Category Archives: Current events

Judgment begins at the house of God

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The Bible says, “Judgment must begin at the house of God”. (I Peter 4:17) What does that mean? God holds the standard the highest for those who proclaim that they are His. It’s like how Jesus castigated the Pharisees rather than the drunks. In fact He told the self-righteous religious leaders of His day, “The tax collectors and harlots enter into the kingdom of God before you.” (Matthew 21:31) The same principle that Jesus espoused 2000 years ago is still valid today.

The recent pandemic that’s swept America, as well as the world, had a major, transformative effect on the elections of 2020 in the USA. The national government here was seen by many to be aloof and distracted by other things as the Corona virus hit America as hard as any disease has in the last 100 years.

Was this an example of judgment beginning at the house of God? Well, it sure had an effect on the elections last November. And America voted for a new administration and government which it was hoped would take more action and really get to grips with this vast, deadly emergency that has virtually overwhelmed the country.

And now this major historic cold and snow that has just hit here in Texas has had a similar effect. Both the cold in Texas and the Corona virus nationally have been ”natural disasters”, as we call them. Insurance companies actually call them, “acts of God”. But judgment must begin at the house of God. The Lord has ways to intervene in the affairs of humanity, even in our times. And thank God for that.

The Lord has always had ways to bring judgment first upon His own people, rather than on the so-called worldly or the unsaved. That’s why, in God’s eyes, His own saved Christians are so much more accountable than are the unsaved worldly who don’t know His Word or ways.

I often feel that it is a pitiful, fearful time for America. Will they be able to muddle through for a few more years, as they have for so long? Maybe; they’ve gone on a long time, coasting on the momentum of the righteousness of former generations. But, like Israel of old, there comes  time when God requires an accounting. It says in the Bible, “In those days the Lord began to cut Israel short”. (II Kings 10:32) I fear this is now happening to America as well.

The Lord has consistently held a higher standard for His own people than He does for the ignorant and unsaved of this world. But you seldom hear this message from the pulpit here or much less from the opportunistic politicos of our times.

A former US President from Texas once talked about “compassionate conservatism”. I wish I could say I have seen more of that here. In Texas there is a predominance of conservatives; but each of us will have to answer to God if we have truly been compassionate. I could go off on a tangent here, trying to apportion blame and take sides. But instead, maybe I’ll just try to keep seeing what the Lord is doing. I will add that I have certainly known personally some very humble and compassionate conservative Christians here in Texas.

The Lord brings crisis into our lives. He can, in His love and nurturing of us, even expose our sins, both to individuals and to nations. And almost no one really ever likes that, individually or nationally. Still, the Lord does it to purge and purify and to try to bring us out of “the sins that so easily beset us.” (Hebrews 12:1)

JobAnd how we react to that, individually or nationally, will really tell the tale of how our life goes. Almost everyone is very prone to “justifying themselves” (Luke 10:29). I wrote a blog article about justifying yourself which can be found here.

But God’s hope must be that, individually and nationally, we won’t justify ourselves and thwart the working of God in our lives. Instead, we will see the hand of God working when events that He sends expose our unpreparedness, our aloofness, our pride and arrogance. Then the hope must be that we will see it, acknowledge it, repent of it and be the better for the judgment the Lord sometimes brings. So often, it really comes down to that.

How’s this all going to end? Will the leadership of Texas confess their mistakes, ask for forgiveness and make the changes that are so desperately needed? We can hope so. Virtually every major leader in Texas is strongly a Christian conservative. May the Lord have mercy upon us all. May we all, individually and nationally, see the chastening, purifying hand of God in our lives.

“Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby.”  (Hebrews 12:11)

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”

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A famous phrase from at least the time of Rome said, “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”. Does it apply to now? Is God preparing to destroy parts of the world and so is allowing them to descend into madness so that they bring on their own destruction? To say the least, it’s happened before. The Latin rendition was, “Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat,”  an opinion that’s been around for centuries.

Paul the Apostle spoke of this in a different way. He said that God sends “strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” (II Thessalonians 2:11) But to whom is that strong delusion sent? Paul covers that quite succinctly. Those who “receive not the truth, that they may be saved.” (II Thessalonians 2:10)

I’ve personally witnessed the progression of history over the last 50 or 60 years. I enjoyed and spent time sharing my faith at Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park in London in 1971. How has Britain progressed over the last 50 years? Or Dam Square in Amsterdam where I was in 1972? Have the nations of Western Europe and North America “progressed”? You might think to say yes. But what do you think the answer would be in the eyes of God? “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”

What incredible depth that saying has and I think I only for the first time really saw it and realized it tonight. Is that saying something that the Hebrew Bible would agree with? It certainly is. One of the most incredible passages in the Old Testament bears out this thought. God said to the spirits around His throne, “Who shall persuade [ancient king of Israel] Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead… And one came forth and said, ‘I will go forth and being a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets’. And the Lord said, ‘Go, you shall persuade him’.” (I Kings 22:20-22)

This is almost unfathomable for many people. But the Bible says that the Lord convened a multitude of spirits before His throne and that he sanctioned one who said he would go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets of the evil king Ahab.

