Prophetic Stage-setting Continues

Stage-setting for the fulfillment of Bible prophecy continues through the acceleration of news, which I hope to show here.

A Catholic Church proclamation again has insinuated its centuries-old self-acclaimed replacement of Israel in usurping promises made to the chosen people—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Pope Leo XVI has weighed in with remarks, suggesting support for a two-state solution to achieving Mideast peace. By so doing, the leader of 1.4 billion adherents to the Catholic faith has pitted a large segment of earth’s population against God’s declaration that Israel is His nation forever.

Such anti-God opposition by the world’s nations is the primary ingredient that will cause God to bring all rebels to Armageddon for humanity’s final war.

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE — Pope Leo XIV doubled down Sunday on the Holy See’s insistence on a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying in his first airborne news conference that it was the “only solution” that could guarantee justice for both sides.

Leo made the comments as he flew from Istanbul to Beirut for the second and final leg of his maiden voyage as pope…

In Gaza, he repeated the Holy See’s longstanding position supporting a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians. The creation of a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza has long been seen internationally as the only way to resolve the conflict.

The Holy See had recognized a Palestinian state in 2015, but the push for a two-state solution received new impetus this year during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Several more countries formally recognized a Palestinian state during the U.N. General Assembly.

“We know that in this moment, Israel doesn’t accept this solution, but we see it as the only one that can offer a solution to the conflict that they are living in,” he said, and help bring them closer to a solution with justice for all. (“Pope Leo XIV Doubles Down on Insistence for 2-state Solution to Resolve Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Chicago Sun-Times, November 30, 2025)

Many who observe developments believe the Catholic Church will be a major part of the false worship system of Revelation chapter 17–the system that will be demanded by the False Prophet. I would add here that there are many within the Catholic system who know the Lord for salvation. However, these are saved in spite of, not because of, Catholicism. These are saved because of their belief in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. The works system of any religion is a false belief system. It is Jesus Christ and belief only in Him, along with confession of Him with the mouth, that saves the individual (Romans 10:9-10).

The pope’s declaration that the two-state solution–Israel giving up land for peace by allowing a Palestinian state—is a declaration that God’s Word says is what will bring God’s wrath (Joel 3:2). This preachment by Pope Leo XVI is setting the stage for Armageddon.

Another stage-setting matter that leaps from recent news concerns the ongoing development of the Gog-Magog coalition that will bring about that disastrous assault, according to Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39.

Despite the recent reimposition of UN sanctions on Iran, Turkey has called for closer diplomatic and trade relations with the Iranian regime, as both countries seek to bolster their influence in the Middle East while openly targeting Israel.

In a new interview with the semi-official Iranian news outlet ISNA, Turkey’s Ambassador to Iran, Hicabi Kırlangıç, said Ankara was working to expand bilateral cooperation with Tehran by leveraging existing capabilities to increase economic ties between the two countries…

The Turkish diplomat’s latest remarks followed Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s visit on Sunday to Tehran, where he also pushed for stronger bilateral cooperation between the two countries and denounced what he called “unfair sanctions” on Iran.

In a joint press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Fidan reaffirmed Turkey’s support for Tehran while calling for the country’s nuclear program to be addressed through dialogue amid ongoing discussions to restart nuclear talks with the West. (“Turkey Pushes for Closer Ties with Iran Despite Mounting Sanctions as Both Countries Pursue Regional Ambitions,” Algemeiner.com)

It is more than interesting that the ties that are bringing Turkey (Togarmah) together with Iran (Persia) in a close, mutually advantageous relationship involve economy. Both nations are hurting in the world trade wars that are ongoing.

When thinking on Russia, the third major nation/entity of the future Gog-Magog assaulting force, it is economy that is most troubling to the Putin regime. Sanctions and other financial calamities continue to embroil the Russians.

The prophet Ezekiel said these three nations/entities will assault Israel in order to “take great spoil.” It is for economic reasons–at least partially—that the Gog-Magog force coalesces to come to plunder riches from Israel.

So, the setting of the prophetic stage continues on many fronts. This means that fulfillment of the Tribulation–the worst time of history, according to Jesus Himself—is coming ever nearer. But it also means the Rapture of all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation of their souls is also drawing ever nearer. You want to hear Christ’s shout when He calls God’s family into the clouds of Glory. Here is how to make sure you hear that shout.

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

—Terry

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COP30 and the Coming One-World Religion :: By Jonathan Brentner

The closer we get to Jesus’ appearing, the more our understanding of Bible prophecy grows. Just ten years ago, I didn’t fully comprehend that antichrist’s kingdom would not suddenly appear after the Rapture, but would begin forming prior to our departure. As we approach the midnight hour, we see that the preparations for his reign are far advanced and perhaps near completion. The stage is being set.

