Faith-based musings from a decidedly Biblical Protestant point of view, on just about everything, including Bogus Bibles, New Age Deceptions, Corrupt Politics and other signs of the Last Days before the World ends.
Uh oh. Trump is telling Israel to cool it about building settlements on "Palestinian" land. Sounds like the Islam lobby got to him. Big mistake, capitulating to a lie. There is no Palestinian land in that area, for starters, and there is no Palestinian people. It's all a political invention. The very idea of a "peace" in the Middle East is a big fat delusion. The Muslim world has said in so many words they want Israel dead, they do not want peace. They have refused every peace plan offered. They draw their maps without a hint that Israel ever existed. You can't negotiate a genuine peace and it's futile to keep trying. To ask Israel to pull back on their settlements for the sake of an impossible peace is to betray Israel.
Rather adds to my forebodings in the previous post.
I wrote the following at EvC Forums in response to a post about a utopian vision of the whole world made in the image of America's Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
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The idealism of the Left which is expressed in that post can only give a biblically taught Christian deep despair for America and the world, because the reality of evil is completely denied in it. And that gives evil great power to proliferate, and especially to express itself through that very misguided idealism. Communism for instance sounds good on paper, but in reality it can't exist without murdering people, because all utopian systems try to squash reality into a small box that leaves more of reality outside. But since the utopia is held with fervor that reality has to be exterminated to bring it about. THEN will come the Perfect Society. Etc etc etc.
I keep having this ...feeling? ... concern? ... premonition? ...paranoia? ... that because of the extreme opposition to Trump the hope his election gave so many of us may still go down in flames. A hope, ironically enough, for the very values the Left thinks it represents but doesn't.* The Left and the powers behind the Left may yet succeed in defeating this surge of goodness and hope for a renewal of prosperity, national strength and unity, and Constitutional liberty, and bring about their globalist tyranny over once-sovereign America, and in fact the world. Partly because there are truly malevolent forces on the Left that the Left refuses to recognize, but also because of this sort of idealism that misreads what it takes to establish freedom in a fallen world.
Since we've gone from any semblance of "peaceful transference of power" to violent methods of opposing the elected political position with no signs of remorse or intention of de-escalating, Trump would have to have supernatural ability to continue as he has been doing. He talks of God but I don't know how much of a believer he really is -- fairly superficial at this point I would think but maybe he's learning that what he's up against is bigger than politics and bigger than even prodigious human strength can deal with. I hope he prays, as many of us are praying for him. He may be able to continue for some time yet, and I hope so, but already he looks terribly tired in his pictures. He has bags under his eyes he didn't have a short time ago.
The point of all this is that although God is certainly giving us a reprieve in Trump, judgment on America and on all the nations of the world is still proceeding and may finally lead sooner than we'd anticipated to the globalist nightmare we Trump supporters have been hoping to stop. Biblical prophecy tells us it has to come sometime, and the signs have been growing for decades that it is getting closer every day, and reached some kind of peak with Obama, but the Trump win and Brexit and other signs of nations reclaiming some of their lost sovereignty seemed to promise a stay of execution at least for a while. But the forces of evil -- that are mistaken for good these days -- are not only not going away, they seem to be gathering power. Evil power. In some cases in the name of good.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope the true hope lasts. I just keep having this...foreboding.
Of course it's not a foreboding for most at EvC. Anything that would turn back Trump's win would be welcome, as it would be for the Left in general, because he's considered to be the evil that needs to be stopped. And besides, anyone who talks as I am talking here is obviously not to be taken seriously.
Upshot: Maybe, just maybe, the world is about to take a turn into the "Great Tribulation" or "The Day of the Lord" when God's wrath descends on the planet with unprecedented horrors and destruction for some period before the Lord Jesus returns.
I've never been completely convinced of the theology of the "Pre-Tribulation Rapture," but I've been even less convinced of other end times theologies. And I recently read a book about the Rapture (author Billy Crone) that resolved many of my doubts -- not all but many. Enough in any case to go with it provisionally for now.
America is no doubt the highest profile nation in the world, and the name Trump has an awfully biblical sound to it.
1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
Hint? Omen? I don't know, I just keep having this foreboding because of the way the world has been going.
That passage is considered to be THE prophecy of the pre-Tribulation Rapture. The Rapture is expected to come unexpectedly, suddenly, without warning, taking "the Bride of Christ" off the planet to be with Him forever. That is a wonderful thing for me and other believers; not so much those who have rejected Christ.
The Rapure is to usher in a seven-year period when the world that is left behind goes through the Great Tribulation or God's Wrath or the Day of the Lord. A horrible time not to be wished on anyone. And since I have unsaved family I don't want to see them go through it.
But for the sake of those who will go through it, listen up: If this prophecy is true there will be a huge number of people saved during it, at great cost, through enormous suffering, but saved for eternal life by believing the gospel you refused to believe before. Beheadings will be one of the horrors. (Most of this is in the Book of Revelation), and beheadings are of course a hallmark of Islam. Islam is pretty much already set up to play such a role if all this comes down soon. And of course as I keep saying, I believe the Pope is what the Protestant reformers said he is: the Antichrist. Islam and the RCC are linked in some biblical symbols as the two halves of the revived Roman Empire that is to rule the world at the end. And it's not going to be your happy "American" utopia, that's for sure.
(Huge numbers of Catholics and Muslims will of course be saved}
But maybe Soros is the Antichrist instead. Or somebody else. In any case the Pope is going to be right up there with him/
One good thing in all that is that the Great Tribulation is to exist for a particular period of time, after which Jesus will return. It is possible to calculate that time from biblical prophecy in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation. The Rapture is to come unexpectedly, as "a thief in the night," but the Second Coming will come according to a biblically given time frame.
"Repent and believe the gospel" is always the way to salvation and it would be better to do it now rather than wait to go through the Great Tribulation.
But maybe the Rapture won't come for a long time yet. Maybe my forebodings are premature.