Things to Come in 2018
The year 2017 was an amazing year for prophetic progress. The top news item was Trump’s decision to relocate our embassy to Jerusalem, but there were a lot of minor events that showed the stage is being set for the tribulation hour. Bible prophecy was unfolding at a pace that I’ve never seen as a prophecy watcher.
This new year should be very interesting because we have several conflicts and scenarios that have built up to where they need to be resolved at some point. I see three examples that I would be very surprised if they ran into 2019:
North Korean
The first one is the North Korean Nuclear standoff. Trump has promised that he would not allow Kim Jong Un to gain the ability to attack North America with atomic weapons. Fat boy is pressing forward at full speed to develop a vast nuclear arsenal that could kill millions of people.
I don’t expect to wake up some morning to news of the world’s first nuclear war. If there was just a conventional war on the Korean peninsula, tens of thousands of people would be killed. In the short run, my expectation is for more missile tests and underground nuclear explosions.
The most likely resolution to this conflict will be a collapse of the dictatorship that keeps Kim Jong Un in power. The cold war ended when the Soviet Union imploded from the expense of keeping up with America’s military might. North Korea is starving its people to pay for all this nuclear hardware.
In the past few weeks, several soldiers have defected from the north. One of them was full of parasites from a poor diet. Two other defectors were found to have been exposed to high levels of radiation. North Korea may have already been turned into a nuclear wasteland from all the tests in recent years.
Trump Derangement Syndrome
One weakness of the human mind is the ability to maintain an attack mode over a long period of time. Most wars end because one side becomes mentally exhausted. The liberal media war on Trump is set to be a prime example of this phenomenon.
The term Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) has been coined to explain the hysterical reaction and belligerent behavior of people, directed towards anything related to President Donald Trump. The diagnosis is a satirical mockery of these people, but the psychological condition is real.
The Conspiracy News Network (CNN) seems to be the clearinghouse of all TDS news events. A couple weeks ago, it roasted Ivanka Trump for posting a vacation photo that showed a confederate flag on a boat in the background. A few days later, a White House intern was accused of flashing a ‘white power’ hand gesture in a group photo with Trump. The kid said he was Jewish and was only giving the “OK” sign. The weirdest incident was someone yelling at Donald Trump’s Animatronic in Disney World’s Hall of Presidents.
I pray that Trump will have unrelenting political success during this current calendar year. The press is so invested in causing his failure that just having his poll number break 50% would trigger a meltdown in news rooms. Since all reporters are compelled to read every tweet Trump posts, I find myself laughing every day at their insane reactions. Now that nearly half the population realizes that the press makes up negative stories about Trump, we are getting close to the point where CNN will be forced to wave the white flag.
Economic Bubbles
The event that has me the most fascinated is the financial bubble in various assets like stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrencies. We are seeing wild speculation that cannot be compared to any other time in history. Any reasonable economist would tell you it’s impossible for us to repeat last year’s performance.
In 2017 the Dow Jones increased every month, which has never happened before. Most investors are convinced that we have a stock market that can only go higher. A large number of stocks and bonds are at valuations that exclude the possibility of a future recession. Since it takes two quarters of negative growth before a recession can be declared, we only need to make it until the end of the year to break the record for the longest period of positive growth.
The rise of bitcoin in 2017 has been nothing short of spectacular. There is an ad on the web that says cryptocurrencies are at $200 billion. They are now at $800 billion. Once we reach the trillion-dollar level, we will be at a point where a collapse in cryptocurrencies could affect the overall economy.
I think that Bible prophecy is the key driving force in why the bubble continues to expand. Jesus said the time of his return for the Church would be marked by the tranquility of an eating and drinking party attitude. We could all be living in mansions if we poured our life savings into Bitcoin or Facebook, but the mansion I’m looking for is one that is not made by human hands.
“In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2-3).
–Todd
Prophetic Rumblings 2018
The Devil at 4 O’Clock is a 1961 movie starring Frank Sinatra and Spencer Tracy. It involves three prisoners who are brought to an island in the South Pacific. The prisoners are to help evacuate a colony of children with leprosy from the island, which is on the verge of exploding because it is one enormous volcano.
The ground quakes constantly. Ominous rumbling in the background makes clear the urgency to evacuate. All on the island are doomed who are not removed in time.
This is one of my favorite movies. I have thought about it over the years, have even included it in writing these commentaries and in books. The analogy can’t be missed. Planet earth is a volcanic island in the vast sea of the cosmos. Rumblings that are increasing and the quaking that is being felt makes the diligent student of Bible prophecy from the Pre-Trib perspective know that things are winding up for human history’s final cataclysm.
While we enter the year 2018, prophetic rumblings are consistent. The ground, symbolically speaking, is quaking. Despite the time when all seems calm and the rumblings seem to have subsided, a true, eschatological seismologist knows what is happening.
The biblically prophetic sensors cannot lie. The planet is doomed. There is need of an evacuation plan. There is one available, and we will look at that momentarily.
Getting back to the Pre-Trib prophetic sensors the student of eschatology possesses–the spiritual seismometer–I will look with you at three indicators I think it is good to watch as 2018 counts down.
First: Israel will come under greatly increased hatred.
Second: The threat of war will ratchet up dramatically.
Third: National and Western world economies will appear to be booming.
There are, of course, many more foreshocks to be examined, but these are the ones I think are most obviously in view.
Like in The Devil at 4 O’Clock, this is an island in the sea of the cosmos that is about to be devastated. We must help as many to evacuate as possible before history’s most horrific time of cataclysm erupts.
1) Israel will come under greatly increased hatred.
