I am writing this after reading three disturbing news in the media in the past two days.
The first news related to an attack by a species of beetles in my hometown, including the building where I am staying in now. The insect, called the blister beetle, or acid beetle, when it falls on a person’s skin, emits a toxin which causes severe burn injuries on it. The faces and other parts of the bodies of many people in my town were burned as a result of this insect. In my own building, this creature crept in through the windows and bit two children. My wife and I are on guard day and night against the presence of this evil insect in our apartment.
Here are the media reports:
Blister beetles are causing distress in Kakkanad area with close to 100 people developing blisters on face and other parts of the body. The number of panic-stricken patients seeking medical help after spotting the blisters has increased over the past few weeks. The Hindu
The second news is about a rat plague in Australia.
Millions of rodents are running amok in parts of Australia’s eastern states, with residents sharing horror encounters on a daily basis…They’re all around the house. Every time you open a drawer, you’re potentially going to find one. NBC News
Mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia. The Guardian
The plague of mice attacking parts of Australia is turning into a horror story, with the rodents threatening to invade Sydney, reports of the vermin eating their own, and the farming industry being thrown into turmoil…People are actually just abandoning crops because they think ‘why am I going to plant this if it’s going to get eaten?’ Bloomberg
The third news, that I saw yesterday, came as a reply to a comment I made on a YouTube channel. This is a portion of what the responder wrote to me:
There are now flies swarming in the DC area. This morning when I awoke, I had maybe 300 flies in my kitchen and there is no explanation for that.
Fly invasion has happened in other places too. This news is from San Francisco.
It is a constant fight against the flies. We are now unable to eat lunch in our showroom, since the flies find a way to crawl on our food or into the refrigerator even when covered or closed. Bloomberg
And attacks by foxes and coyotes.
After tucking their nine-month-old twin girls into bed, two parents and their four-year-old son watch television downstairs in their suburban row house in Britain. As they unwind, a fox fearlessly sneaks through an open door and into the twins’ bedroom…As the parents flip on the bedroom light, they are shocked to find a fox viciously attacking one of the babies. BBC
In the last two decades, thousands of the carnivores have migrated to metropolitan areas in search of food. Experts maintain there could be several thousand coyotes living in New York, with a similar number in cities such as Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago…In the past nine days, two young girls playing outside their homes were attacked [by coyotoes] in separate episodes, officials said. Both girls survived with minor injuries…The police have advised parents not to let small children roam farther than an arm’s length away, and to keep them indoors at night. People walking their dogs at night carry large sticks alongside their leashes. The New York Times
I have also read reports of mass invasion by scorpions, phytons, and vampire bats.
Yellow scorpions are invading Brazilian cities…Just about every shop and home in the nearby vicinity has seen one recently. At night, the predatory arthropods lurk at the entrance of supermarkets, crawl up kitchen sinks, and skitter into second-story bedrooms…The stings can cause seizures, vomiting, and excruciating pain. Bloomberg
Bounty hunters and biologists wade deep into the Everglades to wrestle with the invasion of giant pythons threatening the state’s wetlands…Scientists say that the snakes are responsible for a recent 90 to 99 percent drop in the small mammal population in the national park. Smithsonian Magazine
Peru’s health ministry has sent emergency teams to a remote Amazon region to battle an outbreak of rabies spread by vampire bats…3,500 people had been bitten by the bloodsucking bats. BBC
BBC has reported about ten animal invasions of our present times “that look like biblical plagues…From locust swarms 110 miles long to armies of giant snails, these plagues are what happens when a species runs rampant”. The ten invasions are by algal blooms in the sea, mosquitoes, mayflies, locusts, armyworms, queleas (small, finch-like birds), giant African land snails, jellyfish, ants, and mice.
I expect almost all kinds of wild animals to be part of this endtime plague that is coming upon every nation, including the ones you commonly see around your house – raccoons, skunks, squirrels, moles, crows, and more.
One of the most horrifying aspects of The Great Tribulation that is coming upon the whole world, is attacks on humans by ‘wild beasts’. This prophecy is given in two books in the Bible:
I will let loose the [wild] animals of the field among you, which will bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you so few in number that your roads will lie deserted and desolate. Lev 26:22 AMP
So I looked, and behold, an ashen (pale greenish gray) horse [like a corpse, representing death and pestilence]; and its rider’s name was Death; and Hades (the realm of the dead) was following with him. They were given authority and power over a fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword and with famine and with plague (pestilence, disease) and by the wild beasts of the earth. Rev 6:8
The Greek word for ‘wild beasts’ means not only mammals and reptiles, but also birds, insects, fish, and even microscopic creatures.
I am writing this message to urge you to keep watch on this aspect of the endtime events. There are many other events you should watch, and I will be writing about them all in this site. Protection from attack by crazed animals should be part of your fervent prayers for your present family and the future families of your children and grandchildren who may go witness the endtime events.
You can escape this aspect of The Great Tribulation, as well as all other coming evils of the endtimes by heeding the words of your Protector.
But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man. Lk 21:34-36
He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Rev 13:16-17
But perhaps what most regular Bible readers do not know is that this mark has already begun appearing in some places. Perhaps most of them thought, like I did until I read a certain news a short while ago, that this mark would be imposed suddenly, someday in the future, after the appearance of the Beast. The appearance of this mark is one of the surest signs that we are already living in the endtimes, and that the global reign of the Beast, and also the return of Christ, are very imminent. Nobody can set dates, but Jesus said that when we see the leaves begin to appear on the fig tree we know that summer is near – even at the doors!. So, we can expect the Beast to make his appearance soon, very soon. How soon? No one can say with absolute certainty, but I am much inclined to think it will occur in my lifetime, and I am 68 as I write this.
Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near – at the doors! Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. Mt 24:32-35
Which ‘generation’ is Jesus talking of? Surely it can’t be the generation of his physical lifetime, simply because ‘all these things’ did not take place then. So, obviously, he is talking about the generation that sees the leaves beginning to appear – and that is, by all evidence, this present generation, our generation!
Here’s the news headline I saw a while ago:
“China to launch digital yuan next year to replace cash”
The news reported that the “People’s Bank of China has revealed plans to have its sovereign digital currency ready in time for the 2022 Winter Olympics…Limited trials are already underway in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu and the Xiongan New Area in the northern province of Hebei…If the government is satisfied with the results of this year’s tests, the currency will be issued next year. Otherwise, more tests will be conducted next year.” rt.com
This decision by the Chinese government came as the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated a shift away from paper money. The Corona virus has set the stage for several major paradigm shifts from the traditional functioning of global society. The shift to digital currency is among the greatest global transformations being brought about by the virus. Other major shifts occurring include working from home, online schooling, dramatic increase in online shopping, greater screening of people coming into a country, and, of course, far greater focus by governments on the health sector. One of the minor changes is the end of traditional and official greeting with a handshake or hug, and perhaps more widespread use of masks in places such as theatres, sports venues, malls, etc. One thing that will not continue after the end of the pandemic is social distancing, because physical closeness is an innate need of human society.
What are the implications of this shift to digital currency for China? It is that digital money gives the Chinese government total control and awareness of how every single citizen uses es money!
Listen to what two readers commented after reading that article:
“When all cash is purged from the system, we will be at the mercy of the banks and politicians. Negative interest rates and capital confiscation will be just a mere mouseclick away.”
“They are leading the world only to a deeper tyranny. Removing the ability to buy food, etc with cash, no matter whether rich or poor, is the biggest tyranny. Only the duped would agree to hand over total control of their buying power to banks/govs, and agree to being surveilled on every single purchase you make. But the important point is, if the only way to purchase is 100% digital, you would only need to go against official government regulation in any field to expect to have your ‘only’ means to purchase food, pay rent, etc, stopped.”
In November 2016, when I was in my native country for a few months, I woke up one morning to the startling news that two widely used banknotes – 500 and 1000 rupees – were not valid for transactions anymore. The government of Modi was using a new strategy called demonetization to ferret out the money hoarders and their black wealth. The only way people could use the invalidated banknotes was to go to a bank, fill in a declaration form, and get an equivalent amount in newly issued 2000 rupee banknotes. Such high-denomination banknotes were very difficult to use in ordinary transactions because banknotes in the lower denominations were in acute shortage. People seeking to exchange their banknotes had to stand in lengthy queues, and several deaths were linked to the rush to exchange cash. Over a billion people suffered for several weeks while they waited for small-denomination banknotes to be available again for their daily use. I too had to wait in long queues in front of the ATMs to get some cash during the one or two hours the banknotes were available each day before they ran out.
The demonetization strategy was a total failure. The intent of the government was to “curtail the shadow economy and reduce the use of illicit and counterfeit cash to fund illegal activity and terrorism”. According to a 2018 report from the Reserve Bank of India, approximately 99.3% of the banknotes that had been demonetized were deposited with the banking system, leading analysts to state that the effort had failed to remove black money from the economy. According to data from income tax probes, black money holders kept only 6% or less of their wealth as cash, with most of their wealth held in the form of properties, bullion, and jewelry.
The reason I mentioned the above incident is that black money and counterfeit cash cannot be eliminated as long as the government has no absolute monitoring system for each individual’s transactions. Only digital money can do that.
Dictatorial-minded governments, or governments aiming for total surveillance of their citizens, will heartily welcome China’s decision. I expect my own country to follow its neighbor’s example in less than five years, and the global currency system to turn entirely digital, and all paper money to be totally abolished, within five to ten years.
The next phase, after total conversion of the world’s monetary system into digital form, will be the total control of how people use their money. For example, if anyone uses es money for an illegal purchase or a criminal activity, that transaction will not pass through, and the would-be criminal prosecuted.
The third phase, after the total monitoring of how money is used, will be the total control of who uses the money. For example, citizens who attend religious services that are not officially approved by the government will be penalized. Churches will have to abide by government regulations that contravene several of their traditional policies, including conducting LGBT weddings, not prohibiting gays from joining the clergy, teaching theistic evolution, submitting to the edicts of a world church council headed by the pope, or even illegalizing the Bible as the sole scripture for use in church services. All such control will be possible through the technology on which digital money is used. And that technology is called ‘blockchain’. Currently available digital money such as bitcoin and Ethereum use the blockchain system.
When blockchain-based currencies are firmly in place globally, it will usher in the reign of the Beast, who will control the whole world using this technology.
Now let me introduce you to George Gilder, a man whose technological predictions every Bible believer should take seriously. George Gilder is one of the world’s most prominent technology futurists. And with good reason. He accurately tipped President Ronald Reagan off that the microchip would change the world. Gilder then went on to become Reagan’s most quoted living author, and he received the White House Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence in 1986 from Reagan himself. He predicted the iPhone 13 years before its release. He forecast the death of cable TV – and the rise of Netflix – more than a decade before it existed. According to Forbes, “Few men or women in modern times have been so consistently farsighted in fathoming the future of high technology as George Gilder has been”.
Listen to what George Gilder says about the blockchain technology in his book ‘Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy’:
Disaggregated [become separated into smaller parts] will be Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft conglomerates…Even money itself is being disaggregated and reinvented. The clouds are dispersing into the skies – sky computing rendered on your laptop and smartphone, spread across blockchains.
Where will the use of blockchain technology ultimately lead to? Gilder concludes,
The final test is whether the new regime [blockchain system] serves the human mind and consciousness.
A world government is coming which will use the blockchain system, not to benefit the human mind, but to control and manipulate the people. Faithful Christians who will not submit to the evil regime of the Beast will not be able to buy or sell anything because their digital money is controlled by the mark – a microchip – implanted in the people’s forehead or right hand, which enables the authorities to monitor their every activity. God’s intervention to provide for his people miraculously during such a perilous time will be the only way Christians can survive until the return of their Savior.
Observant Bible believers have noticed the dramatic increase in supernatural events reported around the world. Sightings of UFOs by men in positions of government authority and abduction claims by many other people of credible reputation have been around for some decades. But in recent years the phenomenon of alien sightings has intensified to the extent that both the Catholic church and the US government have begun to admit not just the possibility but the probability of contact with aliens.
The greatest impact of the acknowledgment of UFO existence is on religion. And the major religions are coming to grips with the reality of alien life. The Vatican has officially stated its position on extraterrestrial life. According to one media report,
The Vatican has taken a leadership role in preparing mankind for the discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life…In essence the Pope is saying to the world, prepare yourself for the discovery of intelligent life in the universe’. educatinghumanity.com
This official statement from the Vatican is the beginning of many other preparatory works by churches and governments to ready themselves for the intervention of alien beings in earth’s affairs.
It is obvious that the church, in accepting the existence of aliens, has also to endorse evolution. And that is precisely what the present pope has done.
In his address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on October 27, 2014, Pope Francis said,
Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve…He created beings and allowed them to develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one, so that they were able to develop and to arrive and their fullness of being…And so creation continued for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until it became which we know today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or a magician, but the creator who gives being to all things.
This open declaration was welcome news for diehard evolutionists.
Giovanni Bignami, a professor and president of Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics, welcomed Francis’ statement, saying he had buried the ‘pseudo theories’ of creationists.
The pope’s statement is significant. We are the direct descendants from the Big Bang that created the universe. Evolution came from creation. Religion News Service October 27, 2014
The magnitude of the Pope’s statement and its impact on the syche of the masses is so profound it radically changes the way billions of Catholics and other Christians think of God, creation and the Bible. And it all adds up to one purpose: to prepare mankind, especially Christians, for the intervention of, and subsequent submission to, extraterrestrial beings.
It is important not to underestimate the magnitude of the Pope’s statement since it supports radical ideas of intelligent design such as extraterrestrial intervention in human history may be part of ‘the plan of the creator’…The Vatican’s astrobiology conference is yet one more sign that major global institutions are preparing for some kind of formal disclosure concerning UFOs and, or, extraterrestrial life…Numerous independent sources have predicted such disclosure is imminent, and that the Obama administration is expected to play a prominent role. examiner.com
In preparing the world for the disclosure, the Vatican has joined hands with secular forces such as the United Nations. In February 2008, the Vatican’s permanent representative to the UN, Archbishop Celestino Migliore met with a number of prominent government officials at secret meetings held at the United Nations to discuss increased UFO sightings and the implications of extraterrestrial visitation. These closed-door discussions reportedly led to a new policy of openness being adopted by approximately 30 nations.
And when do these organizations expect their first contact with the aliens?
‘It is not hyperbolic to suggest that scientists could very well discover extraterrestrial intelligence within two decades’ time or less, given resources to conduct the search,” Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute, said in testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
Two decades from now, as I write this, is 2034. This should be exciting news for Star Trek fans (I used to be one), for even in that farfetched sci-flick, the first contact with extraterrestrial beings was in 2063. So scientists are actually expecting the contact several decades head of the fictional date!
Why is the Vatican so earnest about contact with beings from other planets?
It is not surprising that the Vatican views preparation for discovery of intelligent alien life as an opportunity for gaining new recruits to the Christian faith. examiner.com
It is not just the Catholic church that is espousing alien life. Even Islam is not antipathetic to this idea. In an interview, Dr. Shabir Ally, President of the Islamic Information & Dawah Centre, Toronto, Canada, said.
We must allow for the possibility that they [intelligent extraterrestrials] do exist. The Quran actually is quite open to the possibility that many Earths do exist, because the first chapter of the Quran says: “Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds”. In fact, it says here Al-Alamin which is “The Universes” in the plural…So there could be many other sorts of creatures out there…So the Quran does say that God has created human beings in the best of molds, but it doesn’t mean that only humans have been created in this best form. At one time people may have thought only human beings were as such, because everything else they knew were inferior to human beings. But now, we can see that there is a possibility that other such beings like ourselves exist in other parts of the universe. onislam.net
The only faction of Christianity – probably, mankind – still resistant to the concept of intelligent beings other than man are those in evangelical Protestantism. But this can change soon. When the actual UFOs make their dramatic appearance over the skies in every nation and over every church steeple, rare indeed would be the individual – fervent evangelical or fiery pentecostal – who would continue to disbelieve in them.
US Coast Guard photograph of “flying saucers” over Salem in 1952. Source: Daily Telegraph
Films such as ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ and ‘Independence Day’ have already done their part in syching millions into a subconscious acceptance of such events in real life. Imagine this scenario:
One fine morning, you wake up to a lot of commotion outside your house. You look through your window and you see a huge crowd of people staring at the sky. You rush out and see what you never believed you would ever see in real life. Hovering high above the tallest buildings you see the base of a spacecraft a hundred meters in diameter. As the days pass, more and more alien sightings occur, and soon the first sightings of the alien beings appear on tv and then several of them come to your own neighborhood. The government issues directions for the public on how to respond to these visitors. Gradually, the whole world accepts the most astonishing event to happen on planet earth since creation – the appearance of beings from other planets.
A new world order would then begin to be put in place with the help of these alien beings. New government authorities would be supernaturally empowered by the aliens to rule with authority. A final world authority will arise with powers to institute global changes. Where the UN failed, the world ruler will succeed. Regional conflicts, wars, terrorism will come to a grinding halt. Mankind will be in awe and submit in totality to the world ruler. Helping to submit to the new power would be the churches and other religious institutions with their new breed of preachers and prophets. There will even arise a person in every religion who will claim to be the endtime ‘messiah’.
Only a very small fraction of people around the world will not submit to the world ruler because they have been alert to the Bible warnings of such events preceding the return of Christ. They are referred to as ‘the elect’. Even this small group of undeceived people are able to escape the delusions coming upon the whole world only because of God’s special protection over them; otherwise even the most ardent Bible believer would also be carried away by the extraterrestrial events.
For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Mt 24:24
The very first global indication of extraterrestrial interest in human affairs was when the crop circles began to appear mysteriously in many countries. For an interesting insight into the phenomenon of crop circles, please see my message ‘Crop Circles – The Biggest Supernatural Sign of Our Times‘.
Who really are these aliens who are making contact with us in increasing frequency? The Bible speaks of demonic forces that can appear as angels of light, or even as aliens from other planets.
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. 2 Cor 11: 13-14
Delusions by both ‘angels’ and ‘aliens’ will occur contemporaneously. The one will appeal to the traditional religionists, the other to the secular world. The outcome in each case is the same – submission to the coming world ruler whom the Bible calls the Beast.
Extraterrestrial and supernatural phenomena is occurring all over the world in such frequency and intensity that we can safely say that the present generation will witness awesome public interactions between man and alien beings.
And unless you are rooted in the Bible truths and daily praying for God’s protection over yourself and your loved ones, the day is coming soon that you will be swept away by the sooncoming tidal wave of supernatural and extraterrestrial events.
A 780 ft (240 m) crop circle in the form of a double (six-sided triskelion) composed of 409 circles. This crop circle noticed on Milk Hill in Wiltshire (Southern England) on August 13, 2001 is hailed as the most awesome ever made.
Crop circles are literally the biggest supernatural phenomenon of modern times – both in its physical dimensions and in its importance. For those who are new to this subject, I will first give a description of what crop circles are.
