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Christian Chronicles, March 2002 - Volume 5, Issue 77

| The Editor's Pen | Perspectives | Mid-East Update |
| Fruit of the Vine | The Antichrist | Knowledge | The Apostasy of Israel | An Outline of Signs | Grumbles & Grins |

The Editor's Pen

As the situation in the Middle East becomes increasingly critical, it seems appropriate for the bride of Christ to reflect upon the times and the seasons.

Mid-East Update

What days these are! As we have been suggesting for many months — indeed, throughout the Intifada — the effusion of blood has increased dramatically in the Middle East in recent weeks. Israel and the Palestinians are standing at the edge of the abyss of full-scale warfare, and all her neighbors are desperate to avoid it. A major war in that area would wreck the economies of the participating nations. Egypt can ill afford to support the sort of offensive that such a war would demand. Syria, for all her bluster, cannot produce an army that is capable of winning a war against the vastly superior Israeli army. Jordan could not sustain an offensive for a day against Israel. Saudi Arabia is too busy pumping and shipping oil to be diverted from her money-making to fight against a foe she cannot defeat.

The Syrians, Arabs, Palestinians, Egyptians, Iranians and others have been trying for decades to push Israel into the Mediterranean Sea, but she has only gotten stronger. Twice they have engaged in major assaults against her, only to be repulsed almost without effort. They are wary of engaging her again, and especially with the United States at her shoulder, with its massive resources.

Europe, Asia and the Americas desperately want to avoid a war that would put at risk their supplies of oil and destabilize a vitally important region that has never been known for stability anyway. All the world is looking to the United States for a formula for peace that will avert such a disaster as a Middle East war would certainly cause.

While we cannot say with certainty whether the current atmosphere in the Middle East will culminate in still greater bloodshed, we can surely understand that it is this violence and blood-letting that is the catalyst for peace.

For the Christian, these are indeed hopeful days. For, in the end, either way, we are coming closer to the day of our departure. If the bloodshed increases, the search for peace will become still more desperate. And if it does not, then peace is nearer than it was. The Colt Arms Company had a handgun that was called the Peacemaker. It is ever and always the threat of annihilation that brings warring nations to the peace tables. The United States once had an ICBM which it called the Peacekeeper. Thus, as we see the threat of increased violence in the region, our hearts should soar with hope.

Fruit of the Vine

There is but one reason that God would give us so many signs as to when this age might end. That reason is to ensure that we will get about the business of evangelizing the lost as that time approaches. Of course, that has always been the main earthly function of the Church, but as this age draws to a close, we know that our fruit-bearing days are about completed. If we are to lay up treasure in heaven with the fruit that remains, we must be about the business, not of preaching prophecy to the lost, but preaching the gospel of God’s miraculous grace to them.

All fruitful witness either begins or ends at Calvary. We are saved when we accept the enlightenment we receive when we hear the gospel of grace. It is that shed blood that draws men to God. This is a time when every Christian truly ought to be studying the Scriptures, praying every morning for God to make him or her useful in these last days of the Age. Jesus said that the fields were white for harvest, and so they are. This is a time of seed-sowing, but it is nearly at an end. These are the days of gold, silver and precious stones for those who wisely seek to turn many from their error unto the glorious grace of God, from death unto life, from darkness unto light.

Perspectives

Now the Spirit expressly says
That in the latter times
Some shall depart from the faith...

(1 Tim 4:1)

It is such an interesting passage, the one where that verse is found. It is troublesome for many churches today. It speaks of doctrines of demons, seducing spirits, lies and hypocrisy. In a related passage, (2 Tim 3:6) Paul says that these false teachers will creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sin… ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Many churches teach that this verse refers to a general decline in morality, but they do not consider the context. Indeed, they do not even consider the content. It is not from the Law that many are said to depart in the last days, but from the faith. Paul is saying that the same thing will eventually characterize the whole of professing Christendom that once characterized the churches in the region of Galatia, a departure from sound doctrine. He is saying that, in the latter times, the end of this very Age, the professing church will have become apostate.

A departure from the faith implies a diversion toward works. For faith and works are opposite means by which men hope to be saved. In so many churches today, the emphasis is upon the behavior of the believer rather than upon the sound doctrines that speak of the real works of faith. Sermons are about sin rather than salvation. About social interactions rather than about spiritual interactions. About temporal matters, not eternal. About the believers and not about the Redeemer.