This is not taught in the kids’ Sunday school class on Sunday. Or most likely even from the pulpit. But it’s the same idea as the ancient thought, “Quos Deus vult perdere prius”. Or as another translation gives it, “Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason”. Perhaps, if you prefer the Greek rendition, Sophocles said, “Evil appears as good in the minds of those whom god leads to destruction.”

God, at length, when they have rejected His messengers, despised His words and misused his prophets, sends a lying spirit to deceive fully and utterly those ones who have already gone so far in rejecting Him.

Like the Bible says of ancient King Saul, who ruled before King David, “The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him”  (I Sam 16:14). This is where we are now in our times. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

We all feel it and sense it. There is a spirit of madness and virtually insanity that is upon so many in our nations at this time. It is unsustainable. It is overwhelmingly lacking in basic truth and a grasp of reality and the truth that is of this time. But historically this is what happens before destruction. The ancients knew this.

But these are the overwhelmingly fearful and foreboding times we live in. If you study history, you’ll be aware of times when a lone voice was raised, “one crying in the wilderness”. (Mark 1:3) But it went unheeded. The multitude had hasted to follow evil. “They mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and misused his people until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people and there was no remedy.” (II Chronicles 36:16) Ask the Germans, they can tell you about it.

Well, this kind of talk is not popular. It’s depressing and discouraging. Still, historically, a solid case could be made that the times we are in right at this moment could be encapsulated by that phrase, “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”.

Madness, unreasonableness, fierce senselessness is the order of the day here in our times and even is daily seen in my home country. Hopefully you are not sucked into these things. Hopefully you are anchored in the Lord and His truth. Because the delusion is very strong in our times. And multitudes are being confused and perplexed by it. May God help you and us all.

 

Tossed About

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We’re not just supposed to “watch our tongue”, we’re to watch our ears too. Jesus said so. “Take heed what you hear”, He said (Mark 4:24). And you may wonder how you can do that. But that verse came to me very strongly in relation to what I’m experiencing with so many Christians nowadays.

Maybe a better way it is expressed or explained is where Paul said, “That we no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine.” (Ephesians 4:14) So very many believers today are very much “tossed to and fro”.

In this case, it’s not like some specific Biblical doctrine. But, boy, they are carried about with every wind of political hearsay and rumor. Millions are just enthralled and entangled with political hearsay, as long as it has a little sprinkled sugar coating of what passes for Scripture glazing it.

Solomon said, “The simple believes every word but the prudent man looks well to his going.” (Proverbs 14:15) Most of the time it’s good to be simple. But in this Bible verse, “simple” has the connotation of the naïve and gullible. We’re supposed to be harmless as doves but also wise as serpents. (Matthew 10:16) I’m so often grieved when I see how very many Christians are sucked in to modern political quarreling and think they are doing God service this way.

Christians are just getting sucker punched by the enemy in the way of listening to secular, worldly diatribes which seek to allure Christians into their orbit by having a veneer of Christianity to them. But in actuality it’s just another Godless temptation to pull Christians away from our foundations in the Word and out into the latest concoction of the enemy to get us off the wall of God’s will.

In Job it says, “The ear tries words as the mouth tastes meat” (Job 34:3). Christians so much need to exercise discernment in what they allow themselves to hear. It doesn’t happen by just isolating yourself away from everything, I’m not talking about that. Jesus said we are to be “in the world but not of the world”.  (See John 17:15 & 16)

But I think it does come down to discernment in what we hear, recognizing when some broadcast or publication is just the devil’s slop, dressed up in a Christian costume. Jesus warned of false prophets that come unto you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves. So then we get all vigilant about some pastor or Christian teacher that we’re told is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

But we spend a couple of hours a day online on sensationalist, provocateur sites and channels that are nothing but political propaganda to indoctrinate you into a set of beliefs and actions that are not Scriptural and are not in truth leading you to true Christian service.

I’ve been making videos recently that go into the details of how things will be in the final days before the coming of the Lord and some places there have stood out to me so much. Here’s what the angel told Daniel it would be like in the very last days, how the people and servants of God will be in those times. “The people who do know their God shall be strong and do exploits.” (Daniel 11:32) Do you think that those are political exploits? Military or militia exploits? Or will it be like the exploits that happened in the book of Acts and the early church?

Another verse from Daniel, “And they that understand among the people shall instruct many.” (Daniel 11:33) Is that going to be understanding conspiracy theory and correct political stands? Or will it be in understanding the foundational truths of the endtime that will be playing out then? Are we going to be leading the believers and seekers of those times to a knowledge of the Lord and His soon coming? Or every wind of doctrine and confusion that will be blowing about in those times?

So this is something of a heart cry for me and from me. It just grieves me how many are actually falling away to fringe secular teachers and I’m talking about brethren who were before strongly on the wall of Christian service, even some who I knew on the mission field.

Take heed how you hear. We need to not only keep our mouth and our tongue, we need to keep our ears. “Go from the presence of a foolish man when you don’t perceive in him the lips of knowledge.” (Proverbs 14:7) We need a lot more discernment in what we’re spending our time listening to, how and where we’re getting out information from and what we are allowing to enter our hearts and minds. Lord help us!

