Prophecy Update Newsletter
IN TODAY'S NEWSLETTER...Featured Article: People of the Son
Pence and Pew, Present and Future New Developments Watchman Warning: Government by Crisis Daily Jot: Deep State in the news Daily Devotion: The Heart of the Matter 
People of the Son - Pete Garcia -
http://www.omegaletter.com/articles/articles.asp?ArticleID=8578 I was heading into work one morning and I began to think about the Mel Gibson movie, Apocalypto. Not sure why exactly that movie popped into my head, but I have watched it several times. If you have not seen it, I will not spoil it for you, but the theme (at least to me) was about regime change and a family's way of life coming to an abrupt end. Although the movie dealt with the Mayan's, it got me thinking about a contemporary of theirs, the Aztecs. They were known as the people of the sun because they violently worshipped the sun-god Huitzilopochtli through bloody, ritualistic human sacrifice. I then began to think about all the empires that have come and gone. How all those people thought that the way they lived then, would be the way people always lived. How far have we come since? We know for most of history that people's lives were brutal and short. How much of that history was shrouded in the darkness of paganism and the worship of false gods? If God had to destroy Noah's world with the Flood because of the conditions then, how much worse does ours need to get before He acts again? Everywhere we look today, we can see war, violence, starvation, perverseness, corruption, and human misery. I wondered how much longer this would continue and when would the Church wake up? Back in 2012, I wrote an article titled "The Watchman and the Wall." My estimation then, as it is now, is that our world is increasingly becoming immune to the signs of the times. Not only that, but we are finding ourselves increasingly surrounded by other believers who refuse to accept the times we live in as prophetically significant. As frustrating as it is living in a world who is blind to the signs of the time, even more perplexing is how people who profess to believe in Jesus as Lord, seemingly have no interest in actually meeting Him. The bottom line is that we cannot make anyone understand anything, prophetically or otherwise. We can only point out the signs to our friends and family, but we cannot make them believe they mean anything. I remember asking Jack Kinsella years ago about how a Preterist can be so utterly wrong in their understanding of eschatology, yet possess the same Holy Spirit as I do. Doesn't the same Holy Spirit guide us into the same truth? Jack's response: About the only Christian doctrine upon which there is more or less universal agreement is that we are saved by grace through faith in the shed Blood and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. BUT, that is the only doctrine, in the final analysis, which really and truly bears eternal consequences. Preterists that trust Jesus for their salvation will meet up in heaven with futurists who trusted Jesus, who will fellowship with pre-tribbers, mid-tribbers and post-tribbers, who will fellowship with Calvinists and Arminians together. Because if you trust Jesus Christ for your salvation, then you will go to heaven. That is the central message of the Gospel. The rest is the product of our longing to know God, and know the things of God, while blinded by the limitations imposed on us by our earthly perspective. As the Apostle Paul put it, seeing the things of God 'through a glass, darkly'. Paul says we know only 'in part' but the part that we all agree on is the only part that really counts. Salvation by faith. In the story of the Tower of Babel, God explains how the various ethnic nations came to be. "And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." (Genesis 11:6-7) By scattering man 'among the nations' and removing the common bond of language and ethnicity, God ensured that no one man could ever again rule all men, as Nimrod did until the construction of the Tower of Babel. It prevented any one culture or worldview to dominate all mankind. That diversity is what allowed Christianity to flourish at the point when it was introduced into history. The reason is because Christianity is a personal relationship with Christ, rather than a commonly-accepted cultural duty. God built that same diversity into the Church, which accounts for how and why sincere Christians can read the same Scriptures and come up with such widely divergent doctrines as preterist, historicism, and pretribulationist futurism. It prevents any one teacher from becoming the only accepted source of information of the things of God. If everybody agreed on every point of doctrine, then the guy who articulates it the best becomes the Great Oracle of God. (And what if he was wrong?) So we have diversity of understanding, but the same Scripture. And we have diversity of teachings, but share the same salvation by grace through faith. And we are equally sincere, because we share the same awesome responsibility of accountability before the Lord. In the end, we will be judged by how we used the doctrine God delivered to us to lead others to salvation in Christ. The necessity of diversity of understanding in the Church Age is adequately demonstrated by a peek across the divide into the coming 'Time of Jacob's Trouble' after the Church Age is concluded. During the Tribulation, that diversity of understanding is replaced