Crop circles are intricate patterns created by flattening of a crop such as wheat, maize, barley. They appear all over the world. A 2009 report gave the number of countries where this phenomenon exists at over 52, including Australia, China, Germany, Russia, Japan, USA, The Netherlands, Austria, Canada, Brazil, Romania, Hungary. Documented cases have substantially increased from the 1970s to current times and now number in the thousands. Formations usually appear overnight; local farmers wake up to find an entire field of wheat flattened. Some are reported to have appeared during the day, but there is not a single case of anyone witnessing how they are made, except when some hoaxers were creating one.
Many of the crop circles are hoaxes, produced by human pranksters, such as by dragging planks attached to ropes, but scientific authorities confirm that many others are of non-human origin. U.K. crop circle researcher Karen Alexander said,
There’s no doubt that some crop circles are made by people…But then there’s quite a large percentage for which origin is just unknown’, said Alexander, co-author of Crop Circles: Signs, Wonders, and Mysteries. National Geographic News
ABC News reported the investigation of the phenomenon by Colin Andrews, an electrical engineer who has studied and written about crop circles for more than 20 years. His conclusion: ‘I am totally convinced that we are looking at some form of intelligence.’ He came to this conclusion after his ‘investigations showed there were some circles in which the plants were not damaged at all but compressed to the ground and continuing to grow’.
As noted by a London businessman, Michael Glickman, ‘[If the circles are made by pranksters] They are erudite in geometry and drawing and proportion. They are capable of invisibility because they’ve never been seen or caught. They are capable of floating above the ground, because they’ve never left a track. What is their motive please?’
M. Night Shyamalan, director of the movie, Signs, which is based on crop circles, said that if they’re hoaxes, ‘it’s an interesting thing that everybody in all these countries seems to express themselves in the same way’.
Crop circle, Waylands Smithy, Oxfordshire. July 8, 2006
Over the last three decades, the formations have evolved from simple, relatively small circles to huge designs with multiple circles, elaborate pictograms, and shapes that invoke complex non-linear mathematical principles. A formation that appeared overnight on August 13, 2001 at Milk Hill in Wiltshire contained 409 circles, covered about 12 acres (5 hectares), and was more than 800 feet (243 meters) across. The sheer size and complexity of this formation is staggering. It has been estimated that hoaxers would have had to make one circle every 30 seconds during the night time hours in order to create this design!
And the phenomenon shows no signs of abating. Hundreds of new crop formations continue to be discovered in designs of growing sophistication and size which leaves no doubt that there is an unexplained force at work. More than 10,000 have been documented since records began. According to some estimates, crop circles appear overnight in farmers’ fields every week somewhere around the world.
A crop circle in Switzerland. July 29, 2007
Crop Circles and More is a research organization and website established by Bert Janssen to try to solve the mystery of this phenomenon. Janssen has been attempting to solve them for nearly 20 years now, and this is how he feels about them:
From my way of looking at it, crop circles are the greatest mystery of modern times. These are images or voices of light in a world that is void of it.’ cropcirclesandmore.com
Not only for crop circle researchers and extraterrestrial believers, I believe that for Bible believers too it is literally the biggest supernatural sign on earth today that we are living in the ‘last days’, and that we are most probably the very generation that will witness the end of this age and the return of Christ. We cannot know the day and time, but I think, just like we know that when the fig tree puts out its sprouts summer should come not in another one or two years but in the very year that it sprouts, even so we can say that when the prophesied endtime signs begin to appear, we can know it is ‘very near’, and the very generation that sees this sign will also be the generation that will witness the return of Jesus Christ.
“If they’re hoaxes, it’s an interesting thing that everybody in all these countries seems to express themselves in the same way.” Night Shyamalan
Now let me go on to make plain what these crop circles mean for you personally and what should be your attitude and response to them.
First of all, understand that the authentic crop circles are a sign from an unknown source. It is one of the sure signs that we are living in the end times.
Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?…And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven Mat 24:3,11
The signs are not from the ‘heaven’ where God’s throne is now, but from the ‘sky’, which is one of the three meanings of the original Greek word ouranos. It is the same word translated ‘air’ and ‘sky’ in the following verses:
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Mt 8:20
He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’ ” Mt 16:2
Crop circle, Savernake Forrest, Wiltshire. July 6, 2006
The other two meanings of ouranos are space or cosmos, where the planets are, and the heaven where God now dwells. The meaning depends on the context of the verse.
In this case, the signs have to be from sources in the sky or air, or in space because God cannot be the One forming the crop circles. And what are these sources in the sky or in space?
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Eph 6:12
‘heavenly places’ is translated from epouranios, which means ‘above the sky’, and is a derivative of the word ouranos
A close study of the design of the crop circles clearly show them of similar pattern to ancient pagan religious symbols.
The formations are universal symbols that have been used by various peoples throughout time… These geometric shapes are like hieroglyphs. The hieroglyphs and pictographs carved in stone on this planet are a similar generation of intelligence. phils.com.au
Crop circle, resembling a piece of jewelry. Chilbolton Radio Telescope, Hampshire, England. August 2000.
Most, perhaps, all, of these crop circles appear, not near churches or places of Godly fellowship, but close to ancient pagan worship or burial sites such as in Stonehenge and Avebury, Britain. Wiltshire – generally acknowledged as crop circle central – is littered with Stone Age monuments. They have also been found near mounds of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Many New Age groups incorporate crop circles into their belief systems.
‘Crop circles “like” ancient sites’, noted Karen Alexander, co-author of Crop Circles: Signs, Wonders, and Mysteries.
Crop circle patterns have a striking similarity to many pagan symbols such as found in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and in Eastern religions today. Interestingly, crop circles appear in countries where there is a significant population of people believing, or susceptible to belief, in the occult sciences, including astrology. Their appearance is closely tied to the general psyche or culture of the people. Wikipedia notes, ‘Circle crops are culture-dependent: they appear mostly in Western countries and Japan, but they don’t appear at all in Muslim countries’.
Why not the Muslim countries? Because Satan knows that the Muslims are forbidden to believe in anything that strays from their belief in Allah and what the Koran teaches. It is an absolute waste of time for Satan to try to convince a nation of daily-five-times praying citizens to take an interest in aliens and their messages.
But what about Britain and the other ‘Christian’ countries, where crop circles appear in the largest numbers? Don’t these nations have the Bible and believe in the Great God? Here is God’s own testimony about the people who officially are known as Christians:
Surely [Lord] You have rejected and forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled [with customs] from the east and with soothsayers [who foretell] like the Philistines; also they strike hands and make pledges and agreements with the children of aliens. Is 2:6 AMP
The House of Jacob refers to the descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel, who are now found mainly in the English-speaking countries and in some parts of Europe. More about their identities in other messages in this website.
The so-called Christian nations as a whole are as pagan in their attitude and culture as those in the Eastern religions. Only a small minority of people who call themselves Christian are truly Christians in God’s sight.
Crop circles are part of a great conspiracy by Satan to deceive the whole world by diverting people’s attention from the endtime events prophesied in the Bible to events that reinforce belief in ufos and aliens. The crop circles are actually coded messages from the demonic world, masquerading as contact attempts by aliens. At least one message has been decoded by researchers but what it refers to is not clear to the researchers yet. One of the communications from the unknown source is known as the ‘Arecibo Message Reply’.
The Arecibo Message that was sent in 1974 from the Arecibo Observatory.
The Arecibo Message Reply is perceived by researchers as a reply from an extraterrestrial intelligence in response to astronomers (including Carl Sagan) at Cornell University sending a short communication, named Arecibo Message, into space on November 16, 1974. The Arecibo Message was a binary coded sketch that had basic information about human beings and earth. It was sent out from the Arecibo Station in Puerto Rico, so thus its name.
Then, 27 years later, on August 14, 2001 – one day after the awesome Wiltshire crop circle appeared – a crop formation appeared that had unique properties in its design. It notably appeared next to the UK’s largest astronomical station. This crop formation had a recognizable human-like face. Then, on August 17, 2001, three days later, another crop circle near it appeared overnight in farmland next to the Chilbolton radio telescope; home to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) in Hampshire, UK. Many believe it is a reply to the Arecibo Message, and thus has been called the Arecibo Message Reply. With this ‘reply’, many are claiming that this crop circle is the first ‘contact in a series of communication’ with extraterrestrials.
Almost an exact year later, another astounding crop circle appeared overnight that depicted an Alien holding up a sort of CD Disk. The Disk appeared to have a binary code configuration. Crop researchers used image analysis to convert the binary sequences into ASCII. What came out of the coding was a very comprehendible message of five sentences in English as follows:
Beware of the bearers of false gifts and their broken promises. Much pain but still time. There is good out there. We oppose deception. Conduit closing.
The Arecibo Message Reply. 75 feet wide and 120 feet long. August 17, 2001
This is a significant message, for both alien-believers and Bible-believers. For people who are not familiar with Bible warnings about communications from another world, this message seems a benevolent warning to mankind. It seems to warn man of people who come preaching spiritual gifts and making date-specific prophecies that never come to pass. Who are these ‘bearers’? More than anyone else, I think of Christian preachers who have been prophesying, especially since the beginning of the 20th century, about the end of the world and the return of Christ. A quick search on the internet will show the numerous ‘broken’ prophecies of the past few decades.
I was once a member of a worldwide church founded by a man whose prophecies led many of his followers to prepare earnestly for the ‘end’. At least one member stacked up canned food in his trailer to live through the prophesied global famine. It is only because of God’s mercies that I was delivered from accepting any more false gifts and broken promises, and was shown where to go for gifts and promises that never fail. May this message reveal to you yet one more aspect of how you can be prepared for the coming of Jesus Christ, the bearer of true gifts and eternal promises.
The alien messenger purports concern for mankind’s suffering, but offers hope that it is still not too late to save the world, and that if mankind puts in enough effort they can still find enough good in the world to deliver themselves out of their escalating global problems. And then the Arch-Deceiver, to deflect any doubts that this message is from him, delivers a psychological tactic to thwart suspicion about the intent of this communication. Since this messenger opposes deception, people therefore can naturally trust all such future communications from this source.
Then the messenger closes his communication conduit, and now the deceived people would eagerly await the opening of his next channel of communication to bring them further light on coming world events.
And it is no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light 2 Cor 11:14 AMP
The ‘face’ crop formation. Chilbolton Radio Telescope. August 14, 2001.
The thousands of crop circles that have appeared so far have each a message of its own, but right now the messenger is not ready to reveal them yet to mankind. So why bother forming unexplainable crop circles now, and not when the messages are ready for revelation? Because then there would not be time enough to reveal them all at one fell swoop. What is probably going to happen is, in the coming years, researchers would find a way to decode the patterns of the crop circle and record each message. The thousands of messages thus decoded and recorded will be then be made available to mankind so that their minds can be set to accept the Satanic deceptions in the end times.
The circles and shapes being put on Earth are all connected to one another, and if they were written out simultaneously on some farmer’s field, something would happen to them immediately. These shapes hold intelligence and are being set up to eventually connect and make an intelligent gridwork around the planet. This gridwork will have a frequency that humanity can use to evolve. The whole language is not on the planet at this time. phils.com.au
And what could be the essence of this extraterrestrial revelation?
‘From my way of looking at it, crop circles are the greatest mystery of modern times. These are images or voices of light in a world that is void of it.’Bert Janssen, Crop Circles and More, a research organization
Just as Christ’s gospel is going out into all the world today through his true servants, an alternate gospel is being propagated by Satan’s servants with equal intensity in all the nations. Christ’s gospel includes a sequence of terrifying endtime events.
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come…Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect…Therefore if they say to you, ‘Look, He is in the desert!’ do not go out; or ‘Look, He is in the inner rooms!’ do not believe it…For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be…Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. Mt 24:14-29
Greater signs for both Bible believers and unbelievers are coming very soon. When believers see them, they will know that their Lord’s coming is imminent. But when the unbelievers see them, they will be convinced of the authenticity of all the messages they have been receiving through the crop circles and other media of alien communication. They will be prepped with these messages till the onset of the prophesied sights in the sky.
The messages will warn them of an invasion by alien enemies from outer space. And when the actual events preceding the coming of the Lord happen, the whole world will unify against the invading forces. Nations that have been warring against each other will now gather together at a place outside Jerusalem called the Valley of Megiddo, and there the battle called Armageddon will occur between Earth forces and the presumed invaders from space. Even Hollywood, with its films such as Independence Day and War of the Worlds, is playing an active part in syching people to respond as Satan wants them to at the coming of Christ.
You and your family need not be caught up in a false preparation for the endtime events as the rest of the world see it. Your God has given ample warnings for his own people on what they must do now and when these events take place. Now what our Lord expects us to do is to be alert to world events, including all the signs, even those from the global Deceiver.
But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour[ your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Mt 24:36-44
‘Alien with Disk’. 400 feet longer than a football field. 2002.
All the paranoia in the world today about UFOs and alien abductions will find its culmination among the deceived people when the actual disappearance of people occurs en masse in every nation. Two men…suddenly one disappears; two women…in a blink, one vanishes. Both abducted by aliens.
The alternative messages and awesome signs from the spirit world will be so convincing that even the people close to God and who are fully aware of his endtime prophecies could be deceived. However, God will provide his chosen people with supernatural discernment so that they will not be deceived.
For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand.’ Mt 24:24,25
O People of God, watch and heed. Know your Bible and what God’s Word says about the events leading to the coming of our Savior. Be watchful daily and pray often and earnestly for protection in these end times so you and your family will not be snared by the daily cares of this life but will be counted worthy to escape all these things which are going to come soon.
But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man. Lk 21:34-36
Nazis alongside members of the far-right reactionary and monarchist German National People’s Party (DNVP), in 1931 during the Nazi-DNVP alliance in the Harzburg Front.
The far-right politics refers to the social movement that ‘supports supremacy of certain individuals or groups deemed to be innately superior who are to be more valued than those deemed to be innately inferior’. The most extreme-right movements, such as the Nazis, have pursued oppression and genocide against groups of people on the basis of their alleged inferiority.
It was far-right politics in Germany that brought that nation to ignite the two World Wars.
Following the fall of Nazi Germany and the dissolution of the Nazi Party in 1945, the far-right in Germany quickly reorganized itself. The Deutsche Rechtspartei was founded in 1946, succeeded by the Deutsche Reichspartei in 1950, and several other parties. The currently most successful movement is the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). In the 2006 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election, the NPD received 7.3 percent of the vote and thus achieved state representation there.
The German government tried to ban the National Democratic Party in 2003, using a clause in the constitution outlawing neo-Nazi parties. But the Constitutional Court refused to hear the case because the government had infiltrated the party with informants. Insisting it rejected violence, the NPD won 5 percent of the votes in Saxony’s state elections in 2009.
In 2011, the Verfassungsschutz (Federal German intelligence) reported a total of 25,000 right-wing extremists in Germany, including 5,600 neo-Nazis. The Verfassungsschutz says that both the number of neo-Nazis and the potential for violent acts have increased, especially among the growing number of Autonome Nationalisten (‘Independent Nationalists’) who gradually replace the declining number of Nazi Skinheads.
In 1980, a 27-year old German named Gundolf Koehler exploded a bomb at the Oktoberfest in Munich, killing himself and 12 others. Documents were found on Koehler’s body linking him to the paramilitary Defense Sport Group (Wehrsportgruppe) led by Karl-Heinz Hoffmann, who saw himself as the ‘spiritual descendant’ of Hitler.
German neo-Nazis attacked accommodations for refugees and migrant workers in several towns in the early 1990s. Neo-Nazis were involved in the murders of three Turkish girls in a 1992 arson attack in Mölln. A 1993 arson attack by far-right skinheads on the house of a Turkish family in Solingen resulted in the deaths of two women and three girls. In 2000, ten immigrants, most of them Jewish, were injured in a bomb attack in Dusseldorf.
Beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Neo-Nazis started holding demonstrations on the anniversary of the Bombing of Dresden in World War II. The 2009 march was organized by Junge Landsmannschaft Ostdeutschland, which is supported by the National Democratic Party of Germany. In 2011 neo-Nazis were linked to ten murders.
Neonazi rally in Munich on April 2, 2005
German law forbids the production of pro-Nazi materials, although they have been smuggled into the country. But some German neo-Nazis use early symbols of the Reichskriegsflagge (the official name of the war flag used by the German armed forces from 1867 to 1945) predating the introduction of the Nazi swastika, and therefore are legal in Germany.
Neo-Nazi rock bands such as Landser have been outlawed in Germany, yet bootleg copies of their albums printed in the United States and other countries are still sold in the country. German neo-Nazi websites mostly depend on internet servers in the US and Canada. They often use symbols that are reminiscent of the swastika, and adopt other symbols used by the Nazis, such as the sun cross, wolf’s hook and black sun.
CNN says of the growing far-right movement: ‘For generations, politics in Europe has been defined in terms of class: the contest between left and right, socialists against conservatives or Christian Democrats. It is still the prevailing divide, but recent election results and the resurgence of far-right groups suggest the issue of identity is beginning to intrude.’
Does the Bible say anything about this movement? It does not mention the movement by name, but it vividly depicts the actions of this movement in the end times.
In a nutshell, the neo-Nazi party will soon emerge as the strongest party in Germany. Germany itself will lead a far-right union of ten European nations, which will sway world politics in its favor. An extreme-right ruler, whom the Bible calls the Beast, will then succeed where Hitler and Napoleon failed – attack America, Britain and their allied nations and lead them captive to other lands, as Assyria did to ancient Israel.
Keep watching the far-right movement in Germany, and Germany’s military rise on the world scene.
Watch also the rise of the far-right movement in Japan, which, as in Germany, is growing rapidly. Japan had allied with Germany against Britain in the last World War. Watch also the growing alliance between Germany and Japan.
The nationalist far-right group Ganbare Nippon stages a Senkaku Islands protest.
Preparations for the construction of the Third Temple in Jerusalem have begun in earnest. This event is among the surest signs that Christ’s return is imminent…very imminent.
The First Temple
There are three Temples in the lives of faithful Jews today. The First Temple, built by Solomon was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE – about 400 years after the Temple was constructed. Some seventy years later, approximately, Jewish exiles were allowed to return to Jerusalem to build an altar, the ‘Second’ Jewish temple, and finally the walls of the city. Although modest in comparison to the First Temple, the Second Temple was later greatly enlarged and expanded by Herod the Great. This latter temple was the Temple in which Jesus was dedicated, and where He taught and cast out the money changers on two occasions. The Second Temple was built on the site of the First Temple and was completed in 516 BCE. This Temple was also destroyed, this time during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.
The Second Temple
The destruction of the two Temples took place about 656 years apart, but on the same day in the Hebrew calendar – 9th Av. These two events were so tragic in the history of the Jewish people that the ancient rabbis declared the anniversary of the Temples’ destruction a day of mourning and fasting. This anniversary is known as Tisha B’Av, (meaning ‘9th of Av’), which is observed to this day in Israel. But there is another tradition that Jews have been observing daily up to the present day. They pray three times a day for the restoration of the Temple. Which means the Jews as a nation are eagerly awaiting the construction of the Third Temple in Jerusalem.