One of the most sobering verses about the prophetic endtime is not found in Daniel or Revelation but in II Timothy. It says this, “And they shall turn away their ears from hearing the truth and shall be turned to fables.” (II Timothy 4:4) My gosh, how much this is happening across Christianity right now. Not fables like some ancient children’s fiction but broadcasts and publications that have just enough smattering of Christianity or the Bible so that they can pose as something of the Lord when it so utterly isn’t.

To me this is one of the greatest dangers facing Christians in these times, not secular governments or other religions but these empty, poisonous falsehoods, posing as truth by having a thin glazed veneer of Christian tinge. Brethren, watch out. Recognize it. Test it and if it is pulling you away from the depths of the truth of God’s Word and His service, the reject it like the plague.

Are you worried about “the mark of the Beast”?

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There’s a lot online now about “the mark of the Beast”. So many people are concerned about this that I feel I should say something. I put off writing this article but several people recently wrote me about this.

Is “the mark of the Beast” already here? Can it be forced on you? Is the Covid 19 vaccine “the mark of the Beast”? A great Bible verse to remember in times like this is, “God is not the author of confusion…” (I Corinthians 14:33).

I wonder how many people even know what “the mark of the Beast” is or, I should say, what it will be. It’s in the news a lot currently, even in some of the mainstream media. Briefly, “the mark of the Beast” is found in the book of Revelation, mainly in chapter 13. This chapter is about the last “forty-two months” (Revelation 13:5) before the return of Jesus to this earth as the King of God that he is.

Here’s the most specific thing in Scriptures about the mark of the Beast.

“And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads. And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that has understanding count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. And his number is six hundred and sixty six.” (Revelation 13:16-18)

Of course, including this here may bring to mind more questions than it does answers. Who is the “he” mentioned at the beginning? What kind of “mark” is it talking about? Some kind of tattoo? Or like what many now say: an implant of some kind? What does that mean about “666”? Or even the simply question: what is “the beast”? I’ll answer that one right away. “The beast” is the Antichrist of the endtime who’s been predicted to come in many places both in the Old and New Testament.

But it gets worse. Because the next chapter, chapter 14, tells us that

“…the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If any man worships the beast and his image and receives his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation. And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.” (Revelation 14:9 & 10)

So the Bible says that in the very last days, no person will be able to buy or sell unless they have “the mark of the beast”. And then it says that anyone who does accept the mark of the beast will be punished with the wrath of God. Wonderfully, we can fall back on the strong promise in God’s Word, that “He will not allow us to be tempted above that we are able to bear but with the temptation he will make a way of escape, that we may be able to bear it.” (I Corinthians 10:13)

And this is exactly what the Bible says that God is planning to do in this last period of 3½ years before the second coming of the Lord. We’ve seen what is said about all this in Revelation chapter 13 and 14. But in Revelation chapter 12, there are incredible promises to His believing children, the Christian believers of the final days. Twice in the chapter, it says almost the same thing. Verse 6 of Revelation 12 says

“And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and sixty days.”

Then perhaps for emphasis and to underline the Lord’s faithfulness to His bride, the body of believers in the final days, verse 14 says,

“And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time from the face of the serpent.”

For an explanation of that phrase referring to “a time, times, and half a time”, see the video I did on Daniel 7, at around the 24:32 mark, where I explain about this. Daniel chapter 7 is the first place in the Bible where that phrase, “a time, times, and half a time”, is used to refer to 3.5 years. But it comes up in other Scriptures many more times after this.

Where does this leave us? Are we all going to be killed if we don’t take the mark of the beast? Or sent to the lake of fire if we do? I certainly don’t believe that those are our only two options.

To keep this somewhat short, I’ll add in here the links to two articles I’ve done specifically on “the woman in the wilderness” that is spoken of in Revelation 12. Here is a recent article written on it. And here is one, “Fleeing into the wilderness… in Bulgaria” that I wrote a few years ago, when I was in Bulgaria, on the subject of “the woman in the wilderness” in the final days.

I don’t believe you can be forced to take the mark of the beast, when it does ultimately appear, probably in times soon to come. God is not going to pour out His wrath on you because you were compelled to go against His will. “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world”. (I John 4:4)

Neither do I believe at all that any upcoming vaccine against the corona virus is going to be, or contain, the mark of the Beast. This is ludicrous, unscriptural palaver. Christians really need to be reading up about things and not be victims of such shallow, politically motivated hearsay.

I get upset at how easily Christians nowadays are duped into believing the latest fad or “wind of doctrine” that blows their way concerning Bible prophecy. It may be a sign of how weak and unlearned the majority of believers are when it comes to knowledge of the prophetic end time.

If there is any good in the current hue and cry about the corona virus and the mark of the beast, it could be that at least it is getting out the basic idea that there will be a mark of the beast in the end time. This is similar to how the movie a few years back about “Left Behind” got out the idea of the second coming of the Lord, even though the central premise of  that movie was that there would be a Rapture before the Great Tribulation which is false doctrine.

