We reviewed this six months ago. Let's review it again.
INTRODUCTION
Are you aware of the real meaning of current events? The prophecies of events that were to precede the end of civilization as we know it were made long ago in the Bible. These events are coming together right now.
In Chapter 21 of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus warns that the End of the World must occur in the same generation as the Jews' return to and control of Jerusalem after a long absence, meaning that when Jesus returns there will be people alive who had been alive when the return happened. This return happened in June of 1967 following the re-establishment of Israel as a nation in 1948. Since then, a multitude of other related prophecies have fallen into place.
In the first three Gospels Jesus foretold that He would return to establish His Kingdom on earth in the same generation as Jerusalem comes back under Jewish control, after they had been widely scattered from Israel. The nation of Israel was reestablished in 1948 but the Old City of Jerusalem, which is what the prophecy meant, wouldn't come back under Jewish control until 1967, as a result of the Six-Day War. This means that people who were alive in 1967 will be living when Jesus Returns to set up His Kingdom. But before that the Antichrist and the Tribulation, together referred to as the Apocalypse, has to happen.
1) "THIS GENERATION"
What I find really interesting is the words that Jesus used to describe the timeframe. It was "This Generation".
1967 was also when the early "Baby Boom" generation was coming of age. A "generation" is definable in families, but usually not for society as a whole because people are being born and dying continuously. The most famous generation ever is the Baby Boomers but it took the calamity of the Second World War to bring that about.
Soldiers returning from the war started families and the years after the end of the Second World War brought a great increase in the number of babies being born. This demographic bulge created a definable generation. At least in America, and other western countries, people born from 1946 to 1964 are known as the Baby Boomers.
The Baby Boomers would have a major impact on society simply because of their numbers. They brought that very special time known as the 1960s. Today the Baby Boomers are old and the western countries are facing a crisis that the world has never seen before. There have always been more young people than old people. The aging Baby Boomers have changed that.
Medical and care facilities are under great stress because there are a lot of older people who need care and not enough younger workers to take care of them. There are not enough younger people working and paying taxes to pay for the needs of the older people, and this is causing inflation. Baby Boomers holding onto their homes, long after their children have grown, has created a great housing crisis and following generations have difficulty finding and affording homes.
Modern medicine has extended the average life expectancy. In much of the world people have gone on having children like they always have. With the Baby Boom caused by the end of the Second World War, this has created an overpopulation crisis on the whole, with much of the world's population having many more old people, relative to young people, than ever before.
This is a major crisis, affecting everyone due to inflation. The Baby Boomers shook up the world when they were young, and now they are shaking it up again when they are old.
It is just so interesting that Jesus said "This Generation", because a generation is usually not definable in society as a whole.
2) THE MANY SIGNS OF THE ANTICHRIST
"This Generation" means that the world as we know it cannot go on that much longer. Jesus in Luke 21 foretells an increase in earthquakes and "wars and rumors of wars" for the Last Days, a prophecy that speaks for itself. The new millennium has really been a time of earthquakes. Here are just a few of the deadliest ones.
The devastating tsunami of December 26, 2004, which killed over 225,000 people, was caused by an underwater earthquake and came almost exactly a year after another devastating quake leveled the ancient city of Bam, in Iran. Within a year of the tsunami, an equally devastating earthquake occurred in northern Pakistan on October 8, 2005.
In 2008 there was a great earthquake in China's Sichuan Basin. 2011 saw yet another destructive tsunami, this time in Japan that also caused a nuclear disaster. In 2018 there was a tsunami, caused by an underwater earthquake that killed hundreds of people, in Indonesia. The June 2022 earthquake in Afghanistan killed well over a thousand people. Morocco was hit by a devastating earthquake in 2023.
The 2010 earthquake in Haiti killed almost as many people, about 200,000, as the tsunami of 2004. The quake later that year in Chile did not kill anywhere near as many people but was so powerful that the displacement from the quake had a measurable effect on the earth's rotation.
