The Three Witnesses to Jacob’s Trouble – Daniel, Jesus, and John – Part II

IN TODAY'S NEWSLETTER... 
 

• Featured Article: The Three Witnesses to Jacob’s Trouble – Daniel, Jesus, and John – Part II 
• Israel has no choice but to act on its own to stop Iran 
• Nearing Midnight: A Prime Prophetic Indicator 
• 10 Signs That “Things Are Not Getting Better in America” 
• Daily Jot: Biden advancing Iran at expense of US, Israel 
• Daily Devotion: A Higher Standard 

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The Three Witnesses to Jacob’s Trouble – Daniel, Jesus, and John – Part II – Randy Nettles - https://www.rev310.net/post/the-three-witnesses-to-jacob-s-trouble-daniel-jesus-and-john-part-ii
 
In Matthew 24:42-44, Jesus tells his disciples to “watch” and “be ready” for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. If Jesus was talking about the 2nd Coming and not the Rapture, why would he warn his followers to do these things? Christians will already be gone in the Rapture at this point (2nd Coming). Of course, this is only true if one is a pre-tribulation believer, as I am. Also, people living during the end times should be able to count 1290 days from the abomination of desolation until the end of Jacob’s trouble, according to Daniel 12:11. The only way this might not be possible is if the conditions are so bad on earth that it is no longer possible to keep track of time, especially if it goes dark for an indefinite amount of time before His return. Mark 13 and Luke 24 give similar testimonies with a few added details. Jesus never mentions any time duration for the events of the Day of the Lord.
 
As I mentioned in part 1, the Day of the Lord begins with the Rapture. In Revelation 4, John’s spirit was transported to heaven, as a typology of the Rapture, where he saw God in His glory. He also saw 24 elders in white robes sitting on thrones, and they had crowns of gold on their heads. The Rapture must have already occurred as these saints were wearing crowns that symbolize their rewards that believers will receive at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
 
John also witnessed the seven Spirits of God and the 4 cherubim. The elders and the cherubim were all worshiping their Lord God. What a sight that must have been (and will be, when we witness it). By the way, 4 is the Biblical number for creation, so here we have God’s created beings, man and Cherubim (representing angels) worshipping God. There were 24 (4 x 6) elders representing man (man’s number is 6).
 
Immediately following this Rapture typology, John witness’ the unsealing of the judgment scrolls by the only one in heaven and earth that was worthy enough to open it, Jesus Christ. This occurs in Revelation 5. The number 5 is the Biblical number for grace. See Biblical Significance of the Number 5: Part I:: By Randy Nettles - Rapture Ready for more information. By God’s grace, Jesus was able to open the seals so God’s ultimate plan for redeeming mankind could be realized and finalized.
 
When Jesus had taken the scrolls, the 4 cherubim and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each having harps, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song as described in Revelation 5:9-10.
 
“You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us king and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.”
 
“Then John looked and heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures (cherubim), and the elders, and the number of them were ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands (innumerable) saying with a loud voice: ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!’ And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: ‘Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!’ Then the four living creatures said, ‘Amen!’ And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshiped Him who lives forever and ever” (Revelation 5:11-14).
 
This great gathering and worship service takes place immediately before Jesus opens the seals which contain the wrath and judgment of God against unrepentant man. Before it’s over, all of God’s creation will be affected, including man, animals, fallen angels, and all of the earth.
 
It is widely believed by most Bible scholars that Jacob’s trouble begins with the Antichrist signing the covenant with the many (Israel and others) as described in Daniel 9:27. Shortly thereafter the A.C. (the first horseman of the apocalypse in Revelation 6:2) rides out in conquest after the opening of the first seal by Jesus Christ. The first half of Jacob’s trouble consists of the horrendous 7 seals and 7 trumpet judgments being poured out upon the earth and its inhabitants. Other events such as the 10 Kings one-world government, 144,000 messianic Jewish evangelicals and worldwide revival, religious system of Ecclesiastical Babylon, and the ministry of the two witnesses in Jerusalem, also take place in the first half of Jacob’s trouble. These judgments and events are described by John in Revelation 6-11.
 
