell on earth with the wrath of God raining down from heaven and the military machine of the Anti-Christ crushing anyone or any nation that stands in his path.


    "But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things" (Dan. 11:38 ). In addition to his lavish lifestyle, the Anti-Christ will honor the God of forces with his wealth. The word "forces" is the Hebrew term "ma'owz" or fortresses. Satan is the god of fortresses or war - he is the author of confusion.


    The General who leads the forces of evil into battle in the coming day of the Lord is none other than the Anti-Christ. His military prowess will make the remarkable accomplishments of Alexander the Great look insignificant. He is the rider on the white horse who goes forth to conquer (Rev. 6:2). And the main objective of this diabolical leader will be to do battle with the saints and destroy the Nation Israel. Little wonder the souls of the martyrs cry out to the Father, "how long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" (Rev. 6:10).


    Daniel also informs us that "neither shall he regard the God of his fathers" (Dan. 11:37). The phrase "God of his fathers" is uniquely Hebrew. The "fathers" is a reference to the patriarchs, namely Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Upon receiving the decree from King Artaxerxes that Israel could return to the land with the gold and silver vessels of the temple, Ezra offered a prayer of thanksgiving:


    "Blessed be the LORD God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem" (Ezra 7:27).


    In relation to the Anti-Christ, he will have little regard for the "God of his fathers." He'll have absolutely no desire to know Him nor worship Him, as did his predecessors before him. However, our phrase does clearly indicate that he will be a Jew, even though he'll seek to disassociate himself from the Hebrew fathers and what God promised to them. Furthermore, Daniel adds, "nor the desire of women" (Dan. 11:37). This phrase can be taken to mean either the Anti-Christ won't desire women or women will desire him, but he'll be oblivious to their advances. In either case, Daniel's point is this: the Anti-Christ will be so self-absorbed that he'll be more than content to remain single.


To Be Continued!

_________________________



Endnote



1. The heads in Revelation 17:9 are said to be seven mountains. A mountain is often a reference to a "kingdom" in Holy Scripture - see Jeremiah 51:24,25. In this case, the seven mountains are seven kingdoms.

    In the beginning God and man lived in perfect harmony with one another. Man was given dominion over the earth while the Creator supplied his spiritual needs. Adam naturally desired to obey the will of God. But all this changed the day the tempter appeared in the garden to hatch his unseemly plot of deception. Implying that God had withheld something from our first parents, the tempter sought to subvert the commandment of God. He suggested that it would be advantageous for them to eat of the forbidden tree.


"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:4,5).


    The moment Adam ate of that forbidden fruit man would never again be satisfied to merely rule under God; rather, he wants to be God! There are essentially two sources of power in the world: government and religion. The first represents the things of man; the second the spiritual things of God, which Satan and men covet. Although these two spheres intersect one another, historically it has been God's will that they remain separate.


    For example, under the Law the high priest was exclusively chosen by God to offer gifts and sacrifices for the people. He was an extension of the hand of the Most High. "And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron" and his successors (Heb. 5:4). So when King Saul foolishly intruded into the office of the priesthood by offering a burnt offering at Gilgal, the judgment of God was swift. In fact, the kingdom was taken from him and given to David as a consequence of his actions (I Sam. 13:8-14).


    Among the affairs of men, the heads of state and religion so-called have usually tolerated one another historically. Occasionally, however, there were attempts to combine these two powers into one supreme power. Consequently, many ancient dictators were arrogantly consumed with self-deification. Nebuchadnezzar's attempt to erect a gold image of himself is a case in point.


"Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold.in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. Therefore at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of music, all the people, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up" (Dan. 3:1,6,7).


    Carefully note the phrase "all the people, the nations, and languages." The King's purpose was to unify all the religions of his great kingdom under one head. He was the image of gold. He was declaring himself to be God. Here the words of Sir John Acton are ever so true: "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." So it should not surprise us that the Anti-Christ will exploit the religious system of his day, as we shall see, to catapult himself into a position of "absolute power" in the coming day of the Lord.


THE TIMES OF THE GENTILES



"Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another" (Dan. 7:2,3).


    Whew! Those are deep waters! If it were not for the Scriptures themselves, we would be hard pressed to interpret this secret code. Like the reed blown in the wind, the four winds speak about movement, divine movement. God is ushering in a new phase of His prophetic purpose. It moves the great sea, which is clearly a reference to the unsaved masses of the world (Isa. 17:12; 57:20).


    "And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another." Out of the Gentile nations of the world arises "four great beasts" that Daniel identifies as "four kings, which shall arise out of the earth" (Dan. 7:17). This marks the beginning of the Times of the Gentiles. The Times of the Gentiles has to do with Gentile world dominion. According to prophecy, it began when King Nebuchadnezzar carried Israel into the Babylonian captivity in 586 B.C. Since that time Israel has been under Gentile domination in one form or another as a chastisement. In part, due to her failure to observe the Sabbath rest of the land (II Chron. 36:21).
_______________________________

    With the intervening dispensation of Grace, the Times of the Gentiles, prophetically, has been temporarily suspended. This is another reason why the Anti-Christ cannot be revealed until after the Rapture. Today God is not dealing with the nations as nations. Rather He is saving individuals out of the nations according to the Mystery (Rom. 10:12,13). Interestingly, the dispensation of Grace does not conflict with the Times of the Gentiles merely because Israel is still scattered throughout the world. There are nearly as many Jews in New York City (under Gentile rule) as in the land of Palestine (also controlled by Gentile interest behind the scenes). So the "fulness of the Gentiles" must first be fulfilled before God will continue His prophetic purpose (Rom. 11:25).


    After our departure to glory, the Times of the Gentiles will resume with the establishment of the fourth Gentile World Empire - the Anti-Christ's kingdom. This period will close with the future destruction of this kingdom at the battle of Armageddon when Christ returns in power and great glory (Luke 21:24-28 ).


    But before we go any further, let's go back to the beginning and trace the Times of the Gentiles from their inception. Here we should pause a moment to give a brief history lesson. I believe it was Dr. Ironside who said, "History is nothing more than prophesy written afore time." Sometimes to understand the future, we must first understand the past.


    Having identified the four beasts that arise out of the sea to be four kings, Daniel now describes these kings and their kingdoms in more detail. Three of the four kingdoms foretold by Daniel are now a matter of history. While Daniel predicted these events years before they actually transpired, we have the privilege of consulting ancient history to witness the amazing accuracy of his words.


"The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it" (Dan. 7:4).


    The first Gentile world power was Babylon. So King Nebuchadnezzar is the first beast. Babylon was like the lion that stalks its prey unmercifully (II Chron. 36:17-20). Yet it is also said to have the wings of an eagle, which shows a graceful side to this kingdom. Babylon was well known for its magnificent cities and beautiful hanging gardens. In fact, the city of Babylon was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. This kingdom was the crown jewel of Gentile world dominion. Its supreme power, strength, glory and splendor is unmatched by that which is to follow.


"And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh" (Dan. 7:5).


    The second Gentile world power was Medo-Persia. This kingdom is likened to a bear that lumbers about devouring what it will. Notice that it is said to have raised up itself on one side. Neither Media nor Persia possessed the military might to conquer Babylon. Therefore, they formed an alliance to accomplish this end. Since Persia was stronger than Media it was the side that "raised up itself," and became the more dominant of the two.


    While King Darius, the Mede, began the campaign against Babylon, the actual consolidation of power came under King Cyrus, the Persian. So then, Cyrus is the second beast Daniel saw (Dan. 6:28; 10:1). It is interesting that all of these kings are referred to as beasts - that is, the nature of these kings was beast-like. They had brutal military machines that crushed their enemies under foot. They ruled the world.


"After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it" (Dan. 7:6).
________________________________

    The third Gentile world power was the Grecian Empire under the reign of Alexander the Great. He is the third beast. This kingdom was like a leopard, cunning, swift, and vicious. This is a perfect description of the armies of Alexander the Great.


    It is said that Alexander the Great marched his armies days on end to surprise his enemies. As history bears witness, he conquered the world, then sat down and wept because there were no other kingdoms to conquer. The expansion of Alexander's kingdom made it the larger of its two predecessors. It literally covered the known world of that day.


THE ANTI-CHRIST KINGDOM



"After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns" (Dan. 7:7).


    According to the traditional interpretation of this passage, it is generally believed that the fourth Gentile world power was Rome. This would make Caesar Augustus the fourth king. While this is certainly plausible and worthy of your consideration, it does, however, lack consistency.


    First, most historians would concur that Rome never completely conquered the world, at least not in the sense of Alexander the Great. But this is a prerequisite for the fourth kingdom that was to follow, according to Daniel's prophetic vision. In addition we must not forget that the dispensation of Grace interrupted the prophetic program shortly before the Roman Empire experienced its finest hour. Consequently, Rome would play a greater role in the expansion of the gospel of the grace of God. Although the exploits of the Roman Empire were notable, Rome in all its glory will not be able to hold a candle to the future Anti-Christ kingdom.


    The seat of authority of the first three Gentile World Empires was located in the east. On the other hand, the seat of authority of the Roman Empire was at Rome, located in the west. This also poses a major problem for those that believe the Anti-Christ kingdom will be the revival of the ancient Roman Empire. But here again the seat of the future Anti-Christ kingdom is said to be in Babylon, which, as we know, is situated in the east (Rev. 18:1-24). It should be remembered that while the Mystery has had its greatest effect in the west, the hub of prophecy is the Middle East. This is not to say that the west won't play a secondary role in the coming affairs of the Anti-Christ.


    Perhaps the most damaging argument against this fourth kingdom being the Roman Empire is the prophecy that it will be destroyed by the Second Coming of Christ (Dan. 2:40-45). This, of course, cannot be said of the Roman Empire.


    We believe the fourth and final Gentile world power to be the future Anti-Christ kingdom. This means that the fourth beast is the Anti-Christ. He will be the last world dictator. Daniel says in regard to this kingdom, "After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth." This empire is a kingdom of darkness. It is "exceeding strong" because the Anti-Christ will establish a one-world government (Rev. 13:7).


    The great iron teeth of this regime are probably a reference to the largest military machine the world has ever seen. Those nations that oppose him will either be brought into submission or crushed by his military might. After suffering millions and millions of casualties at the hand of God's wrath, near the end of the Great Tribulation this army is still over 200,000 million strong (Rev. 9:16).


    Daniel also states that this beast is "diverse from all the beasts that were before it." The Anti-Christ is different because he will be the very embodiment of evil. While the former kingdoms were decades in the making, the man of sin will forge his kingdom from the ashes of broken promises within a three-year period.


    Furthermore, the Apostle John reveals that the Anti-Christ kingdom will be an amalgamation of the former Gentile world powers. "And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion" (Rev. 13:1,2). Apparently, the Anti-Christ will assimilate into his empire the power, wealth, splendor, glory, and military strategies of the ancient kingdoms before him. This Kingdom will cover the territory of Alexander's Kingdom and more, form alliances like Media-Persia to consolidate power, and defile the temple of God, as did Babylon.


    The system the beast uses to bring himself to the pinnacle of absolute power is organized religion portrayed as the Mother of Harlots in the Book of Revelation. But once she has served her purpose he has her burned at the stake (Rev. 17:1-7,16). The coronation is at hand. The time will be the middle of the tribulation; the place, Jerusalem; the facility, the temple. Paul exposes for us the wicked intentions of the man of sin, "Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." This is the abomination of desolation (Matt. 24:15 cf. II Thes. 2:4).


To be continued!

"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."   - II Thes. 2:7,8


    The ultimate goal of Satan is to be worshipped as God. This diabolical plot is called the mystery of iniquity. While the world is going about its business, the evil one is methodically working behind the scenes to undermine the authority of God. God has established a chain of command that if closely adhered to gives stability to governments, the Church, and the home.


    Interestingly the apostle says, "the mystery of iniquity doth already work." If that was true in Paul's day, how much more so today! The rule of civil law that was once highly revered now only serves to measure the depth of blood that runs in our streets. As we draw closer to the Rapture, lawlessness will become more commonplace as mankind slides down the slippery slope of rebellion. Eventually Satan will bring the world to a place of utter and total chaos.


    With the stage set, the Anti-Christ will be standing in the wings prepared to take control of the affairs of men. The only event hindering Satan from fulfilling his objective is the Rapture. God will not allow him to carry out his program of evil until He has completed His plan and purpose for the Church, the Body of Christ. To say otherwise is to confuse the two programs of God, which are mutually exclusive of one another. When this present program abruptly comes to a close at the sound of the trump, Paul says, "And then shall that Wicked [one] be revealed...." In other words, the man of sin will not be revealed until after the Rapture.


    Beloved ones, we are not of the night. We are the children of the day, that is, the day of Christ; therefore, it would serve no purpose for us to know the identity of the Anti-Christ. In fact, there is strong evidence that not even those living in the early part of the Tribulation will know his true identity - something he's sure to conceal as long as possible. So then, the exploits of the man of sin belong to the future day of the Lord, from which the Church is promised deliverance (I Thes. 5:1-9).


THE LAST WORLD DICTATOR



"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: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders" (II Thes. 2:8,9).


   Notice the apostle clearly makes reference here to two monumental events, both of which are destined to change the course of the world. The first has to do with the appearing of the Anti-Christ at the beginning of the Tribulation. This is confirmed by the statement, "even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan...." The fulfillment of this declaration will set the prophetic clock in motion once again. But Paul is careful to add that the Second Coming of Christ will bring his reign of terror to a swift end. Hence, "whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming."


    According to prophecy there will be seven years between these two great prophetic events. During this period Satan hatches his evil plot to overthrow the plans and purposes of God. He is the great counterfeiter. As God sent His only begotten Son to the earth to redeem mankind, Satan will send the man of sin to deceive the nations of the earth. We also witness the manifestation of the satanic trinity during the Tribulation:


God the Father (I Cor. 8:6) - The Dragon - Anti-God (Rev. 13:4)



God, the Son (Rom. 9:5) - The Beast - Anti-Christ (Rev. 14:11)



God, the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3,4) - The False Prophet - Anti-Spirit (Rev. 16:13)
_____________________________

    Shortly after our departure to glory, "nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences...." These aren't isolated clashes, but global conflicts. Normally it takes years to address these types of problems through diplomatic channels. However, once the Anti-Christ appears on the scene he'll have viable solutions to all the world's ills. In fact, he will single-handedly bring a time of "peace and safety" to the earth (I Thes. 5:3). This isn't by chance, but design. For as the apostle says, his coming is "after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders." He is the rider of the white horse who will go forth conquering his enemies with the swiftness of an Alexander the Great. Those who name the name of God in that day will perish at the edge of his sword (Rev. 6:2,9-11 cf. 13:6,7).


    As the Anti-Christ rises to world prominence, one of the means he uses to deceive the nations is signs and wonders. Interestingly, the Greek words semeion (signs) and teras (wonders) are the same terms used for the miraculous manifestations that our Lord performed during His earthly ministry. Therefore, we have little doubt that these miracles will be authentic. To suggest otherwise would be to cast a shadow of doubt over the authenticity of our Lord's miracles. Although Satan is a created being, he does possess unbelievable powers. In a moment of time the devil flashed all the kingdoms of the world before our Lord stating, "All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it" (Luke 4:6).


    While the Beast and the False Prophet are mere mortals, the dragon will empower these workers of iniquity to perform the miraculous. Even the very elect will be deceived. Perhaps the most amazing demonstration of this power is seen shortly after the Anti-Christ is assassinated in the middle of the Tribulation. John records, "And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast" (Rev. 13:3). Although it is questionable that Satan can restore life, it appears God allows him to do so in this case, that He might demonstrate the glory of His power at the Second Coming of Christ.


    We are not told how long the Beast remains in the Abyss after being slain, but we can probably safely surmise it will be three days and three nights. "The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is" (Rev. 17:8 ).


    Carefully note, the Beast "that was," before his assassination; "and is not," his absence from the earth during the period he's in the Abyss; "and yet is," his miraculous raising from the dead. Unlike Christ, who resurrected from the dead, the Anti-Christ is merely resuscitated similar to the widow's son of Zarephath and Lazarus. Here again Satan is seeking to imitate the things of God. The Anti-Christ will be slain, be raised from the dead, and ascend from the lower parts of the earth. Sound familiar?


    Upon being revived from his mortal wound, the Apostle John adds this commentary about his reappearance: "And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition." This sounds like a riddle wrapped in an enigma. The "seven" refers to the seven original Mid-East kings and kingdoms that will form an alliance with one another, which makes up the heart of the Anti-Christ kingdom. After the Anti-Christ, who was numbered with the original seven, returns from the dead he's called the eighth because there's something dramatically different about him - he's the very embodiment of evil.


"And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and... he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven" (Rev. 13:5,6).


    It is at this point in time the Anti-Christ enters the temple in Jerusalem and declares himself to be God. This is the "lie" Paul speaks about in II Thessalonians 2:10-11. "And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."


    Some teach, based on this passage, that those who reject the gospel of salvation today will not have another opportunity to be saved during the Tribulation. This would mean then that very few would be saved in the coming day of the Lord, since the message of Christ's redeeming love has reached around the world today through every medium imaginable. Yet, the record is clear that a great multitude, "which no man could number" will be saved during the Tribulation (Rev. 7:9-15).
_________________________________

    After the Rapture, the program of God will immediately revert back to prophecy. Thus, Paul briefly shares with us here in II Thessalonians 2:10,11 the prophetic order of things following our departure to glory. Dear ones, it is imperative that we understand the immediate context in which these passages are set is the coming day of the Lord. Consequently, those who reject the "truth" in verse 11 are rejecting the truth of the kingdom gospel. Insofar as the terms of salvation will change in the future Tribulation, God graciously gives the world another opportunity to be saved.


    However, two things must be remembered. First, they will return to the Great Commission in those days, which gives Israel a position of preeminence over the Gentiles. This greatly diminishes their exposure to the gospel. In other words, the Gentiles will once again have to be saved through Israel. Second, the clock is ticking. The inhabitants of the world will only have three and one-half years before the Anti-Christ requires the mark of the beast, 666. Without this mark no one will be able to buy or sell. However, the moment those who worship the Beast receive the number of his name, they are eternally damned, without hope of reprieve (Rev. 13:15-18 cf. 14:9-11).


    To those who reject both the gospel of grace and the kingdom gospel, God will send strong delusion to believe the lie, that is, the Anti-Christ is God! Paul's reference to strong delusion here is to be understood as "a working of error or inward working of delusion." Hiebert comments: "It should be noted that God does not send them `error' as such, but rather an inward working of the inevitable consequences of error. They will fall under the influence of a power working within them which leads them farther and farther away from the truth. Since they deliberately chose falsehood in defiance of the truth of God, God subjects them to the power of error they chose. God uses their choice of evil as the very instrument to punish their sin."1 (See Prov. 5:22,23).


    Another area where the Devil will weave his tangled web of deception is in regard to the False Prophet. Like the Holy Spirit who speaks not of Himself but glorifies the Son, the False Prophet will exalt the man of sin. He will cause the whole earth to worship the Anti-Christ. The False Prophet is able to accomplish this by a set of carefully orchestrated miracles.


"And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles [Gr. semeion] which he had power to do in the sight of the beast.  And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed" (Rev. 13:13-15).


    In the Old Testament the prophet Elijah called fire down out of heaven to turn the heart of the people back to the true and living God. Here, the False Prophet calls fire down from heaven to turn men away from the living God to worship the image of the beast that he miraculously causes to speak.


THE KINGS OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS



"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" (II Thes. 2:8 ).


    During the latter part of the Tribulation God will call His people into the wilderness where He protects and nourishes them for three and one-half years (Rev. 12:13-17). Apparently, near the end of this period the Anti-Christ discovers where Israel is hiding. He wastes no time assembling an army that would dwarf anything known to man today. Destination: the valley of Megiddo outside of Jerusalem. The plan is simple: wipe the chosen nation from the face of the earth. What he fails to understand is, like the Egyptians of old, God is going to draw him into the jaws of death.


    There have been many great battles since the dawn of mankind, but there is one battle yet to be fought that will be unlike any other before it - Armageddon! As the Apostle John stepped to the edge of this arena he saw the armies of the earth. They extended across the plain of the east as far as the eye could see. Then he looked heavenward and beheld another white horse whose rider that sat upon him "was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. And the armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean" (Rev. 19:11,14).


    This is the Second Coming of Christ that will bring an end to the Anti-Christ's reign of terror. Christ will utterly destroy him with the brightness of His Coming when He returns in power and glory with the host of heaven. The scene will cause men's hearts to fail within them. "And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations...and He treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." This is a true demonstration of power, His almighty power. What a scene! The carnage will be so enormous that the blood is said to run to the horse bridles for two hundred miles (Rev. 14:14-20).


    He who deceived the world and caused millions to be damned will not be permitted to merely suffer an untimely death. Both the Anti-Christ and the False Prophet are cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone (Rev. 19:20). As Christ overthrows the kingdoms of this world and establishes His kingdom of righteousness, Satan will be bound during the Millennium. Interestingly, when he is cast into the lake of fire at the end of the thousand years, the biblical record states: "where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever."


    A correct understanding of the Word rightly divided and "things to come" will keep us from being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. If someone claims to know the identity of the Anti-Christ our response should be, "But what saith the Scriptures?" As a member of the Body of Christ I'm looking for the Upper-Taker, not the undertaker. Thankfully we have been delivered from the wrath to come!


________________________________





Endnote



1. The Thessalonian Epistles, D. Edmond Hiebert, Moody Press, Chicago, IL, pg. 319.

An excellent article. I liked his comments on the Rapture being a mystery as it truly is and the fact that peoples attention to try to take the mystery out of it actually hinders their knowledge of scripture on end times teachings of the things that are most important. I also liked his comments on how people concentrate on false teachings that can and will cause many not to be able to observe and discern correctly.

Pastor Roger,

Brother, the Apostle Paul used the term, "Mystery", over and over again. Some people wonder about this term when they hear it. It has to be put into perspective with the entire Bible before one realizes the real significance of this term. This wonderful "Mystery" involves the greatest event in human history, JESUS CHRIST! Many things before HIM were just shadows, but JESUS CHRIST was and is the REALITY!

I give thanks that GOD has revealed this most precious TRUTH to us. I can't imagine how bad this short life would be without JESUS CHRIST!

There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch shall  grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, The  Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The  Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD. His delight is in the  fear of the LORD, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, Nor  decide by the hearing of His ears; But with righteousness He shall judge  the poor, And decide with equity for the meek of the earth; He shall  strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His  lips He shall slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of His  loins, And faithfulness the belt of His waist...the Gentiles shall seek  Him, And His resting place shall be glorious." (Isaiah 11:1-5,10) 

"But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after  those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it  on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. "No  more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother,  saying,' Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of  them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their  iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." (Jeremiah 31:33-34) 

"It shall come to pass That before they call, I will answer; And while  they are still speaking, I will hear. (Isaiah 65:24)   

"However, most of the world doesn't appear to be paying any attention. In fact, the RUSH appears to be hastening away from GOD - NOT toward GOD."

This is a most true statement.  Things are accelerating and as a Christian it is so hard to watch.  It seems that organizations like the ACLU and others are succeeding in taking God out of and off of everything.  They are blocking Christians at every turn.  Government is letting it happen while they look the other way or plain agree with it.  Or let it pass out of fear of a lawsuit that would be to timely, costly and possibly ruin their political careers.
Even children's cartoons are so infested with demonic forces and symbols.  I was, ...well I can't say shocked, but I hadn't realized how far it had gone until recently when I was watching cartoons with my 3 year old grandson.  I had to turn them off!  Of course when I say that it has polluted music, TV, movies, games you all know that already.  Alternative live styles are so common place 4th grade teachers are reading to their classes about it!  Child molesters are getting slaps on the hands and being sent to half way houses or home to live with mama.