Similarly, the book of Revelation portrays a religious element to the world governance of the Tribulation period. The false prophet will force people to worship the image of the beast and accept the mark of the beast (Revelation 13:16-18). The “great prostitute” described in Revelation 17 pictures the role of this religious spirit in deceiving and enslaving the masses.

Do we already see this demonic false worship taking shape in today’s world? We do, and not only that, but it’s also gaining worldwide acceptance, as evidenced by this year’s COP30.

COP30

From November 10-21, 2025, the nations of the world gathered for the thirtieth annual United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties, more commonly known as COP30. The meeting took place in Belém, Brazil, with almost every country officially represented apart from the notable exception of the United States.

At COP30, Communist China unveiled a grotesque, demonic image that it calls the “dragon jaguar guardian spirit.” It displayed devil horns on its head and human hands holding the world. It shows that Satan, whom Jesus described as “the father of lies” (John 8:44), is advancing the need for all the world’s religions to unite under one banner using the ruse of a climate change emergency as its justification.

Worship of the environment has long been a hallmark of the climate alarmists. On September 19, 2019, according to Fox News, students at Union Theological Seminary in New York City prayed to a collection of potted plants set up in the school’s chapel. They later sent out a tweet regarding their worship of nature:

“Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honor. What do you confess to the plants in your life?”

At COP 30, the worship of nature emerged as central to the agenda of the radical environmentalists.

The Religious Framing of the Climate Movement

Alex Newman, Christian journalist and CEO of Liberty Sentinel and website, attended COP30 and reported his observations in an article posted on the Harbinger’s Daily website: In-Depth: UN COP30 Climate Summit Unites World Religions Under The Cult Of ‘Earth Worship.’ Below are a few of the paragraphs from his report.

“In addition to the political and economic agendas advanced at COP30, one of the least reported but most consequential developments in Belém was, in fact, the increasingly religious and spiritual framing of the global climate movement. Far from being a secular, science-driven assembly, COP30 brought together an unprecedented coalition of world religions. This alliance included everything from Catholics and Protestants to Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Indigenous pagans and spiritualists. They all rallied under a reinvented global moral consensus built largely around climate action and CO2 emissions.

Two crucial spiritual elements long documented by The New American about this environmental holy war were on full display in Belém. First, COP30 showed unprecedented religious convergence — a “spiritual coalition” bringing all the major religions and religious movements of the world together behind the UN climate program. The unity revolves around an emerging new moral framework that replaces historic biblical understandings of sin with a new vision, where CO2 emissions and other alleged offenses against “Mother Earth” are the real moral evil. COP30 culminated with a virtual interfaith climate liturgy.

Second, COP30 and the broader climate movement are now increasingly and openly integrating pagan and pantheistic spirituality into everything — all while marginalizing the biblical worldview. This was on full display throughout the summit. At official events throughout COP30, Indigenous rituals and pagan earth-worship symbolism were not only present — they were center stage in discussions about the damage humans are supposedly doing to ‘Mother Earth.’”

Does this not represent the forming of the Tribulation period religion that will bring together all the world’s faiths under one banner and empower antichrist?

The Rapture Will Change Everything

During his Olive Tree Ministries’ interview on COP30, Alex Newman remarked how the elite are planning years in advance, and in particular, for when President Donald Trump is no longer in office. Those attending COP30 regard the President as the key roadblock to their demonic agenda, but they are sorely mistaken. The Bible tells us a much different story.

From 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8, we learn that the Lord is currently restraining the unveiling of antichrist and his lawless reign of terror. The Holy Spirit is the Restrainer, and when His work of restricting lawlessness ends with the Rapture, the utopian agenda of the elite, based on the illusion of a climate emergency, will kick into overdrive.

The Rapture will be the game-changer. It will be the crisis that will enable the elite power brokers to impose their will on all the nations.

The pieces for antichrist’s rule are already falling into place. I do not know how much more stage-setting needs to occur between now and the Rapture or the length of the interval between the Rapture and the start of the seven-year Tribulation. But should Jesus appear today and take us home, it would not take a lengthy period of time for the elite to subjugate humanity under their Orwellian nightmare and clear the path for antichrist to begin his reign of terror. That’s because the stage setting for these things is well underway.

The Rapture will change everything for us; it will also change everything for those left behind.

