WHERE WE ARE HEADED IN 2024 AND BEYOND

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Fifty years ago last week, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago was released in Paris. Far more than simply an account of the Soviet prison camps, Solzhenitsyn’s work still stands both as an extraordinary testimony about the past and as a stark warning for the present.

Like all of Solzhenitsyn’s prodigious output, the questions at its heart echo those Leo Tolstoy posed in War and Peace: “What does it all mean? Why did it happen? What made these people kill their own kind?”

And, it is precisely because Solzhenitsyn focused on those questions that The Gulag Archipelago is not merely a searing indictment of Soviet communism but a work of moral analysis.

The Bolsheviks’ murderous mindset did not emerge from thin air. Rather, it was the outcome of the philosophy that gained absolute sway over the “progressive” Russian intelligentsia of the 19th century. Epitomised by Nikolay Chernyshevsky’s What Is To Be Done? (1863), which Lenin considered a masterpiece, that philosophy rejected God, the notions of free will, human nature and personal responsibility, instead asserting that people’s behaviour depended entirely on their circumstances.

Chernyshevsky’s reasoning, which became an integral part of Soviet Marxism’s dogma, left no room for any transcendental morality. The contention that some actions could be absolutely right or wrong was, said Lenin, “moralising vomit”; all that mattered was their results. And since “there can be no middle course” between communism and reaction, “nothing, however vile, should be condemned that (advances) the working people’s struggle against the exploiters”.

Seen within that prism of Manichean logic, incarcerating and even executing those who might undermine “the struggle against the exploiters” was more than justifiable: it was, regardless of their actual conduct, an obligation. So when Dmitri Kursky was formulating the new Soviet legal code, Lenin cautioned him that “the law should not abolish terror; it should be legalised, without evasion or embellishment”.

The code therefore treated potential crime as crime, extending culpability to “(1) the guilty, (2) persons under suspicion and (3) persons potentially under suspicion”, with NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov’s infamous Order No.00486 specifying that the wives of “traitors of the motherland” were to be sentenced to forced labour, and even their children, who might wish to take revenge, were to be imprisoned.

The goal of mercilessly “hanging bloodsuckers” was, wrote Lenin, to ensure “that for hundreds of miles around the people can see, tremble and cry: they are and will go on killing”. But that, explained Lenin’s close associate, Nikolai Bukharin, was not terror’s only objective: “Proletarian compulsion, beginning with shootings and ending with labour conscription, is a method of producing a communist humankind out of the detritus of the capitalist era”: millions of inmates were to be “moulded into a new type of human being”.

There was, however, a fundamental problem with this attempt to play God: even under the most horrifying conditions, its victims might resist its delusions of omnipotence. At some point, Solzhenitsyn observes, every prisoner faced a choice: should one “survive at any price”, that is, “at the price of someone else”?

“There lies the great fork of camp life. The roads go right and left: to the right – you lose your life; to the left – your conscience.”

Reality thereby put Marxism’s claim that it could secure the “total surrender of our souls” to the ultimate test – and more often than one might have imagined, when utterly powerless convicts had “to declare the great Yes or the great No”, the claim failed.

Never did it fail more frequently than with people of faith, who were largely the humble of this earth. Like the self-effacing Alyosha, the gentle Baptist in Solzhenitsyn’s A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, they were the ones with the moral courage to choose the path of truth over that of living a lie.

And while the regime’s pre-eminent intellectuals “all too often turned out to be cowards, quick to surrender, and, thanks to their education, disgustingly ingenious in justifying their dirty tricks”, ordinary “zeks” (as the convicts were known) led mass rebellions, which Solzhenitsyn scrupulously documented, for the first time, in The Gulag Archipelago’s magnificent third volume.

But there is, Solzhenitsyn well knew, “this terrible strength of man, his desire and ability to forget”; and he also knew that “a people which no longer remembers has lost its history and its soul”. He therefore dedicated The Gulag Archipelago, as record, tribute and threnody (dirge or funeral song), to “those who did not live to tell it: and may they please forgive me for not having remembered it all”.