What frustrates me most is the political stuff and why can't we stop it.  What do we have to do?  Of course we pray, etc, etc.  But how can we fight this destruction?

Well there is my rant for today.  Feed back?

In many cases government officials are the ones that are making it happen. God says that these things will happen so they will happen. This does not mean that we should stop trying to do something about it though. We need to continue the good fight. Pray in all things that we do, attempt to support and vote in politicians that are willing to do something about it and continue to spread the good news of Salvation through Jesus Christ.

Hello Grammyluv,

First, I'll say AMEN to what Pastor Roger said - Christians must keep standing until JESUS takes us Home to Glory. If these are the last days of this Age of Grace, things will get much worse. Bible Prophecy speaks of the GREAT RESTRAINER who is THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD. The GREAT RESTRAINER currently Restrains the actions of the devil, but the GREAT RESTRAINER will be removed at GOD'S Appointed Time, and the devil will be given full reign on the earth. There is disagreement about some details in timing and sequence of events, but THE CHURCH WHICH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST will be caught up to meet the LORD in the air and also be removed from the earth. Personally, I believe that we are part of that RESTRAINING Force because we have the HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD living in our hearts.

I'll just say that the time will come when evil mankind will get what they want, and the devil will be COMPLETELY LOOSE on the earth. The times will be incredibly evil, and all of mankind left on earth will suffer in ways that are beyond human imagination. Most of mankind will die during a period of time called the Tribulation Period. Bible Prophecy tells us that the last half of the Tribulation Period will be especially horrible, and it will end with the SECOND COMING OF CHRIST in GREAT AND RIGHTEOUS WRATH. JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF will lead Heavenly Hosts into battle against evil, and JESUS CHRIST will most obviously win. Great hosts of evil men will be killed, and they will await the FINAL JUDGMENT. The devil will be locked away for 1,000 years and will also await FINAL JUDGMENT. JESUS CHRIST will rule and reign over the earth from the Throne of David in Jerusalem for 1,000 years.

Many people, even Christians, don't understand that JESUS CHRIST is the anointed KING of Israel, and HE will not be denied HIS THRONE. Israel denied HIM 2,000 years ago, but Israel will accept HIM at HIS SECOND COMING. Israel has been punished for those 2,000 years, and the greatest punishment is yet to come for Israel. HOWEVER, GOD will restore Israel after HIS SECOND COMING, and JESUS CHRIST will claim and take what has always been HIS. Israel was unfaithful, but GOD is ever faithful, and GOD always keeps HIS Promises Perfectly.

Christians have Promises from GOD that are different and unique from the Promises that GOD made to Israel. Christians are THE CHURCH WHICH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST - NOT Israel. Many people studying the Holy Bible confuse Israel with the CHURCH or confuse the CHURCH with Israel. The two are separate and distinct from each other, and they have different Promises from GOD. As a Christian, I'm not awaiting an earthly Kingdom. My Home and Citizenship is in HEAVEN for Eternity. JESUS CHRIST is already my KING, and I'm an adopted Child of GOD with an Inheritance with the Saints IN LIGHT. The LIGHT is JESUS CHRIST! I have already been QUICKENED - TRANSLATED INTO THE BODY OF CHRIST! All of GOD'S Promises to us are so sure that we can consider them to be ALREADY DONE!

Israel still awaits their MESSIAH AND KING. They don't realize that they rejected HIM 2,000 years ago. Israel will cry out to GOD during the Tribulation Period at a time when they fear total annihilation. GOD will hear them, and their MESSIAH AND KING will come and rescue them. Israel will accept their Anointed and HOLY ONE this time, and Israel will be restored. IN CONTRAST:  Christians have already been rescued from the curse of sin and death, and JESUS CHRIST is already our LORD and SAVIOUR. I consider GOD'S Promises to us to be far better than the Promises HE made to Israel. I've already been rescued. JESUS CHRIST has gone before me to prepare a place for me. I await being given a Glorified Body like the one JESUS CHRIST has and GOING HOME!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Good Morning Tom and thank you!  I agree with every thing you said, Praise God!  I have been a Christian for a long time and have even taught bible study so I know that all you said is so true and so encouraging for those of us that are already saved by God's good grace and love. Amen.
Although I know that all these things must happen before the rapture, which I believe is at hand, I am amazed at society's blindness, nativity, and out right rebellion.  I know also that it's because their hearts are hardened and their eyes are blinded to the truth.  And as I said earlier or maybe in a different post, it is so hard to watch what is going on now.  Chalk that up to my compassion I suppose.

On another note, I have been reading a lot of these posts and I am so grateful for you, Pastor Roger and DreamWeaver!  I so appreciate the knowledge that you all share with us on here!  God bless you!

Hello Grammyluv,

You are most welcome. We have a large number of sweet Christians here who enjoy sharing with each other and the entire world. The times grow short, but I give thanks that GOD is still using HIS WORD and the GOSPEL in mighty ways around the world. Hosts of people are still accepting CHRIST and GOD gets all of the Glory.

I've given thanks many times that we can still share in SAFETY, and then I think about the Christians all over the world who are being persecuted, beaten, imprisoned, or killed for trying to do the same thing we are here. We shouldn't take anything for granted and give thanks for all good things. Again, GOD gets all the Glory, Honor, and Praise.

We don't know what will happen tomorrow in this ever increasingly evil world, but we do know that no power can pluck us out of the Mighty Hands of GOD.

Love In Christ,
Tom

        -Grand Summary of these Two All-Important Days
        -God's Prophetic Time Out   

Two Great Days, Two Great Doctrines

The first day, May 24, A.D. 33, marked the spiritual birth of the church  in Jerusalem. The second day, May 14, 1948, marked the national rebirth  of Israel in Tel Aviv.

The first event supports the view that the church is neither a  continuation nor a replacement of Old Testament Israel. The second event  supports the view that God is not finished with Old Testament Israel.

The remainder of this article will briefly examine the circumstances and  implications of each day.


THE FIRST DAY

Both covenant and replacement theologians teach that the church has  become God's elect people, instead of Israel. But this is not the case,  as seen by the following eight arguments.

1) The Promises Are Different.

-- The promises and provisions concerning Israel were basically earthly  in scope:

If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is  right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His  statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on  the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you (Ex15:26; cf Dt28)

-- The promises concerning the church are basically heavenly in scope:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed  us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. If  then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above,  where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on  things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and Your life is  hidden with Christ in God (Eph1:3; Col3:1-3)

2) The Seed Is Different.

-- Abraham's physical seed refers to Israel:

Nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, "In  Isaac your seed shall be called" (Rom9:7)

-- Abraham's spiritual seed refers to the church:

Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham  (Gal3:7)

3) The Births Are Different.

-- Israel celebrated its birth at the base of Mount Sinai (Ex19-20)

-- The church celebrated its birth at Pentecost (Acts 2). The author of  Hebrews brings out the great contrast between these two entities  (Heb12:18-24)
__________________________________

-- Israelites became what they were by physical birth.

-- Believers become what they are by spiritual birth.

4) The Nationality Is Different.

-- Israel belonged to this earth and to the world system.

-- The church is composed of all nations and has no citizenship on  Earth; its members are strangers and pilgrims:

Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly  lusts which war against the soul (1Pet2:11)

5) The Relationship With the Father Is Different.

-- God is never presented as the Father of individual Israelites in the  Old Testament.

-- God is presented as the Father of all New Testament believers:

For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you  received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father"  Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should  be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because  it did not know Him (Rom8:15; 1Jn3:1)

-- Israel is now under God's judgment:

But to Israel he says: "All day long I have stretched out My hands to a  disobedient and contrary people." just as it is written: "God has given  them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see and ears that  they should not hear, to this very day" (Rom10:21;11:8)

-- The church is free from all present judgment:

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your  flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all  trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was  against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the  way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and  powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it  (Col2:13-15)

[vw: interjection... The [C]hurch is free from judgment, but the [c]hurch  is under condemnation, as seen in Revelation chs2-3 with 5 of the 7  churches :]

-- Israel was God's servant:

But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the  descendants of Abraham My friend (Isa41:8)

-- The church, each born-again believer, is God's son:

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become  children [sons] of God, to those who believe in His name (Jn1:12; cf  1Jn3:1)
_____________________________________

6) The Relationship With the Son Is Different.

-- Israel is pictured as an unfaithful wife:

They say, "If a man divorces his wife, and she goes from him and becomes  another man's, may he return to her again?' Would not that land be  greatly polluted? But you have played the harlot with Many lovers; Yet  return to Me," says the LORD. "Return, 0 back-sliding children," says  the LORD; "for I am married to you. I will take you, one from a city and  two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. Surely, as a wife  treacherously departs from her husband, so have you dealt treacherously  with Me, 0 house of Israel," says the LORD (Jer3:1,14,20; cf Isa54:1-17;  Ezk16:1-59; Hos2:1-23)

-- The church is pictured as a chaste virgin bride yet to be married in  heaven:

For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you  to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.  "Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the  Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready." And to her it was  granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine  linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, - Write:  "Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!"  And he said to me, "These are the true sayings of God" (2Cor11:2;  Rev19:7-9)

-- Christ was a stumbling stone to Israel:

But we preach Christ crucified, to the jews a stumbling block and to the  Greeks foolishness. And "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense."  They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were  appointed (1Cor1:23; 1Pt2:8)

-- Christ is the foundation and chief Cornerstone of the church:

Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus  Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building,  being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you  also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.  Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen  by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a  spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices  acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (Eph2:20-22; 1Pt2:4-5)

-- Christ is Israel's Messiah and King:

Nathanael answered and said to Him, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You  are the King of Israel!" (Jn1:49)

-- Christ is the church's Savior, Bridegroom, and Head:

For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the  church; and He is the Savior of the body (Eph5:23)

7)  The Relationship With the Holy Spirit Is Different.

-- The Holy Spirit rarely came upon individual Old Testament Israelites.

-- The Holy Spirit actually lives inside each New Testament believer:

Or do you not know? that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit Who  is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (1Cor6:19)
__________________________________

8) The Temple Is Different.

-- Israel had a Temple:

And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them (Ex25:8)

-- The church is a temple:

In whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy  temple in the Lord (Eph2:21)

The above contrasts should make it crystal clear that the church is not  Israel. Paul carefully distinguished these two separate entities when he  wrote, "Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks [Gentiles]  or to the church of God" (1Cor10:32)

THE SECOND DAY

"Before she was in labor, she gave birth; Before her pain came, she  delivered a male child. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such  things? Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day? Or shall a  nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth  to her children. Shall I bring to the time of birth, and not cause  delivery." says the LORD. "Shall I who cause delivery shut up the womb?"  says your God (Isa66:7-9)

At sunrise on May 14, 1948, Great Britain's flag, the Union Jack, was  hauled down from its staff over Government House in Jerusalem. The  presiding British high commissioner, Lt. Gen. Sir Allen Gordon  Cunningham, then left the Holy Land for the last time amid a 17- gun  salute. That same day, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion drove to  16 Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv -- a white, modern, two-story art  museum. There, at exactly 4 p.m., before some 400 individuals who  included Jewish religious and political leaders plus members of the  worldwide press, he read Israel's Declaration of Independence. Britain's  28-year rule of the Holy Land would end at midnight, and the modern  State of Israel would be born.

In an adjoining room, a symphony orchestra played "Hatikvah", Israel's  national anthem, while people wept.

At 5 p.m. on that same day in New York City, the UN General Assembly  hastily convened an emergency meeting to consider the war clouds due to  unleash their fury in the Middle East at 6 p.m. New York time (midnight  in Israel). The UN had one hour to do something.
_________________________________

Suddenly, an amazing and unexpected news bulletin arrived from  Washington. President Harry S. Truman had bestowed official U.S.  recognition on the new Jewish state. The time was 6:11 p.m. in New York,  but six hours later in Jerusalem. The British Mandate had just expired.  Truman thus recognized the Jewish state 11 minutes after it had come  into existence. His message read as follows:

This Government has been informed that a Jewish state has been  proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition has been requested by the  Provisional Government thereof. The United States recognizes the  provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of  Israel.

Three days later, on May 18, Russia recognized Israel. Thus, for the  first time since September 8, A.D.70, the Holy Land, by official Gentile  action, again belonged to the Jews.

God's Prophetic Time Out   

The question is often asked concerning how the church fits into the  prophecy of the 70 weeks in the book of the Jewish prophet Daniel. Here  is that prophecy:

Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to  finish the transgression; to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation  for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision  and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know therefore and  understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and  build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and  sixty-two weeks,- the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in  troublesome times. And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut  off, but not for Himself,- and the people of the prince who is to come  shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a  flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined Then he  shall confirm a covenant with many for one week,- but in the middle of  the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the  wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the  consummation; which is determined, is poured out on the desolate  (Dan9:24-27)

Six questions must be answered:

1) To whom does this prophecy refer?

It refers to Israel.

2) What is meant by the term seventy weeks?

The expression literally means "seventy sevens of years." In other  words, God told Daniel He would continue to deal with Israel for another  490 years before bringing in everlasting righteousness.
_______________________________

3) When was the 70-week period to begin?

It was to begin with the command to rebuild Jerusalem's walls. The first  two chapters of Nehemiah inform us that this order was issued during the  20th year of Artaxerxes' accession. The Encyclopaedia Britannica sets  the date at March 4, 444 B.C.

4. What are the two major periods mentioned within the 70 weeks (490  years)?

The first period was to consist of 69 weeks (483 years): from 444 B.C.  to the crucifixion of Christ in A.D. 33.

The second period was to consist of one week (seven years): from the  Rapture to the earthly return of Jesus. Thus the 70th week of Daniel is,  in reality, the Great Tribulation.

5) Do the 70 weeks run continuously?

That is to say, is there a gap somewhere between these 490 years, or do  they run without pause until they are completed?

Dispensational Theology teaches that these "weeks" do not run  continuously and that there has been a gap, or parenthesis, of nearly  2,000 years between the 69th and 70th weeks. The chronology may be  likened to a 70-minute basketball game. For 69 minutes the game is  played at a furious, continuous pace. Then, for some reason, the referee  calls time out with the clock in the red, showing one final minute of  play. No one knows for sure when the action will resume; but at some  point, the referee will step in and blow his whistle. [vw: around here  we have often spoken of the "starting gun" :] At that moment the  teams will gather to play out the last minute of the game.

God stepped in and stopped the clock of prophecy at Calvary when Jesus  gave His life as a sacrifice for our sins. This divine "time out" has  already lasted 20 centuries. But soon the Redeemer will blow His  trumpet, and the final "week" (seven years) of action will be played on  this earth.

6) Does the Bible offer other examples of time gaps in divine programs?

It does, indeed. There are at least three places where gaps of many  centuries can be found in a single, short paragraph: Isaiah 9:6-7;  61:1-2; Zechariah 9:9-10.

Thus the answer to the original question is that the church has occupied  that "timeout" period between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel's  prophecy for the past 2,000-plus years.

from "Israel My Glory" (magazine) September/October, 2007
Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry  (www.foi.org)

by Harold L. Willmington
Dean of the Willmington School of the Bible and
Liberty Home Bible Institute at Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA

The media's Iraq con job

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: November 3, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern


By Matt Sanchez

I'm convinced that when the United States went to war in April of 2003, the media drew arms as well, and although professional neutrality is key to reporting the news, I'm not always sure how many members of the press have chosen sides.

When I first got to Iraq six months ago, I had my fingers crossed. I literally had no idea what I would find. My biggest fear was that I'd see a group of very discouraged men and women trying to implement a failing policy. I thought I'd see Iraqis poorly coping with an oppressive American military.

What made me more anxious is that I swore I'd tell the full story, the good, bad and ugly. That's what the press is supposed to do. They're supposed to tell the stories of the events that happen. The job of the press is to explain what's going on in places where most readers will never be able to go.

The fact that I am a student of history gave me an additional responsibility. Primary sources, or eyewitness to events, are highly valued resources for historians to interpret history.

Years from now, when the world looks back on Iraq, historians and academics will rely heavily on the first-person accounts of events on the ground.

It's hard to explain the shock I got when I finally got into Iraq. Unlike what I had read in the newspapers, I didn't find demoralized troops complaining about a dangerous quagmire in Iraq, and believe me, I asked.

I found men and women who complained because they weren't allowed to leave the safety of big bases and meet Iraqis. I met Iraqis who trusted American troops more than they trusted their countrymen. I met Iraqi policemen who were risking their lives to fight religious fanatics.

Sure, there were problems, but I was shocked by how the reality of Iraq was so different from what I had read back home.

Even more surprising was how poor the reporting back home has been. Time magazine writer Tim McGirk reported on a Haditha massacre while leaving out huge important facts that were pertinent to the credibility of his sources.

As a result of the research or omissions, Marines have been arrested and charged, and although most have been exonerated, the consequences of the report have ruined careers and lives.

What has been the consequence for McGirk or Time magazine? McGirk himself refused to support his own words under oath.

I learned just how different points of view were while hanging out in the Green Zone and listening to reporters complain about the waits at check points, which exist only to prevent suicide bombers and bad guys from carrying out a destructive mission.
Meanwhile, I had been living 24 hours a day with soldiers who did not complain and were risking their lives to secure those check points so that the reporters, among others, could complete their mission.

So often, the business of reporting seemed to deal less with what was happening in Iraq and more with what was happening outside of Iraq.

Every time I met an Iraqi, I always asked about Abu Ghraib, the prison abuse scandal that sent a shockwave throughout the "international community." To my surprise, most Iraqis knew little or nothing about the prison scandal and cared even less. The most important topic was security.

A sheik from Ramadi put it best: "We have our own bad people and they are much worse than yours." I was surprised to learn many Iraqis were angry the prison had been closed down, because it showed American weakness.

The big con job the media has inflicted on the American people, by systematically distorting so many details about the conflict in Iraq, does more than skew politics back home; it makes Americans distrust the sources of their information and is an assault on democracy.

Don't get me wrong. We need a critical press. Government, policy and soldiers should be scrutinized. The question I ask the reader is: Who will hold the press responsible?

The New Republic tried to play the "soldier as victim" card when it printed the Scott Beauchamp stories under the Baghdad Diarist. Beauchamp was supposed to have committed near war crimes, but it turned out he made up most of the story. Nevertheless, the New Republic printed the stories and insisted they were true.

Recently, telephone transcripts revealed New Republic editor Franklin Foer was caught in a flagrant lie when he claimed the military was censoring his writer, Beauchamp.

Call me naïve. I always thought if you lied in the public forum, a red light flashed somewhere and some really important official came by to give you a ticket while the public shunned you. Franklin Foer continues to publish the New Republic and is simply ignoring the evidence of his deceit.

Today, the news from Iraq is increasingly positive – deaths among troops are down by over 70 percent, and Iraqis have largely rejected al-Qaida. But while sectarian violence has plummeted, too many media have stopped reporting on what is, by far, the most defining event of this century.

A free people need a free press, but through omission, exaggeration, bias and just flat-out deceit, the American public has been taken for a ride – and we will all be paying a price.

Exactly!

Most people don't know that the nearly ALL LEFT mainstream news media feeds us only what they want us to know. It must fit their agenda before they will share it with us. We are like mushrooms in the dark being fed garbage. Anything remotely bad for the current administration is jumped on and becomes BIG NEWS. Anything remotely good is either forgotten or given very little attention.

We need more Christian News sources that will tell it like it is. WND and a few others are beginning to fill the void. Network and other far LEFT news sources don't get close to telling us the TRUTH. It's amazing how well mass brain-washing works for whole populations. BUT, we are beginning to catch on and turn their garbage off.

I totally agree with you.  I quit watching main stream news back in the early 90's!  Nothing but garbage, hype and Hoo Ha Ha.  With them just giving you the news like in the day of Walter Cronkite, etc. are just a dim memory.  Making mountains out of mole hills doesn't impress me either.  Just to get their ratings.  And you are so right about the brainwashing aspect.  It's really sad that so many are fooled.  And it amazes me to that people are so fooled and so blind.  But they are.

AMEN brother, you wouldn't believe all the trash I have to go through for Biblical news. And as the Bible tells us, the truth shall set you free.

John 8:32 And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.

Brother Bob,

You're right - I really don't know. WND appears to be very good from many of the articles that I've read. I have free email subscriptions to several Christian news sources that are excellent but limited in the number of things that they cover (i.e. Voice of the Martyrs, The Patriot Post, The American Family Association, and a few others). I say limited because they usually focus on limited subject matter, and many of them only send something out once a week or less frequently. Broad coverage that can be trusted consistently is what we need. I don't mind honest mistakes from the news media - it's intentional lying that I can't stand or putting out things only when it fits their agenda.

Love In Christ,
Tom

   

Thats what I am talking about, the lies that are told. Trying to cover something up, when people need to know.

The Scriptures have much to say about "the day of the Lord," but precisely what is the day of the Lord?



Generally speaking, of course, it refers to the time when the day of man, or "the times of the Gentiles," will be brought to an end and "the Lord alone shall be exalted" (Isa. 2:11,17). But will it include more than the actual return and reign of Christ? Will it include the prophesied tribulation period, during which God will bring Gentile rule to an end? We believe it will.



One pastor who teaches that the Body of Christ will go through the tribulation and that its Rapture to be with Christ will follow the tribulation, writes:



"The day of the Lord follows the tribulation and it is the day of the Lord's wrath upon those who `know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ' (II Thes. 1:8 ). It comes as `a thief in the night,' which is not so with the tribulation."



But this interpretation does not take into account all that is said in Scripture about the day of the Lord - and contradicts some of it.



When our Lord returns to earth in person, "in flaming fire taking vengeance" and "punishing" with "everlasting destruction," He will evidently dispatch His enemies forthwith. There is no evidence that this will cover a protracted period of time. Paul, describing the arrival of the day of the Lord in I Thessalonians 5:1-3 says nothing about the personal return of Christ, but he does describe a protracted period of suffering and trouble. Read this statement carefully:



"The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night, for when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape."



First, note that the phrase "thief in the night" is not used to describe suddenness, but unexpectedness. The thief plans his visit for the time when he will be least expected. This phrase is so used of our Lord's return to earth in Matthew 24:43,44. But I Thessalonians 5:1-3 states that the "destruction" of "the day of the Lord" will also come as "a thief in the night."



The Antichrist will have made a seven-year covenant with Israel and the world will enjoy three and a half years of "peace and safety." Then, unexpectedly, he will break the covenant and defile the temple, plunging the nations into the most terrible time of trouble they have ever experienced (See Dan. 9:27; 12:1; Matt. 24:21).



Actually God



Next, note the phrase, "as travail upon a woman with child." When Antichrist breaks his covenant with Israel "in the midst of the week"1 (Dan. 9:27), "destruction" will break out suddenly. This does not mean, however, that it will run its course in a moment. Rather, it will "come upon them" suddenly, and run its course "as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape."



The travail of a woman with child takes time. The birth pangs increase both in frequency and in intensity until the child is born.



This, we suggest, illustrates the "great tribulation" far more accurately than it does the actual return of Christ, for during the great tribulation the world's troubles will indeed increase both in frequency and intensity "and they shall not escape." This "destruction," to take place during "the day of the Lord," will overtake the world of the ungodly unexpectedly, just when they are congratulating themselves as having attained "Peace and safety" (I Thes. 5:3).
________________________________

Now please think carefully. Will anyone be saying, "Peace and safety" at the close of the "great tribulation"? Will anyone rejoice in "Peace and safety" as the battle of Armageddon rages? How, then, can this passage about "the day of the Lord" refer only to the return of Christ after the tribulation?



But when we see that "the day of the Lord" begins with, rather than after the tribulation, all is in order.



As we know, the seven years of the tribulation will begin with the rider on the "white horse" (Rev. 6:1,2 - evidently Antichrist cf. Rev. 19:11 - the true Christ), who goes forth "conquering and to conquer." Like Antiochus Epiphanes, he will "come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries" (Dan. 11:21). All will go well for him and he will bring to the world a kind of peace that will win him universal allegiance. "Peace and safety"! the world will exclaim.