If you are currently worrying about the mark of the beast, I suggest you don’t. Instead, try to really get into the Word about it and the whole subject of the final days before the second coming of the Lord. I’ve spent the last few years in making a series of videos on the prophecies of Daniel which are featured on my website by that name where this article appears. There are also many blog articles that go into various aspects of the end times. I hope the material will be a blessing to you and that you will be able to grow in a knowledge of His Word for the difficult times that already face us and for the more difficult times soon to come.

Anarchy and stable government

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Perhaps the November elections in the USA will pass without violent unrest. Some people here now flirt with the idea of an uprising if the election doesn’t go their way.  Talk show host for years have spoken against the government, declaring that the government is our enemy. My friends, I’ve lived in over 50 countries as a missionary, 36 years on the mission field and I can tell you this: you don’t know how good we have it.

Do you know what a civil war is really like? Do you know what you are contemplating or being lured into contemplating? Just a few years ago a long time friend of mine really wanted to get into a fist fight with me. I didn’t go for it but they really pushed me. They told me later, “I didn’t want to kill you; I just thought we’d slap each other around a little.”

But so often, Pandora’s box being opened, you don’t realize what will come out. And people in America are talking amongst themselves about civil unrest, both on the Right and on the Left. People have been heavily armed here for years. And sadly the Christians are just as much in the middle of all this as anyone.

I wish I could scream at some people right now. Do they have any idea what they are thinking about and contemplating? No, 99% don’t. They’ve lived in the incredible bubble of America all their lives which, as bad as it is in some ways and places, is nothing when you compare it to the conditions of anarchy and civil war that can come to a country and stay there, if they open the door to violence.

I wish the voice of history could call out to American hearts and minds, all the millions of people over the last hundreds of years could speak to you from beyond, our ancestors who lived and died in anarchy and societal collapse because some ones thought that the time had come to rise up against the government. Or their neighbors. Or the opposition. Or whatever.

But Americans don’t know history anymore. They don’t even know their own history. Almost all my relatives came to Texas after the Civil War in the 1860’s, from Mississippi and Alabama after the war there had brought their lives to ruin and havoc. They fled like Syrians have done in our times; they crossed the Mississippi River and came to Texas.

Many Americans today are spoiling for a fight. They’re “fed up and not going to take it anymore!” “They have no choice!” Sad, foolish people bringing on their own sorrow. It’s like a dream that you see happening but you can’t intervene to stop it. If you don’t like the election in November, are you going to take up arms against the other side?! Your side lost so that’s the last straw?!

“It must be rigged! It’s all a conspiracy! We have to take back our nation!”

YOU ARE BEING DUPED. You are going to reject the democratic processes that have worked here for close to 250 years and instead rely on your gun rage? Or your “woke” comrades on campus and their neo-Marxist agenda?

But many people are past reasoning. “The lines have been drawn, the curse it is cast”, sang Bob Dylan over 50 years ago. And it may be truer now than it ever has been. This is the spirit of the times, just before great cataclysm. People are all jazzed up for their cause, full of hate of their “enemies”, even though it be their own neighbors. And off they go to the jolly war they have been prepped and hyped up for over years. When will we ever learn?

I’m concerned about the US election in November. I’d love to be proven wrong. I’d love to see everything turn for the better, the flaming rhetoric get turned down, a little bit of reconciliation appear in the air, the Corona virus begin to subside and happy days be here again.

We’ve had a period of relative peace and safety here in North American for over 150 years, at least when compared to places like the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Syria, Northern Ireland, Israel, Rwanda, Sri Lanka and perhaps you can think of many more.

Yes, there have been injustices, oppression, racism, inequality and a host of inexcusable grievances that were unwarranted. But we haven’t really had major wide spread civil unrest and war within our borders since 1865.

Maybe we are at the high-water mark. Perhaps soon cooler heads will prevail. Maybe in the next days and weeks things will swing back towards dialogue and away from violence and escalation. Because if the centrifugal forces keep increasing that are pulling this nation to its edges, then violence may in fact be the end result of where things are going at election time.

If any of you are toying with the idea that taking up arms is a way to make America a more righteous place, I just wish there was some way I could impart to you how that idea has failed to deliver over and over again for hundreds of years, no matter how righteous it may have looked at the time.

And especially if you are a Christian, just get a grip on the Lord and your own heart and reject that idea! It is not the leading of God; it is not what the Lord is leading you to do. But instead it comes from strident, secular, Satanic forces which don’t have the mind of Christ working in them.

Please pray for peace in our country. Amen.

 

Strengthen the things that remain

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General George Patton, the flamboyant but successful American general attended ceremonies in Berlin in 1945 of victorious forces who had defeated the Nazis. Generals from the West and Russian generals who led forces who had attacked from the east, met in Berlin to celebrate. But Patton at one point attempted to provoke a major incident with one of the Russian generals there.

Patton said plainly to all that Allied western forces should just keep rolling on from Germany and immediately drive straight at Moscow to defeat Russian Communism while they could. Patton saw Communism to be a great threat to the rest of the world. Of course he was overruled and considered almost crazy at the time. But, looking back, we can wonder.

