Hal Lindsey Report: Tribulation Preview
Ever wonder what the last days of this age will look like? Well… look around.
Please don’t misunderstand. This is not the tribulation that Jesus, Daniel, and others in the Bible warned about. We who know Christ will be gone before that begins. But as we get closer to that time, we can see how those events are preparing to play out.
A Drudge Report headline on March 9th read, “Market Bloodbath.” Later in the day, the Drudge Headline said, “Italy Quarantines Entire Country.” The USA Today headline said, “Midwest farmers face a crisis. Hundreds are dying by suicide.” Later, the USA Today lead headline said, “Dow plummets 2,000 points, oil prices drop as global recession concerns mount.” The lead story in the Jerusalem Post said, “All travelers returning to Israel from abroad will enter isolation.”
People are ill at ease, frightened, skittish, worried. The financial unrest caused by the coronavirus COVID-19 is making matters worse. Then over the weekend, Russia and Saudi Arabia began an oil price war. Markets are down close to 20% from all time highs less than a month ago. That illustrates the volatility of a world in rebellion against God.
Despite our shortcomings and sin, I hear nothing about repentance or having sorrow for wickedness. In Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Day proclamation of 1861, he wrote about God’s ongoing provision for the nation despite the terrible war. He said that these good things, “…are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”
Lincoln went on to invite his fellow citizens “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.”
Even in Thanksgiving, he spoke of humility and repentance before God.
In 1789, President George Washington also set aside a day of thanksgiving for all Americans. His proclamation said, “It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.”
Washington said the day should “be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks.” But Washington did not stop with proclaiming thanks to God. He said it would also be a day to beseech God “to pardon our national and other transgressions.”
Those are a examples of the leadership that made America a nation where more people have lived in more freedom and with more prosperity than any nation in the history of the world. Yes, they were flawed leaders, but their ideals set in motion something extraordinary — something that has greatly blessed the whole earth.
First, they were thankful to God. Second, they were humble before God. Third, they were actively repentant.
Today is a totally different story. Today, public repentance would not be politically correct. To repent implies the existence sin, and the righteous expectations of God that we as a nation fail to meet.
It’s another preview of the tribulation. Revelation 9:21 is one of the most remarkable verses in all the Bible. Terrible calamities will have fallen on the earth by that time — calamities that are a direct result of human sin. But John, being given a vision of those future events, tells us, “They did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.”
But today, the church is still here. We can’t make the world repent, but we can provide an example of repentance and humility before God. We the Church can humble ourselves and pray. We can seek His face. We can turn from wickedness and sin. While we remain in this world, we are to be salt and light within it.
The Bible contains many vivid descriptions of something that did not exist until the middle of the 20th century — thermonuclear war. Led by the United States, the world just took a huge step toward that predicted nuclear apocalypse, the days of Antichrist, and “the time of Jacob’s trouble.” The deal with Iran is that bad.
When I began to study Bible prophecy over 60 years ago, I saw signs even then that we were approaching the end of the age. I knew that I might very well live to see days like this one — days when my own beloved country would help usher in and facilitate unthinkable evil. But knowing in advance doesn’t mitigate the pain of seeing it before my own eyes.
Even ten years is a blink of history’s eye. The other nations of the region will see ten years as the outermost deadline for building their own nuclear arsenals. Because they knew this was coming, several have already been at work on the project. But the existence of an actual agreement will spur them on.
Sunni nations like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, the UAE, and Qatar feel threatened by Iran. And it’s not just paranoia. Iran has been exporting their Shia Muslim revolution for decades now, and it’s beginning to really take hold. With Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and now Yemen largely under Iran’s control, Saudi Arabia is almost surrounded.
With President Bashar al-Assad now in Iran’s pocket, and Hezbollah dependant on them, Iran is already at Israel’s door. In May, Haaretz reported, “As-Safir, known for its pro-Hezbollah stance, revealed that the terrorist group has large amounts of forces stationed near the Israel-Lebanon border, as well as numerous tunnels, bunkers and surveillance equipment, in addition to tens of thousands of rockets.”
Who built those tens of thousands of rockets, and gave them to Hezbollah? IRAN.
Iran already partially controls the world’s two most vulnerable oil choke points — the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Aden. When Iranian oil is suddenly dumped into the world marketplace, we can expect oil prices to drop dramatically. But they already have the ability to choke off a huge part of the world’s oil supply of they choose. In a few months, you may be driving with $2-a-gallon gas. But in a few years, you may be taking out a second mortgage just to get a fill-up.
We need to see that the Iranian threat is not just to Israel, but to civilization itself across the globe.
The thermonuclear threat now looms large over the Middle East. But we shouldn’t be surprised. The Bible warned us. Zechariah 14:12 gives one of the more memorable prophecies. How would a person in the 6th century BC describe a nuclear blast’s effect on a human body? Like this. “Now this will be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongue will rot in their mouth.”
The Great Tribulation is obviously close. Christians can count on the LORD taking us out before the extreme trouble comes. Since in the Bible’s timetable, the Rapture comes before that, we should be looking up with renewed expectancy. We should be praying fervently, and witnessing with urgency. We need to be busy doing those things that matter most. We don’t have much time left. Thank God that before nuclear weapons destroy Israel, the LORD will miraculously save Israel from destruction.
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