Delusions of a Risk Free World
Life is a series of calculated risks. Because we live in a world full of danger, it has long been important to keep tabs of the risks we face. For most of human history—war, disease, natural disasters and economic perils have been major risks to our human existence. The threat of danger made us take preventive action that helped lower the risk of unfortunate events.
In 2017, we seem to have developed a carefree attitude about risks. People look at the chance of various calamities and just shrug with little or no reaction.
Reports have been circulating over the past few weeks that the ground under Yellowstone Park has been rumbling. Between June 12 and June 27, Yellowstone experienced an earthquake swarm of 900 events, the majority of which were magnitude 1 or below. This was the highest number of earthquakes at Yellowstone within a single week in the past seven years.
Since Yellowstone is a super-volcano—if it were to erupt—a vast area of the U.S. could be devastated by the massive ash fallout. As these tremors continue, the amount of concern should rise at an exponential rate.
The folks at the U.S. Geological Survey say there is no reason for concern about the quakes. For three weeks now this government agency has issued a steady stream of soothing propaganda. It even said if Yellowstone were to blow, “the eruption produced would probably be fairly inconsequential.”
I don’t see what is inconsequential about 100 cubic miles of ash covering half of the continental U.S. The USGS alert scale should go directly from “No need to worry” to “We’re all going to die.”
For the past few years, the U.S. and Russia have been playing a game of cat and mouse with each other’s aircrafts. Russian jets would fly dangerously close to our jets and we would occasionally buzz them back. The day will eventually come when the jets will crash into each other. During the Cold War, our military kept a respectable distance from each other to prevent World War III. The current general view seems to be that there is an invisible force that will prevent a collision.
The lack of concern about risk can be seen on Wall Street. I remember when you could detect international incidents by a sudden drop in the Dow Jones average. Today, the stock traders are generally oblivious to news events. Last week, an America fighter jet shot down a Syrian aircraft, and the Dow didn’t even fling. In fact, it went on to close at a record high that day.
There is an index on Wall Street designed to track financial risk; the Volatility Index (VIX) is a complex fear gauge that is based on the price of options place against S&P 500 stocks. During the crash of 1987 it went up to 150. During the Great Recession of 2008, it went up to 80. The VIX is currently at 9, which is right near its lowest reading in the history of this index.
Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen only sees blue skies for the financial markets. She thinks the changes to the architecture of the monetary system have made it unlikely for us to “see a financial crisis in our lifetime.” History shows that these types of comments typically occur right before a crash.
The optimistic attitude toward risk could be attributed to our strange odds in avoiding calamity. We’ve had a series of major bankruptcies with Detroit, Puerto Rico, and various banks in Europe. Each time there were fears these events might trigger a 1929 style crash, but nothing happened. With the state of Illinois teetering on the edge of insolvency, people are indifferent to the likelihood of the first U.S. state to have its debt downgraded to junk status. People just assume the financial fairies with fix their coming bankruptcy.
We can’t point to good fortune to explain the lack of concern over terrorism. The risk of being killed by an Islamist is growing by the day. We should be using basic logic to assess Islam as a dangerous risk, and then take protective action. The more people that are killed by Muslim terrorists, the more determined our leaders are at labeling this religion as “risk free.”
I think the lack of concern over risk is the result of Satan gaining a stronger foothold in this world. As nations become overrun by wickedness, people are losing the ability to measure risk. The profound level of blindness that we see all around us is a strong indication that the Rapture must be very near.
“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
–Todd
Kings of East Nuclear Factor
All directions in God’s Word to humanity–the Bible–point outward from God’s touchstone city to the human race. That is, Jerusalem is the topographical center of the world from God’s Holy perspective.
Therefore, north, south, east, and west, in terms of Bible prophecy, can be determined by considering that all-important city as the starting point.
We will look in this commentary at the kings of the east prophecy. That prophesied group of potentates, then, must be viewed as if we are standing, perhaps, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and looking eastward. This is how we can know that the kings of the east referred to in prophecy yet future are those kings or national entities of China and the Orient in general.
