With war breaking out in Israel, UFOs, forest fires, and unrelenting rain across the globe, you’ve gotta believe something’s going on. Something foreboding, something indicative of bigger things to come.

Could the Andreas Faultline finally give way to a major earthquake, causing the California coast to slip into the Pacific Ocean? With earthquakes now happening on the East Coast as well – maybe it’s New York that will slip into the Atlantic. One is just as corrupt as the other. But let’s not forget about the corruption that exists in Washington D.C. – for they, too, deserve to be destroyed if this is indeed God’s doing. In any case, a huge earthquake just struck off the coast of Alaska.

With Israel under attack, this battle could ignite the wars that will lead up to Armageddon. The other nations mentioned in the Bible about that war are not engaged as of yet, but if they see an opportunity to lend a hand to destroy Israel – they most certainly will. Just when these others will dive into the conflict is hard to tell.

Iran, being the most vocal and enabling of the radical Muslim confederacies, is the instigator of these attacks. But is Israel deserving of the hate they accrue? Is God punishing them yet again for their tuning their backs on Him once more? It’s hard to tell since we all know how long-suffering our Lord is.

After record heat this summer, it’s hard to believe we are seeing simultaneous hailstorms in the West and in the Northeast of the country already. At this stage, the rapture can’t be too far off. We must not fail to live up to our calling to be a light unto the world and take the Word of God seriously.

Do we love God enough to carry out his orders? Think about it: do we love our neighbor as ourselves enough to share the gospel with them? (Even some pastors are afraid of letting strangers know they are pastors.)

UFOs are in the news daily now, with no letup in sight. Something’s going on. People are beginning to faint in fear of what is happening in our world at the moment, some even going so far as to build bomb shelters, and rightfully so. Yet, if they knew God in a personal way, they would know that they can have peace in the midst of the storms of life.

The other day, while driving home toward the Everglades in South Florida, I saw what I thought were vast clouds of smoke in the distance. This time of year, it is a common sight to see brush fires (which are actually good for the surrounding environment).

After arriving, I got on the internet and found that it was smoke from wildfires in Canada. Canada is a long way from South Florida, so it must be big fires taking place way up there – this after a series of wildfires in the Western United States this past summer.

Extraordinary amounts of rain have fallen in the Northeastern United States and around the world, putting one in the mind of Noah’s flood. Maybe that is what God is trying to communicate to us that, “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.”

TikTok, the Chinese internet platform, is host to a multitude of supernatural phenomena in which strange sights are filmed on video, scaring the viewer with editing tricks just for the fun of it. Thus, the human mind is being bombarded with images and all manner of false information aimed at the weak-minded and impressionable individual while Satan rejoices at their confusion and fear. “Satan is the father of lies.” He is also called a deceiver, who goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

I received this from a Facebook friend who believes we are starting to see the beginnings of what will lead to the following Tribulation events.

Please read this. Jesus said that many will die by the sword, but they didn’t have guns in the Bible days, so the sword was their weapon. Jesus is the answer to all your problems, and He is coming for those who love him.

Luke 21:20-28

“When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

“There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time, they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

This mother of four finds time in her busy life to warn fellow Christians about what the Bible says about these things. We should all do the same.

Surprisingly, even Bible scholars are lax in this area of their lives. Finally, another curious thing is, when was the last time you heard the word Armageddon? The above happenings are just a precursor for that final and dreadful war.

So be on the alert in these final days of human history, and as the Spanish character in the movie “Princess Bride” said, “Prepare to meet your maker.”

YBIC

Jim Towers

Write me at jt.filmmaker@yahoo.com or visit me at www.dropzonedelta,com, and www.propheticsignsandwonders.com

Did you know that there will certainly be a future end-time spiritual revival upon this Earth? Jesus prophesied in Matt. 24:14, stating:

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

What will that look like during the days of the tribulation? Who will be the personalities that will be involved?

I believe that it will be almost immediately following the rapture that the “two witnesses” (Rev. 11:3) will appear supernaturally in Jerusalem to begin their three-and-a-half-year ministry. Their amazing story is told in Rev. 11:1-12.