Revelation 11:1-2 describes the newly built third temple of God in Jerusalem and the court which is outside the temple. The first mention of a time duration is given here, as the Gentiles will tread the holy city underfoot for 42 months (approximately 3.5 years) during the last half of Jacob’s Trouble. Revelation 11:3 talks about the two witnesses prophesying during the first part of Jacob’s Trouble for exactly 1260 days, clothed in sackcloth.
 
When the two witnesses finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome, them, and kill them. “And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified” (Revelation 11:8). Of course, this verse is referring to Jerusalem. Thanks to today’s technology all peoples of the earth will see their dead bodies and those in charge will not allow their dead bodies to be put into graves.
 
“ Now after the three-and-a-half days the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here.’ And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them” (Revelation 11:11-12). Here we see another typology of the Rapture. Earlier John was raptured (spirit only) alive into heaven, and now the two witnesses, who were dead, are brought back to life and then raptured into heaven. In both cases, a loud voice from heaven said, ‘Come up here.’ Just as when Jesus ascended into heaven (10 days before the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost) “in a cloud” so do the two witnesses ascend into heaven in a cloud. Let’s not forget our (Christians of all ages) future rapture as described by Paul: “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
 
“ In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. In the earthquake, seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven. The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe is coming quickly” (Revelation 11:13-14).
 
Seventh Trumpet: The Kingdom Proclaimed
 
Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!’ (Revelation 11:15).
 
“And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying: ‘We give You thanks, O lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was and who is to come, because You have taken Your great power and reigned. The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, and those who fear Your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:16-18),
 
“Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail”(Revelation 11:19).
 
The 7th Trumpet ends the first part of Jacob’s Trouble. This is when the Antichrist takes absolute control of the world government system from the remaining 7 kings and begins his hellish reign on earth. However, in heaven, the inhabitants are celebrating Jesus’ kingdom as if it has already begun; as per Revelation 11:15. I believe this is because they know how things are going to end. They know Jesus wins and Satan loses.
 
Revelation 12 describes the events to take place during the mid-point of Jacob’s Trouble. In the Bible, 12 is the number for government perfection and rule, especially the 12 tribes of Israel; so this chapter is aptly numbered as it deals mainly with Israel and Jacob’s trouble. Revelation 12:1-6 reads like a great pageant or production in heaven that portrays the mid-Tribulation events that are happening on the earth. The woman (clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of 12 stars on her head) in verse 1 represents Israel.
 
This description is reminiscent of the dream young Joseph had when he was 17 years old in the land of Canaan. “Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, ‘Look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.’ So he told it to his father and his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, ‘What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?’ And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind” (Genesis 37:9-11). This dream did come true as his brothers and father did bow down to Joseph in the land of Egypt. Of course, in Revelation 12:1, Joseph himself is the 12th star.
 
The child (a male child, who will rule the nations with an iron scepter) in vs. 2 is Jesus. This prophecy of Lord Jesus was first given by David in Psalm 2:8-9. “The Lord (God, the Father) has said to Me, You are My son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.” The dragon in vs. 3 is Satan and he is described as having 7 heads, 10 horns, and 7 diadems on his heads. This is referring to the Antichrist whom Satan is controlling, at this point.
 
Satan tries to destroy the woman, Israel, but, “the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days” (Revelation 12:6). Revelation 12:7-17 describes Satan and his angels fighting a war in heaven against Michael and his angels. Satan loses the war and is cast to the earth with his fallen angels, where they persecute the woman, “But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent” (Revelation 12:14). This reinforces Daniel’s prophecy of the saints being given unto the hands of the beast for a “time, times, and half a time” (Daniel 7:25). “The dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17).
 
Revelation 13 (the number for apostasy and rebellion) describes the two beasts of the end times. They are commonly called the Antichrist and the false prophet. The first beast is seen rising up out of the sea, indicating he is a Gentile. Revelation 13:2 describes the Gentile beast as having the same military characteristics of the first four beasts of Daniel 4-6. He will have the quickness and skill of a leopard, to strike at his opponents, as did ancient Greece under Alexander the Great.
 