When I first received the news, about twelve years ago, that serious efforts were going on in Jerusalem to build the Third Temple, I was shocked. It seemed incredible news, that a certain pivotal prophecy in the Bible should begin to be fulfilled in my lifetime; for the building of the Third Temple is prophesied to occur just before the return of Christ. It was not the preparations for building the Temple itself that was the most incredible news to me, but the fact that this is probably the greatest of all signs that Jesus Christ is very probably coming in my generation, or surely in my children’s lifetime.
The New Testament contains one reference to a Third Temple in Jerusalem at the end of the present age.
for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Thes 2:3-4
In the Old Testament, there are several references to a future Temple in Jerusalem. In Ezekiel chapters 40 to 47 is given a detailed description of the architecture and dimensions of this temple. The new temple, which measures about 875 feet square, is much too large to fit on the present Temple Mount site. Ezekiel’s temple is also very different in many details from the previous two temples.
A model of the Third Temple, based on the prophecy in Ezekiel.
Some Jewish and Christian scholars think that the coming Third Temple will be followed by a Fourth or ‘Millennial’ Temple, which will be built by the Messiah when he comes.
Only a small number of Orthodox Jewish believers in Israel today believe that the coming Third Temple will be built by the Jewish Messiah when he appears. Groups such as The Temple Institute believe it is incumbent upon them to make all possible preparations in advance – and to build the Third Temple when the freedom to do so is gained…whether or not the Messiah arrives before or after a Third Temple is erected. The Temple Of Ezekiel’ by Lambert Dolphin – ldolphin.org
Now, how far have the preparations been made? Almost everything is ready to take off, including the foundation stones! All that is required now is for the Israeli government to give the green signal. Even the cornerstones for the temple are hewn and kept ready. Here are some media reports about what’s going on with regard to such preparations:
In l982, after years of disagreement about methods of approach, three groups of devout Jews, The Jerusalem Temple Foundation, To the Mountain of the Lord and The Faithful of the Temple Mount combined their forces to plan for and build the Third Temple. More recently The Temple Institute has begun to build the sacred vessels to be used in the Third Temple. templemount.org
Next week Israel’s Ministry of Religious Affairs will sponsor a first-ever Conference of Temple Research to discuss whether contemporary Jews are obligated to rebuild the Temple. However, several small organizations in Jerusalem believe the question is settled. They are zealously making preparation for the new Temple…Two Talmudic schools located near the Western (Wailing) Wall are teaching nearly 200 students the elaborate details of Temple service. Other groups are researching the family lines of Jewish priests who alone may conduct sacrifices‘ Time for a New Temple? Time, Oct. 16, ‘89
Has a red heifer been born in Israel? Israeli television and Hebrew newspapers recently reported that a red heifer was born at a village in Kfar Chasidim. The heifer, currently a year and a half old, has been meticulously checked by the local Jewish religious authorities with a magnifying glass in order to see if she is completely red…Ultra-orthodox have accepted this animal as a possible candidate for being the red heifer…A red heifer must be three years old before it can be sacrificed. After another year and a half, the heifer will be rechecked… Orthodox Jews strongly believe the birth of this red heifer is another definite sign that points to the soon coming of the Messiah and the rebuilding of the Temple. Southwest Radio Church letter May, 1997
One of the most exciting and very important finds was the recent discovery of a small golden bell that hung on the High Priest’s beautiful robe that he wore when he entered into the Holy of Holies inside the Holy Temple of the G-D of Israel…Together with the Golden Bell of the High Priest and other holy discoveries from the Temple that have been found, it is direct archaeological evidence of Jewish activity in the Holy Temple on the Holy Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the Second Temple Era. [The discoveries are] considered another clear call and timely message from the G-D of Israel to His People Israel: “Build my Temple on My Holy Temple Mount in Jerusalem now with no delay!” templemountfaithful.org
What does the Scripture say about the Third Temple, and does it say anything about yet another, a Fourth Temple?
The Bible says that when Christ comes, there would already be a temple existing in Jerusalem. And to this Third Temple he will make a sudden appearance.
Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple Mal 3:1
But prelude to Christ making his sudden appearance in the temple, the Beast (the coming ruler of the resurrected Roman Empire) will invade Jerusalem and place his ‘abomination of desolation’ in the holy place. He will place his pagan emblem in the temple, probably in the Holy of Holies, and stop Jews from offering their daily sacrifices..
And forces shall be mustered by him, and they shall defile the sanctuary fortress; then they shall take away the daily sacrifices, and place there the abomination of desolation. Dan 11:31
Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation’, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place Mat 24:15
The forces of the Beast will surround Jerusalem and make it a desolation.
But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. Mark 21:20
Great will be the suffering of the Jews once again at the hand of their enemies.
The end has come upon My people Israel; I will not pass by them anymore. And the songs of the temple shall be wailing in that day,” says the Lord GOD—“Many dead bodies everywhere, they shall be thrown out in silence.” ‘ Amos 8:2-3
It is while this suffering in desolated Jerusalem is happening that the Messiah will make his sudden appearance to save his people. Malachi 3:1
A great and devastating earthquake accompanies Christ’s landing in Jerusalem. (Zachariah 14:4-5) Some Bible commentators think that this Third Temple will be destroyed by this earthquake or at the desolation of Jerusalem by the invading forces. But I have not found a single scripture that gives even a hint of the destruction of the Third Temple. It is my understanding of the prophesied endtime events that before the Beast could destroy the temple, as his predecessors did to the First and Second Temples, the Messiah will intervene and stop any further devastation by his enemies.
For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem…Then the Lord will go forth go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. Zec 14:2-3
Once the Messiah returns to his temple and establishes his throne in Jerusalem, he will begin to expand the Third Temple according to the plan in Ezekiel chapters 40 to 47. This could actually be considered as the Fourth Temple, for the original structure of the Third Temple will pale to insignificance compared to the awesome new edifice that will built from it. I think perhaps only the Holy of Holies will be preserved from the old structure.
Behold, the Man whose name is the BRANCH!…he shall build the temple of the Lord; Yes, he shall build the temple of the Lord. Zec 6:12-13
But whether the Third Temple will be destroyed or not, and an entirely new Fourth Temple will be built by the Messiah, the Bible speaks of yet one more, a Fifth Temple that will be located on the very spot of the previous four temples. This final Temple will be very different from all the preceding Temples. For it will comprise not just one location – the whole of Jerusalem will be the Temple of God. And this city-temple will no more be constructed with human hands. God himself will personally do every bit of its construction work. Nor will it be constructed on earth, but in heaven. And when the construction is complete, it will make a glorious descent on earth, and the Throne of God will be located on the very spot where the Holy of Holies was located in the previous temples.
Then, I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men…But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. Rev 21:2,3,22
The Cornerstones for the Third Temple are ready
God’s people in all the nations should pray that if the Third Temple will be built in our generation, it may be done so in peace, and that any construction of the Temple would not offend the people of other faiths. In this regard, it may be relevant to note that the Second Temple was not a unilateral decision of the Jews, but was sanctioned by a non Israeli world power, Babylon. Similarly, a unilateral decision by Israel could lead it to severe conflict with the rest of the world. Perhaps, we may see the United Nations playing a pivotal role in the sanctioning of the construction of the Temple, after an agreement is made with the leaders of other faiths that have key interests in Jerusalem. Keep your eyes daily open to media news of what’s happening in Jerusalem. I don’t think we will have to wait much longer to find out how exactly the Temple will be built.
In the 1997 film ‘The Devil’s Advocate’, Satan, in the person of John Milton (played by Al Pacino), says to his victim, ‘Who, in their right mind, Kevin, could possibly deny the twentieth century was entirely mine?’
Who indeed? Has there ever been a century, since the Flood – in the advancement of its civilization, in its bloodshed, in its wickedness – like the 20th century?
This century was the bloodiest in all history. More than 170 million people were killed by governments with 10 million being killed in World War I and 50 million killed in World War II. In regard to the 50 million killed in World War II, it is significant that nearly 70 percent were innocent civilians…This number of 50 million deaths does not include the estimated 6 to 12 million Russians killed by Stalin before World War II, and the several million people he killed after the war ended when Roosevelt delivered to him one-third of Europe as part of the settlement conferences…the greatest tragedy of Western civilization erupted with World War I in 1914. ‘A Century of War ‘ by John V Denson
The only century ever – in the past and in the future of man’s history – that will greatly outdo the 20th in its horrors and global human suffering will be our present century.
On May 30, 2002, I was sitting in front of the tv and watching the ceremony to mark the official ending of the cleaning up of the world trade center site. A CNN news reporter was recounting his visit to the Twin Tower’s rubble soon after the fall, and a video clip of that visit was being shown. As he walked with his camera amidst the debris he saw a Bible with pages open under a piece of concrete. He focused his camera closer to the passage on the open page and the first thing he saw was the caption ‘The Tower of Babylon’.
All the viewers, including me, could see clearly that particular passage on the open page that was being telecast. The reporter then remarked he considered this a positive sign and that he felt God was involved and watching over the events. As for me, my thoughts were different. I was thinking then it was a sign that God considered the trade center as the tallest symbol in the world today of Babylon, the power or system described in the Bible as ‘the great harlot’ that rules over all the nations of the earth and that is drunk with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus. Rev 17:5,6
Another CNN news reporter said the ceremony marked the end of a dark chapter. I was thinking it marked the beginning of the darkest chapter in Western and Christian history.
As I watched the closing ceremony, I took the Bible and opened the pages at random and my eyes fell upon Jeremiah chapter 4 starting with verse 13 and upto 31. Coincidence or providence, what I read was astonishing in that it revealed exactly what are the other disasters that are going to happen to America and several other nations after this first 911 emergency call to them.
God certainly did not cause the Twin Towers to collapse and kill thousands, just as he is not going to cause the other greater disasters about to fall on those prophesied nations. He just is not going to anymore stop Satan from causing these disasters, as God has stopped so many times since the founding of these nations.
As that passage in Jeremiah prophesies what is going to happen to America and all other nations that are descended from the 12 tribes of Israel – the nations that profess themselves, even if nominally, to be Christian nations – it is vital that you understand what God’s Word reveals about these coming events. I shall quote these verses in Jeremiah and make them plain later in this message.
The Twin Towers was the loftiest symbol of the might and sway of the power that runs today’s society. This power is referred to in the Bible variously as ‘Babylon the great’, ‘the great city’, ‘the great harlot’. Babylon is ‘the great harlot with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication’ Rev 17:1,2; ‘that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth’ Rev 17:18; ‘Babylon the great…the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury’ (Rev 18:2,3); ‘the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth’ Rev 17:5.
This power controls – or in the least, greatly influences – the system that runs, every facet of society – the national and local governments, the trading, the businesses, the banks, the lifestyle, the entertainment, the education, and even all the religious institutions (except the true Church of God). And who is this controlling or influencing power?
‘All these authority [‘all the kingdoms of the world’] I will give you and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.’, said the devil to Christ who did not refute his statement. Lk 4:6
If one wants to be successful in Babylon, he has to be subject to and follow this system. God’s people today are subject to the laws of Babylon today, and that is perfectly ok, and in fact that is what God expects his people to do, unless some of those laws are in conflict with his laws, which, mercifully, is usually rare. (See Romans 13:1-7 on subjecting ourselves to the governing authorities.)
Realize that it is not the laws of Babylon that are the main problem for God’s people in this age, but the influence that the devil has over every facet of the Babylonian system that runs the global society.
The fall of the World Trade Center is the first direct warning sign to God’s people of the eventual total collapse of Babylon prophesied to happen in this very generation of ours – the generation that is already seeing many other signs of the end times happening around them.
Assuredly, I say to you, this generation [that sees these signs beginning to happen] will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Mt 24:34
Babylon the great is fallen…the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury…Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment is come. And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her Rev 18:2, 3,10,11
A CNN news reporter focused his camera closer to the passage on the open page and the first thing he saw was the caption ‘The Tower of Babylon’.
Before the total collapse of global Babylon – governments, economy, trade, religions, and all other facets of human civilization – human interaction, commerce, and knowledge will continue to increase at a dizzying rate of acceleration worldwide.
…the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase. Dan 12:4
When an ancient people pooled their knowledge and skills to build the first Tower of Babylon, progress became so rapid that God said, ‘the people are one…and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.’ Gen 11:6 Even so now, as the end of this age draws near, the synergized pool of global knowledge will make it possible of humans to achieve literally anything that they propose to achieve. And what are some of these proposals mankind has set themselves to achieve?
Probably the greatest of all man’s quests today is the creation of Artificial Intelligence (AI). More than space exploration, and more than any other technological innovation, AI – once man has achieved the breakthrough needed to manufacture it with a brain capability that exceeds that of man – will usher in a new world order more than any other past invention or event in human history. The point when this happens is referred to by scientists as ‘The Singularity’. The Singularity will be the tallest and mightiest of the sooncoming Towers of Babylon.
Here is what Ray Kurzweil, the well-known futurist and the most ardent of the Singularity proponents, says about this coming event:
By 2029…intelligent machines will combine the subtle and supple skills that humans now excel in with ways in which machines are already superior…By the mid-2040s, the nonbiological portion of the intelligence of our human-machine civilization will be about a billion times greater than the biological portion…So what will we do when our intelligence is in the range of a googol (numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros) calculations per second? One thing we may do is to engineer new universes Foreword to The Intelligent Universe by Ray Kurzweil
One of Kurzweil’s readers posted the following comment on this subject:
Our logic systems put us at the helm, as our own gods…maybe we are gods after all, baby gods only just now waking up to our true power.
That reader’s statement sums up the crux, the very core purpose of all of man’s great quests from the very beginning of history.
From the moment that Eve and Adam desired to become ‘like God’, Gen 3:5 mankind’s greatest desire and quest was to be in full control of the whole universe and to ‘engineer new universes’. It was this desire that propelled the ancient people to set up a tower in Babel that reached up to the skies. It is this unfulfilled desire that is driving man in all his technological progress and in all his space explorations. It is this innate driving force that is building the global towers of world trade and that, in our own generation, will culminate in the creation of a world government.
So what can we expect next of this generation as they continue to build their ultimate towers of Babylon?
In next couple of decades – based on Daniel 12:4 and on the present rate of knowledge growth, as well as on the predictions of AI scientists – technology, commerce, communication and transportation will see paradigmatic growths, aided by Artificial Intelligence that will far exceed human brain capabilities. You will see awesome global trade towers, both literally in concrete and globally in activity, rising in several nations. The World Trade Center edifice has fallen, but the spirit of the original Tower of Babylon is rising again – more magnificent and more towering than before. It was the Twin Towers before. Now it is the One World Trade Center, named aptly in faithfulness to their builders’ inherited desire to be one people (see Genesis 11:6). The 104-story One World Trade Center is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and the sixth-tallest building in the world, with its spire reaching a symbolic 1,776 feet (541.3 m) in reference to the year of American independence.
But as in the days of Noah, and as in the days of the original Tower of Babylon, God is once again going to look down upon earth, and intervene to save man from destroying himself. For that is the final outcome of all of man’s grandest dreams – his own total destruction. But for God’s merciful intervention at the first Tower, humanity would have become so wicked after a few generations (if we reckon the time it took for the degeneration of human nature from Adam to Noah’s civilization) that either they would have completely destroyed themselves, or God would have had to directly intervene to put an early end to their misery. Once again, when the final Tower of Babylon is built, God will have to intervene, or ‘no flesh would be saved’ Mt 24:22
But before God intervenes, he is going to allow man to continue with his grand plans for some time. Then, suddenly, just as the first World Trade Center fell when the whole nation was going about their daily lives as usual, all the majestic edifices of human endeavor are going to fall when least expected. This is coming upon a people that God chose above all other nations to be a righteous model to the Gentiles, but instead has become so depraved that even pagan nations are disgusted with the perverted ways of the ‘Christian’ nations. Eze 16:27
For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. 1 Thes 5:3
Ground Zero, World Trade Center
Now I would like to show you a passage that gives certain details of what will happen to America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and other English speaking nations, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Belgium, Switzerland, and a few others, collectively known as Jacob in the Scriptures. These are the most naturally, geographically, and materially blessed of all the nations on earth.
Before you read that passage, understand that the names Judah and Jerusalem in the present age refer respectively to the Christian nations and their cities. (For a detailed understanding of the identity of these nations, please read, ‘How to Understand Bible Prophecies for Today’ in this section).
Here is the passage in Jeremiah 4:
“O people of Judah and Jerusalem, surrender your pride and power. Change your hearts before the Lord, or my anger will burn like an unquenchable fire because of all your sins. Shout to Judah, and broadcast to Jerusalem! Tell them to sound the alarm throughout the land: ‘Run for your lives! Flee to the fortified cities!’ Raise a signal flag as a warning for Jerusalem: ‘Flee now! Do not delay!’ For I am bringing terrible destruction upon you from the north…Warn the surrounding nations and announce this to Jerusalem: The enemy is coming from a distant land, raising a battle cry against the towns of Judah. They surround Jerusalem like watchmen around a field, for my people have rebelled against me,” says the Lord…For I have heard the blast of enemy trumpets and the roar of their battle cries. Waves of destruction roll over the land, until it lies in complete desolation. Suddenly my tents are destroyed; in a moment my shelters are crushed…At the noise of charioteers and archers, the people flee in terror. They hide in the bushes and run for the mountains. All the towns have been abandoned – not a person remains!…The allies who were your lovers despise you and seek to kill you.” NLT
Presently unthinkable terrors and horrors are going to suddenly fall upon a people who have forsaken their true God and are living in such a state of depravity that Sodom’s and Gomorrah’s sins look mild in comparison. Mt 10:15
So great will be the suffering of these nations that both Daniel and Jesus prophesies that ‘there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time’; ‘there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be’. Dan 11:1; Mt 24:21
The suffering that’s soon coming upon the ‘Christian’ nations of the West, and subsequently upon the whole world, will exceed that of any previous century in human history. The 20th century, till now, was the most radical of all centuries in changing human behavior and attitudes.
The twentieth century was a period of radical departure from almost every previous area of human activity. Accelerating scientific understanding, better communications, faster transportation transformed the world in those hundred years more than any time in the past. It was a century that started with steam-powered ships as the most sophisticated means of transport, and ended with the space shuttle…Terms like ideology, world war, genocide, and nuclear war entered common usage and became an influence on the lives of everyday people. Wikipedia
The 20th century was also the most violent in history in the number of lives lost in wars. World War I started in 1914, inaugurating the age of total war. It was the first global war in history. And soon after, World War II, the second global war.
