# 1 > To the modern scientist or businessman, or even the theologian who does not take the Bible literally, the biggest stumbling block to understanding God's prophecies is the failure to fully grasp the absolute reality of the true God__the Creator God revealed in the Holy Bible. Just how does God's power work? How does God rearrange the destinies of nations? Can we see prophecy fulfilled in history__and even in world affairs today?
# 2 > Most importantly, we need to remember that the God revealed in your Bible has the ability to exercise total power and total control of nations and individuals. "Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the balance; look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing.... It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He brings the princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth useless" ( ISAIAH 40:15, 22__23 ).
# 3 > Do you believe that? Or was Isaiah making this up__perhaps taking literary liberties__in this perspective on divine power? The fact of the matter is that from Genesis to Revelation, your Bible is filled with prophecies showing how God has intervened, is intervening and will continue to intervene in world affairs. Even Jesus own words are filled with prophetic significance, from the "Olivet Prophecy" of Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21, to the vision of the future He gave the Apostle John in the book of Revelation.
# 4 > How closely can God work to guide the leadership of a nation? The prophet Daniel described how Nebuchadnezzar, king of one of the most remarkable empires of antiquity, became insane and was driven out of office in order that the living may know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, gives it to whomever He will, and sets over it the lowest of men" ( DANIEL 4:17 ). God determines who will govern in the various nations, placing in office, sometimes, the basest of men.
# 5 > Can Americans take comfort in this scripture when thinking about their leaders over the past decade or so? Can the British look at the actions of their Prime Ministers and see God's hand? In the first 55 years after World War II, politically unstable Italy had a series of 58 governments. Other European nations, too, are facing social and political turmoil.
# 6 > The French, in May 2002, held a presidential run-off between a Gaullist and a man often called a neo-Fascist. Are these nations getting the type of leaders they deserve, rather than the decent and wise leaders that they so desperately need? And what about the role of the Roman Catholic pope in Europe? Pope Benedict XVI has strong ties to his native Germany, and has talked openly about the importance of reestablishing Europe's "Christian" roots__alienating European Turks and Muslims around the globe.
# 7 > Truly, the world's present political stability is as solid as a will-o-the-wisp. In the Hebrew Scriptures, Moses described how God orchestrated and guided the dispersion of nations and peoples in antiquity. "When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel" ( DEUTERONOMY 32:8 ). Like a chess master, God moves kings, queens, bishops and pawns at will, according to His purpose. He guides various major nations to the area of the earth where He wants them and blesses or curses them in weather, war and prosperity according to how they yield to His will ( LEVITICUS 26 ).
# 8 > WILL JESUS CHRIST RETURN TONIGHT ?
Millions of Pentecostal and Evangelical believers expect that Jesus Christ may come at any time. They see world events shaping up according to Bible prophecy, and they want to be "ready."
"Jesus Christ may come back tonight," bellows the iron-lunged evangelist in his big tent meeting. "You had better give your heart to the Lord now while He is calling you. You may never get another chance like this!" Most of us have heard such talk__either in person or on the radio or television.
# 9 > Franklin Graham, son of noted preacher Billy Graham, is quoted as saying: "The churches believe that everything is coming to a head and that God is moving. Many people in the evangelical community believe that the return of Jesus Christ could be at any moment__and I'm one of those" ( Los Angeles Times, December 31, 1995 ). That was more than ten years ago! For decades, forceful evangelicals have thundered in revival meetings: "Jesus Christ may come tonight. You need to be ready to meet your Maker now!
# 10 > Commentator Andree Seu reported: "I know a pastor who likes to say, Jesus is coming back today, because, as he explains, whichever day He returns, it will be today.'" Christianity Today writer Mark Galli wrote, "Jesus is coming again! We just don't know when. It could be soon. Or it might not be for another thousand years...or more" ( "Millennium Madness," January/February 1999 ). Today, or a thousand years from today? Which is right? Or are they both wrong?
Is it likely that the Jesus Christ of the Bible will return tonight? To most people living today, the prospect of God's intervention does not seem very real. Even among "believers," there is great disagreement as to when and how Christ will return__or if He will literally return at all.