That is why Solzhenitsyn would have been appalled by the Putin regime’s whitewashing of Soviet history, which culminated late last year in the unveiling of a monument to Felix Dzerjinski, the founder of Lenin’s secret police and of the Gulag, that Solzhenitsyn branded a mass murderer.

The duty of bearing witness also impelled Solzhenitsyn’s stark warnings to the West. To say he despised the West is nonsense. It was because he valued it so highly that he feared for its condition.

The fact that so many of its “leading thinkers (are) against capitalism”; that “under the influence of public opinion, the Western powers (have) yielded position after position”, hoping “that their agreeable state of general tranquillity might continue”; the supineness to “brutally dictatorial” China; the intelligentsia’s “fierce defence of terrorists”, “greater concern for terrorists’ rights than for victims’ justice” and habit of calling terrorists “militants” (in response to Hamas brutal attack on Israeli civilians, we get children marching for the Palestinian cause) – all these are symptoms of calamitous moral decay.

That “fashionable ideas are fastidiously separated from those that are not fashionable, and without ever being forbidden, have little chance of being heard in colleges”, only made the rot deeper and more pervasive.

Little wonder that Solzhenitsyn, having expressed those views, was savaged for ignoring America’s “vibrantly pluralistic society”, with The New York Times ridiculing his reminder that moral relativism leads to moral oblivion as the ravings of a “religious enthusiast”. And little wonder today’s Australian students are far less likely to have read Solzhenitsyn than to have pored over the idiotic scribblings of Leninism’s contemporary epigones.

Yes, Solzhenitsyn had his failings. But five decades after The Gulag Archipelago’s publication, the verdict of that other brilliant Russian Nobel laureate, Iosif Brodsky, who disagreed with Solzhenitsyn on many things, fully retains its validity.

“It is possible that two thousand years from now reading The Gulag will provide the same insight as reading the Iliad does today,” Brodsky wrote. “But if we do not read The Gulag today, there may, much sooner than two thousand years hence, be no one left to read either.”

Article by Henry Ergas AO in The Weekend Australian 05/01/2024 Fifty years on, a warning the West still needs to heed. Ergas is an economist who spent many years at the OECD in Paris before returning to Australia. He has taught at several universities, including Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

I would have liked Ergas to have made reference to how the Bible, God’s Word was treated by Communist leaders. It had to be burned/destroyed which shows they were demonically driven. They were totally under the power of Satan and his demons. Moreover, it is obvious to Ergas and should be to Christians that we are in prophesied end times and that God is refining His church, luke-warm Christians (Laodicean church) will not be raptured, before the wrath of God is poured out on an unrepentant world.

“Then they will deliver you (Christians) 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.” Matthew 24:9-13

PROPHESIED END TIMES APOSTASY BY CHURCHES

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C.S. Lewis once observed, “Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honor millionaires, athletes, or film stars instead — even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served — deny it food and it will gobble poison.” Just so, as God has been denied the honor He is due in the public square — as prayer and worship have been forced out of the classroom, suppressed in parliament buildings and legislative chambers, and muffled in film, literature, and art — men have decided to bestow that honor upon themselves.

Morality is not determined by the individual, by convenience, by democratic consensus, but by God.

Those entrusted with preaching and teaching His word have a grave responsibility to speak the Truth, to uphold moral clarity in a world gone mad. As long as Christian leaders remain silent, as long as they produce nothing more than ambiguities and reluctant compromises, more and more souls will turn away from God and listen to the serpent’s hollow pledge.