by a universal religion imposed by the false prophet and directed toward the worship of antichrist. (Jack Kinsella, Letting God Sort it Out) Assessment Eschatology is a biblical doctrine focusing primarily on the study of last things. It is a component (or subsection) of Bible prophecy specifically dealing with the future events centering on the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Any eschatological position outside the confines of the Biblically ordained Pre-Millennial, Pre-Tribulation (or Pre-70th Week) Rapture (Harpazo, catching up), is just plain old bad eschatology. Eschatology, like other doctrinal positions in the Bible, are not taught in multiple, contradictory ways. In other words, there is only one correct position for any given doctrine. How WE interpret those Scriptures is what drives the multiple variations we currently see taught today. Bad interpretation equals bad doctrine. Bad eschatology is equivalent to the Flat-Earth Theory in terms of its misguided and erroneous proposals. Yet, as ridiculous as the flat earth theory is these days (given what we now know), it was at least understandable for those in ancient times. They might have believed the earth was flat because they had no way to prove one way or the other until Magellan's expedition. Bad eschatology from the 2nd - 20th centuries was equally understandable, given the dormancy Bible prophecy seemed to find itself. Without Israel in her land and a Jewish temple standing, we (humanity) lost our prophetic timepiece and no longer knew when or where we were on God's prophetic calendar. Unbeknownst to us though was that God was busy building the stage for the final drama which is about to unfold. It was "understandable" that for most of Christian history, the Church did not understand where they were prophetically speaking, since they had nothing to base their position. From that confusion, arose numerous flawed eschatological positions that dominated for different periods. Amillennialism: First promoted by Augustine around the 4th-century (City of God circa 426AD) that there is no literal 1,000 year reign of Christ on the earth. Hence the 'A' as used as a negative like atheist or apolitical). Postmillennialism: First promoted in the 17th-century (Savoy Declaration circa 1658) that it was the duty of the Church to build the kingdom up here on the earth so that Christ could return and claim His throne and rule for an unspecified period of time. Preterism: Praeter means past in Latin and was held as an unofficial view by many around Christendom from the 3rd century until now. They viewed the events of Revelation having found either full or partial fulfillment with the destruction of Jerusalem and the subsequent Jewish diaspora of the 1st century. First officially promoted by the Roman Catholic Jesuit priest Luis del Alcázar in 1614 (published after his death) entitled Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi. This was considered the first major counter-eschatology to Protestantism's Historicism. Historicism: First promoted by the Protestants of the 16-19th centuries, they believed that prophetic fulfillment had found/is finding its fulfillment throughout the centuries. Thus major events such as Roman Catholicism, Napoleon, Hitler, etc., are actual fulfillments of the Revelation. The aforementioned positions are complimentary and often used in conjunction with each other's position. They each (in their own variation) replace Israel with the Church. They each put the onus of Christ return on the church's ability to set the conditions on the earth. They each deny the Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Church. However, the ones listed below are erroneous views found solely within the confines of Premillennialism. Premillennialism is the only truly Biblical eschatological position and it teaches that Christ will return at the Second Coming to establish His own kingdom. However, where there are errors, they primarily center on the Church's role inside Daniel's 70th Week, and when the Rapture occurs. Pre-Wrath: First promoted in the 1970's by Robert van Kampen, this view posits that the Church goes through 3/4th's of the 70th Week (i.e., the wrath of man and Satan), but then is spared the Wrath of God (presumably only the Bowl Judgments) via Rapture. Mid-Tribulation: First promoted by many of the Early Church Fathers (ECF) that viewed the entirety of the Tribulation only lasting three and a half years. This was later repackaged in the 20th-century and is currently being absorbed into the Pre-Wrath view. Post-Tribulation: First promoted by some of the Early Church Fathers who failed to distinguish between the Rapture of the Church and the Second Coming. Aside from the Pre-Trib Rapture position, the Post-Trib position is probably the second most popular. Partial-Rapture: This view has been around since the first century, and it promotes the view that Christian's will be raptured according to their faithfulness. Pan-Tribulation: Primarily a belief held by 20th-century believers in rejection of the increased attention and focus on Bible prophecy. Promotes a laissez faire attitude of "why bother study" as things will all pan out. Conclusion While born-again Christians CAN hold to any of the above views and remain saved, the equivalence of adhering to them is akin to 21st-century believers continuing to believe the earth is flat despite the evidence. According to Scripture, Israel is