In presenting this week’s commentary, I must be careful to preface my thoughts. This is to make clear that I fully realize that the nation of which I am a citizen has no special, private, import, or status within God’s prophetic dealing with mankind, so far as its people being a restraint against the influence of evil is concerned. I can say only that I believe America is, very likely, the nation in which the highest number of Christians reside.
By “Christians,” I mean people who are “born again” in the sense of the words Jesus spoke on the matter of salvation as recorded in John 3:3-7. As a matter of fact, the United States has descended from being the most Christ-centered to, perhaps, the most base nation on the planet, in terms of exportation of the world’s entertainment filth. With the constitutionally legalized murder of more than 4,000 babies in the womb per day, we have spit in the face of the Almighty, telling Him that His love for the human race means nothing in view of expediency in the matter of lust for pleasure.
That established–that America is no longer the shining city on the hill to be admired–the United States still possesses the residual vestiges of greatness. The nation retains, I believe, remnants of the Christian ethic sufficient to be an influence in these closing days of the Age of Grace.
What I am saying–at least it is my intention to say–is that the born again within this nation do, indeed, have a special and private duty to perform in these times that look to be very near the first phase of Christ’s Second Coming. Because of American Christians and their position within present history as the Church Age closes, I’m convinced that we can examine a specific prophetic section of God’s Word and receive insight as to precisely where we stand as a generation on Heaven’s prophetic timeline. That specific prophetic section is found in the following verses:
And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming. (2 Thessalonians 2:6-8)
The reference “he who now letteth” in this passage is to God, the Holy Spirit–the third Person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit, Paul is prophesying, has been and is acting as restrainer of evil in the present world. God, the Holy Spirit, will continue to restrain the end-times evil until God removes from acting as the restraining influence during this Church-Age dispensation.
We who believe in the pretribulation, premillennial view of Bible prophecy hold that the Holy Spirit indwells each born again (saved) person during this Age of Grace (Church Age). Christians are thus known, collectively, as the church. The church, indwelt by God the Holy Spirit, is the Body of Christ, individually and corporately. It is this body of believers who act as salt and light for a world of corruptive evil that would otherwise bring about total decay, causing every area of human existence to implode.
The Holy Spirit will, therefore, the above prophecy informs, live within and exert influence through believers in Jesus Christ until the moment God no longer acts as restrainer of this world’s evil. This truth provides the answer to the question that is being asked prolifically in one form or another: When will all of the evil that is threatening America and the world bring civilization crashing down?
Some of that evil that looms threateningly over our daily lives brings worried glances from even the most ardent skeptics of Bible prophecy. An economic storm of unprecedented magnitude hangs angrily above America, with national debt that just turned $20 trillion as the Democrat Party–chief among contributors to the fiscal madness asks us once again to put its ultra-liberal candidate into the presidency.— (The Republican Party, it must be said, contributed mightily to the staggering debt load as well.)
It amazes even the global gurus of finance as to why the world isn’t already crushed by the impending economic crash. Iran’s leadership tells Israeli leaders practically every day that they intend to wipe the Jewish state from the face of the earth. They do little to hide the fact that they are in the process of bringing into reality nuclear weapons that can make their destructive wishes a fait accompli.
With such an avowed, blood-thirsty enemy, missiles trained on Israel and, some believe, on the very brink of producing atomic weaponry, it astonishes many observers that the Israeli Defense Force hasn’t already risked initiating all-out war by destroying Iran’s nuclear production facilities.
Absolute evil pervades every strata of society. The days like those of Sodom and of the antediluvian times of Noah inflict debauchery and violence that only a decade ago would have seemed far distant. Islam is allowed to usurp, in some cases, the U.S. Constitution, favoring Sharia Law in order to show tolerance. At the same time, Christianity is pushed to the margins of society and held up as intolerant by the tolerance police–through the insane institutions many of the federal courts have become.
Yet, the world holds together, while seeming to be on the very cusp of “Implosion,” as the title of Joel Rosenberg’s book would have it.
The Restrainer is at work. I believe that’s the answer to why the implosion has not happened, bringing total devastation to this judgment-bound earth. When the Restrainer removes and the church is called to be with Christ, I’m convinced the impending horrors that have for so long engendered the questions about the end will fall instantly upon a Christ-rejecting world.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped President Barack Obama would not back any new UN initiatives on Palestinian-Israeli peace in the final weeks of his term.
“I very much hope President Obama will continue the policy he enunciated,” Netanyahu said Tuesday in a video address ending the annual Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly, which was held in Washington, D.C this year. The Israeli prime minister was refering to a 2011 statement by Obama in which the president said that a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was best left to the parties and not to outside actors.
In Israel and among some pro-Israel groups, there is concern that Obama in his final weeks will back a UN push to recognize Palestinian statehood or lay down the parameters of a final-status agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. Obama has not indicated plans to do any such thing.
Thankfully, enough Americans decided, whether they were aware of it or not, not to vote for war and elect Donald Trump.
Today the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and President-elect Trump had a far different phone call than the one brilliantly ad-libbed by Peter Sellers 53 years ago. And the world is a potentially much safer place than yesterday.