The A.C. will have the strength and power of a bear-like Darius the Mead and Cyrus the Persian. He will have the ferociousness of a lion as did Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. The A.C. will have the might to crush his enemies as did the emperors of ancient Rome. He is the beast that rises like the phoenix out of the ashes of the old Roman Empire, for he will be a descendant of the empire that was Rome. He could come from the lineage of the Western (Italy/Rome) empire or the Eastern (Byzantine) empire.
 
God will use the Antichrist to accomplish His will and judgment upon Israel and the nations who oppose God’s chosen people, just as He did with Nebuchadnezzar, Darius, Cyrus, and Alexander. At this stage (mid-tribulation) the A.C. has killed 3 of the 10 Kings who have ruled during the first part of Jacob’s Trouble. The 7 heads of Revelation 13:1 refer to the remaining 7 kings, that have given their crowns (authority) to the beast. He now has all 10 crowns and absolute power and authority over the earth. “Authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation” (Revelation 13:7). Daniel 7 also describes this same beast with the 10 horns who subdue 3 of the horns/kings. John, who represents the New Testament, and Daniel, who represents the Old Testament, are in perfect harmony regarding the end of days known as the Day of the Lord.
 
The A.C. receives supernatural help from Satan. “The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority” (Revelation 13:2). It is at this point the A.C. receives a mortal wound and is killed, but his deadly wound is healed and he is resurrected from the dead. I believe this is when Satan indwells the body of the A.C. “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8).
 
The A.C. is strengthened supernaturally by another beast coming up out of the earth. Many scholars believe this beast will be a Jew as he is said to come out of the earth, which symbolically speaks of Israel. He causes the peoples of the earth to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. “ He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived” (Revelation 13:13-14).
 
This is a great sin against God for it breaks the first 2 of the 10 Commandments: 1) “You shall have no other gods before me”(Exodus 20:3). 2) “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them” (Exodus 20:4-5).
 
The false prophet was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should speak and cause all those who would not worship the image to be killed. I believe this “image” could be some kind of a kit that people can assemble that contains a smart chip computer link that can cause the image to talk and to listen in on their conversations to see if they are worshipping the beast or not. It could even be a robot or android that resembles the A.C., or even possibly a hologram.
 
“He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666” (Revelation 13:16-18). Of course, you know, 6 is the number for man. It is 1 shy of God’s perfect number 7. The number 3 (or 3 times) represents divine perfection. This 666 man will duplicate Satan’s error by attempting to take the place of God; and for this, he (and Satan) will pay the ultimate price…with his eternal soul, in a place called the Lake of Fire.
 
Randy Nettles
 
[email protected]

 


 
Israel has no choice but to act on its own to stop Iran - Jonathan S. Tobin - https://www.jns.org/opinion/israel-has-no-choice-but-to-act-on-its-own-to-stop-iran/
 
Israeli officials are pleading against more appeasement of Tehran. But revelations about John Kerry’s past betrayal help explain the administration’s refusal to listen.
 
The head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and the government’s national security adviser is in Washington this week on an important mission that has failed even before it began.
 
White House spokesperson Jen Psaki made it clear last week that the Israelis are wasting their time. When asked if Israeli pleas about the danger to the region if the United States rejoins the 2015 nuclear deal would have any impact on President Joe Biden’s plans, Psaki answered “no.” She went on to say that the Israelis are free to keep “challenging” the administration’s goal of returning to a weak pact that gives Tehran a legal path to a nuclear weapon by the end of the decade, but the best they could hope for is to be “kept abreast” of America’s plans.
 
That contemptuous attitude was of particular significance because the day before the Israeli security officials arrived, news broke about how former Secretary of State John Kerry had shared intelligence with Iran about Israeli covert operations seeking to stop their nuclear program. According to an audiotape of comments made by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif that were obtained by The New York Times, he said, “It was former U.S. Foreign Secretary [sic] John Kerry who told me Israel had launched more than 200 attacks on Iranian forces in Syria.”
 
