Nearing Midnight

Commentary on world events that relate to Bible prophecy and on Rapture Ready issues world events.

Sep 28
Is Mother Russia about to Get Her Heart Broken?
Last week, the news wires featured a strange story about Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. In an interview with CNN, Medvedev said that Israel promised Russia it would not launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. The Russian President described such an assault as "the worst thing that can be imagined."
An attack would lead to "a humanitarian disaster, a vast number of refugees, Iran's wish to take revenge and not only upon Israel, to be honest, but upon other countries as well," Medvedev said, according to a Kremlin transcript.
The Russian leader claims to have received this assurance directly from top Israeli leadership. "My Israeli colleagues told me that they were not planning to act in this way, and I trust them," said Medvedev.
The colleague who gave Medvedev this impression was Israeli President Shimon Peres. They met in August at the Russian resort of Sochi.
The day after this report was released, Israel said it still has military options. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon was asked by Reuters if Russia was given any type of guarantee that there would be no Israeli strike on Iran. Ayalon replied: "It is certainly not a guarantee. ...I don't think that, with all due respect, the Russian president is authorized to speak for Israel, and certainly we have not taken any option off the table."
The head of Israel's armed forces, Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, later told Army Radio that "Israel has the right to defend itself, and all options are on the table."
I don't know why Medvedev would think Israel owes him any type of grace regarding Iran. Russia still plans to sell Tehran an advanced missile system that can be used against Israeli jets. Asked about the possible delivery of S-300s, Medvedev said Russia had the right to sell defensive weapons to Iran.
"Our task is not to strengthen Iran and weaken Israel, or vice versa, but our task is to ensure a normal, calm situation in the Middle East," Medvedev said.
Israel sees the delivery of the S-300 missile system as a red line it cannot allow Iran to cross. Once the missiles are delivered, Israel will be forced to act before they become operational.
Several other hot-button issues have pushed Israel closer to a preemptive move, the most stunning being the revelation of a new Iranian nuclear processing plant. The United States, France, and Britain are all talking about more sanctions. I'm sure Jerusalem is thinking of something more volatile.
We seem locked on a trajectory of some form of action being required, so we know Israel is going to eventually carry out a military campaign against Iran. Since Russia’s leaders think everything is hunky-dory, this engagement will come as a huge surprise to them.
Bible prophecy tells us that Russia will someday lead an alliance of nations against Israel. It is very interesting to have a situation pending in which Russia might become very angry with Israel.
Medvedev may think that Israel bombing Iran is “the worst thing that can be imagined.” I can only wonder what his reaction would be to see the results of the Gog-Magog invasion. The Word of God tells us that 80 percent of the invading army will be wiped out.
"Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee. Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, [that] at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought: And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places [that are now] inhabited, and upon the people [that are] gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land. Sheba , and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?" (Ezekiel 38:9-13).
-- Todd

Rapture Near: Part III
The Antichrist spirit is alive and well. No big surprise, right? But the demonstrable fact that it is alive and well at this very moment within so-called Christian church organizations across America is a staggering reality to consider.
Here's what John the apostle, through divine inspiration, had to say two thousand years ago:
Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. (1 John 4:1–3)
The Laodicean church is symbolized as the church that will at the very end of the Church Age (Age of Grace) literally make the God of all creation sick at His stomach. The Lord describes through John that organization's true character, and why He is sickened: Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. (Revelation 3:17)
Jesus spoke to the very things that mark the Laodicean church in foretelling the end of the age. The prophecy is prominent—is, as a matter of fact, the very first characteristic Jesus lists in His Olivet Discourse for the time just before His return: And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the [age]? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. (Matthew 24:3-5)
Only one who denies that God's Word is truth can miss the importance of the Lord's words here. Jesus is speaking to the deception that will be tied up in false teachings and false prophesying at the time just before He returns. Please understand that I'm not meaning next that all large, even mega-churches, are evil. Some still adhere to Bible truth in their preaching and teaching. However, the "if-we-can't-beat-'em-we-will-join-'em" false religionists of recent years have expropriated the church’s personnel and presented a compromised message before the senses of the glitz-mad American public. The tactic has worked. The mega-church super-complexes under whose roofs the masses continue to swell mark this generation, almost certainly, as the Laodicean church. I believe these church entities are organizations or multiple level of organizations filled not with the Holy Spirit, but with the spirit of antichrist.
A primary tactic chosen by most of these organizations to draw the masses is to give people an entertainment spectacle every time they sit in the plush theater pews. Nothing wrong with being physically comfortable while sitting, but to be always spiritually comfortable sitting under preaching and teaching that should point to the more abundant life conviction of the Holy Spirit is devastating to the soul. The compromise is in the "Let's talk about it," feel-good, do-good message of "God loves you, and would never condemn you to a hell, which in any case, doesn't exist." God DOES love us—so much so that He sent His only Son, Jesus the Christ, to die as the once-and-for-all sacrifice for the sin in which we are otherwise lost forever.
The thesis-antithesis-synthesis psychobabble theologizing—“Let's talk about it" compromise—is proof that these organizations of religiosity deny that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation—to reconciliation with God the Father. They are of the Antichrist spirit. These believe they are indeed “rich, and increased with goods, and think they have need of nothing; and know not that they are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked,” in God's holy view.
Troubling as these unredeemed type of churches are in these fleeting days of this age, the overt, deliberate ignorance of things of God's prophetic Word in those true Christian churches who still adhere to Jesus as the only Way must be heart-wrenching to the Lord of heaven. Most Christians are without any understanding of the times in which we find ourselves.
To those who study the times in light of Bible prophecy, the seminaries, pastors, teachers, and Christians in the pews of America are observably, for the most part, happily ignorant of the astonishing fact that Israel is being put in the position of Zechariah 12:1-3—that the Jewish state is being forced toward a peace from which will come Antichrist and the Tribulation.
Christians by and large have no idea that the European Union is shaping to be the matrix out of which Antichrist will come, that the Russian/Iranian/Turkey/other nation alignment is configuring for the Gog-Magog war of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39.
Today's church can't discern that powerful spiritual as well as geopolitical dynamics are forcing the economies of America and the world into a one-world mold that will eventuate in the ten-kingdom rearrangement of Revelation 17:12-13. They don't see that we are in the "perilous times" of Paul's forewarning in 2 Timothy, chapter 3. They don't understand that this nation and the world are filled with the spirit of Antichrist, and that God's judgment and wrath must be near.
As they go through their routines of life, Christians today are doing anything and everything except heeding the words of forewarning of our Lord: “And what I say unto one, I say unto all, watch" (Mark 13:37). He said also: "For when you see all these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your head, for your redemption draweth near" (Luke 21:28).
Jesus said one thing more. He forewarned that a great many believers will be caught by surprise at the time of His return in the Rapture: "Be ye also ready, for in an hour ye think not, the Son of man cometh" (Matthew 24:44).
Seems to me we are in such a "think not" time at present.
Terry