For all practical purposes U.S. has been at war with Russia since 2013. Officially? No. But we haven’t officially gone to war since 1941, so that’s irrelevant.
In a de facto sense, the Obama administration launched a hybrid war against Russia in the wake of Obama’s embarrassment over his failure to get a coalition to invade Syria over a false flag chemical weapons attack.
Trump’s election creates a trifecta of potential outcomes not possible with a Clinton victory.
First, ending hostilities in Syria is no longer a hope resting on the battle-worn SAA forces and the Russian Air Force’s logistical prowess. Trump has already had an effect in Syria. Obama ordered U.S. forces there to begin attacking Al-Qaeda forces there.
This was something he refused to do for months. Obama already began bargaining with his successor, likely to save his own skin if his involvement in Hillary’s shady dealings are deeper than has been revealed so far.
Second, it further isolates German Chancellor Angela Merkel as she attempts to hold to a hard line on Russian economic sanctions. She’s doing this to appear strong in the face of local revolts all over eastern Europe.
In one week, the European map has become a lot less hostile to Russia. Estonia, Bulgaria and Moldova all threw out Russo phobic governments since Trump was elected on Tuesday. Individually, these states have little influence on EU policy.
But in the prevailing political climate they materially strengthen Euroskeptic movements in the core EU states like France, Austria and Germany itself where Merkel is struggling to hold back an insurgent rise of Alternate for Germany (AfD) who rise is threatening Merkel’s coalition.
And most importantly, Trump and Putin agreeing on foreign policy approaches could create the climate over the next four years to broker a lasting peace between Israel and the rest of the Arab World.
Trump knows he has a bad hand to negotiate with in Syria. But there are a ton of chips to be brought to the table – sanctions relief, de-escalation of the Russian border, crafting a solution for Ukraine, etc.
All of these things Trump inherits from Obama and Clinton. Resetting the world back to 2013 before all this craziness began would be a legacy unto itself. One that any President could be proud of.
France and the United Nations on Tuesday stepped up warnings to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump about the risks of quitting a 2015 global plan to combat climate change, saying a historic shift from fossil fuels is unstoppable.
French President Francois Hollande, addressing almost 200 nations meeting in Morocco on ways to slow global warming, said that inaction would be "disastrous for future generations and it would be dangerous for peace".
Both he and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Trump, who has called man-made global warming a hoax, to drop a campaign pledge to cancel the global 2015 Paris Agreement that aims to shift from fossil fuels to cleaner energies.
"The United States, the largest economic power in the world, the second largest greenhouse gas emitter, must respect the commitments it has undertaken," Hollande said to applause. The agreement was "irreversible", he said.
In such U.N. meetings, it is very rare for leaders to single out others for even veiled criticism. Both Hollande and Ban were among the architects of the Paris Agreement.
Trump has said he wants to boost the U.S. coal, oil and shale industries, abandoning President Barack Obama's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
"A world is collapsing before our eyes", tweeted the French ambassador to the United States, Gerard Araud, as it became clear that Donald Trump had won the US presidential election. Although he later apparently deleted the tweet, the sentiment expressed in his tweet encapsulates the attitude of the majority of the European political establishment.
Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany's international broadcaster, described the reaction to Trump's victory across Germany's political spectrum as "shock and uncertainty." Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen described Trump's win as a "heavy shock." German Justice Minister Heiko Maas tweeted: "The world won't end, but things will get more crazy".
Green party leader Cem Özdemir called Trump's election a "break with the tradition that the West stands for liberal values."
Chancellor Angela Merkel's deputy chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, said:
"Trump is the trailblazer of a new authoritarian and chauvinist international movement. ... They want a rollback to the bad old times in which women belonged by the stove or in bed, gays in jail and unions at best at the side table. And he who doesn't keep his mouth shut gets publicly bashed."
In a fine touch of irony, EU Commissioner Guenther Oettinger, who recently referred to the Chinese as "slanty eyed," toldDeutschlandfunk radio that the U.S. election was a "warning" for Germany: "Things are getting simplified, black or white, good or bad, right or wrong. You can ask simple questions, but one should not give simple answers."
In France, the media reaction was summed up by the left-leaning newspaper, Libération:
"Trumpocalypse... Shock... The world's leading power is from now on in the hands of the far-right. Fifty percent of Americans voted in all conscience for a racist, lying, sexist, vulgar, hateful candidate."
Critics omitted, however, the runaway lawlessness, divisiveness and corruption that American voters declined to reinstate.
President François Hollande described Trump's victory as marking the start of "a period of uncertainty." Previously, Hollande had said that Trump made him "want to retch."
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, one of the most powerful men in Europe, told students at a conference in Luxembourg, "We will need to teach the president-elect what Europe is and how it works". He also claimed that, "The election of Trump poses the risk of upsetting intercontinental relations in their foundation and in their structure." He added that Americans usually have no interest in Europe.
Chancellor Angela Merkel herself offered to work closely with Trump only "on the basis that shared values, such as democracy, freedom, respect for the rule of law and people's race, religion and gender are respected" -- the overbearing implication being that Trump cannot be expected to respect these concepts.
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