There is a lot to unwrap in that one sentence and not just because the Times buried this revelation at the bottom of its story.
 
Kerry, for whom Psaki served as spokesperson during the nuclear negotiations from 2013 to 2015, currently acts as President Joe Biden’s special presidential envoy of climate. We already knew that in 2018, Kerry consulted with Zarif advising his former negotiating partner not to work with the Trump administration, which withdrew from the nuclear deal as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign to force the Iranians to agree to a new tougher agreement that would eliminate sunset clauses, as well as include bans on Tehran’s role as the world’s leading state sponsor of international terrorism and its illegal missile-building. Kerry told Zarif to simply wait out Trump and then deal with a more pliant Democrat that he hoped would be elected in 2020.
 
That’s exactly what happened, and now the Iranians are reaping the benefits. Biden’s foreign-policy team, composed almost entirely of veterans of the administration of former President Barack Obama, are again resuming their past practice of appeasing the Iranians with concessions in the works in order to entice Tehran to return to a deal with little hope of improving upon it.
 
Kerry’s collusion with Iran is important because it comes in the context of the growing tension with Israel over its efforts to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program. Unlike in the past, when it was clear that the United States and Israel were cooperating in a joint effort to derail the Islamist regime’s nuclear ambitions, the administration went out of its way to disavow any role in Israel’s recent successful attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility.
 
The implication of these off-the-record comments from “senior administration officials” is that the administration regarded Israel’s efforts as seeking to forestall an American push to re-engage with Iran. A news analysis published in The Washington Post filled with quotes from anonymous American and European sources, as well as some on-the-record potshots from former Obama administration figures, said the Jewish state was trying to play “the spoiler” in order to undermine Biden’s diplomacy. The liberal magazine Slate labeled the attack as an act of a “sneaky saboteur,” as if there was something inherently illegitimate about actions that sought to prevent a terrorist theocracy from acquiring a nuclear weapon that could fulfill the ayatollah’s genocidal threats against Israel.
 
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) fulminated about the attack, saying he would demand a full security briefing on it while sending a message to the Israelis that he—and other members of his party—take it as a matter of faith that diplomacy is the “only” acceptable path for relations with Iran and that Israel’s efforts were bound to fail.
 
As Martin Peretz pointed out in Tablet, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s messaging on Iran has sounded a moderate tone, he has essentially outsourced the nuclear issue to Robert Malley, Biden’s special envoy on Iran. Malley was not only one of the chief architects of the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran; he is a veteran appeaser and critic of Israel.
 
In essence, right now the United States is asking Israel to back off on its efforts to stop Iran and to trust Biden’s team to deliver a diplomatic solution to the problem. But given that Malley has demonstrated no interest in strengthening the nuclear pact so as to forestall an Iranian bomb or stop the regime’s terrorism, that’s a leap of faith that no responsible Israeli government can make.
 
More to the point, Zarif’s revelation about Kerry’s sharing of intel about their anti-Iran operations makes it clear to the Israelis that the administration isn’t merely wrongheaded in its approach but may actively be seeking to undermine their country’s security and that of its regional allies.
 
Not only did Psaki refuse to answer a question about Kerry’s astonishing betrayal during her regular press conference on Monday, she didn’t even make an attempt to say something that might reassure the Israelis that the administration regarded this as an issue of concern, let alone something about which an apology should be forthcoming. An investigation into this scandal is imperative. So is Kerry’s resignation from his current post.
 
The implication here is something that advocates for Obama’s signature foreign-policy accomplishment have always been at pains to contradict. Democratic apologists for the deal have spent the last six years trying to claim that the agreement was the best way to safeguard Israel against an Iranian nuclear weapon. However, critics pointed to the way the deal empowered and enriched a rogue regime, and asked whether the goal was very different from the one Obama had discussed.
 