It was clear to Patton that the threat from the Left was just as grim as the threat from the Right had been. And perhaps we’re facing a very similar moment in our times. Many are sickened and exasperated by the leadership of the USA since 2016. People of all stripes and persuasions have been aghast and heartsick because of the utter lack of empathy or competence the US president has shown, as well as his lack of response to the Covid 19 crisis. Many Americans across the political spectrum have come to feel that this man and his regime have to go.

But then what? The conservative, right wing in America has given us the president we’ve had for the last 4 years. But can we turn to the liberal party of the left? Pardon me but it’s like we have two choices. “Do you want the red devils or the blue devils?” Not dissimilar to what seemed to be the choice facing the world of the 1930’s and 1940’s.

The Democratic Party now is not the party of John Kennedy or Martin Luther King, any more than the Republicans are still the party of Ronald Reagan. Maybe you haven’t been looking but the Democrats, who may end up winning the election here in 4 months, are exceptionally divided between traditional Democratic views, which triumphed the cause of the common man and workers’ rights, and the so-called “Progressives” who, when you scrap the veneer, are actually neo-Marxists in every way.

So people of our times are really stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. Like Patton saw, there are serious and existential threats from both the Right and the Left, just as it was in earlier times between Nazism on the one hand and Communism on the left.

Solution? I’m not sure there is one. But some famous words of Jesus came to me this morning, “Strengthen the things that remain.” (Revelation 3:2) I have to be honest; I don’t know how much I hold to the idea of praying for God to save America. Maybe He will. It’s like the Australians are known to say, “She’ll come round, mate.” Meaning, “It’ll all work out somehow and stabilize.” Maybe it will; it has at other times when things have been rough.

But also in history there have been innumerable times when it didn’t come round. It finally collapsed and often, looking back, people could see that it was the hand of God, finally withdrawing His protection and allowing the sins of the people and nation to finally get the best of them. Their cup of iniquity was full and collapse came.

God even told the prophet Jeremiah, just before the collapse of his nation around 600 years before Jesus, “Pray not for this people for their good.” (Jeremiah 14:11) In God’s eyes, it had come time for His judgments on Israel and they were taken captive by Babylon shortly afterwards. That may be where the USA has come to now, in spite of the fact that there are still many sincere Christians here.

But it’s always good council to “strengthen the things that remain”. Even now, maybe it’s like the council another prophet of Israel gave a few years after the times of Jeremiah to the king of Babylon, where the Jews had been driven to. Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar, when God had told the king that judgment was coming on him, “O king break from your sins by righteousness and your injustice by showing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of your peaceful times.” (Daniel 4:27) The Democrats in America have traditionally been the party that has stood up for the poor and, my gosh, the poor and middle classes here sure need help now, “red and yellow, black and white.”

But if he gets elected, Biden’s greatest threat won’t be the Republicans. It will be from the neo-Marxists of the left wing of his own party who could work as Lenin and the Bolsheviks did in Moscow after the fall of the Russian Czar. The more moderate Mensheviks were initially leading the changes in 1917, after the fall of the Romanov dynasty. But the moderates and democrats were swept aside by Lenin and the Bolsheviks. And from there, the horrors of the reality of atheist Communism gripped hundreds of millions people over the next 70 years.

As for me and those I fellowship with, we’re going to keep serving the Lord. If those in America still holding on to the principles that existed even 20 or 30 years ago would/could band together and “strengthen the things that remain”, maybe America could weather this storm upon it now. I’m pessimistic but then again, perhaps the Australians are right, “She’ll come round, mate.”  One way or the other, I’m going to be holding on to the Lord and His calling and His will in this time. But I am a little concerned that we may be in for a very rough ride and unprecedented times over the next few months. Lord help us all.

The Coral snake in the driveway

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Yesterday there was a big Coral snake in the driveway. We killed it. Coral snakes are the most poisonous snakes in my part of the world, more poisonous than rattle snakes. It wouldn’t really have been right at the time to say, “Oh, don’t worry. Don’t be afraid. Everything is going to be alright.”

No, at that moment the danger was real. Waiting until the snake was biting your foot would not have been a good idea. Clear, immediate action was needed to eliminate the danger, and in this case it was to kill the snake. This can all seem so simple and basic that it doesn’t even deserve discussion. But in these times, with very real and deadly danger upon so many nations, it’s an object lesson in how to react to this.

Certainly there are times to say, “Oh, don’t be afraid, don’t worry.” Certainly there are times to “Just trust the Lord.” But somewhere in most people is a modicum of what we nowadays call “common sense”. It’s not right 100% of the time but on the other hand it often is. And just knowing when to go with the simplest and most childlike reaction to things can turn out to really be the wisdom of God in some situations.

But when things get a little more complicated than a Coral snake in the driveway, that’s when it becomes more difficult to discern truth from falsehood and reality from something conjured up in our minds or in the minds of others. It seems to me like the snake yesterday was almost allegorical of the present crisis. That snake was real. It wasn’t a hoax, it wasn’t a conspiracy, it didn’t have an agenda, it didn’t come from the Left or the Right or a foreign power. In was utterly real; it was deadly, alive and on the property.