War reached an unprecedented scale and level of sophistication; in the Second World War alone, approximately 57 million people died, mainly due to massive improvements in weaponry…Arguably, the 20th century re-shaped the face of the planet in more ways than any previous century.’ ibid
According to Voice of the Martyrs,
More Christians have been killed for their faith in the 20th century than have been martyred in the total history of Christianity.
But if Daniel and Christ’s words are true, what’s coming in our lifetime will far exceed the horrors and sufferings of the 20th century in its darkest years. But, mankind, drunk with their technological marvels and the pursuit of mastering the universe, cannot foresee today the calamities that are coming upon themselves, although the signs are so clear to those who are willing to open their eyes and ears to God’s revelation in his Word. ‘He who has an ear, let him ear’, says your Savior. Mt 11:15
The horror of the twentieth century could hardly have been predicted in the nineteenth century, which saw the eighteenth century end with the American Revolution bringing about the creation of the first classical liberal government…The nineteenth century largely remained, in practice, a century of individual freedom, material progress, and relative peace, which allowed great developments in science, technology, and industry. ‘A Century of War’ by John V Denson
Humanity as a whole today, enjoying progress like never before, is oblivious to the warnings of God about the coming world events. But you need not be. You can be among those who have God’s promise of protection during the time of the greatest tribulation ever. When the towers begin to fall, you can be kept away in a safe place.
On September 11, 2001, the lives of thousands of people were spared because of unusual obstacles that stalled them. To mention a specific case: Joe Andrew, a Washington lawyer and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, had a ticket for seat 6-C on the ill-fated American Airlines flight 77 from Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles, but switched to a later flight at the last minute. ‘I happen to be a person of faith’, says Mr Andrew.
For hundreds of other people in the cities affected by the deadly terrorist assault, Tuesday morning turned out to be an incredibly ‘lucky’ time to oversleep, reschedule a meeting or take time off to sneak in a haircut. On that morning, there were scores of unexpected traffic delays, subway delays, and commuter train delays. A train packed with commuters was stopped at a signal just short of the WTC and was able to return to Jersey City. The four flights together could accommodate more than 1,000 passengers, yet there were only 266 aboard on that day. Of the more than 50,000 people who worked in the two towers, only 20,000 were at their desks on September 11. The two towers held up for a half hour, enabling many people inside them to escape. Finally, the towers fell inward rather than topple over, which would have killed far more people. The foundations of six surrounding buildings were demolished by the fall of the towers, but the buildings held up for enough time for all the occupants to be safely evacuated.
Possibly, many of those who escaped might have done so by sheer luck, for ‘time and chance happen to them all. For man also does not know his time: like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them.’ Eccl 9:11,12 But if God’s promises to deliver the people who put their trust in him in the time of disaster are of any value, then he must have delivered his people out of, or prevented them from entering, the World Trade Center site.
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty…He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge…You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow [or bullet, or plane] that flies by day…Nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday [or at 9:59 a.m., or at 10:28 a.m.].
A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you…Because you have made the Lord…your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you…For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ Ps 91:1-12
And just before the final collapse of all of Babylon’s global majestic towers, God is going to say to the people who have taken refuge under his wings,
Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; Hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation is past. Is 26:20
I remember reading Billy Graham’s book ‘World Aflame’, when I was a young man, about the coming judgment of God on earth. I don’t remember now what he wrote of America, but I have with me the following quote of his wife, Ruth, who after reading a chapter in that book about the extremely sinful life of the people, told her husband: “Billy, if God doesn’t come soon and bring judgment upon the United States, He’s going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah!”
Of course, God can never do something that would require an apology from him later. He is the same today in every aspect as he was thousands of years ago. If the same sins of Sodom and Gomorrah are committed in any land, would God let it continue in its horrible state when he didn’t in the case of those two ancient cities? Judgment day on immoral America seems actually past its due time, but that day is hastening faster upon this sick nation than a locomotive accelerating full steam down a hill not knowing the tracks end suddenly halfway down.
In fact, God himself calls the extremely sinful cities of America by the names of Sodom and Gomorrah. In his eyes, these cities have already turned into Sodom and Gomorrah, not merely on their way to becoming doomed like the ancient cities.
Hear the word of the Lord, You rulers of Sodom; Give ear to the law of our God, You people of Gomorrah Is 1:10
They commit adultery and walk in lies; They also strengthen the hands of evildoers, So that no one turns back from his wickedness. All of them are like Sodom to Me, and her inhabitants like Gomorrah. Jer 23:14
The look on their countenance witnesses against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom; they do not hide it. Is 3:9
Does any city elsewhere in the world declare its people’s sexual sin so blatantly and unabashedly like the cities in America, where they have regular sodomite and lesbian parades (or ‘gay pride marches’, to use the politically correct term), and where, such as in Hollywood, pretty women have no hesitation in stripping themselves bare for audiences around the world to gaze upon their nakedness? America does not know how to blush anymore.
Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; Nor did they know how to blush. Jer 6:15
And because the nations that God had revealed himself to choose to be unfaithful to him and live like harlots and sodomites, and have no shame for their perversions, God will turn away from his people in disgust, and the nations that do not have the true God will strip America naked of all its beauty and wealth.
She revealed her harlotry and uncovered her nakedness. Then I alienated Myself from her Eze 23:18
surely, therefore, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved, and all those you hated; I will gather them from all around against you and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness. Eze 16:37
Judgment is coming upon America. And with greater intensity of punishment than it was for the perverted ancient cities.
The punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, with no hand to help her! Lam 4:6
In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, God directly rained down destruction upon them. In the case of today’s evil cities, God is bringing his judgment upon them in another way – in a quick succession of nationwide calamities. This phased destruction of America is brought about by God’s not intervening to protect his people as he has been doing for hundreds of years since America and other Bible-holding nations were founded!
The Western world is crumbling in all areas of its society, including its economy. The US economy came to the verge of collapse at least twice in the past, but recovered amazingly. The few economists who had understood what was happening and tried to warn the nation were derided by the great financial institutions and venerable economists. These few economists are now warning the nation again…of total economic collapse.
In the video, ‘The Aftershock Survival Summit’, produced by Newsmax media, famed economist and bestselling author Robert Wiedemer, exposes harsh economic truths and gives a dire financial warning to America. The video was so disturbing and controversial that various online networks repeatedly shut it down.
In 2006, Wiedemer and his team of economists accurately predicted the four-bubble meltdown in the housing, stock, private debt, and consumer spending markets that almost sunk America.
In Aftershock Survival Summit, Wiedemer cites the unthinkable – disturbing evidence and financial charts forecasting 50% unemployment, a 90% stock market collapse, and 100% annual inflation.
S&P calls Wiedemer’s work ‘a compelling argument for a chilling conclusion. [His] track record demands our attention’. Aftershock Survival Summit is available free from Newsmax. Just google it.
Another market analyst and author, David Skarica, has warned that Americans’ investments soon could become insolvent, unless they acted immediately. Skarica is no ordinary market guru. He has a track record of being accurate time and again on major market moves. He accurately predicted the housing market meltdown, the liquidity crisis, the stock market crash (and the 10-year bear market of the 2000s), and even the market rebound of 2009-2010, which he says is ‘a phantom rally’.
But does corporate America as a whole believe the dire predictions of these prescient economists. Not in the least, judging from the news media. The US and the rest of the western world will continue in their present economic lifestyle until the bubble bursts again, as it did in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Only this time, the collapse will not be confined to just the economy.
Ancient Israelites (kinky haired) being taken captive by the Assyrian army at Lachish – relief found in his palace at Nineveh, located in modern day Iraq.
The destruction of America will occur in phases. It will begin with the absolute collapse of morality in the nation as a whole. Homosexuality and other perversities will become so rampant and open in every city that the few righteous people there will be forced to immigrate or move out to safer places.
Next, or along with moral collapse, will be economic calamity. A nation weakened morally and economically is an easy target for her enemies, who will suddenly attack her. Nuclear devastation will cause mass famine and plagues that will bring inconceivable suffering to all the people. Many passages in the Bible give a graphic account of what will happen when these calamities befall America and the other nations. My coming messages will expound all those prophecies.
To summarize the prophecies in one sentence, the nations of Christian descent that have turned their back on God will go through three and a half years of war, famine, plagues, and captivity such as no nation in history had gone through before, nor will any nation suffer such intensity of terrors ever again.
For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. Mt 24:21
In World War II, millions of Jewish men and women were made to march naked to the concentration camps and thence to the gas chambers. The Germans who did that to the Jews are the descendants of the very people who carried off ancient Israel as slaves to other countries. And it is a custom of this Aryan race to humiliate their captives by making them – men and women and children – march stark naked to their doom.
so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians as prisoners and the Ethiopians as captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt Is 20:4
The generation that is today witnessing many of the prophesied endtime events taking place will also see tens of millions of people from the nations that comprise modern ‘Jacob’ marching naked to the enemies’ lands. (The identity of “Jacob’ and other nations mentioned in the prophecies will be made plain to you as you continue to read the messages in this book and in my website.)
Now then, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord! Thus says the Lord God: “Because your filthiness was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your harlotry with your lovers, and with all your abominable idols, and because of the blood of your children which you gave to them, surely, therefore, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved, and all those you hated; I will gather them from all around against you and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness. Eze 16:35-37
Pass by in naked shame…But disaster came down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem. Mic 1:11-12
Jewish women, some holding babies, forced to strip naked, awaiting ‘showers’ at a German concentration camp.
If you are living in one of those nations that have played the harlot against their Maker, then God calls out to you,
And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. Rev 18:4
Of course, God is not speaking about your coming out of these nations physically. (God will do that miraculously and take you to a physical place of safety later, just before Christ returns.) He means that you come out of her system, out of her sinful ways. Don’t take a passive or neutral attitude on issues that are not neutral in God’s sight. Keep yourself and your family far from everything that compromises your faithfulness to your God.
God’s judgment is coming first upon the nations that he chose to first give his Word to. Instead of using the Bible to guide their ways and become a light to other nations, the chosen nations instead have become so corrupt and filthy that even the pagan nations that do not know the true God of the Bible despise her for her vile character.
Remember the days when you were putting on airs, acting so high and mighty, looking down on sister Sodom? That was before your evil ways were exposed. And now you’re the butt of contempt, despised by the Edomite women, the Philistine women, and everybody else around. But you have to face it, to accept the shame of your obscene and vile life. Eze 16:56-58 MSG
After the judgment of America and the other nations of Christian heritage, God will judge the entire world.
Watch national and global events in the light of Bible prophecies. And as you watch, pray fervently and daily that you and your family will be counted worthy to escape all those prophesied things that are coming and stand before the Lord when he comes.
Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape ALL these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man. Lk 21:36
‘But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come’2 Tm 3:1
Many, if not most, Christians believe that we are living in the ‘end times’ just preceding the return of Jesus Christ. The signs are too globally evident for any discerning Bible believer to overlook them or take them lightly. What are the most obvious of these ‘signs of the end times’ today?
Perhaps the most observable changes on the earth today are those related to the climate. Earth’s weather patterns – which have remained basically unchanged since the Flood of Noah’s time – have turned so ominous in recent times that obscure and even normally obdurate nations are giving their full attention to doing something to avert the consequences of climate change.
Personally, I am experiencing in my native land today a monsoon season gone awry. Ever since I can remember from childhood, until about three or four years ago, the monsoon was a very predictable event in the lives of the people of my country. Schools in the state where I live reopen for the new academic year on the first working day of June. As kids prepare to leave their homes on the first day, the skies too begin their preparation for the new season. And as the students leave their homes for school, the monsoon breaks heavily upon them. If it didn’t on school reopening day, then surely it fell on the kids the next day, but rarely beyond that.
Now the monsoon comes whenever it does and has no relation whatever to school reopening day. There may be sporadic rains one or two months before June and for a few months after that. Gone are the heavy downpours that used to last for hours at a stretch. Gone is the systematic annual flooding of the roads, stopping all traffic for several days, from the overflowing river nearby.
What’s happening to the climate in my native land is a minor inconvenience compared to what’s happening to weather patterns on a global scale. All governments now know that drastic steps have to be taken if they want to escape the worldwide calamities arising from the greenhouse effect.
The tsunami of 2004 December was probably the greatest flood, in terms of its global scope and of the lives it took, since the days of Noah. And that tsunami, in which over 225,000 people perished, was just a beginning.
It is not just the prophecy preachers who are predicting more tsunamis and other calamities around the world. Some time ago, a group of scientists researching the changing climate’s effects on geological hazards met at a conference on Climate Forcing of Geological and Geomorphological Hazards in London. The researchers predicted more frequent and violent earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and tsunamis as global warming affects the earth’s crust.
The researchers concluded that Mother Earth is so sensitive that ‘even slight changes in weather and climate can rip the planet’s crust apart, unleashing the furious might of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and landslides’. Even human attempts to stall global warming could trigger a catastrophic event, they say.
Perhaps the greatest geological hazards during climate change will be the result of melting ice sheets, the scientists warn. Apart from the risk that loose sediments exposed by melted ice could slip into the sea as tsunami-generating landslides, the removal of heavy ice could also trigger volcanic eruptions.
Jesus said that just preceding his second coming the seas and the waves will roar (tsunamis come with a terrifying roar) with such magnitude that people who witness them will faint.
And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth Lk 21: 25-26
Earthquakes
Earthquakes are increasing in frightening frequency. Look at this statistic from the US Geological Survey:
Number of earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 and greater:
1983 to 1900 – 38 years – 12
1901 to 1983 – 38 years – 53
1939 to 1976 – 38 years – 71
1976 to 2010 – 34 years – 167
2011 to 2016 – 6 years – 102
Since 1997 the frequency has increased tremendously. For example, between 1986 and 1996, a period of 11 years, there were just 15 earthquakes listed by USGS of magnitude 7.0 or greater. This is not markedly different from previous similar periods of 20th century, where an average of about 18 might be expected. But between 1997 and 2007, a period of only 11 years, there were 99 earthquakes with magnitude 7.0 or greater. This is more than a 6-fold increase on the previous similar period. And then from 2011 to 2016, there were 102 earthquakes in just 6 years, more than in the 11 years between 1997 and 2007! The increase is frighteningly exponential.
Famine
Famine death in Kharkov, Russia, 1933.
In his article, ‘The Century of Famine’ Peter Goodchild, says:
Without ample, free-flowing petroleum, it will not be possible to support a population of several billion for long. Famine caused by petroleum supply failure alone will result in about 2.5 billion above-normal deaths before the year 2050; lost and averted births will amount to roughly an equal number.
In terms of its effects on daily human life, the most significant aspect of fossil-fuel depletion will be the lack of food. ‘Peak oil’ is basically ‘peak food’. Modern agriculture is highly dependent on fossil fuels for fertilizers [one of the processes for manufacturing fertilizers involves combining natural gas with atmospheric nitrogen], pesticides, and the operation of machines for irrigation, harvesting, processing, and transportation. Without fossil fuels, modern methods of food production will disappear, and crop yields will be far less than at present. Crop yields are far lower in societies that do not have fossil fuels or modern machinery. We should therefore have no illusions that several billion humans can be fed by ‘organic gardening’ or anything else of that nature…Over the next few decades, therefore, there will be famine on a scale many times larger than ever before in human history…
The news of the coming famine might not be announced with sufficient clarity. Famines tend to be back-page news nowadays, perhaps for the very reason that they are too common to be worth mentioning. Although Ó Gráda speaks of ‘making famine history’, the reality is that between 70 and 80 million people died of famine in the twentieth century, far more than in any previous century.
Drought
In ‘Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning’, George Monbiot writes:
Many parts of the world, for reasons which have little to do with climate change, are already beginning to lose their water. In When the Rivers Run Dry, Fred Pearce, who is New Scientist’s environment consultant, travels around the world trying to assess the state of our water resources. He finds that we survive today as a result of borrowing from the future.
The great famines predicted for the 1970s were averted by new varieties of rice, wheat and maize, whose development is known as the ‘green revolution’. They produce tremendous yields, but require plenty of water. This has been provided by irrigation, much of which uses underground reserves. Unfortunately, many of them are being exploited much faster than they are being replenished…
Roughly half the world’s population lives within 60 kilometers of the coast. Eight of the ten largest cities on earth have been built beside the sea. Many of them rely on underground lenses of freshwater, effectively floating, within the porous rocks, on saltwater which has soaked into the land from the sea. As the freshwater is sucked out, the saltwater rises and can start to contaminate the aquifer. This is already happening in hundreds of places. The worst case is the Gaza strip, which relies entirely on underground water which is now almost undrinkable. As the sea level rises as a result of climate change, salt pollution in coastal regions is likely to accelerate.
As these two effects of climate change – global drying and rising salt pollution – run up against the growing demand for water, and as irrigation systems run dry or become contaminated, the possibility arises of a permanent global food deficit. Even with a net food surplus, 800 million people are malnourished. Nothing I could write would begin to describe what a world in deficit – carrying 9 billion people – would look like.
For God’s people to have a glimpse of how horrific the coming famine would be, the Bible gives an example: It is so shocking and sickening I don’t wish to describe it here, but I urge you to read it in the following passages and plead with God to spare your nation from such a situation: 2 Kings 6:25-29; Deuteronomy 28:53-57; Leviticus 26:26,29
Israel sinned and received all these curses as a result, which had been prophesied. The nations that have the Bible but have cast God and His Word behind their backs will suffer even more than the ancient people of God who forsook him.
When the great droughts and ensuing famines happen and millions of people will be starving to death around the world, God promises to supply bread and keep alive those who look to him for protection during these evil days.
Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. Ps 33:18-19
Diseases
First, a look at what the Bible says about the world scenario when pandemics sweep through every continent.
Let’s start with what is probably the most widespread pandemic in the world today: obesity and overweight. According to a WHO report, globally there are 1.6 billion overweight adults (age 15+), with at least 400 million being obese. WHO projects that 2015, approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese.
While obesity itself may not be looked upon as a deadly disease, it is the diseases that obesity is directly responsible for that are the dangers. Anybody who is overweight stands at great risk of several chronic diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke. WHO projects that diabetes deaths will increase by more than 50 percent worldwide in the next 10 years!. Another disease that overweight causes is cancer, especially of the uterus, breast, and colon. Children who are obese are at risk of premature death and disability in adulthood.
Overweight was once considered a symptom of an affluent society, not a problem encountered commonly in the poor and developing nations. That has changed and overweight and obesity are now dramatically on the rise in the low and middle-income countries.
An overlooked sign of the end times is the calories consumed by people worldwide. As the world heads towards the prophesied cataclysmic end, an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended will grow each year. People will continue to increasingly consume energy-dense foods that are high in fat and sugars but low in vitamin and other vital nutrients. Fast food will become faster and slow-cooked meals will become rarer. Keeping pace hand in hand with the consumption of junk food will be decreased physical activity and increased sedentary work. And so, far more overweight, far more increase in its related diseases and far more deaths in every country.
Animal-borne diseases
Animal-borne epidemics are already out of human control.
