This is the fifth and final post on knowing our enemy: the first was entitled SATAN – PRINCE OF THIS WORLD: WHO HE WAS AND NOW IS (26/05/2024). The second was WHEN DID SATAN REBEL AGAINST GOD? (27/05/2024) The third was ANCIENT SUMERIANS RECORDED THE DIVIDE OF HEAVEN AND EARTH IN ACCORD WITH THE BIBLE (03/06/2024). The fourth post was KNOWING HOW YOUR REAL ENEMY OPERATES (07/06/2024). If you have not read these I suggest you do. It is important we know our enemy.
God has revealed all we need to know in His Word, the Bible. Much is given about Satan’s last desperate efforts to maintain control of the Earth before Jesus returns to defeat him and his Antichrist in the battle of Armageddon. This post is about Satan’s end-times strategy. Doug Hamp’s latest book, Corrupting the Image, Vol. 3, Singularity, Superhumans and the Second Coming of Jesus brings our understanding of events in the days of the Beast leading up to the return of Jesus into focus. Doug carefully lays out a theological roadmap for understanding the heavenly and earthly battles yet to take place in the future.
Mike Spaulding is pastor of Calvary Chapel of Lima and he hosts the Soaring Eagle Radio show. He sums up the end times scenario playing out in our time. “While the modern American church leads the way into global apostasy, Satan, the enemy of God, of His creation, and of His people, is gaining strength and assembling his forces for the coming great conflict. Satan is staging his assets for a blitzkrieg of shock and awe evil that will overwhelm the earth. UFO disclosure, Artificial Intelligence, genetic engineering, transhumanism, and the mad rush toward singularity are not disparate endeavours but are all part of the devil’s strategy of casting a dragnet to ensnare all of humanity in a great deception of faux hope and faux salvation“. This is part of Mike’s Foreword for Doug’s latest book.
Are you living your life knowing Jesus’ return is near and that God’s wrath is going to be poured out on an unrepentant world? God gives us a great deal of information about the Trumpet and Bowl judgements so we need to warn our unsaved family and friends of what is coming (Revelation 8-9 and 16).
The world is on an unsustainable path, Dr. Voddie Baucham, pastor and best-selling author points out. “People are at war with the God of the universe, and they will face his wrath. [They’re] running headlong toward a cliff, and the loving thing to do is to shout as loud as we can, put up as many signs and warnings as we can, and if necessary, grab people you know before they go over the cliff. That’s the loving thing to do, even when it doesn’t feel like it’s loving. … We’ve got to show people the car that’s about to run them over.”
When Family Research Council’s, Joseph Backholm asked Baucham how this movie ends, he shook his head. “It ends badly. We’ve seen this before [when] empires fall. And this culture is devolving.” But there’s still hope that the Lord will intervene, that there’s revival and awakening. “And that’s my prayer,” he said. “I’m not praying for the destruction of the West. I’m praying for revival.”
Christians have seen the impact they can have when they refuse to embrace the agenda that’s saturating our education system, marketplace, government, sports, entertainment, and so many other areas. We’ve watched the entire script flip on LGBT activism in board rooms we never thought would change just because we were determined to make our voices heard.
So what’s the mindset we should have now? “Two things,” Baucham insisted. “One, the Kingdom of God is undefeated. It has never lost, and it never will lose. And the second thing is that we have dual citizenship and that our heavenly citizenship trumps whatever other citizenship we hold. If we hold on to those two truths, we will take heart and we will be encouraged even during dark days.”
No matter what, we’re still in the world, he wanted people to know. “But not of the world.” In other words, “You can’t hide — so stop trying. Besides that, some people desperately need what we have — and we can’t give it to them if we run away from them.”
This article is taken from an article in The Washington Stand – A Christian Response to Pride Month, June 5th, 2024. Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm interviews Dr. Voddie Baucham.
Fortunately, we know how the story ends. God has given us in His Word, the BIBLE, the entire story from start to end. We can use the end times prophecies to get people into the Kingdom. They prove the Bible is true and the loving but righteous God it portrays exists. If you would like to learn how to use apocalyptic evangelism can I suggest you go to Reggie Kelly’s website http://www.mysteryofisrael.org where you can join others to develop your skills to evangelise using end times Scriptures. The following quote is taken from his website.