But of the rider on the next horse we read: "and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth" (Rev. 6:4). Then follow war, famine and death (Vers. 3-8 ).



This "destruction" will come suddenly when, after three and a half years ("in the midst of the week"), Antichrist will betray Israel and break his seven-year covenant with them (Dan. 9:27), and will, like Antiochus Epiphanes, desecrate the temple (Dan. 9:27; 11:31; Matt. 24:15; II Thes. 2:3,4).



There we have it! Our "post-tribulation" brethren say that "the day of the Lord follows the tribulation." Paul, in I Thessalonians 5:1-3, makes it clear that the day of the Lord includes the tribulation. They have men in the closing, most terrible hours of the tribulation saying, "Peace and safety"! They have the Lord's speedy judgment of the ungodly described by "travail upon a woman with child"!



No, the Rapture of the Body of Christ to be with Him will not follow the tribulation; it will precede it. Thus the Apostle Paul, after writing about the Rapture of the Body in I Thessalonians 4, continues in Chapter 5.



"Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (I Thes. 4:18 ), and "be not soon troubled" (II Thes. 2:2), for like the Thessalonian believers we are to "serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven...who hath delivered us from the wrath to come" (I Thes. 1:9,10).



THE BEGINNING OF SORROWS



As we have demonstrated, the prophesied day of the Lord takes us back to the middle of the Tribulation when the "peace and safety" that Antichrist brings, will be suddenly broken, and the horrors of the "great tribulation" will come upon this world "as travail upon a woman with child."



With God's help, we will seek further to show from Scripture that the "day of the Lord" takes us back even to the beginning of the Tribulation period, for the first three and a half years of the Tribulation are the introduction to the rest.



Here we must ask what will cause men to say "peace and safety"? II Thessalonians 2 gives us light on this.



In Verse 7 the Apostle says:



"For the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only He who now letteth [hindereth] will let [hinder], until He be taken out of the way."



We take this to be the Holy Spirit in the Church. Not that the Holy Spirit will not be operating on earth during the Tribulation, but He will be taken out of the way as a restraining force when the Church is caught up to be with Christ.



Verse 8: "And then shall that Wicked [one] be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming."
__________________________________

The "then" of Verse 8 is also used in a broad sense, for it is obvious that while the full manifestation of Antichrist will take place in the midst of the seven years of the Tribulation, his destruction will take place at the end of the seven years. Doubtless his manifestation will be a gradual matter, for when he sits in the temple of God, posing as God (Ver. 4), he will already have held sway for three and a half years. See what the Apostle says about this deceiver in Verses 9 and 10:



"Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders,



"And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved."



It should be observed that not all wars begin with a battle, and God here begins to wage war on this Christ-rejecting world by simply letting them believe the big lie that they have always wanted to believe. How could God state more clearly that He will begin to judge this wicked world than by removing the restraining influence and giving men up to Antichrist? And, as we say, this takes us back to the beginning of the Tribulation. This first part of the Tribulation ushers in the judgments of God for grace rejected.



Though God has sent a message of grace to all nations, they have turned a deaf ear to it.



"Ye will not come unto Me that ye might have life."



"I am come in My Father's name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive."



And this is exactly the case. The world has never received Christ, but when Antichrist comes they will go wild over him. He is described in the Book of Revelation as the rider on the white horse, going forth "conquering and to conquer."



Well do we remember the days of Hitler as one nation after another fell before his armies. He indeed went forth conquering, and many feared that he would continue "to conquer" until the whole world was under his sway. This, thankfully, did not take place, but with Antichrist his conquests will continue until he dominates all mankind.



It is of the utmost importance here to notice that this is God's judgment upon "them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved."



"And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (II Thes. 2:10-12).



This, then, is included in "the day of the Lord" in its broadest sense, for this is how God will begin to bring the day of man, or "the times of the Gentiles [nations]," to an end.



Thus we do not agree that "the day of the Lord follows the Tribulation" and that only His return to earth is "the day of the Lord's wrath upon those who `know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.'" God begins to judge man by giving him up to Antichrist; then comes the "great tribulation," the latter half of the seven years, and then our Lord's return to bring to a speedy end that which began as "travail upon a woman with child."



Thus, the day of the Lord, as it is spoken of in Scripture, may be referred to in a narrow sense, or in a broader sense. In its narrowest sense it refers to the reign of Christ on earth, but in its broader sense it includes the whole Tribulation period. As some theologians might put it, we have the day of the Lord proper, and the day of the Lord general, the latter including the reign of Christ and the Tribulation, when God begins to intervene in man's affairs by giving him the Antichrist, the big lie men have always wanted.
____________________________________

Any who have not acknowledged their sin and have not yet trusted Christ as Savior should remember that while God is gracious and patient, He will not allow man to go on forever rejecting and insulting His Son. And when His anger is finally aroused it will be "the cup of His indignation, poured out without mixture."



God is not the soft "do-gooder" of man's conception. True, He is the very personification of love, but He is also the personification of righteousness and justice and truth and, in anger against love spurned, He will finally judge this world by giving men up to the kind of Christ they have always desired - Antichrist. They will perish "because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved" . . .



Since the Rapture of the Church could take place at any moment and bring to a close this dispensation of Grace, how important it is to trust Christ without delay, before it is eternally too late.



"The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hands,



"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:35,36).



"...behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (II Cor. 6:2).



"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved..." (Acts 16:31).



"For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures;



"And that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures" (I Cor. 15:3,4).

An important question that many Christians often ask is " Are we living in the last days or end times?" When people ask me this question, I usually respond with a clear " Yes and No!" Such an answer requires an explanation. My explanation is that the Bible uses such terminology in multiple ways, so that some references do refer to our own day, while others do not.



Last Days Vocabulary



Sometimes Christians read in the Bible about the " last days," " end times," etc., and tend to think that all of these phrases all of the time refer to the same thing. This is not the case, just as in our own lives there are many endings: there is the end of the work day, the end of the day according to the clock, the end of the week, the end of the month, and the end of the year. Just because the word " end" is used does not mean that it always refers to the same time. The word " end" is restricted and precisely defined when it is modified by " day," " week," " year," etc. So it is in the Bible that " end times" may refer to the end of the current church age or it may refer to other times.



There are a number of different biblical expressions which appear to speak of the end times. The Bible teaches that this present age will end with the rapture, followed by the tribulation, which will end with the second coming of Messiah to the earth. Thus, we must distinguish between the " last days" of the church age and the " last days" of Israel' s tribulation.



Note the following chart, which classifies and distinguishes between passages referring to the end of the church age and the " last days" for Israel:



BIBLICAL USE OF LAST DAYS



Israel



" latter days" - Deuteronomy 4:30; 31:29; Jeremiah 30:24; 48:47; Daniel 2:28; 10:14



" last days" - Isaiah 2:2; Jeremiah 23:20; 49:39; Ezekiel 38:16; Hosea 3:4- 5; Micah 4:1; Acts 2:17



" last day" - John 6:39, 40, 44, 54; 11:24; 12:48



" latter years" - Ezekiel 38:8



" end of time" - Daniel 8:17; 12:4, 9



" end of the age" - Daniel 12:13



Church



" latter days" - 1 Timothy 4:1



" last days" - 2 Timothy 3:1; Hebrews 1:2; James 5:3; 2 Peter 3:3



" last times" - 1 Peter 1:20; Jude 18



" last time" - 1 Peter 1:5; 1 John 2:18



The Bible clearly speaks of a last days or end time, but it does not always refer to the same period of time. The contextual referent enables the reader to know whether the Bible is speaking of the last days relating to Israel or the end times in reference to the church.



Many believe that there are specific signs that relate to the end of the church age. However, I believe that it would be too strong to say that there are signs of the end of the church age. Instead, the Bible indicates what the condition of the church will be like - the general course of the age - and then warns about some general trends toward the later part of the church age. Passages like 1 Timothy 4:1- 5, 2 Timothy 3:1- 5, and 2 Peter 3:3 most likely refer to the second half or latter part of the church age. These passages warn believers about beliefs and lifestyles that are common in the world will enter the church and become common there as well. These passages do not speak about the general moral decline of society, which I do not doubt, instead, it is a decline that was predicted to occur within the church as part of the apostasy.
_____________________________________________

It can also be noted, that it is hard to quantify such decline. No matter how bad things get, they can always get a little worse. So it is impossible to know specifically how bad things must be in order for something to be a prophetic sign. It is the general condition within the realm of the church in which " evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived" (2 Tim. 3:13).



The Church Age



There are a number of New Testament passages where " last days," " last times," and " last time" clearly refer to the present church age in which we now live. The writer of Hebrews says, " God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son" (Heb. 1:1- 2). The contextual nuance of this passage demands that " last days" is a reference to the current church age in which we presently live. In the same way Peter says, " For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you" (1 Pet. 1:20). These " last times," to which he speaks, in that context, must refer to the last two thousand years in which we still live. John adds support to the two previous writers when he says, " Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour" (1 John 2:18 ). Jude, speaking of things going on in his day says, " that they were saying to you, " In the last time there shall be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts" (Jude 18 ).



The Jewish view of Bible prophecy viewed history as consisting of two ages. The first was this present age, the age in which Israel was waiting for the coming of the Messiah. The second was the age to come, the age in which all promises and covenants would be fulfilled and Israel would enter into her promised blessings as a result of Messiah' s coming. The present age would be terminated by the appearance of Messiah, and the coming age would be introduced by His advent. The present age, then, was to end in judgment, and the coming age must be preceded by this devastation. The New Testament references the present age as the last days. The last days of what? The last days before the coming of the Messianic age.



We see that there are at least four clear references in the New Testament that use end times vocabulary to refer to their own day and the entire church age as the last days. Thus, in that sense, we are clearly living in the last days, since the entire church age is considered the last days. However, that is not what the average person means when they ask, " Are we living in the last days?" They want to know if we are living in a time when the final prophecies of Scripture are being fulfilled. Before I can answer that, we need to look into the use of Old Testament terminology and the last days.



Old Testament Use of Last Days



When we look at Old Testament usage of these terms, we see that they are used differently than those which speak of the church age. I believe that the Old Testament use of this language refers to the time leading up to the coming of Messiah to set up His kingdom on earth, which I would call the tribulation period.



A clear example of this is found in Deuteronomy 4:30, which says, " When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice." The English word " distress" is the Hebrew word for tribulation - in this context, the tribulation - which means that this text equates the tribulation with the " latter days." Thus, the " latter days" are the tribulation period, which we are not currently living in, but may be on the brink of entering. Of course, the church will be raptured before the world enters the tribulation. Deuteronomy 31:29 uses " latter days" as a reference to the tribulation when it says, " evil will befall you in the latter days."



The term " latter days" is used of the tribulation period twice in Jeremiah (30:24; 48:47). Daniel also uses it this way: " However, there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days" (Dan. 2:28 ). Daniel commences to reveal God' s plan for the future, which revolves around events that will unfold in the tribulation period. This is also the case concerning another passage in Daniel: " Now I have come to give you an understanding of what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision pertains to the days yet future" (Dan. 10:14).



The prophet Daniel uses a whole cluster of other " latter day" terms that all refer to the tribulation period or prepare the way for the kingdom reign of Messiah. Terms like " end of time" (Dan. 8:17; 12:4, 9) and " end of the age" (Dan. 12:13) speak of the end-time, tribulation period, which is yet to come. These terms are used three times in Daniel 12, which is said in verse one of that chapter to " be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time." " Distress" is the Hebrew word for tribulation. Thus, the entire context is once again a reference to the coming tribulation.
_______________________________________

Daniel 12:4, says the teachings about the end-times in Daniel will be sealed up for the Jewish people until " the end of time." Many prophecy teachers believe that shortly before Christ' s return the world would experience an increase in the speed of travel coupled with an explosion of information based upon Daniel 12:4, which says " many will go back and forth, and knowledge will increase." No one would quarrel with the fact that the last one hundred years has indeed witnessed an exponential increase in both the speed of travel and the accumulation of knowledge and thus would be a sign in our time that the end is near. But is this really what Daniel is saying in the passage? I don' t think so.



The correct interpretation of the passage is given by Dr. Charles Ryrie in his famous Ryrie Study Bible when he says, " As the end approaches, people will travel about seeking to discover what the future holds." [1] Not just people in general, but the Jewish people in particular. This means that many Jews during the tribulation will study the Book of Daniel in an attempt to find out what is going on during this unique period of time. Harry Bultema says, " The movement of to and fro may refer to that of the eyes through leaves. . . . Thus considered it seems to us that the text here speaks of the diligent search of the Scripture at the end of time." [2] Thus, the scope would be limited to the future time of the tribulation and could not justly be applied to our own day.



There does not appear to be any real textual basis for the first interpretation. The meaning of the Hebrew words and grammar do not support such a view.



Conclusion



So are we living in the last days? As you can tell from the above discussion, we are currently living in the last days because we are in the church age, which is called the " last days," " last times," and " last time." However, in no way shape or form are we in the last days, as the Old Testament says of Israel. Those terms, " latter days," " last days," " latter years," " end of time," and " end of the age" all refer a time when Israel is in her time of tribulation. This is a future time, which we could very well be on the verge of entering. I believe that we are seeing the stage being set for last days or end time events of the tribulation. But we are not currently in those times at the present time. Maranatha!

____________________________



Endnotes



[1]The Ryrie Study Bible, NASB (Chicago: Moody Press, 1978 ), p. 1332.



[2] Harry Bultema, Commentary on Daniel (Grand Rapids: Kregel

Publications, 1988 ), p. 349.

Next to the U. S. elections, the top story the last year (2000) in the American media has been the ongoing saga of the so-called " peace process" between Israel and the Arabs, popularly known as " Palestinians." This, of course, is not surprising to those of us who take a literal view of Bible prophecy, since Israel is at the center of imminent future events. However, I am constantly annoyed by the steady stream of myths and propaganda that streams from the global media, often misinforming the world about the modern land of Israel. This month I want to demythologize a number of popular notions about the Land of Israel, so that prophecy-loving believers may not be taken in by what they hear and see in today' s media.



The Ancient Palestinians



Perhaps the most maddening term that I hear today is related to the term " Palestinian." Let me start by providing a history of that word. It was a term invented by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in a.d. 135 after he had destroyed Jerusalem during a campaign to put down a Jewish uprising known as the Bar Kokhba revolt. Hadrian was tired of the constant revolts by the Jews in the land of Israel so he set out to " de-Judaize" Israel. This he did by renaming Jerusalem Aelia Capitolina and he renamed the Land of Israel Palestine from the word Philistine, a reference to the ancient Canaanites. Palestine became the common term that many used to refer to the biblical land of Israel. During the early 1900s and before 1948, a Palestinian was always thought to be a Jew who lived in the land of Israel, of course, popularly known as Palestine. When Israel became a nation in 1948, the Jews took the biblical term Israel to refer to the reborn nation. Some time between 1948 and 1963, the Egyptian, Yasser Arafat took the term Palestine to refer to the Arab claim of the land of Israel. Thus, it was only around 1963 that the term Palestinian began to be used of Arabs. There is no such thing as the ancient land of Palestine. It is the ancient land of Israel.



Because of the contemporary use of the term " Palestine," I think it is best that Christians refrain from using it to refer to the land of Israel. This is how Israel is usually referred to, even in biblical maps from the time of Christ and before, when the term was not invented until 100 years after the time of Christ. This is why in our newly produced Tim LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible we insisted upon using the term " Israel" when referencing the land of Israel. We did not call it Palestine. The only real Palestine I know of is a town in East Texas with that name.



The Palestinian Right of Return



In light of what I noted in the previous section, it follows that the so-called Palestinian " right of return" is a key element in Arafat' s position in the Oslo Peace Process. This is one of the few issues that current Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has not caved in on, . . . at least not yet. Arafat claims that there are about four million Arabs and their descendants who were displaced by Israel in 1948. This is a most ridiculous claim. First of all, only about 200,000 Arabs left their homes in the land of Israel.[1] Few, if any, of these Arabs " refugees" were forced out by the Israelis. Instead, " The Arab refugees were not driven from Palestine by anyone," notes Samuel Katz. " The vast majority left, whether of their own free will or at the orders or exhortations of their leaders, always wit the same reassurance- that their departure would help in the war against Israel." [2]



After the 1948 war, Arab leaders refused to settle these refugees, even though hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from Arab lands with only the shirt on their backs.[3] In fact, based upon conservative estimates, at least two times more Jews were made refugees from the countries in which they lived and have now been settled in the land of Israel without the need for refugee camps that the Arabs are so famous for constructing for their people. Lately, Arafat has been demanding four to five billion dollars as reparations for the so-called " Palestinian refugees," while no one has brought up the fact that the Jews left behind in their country of origin billions of dollars worth of property. Where is the outcry for Jewish compensation?



Instead of settling Arabs who left Israel in 1948 in other Arab countries, Arab leaders have consistently insisted that they remain huddled together in the squalor of refugee camps in various locations throughout the Middle East. Joan Peters noted in 1984:



Over the last thirty-odd year, numerous projects have been proposed, international funds provided, studies undertaken, all indicating the benefits that could be derived by the Arab refugee from their absorption into the brethren cultures of the Arab host countries.[4]
_______________________________

Yet Arab leaders always reject any solution that might serve to solve the problem. Even though the Arab refugees number only in the hundreds of thousands, others have successfully exchanged many times that number. Peters notes that, " The exchange between India and Pakistan in the 1950s was overwhelming in magnitude: 8,500,000 Sikhs and Hindus from Pakistan fled to India, and roughly 6,500,000 Muslims moved from India to Pakistan." [5] The fact that " from 1933 to 1945, a total of 79,200,000 souls were displaced," is staggering. But all but the Arab refugees from Israel have not been able to find a place of settlement. Why? Because the long-term Arab goal is not peaceful co-existence with Israel, but a total annihilation of every Jew and the modern nation of Israel. This reality is why it is foolish for Israel to continue the Oslo Peace Process.



David and Goliath



During the so-called " Temple Mount Intifada" we have seen a blatant example of Arab manipulation of the media in the incident of the death of the twelve-year old Arab boy named Mohammed. The world' s media captured the sad death of Mohammed in a crossfire between Arabs and Israelis. The video footage revealed the boy being shot and dying in his father' s arms. The immediate outcry from the global media was how the evil Israelis (the bully Goliath) were picking on the poor defenseless Arabs (David). The media assumed and then reported that Mohammed was shot by the Israeli army. Few asked what the boy was doing there in the first place. Few noted that Mohammed' s father had come to get him because he had gone to throw rocks at the Israeli army. But, most significantly, it was reported in the alternative media that there were questions about whether the Israelis were even in position to have shot the boy. A later investigation has proved that it was impossible for the Israeli soldiers to have shot him since they could not have hit him since they were not in position to have the right angle to get to him. It is now clear that the Arabs shot one of their own, apparently for propaganda purposes. They cared more about sending out to the global media a certain image than they did about the life of that twelve-year old boy.



This kind of thing is all too common in the battle for truth in the propaganda wars coming out of Israel in our day. In fact, established reports have revealed that the Saudi Arabian government is paying $2,000.00 to the family members of each Arab killed in the current Intifada and $300.00 for each non-fatal wound. This is most revealing when one realizes that Muslims believe that they are guaranteed to go to heaven if they die during the current conflict. Boy are they in for an immediate surprise. This is probably the most blatant propaganda piece of the entire conflict.



The Temple Mount



Another classic instance of Arab lying that has come out in the media recently is their widely held belief that there has never been a Jewish Temple upon the Temple Mount (Arabs call it Al-Qods-Al-Sharif) in Jerusalem. Randall Price and I noted this in our book, Ready To Rebuild, in the early 1990s. This belief, coupled with the equally errant lie, that the place of Mohammed' s supposed ascent into heaven occurred on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This was a later myth added to the lore of Islam as time went on and they became engaged in a rivalry with Christianity and Judaism, both of whom had a rich history of events that transpired in Jerusalem. Islam had none.



The question arises that if there never was a Jewish Temple upon the Temple Mount, then where did Jesus walk in New Testament times? What a crook! There is more historical and archaeological evidence supporting the historicity of the Bible' s report that there were two Jewish Temples upon the Temple Mount in Jerusalem than is needed to accept any fact of antiquity. Yet, this does not seem to phase the Muslim faithful. If there was no Temple upon the Temple Mount then what did Josephus write about when he records the destruction of the Jewish Temple in a.d. 70. This kind of outright lying is revealing about the whole Islamic religion: It does not care about the truth, only propaganda. Thus, we should not be surprised, I am not, at the lengths to which too many Arabs will go in our own day as they spin Middle Eastern events to the global media. But, as lovers of the truth, Christians should not fall for these Arab distortions.



Conclusion



As believers in God and His Word, we should not be surprised that Satan and the world system is anti-Israel. We should also not be surprised that in spite of the justness of Israel' s cause that the international media echoes Satan' s voice, instead of God' s. Israel is God' s elect nation and He works out a major aspect of His plan for history through them. Therefore, the least that believers should do is not be taken in by the myths and propaganda from the world' s media. To help towards this end I want to recommend some excellent books that will provide an interested person with factual information.



There are a number of good works out there that can provide accurate information about the history of this situation. First, I want to recommend a good internet site or two that specializes in setting the record straight. One is called HonestReporting at http://www.honestreporting.com/. Another site is CAMERA at http://world.std.com/~camera/. I would recommend Zola Levitt' s monthly publication, Levitt Letter, as a good way to keep up on Israel. They can be reached at P. O. Box 12268, Dallas, TX 75225-0268; www.levitt.com. Three excellent books on these issues are: Benjamin Netanyahu, A Place Among The Nations: Israel and The World (New York: Bantam Books, 1993); Samuel Katz, Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, 4th edition (New York: Steimatzky and Shaplolsky, 1985); Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine (New York: J. KAP Publishing, 1984). If I could read just one, I would recommend the Joan Peters book.



In spite of all the current bias against Israel we know what the end of the matter will be. Yes, Israel will exist for all eternity, while he enemies will be judged at Armageddon. It helps in the present time to know the God who has told us the end from the beginning. Maranatha!

____________________________________



Endnotes



[1] Samuel Katz, Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, 4th edition (New York: Steimatzky and Shaplolsky, 1985), p. 14.



[2] Katz, Battleground, p. 13.



[3] Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine (New York: J. KAP Publishing, 1984), pp. 11-32,



[4] Peters, From Time Immemorial, p. 19.



[5] Peters, From Time Immemorial, p. 26.

Two Lawyers from Bavaria recently ask a German government minister to re-classify the Bible as a book considered too dangerous for children because of its violent content. "It preaches genocide, racism, enmity towards Jews, gruesome executions for adulterers and homosexuals, the murder of one's own children and many other perversities," wrote Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel.[1] The duo further charged that God's Word contained "bloodthirsty and human rights-violating passages" [2] and want it placed on a list of books unsuitable for children until the offending passages are removed, So much for liberal tolerance!



One thing is clear about these two Germans lawyers; they don' t have a clue when it comes to understanding the biblical framework and what the Bible teaches. Based upon their way of thinking, every history book and most newspaper articles would also have to be listed if the same standards were applied.[3] Of course, this kind of charge is absurd and is the product of taking politically correct logic to an extreme degree. Nevertheless, I have seen over the years, many Bible believing Christians fall for the belief that violence, in-and-of-itself, is always wrong. Many Christians fall for the liberal line that all violence is always wrong. If such is the case, then God Himself is unethical.



Recently, we have seen the movie " The Patriot" receive an " R" rating because it portrays a young boy attempting to shoot a British soldier during America's War for Independence. There are virtually no cuss words and not one sexual scene in the movie, but because of the liberal view that all violence is categorically evil, it unjustifiably received an " R" rating.