The prophecy of "wars and rumors of wars" very much speaks for itself. All you have to do is follow the news. There are so many conflicts in the world today, some of them civil conflicts that have been going on for some time, that it is difficult to keep track of them all. But this prophecy, along with the one about earthquakes, wouldn't have much meaning if not for the instant global news that we have nowadays.
The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 21 is about Jesus' discussion of the future Apocalypse. In verse 25 Jesus foretells that people in these Last Days "will be in fear of the roaring of the sea". The roaring of the sea is caused by high winds and this sounds like a description of the increasingly ferocious storms, as well as rising of the sea level, that are caused by global warming. Hurricanes begin over the sea.
We are also warned about false teachings and that people in this time near the End of the World will falsely claim to be Christ as did Jim Jones, Mehmet Ali Agca, David Koresh and, the kidnapper of Elizabeth Smart. These are only a few examples of people in the world today who claim to be Jesus Christ. There are articles online about the multitude of people in the world today who claim to be the Return of Jesus. There have been many news articles about people claiming to be the Messiah.
Many people misunderstand the Bible prophecies because they think only of the War of Armageddon. A cataclysmic world war will happen, but the next step in fulfillment of the prophecies is a temporary time of peace and prosperity in a world of unity and must happen first, before the War of Armageddon. This temporary time of prosperity will be led by the Antichrist.
The world is continuously shrinking in the process known as 'globalization'. The 90s was the decade of the internet, which in effect is a global web promoting a one-world system. The 00 decade was the decade of a global battle against terrorism. The only real way to shut down terrorism is to create the means to keep track of anyone anywhere in the world. Which would, of course, put the system in place for the one-world system necessary to fulfill the biblical prophecies.
The early 20s were the decade of the virus. This gave the world quite a bit of experience to be able to keep track of everyone who might have been exposed to the virus, and who has been vaccinated.
By the time the virus crisis was over, AI had developed and it became more and more necessary to keep track of everyone to verify who was a real person, in order to thwart the many emerging scams. One of the latest scams is "fake students", who apply for financial aid and hand in AI-generated homework, until they vanish with the aid money. There are now very convincing fake AI people who can apply for all kinds of credit and loans, and then disappear with the money.
Aside from AI people, it is more necessary than ever to keep track of all real people because of social media. Age verification makes it necessary to keep track of everyone using social media. Another reason to be able to keep track of everyone is online recruitment, including by criminal groups. It used to be that a nation wanting to commit sabotage against another would have to send in secret agents. Now all they have to do is recruit locals online, usually using money or ideology. Yet another reason is the fake employment ads that are just harvesting personal information, which is then sold.
The unified world must some day fall under the influence of the dynamic political leader of the Last days known in the Bible as the Antichrist. This man will be from a unified western Europe. The reason for this is that the Book of Daniel (written about 700 B.C.) foretold that the Antichrist will come from the people who kill the Messiah (Jesus) and destroy the Sanctuary (The Jews' Temple). This turned out to be the Romans.
The core of the European Union today is the same area as the old Roman Empire. The European Union has greatly expanded and is now probably the most important economic and political entity in the world. But continuous political, economic and, refugee crises in Europe, along with the wars in nearby Ukraine and the Middle East and hostility from Donald Trump, call for a strong leader to step forward with all of the answers.
The present crisis is Donald Trump making it clear that Europe is "on it's own", as far as defense goes, and shouldn't expect help from America in the event of aggression by Russia. U.S. forces, which have long been stationed in Europe, are being withdrawn. Donald Trump has continuously threatened to annex Greenland, which would effectively mean the end of NATO. Donald Trump is also perceived as discussing the war with Vladimir Putin, coming up with a peace plan that favors Russia and not even including Europeans in the process. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has called for a new international order that is not dependent on the United States, meaning that Europe would be at the center.