# 11 > Will God intervene suddenly and mysteriously__totally unexpectedly? Or has the Almighty revealed a specific chain of events that will inform and warn those who take the Bible seriously? Has God been intervening in world affairs? What does the Bible say? You need to know! Before anything else, it is necessary to state that God is not capricious. The Creator of the universe does not make His plans for fanciful, impulsive or temperamental reasons. God the Father will send Jesus Christ back to this earth at a time when His Second Coming will make the difference between life and death for the human race.
# 12 > Preachers who foolishly proclaim "tonight is the night" are doing a grave disservice to their listeners. The return of Jesus Christ is deadly serious business. It may even be a question of your very survival! The Holy Bible is the only true source of revealed knowledge about Jesus Christ's return. Most of mankind's ideas and speculation about Him return are sheer nonsense, based on nothing but guesses and vanity! Is there a way to recognize the signs of His coming, and the end of the age? Can we truly see prophecy fulfilled in world affairs__and understand what this means for us and for our world?
# 13 > End-Time World Suffering
The Bible reveals that man's technological knowledge will be vastly increased just before Christ returns. It will also be a time of mass travel and large movements of immigrants: "But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase" ( DANIEL 12:4 ). Despite this boom in technological ability, man's know-how in spiritual matters is stagnating! Our ability to get along with each other has not improved over the last 4,000 years. Jesus said: "But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be" ( MATTHEW 24:37 ).
# 14 > The Bible clearly reveals that Noah's day was characterized by rampant sin and violence: "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually... And God said to Noah, 'The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth''' ( GENESIS 6:5, 13 ). The Apostle Paul was also inspired by God to look into the future to discribe the last days as "perilous times"__times of crass materialism, moral degradation and a false spirituality that denies the power of the true God of the Bible ( 2 TIMOTHY 3:1__5 ).
# 15 > Does this description fit our present Western civilization? The time leading up to Jesus return will also experience an abundance of horrifying wars and destruction ( MATTHEW 24:3__20 ). Jesus warned that there would be a real threat of human extinction__if He did not intervene to save man from his deadly ways: "For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened" ( Verses 21__22 ).
# 16 > A Vision for the Future
Consider this vision of the future: An alarming variety of crises face a bewildered humanity. The world's supply of good food and clean water dwindles, because of pollution that degrades the environment and global warming that alters weather patterns. Millions face hunger and, eventually, starvation. Some areas struggle with horrendous winter storms and massive flooding while other areas wither in drought under a blazing sun! These weather upsets exact staggering financial tolls, bankrupting many insurance companies. Massive earthquakes, occasional volcanoes and insect plagues further drain international and local disaster relief resources. Ethnic tensions, unemployment and pervasive urban crime cast a pall of insecurity over once-peaceful communities. Life becomes increasingly cheap. After all, what is the cost of a few bullets or a knife?
# 17 > Meanwhile, the horrors of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, and the July 7, 2005 bombings in Great Britain, continue to remind us that increasing terrorism will greatly exacerbate all of the above problems! Devastating disease epidemics will afflict tens of millions! As the climate warms, exotic diseases once confined to Third World tropical countries move north with certain species of disease-carrying mosquitoes and other insects. Drug-resistant infectious bacterial strains breed rapidly in hospitals, wiping out the effectiveness of antibiotics and other "miracle" drugs. Bioengineering__providing humans with transplant organs from baboons, pigs and other animals__facilitates the dangerous mutation of deadly bacteria and viruses. These consequently leap the previous barrier between animals and human susceptibility to one another's diseases. The young, the elderly and the destitute die in staggering numbers. Mass burials of the dead become commonplace.
# 18 > "Nonsense," you say? "It will happen where I live," you argue. "Unwarranted gloom and doom," You assert. "Besides, my government and modern technology will save me from such problems," you hope. Oh, really? Will your armies, police, social security and health care system indefinitely insulate you from such looming foreign and domestic terrors? What do you really expect? Many Western governments are saddled with swiftly rising public debts that have grown to truly gargantuan proportions! Painful budget cuts are the fodder on many nation's political debate. In many Third World countries, the priority is to spend money these days on guns__not health care or pensions. If you are an American, a Canadian, a Briton, an Australian or a resident of one of the comfortably wealthy Western powers, take note. Fiscal irresponsibility on a national scale presages a clear decline in future prestige and power. If your country has to cut back because of falling income, how will you individually be affected? It is really all "blue sky" up ahead? Or are there storm clouds on the horizon?