In 2020, the United Methodist Church announced a proposal to split the denomination over “fundamental differences,” predominantly relating to same-sex marriages. So far, nearly 8,000 individual churches have filed to leave the United Methodist Church over its progressive policies. The Presbyterian Church USA allowed the ordination of openly gay men and women in 2011 and, in 2014, approved same-sex marriages. The Episcopal Church (and Anglican Church) allowed blessings for same-sex unions in 2012. They quickly followed by permitting same-sex marriages in 2015. Of course, these moves are more than merely ambiguous and outright contradict the biblical definition of marriage. Moreover, the Pope has recently sanctified the blessing of same-sex couples, a further compromise with the world that confirms Biblical end-times prophecy of apostasy and falling away. (check out my last two posts on Apostate Pope). In the following two Scriptures, we have the apostle Paul and Jesus warning of a falling away from faith before Jesus second coming first to rescue the Saints before pouring out His wrath upon an unrepentant world.

“Now brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you not to be shaken in mind, or be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by letter as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means: for that day will not come, unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition” 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3

“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.” Matthew 24:9-13

Since Western civilization rests on the back of Christianity, a lack of moral clarity from Christian leaders inevitably leads to a lack of moral clarity in Western civilization. Without that moral clarity, Western nations become uprooted from objective morality, as defined by God, and increasingly turn inward upon themselves, giving rise to the dangerous phenomenon of consent-based and consensus-based morality.

APOCALYPTIC EVANGELISM

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The church needs to be reminded of its call to make the case for Christ from prophecy. It has lost sight of this method by its loss of the apostolic order of approach to evangelism. The call to the nations must pass first through Israel, “ye shall not have gone over all the cities of Israel till the Son of Man is come.” Even after the gospel had gone out to all nations from Jerusalem, for Paul, the same order of “to the Jew first” was observed wherever his travels would take him.

The same order should be observed by the church in its approach to last day’s evangelism. The church is distinguished and defined as a tribulation people “instructing many” (Dan 11:33). In its original context from Pentecost and forward, the church was conceived as the revelation of the true remnant within Israel calling the apostate nation and all nations to urgent repentance faith given the impending world crisis (Dan 12:3). Such a view of the church’s role and task requires a “post-tribulation pre-millennial” perspective of the Lord’s return in contrast to the prevailing view of pre-tribulation dispensational eschatology, or of preteristic amillennialism. So as we proceed, pains will be taken to disabuse God’s people of this disarming error that also robs away from and obscures the greater glory of God as well as the church’s special task towards Israel as ‘first’ in its call to evangelize all nations.

This video is a MUST-WATCH MESSAGE for the last days church. God will have a church that is refined by fire that He takes to heaven. It certainly will not be the church of Laodicea. It is left behind to face the wrath of God but God made it clear that they still can repent and turn back to Him and I am sure many will and be great witnesses during the time God’s wrath is poured out on Earth with the Trumpet and Bowl judgements.

“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.” Revelation 3:15-18

TIMING OF THE RAPTURE

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In Matt 24:44, Jesus warned Christians that they would make a huge mistake regarding the time of his return or second coming. Jesus said ALL Christians are expecting something that is biblically incorrect. Both Pre-Trib and Post-Trib will make this error. The context of Jesus’ warning tells us what it is and how dangerous it is. Watch this Nelson Walters video for the details so you don’t make this huge mistake.

“Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” Matthew 24:44

The timing of the Rapture and Jesus’ return to Earth for the battle of Armageddon is separated by one year and ten days during which time God pours out His wrath upon the unrepentant. The year before a Jubilee year is exactly one year and ten days. The year following Jesus’ return to Earth will be a Jubilee year. Also, it is interesting to note that when God poured out His wrath upon the Earth for the first time during Noah’s flood it was also for one year and ten days. “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” Matthew 24:37 The world will be lawless and living as if the world will go on forever, as it was in the days of Noah.

For the Saints, the last seven years before Jesus returns to Earth will be six years of work, trials, and testing followed by a Sabbath year of rest. We know this because it is at the sixth seal (Rev. 6:12) that we see the celestial signs that signal the rapture and the wrath of God. Also, it is the sixth church (Philadelphia) that is raptured and the seventh church (Laodicea) that is left behind to face the wrath of God.