For centuries, humans have been afflicted with diseases that originate in animals. Many of the agents responsible for epidemics throughout human history have their origins in animals: tuberculosis, influenza, bubonic plague, food-borne illness, and AIDS. Episodes of animal-borne diseases, also referred to as zoonotic diseases or zoonoses, are increasing around the globe. Exotic sounding ailments, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), monkeypox, mad cow disease, Lyme disease, and chronic wasting disease(CWD), have been capturing global headlines. Some scientists expect the rise in zoonotic disease episodes to continue.’ healthyamericans.org
Even the most advanced nations are not equipped to prevent and control these diseases. In the US, for example, there is no coordinated effort or a single federal agency with the command and control responsibility for managing this growing health problem.
In India, I had a harrowing experience when H1N1, or swine flu, fear swept through the nation. I happened to be in an unfamiliar city for a few days during this time. Surgical masks were selling faster than hot chapattis as people frantically tried every means possible to protect themselves. While in the grip of this fear myself, I started getting the first symptoms of this deadly horror. But for this fear, I would have treated my symptom as those of a normal cold or a seasonal flu. But, no, public warning posters everywhere, urgent radio and tv announcements, daily newspaper coverage of new cases of swine flu, and the sight of masked people walking on the streets, send me as fast as a vehicle’s wheels could take me, to the nearest hospital that had advertised itself as swine flu detection center. They weren’t dealing with it anymore and directed me to another, where I met the same response. Finally, I landed in a government hospital and joined a large crowd of people in a similar situation as mine waiting outside the hall where the detection tests were being done. But it was already too late for us. The day’s visiting time was over, and we had to return the next day. But one frantic mother wasn’t giving up. She was pleading pathetically for the hospital staff to just treat one more case – her little child. I don’t know if the child was taken in, but I returned shocked at the inadequacy of a nation to deal with an emergency situation for a good percentage of its billions of citizens.
As for me, I was told that I had to fill in a long application form, submit corroborating documents with it, stand in queue of hours and then perhaps I might be lucky the next day to have the test taken. Now this was only for the test to see if I had contracted swine flu – not the treatment for swine flu, which did not exist. I decided that was better to risk out my symptoms than go through the futile efforts in getting some futile government attention. By God’s grace, my symptoms started receding soon, and a couple of days later, I was fleeing back to my native land. But in my mind, the vision of what’s going to happen in the sooncoming years in each city around the world was strongly etched by what I experienced in that city in India.
Humans who come in contact with infected animals risk contracting a zoonotic disease that the animal may be carrying. The opportunities for such contact are growing steadily. Human and farm animal populations are increasing around the world, and in some areas like Southeast Asia, this is bringing more humans and animals into close contact. People are moving into parts of the world where humans have never lived before, exposing themselves to unknown infectious agents.
Air travel and cargo ships allow an infectious person or animal to reach far-flung parts of the globe in less time than the incubation period of many pathogens. The monkeypox virus entered the US through imported Gambian giant rats sold in the nation’s under-regulated exotic pet trade. The rats infected pet prairie dogs which are kept as pets, which passed the virus along to humans. The outbreak sheds light on the lack of coordinated federal oversight to prevent future zoonotic disease outbreaks, as well as the confusing state and federal laws that govern exotic pet trade…The spread of infectious disease, not just human-to-human, but also animal-to-human, knows no boundaries.’ ‘Animal-Borne Epidemics Out of Control: Threatening the Nation’s Health’, published by Trust For America’s Health.
War
The Encyclopedia Britannica says that the Thirty Years’ War which ended in 1648 was “the most horrible military episode in western history prior to the 20th century”. Cautious estimates say that about 7 million died in the Thirty Years’ War. When we come to modern times we find that World War I (1914 to 1918) in just over 4 years killed approximately 20 million people. But only 21 years later World War II began (1939 to 1945), resulting in the loss of 62 million lives, triple the loss of World War I, while the monetary costs quadrupled from an estimated $340 billion to an estimated $4.5 trillion. There can be no question that there has been a great increase in the intensity of warfare.
It has been calculated by a former president of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, aided by historians from England, Egypt, Germany, and India, that since 3600 BC, over 14,531 wars have been waged in which 3,640,000,000 people have been killed.
Since World War II there have been at least 12 limited wars in the world, 74 rebellions for independence, and 162 social revolutions, either political, economic, racial or religious.
From these figures it is easy to see that wars and revolts have greatly increased. For example, during the 5,500 plus years since 3600 BC, an average of about 657,000 people died as a result of war per year (including WW I and WW II). Whereas, if we average the 82 million deaths of WW I and WW II alone using the entire 100 years of the 20th Century we arrive at an average of 820,000 deaths per year from war. This is not counting the deaths from the over 260 other wars, rebellions and revolutions of the 20th Century.
Today at least 35 nations have nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia alone having a total of 12,000 strategic nuclear warheads and about 48,000 smaller tactical nuclear weapons. The combined total of both superpowers nuclear power equaling a total of about 1,350,000 Hiroshima size bombs! Many people are worried that nuclear warheads can reach any part of the globe within 30 minutes, and that the superpowers have stockpiled enough nuclear explosives to equal 300 pounds of TNT for every man, woman, and child on earth. ‘Are Wars Increasing?’- Real-World-News.org
Increase in knowledge and global traffic
The increase in knowledge and traffic in our modern age was predicted in Daniel 12:4.
But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.
The incredibly dramatic increase in mankind’s fund of knowledge since the late 19th century onwards has been going hand in hand with the increase in global travel and transportation, and vice versa. That is, the more people travel, the more knowledge increases and is spread, and the more it increases the more people run to and fro to dissipate it.
Population increase is ‘exponential’. It does not increase in the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 order; it explodes in the 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 order. That word is even more applicable to the increase in knowledge today, especially technology, the progress of which has been defined by Moore’s Law (‘The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years’). Futurists such as Ray Kurzweil believe that the exponential improvement described by Moore’s law will ultimately lead to a technological ‘singularity’: a period where progress in technology occurs almost instantly, the time when current global trends go wildly off the charts and technological changes ‘become so rapid that we cannot possibly envision its results’.
I urge God’s people everywhere to understand more about this sooncoming ‘singularity’ so they can be prepared for it.
We in this generation have already entered a new era. Levels of intelligence far greater than our own are evolving rapidly right today. Machines are increasingly exceeding us in the performance of more and more tasks, from guiding objects like missiles or satellites to assembling other machines. They are merging with us ever more intimately and are learning how to reconfigure our biology in new and significantly faster technological domains.
When the singularity happens – scientists expect it to happen between 2020 and 2040 – technology will have advanced beyond the human mind and it will be machines then, and not people, which will be the source of new inventions. At that point, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be responsible for creating new breakthroughs with minimal human input.
By the 2040s, when nonbiological intelligence will have soared past the capability of the human brain, machines will be a billion times more powerful than the 10^26 computations per second that all biological humanity represents. Artificial intelligence in certain computers is already more complex than a human brain and has surpassed the 20-petahertz threshold for potential intelligence. In 10 years, it will be everywhere. It’s already a short step to computer systems that make better decisions than corporate managers do, say scientists.
When the singularity happens, there will be radical transformation in the way people work and relate to each other. The sudden explosion in machine intelligence, along with the rapid innovation in gene research and nanotechnology, will result in a world where there is no distinction between the biological and the mechanical, or between physical and virtual reality.
Kurzweil says that by 2019 the current rate of technological progress will ultimately result in most routine jobs in the economy being automated via technologies such as robotics and specialized artificial intelligence and that this will cause significant unemployment, as well as a drastic decline in consumer demand and confidence, possibly precipitating a major global economic crisis.
At some point in the next decade, as machines become smarter than people, humans will get fitted with smart biochips, wearables, and other enhancements. What happens when people and machines converge into a mass-mind superintelligence?
The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, which convenes the annual Singularity Summit to coordinate and educate scientists and other concerned individuals on the challenges facing humanity, asks these disturbing questions: ‘How will near-human and smarter-than-human AIs act towards humans? Why? Are their motivations dependent on our design?’
The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Albert Einstein
Says scientist Damien Broderick: ‘We will live forever; or we will all perish most horribly; our minds will emigrate to cyberspace, and start the most ferocious overpopulation race ever seen on the planet; or our machines will transcend and take us with them, or leave us in some peaceful backwater where the meek shall inherit the Earth. Or something else, something far weirder and.unimaginable.’
And where do God and his prophecies come in this emerging world order? Surely Bible prophesies could not have overlooked the ‘Singularity’ – considered by secular minds to occur soon as the single greatest event in human development history. Begin to read the prophecies in the Bible in the light of the new understanding you have gained about this subject.
Human behavior
But more than any of the preceding signs of the end times, the most frightening is the change in human behavior.
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 2 Tm 3:1-4 KJV
The Amplified Bible is more lucid:
But understand this, that in the last days will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal with and hard to bear]. For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive (blasphemous, scoffing), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane. [They will be] without natural [human] affection (callous and inhuman), relentless (admitting of no truce or appeasement); [they will be] slanderers (false accusers, troublemakers), intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good. [They will be] treacherous [betrayers], rash, [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God.
The word ‘perilous’ is translated from the Greek word ‘khalepos’. This word is defined in the Bible Greek Lexicon as ‘fierce, hard to bear, dangerous, savage’. This is the same Greek word used to describe the demon-possessed man of the Gergesenes.
And when He arrived at the other side in the country of the Gadarenes, two men under the control of demons went to meet Him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce and savage that no one was able to pass that way. Mt 8:28 AMP
In the verse about perilous times, Paul was not referring to just wicked men, or people in some places but to mankind in general – ‘For men shall be lovers of their own selves…’. The average man’s life will be marked by increasing insensitivity to the needs and sufferings of others. The average godless man will be fierce and dangerous. Streets in every nation will be filled with people who are walking pressure bombs. You can never tell when they will explode at you.
People of God, you are living in fierce times which have already fallen on this world as never before in history. And the frightening truth is that this fierce times is getting more perilous day by day.
As the end draws near, you will hear of and see with your own eyes hate among men increasing. Men will be less and less tolerant of others. Brutal acts will increase in the intensity and scope of their brutality.
The most tragic aspect of the hate and violence of the end times will be in the family. Men and women will continue to marry in greater numbers, only to divorce soon in almost equal numbers. The hearts of the fathers will turn away from the hearts of the children. Natural paternal love will decrease. Children of ungodly families will grow increasingly abhorrent of their parents to the extent that many parents will die as a direct consequence of their children’s hate for them.
Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.’ Mt 10:21
All the prophesied endtime disasters and violence may bring a kind of warped thrill to some people today. But when the evil sweeps through the whole world in its strength, each day will be a day of depressing gloom. When it is day people will hope to find refuge in the night, when it is day, people will long for the safety of the day.
In the morning you shall say, “Oh, that it were evening!” And at evening you shall say, “Oh, that it were morning!” because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see.’ Deu 28:67
While mankind as a whole will be experiencing great agonies during these times, there will be a group of people who have been prayerfully watching world events unfolding as prophesied in the Bible, and who have been seeking God’s protection constantly. These people will be considered ‘worthy’ to escape all the global terrors which are coming upon earth. And when the climatic end happens, this group of protected people will be whisked away from their residences, or wherever they are at that time, to a place of safety specially prepared for them by God. There they will be cared for supernaturally until the return of Christ, when he will cut short the evil days before it utterly destroys the whole world leaving absolutely no survivor. But ‘for the elects’ sake’, God the Father will send his Son for a swift and dramatic intervention to what’s happening on earth.
Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.’ Lk 21:36
Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation is past.’ Is 26:20
But the woman was supplied with the two wings of a giant eagle, so that she might fly from the presence of the serpent into the desert (wilderness), to the retreat where she is to be kept safe and fed for a time, and times, and half a time (three and one-half years, or 1,260 days).’ Rev 12:14 AMP
And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.’ Mt 24:22
The endtime signs are happening so quickly that I am almost certain I will live to see Christ descending with the clouds, and if not in my lifetime then surely the world cannot go on as it is now beyond my children’s days. Christ said no one can know the precise time – the day or the hour – of his coming. But he also said that the generation seeing these signs will not pass away until all that he had prophesied had taken place Mt 24:34
I have not covered all the signs of the end times here. Other signs that will occur on a global scale are religious deception and the rise of miracle-working false christs and prophets; the severe increase in the persecution of Christians around the world; the rebirth of the Holy Roman Empire as 10 united nations in Europe, with the Beast and the False Prophet as their political and spiritual leaders; the captivity and tribulation of the nations that God refers to as ‘Jacob’ – US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, and the Scandinavian countries; the increase in the world’s population of homosexuals, with some cities having more homosexuals than heterosexuals; the increase in women in political power; the building of the third temple in Jerusalem, and the world’s increasing focus on that city; and many other signs, each of which I will share in depth in my coming messages on this website.
Is there anything else in the world or in your personal life that is more vital and more urgent than to ensure the safety of your and your family’s protection in these fierce times?
Pray daily from today that you with your loved ones will be counted worthy of escaping all the global calamities that are coming soon. And as you pray, begin to examine your relationship with God. As you begin to sincerely seek God and his help in cleaning up your life, you will come to understand the prophecies in the Bible with increasing clarity and thrill. Read Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 to know what Christ himself said about the sooncoming world events. Read the whole book of Revelation, even if most of it sounds mysterious to you initially. As you earnestly study it, you will come to the point where you will find the book of Revelation the most exciting of all the books in the Bible. In fact, in no other book of the Bible has God pronounced a special blessing to those for reading and heeding what’s written in it.
The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place…Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. Rev 1:1,3 NIV
Today, even as you read this, God is calling you to be ready for ‘what must soon take place’. Today can be the real beginning point in your and your family’s lives of receiving God’s protection through the perilous times until Christ comes.
My prayer for you:
Lord God, bless this child of yours who is reading this message, whose heart is being moved by your Holy Spirit to seek you so he or she can be prepared by you for the return of your Son Jesus Christ. Begin to keep this blessed child and his or her family under your wings of protection until the perilous times are over. Amen.
The ‘Times of the Gentiles’ is the short period in the end times when the gentile nations will ascend in the world scene. It is also the time when America and Britain and their kin nations enter their very last few years before the Great Tribulation.
When Great Britain ruled the world. General Lord Cornwallis, Commander-in-Chief of British India, receiving two of Tipu Sultan’s sons as hostages in the year 1793. Tipu Sultan was the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in India.
And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Lk 21:24
The Gentiles are essentially the nations that are outside the English-speaking and Protestant commonwealth of nations. The non Gentiles are the peoples of USA, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the mainly Protestant countries of Netherlands, Scandinavia; also a few that are predominantly Catholic, such as France, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland. Non Gentile peoples are also found in other countries such as Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, but they are only minority populations in these countries. The white race in South Africa are also non Gentiles. Please read ‘How to Understand Bible Prophecies for Today’ to know more about the identity of these nations.
As you may note, the non Gentile nations are the world’s most developed, the most blessed with natural resources, and the most advanced of all nations in every aspect of civilization in the modern era.
These physically and materially blessed nations – nations chosen by God for a purpose – have the following common features: The great majority are English speaking (about five times more than the non-English speaking chosen nations combined) and Protestant. They are all without exception democratic nations. They are all without exception Caucasian genetically.
The great majority of these nations have the Bible as their ultimate religious authority, even if it is only a nominal acknowledgment (as opposed to the Catholics who have the Pope instead). It is from these nations that the Bible was spread to all corners of the world. For these are the nations that God chose to first spread the Gospel of his Son to the gentiles. It is through the missionaries sent by these nations that countries such as India, China, Russia, South America and every other nation where you now find Bible believers, received their Gospel. It is because of these chosen nations that I, whose forefathers worshipped in idolatrous temples and burned young widows alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands, am a Bible believer and follower of Christ.
Why were these particular nations chosen, and not, say, my race? When I mean chosen, I mean in the physical and national, sense – not spiritual. Spiritually, I and all my fellow believers in Christ are the chosen ones, whatever the color of our skin or however wavy or kinky our hair. Col 3:11-12
When Abraham showed how much he loved his Creator, even above his miraculously begotten son Isaac, God was so carried away by his act of absolute faith that he made the greatest vow that he as the Eternal could ever make to a person.
Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ he said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son…I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me. Gen 22:12-18
This vow of blessings was both on a physical and a spiritual scale. Physically the descendants of Abraham – referred to in the prophecies as Jacob or Israel – are to be so numerous that they are uncountable, just as sea sand and the stars are beyond human estimate.
To the physical Israelites, God revealed himself as ‘YHWH’ – usually pronounced as ‘Yahweh’ or ‘Yehowah’ (wrongly translated as Jehovah in the older Bible versions; modern versions substitute the word LORD wherever YHWH is used).
I am the LORD [YHWH] your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. Ex 20:2-3
The physical blessings began on a national scale with the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt into the land of Canaan, where they began to flourish as twelve tribes, or sub-nations. God gave them his laws so that by them they could be a model nation to the gentiles. Thus, it was God’s plan that through one nation of chosen people he could eventually bring his salvation through Christ to the gentile nations.
This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Ex 19:3-6
See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? Deu 4:5-8
The gentiles that opposed or attacked Israel were, with supernatural help, destroyed or subdued by this chosen nation. This has been the inevitable fate of all their enemies, from the ancient nations which attacked them when they got out of Egypt to the modern nations which tried to annihilate them in the last two World Wars. But the gentiles who willingly submitted to Israel and their God were absorbed as full citizens with all constitutional rights.
The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself Lev 19:34 NIV
Tragically, the very thing that God warned his people to guard against – a spirit of complacency leading to idolatry – once they take his blessings for granted, did happen, with calamitous consequences for the whole nation.
Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Deu 4:9
So it shall be, when the Lord your God brings you into the land…to give you large and beautiful cities…houses full of all good things, vineyards and olive trees…when you have eaten and are full – then beware, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage…You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you Deu 6:10-12
Their eyes began to wander wantonly towards the gentile nations whose gods seemed far more liberal than their Yahweh. Those gods permitted sexual liberty, while theirs permitted monotonously just one bedpartner, and that for life. There were no rigid restrictions imposed by The 10 Commandments. They could have orgies and gluttonous feasts – no more concerns about getting too intoxicated; there weren’t any proscriptions at all on unclean meats – they could eat rabbits, wild boar, frog legs, and especially lobsters; no death penalty to be terrified of if they wanted to covet their neighbors’ voluptuous wives or their fine breed of donkeys. They could do, speak, and think anything their desires led them to…if only they would exchange the stern Yahweh for these more worshipper-friendly gods. All they had to do was make a few molten calves, overlay them with gold and bow down to them, and occasionally pass a few of their unlucky little ones to pass through the fire so that if for some unknown reasons the calf-gods aren’t too pleased with them, they could be appeased with these untainted-blood sacrifices.