At times like that, if ever, our most basic being needs to be working properly, our minds clear, our heart in the right place and our practical understanding fully functioning. And, I should add, we’re hearing from God. It’s a matter of life and death. For many if not most of us in these times and in the affluent West, we haven’t almost ever run into situations like this. But we have now. The snake is in the driveway. It doesn’t really matter where it came from. It doesn’t really matter if some neighbor put it there, it doesn’t seem to be the time to really get cerebral about it all.

To me at least there’s a parallel to the greater picture of our present crisis. There’s just real wisdom to, in certain situations, being very practical and not procrastinating. “Hesitate and all is lost” is a saying many of us have heard. Practical common sense yesterday was to just run get a shovel and smash the thing. It was that dangerous. Similarly in these times, those who survive, individuals and societies, are the ones who recognize the danger, recognize also what the needed response should be, and then do it.

Admittedly, every situation may not be as simple and clear as a poisonous snake in front of us. This pandemic is full of unknowns. This disease is primarily new and confronting it is not as simply as running to get the shovel. It is worldwide or becoming so. There are no extremely simply, unarguable methods in how to deal with it. But there are some lessons and parallels.

For one, focus. If there suddenly had been a big discussion and argument about what path to take as the snake slithered towards the house, that would not have been smart. Some could argue for the rights of the snake, the moral implications of whether it should be killed or not. Sides could be taken and more time spend on who was to blame, why this had happened, if we were seeing things the right way, is there an agenda, if the snake was even there or not and who could end up wining the high ground with their viewpoint on the crisis that was there on the ground.

King Solomon said, “The prudent man foresees the evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punish.” (Proverbs 27:12) We could even apply the words of Jesus here when He said, “A strong man armed keeps his goods in peace.” (Luke 11:21) I’m very thankful in these times for the practical-minded scientific and medical communities who are often working around the clock to try to find genuine real solutions to this crisis that can save lives and help make it so that this doesn’t turn into the kind of thing that happened in earlier centuries when 100’s of millions of people died from various kinds of plagues. “Oh, don’t worry! It can’t happen here” is all too easy a thought and reaction to that possibility. But I’m pretty sure it definitely can and in some places and ways it already has gone rather far that direction.

May God help us all to be clear minded, unprejudiced, not too cerebral, political or holding on to old prejudges in this very real time. Lord help us to move fast when we need to, to not procrastinate or overestimate our safety and underestimate the dangers that are about. And may the Lord help us to pull together, to love our neighbors, walk in wisdom and even be led of Him so we can make it through this time that is unprecedented in the lives of almost all of us.

“The Woman fled into the wilderness”

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What a difference a day makes. A few days, a week or two and the world is vastly different from how it was. Rationing, national lockdowns, schools closed, air travel curtailed and most nations utterly changed from a few weeks ago. For the people of faith, especially those who look to the prophetic future that’s foretold, this is a lot easier to take and to have been prepared for than perhaps for many others.

Recently I wrote an article called “Are we there yet?” which talked about what Scripture says about the times before the return of Jesus. There I went over some of the “signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3) that Jesus Himself mentioned would be apparent before His return.

But even in the short time between when I wrote that and now, things have been changing very fast. Today where I live some major grocery stores have started restricting how many people can be inside the store at one time. There are rationings for many basic staples and the cash register will not allow purchases over a certain amount. This is unprecedented in my lifetime. I think you’d have to go back to World War II in the States to find anything remotely similar to how things are at the moment.

This reminds me of what a friend years ago told me about what he had thought about the Bible, before he got saved. “Just a book for old ladies to cry in,” was his opinion of Scripture. But we know it is so very much more than this. So much more that it has many specific, exact conditions that it predicts will be a part of the world at the end of this age. And that includes economic conditions.

For example, more and more people around the world have become familiar in recent years with the prediction in the book of Revelation that focuses precisely on how shopping for groceries will be in the last years of this age. Speaking of a final demonic world government that will arise at that time, it says that it “causes all, both small and great, rich and poor to receive a mark in their hand or forehead. And that no man will buy or sell unless they have the mark.” (Revelation 13:16 & 17)

Cryptic but clear. Are we there yet? No, not quite. But the technology is already here. I don’t have to tell you how close something like this is now in our times. How simple it will be to implement a cashless society, all connected online and thus able to be controlled in a way unimaginable only a few decades ago. There just has to be an atmosphere, perhaps some international crisis like the present one, to make it easily accepted by the masses.

For the people of faith, this is going to be a major moment of crisis and decision. Because the Bible warns that this “mark of the beast” to come will be utterly Satanic and that the people of God are warned in no uncertain terms not to receive this coming mark that will be enforced in order to buy and sell.

So what will we do? How will we get food and survive? Wonderfully, the same book in the Bible also answers this question, in a somewhat amazing way. I’ll add in the verse, Revelation 12:6, that explains God’s plan and provision for His people in the final days and then examine its meaning. “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.”

That phrase “the woman” is speaking of the saved of God in the final days, the body of Christ out of every nation. The “1260 days” mentioned there equals 3½ years, the period of time of the “great tribulation” (Matthew 24:21) that is referred to in so many places both in the Old and New Testament of the final time before the return of Jesus.