Have you ever stopped to think that if Hollywood ever made an accurate film about the tribulation and the second advent it would be one of the most violent films in the history of film making? So what would be a biblical view of violence and how does it relate to prophecy?



Violence and The Bible



I am not saying that most violence is good. I am saying that from a biblical perspective, in this fallen world, there is such a thing as good and bad violence. I think the Bible teaches that there is just violence that should be exercised against evil and evil violence when carried out against the innocent.



Violence is due to the fall of man into sin through Adam's act of rebellion (Gen. 3:1-18). Because of Adam's disobedient act, God cursed Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (Satan) (Gen. 3:8-18). God's curse was a judgment upon the guilty parties because of their rebellion. Judgment usually involves violence of some kind. Since God is a righteous God, He cannot allow sin and rebellion to go unpunished. Thus, when the righteousness of God encounters sin, violent judgment is the results. Judgment is necessary because God is righteous. This is righteous violence, from God to man.



Unrighteous violence is exhibited by fallen man toward his fellow man and is the outworking of his fallen, sinful nature. For example, evil violence was the result of Cain's jealousy toward Abel when he murdered him (Gen. 4:3-15) with a sacrificial knife (implied by the Greek word in 1 John 3:12). This is the kind of evil violence, which we should all be opposed to, since it is the expression of our sin, our rebellion against God and His commandments.



Things did not get better after Cain's murder of his brother Abel, instead, they degenerated into greater violence. Genesis 6:2 tells us that one of the reasons for the global flood in the days of Noah was because " the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence." Certainly not righteous violence, but " X" rated violence of men because of their sin. God's righteousness was about to be expressed in the global flood because His assessment was that " the earth is filled with violence because of them (mankind)." His response was " to destroy them with the earth" (Gen. 6:13), in righteous judgment, which is expressed by the violent act of the flood.



The flood did not wash away mankind's sin nature nor his personal acts of sin. Because mankind could not govern himself, God instituted the instrument of civil government, accompanied by capital punishment, for the purpose of restraining the evil violence of mankind (Gen. 9:5-7) until Christ returns to earth to personally reign and rule during the millennium. Genesis 6:6 says, " Whoever sheds man's blood, by man (i.e., humanity) his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man." Thus, the violent act of capital punishment is commanded by God to be mediated through civil government as a just act of violence. God implemented capital punishment for murder, even though He knew, in His omniscience, that His only Son, Jesus, would be murdered through the greatest miscarriage of justice in history. Christ's crucifixion was clearly an act of evil violence.
________________________________

Prophecy and Violence



Anyone familiar with the end-time, Bible prophecy realizes that Scripture paints a picture of global violence. The seven-year tribulation will be a time when over half of the people one planet will be killed (cf. Rev. 6:8; 9:15). Some will die at the hand of other men (Rev. 6:8), while others will be killed through an angelic agent (Rev. 9:15). Nevertheless, this entire seven-year time is called the wrath of God (cf. Rev. 6:15-17; 14:10,19: 15:1,7; 16:1,19; 19:15). Zechariah 13:8 clearly teaches that two thirds of the Jews will also be killed during the tribulation. The passage does not indicate what ratio will be destroyed through a divine or human agency. The events of the tribulation are merely preparation for the slaughter at Armageddon (Rev. 16:16; Joel 3:2, 9-17), followed by the judgment that will be executed by our Lord upon His ascent to planet earth (Matt. 24:29-31; Rev. 19:11-21). Included in the seventy-five day interval, between Christ's second coming and start of His 1,000 year kingdom (Dan. 12:11-12), every unbeliever left upon planet earth will be judged and destroyed (Matt. 13:40-43; 25:31-46).



It should be clear, as we understand God's future prophetic plan for the universe and planet earth, that prophecy includes judgment from a righteous God. Mixed throughout this and all of God's judgment is grace toward His elect people throughout the ages. God's judgment throughout history is expressed in the form of righteous or good violence. But, why must there be violence from God?



Evil cannot be Removed without God's Violence



Over the years I have encountered many people who have expressed their desire for the removal of evil and violence from this world. This concern is often expressed in the form of a question as to why God allows wars, suffering, and violence. Such a question betrays a misunderstanding of evil and violence. Evil, death, and violence entered the world as a result of man's sin (Rom. 5:12-21; 1 Cor. 15:20-22). Evil entered the universe through Satan and his fallen angels (Isa. 14:1-23; Ezek. 28:1-19; Rev. .12:4). God's creation of man and angels are responsible for introducing evil into the prefect creation. God's judgment of evil through the violent means of death and other sorrows is the only response that a truly holy, righteous, and just Being could put forth.



Thus, to answer the critic's request- " that God not allow evil in His universe" - requires a violent judgment in order to separate evil from good. The request to remove evil from the universe is a petition for the end of history, when God removes evil through His righteous judgment. This is what heaven and hell is all about; the eternal separation of good and evil. There will not be violence in heaven. But hell will surely be a place of ceaseless violence.



Paul told the Thessalonians that they could relax and not think that they had to seek revenge against those who were the source of the " persecutions and afflictions which you endure" (2 Thess. 1:4). Why? Because, God would take care of the problem when He returns in judgment. Notice what Paul says:



For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed- for our testimony to you was believed. (2 Thess. 1:6-10).



Such a statement, as that one above, will require violence in order to accomplish. Such violence will be good and righteous, because if will one that rights some of the wrongs of history. The God of the Bible is a righteous and just God.



Surely all of us have read a story or seen a movie or play where an individual, group, or nation is oppressed by a tyrant or bully. At a crucial point in the story, a hero arrives to save the victim and destroy the oppressor. When this moment arrives in the drama, there is always a sense of relief and euphoria because right triumphed over the bad, good over evil, righteousness over unrighteousness. That is what is scheduled to occur in the real drama of human history. Our Lord is going to return to planet earth when at the height of global tyranny from Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet and cast them into the bottomless pit and the Lake of Fire (Rev. 19:19- 20:3). I hope that you will be standing and cheering with me when this violent moment occurs. Perhaps the unbelieving world will raise the question of violence. Yet it will be a time when God will be implementing in history His righteousness and justice.



I am convinced that one of the reasons that many unbelievers are opposed to all violence is because they sense deep down in their own souls that they are unrighteous and have violated God's righteous standards. They sense that when the time comes for God to separate forever good and evil, that they would be the ones who would be the recipients of God's violent judgment. Thus, like Satan of old, they attempt to construct an artificial standard in thin air by which they will attempt to say to the holy God, " That's not fair!" And if it is not fair then God does not have the right to judge them. Such guilty consciences will not be a legitimate basis upon which to condemn God and excuse themselves. For Scripture says that at the final judgment no one will be able to hide from this event (Rev. 20:11) and every mouth will be shut before Him (Rom. 3:19). Every creature will be made to realize that indeed, the God of the Bible is righteous and just. Thus, all of His acts are likewise righteous and just, including His acts of violence.



What is wonderful to know about our God is that He has provided a way to escape the violent judgment of God. This he accomplished through the most violent death of Christ on the cross so that all who believe in Him will receive the gift of eternal life and will not enter into condemnation. This is truly good news in light of reality. This is why we can believe that not all violence is evil, some is good and this fact is being demonstrated in present history and will be finally put on display for the whole world to see and understand through the implementation of God prophetic plan for the future. Maranatha!

_____________________________________



Endnotes



[1] Patrick Goodenough, " Bible Too Violent for Kids," CNSNews.com, Aug. 3, 2000.



[2] Ibid.



[3] Ibid.

    With all the killer storms, earthquakes, wars and disease dominating our news, it's not surprising that recent studies indicate a ballooning interest in End Times Prophecy. Even non-believers are wondering if the end is near. What is surprising is how little most Christians actually know about prophecy, especially since it comprises about 40% of the Bible's content, more than any other topic.

    With few exceptions seminaries don't teach it, so preachers don't preach it. And therefore Christians don't learn it. In all my years as a denominational Christian, I never once heard a message explaining the importance of prophecy to a believer's walk with the Lord. And yet the Bible devotes more space to End Times Prophecy than it does to all the teachings of Jesus.

    When Christians are asked why they don't study prophecy more seriously the most common reasons given are 1) because it scares them, and 2) because it confuses them. Both responses are borne out of a lack of understanding. For the believer, prophecy is neither scary nor confusing but the key to understanding God's plan for man.

    The purpose of this book is to provide a solid foundation for further study. When the foundation of a building is stable and solid, the entire building is stronger, able to withstand powerful forces that would otherwise weaken or even topple it. So it is when the foundation of our study is solid. Powerful arguments from scoffers and unbelievers cannot shake us or weaken our faith. Let's get started.
 
    Seven Things You Have To Know

    There are seven pieces of information that are essential to understanding End Times Prophecy. They're the building blocks for the strong foundation we want. Once you've learned them, these seven things will help you avoid the mistakes that have thrown others off the track. Call it perspective or overview or whatever you want, this combination of facts will give you the ability to put all the prophetic verses in the Bible into their proper context.
   
    1) The Sequence Of Major Events

    First is knowing what happens and when. It gets really confusing if you don't know the sequence in which major End Times events will occur. Actually their order is very logical, and once you learn it, you'll wonder why you didn't see it before. The best way to figure it out is to perform what the business world sometimes calls a back scheduling exercise. It involves going to the very end of a process and identifying the final outcome. Then you list in reverse order all the things that have to happen to produce that outcome, backing into the present. It's simpler than it sounds, and much simpler in prophecy than in business because there are many fewer events to organize. Let's do it.

    What Are We Waiting For?

    We all think of Eternity as the final outcome, and so starting at the end and working backwards means we begin there. But the last major event described in any detail in the Bible is the Kingdom Age or Millennium, the Lord's 1000 year reign on Earth, which is distinguished from and precedes Eternity. The very last chapter of Revelation describes trees on either side of the River of Life bearing a different fruit every month. That means time still exists, and Eternity by definition is the absence of time. We'll talk more about that later. For now let's just say that Eternity can't happen till the Millennium is over.

    The Millennium obviously can't happen till the Second Coming, because that's when the Lord returns to establish it. And the Second Coming can't happen till the end of the Great Tribulation. And that can't happen till the anti-Christ stands in the Temple in Israel declaring himself to be God. (2 Thessalonians 2:4) That's the event Jesus warned Israel to look for as the Great Tribulation's opening salvo. He called it "The Abomination of Desolation" in Matthew 24:15-21.
_________________________

    But that can't happen till there's a Temple. There hasn't been a Temple in Israel since 70AD and there won't be one until the Jews officially decide they need one. They won't need one until God reinstates their Old Covenant relationship, signaling the start of Daniel's 70th week. And that can't happen till the Battle of Ezekiel 38-39 is won. And that can't happen till the Church is gone. And that brings us to the present, because there is no preceding event for the Rapture of the Church. It could happen at any time.

    You Got That?

    So the Sequence of Major Events is this:

    The Rapture of the Church,
    The Battle of Ezekiel 38,
    Daniels 70th week begins,
    The Great Tribulation,
    The 2nd Coming,
    The Millennium,

    Eternity.

    To those who read Scripture as it's written only two of the events in this sequence are subject to debate as to timing. Those are the Rapture and the Battle of Ezekiel 38, the first two on our list. So lets find out why they have to be where I've placed them in the sequence. Maintaining our back schedule mentality, we'll begin with Ezekiel's battle and work back to the Rapture.

    "And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them. The house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God, from that day forward.
   
    Then they shall know that I am the LORD their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations and then assembled them into their own land. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations anymore. And I will not hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord GOD." (Ezekiel 39:21-22, 28-29)

    The Lord has declared in no uncertain terms that He's going to use Ezekiel's battle to spiritually awaken His people and call them to Israel from all over the world. This will result in the reinstatement of their Old Covenant relationship, reviving Daniel's long dormant 70-Week prophecy for its final seven years and requiring that a Temple be constructed. Without one there's no way for them to keep His covenant.

    This was proven once before in history during the Babylonian captivity. When Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the 1st Temple, Israel ceased to exist. But as soon as Cyrus the Persian defeated Babylon and freed the Jews, they returned to Israel and began building a Temple before they did anything else. Without a Temple there's no sacrifice for sin, and without that sacrifice, Jews cannot approach God.

    Both the Old and New Testaments refer to a Temple in Israel at the End of the Age. The only reason for a Temple is to perform Old Covenant ordinances. But building one today would cause such an uproar that no one in his right mind would consider it. Jews don't want one, since only one out of four is religious and even religious Jews are divided on the issue. And it goes without saying that Moslems would go to war to prevent it.

    Only a unified demand from the people of Israel accompanied by quiet acceptance from their Moslem neighbors would make the construction of a Temple even thinkable. Sound impossible? Ezekiel's battle results in both a Jewish nation re-awakened to the presence of God and an utterly defeated Moslem attack force in no position to resist. The perfect conditions will finally exist to start building. For these reasons, Ezekiel's battle has to take place on the threshold of Daniel's 70th week. Now why does the Rapture of the Church have to precede Ezekiel's battle?

    They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. (Luke 21:24)

    When Jerusalem became a Jewish city again in 1967, it was a signal that the era of Gentile Dominion, begun with Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon, was finally coming to an end. For 2500 years, gentile nations had been running things on Earth, but now events would begin to draw Israel to the forefront once again.
   
    Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. (Romans 11:25)
_______________________________

    Reborn first in unbelief (Ezekiel 37:8) Israel would remain partially estranged from God until the gentile Church reached its full complement (predetermined number) and arrived at its destination. (The Greek word translated "fullness" was a nautical term often used to describe the full complement of crew and cargo necessary to accomplish a ship's mission. The ship couldn't sail till those requirements were met. The one translated "come in" means to arrive at a designated place.) Then the veil would be pulled back as God revealed Himself to them again. As we saw above, He will use Ezekiel's battle to begin this by renewing the Old Covenant with them, later transitioning Israel from the Old Covenant to the New during the Great Tribulation. (Zechariah 12:10) Remember, if they didn't go back to the Old covenant first, they wouldn't need a Temple. He's picking them up where they left off.

    After they finished speaking, James replied, "Brothers, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,
 
    'After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.' (Acts 15:13-18)

    It was about 20 years after the cross. The controversy of the day was whether Gentiles had to become Jews before they could become Christians. And if not, what would become of Israel? The Lord's brother James explained to the Apostles and others present at the Council of Jerusalem that Israel was being temporarily set aside while God focused on the Church. After He had taken this "people for His name" (Christians) from among the Gentiles he would return and rebuild His Temple. The passage implies that He would take the Church somewhere and then come back to rebuild the Temple, restore Israel, and give what's left of mankind one final chance to seek Him.

    These three Bible prophecies make it clear that once Jerusalem became a Jewish city again, God would begin preparing Israel to be His once more. But He wouldn't be exclusively focused on them until He was finished building the Church and had taken us to our appointed place. And where is that? In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. (John 14:2-3) (He didn't promise to come back to be with us here, but to take us there, where He was.) After that He would see to Israel's reawakening and the construction of their Temple.

    Throughout Scripture, the Lord seems to be involved with either Israel or the Church, but never both at the same time. James bears this out in his pronouncement regarding the Church in Acts 15. All the leaders of the early church now knew that once God had accomplished His goals with the church, He would turn again to Israel.

    For this reason, the rebirth of Israel in 1948 and the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967 are seen as the most important signs of all that the End of the Age is upon us. The Sequence of Major Events is only the first of "Seven Things You Have To Know To Understand End Times Prophecy." Next time we'll look at some more of them.
________________________________________

Our previous study of the Seven Things You Have To Know To Understand End Times Prophecy covered the Sequence of Major Events. We'll begin this segment with the second item on our list of seven.

2) The Destiny Of The Three Components Of Humanity: The Nations, Israel, And The Church

Even so-called experts misinterpret prophecy when they don't stop to consider who the Lord, or one of His prophets, is addressing. Just because something's in the Gospels doesn't necessarily mean that it's for the Church, or being in Isaiah that it's only for Israel. Knowing a prophecy's intended recipient is critical to understanding it, and there are three possibilities.

His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. (Ephesians 2:15-16) Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks (Gentiles) or the church of God (1 Corinthians 10:32)

Over time the human race came to be divided into three distinct components from God's perspective. Here's how it happened. From the Creation there was one race of Human, the family of man, later called Gentiles. Then in Genesis 12, God called Abraham to build a great nation. From that time on, the world's population was either Jew or Gentile. But at the cross God created the Church, taken from among both Jews and Gentiles but sharing a destiny with neither. Now there were three. In his epistles, Paul always took pains to distinguish the Church from both Jews and Gentiles, in effect calling the Church a new race of Human. I'll describe each group's destiny so you can see how different they are.

According to Isaiah 56:6-8, Gentiles who converted to Judaism during Old Testament times became part of Israel and share its destiny (see below). Gentiles who meet their Lord after the church disappears become tribulation saints. They're either martyred for their faith, in which case they serve God in His Temple (Revelation  7:13-17), or survive to help re-populate Earth in the Kingdom age. Believing Gentile survivors are the sheep in the Sheep and Goat Judgment that we'll look at later.

Jews (and converted Gentiles) who died in faith of a coming redeemer before Jesus went to the cross, were taken into Heaven with Him after His resurrection (Matthew 27:52-53). They'll receive resurrection bodies at the Second Coming. (Daniel 12:1-3) Jews who receive Him as their Messiah after the church disappears are hidden in the Jordanian desert (Petra) during the Great Tribulation. (Revelation 12:14) Both groups will dwell in Israel during the Millennium. (Ezekiel 43:6-7)

Of course Jews and Gentiles who give their hearts to Jesus during the Church age become part of the Church and after the rapture / resurrection will populate the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21), a place many of us were taught to call Heaven, but which is actually a separate entity. (More on this in our discussion of the Millennium, item 6 on our list of 7 Things You Have To Know.)

Those who don't do any of the above during their lifetimes will be tormented in the fires of Hell until they're brought back to life to stand trial at the Great White Throne judgment of Revelation 20:11-15. It takes place at the end of the Millennium. They'll be judged by their works and sentenced to eternal suffering in the Lake of Fire. (Revelation 20:14) If humans could attain Eternal Life on our own merits, then Jesus didn't have to die for us.

In the Old Testament, God promised Israel that He would return one day to dwell among them in their land on Earth (Ezekiel 43:6-7). In the New, Jesus promised the Church that He would come back and take us to be with Him in His Father's House (John 14:1-3). Both promises come true. Israel is not the Church nor is the Church Israel, and both groups are distinct from the Gentile nations. Much of the confusion surrounding End Times prophecy results either from the failure to understand, or the refusal to accept, this truth.
_____________________________

3) The Purpose And Length Of The Great Tribulation

How awful that day will be! None will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it. I am with you and will save you,' declares the LORD . 'Though I completely destroy all the nations among which I scatter you, I will not completely destroy you. I will discipline you but only with justice; I will not let you go entirely unpunished.' (Jeremiah 30:7,11 emphasis added)

Jesus said that the Great Tribulation would be the most intense period of judgment the world has ever seen, greater than the World Wars, and even greater than the Flood of Noah. He said that if it were left to run its course, not a single human being would survive. But for the sake of His people He would stop it at its appointed time. (Matthew 24:22)

The purpose of the Great Tribulation is two-fold. It's explained in the Jeremiah passage above, where it's called by its Old Testament name, the Time of Jacob's Trouble. God will use it to completely destroy the unbelieving nations who've all persecuted His people down through the ages and to discipline Israel, purifying them to dwell with Him in the Promised Land. The Church, having been purified at the cross, requires neither destruction nor discipline and has no business being in the Great Tribulation.

No matter where you place the Rapture in the End Times Scenario, if you believe in the Lord's all-sufficient work on the cross, then you know that the Church has to be protected from the End Times judgments, not purified by them. If you don't believe that the Lord's work was sufficient, but that the coming judgments are needed to finish what He only began, then you have much bigger problems than figuring out when the Rapture will occur.

The length of the Great Tribulation is variously given as 3  years (Daniel 12:7), 42 months (Revelation 11:2), or 1260 days (Revelation 12:6). If you use a 12 month 30 day calendar for a total of 360 days in a year, these three measurements all turn out the same. This is one of the clues leading us to believe that Earth's original calendar consisted of 12 months of 30 days each, and in fact it appears that prior to about 700 BC all the Earth used such a calendar. (The calendar we use today is only about four hundred years old.)

In addition, Daniel 9:27 records that an Abomination That Causes Desolation will occur in the middle of the last seven years, or 3  years from the end. In Matthew 24:21 Jesus identifies this event as the beginning of the Great Tribulation. Paul confirms this and adds detail by describing the anti-Christ standing in the Temple proclaiming himself to be God. (2 Thessalonians 2:4) This is also further evidence of a Temple in Israel at the end of the age.

The Abomination That Causes Desolation is a particular defilement of the Temple that's happened only once before. In 168 BC. Syrian King Antiochus Epiphanes captured the Temple and converted it into a pagan worship center. He erected a statue of Zeus with his own face on it in the Holy Place, thereby proclaiming himself to be God, demanding that the Jews worship it on pain of death. It was called the Abomination That Causes Desolation, the only event in history so named. It made the Temple unfit for use and triggered the 3  year Maccabean Revolt. The Jewish re-capture and cleansing of the Temple is celebrated in the eight day Feast of Hanukkah.

So Daniel spoke of an Abomination That Causes Desolation that would mark the middle of the last 7 years. An event called the Abomination That Causes Desolation in 1st Maccabbees took place in 168 BC, over 300 years later. But 200 years after that, Jesus told His Disciples that the people of Israel should watch for a future Abomination That Causes Desolation that would kick off the Great Tribulation. Paul also described a future event similar to the one in 168BC saying the Day of the Lord could not precede it. The Abomination That Causes Desolation that took place in 168 BC was a partial fulfillment of Daniels prophecy. We know this because other events surrounding it didn't unfold according to the prophecy. It took place so people in the end times would be able to recognize the complete fulfillment when they saw it. They'll know to look for a man standing in the Temple calling himself God and demanding that his image be worshipped. Jesus told those living in Judea (Israel) that when they see it to flee into hiding immediately, for the Great Tribulation will have begun.
_______________________________

4) The Purpose Of The Rapture

They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead - Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath. 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 (Emphasis added)

The Greek word translated from in the above passage is "apo." Literally it means to keep the subject (us) away from the time, place, or any relation to the event being referenced, in this case the coming wrath. This verse is one of several that explain the purpose of the Rapture of the Church, and that's to be hidden safely out of the way before God visits His wrath upon the Earth. OK, but when does God's wrath come?

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand? (Revelation 6:15-17)

In Revelation 4 John sees a door standing open in heaven and is told to "Come up here!" Instantly he finds himself in the spirit, standing before the throne of God at the end of the age. He's been transported to the time of the Rapture. He sees 24 elders there, seated on thrones of their own around the throne of God. They're all dressed in white with crowns of gold on their heads. They bow down before the Lord and place their crowns at his feet giving honor and glory to him. In chapter 5 they call themselves Kings and Priests as they sing praises to God. By their titles, clothing, crowns, thrones, and activities it's clear that they represent the newly raptured church.

Through out Revelation the church is not seen on Earth again until we come back with the Lord in Chapter 19:14, as predicted in Revelation 18:14. And Old Testament views of the Throne of God don't include these 24 elders but they're mentioned 12 times in the Book of Revelation.

So the Church is raptured in chapter 4, and is shown in heaven in chapter 5, while on Earth God's wrath is loosed in chapter 6 as the passage above clearly states.

Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians was written in 51AD and contains the very first clear mention of a Rapture ever given. Neither Jesus nor the Disciples ever taught it. Its existence was kept secret until then just as its exact timing is secret to this day. Many of the mistakes made about the timing of the rapture come from futile attempts to find Gospel passages that teach it, as we'll see in our discussion about the Second Coming.

