The state of the economic condition of America and the world is often the subject of conversation in and around my office environs. One of our financial “experts,” whose name you would recognize, consistently voices our collective amazement. The comment goes something like: “The economy being in this building bubble for so long, without a massive correction, is unprecedented.”

We all agree that is true, and that the fact has to go far beyond the natural world of fiscal reality. The economy is propped up, we conjecture, held up by supernatural rather than natural forces.

By this, we who are in our ”conflab” sessions (yes, I know the word is confab, not conflab) mean we believe the holdup of the crash that is inevitable, according to all that is part of reality, has some heavenly determined purpose.

Again, I wrote of this as far back as 2010. I wrote that I was convinced–and remain so—that neither the United States nor the world would experience a crash of catastrophic dimension, at least not during this dispensation—the dispensation of grace (Church Age).

Those who emailed during 2010–2011 expressed that some in secular media as well as high-profile prophecy teachers were predicting any-day financial collapse. We would one morning awaken to a world like in that of the Dark Ages, economically speaking, the emailers feared.

My series at the time, “Scanning a Fearful Future,” involved ten articles on Rapture Ready that painted a different picture. I believe I was impressed by the Holy Spirit that such a collapse was not going to occur—at least not at that time.

I’m still impressed that such a dire situation is not in the offing—not yet, at least.

A recent opinion piece shed some light on the matters I believe are involved in consideration of the economy and biblical perspective. The article sets the stage for prophetic eventuality.

Financial writer and book author John Rubino sees the world careening toward a debt reset at an increasing pace.

Rubino explains, “The coming monetary reset and what that means for gold and what that means for the rest of the global financial system, you don’t need a war to bring that about because we are making enough financial mistakes that will get us there in no time flat now without geopolitical turmoil….”

“If you add a big war in the Middle East into the equation, then anything can happen. A scenario right now that is very, very feasible is we start shooting in the Middle East and Russia and China is on the other side of this in one way or another. They help Iran, and we have our allies helping us, and we start using these next generation weapons that are breathtakingly powerful. Nobody has any idea what’s going to happen when we start throwing these things at each other…. Oil spikes to $100—$150 per barrel, and that tips the already extremely fragile global financial system over the edge. So, we get the ‘Greater Depression’ or the monetary reset or a hyperinflation or whatever we get sooner rather than later. It’s a disaster for everybody when it happens that way.” (Tyler Durden, “The End Stage Has Begun,” Rubino Warns “We’re Past The Point Of No Return” Zero Hedge, Rapture Ready News, January 10, 2020)

The writer is correct. Such a scenario—or scenarios—would, it seems, bring American and world economies into an era that would likely eclipse, in disastrous ramifications, the Great Depression of the 1930s.

World debt is at an astronomical high—one absolutely unfathomable back in 2010–-2011, when I wrote ”Scanning a Fearful Future.” The tremendous fiscal gravity should have long ago brought the great adjustment the writer claims as necessary and inevitable.

In that series, I explained why I believe that crash, that great “reset,” won’t happen during this dispensation. For America and the world to experience a total economic collapse—or even a collapse of tremendous, if not catastrophic, proportion—would mean the world situation would take years, if not decades, to recover. That is, the world would not be anything like Jesus, Himself, prophesied for the time of His next catastrophic intervention into the affairs of fallen mankind.

The Lord said that when He next intervenes, there would be buying, selling, marrying, giving in marriage, building, and planting—i.e., business would be going along just fine, like in the days of Lot, when Sodom was perking right along when the fire and brimstone began to fall.

As a matter of fact, I am convinced the Lord was prophesying that a great, economic boom will be in place when He next intervenes. A great, economic boom is what the economic experts are telling us we are having at present. The Dow Jones Industrials went over 29,000 points on Friday, January 10—something not thought anywhere near likely before the Trump presidency.

Jesus, in giving the “days of Lot” prophecy, wasn’t talking about the time of His Second Advent as given in Revelation 19:11. At that time, two-thirds to three-fourths of mankind will have been killed through the twenty-one specific judgments of God’s wrath upon a rebellious world. It will not be business as usual at that terrible time in human history

“So what!?” you say. “So what if the world collapses, then takes all that time to recover? The Rapture could be that far off in the future.”

That, of course, is possible. We can’t name the timing of that blessed hope’s intervention. But, we are told to determine the times and seasons—the general time frame of that great event. We are told to “look up and lift our heads” when we “see all these things begin to come to pass.”

What things? What are we to be looking for that will tip us off as to the nearness to “our redemption drawing near”?

“Convergence” is the word we hear most often in prophetic terms. At least, it is the term we who are of the pre-Trib view of the Rapture use. It means the coming together of all the signs Jesus and the prophets gave in the Olivet Discourse and throughout God’s Word, signals that indicate we’re at the very end of this dispensation and near the beginning of the Tribulation, the last seven years of human history before Christ’s Second Coming. We are seeing these many signals proliferating on a daily basis!

Jesus forewarned that judgment would begin falling the very day He is next revealed. That will be when the whole world will know something of unprecedented, world-shaking import has occurred. That will be the moment when Jesus will say “Come up here!”

All believers will vanish from this judgment-bound planet and appear with their Lord and Bridegroom.