And when something is really important, sometimes God will “sprinkle a little dust on it” to make it have a special shine. That verse, talking about 1260 days, is Revelation 12:6. When originally written in Greek, the verses were not separated like they are now. So this was just one of God’s “little coincidences” that the length of time and the Bible reference were almost identical.

There’s more. Since this provision of our physical welfare that God will have for His people in the final days is so important for us to know about, the Lord even went ahead and said it twice in the same chapter. Here’s where it’s virtually repeated again, in Revelation 12:14: “And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.”

I like to try to limit these articles to not be too long but there’s a whole lot more to all this. So if you want to know more about “the woman in the wilderness” and how this will play out in the not-too-distant end time, I’ll refer you to an article I wrote almost exactly 5 years ago called “Fleeing into the wilderness… in Bulgaria.” I’d been visiting dear friends in a remote part of Bulgaria and was struck by how it felt like a place that could be a refugee for believers in the future. In that article I go into the particulars of “the woman in the wilderness” and God’s world-wide provision for His people in the final days.

And you might also wonder what this thing is about “3½ years” of “Great Tribulation”; where in the world do I get that from? I’ve made a video on this, based on what Jesus of Nazareth said in Matthew 24, as well as the last verse in Daniel chapter 9. That video, called “The Last 7 Years”, can be seen here.

I heard somewhere long ago that there is a Chinese curse that says, “May you live in interesting times.” Well, here we are. I hope you are praying, staying close to the Lord, loving your neighbor and staying in God’s Word. Those things are our only hope in times like these.

Are we there yet?

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Are we there yet? Are we now actually in the very final events just before the second coming of Christ? Some utterly mock that whole concept. But many millions know what Jesus said would happen before His return. I’ve studied these things all my adult life and looked almost daily at “the signs of the times” to try to find where  exactly we are in relation to what Godly prophecy reveals of the final signs before the end of this age.

But I’ve often shied away from getting into “the signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3) when it comes to current events and daily occurrences. So many teachers have gone out on a limb about something, only to find that they’ve prematurely predicting some specific final event in the Word of God which didn’t happen as they’d come to think it would. And they were made fools of while the truths of Bible prophecy were made to look false because of their misguided pronouncements. I made a video about some things like this called “Famous Failures of Prophetic Interpretation.”

However, common sense will tell you that simply because someone has falsely called “Wolf, Wolf!” and been proven wrong, certainly that doesn’t mean there are no such things as wolves. And if you know the end of that little story, eventually there did turn up a wolf when the people had come to no longer believe because of the false cries of “Wolf!” that they’d heard for so long. And the wolf had his way because the people, calloused and hardened in unbelief, didn’t take heed when the real wolf appeared among them.

Are we there yet? Where are we? In the videos I’ve done on this subject, mainly based around the prophecies of Daniel, I’ve tried to keep to the most explicit, definite things that Scripture points out will happen in the last years of this age.

Personally, one of the things that I watch most closely is the possible rebuilding of a Jewish temple in Jerusalem , “the third temple” as it’s called. I believe that a temple like that, and subsequent animal sacrifices there, will be one of the most significant and definite signs that the final months and years before the second coming of Christ will have definitely started.

And you ask, “How’s it going with that?” Well, it’s surprisingly very far along. You could do a Google search on “The third temple” or “The Temple Institute” to discover how much work has already been done towards this in modern Israel. There are even reports of some who’ve begun to offer animal sacrifices again there. However, I don’t think that it’s yet fulfilled what is spoken about this in Scripture.

But now there are also many other things. Jesus told His disciples, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations. Then shall the end come.” (Matthew 24:14) Certainly for 18 or 19 centuries that verse had not been fulfilled. Just as certainly, now in the last 30 to 100 years it has been.

And other verses about the final days are also becoming more and more relevant. Jesus said, “There shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places” (Mathew 24:7). The problem I’ve always had with these verses is that it’s very easy for skeptics to just say, “Yes, but that has always been happening”. And of course in some ways they’re right.

It’s just that in our times, right now, there really are a lot of things going on. It remains to be seen how this current crisis with the Corona virus will go. Some say it will all just blow over and we’ll go back to business as usual. But many in the scientific community are saying that it’s just about time to call it a worldwide pandemic and to prepare accordingly. Already, at the time of the writing of this, substantial changes are happening daily in the economies of nations around the world in response to the Corona virus.

It was just a few weeks or months ago that Australia experienced the worst fires they’ve ever had. At the same time, the unprecedented melting of the permafrost in the Arctic religions is releasing huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, contributing to the climate change that is already a major concern of much of the world.

As you know, I could go on. It is common knowledge that here in America the country is as politically and socially divided as it has been since the Civil War over 160 years ago. Another concern that many parents are only now coming to realize is that there are agendas being relentlessly pursued in most Western nations now to make mandatory indoctrination of elementary school children in the most explicate elements of the “gay” perception of sexuality to be something that parents’ of these children have no legal rights to oppose. This gets almost no news coverage but it is pervasive everywhere and ongoing.