We think the Rapture is perhaps the single most important component of End Times prophecy, and for us it is. So why didn't Jesus ever mention it? 1 Corinthians 2:6-10 gives us the answer. We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

   "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived  what God has prepared for those who love him" but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

The phrase "rulers of this age" refers to Satan & Co. Had they known the astonishing abundance of blessings the Lord would shower down upon those who accept His death as payment for their sins, they would have done everything in their power to prevent the crucifixion. Think of it. We're called Kings and Priests, given incalculable wealth and influence, made heirs with Christ of God's estate, something Satan could never achieve and we could never deserve, and it's all ours just because we believe. This realization came to Satan after it was too late to prevent it and turned what should have been his greatest victory into an agonizing defeat. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:15)
__________________________________

But like everything in God's plan, you'll find hints of the Rapture even in the Old Testament. Look at this passage from Isaiah 26:19-21. But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.   Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by. See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. (Emphasis added.)

Notice how the pronouns change from second person when God speaks of His people to third person when He speaks of the people of the Earth. It means the two groups are different. One is told to hide because the other is going to be punished. (Note: the Hebrew word translated "go" in the phrase "Go my people" is translated "come" in some translations, recalling the command to John in Revelation 4, "Come up here!" But the word has another primary meaning and it's my favorite. It means vanish. "Vanish, my people!" Yes we will.)

Now read two of Paul's most popular Rapture disclosures. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17

Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. (1 Thessalonians 5:1-5) For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:9) (Emphasis added).

Here's another even more dramatic shift of pronouns. Using the third person, Paul describes unbelievers caught by surprise, thinking they had entered a period of peace as destruction suddenly rains down upon them, cutting off all hope of escape. Then Paul switched to the second person, telling believers we shouldn't be taken by surprise as the End approaches, and finally to the first person as he includes us with him, not appointed to wrath.

Now watch carefully as we lay Isaiah's writings over Paul's. But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead. (The dead in Christ will rise first.)
   
Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by.

(After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.)

    See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. (While people are saying, Peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.)

Although the Bible contains 66 books and involved 40 writers, there's one Author and His message is consistent from Genesis through Revelation. This is how Paul could open his passage on the rapture by saying, "According to the Lord's own word". The Lord never mentioned the rapture in the Gospels. Paul had read Isaiah.

Of course there are several more passages where our Lord promises to protect us from the coming judgments. And although the cynics can truthfully say that the word rapture doesn't appear in any of them, don't pay any attention to that. They're just trying to confuse us.

They know that rapture is a word of Latin origin, not Hebrew or Greek, the languages of the Bible. (The earliest translation of the Bible was into Latin, and the term rapture comes from there.) Its Greek equivalent is harpazo, which is found in the Greek text of 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17. When translated into English, both words mean "to be caught up, or snatched away." There's a similar situation with the word Lucifer, also of Latin origin. It doesn't appear in any of the original texts either, but no one would be naive enough to deny the existence of Satan on such a flimsy basis.

Next time we'll cover the final three of Seven Things You Have To Know To Understand End Times Prophecy. See you then.
___________________________________________

This is the final installment of our series entitled Seven Things You Have To Know To Understand End Times Prophecy.

5) Conditions Surrounding The 2nd Coming

A couple of days before He was arrested, Jesus had a private conversation with four of His disciples, His inner circle. They were Peter and Andrew, and James and John, two pairs of brothers. They had asked Him about the 2nd Coming and the End of the Age. His response is contained in Matthew 24-25, Mark 13, and Luke 21. It's called the Olivet Discourse because the conversation took place on the Mt. of Olives. I called our study on it "The End Times According To Jesus".

In Matthew's account, the most detailed, Jesus used several specific geographic and time references. He did this so His readers wouldn't get confused as to the identity of His ultimate audience. Having commanded us to understand this passage in Matthew 24:15, He wanted to make sure we got it right. I'll point them out and explain their significance to our subject.

Of course, making the timing of events clear doesn't stop some from ignoring those references in an attempt to make the Lord's words fit their preconceived ideas. The result is that some commentators have Him speaking to a different audience than He intended, and appearing to say things He never said.

For example, some take the erroneous view that since the Olivet Discourse is in the gospels it's for the Church. But in Matthew 24:16 the Lord makes it clear that He's admonishing a future generation of people in Judea (as Israel was called then) to pray that their flight from the anti-Christ doesn't take place in the winter or fall on the Sabbath. The mountains of Judea are treacherous in the winter, and Jews are forbidden under the Law to travel more than 1000 paces on the Sabbath for any reason. The warning is intended for latter-day Israel, back in its Old Covenant relationship at the beginning of the Great Tribulation, 3 years from the Second Coming. The Church is already gone.

In Matthew 24:15-21 He explains that the Great Tribulation will begin with the Abomination that causes Desolation, the anti-Christ standing in the Temple declaring himself to be God. That's the signal for the Jews to flee into the mountains.

Then in Matthew 24:29 He says that immediately after the tribulation ends, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. It's now 3  years later. The Great Tribulation has ended.

Matthew 24:30 has people on Earth seeing the Sign of the Son of Man in the sky, His visible return to Earth with power and great glory, and all the peoples of the Earth mourning. It's now too late for them to be saved and they intuitively realize it. This is the Second Coming. (Contrast the use of the second person "you" and your" in verses 20, 23, 25 and 26 with the third person "they" in verse 30. Jews who heed this warning and flee are distinguished from the nations (Gentiles) who mourn at His return.)

Matthew 24:36 begins with "No one knows about that day or hour " What day? What hour? The day and hour of His Second Coming. Stay in context. That's been His subject since verse 30. I believe the reason He said "day or hour" is so we would know for sure that He was talking about the actual Day and Hour of His Coming, not the general time.

(Matthew 24:40-41 are often used to show where a post-tribulation rapture takes place, but a little further along I'll show you why that can't be. First let's continue with our review of the Lord's time references.)

Matthew 25 begins with the phrase "At that time, " and contains three illustrations the Lord used to describe the time of His Coming. For the purpose of this study, I'll just high light what they reveal about the identity of their intended recipients. For a more complete study on them, use the links at the end of this article.
____________________________

The Parable of 10 Virgins

The first one is the Parable of 10 Virgins. It's sometimes used to illustrate the precarious position of "backsliders" in the Church, but there are several problems with that view.

First, if oil is being used symbolically here, as I believe it is, then the principle of Expositional Constancy demands that it represent the Holy Spirit. Can we lose the Holy Spirit, or exhaust our supply of Him? Ephesians 1:13, and 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 both say that the Holy Spirit has been sealed within us as a guarantee of our inheritance, and that it happened solely because we believed the Gospel message. Through out the New Testament, it's clear that our position with the Lord is based on belief, not behavior. Remember, all 10 are caught sleeping when He returns. They all behaved badly. It's the oil that distinguishes one group from the other.

Second, scholars never call these 10 the Bride, but often call them bridesmaids. The Church is not a bridesmaid! And it looks like they're trying to get into the Seudas Mitzvah (wedding feast) a banquet that follows the wedding ceremony. If so, none of them made it to the actual marriage ceremony, oil or not, so none of them can be the bride.

These virgins aren't the Church. They're Tribulation survivors trying to get into the Millennial Kingdom. Five were saved during the Great Tribulation, signified by the oil, and are welcomed in. The Five without oil when He arrived are not and are excluded.

The purpose of the Parable is to show that waiting to be sure the Lord has returned before deciding to let Him into your heart is a recipe for failure. That's why the people of Earth mourned when they saw Him coming on the clouds. The final whistle had blown, the game was over. They were too late!

The Parable Of The Talents

In Matthew 25:14, at the beginning of the Parable of the Talents, the word "again" means he's giving another illustration from the same time period as the parable of the 10 Virgins, the Day of His Coming. Though our use of talent as being a gift or ability derives from this parable, a talent was a Greek unit of measure, usually monetary.

The key to interpreting a parable is knowing that everything is symbolic of something else, so in this parable a talent represents something valuable to the Lord that he wished to have invested. Upon his return, He asks those to whom he had entrusted it what they've accomplished. Those who teach that the talents are gifts given to the Church to be used wisely, producing a measurable return, haven't read the last verse of the parable. The servant who buried his talent in the ground and produced nothing with it was thrown into the outer darkness, the eternal destiny of unbelievers. Is the Lord teaching a works based salvation here? Threatening us with the loss of our salvation if we don't produce enough with the gifts He gave us? It can't be!

Reading the Bible, it's clear that money isn't important to the Lord. But Psalms 138:2 says that He values His Word above all else. I believe the talents represent His Word. Those who sow it into the hearts of others find that it multiplies in new believers. Those who study it find that their own understanding grows, multiplying their faith.

But those who ignore His word find that it's like burying it in the ground. Out of sight, out of mind, until what little they began with is lost to them. This proves it never held any value for them, and condemns them as unbelievers, to be cast into the outer darkness. They had heard the truth and ignored it. Now it's too late. In 2 Thessalonians 2:10 Paul describes them as those who perish because they refused to love the Truth and so be saved. Some will bear the further responsibility of having led their followers astray by their refusal to teach the truth.

 "Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets," He said. (Amos 3:7) He did this so man would never have to wonder what He was up to. And where the End of the Age is concerned He had more to say than about any other subject. No one can plead ignorance. Again the point is that some who survive the Great Tribulation will be welcomed in to the Kingdom and some won't, and faith is the determining factor.
______________________________

The Sheep And Goat Judgment

Matthew 25:31 leaves no doubt as to the timing on this one. It begins "When the Son of Man comes  " and goes on to talk about the Lord setting up His throne on Earth after His return for the Judgment of the Nations, actually a judgment of Gentile tribulation survivors. The Lord doesn't judge nations in the eternal sense, only individuals. The Greek word here is ethnos, and means "people of every kind." They'll be judged by how they treated "His brothers" during the Great Tribulation. It's called the Sheep and Goat judgment, with the sheep being those who helped His brothers through the horrific times just past and goats being those who didn't.

Some say His brothers are believers, whether Jew or Gentile, and others say they're specifically Jews, but the most important point is that these tribulation survivors aren't being judged by their works. Their works are being cited as evidence of their faith, as in James 2:18. To give aid to a believer, especially a Jew, during the Great Tribulation will take even more courage than it did in Hitler's Germany, and will be an offense punishable by death. Only a follower of Jesus, certain of His eternal destiny, would dare do it or even want to. Those who helped "His brothers" will have demonstrated their faith by their works and will be ushered live into the Kingdom. Those who refused to help will have condemned themselves to the outer darkness by this evidence of their lack of faith.

All three illustrations teach the same lesson. Surviving believers go live into the Kingdom. Some will have relied exclusively on the Holy Spirit's gift of faith, as in the Parable of the 10 Virgins. Others will have multiplied their faith by studying and sharing His word, as in the Parable of the Talents. Still others have put their faith into action, risking their lives in the bargain. They're the Sheep of the Sheep and Goat Judgment. But just like it's been throughout history, all are saved by faith.

Where's The Rapture?

The Sheep and Goat judgment is actually an expansion of Matthew 24: 40-41 "One taken and the other left " Beside the timing problem, here's why these verses can't be describing the Rapture. The Greek word translated taken in verses 40 and 41 means "received." Captains choosing up sides in a sandlot baseball game point to someone and say, "I'll take you." It means, "Come over here. You're on my team." No problem so far, the Lord is taking some but not others.

But the primary meaning of the word translated left is "to send away" as a divorcing husband would "send away" his wife. In those days wives had no rights and except in very unusual circumstances didn't own property. The marriage home was the husband's property, usually built on his family's land. If he divorced his wife, he sent her away to live somewhere else, excluding her from his presence. Unbelievers are not sent away in this manner at the Rapture.

This passage isn't describing the rapture. The timing, the context, and the disposition of the parties are all wrong. It's a summary of the Sheep and Goat judgment. Those taken (received) go live into the Kingdom in their natural bodies and help to re-populate the Earth, while those left (sent away) are put into the Outer Darkness, forever banned from the presence of God. (If Matthew 24: 40-41 is the rapture, how would there be any sheep left for the upcoming Sheep and Goat judgment. They would have all just been taken!)

As it was in the days of Noah so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man (Matthew 24:37) Let's back up now and address this overview statement. In the days of Noah the people of Earth could be separated into three groups. There were the unbelievers who perished in the Flood, the family of Noah who were preserved through the Flood, and Enoch who was taken from Earth before the Flood. (Enoch was translated in Genesis 5. That means that God took him live into Heaven. The Flood came in Genesis 6.)

In The Time Of The 2nd Coming the people of Earth can also be separated into three groups The unbelieving world that will perish in the End Times judgments, Israel who will be preserved through the judgments, and The Church who will be taken from Earth before the judgments.

There are some interesting similarities between Enoch and the Church. His name means "teaching," one of the primary roles of the Church. Some traditions hold that Enoch was born on the 6th day of Sivan and was translated on his birthday. The 6th of Sivan is the day in the Hebrew Calendar on which the Feast of Pentecost is celebrated. It's the day the Church was born. Will we be raptured on our birthday as well? Time will tell. In any case, Enoch makes a good model of the Church. But you say, "Enoch was only one body." So is the Church.
_________________________________

6) The Duration and Purpose of the Millennium

Like rapture and Lucifer, millennium is a word of Latin origin and doesn't appear any where in the Scriptures. We get it from two Latin words, mille, or 1000, and annum, or year. Mille annum, millennium, the Lord's 1000-year reign on Earth, also known as the Kingdom Age. It's the seventh and final thousand years of the Age of Man, begun with the birth of Adam. It's often confused with Eternity, but as we saw earlier the two are distinct. A Millennium is obviously a defined span of time, while by definition Eternity is the absence of time.

The Millennium On Earth

During the Millennium, the Lord will be King of Heaven and Earth, Earth being restored to the condition it was in when Adam was created. This will include restoring peace between man and the animals, bringing back Earth's original garden-like environment with its world wide sub-tropical climate, eliminating foul weather, killer storms, earthquakes and extremes of heat and cold. The span of man's life will begin increasing again to equal those of the Genesis patriarchs. Sickness and disease, those by-products of sin, will be greatly reduced. It appears the population of Earth will be sustained by the return to an agrarian economy, but with all the obstacles Adam faced gone as the curse of Genesis 3 is finally lifted. Man will easily produce enough for his family's use, and enjoy doing it. None will labor unproductively, or primarily for the benefit of others. Children will grow up without fear and adults will grow old in peace. (A summary of Isaiah 2:1-5, 4:2-6, 35, 41:18-20, 60:10-22, 65:17-25, Micah 4:1-8)

Since Earth will be re-populated mostly by Tribulation survivors in their natural bodies, there will still be sin although to a much lesser extent, especially at the beginning. In the so-called Millennial Temple in Israel, priests will conduct daily sacrifices for sin, just like in Old Testament days. But while Old Testament believers observed Temple sacrifices to learn what the Messiah would one day do for them, original Millennial believers will observe them to remember, and their children to learn, what He's already done. (Ezekiel 40-47)

The Lord will reign supreme on Earth as King and High Priest, the head of both a one-world government and a one-world religion. He'll brook no threats to His established peace, nor any deviation from His doctrine. (Psalms  2)

At the beginning, only believers will inhabit Earth, enjoying the truly utopian environment that mankind has always dreamed about, but only God can create. They'll soon begin bearing children who, as they mature, will have to choose to receive the Lord's pardon just as we have. And as it is today some will reject Him to go their own way. By the time Satan is released at the end of the Millennium, there will be so many who've rejected the Lord that he'll quickly find a huge army of recruits for his final attempt to kick the Lord off the planet.

But with fire from Heaven the Lord will destroy Satan's army, casting him into the Lake of Fire, where he'll be tormented day and night forever. Never again will he or any of his accomplices be free to afflict God's people. (Revelation 20:7-10)

How'd That Happen?

What began as an age of unimagined peace and prosperity will have ended in open warfare against the very King who made it possible. How could this be?

Before the Millennium, man had three excuses for his inability to please God. The first was Satan, whose clever schemes led man astray. But all during the Millennium, Satan has been bound in darkness.

The second was the bad influence of unbelievers among us. But as the Millennium began, Earth was cleansed of all its unbelievers. Only those who had given their hearts to the Lord were allowed to enter the Kingdom.

And the third was God's absence from our midst. For 2600 years, with the exception of one 33 year period, God had been absent from the planet leaving man to "fend for himself." But all during the Millennium Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have dwelt in the midst of the people of Earth.
________________________________

What's the point?

In the Millennium, Earth dwellers will live in the ideal of circumstances of paradise, like Adam and Eve. The curse is gone and the Lord's there among them, everyone's a believer and Satan is bound. And yet, there's enough residual sin in the hearts of unregenerate man that he'll rebel the first chance he gets. Sinful man cannot dwell in the presence of a Holy God, being unable to keep His commandments. He needs a Savior and Redeemer to reconcile him to God, and a heart transplant to cure him of his sin nature. The whole point of the Millennium is to prove once and for all that man's heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. (Jeremiah 17:9)

The Millennium In the New Jerusalem

Life is far different in the Home of the Redeemed. Although the Kings of the Earth bring us their splendor, no unbeliever can ever set foot in the place, nor even a believer in his natural state. Our mansions in the sky are built of the purest gold as are the streets that run before them, their foundations made from precious stones. There's no Temple in the New Jerusalem because the Lamb of God dwells there and is our Temple. The energy source that lights and warms us is the Glory of God, and our radiance in turn provides light for the nations of Earth.

Our glorified bodies will have been released from their dimensional bonds, allowing us to appear and disappear at will, traveling back and forth through time at the speed of thought as we plumb the limitless delights of God's Creation. No detail has been overlooked where our comfort and happiness are concerned. There's no more death or mourning or crying or pain, only the endless joys of exploration and discovery. As it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. (1 Corinthians 2:9)

Our home is not on Earth, but it's not at the Throne of God either. Coming down out of the heavens but never landing on Earth, our home could be called a low orbit satellite in today's terminology. 1400 miles high, wide and deep, it wouldn't fit in Israel, let alone Jerusalem. If we did touch down on Earth we'd need a space equivalent to the area from Maine to Florida to the Mississippi River, or all of Western Europe from Sweden to Italy. And we'd be over 4000 times as tall as the world's tallest building.

The Church has been described as the Pearl of Great Price. A pearl is created in the ocean and grows as a response to an irritant. It's the only precious gem to come from a living organism. At harvest time, it's removed from its natural habitat to be placed in a custom made setting where it becomes an object of adornment.

And so it is with the Church. Created from among the Gentile nations, the Church was a major irritant to both Israel and the Roman Empire. Though hundreds of years of persecution were intended for our destruction, we grew steadily. At the harvest we'll be taken from Earth to be placed in mansions the Lord has built especially for us, to become the object of His adornment.

7) Eternity

I can't say much about eternity except to tell you that there is one. The Bible ends at the end of the Millennium, yet teaches us that every one ever born lives forever. The question is not whether you have eternal life. The question is where you will spend eternity. There are only two possible destinations and we've described them both. Eternal bliss in the presence of God, or eternal shame and punishment banished from the presence of God. While God is patient, not desiring that any should be lost, it's not His decision to make. He's given it to you, knowing that without an alternative, your choice to voluntarily accept Him is meaningless. He loves you enough to risk that you'll make the wrong decision, and enough to abide by your wishes if you do.

Don't get me wrong. No one would knowingly choose to go to a place of eternal torment. But many will wind up there. When they do it'll be because they refused to choose Heaven, and it's the only other alternative.

Here then are Seven Things you Have To Know To Understand End Times Prophecy. Mastering them will allow you to successfully avoid all the heresy and false teaching that swirls about in these last days. The study of prophecy is not a salvation issue, but the Lord did admonish us on several occasions to understand the signs of the times so we wouldn't be caught off guard. We are to watch with expectation and wait with certainty.

In Revelation 1:3 we're promised blessings for our diligent study, and in 2 Timothy 4:8 a crown for longing for His appearing. But to me the greatest gift that comes from studying prophecy is the strengthening of our faith. Nothing can equal watching the Word of God proceed from abstract to concrete as we see Bible Prophecy fulfilled before our very eyes. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the Footsteps of the Messiah.
____________________________________________

   

    With all the fuss about North Korea allegedly going nuclear, let's review what the Bible says about the Far East in the last days and see if we can tell what this means."

    First, some background." I've found that there's a great deal of mystery about the origin of the people who populate the Far East." Even they don't know where they came from." The River Euphrates was a formidable natural barrier that inhibited travel and prevented the flow of information and ideas from moving back and forth." The Scythians, a Central Asian people who raided the Middle East, (they killed Saul and Jonathon at the Battle of Beth Shan) can be traced to Magog and are the fore bearers of today's Russians, but they came down from the North." The Great Wall of China was once called the Ramparts of Magog and was built to keep the Scythians out of China." This further isolated the Far East and not only clouded their origins in mystery, but resulted in the development of cultures very different from all others.

    The oldest Chinese pictograms (their equivalent to letters of the alphabet) contain characters that depict the Creation story and belief in one God, so we can assume that at the dawn of history they knew of man's origin, but their culture developed independently of any influence from those west of the barriers we've mentioned. Today there's very little similarity between East and West, and even less goodwill.

    As believers, we know that every race of mankind sprang from the loins of Ham, Shem, or Japeth." But from which one did the oriental peoples come?" Genesis 10:17 makes mention of a group called the Sinites, descended from Ham through Canaan." And Isaiah 49:12 speaks of the Sinim (same Hebrew root), a people who according to the Strong's concordance inhabited the extremity of the known world." (Strong's commentary on the Sinim suggests that it probably refers to the Chinese.) And that's about all the Bible tells us until we see a reference to the Kings of the East in the Book of Revelation.

    Back To The Future

    The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God. It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates." And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number. (Rev. 9:13-16)

    At the time of the 6th Trumpet, four angels who've been stationed at the River Euphrates for this very purpose are loosed to agitate the leaders of the Far East against each other causing a huge war with massive casualties to mankind." Two hundred million soldiers from the various armies will clash resulting in the deaths of 1/3rd of mankind." 25% of the Earth will already be under judgment causing much bloodshed and death (Rev. 6:8 ), and now nearly 2 billion people will perish in this war."""

    But since the traditional barrier between East and West, the River Euphrates, is not dried up to make way for them to swarm into the Middle East (we'll see that in Rev. 16) I believe that this judgment is primarily against the 60% of the world's population that lives East of the Euphrates. There's no mention of them tangling with anyone out side the region, so this could be a forging of alliances in preparation for the coming attempt to grab the Middle East and all it's resources.

    With the conflicting religions, the crowded conditions, and the abject poverty, that area of the world is always ripe for conflict, so it won't take much to stir them up against each other." And since China, India, Pakistan, Russia, and North Korea are already nuclear powers it's easy to project huge casualties." Some believe that with North Korea's announcement, the pressure to develop their own nuclear weapons will now be too great for Japan, South Korea, and perhaps others to resist.

    The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. (Rev 16:12)"

    By the time of the 6th Bowl judgment, the anti-Christ's plans to control the world will be falling apart and the Kings of the East will be thinking that it's every man for himself. Like I said, there's no good will between East and West.

    Remember, Daniel 11:40 tells us that after the King of the North (Syria, Iraq, Iran) and the King of the South (Egypt) mount an unsuccessful attack against the anti-Christ, there'll be reports of troop movement from the East (China, etc.) and North (Russia) This is the run-up to Armageddon and the anti-Christ will locate his headquarters in Israel to direct his response to this new threat.""

    Of course we know that while all the world's attention is focused on these opposing forces, another army rushes forth to join the fray." But this one is unlike the others." In the first place it comes out of the sky." In the second place everyone's dressed in white linen, and in the third place only its leader will fight." His weapon is His Word and it will slay all these earthly armies in their tracks."
_________________________________

    Will The Circle Be Unbroken?