Obama said it was a chance to give Iran the opportunity to “get right with the world” by giving up its nuclear ambitions. Instead, the deal may have been part of an effort to shift American policy in the region from one of an alliance with Israel and the Gulf states to one in which Iran would supplant them as America’s best friend in the region. Few would have believed this claim in 2015. And yet, the impact of the agreement on the region, coupled with Kerry’s actions and the efforts of Obama alumni to return to the deal on Biden’s watch, lend some credibility to this theory.
 
Whatever Obama intended or what Biden may want now, the inescapable conclusion from these events is that the Israelis should be in no doubt about the fact that they are being abandoned by the United States with respect to Iran. This leaves Israel with no good options. Nevertheless, the Jewish state has no choice but to proceed as if its future safety lies solely in its own hands. If the Biden administration or the Democratic Party don’t like that, they can reverse course and start acting as if they take the Iranian nuclear threat seriously. Otherwise, they should pipe down and let the Israelis do what they must to stop an existential threat to their existence. 

 


 
Nearing Midnight: A Prime Prophetic Indicator – Terry James - https://www.raptureready.com/category/nearing-midnight/
 
It seems to me that a primary issue is developing, and that Bible prophecy students might be wise to look carefully at it while movement progresses deeper into this year and beyond. It is legitimate fodder for our focus, because it fits the stage-setting for prophetic fulfillment that follows a pattern that can be understood by those spiritually attuned in these closing days of the age.
 
While it isn’t within our finite comprehension to be able to know precisely God’s controlling hand on things we see shaping for the windup of the age, we can certainly see what’s happening all around us. We believe in His prophetic Word, so we can know from what we see that Heaven’s light is exposing a schism, a division of normal human interaction from perverted, upside-down goings on. And that ripping of cultural and societal interaction is becoming more dramatic and traumatic by the hour, when we consider the minute-by-minute news cycles.
 
On the one side, there are those of us who want to live under America as founded. And this is a fair way to examine things, because most Americans of a certain age have been brought up under the national construct as founded. That is, we have a Judeo-Christian base as our understanding of conducting ourselves under normal conditions as defined by God-ordained principles. These were built into our Constitution. We were inculcated under a God-ordained blueprint for living.
 
On the other side, there are those who strive to deconstruct our normality. We are to now accept new normals as our principles. Therefore, the Constitution must be changed.
 
The party in power—which, in my view, stole the election through the most egregious actions and agencies imaginable—is almost daily bringing to Congress legislative proposals that will fundamentally alter (pervert) the nation as founded under principles God put into the brilliant minds of many of the Founding Fathers.
 
For example, the past week or two have seen proposals that would change the Supreme Court from nine justices to thirteen. Those doing the proposing say we need this because the nation has grown, requiring more justices to handle the case loads.
 
This is a totally specious argument, and the people in the majority party know it. They want to “pack the court” so they can negate the supposed conservative votes that now make the court a six-to-three conservative majority.
 
This is a fallacy. With the chief justice coming down on the side of liberal opinions in almost every case, and at least two of the other members supposedly on the conservative side wishy-washy in leaning one way or the other, it is hardly a definitively conservative court.
 
The America as founded side can but watch while freedoms are attacked and eroded. The other side of the schism, the new normal side, cheers while America is taken farther and farther away from those godly, founding principles.
 
Black is called white, sweet is called bitter, and good is called evil, while the reprobate thinking increasingly controls and deconstructs constitutional safeguards.
 
While the efforts to bring America as founded into a configuration conducive to constructing Antichrist’s platform of control, the evidence of swift movement toward the Tribulation era is observable at the national and global levels.
 
One prime matter involves the sophistry termed climate change.
 
This, you will remember, has become the mantra of the political left. They had to change it from global warming to climate change because the temperatures kept getting a bit cooler, not terribly warmer, and the ice of the polar regions wasn’t melting. There were no polar bears floating around on six-foot squares of ice because their habitat was destroyed—like the global warmists portrayed in heart-tugging videos.
 
