A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 12-13

See Part One – A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 1-3

Part Two – A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 4-5

Part Three: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 6-7

Part Four: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 8-9

Part Five: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 10-11

In Rev 12:1-6 we see what has actually happened on earth being depicted as a great celestial battle.  “A great and wondrous sign” appeared, a miraculous signpost conveying the idea that men should look upon the woman and clearly see the hand of the God of the Bible in history.  Who is the woman? The nation/people of Israel.  Do you remember the dream (Gen 37:9-10) of the man who would become the Jewish patriarch who would father the twelve sons and establish the twelve tribes of Israel?  How the son, the moon and eleven stars would bow down before him?  Jacob correctly saw the sun symbolizing himself, the moon symbolizing Joseph’s mother Rachel and the eleven stars symbolizing his brothers.  Joseph’s dream, of course, came true.  We already have a powerful symbol of the woman as the nation Israel.  But the description of the woman continues: the “woman” gives birth “to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.”  That is a reference to Psalm 2:9, which prophecies Messiah (see Rev 19:15).  And, again, if the woman is the mother of Messiah, who is she but Israel?  Christ will one day return as King of kings to rule with that rod, but after His Resurrection He was caught up by God in the Ascension; hence the reference “her Child was snatched up by God and to His throne.”  And we saw Messiah “standing in the center” of that throne in Rev 5:6.

What we find in this celestial drama is that Satan (the red dragon) possesses an irrational hatred of Israel and particularly of the Messiah Son she would bear.  I say “irrational” because, for example, God allowed the satanically-originated Holocaust in order to bring the world to the place where the nations would officially recognize the state of Israel.  Satan slaughtered Jews, but it was that very act of demonic hate that God sovereignly used to bring about the prophesied miracle of the state of Israel being born out of dead and dried bones (Eze 37).  Christ can be symbolized with red because of His own blood that He shed for us; this dragon is red only because of the bloodshed he has caused.  The dragon has seven heads and ten crowns; the seven heads is a reference to the plural “heads” of Leviathan (Ps 74:13) with the number “seven” referring to the seven successive world empires the dragon has controlled: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome – and Antichrist’s future empire (Rev 17:9-10).  The ten crowns – likely all worn on the seventh head – represent the ten kingdoms Antichrist will dominate.

Rev 12:7-12 describes an incredible supernatural battle between Satan and the third of the angels who followed him into becoming demons and Michael and the angels who remained with God.  Satan is thrown out of heaven so he cannot slander and accuse believers before God anymore (see Job 1:6-11; 2:1-6; Zech 3:1-2).  Jesus saw Satan falling from heaven (Luke 10:17-18).  And Jesus also saw Satan driven out in John 12:31-32.  I submit that this battle occurred during Jesus’ earthly ministry; and that Satan’s power to go before the throne of God was broken by Christ at that point.  Which is why Rom 8:33 can say, “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?”  John places this event here to tell us that during the second half of the Tribulation, Satan “recognizing that he has but a short time” will try to attack Jews as he never has before.

Rev 12:6 is really incredible.  Jesus in Matt 24:15-16 prophetically warned the generation of Jews living in Judea and Jerusalem at the time that Antichrist would go into the newly rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem  (see Daniel 9:27; 12:11; Matt 24:15) and declare himself “God” to flee immediately.  And one day, all-too soon, that event will happen in the middle of the Tribulation as the beast declares himself God.  But we’re told in Rev 12:6 that there will be “a place prepared for her by God” to flee.  God has actually already prepared this place at Petra.  And these Jews will be divinely protected by God for 1,260 days (or forty-two months or three and a half years or a time, times and half a time).  And so we look at Rev 12:13-17 and see how the action plays out.  Jesus told Jews to bug out of Judea when the Antichrist commits the abomination that shall cause desolation.  When Antichrist declares himself God in the Temple mid-way through the Tribulation, Jews in Judea will know EXACTLY where to flee: about 150 miles south of Jerusalem at the other end of the Dead Sea to a place called “Petra.”  Petra is a giant network of caves carved out by the Nabataeans and completed by the Romans over centuries in the Mountains of Edom at Mount Seir in modern day Jordan.  Many caves hold 30-40 people; one holds 300.  The Romans built an amphitheater that holds 5,000 people.  There is room for 250,000 people.  And it is only accessible by way of a narrow corridor 12’ wide.  When the Jews flee into Petra, God will sovereignly cause an earthquake that will devour the pursuing army of Antichrist and simultaneously miraculously shelter the Jews (see Daniel 11:41, which prophesies that Edom would be off limits to the beast).  Isaiah prophesied of this Petra event in Isa 26:20.  And as we speak, the Jordanians are fixing the place up, having installed a modern water and sanitation system!