    The focal point of Life on Earth originated in the Middle East and was centered there for thousands of years." Then came Gentile Dominion and the focus began moving westward." From Babylon and Persia, world dominance moved to Greece, then Rome, then Spain, England, and now across the Atlantic to America. Some observers say its next move will be to the Far East and finally back to the Middle East for the conclusion of history, having come full circle.

    There are several indicators that support this observation." China boasts the world's fastest growing economy, and on the whole Asian economies are growing at three times the world's average rate. Since growth attracts capital, money has been moving into Asia in record amounts." The new Secretary General of the UN is from Korea." India is fast becoming a world center for "Knowledge Process Outsourcing". There are more Christians being born again in the Far East than in any other part of the world. Three of the four most populous nations in the world are in the far East (China, India, and Indonesia), as are almost half of the top 25." As I said, estimates place 60% of the world's population in Asia. This could very well be the beginning of their time.

    What's Happening?

    All told, that makes North Korea a small piece of the puzzle." The latest reports say their nuclear test probably wasn't an unqualified success, and that they aren't as ready to shoot a missile at New York or Washington, like they sort of threatened this week, as they claim." But Russia and China will prevent any real sanctions against them, both having helped North Korea get to this point as well as having encouraged North Korea and Iran to cooperate with each other." It looks like Russia and China helped North Korea, who in turn helped Iran, who in turn funded North Korea." (According to what I'm reading in the conservative press, the Clinton Administration gave North Korea a little help too, providing both reactors and dollars in return for a promise of peaceful intent.)

    More than being a sign that the Kings of the East are on the move, North Korea's actions were likely prompted by America's enemies to demonstrate that we're stretched so thin in Afghanistan, Iraq and soon Iran, that we really can't do much more than issue empty threats any where else." There was a time when the US had 12,000 nukes stockpiled in 24 different countries around the world to keep our enemies from trying anything foolish, but thanks to "detente" those days are over and gone forever." And now the word is that we've been steadily pulling troops out of South Korea to meet our needs in Iraq. The world's catching on to this, and especially those friends farthest away have to be wondering who's going to take care of them.

    As for our enemies, just today (Oct 14, 2006) I read of Iran's agreement to spend $90 million upgrading Hamas' 6500 man militia into a Hezbollah like attack force. "This is in addition to quickly re-arming Hezbollah and restoring them to their previous status as Iran's proxy army 0n Israel's north." The goal now is to facilitate a simultaneous attack on Israel from both North and South to pre-empt an Israeli attack on Iran." Israel's abandonment of Gaza and admitted failure to stop Hezbollah has emboldened Iran to take this action."

    And because of the world's likely non-reaction to North Korea's test, many believe that Iran will also grasp this opportunity to conduct a test of their own." I wrote early this spring that the underground facilities already exist in Iran for such a demonstration, and if North Korea gets away with it why can't they?"

    As Israel's failure to stop Hezbollah has placed her in greater peril, so will America's failure to stop North Korea result in greater peril for us. We may soon find ourselves just as surrounded as Israel." It's almost enough to make us long for the relatively stable days of the cold war." At least we knew that the Soviet Union wasn't bent on self-destruction." Can anybody say the same about Iran?" Maybe it's time for us to start wondering who's going to take care of us?" Oh, that's right. "When all these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near." (Luke 21:28 ) You can almost hear the footsteps of the Messiah." 10-14-06

Seventh Annual Year End Update 12-29-07

There are seven major prophetic signs of the Second Coming, and ever since we started tracking them all seven have been in some stage of fulfillment. As in years past, I'll list the seven with their primary biblical references and offer commentary from current events.

1. Israel Will Be In The Land... Ezekiel 38:8

After many days you will be called to arms. In future years you will invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and now all of them live in safety.

In 1948, when Israel took its place among the nations of the world again for the first time in nearly 2000 years, students of prophecy recognized the fulfillment of the primary sign that the end of the age was upon us. Ezekiel had predicted this would happen and in effect Jesus had said that the generation being born when it happened would still be alive when He returned (Matthew 24:34) because the things He gave as signs of His impending return require that Israel be a nation in its historical land with a functioning Temple.

The fulfillment of this prophecy caused another reaction as well. Satan reads prophecy too, and began exerting his influence on world leaders in his continuing effort to thwart the plan of God. As a result, Israel has fought six major wars in the last 58 years, each of them an attempt to erase the Jewish Homeland from the face of the Earth. And it's clear that this effort will continue, with the biggest battle of all looming on the horizon, foretold by Ezekiel in chapters 38-39. Israel's enemies, both physical and spiritual, won't let up until they've either succeeded (their view) or been destroyed (God's view).

Although US and Israeli leaders promised that abandoning Gaza in 2005 would improve the nation's security, the opposite has happened. As those opposed to the abandonment predicted, Gaza has become a major center for terrorist activity and there's mounting pressure from the military to take it back.

Even so, there's now serious talk of repeating this mistake in the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem, all in the name of Palestinian statehood. In the political sense there are good reasons for pursuing this strategy, even considering its dangers. First, with their high birth rate, Israel's Arab population could actually achieve an electoral majority in another generation and effectively vote Israel out of existence. So gaining their own state would help preserve Israel's Jewish identity. And second, if the Palestinians become a sovereign nation, Israel will have a legal entity with internationally recognized borders to hold responsible for preventing cross border attacks against it.

The real issue, of course, is religious not political. God made it clear that while the land He was giving to Israel would be theirs to use, He would always be its real owner. They were not permitted to permanently dispose of it. (Leviticus 25:23-24) In case of an existential threat, they should turn to Him for protection. But they haven't and in the past few years we've seen the weakening effect each effort to trade land for peace has had. As hard as it is to watch, we know this has to happen in order to put Israel into a position where only God can help when the inevitable consequences of their appeasement strategies present themselves. Then they'll have to turn to Him for help.

And help He will, because the God of Israel has also said, "I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the LORD your God. (Amos 9:14-15)
______________________________

2. Jerusalem Will Be In Jewish Hands... Luke 21:24

They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

The Lord prophesied that the reunification of Jerusalem as a Jewish City would be a sign that foreign (gentile) influence over His land, and indeed the world, was about to end. With the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, prophecy experts saw another major sign being fulfilled, although as we'll see this gentile trampling won't be completely over till the 2nd Coming. Even so, the almost world wide effort to take the city apart again is in essence a battle of wills; the Will of God vs. the will of man.

Until recently every Israeli politician has stood firmly on a pledge to keep Jerusalem united forever as Israel's capital. But then former Prime Minister Sharon said that he'd consider abandoning parts of the eastern suburbs to achieve peace, and Ehud Olmert has hinted at following through on Sharon's proposals. There's even talk of turning the Temple Mount over to Jordanian custody with an international overseer composed of the UN, Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Because sentiment in Israel's influential religious community runs strongly against this, the government has denied any talk of giving up the Temple Mount. But non-religious sources, including some among the Palestinians, insist that it's a "done deal." If so we might not have long to wait to see if a theory first proposed by Clarence Larkin over 100 years ago is valid. A distinguishing feature of the treaty that begins Daniel's 70th week is permission to build a Temple in Israel. Larkin insisted that a correct understanding of Ezekiel 40-48 requires that Israel's 3rd Temple be built in Shiloh, not Jerusalem.

Although I think Larkin incorrectly inserted another Temple to be built in Jerusalem during Daniel's 70th Week, I first became convinced of the validity of his take on Ezekiel 40-48 about 10 years ago, and have been pleased to learn that at least a few other prophecy scholars agree.

We must remember that Jews call Ezekiel's Temple the 3rd one, and there's good Biblical support for believing that it'll be built and made desolate during the 70th week and cleansed at the beginning of the Millennium for use then. If we're correct, the status of the current Temple mount will soon become a non-issue. (Read The Coming Temple to learn more)

In any case, support for the idea that Jerusalem will be undivided during the 70th week can be found in Zechariah 14:2 which says that in the battle leading up to the Lord's return, the city will be captured and half its people will go into exile, but the rest will not be taken from it. There's also a hint that the Palestinian question will be resolved after the Battle of Ezekiel 38, because the area chosen for the burial of the enemy soldiers appears to be the valley at the bottom of the Old Jericho Road, near the Temptation wilderness. It's described as being in Israel in Ezekiel 39:11 but today it's part of the Palestinian West Bank. Traditionally, they call it the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

From all this we can reasonably conclude that if whatever happens to the Holy Land and its Capitol City in the next year or so includes dividing them between Israel and the Palestinians, it'll only be temporary.

The fulfillment of these two major prophecies concerning Israel has caused confusion in the minds of some commentators. It centers around an incorrect interpretation of Matthew 24:34, that all end times prophecies are to be fulfilled within a generation, nominally 40 years, of Israel's re-gathering in 1948. That error made 1988 seem like the likely time for the End. But when 1988 came and went scholars focused on the Jerusalem date, 1967, and began adding 40 years to that, advancing their predictions to 2007 even though the Jerusalem prophecy won't be completely fulfilled until the 2nd Coming. As of this year, that deadline has also passed.

But the Lord didn't promise that all end times prophecies would be fulfilled within a generation of their beginning, only that the generation of people being born at the time of the first of the signs would still be alive to see their completion. According to Psalm 90:10 an average Biblical life span is 70 years, so if you begin with 1948, predicting the approximate time of the End requires the addition of 70 years, not 40. And remember, the culmination of End Times prophecies is the Second Coming, not the Rapture of the Church, which precedes it by at least 7 years.
______________________________

3. A Moslem Coalition Armed And Led By Russia Will Attack The Holy Land... Ezekiel 38:2-6

"Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; prophesy against him. This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. I will turn you around, put hooks in your jaws and bring you out with your whole army--your horses, your horsemen fully armed, and a great horde with large and small shields, all of them brandishing their swords. Persia, Cush and Put will be with them, all with shields and helmets, also Gomer with all its troops, and Beth Togarmah from the far north with all its troops--the many nations with you."

(For a more detailed explanation of the modern equivalents to these biblical names, read An In Depth Look At The Modern Equivalent To Biblical Names in Ezekiel 38 )

Over 130 historical references make it plain that Magog stands for modern Russia, and the other countries named here form a coalition based on their common religion, Islam. (Today Russia is 30% Moslem and growing.) Among them are Iran, several North African countries, Eastern European countries along the Danube, and the Turkic nations of Asia Minor. A quick look at a world map will reveal that these areas are home to some of the most violent Islamic terrorist groups.

In 2007 there were several items of note is this category. Russia's continuing effort to re-establish itself as a force to be reckoned with is becoming more obvious with some in the West calling it a return to cold war conditions. Plans for re-locating its Black Sea fleet to the Mediterranean with headquarters in Northern Syria, the sale of even more advanced anti-air defenses to Syria and Iran, and the long delayed delivery of nuclear fuel rods to Iran's Busheir reactor are notable, as is it's claim to the North Pole, which if legal would make Russia the world's largest holder of oil reserves. The Russians are already a major supplier of arms for the Moslem coalition, just as Ezekiel prophesied, and will be drawn into joining in this battle by God Himself. Russia's barely disguised policy of becoming the major outside force in the Middle East is playing right into the Lord's hands.

Turkey is also flexing its muscles, crossing the border into Iraq recently to hammer the Kurds. This is something Iran has an interest in as well, since what the Kurds want is their home land, some of which is in Iran. Earlier this year it was reported that Iran was helping with weaponry and intelligence.

Russia has already formed commercial and military alliances with Turkey and Syria, becoming Turkey's 2nd largest trading partner after Germany. Since recent polls show a dramatic decrease in public support among Turks for EU membership, Russia has been quickly moving to bring Turkey under its influence, a shift that could help cause Turkey to abandon the West and line up with the Moslem coalition as Ezekiel foretold.

But the big news has to be the about face that the US has taken. From being on the very brink of an attack against Iran, and making no attempt to keep it secret, the US has suddenly decided that there's no Iranian nuclear threat and called the whole thing off. Immediately Russia stepped up its cooperation with Iran, and Saudi Arabia quickly became friends as well.

The public word is that the US and Iran have made a deal brokered by Saudi Arabia that in exchange for Iran no longer sending arms and explosives into Iraq and Afghanistan, the US would "remember" that Iran abandoned the military part of its nuclear program back in 2003 and call off plans to attack Iran. Israel has confirmed that the 2003 halt took place but swears they can prove it was just a pause while Iran relocated their program into secret facilities away from prying eyes. The rest of the world is still wondering just what to make of this, but agree it doesn't look good for Israel.
____________________________________

Suddenly, what we were thinking would take a huge terrorist attack, the meltdown of our economy, or the rapture of the Church may be happening without a whimper, as the US seems to be abandoning its commitment to stand against Iran for Israel's protection. All that's missing now is for something to happen to make Israel believe they've finally achieved peace with their neighbors and can relax their state of readiness.

To this end, Pres. Bush is scheduled to be in the Middle East next month in a personal effort to accomplish what his predecessors could not, and that's to bring peace to the Middle East. With the exception of Iran, every leader involved is weak and desperate, so there's no telling what will happen.

It appears likely that a false peace could soon come to pass leaving Israel all set up for the battle of Ezekiel 38 by its supposed peace partners. When the time is right, having recently taken His church to Heaven, the Lord will use this battle to orchestrate His reconciliation with Israel, and on its heels the anti-Christ will emerge with a peace plan that includes a Jewish Temple.

4. The Ancient Roman Empire Will Re-Emerge As A Political Force... Revelation 17:9-10

"This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while." (This one is a little obscure if you don't know your history. When John was writing this, about 95AD, there had been five great world powers; Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Greece. All were conquered and absorbed. The current power was Rome, which was never really conquered and will re-emerge at the end of the age, according to Daniel 9:26.)

Daniel 2:36-45 describes Gentile Dominion from Daniel's time forward (Egypt and Assyria had already fallen) in the form of a giant statue. Read it carefully and you'll find some interesting things in the description of the feet of iron mixed with clay, representing the revived Roman Empire of our time. In the first place the two don't mix. We can imagine sticky clay serving as glue sticking pieces of iron together, but the language describes a clay that's made of dust and already baked... hard and brittle like shards of pottery. You can't make random pieces of iron and pottery adhere. They'll keep falling apart.

In 2005 the EU constitution vote was defeated as one more example of how the EU has had trouble sticking together just as Daniel prophesied. Half-hearted efforts to revive it in 2006 bore no fruit. The Treaty of Lisbon, signed just this month is another, more serious attempt to get it passed, and will likely be ratified. If so, the EU will have a single president, consolidated embassies, a peace keeping force, and will look ever more like a single entity.

Similar multi-national consolidations are in some stage of formation in North America, South America, Africa, the Far East, and the Moslem Middle East. Eventually the world will consist of a total of 10 of these regional governments, each with its own president, but all under the supervision of a single world leader, just as John said. (Revelation 17:12)

Prophecy buffs who've been watching the EU for years, seeing it as the fulfillment of Daniel 2, are beginning to remember that Daniel's vision of the Roman Empire had two legs. They appeared in history as the eastern and western divisions, the Eastern leg situated on land that's occupied today by the nations of the Moslem Middle East. Its capitol was Constantinople, which is also a city on seven hills. With the growth and prominence of Islam increasing, and with its goals of world domination a well known fact, it's looking like this eastern leg will fulfill Daniel's prophecy along side the western one. Remember, the 10 toes, representing the ten nation confederacy, come from two feet. And with Shiite prophecies of al Mahdi being so similar to Christian ones of the anti-Christ, we may have to re-think the traditional western view of the coming one-world government. It could just a easily be a world wide Islamic Caliphate.
__________________________________

5. The World Will Embrace A Single Religion... Revelation 13:8

All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast--all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.

The one world religion idea has been around for most of our generation, often under the guise of ecumenism. As the liberal denominations continue watering down their theology there are fewer things keeping them apart. Now some Evangelical leaders are questioning whether Jesus is really the only way to salvation. The flirtation between certain Evangelical groups and the Catholic Church is interesting, as is the dialog between the Pope and Leaders of Islam, and their common devotion to Mary. The Catholic Church is one of the richest organizations on the planet with over 1 billion members on 6 continents, and clearly thinks of itself as the world's dominant religious group. It's no secret that the Catholic church is posturing itself to be a major player in End times events.

But make no mistake about it. The rise of radical Islam is the chief threat to world peace today and their goal is nothing less than world domination. Their god is not the God of the Bible, and their fight with Jews and Christians actually began in the 7th Century AD when the Jews rejected Mohammed's offer of consolidation. Prior to that time he had counseled his followers to respect and befriend the Jewish people, but when they refused to join his religion, he declared jihad (holy war) against them. Christians were included 400 years later as a result of the Crusades.

Currently nearly one out of five inhabitants of the world is Moslem, and like most Christians and Jews don't really know what they believe or why. Ignorance and misinformation are primary tools of the devil so I would urge all thinking people to really study the origin and goals of Islam. It will soon be the world's most popular religion, and after the removal of Evangelical Christians in the Rapture could easily be the foundation on which the one world religion is built.

In 2 Thessalonians 2:7 Paul wrote that the secret power of lawlessness was already at work in the world but that the One who holds it back would continue to do so until He is taken out of the way (out of the midst). Understand that Paul wasn't referring to man's disregard for the law here, but rather to his refusal to accept the truth. In New Testament Greek the word for unbelief is also translated disobedience. God's view is that there's just too much clear evidence of His existence for anyone not to believe in Him. Therefore so-called unbelievers are really disobeying by refusing to believe.

In 1 Timothy 4:1 Paul warned us of the doctrines of demons and in 2 Timothy 4:3-4 of the growing popularity of mythology as being part and parcel of this end times religion. This is the lawlessness Paul was writing about. Having rejected the truth, those left after the Rapture will be ripe for the Great Lie of 2 Thessalonians 2:9 to fill the need every man has to believe in something greater than himself. All it will take is for a charismatic religious leader to emerge, a leader powerful enough to bring all those who are left behind into one counterfeit religion.

Much has been written this year about al Mahdi, a manifestation of Moslem prophecy that is strikingly similar to Christian prophecies of the anti-Christ. Both come on the scene during a time of great turmoil on Earth, both come claiming a desire to restore peace, both have a seven year reign, both head a one world religion and one world government, both claim supernatural origins, and both reigns end in a battle between good and evil that brings about Earth's final judgment.

Islam is the world's fastest growing religion and is second only to Christianity in number of adherents. But the true Church will soon be gone in the Rapture. Those left behind, with their celebration of pluralism and their inclusive view of the way to salvation will be ripe for conversion. Add the widely held but incorrect beliefs that God and Allah are the same, and that Islam is a religion of peace, and you can see how Islam could be the straw that a world on the verge of chaos grasps for survival.

6. The World Will Accept A Single Government... Revelation 13:3

The whole world was astonished and followed the beast.

Last year I said that partly because of media distortion, and partly because of the constant meddling by Iran and Syria, the war in Iraq has become so unpopular that it's driven public opinion to devastating levels of dissatisfaction with the current administration. As a result both houses of Congress have changed hands and 2007 could very well see the beginning of the US departure from the Middle East entirely. After last month's Annapolis Conference and America's about face regarding Iran, that seems more likely now than ever.

I also said that a successful attack on the strength of the dollar could eventually sideline us from world affairs entirely. Last year the Euro became the most popular currency in circulation, surpassing the dollar for the first time, and is now challenging the dollar for supremacy as a reserve currency. According to experts, in the last few years the dollar has lost 40% of its value against the Euro. With just the interest on the national debt averaging $1 billion per day, effective loss of the dollar's monopoly on oil transactions, and a nation wide mortgage meltdown, it doesn't take a prophet to see that unless something drastic happens America's demise as the world's only super power is just a matter of time.

The Rapture of the Church would be the final and fatal blow to US supremacy, paving the way for the anti-Christ and his 10 regional governments to consolidate their hold on world affairs.
____________________________________

7. Babylon Will Re-Emerge As A Prominent City In World Affairs... Revelation 18:2-3

With a mighty voice he shouted: "Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird. For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries."

Babylon is still a ways away from accepting its destiny as a city of power in the end times. It's just a ceremonial city right now, but 20 years ago nobody even knew it existed at all. One of the shocks of Gulf War 1 was the discovery of Babylon standing there on the banks of the Euphrates again.

You may think that being little more than a giant museum is a far cry from being a center of world power, but some of Iraq's new political leaders are calling for their nation's capital to be moved to Babylon. The logic behind this is that Baghdad was Saddam's capital, and the new Iraq needs a new capital, more consistent with its heritage. Babylon fills the bill, and becoming the capital of Iraq would be a giant first step toward achieving its transformation into a center of power.

Because of Babylon's current lack of importance in the world, some students of prophecy search for an allegorical fulfillment of Revelation 18, and of course many see the USA or some city therein as a logical candidate. No one doubts that the US deserves this king of judgment.

But remember, even though in Revelation 17:9 John describes "mystery Babylon" as seated on seven hills (meaning Rome), a prophecy in Zechariah 5:5-11 shows it being moved "to the plains of Shinar" a reference to ancient Mesopotamia called Iraq today. We can't switch from literal to allegorical interpretations of Scripture without clear direction, and where Babylon is concerned no such direction exists. In fact the opposite is true. As the world rushes toward its destiny it becomes increasingly clear that the Bible is to be taken literally where Babylon is concerned.

Other Signs

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.

"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:6-14)

Then he said to them: "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. (Luke 21:10-11)

"There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." (Luke 21:25-28 )

WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS ... Depending upon whose intelligence reports you read somewhere between 30 and 50 wars are currently being fought around the world, with a substantial number of additional disputes threatening to erupt into war at any time.

THE INCREASE OF NATURAL DISASTERS ... More frequent and more severe hurricanes, more frequent and more intense earthquakes. Killer storms and quakes continue to dot the news. In 2007 there were 189 more earthquakes over 5.0 on the Richter scale than in 2004 and 365 more than in 2000. And before you blame all these disasters on "global warming," over 400 prominent scientists have expressed public concern about the claims by Al Gore and others. To date the only demonstrable cause for increased global temperatures is that the Sun is getting measurably hotter, just like the Bible predicts for the Last Days.

SIGNS IN THE SUN, MOON, AND STARS ... The magnetic polar reversal, predicted by computer model for 2012 is gaining more attention since its likelihood was first announced. Having moved several hundred miles across Canada the Magnetic North Pole is currently headed for Siberia. While the effects of a Magnetic Polar Reversal have never been observed by mankind, it has apparently happened in the distant past. What's unique this time is that the Sun is due for a polar reversal at the same time. I've speculated that the effects of the polar reversal could fulfill Revelation 6 and if the projected time of 2012 is correct, it supports the view that all prophecy could be fulfilled within 70 years of Israel's re-birth.

PESTILENCE... Not only new diseases like HIV and SARS but also the return of old ones like Whooping cough. But the big news again this year is the likely spread of Avian Influenza (Bird Flu). As more cases among humans are reported, fears that the virus has mutated to thrive in a human host have increased. Dire predictions are placing possible deaths from this pandemic in the millions

THE LOVE OF MOST WILL GROW COLD ... 3500 people die every day in defense of the Christian faith. Run away crime, children being abused and murdered by their parents, children killing children. Murder trials as public entertainment soon to be followed by televised executions. Ethnic cleansing, rape and forced pregnancy, pedophilia, random shootings, the incidence of disrespect is enough to make you sick.

THIS GOSPEL WILL BE PREACHED IN ALL NATIONS ... Looking at the state of the world, it's hard to be encouraged. But as world news gets worse and worse, more people are turning to the Lord for solace. According to some reports as many as 175,000 new believers are born again every day, mostly in Africa, China, and India. Reports of these conversions are accompanied by accounts of miracles, people receiving supernatural healing and even being raised from the dead. Just as He did at the beginning of the church Age the Holy Spirit is moving mightily at its End. I believe the Lord is issuing a giant "last call" before He suddenly takes the church out of here to begin the End Times judgments.