back as nation in her ancient land. (Ezekiel 37, Amos 9:14-15, Isaiah 11:11) The Jews have reclaimed Jerusalem as their ancient capital. (Zech. 12:1-3, Luke 21:24) Modern technology is pushing the world towards a singular system of government, economics, and religion. (Rev. 13) Modern culture continues to digress morally, politically, ethically, and theologically. (2 Tim. 3:1-7, 2 Peter 3) Nations are aligning themselves according to biblical geopolitics. (Ezekiel 38-39) The world is experiencing an increase (like birth pangs) in natural and man-caused disasters in the form of wars, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, droughts, fires, and pestilence. (Matt. 24:3-14) Instead of the signs of the times being big neon signs that seemingly illuminate the darkness for everyone to see, maybe we should see them as appearing in a hallway that is increasingly growing darker. Proper eschatology (Premillennial/Pre-Tribulation) then is the flashlight by which makes what was unseen or hidden, easier to see and understand. The purpose of a flashlight is to see in the dark when all the lights have gone out. All born-again Christians have this innate "flashlight" potential, but most refuse to use it properly. The Aztecs and Mayans were heavily into prophecy and took every sign they believed in seriously. Too bad they followed after false gods and believed in human sacrifice, we could have used some of their enthusiasm today amongst our ranks (minus the human sacrificing). I, like you, are probably very thankful that we were not born the people of the sun, but rather, the born-again people of The Son. The principal reason why God gave us a Bible full of prophecy was so that He could tell us beforehand what would happen, and WE would believe (John 13:39). God does not need prophecy for His benefit, He already knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10). It was meant to be light in a dark place for us, as the Apostle Peter would say. And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter 2:19-21 Pence and Pew, Present and Future - By Caroline Glick - www.jpost.com Vice President Mike Pence gave an epic speech at the Knesset this week. His was the most powerful embrace of Zionism and the Jewish people any foreign leader has ever presented. Pence's fluency in Jewish history and his comprehension of the centrality of the both the Bible and the Land of Israel in the vast flow of that history in far-flung-exile communities across time and space was spellbinding. He touched the hearts of his audience, causing knots in the throats of most of the people sitting in the Knesset on Monday afternoon. Pence's speech was rendered poignant and the friendship he bore became tinged with urgency with the publication, the very next day, of the latest Pew Center survey on American views of Israel. Speaking in the name of the American people he represents, Pence said on Monday: "The friendship between our people has never been deeper." And when it comes to the Republican voters who elected President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence a year and two months ago, Pence is certainly correct. But the Pew data showed that on Israel, as on so many other issues, the cleavage between Republicans and Democrats is vast and unbridgeable. Most of the coverage of the Pew survey focused reasonably on its main finding. The good news is that overall American support for Israel over the Palestinians remains more or less constant, and overwhelming. Forty-six percent of Americans support Israel over the Palestinians while a mere 16% of Americans support the Palestinians against Israel. The numbers haven't changed much since polling began in 1978. But then the news becomes more fraught. The disparity between Republican support for Israel and Democratic support for Israel has never been greater. Whereas 79% of Republicans support Israel over the Palestinians, only 27% of Democrats do. Moreover, the further one goes to the Left among Democratic voters, the more anti-Israel the respondents become. Liberal Democrats are now nearly twice as likely to support the Palestinians over Israel as they are to support Israel over the Palestinians. Thirty-five percent of liberal Democrats support the Palestinians against Israel. A mere 19% support Israel more than the Palestinians. Conservative and moderate Democrats still support Israel far more than they support the Palestinians with 35% of moderate and conservative Democrats supporting Israel over the Palestinians, and 17% supporting the Palestinians more than Israel. But the level of support for Israel among this demographic has dropped precipitously in the last year and a half. In the previous survey, which took place in April 2016, support for Israel was 53%, or 19 points higher. In other words, the last year and a half have seen a precipitous drop in Democratic support for Israel even as Republican support for Israel has grown ever higher. For Israel's leaders, as distressing as these numbers are, they don't give an indication of how Israel should relate to the vast disparities in US support for Israel as they plot policies for the future. The survey does provide that answer though. The last question in the survey asked respondents about the viability of the so-called two-state solution. They were asked, "Can a way be found for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully or not?" The answers were notable. While among the general population, faith in the two-state solution runs 49% to 39%, that support is indirectly proportionate to respondents' support for Israel. The more they support Israel, the less they believe in the two-state solution. Americans who support the Palestinians more than they support Israel, believe in the viability of the two-state solution runs 64% to 28%. Americans who support Israel more than the Palestinians view the two-state solution as nonviable by a margin of 40% to 51%. On the face of things, this seems like an anomaly. For a generation, three successive administrations have insisted not only that the two-state solution is the only path to peace and security for Israel and the Palestinians. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all insisted that Israel's very survival as a Jewish state is contingent on it surrendering land it has held for 50 years to the PLO. Americans have been told that the only way to truly care about Israel is to support the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem. And here we see that the US public has reached the opposite conclusions. Americans who oppose Israel support the establishment of a Palestinian state along the lines set out by Clinton, Bush, and Obama. Americans who support Israel view such a prospect as impossible. What explains this disparity? Two data points in the survey point to a reasonable explanation. According to the survey, the greatest leap in Republican support for Israel occurred since 2001. In the past 17 years, Republican support for Israel leaped from 50% to 79%. On the Democratic side, an opposite trend occurred. Since 2001, Democratic support for Israel has dropped from 38% to 27%. Two events occurred in 2001 that set the parties on disparate paths: the September 11 attacks and the disputed results of the 2000 presidential race between Al Gore and Bush. The September 11 attacks caused Republican voters to study the Middle East, including Israel, more closely than they ever had before. And the more familiar they became with Islamism, jihad and the other pathologies of the Arab world, the more supportive of Israel they became. The fact that the Palestinians rejected peace at the Camp David summit in July 2000 and that by the time the September 11 attacks occurred they were engaged in the largest terrorist onslaught against Israel in history, reinforced the sense among Republicans that Israel is the US's closest ally in the war on Islamic terrorism. On the other hand, the Democrats' rejection of the legitimacy of the 2000 election results set the party on a course of radicalization. The best indication of the Democrats' radicalization in Israel came with the precipitous downfall of Senator Joseph Lieberman. Lieberman was a liberal hawk, an ardent supporter of Israel and a proud Jew. In 2000 his positions had sufficient traction among Democratic voters to cause Gore to select him as his running mate in the presidential election. Just six years later, a transformed Democratic party rejected Lieberman when he ran for reelection to his Senate seat in the Democratic primary in Connecticut. His challenger, Ned Lamont, defeated Lieberman after running a campaign laced with antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Lieberman's longtime ally, then-senator from New York Hillary Clinton, who was looking forward to the 2008 presidential race, refused to support him. Today Democratic presidential hopefuls like New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker have discarded their previous support for Israel to satisfy their party's increasingly radical, anti-Israel base. The Democrats' move to the Left has caused them to ascribe increasingly to identity politics as the basis for policy-making. Identity politics dictate a pecking order of victims. The greater a group's status as a victim, the more the Democrats support it. In this taxonomy, Israel has been determined to be an oppressor, and the Palestinians are defined as the victims. The problem with identity politics, at least insofar as Israel is concerned, is that there is no basis in fact for the determination that Israel is the bad guy and the Palestinians are the good guys. To the contrary. As the steep rise in Republican support over the past 17 years demonstrates, the more you know, the greater the likelihood that you will support Israel. Rather than being a fact-based conclusion, the determination that Israel is bad and the Palestinians are good is an ideological dictate. And this presents Israel with an intractable problem as far as Democrats are concerned. Israel cannot reason Democrats out of an anti-Israel position that they weren't reasoned into. Israel has no ability whatsoever to convince the Democrats to rethink their animosity when they never thought about it, to begin with. They simply accepted the dictates of their political and ideological camp. This brings us back to Pence, and the Trump administration's extraordinary, voter-supported friendship for Israel and what it means for Israel today, as the prospect of an impossibly hostile Democratic administration in as little as three years lurks in the corner. The most significant "news" that Pence announced in his address was Trump's determination to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem by the end of 2019. This is important because, given the hostility of the Democrats, there is every reason to believe that if a Democratic administration takes power in 