How do Christians overcome the devil (Rev 12:11)?  Three ways: 1) by the Blood of the Lamb which renders Satan powerless; 2) by the words of our testimony because the gospel is the salvation-power of God (Rom 1:16) and when we’re not ashamed of the gospel, we have that power; and 3) by not loving our own lives and being willing to follow Christ even to death.

Revelation 13 gives us a more complete introduction to the two coming beasts and describes how they will operate.  Like many dictators (e.g. Hitler), they will initially be heralded as saviors.  They will promise a Utopia but unleash hell on earth.  Mankind frankly ought to know better, but as Georg Hegel observed, “History teaches us that man learns nothing from history.”  But the Bible tells us all about Antichrist: he is called “the king of Babylon” (Isa 14:4), the little horn (Dan 7:8; 8:9), the man of lawlessness and the man doomed to destruction (2 Thess 2:3), Antichrist (1 John 2:18) and the beast (Rev 13:1).  We find in Daniel (e.g. Dan 11:32) that whereas Daniel was given the wisdom to reveal mysteries, Antichrist will have the ability to so entangle the truth into knots that no one will be able to resist his distortions.  Regardless of how Antichrist sees himself or how he deceives the world into seeing him, God sees him as a ruthless, unfeeling dictator and monster.

The first beast – the political Antichrist – arises out of the sea (Rev 13:1) – which in both Revelation (Rev 17:15) and elsewhere in Scripture depict the violent and erratic political turmoil of the Gentile nations (Isaiah 57:20; Jer 49:23; Jude 13).  The seven heads ties him to Satan (see p. 1), to his eschatological role in the last days, and to his counterfeiting of God.  But in addition we’re told in Rev 17:9-11 that the “seven heads” are “seven kings” with Antichrist being an eighth king who rules over these seven kings.  Horns always symbolize political power.  Why ten horns?  Ten kingdoms that he has power over.  Consider this view, because we know that Antichrist will rule the entire world (Rev 13:3,8):

“The forces that are intent on creating a one world government want to divide the world to ten interdependent and mutually interacting regions. One of the agencies promoting a one world government is the Club of Rome, a collection of the mega rich and intellectual elite that established a think tank in Rome in April 1969. The Rockefeller family is part of this group… On September 17, 1973 the COR issued a report… that expressed a vision for the world. In the COR report the world is divided into ten political/economic regions which are called “kingdoms.” In his summary of the report by Mesaroviv and Pestel Peccei stated,

‘Their world model, based on new developments of the multilevel hierarchical systems theory, divides the world into ten interdependent and mutually interacting regions of political, economic or environmental coherence … .’”

Rev 13:2 presents Antichrist in terms of a leopard, a bear and a lion.  This takes us to Daniel 7 and the description of the four successive empires that would rule the world (Greece=leopard; Medo-Persia=bear; lion=Babylon).  Like Greece, he will be lightening fast in his maneuverings; like Medo-Persia he will display raw power in his conquests; and like Babylon he will represent boastful arrogance.  The Antichrist will have the mightiest features that made these previous empires so deadly.  Satan will give him his power and his influence over mankind.

“One of the heads of the beast seemed to have a fatal head wound, but the fatal wound had been healed.”  This is an imitation by the Great Imitator; the beast’s suffering a fatal wound is a parody of Christ’s Passion and his seeming to return to life is a parody of Christ’s Resurrection.  But Satan can only “seem” to copy what Christ already factually accomplished.

