It’s been an amazing year. If you follow any of the Bible prophecy sites, blogs, and media programs, you know they have been overwhelmed with stories that are foreshadowing the time the Bible calls the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, also known as the Tribulation.

I know there are those who believe there are no signs for today. I was called on the carpet by a seminary professor –a Baptist, no less — for heralding signs. He says there are no signs until the Tribulation. Nothing that is happening today is relevant. How tragic. What a disservice he is doing to his seminary students who will be ill equipped to deal with very dark headlines.

So after sifting through hundreds, in fact, thousands of headlines in the last year, I have come up with 18 stories that I feel most represent the herald of His coming:

1) Israel’s worsening isolation. (Zechariah 12:3) The Left in America under Barack Obama abandoned her some years ago. With the defeat of Canada’s Stephen Harper, Israel was left only with some evangelical Christians spread around the world. She has no superpower backing.

2) The “days of Noah” are back. (Matthew 24:37) Everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes. (Judges 17:6) Lawlessness is the order of the day. Evil is glorified. The White House was adorned with the colors of the homosexual rainbow and Hillary Clinton has a campaign ad with homosexuals engaged in debauchery as she celebrates their actions.

3) The disillusionment with today’s politician is setting the stage for a “man with a plan” who will not be a politician but who will have the answer to all the world’s problems. We don’t know his name. We know his title is Antichrist. He may be the only one who can stabilize the ISIS crisis being planned for a naive Western world.

4) The rise of strong delusion. (II Thessalonians 2:10-12). Simply put, God sends a strong delusion to those who choose not to believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. Those who take delight in mocking and rejecting Him, He will condemn, confuse their thinking, and cause them to believe fables. And they do! Islam is good and peaceful; guns are evil; climate change is more dangerous than jihadists; Israel is the bad guy and the Palestinians are the new heroes in the church today; ISIS isn’t Islam; Muslim refugees are peaceful and will help the Western world. This is an “Alice-in-Wonderland” world. Christians don’t fit. The Mad Hatter rules.

5) The further decline of America. She is not in the Bible in the end-times. Russia and Iran are the primary players in the Mideast now. America’s influence for good is vanishing under Barack Obama. America will blend into global government.

6) America is being given over to paganism. A few months ago the Hindu goddess Kali appeared on the Empire State Building in New York City. Twenty years ago this was unthinkable. It is now cool.

7) Israel is being prepared for the Antichrist. She is surrounded by enemies. She has Hezbollah, ISIS, Russia and Syria to the north and East and Hamas to the south in Gaza. Iran boasts daily that she will dump nukes on Israel. At some point she will cave to these threats and call on the Antichrist to make a peace treaty — particularly in light of the loss of American support.

8) Gog is now on the move. If Magog is Russia, Vladimir Putin has re-built her from the days when Ronald Reagan reined her in. Russia is advancing in many places. All the Gog-Magog nations are aligning and are in the news: Iran, Russia, Turkey, Libya, and more. Prominent Bible-players are moving around as though they were on a chess board.
See Ezekiel 38-39.

9) Israel has been bombing the suburbs of Damascus taking out concealed weapons. The Bible foretells a time when Damascus will become a ruinous heap. (Isaiah 35:1)

10) Christians are mocked as never before and Jews are fleeing to Israel at a pace not seen since post WW2. (Matthew 10:22) Only Islam is glorified, honored, and protected. In the Iraq/Syria region, a Christian is slaughtered every 5 minutes, yet few show any concern. Christianity is being erased from the region of its birth. All of this intensified in 2015.

11) The technology giants want to suppress the truth and marginalize Christians. From YouTube, to Google, to Facebook, to Twitter, and more, the gospel message is censored and evil is glorified. They are preparing the way for “Mark of the Beast” technology. This was on overdrive in 2015. This ministry came under the gun and was censored more than once. Stories reveal that Windows 10 actually spies on emails, credit cards, and more.

12) There was a cry for a global religion from Pope Francis to the Parliament of World Religions in Utah in late 2015. If the world is ever to be one, religions also must be united. Pope Francis revealed himself to be an apocalyptic figure in 2015. We cannot “pin the tail of the False Prophet” on him quite yet, but even conservative Catholics are troubled by this Jesuit Pope. In fact, this Pope represents Marxism, environmentalism, the new world order, global government, sustainable development, the Jesuit agenda, unity of faiths, a global constitution, a global court, and a departure from Catholic traditions. He is surely a harbinger of a global religion.

13) Globalism went on overdrive thanks to Barack Obama, the United Nations, Pope Francis, and a consortium of worldwide Leftists. John Lennon, who “imagined” all of this decades ago, would be proud!

14) The push to make cash illegal intensified in 2015.The move to a cashless society won’t happen overnight. Instead, it is being implemented very slowly and systematically in a series of incremental steps. All over the planet, governments are starting to place restrictions on the use of cash for security reasons.

