Although fears of the sight of drones invading the airspace, particularly in the northeast environs of the US, have faded, the matters involving UFOs, now called UAPs, remain in the minds of the public. I have written about the prophetic implications, especially for the post-Rapture time, when, as I contend, Satan will use such stellar spectaculars to delude those left behind.

One well-known pundit and podcast host weighed in last year on how things might be setting up for that delusion.

Joe Rogan floated a theory about recent mystery drone sightings on Tuesday’s episode of his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, suggesting the government has deployed drones to acclimate Americans to unidentified flying objects (UFOs)…

During his Tuesday episode, Rogan said it’s possible that the government is “not concerned because this is something they are doing with us; what if they are trying to get us comfortable because they know some real UAPs [unidentified anomalous phenomena] are on the way.”

He added: “If you really wanted to get people relaxed to the idea of flying saucers.… If you knew that was coming and you didn’t want mass panic, what would you do? You would trickle it in, you would trickle it in slowly, saying that by having drones hover over cities for several weeks or months, it would get people really accustomed to the news cycle having UAPs, and then real ones show up. (“Joe Rogan Has Theory Officials Deployed Drones to Get People Used to UFOs,” by Mandy Taheri, Newsweek,  Dec 17, 2024)

Satan, according to Bible prophecy, plans spectacular displays of fireworks and other supernatural pyrotechnics for the Tribulation, the last seven years before Christ’s Second Advent. Those phenomena will, again, take place in the atmosphere above Earth and in space. We are given that warning in the following Scripture:

“And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do…” (Revelation 13:13-14).

Jesus made it clear that the phenomena that will come at the end of days will be fearsome to behold:

“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; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Luke 21:25-26).

There is coming a second great war in the heavenlies, and it will make H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds fiction look tame by comparison. The resulting devastation and carnage will cause the hearts of earth-dwellers of the Tribulation era to explode with adrenaline-pumped fear. However, and strangely perhaps, from our mortal perspective, Lucifer, now named Satan and called “the Devil,” continues to be given access to God’s throne, above which he was once a guardian.

He is now an accuser of believers in Jesus Christ.

The first war of all creation—not just a war of mortal worlds, or of galaxies—took place when Lucifer and the angels who joined him in rebellion against the Most High were cast out of God’s realm. That is, they were no longer a part of God’s kingdom but now were forever lost outside of God’s eternal kingdom.

We know that Lucifer, the fallen one, came before God to ask to be allowed to torment and test the great man of God, Job. He asked the Lord to “sift,” or put the Apostle Peter to a similar torturous testing. Satan will be allowed to come before the throne of God until a certain point. We learn this in the following:

“And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night” (Revelation 12:10).

And this Scripture brings us to the fiercest part of human history for Tribulation earth-dwellers. It will be the second great war of the Creation–the war of two worlds, eternally apart in their intents and purposes. Satan and his fallen angelic armies are to be removed from the very presence of God and confined to planet Earth.

Now that isn’t such good prophetic news for flesh-and-blood earth-dwellers of that future time of apocalypse! The prophecy tells us:

“And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelation 12:9).

Jesus said of that time:

“And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18).

John the prophet and apostle was given the words to encourage believers and forewarn unbelievers down through the centuries:

“Therefore rejoice, [ye] heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Revelation 12:12).

The great Apostle Peter forewarned of this rage Satan has for all of God’s human creation, and for believers in particular:

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour…” (1 Peter 5:8).

God has placed so much in His Word to warn about this adversary and his legions, the devil and his minions, that the evil that has been in all the cosmos since that first great war in Heaven must saturate every aspect of existence. But we who name the name of Jesus Christ can take comfort. We are on the other side–the other spiritual dimension of this cataclysmic collision of supernatural worlds.

It is true that we who are flesh and blood must, for now, exist side by side with that dimension, because we live in a third dimension–one we perceive to be reality but which is really existence that is no more than a vapor in terms of God’s eternal economy. But we are not left without defense against our horrific enemies that comprise Satan’s evil forces. God tells us in Ephesians 6:10-18 that not only CAN we stand against Satan and his evil, but that it is our duty to do so. He promises to provide armor to fight the good fight. But, we are required to put it on. And it is not a defensive but an offensive strategy the Lord demands. Our defense, you see, IS our offense: the cross of the Lord Jesus!

Here is how to assure you have on the whole armor of God for the battles ahead. And it is that truth therein contained which then engulfs the believer and will keep God’s family from the time of Satan’s deluding invasion of planet Earth.

“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).

The Scripture is haunting. It echoes and reverberates throughout the spiritual hallways of the Church with each passing hour:

“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1).

This forewarning fits into the last-days pattern also given by the Apostle Paul in the familiar prophetic passage:

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of Perdition” (2 Thessalonians 2:3).