Here are the nucleus scriptural references to the kings of the east prophecy:
And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. (Revelation 9:13-16)
And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. (Revelation 16:12)
We note with interest that the Euphrates River seems to be the boundary dividing the Occidental world from the Oriental. God tells through prophecy that this boundary harbors some powerful and tremendously evil demonic actors that are incarcerated until time for the prophesied invasion from that Oriental world. As a matter of fact, these are so powerful that they will imbue this force of two hundred thousand-member military with the capability of killing one-third of the people of the world.
I’m aware that there is a train of thought that puts forth that one-third of a specific number of combatants who are to die in the overall campaign of Armageddon will be killed by this force from the Orient. To me it reads that one-third of those living on the planet will be killed.
That there are supernatural elements involved within this murderous capability cannot be denied. It is reasonable to presume, I believe, however, that nuclear weaponry might be employed in accomplishing that grisly task.
The prophecy concerning the kings of the east becomes particularly fascinating, I think, when looking at geopolitical military rearrangements taking place today.
To preface these considerations, I urge us to remember that the demonic minions that will be the catalyst to galvanize the destructive kings of the east force are presently under God’s restraining power. These evil entities are held back until a particular “hour, and a day.” There is a specific moment when they will be unleashed to cause the two hundred million-man force to kill one-third of everyone living on the planet.
I have always considered it a point of fascination that since the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945, there hasn’t been a single incident of a nuclear weapon discharged in any sort of military conflict. There have been nuclear tests of every sort, above ground and below. But, not a single nuclear warhead of any sort has been fired as part of military action.
My friends, this lack of employing nuclear weaponry has taken far more than diplomacy, human fear, in trepidation, or whatsoever else. This has been the obvious, restraining hand of the God of Heaven. Just like in the case of the evil angels being restrained somewhere beneath the Euphrates, the nuclear, war-making genie has been kept in the bottle marked “For Tribulation Only.”
As a matter of fact, the nuclear factor has been used, I’m convinced, by the Lord Himself, to prevent man from self-destruction. If nuclear weapons were not at the ready at every moment of every day, the human race might have long ago ended most if not all life on earth with conventional weapons only slightly less horrific. Man has–some would surmise–retained the common-sensibility, at least to this point, to refrain from all-out war, since those two, small-by-comparison nuclear bombs that ended World War II.
North Korea forges ahead with production of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to far-distant points. This, despite a president who has vowed that such development will not be allowed to be brought to the point the NK weapons can be used against the United States. There seems shaping a showdown of monumental magnitude at some point soon.
Yet, as many who read these commentaries know, I’m convinced there will be no earth-shattering event such as nuclear war take place until the Rapture has occurred. I’m convinced that Jesus’ words in the days of Noah and days of Lot prophecy in Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17:26-30 indicate it will be business as usual–even better than usual–right up until He next “reveals” Himself to a rebellious world. This will be Rapture, not Second Advent when He will come back to earth to put an end to Armageddon and the threatened, complete destruction of all life on earth.
Meantime, it is an almost certainty in my spirit-mind that there will be no complete disarmament of the nuclear powers. These weapons of mass destruction will doubtless, in my opinion, be used during the Tribulation, as part of judgment and wrath poured upon the evil and rebellion that will be against the God of Heaven.
The North Koreans might be restrained in some fashion from unleashing their nukes on the rest of us for now. They will, however, likely have them at their disposal when they rage across the dried-up Euphrates under demonic influence. China and the rest of the Oriental diabolists will, the prophecy says, kill one-third of people left on the planet at that time. Certainly, nuclear weaponry could accomplish fulfillment of that prophecy.
It is interesting to think on the fact that there seems to be no nuclear weaponry used on Israel as the Gog-Magog forces descend like a cloud to take great spoil. It is a conventional force that makes the assault, apparently. At that point there is either great restraint so they can enjoy the “spoils” they intend to take, or there is restraint on the Gog-Magog forces of some other sort, preventing use of nuclear weaponry. There are those who believe that this is because there has been nuclear disarmament at this juncture, and there are no nuclear weapons available. I do not agree.
God, Himself, will unleash His own form of “nukes” at that time, destroying all but one-sixth of the invading force.
The assault from the kings of the east seems to have no such encumbrances of nuclear restraint. The attack seems to come later than the Gog-Magog attack as the wind-up of the campaign of Armageddon looms.
One thing is sure in my view of these matters. We are witnessing things shaping for prophetic fulfillment in the arena of the kings of the east in regard to the nuclear factor.
–Terry