Just a week or so ago, a CNN technician was secretly recorded by a Project VERITAS operative. The CNN guy was boastfully saying that CNN had been instrumental in lying and slanting everything of an accusatory sort toward Donald Trump in order to destroy his presidency and give the Democrats the 2020 presidential election victory.
 
The CNN technician was then recorded bragging that now that that had been accomplished, they planned to turn to climate-change issues and the dangers they present. These, he intimated, would be presented to the viewing public in the same deceptive way as was the Trump presidency.
 
The fact is this deception and subterfuge of the American constitutional way has begun.
 
John Kerry is in cahoots with America’s greatest enemy to begin the sophistry. The following sheds some light.
 
China and the US say they are committed to working together and with other countries on tackling climate change.
 
It comes after several meetings between Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua and his US counterpart John Kerry in Shanghai last week.
 
They both agreed on further specific actions to reduce emissions, a joint statement on Sunday confirmed…
 
Ahead of his trip to Shanghai, Mr Kerry told CNN that China’s co-operation was “absolutely critical” to battle the climate crisis.
 
“Yes, we have big disagreements with China on some key issues, absolutely. But climate has to stand alone,” he said. (“China and US Pledge Climate Change Commitment,” BBC News, April 17, 2021)
 
Yes. The climate-change matter is all important in the reprobate minds of the new administration. China is building a massive military presence surrounding Taiwan and threatening America with military attack, but we must buddy up to these greatest of the world’s polluters on the matter of an issue that has no scientific validity that has been shown—only models of what might happen thirty years down the proverbial road.
 
Climate change (Mother Earth worship) is destined, many believe, to be the religious centerpiece of the prophesied false prophet’s demand that Antichrist be worshiped.
 
Interestingly, this is one of Pope Francis’ greatest rants—that the climate-change “problem” must be under the complete control of a changed world order.
 
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:13) 

 


 
10 Signs That “Things Are Not Getting Better in America” - by Michael Snyder - http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/10-signs-that-things-are-getting-better-in-america/
 
Everything is great, and America is about to enter a golden new era that will be overflowing with peace, prosperity and happiness. If you believe that, there is a very large bridge that I would like to sell to you. There is certainly nothing wrong with being optimistic about the future, and personally I am very excited about the next chapters in my life. But if you think that the United States is heading in the right direction you are not thinking straight. Evidence of our advanced state of decline is all around us, and yet we continue to embrace our self-destructive ways.
 
Over the years, I have literally shared thousands of examples that show that our society is coming apart at the seams, and today I would like to share 10 more…
 
#1 New York City was once one of the most beautiful cities in the entire world, but now giant mountains of trash are piled up everywhere and approximately 2 million rats are rampaging all over the place. In an attempt to turn the tide, city officials plan to create a “City Cleanup Corps”…
 
New York City is being forced to deploy an army of 10,000 cleanup workers in response to worsening problems with trash and rats.
 
A newly created ‘City Cleanup Corps’ will be tasked with fighting the piles of garbage on the streets of the Big Apple, with complaints surging by 150% between March and August last year.
 
After a $100 million cut to the city’s sanitation budget, filth and rodent infestations have become a common sight, with data revealing that waste tonnage rose 15% by the end of March compared to the early months of the pandemic.
 
#2 In 2020, homicide rates increased by an average of more than 30 percent in major U.S. cities, and now homicide rates in many of those cities are even higher in 2021…
 
A Baltimore sanitation worker was fatally shot yesterday evening on his trash truck. The city has 94 homicides in less than four months.
 
To the south, DC had two more homicides yesterday, bringing its tally to 62, up 41 pct over 2020.
 
To the north, Philly has 156, up 31 pct.
 
#3 In cities all over the United States, police officers are leaving the force in record numbers. For example, just consider what is happening in New York City…
 
More than 5,300 officers — or roughly 15% of the force — at the New York Police Department either retired or put in their papers to leave in 2020, the New York Post reported after reviewing department data.
 
In all, 2,600 officers simply left the job, while another 2,746 filed for retirement, bringing the total to a whopping 5,346. That figure marked a 75% increase over the number of officers who left the force during the previous year.
 