Rev 13:5-8 is a section filled with what scholars refer to as “divine passives,” denoting God’s divine control over all things, very much including the forces of evil.  Hence “the beast was given…” is one of three places in the paragraph that the divine passive indicates that God sovereignly allows the beast to blaspheme, to conquer the saints and to control the nations and cause them to worship him.  God is sovereign over everything that happens – even during the “godless” Tribulation when Antichrist and Satan rage as human history has never seen.  Which ought to tell us that God is surely in control over our situations NOW!  God limits Antichrist temporally (to only 3 ½ years) and spatially (to earth).

Rev 13:8 refers to those who worship the beast as “all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the lamb.”  The book of life is a divine register of all true believers (e.g. Ex 32:32-33; Psa 69:28; Dan 7:9-10, 12:1).  If your name is found in this book you are a citizen of heaven no matter WHAT the forces of evil do.  There IS no true power in evil, for God is NEVER not in complete control.  Satan will only be able to give the beast his authority because the sovereign God allows him to do so.  And here it belongs to the Lamb, because it was the Lamb who won victory over the dragon for the saints (Rev 12:11).  And God’s redemptive plan was established “from the creation of the world.”  Thus John warns us in Rev 13:9-10 that, for instance, “If it is God’s will that anyone be taken captive, then he must go into captivity,” etc.  More than any other time in history, the ethical requirement for these Tribulation saints will be clear: to meekly accept their imprisonment and martyrdom and place their trust entirely in God while refusing to take action against the forces of evil – but instead to merely continue to proclaim the gospel message.

Satan’s final rebellion will be waged in a war of total annihilation.  Satan’s goal is to either dethrone God or destroy God’s creation in the attempt.  And to this end Satan parodies the Trinity, the dragon (himself), the beast from the sea (Antichrist) and the beast from the earth or the false prophet.  When the first beast “rises from the dead,” the second one will exploit the event to forge a new world religion worshiping the Antichrist and behind him the dragon as its focus (Rev 13:3-4, 12).  And the beast will blaspheme God by taking God’s divine names for himself (Rev 13:5-6), by taking worship that belongs to God to himself (13:7-8) and persecuting God’s saints (13:7).  He will abrogate for himself divine status and pretend that his actions are answerable to no one (hence the title “man of lawlessness”).  I submit that we are already seeing morality being supplanted by rhetoric and demagoguery as we never have before; but under Antichrist it will be categorically worse as he “justifies” absolutely everything he does.

The second beast arises from the land.  He is labeled as a false prophet (Rev 16:13; 19:20; 20:10).  The first beast has the political and military power to conquer; this one has the religious power to deceive the world into worshiping the first beast.  In pseudo-Trinitarian terms, as the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ (John 16:14), so the false prophet glorifies Antichrist.  The dragon gave his authority to the Antichrist and the Antichrist gives his authority to the false prophet.  Note that his two horns are uncrowned (cf. the first beast).  Just as in Dan 8:3 Medo-Persia was viewed as a ram with two horns representing the empire in its opposition to God, so also the horns of this imposter with his two horns “like the Lamb.”

If you like socialism – the government takeover of the private sector economy – you will absolutely LOVE the government of these two beasts.  The Bible warned us of the coming of global totalitarian government (Dan 7:23; Rev 13:7-8); and we’re going to get it.  The European Union and the United Nations are two powerful current examples of this trend that is coming to take over.  Globalists in every level of government from every nation are seeking to unite the world. Connecting the world economically and monetarily – which they have already largely accomplished – is crucial to their goal.  It is frankly incredible how the socialists and secularists have been so successful at establishing all the necessary powers and capabilities which will fall into the Antichrist’s hand like a ripe apple falling from a tree.  Big government has never honored God; it seeks to replace Him as Savior of the people.