WHAT IS COMING IN 2024

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Thank goodness God told us in His Word, the BIBLE that before Jesus returns to this Earth the world would cast God out of its life. Increasingly, clinging to Christian values will bring persecution and even death as Jesus in the following Scripture reveals.

“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.” Matthew 24:9-13

The video below produced in the Lion of the Tribe of Judah Studio presents four trends from end-times Biblical prophecies that we need to watch out for in 2024.

  1. Rise in global unity and governance leading to a one-world government and ultimately to the Kingdom of the Antichrist. “And the beast (Antichrist) was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also, it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.” Revelation 13:5-8
  2. Technological advances have produced digital currencies, microchips, and even the ability to alter DNA, paving the way for global commerce and the Mark of the Beast. “Also it (Antichrist) causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.” Revelation 13:16-17
  3. Apostasy – a great falling away from faith in Jesus and the inerrancy of God’s Word, the Bible. The church conforms to the world and its standards: gay marriage, homosexual pastors, and acceptance of transgenderism.
  4. Moral decay: lawlessness, global rebellion against God and His commandments. “But understand this, that in the last days, there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.” 2 Timothy 3:1-5

UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS PRODUCING A GODLESS GENERATION

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If you’re concerned about higher education going down the drain, your fears are not unfounded.

On Thursday, the Young America’s Foundation (YAF) hosted an event at the University of Utah featuring detransitioner Chloe Cole, who, at age 13, was put on puberty blockers, received a double mastectomy at 15, and began her detransitioning process at 16. After much regret, Cole has made it her mission to inform as many as possible of the dangers of transitioning through her own experience, which she described as “an incredibly painful one.”

During her speech, Cole urged, “We must keep fighting to rid the country of this practice of manipulating, utilizing, mutilating, and sterilizing children. We must address how to otherwise care for these kids who are struggling with pain and trauma.” However, her testimony consistently faces backlash, and the University of Utah joined the ranks of those triggered by Cole’s story.

“This week, our campus is hosting a presentation by a prominent anti-trans activist,” a professor wrote in an email obtained by YAF. “We are expecting significant protests this week around the event, starting as early as tomorrow due to transphobic events planned. … I wanted to make sure no one feels pressured to come to campus this week due to one of our class meetings, especially if you do not feel safe,” the professor concluded.

Anyone hoping for a civil debate on campus would have been disappointed. Throughout the event, students pranced around the small room yelling, “Say it loud, say it clear, trans people are welcome here!” Along with, of course, profanity and the suggestion that Cole kills herself. 

Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council, mapped out the heart of the issue well. “Rather than confronting information and learning, students at the University of Utah are protected from ideas and even people who challenge conventional thinking. The fact that ‘conventional thinking’ means agreeing that someone can be born in the wrong body is also a huge problem and one that is not unique to the University of Utah.” In Kilgannon’s opinion, “Detransitioners like Chloe Cole who bravely share their painful experiences with so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ should be embraced and thanked.

The godless professors at these universities are storing up wrath for themselves and God will soon pour out His wrath upon them.

BIBLICAL PROPHECIES REVEAL WE ARE FAST APPROACHING THE TIME WHEN GOD WILL POUR OUT HIS WRATH UPON AN UNREPENTANT WORLD

“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” Romans 1:21-25

“But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” Romans 2:5

DEBUNKING PRETERISM

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“Preterism is an ideology held by most of the denominational/institutional churches so it is an important doctrine to understand.

Preterism is an interpretative approach to biblical prophecy that suggests that many, if not all, of the prophecies in the Bible have already been fulfilled in the past. The term “preterism” comes from the Latin word “praeter,” which means “past” or “beyond.” This perspective contrasts with futurism, which interprets prophecies as yet to be fulfilled in the future.

There are different forms of preterism, but generally, preterists argue that the majority of the prophecies found in the Bible, particularly in books like Daniel and Revelation, were fulfilled in the events of the first century AD, often centered around the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD. They believe that these events were the culmination of God’s judgment on Israel for rejecting Jesus as the Messiah.