-Jonathan

The President’s Ear 

As the former president and presidential candidate spoke to a large rally gathering at Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, 6 rifle shots rang out. Donald J. Trump immediately fell to the platform floor and then stood, his fist pumping in the air. He shouted, “Fight, Fight, Fight!” while blood poured from his head. But it was not a JFK-type wound. The former president’s ear had been struck by the high-power bullet meant to kill him.

Even Mr. Trump himself has stated that he knew that God had spared his life that evening. He has stated that he felt as if a gigantic, invisible hand had slapped him to the floor following the rifle shot, while others were wounded and one person was killed.

The incident, no doubt, was part of the catalyst for galvanizing the vote on election day in putting him back in office as President number 47.

In my view, the assassination attempt was the resultant effort at murder of the one person those desirous of protecting their base of control couldn’t allow back into the most powerful political office on the planet. And I believe that a spiritual assessment of matters points out that the effort had demonic influence at the Ephesians 6:12 level. But Heaven’s Protective Secret Service obviously negated the intrigues of that cabal of powers and principalities in high places. 

God raises kings, and he brings them down, the scripture tells us (Daniel 2:21). Donald J. Trump, no matter what you think of his being in office, was God’s choice in the 2024 presidential election in the United States. Not even satanic power could prevent the man’s reassuming that office.

Anyone who is honest in their assessment must see the never-ending assaults from every possible angle of attack. It seems only a matter of time until another deadly assassination attempt is forthcoming.

However, in the meantime, the same wickedness in high places–the powers and principalities—continue to do all they can, using human minions within that dark cabal to oppose God’s choice for the office at this moment. The rage to establish Satan’s man on the throne of world power won’t cease. Such established power will eventually be achieved, and the results will be seven years of hell on earth.

But one can sense in process a different tactic used by the prince of this world to continue the assault on this president. And the attack, in my view, again involves Donald Trump’s ear.

It is a slower process than was the .223 round that cut through his ear in Butler, Pennsylvania that evening of July 13, 2023. But the assault entering his ear at this time can be witnessed slowly doing its damage. The results of the attack might well prove far more deadly in damage in terms of prophetic import. As a matter of fact, the president’s ear might play a significant role in the wrap-up of this end-times era –these last of the last days.

The assault being waged is seen most pointedly in Mr. Trump’s desire and attempt to bring about peace. Jesus Himself has said: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” So the desire to bring peace is a noble gesture. And I have no doubt that this is the president’s motive –to bring about peace to the most dangerous region of the planet in terms of possibly igniting nuclear conflict and even World War III.

But there is a peace which God’s Prophetic Word says will be deadly.

“And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many…” (Daniel 8:25c).

This is the Peace that Antichrist will falsely promise to Israel. It will be the false peace that will bring Satan’s man, the beast, to power during the Tribulation (Daniel’s seventieth week).

So this deadly peace revolving around God’s chosen nation, Israel, is the major factor I wish us to consider. It involves the assault we can perceive as the ongoing satanic attack on the president’s ear. This time, on Mr. Trump’s ear-gate into his thinking –his thinking particularly on the most relevant element wrapped up in prophecy that Foretells the fate of all nations of the world upon the killing field called Armageddon.

Here is the prophecy about where that future false peace will lead:

“I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land” (Joel 3:2).

President Trump, those who Watch as Jesus Commanded as given in Mark 13:37 notice has a desire to make peace even at the price of giving up part of Israel’s land. The process has him seemingly listening to voices other than the Voice of the One who returned him to the presidency. A recent example is when the reigning monarch of Saudi Arabia visited the White House.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) was being disingenuous whilst sitting in the White House with President Trump on 18 November.

MBS told the assembled Press Corps:

“We want to be part of the Abraham Accords, but we want also to be sure that we secure a clear path of two-state solution. And today we have a healthy discussion with Mr. President that we’re going to work on that to be sure that we can prepare the right situation as soon as possible to have that.”

President Trump pointedly disagreed with MBS’s summation:

“I think we’re — you know, I don’t want to use the word commitment, but we’ve had a very good talk on the Abraham Accords. We talked about one-state, two-state — you know, we talked about a lot of things; in a short period of time, we’ll be discussing it further, too. But I think you have a very good feeling toward the Abraham Accords.”

[Source: Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine: Clearest path to peace since 2022, All Israel News, November 24, 2025]

More and more in his dealings with the peace matter involving Israel, the president leaves open the thought that a 2-state solution might be offered within his Abraham Accords. In this, he is listening to the wrong voices who seem to have his ear –his ear-gate to his thinking. This spiritual projectile of peace proposal suggestion is far more deadly than the literal round that damaged his physical ear that evening as he spoke.