We want to state, firstly, that you will not be regarded so much as students as “participants” in our mutual engagement and interaction over the material. You, the participant, will play a formative and influential role in the content and direction of the course. Your response and feedback is critical towards the final product that will take its character from the many. We desire to approximate as much as possible that organic and corporate involvement that so uniquely characterizes the body of Christ, hearing the Lord in one another, the supply that every member supplies, co-contributors towards that sacred last day’s prophetic task to make the vision “plain upon tables” that to read (with understanding) is to run (compare Hab 2:2-3; Dan 12:4,9).
Pastor Voddie T. Baucham warned that the pervasive sexual sins of the prevailing culture are signs of divine judgment, but that the Gospel still offers hope and that American Christians should plead with God for revival while preparing for persecution.
Baucham, who is on leave in the U.S. from his position as Dean of Theology at African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia, preached from Romans 1 during an event last Saturday at Lamar Baptist Church outside Dallas.
Noting that the Apostle Paul ultimately spends much of the first chapter of Romans explaining how the wrath of God manifests in the world by giving mankind over to sexual depravity and “a debased mind,” Baucham also observed that Paul lays the foundation of his difficult arguments on the hope and reality of the Gospel.
Starting at Romans 1:16, Baucham read: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.'”
“That’s the foundation for all of this,” Baucham said. “That’s our foundation for thinking about all of these issues. We start there. We start with the reality of the Gospel and our need for the Gospel. We start with the reality that the righteous shall live by faith.”
“We are living in a time, in an era when there are people who are desperately wicked, and in desperate need of repentance and faith, in desperate need of the Gospel. And we’re being told that the wickedness is, in fact, the Gospel,” Baucham said.
Baucham noted that such a worldview is destructive because it not only calls good evil and evil good but also “alienates people from the only hope they have.”
Despite the culture’s clarion call for people to embrace the supposed freedom of sexual liberation, he said the evidence suggests that such behavior is enslaving even children at this point.
Lifting up his phone, Baucham added, “We’re giving them to 9- and 10-year-olds. Number one use of the internet is still pornography, and we’re giving unlimited, unfettered access to it to 9- and 10-year-olds in the palm of their hands.”
“So we’ve got a generation of people who’ve been raised with sexual material, who have been raised with libertine views towards sex, who are engaging in sex younger and younger, and we’ve got young people entering into marriage who can’t even enjoy sex anymore, because their ability to enjoy it has nearly been destroyed.”
Baucham further explained that a deeper layer of the destruction includes “willing Christians” who attempt to accommodate the idea of sexual sin as an identity by claiming the Bible failed to understand the complexity of sexual orientation and that dishonorable passions are not actually dishonorable.
Baucham said rampant transgenderism is another consequence of such depravity and went on to warn that the push for pedophilia “is just a matter of time.” He also urged Christians to steel themselves for the last stage of a culture under judgment, which involves the wicked attempting to suppress the truth of God by approving of those who are evil while condemning and trying to silence those who resist.
Baucham concluded his remarks by urging his listeners to pray for revival, but conceded that he cannot personally see any way out of the spiritual darkness into which the culture has plunged itself.
“We’re going to have to pray that God would send revival, because He’s already sent judgment,” Baucham concluded. The wrath of God is here; the judgment of God is here. Plead with Him for His mercy. Plead with Him that all would not be lost.”
Baucham failed to say that God has told us in advance that what is playing out in the world precedes Jesus’ return to restore righteousness. Incredible detail is given by the Old Testament prophets, Jesus in the Olivet Discourse, and Revelation of the events that precede Jesus’ return. The good news is our redemption is close so we need to make sure we like Jesus are saying to God not my will but yours be done each day. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, He has work for you to do if you are in prayer and attentive.
The devil takes whatever God has ordained and perverts it so that it is totally corrupted from what was first intended. He perverts
Marriage—corrupting this from the true marriage of one man and woman to two men or two women or other perversions.
Sexuality—corrupting the created rightful place for sex within marriage for one man and one woman to whatever is right in one’s own eyes.
Gender—corrupting this from the created two genders, male and female, to however one wants to define gender.
Dominion—corrupting man’s created dominion over the creation to the creation having dominion over man, as seen in the modern climate-change religion.
Rainbow—corrupting this from the meaning of the rainbow given by God after the flood to instead be associated with the anti-biblical LGBTQ worldview and other perversions. The ultimate perversion is in the USA where June is celebrated as PRIDE month.
Church – churches and church leaders have adopted the devil’s perversion of the rainbow and support the sinful lifestyles of those who reject true marriage as God-created (one man and one woman) and reject God’s created genders for humans (only two: male and female).