#4 Meanwhile, police departments across the nation are having an exceedingly difficult time recruiting new officers. In New Jersey, the number of qualified applicants is only a small fraction of what it was a few years ago…
 
In some years the State Police would field between 15,000 and 20,000 applicants, according to Col. Patrick Callahan, the department’s acting superintendent. But they only had a “historically low” 2,023 qualified applicants as of Thursday, about a week before deadline, Callahan said.
 
#5 Less police officers will be needed if cities decide to simply stop enforcing the law. In Manhattan, a decision has been made to no longer prosecute prostitution at all…
 
Manhattan’s DA has announced he will no longer prosecute prostitutes, and asked a court to dismiss nearly 6,000 related cases as part of a city-wide change in policy.
 
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. said prosecuting these types of crimes does not make the city safer, ‘and too often, achieves the opposite result by further marginalizing vulnerable New Yorkers.’
 
#6 Earlier this month, Charlie Biello shared some data regarding the explosion in commodity prices that we have seen over the last year…
 
Lumber: +265%
WTI Crude: +210%
Gasoline: +182%
Brent Crude +163%
Heating Oil: +107%
Corn: +84%
Copper: +83%
Soybeans: +72%
Silver: +65%
Sugar: +59%
Cotton: +54%
Platinum: +52%
Natural Gas: +43%
Palladium: +32%
Wheat: +19%
Coffee: +13%
Gold: +3%
 
But the Federal Reserve insists that inflation is “low” and that we don’t have anything to be concerned about.
 
#7 The “most Googled sex question in 2020” certainly says a whole lot about where we are as a society today…
 
Data from the online health clinic From Mars released this week indicates the most Googled sex question in 2020, with more than 2 million searches, was: “What are the symptoms of chlamydia?”
 
#8 As I detailed earlier this month, cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis have all soared to all-time record highs in the United States. We want America to be great at a lot of things, but not at spreading sexually-transmitted diseases.
 
#9 The western half of the country is in the midst of a multi-year “megadrought”, and 2021 is the worst year of that megadrought so far by a very wide margin.
 
In fact, water levels are dropping so fast in Lake Powell and Lake Mead that authorities are on the verge of declaring “an official shortage” for the first time ever…
 
The US Bureau of Reclamation released 24-month projections last week forecasting that less Colorado River water will cascade down from the Rocky Mountains through Lake Powell and Lake Mead and into the arid deserts of the Southwest and the Gulf of California.
 
Water levels in the two lakes are expected to plummet low enough for the agency to declare an official shortage for the first time, threatening the supply of Colorado River water that growing cities and farms rely on.
 
#10 We have known for a very long time that government agencies endlessly spy on us, but now even the Postal Service is tracking and collecting our social media posts…
 
The law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service has been quietly running a program that tracks and collects Americans’ social media posts, including those about planned protests, according to a document obtained by Yahoo News.
 
The details of the surveillance effort, known as iCOP, or Internet Covert Operations Program, have not previously been made public. The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings and then sharing that information across government agencies.
 
When I visit my local Post Office I will never be able to look at the employees the same way again.
 
What in the world is happening to us?
 
Do we really need postal workers monitoring our Facebook accounts?
 
If they are supposed to be stopping “extremism”, it doesn’t appear to be working because we continue to see regular riots in Portland, Seattle and other major cities across the country.
 
Sadly, the truth is that our society is coming apart at the seams all around us, and it is only going to get worse in the years ahead.
 
America has been on the wrong path for decades, and all of the foolish decisions that we have made during those years are catching up with us in a major way.
 
Of course we could always choose to reverse course and start heading back in the right direction, but we all know that isn’t going to happen any time soon. 

