This world is in defiance of God, as seen in every news cycle. The murderous violence must certainly rival the antediluvian days of Noah.

At the same time, it should make perfect sense to believers who trust God to be in absolute control at all times: He has never sent judgment and wrath without pleading, corrective, attention-getting measures, and unmistakable warning signals of impending doom to the rebels who shake their fists in His face, then turn their backs to the only One who knows the end from the beginning. America and the world are almost surely at the latter end of the divine yardstick of judgment, which measures the extent of the Lord’s lovingly generous—though not infinite—patience.

Most who study Bible prophecy have, through the years, rolled the thought over and over in their minds: “Why isn’t America mentioned in Bible prophecy?” Many have concluded that the United States must suffer a catastrophic fate—from the outside or the inside. The nation’s destiny is one of either implosion or explosion–detonations that, in either case, will spell the end for the most technologically advanced country in history.

Surely God will not allow the American ship of state to slip beneath the crushing waves of the times without clear signals that we are nearing shoals that cannot be navigated.

Words from Jesus Himself bring to mind current crises gripping the US and, by extension, the entire world. The passage is quite familiar to students of prophecy:

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring” (Luke 21:25).

Whether considering this combination of end-times signs figuratively or literally, a case can be made that the present national and world circumstances might be the time Jesus was speaking about.

This generation has seen wonders in the sky. Humanity has accomplished space adventures in going to the moon and other planets with machinery. We have witnessed astrophysical phenomena through the Hubble telescope, gigantic sun eruptions, fantastic photos of a comet slamming into Jupiter, and the losses of the Challenger and the Columbia. Then, there are the signs in the sun, moon, and stars.

Recently, there are scientists who continue to monitor asteroids and other stellar phenomena that are “fly-bys” potentially threatening the planet. Some scientists who observe the sun, moon, and stars believe the planet will one day, perhaps soon, experience a major impact from one of these visitors from deep space.

My good friend who is now with the Lord, Tom Horn, wrote much about the major asteroid-type space rock called Apophis, scheduled to pass close to the Earth on April 13, 2029. He conjectured it could be the mountain-like object of Revelation that is prophetically scheduled to hit the ocean and cause great destruction during the Tribulation.

The latter part of the Luke 21:25 prophecy also leaps to the forefront of thinking about the present hour. We’ve recently seen the figurative and literal seas roaring. Figuratively, all nations seem to be in great turmoil, with their peoples in societal and cultural tumult. The literally roaring waves have produced the costliest devastation in recorded history to nations around the world within just the past months. However, it is the middle part of the prophecy that most dramatically speaks to this generation.

Jesus said the nations will, near the time of His return, be in “perplexity.” The implication is that the leaders will be floundering for answers to the profound dilemmas confronting them. The perplexity will only cause them to go farther into rebellion, we can gather from the psalmist’s words:

“The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us” (Psalms 2:23).

The United Nations is in overt rebellion against God’s order, as we witness almost all member states coming against Israel, demanding that the Jewish state give up land to the so-called Palestinians in a two-state solution to the perennial Middle East conflict.

The fact is, we are in a time of unprecedented “perplexity,” so far as my memory serves. The leaderships of the world’s nations are in turmoil, with the economic stresses and strains threatening worldwide fiscal collapse. We have increasingly been told by top monetary experts that we face economic Armageddon if something isn’t done to straighten out the fiscal problems. In all the scrambling, finger-pointing, and doomsday rhetoric, one fact is powerfully obvious by omission: Not one of them has been heard calling out to God. Not one mention of soliciting help from the God of Heaven has been forthcoming, so far as I’ve heard. Certainly, asking God’s help hasn’t been heard in a public way.

As I write this, America’s unusually gifted president, in terms of his proven business acumen, continues to work on “fixing” the economic disaster the previous administration and the ideology it inflicted on the nation. I believe this is bringing this generation to the “business as usual” days of Lot that Jesus said will be prevalent at the time of the Rapture. We will see how it plays out.

I continue to believe that Mr. Trump might be in the most powerful political/governmental office on Earth to produce the upbeat economy Jesus said would be in place when He next catastrophically intervenes in the Rapture. I’ve outlined my thoughts many times in this regard when addressing the Luke 17:28-30 prophecy.

In a larger prophetic context, the swift economic movement and turbulence currently taking place is not without its significance, God’s Word assures. There is coming a completely satanized (if that is a word) economic order. We are seeing a major start to that coming global rearrangement. The fiscal problems will get “fixed,” ultimately.

I’m convinced it will happen during the time that follows the Rapture of the Church. But the peoples left on this judgment-bound planet won’t like the change the decisions of the politicians of the world–apart from God Almighty—will produce for them.

The luciferian machinery of enslavement is churning America and the nations it so traumatically affects, in terms of economic equilibrium, toward the Beast system of the Tribulation.

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six” (Revelation 13:16-18).

It will be the worst time of human history, according to Jesus (Matthew 24:25). If you know Him as Savior, you won’t have to go through the Great Tribulation. Here is how to go to Christ when He calls God’s family–all born-again Christians—to Himself in the Rapture:

“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).