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We have observed and reported since President Obama's election a stunning array of issues and events that look to have prophetic significance. What makes those events even more phenomenal has been the speed of their gush through the daily, even hourly, news headlines. The breaking news of prophetic implications has been trumpeting from the cable television news programs, which are competing with each other for audience numbers that define the winners and losers in the ratings race. I have often likened it to the manifestation in our time of Daniel's last-days flood, and his forewarning of Daniel 12:4:
"O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."My opinion hasn't changed; I still think we are in that general time-frame. I'm convinced the end-times book about which the angel spoke to Daniel the prophet has been opened. However, I have often said I believe Bible prophecy teaches that it will be a time of seeming lull that Christ's sudden intervention into man's rage toward tribulation will occur. This belief is based on, for one scriptural example, Jesus' words:
And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed" (Luke 17:26-30).The rapture must be the coming again Jesus was prophesying here because, certainly, if we look at the horrendous judgments of God's wrath — the seals, trumpets, and vials — the world will not be going about business as usual, as foretold in this account. The carnage from those twenty-one specific judgments will render the earth a smoldering heap, and leave perhaps two-thirds of the world's people dead. When Christ returns with ten thousands of His saints, as depicted in Revelation 19:11, it will not be business as usual on this devastated planet.
Events that have stormed across the news wires, Internet, airwaves, satellites, and every other medium through which we receive information have presented a time seemingly far different from Jesus words:
“Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh" (Matthew 24:44).Anyone with eyes, ears, and a brain with which to see, hear, and think upon the news with which we've been bombarded should be on high alert that something portentous is going on.
The fact is, however, despite all of these prophetic signals that should tell Christians that we are seeing almost every sign of the end-times mix blatantly displayed in the news of the hour, the attitude among the church is for the most part ho-hum. We are living in both “the time of signs” and “the time of think not,” as the words of Jesus put it.
Coming to the proposition I would like to suggest, I have observed throughout years of considering current issues and events in light of Bible prophecy that the Lord allows things to sometimes move quite quickly in stage-setting for the tribulation. It is then as if He puts His great hand of control on the world and the stage-setting slows. It seems, to me at least, that after all of the swift movement of the past seven or eight months, exigencies of most recent days have created logjams of sorts that show that God has somewhat applied the brakes to the swift movement.
I sense this in considering almost every prophetic front, but particularly when examining the “Roadmap to Peace” process and the proposal to divide Jerusalem. Israel, too — and its on-again, off-again maneuverings with regard to the Iranian nuclear weapons program — has become encumberingly convoluted and complex, with all of the world's diplomats intervening at every juncture. It is as if a supernaturally created bottleneck is slowing the rush of final end-times developments at present.
It is at least interesting to wonder if heavenly “braking” influences on the news flowing from around the world are creating the lull Jesus prophesied would be like the days of Noah and of Lot.
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US will do what it takes to keep Iran from getting nuclear arms - AFP The United States and Israel remain united - Ha'aretz Israel defends Jerusalem evictions - CNN