There is a much more personal way, however, in which departures from the faith manifest themselves. Four times does the Bible say, “The just shall live by faith,” (Hab 2:4; Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38): four different emphases, covering every earthly aspect of our lives. We are to depend upon God and not self. We are to look to Him for every provision and all guidance in everything. We are to recognize His leadership and act immediately when we understand what His will is. There alone is wisdom. It is found, not in improving the “self,” but in approving the will of God in our lives.

To live by faith is to cease worrying altogether, knowing that your God will make you stand and make you fruitful, a profitable son, a faithful servant. To live by faith is to be justified. Abraham’s faith was accounted to him for righteousness.

It is also interesting to see how those four references to living by faith are used. The first describes the faithful among Israel prior to the invasion by Nebuchadnezzar. Habakkuk could not discern or understand the purposes of God, and God informed him that the just live by faith, not by understanding.

The Romans passage is the conclusion of a longer statement by Paul that he was called to preach the gospel of Christ, and was not ashamed to do so.

The third, in Galatians, was a reaffirmation of the black and white distinction between grace and law as a means of either salvation or sanctification. It cannot be any of both, but must be one or the other, and we are saved by grace through faith.

The fourth, in Hebrews 10, explains the theological necessity of and doctrinal mandate for faithful living. The Hebrews passage is placed immediately before the “Faith Hall of Fame” (Heb 11) in the Scriptures.

It is this same faith that must come to characterize every Christian, predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. It is not about morality, but about obedience. We are to obey the leadership of the Holy Spirit, without question or reservation. As we do that, our lives become very “unworldly.” That is, we are not bound by the conventions of society, but we are citizens of heaven, ambassadors sent to the earth for the express purpose of ministering the word of reconciliation, thereby becoming fruitful.

Too many churches today have drifted away from what is sound and relevant and begun to focus on the things of the flesh, ensuring the continuing fleshliness and temporality of those who follow their teachings.

But praise God that there are still a few sound churches out there in the hinterlands. Find or be one.

The Antichrist

Can we know who this sinister individual is? Not yet. Is he on the world stage? Almost certainly. How will he be recognized? Ah, now we are getting to the real issue.

It is surprising how many Christians believe that this man will be overtly evil, that he will be cruel, openly vicious. And so he shall be before it is all said and done. But he does not appear on the scene that way at all in the beginning. The Antichrist emerges as an apparently wise and benevolent leader, one who is willing to take great chances for the sake of world peace and security. It is very likely that he will assume the mantle of a religious person, a kind and fatherly sort who seeks to make peace between warring neighbors.

This man will already be known by the time the Church is translated. He will not likely be recognized as the leader he will become in the days following the rapture, but he will already be active in world politics, and will be seen as among the most powerful men in the world. The Church will be translated before a comprehensive Middle East peace agreement is ratified in the Israeli Knesset. That event will truly traumatize the world, and this man will then arise, proposing to turn the world’s economies over to the Pope as a gesture of sincerity and goodwill (for the economies of the world will be dramatically damaged by the removal of millions of people from all over the world). He will marshal cooperation from world leaders across the globe, establishing a single world government (probably under the head of the United Nations, at least nominally, though he will himself retain command).

The Pope will agree with this plan, calling on peoples of every faith and society to follow the leadership of this “wise” man, and will perform miracles to prove that his advice is sound.

For three and one half years, the Antichrist will seek to consolidate his power, at the end of which time, he will seek to put down every rebellion, break his treaty with Israel, and begin that great persecution of the Jews that culminates in Armageddon. He will come on the scene initially, however, as a wise and benign leader, kindly and caring.

Knowledge

The Apostasy of Israel

At the precipice, perhaps already fallen over it by the time you read this, or stepped back from it: there stand Israel and the Palestinians today. At the very brink of that scarlet descent into all-out war. Have you noticed how very absent God has been from all the discussions? The Palestinians make more noise about Allah than the Israelis make about the God of their fathers. Oh, that tiny nation will yet turn back to God and enter a millennium of glory and blessing, Jesus Himself seated on the throne of David. Her God will once again be her King, a visible and personal presence among them. But not yet. Today, the Israelis and the Palestinians are reasoning among themselves, unable to find a way to stanch the flow of blood, let alone make peace. And the blood that is flowing is bad blood between them.