Revelation is clear that the mark of the beast will be an act of worship of the first (political) beast.  You will find that worshipers of big government LOVE religion – provided that said “religion” validates the worship of big government.  Here the false prophet exploits his religious influence over the world to obtain a political act on the behalf of the political beast; he institutes an economic system that only allows those who have publicly announced their worship of the Antichrist – and received his mark on their right hands or foreheads – to be participants.  I have no doubt “the mark of the beast” will be technological: a microchip, an RFID, or a bar code.  If you have the mark, socialism will work for you: you will not only have money in your account and the ability to buy and sell, but you will likely have the goods and wealth of those who refuse to take the mark “redistributed” to you.  If you refuse to take the mark, you will have NO money and NO means of buying or selling ANYTHING.  Money will be tracked to the point in which bartering is impossible; because those who purchase too many groceries or too much gasoline will trigger an audit and be caught if they barter goods with one who has not taken the mark.  What socialists dream today will happen: government will control all money and the entire economy.  And it will result in literal hell on earth as Antichrist exploits the system to assume dictatorial power.

Part Seven: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 14-15

Part Eight: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 16-18

Part Nine: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 19-20

Part Ten: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 21-22

A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 1-3

Why that title?  Because we’re going to take a “midlevel” approach to explore the Book of Revelation.  Obviously, we could easily spend a year or MORE in this book, couldn’t we?  For example, I have a two-volume commentary on Revelation by Robert Thomas that totals well over a thousand pages!  That’s too low or detailed a level for the type of discussion we can have.  Or we could fly over Revelation in one article at a really high level and try to provide a summary of the Book in one hour of Sunday School.  What we’re going to do is take a plane ride over Revelation and fly over it at a mid-level altitude that will let us get the gist of about two chapters a week on average.

With that in mind, here are a few “nutshell descriptions” of the Book of Revelation.  Here are the one-sentence summaries of Revelation from a couple of pastors I know well:

A fun exercise, approached it from several angles, and settled on this version:

“Jesus pulls back the curtain of time to give us a preview of the final chapters of this world’s drama and give us a glimpse into the world to come.”

Another pastor and I put our heads together to come up with this one:

“Revelation is a message of hope to God’s people as they struggle against evil.”

I tried to be as descriptive as I could in my sentence:

Sinful man will progressively shake his fist at Jesus Christ until evil appears to take over the whole world, but God will ultimately end the problem of evil once for all and provide an eternity of shalom for His people through the King of kings and Lord of lords.

I believe that’s a worthy exercise for any book or passage you study: can you sum up the point/message in a big-idea sentence?  You are forced to stop and ask yourself: what is the point of what I’ve read?

If you want to go even further and offer a two-word description of what Revelation is about those two words are “Jesus Christ,” NOT “the future.”  Is the future important in Revelation?  Of course.  But in Revelation we find out what Jesus DID, we find out what He’s GOING to do and we find out that He is King of kings and Lord of lords who will reign over the Universe surrounded by His people forever.  And the beauty of the Book of Revelation is that it was written so that St. John’s first reader of Revelation could get that about Christ.  And someone a thousand years ago could get it.  And we can get it today.  They wouldn’t understand all the “future stuff” that was divinely intended for a future day; but they would understand the main idea of the Book of Revelation: One day King Jesus will kick the devil’s butt and throw him along with the world’s worst human dictator into hell, and then it will all be a forever of good times for Jesus’ disciples.

Moving on: how many of you have heard the term “newspaper prophecy”?  What does that phrase say to you?  Do you think it is intended as a positive or a negative description of literal interpretation of biblical prophecy?  It’s usually been used as an insult to deride those who see the last days picture falling into place.  On the view of this attack, people like me take whatever headline is in the news at the moment and twist the Bible prophecy to fit that headline.  And such people will point to periods when many in a generation believed the world was in the last days when it really wasn’t – particularly the periods around WWI/WWII.