We who understand where a two-state dividing of God’s Land will lead must say to President Trump the following:

Mr. President, we implore that you let those such as Ambassador Mike Huckabee, Dr. Robert Jeffress, and Dr. John Hagee, and others who understand Bible prophecy have your ear. Listen to these voices rather than to the voice of the one who comes only to steal, and to kill, and destroy–the evil one whose man of sin –Antichrist—awaits in the shadows of history yet future.

–Terry

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Walking in the Footsteps of Faithful Watchers

Two years ago, I wrote about the examples of Anna and Simeon. I remain intrigued by the story of these two faithful watchers for Jesus’ first appearing and want to further explore the relevance of their faith for our day.

Luke 2:22-38 records the story of their remarkable belief in God’s promises to Israel and His promise to send a Deliverer. Guided by the Holy Spirit, the pair immediately recognized the baby as the long-awaited Messiah, the One spoken of in the prophetic texts throughout Scripture.

Although well-advanced in years, they held onto the hope that they might see the promised Messiah before death. The Lord had previously revealed to Simeon that he would see “the Lord’s Christ” before he died (2:26). The prophetess Anna did not mention any such special revelation, but tells us that she spent all of her days in the temple “worshipping with fasting and prayer” (2:37).

There is much in the example of Anna and Simeon that encourages us as we wait for Jesus’ appearing to take us home.

They Were Old

I realize that many from the younger generations eagerly await Jesus’ appearing, and perhaps several of them are reading this article; please know I thank the Lord for you. However, I also know that most of today’s watchers are the product of solid Bible teaching on future things during the 1960s and 1970s. Many of us read Hal Lindsey’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth, which laid a firm biblical foundation for our expectancy of Jesus’ appearing before the start of the seven-year Tribulation.

Based on the emails I receive and what I hear from other ministries, I know that our beliefs in future things are not welcome in most churches. Young pastors refuse to listen to what seasoned saints have to say on anything pertaining to Scripture, especially in regard to Bible prophecy. Pastors tell us we are not welcome in their churches, as has happened to me more than once.

However, just as the Lord rewarded the faith of Anna and Simeon in their old age, so we have His assurance that He will also reward our eager anticipation of Jesus’ appearing (regardless of our age).

“Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8).

Of course, the promise of this “crown” applies to all believers, young and old, who long for Jesus’ appearing. But as we age, isn’t it reassuring to know that Jesus loves to reward faith in His promises?

The Lord Rewarded Their Bible Prophecy

Why did Anna and Simeon so readily accept that the infant Joseph and Mary brought to the temple was the promised Messiah? They believed Bible prophecy, and more specifically, the opening lines of Isaiah 9:6, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” They didn’t seem at all surprised that the baby they held in their arms was indeed the long-awaited Christ. They believed what Scripture said and didn’t try to allegorize (symbolize) the promise that the Messiah would arrive as a baby.

I believe it was for our encouragement that God chose to include the stories of these older saints in our Bibles. Could it be God’s way of showing that many believers will witness Jesus’ appearing before death? I think so.

This is not at all to diminish the faith of those who die while possessing an eager anticipation of Jesus’ return. The Lord will most certainly reward their belief in the words of Bible prophecy. In recent years, beloved fellow watchers such as Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, and Ed Hindson have gone home to be with Jesus, and I am sure they received a warm welcome along with special recognition for their belief in the words of Scripture in regard to Israel and the Rapture.

Yet the story of Anna and Simeon holds out hope for all of us who long for Jesus’ appearing in our lifetime, and we pray that it happens soon.

A Faithful Remnant

Like Anna and Simeon, watchers of all ages belong to a faithful remnant of those eagerly awaiting Jesus’ appearing. In their day, not everyone in Israel was looking for the arrival of their Messiah, nor did they recognize the signs that verified His arrival.

The oppression of the Roman occupation made the long wait exceedingly difficult for the Jewish people as the time of Jesus’ birth neared. The religious leaders of the day, caught up in a fog of self-righteousness, a quest for popularity, and love for the status quo, rejected their Messiah even after He performed great miracles before their eyes. These identical reasons keep many Christians today from recognizing the voluminous and obvious biblical signs that we live in the last days just before the start of the seven-year Tribulation.

Times and circumstances have changed since the days of Anna and Simeon, but the reasons for the failure of so many Christians to believe the Bible’s promises regarding Jesus’ appearing remain the same.

Walking in the footsteps of Anna and Simeon, we also belong to a faithful remnant who trust the words of Scripture and, as a result, recognize the season in which we live, that of Jesus’ imminent appearing.

-Jonathan