Bible Prophecy Today (Link) - Terry James (October 5, 2009)
Fear is on the rise in America and the world at the moment. It is a type of fear that comes upon humankind almost like nervous milling about that stirs within the wildebeests of the Serengeti just before predators set them to flight. There are many reasons this is so. But one reason in particular especially agitates the simmering fear. It is the culprit more than all of the other reasons combined for the building anxiety today.
Before we address that most profound reason for fear of things to come, let's look at the many other causes that make fear levels rise across the nation and the world. Those causes involve a myriad of issues and events. We and others who consider our times in light of Bible prophecy continually attempt to analyze those matters and present our findings to anyone and everyone who will stop, look, and listen.
For the masses of humanity in third-world regions, such as vast areas of Africa, Asia, and other bleak places, panic is a daily search for the next bite of food and swallow of water. We see the frail bodies, the distended stomachs, the flies on the faces of those whose wide, searching eyes look to the cameras filming them for their next life-sustaining morsel.
These suffering souls are not often demonstrative with their fear because their circumstances have denuded them of energy, and have robbed them of the ability to know how near to starvation they have come. The world turns a blind eye, for the most part, to the plight of these emaciated hordes. The group of people who are looking the other way too often includes even those of us who are watchmen on the wall for the signals of Christ's return.
Starvation, nonetheless, is one of the sure signs of where this generation stands on God's prophetic timeline. That millions of people are caught up in growing famine dramatically forewarns that the black horse of the Apocalypse will one day, perhaps soon, ride forth. But growing famine is not the greatest reason for the geometrically progressing worry around the globe.
Thinking on fear burgeoning within the civilized areas of the world, we briefly review the more familiar causes. These involve topics we have exhaustively examined in recent days:
Iran is on the verge of becoming a possessor of nuclear weaponry. Israel can't and won't let this happen. The potential for war � nuclear war � breaking out in the Middle East is not just possible, but likely, considering the realities involved.
North Korea is a loose cannon that already has nuclear capability, according to some experts. Even China, its chief governor in the nation-state sense, can't seem to control the North Korean madmen and their threats.
Afghanistan is a breeding ground for terrorists, and reportedly hosts Osama bin Laden and others who want to destroy America, Israel, and anyone else who doesn't bend the knee to Allah. Americans continue to come home in body bags from that region, while politicians play electioneering games, not wanting to offend leftist voter bases by sending troops needed to win the war there.
Pakistan, a nuclear power, is in disarray, with constant threats of overthrow against its decreasingly pro-American position within its leadership. Terrorists threaten to blow up things and kill people in every part of the world. New York and other major American cities and their large, densely-congregated populations are in the bull�s eye for attack by terrorists with possibly horrific weapons, including those that are nuclear, biological, and chemical.
The United States of America daily experiences assaults from within, chipping away at individual rights and national sovereignty. The U.S. Constitution is under constant assault, and the system of checks and balances is out the window. Congress shrinks from its responsibility to the American people, while there is observably a power grab of unprecedented proportions. Morality plummets, while entertainment madness infects old and young alike, taking thoughts of preserving the republic far from the citizenry. U.S. leadership in economy, diplomacy, and most every other category is on the skids. Corporate America has become a sick, dying entity � thanks to elected officials who seem intent on the government owning/running private enterprise. By their constant striving to meld the American economy with the socialist economic structures of Europe, they are destroying this nation � whether wittingly or not. These, by running up multi-trillion dollar deficits, are giving away hope for future generations to know the prosperity of past generations of Americans. The neo-Babel builders herd America's great wealth, technology, and influence toward end-times Babylon � the long-anticipated New World Order. President Obama's administration and the leaderships of most other G-20 nations are violating at every turn God's prescription for interacting with His chosen nation, Israel. The world's diplomatic community, of course, has no idea of the prophetic ramifications of dealing treacherously with Israel, so it has no qualms about trying to force a peace that can never truly be made this side of Christ's Second Advent. However, there is a sense of extreme danger that even the international community of nations feels in dealing with Israel and its enemies in the "Roadmap to Peace" plan. Most fearful of all � from the perspective of those of us who watch the stage-setting for biblically prophetic things to come � is the fact that the church as a whole is oblivious to America's dealing treacherously with Israel. Most in this late hour, in fact, think the church has replaced Israel as inheritor of God's promises given to the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Today, much of the church is in total prophetic ignorance, and is so fat, lazy, and lethargic that I almost wonder if she can be lifted at the Rapture, even by the Lord Jesus.
All of the foregoing, however, does not account in total for the almost tangible fear about the future. The one, all-encompassing reason for the fear that is driving people to look anxiously at what�s ahead for themselves and their children is the spirit that pervades this generation of earth-dwellers. It is the spirit of Antichrist.
The world has cast God aside. This has been happening in the U.S. since 1963, when prayer, Bible-reading, and things of a religious nature � meaning Christianity � were suppressed in public schools. Today, the crops sown in that decade are being reaped in the generation that saw American leaders assassinated, its economy bankrupted, a war that eventually took 50,000 American lives, and a drug culture develop that continues to plague the nation.
To deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh to seek and save the lost is to invite another one to step in and fill the void that exists when attempts are made to keep God out. We have seen and heard the raves in recent times, with media using words like "messiah" and "savior" to describe the type of adulation attributed to a political candidate. One day, the one called "the Beast" will step into the spotlight of end-times history to fulfill the role of that long-prophesied Man of Sin.
Because Christ is denied, fear saturates all of mankind today. It is an insanity born of Christ-rejection. It is the development of reprobate spiritual dementia in a world of people ripe for God's judgment:
"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient" (Romans 1:28).
There is an antidote for the madness that infects humanity in these end of days:
"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7).
Jesus Christ is the antidote to the fear-insanity rampant today. He is coming back � perhaps today!