Jesus, in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, tells His disciples to expect greatly increased hatred while the time of His Second Advent nears. He indicates in these prophetic words that He, Jesus, is the reason they will be hated.
This has certainly been the case in modern history. The Nazis, for example, stirred hatred for the Jews by claiming them to be “Christ killers.” Jews in many parts of the world are still accused in this way.
Mostly, though, they are hated because they are accused of being “occupiers” of land that doesn’t belong to them. They are considered intruders in the land that belongs to the so-called Palestinians.
Anti-Semitism, of course, is Satan’s tool to bring the entire world’s ire against the nation that is God’s chosen people. The devil is more than just a word used in the title of the movie I mention. He, Lucifer, now Satan, is working diligently to bring about the destruction of the Jewish people–the nation Israel. And, it is the “Jewish problem,” as Adolf Hitler and his beastly cohorts put it, that must be dealt with in the eyes of much of the diplomatic world today.
We saw this as the year 2017 came to a close. The matter of the U.S. president calling for the move of the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem brought squeals of outrage. These squeals came not only from the Arab Islamists, but from some of our supposed closest allies.
Although some nations now seem to be trying to climb back on the Trump bandwagon of support for Israel, the vast majority still is screaming hate-filled protests against the Jewish state and all it represents.
I believe this president has been brought forth at this point in history for the specific purpose of supplying American support to God’s chosen people. Far from this being a measure intended to bring peace, however, I think it is becoming obvious that the Lord is using American support to further enrage Israel’s blood-vowed enemies. Additionally, it is making manifest the anti-God, Antichrist global cabal that wants no deity to rule over them (Psalm 2).
The Lord of Heaven might just be stirring the end-times volcano, bringing it to an explosive head. All this might accomplish not only bringing into focus the Zechariah 12:1-3 prophecy, but the prophetic matter I wish to address next.
2) The threat of war will ratchet up dramatically.
We are, I believe, on the precipice of entering the time of the “cry for peace and safety” as given in the prophecy of Paul the apostle: “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:3).
This forewarning was issued for those indicated by the pronoun “they.” Paul was speaking of those who are not under the salvation protection of Heaven.
Paul says right after the “peace and safety” foretelling: “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.” (1 Thes 5: 4-5)
The people of earth–particularly the diplomatic world–will be crying “peace and safety.” But, those who are in God’s family—the “we” Paul mentions, indicating the pronoun for believers, should know the cry for peace and safety doesn’t apply to them.
The believer in Jesus Christ for salvation is under God’s protection. The rebellious earth and all of its dangers are not for them.
As stated above, I believe we are on the precipice of great, collective fear of war–nuclear conflict–exploding across the globe. This comes partly from the North Korean threat, with it becoming more apparent that China is backing North Korea, rather than trying to damper the North Korean dictator’s reckless behavior.
The sense of looming world war could also come from threats from a growingly hostile and Israel-hating Iran. That whole cauldron of boiling rage might be about to overflow.
Again, this president might be a catalyst to galvanize the developing situations. He is not one to take the path of least resistance as has been the tact of his most recent predecessors.
And, yet again, it is this president who is at the center of the last thing I will mention as possibly bringing the year 2018 to a prophetic tipping point.
3) National and Western world economies will appear to be booming.
I wrote last week, and a number of times before in this column, that I’m convinced Christ’s “days of Noah, days of Lot” prophecy is the most relevant for our time. I believe we are entering the time Jesus spoke of as I pointed out last week.
That prophecy is found in the Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17:26-30 accounts of the Olivet Discourse. (At least many, including myself, believe the Luke portion was issued during the Olivet Discourse.)
Jesus said business will be going along at a brisk pace when He is next “revealed”–when He next catastrophically intervenes into the corrupt, wicked affairs of mankind.
I believe we have about reached that point.
The economy is, I’m convinced, about to take off in a big way. Like him or not, this president–as mentioned in points 1 and 2 above–is at the heart of that economic boom I believe is coming. I more and more suspect the coming boom Jesus indicated would be in progress when He next intervenes catastrophically might be the one we see developing at this time.
The “boom,” as I’ve written previously, will be, in many ways, based upon smoke and mirrors because of computer manipulations. However, it is manifesting as a genuine uptick for America and much of the world. This is because of the world’s nations being intricately linked to the U.S. economic engine.
How does this all come together into prophetic synchronization? My own thought is that Israel must again become the focus of God’s course of prophetic fulfillment. He will again begin dealing with His chosen people and nation. To me, it is observably manifest that He is beginning to more directly influence matters in that regard.
Secondly, the “cry for peace and safety” is beginning in earnest. The U.N. and the Western diplomatic world in particular are calling for a damping-down of the possibility of nuclear conflict.
Israel, of course, is seen by these as the reason that such conflict might begin in the Middle East. Israel must give in to its enemies so peace can prevail. (And this is what will cause the Lord to bring all anti-God perpetrators to Armageddon–Joel 3:2.)
Again, Donald J. Trump doesn’t see things that way. He is fouling globalist plans to bring in the new world order they seek to construct.
Third, Jesus said it would be at “a time ye think not” when He next makes His presence known to the world. This is not the time of the Second Advent (Revelation 19:11), but the time when everything, economically speaking, seems to be humming along nicely.
We are hearing that hum even now as 2018 gets underway!
It is at such a time of business as usual–or even better than usual–when He will call those of us who Paul said are not “children of the night, but of the day” to be with Him in the clouds of glory. Let us work to see that as many as possible are evacuated from this satanically volcanic planet when the Rapture occurs.
–Terry