Prophetic stage-setting continues at a torrid pace. No signal of the nearness of the Tribulation (Daniel’s seventieth week) is more observable than the dynamics revolving around the nation Israel.

Anti-Semitism is coming to a boiling point again like in the times of Nazi Germany, beginning with Hitler’s persecution of the Jewish race. America’s universities are at the center of the rise in hatred for the Jews.

We witnessed the October 7, 2023, evil perpetrated against the gathering of young people celebrating in Israel’s southern region. The evil was as heinous as one could imagine even in thinking about times when the Nazi regime was mass murdering God’s chosen people.

It doubtless took satanically engendered rage to do the things the Hamas beasts filmed themselves doing that day.

Yet the world didn’t turn against Hamas and the other terrorist organizations that cheered those wicked ones on. Rather, the hellish activity quickly spread like an infection, bringing about anti-Semitism to the supposed rational Western world. The malicious evil went viral and had college students joining protests against Israel for fighting back against the Hamas murderers, baby killers, and rapists.

Why is this happening? That’s the question of many—not only Jews but Christians and all sane-thinking people as well. Why is God allowing this evil to raise its wicked, satanic head?

The answer, I believe, is found within the following:

“We are telling our Jewish brothers and sisters that Israel is your home… We are bracing ourselves and calling for a mass immigration from Europe,” announced Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu. And they were not just words – a while ago, the Cabinet approved a ₪180 million ($46 million) plan to finance the absorption costs of thousands of potential new immigrants, following numerous anti-Semitic attacks, along with political and economic troubles in the Ukraine, France and Belgium.

Netanyahu broadcasted his message via social media; “I would like to say to all of Europe’s Jews, and Jews everywhere, Israel is the home of every Jew.”

Not everyone is impressed with these remarks – European leaders insist that they can protect their Jewish communities, and many Jewish people just don’t want to leave. But many others are packing their bags nonetheless, feeling they have no choice…

“They shall come trembling from the West…”

“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them’” (Jeremiah 16:14).

The miracles of God’s promises to Israel continue to unfold: the good, the bad, and the ugly. In very many places, the Scriptures prepare us for the fact that God was planning to bring His people back to His land by hook or by crook. With anti-Semitism spiraling out of all control around the world, many Jewish people are now deciding that they would be safer in war-torn Israel under the protection of the IDF than they are in Europe, and are escaping while they still can. (“God Is Gathering His People Back to Israel, ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry)

And now the most religious of the Jewish community in Jerusalem are calling officially for all Jews to return “home.”

[Excerpt]

The nascent Sanhedrin in Jerusalem has made an official ruling, calling on Jews outside of Israel to come home.

“We are the beis din (rabbinic court) of Yerushalayim (Jerusalem), and we have poskened (officially ruled) that all Jews around the world have an obligation and chiyuv (religious requirement) right now to do whatever is in your power, to come to Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel), and that is the mitzvah of Torah (Biblical requirement). And that is the mitzvah of today, especially because of what’s happening around the world and the dangers that all the Jews are in around the world. It’s necessary now more than ever to come to Eretz Yisrael, and we as a beis din have poskened that all the Jews have to come as soon as they can back to eretz Yisrael.”

The Sanhedrin’s ruling was intended for Jews worldwide, so it was recorded in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, French, and Spanish. (“Sanhedrin Announces Ruling: All Jews Worldwide Must Come Home to Israel Immediately,” Israel365 News, Biblical News, November 27, 2024)

To those who “watch” as commanded by Jesus (Mark 13: 37; Luke 21: 28):

God’s feathering of His chosen people in order to begin the process of bringing a remnant out of the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30: 7) becomes more obvious with every passing hour. This means, of course, that the Rapture, which must take place before the Lord’s final dealing with Israel in this way, must be even at the door, as Jesus put it.

You want to be a part of Christ’s call in that glorious event, not left behind to go through what Jesus said will be the worst time of all human history.

Here is how to go to the Lord when He steps upon the clouds of Glory and calls all believers to Himself.

“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).

Observing these times so near the end of this quickly fleeting age conjures thoughts about Lot’s days in Sodom. This, of course, has been an ongoing train of thought for me, as those reading my articles can attest.

Those ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the remains of which archeologists are just now digging up from the south end of the Dead Sea region, had at their black hearts a term that believers in Jesus Christ don’t often give much thought to: unrighteousness.

Unrighteousness isn’t merely the lack of righteousness. It is the diametrical opposite, contrary in every respect to righteousness as defined by God. It is a determined, conscious—and even militant, in some cases—effort to move in a direction other than toward God and His holy prescription for living.

They need no deity to govern their comportment, the lost sinners declare.

But here is what God in Heaven, through Paul the apostle, has to say in regard to the soul:

“For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Romans 4:2-8).

So righteousness in God’s holy perception isn’t based on doing good rather than evil works but rather on genuine belief in His way of salvation. Jesus described that way:

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

Getting back to Abraham’s nephew who lived in Sodom, I remain convicted that we’re living in the time Jesus described as being like “the days of Lot” (Luke 17:28-30). Moreover, I believe Jesus might have had our very nation in mind when He told of a coming day that would be like Lot’s day–that time in the future when God’s righteous people will be removed from a place of wickedness and evil, as Lot and his family were removed from judgment-appointed Sodom.

The United States of America is the most materially blessed, technologically advanced nation in history. In that level of attainment and achievement, America likely matches Sodom as that city existed in ancient times.

The people who will be evacuated in that future removal will be God’s people because of their being like Lot himself. Here the Apostle Peter delivers God’s message, reporting the facts about why Lot was removed from the doomed region.

“And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the Day of Judgment to be punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities” (2 Peter 2:6-10).

Lot was righteous in God’s holy view. He and his family were removed from among the unrighteous people Lot had dwelt with in Sodom. Jesus said it will be just like this for His people in a future time. His people are righteous because they/we have believed in the Holy Name of the Only Begotten Son of God.

Certainly God’s people live today within a Sodom-like society and culture among a generation that has turned their backs on God’s prescription for life on earth. The reprobate minds of Romans 1:28 have long ago been reached, according to the wokeness and debauchery we’ve been witnessing.

My thoughts lately, in consideration of the Rapture and America and the world’s likeness to the days of Lot, turns to percentages. The question: Percentage-wise, have America and the world reached relatively the same configuration as Lot and those few taken out of Sodom, as compared to the number of those left behind to be judged and destroyed during those business-as-usual but wicked days of evil? In other words, has this nation and the entire world reached the time when God will take the righteous from among the unrighteous so He can begin bringing His prophetic blueprint–the establishment of Jesus Christ upon His millennial throne—to fulfillment?

When will the only righteousness to be found on earth be removed? Seems to me that we might not be far from knowing the answer.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!