Jesus told us in the Olivet Discourse what the end times will be like before He returns to restore righteousness. His laws and commandments will be rejected, and lawlessness will abound. The USA now celebrates that they are proud of their sin. They are already under God’s judgement and it will only escalate.
“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away, betray and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” Matthew 24:9-12
More powerful revelations from Jonathan Cahn – behind the world events of our time – The recent striking down of the Iranian President: could this be related to ancient prophecies? Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash just one month after he sent missiles into Israel. We know that God said that He will curse those who curse Israel. Are we seeing that happen in our time? What about the Turkish lawmaker who declared that Israel “will suffer the wrath of Allah” went into cardiac arrest and collapsed on the floor of Parliament mere moments after delivering the curse.
Jonathan Cahn is God’s prophet in our time. What he reveals in this video is Biblical end-times prophecy unfolding in our time. We are getting closer to the Jesus return. How exciting it is to live at this time.
“I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:3
“Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!” Genesis 27:29
“And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.” Zechariah 12;9
Pope Francis drew scorn and accusations of heresy on social media Sunday for maintaining during his recent “60 Minutes” interview that the human heart is “fundamentally good.”
Pope Francis (front 3rd R) poses with religious leaders during a meeting at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican December 2, 2014. REUTERS/Osservatore Romano
Responding to interviewer Norah O’Donnell’s question regarding what gives him hope when he looks at the world,the pontiff said “everything,” and then continued to list examples of people doing good things as evidence of humanity’s essential goodness. “You see tragedies, but you also see so many beautiful things,” he said. “You see heroic mothers, heroic men, men, who have hopes and dreams, women who look to the future. That gives me a lot of hope. People want to live. People forge ahead. And people are fundamentally good. We are all fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good.”
What does Pope Francis do with the following Scriptures and what world is he living in; when asked what gives him hope when he looks at the world – “Pope Francis said, everything“.
“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it”Jeremiah 17:9
“What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Mark 7:20-23
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” Ephesians 2:1-3
“And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.!” Mark 10:18
Pope Francis has put into practice the Church’s teaching—affirmed at the Second Vatican Council and echoed in the Catechism—that Muslims “together with us, adore the One, Merciful God.” Though there are certainly doctrinal differences between what Christians and Muslims profess about God, this does not preclude us from acknowledging the similarities we do have or from coming together (along with Jews and even others) to praise and petition our common God.
St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI also prayed publicly with Muslims in different capacities. In doing so, they all signal that Muslims’ prayers to God are valid and that they are directed to the same merciful God whom Catholics also strive to serve.
I often wonder who the False Prophet of Revelation will be. Could Pope Francis be a candidate? I believe his heretical views such as “the heart itself is good” and Muslims and Christians worship the same God make him a candidate but his age is a significant problem.
We are seeing Biblical prophesied end-times events increasing so we may not have long to wait to know the identity of both the False Prophet and the Antichrist.
Progressive Crusade to Bend Arc of History by Chris Uhlmann in The Weekend Australian 11th May, 2024
Uhlmann contends that what is at stake is whether the ascendant state morality will drive deeper into the ancient institutions of faith and force believers to submit to its temporal commandments. Nationally, the Australian Law Reform Commission’s final report on religious exemptions from anti-discrimination law is just another sortie in a long campaign over what the state will allow you to believe and how far it is prepared to go to force apostates to heel.
Queensland’s proposed anti-discrimination bill seeks to narrow the rights of the faithful. Alex Deagon, from the Queensland University of Technology, argues it will “significantly undermine the ability of religious organisations to employ persons following their faith”.
When you lose the freedom to manifest your faith, abide by your beliefs and the liberty to ensure your children are educated in your creed, what is left? The commission is erasing the right of a religious school to organise around its own ethos.
This is an extreme form of laicism, driven by a fierce “progressive” crusade against Christianity. In a multifaith society that means all believers are on this battlefield, as the institutions of government are mobilised against them. Like many things dubbed progressive, it is the latest incarnation of the despotic tendencies of the Bureautoracy (n): the ubiquitous, unelected technocratic blob bent on imposing its notion of utopia on the mob. Its relentlessly mutating dogma has spread like Paterson’s curse through all the institutions.
In a profound irony, we are witnessing the final metamorphosis of Christianity as zealots torch the last idol: belief in a power that transcends the state.