Donald Trump has so alienated Europe that he is considered as almost as much of a nuisance as Vladimir Putin. Greenland is Donald Trump's version of Ukraine. Since the world is moving back toward a "great power" era, there is a lot of discussion about the "middle powers" banding together. The "middle powers" could produce a leader of their own, that would be greater than Trump or Putin, and that is just what we would expect the Antichrist to be.
The wars in the Middle East and Ukraine brought the need in the European Union to find a common policy toward them. This is a major step towards consolidation of the union which will be the base for the Antichrist. There is often discussion that there should be a pan-European military force and this would fulfill the prophecy of meeting the great army from the east in the final Battle of Armageddon. The Secretary General of NATO recently called for a "quantum leap" in defense spending and Donald Trump is insisting that member nations virtually double their defense spending. Across Europe are discussions about the urgent need for a great increase in military preparedness, and about more European nations possibly developing nuclear weapons.
A new European defense organization has recently been created, although at this point it is informal. The E5 consists of Britain, Germany, France, Italy and, Poland.
Aside from the one-world system, the basic structure of this future unified world already exists in the form of the United Nations. The world will continue to move toward globalization so that the Antichrist can exercise full control. Since the Antichrist will turn out to be the greatest dictator that the world has ever seen, we should expect a decline in democracy but not by too much because the Antichrist will come to power with the support of the people. Indeed 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, was thought to be the triumph of global democracy. But it turned out to be the peak of democracy and it has been in slow decline ever since.
Many times in our television age the world has been changed by one dynamic personality. In a globalizing world, there is nothing unusual about a great leader arising, able to influence the whole world. Look at what global figures royals, celebrities and, popes have become. We live in a celebrity culture like never before. With social media, anyone can become an influencer and make themselves into a global figure.
We saw how much power modern technology can give an individual as Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire. A while ago he turned around the war in Ukraine simply by denying Russia access to his Starlink.
The assassination attempts on Donald Trump and the assassination of the healthcare executive fit with this scenario because the Book of Revelation makes it clear that there will also be an assassination attempt on the Antichrist. He will suffer an apparently fatal wound but will amaze the world by coming back to life.
We don't know for sure what the Antichrist's official position will be. It is widely presumed that he will be a political leader, and that is likely correct, but we don't know for sure. There will be an assassination attempt on the Antichrist, and he will amaze the world by apparently coming back to life. This implies that the Antichrist will go around giving speeches. It is possible that the Antichrist will emerge by way of something like Donald Trump's Board of Peace. There is some possibility that the Antichrist won't have any official position at all.
The Antichrist will not be obviously evil, not at first. He will have tremendous charisma and will seem to have all the answers. The world urgently needs answers to not only wars and global warming but also the extremely skewed wealth distribution. A few people are wealthy beyond belief. Maybe a quarter of the world is doing fairly well. Much of the rest of the world is barely surviving.
But the Antichrist is actually the Son of Satan just as Jesus is the Son of God. After the world puts it's misplaced faith in him, everything will collapse into cataclysmic wars and other tribulations. I see the Antichrist as most likely an extremely ambitious man who seeks assistance from the occult in some way.
The Antichrist will be allowed to reign for seven years. The first half of the seven years will be the best time that the world has yet seen. But it will all be a fantastic satanic lie. Things will begin to fall apart and the second half of the seven years will be the worst time that the world has ever seen, or ever will see. Jesus makes it clear in the Gospels that, had he not returned to end this Tribulation Period, and set up His Kingdom, that no one would be left alive on earth.
The Antichrist will not be able to keep his control over all of the world. The world of the Antichrist will live in peace and prosperity for a time until it is shattered by an invasion of the Holy Land which will start the final series of wars of the world. This will be God's Judgement on the world and the Antichrist, in whom they have put their faith, will be unable to prevent it.