Key points of preterist interpretation may include:

  1. Historical Fulfillment: Preterists often see the events prophesied in the Bible as having been fulfilled in the historical events of the first century, including the Jewish-Roman War and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.
  2. Symbolic Language: Preterists may interpret the symbolic language in prophetic books, such as Daniel and Revelation, as describing real historical events using symbolic and apocalyptic language rather than predicting distant future events.
  3. Imminence: Preterism often emphasizes the idea of imminence, suggesting that the return of Christ and the fulfillment of prophecies were expected to happen in the near future from the perspective of the biblical writers.
  4. Partial Preterism vs. Full Preterism: There are variations within preterism. Partial preterists believe that some prophecies were fulfilled in the past, but that there are still future events to be realized (such as a final judgment). Full preterists, on the other hand, argue that all biblical prophecies, including the second coming of Christ, have already taken place.

Dr Brock does a great job of explaining these Scriptures. The Key Scripture for most of the End Times prophecies is Deuteronomy 32: The Song of Moses uses the term: “this generation” several times to describe future generations. The ultimate “Day of the Lord” is when Jesus returns to Earth to bring righteousness and restoration to Israel. 

IT IS TIME FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD TO BE OBEDIENT TO GOD’S CALLING

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We are living in a time of moral, spiritual, and civilization polarization, where Western civilization is decoupling itself from the faith and the worldview to which it has been joined for nearly two thousand years. Its mainstream culture is purging itself of Judeo-Christian values, beliefs, laws, practices, worship, ways, and culture just as God prophesied would happen in His Word, the Bible before Jesus’ second coming to Earth.

Children that should be in school marching in Sydney, Australia: “Stop Israel’s Genocide Now”? Hamas had invaded Israel and killed innocent people including babies, women, children, and the elderly.

We see it, in its deification of the material world, its desanctification of life, its religious syncretism, its moral relativism, its sexualization of popular culture, its abuse of life, its worship of images, and its overturning of biblical standards, values, and precepts.

So, it was in the days of the man known in the Bible as Josiah. Josiah was born into a kingdom, Israel, that had known God but had fallen from His ways. It had come into existence for the purposes of God but had detached itself from those purposes. It became a civilization turned in upon itself and against the foundation of which it stood, an inverted kingdom, a civilization in a state of spiritual schizophrenia. It still invoked His name but lived in opposition to His ways. Such is the culture in which we now live. American civilization was founded on the reality of God and established for its purposes (In God We Trust on its bank notes). But, as with ancient Israel, it has fallen and now exists in a state of spiritual schizophrenia—as does its parent, Western civilization.

Josiah was not afraid or intimidated by the evil that had taken possession of his culture because he knew that the power of God was far greater. Spiritual darkness did not discourage Josiah from acting, rather it inspired him. He could never have accomplished what he did, had he sought the approval of man or feared the wrath of the majority. He broke customs, conventions, and the status quo. He did what others had thought to do, had felt to do, and believed to do, but of fear, did not do. 

The people of God must now make the most of every moment and circumstance to impact their world—in their homes, their workplaces, their schools, in their positions of power and influence, their skills and abilities, their experiences and resources, their coming and going, all times and places. They must use all means and resources at their disposal to fulfill the purposes of God. And they must always remember that their most powerful of means are not of this world but spiritual—that of prayer, the Word, the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. In times of repression or persecution, there may be no other power. If then, their only means are spiritual, it will be enough. For no instrument of man, no force of government, no power on earth is strong enough to stop the means given by the Spirit of God.

Post adapted from a section of Jonathan Cahn’s book The Josiah Manifesto.

END TIMES MESSAGE BRINGS MANY TO JESUS

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In an interview with The Christian Post,  Michael Youssef, the 75-year-old pastor of the Church of the Apostles in Atlanta, Georgia, revealed that an evangelistic meeting in Egypt saw an unexpected attendance of 17,715 people, it far exceeded the initial expectation of 6,000 at Of those, more than 7,850 put their faith in Christ.