The collapse is coming. But first, I believe, so will the Lord Jesus Christ.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

President Trump ordering the takeout of Iran’s top military strategist rocked the world Thursday January 2, 2020. The target, Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, the division of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was responsible for militant and terrorist activities outside the country.

Reports say a drone strike obliterated two SUVs as they drove from the Baghdad International Airport. The man considered to be the most powerful and influential regime leader, second only to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a reported seven other ranking officials in Iran’s terrorist organizational structure, were killed.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Fox and Friends Friday morning that Soleimani was Khamenei’s “right fist.” He was all things military and terroristic rolled up into one, Pompeo said. “He was a bad guy.”

US Senator Lindsey Graham said on the same program that Americans should understand that Soleimani wasn’t killed because of past offenses, although many Americans were killed as a result of his terroristic planning over the years. He was taken out because of plans for future acts of murderous terrorism in Iraq and around the world. The intelligence indicated many such terrorist acts were being arranged by the Iranian master planner.  

It is thought by some that Israeli Defense Force (IDF) planners were key in helping Soleimani’s assassination. For this reason, Israel is on high alert for what the Iranians are doubtless preparing in retaliation. Regardless of Israel’s involvement or lack thereof, the Jewish state is being blamed for the matter alongside the United States. Flags of both nations are being burned throughout Iran and other Middle Eastern countries sympathetic to Iranian militancy.

Democrats and mainstream media are faulting President Trump for the action, which they claim is bringing on a devastating war in the region. Fears of what taking out the key Iranian terrorist might cause are summarized in the following excerpt.

Though the U.S. intelligence community has not assessed that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program, there are long-standing reports that it may have stockpiles of chemical weapons, which it could load onto these weapons.…

Non-kinetic alternatives, such as cyber attacks, could be another part of the equation.

If Iran were to pursue any of those options, it would almost certainly beget at least similar responses, though the United States has now shown a willingness to take increasingly disproportionate steps in its ostensible goal of deterring Iran. Major escalatory actions from either side also increasingly run the risk of drawing in other regional or even global actors who have a stake in the situation, such as Russia or China, in some way. There is also the danger that third parties could find themselves caught in the crossfire from future tit-for-tat military or terrorist attacks.

Iran also routinely threatens to blockade the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which it could do using a combination of ballistic and anti-ship cruise missiles, midget submarines, suicide drones, mines, swarming boat attacks, and more. This body of water links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and that serves as a transshipment point for 20 percent of the world’s oil and an equally significant portion of global natural gas. (Joseph Trevithick, “World Holds Its Breath after An American Strike in Iraq Kills Top Iranian Commander,” https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31702/world-holds-its-breath-after-an-american-)

From the standpoint of prophetic perspective, one has only to know of the Iranian regime’s desire to keep things stirred in the Middle East. The Ayatollah is always focused on hatred for and revenge against Israel. America, as Israel’s close ally and umbrella protector, is considered an even greater enemy because it holds the ultimate power to oppose the destruction the Iranian leadership wants to wreak upon all enemies.

The question to consider involves whether this action–killing the chief terror-master in Iran and perhaps the entire world–will cause Iran to push its vengeance to the brink. The brink in this case is an all-out attack on Israel, or American forces that remain in that theatre of possible war.

Mr. Trump, bold as always with his assessments, said that Iran hasn’t won a war or lost a negotiation. By that, I take it that the president supposes that negotiations at this point are not in view and that they would lose a war should it start.

That is almost surely true. As powerful a force as Iran is in comparison to others of the region, it would be no match for the massive force the United States could bring down upon the regime. And, this is considering only the use of the most basic of modern, military weaponry, excluding that of the nuclear sort.

War with Israel, on the other hand, would be much more horrific if an all-out attack came from Iran. All bets would be off as to whether the ultimate weapons in Israel’s arsenal would be used if pushed to that brink.

The one prospect that probes and pulses at the back of the mind is this: Will Iran’s vengeful actions—which are certainly coming—be the catalyst for destruction of its nuclear laboratories? Is the strike that has so profoundly shaken the world at the very first of this New Year the act that will bring fulfillment of the prophecies of Jeremiah 49:34–39?

In my Nearing Midnight commentary of December 9, 2019, I wrote the following in summation of my article, “Gog’s Persian Prophecy Partner”:

A major part of all this that might be of interest to prophecy watchers, in my thinking, is whether the current and building resistance to the Muslim rulers of Iran will bring stepped up activity in fulfilling their nuclear ambitions… They will almost certainly not step up dismantling that program. Becoming a nuclear power, thus a hegemonic regional force, is, I believe, a supernaturally induced desire, placed there by the Prince of Persia, or that minion’s superior, Lucifer, himself.

If the ayatollahs determine their own positions are threatened, might they go all out to complete getting the ultimate weaponry that they think will assure their continuing rulership?

It has long been my contention that something prevents the Gog-Magog force from storming toward Israel using nuclear weapons. At least, that’s the way I read the Gog-Magog forces in regard to their weaponry.

It seems there are no nukes involved—at least, none used by these evil attackers. The Lord, Himself, seems to use something at least as horrific as nuclear weaponry in dealing with those attackers, but their forces seem to be conventional.

As President Trump often says: “Let’s see what happens.”