The Book of Ezekiel, chapter 38, forecasts this cataclysmic war. After the restoration of Israel and the reestablishment of control over Jerusalem, Israel is to be attacked by an enemy to the "uttermost north". This attack must come after the world falls under the influence of the Antichrist and will start the great war. The only nation that fits this description is Russia and Moscow is due north of Israel. Russia announced it's own peace plan for the Middle East that heavily favored the Palestinians. Israel is so unpopular that, if Russia invaded the Middle East now, it would have the support of at least 70 percent of the world.
This does not mean that any nation is the "good guys" or the "bad guys" during the wars of the Tribulation. It will be God's Judgment on the whole world.
The Bible is clear that the world's final war will begin in the Middle East. The world has repeatedly shown how willing it is to plunge into conflict in the Middle East. Look at how the war in Gaza took the world's attention away from Ukraine.
The old biblical prophecies of the great war at the End of the World beginning in this region can now be seen to make perfect sense. Ezekiel 38:5 prophecies that this northern invader will be allied with Persia (Iran), Libya and, Ethiopia. The King James Version of the Bible gives the modern names of these nations, other versions may give the ancient names.
The war in Ukraine has made Russia and Iran into close allies, which they really weren't before. Russia is using many Iranian-made drones in combat and is reportedly selling weapons to Iran. The statements that the Russian Government has made about the Ukraine war sound like something right out of the Iranian Revolution, that the war is against "Satan" and "any soldiers that are killed in combat will have their sins forgiven". The Government of Russia strongly condemned Israel's missile offensive against Iran's nuclear program and Dmitry Medvedev stated that other countries will give Iran nuclear weapons.
Mojtaba Khamenei is the new Supreme Leader of Iran. We know that Iran will be a participant in the future invasion of Israel that will start the final series of wars of the world. The same U.S. and Israeli aerial attacks that resulted in him becoming the Supreme Leader also killed his father, wife, son and sister. Can you imagine how much he must hate the U.S. and Israel?
In Chapters 37-39 of the Book of Ezekiel, this northern invasion of the "Last Days" is foretold. It is repeated several times that there will be "many peoples" with the northern invader, aside from Persia, Libya and, Ethiopia, but it doesn't state exactly who these peoples are. In October 2024, a meeting was held in Ashgabat, in Turkmenistan, between Vladimir Putin and the presidents of Iran and Pakistan. The heads of state of the other central Asian republics, that were once part of the Soviet Union, were also there. A major development in the Ukraine War is that North Korean soldiers have been fighting with Russia.
Russia is negotiating a naval base at Port Sudan, south of Israel on the Red Sea coast. What is interesting is that Ethiopia is listed in the prophecy as being allied with the northern invader but the Nubian Pyramids that have historically defined Ethiopia are actually in what is now Sudan. Russia has significant military forces at various places in Africa, and mercenaries from African countries in the war in Ukraine, and I have wondered if "Ethiopia", in the prophecy, could be a general term for sub-Saharan Africa.
The great war must happen, but the progress toward a unified world must happen first. The First Book of Thessalonians 5:3 states that a false sense of peace and safety will precede great destruction. Remember what an unexpected jolt the 9/11 attack was? Just when the world seems to be at peace, another war erupts. The final war of humanity will follow a similar pattern.
I believe that the 9/11 attack as well as the other terror attacks since then may have been allowed by God to jolt those people who believe that "This can't happen here" into thinking differently. The past hundred years or so, despite great technical and medical progress, was a time of brutal dictatorships and grotesque wars. In a globalizing world, there is nothing unusual about a worldwide dictatorship followed by a devastating world war.
There have already been two world wars, three if you count the Napoleonic Wars as a world war. There is nothing unusual about another world war, which would fulfill the biblical prophecies, because the world is just about as troubled as ever.
There are two separate wars, in Ukraine and in the Middle East. Do you realize that we would have Armageddon if these wars merged together? There is some recent signs of merging. Ukraine has a lot of experience dealing with Iranian drones, which have been supplied to Russia, and is going to help to defend the Middle East against them. Russia condemned the attacks on it's ally Iran.