The child has turned on a parent it does not recognise because the source code of this secular faith is the notion of universal human rights. That idea was born with the belief that each individual is valued by God, an avowedly Christian concept and part of a set of revolutionary beliefs that the early faithful simply called “The Way”.
Another epoch-changing idea rings from the first sentences of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the word (logos). And the word was with God. And the word was God.”
The New Testament was written in Greek and logos means both word and reason. So, in the Christian tradition, God is reason itself. Christianity is the singular encounter between Greek philosophy and Jewish mysticism, the marriage of reason and faith. The theology that evolved was a thoroughly different way of thinking. Let’s call it wisdom.
This wisdom elevated the poor, the meek, the righteous, the merciful, and peacemakers. Faith in God demands you “treat others as you would like them to treat you”, and not to act with reason is contrary to the nature of God.
Christianity was born in the East, informed by the West, and takes on its historically decisive character in Europe. Europe is defined by its faith and its faith is defined by reason. Faith and reason set Europe on the road to liberal democracy.
Through all its failures, and its many crimes, reason pushes the West forward and demands that it learn and evolve. And the excesses of both church and state always had to contend with its Christian conscience.
The savage colonisation of the Americas was fiercely denounced by Dominican friar Bartolome de Las Casas, and the evil of slavery collapsed when it confronted the faith of William Wilberforce. Despite often spectacularly failing to abide by its ideals, Christianity demanded the West slowly bend towards realising the radical demand of the central tenet of its faith. The new commandment to “love one another” excludes no one.
As historian Tom Holland demonstrates in his epic work Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, “To live in a Western country is to live in a society that is utterly saturated by Christian concepts and assumptions.”
It is, of course, a heritage that the zealots of the New Way deny. To them, their belief system is self-evident because it just is. It is neutral. It is agnostic. That is a delusion. The New Way exhibits some of the best and all the worst features of a proselytising religion. It looks to uplift, to guide, to build a better, more just world. It is also deeply intolerant of dissent and has established the institutions of inquisition to police heresy, in state and federal human rights commissions.
It’s hard to criticise anti-discrimination laws but the growth of objective penalties for subjective crimes should trouble those who care about liberal democracy. Such penalties are how American journalist Robert Wargas defines totalitarianism.
What standards will be applied? The notion of transgender identity, for example, is a rapidly moving target. Even the Australian Human Rights Commission’s website admits the “terminology is strongly contested”.
So, this latest assault by the state on the faithful is a battle of competing theologies, as the disciples of Caesar seek to mount his image in every temple. And the insurgents know nothing of faith because, as anyone who has any dealings with religious schools knows, most have no desire to discriminate and are far more tolerant of difference than “progressives”.
What religious institutions don’t want is to be forced to submit to state diktats that deliberately undermine the ethos of their institution. Here let’s recall that the Labor Party pledge demands its members not be a part of any other organisation that is inimical to its ideals. Why shouldn’t religious schools enjoy the same rights?
The arc of history has bent out of shape. Those who claim the heritage of reason have discounted the role of faith in their enlightenment. They discriminate and call it equality. They unreasonably seek to force the faithful to heel. This is foolishness. Fortunately, Biblical prophecy reveals that this godless persecution of Christians precedes Jesus’ return to Earth first to rapture the Saints and then to pour out His wrath upon an unrepentant rebellious world. Christians need to heed Jesus warning that it will even get much worse.
“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:9-14
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan officially inaugurated a former Byzantine-era church previously known as the Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora, a United Nations World Heritage Site, as a mosque this week, drawing condemnation from the Greek government.
The change is part of a series of conversions in recent years, including the iconic Hagia Sophia in 2020, which garnered international criticism but no action.
The Chora Church Museum dates back to the Byzantine era when it was originally built as a monastery; during the Ottoman era, it was converted into a mosque before being changed to a museum in 1948. The interior is decorated with some of the oldest surviving Byzantine mosaics and frescoes.
Located in the Fatih district of Istanbul, near the ancient city walls, the building known locally as Kariye is celebrated for its intricate mosaics and frescoes dating back to the 11th and 12th centuries.
Erdogan’s bold move in 2020 to convert the Hagia Sophia brought little reaction so this recent move could be expected. Erdogan’s intention to take every step he can to re-establish the former Ottoman Empire is emerging and being made clear first of all to Muslim nations. Sunni Turkey will soon attack Shia Iran as prophesied in Daniel 8 to exert its dominance. Turkey is not impressed with Iran trying to exert its dominance with its proxies in Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.