Israel’s time of glory and righteousness and prosperity comes after “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer 30:7), that seven-year period between the rapture of the Church and the Second Coming of Christ. Upon our Lord’s return, Israel will enjoy a relationship with her God such as she has not heretofore enjoyed. Before that glad day, however, certain things must intervene.

The Jews must fill up the measure of their rebellion against God. They really became angry with God after 70 A.D., when He drove them from the land by the swords of the Romans. They are a people, chosen by God; unfaithful then, unfaithful still. Having rejected her Messiah, hanging Him on a tree, Israel fulfilled that portion of Daniel’s prophecy which reads:

“Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy.

“Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem (444 B.C.) Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times.

“And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself;”

(Dan 9:24-26a)

The clock stopped on Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks of years when the Messiah was rejected. There are events prophesied to take place between this rejection of Christ and the final seven years of this prophecy. Thus, the clock must stop until these things are completed. Of course, we now know that the entire Church Age has intervened since the rejection of Christ. When it has run its course, the Church will be removed from the scene, “translated’ into heaven. Then the clock starts again. This Age is that mystery age that our Lord spoke of so eloquently in Matthew thirteen. When the Church Age has run its course, the last soul has been joined to the body of Christ, then shall come the time when Israel is brought to her knees and the Gentiles are punished. Then comes the arrival of the King to reign in glorious righteousness and power. Daniel records the events that must transpire before the restarting of that prophetic clock:

And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, And till the end of the war desolations are determined.

(Dan 9:26b)

In seventy A.D., Rome, a great Gentile power, attacked Israel. That mighty beast, kings with their armies, all serving under Caesar, overflowed the area in a crimson tide, dispersing the Jews across the “civilized” world, forbidding their return to the land that God had long before promised to Abraham, father of both Arabs and Jews. It seemed that the descendants of Ishmael might inherit the promised land after all.

But God was specific in declaring which of Abraham’s descendants should receive the inheritance. God had declared that it would be Isaac’s descendants (Gen 21:12), not his older brother Ishmael’s, who should receive the promises of God.

Indeed, that inheritance is tracked in the Bible, proving Christ’s right as a Descendant of Isaac, to sit upon that throne, thus ensuring that the land would become a possession forever of the Jews, descendants of Abraham through Isaac (Gen 21:12) and Jacob (Rom 9:13). Furthermore, the land that God promised Abraham included all the land between the Brook of Egypt (in the Sinai Peninsula) and the Euphrates River (in what is now Iraq). At the Second Coming of Christ, all of that land, every square inch, will finally be given to the Jews, with Jesus on the throne.

For two thousand years the Jews were dispersed among the nations of the world. From 70 A.D. until 1948, there was no nation of Israel. There were Jews in every nation on earth, but they did not have their own state or government. They were still God’s people, but He had removed them from the land. How can that be reconciled with God’s promises to Abraham? It is impossible for God to abrogate His promises. If He could abrogate His promises to Israel, then what assurance should we have? His Word is very clear on the matter. Hear the words of Daniel recounting the starting of that clock. The Jews must then be back in the land:

Then he (not God, but the antichrist) shall confirm a covenant with many (Jews and Gentiles) for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate.

(Dan 9:27)

After this final week of years, that seven-year period that Jeremiah called the time of Jacob’s trouble, and that which Jesus Himself described in great detail (Jer 30:7; Mt 24:4-31): after this time of trouble, Christ will return to the earth and fulfill every promise that God ever made to the Jews.

Before then, however, something else must happen. God must restart the clock on His dealings with the nation of Israel. We are told specifically when this will occur — not the day or the hour, but the circumstances that will exist at that time. It is again Daniel, in the conclusion to this prophecy, who tells us what the order of things is.

It is the confirmation of a covenant that the “prince who is to come” (the antichrist) will engage in with Israel and her neighbors that starts the clock on Daniel’s prophecy of the final seven years of Gentile dominion over Israel. There are two reasons given in the Scriptures for the tribulation period to occur. They are: 1.) to bring Israel to such a place of repentance that she will accept that Messiah whom she had earlier crucified (Zech 12:10; Jn 19:34,37; Rev 1:7); and, 2.) to punish the Gentile nations for partitioning the land that God gave to the Jews (Joel 3:2).