One thing that is particularly dangerous is simple demographics. It was very unlikely that there would ever be another world war as long as people were in positions of power who remembered the Second World War. But now that generation, the parents of the Baby Boomers, is just about gone and no one really knows what a world war would be like, and this is what makes it dangerous.
This is what it was like in 1914, when the First World War began. There hadn't been a major war in decades, but the technologies had been developed that could make war much more deadly, and the world blundered into a war like it had never seen before without realizing what it was getting into.
The depersonalization of warfare also makes it more likely. Drone and robot warfare is like a video game, except that it's for real. Nations can now go to war without ever seeing each other in person.
One thing for certain is that the next major war is going to be very nasty. It is quite possible that a nuclear war is not even necessary to bring about "The End Of The World As We Know It", as foretold in the Bible. Drones will be everywhere. There will be drones and autonomous land vehicles that will decide for themselves, by artificial intelligence, whether or not to attack.
Drones are inexpensive and easy to produce and any city might find itself swarmed by hundreds of explosive drones. The successful destruction of distant targets by inexpensive drones sets a perilous precedent for the future. Most countries do not have a military capacity much beyond self-defense. But now any country can easily strike at distant targets. No expensive aircraft or trained pilots are necessary, only inexpensive drones. Most drones don't require a runway and can be launched from anywhere. Aside from nations, any criminal organization or cartel can easily acquire hundreds of destructive drones.
Attacks on ships are especially troubling because, even if the attacks are not successful, it will make insurance and thus the price of necessities much higher. Drones can force airports to shut down. During takeoff or landin, an inexpensive drone flying into a jet engine could cause the plane to crash. Since drones can use a nation's phone network against it, a drone attack can force a shutdown of the phone system. Drones completely change public events because any mass gathering or stadium full of people would be very vulnerable to drones.
Our economy and the daily operation of society is absolutely dependent on oil. As the Ukrainian attacks on Russia show, oil storage facilities and refineries are very vulnerable to drones. Not only are the storage tanks easily identifiable and easy targets, but a pall of black smoke overshadowing an enemy city looks like an impressive victory. Anyone with Google Earth, or other satellite imagery, can easily identify where a country stores oil or large amounts of fuel. The following image, from Google Earth, shows storage tanks in this area.
The war in Ukraine is really working out all the details of future drone warfare. The weak point of drones is that continuous communication with the base or operator is necessary, and that communication can be detected and give the drone away. The next step is combining AI with drones so that the drone can guide itself and detectable communication would be unnecessary.
Now Ukraine is becoming the war of land robots. For the first time ever, robots have captured a position without humans, and have killed humans by themselves. Robots on wheels are being used for all kinds of tasks, from combat and surveillance to delivering supplies and picking up the wounded. Like aerial drones, land robots make taking the offensive in warfare much easier and less expensive. Robot vehicles are relatively inexpensive and don't require the training and sustaining of a human crew.
At this point, most drones and robots are still being guided by a human operator. But the next development is already underway, and it will make warfare more lethal than we have ever imagined. It is having drones and robots operating by AI so that they can choose their own targets.
It will be very difficult for humans to hide or take cover from these drones and autonomous land vehicles because not only will the drones have night vision but will be able to detect human body heat with infrared sensors. Drones over a city, far from being like traditional bombs, will be able to see and select where they can do the most damage and kill the most people, and sense where humans are taking cover by infrared. Any use of a phone will give away one's position. The Iran-Israel missiles exchanges helped to work out the next generation of missiles in the same way that the Ukraine war is with drones and robots.
The hope is that the eventual end of the Ukraine War will bring peace. But this war has taken the use of technology in war to an entirely new level. Ukrainian veterans and manufacturer's of drones and war robots will be in demand all over the world, to bring all countries which might engage in war up to this level.