2021, Trump's decision to move the embassy will be canceled if it hasn't already happened. Just as this is the time for the US to move its embassy to Israel's capital, now is also the time for Israel to ditch the failed two-state model before it is too late. Israel will never have a better opportunity than it has today to convince an American administration to abandon the anti-Israel narrative at the foundation of the two-state formula. That narrative, which asserts that there is no peace because there is no Palestinian state, places the blame for the absence of peace between the Palestinians and Israel on Israel alone. Today there is an administration that is open to hearing an alternative narrative that portrays Israel properly as the good guy, and the Palestinians as the hopelessly intransigent foe that they have always been. Now is the time for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his colleagues in the government to be speaking this plain truth in one voice. And now is the time for them to decide on, explain and implement a policy based on Israel's rights and interests that will secure Israel's strategic viability and position vis-à -vis the Palestinians for years to come. Such a policy, which will involve applying Israeli law over large swaths of Judea and Samaria, is clear, easy to explain and will successfully ensure the civil rights of Jews and Arabs alike for generations. No, Israel's efforts to explain itself will not crack through the closed intellectual circle of identity politics and partisanship. But that is why Israel needs to act now so that the new policy is explained and implemented along the same timetable as the US Embassy moves to Jerusalem. By the time the 2020 US election campaign begins, Israel should have already determined and implemented its new policy. As Pence demonstrated so eloquently at the Knesset this week, Israel has a friend the likes of which it has never seen in the White House today. And if President Trump is not president in January 2021, Israel will face an administration that will make us miss Obama. Pence and Pew showed us what we have and what awaits us. Now is the time for Israel to act. New Developments - By Daymond Duck - http://www.raptureready.com/2018/01/28/new-developments-daymond-duck/ There are new developments in some areas of Bible prophecy that should get our attention. First, everyone that studies Bible prophecy knows that we are living in perilous times (II Tim. 3:1). This was quite evident on Jan. 13, 2018 when the Hawaiian government issued an emergency alert: "Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill." This was followed by 38 minutes of terror in Hawaii. People panicked, prayed, cried, screamed, called loved ones, etc. Praise be to God, the emergency alert was a mistake, but what if it wasn't a mistake? In his Facebook post, Dr. Franklin Graham asked, "What would you do if you only had 20 minutes to live? Would you call on the name of God? Would you ask for forgiveness of your sins? Would you contact your loved ones?" The purpose of this article is not to give the reader advice (confess sins, repent, accept Jesus, buy iodine tablets, store food and water, establish a family meeting place, witness to children, grandchildren, etc.). These are important things to do, but the purpose of this article is to remind everyone that the time to think about what to do is now. Obviously, spiritual preparation is more important than physical preparation. But waiting until one is in a state of panic with perhaps only 20 minutes to do so is not wise. Second, everyone that studies Bible prophecy knows that the Jewish Temple will be rebuilt (Dan. 9:26; Matt. 24:15; II Thess. 2:4). In 2001, Israel decided to build an underground high-speed railroad from its Ben Gurion International Airport to downtown Jerusalem. In 2016, Israel decided that many travelers will want to visit the Temple Mount when the Temple is rebuilt. For that reason, Israel made plans to extend the railroad to the Temple Mount, build a station, build 27,000 new hotel rooms by 2026, and more. At two people per room, 27,000 new hotel rooms will handle more than 50,000 people a day over and above those who are going there now. In May 2017, Pres. Trump became the first sitting Pres. of the U.S. to visit the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. On Dec. 6, 2017, Pres. Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. On Dec. 26, 2017, Israel's Transportation Minister said the railroad will be called the King David Railroad because King David was the first to establish Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It was also announced that the train station will be named the Donald J. Trump Station. On Jan. 15, 2018, it was reported that Israel's high-speed train and the Donald J. Trump Station are expected to be complete just in time for Passover (Mar. 30-Apr.7, 2018). A spokesman for the United Temple Movement suggested that there is a need to add a second train with at least some cattle cars to transport animals for the animal sacrifices. Only God knows when the Temple will be rebuilt, but it is exciting to read these things in the news. Third, everyone that studies Bible prophecy knows that a war called the Battle of Gog and Magog will take place in the latter days and latter years (Ezek. 38-39). Troops from Russia, Iran, Turkey and other nations will die on the Mountains of Israel in an attempt to wipe out the Jewish