 


 
Daily Jot: Biden advancing Iran at expense of US, Israel – Bill Wilson – www.dailyjot.com
 
The Biden Administration is insisting on reviving the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran—you know, the deal that kicked the nuke can down the alley and actually funded Iran’s nuclear ambitions by sending Iran $1.7 billion in cash, $400 million of it on pallets in a cargo plane. President Trump, calling it the worse deal in history, pulled out and put sanctions on the nuke-cheating country. Now Joe Biden is racing back to the deal that will help Iran attain nuclear weapons, and he is pressuring other countries in Europe and Asia to lift sanctions and pay the sanction money to Iran. Meantime, an envoy from Israel is on its way to Washington to try to talk some sense to Biden and his band of Iranian extremist sympathizers.
 
When asked if the Israeli delegation is likely to change the administration’s position in rejoining the Iran nuclear deal, Press Secretary Jan Psaki replied, “No.” She then said that the administration is keeping the Israelis “abreast as a key partner of these discussions, which she claimed were “ongoing” and “indirect” toward “the potential for a diplomatic path forward on the new, on a nuclear deal.” One might ask just how Israel can be a key partner in the discussions when the discussions are indirect, ongoing, and that Israel needs to be kept abreast of them. It seems that a key partner is someone who is involved in the discussions and decision-making. Maybe the question is answered by yet another twist.
 
Former Obama Secretary of State and current Biden National Security Council “Climate Envoy” John Kerry surfaced in the news as an informant to Iran. The story broke out of England by the news outlet Iran International saying it received an audio file with a brief sentence from [Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad] Zarif, where, in complaining he is kept in the dark about Iran’s national security issues, he asks rhetorically, “Should Kerry tell me that Israel has conducted more than 200 attacks [air strikes] against us in Syria?” Zarif does not say whether Kerry made the remark during his tenure as secretary of state or after the Trump administration took office, concluding, “This would make a big difference if Kerry were to stand accused of divulging intelligence to Zarif.”
 
The White House denies that Kerry divulged any secret information about Israel to Iran. The State Department says it won’t comment on whether Kerry gave the Iranians any classified information about Israeli airstrikes in Syria. The entire Biden-Iran policy and recent actions, including Kerry’s chummy galivanting under the guise of Climate Envoy, is looking like this administration is repeating the Obama-era placating of the world’s most prolific sponsor of terrorism, AND that it doesn’t mind if Iran has nuclear weapons. In Zechariah 12:9 the Lord says, “And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.” The Biden policies of aiding Iran and its hate of America and Israel will have no good outcome for any of us, although it advances the prophecy clock for the Day of the Lord. 

 


 
Daily Devotion: A Higher Standard - by Greg Laurie – www.harvest.org
 
All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. —2 Timothy 3:16
 
https://harvest.org/resources/devotion/a-higher-standard/ - Listen
 
When I was a kid, I was really into reptiles. So one year for my birthday, I asked my mother to take me to a place called the California Alligator Farm, which was in Buena Park next to Knott’s Berry Farm.
 
I invited a bunch of my friends to come with me for my birthday, and they all came. We went from cage to cage looking at reptiles, which are not always the liveliest creatures. Meanwhile, we could see Knott’s Berry Farm right over the fence. All of us were thinking the same thing: Why we are here looking at reptiles when we could be on a ride right now?
 
We were on the outside looking in.
 
Moses, too, found himself on the outside looking in. He lost his temper and wasn’t doing what the Lord had called him to do. So God told him, “Because you did not trust me enough to demonstrate my holiness to the people of Israel, you will not lead them into the land I am giving them!” (Numbers 20:12 NLT).
 
Why did God deal with Moses this way? It’s because God holds leaders to a higher standard. This is why the Bible says, “Not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1 NLT).
 
We can’t selectively pick and choose the things in the Bible that we want to follow. We can’t say, “I like this part of the Bible, but then there’s this one passage of Scripture . . . I don’t know if I agree with that.”
 
However, Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I command” (John 15:14 NLT). Notice that Jesus didn’t say, “Do whatever you find easy or whatever you personally agree with.”
 
We need to align our thoughts with what the Bible teaches. 

 



FROM THE HEART
    
Let Us Make the Short Time We have Left,
Count for ALL of Eternity!

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