Here’s my response to that: Take WWII.  You can see why some people may have believed that we were in the last days: we had a figure – Adolf Hitler – who very definitely seemed “Antichrist-like.”  You had the entire world locked in a terrible war that resulted in the deaths of more than 60 million people.  But while there were many things that might make the late 1930s and the early 1940s seem like a candidate for the Tribulation, one thing was missing that those who favor a literal interpretation said HAD to happen according to the Bible.  What was that one thing?  THE EXISTENCE OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL.  Just as one example, Daniel 12:11, 11:31-37 and 9:27 say that the Antichrist will set up an abomination that causes desolation in the last days during the Tribulation.  That is a major event in Bible prophecy.  Jesus in Matt 24:15 and Mark 13:14 tells us this was still an event to happen in the future.  2 Thess 2:3-4 says that Antichrist will set himself up in God’s Temple and declare himself to be God.  Which temple would that be in?  There is only one possible candidate.  When Daniel referred to the temple, it could be none other than the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.  Revelation chapter 11 is a prophetic account that that Temple will one day be built again.  And this is just one of many, MANY ways that a literal interpretation of Revelation would lead us to definitively state that no state of Israel, no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.  The state of Israel as prophesied in Ezekiel simply has to exist for the events prophesied in the last days to occur.   And so an informed student of Bible prophecy could know for certain in 1939 that whatever would happen was not yet the Tribulation.

And so the accusation of “newspaper prophecy” massively fails.  Because the people accused of perverting Bible prophecy to suit the newspaper are the very same people who were boldly and confidently predicting that the state of Israel would rise for centuries before it actually happened.  As an example, Charles Nelson Darby was claiming back in 1819 in writing that if his dispensationalism was correct, the state of Israel would have to be reborn.  And had we been relying on our newspapers prior to 1948, as critics falsely claim we do, we would have agreed with said critics and pronounced that Israel had been expunged from the pages of anything but ancient history and that the rebirth of the state of Israel could never have happened.  And in fact on THAT most significant ground of the rebirth of the nation Israel exactly as we rightly claimed the Bible prophesied, it is in in fact our critics who looked at their newspapers beginning some 1600 years ago (Augustine appx. 398 AD) and wrongly concluded that Israel was obliterated forever and therefore out of God’s prophetic plan.  It was the amillennialists who in fact were the ones who engaged in “newspaper prophecy” in that most pejorative sense.

And while the folks like Hal Lindsey who are demagogued as “newspaper prophets” at least adjust their speculations to accommodate new developments, the amillennialists, postmillennialists, etc. never bothered to adjust THEIR “newspaper theology” to the REALITY that the state of Israel – in direct fulfillment of God’s Word – had come into existence precisely as the premillennialists/dispensationalists they mocked had said would happen.  Israel stands as a refutation of these theological systems that attempted to “replace” a national Israel that should NEVER have been “replaced” to begin with.

I’ve written articles that describe some of the key differences between amillennialism, postmillennialism and premillenialism/dispensationalism.  If these terms confuse you, read up on them.

That said, the Book of Revelation ultimately WILL be “newspaper prophecy.”  Because when the events described in Revelation are ultimately fulfilled, a good newspaper will report the events as they unfold and intelligent readers will say, “That’s what the Bible said would happen!”  That’s because when Revelation is fulfilled (as it will be), it will very much happen in real time for real people to really witness.  And the newspapers of record in that soon-approaching day will report the modern news version of what was revealed to John in 96 AD.  Which is to say that there truly is coming a time when one can look at the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other and rightly end up with “newspaper prophecy,” isn’t there?

I previously mentioned the Book of Daniel.  Here’s a question: of the 404 verses in the Book of Revelation, how many of them do you think allude to the Old Testament?  And the answer is 278 or 69%.  That’s a lot of Old Testament!  So here’s another bone to chew on: a lot of people say (complain, really) that no one can understand the Book of Revelation because of all the symbolism.  Here’s where that falls apart: A GREAT DEAL OF THE SYMBOLISM IS SYMBOLISM RELATING TO THE OLD TESTAMENT, AND WE SAW HOW THE OLD TESTAMENT WAS LITERALLY FULFILLED IN HISTORY.  As an example, take the over 400 prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament.  We saw that literally HAPPEN, right?  And it turns out that these O.T. prophecies were fulfilled LITERALLY, right?  My point is that where there is symbolism, you can very often take that symbolism, see what it ties into from the O.T., and then see how that O.T. symbolism was fulfilled.  The symbolism of Revelation was in many cases already explained to us before, in other words, and all we have to do is apply the fulfilled O.T. symbolism to the symbolism we need to understand in the Book of Revelation.