15) Israel’s Temple Mount has been a focal point for turmoil this year. With stage-setting for fulfillment of Bible prophecy during this Church Age winding up, it should be of no surprise that there has been tension on Mount Moriah. That may be the most contested 35 acres on the planet.

16) This was the year Bible prophecy was mocked and attacked more than ever! Believers in our “blessed hope” were called “End-time Eddies and Esthers.” While this has always existed, now more and more prominent teachers are telling us not to waste our time on doom and gloom.

17) Liberal, Godless Europe imploded. Leaders like Germany’s Angela Merkel lost their minds, put their people at huge risk as terrorists took advantage of the “refugee” situation, and have made Europe a time bomb. The Antichrist will take advantage of this as well.

18) This was the year evangelicals began accepting the gay agenda and some asserted that Allah and Jehovah are the same. The voices from the religious Left encouraged this. The great end-time falling away has much of the church going over a cliff with results that cannot be rectified. Finding a solid church became a believer’s biggest challenge in 2015.

Things are not falling apart — they are falling into place. Can you hear the hoof beats of the four horsemen of the apocalypse in the distance?

I won’t be silent about the signs of the times. If Jesus chastised the Pharisees for not knowing the signs of His first coming, why would we not be expected to be aware of today’s apocalyptic signs?

Wake up, look up, and rise up.

Barack Obama doesn’t just want to fundamentally transform America. His sights are on the world. Many stories are breaking that he aspires to become the General-Secretary of the United Nations. Such talk is no longer Internet rumor.

We hear a lot about global government today, and we do not know if this will be represented by the United Nations. Since we are late in the eschatological game, we probably don’t have time for another body to rise up and control this world government.

Those who defend the notion of a world government claim that it would be a benign federation of nations structurally similar to our federal government. It is touted as the solution to all of society’s ills. We can wipe away war, poverty, and all injustice. There would absolutely be no want. They suggest this would perpetuate global peace and prosperity.The truth is, it would be an Orwellian nightmare.

The Beast
In Revelation 13, John sees the “beast,” also called the Antichrist, rising out of the sea having seven heads and ten horns. This corresponds with Daniel 7. Some kind of world system will be inaugurated by the beast. Many theologians conclude that this will be a one-world government.

It is hard to imagine how such a diverse system of government would willingly subjugate themselves to a single ruler. How would Communism, capitalism, democracy, and Islam all get along? The Antichrist would have the power to make this happen or dissolve all of these systems and blend them into one. He will have Satanic power to do this.

When does this world ruler ascend to his throne? Many conclude it will be when the disasters and plagues described in mid-Revelation are playing out in a devastating way. Others feel it makes more sense that he will seize control right after the chaos of the Rapture.

The current U.N. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon’s term is set to end on December 31, 2016. Barack Obama is available on January 21, 2017.

Enter Bibi Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, working with moderate Arab nations, is on record as saying, “Isn’t eight years of having Obama in office enough? Eight years in which he ignored Israel. And now he wants to be in a position that is liable to cause us hardship in the international arena.”

Will He Be “King of the World”?
Some are suggesting that if Obama pursues this agenda and gets it he will consider himself “king of the world”. Investors Business Daily warned over a year and a half ago that President Obama wasn’t about to spend his post-presidency time building houses like Jimmy Carter. There were signs that he would seek to become head of the U.N.

An Israeli newspaper recently ran a cartoon with this “king of the world” theme.

A covenant will be made with Israel (Daniel 9) and a world body during the Tribulation. The Antichrist will make a covenant, then break that covenant, with Israel, during the Tribulation.

The U.S. Under U.N. Authority?
Would Obama place the U.S. under U.N. authority? As a presidential candidate in 2007 he wrote, “The security and well being of every American depends on the security and well being of those who live beyond our borders. The mission of the United States is to provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity.”

For the mostly undemocratic powers represented in the U.N., having a former U.S. President who serves their interests, for all intents and purposes “King of the World,” would be a dream come true. Never has the head of a major world power served in this role. Rules and traditions would likely have to be broken.

Addicted to the Roar
Canada’s National Post asks, “What post-presidency career would Obama consider worthy of his future attention and efforts? Few jobs of Olympian prestige are available, and his self-admittedly vast self-esteem might diminish the list still further. We agree with a number of other observers that Obama has his sights set on the office of United Nations Secretary-General.”

Barack Obama will wave a reluctant good-bye. He is addicted to the roar. He will never forsake the spotlight he loves so much.

Pinning the Tail on the Antichrist
We are not privileged to know if any U.N. role will be played out by the Antichrist. Those who continually play the “pin the tail on the Antichrist” game are only guessing.

Only God knows who these end-time king-pins will be. His partner is called the False Prophet. Are they alive and well? Likely so.

We don’t know if this transition at the U.N. will happen in 2017. If it does, Barack Obama will become the most dangerous man in the world. And possibly, the most powerful.

The timing of this is diabolical as the world awaits a savior to solve its many problems.