Daniel’s Vision of the Ram and the Goat
“A male goat (Turkey) came from the west across the face of the whole earth, without touching the ground. And the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. He came to the ram (Iran) with the two horns, which I had seen standing on the bank of the canal, and he ran at him in his powerful wrath. I saw him come close to the ram, and he was enraged against him and struck the ram and broke his two horns. And the ram had no power to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled on him. And there was no one who could rescue the ram from his power.” Daniel 8:5-7
“Understand, O son of man, that the vision is for the time of the end.”As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia (Iran). And the goat is Javan (revived Ottoman Empire).” Daniel 8:19, 22
Javan conveniently describes an area that includes parts of Greece and Turkey, closely linking the historical nature of Alexander’s empire to what is to come. Indeed, the iron beast has bronze claws. Perhaps the revived Ottoman empire will include parts of modern-day Greece, the Balkans and Macedonia, reinforcing the significance of the contrast between “iron and the clay”.
With anti-Israel and anti-Semitic demonstrations sweeping college campuses of America, Jonathan Cahn exposes the dark secrets the media will never tell you – from Wokism to Hamas to the mysterious Mufti of Jerusalem! This is a crucial video for understanding Biblical prophecy unfolding in our time.
Does this have anything to do with the end times? Events confirm that we are part of end times Biblical prophecy. The Bible said that before Jesus returns the tiny nation of Israel will be at the centre of world news and all nations will come against it. Israel’s rebirth in 1948 was miraculous. It had to happen for end-times Biblical prophecies to be fulfilled and is the most significant and miraculous of the end-times prophecies. Fulfilled Biblical prophecies are proof the Bible is the inspired word of God.
Caucasus Heritage Watch has released images that reveal the recent demolition of St. John the Baptist Church, a 19th century structure in Nagorno-Karabakh’s Susa area, and the razing of a village known in Armenian as Karintak. The church and village, both with significant Armenian heritage, were under Azerbaijani control after Baku captured Susa from ethnic Armenian forces in November 2020.
The Armenian-built church in Susa, dating back to the 19th century, was taken over by Azerbaijan. It was wrapped in scaffolding for most of the time it was under Azerbaijani control, suggesting ongoing construction or restoration. But satellite images from Caucasus Heritage Watch show that the church was demolished during the winter of 2023-24, reported Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Located just 2 kilometers (roughly 1.2 miles) south of the demolished church, the Karintak village, known as Dasalti in Azeri, was also razed to the ground. Satellite images released this month show that the entire village was destroyed. A large mosque is now under construction on the site, where the church was previously visible to the right of the new construction.
“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.“Matthew 24:9-12
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev visited the construction site of the new mosque in the razed village, indicating the ongoing transformation in the area, according to RFE/RL. In contrast, Azerbaijani Parliament Member Jala Ahmadova had in July 2021 posted images of a prayer session inside the St. John the Baptist Church on Twitter to demonstrate an “atmosphere of ethnic and religious tolerance.” However, satellite images suggest a different narrative with the church’s demolition and the village’s razing.
Husik Ghulyan, a lead researcher at Caucasus Heritage Watch, who published the satellite images of Karintak, told RFE/RL that the goal of Azerbaijan was to completely demolish the settlement to rebuild a new village for Azerbaijani internally displaced people or other resettlers. Ghulyan also noted that the village’s church was a legally protected heritage site, which is probably why it was left intact during the mosque’s construction.
Lori Khatchadourian, an associate professor at Cornell University and the co-founder of Caucasus Heritage Watch, pointed to a broader pattern of destruction within Azerbaijan’s retaken territory since 2020.
The group has documented the destruction of 10 heritage sites and is beginning a new survey of hundreds of heritage locations.
Khatchadourian suggested that the virtually complete erasure of Armenian heritage in the Azerbaijani exclave of Naxcivan could be a harbinger of what might lie ahead in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Ali Mozaffari, an Iranian academic of Azerbaijani descent, said this cultural destruction might extend beyond a conflict between Baku and Yerevan. Turkey is spearheading a push to create a unified and connected Turkic World, extending from Turkey to China, where Turkic languages and cultures are prevalent, Mozaffari said, explaining that heritage plays a crucial role in justifying this geostrategic vision.
Turkey’s push to reestablish its former Ottoman Empire is prophesied in Daniel’s vision of the ram and goat in Daniel 8. The prophecy reveals that Turkey (Sunni Muslim) will first establish its dominance by defeating Iran (Shia Muslim) and I believe we will see this play out on the world stage soon.