Another reason for how especially nasty the next major war will be is drugs. The idea of drugging combatants, to make them more alert, aggressive and, fearless, is not new. But the war drugs available recently have turned it into a completely new game. There are drugs that can change the weakest boy in school, or girl for that matter, into a brutal and fearless warrior. The best-known is Captagon. There are also drugs that can enable a warrior on a special mission to go several days without sleep or food.
Hezbollah's pagers and communication devices suddenly exploding opens a whole new chapter in warfare. Any device that is used, we will have to wonder where it was made, and who might have had access to it, and whether it might suddenly explode, or whether it is giving one's position away.
Another aspect of a future war involving electronics and communication devices is that we have gotten utterly dependent on GPS, but it could be suddenly shut down. GPS can be jammed or spoofed and it's satellites could be shot down. Russia has fooled Ukrainian drones, by spoofing GPS, so that they turn and fly into Europe. The undersea cables, on which the internet is dependent, can be cut relatively easily, often by just dragging an anchor.
Pay no attention to writings of psychics like Nostradamus. The prophecies of Nostradamus are so vague as to be meaningless and most of his specific prophecies were in the Bible 1,500 years before Nostradamus' time. Also, pay no attention to anyone saying that the world will end on a certain day. The Bible states that no one knows the exact day, although we will know the general time. Certainly pay no attention to anyone claiming to be the Messiah. Remember that a lot of falseness and deception must be expected.
The Second Book of Timothy, chapter 3, foretells extensive sin, lawlessness, greed and, ignorance toward God in the Last Days. Don't these things abound right now?
Some versions of the Bible translate, in this chapter, that there will be people in the Last Days suffering from "uncontrollable fits of rage". There was no word for "gun" in biblical times, the development of gunpowder was far in the distant future. But this prophecy of "uncontrollable fits of rage" would fit perfectly with all of the senseless gun massacres nowadays. In countries where it is very difficult to obtain a gun, such senseless massacres may be done with a car or knife as the weapon.
Our society has lost it's foundation due to a straying from God's Word. The world without God cannot possibly avoid trouble.
4) THE BOOK OF REVELATION
The Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, contains some seemingly mystifying prophecies. Chapter 16 foretells men in the Last Days being "burned by the heat of the sun". Right now the ozone layer is weakened and would go even faster following a nuclear exchange, exposing the planet to deadly ultraviolet rays.
This being "burned by the heat of the sun" in the Last Days could, of course, refer to the extreme heat waves caused by global warming. It could also refer to the extensive wildfires caused by the heat drying everything out and by changes in the usual rainfall patterns. A lot of rain one year will cause extensive plant growth. But if there is a lack of rain the following year it will leave a lot of dead and dry plant matter.
The priest and evangelist scandals also fit into the prophecies; along with a lot of false, unbiblical religion. The Second Book of Thessalonians 2:3 foretells a "falling away" by many Christians, including many churches, near the world's end.
The Book of Revelation 13:17 foretells that everyone will have a "Mark" for economic purposes in the Last Days. Just about everything you do can be tracked now.
The world is ever more dependent on cell phones but when combined with GPS technology, the location of cell phone calls can be pinpointed easily. Even without GPS, the location of a phone can be easily found by triangulation.
With today's technology, the process of electronic tracking is much quicker and easier than ever. All of this would be ideal for helping to track terrorists and criminals, as well as a pandemic, but would also be there for use by the Antichrist enforcing order in the coming one-world system.
There has long been tracking for things like like background checks and credit checks. But AI bots scouring the Internet have, more recently, brought stories like the following: A fugitive escapes to the other side of the world, and no one has any idea where he is. One day, years later, the fugitive decides to go to the beach. Nearby is a family that takes a photo and posts it on social media. But the fugitive is visible in the photo and it leads to him getting caught.
We are in a surveillance society, virtually everything that we do online can be tracked and there are closed circuit cameras watching us everywhere, many of which can recognize us by the way we walk. Three images from Google Street View.