The above are given as indicators in the Olivet Discourse. (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21) As you know most of the signs in the Olivet Discourse are progressive and all are described as happening well before the end. Their main interest to us is found in the phrase "beginning of birth pangs." Natural disasters, the tendency toward war as a tool of diplomacy, famine amidst plenty (35,000 children die each day of starvation and related diseases) and pestilence are described as being common to the era but increasing in frequency and intensity as the end approaches. This was certainly the case in 2007 and is an indicator of how close we are to the end.

It's true that for over 100 years folks have been saying, "how much worse can it get?" Sadly, the answer now as it was then is, "Much!" It seems man's depravity knows no limits. But take heart. Though we are in the world, we are not of the world. We don't belong here, being citizens of heaven. And one day soon our long awaited King will return to take us there. Maranatha!

    “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; …Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away,” 2 Timothy 3:1, 5. Paul lays out nineteen items here in his last letter to Timothy which exactly describe our society today. In the very first sentence he tells us that these things will all come to pass in the last days.
   
    Our society’s decay is festering and accelerating at a phenomenal rate unlike any other time in the history of the U.S. It’s a simple, easily provable fact that should actually come as no surprise to those of us who study our Bibles since we have scripture verses like those which Paul wrote to Timothy.
   
    “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution,” 2 Timothy 3:12. This, of course, is a verse none of us really want to see come to pass, but in all actuality it is coming to pass all over the globe. Even though the persecution of Christians has been ongoing for almost two-thousand years now, here in the U.S. it’s really just getting underway. Individually Christians have been persecuted in the U.S. for some time now and on occasion as a group. Currently, though, we see this persecution coming on the whole of Christendom in America. The reason for this is the decay of morals in our society. Moral decay didn’t just happen, but it is a symptom of a much larger problem. As a nation that was founded on God’s moral code of decency we’ve lost that foundation. Brothers and Sisters, we have watched as the liberal left has taken picks and shovels, broken the moral foundation, and thrown it away. People, we will not survive as a nation without our God given moral precepts. That’s a promise.
   
    As decay enters into any object that’s perishable deterioration is ever so slight at first, but over time the process escalates in its scope and becomes so invasive that the item infected with the decay needs to be thrown out with all the other garbage. A society that is in decay because of its lack of morals will eventually be completely overtaken by the decay process if not halted in time. People, there will come a time when our society will be too far gone in immorality and it will need to be purged  -  completely destroyed. Think about it, what nation has ever endured long life after turning its back on God?
     
    The second law of thermodynamics is entropy. Entropy is a fact not a theory. It happens and it happens everywhere in the known universe. Basically, entropy means that everything left to its self sooner or later will fall apart. Without God in our lives and in our country our society will continue experiencing entropy but at a highly accelerated rate. Is there any turning back, can we reverse the process of decay in this country? No! At least not at our current rate of descent, but nothing is impossible for God. Oh yeah, we kicked God out of every vestige of our government arena, our public schools, and we can even see God being replaced in our Christian churches with a feel good gospel of indulgences and materialism.
     
    We are in freefall mode here in this wonderful country of ours. I’m not the only one who sees this phenomenon happening; I read comments on the web which confirm my prognoses. These comments aren’t the ramblings of wacky conspiracy theorists but are the views of some of the most venerated theologians of our time who are speaking out about the decay of our morals and the inevitable fall of our once great society.
     
    Let’s think about what’s happening currently here in this once great nation of ours. We can now see the production, promotion, and distribution of pornography in this country as a major economic player. There are literally billions of dollars being made off this perversion. Just fifty years ago who would have thought that the United States of America  -  the foremost country in the world in manufacturing and distribution, the greatest nation in terms of our humanitarian efforts and giving to faltering nations, and the number one nation in the world in terms of evangelism of the Christian Gospel  -  would now be almost completely consumed with the proliferation of pornography? If you think this immoral societal degradation isn’t a slap in the face of God, then you are part of the problem.
_______________________________________

     
    My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, that stigma alone is responsible for much of the immorality we see in our society today. People are becoming so entwined with this perversion that their minds are being warped and diluted. Many no longer see a difference between right and wrong. I’m constantly confronted with the news of the immorality of teachers in our public school system and what they are doing to the young students whose very lives they have been entrusted with nurturing and teaching. Worldnetdaily.com has a huge and growing list of female teachers who have been arrested and some imprisoned for sexually abusing the students in their charge. Something that was unheard of twenty-five years ago is now so prevalent in our society that it has become common place. After one of these instances with a female teacher, I read on Foxnews.com, where a professor of a University disparaged the authorities for arresting these female teachers. He actually argued that those women teachers who entertain their male and female student in this way are only providing a needed service, a teaching lesson if you will. Condoning such sick and misguided behavior is only another sign of the decay that’s growing by leaps and bounds in our society today. By the way, most of these female teachers walk away with a slap on the wrist, while the male teachers who fall into this temptation are imprisoned for twenty years or more. Male or female the imprisonment should be the same. A child who is molested and abused is just as deeply scarred by women molesters as they are by male molesters. “He that walketh in his uprightness feareth the LORD: but [he that is] perverse in his ways despiseth him,” Proverbs 14:2. This nation is becoming a despiser of God.
     
    In my estimation, the real landslide of the decay of our society began years ago when we allowed the Bible to be taken out of our public schools. Soon after that we had the legalization of abortion and the teaching the lie of evolution as a fact not as a theory, even to the exclusion of any other possible scenario for life to have occurred on earth. Then, more recently, we’ve seen the teaching in our public schools of the abomination of homosexuality as being a fully acceptable and normal lifestyle. This teaching begins in kindergarten and in some instances pre-school. Also our students are being taught that the world’s religions are good and acceptable, all the while excluding Christianity.
     
    The name “Jesus Christ” is becoming a bad word, which is nothing new to those who’ve used it for years as profanity, but to many it seems Jesus Christ is such a hateful name that they wish to see it eliminated from the world scene. Our Bibles are next on the list to be completely eliminated. Of course all believers know that this will be impossible. Why? “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away,” Matthew 24:35. Impossible task? Absolutely! I’ve recently read that Colorado and Minnesota are looking into condemning the Bible as hate speech, something that has already come to pass in our sister country to the North.
     
    There are those who will continue to try to eliminate Gods word and any vestiges of His “antiquated morals” from society. They have gotten their way for a long time now and it’s time Christians began to stand up for God’s truth.
     
    Now these evil and perverse promoters of filth are going after our children. It’s not just teachers but the pornographers are after them also. Our children are now being exploited on film as well as on the street. Child pornography and prostitution are running rampant right here in this once beautiful and loving country of ours. Yes, these two evils are still illegal but for how long? In America, as well as other countries, there is a movement underway which is promoted by “NAMBLA”, the North American Man Boy Love Association. Their agenda is to eliminate the societal norm and legality of age requirements for their sexual pleasure.
     
    Laws of the land that were voted into existence by the majority of the electorate are now being dismissed as unconstitutional by little evil men in long flowing black robes who have their own agendas. Doesn’t it conjure up visions in your mind of those dark minions belonging to the satanic realm? It’s like a Hollywood movie that has come horribly to life. 

    “Alas, sinful nation, A people laden with iniquity, A brood of evildoers, Children who are corrupters, They have forsaken the LORD, They have provoked to anger The Holy One of Israel, They have turned away backward.” Isaiah 1:4 God can do wonders with His people, but His people must turn back to Him first. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14  We born again believers in Christ are His people, we must humble ourselves and pray and seek His face, we His people must turn from our wicked ways for God to heel the land. 
 
    God shield us from what’s coming.

    God bless you all,

    Ron Graham

    The devil hates the Jewish people with a passion. The Jews are the ones who gave mankind the Bible and the Savior, Jesus Christ. It should come as no surprise that nations who are demonically controlled would share in the devil's hatred of Israel. On this page, I've listed a number of popular myths about Israel, and I've also provided facts to counter those lies.

    MYTH:
    "The land of Israel is really the land of Palestine."

    FACT:
    The term "Palestine" is believed to be derived from the Philistines, an Aegean people who, in the 12th Century BC, settled along the Mediterranean coastal plain of what is now Israel and the Gaza Strip. In the second century AD, after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name Palaestina to Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic word Filastin is derived from Latin. There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.

    MYTH:
    "The Jews have no historic claim to Israel."

    FACT:
    Only one group of people have continuously lived in Israel for the past 3,700 years - the Jews. Jerusalem, in particular, has had a Jewish majority since the 1840s, 40 years prior to the beginnings of Zionism. Seventy-five percent of the land in east Jerusalem, which the press calls "historically Arab east Jerusalem," has been owned by Jews since 1947. The nations that inhabited the land prior to the Jews are no longer in existence, for they have been absorbed into various other peoples throughout the millennia. The Arabs of Israel only came to the land in 632 with the Muslim invasion.

    MYTH:
    "The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 changed political and border arrangements between independent states that had existed for centuries."

    FACT:
    The boundaries of most Middle East countries were arbitrarily fixed by the Western powers after Turkey was defeated in World War I and the French and British mandates were set up. The areas allotted to Israel under the UN Partition Plan had all been under the control of the Ottomans, who had ruled Palestine from 1517 until 1917. When Turkey was defeated in World War I, the French took over the area now known as Lebanon and Syria. The British assumed control of Palestine and Iraq. In 1926, the borders were redrawn and Lebanon was separated from Syria. Britain installed the Emir Faisal, who had been deposed by the French in Syria, as ruler of the new kingdom of Iraq. In 1922, the British created the emirate of Transjordan, which incorporated all of Palestine east of the Jordan River. This was done so that the Emir Abdullah, whose family had been defeated in tribal warfare in the Arabian peninsula, would have a kingdom to rule. None of the countries that border Israel became independent until this century. Many other Arab nations became independent after Israel.

    MYTH:
    "Israel violates the human rights of the Palestinian Arabs."

    FACT:
    The facts are different. Israel granted full citizenship to all of the Palestinian Arabs who fell within its borders after the War of Independence. Arabic is an official language in Israel. Israel remains to this day one of the few countries in the Middle East where Arabs can legitimately vote--and it is the only one where women can vote.

    MYTH:
    "The West Bank is part of Jordan."

    FACT:
    The West Bank was never legally part of Jordan. Under the UN's 1947 Partition Plan--which the Jews accepted and the Arabs rejected--it was to have been part of an independent Arab state in western Palestine. But the Jordanian army invaded and occupied it during the 1948 war. In 1950, Jordan annexed the West Bank. Only two governments--Great Britain and Pakistan--formally recognized the Jordanian takeover. The rest of the world, including the United States, never did. During the 1950-1967 period of its occupation, Jordan permitted terrorists to launch raids into Israel. Amman lost the West Bank after the Jordanian army entered the 1967 war.
______________________________________

    MYTH:
    "Jerusalem is Islam's third most holy city."

    FACT:
    Muslims try to connect Jerusalem to Islam by using a vague passage in the Koran, the seventeenth Sura, entitled "The Night Journey." It relates that in a dream or a vision, Mohammed was carried by night "from the sacred temple to the temple that is most remote, whose precinct we have blessed, that we might show him our signs. ..." In the seventh century, some Muslims identified the two temples mentioned in this verse as being in Mecca and Jerusalem. And that's as close as Islam's connection with Jerusalem gets--myth, fantasy, wishful thinking. Meanwhile, Jews can trace their roots in Jerusalem back to the days of Abraham.

    MYTH:
    "The Temple Mount has always been a Muslim holy place and Judaism has no connection to the site."

    FACT:
    The area of Solomon's Stables is believed to date as far back as the construction of Solomon's Temple. According to Josephus, it was in existence and was used as a place of refuge by the Jews at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 A.D. More authoritatively, the Koran--the holy book of Islam--describes Solomon's construction of the First Temple (34:13) and recounts the destruction of the First and Second Temples (17:7). The Jewish connection to the Temple Mount dates back more than 3,000 years and is rooted in tradition and history. When Abraham bound his son, Isaac, upon an altar as a sacrifice to God, he did so atop Mount Moriah, today's Temple Mount.

    MYTH:
    "Under Israeli rule, religious freedom has been curbed in Jerusalem."

    FACT:
    After the 1967 war, Israel abolished all the discriminatory laws promulgated by Jordan and adopted its own tough standard for safeguarding access to religious shrines. "Whoever does anything that is likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the various religions to the places sacred to them," Israeli law stipulates, "is liable to imprisonment for a term of five years." Israel also entrusted administration of the holy places to their respective religious authorities. Thus, for example, the Muslim Waqf has responsibility for the mosques on the Temple Mount.

    MYTH:
    "The Arab states have had to keep pace with an Israeli-led arms race."

    FACT:
    In most cases, the reverse has been true. Egypt received the Soviet IL-28 bomber in 1955. It was not until 1958 that France provided Israel with a squadron of comparable Sud Vautour twin-jet, tactical bombers. In 1957, Egypt obtained MiG-17 fighter planes. Israel received the comparable Super Mystere in 1959. Egypt had submarines in 1957, Israel in 1959. After the Egyptians obtained the MiG-21, the Israelis ordered the Dassault Mirage III supersonic interceptor and fighter-bomber. Egypt received ground-to-air missiles--the SA-2--two years before Israel obtained HAWK missiles from the United States. Later, Washington reluctantly agreed to sell Israel Patton tanks.

    MYTH:
    "Israel's destruction of Iraqi nuclear facilities was an unjust act."

    FACT:
    Back in June 1981, after the Israelis bombed the plant at Osirak, the UN Security Council unanimously condemned Israel. Washington ostentatiously held up its delivery of armaments to Israel. A decade later, however, the strike looks awfully good. Had Saddam Hussein been armed with nuclear weapons during the war with Iran, much of Tehran would now be obliterated and large sections of Iran annexed to Iraq. More: Iraqi forces might have rolled straight from Kuwait into Saudi Arabia, long before American forces could have arrived. Today, Saddam could already control five oil-rich countries and thereby over half of the world's oil reserves. Economic disaster would be one result; and American troops would have no good place to land.

    MYTH:
    "Israel has been an expansionist state since its creation."

    FACT:
    Israel's boundaries were determined by the United Nations when it adopted the partition resolution in 1947. In a series of defensive wars, Israel captured additional territory. On numerous occasions, Israel has withdrawn from these areas. As part of the 1974 disengagement agreement, Israel returned territories captured in the 1967 and 1973 wars to Syria. Under the terms of the 1979, Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, Israel withdrew from the Sinai peninsula for the third time. It had already withdrawn from large parts of the desert area it captured in its War of Independence. After capturing the entire Sinai in the 1956 Suez conflict, Israel relinquished the peninsula to Egypt a year later. In September 1983, Israel withdrew from large areas of Lebanon to positions south of the Awali River. In 1985, it completed its withdrawal from Lebanon, except for a narrow security zone just north of the Israeli border. That too was abandoned, unilaterally, in 2000. After signing peace agreements with the Palestinians and a treaty with Jordan, Israel agreed to withdraw from most of the territory in the West Bank captured from Jordan in 1967. A small area was returned to Jordan and the rest was ceded to the Palestinian Authority. The agreement with the Palestinians also involved Israel's withdrawal, in 1994, from most of the Gaza Strip, which had been captured from Egypt in 1973.

    MYTH:
    "Israel is the aggressor in the current conflict."

    FACTS:
    One: The Palestinians are the aggressors; they started the conflict, and they purposely drive it forward with fresh killing on an almost-daily basis.

    Two: The Palestinians regard this second intifada not as a sporadically violent protest movement, but as a war, with the clear strategic aim of forcing a scared and emotionally exhausted Israel to surrender on terms that would threaten Israel's viability.

    Three: As a tactic in this strategy, the Palestinians will not fight Israeli forces directly but instead have concentrated their efforts on murdering Israeli civilians. The greater the number, the more pathetically vulnerable the victims--disco-goers, women and children in a pizza restaurant--the better.

    Four: Israel has acted defensively in this conflict; and while Israeli forces accidentally killed Palestinian civilians, their planned lethal attacks have all been aimed only at Palestinian military and terror-group leaders.

    The Teachings Of Islam

    For several years, there has been a growing trend towards ecumenism. During the tribulation hour, a global religious system will be established, and all the world's major religions will be united under the rule of the Antichrist. Right now, the devil is working hard to build a foundation to facilitate that eventual unity.

    Christianity by its nature is not compatible with any other religion. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). The Lord didn't say, “I am one way among many.”

    I maintain that Islam is itself incompatible with Christianity. Western liberal scholars do their best to promote the idea that Islam means peace and love, but they can't hide the vengeful and perverted teachings easily found in Islamic writings. The following is a list of quotes from the Koran and other Islamic holy books that clearly speak for themselves.

    "They say, 'Accept the Jewish or the Christian faith and you shall be rightly guided.' Say, 'By no means! We believe in the faith of Abraham, the upright one. He was no idolater.'" (Surah 2:135)

    "The only true faith in God's sight is Islam." (Surah 3:19)

    "Say, 'Obey Allah and the apostle.' If they give no heed, then truly, Allah does not love the unbelievers." (Surah 3:29)

    "If you fear that you cannot treat orphans with fairness, then you may marry other women that seem good to you: two, three or four of them." (Surah 4:1)

    "Try as you may, you cannot treat all your wives impartially." (Surah 4:3)

    "Men take authority over women... As for those who are disobedient, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them." (Surah 4:34)

    "Believers, do not approach your prayers when you are drunk, but wait till you can grasp the meaning of your words..." (Surah 4:43)

    "Will they not ponder on the Koran? if it had not come from God, they could have surely found in it many contradictions." (Surah 4:82)

    "Seek out your enemies relentlessly." (Surah 4:104)

    "They denied the truth and uttered a monstrous falsehood against Mary. they declared: 'We have put to death the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, the apostle of God.' they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but they thought they did...they did not slay him for certain. God lifted him up to him..." (Surah 4:157-158 )

    "The Jews and Christians say: 'We are the children of God and His loved ones.' Say: 'Why then does He punish you for your sins?" (Surah 5:18 )

    "Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends." (Surah 5:51)

    "Unbelievers are those who say: 'God is one of three.' There is but one God. If they do not desist from so saying, those of them that disbelieve shall be sternly punished." (Surah 5:73)

    "The God will say: 'Jesus, son of Mary, did you ever say to mankind 'Worship me and my mother as gods besides God?' 'Glory to You, 'he will answer, 'how could I ever say that to which I have no right?" (Surah 5:116)

    "If you fear treachery from any of your allies, you may fairly retaliate by breaking off your treaty with them." (Surah 9:12)

    "Fight against such as those to whom the Scriptures were given [Jews and Christians]...until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued." (Surah 9:29)

    "The Christians say: The Christ is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them." (Sura 9:30)

    "Prophet make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home." (Surah 9:73)

    "And say: All praise is due to Allah, WHO HAS NOT TAKEN A SON and WHO HAS NOT A PARTNER in the kingdom."(Sura 17.111)

    "'How shall I bear a child,' she [Mary] answered, 'when I am a virgin...?' 'Such is the will of the Lord,' he replied. 'That is no difficult thing for Him...God forbid that He [God[ Himself should beget a son!...Those who say: 'The Lord of Mercy has begotten a son,' preach a monstrous falsehood..." (Surah 19:20-21, 29, 88-89)

    "NEVER DID ALLAH TAKE TO HIMSELF A SON, and never was there with him any (other) god . . ." (Sura 23:91)

    "Muhammad is God's apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another." (Surah 48:29)

    "The Day of Resurrection will not arrive until the Moslems make war against the Jews and kill them, and until a Jew hiding behind a rock and tree, and the rock and tree will say: 'Oh Moslem, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!'" (Sahih Bukhari 004.52.176)

    Eternal Rewards

    We, as human beings, are, of course, earthly minded. We look, during these hurried and harried days, for moments of rewards as counterpoint to the frustrations of our daily interactions with the world around us. We want that gratification to be instant, immediate, now! Our moments of reward, when they do come, are brief, fleeting, and more often than not leave us looking for the next high that must be more intense, longer in endurance - more gratifying.

    We will never be satiated in this flesh  - at least most of us won’t.

    Considering those of great wealth from as far back as Solomon, and even before him, we can get understanding of just how unsatisfying life can be, no matter how much money and material wealth we garner, no matter how much we achieve.

    Elvis once recorded a song called, I think, “Fame and Fortune.” In it were the lines: "What good is fame and fortune? They are just fleeting things…” Elvis, of course did enjoy the fame and fortune about which he sang. And, he died at 42. They were for the king of rock and roll, indeed, just fleeting things.

    The writer of Ecclesiastes, who almost certainly was Solomon, wrote that after he had tasted all of the world’s delights  - both those that were allowed, and those forbidden - he found them all to be self-centered, and in vain. He then gave his assessment of life in this human flesh, and what really matters: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).

    We will all come to the end of our fleshly lives. We will stand before God. This is what is called sometimes jokingly, but with a serious undertone, “Going to our eternal rewards.” I wrote the following as a chapter a few years ago for my book, Prophecy Power: Strength from God To Face Your Future. You can see at the end of the article where you can get a copy of the book, if you wish.

    This Is Your Life!

    “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things [done] in [his] body, according to that he hath done, whether [it be] good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

    We who are of a certain generation remember a TV show in the late 1950s called “This is Your Life!” Each week, the host, Ralph Edwards, would come on the air, whispering, usually holding a large book under one arm and a microphone in the other. He would look directly at us through our (black and white) TV screens and then glance nervously around him while the camera panned from him to see if it could locate the guest of honor for the evening’s program.

    Finally, someone would walk into the bright glare of the television spotlights on some sidewalk in New York or elsewhere. That person would have another person in tow, and would tug him or her toward Ralph Edwards. The person in tow would appear to be greatly surprised, his mouth and eyes widening in disbelief when he realized he had been tricked into coming to the spot so “This is Your Life!” could spend the next 30 minutes  - minus commercials - going over his life for the TV viewers.
____________________________________

    Our Turn Is Coming!

    We who are Christians have a review of our lives coming that will be much greater in scope than the biographies Ralph Edwards did on any of the celebrities he reviewed for many years. Not one moment of our lives will be missed by our reviewer because the one who will review our lives from start to finish will be none other than the Lord Jesus, himself!

    We will look in this lesson, of course, at the “judgment seat of Christ” and all it will encompass. Only the saved will be at this judgment, which is not a judgment for sins committed, but a bema judgment that will be for determining our eternal rewards.

    All About the Bema

    Have you ever thought about how it will be on Judgment Day? Many think that when Judgment Day comes, everybody will stand in a long line, perhaps one that will circle the Earth many times in length. The thought seems to be that we will all wait our turn. When our name is finally called, we will approach the throne, where an angry looking old man with white hair, his eyes on fire and a scowl on his face, will say something like: “Let’s have a look at how bad you’ve been, and whether you’ve done anything good at all.”

    An angel or someone will come from somewhere, carrying a large balance-scale. Somehow, using some sort of measure, our good deeds will be put on one side of the scale. Our bad deeds will be placed, or will appear on the other side. Whether the scale dips toward the “good” side or the “bad” side will determine our eternal fate. If we’ve done more good than bad, we go to Heaven. If it tilts the other way, we go to…well, you know that result. (No one seems to consider what might happen if things balance perfectly.)

    No Fairy Tale

    As one prophecy teacher I know says, “You’ll find that description of Judgment Day in the Bible in the same place you’ll find the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Sadly, far too many Christians have no more idea of what God’s review of their lives will be like than that described above. This study is meant to help us understand, as thoroughly as God’s Word allows, what one of the major judgments following life on this planet will be like.

    Supreme Court Appearance

    Each person who has ever been born has a destiny that includes standing before Almighty God. There’s no escaping it. You and I will stand before the one, true God, the Creator of all things. The writer of Hebrews tells us: “…it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment…” (Hebrews 9: 27). Make no mistake, we will one day stand before the SUPREME COURT!