When the Jews, on the very brink of complete extinction, look up and see Christ returning to save them, they will immediately and with one accord accept Him as their King. He will become their King, and will also rule over every kingdom on the earth. Every nation shall have its king and its princes, its lords, its governors and its mayors, and all of those governing officials will be Church Age saints, in perfect submission at last to the righteous will of God. Jesus will be the King of kings, and Lord of lords, and His great glory shall arise over the city of Jerusalem as even the sun does today (Isa 60:1-3). Unfaithful Israel will be restored to the loving favor of God. She will receive that great expanse of land that God gave to her father Abraham at the first, and she will both worship and serve her great King in the Holy Land, all upon her repentance at His Coming.

Today, Israel is still in rebellion against her God, and she has pretty much made Him irrelevant in her affairs. She is estranged from Him, and is fairly comfortable being estranged from Him. She looks to herself and to her own for her security and prosperity. She looks to the United States and to Europe, to Asia and to Africa. And look at the state she is in. Powerful, but threatened from every direction.

Even today, Israel is standing at the brink of a great escalation of the present conflict. All sides everywhere are groping in the darkness of ignorance for the light of reason that will result in a comprehensive Middle East peace agreement. They hope to eliminate the threat of widespread destruction and loss of life. Nobody wants war, but both sides seem inexorably drawn toward it.

As the violence escalates, so also does the desperate search for peace spiral wildly upward in the minds of government leaders around the world. The eyes and minds of every continent are fixed expectantly upon the Middle East, apprehensive lest that dispute should turn into a great war. It shall indeed do that very thing, but not until long after the end of this Church Age. That will be the war that culminates on the plains of Megiddo in the Second Coming of Christ. There Christ shall break the Gentile dominion over the earth and wrest His Kingdom from them.

Two small peoples. One would wonder why the world would even care what happens to them. Except that these are the two sons of Abraham, still disputing the birthright. We hear nothing of this aspect of things in the press today, nor shall we. The world could not care less about what God gave to whom. The United Nations reigns supreme on this planet, under the guiding influence of the United States (say what might be said about an equality of nations — the guy with the most money and the biggest gun usually wins). The U.N. feels perfectly justified in partitioning that land however it deems most appropriate, regardless of God’s expressed intention and promise of some six thousand years ago. But it is not the United Nations that reigns supreme over the nations of the world. It is God. His apparent passivity must not be mistaken for acquiescence.

The Arabs want to take what God gave Israel. The people of Esau wish to renege on the deal that Esau made with Jacob. And the Jews, why just listen to the rhetoric! They are seriously considering ceding much of Jerusalem, their very own capital, the eternal seat of their faith, to the Palestinians. They would do much better to look to God and seek to recover all that He has given them. But they will not do that. The prophets have long before told us that the Jews would do just as they are doing today. It is regrettable for them that they should act this way, but it is to our great advantage, for it can only serve to hasten our departure. They will sign that treaty.

But God is not bound by treaties made between men. When the time comes, Christ will reclaim all that promised land and rule over it with equity and righteousness, two things that no civilization that has yet existed has been able to accomplish. We know that Israel will remain faithless until Christ returns, but we also know that she shall yet enter her greatest glory. Furthermore, we know the tribulation period, that time which culminates in her restoration, begins with the ratification of a comprehensive Middle East peace agreement. For her humiliation must precede her glory. That is fitting. For Christ’s own glory was preceded by His humiliation. And the glory of the Gentiles shall come when God is their King.

And now we see Israel and all the leading nations of the earth in an increasingly desperate search for some road to a peaceful settlement of the issues that today threaten to engulf the region in fire and blood. As the time approaches for the return of the Lord, the devil must accelerate all his designs in an attempt to install his own counterfeit Christ on the throne of the world. He seeks to have finally established his own global authority and unity prior to the time when Christ should return. And so he shall, but it will not stand. It will be crushed and blown away like the chaff from the summer threshing floors. When that false messiah, the antichrist appears, he will be shortly thereafter deposed by the King of kings.