The more the overfed and overblessed Israelites saw how the gentiles enjoyed pleasures beyond measure, the more they craved them, and finally indulged in them. The plague of idolatry and licentiousness very soon became pandemic and the whole of Israel was living just like the worst of the pagans around them. Yahweh, who had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and who prospered them to this level, was no longer in their consciousness; their minds would admit of no supreme Authority that restricted their natural cravings. And God, who never imposes his will on anyone, withdrew.
The God of Hosts (meaning ‘armies’ in Hebrew), who had always gone before the armies of Israel whenever they went to war, stopped being their commander and rear guard at battles.
as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?” The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” Jos 5:14-15
But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard. Is 52:12
But now you have rejected and humbled us; you no longer go out with our armies. Ps 44:9
Without divine protection, the vulnerable Israelites soon became an easy and frequent target for their enemies. The apostate nation suffered ferocious attacks from those who envied them. Whenever their enemies devastated them, they would remember Yahweh and cry out to him. And every time this strange God, whose mercy never seemed to fail, unlike the other gods they had adopted, would forgive and forget how terribly he had been betrayed by his people. Their Commander would then rise, destroy their enemies and deliver them. He would resume his blessings upon the nation…until the people again overfed themselves, made golden images of fatted heifers, and committed spiritual harlotry.
Whenever God slew them, they would seek him; they eagerly turned to him again. They remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer. But then they would flatter him with their mouths, lying to him with their tongues; their hearts were not loyal to him, they were not faithful to his covenant. Yet he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath…Again and again they put God to the test; they vexed the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember his power – the day he redeemed them from the oppressor Ps 78:34-42
But this became a routine solution from trouble for Israel. Once they were delivered, they would submit to God for a few years, become wanton again, get battered by their enemies, cry out, and receive deliverance. God realized that his chosen nation will continue like this forever if he allowed it. And so, when Israel’s idolatry and wickedness became rampant one more time as usual, God decided to withdraw his presence for a much longer period than he normally did.
Around 740 BC, the northern nation of Israel, comprising ten tribes, was taken as slaves by the Assyrians to other lands. They never fully repented and hence never were able to return to their homeland till this day.
In 582 BC, the southern nation of Israel, called Judah, was taken as slaves to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. After 70 years of exile, God heard the cries of a repentant people languishing in captivity and caused king Cyrus to issue a decree that allowed the people of Judah, called Jews, to return to their homeland. But the Jews, 400 years after they had returned from exile, again forsook their God – this time by going to the extent of crucifying him. In 70 AD, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, scattering the Jews as exiles all over the world.
But God never for a moment forgot his promise to Abraham regarding his descendants. When Jesus came to the Jews, he made sure the gospel preached to them was also proclaimed to the rest of his chosen nation – the other tribes still exiled in various countries, and now referred as The Lost Sheep of Israel.
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near. Mt 10:5-7
In 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, granting the Jewish diaspora the right to return to their original homeland in Israel. And thus the nation of Israel was once again on the map of the world. Although named Israel, the modern nation comprises mainly the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and a portion of Levi and possibly Simeon.
The Ten Lost Sheep still await their return to their original homeland. But until then, these tribes of northern Israel have been placed in lands more naturally blessed than any other country in the world. Where are they now?
It is not the purpose of this message to get into an exposition of the migrations of the Lost Tribes. You may read that in my other messages. Suffice to say here, the lost sheep of Israel, to whom Jesus had sent his disciples to preach the gospel, began to land in the British Isles, starting with the immigration of a people called the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century AD, followed by waves of Vikings into the Isles from AD 800.
The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons …is still perceived as an important and interesting event because it is believed to have been a key factor in the identity of the present inhabitants of the British Isles, involving migration on such a scale as to permanently change the population of south-east Britain. Catherine Hills, The Origins of the English
The people who settled in the British Isles over the next few centuries flourished and became culturally, materially and socially the most advanced civilization in the world. Between the late 16th and early 18th centuries they also became militarily the world’s mightiest nation. At its height, Britain was the largest empire in history and for over a century it was the foremost global power.
By 1922 the British Empire held sway over about 458 million people, one-fifth of the world’s population at the time. The empire covered almost a quarter of the Earth’s total land area. At its peak, it was often said that ‘the sun never sets on the British Empire’, because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous dominions.
Bible-believing preachers from Britain and other Christian nations such as the Netherlands went to all the gentile nations, spreading the Gospel that the original disciples of Christ had given them about one and half millennia ago. As a result, Christianity spread into all the nations. So did the Empire’s political, legal, linguistic and cultural legacies.
While the British were holding sway over the whole world, the nation, true to their ancestors’ nature, again began to forget their God who had given them all their glory and global dominance. The nation’s sense of morality began to decline. The chosen race again wanted a say in their choice of gods.
A group of earnest Bible believers realized that their country was becoming an unGodly nation. Looking for a new start in a new world, one hundred Puritans boarded a ship in 1620, and after a voyage of much tribulation, landed on the shores of America on Christmas day the same year. Thus began the rise of yet another global power.
By early 20th century, the sun on the British Empire began setting. With its moral decline, the empire began a corresponding descent into the economic sinkhole. Germany and the United States began to overtake Britain in material wealth. After the two world wars, Great Britain was no more viewed by the world as ‘Great’ and was no longer even a formidable industrial or military power. British India, the empire’s most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence two years after World War 2. Britain was also forced to grant independence to most of her other colonies. The last vestige of colonial greatness ended with the political transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997.
Today, Britain is literally in a pathetic state of unglory in terms of national pride. Even its so-called ‘crown jewels’ – the corporate icons of a nation’s glorious achievements – had to be sold off to the gentiles for its survival.
The scale of what is happening is truly breathtaking. No other economy is as open as Britain’s or makes takeovers so easy. The Guardian
Here are a few cases of tumbling national pride:
Airport and Seaport sectors: BAA (British Airports Authority) was sold off to the Spanish construction giant Grupo Ferrovial. London’s Independent called the $19 billion deal ‘the most dramatic example yet of the way in which strategic UK assets are falling to overseas bidders’. Many considered BAA one of Britain’s crown jewels because it owns and operates airports that handle 63 percent of travelers going in and out of Britain. Besides providing jobs for thousands of employees, BAA has played a strategic role facilitating the movement of goods and people into and out of Britain and around the world. In essence, BAA was the keeper for the United Kingdom’s air gates. P&O, one of the world’s largest shipping companies, was purchased by Dubai Ports World.
Automotive: Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Bentley, Jaguar, MG Rover, Mini Cooper, are now all foreign owned. (The tragic irony is that Rolls-Royce, now owned by Germany’s BMW, is the company that produced the engine that powered the World War II Spitfire fighter that was so effective in combating the German BMW-built aircraft.)
Electricity and Gas: npower, Britain’s third-largest energy supplier, was bought by German energy giant RWE Power. Another German energy giant, E.On is already Britain’s second-largest electricity and gas provider. EDF Energy, the French state-owned energy giant, is Britain’s fifth-largest electricity and gas provider. Britain’s largest gas utility, Centrica, was sold to Russian state-owned Gazprom. (Gazprom is the company that cut off the gas supply to Ukraine and consequently much of Europe some years ago in what was seen as a political spat between the two governments.)
Nuclear Power Generation: British Energy, UK’s largest electricity generation company by volume, was taken over by Électricité de France. British Energy operated eight former UK state-owned nuclear power stations and one coal-fired power station. British Nuclear Fuels, the British state-owned nuclear power manufacturer, sold its power station construction arm, Westinghouse, to Japan’s Toshiba corporation. Engineers and scientists attacked the sell-off for ‘robbing Britain of new-build expertise’.
Water: Britain’s largest water utility, Thames Water, taken over earlier by Germans, was sold to Australia’s Kemble Water Limited, with shares owned by China Investment Corporation and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Thames Water supplies water and wastewater services to millions of Britons and other customers around the globe.
Finance: Abbey National, Britain’s sixth-largest bank and second-largest mortgage lender, was purchased by Spain’s Banco Santander. Another British bank, Alliance & Leicester PLC, was acquired by the Spanish Santander Group. Even the London Stock Exchange, the largest in Europe and the third-largest in the world, has to fight off hostile takeover attempts such as by Nasdaq.
P&O Cruises’ MV Aurora alongside at Dubrovnik, Croatia. P&O was purchased by Dubai Ports World.
I have mentioned only the critical industries where Britain’s crown jewels had to be either pawned or auctioned off. Other sell-offs may not affect national security, but they are all pride-shattering as well – from KitKat to Harry Ramsden’s, Britain’s largest fish and chips chain; from HP sauce to the Body Shop; from Manchester United to Beefeater gin; from Harrods to Savoy; and much more!
Governments in the gentile nations, on the contrary, restrict foreign takeovers. Nations like Germany, France, and Spain fight to protect their strategic industry from foreign hands. But the British apparently lack that basic sense of loyalty and pride in the crown jewels of their home country.
British politicians of all parties, unlike their continental equivalents, could not care less if British industry…is foreign-owned. Times Online
Britain’s leaders are silent about this shocking sell-offs to foreigners, including former enemies. The Guardian says the lack of outcry from the government is because, ‘apart from the US, no other economy needs the inflow of overseas cash so acutely. Britain’s industrial and financial jewels are being auctioned to pay for a record trade deficit…With no end to the trade deficit in sight, the auction will go on until the cupboard is bare…Britain is being sold off at a rate unprecedented in modern times…Yet there is no debate; scarcely an eyebrow is raised. In any other country there would be uproar…With this rate of takeover, within a generation most British workers outside the public sector will be working for foreign companies. The scale of what is happening is truly breathtaking compared with even five years ago.’
And that warning by Guardian was in 2006!
For Little Britain, the loss of ownership of these companies is even more than a security or economic concern – it is a sign that the nation is in its last throes, and that the ‘times of the gentiles’ have begun, according to the unfailing prophecies in the Bible.
Rolls Royce – Britain’s jewel of pride, sold off to Germany.
As the 19th century was the century of Britain’s greatness, the 20th century was the period in which America became the world’s undisputed leading global power in every respect. But American too started following in the steps of her elder sister Britain. It’s become even more idolatrous and its harlotry even more shocking.
Son of man, there were two women, daughters of the same mother. They became prostitutes…The older was named Oholah, and her sister was Oholibah. They were mine…Oholah engaged in prostitution while she was still mine…Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet in her lust and prostitution she was more depraved than her sister…I saw that she too defiled herself…But she carried her prostitution still further. Eze 23:2-14
Billy Graham said that America’s greatest sin was illicit sex. And he also stated something I repeat in total affirmation: ‘If God doesn’t come soon and bring judgment upon the United States, He’s going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah!’
This statement, frequently attributed to Billy Graham, actually originated with his wife, Ruth, during a review of her husband’s manuscript for his book, World Aflame, published in 1965. He had just finished a chapter vividly describing the sinful conditions in America, and gave it to Ruth to read. She was very much sobered by the writing and returned the document to the study where he was writing and laid it on his desk, saying, ‘Billy, if God doesn’t come soon and bring judgment upon the United States, He’s going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah!’ The account was recalled briefly as an illustration in a message by Dr. James Kennedy (pastor, Coral Ridge Presbyterian, Fort Lauderdale, Florida), entitled ‘Prayer and the World Crisis’, at the National Prayer Congress, Dallas, Texas in 1976. The statement has frequently been requoted by many others since that time.
We can know from the Scriptures that the nation of America, along with the rest of the Lost Sheep of Israel, is more guilty of adultery against their God than any other nation in history. Here are two verses that prove that.
But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Mt 24:37-39
In the last days, the spiritual state of the nations chosen by God would be like that of the world just before it perished in the Deluge in Noah’s time.
But its punishment is greater than what Noah’s generation had to suffer.
For then there will be great tribulation, such as has NOT been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. Mt 24:21 [Emphasis mine]
Obviously, the greater the sin, the greater the punishment.
So filthy is the moral state of the so-called Christian nations today that even pagan people in other nations who have not known the true God despise America and her sister nations for their depravity.
Remember the days when you were putting on airs, acting so high and mighty, looking down on sister Sodom? That was before your evil ways were exposed. And now you’re the butt of contempt, despised by the Edomite women, the Philistine women, and everybody else around. But you have to face it, to accept the shame of your obscene and vile life. Eze 16:56-58
For one, I have not yet heard of any non Bible-holding nation officially sanctioning gay marriages – a nauseating abomination to God! Worse, there are even mainstream Christian churches that take a soft, neutral stand on this issue, not to mention the many false churches of the synagogue of Satan that call themselves ‘pro-gay’.
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Lev 18:22
The nations called by God to be a model to other nations, when their sins are greater than those of the nations they are supposed to be a light to, then surely we can expect a swift and terrible penalty on them. America and other present-day descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel are already seriously sick as a consequence of their sins, but they refuse to acknowledge it.
I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me…the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints. From the sole of the feet even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not been closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment. Is 1:2,5-6
Every facet of Western civilization is on the brink of total collapse. Already, the US is tottering on the edge of economic depression such as never happened in its history – an economic collapse from which it will never recover, unlike the Great Depression of the 1930s. Wise economists are crying out their warnings. But the nation prefers to listen to the soothing words of its false seers.
If you haven’t yet, please read my message ‘America – the Unthinkable Is Poised to Happen’, where I mentioned that the economist Robert Wiedemer has stated that ‘the people in Washington have failed miserably’. Wiedemer had predicted America’s four-bubble meltdown in the housing, stock, private debt, and consumer spending markets that almost sunk America in 2008. But his predictions were pooh-poohed by the more reputable economists such as former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and his successor Ben Bernanke. Wiedemer now warns of far greater troubles for the nation in the next very few years.
But is America paying attention? The Scripture doesn’t give us much hope for the chosen nation as a whole. But on an individual level, you and your family can be protected from the sooncoming endtime events that will bring terrible suffering upon all mankind, starting with the Great Tribulation of the nations that had betrayed God.
Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man. Lk 21:36
While the good times of the chosen nations are swiftly ending, the gentiles are rising with a domino effect in all the continents with a speed greater than did Britain and US. The gentile nations began their quick ascend on the world scene with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economic rise of the BRICS nations, and above all the rise of the European Union – soon to be a political union, according to prophecy.
In his book, The Great Super Cycle, David Skarica says:
The U.S. ‘empire’ is undergoing a tectonic shift of gravity. As when Great Britain lost its empire in the 1940s and ’50s as the world’s economic power shifted to the United States, America now is facing the same dramatic axis shift to Asian economic powers such as China and India.
America has betrayed its Maker more blatantly than any other of the chosen nations. So flagrant is America’s rebellion against their God that the nation officially banned prayer in all its schools since 1962. No kid is allowed in their premises to thank the One who gave them every blessing. I read a case of a child getting into trouble with the school authorities for even praying over her food. They don’t want God to be in their schools. But, funnily, they assumed that once God is out, the devil too will stay out. Is it any coincidence that public schools in America are increasingly becoming the devil’s playground for shooting deaths? Here are what some thinking people are saying:
American political figures, such as former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, as well as Bryan Fischer, a director in the American Family Association, have stated that the removal of school prayer from schools has led to increased school shootings. Wikipedia
A recent statistical analysis by David Barton graphically illustrates how America has plummeted from righteous living, prosperity and success in the last quarter century. Consider the following chart compiled from his study, America: To Pray or Not to Pray…As you might have already noticed on Mr. Barton’s graph, America’s moral decline rapidly accelerated following one event – the U.S. Supreme Court’s removal of prayer from our nation’s schools. On June 25, l962, 39 million students were forbidden to do what they and their predecessors had been doing since the founding of our nation – publicly calling upon the name of the Lord at the beginning of each school day. The New York school children which prompted the Engel vs. Vitale ruling had simply prayed: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on Thee and beg Thy blessing over us, our parents, our teachers and our nation.
America has experienced radical decline in each of the four areas which the children’s prayer touched upon: youth, family, education, national life…By the judicial act of forbidding invocation, the Court audaciously elevated a secularized system of education beyond the authority, reach and blessing of God Himself. Worse than taking the Lord’s sacred name in vain is treating it with contempt, denying it its rightful place and stripping it from public use and even from the lips of children. Jesus’ own expressed desire, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them” was also violated by these judges, many of whom were raised in Christian homes. forerunner.com
God is no more in America’s schools. He is no more in any of America’s institutions. He is no more going out with US armies anywhere. The Vietnam War was the first indication that God is no more the rear guard of his chosen people’s armies. The blessings that Britain and US have been enjoying for hundreds of years started evaporating since the past four or five decades. Very soon – and I am almost sure that I will see it with my own eyes – the descendants of Abraham are once more going into captivity as slaves.
The Times of the Gentiles will end and the Times of Israel revive only when Christ returns and, one last time, rescues his people from their captivity among the Gentile nations.
China is in the lead among the rising gentile nations.
Before I close, I want to pass on to you one more understanding about the ‘Times of the Gentiles’.
Israel turned away from God and did not fulfill their purpose of being a light to the gentiles. Now, God is giving the chance to the gentiles. Ironically, it is through the gentiles that God will turn Israel back to him. Paul summarizes the role of Israel and Gentiles in God’s plan:
I ask, then, has God rejected his own people, the nation of Israel? Of course not!…No, God has not rejected his own people, whom he chose from the very beginning…Did God’s people stumble and fall beyond recovery? Of course not! They were disobedient, so God made salvation available to the Gentiles. But he wanted his own people to become jealous and claim it for themselves. Now if the Gentiles were enriched because the people of Israel turned down God’s offer of salvation, think how much greater a blessing the world will share when they finally accept it…For since their rejection meant that God offered salvation to the rest of the world, their acceptance will be even more wonderful. And if the people of Israel turn from their unbelief, they will be grafted in again, for God has the power to graft them back into the tree…
I want you to understand this mystery, dear brothers and sisters, so that you will not feel proud about yourselves. Some of the people of Israel have hard hearts, but this will last only until the full number of Gentiles comes to Christ. And so all Israel will be saved…
Many of the people of Israel are now enemies of the Good News, and this benefits you Gentiles. Yet they are still the people he loves because he chose their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…Once, you Gentiles were rebels against God, but when the people of Israel rebelled against him, God was merciful to you instead…Now they are the rebels, and God’s mercy has come to you so that they, too, will share in God’s mercy…For God has imprisoned everyone in disobedience so he could have mercy on everyone…Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! Rm 11:1-33 NLT
Almost one-third of the Bible is prophecy. According to one Bible teacher, from whom I received my first prophecy lessons, of that one-third, 90 percent pertains to our generation! But from what I have seen in my study of the Scriptures, the percentage is even more. It is more likely to be 98 or 99 percent, with one or two percent specifically referring to events that happened at the first coming of Christ or events that relate to some ancient nations which do not exist anymore.
The first truth you should know when reading the prophecies is that almost all the prophecies, except the one or two percent that I referred to above, have a dual fulfillment, and several have a threefold or more fulfillments. Let me give you a few examples.