    Two Judgments Await

    Not only will there not be one long line where we stand in dread for a few thousand years awaiting our turn, but there will not be one judgment; there will be two. The first judgment to take place will be the bema judgment, also called “the judgment seat of Christ.” The second --the final judgment-- will be “the great white throne” judgment. You do not want to be at the second of these two judgments--not unless you are there as witness to God’s righteousness, rather than as one who is being judged. You do, definitely, want to be at the first judgment. This is because only the saved stand before Christ at the first judgment, and only the lost stand before God at the second. Everyone at the first judgment will go into Heaven to live eternally in God’s presence. Everyone who stands before God in the second judgment will go into Hell, apart from God for eternity. Prophecy Power will cover the great white throne judgment in a later study. We will look at the judgment seat of Christ for now, to get a handle on exactly what Bible prophecy says awaits each of us who name the name of Jesus in the intimate way essential for salvation.
___________________________________

    For Supernatural Athletes Only!

    Have you ever admired a great athlete and wished you had that kind of ability? The super athletes of our time make the big bucks, garner great attention, and seem to thrive with rewards of their tremendous feats.

    More Super than Super Bowl!

    God’s Word tells us that we are competing in a contest that is supernatural, and that has eternal consequences. All who are on God’s team are expected to give it their very best effort in this great race we call life. Paul the apostle likens our competition to a number of athletic events. The analogy is to the competitions of the Olympic games of ancient times. Christians are in competition that involves far more profound consequences than do the athletic feats accomplished by even the world’s greatest athletes in earthly sports events. The competition is with ourselves. It is individual. We should strive to achieve our utmost potential in order to give honor and glory to our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom and for whom we were made.

    Paul Was a Real Sport

    Paul was a man of many facets, not just some guy walking around spouting pious things. He was a tremendous scholar, a great missionary and evangelist, and a tentmaker. He was also a terrific sports fan. We can know that Paul was indeed a fellow who followed the athletic competitions of his day with great relish from his writings. He used analogies and allusions to sport terms in his instructions on how God wants us to live our lives. He refers in the following to such a sports analogy: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

    Bema Background

    Paul based much of his sports analogy on his knowledge of the bema of athletic competitions of his day. One writer clues us to what Paul was talking about in this analogy: “In the large Olympic arenas there was an elevated seat on which the judge of the contest sat. After the contests were over, the successful competitors would assemble before the bema to receive their rewards or crowns. The bema was not a judicial bench where someone was condemned. It was a reward seat. Likewise, the judgment seat of Christ is not a judicial bench. The Christian life is a race, and the divine umpire is watching every contestant. After the Church has run her course, He will gather every member before the bema for the purpose of examining each one, and giving the proper reward to each” (Levin Strauss, God’s Plan for the Future, Zondervan, p. 111).

    Paul Pleased

    The great apostle indicated that at the end of his own life he was satisfied he had given all he had for his Lord, who is also his Judge: "For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:6-8 ).

    Powerful Promise!

    How thrilling! Did you catch that? Paul says in this prophecy that not only he, but we who run the race with all we have, will also receive great rewards. But he says more than that. He prophesies that there is a special reward for Christians who “love His [Jesus’] appearing." Now that’s an empowering truth for those who look for the Lord Jesus at any moment in the rapture!
____________________________________

    Building Before the Bema

    A person, at the moment he accepts Christ, is instantly placed upon a rock-solid foundation. The truth of that foundation is found in the following: “He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:15-18 ).

    Jesus, Our Rock

    Jesus was not saying here that Peter was the rock upon which salvation is based, but that Jesus is that Rock. This foundation stone is the same stone that will smash all anti-God, Antichrist humanistic government at Christ’s second coming (Daniel 2:34-35). Paul the apostle says about Jesus, the foundation: “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11).

    Beware of Error

    Some teach the error that we must work to earn and maintain our salvation. The Scriptures above plainly teach otherwise. There is no other foundation whereby we can become God’s child: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

    Eternal Destiny Is Affected

    So, our immortal souls can never be in danger of facing God’s wrath, once we are upon the foundation, which is His blessed Son, Jesus. Nonetheless, our eternal destiny is still subject to influence, based upon how we live our lives while still in this realm of earthly existence. You see, we, when we are set upon that unshakable foundation - the Lord Jesus Christ - we immediately begin building on that solid Rock. We send the materials ahead of our trip to glory  - whether that trip be through death or the rapture-- for constructing our eternal dwelling place, and for making our heavenly wardrobe. In that sense, our works while in this life do affect our eternal destiny.

    Building Supplies Tested

    The building materials we send ahead in the form of our works on this earth will have to pass God’s test to determine their worthiness for heavenly construction. The testing will take place at the bema  - the judgment seat of Christ. Here’s what God’s Word has to say about that moment of testing for each of us: “For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is” (1 Corinthians 3:9-13).

    Salvation Secure for Eternity

    Paul, under divine inspiration, is quick to tell us that this judgment in no way will determine whether the person being judged is allowed to enter Heaven. The one being judged is eternally secure from the very moment of salvation. Paul writes about the bema judgment further: “If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire” (1 Corinthians 3:14-15).
_______________________________________

    Our True Reward

    We must each stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of what we did while living on earth. We will either receive rewards or suffer loss of rewards. The good works we do in the sight of God are symbolized as made of gold, silver, and precious stones. Our worthless works are represented as wood, stubble, and hay. While we stand before the bema, heavenly fire of righteousness will be applied to each work we did in life. The gold, silver, and precious stones will stand the test by fire, and all dross (useless, excess) will burn off. Only the pure, refined works will remain. All other works will perish in the heavenly fire.

    Again, this has nothing to do with salvation of our souls. That was settled the moment we accepted Jesus as Savior, while still in physical life on earth. Jesus will then bestow upon each believer his or her rewards, based upon the refined gold, silver and precious stone works that have been tested in the fires of supreme judgment.

    Greatest Reward of All

    The greatest reward of all will be to hear our Lord say to us the same thing the master said to his servant in the story Jesus told while teaching: “His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (Matthew 25:21).

    Which Works Are Which?

    Although it’s not easy to know exactly what goes into making a gold, silver, and precious stone work, or a wood, hay, and stubble work, God’s Word informs us about certain, general areas of life where God is particularly interested. We will look scripturally, and in-depth in Session 12 at the crowns that will be given at the bema. We will, with equal scriptural intensity, look in Session 13 at the areas of living life on earth in which the Christian will be tested at the judgment seat of Christ. For now, it is the greatest banquet that will ever be held that takes stage-center in God’s prophetic program.

    The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

    What a contrast this banquet will be to the feast taking place on Planet Earth!

    A Grisly Dinner

    We read about that grotesque earthly banquet: “And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh” (Revelation 19:17-21). The human carnage will be stupendous. But, it will be Righteous Judgment that is well deserved. The carrion of earth will indeed have their fill!

    The Most Extravagant Wedding Feast Ever

    The Church Age saints of God whom the Bible says have white robes of righteousness will be the wife of the Lamb (Jesus Christ). This is the bride the Apostle Paul wrote about as follows: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:25-32).

    A number of views on exactly who the bride will be have been a cause for debate. The purpose here is to present what God’s Word says, advising each child of God to study, pray and seek Holy Spirit direction while considering this awesome topic of prophecy yet future. The Scripture on the marriage supper of the Lamb we are given specifically says: “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God” (Revelation 19:7-9).

    The bride will forever be with her Lord, the King of all Kings. All saints of all ages will have different duties to perform and offices to administrate, but the body of believers who constitute the Bride of Christ will be with Him forever in a special relationship, while serving Him as He wills, based upon bema rewards earned while during earthly life.

    The scriptural text is powerful. It magnifies the Lord’s interaction with the nations for prophecy students wise enough to be observant, while the last of the last days approach.

    “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him” (Psalms 2:1-12).

    God’s dealings with man-made government down through the eons of time is wrapped within those Scriptures. However, these words point particularly to the end of days  - the time just before Christ returns to put an end to humankind’s self-destruction. Clearly, the nations of the world provide the most effective profile of these last days.

    Nations in prophecy can be expressly identified, and the rest are covered, as demonstrated by the body of scriptural text above. The nations of earth versus God, himself, is the most profound and pronounced arena of prophecy that points to things to be fulfilled in the future. Today’s news purveyors are literally everywhere, with sometimes dozens of news organizations covering any given unfolding of a story. Daniel’s prophecy, in this sense, certainly applies to the news organizations of our day: ”But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” (Daniel 12:4).

    This doesn’t always equate, of course, to saying truth will increase. World views have become so skewed because of misinformation, and particularly because of ideological sleight-of-hand from the various points along the geopolitical spectrum, that truth suffers horrifically. Truth can almost never be 100% assured in analyzing what has and has not happened in any given news story. Agendas and flawed ideological perspectives make it more and more difficult for us to get to what really happened.

    Despite this unfortunate skewing of the news on a daily, even an hourly, basis, it cannot be denied that the world is shaping a certain way. And  - if one is attuned, spiritually, to Bible prophecy, there can be no doubt that the nations of Planet Earth are conforming precisely to the shape of things to come  - according  - I’m convinced - to the pre-tribulation rapture, pre-millennial view of the return of Jesus Christ.

    The news organizations run to and fro, but their knowledge, while increasing in looking at the swiftly developing geopolitical situations and events, is sorely lacking when it comes to having an accurate understanding of history. Revisionists are running amok. This fact is most manifest when it comes to their understanding of history concerning the Middle East and the “Holy Land” and Jerusalem in particular. The media conglomerate, as a whole, has an amazingly shallow understanding/view of facts about the “Palestinians' ” right to the land. And this inadequacy highlights the chief reason that the region is the prophetic center, the nucleus of the problems involving the nations of the world and their rebellion against God Almighty. This world view, completely muddled by luciferian spiritual brainwashing, is what will, ultimately, bring the nations to the Valley of Jezreel for Armageddon.
____________________________________

    Chief Reason for Ignorance

    World diplomats and global media alike dismiss what the Bible has to say about Israel’s right to a home in the region the world has come to call Palestine. There never was such a land so named in God’s Word. This fact, of course, is of no consequence to the international community, as indicated in Psalms 2:1-12 given above. No other people, as a race, have been in the Middle East region now called Palestine longer than the Jews. At times, they have been there in large numbers. Sometimes they have been there in very small numbers. But, despite the fact that the race has been scattered into all the world several times, there have been at least a few Jews living in the area for more than 3,000 years.

    People who have been around a long time usually have made many friends. But they have also met some unfriendly folks along the way. Quite possibly, they’ve made an enemy or two as well. The Jewish nation Israel has very few friends today. Israel has, it seems, more than its share of unfriendly neighbors and violent enemies. That fact is reflected in news reports on the ongoing Israeli-Arab troubles that dominate international headlines. Many accounts point to the hatred at the center of the matter of Mid-East rumblings of war.

    God’s Word on Israel’s Islamic Enemies

    None of the current hatreds raging against His chosen people have taken God by surprise. The psalmist looked millennia ago down through the corridors of time at the tiny nation and its enemies - whose god is Allah. The prophecy anticipated the diverse Islamic peoples who now occupy the territory promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

    “Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God. For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head. They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes; Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah” (Psalms 83:1-8 ).

    Nations of Prophecy Troubled by Israel

    Current issues and events that look to be harbingers of the biblically prophesied apocalypse bombard this generation of earth’s inhabitants. Jesus’ Olivet Discourse prophecies, foretelling things to come in the time of “great tribulation,” seem to leap from news reports that are becoming so routine that they no longer shock. No signal is more prophetically significant than present circumstances involving the city where Jesus was crucified nearly 20 centuries ago. This is as the Old and New Testament prophets said it will be just before Christ returns to a planet that is home to a world of rebels against God. That rebellion is scheduled, the prophets forewarn, to culminate in history’s final and most destructive war. Armageddon will be triggered because of both Satan’s and fallen mankind’s determination to install themselves upon the single spot on earth dearest to the heart of God.

    Mt. Moriah sits at the southern end of the ancient city, crested by a golden dome that represents hundreds of millions whose religion demands of its adherents blood-vowed opposition to God’s chosen nation, Israel. This is the place God picked to have His temple on earth constructed. It is the precise location where the third temple will sit  - the temple that will be desecrated by Antichrist, earth’s last and most beastly tyrant. Even more importantly, the Temple Mount will be the home of Christ’s Millennial Temple. Moriah, then to be known as Zion, will be supernaturally elevated by the tremendous topographical changes caused when the Lord’s foot touches the Mount of Olives at His return.
_________________________________

    Diplomats of the world have, for the past four decades, engaged in effort after effort to bring stability to the region, at whose heart the city of Jerusalem sits. We remember the many jettings to and from Washington D.C., Jerusalem, and other capitals of the Mid-East. From Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Madeleine Albright, and Colin Powell to Condoleeza Rice  -  America’s secretaries of state have burned mega-gallons of jet fuel in trying to find the formula for peace that would diffuse the Armageddon bomb. And, the former British prime minister, Tony Blair, immediately upon resigning, was named by the so-called “Quartet” (US, EU, UN and Russia) as the overseer of continuing efforts toward constructing Mid-East peace, which has eluded mankind for thousand of years. All of that diplomatic shuffling is a mere prelude to the fretting that is about to take place over this, the most important, thus most volatile city on Planet Earth. Zechariah the prophet foretold in Zechariah 12:1-3 the end-time anxiety that we believe is, observably, now on the precipice of gripping the international community.

    Good Reason for Worry

    There is good reason for the building anxiety. Israel’s terrorist-sponsoring neighbors to the north strive mightily to develop nuclear bombs and missiles that will deliver them. No one doubts in which direction these missiles will be pointed, should Iran be successful in producing such weapons of mass destruction. Israel’s one common declaration, amidst all of the political infighting, remains the core of its defense: “ Never again!”

    The following summary of atrocities to the Jewish race presents compelling evidence why “Never Again!” must be their passionate declaration, backed by nuclear strength:

    “Due to [Israel’s] disobedience the Jews have suffered terribly. They were ruled by Rome in Christ's day but rebelled in A.D. 70 and 250,000 were killed. They rebelled again in A.D. 135 and again Rome smashed them killing even more and scattering them throughout the empire. Since then they have been bitterly persecuted. Forcibly expelled from England in 1290 and from France 1306. In 1298 more than 100,000 were killed in Europe. From 1648 to 1658 some 400,000 were massacred. From 1939-45 Hitler's Nazis killed more than 4 million… In its history Egyptian Pharaohs, Assyrian Kings, Babylonian rulers, Persian satraps, Greek Hellenists, Roman Caesars, Holy Roman Emperors, Roman Catholic Pontiffs, Medieval monarchs, Christian Crusaders, Spanish Inquisitors, Nazi dictators, Communist commissars, Arab sheiks and United Nation delegates have all turned against the Jew yet they still survive.”1

    The Jewish people of Israel collectively declare they will never again let themselves be enslaved within regimes that want them erased from the earth. Never again will they allow the genocide they have suffered through the centuries. Their national vow is backed by the ominous “Samson Option.” This last-ditch military imperative is not lost on the leaders of the international community, which is headed by the G-8 nations (America, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, and Russia ).

    These leaders of this enlightened age might not believe the Bible is the word of God, but, they know the story of Samson and what happened when he was finally put in a predicament in which he could no longer be free. The world’s diplomats  - at least those of the western world - have no doubt that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) will bring the house down around them, if it comes to that as Israel’s only viable option. The international community  - once termed “the new world order”-- has developed a systemic neurosis involving the bleak outlook for the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The “Roadmap to Peace” seems to be the nerves-soothing therapeutic course of action upon which the powers-that-be have chosen to eliminate the possibility of nuclear conflict being triggered over earth’s most coveted city. World leaders consider Jerusalem the trigger to Armageddon; they will do whatever it takes to defuse that trigger.
___________________________________

    Nations in Prophecy Specifically Indicated

    God’s Prophetic Word, in addition to predicting in overall or general terms about the nations and their individual dispositions just before Christ’s return, gets quite specific, even if through description rather than using the modern names of countries at the end of days. We will look at the scriptural passages we believe refer to the nations in prophecy, then analyze the most recent disposition of each of those countries, in present-day terms. European Union

    ”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).

    Daniel was given the prophecy for the very end of human history as it is presently known. Daniel prophesies that the “prince that shall come,” Antichrist, who will come out of the people who destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish temple, Roman Empire, will guarantee the implementation of a covenant of peace between Israel and its enemies. Great world turmoil will follow that action, until the very end (at the second advent of Jesus Christ).

    Those who destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish temple came from the region now inhabited by the nations of Europe and a few Mediterranean areas. Rome is the very heart of where the ancient Roman Empire resided. Antichrist will come out of an area near the center of that general geographical location. The European Union (EU) is comprised of a unification of 25 countries that now represent a growing world power. The EU, many prophecy students believe, forms the matrix out of which the Antichrist regime, as indicated in Revelation, Chapter 13, will grow to become the worst tyrannical government ever to exist upon Planet Earth.

    The European Parliament meets on a regular basis now, in many instances usurping national autonomy and sovereignty of the European states that are members of the EU. Some believe the 10-kings economic power bloc prophesied to develop during the tribulation, or just before the tribulation begins, will grow from the EU, which will be its nucleus: “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast” (Revelation 17:12-13). It is wise to observe developments such as the North American Union (NAU) and other such powerful economic trading blocs, in considering this prophecy.


    Russia

    “And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords…” (Ezekiel 38:1-4).

    Although there is considerable controversy over the ancient names given in Ezekiel’s Gog-Magog war prophecies, there is sufficient etymological evidence to conclude that Rosh is the ancient name of the modern nation we know as Russia. Likewise, the other names of the ancient geographical areas have been scrupulously examined, so as to give confidence that Russia and its leader will be the culprits that will lead this massive end-time attack on Israel and the Middle East, in order to take “great spoil”.
__________________________________

    China and the Orient

    “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” (Revelation 16:12).

    This prophecy, scheduled to coincide with Armageddon when all the armies of the world will be gathered in the Valley of Jezreel, almost certainly will include the modern nation of China. I view that coming juggernaut as the king of the kings of the east  - the leader of all countries of the oriental world. This Revelation 16 prophecy correlates to Revelation 9: 16-18. China exerts hegemony today over its neighbors. It is a growing international player, harboring strength and potential that will soon vault it into superpower class, equivalent to the US and the EU. China’s leadership is still an oligarchy that is maintained and perpetuated by an ever-increasing military. This force is destined  - I believe Bible prophecy predicts - to eventuate in the 200-million-man army prophesied in Revelation chapter 9.

    Syria

    “The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap” (Isaiah 17:1).

    Syria, under the leadership of Bashar al-Assad, hasn’t improved in its attitude toward the much-hated Israel from the days that nation was under the dictatorship of his father, Hafez al-Assad. The country hosts the headquarters of every major terrorist organization in the Middle East. A prophecy that draws interest of prophecy watchers today is the one above. Damascus, capital of Syria, is prophetically scheduled to be completely destroyed, with no chance of becoming a city again. That, of course, smacks of nuclear destruction. There is little doubt that Israel, with nuclear weapons, could accomplish that foretelling with one bomb.

    Iran and Others

    “Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet” (Ezekiel 38:5).

    Iran, occupying much of territory that was encompassed by ancient Persia, is front and center in the news today. The Ezekiel Gog-Magog prophecy says they will be at the forefront of invading to the south toward Israel to take great “spoil”. We are left to postulate, of course, that the “spoil” might be the oil  - the vast petroleum deposits throughout the region. Certainly, it looks as if the thirst for oil might be a catalyst in bringing all nations to Armageddon.

    Turkey

    "Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee” (Ezekiel 38: 6).

    Again we run into controversy when considering the names mentioned here in the Ezekiel Gog-Magog prophecy. Togarmah is most often put forward as the area that now has at its center modern Turkey. Gomer is thought to be parts north and east, in the Mediterranean and east European regions. Turkey is in flux, politically. It is torn between government factions that are secular and at the same time Islamic in nature. The secular, supported by the military, has proven to be the power that rules. The Islamics have recently taken political power, however, but still are controlled by the army generals. Turkey, we believe, will one day join the Islamic world in marching with Russia and the other nations in the Gog-Magog attack on Israel.
____________________________________

    Egypt

    Strangely, little is prophesied about Egypt for the end-time period just before Christ’s return. There are Scriptures to indicate that Egypt will yet receive blessings from the Lord  - but during the millennial era, which will follow the tribulation.

    Saudi, England, and Others

    “Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?” (Ezekiel 38:13).

    These nations seemingly will observe the Gog-Magog attack from the sidelines. There seems no more opposition offered from them than diplomatic notes of protest. They will not resist the attack. Sheba and Sedan seem to be Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations; perhaps the Emirates and small countries of the Persian Gulf area. The "merchants of Tarshish" and her "young lions" have long been interpreted  - through considerable study - to be the area of the “land of tin” where England, in particular, is presently located. The young lions are thought to be the nations that have come into existence by breaking away from Britain. The United States would qualify as one of the young lions, as would, for example, Australia. As things presently shape up, it is hard to believe that such a massive attack as prophesied by Ezekiel would be allowed to take place by such nuclear powers as Great Britain  - and particularly -  the United States. Many believe the rapture of the Church could so confuse leadership of these nations as to make them temporarily incapable of organizing military opposition to the assault into the Middle East by Russia and her coalition hordes.

    Iraq

    “And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 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. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double” (Revelation 18:2-6).

    I suggest you also read Zechariah, Chapter 5. That prophecy foretells a time when the concentration of the geopolitical evil of the world will be drawn back to the land of ancient Babylon. The heart of that area is, of course, present-day Iraq. There can be little argument against the fact that the news eyes and ears of the world are concentrated each and every hour of each day upon that region. The United States and its coalition partners - e.g., the leaders - are in a quandary. If they stay in the region to protect the Iraqi government, which obviously couldn’t protect itself against incessant Islamic fanatics, they continue to draw the ire of the world, the political flames fanned by a liberal press that hates the U.S. administration that put the troops there. If the forces are withdrawn, the great oil reserves might fall to diabolist nations  - led by the likes of Iran. Babylon is foretold to be a city again, one that will be destroyed in a single hour. Many prophecy scholars disagree with this view, believing that the Babylon of prophecy yet future will be perhaps the greatest (wealthiest and most influential) city of its day, but not the Babylon of antiquity.

    Israel

    “The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem” (Zechariah 12:1-2).

    Israel, and Jerusalem in particular, have been at the eye of the growing geopolitical storm since its re-birth into modern statehood on May 14, 1948. Every camera and microphone is focused upon and attuned to that nation while it sits upon a powder keg of potential nuclear conflict. The nation, a tiny sliver of land in a vast region promised it by God, has become marginalized to the point it is rapidly becoming hated by most every other country on earth. This is exactly what God predicts. The United States is Israel’s only real friend in a growingly hostile world. When the rapture occurs, and much of the nucleus of support for Israel is instantly gone, God will deal with His chosen people, and with those who will try to destroy them: “And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it” (Zechariah 12:3).

I'd like to be honest here and say that I have blocked out all politics & other forms of news. Why? Simply put. It doesn't matter the season or time we live. I want to be about God's work right up until the end. I don't want anything eles that will distract me from that.

That means telling as many people as I can about God's good grace. Influencing the people around me while not being influenced by the people around not of God.

That way I know when the Blessed day comes I will have left it all out on the table.

I agree. Even in politics, current news, fishing or whatever we are involved in there are many opportunities to work for and spread God's good news.

Remember what Christ said about the fig tree?  How will we know when the tree is budding if we do not watch the news? Personally, I watch the news about Israel because I know that is one of the buds on the tree.  It is to me like a child looking for Christmas and counting down the days, I am looking at the news and watching for the coming of my Lord.

grandma