That treaty will not come from God, but from Satan himself. When the devil enters into the body of the antichrist, he will give him a plan, so subtle and so seemingly inarguable that it will be accepted almost by acclamation. Satan knows that the time is already short. He would love to so corrupt the world and God’s people that God would have no kingdom over which to reign. His counterfeit messiah will appear before the ratification of that treaty.

Yes, the Middle East is at the brink of a terrible war. This will not be like 1967 or 1973. Oh, no. This war will claim many casualties on both sides. One of two things must happen now. Either the parties will shunt aside the danger of a virulent war by engaging upon some peace agreement now, or they will engage in war instead and make their peace afterward. Of course, it remains to be seen whether this treaty turns out to be that treaty, but it appears more and more likely every day. If this is not that treaty, it will surely lead to that one. The treaty that begins the tribulation period is ratified for a seven-year term. Before that treaty is ratified, the Church will have been translated. We will be physically removed from the earth, taken to the New Jerusalem in Paradise, where we shall enjoy the marriage of the Lamb to His bride while the awful judgments of the tribulation period unfold upon the earth.

Israel’s time of glory follows after her time of trouble: humiliation before honor. The Bible tells us much about the state of Israel entering that period of supposed peace. Supposed, because the treaty engineered by the beast will not stand. He will break it himself at the midpoint of that final week. The Jews pay lip service to God, but they dishonor His Son, even as they did two thousand years ago. Otherwise, why would God now be gathering the tools with which to bring repentance upon them? The ground is being plowed and tilled, made ready for the advancing Son of God.

While there are many signs of the times in which we live, the Middle East, as always, is the key to our understanding. As goes Jerusalem, so goes prophecy. It might be a thousand years before that treaty is agreed upon and ratified, but it appears to be more like a thousand milliseconds. That is, we should be constantly watchful. The next event on the prophetic calendar for Israel is the entrance of the devil into the body of the antichrist. Before that happens, we will be translated. It cannot be considered insignificant that the Jews and the Gentiles are in a race with disaster and are not quite frantically seeking some formula for peace.

This is not a time for Christians to sit atop the mountain expectantly. Not at all. We are to proceed with our lives, but we are also to remember our reason for being here in the first place (Jn 15:16). These are the days when the bride of Christ ought to be smoothing her skirts, preparatory to going out into the street to meet her Groom. These are the days— oh, they are coming to a close—of laying up treasure. These are the closing moments of the Age, when we know that we shall shortly come into our heavenly inheritance carrying a weight of glory we cannot now imagine. These are the times of our steadfastness and service. These are the days of our testing.

Every Christian in all the world ought to be so seriously focused on the events in and around Israel that everything else is a distraction. We must lead our lives as usual, but we should have a greatly heightened awareness of where we are on the great span of time that bridges eternity past and eternity future. Let us find what fruit the Lord will grant us, keeping watch vigilantly on the prophecies of God, even as we also minister the word of reconciliation. Let us shine the light of the glory of God’s grace and mercy into the sin-darkened hearts of the lost and perishing. Let us preach the gospel to the brokenhearted and dispirited. Let us lift every burden and serve as if there is no tomorrow. For us, there may not be, but eternity. We are remarkably near the end of this age.

An Outline of Signs

Looking at the signs of the times these days can be overwhelming. There are so many! Jesus presented, in His Olivet Discourse, signs that would characterize the end times and said, “When you see all these things, recognize that I will be near, right at the door" (Mt 24:33). He also said that His return, from the viewpoint of Israel and the Gentile Nations, would be “as a thief in the night.” But for believers, Paul said that He would not be coming in this manner, for we are all “sons of light.” No one knows the “day or the hour” but the Scriptures bear abundant testimony concerning the “times and the seasons.”

Dr. David R. Reagan has put together this excellent outline overview of the signs of the times: (Link at end of article)

 I. Signs of Nature
  (Matthew 24:7; Mark 13: 8; and Luke 21:11)

1) Famine
2) Earthquakes
3) Plagues
4) Signs in the Heavens
   (Unusual weather, new discoveries in space, UFO's, etc.)