Facial recognition is being implemented at U.S. border crossings and Britain is parking facial recognition vans wherever there might be concentrations of people, in the search for people wanted for crimes. There are now infrared-sensing satellites that can recognize people inside buildings by their heat signatures.
Much of the recent development of surveillance technology has to do with driving. Automatic cameras, mounted on vehicles, automatically photograph and record car licence plates. There are AI cameras, mounted above roadways, that automatically photograph a car and it's license plate if the driver is holding or using a phone or if anyone is not wearing seatbelts. There are now AI cameras in use that can tell if a driver is intoxicated.
Speeding tickets are a source of revenue for municipalities and AI cameras are photographing cars so that, even if a car hasn't actually been clocked speeding, it can be shown that the car couldn't have gotten from Point A to Point B in that amount of time without having exceeded the speed limit.
The U.S. is now implementing a policy of "predictive surveillance". With cars being tracked everywhere, a driver can be detained if their driving pattern is deemed to be "suspicious". It is not necessary that a crime be found to be in progress or having been committed.
Newer cars are collecting vast amounts of data, including locations and driving habits. The car can tell if the driver is a good driver or may be intoxicated. If you sync your phone to your car then it can access everything on your phone.
There have long been devices that trick your phone into thinking that it is an ordinary cell tower, and then gather information from your phone, such as Stingray. We know that there are cameras everywhere that record your car license plate, and can recognize cars even if it can't see the license plate. The two technologies are now combined. Cameras read the license plate or recognize the car while it mimics a cell tower and connects with any phones or devices in the car. With cars that are connected to the Internet, it can connect to the car itself.
AI has an essential role in the surveillance society. The vast amount of data that is being collected on people nowadays, from their phones and cars to cameras everywhere, would be redundant because it would require countless people to go over it. Collected data is not of much use unless someone goes over it. But now AI can quickly do the work of all of those people. Most of what we do nowadays is online. That means that it is visible but there would never be enough people to go over everything that everyone is doing online. But now AI has changed that.
Israel has hacked Iran's security cameras. But this opens the possibility of all such cameras everywhere being used for future surveillance. The limiting factor has always been the number of people that would be required to sift through the vast amount of data from millions of cameras. But now that can be done by AI. It's not that AI is "smarter" than people, but that it can quickly and easily do the work of millions of people.
We would have difficulty living without our phones but this makes it so that we can be easily tracked. This will facilitate both the control that the Antichrist will have over the world and then making the wars of the Apocalypse more lethal.
If a phone can be hacked it can now be easily determined who is using the phone by activating the phone's camera and scanning the user's iris.
What is so important about the present wars is that the use of drones and AI in warfare is new. This is also the first major war where virtually everyone has a phone, and tracking those phones is part of the strategy. These wars are working out and battle-testing all of this new technology so that it can be much more deadly in the future.
The Book of Revelation also makes it clear that diseases will be a part of the Tribulation. We have been over-using many drugs for years and new strains of bacteria and viruses are emerging that are immune to treatment. Look at how the world was completely caught off guard by Covid.
Something interesting in the Book of Revelation, the first part of Chapter 11, verses 1-13. Two troublesome witnesses will finally be killed in Jerusalem by the forces of the Antichrist. A lot of people will be joyous and will not allow them to be buried. They will lie on the ground for three and a half days. People across the world will even exchange gifts in celebration of their deaths. But then everyone will be astonished when God suddenly calls them up to Heaven.
Now let's stop and think. When the Book of Revelation was written news could travel only as fast as a person could travel, by boat or camel or horse. How then could the world be tuned into something that lasted only three and a half days? There was no instant global news or social media then, and there wasn't until very recently, but there is now.