Question: “What do the seven churches in Revelation stand for?”  The seven churches described in Revelation 2-3 are seven literal churches that all existed at the time that John the apostle was writing Revelation. But even though they were real, actual churches in that time, there is also a larger spiritual significance for churches and believers today. John’s first purpose of the letters was to communicate with the literal churches and meet their needs at that time. The second purpose is to reveal seven different types of individuals/churches throughout history and instruct them in God’s truth and His expectation of them.

A possible third purpose is to use the seven churches to foreshadow seven different periods in the history of the Church. The problem with this view is that each of the seven churches describes issues that could fit the Church in any time in its history. And for those who would say that Laodicea is the final age, well, we’ve already got Bible passages that tell us that there will be a falling away in the last days (Ex 2 Tim 3:1-5; 4:2-3), don’t we?  So, although there may be some truth to the seven churches representing seven eras, there is far too much speculation in this regard. Our focus should be on what message God is giving us through the seven churches. The seven churches are:

(1) Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7) – the loyal, persevering, enduring church that had left its first love (2:4).

(2) Smyrna (Revelation 2:8-11) – the persecuted church that would be rewarded for its faithful suffering (2:10).

(3) Pergamum (Revelation 2:12-17) – the formerly faithful church that needed to repent because it had embraced false teachings (2:16).

(4) Thyatira (Revelation 2:18-29) – the active, serving church that became too cozy with a false world system (2:20).

(5) Sardis (Revelation 3:1-6) – the church of incomplete deeds that had fallen asleep and needs to spiritually wake up (3:2).

(6) Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-13) – the small, patient, persevering church that is urged to hold fast and promised to be kept from the time of testing (3:10).

(7) Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-22) – the useless, gutless church with the lukewarm faith (3:16).

Jesus begins speaking to His Churches because He tells us what’s coming and asks us, “Are you ready?”

Tune in next week.  I will be going through the entire Book of Revelation taking about two chapters per session.  Revelation is the ONLY Book in the Bible that promises a special blessing to those who read it (Rev 1:3), but many don’t bother to study it because they have been told that it is so difficult.  It isn’t all that difficult if you read it with a literal hermeneutic principle and simply accept the story as it is being told.  And in fact the only reason it is so incredibly “difficult” is because the amillennialism/postmillennialist approaches have so wrapped the Book up in allegory that it “literally” doesn’t say what it in fact rather clearly says.

Part Two: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 4-5

Part Three: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 6-7

Part Four: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 8-9

Part Five: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 10-11

Part Six: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 12-13

Part Seven: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 14-15

Part Eight: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 16-18

Part Nine: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 19-20

Part Ten: A Midlevel Flight Across Revelation: Rev 21-22

How The Tribulation Begins, And How What You’re Watching On Your TV As We Speak Will Help Bring It To Pass

How does the Tribulation begin?  I was surprised to hear a pretty well-informed Christian answer that question by saying, “with the Rapture.”

Nope.

The Bible is very clear: the Tribulation officially kicks off when Israel signs a seven-year peace treaty with the Antichrist.

I see a lot of things very clearly now.  The world wants the beast to come much the way that I long for Messiah Jesus to come.  The world is pushing and pressing and manipulating and demagoguging and slandering as much as it can to prepare the way for the false messiah who will lead them to the ideological future of their dreams.

They don’t realize that the invariable result of the political and economic future they dream of is the closes thing one can get to literal hell on earth.  That is because “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t
believe” (2 Corinthians 4:4).  Reason is becoming increasingly possible because the truth is foolishness to the unbelieving mind (1 Corinthians 1:18).  “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,” God has told us in Romans 1:22.  And God has begun to fulfill His Word that “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent” (1 Corinthians 1:19).