 II. Signs of Society 
  (Matthew 24:12,37-39 & 2 Timothy 3:1-4)

1) Lawlessness
2) Violence
3) Immorality
4) Greed
5) Selfishness
6) Hedonism
7) Rebellion
8) Despair

 III. Spiritual Signs

  1) Negative

a) False Christs & Prophets and their cultic groups (Matthew  24:5,11,2-4; Mark 13:6,21-22; and Luke 21:8).
b) Apostasy in the professing church (2 Thessalonians 2:3; and 2 Timothy 3:5, 4:3-4).
c) Widespread heresy in the church (2 Timothy 4:1-4).
d) Movement toward a one-world religion (Revelation 17).
e) Persecution of true believers (Matthew 24:9-10; Mark 13:9,11-13; and Luke 21:12-19).
f) Outbreak of demonic and occultic activity (1 Timothy 4:1).

  2) Positive

a) Outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Joel 2:28-29).
b) Revival of Davidic worship (1 Chronicles 16:1-39; Psalm  150; and Amos 9:11).
c) Worldwide evangelism (Matthew 24:14 and Mark 13:10).
d) Understanding of Bible prophecy (Daniel 12:4,8-9).

 IV. World Political Signs

1) Re-establishment of Israel. (Ezekiel 36:22 - 37:1-2; Zechariah 12:1-6; Matthew 24:32-34; Mark 13:28- 30; and Luke 21:29-31).
2) Arab hostility toward Israel (Ezekiel 35:1 - 36:7).
3) Russia as a menacing power to Israel (Ezekiel 38:1 - 39:16).
4) Asian nations capable of fielding an army of 200 million (Revelation 9:15-16 and 16:12).
5) Wars and rumors of wars (Matthew 24:6-7; Mark 13:7-8; and Luke 21:10).
6) Kingdom against kingdom -- that is, civil wars and ethnic wars (Matthew 24:7; Mark 13:8; and Luke 21:10).
7) Reunification of Europe (Daniel 2:41-44, 7:8, 24-25, and 9:26).
8) Movement toward a one-world economy (Revelation 18).

 V. Technological Signs

1) Nuclear weapons. 
   (Matthew 24:22; Luke 21: 25-26; and Revelation 6:8, 8:7 and 16: 2-).
2) Television and satellite transmission (Revelation 11:3-12).
3) Robotics (Revelation 13:14-15).
4) Computer and laser technology (Revelation 13:16-18).
5) High speed transportation (Daniel 12:4).

 VI. The Accelerator Sign

1) Population explosion (Revelation 9: 15-16 and 16:12).
2) Increase in knowledge (Dan-iel 12:4).
3) Increase in violence (Matthew 24:12).
4) Increase in transportation (Daniel 12:4).
5) Rapid disintegration of society (1 Timothy 3:1-4).
6) Signs in general to be like birth pangs; that is, increasing in frequency and intensity (Matthew 24:8).

 VII. Signs of Israel

1) Regathering of the people (Isaiah 11:10-12 and Ezekiel 37:1-12).
2) Re-establishment of the state (Isaiah 66:7-8;  Zechariah 12:1-6; and Matthew 24:32-35).
3) Reclamation of the land (Isaiah 35:1-2,7 and Ezekiel 36:34-35).
4) Revival of the language (Zephaniah 3:9).
5) Resurgence of the military (Zechariah 12:6)
6) Refocusing of world politics (Zechariah 12:2-3).
7) Reoccupation of Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:2-6).

From the fulfillment of past prophecies, we learn that, although God can intervene in the affairs of men at any time, He usually works through natural processes. These natural processes, which set the stage for the Bridegroom’s coming for His bride, have taken shape at such a rapid rate just in this last century. As we look over this outline and compare it to the present world stage, it is easy to see that our Lord is indeed right at the door! The signs of nature and of society are apparent, as are also the spiritual, technological and accelerator signs. The World Political and Israel signs are presently taking center stage.

David Reagan has well said, “It is no longer necessary to search for signs. We are inundated with them. There are so many and they are so clear, that it's like the Lord has a neon sign in the sky blinking on and off, saying, ‘Jesus is coming soon!’ As Elbert Peak put it, we should be listening for sounds -- the sound of a trumpet blast and the shout of an archangel (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).”

Grumbles & Grins

“The key to the right interpretation of Scripture is the dispensational filter!”
— Lloyd Olsen
Close Combat Missile Systems Project Office (CCMS)

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