Why would I say that their appearance is supernatural? The text strongly implies by its descriptions of them that these witnesses will indeed be Moses and Elijah (Rev. 11:6). This aligns with other prophetic Scriptures about these two particular men (see Mal. 4:4-5; Matt. 11:14; Matt. 17:1-13), both of whom were formerly great leaders in Israel.

Thus, it would seem to be the case that each of these men will be resuscitated from the dead and brought back to Earth for a second phase of ministry. They will be raised like Lazarus to live again in their natural bodies—only with a much longer gap of time in the middle than he experienced (see John 11:1-44).

Some say that these two witnesses must be Enoch and Elijah, on the basis that both were carried to heaven without dying—because “it is appointed for men to die once” (Heb. 9:27), and they would argue from Gen. 5:24, 2 Kings 2:11, and Heb. 11:5 that neither of these men have ever yet died.

In claiming this, however, they seem to discount the fact that all of us who long for the pretribulation rapture of the church, likewise, hope to escape this world without passing “through the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4).

But I would maintain that Enoch and Elijah actually did die, albeit in some elevated fashion—and neither of them were raptured directly “up to the third heaven” (2 Cor. 12:2). Their bodies and spirits must have been somehow gloriously separated (see Js. 2:26). Being pre-cross believers, they then would have gone to “Paradise” (Luke 23:43; see also Luke 16:22) to await the victory of Christ’s resurrection (see Eph. 4:8-10)—not directly to heaven (see John 3:13).

Enoch is also ruled out because he was pre-Abraham, thus not a member of the nation of Israel. Remember, after the rapture takes place, the true church will be in heaven. The false church will continue to thrive upon the earth, but it will not be evidence of God’s work within the world. He will have turned, once again, to working by means of the nation of Israel. It will be strictly an Israelite program. The center of worship for the world will be the Temple in Jerusalem (see Rev. 11:1), and all international outreach efforts will be overseen for the first half of the tribulation by these two witnesses.

After all, Moses also had a somewhat mysterious death (Deut. 34:5-6; see Jude 9). Both he and Elijah had incredibly exhilarating ministries—yet they were both also deeply frustrated and disheartened at their lowest points (see Num. 11:15; 1 Kings 19:4). God is going to vindicate each of these men and give them opportunities to flourish as they never did before. This time, their ministries will yield such an extraordinary global impact that it almost defies description.

They will also conclude their time of service with an incredible display of God’s power. First, they will be martyred by the Antichrist, who will be energized by Satan himself (Rev. 11:7). This will lead to the institution of a new holiday celebrated across all continents, among all those who do not know or believe in the God of Israel (Rev. 11:8-10). But then, following “three-and-a-half days” (Rev. 11:9, 11), their unburied corpses will be gloriously resurrected (Rev. 11:11), “and they ascended to heaven” (Rev. 11:12)! It’s as if God will graciously grant the entire watching world the opportunity to recognize the nature of the event that transpired three-and-a-half years earlier, which we commonly call the rapture, as it will be reenacted live before them, through these two witnesses.

And, so, the ministry of the two witnesses will be very limited in time, but the effect of their ministries is virtually indescribable. You see, before they are martyred, they will have first had the opportunity to identify, evangelize, train, and commission 144,000 additional Israelite witnesses. Their story is told in Rev. 7:1-8 and 14:1-5.

Unlike the two witnesses, these 144,000 do not appear supernaturally but naturally. That means that if the rapture were to happen tomorrow, these young Jewish men must already be on the earth today—but without the knowledge of their Messiah. They would miss the rapture but then come to know the Lord quickly once the tribulation begins and become engaged in a worldwide ministry shortly thereafter.

And we’ll open next time by thinking about the identity of those intrepid men.

***

Paul J. Scharf (M.A., M.Div., Faith Baptist Theological Seminary) is a church ministries representative for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, based in Columbus, WI, and serving in the Midwest. For more information on his ministry, visit sermonaudio.com/pscharf or foi.org/scharf, or email pscharf@foi.org.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version.