There are about 350 Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah that were fulfilled by the life of Jesus Christ when he came in the flesh over 2000 years ago. But except for the very few that speak of events that relate to his birth, betrayal and crucifixion – which are fewer than 10 prophecies (his virgin birth, betrayal by Judas, physical abuse by his enemies, hanging on a cross, the piercing of his side, not a bone of his being broken) – all the other verses that were fulfilled at Christ’s first coming are going to be fulfilled in far greater scope when he comes again. Take this prophecy, for example:
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel. Gen 3:15
When Jesus died on the cross, he fulfilled the first phase of this prophecy.
Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil Heb 2:14
But this original, or archetypal, fulfillment foreshadows something far more universal and absolute in scope that will happen in the end times. Satan will once again bruise the heel of Christ’s body, the Church, with persecutions, but when the Lord returns with power, he is going to crush Satan’s head with a greater force and finality that the devil will never be able to raise his head again to bruise God’s people.
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are [‘had been thrown’ – NIV], and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Rev 20:10 KJV
Here’s another example:
The kings of Tarshish and of the isles will bring presents; the kings of Sheba and Seba will offer gifts. Yes, all kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall serve Him. Ps 72:10-11
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Mt 2:1,11
The wise men giving gold and other gifts to baby Jesus is only a miniature precursor of what is going to take place when the King of Kings rules in glory on his throne in Jerusalem.
Your God has commanded your strength; strengthen, O God, what You have done for us. Because of Your temple at Jerusalem, kings will bring presents to You. Ps 68:28-30
You have ascended on high, you have led captivity captive; you have received gifts among men, even from the rebellious Ps 68:18
An example of a prophecy that has a threefold fulfillment relates to Elijah. There was the original Elijah of ancient Israel, and then there was John, the Elijah during Christ’s first coming, and then there will come yet another Elijah in the end times just before Christ’s second coming.
And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise the Son of Man is also about to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist. Mt 17:11-13
Another prophecy with a threefold fulfillment is about a ruler called the Beast.
The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him. Dan 9:26-27 NIV
The archetypal fulfillment was when the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes desecrated the Second Temple and erected a statue of Zeus in the Holy of Holies.
But this prophecy mainly refers to the king who will come in the end times and defile the temple. Jesus’ prophecy was about the end times, in answer to the disciples’ question as to what are the signs of his coming and of the end of this age.
Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”…Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (whoever reads, let him understand) then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Mt 24:3,15-16
Antiochus IV Epiphanes is the archetype of a king of similar character in the end times, called the ‘Beast’ in Revelation 11:7, and referred to by Paul as the ‘man of lawlessness’ whose coming will precede the return of Christ 2 Thes 2:2-4 NIV. But after this beast is destroyed, another world ruler, also called the Beast, will rise to oppress God’s people again, as described in Revelation chapter 13.
That’s the first principle you should remember in studying Bible prophecy. Every prophecy, except for the very few I mentioned earlier, has its greater fulfillment in the last days. The first fulfillment was only a foreshadowing, on a much smaller scale, of sooncoming world events, many, or most, of which will happen in our generation – the generation that is already witnessing several signs of the last days.
Almost all the prophecies have a dual fulfillment, and several have a threefold or more fulfillments.
The second truth is the cyclic rise and wane of nations and empires throughout history – from the rise of the first empire, Babylon, to the destruction of the Beast’s global realm at Christ’s return, and from the beginning of Israel as a nation in the land of Canaan to its final exile and restoration in the last days.
The first empire in history was that of the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar. It was, compared to the empires that would come after, a golden one in glory. When the golden empire waned, it was followed by a silver empire, then a third one like bronze, and finally an empire that’s as strong as iron. Dan 2:31-43
A similar vision is given in Daniel chapter 7, which speaks of a succession of four empires – the first represented by a lion, the second by a bear, the third by a leopard, and the fourth by a dreadfully awesome beast. These two visions saw their first fulfillment in the Chaldean empire, succeeded by the Medo-Persian, then the Greco-Macedonian Empire led by Alexander, and finally the mightiest of them all, the Roman empire.
The fourth and final empire is itself prophesied to have 10 revivals. Dan 7:24 In its first reign, Rome took the Jews captive and dispersed them among the nations, until God brought them back as a nation again in 1948 in the modern state of Israel. The Roman empire waxed and waned through the centuries. One of its revivals was under Napoleon, who tried to conquer Britain but was thwarted by the intervention of God.
Napoleon Bonaparte
After Napoleon’s reign ended, there was a period of dormancy for the Roman empire. In the early 20th century, it briefly revived again as the ‘Deutsches Reich’, that is, German Empire, which ended with its defeat at World War 1. It did not rear its iron head for about 20 years, after which it rose again, this time as the ‘Third Reich’ under Adolf Hitler, with the same mission of destroying the chosen people of God. It succeeded in destroying 6 million Jews – about two-thirds of the total Jewish population in Europe, and about one-third worldwide – who had been living peacefully as citizens in Germany and the nearby countries that Germany annexed. When Germany with its ally Japan, tried to destroy the rest of the chosen nations by attacking Britain and US, God rose again and caused both the German and Japanese empires to be annihilated from the face of the earth, just as they had intended to destroy God’s people.
But the Bible prophesies yet one more revival of the Roman Empire, before it is eternally destroyed by God. The next revival has already begun with the emergence of Germany as the greatest economic force in the European Union, and with Japan, its future ally again, as the greatest in the East. Soon both Germany and Japan will turn their attention to becoming the greatest military forces in the world. And then, the endtime events relating to God’s modern chosen nations will happen in quick succession.
A deep study of the similarities of the nations and the individuals involved in the cyclic world events will reveal some astonishing facts. Just to ignite your own interest in researching prophecy, consider these similarities between the two kings of the revived Roman Empire.
Napoleon Bonaparte sent millions of men to their death without any remorse, in an age where one million people hardly ever lived in a single city, and European countries were composed of only a few million people. Adolf Hitler slaughtered far more millions of people. They both thought and felt alike:
Napoleon: “I shall bury the world beneath my ruin”
Hitler: “We may be destroyed, but, if we are, we’ll drag the world down with us, a world in flames.”
Napoleon: “A man like me cares little about losing the lives of a million men.”
Hitler: “I can send the flower of German youth into the hell of war without the slightest pity.”
In reference to Europe,
Napoleon: “A rotten old whore whom I shall treat as I please”
Hitler: “I had to rape it in order to possess it.”
Adolf Hitler
Also, consider this incredible timing of events in their lives:
Napoleon was born in 1760. Hitler was born in 1889 – 129 years difference.
Napoleon was elected in 1804. Hitler was elected in 1933 – 129 years.
Napoleon captured Vienna in 1809. Hitler captured Vienna in 1938 – 129 years.
Napoleon attacked USSR in 1812. Hitler attacked USSR in 1941- 129 years.
Napoleon was defeated in 1816.
Hitler was defeated in 1945 – 129 years
Both came to power, when they were 44.
Both attacked Russia, when they were 52.
Both lost the war, when they were 56 years old.
Information about the similarities has have been collected from various sources, including ‘Napoleon and Hitler’ by Desmond Seward; ‘Mein Kampf’ by Adolf Hitler; ‘Age of Napoleon’ by J. Christopher Herold.
I don’t know yet the significance of the 129 years difference. It is a number divisible by 7, if that means anything. But the similarities are certainly not coincidental.
Now consider the cyclic rise and fall of another nation, different from all other nations in history.
Israel is delivered from slavery in Egypt, and settled in the Promised Land. After some years of obedience, they forget their covenant with their God, and their hearts turn to other gods. God removes his protection from them and they are attacked by enemies. They repent, and God sends them judges to deliver them. This happens repeatedly (read Judges) until they start committing wickedness on such national scale and of such depravity, which includes burning their infants alive to appease their new gods, that God completely withdraws from this nation. Israel is taken as slaves by the Assyrians, and eventually they become ‘lost’ among the nations, and come to be known as the ‘Lost Sheep of Israel’.
The tribe of Judah, known as the Jews, however, continues to exist as a nation for some more time. When their sin becomes great, they are conquered by Nebuchadnezzar and taken captives to Babylon. The first temple at Jerusalem is also destroyed. After 70 years of captivity in Babylon, the nation repents and God allows them to return to Jerusalem. They build the second temple and submit to their God for a while. Then it happens again, they sin terribly, and the nation, along with the temple, is destroyed by the Romans. In 1948, Jews are again able to return to their homeland Judah, although the country is now officially known as Israel.
As for the lost tribes of Israel, there are churches that believe that the modern-day descendants of ancient Israel can be historically traced. According to their view – a view which I personally strongly endorse – the lost tribes of Israel who had been taken captive by the Assyrians, continued to live among the nations until around the fifth century, when they began to flourish in Europe, and especially, in the British Isles. They were mainly known as the Angles and Saxons.
It is beyond the scope of this message to give you historical proof that the Anglo-Saxons, along with the Celts, Danes, and some other races, are the descendants of ancient Israel. Some evidence is available with a few churches that believe this, and you may search them online. Presently, I will base my evidence on what happened to the Anglo-Saxons in the light of Bible prophecies.
Let me caution you at the outset that if you are going to base your beliefs about the identity of the descendants of ancient Israel purely on historical records, you may be getting into a lot of controversial theories and counter theories. I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt – my conviction being based on the prophetic events being fulfilled today among these peoples – that the nations I mentioned above, who are settled in UK, US, Canada, France, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Australia, and a few other nations, today are the descendants of the 12 tribes of ancient Israel. That is, just as God’s prophecies were fulfilled by what happened to ancient Israel, they are fulfilled in what has happened, what is happening, and what will soon happen to these modern nations.
For your enlightenment consider these parallels between ancient Israel and the modern nations I mentioned.
First, consider the calling of the nations. God called out a slave people from Egypt and made them his own nation. He went before their armies and miraculously delivered them from their enemies. Above all, he gave them the way of life which would ensure their continued blessings. This way is based on The 10 Commandments which God gave to Israel through Moses. As long as they submitted to Yahweh and his commandments and acknowledged him as their only Lord and God, they fared well. When they forsook God to indulge in harlotry with the idols of other nations, they began to wane, until, when their sin reached incorrigible proportions, they ceased to exist as a nation. The became lost among the other nations.
Then, around the 6th century, a people began to rise in Britain. They quickly advanced in their civilization like no other nation since ancient Israel. They became the world’s greatest empire ever, stretching from one end of the earth to the other. Even as this empire was expanding, another people from within the British empire, left their homeland and settled in another continent. This nation soon became an even greater world power than Great Britain. This new world power comprised a multitude or union of peoples, and came to be known as the United States of America, with a population presently about three times larger than that of Britain.
his [Ephraim’s] descendants shall become a multitude of nations’. Gen 48:19
They are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.’ Deu 33:17
These two nations were given the very choicest of lands to settle in. From Britain, France, and Scandinavia to America, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. A land flowing with milk and honey, and abundance of oil and metals, and every other resource they need so they don’t have to depend on imports from any pagan nations.
Strangely, for reasons not explained by any mainstream Christian churches, these very nations also had the same holy Scriptures that ancient Israel had, and they also acknowledged the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The British and US constitutions are based on the same Scriptures that ancient Israel was governed by.
The founding fathers trusted God to protect their nations, and therefore Britain and the US were always protected from their enemies, including their attackers in the two world wars. Here is just one example of how God protected his people by repressing the enemy’s attempts and assisting his people’s efforts in war.
In 1939, during the early stages of World War II, a large contingent of British soldiers were trapped in Dunkirk, a town on the coast of France adjacent to the English Channel. They possessed no means of crossing the Channel, and the Germans pursued close behind. If caught, the soldiers would be forced to surrender, and England and the allies would lose hundreds of thousands of valuable troops. As news reached Britain, a plan was formulated to evacuate the British soldiers back to England. Hundreds of ships, including many small boats, crossed the channel to do their part and help the men of England. Miraculously, while the men were being evacuated from May 25 to June 3, foggy weather inhibited the efforts of the German Luftwaffe. However, in the channel, which normally had notoriously bad weather, the waters were calm, allowing for quick evacuation. By June 3rd, 338,226 men were evacuated from Dunkirk. Without the men saved at Dunkirk, World War II might have had a very different outcome.
God always went before his nations’ armies.
But again, as in ancient Israel, these chosen nations began to be so surfeited in their abundance of blessings, that, like overfed stallions and bull elephants on heat, they began to lust after their neighbors’ wives. The nation became guilty of harlotry against their God, more than her pagan neighbors. They descended so low that their sin was greater than that of Sodom and Gomorrah.
These chosen nations began to legalize homosexuality. Some of the churches that claim the God of the Bible as their Lord even began to ordain gay priests. Their lives became so decadent that God again withdrew in disgust from a nation that did not want him in their lives anyway.
Beginning with the Vietnam war, God stopped going out with modern Israel’s armies. Even US’s so-called victory over an impoverished second-rate military power like Iraq has ended in ignominy, with her own people condemning the war and calling it a great mistake.
Since the dawn of the 21st century, the pagan nations began to acquire the wealth and power that once belonged to Britain and America. (Please see my message ‘The “Times of the Gentiles” Has Begun’)
The chosen nations’ first major devastation by their enemies was the fall of the Twin Towers, which symbolized US dominance over the world’s markets. Far greater catastrophes have been prophesied for the coming years, and I urge you in the Lord’s name to be daily aware of the latest happenings in America and her kin nations in the West. Watch the world news channels. For a Biblical perspective on world happenings, read my other messages in this section.
World Trade Center on 9/11 shortly after the second tower had collapsed.Courtesy: Wally Gobetz (flickr.com/photos/wallyg/159454993/)
Finally, to understand Bible prophecy, you should understand which are the nations God refers to today when he uses the names of ancient nations and cities in his prophecies for the end times.
Jacob – Refers to all the 12 tribes descended from Jacob, which today are found in Europe, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and other Bible-holding nations of the West (though they may not acknowledge it as their spiritual authority anymore), and a few Catholic nations, especially France.
For You have forsaken Your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with eastern ways; they are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they are pleased with the children of foreigners. Is 2:
Israel, depending on the context of the Scripture, may refer to the 12 tribes, or the 10 tribes (without Judah and Benjamin).
For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will still choose Israel, and settle them in their own land. The strangers will be joined with them, and they will cling to the house of Jacob. Is 14:1
More specifically, Israel refers to the descendants of Joseph – Manasseh and Ephraim – who are the English speaking nations today: UK, US, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Jacob, whose name was also Israel, when blessing the sons of Joseph, declared that these two tribes will be known by his own name.
Bless the lads [the sons of Joseph]; Let my name be named upon them Gen 48:16
The British and US constitutions are based on the same Scriptures that ancient Israel was governed by.
Great Britain and the former British Commonwealth, which included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, where the Queen is or was the official head of state, inherited the blessings of Manasseh. The US became modern Ephraim, even greater than Britain.
His glory is like a firstborn bull, and his horns like the horns of the wild ox; together with them he shall push the peoples to the ends of the earth; they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh. Deu 33:17
He [Manasseh] also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother [Ephraim] shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations…And thus he set Ephraim before Manasseh. Gen 48:19-20
France is Reuben. This nation has always tried to be a world power, but could never excel over Britain or US or match their political stability because the eldest son of Jacob deprived himself of this honor by defiling his father’s bed.
Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power. Unstable as water, you shall not excel, because you went up to your father’s bed; then you defiled it Gen 49:3-4
Judah and Benjamin, along with a good percentage of Simeon, are the tribes that are now settled in modern Israel.
The endtime characteristics of the other chosen nations are given in Genesis 49. Apart from the few nations I have identified, I am not venturing in this message to identify the other nations. But it is the descendants of the nations that I have identified – the English-speaking nations, France, and modern Israel – that will play the key roles in the prophecies relating to the God’s chosen nations in the end times. All the tribes of Israel will be caught up in what happens to these leading nations.
And Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the LAST DAYS Gen 49:1 Emphasis mine
Assyria is Germany. Gog and Magog are the nations of the former Soviet Union, China Mongolia, and, possibly, Korea. Moab and Ammon are the peoples in Iraq, Palestine and Jordan. Kedar refers to the Bedouin Arabs in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. Kush is Sudan, and, possibly, India.
Many nations still retain their Biblical names, such as Egypt, Libya, Syria, Ethiopia, Persia (which is also referred to as Elam).
Now to the spiritual identifies of some nations today.
‘Babylon’ refers today to the system by which governments run their societies, especially the commercial aspect.
‘Egypt’ in a spiritual sense refers to the governments themselves. Egypt is the government that gives power to Babylon to run society, including powers to regulate religious freedom. In the last days, just before Christ comes, this relationship between Egypt and Babylon will see its greatest fulfillment in the relationship between the two ‘beasts’.
Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast Rev 13:11-12
Israel refers, in the New Covenant, to all the people called to Christ from every nation. Those who are not Israel are the Gentiles.
Samaria refers to the leadership of Israel, the shepherds who are responsible for the nation’s actions.
Jerusalem refers to the shepherds, that is, the priests, the pastors and other leaders over God’s flock, the Christians.
Zion refers to the born-again believers in God’s church.
Jews, in the New Covenant, refer to Christians born again in Christ.
For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God. Rm 2:28-29
I know your works, tribulation, and poverty (but you are rich); and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Rev 2:9
Many of the identities of the present-day nations will become increasingly evident as the prophecies relating to them begin to unfold. Many have been revealed by God, many are yet to be revealed. Continue to watch world events regularly, and seek to understand them in the light of Bible prophecies. To the extent you earnestly desire it in your heart, God will make plain to you what’s happening today, and you can understand prophecies more clearly than the great theologians and preachers in Christianity who believe the ancient prophecies have little relevance for today.
God bless your study of the prophecies in the Bible so you can be better prepared for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!
That title quote is from the novel The Last Days of America by Paul E Erdman. The book is a frightening tale of how an economic crisis could lead to major political upheavals and shifts in the global balance of powers, and bring civilization as we know it to the brink of extinction by nuclear holocaust. When people realize they don’t have much time anymore to enjoy the everyday mundane benefits and facilities they had always taken for granted, they begin for the first time to realize what precious blessings these amenities had been all along. Open the tap, and there is always water flowing out for use to your heart’s content. Gasoline running low in your car…just take it to the gas station around the corner. Your kitchen cupboard needs to be replenished? Just call the grocery and they deliver it right at your doorstep, until…
Until these seemingly little facilities and services suddenly stop, and people are desperately trying to flee a city to escape impending devastation by invading forces. Or there is a deadly earthquake, and the most pressing thought of the people is not how to best spend the evening out, but how to find some unpolluted water to drink and where to find some safe shelter for the night. Or there is a roaring tide of water heading toward your house and your only thought is how best to keep your children from being swept away in the tsunami. Today, thank God, none of these things are happening to you or me. And we can continue to enjoy our daily blessings to the full. But for millions of others, these daily little appurtenances of modern civilization is the difference between survival and death.