In his message, Youssef focused on Matthew 24, which outlines signs of the End Times. Though stressing he is not an End Times preacher, Youssef said he believes current events indicate that the world is fast approaching the End Times as described in the Bible.

“I came to the conclusion that our Lord is saying that when it gets close to the end, there are labor pains, and this is for the believers,” he said. “For the nonbelievers, it is going to be like a thief in the night. They’re going to be shocked.”

He noted that while such signs have always occurred, like wars and earthquakes, their recent escalation in intensity and frequency suggests the nearing of the End Times. Current events, such as the alignment of Russia, China, and Iran and increasing global tensions, also point to this reality.

“I looked at what our Lord is saying, and He basically gave six labor pains … and all six things that our Lord says will happen have been happening all these years. Earthquakes, wars, and rumors of wars, pestilences, all of these things, are now happening in shorter and shorter intervals, greater frequency, and more intensity.”

“When you see Russia and China and Iran are working together, that’s just something that has not happened before,” he said. “Look at the streets of London and Paris, New York — masses of people protesting against Israel … masses of people in front of the Sydney Opera House saying, ‘Gas the Jews.’ That is horrifying in many ways … I personally believe that we’re getting close.”

The pastor added that the current state of the world, including increasing knowledge, population growth, and violence, mirrors the days of Noah, another sign the End Times might be approaching.

“Jesus said, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days before the coming of the Son of God, the Son of Man. So I looked at Genesis 6, there was an increase in knowledge … an increase in violence and bloodshed … those days are here.” What more evidence do we need?

I am surprised that Michael did not mention the KEY miracle sign of Jesus’ second coming that Jesus mentions in Matthew 24:32-35: The Lesson of the Fig Tree – The rebirth of Israel in 1948. All the prophesied end times events center on Israel and it did not exist before 1948.

WILL FALLEN ANGELS BE ON THE EARTH IN THE LAST DAYS?

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Thank goodness God told us in advance what will unfold in the last days before Jesus returns to Earth.

Satan and his demons are setting up the world, particularly young people, for demonic activity on Earth. They are already appearing as aliens. As well, most of the games our young people are playing online, and more movies, are about aliens. More reports of UFO sightings are being reported in the media.

We know that the fallen angels are going to be on the earth at the mid-point of the seven years before Jesus’ returns to Earth. Notice in Revelation 12:4 that it says, Archangel Michael is fighting Satan and Satan is defeated.

“Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” Revelation 12:7-9

This will happen so we know that spiritual warfare will then be intense with Satan and his demons on Earth. Satan will do his utmost to hang on to dominion over the Earth. This is now all he has left.

“Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” Revelation 12:12

What happens when Satan is cast down to Earth. We are told that his first priority is the Jews and we learn that God intervenes and provides a sanctuary for His Jewish remnant for 3 1/2 years.

“And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman (Israel) who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.” Revelation 12:13-14

Note: Satan does his utmost to destroy God’s Jewish remnant but God steps in again:

“The serpent (Satan) poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth.” Revelation 12:15-16

So what does Satan do next? He turns his wrath onto the Saints, those that hold to the testimony of Jesus.

“Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.” Revelation 12:17

Enter the Antichrist, Satan decides to counterfeit Jesus Christ by taking over the body of a human. He even counterfeits a seeming resurrection from the dead.

“And to it (Antichrist) the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?” Revelation 13:2-4

Satan working through the Antichrist is given 42 months (3 1/2 years) and is allowed to make war against the Saints and to conquer them.

“And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also, it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on the earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.” Revelation 13:5-8

We are also told about a second person who is taken over by an evil spirit, the false prophet. He exercises all the authority of the Antichrist. He has supernatural powers and he causes everyone who does not take the mark of the Beast to be slain.

“It (the False Prophet) exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. Also, it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.” Revelation 13:12-17

In the next post, I will focus on what God is doing during this time. The ministry of the two witnesses is powerful. I am confident they will be Moses and Elijah who will be a powerful witness to the Jews and encouragement to Messianic Jews and Christians.