By Terry James
End of Days
The rebelliousness of the creature called man is, in my view, manifest blatantly for the student of God’s truth to discern in a recent news story. It involved media and the politically correct crowd’s uproar over the U.S. chairman of the joint chiefs of staff making the comment –when asked his personal opinion-- that he thought members of the same sex in the military who engage in sex with each other are committing immoral acts was quite telling. The voracious feeding frenzy to start the drumbeat for having Gen. Peter Pace removed from his position in the Pentagon has fueled new vitriolic invective against those who hold to such “unenlightened” prejudices.
God, incidentally, is obviously included in our ranks. His Word, the Bible –the instruction manual for the creature, mankind, whom he made from the dirt upon which we stand—says about homosexuality:
“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was [fitting]” (Rom. 1:26-27).
The Creator’s Word against homosexuality is even more powerful in an Old Testament prescription for those who engage in that activity. (If it makes you angry, get mad at God, not me. I don’t make the rules. He does.)
“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [shall be] upon them” (Lev. 20:13).
I know what will be one of the objections: This was for the Israelites, not today’s people. Really? Well, in giving the prescription for living, God hasn’t changed for any people at any time. Jesus, we have established, is Creator of all things, and by His power holds all things together. This, God’s Word says about the Lord of all creation: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Heb. 13:8).
The problem is, as we’ve seen this week with this one issue, fallen mankind will not have the God of heaven rule on Planet Earth. Since the fall, man has determined to do what is right in his own eyes. This is an attitude for catastrophe. Human government is fatally flawed. These have tried to create a utopian earth for millennia. All efforts to do it their way –apart from God—have met with abject failure.
The earliest attempt of human government, which followed the flood of Noah’s antediluvian era, was Nimrod’s attempt to build the tower to heaven (read Genesis chapter 11). The Lord knew this would end in disaster for mankind, so He came down and separated the one-world builders by giving multiple languages, thus driving them to diverse places around the globe. But man has spent the millennia since that time circumventing God’s intervention. The one-world drive is again being pursued in a concerted effort by the powers elite. When things reach a certain point of depravity, God always has intervened. A prime example was when He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. (Read Genesis, chapter 19 to learn about both the depravity and the Lord’s intervention.) Which gets us to the thing about end-of-days scenarios I would like to explore.
Jesus himself set the prophetic stage for a future time when He will again intervene–catastrophically—into depraved man’s playhouse of lasciviousness. He said: “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all” (Lk. 17:28-29).
This is a description of a society, a culture, a generation going forward with business as usual. Jesus prophesied that it would be just like this, when judgment from heaven would fall, at the time of His end-of-days intervention. It is not, however, description of the tribulation era when Jesus comes physically to earth, as foretold in Revelation 19:11. At that time, as many as two-thirds of the earth’s population will have died in the apocalyptic judgments. It will not be business as usual, like the Lord describes here. The things that transpire here, though not as disastrous as things will get later in man’s last grasp to rule himself, will still be calamitous. And, the possible scenarios presented are mesmerizing. Let us look at my postulations, based upon the pre-trib view of the rapture, which, of course, we at Rapture Ready are convinced is the correct view, from God’s perspective.
Jesus’ description of Lot’s being removed from that condemned city is almost certainly a picture of the rapture of the only good God sees on this earth…born again Christians… the church Jesus began building, and which was born at Pentecost (in Acts, Chapter 2). Lot, Abraham’s nephew, although not a perfect example of living a godly life, was nonetheless considered a “just” man in God’s eyes. That is, the Lord saw Lot as righteous, a believer –one who accepted God’s governance over his life, accepted God’s salvation plan. Lot and his family lived in a society that was–well—much like ours. It was wicked to its black core. Incidentally, homosexuality had, in that society, become accepted as, even expected to be, part of life in Sodom.
God removed Lot, and His wrath began to fall upon that wicked, ungovernable people. Jesus indicated that this is exactly what will happen near the time of His coming again. It will happen at the rapture --at least seven years before He comes back and touches down on the Mount of Olives. The first part of God’s wrath, I’m convinced, will be His removal from the consciences of earth-dwellers. The people left behind will have rejected God’s governance. Now, raptured saints will perhaps, from the balcony of heaven, be given a God’s-eye view of whether the rebels' claim that they don’t need God to govern them is true.
Millions will vanish in a millisecond –an “atomos” of time-- the prophecy tells us. This nation, the United States of America, which had at the same time more gospel light than any other nation of history and access to more filth and depravity than even ancient Rome at its decadent, orgiastic worse, will experience an implosion that, upon its contemplation, staggers the imagination.
We will have a look at how the endtime stage is set for the scenarios we will explore.
America is at the top of the food chain, so far as nations of Planet Earth are concerned. She is the richest, most materially blessed nation-state ever to exist. Her achievements in almost every facet of human endeavor are without peer in the annals of the ages.
The European Union is developing rapidly into a colossus that will challenge the U.S. for the title of world champ, so far as superpowers are concerned. But Europe lacks one ingredient in order to achieve America’s superpower status, no matter how economically strong the EU becomes. That one missing element is the military might–particularly the high-tech military complex, firmly entrenched and fortified by (likely) the most horrific thermonuclear capability and the most sophisticated means to deliver total devastation to any other nation foolish enough to initiate such conflagration.
Russia is again beginning to show signs of beefing up for super power military status. It, too, however, lags far behind in high-tech matters –things that prevent it from achieving the degree of hegemony over parts of the world formerly under the dictatorial eyes of the USSR. The Russian economy continues to be in shambles, and achieving the high-tech needed is thus impeded.
China is biding its time, building a strong economic base for one purpose: to attain a level of fiscal power that can buy and/or develop the high-tech sophistication essential to superpower status. The Chinese raw manpower capabilities unquestionably present potentially the greatest threat, in terms of sheer numbers, of any military force in human history.
All other nations are bit players in the scenarios we will examine. But, combined, they present massive--even insurmountable--problems for the prophesied frightening world of the perhaps not-too-distant future.
Israel is smack in the center of all this global chemistry. That nation will be –according to the very Word of the Creator of all things—the catalyst that will galvanize earth-dwellers into rebellion against Him, thus, will bring all armies of the world to Armageddon. Here is what the One who knows the end from the beginning has to say about Israel and all other nations at the time of the end of days:
“And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it” (Zech. 12: 3).
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