I was in a Middle East country during the first Gulf war. When the conflict broke out, the countries close to the war zone began to quiver in fearful anticipation. Throughout the city, common household commodities like bottled water were quickly swept off the supermarket shelves. My close two colleagues and I made plans to flee to our home countries. One of them, a young man in his twenties had recently married his beautiful sweetheart. All the battle scenes televised by CNN, all the usual frenzy of a battle brought on the screen in edited form, somehow made the whole war somewhat surreal for this young colleague. You know how it is…soldiers tat-tat-tatting away their enemies with their AK-47s, the explosions and vehicles thrown twenty feet into the air, a plane on a strafing pass at the convoy below…the sounds and colors can raise the adrenalin level in one who hasn’t actually seen these actions in real life. But when these sounds and sights are happening a few miles outside your door, you have a different perception of them altogether.
To put him in the right perspective, I asked my newly married colleague, ‘Do you know what’s the first thing invading soldiers normally do on entering a city?’ He didn’t. So I told him: they enter apartments in groups and gang-rape any woman of any age they find there. My colleague’s countenance dropped. He now seemed more eager than any of us to get out of the country as fast as we could. [As I review this message some years later, I just saw the news of a middle-aged Libyan woman, seemingly of good social standing, who burst into a Tripoli hotel to tell the journalists there that she had been raped and beaten by Gadhafi’s militia. She sobbed and said she was held against her will for two days and raped by fifteen men.]
A few days after the great tsunami of 2004, I visited one of the most tragically devastated areas in India. I met two survivors – a handsome man and his pretty wife, both in their twenties. Six months ago they had the fruit of their love union in their hands, a baby girl. They showed me her photo. Just like any other cute smiling baby you see on a parenting magazine’s front cover. On the day of the tsunami, they were dandling their precious gift in their arms, when the wave smashed through their walls and swept the little one away forever from their arms.
Readers do not usually want to hear these tragic tales. But I have mentioned them here in the hope that at least occasionally you may deeply reflect on the daily prosaic happenings…as daylight gives in to dusk and you reach out to press the light switch and the whole room is lit up in cheerful hues; or as you stroll on the street pavement with your wife and kids and do not have to fear any sniper’s bullet…pause a moment to ponder, and be thankful.
What would you do when a disaster strikes your place and there is no electricity, water, basic facilities? No home. No food.
We are living in a global civilization today that makes daily living convenient for the average person more than at any other time since the first human community formed. How many of us, on turning a faucet handle, pause to gaze at the wonder that is pouring out of the spout? When I was a teen, such a sight would have been a real wonder for me, at a time when the latest technology in my village was a pulley on my well to make drawing water easy. In those days we never sat on a ceramic commode but over an awesomely awful hole in the ground (which may be a remote reason some babies in the third world, who grew up to be famous people, in those days were named Sithole – to squat over that hole, the depths of which were frighteningly dark and abyssal, required some fortitude).
Decades ago, I was fascinated by the lifestyle of a minister of Christ, who said he began his day at dawn by having a shower. And that minister lived in a cold country! For me, even in a tropical country, taking a bath early in the morning was a shivering experience. It was only when I was an adult and taking early morning showers in a developed country did I realize what the minister meant. He meant a ‘hot’ shower. Now how could a youth in my primitive circumstances ever imagine that steaming sprays of water could be available 24 hours at the mere turning of a knob in the bathroom?
Well, I suppose by now you see what I am getting at. The simple daily appurtenances of modern life are wonders that we take for granted and don’t give a thought to…until… Until one of them stops functioning. The handle is turned, and not a drop comes out. The switch is oned, but the room still stays dark. The lift stops halfway down. The car breaks down. And worst of all in this cyber age, the internet is down. As one denizen of the virtual world said, ‘You disconnect from the internet and get this awful feeling, as if you just pulled the plug on a loved one’.
When one of our daily life-facilitators fail, panic strikes and our only thought from then on is about getting back the indispensable facility we hadn’t once given a second thought to until now.
During the first Gulf War when Iraq annexed Kuwait, and bombs started falling close to the borders of neighboring countries in the region, I was living alone in the United Arab Emirates, while my family was safely away in India. I continued my life as usual. But those with families in the country began to panic. Nobody knew if the war would spill over to the nearby countries. Supermarkets began to run out of bottled water as households stocked up essentials for a siege. But Saddam soon ran out of cartridges in his ammo boxes, and people were all back in their comfort zones as before, wondering what to do with the excess water and grains in the house.
This message is of no relevance to people living in, say, Syria, where, at the time of writing this, Christians are being targeted by both government and rebel forces. Many have fled the country and are barely surviving in makeshift refugee camps. A mattress, just enough water for a full bath, a small bite of something delicious occasionally, a little privacy for the couple to sleep together, a rudimentary school where their little ones can go safely, a few currency bills for a little shopping, a tv to pass their dreary time, some little other facility they had been enjoying all their lives before the war drove them out of their cozy sofas…these are the wonders the refugees are dreaming of at the moment now, even as I am debating with my stomach about lunch – whether I should settle for a tuna salad in the office itself or walk to the food court nearby for a couple of KFCs, which I hadn’t savored in quite a while.
The purpose of this message is not to persuade you to daily gaze in wonder at all the little blessings of daily living that you are taking for granted, though that would be good thing if one could do it. I have given scenarios of surviving without the basic amenities of daily living so that you can be watchful and be always prepared for the time of severe trouble that is coming upon the whole world. God counsels us in the Bible,
Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen Lk 21:36 NIV
Child of God, keep the following basic understanding in the forefront of your mind:
The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. For man also does not know his time: like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them. Eccl 9:11-12
A person may be wise and prescient about the state of the world today. He plans his life accordingly and lives prudently. He has everything ready to face any adversity in life and still…and still evil times can overtake him suddenly, like a snare springing out of nowhere upon a bird and trapping it inside.
Time and chance happens equally to God’s people as to those who do not know God. I could give you countless examples of evil times swiftly befalling God’s people throughout history – from the day Joseph was abducted without the slightest indication of prior hostility from his brothers, to the moment Job was instantaneously transformed from the most content man in the world to the most afflicted, and from the time that David knew his family was abducted by enemies, to the days when faithful Christians were dangerously stranded between warring factions in World Wars I and II.
I had some relatives living as expatriates in Kuwait when that country was suddenly invaded by Saddam’s soldiers. These expatriates were regular church attendees, and grateful to God for all the abundant material blessings they enjoyed in the rich sheikhdom. Then one morning, they woke up to find their city overrun by Saddam’s forces. The expatriates were allowed to flee the country, and nobody was shot dead while trying to cross the border. But none of them was able to take to es own country any item of possession apart from the clothes e was wearing and possibly a suitcase of essentials. I heard the sorry tales from my kinsfolk of the huge quantities of precious stones, gold, money and other treasures they had accumulated over decades of hard work in that country and how they had to leave them all behind in the plush apartments they abandoned when they fled. Many of these expatriates when they finally reached their homeland had to start life all over again with the merest of basic necessities.
Disaster struck them suddenly. As it does millions of other innocent families and communities around the world every year. It could be a manmade calamity such as war, terrorist attack, persecution, or a natural catastrophe such as earthquake, tornado, tsunami, fire, plague. But the effects are the same: the affected people are left with barely anything other than the clothes on their bodies. And that is when the difference between survivors who trusted God and survivors who trusted in their own abilities begins to be clearly seen.
So, first of all, understand that time and chance happens to everyone. Destiny’s presently favored children, who are basking in their luxurious lifestyles, will wake up sooner or later to their shocking realization that destiny favors no one, not even the good people. Our Creator has deliberately made it impossible for any man or woman, even those closest to him, to know if tomorrow he or she would be protected from adversity, or if e would be allowed to go through some unexpected trouble that arises suddenly without any warning. Therefore, let this truth never fade from your mind:
When times are good, enjoy them and be happy. When times are bad, think about this: God makes both good and bad times, so that no one really knows what is coming next. Eccl 7:14 The Voice
The New Living Translation puts it this way:
Enjoy prosperity while you can, but when hard times strike, realize that both come from God. Remember that nothing is certain in this life.
The Message version says:
On a good day, enjoy yourself; on a bad day, examine your conscience. God arranges for both kinds of days so that we won’t take anything for granted.
The simple daily appurtenances of modern life are wonders that we have taken for granted and don’t give a thought to…until. Until one of them stops functioning.
The next understanding I wish to share with you is about the state of mind a person should have during both hard times and good times.
The very first principle of Godly survival in a disaster is to maintain a state of mind called ‘basic happiness’ or ‘primary contentment’ constantly, daily, in every situation, under any circumstances.
Actually, a person can never acquire the state of basic happiness by his own diligent application of ways to attain it. But that’s not what secular motivational writers and speakers teach. Their books and seminars show how one can apply various ‘secrets’ or ‘keys’ to maintain a positive frame of mind in any adverse life situation.
I recall the years when my boyhood favorite band, The Beatles, looked to an eccentric guru, The Maharishi, for their spiritual guidance. The fab four grew up as Christians, at least nominally, but obviously they did not find Christ charismatic enough to be their guru. The Maharishi had a better message of happiness for them. He wrote: ‘Being happy is of the utmost importance. Success in anything is through happiness. Under all circumstances be happy. Just think of any negativity that comes at you as a raindrop falling into the ocean of your bliss…within everyone is an unlimited reservoir of energy, intelligence, and happiness’.
Now if celebrities can somehow discover within themselves, through the guidance of their gurus, the reservoir of happiness, why do they need Christ, who has never once mentioned anything about ‘success’ or ‘happiness’ anywhere in his Gospel. He did, however, promise his own peace and his own joy within us though, even when we are going through a lot of unhappy and unsuccessful situations.
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid…These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. John 14:27;15:11
Now, if we look at the fruits of what the celebrities learn from their spiritual teachers, where do you find the unhappiest marriages and the brokenest families on earth today? Don’t most celebrities in Hollywood and other woods have one or more gurus to lead them to the fountain of lifelong cheer? Yet the most successful of them are the most miserable as well. Just a few weeks ago, as I write this, came the shocking news of the suicide of one the cheeriest actors in filmworld, Robin Williams. His gurus gave him everything for the successful life except basic happiness.
Understand that only if God enables you by his Spirit can you be in a state of basic happiness always. This basic state of mind is a pure gift of God, and not the product of one’s effort in keeping any laws of happiness. So ask God regularly and persistently for this gift. And while asking God, there is some groundwork you can do for yourself to be prepared for any eventuality.
A prerequisite of basic happiness is that you should consciously keep reverting your mind to the one overriding reason for your living – to prepare for the incredibly thrilling life in the sooncoming Kingdom of God. No matter how dreary and gloomy the world around you, the clear vision of the joys and pleasures of Paradise should be more than enough for you to tide over every unhappy but temporary circumstance in your life. And then – of even greater encouragement – you have God’s promise that he personally will see to it that you survive through every adversity and be able to stand victorious and faultless before him.
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen. Jude 1:24-25
Another absolute prerequisite of basic happiness is a determination to delight in and live by The 10 Commandments no matter how bad the times are. God’s Word promises that a person who loves and keeps God’s Laws will never be perturbed by any adversity or unhappiness.
Great peace have those who love your law, and nothing causes them to stumble.’ Ps 119:165
Says the Contemporary English Version:
You give peace of mind to all who love your Law. Nothing can make them fall.
Nothing can make you fall if you love God’s laws and keep them. No electricity, no money, no food, no water, no home – nothing can make a person who loves God’s law be overcome or devastated or panicked by any unhappy circumstance but he is always able to rise above every adversity by holding on to his Helper’s hand which is ever extended to him.
Sudden staggering disaster drives the Christless person, no matter how successful e is in the world’s estimate, to desperate acts of survival, and if that doesn’t bring him or her deliverance, e resorts to what e thinks is the only way out of es misery, suicide. But for the man or woman who has a passionate love for God’s laws and keeps them with zeal no crisis will overwhelm em.
Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction. I will never forget Your precepts, for by them You have given me life. Ps 119:92-93
If I had not found happiness in obeying your Law, I would have died in misery. I won’t ever forget your teachings, because you give me new life by following them.’ CEV
Finally, basic happiness is not possible without contentment.
Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.’ 1 Tim 6:6-8
The man or woman gifted with basic happiness will never moan or grumble as long as e has food, clothing and a place for em and es family to lie down safely. Such a person will trust God to supply em with everything else at the right time, but until then e will be content with the barest essentials of life.
When bad times fall upon a Christ-based person, he or she doesn’t focus es prayers too much on getting out of the situation immediately, though e would daily be asking God to deliver em as early as God’s will allow. But es greater focus is on asking God to strengthen em to go through the trouble that God has allowed in his or her life until e emerges out of it smiling. In the meantime, as e waits for es deliverance, e looks around at what remains in es life, and renews es gratitude for each and every one of them. E praises God more than e did in the past because e has been given the basics to live through each day so that e and es family do not have to suffer acute deprivation.
Now, you can confidently ask God to provide you always – in adversity just as in prosperity – the three absolute essentials for your and your family’s daily living: food, clothing, and shelter. As long as God supplies you daily with these three basic needs, you have no reason in the sight of God to be unhappy or complaining about any lack of provisions.
You may not have a job, you may not have meat for meals regularly, you may not have matching shoes for your trousers, you may not have a tv, or a car, you may not have even a bicycle to ride on…but you can have basic happiness if you are able to feed your family and yourself two or three meals a day, have at least untorn clothes you can wear without embarrassment in public, and a place to sleep in safely.
Note, that I used the word ‘place’, not home. It may happen in some rare instance that a person may not have a home of his own to sleep in and have to find refuge elsewhere. But God in his great mercy ensures that such periods are very brief, and always restores a home for those who look to him for every need. I speak from experience, dear child of God, as most of my messages are.
One day – suddenly, as a bird caught in a snare, exactly as the Bible mentioned it – I found myself, my wife and our tween daughter on the street, evicted from our residence for no fault of ours. (The owner of the apartment we had rented didn’t pay his municipality taxes on time, and the officials sealed the entrance to it.) One hour, I was basking in security, the next, I was looking desperately for shelter.
We were in another country, and we had no relatives or friends to go to immediately. And I didn’t have the money to take a hotel room. The nearest person I could get help from was in another state. And night would be upon us soon. But, fortunately (for God-trusters, there is no word ‘fortunately’ or ‘luckily’ in their vocabulary; I use it here just as a common expression), I realized I had my office keys with me. Nobody will be in the office at night. I took my family to the office. And we spent a not-uncomfortable night there, sleeping on the office couches. Next morning, before the office staff arrived, I took my family to the next state and put up with a friend for about three days. On the fourth day, we found ourselves in a good hotel room, without having to pay a cent from my side. After about a week, we were able to return to our residence.
If God allows you to be without shelter suddenly – say, because a whirlwind blew your roof away, as happens in tornado-frequented countries – dont panic. It becomes God’s responsibility then to provide you temporary shelter until you are back in the comfort of your own home. Such times will be extremely rare, most likely not more than once a lifetime.
But whirlwind or earthquake or war, one thing you will not be deprived of for even a single day is your daily food and clothing and a place to sleep safely. That is God’s promise you can count on with your and your family’s whole lives.
You will be wise to be mentally equipped at all times to face any unexpected change in your circumstances. And when bad times come, understand that the trouble is not a sign that God is not protecting you or that he is not pleased with you. Instead, understand it is the surest sign that God has found you spiritually mature enough he can now trust you to go through the flood or the fire safely. Let him hold your hand as he gently and steadily leads you and your family out of the danger zone and to safe shore.
He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young.’ Is 40:11
Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior’ Is 42:1-3
If you tend to fret because you are not having a more comfortable life, then God may have a mild rebuke for you, as he had for one of his faithful but complaining servants. In the words below, instead of Baruch, put your name there. God is no respecter of person, and what applies to Baruch applies to every man and woman of God:
This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to you, Baruch: You have said, ‘I am overwhelmed with trouble! Haven’t I had enough pain already? And now the Lord has added more! I am worn out from sighing and can find no rest.’ Baruch, this is what the Lord says: ‘I will destroy this nation that I built. I will uproot what I planted. Are you seeking great things for yourself? Don’t do it! I will bring great disaster upon all these people; but I will give you your life as a reward wherever you go. I, the Lord, have spoken!’ Jer 45:2-5 NLT
I have faced a few critical situations in life where my family and I had to live the basic life for several days and even weeks. The latest was about two years ago, but mercifully, it was relatively mild compared to what we had gone through in the past, and it lasted only a few hours.
On that morning I rose from bed tired, having woken up several times in the night to attend to my senile mother’s needs. My first need in the morning was for a cup of refreshing coffee. I turned on the tap to wash my coffee mug. There was no water. I then switched on the water pump, but the pump was silent, and I noticed the electricity meter showed no electricity coming into the house. The meter had conked. I took my mobile to call the electrician. He was not picking up, even after several attempts.
The situation could have been panicky for me had I not known Christ, and had I not some months earlier decided that no matter what acute contingency happens to disrupt my daily life, I will not allow myself to panic or become desperate because I know my God is in total control of everything that happens in my life.
But it was indeed a critical situation. I found comfort in the fact that at least I could get some essential water by drawing it from the well manually. But that would require a bucket and robe, and they were not available. Then, I suddenly remembered with dismay. My income for our monthly needs was totally dependent on my freelance work, for which I was absolutely dependent on the computer. And that very day was the deadline to submit an important work. Without submitting this work on time, I would be in financial straits. There was only one thing that could deliver me from this crisis. I appealed to our Father in heaven in my desperate situation. And he sent an immediate answer.
A thought came to my mind seemingly out of nowhere. The thought was, ‘Open the meter box, and check one of the fuses’. I am a greenhorn in technical matters. Nevertheless, I opened and pulled out one of the fuses. The fuse wire was burnt out. I was able to replace the wire, and the electricity came back.
But what if the thought of opening the complicated switchbox hadn’t come. My whole day would have been one continuous affliction, and if I didn’t get the electrician somehow, it could go on to two or more days of severe crises in several areas of my life together.
If a day ever comes in your life that you have to resort to the three-blessings basic life, here is another of God’s assurances to you and your family for such a time, paraphrased in parenthesis by me:
Though the fig tree may not blossom,
(Though the economy of my country has crashed)
Nor fruit be on the vines
(Nor do I have any means of income)
Though the labor of the olive may fail,
(Though all my projects have failed)
And the fields yield no food;
(And my business is yielding no profit)
Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,
(Though creditors have seized all my assets)
And there be no herd in the stalls—
(And I and my family are left with only our basic lives)
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The Lord God is my strength;
He will make my feet like deer’s feet,
And He will make me walk on my high hills. Hab 3:17-19
Child of God, as long as your Father in heaven has daily provided you all that you need for your basic happiness, rejoice. Rejoice daily.
Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Phil 4:4
Pappa Joseph 