Human beings have been tainted and perverted by sin.  The Scriptures tell us that over and over again.  All kinds of evidences and experiments show that human senses do NOT necessarily lead us to truth.  And that truth is even more true when it comes to the ideas of our minds.  All of the many “-isms,” such as Marxism or communism or socialism or fascism or existentialism or nihilism or pretty much whatever “-ism” you want to name, not only do not bring you to truth, and not only take you further away from the truth, but literally anesthetize and even inoculate us from being able to possibly see the world as it really is.

Do you want to know how we can see reality as it really, truly is?  We endeavor to see it as God sees it.  And we can do that by reading God’s Word and reshaping and reordering our minds to align with the Kingdom of God rather than the sinful nature of man.  When you look at the world through the lens or prism of Scripture, then and then alone can you begin to see reality as it truly is.

But secular humanists will not do that.  They will do ANYTHING but that, in fact.  They will NOT see the world the way the God who created it sees it.  They do not want to see God and they do not want to see reality the way God sees it.  Rather, they believe that the can create their OWN reality and replace our reality with the one that they have fabricated through their theories and their narratives.  The result is something that I have said many times on this blog: the secular humanist left have become the stupidest people on the face of the earth through sheer brute force of their wills.  They WILL NOT see, accept, or understand the real world; rather, they are as determined as their ultimate master, Satan, to impose their own reality by whatever means seem to work for them.

They will not see that the very actions they take to fabricate their Utopia (ignoring the brute fact of history that EVERY SINGLE SOCIALIST UTOPIA HAS GONE WILDLY WRONG) will cause the hell on earth that the Bible warned us of – as epitomized in “the people’s” upcoming decision to elect the Antichrist as their world leader.

Hal Lindsey put it this way back in 1973:

It’s once again very important for us to realize that the Book of Revelation is John’s firsthand account of what he saw and experienced when he was taken up into heaven.  How difficult it must have been for him with his first-century orientation to find adequate descriptive words to verbalize the incredible things he viewed!  Even fifty years ago the things described in the Book of Revelation were so far beyond our comprehension that no one dreamed they could happen apart from some supernatural assistance.

Now such things as John described are not only possible, but could happen within thirty minutes!  There are already enough nuclear-tipped missiles on station and ready for launching to do everything predicted in this chapter [chapter 8 of Revelation].  Dr. W.H. Pickering of Cal Tech confirmed this when he warned, “In half an hour the East and the West could destroy civilization.”

Although it is possible for God to supernaturally pull off every miracle in the Book of Revelation and use totally unheard-of means to do it, I personally believe that all the enormous ecological catastrophes described in this chapter are the direct result of nuclear weapons.  In actuality, man inflicts these judgments on himself.  God simply steps back and removes His restraining influence from man, allowing him to do what comes naturally out of his sinful nature.  In fact, if the Book of Revelation had never been written, we might well predict these very catastrophes within fifty years or less!  — Hal Lindsey, There’s A New World Coming, pp. 114-115

Man does this to himself.  Man chooses it.  Man does it.  Man votes for it.  Man elects it.  And we even find that: man cheers for it and even that man worships it.

The official kick-off to the Tribulation is Israel signing a covenant with the Antichrist.  And man will very much push Israel into that step.

The past 64 years, since Israel became a nation, Israel has had one or two allies with the rest of the world increasingly isolated against her.  But one of those allies was mighty America, and none of Israel’s enemies could defeat her with her great ally protecting her.

That period ended in 2008 when America voted for Barack Hussein Obama.  And America reaffirmed its choice earlier this month when it said that it wanted more of what Obama’s spiritual guide for 23 years prophetically called “God damn America.”

Israel is now more isolated than it has EVER been.