A SOMBER PORTRAIT
Consider these news reports:
"Dr. Abdul Wahab Achakzai is medical officer at the Civil Hospital in Chaman, a poor and dusty Pakistani bazaar town. Each day, 700 to 800 children and adults stream into his flyblown establishment near the Afghan border for treatment of diseases ranging from malaria to tuberculosis.
# 19 > "The government gives us 120 rupees__less than $ 4, Achakzai told a visitor one afternoon as he examined a shivering 5-year-old girl who he suspected had been bitten by a mosquito carrying vivax malaria. Less than $4. That's not per patient. That's the hospital's daily subsidy, Achakzai said" ( Los Angeles Times, December 3, 1995 ). Could such a decline in the public health care system take a place in your country? In many places, cuts in health care for the poor, the young and the aged have already been a fact of life for years. As disease spreads, and long-cherished societal norms break down, many turn to despair, and even to suicide. In the last decade, 300,000 Americans have taken their own lives__as many as were killed in combat in World War II. "America is in the throes of a largely unrecognized suicide epidemic, as suicide has become the eighth leading cause of death in the United States today, and the third leading cause among adolescents.
# 20 > All Americans recognize that our country is rife with violent crime, but few know that 50 percent more Americans kill themselves than are murdered" (San Diego Union-Tribune, January 11, 2002 ). In 2003, Students Against Drunk Driving released a survey showing that 19 percent of U.S. high school students had considered suicide, 14.8 percent had made a plan to commit suicide, and 8.8 percent had actually attempted suicide at least once. The problem of suicide is worldwide. The World Health Organization reported in September 2006 that more than a million people each year kill themselves, and that for every suicide death there are as many as 50 unsuccessful suicide attempts ( United Press International, September 8, 2006 ). China's Xinhua News Agency reported in September 2006 that nearly 250,000 Chinese kill themselves each year. In many countries, suicide is the leading cause of death for young men between ages 15 and 24.
# 21 > Our jails, too, are filled with evidence that American society is not what it should be. "Recently, the United States achieved the dubious honor of boasting the largest prison and jail population on Earth. It reached this zenith by surpassing cash-strapped Russia released thousands of inmates to save money," noted Sasha Abramsky, author of Hard Time Blues. "Approximately 2 million Americans are now serving either prison or jail time.... Per hundred thousand residents, the United States has an incarceration rate over five times that of England, six times that of Canada, and seven times that of Germany." In 2004, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report, nearly 7 million people inthe U.S. were on probation, in jail, in prison or on parole__accounting for 3.2 percent of the U.S. population or one of every 31 adults. What does that say about the stability of a society and the contentment of its people?
# 22 > MELTING AT THE POLES
Even a seemingly small matter such as rising temperatures can herald grave crisis. For as long as records have been kept, there has been a thick Arctic pack of "perennial ice"__present year-around and unaffected by the Arctic summer. That ice cover had formed a barrier between the northern European coast and the North Pole. In 2006, however, scientists discovered that a section of the ice pack larger than the British Isles had melted away, leaving a sea route by which ships could soon navigate from northern Europe to the North Pole. "If this anomaly continues," said Mark Drinkwater of the Northeast Passage, or Northern Sea Route between Europe and Asia will be open over longer intervals of time, and it is conceivable we might see attempts at sailing around the world directly across the summer Arctic Ocean" ( Agence France Press, September 20, 2006 ).
# 23 > Climate changes have even affected the vast expanse of Antarctica's giant ice shelves. One self that scientists estimate has existed for at least 12,000 years collapsed in 2002, prompted by one of the warmest summers on record there. "it's a profound event." said geologist Christina Hulbe. "This ice self has endured many climate oscillations over many thousands of years. Now it's gone." The collapsed area, 650 feet thick, had a surface area of 1,250 square miles__about the size of Rhode Island. "Scientists said there has also been a 50-year warming trend in the peninsula, which is considered a sensitive, early indicator of global climate change" ( San Diego Union-Tribune, March 20, 2002 ).
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