The “falling away,” apostasia in Greek, means a “departure from.” Paul prophesied in the 2 Timothy 4:1 passage that there will come a time at the end of the Church Age when people will depart from the “faith.” He says in 2 Thessalonians that this will be a general “falling away,” the apostasy of the end time. What is this “faith” from which people will fall away, and who are the “people” who will fall away? Another crucial question is: Can the departure that God, through Paul, warned about be recognized when it occurs?

“Faith,” as here defined, must, by context, be the faith in the One who is at the heart of the gospel—faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God, chosen from the foundation of the world to be the propitiation for the sin that separates fallen humanity from God. It is the faith you and I must have in order to confess with our mouths that Jesus is the Only Begotten Son of God and to believe in the deepest part of our spirits that God raised Him from the dead.

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9).

A person can’t fall from a position (doctrinally speaking, in this case) he never has attained. The “people,” then, whom Paul the apostle is writing about in his prophecies of 1 Timothy 4:1 and 2 Thessalonians 2:3 are those who have believed in Jesus Christ for salvation of their souls.

This brings us to the question: Can the departure God, through Paul, warned about be recognized when it occurs? To recognize that “falling away”—that apostasia, or apostasy—when it begins to happen, will almost certainly give the Christian attuned to God’s will a heads-up on the nearness of the Tribulation era, thus to the nearness of the Rapture of the Church.

We’ve looked at the “faith” as faith in Jesus for salvation and at the “people” who will “depart” from the faith as being the Church—that is, the true Christians who are alive at the time of the end when the apostasy takes place.

Although there are those who think this departure includes the possibility of one losing one’s salvation, the “falling away” of 2 Thessalonians 2:3 cannot include that meaning. A quick look at Romans 8:38 and 39, to name just one security-of-the-believer passage, shows that God’s Word teaches that the believer can’t depart from the Heavenly Father to the point of losing his or her family status. Jesus, in John chapter 17, makes that absolutely clear. I suggest that if you have questions about this, read the Scriptures I just mentioned.

What, then, is meant by “departing from the faith”? Glad you asked. The “faith” mentioned in 2 Thessalonians and 1 Timothy 2:3 is a collection of faith principles wrapped up in the Lord Jesus Christ. These principles are doctrines put forth by the Word of God. The Word of God is none other than the Lord Jesus:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

“People” at the time of the “falling away” will “depart” from the “faith”–the doctrines put forth by the Word of God, who is Jesus Christ. This departure will mark the generation of Christians at the very end of the Church Age.

The question that applies most relevantly to us today is: Are we seeing signals of the departure?

We have analyzed, dissected, examined, and inspected every end-time signal found in God’s Word many times in these commentaries: Israel again being in the land of promise; the EU looking to be the reviving Roman Empire; Russia, Persia (modern Iran), and other nations looking to be a nucleus that will one day form the Gog-Magog force of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. These, plus, all the other end-time characteristics of this generation.

However, I believe the most insidious of all the things taking place under the clever, devious hand of the devil—Satan—is the falling away, the departure from the faith being currently orchestrated by Lucifer, the fallen one.

This departure is evident to the spiritually discerning when looking at the church-growth movement. This “seeker-friendly” approach to both the saved and the lost (all who don’t know Christ) through New Age, corporation-type seminar seductiveness and brainwashing techniques that water down or completely eliminate true Bible doctrine has led in a profound departure from the “faith once delivered” (see Jude 1:3).

The new paradigm instituted by the champions of the church-growth movement has been the shift from New Testament Christianity to “new spirituality-driven Christianity.” Like in the modern corporate organization, invented in large part by German economic guru Peter Drucker, who mentored some of the leading designers of the church-growth movement, the system is more an organism than an organization—adopting Drucker’s model based upon Freudian psychology and Darwinian evolutionary principles. The individual is assigned a value, and he or she must fit in or be removed from the system.

To put it as I long ago heard one person of the movement say: “Pillars just hold things up. So, they need to be moved out of the way.” So, those who hold to doctrine must get out of the way so no one will have their feelings hurt by talk of sin, blood atonement, and eternal punishment in the place called Hell, if repentance is not forthcoming. Again, the Apostle Paul wrote God’s view of this watering-down of doctrine:

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8).

Are we at the point of departure from the faith prophesied for the very end of the Church Age? Maybe we can get a better sense by looking at one more area of Scripture pertaining to the matter:

“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy 4:1-4).

There is another prophetically scheduled departure to consider. It’s the one we should be looking forward to. It is a God-ordained departure that will remove every child of God of the Church Age–living and dead—from the earth in one millisecond:

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

Based upon the spiritual departure from the true faith we are seeing, the physical (spacial) departure of the Church from planet Earth in the Rapture must be near indeed!