Israel is forced to contemplate an invasion of Gaza for the same reason it had to do so a few years ago: because Palestinian terrorists are launching hundreds of missiles that could land damn near ANYWHERE and which force a complete shutdown of Israeli society.  Such an indiscriminate attack against innocent civilians would be decried and condemned by the world if anyone else did it TO anyone else, but it is the Arab world viciously attacking Israel, and so the elite talking heads pooh-pooh the violence while reserving their condemnation against Israel.  An article from the generally leftist Daily Beast from when this last happened in 2009 proves what I’m arguing:

Israel has never been more isolated. Its best friend, the United States, had vetoed 41 Security Council resolutions condemning Israel in the past three decades, but was about to vote for the Jan. 8 resolution denouncing the attack on Gaza when President Bush intervened, at the behest of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Still, in the face of unprecedented global criticism, the U.S. didn’t dare veto, but merely abstained. Europe, never Israel’s close ally, erupted in near unanimous outrage over Gaza, with fits of anti-Semitic violence in France, Sweden and Belgium. […]

The current rocket attack is nothing new.  Arabs hate Israelis and love murdering their citizens and their children.  When they run out of rockets to fire at Israel, they demand a cease fire that prevents Israel from destroying the weapons that the terrorists will stockpile for the NEXT surprise attack against Israel’s people.  The terrorists stockpile and fire their rockets in dense population centers in homes and schools and hospitals counting on the fact that Israel will have to kill women and children to destroy the rockets that would otherwise be used to try to kill Jewish women and children.  The world that could frankly care less if Jewish women and children are murdered are outraged that Palestinian women and children are being killed.  It doesn’t matter if those Palestinian children are being killed because Palestinian terrorists are putting rockets in their cribs.  And so the world demands that the Arabs get their cease fire so they can stockpile more weapons and start the war again.  Over and over and over, as needed, until Israel is gone.  This vile game is called “international diplomacy.”

Israelis believed that Bush was pro-Israel to the tune of 88% affirming that statement.  When only 6% of Israelis view Obama as being “pro-Israel,” if you have eyes to see and ears to hear you understand that Obama’s election left Israel more isolated.

Further, the last time Israel was bombarded with rockets, Egypt was an ally that was firmly on Israel’s side.  Today the new Muslim Brotherhood terrorist president of Egypt has openly sided with the enemies of Israel and has passively allowed the Palestinians to use Egypt as a conduit for their rocket arsenal – with said rockets manufactured in Iran –  so they can keep trying to murder more Jews and provoke a reaction from Israel knowing that the world will condemn Israel.

The Prime Minister of Turkey just called Israel a terrorist state and urged the terrorists targeting Israel to keep murdering Jews.

An Associated Press reporter named Matthew Lee bravely called attention to the fact that Barack Obama is inherently useless and weak in actually standing up for Israel in ANY meaningful way and exposed the true cowardice that is the core of Obama:

But the American people voted for a president who would turn his back on Israel in true time of need.

Meanwhile, Iran is racing toward its nuclear weapons which represent the extinction of the state of Israel and the ballistic missiles to deliver them.

Iran WILL get nuclear weapons.  America voted for that on November 6th.  The Iranian leadership knows with certainty that Barack Hussein Obama will NEVER order a massive military attack against Iran.  Iran knows that it is 16,275,183,000,000 percent free to continue working on their goal of Armageddon and Obama will do nothing but offer rhetoric and meaningless sanctions to prevent what will now necessarily happen.

And allow me to cite the source that affirms that Obama’s sanctions have been completely ineffective just in case you are fool enough to believe that Obama was being honest with you:

Iran nuclear work at constant pace despite sanctions – IAEA
By Alexandria Sage and Fredrik Dahl | Reuters – November 20, 2012

PARIS/VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran is enriching uranium at a constant pace and international sanctions aimed at making Tehran suspend the activity are having no visible impact, the U.N. nuclear watchdog chief said in unusually blunt remarks on Tuesday.

The point made by Yukiya Amano, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, reinforced the view of many analysts that increased Western economic pressure on Iran has failed to make it change its nuclear course. […]

So the only way to stop Iran is war.  But Obama won’t go to war.  And Iran knows full damn well Obama won’t go to war to stop them from threatening the existence of Israel.  Therefore Iran will have nuclear weapons and Iran will also have the means to deliver those weapons much sooner than the Obama administration has claimed.

Israel is being pushed and prodded and forced into the arms of Antichrist.  And Israel will ultimately do what the world wants and sign that peace covenant so that hell on earth may officially begin.

America will soon be getting what it most dearly yearns for: it will get to worship the beast and take his mark.