nation. Despite warnings from Israel, Iran continues to ship powerful weapons to Syria and to build up her military forces there. The situation has become so dangerous that Pres. Trump has reversed his position on removing U.S. troops from Syria after ISIS is finally defeated. Mr. Trump now intends to keep America's bases and troops in Syria. It also seems significant that Pres. Trump has now said that he has re-certified the Iranian nuclear deal for the last time. He has warned that it must be changed or he will let it expire when it comes up for renewal in May. How the presence of American troops and bases in Syria and the expiration of the Iranian nuclear deal will impact the Battle of Gog and Magog remains to be seen. Fourth, everyone that studies Bible prophecy knows that there will eventually be a peace agreement between Israel and the PA. But the PA is refusing to work with Pres. Trump. In mid-Jan, Pres. Trump cut U.S. contributions to the UNRWA that were destined for the PA by $65 million. A few days later, he cut food aid contributions to the UNRWA by $40 million. On Jan. 20-21, 2018, Pres. Trump asked the Egyptians and Jordanians to deliver a strong warning to the PA to start cooperating on the peace negotiations or he will really make things hard on them. In conclusion, know that God puts leaders in office to do His will. The prophetic situation in the Middle East is changing and it will turn out exactly the way the Word of God says. Prophecy Plus Ministries, Inc. Daymond & Rachel Duck [email protected] Watchman Warning: Government by Crisis - By Hal Lindsey - https://www.hallindsey.com/ww-1-28-2018/ At the beginning of 2017, no one could have foreseen the series of massive hurricanes that hit the United States. Even minutes before it happened, no one could foresee the large earthquake that recently hit the Gulf of Alaska. And if we had foreseen these events, we still couldn't have stopped them. We know that natural disasters will come, but we don't know when. And we can't prevent them. To some extent, we can prepare. But mostly, we respond. A budget crisis is not a natural disaster. It is completely manmade. But because it is a crisis, government reacts instead of acting. The recent budget agreement funds the US government through February 8. Even after all that effort, and all that drama, the continuing resolution will end in a matter of days. This is an example of America's dysfunction. For many years now, the government has lurched from one crisis to another. Like the budget, most of these crises have been of our own making. When it takes the threat of a long-term government shutdown for Congress to get anything done, it precludes the thoughtful, deliberative process envisioned by America's founders. The problem is not with the system, but with the spiritual condition of the country trying to operate that system. John Adams was the second President, and one of the architects of the American model of democracy. He said, "We have no government... capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other." During the 1992 Los Angeles riot, the man at the center of it all, Rodney King, made a television appearance. He said, "I just want to say - you know - can we all get along? Can we, can we get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids?... I mean, we're all stuck here for a while, let's, you know let's try to work it out." Can we get along? The US economy seems to be in high gear. A lot of good things are happening. But the underlying divisions in this country grow wider and deeper by the day. We're divided into a thousand tribes. Some are based on race or gender. Others have to do with religion, or political affiliation. It's popularly called "identity politics." Jesus warned us about "identity politics" as a sign of the end times. In Matthew 24:7, He said, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom." (NASB) At first glance, it looks like He's being redundant, saying twice that countries will rise against one another. But as I've pointed out before, the word here translated "nation" is the Greek word "ethnos." It means race or tribe. In our time, we might say, "People group will rise against people group." That's "identity politics." When people group rise against one another, it tears at the seams holding civilization together. And in a country as diverse as the United States, there are a lot of potential seams. Oddly enough, while societies around the world are being fractured, they are also headed for consolidation. Eventually, the whole world will briefly unify under the control of the Antichrist and False Prophet. But the consolidations have already begun. It's fascinating that the people who are most passionate in their identity politics are also the ones pushing global government. In other words, the chaos of people group rising against people group is actually good for globalists. In chaos, people cry out for imposed order. Those who seek out their different groups for security will for a short-while think the world leadership of the Antichrist and False Prophet will give them security. They will only find utter destruction. The followers of Christ must stand on biblical principles, and those principles will increasingly become more popular as the coming of Christ draws near. But when "people group rise against people group," we don't have to take part. Ephesians 2:14 speaks of Christ bridging the gap between Jewish and Gentile