This would also tend to fulfill another of the things that Jesus pointed out would be a sign of His imminent return, “As the days of Lot, so shall also the coming of the son of Man be. But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.” (Luke 17:28 & 29) So it would seem that elements of Sodom and Gomorrah are also predicted by the Lord to be a part of the spirit of the times, just before His return.

And to go back to my original question, “Are we there yet?” Recent events have caused me to look again at how I’ve been viewing these things. I’ve always expected that there would need to be some kind of major international economic/social crash or war to bring on conditions that would be ripe for the final days of the endtime. But there are just many increasing earmarks on every side that certainly look like the things I was expecting to see many years ago. It all very much bears watching closely, as well as being prepared for, both spiritually as well as physically.

Red Cards

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There are a lot of red cards flying around nowadays and most people are scared to death of them. “Oh my God! I’m a what?! No! No, I am not!” Somebody just red-carded you. It’s a tremendous way to control others and 99% of us will back down and draw back instantly if anyone throws a red card at us.

What am I talking about? I have to be careful with this since it’s no laughing matter. So I’m trying to find some example to use which won’t immediate get me in hot water with many people or even have a law suit filed against me, Facebook ban me and “the cancel culture” mark me for extinction.

Let’s try this one. Let’s say you make some kind of light hearted, spontaneous, off-hand joke about your mother or wife, your sister or girl friend. Someone immediately frowns vehemently and, shaking their finger at you, says forebodingly, “That’s sexist!” You’ve been red carded.

Your only appropriate reaction at that moment which stands any change of getting you out of this is to immediately apologize abjectly, with approbation and utter remorse, with the hope that further prosecution and censure will not come from your accuser. “Sexist” is one of many red cards that are bandied about in our times. And most people know they better not mess with them or it may be their doom and end.

You get the idea? Are maybe now other “red cards” coming to mind for you that are similar to “sexist”? (And I really better add this part as it’s really important.) No, I certainly don’t mean to belittle the mistake/crime/sin/wrongdoing that is genuine sexist behavior or language. I’m old enough to remember actual commercials where they were selling something on TV and they literally said, “So simple, even mother can use it!” And they meant it. If anyone sees that now, they cringe at how blatantly sexist and demeaning it was of women.

Same with “racist”. John Wayne movies from when I was a kid had white cowboys galloping through Native American villages, firing their rifles indiscriminately as indigenous women and children were seen running from the mounted white men. But the white men were depicted as the good guys. The TV of my youth is now recognized as, at times, overtly sickeningly racist. If you want to read about my racist past, you can read “Raised Racist” And “Raised Racist part 2”. So there certainly is racism, there is sexism too along with a bunch of other things that there are powerful, fearful red cards fly about now a days.

The only thing is, those wielding the red cards have tapped into the power in their hands and have been able to use them to do some very successful social engineering themselves. Folks, this stuff is so potent that I hesitate to even mention some of the more powerful red cards that are the most feared in our times. Seriously, you don’t even mention these things except with the utmost respect and utter reverence.

Dare I? Dare I go any further with this? I will tip-toe. I lived in Eastern Europe off and on for years as a missionary. In some of those countries (God bless ‘em, I love them), the recognized state religion of the country is not one of the main ones in the USA, although they are Christian. And anyone who was not a part of the main religion of the state and country was considered to be in a …uhh…umm…cult. So when I was living there in the 90’s, the then President of the United States was deemed to be a cult member, a Baptist, as were many millions of American Christians. So it sort of gets complicated.

It’s like another fearsome, powerful red card word, not the most powerful but certainly up there in rank: terrorist. Having lived in over 50 countries, I’ve come to experience how a “terrorist” as seen in one country is a “freedom fighter” in another. And I’m not talking about the views of some rogue state. I’m talking about the difference between how people in the USA look at things compared to our closest allies in Europe.

Friends, I’m treading lightly. But hopefully you get the idea. Some words in our times have come to take on an extremely powerful aura of social censure. Everyone has been conditioned to an instant, knee-jerk, Pavlovian reaction if you are red carded with those words, so you’ll willingly fall in line with the socialization that’s imposed on all of us through the use of the red cards.

Is it good? Well, first, the  genuine, germane reality of sexism, racism, terrorism, cults [and a few other similar red cards that I am myself too fearful of to even mention] are in their real sense bad, things which should be opposed. But the frivolous use of red cards to herd us all into submission to current agendas of the extremely right or left, transgenderism, foreign powers or main stream banality should be opposed somehow, no matter how powerfully they have become. And they have become powerful indeed, both in the fear and dread they strike in almost every soul, as well as often the legal framework they have backing them up which, as the Bible says, “makes a man an offender for a word.” (Isaiah 29:21)

It’s just really gone too far. Try to recognize the red cards of our times for what they are. One of the signs of the final days are “false accusers in the last days” (II Tim. 3:3). They devil is “the accuser of the saints” (Rev. 12:10) and wants to try to accuse you of things you are not guilty of in order to keep you in submission to his agenda. Don’t let it happen to you. “I will walk at liberty, because I seek Your commandments.” (Psalms 119:145)