Do you feel as if something really big is ready to go down?
By Nathan Jones
Evangelist & Web Minister
If you're like me you can feel it. You can sense it. The heavy weight of a coming dramatic change is in the air.
Decay – The signs of entropy are all around us. They're glimpsed in the despondent eye of the unemployed worker who cannot find a job, the harried broker who sees no end to market volatility, the average Joe who feels the wheels of justice have totally fallen off the wagon of freedom, and the graduate who sees no hope for the future because our leaders have failed us. People are feeling our best days now lie behind us.
Something's got to change.
Economy – The signs of financial ruin are growing. The Western world so steeped in debt vainly pushes back the inevitable knock of the repo man. The nations fall one by one into insolvency, dragging down the economies of what remaining nations are still productive. The East rises ready to claim its investments only to discover the money is artificial, and so tethered stares down bankruptcy as well.
Total and worldwide financial disaster is inevitable.
Nature – The signs of natural destruction are evident. The earth trembles under the fatigue of one natural disaster after another. Record tornadoes rip the countryside apart. Tsunamis and hurricanes devastate coastal regions, reaching ever inland. Daily earthquakes level whole cities. Droughts burn and fires scar the land. Everyday there's a report of another, and then another, and then another.
The world can't take much more of this punishment.
War – The signs of another global war are exponentially mounting. The entire world is focused on the fate of the little nation of Israel. The sum of the United Nations wants her destroyed. The arms race of the Middle East fueled by a supernatural hatred of the Jewish people is just one trigger pull away from engulfing the Middle East in a bloodbath. The world's resources have grown scarce and so the nations eye hungrily the outcome of such a war, ready to turn a regional conflict into a global one.
The hate cannot be held back any longer.
Immorality – And, the signs of immorality accost our most basic decencies. The love for our fellow man has grown cold. Life means nothing to anyone and so we murder even our own children at will. People rail against God and His moral law demanding lawlessness. Christians lose more and more ground in the court systems. Around the world those who stand for righteousness are tortured and killed in record numbers. The restraining force on immorality has all but fled, mostly leaving us to our own self-destructive tendencies.
We are watching the world scream on in its dizzying path towards mutual destruction and know that it cannot go on like this. It just can't. Something's got to give. The world cannot continue to get this evil, this volatile, and this hopeless without finally exploding into chaos.
That's what I see, and if you've got your fingers on the pulse of the world as well then that's most likely what you see as well.
The Final Result
If history repeats itself, and it usually does, then we are all at the brink of something cataclysmic. I'm firmly convinced like no other time during my life that this is the case. Unless the restraining hand of God delays the inevitable, the final days of routine life as we know it are quickly running out.
Inevitable – that's the key word, for God has told us that this shattering, world altering change will eventually happen. It must, for God's prophecies always come true.
- The nations surrounding Israel will finally attack with all their anti-Semitic fury (Ps. 83; Ezek. 38-39).
- The economies of the world will collapse under their own massive debt load, resulting in famine and the emergency solution of a punishing global financial system (Rev. 6:5-6 & 13:16-17).
- Natural disasters will increase in frequency and intensity until the mountains are leveled, the oceans are destroyed, and the environment is left in ruins (Lk. 21:11; Rev. 6:12 & 16:3-4,18).
- Immorality will sink into such darkness that murder and debauchery will be the way of life (Rev. 9:21).
- And, out of this global chaos, where hope seems to have totally fled, the world will trade all their freedom over to a global dictator who will control everyone with an iron fist, annihilating all who stand in his way in wave after wave of wars and persecution (Rev. 6:2 & 13:17).
This is the world of the near future, and it's an awful nightmare to contemplate.
The Hopeful Escape
Despite the soon break of the gathering storm, and despite the hopelessness about the future that it brings, believers in Christ can know that it is not our future. Our future plays out in the polar opposite. Instead of living in a world gone mad, we foresee a new home in Heaven. Instead of persecution by a crushing tyrant, we face a loving and benevolent King. Instead of living under wrath, we see living under love. And, where there is only hopelessness left on earth, there is hope, peace and joy awaiting us (Rev. 21-22).
The change on our horizon is bright, for the King of Kings is coming to take those who are saved up to live in Heaven with Him for ever and ever (Jn. 14:1-14; 1 Cor. 15:51-58; 1 Thes. 4:13-18). It will be an event called the Rapture, and it is coming sooner than we think. In fact, it could be argued that it has the potential to happen this very week due to the prophetic significance of the Feasts of Israel.
The Feast of Trumpets occurs on September 29-30, 2011. Will it herald the "last trumpet?" Only God knows for sure. The Rapture is an imminent event, and so we don't know the exact day or hour it will finally occur. I can only speculate that with the rise of major world events tied to the prophetic significance of the Feast of Trumpets, that this week is one I'm keeping a very close eye on.
Because the Rapture may be more imminent than ever, and since so many of our loved ones will be left behind to wonder what has happened to us pondering what dark future awaits them in the aftermath, we will be running this Feast of Trumpets week a message of hope. This message explains why millions suddenly and mysteriously disappeared and will give them answers to what has happened. It's our "left behind" message, and my prayer should we be departing really soon, is that it brings people to Jesus Christ.