Christians. It applies to all potential divisions among real believers. "For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation." (NKJV) Christians should never be at enmity with one another, or with the world. The most famous verse in the New Testament begins, "For God so loved the world...." (John 3:16) That He loves the world means He loves everyone. If He loves everyone, so should His followers. The Lord Jesus is rapidly coming to catch us up to meet Him instantaneously in Heaven. That event called the Rapture is very near. Be sure that you have asked the Lord Jesus to receive you as your Lord and Savior, and received His death on the cross to pay for all your sins and Forgive you. If you prayed that prayer and meant it, you have just entered God's Kingdom forever. Daily Jot: Deep State in the news - Bill Wilson - www.dailyjot.com There's a lot of news to end the week. The Justice Department has used forensics to recover the missing texts from anti-Trump FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. Attorney General Jeff Sessions told FOX News, Strzok and Page exchanged an estimated 50,000 texts across four phones during their affair and efforts to undermine President Donald Trump. These texts just happen to cover the time from Trump's inauguration through the firing of FBI Director James Comey and the establishment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. Strzok and Page may have been part of a secret society against Trump lodged within the FBI. Congressman John Ratliffe (R-TX) Monday said on Fox News, "We learned today about information that in the immediate aftermath of [Trump's] election, that there may have been a secret society of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI -- to include Page and Strzok -- that would be working against him." FOX News also reported, "In another infamous message, Strzok appeared to make reference to an "insurance policy" against a Trump win. Strzok wrote, "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office - that there's no way he gets elected - but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40..." According to Politico, Strzok and Page also were involved in discussing a possible Hillary Clinton Special Counsel-but it appears from a different vantage. They didn't want an investigation to go forward because, as Page texted to Strzok, "One more thing: she might be our next president. The last thing you need us going in there loaded for bear. You think she's going remember or care that it was more DOJ than FBI?" Strzok replied, "Agreed." The texts also indicate that Page was a leak to Devlin Barrett of the Wall Street Journal. It is not known whether she was leaking classified information or trying to shape the narrative to protect Clinton, but we do know that she was strongly biased against Trump. It is difficult to imagine that Strzok and Page were the only two people in the FBI who were plotting against Trump. These are the ones who got caught. When Trump claimed that there was a deep state within the government undermining America, the globalists, socialist and their media minions claimed he was crazy. But most everything Trump has said about the ex "president" spying on him to deep state conspiracies to no Russian collusion is proving out. The big collusion is between the globalist establishment cabal and the media trying to undermine the will of the people. It is like 2 Timothy 3:13, "But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." These people are like a deep-rooted malignant tumor. It's going to take a lot of digging to remove them because the deep state is rooted in the news. Daily Devotion: The Heart of the Matter - By Greg Laurie - www.harvest.org "But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." -Matthew 9:13 When Jesus walked this earth, He reserved His most scathing words for self-righteous, religious hypocrites. When a woman caught in the act of adultery was brought before Jesus, the religious elite said to Him, "Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?" (John 8:5). Jesus stooped down and began writing something in the sand. Whatever He wrote must have been very revealing, because one by one, they all left, from the oldest to the youngest. Then Jesus turned to the woman and said, "Where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?" (verse 10). "I have none Lord," she said. "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more" (verse 11). He could have said, "Haven't you heard what the Bible says? Why are you breaking the commandments of God?" But Jesus didn't give her a lecture. In fact, He got rid of the religious hypocrites and dealt with her graciously. I think Jesus knew she already had realized the enormity of her sin and was willing to turn from it. Thus, He pardoned her. Does that mean Jesus approved of the way she lived? Far from it. God is very clear about how He wants us to live. I think we spend too much time boycotting what nonbelievers do and not enough time giving them the answer to their problems. There is a place to say what we're against. But the bottom line is that people are empty. They need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let's expend our energy there. Let's expend our energy in proclaiming the gospel, because the heart of the matter is that people are lost. They need Christ, and we need to take that message to them. 
FROM THE HEART
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