5) MYSTERY BABYLON IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION
Chapter 18 of the Book of Revelation should be of great interest to us. I am certain that this chapter refers to the United States, and by extension, the rest of North America. It concerns a "Mystery Babylon" in the Last Days of the world just before the Second Coming of Christ. It could not be referring to the original Babylon because it had long since passed from the scene by the time the Book of Revelation was written toward the end of the First Century A.D. by St. John.
That is why it refers to "Mystery" Babylon. It is a nation in the Last Days that spiritually resembles Babylon. The original Babylon was a nation of great wealth and power but was also idolatrous and very sinful. Down through history, Babylon has evoked images of idolatry and decadence.
The chapter foretells that this "Mystery Babylon" will be utterly destroyed by fire in one hour, in the final days of the world. It is impossible for a nation to be destroyed by ordinary fire in one hour. But what if St. John is referring to nuclear explosions? When God gave him a vision of all of this happening, there was no word in the vocabulary for nuclear explosion. It also foretells that people at sea in ships will be horrified by the sight of the smoke from the burning of Mystery Babylon. Could this be referring to the sight of mushroom clouds on the horizon from the nuclear explosions?
On June 23, 2024 Dmitry Medvedev, the former President and Prime Minister of Russia, made a statement that America will "burn in earthly fire".
This also shows conclusively that this cannot be referring to the original Babylon because it was in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, well away from the sea. The U.S. has a very long coastline and is the destination of tens of thousands of cargo ships from across the world, the most important port being Los Angeles which receives imports from Asia. It also reads that after the sudden destruction of Mystery Babylon, merchants across the world will mourn because no one buys their goods any more. This is true even with Donald Trump's tariffs.
This fits with the fact that today the U.S. is by far the world's great importer of goods from other countries, as well as services due to the outsourcing used by so many American companies. Ironically, the original Babylon was in what is now Iraq, with which the U.S. has so entwined it's history.
6) THE END OF THIS WORLD IS SOMETHING TO ANXIOUSLY LOOK FORWARD TO
These are monumental days we are living in. God's prophecies will be fulfilled. The Gospels promise that Jesus, the Son of God, will remove his people from the Tribulation. You still have time to accept Christ as your Savior. Everyone has sinned but there is still a chance to repent. God can shield you and bring judgement on persons, families and, organizations that treat you unfairly.
The Word of God must not be ignored. God wants you to be a part of His Kingdom. Simply knowing about Jesus is not enough. You must devote your life to Him. Right now, ask God to guide you and accept Jesus as your Savior. Begin reading the Bible, it is better to read the New Testament first. The prophecies in the Bible have an amazing record of fulfillment.
The agonizing death of Jesus, a sacrifice for sin, and the events of his life are foretold all over the Old Testament. No other religion can prove itself like this. The world could have been a real paradise if the people had followed God. Think of all the people you know. What will become of them during this holocaust? Please inform them about this.
7) THE MARK OF THE BEAST
I have been thinking about the "mark" that the Antichrist is supposed to put on people in the last days of the world according to biblical prophecies. All across the world, this has become the stuff of folklore that people will have a mark on them in order to buy and sell things. Can anyone seriously believe that hundreds of millions of people all over the world are going to line up to have such a mark put on them? I have become certain that this is not going to happen.
In discussing the Book of Revelation and similar prophecies, we have to remember that God gave a vision of future events to a person of ancient times, who described what they saw as best as they could. St. John, the author of the Book of Revelation, had not the slightest concept of modern technology.
Let's consider Revelation chapter 9, verses 3-9. St. John described "locusts" as having a terrible sting. He also describes them as "scorpions" and as the locusts appearing like horses prepared for battle and as having crowns. To make it even more strange, these creatures are described as having hair like women and faces like men and their wings make a sound like many horses and chariots.
But the mystery ends if we consider that this is a perfect description of a military helicopter or drone of today, dispensing some kind of nerve gas or chemical weapon. Such a helicopter resembles both a locust and a scorpion in form. A helicopter makes a sound like many horses running. It's rotors look somewhat like a woman's long hair. The face of the pilot can be seen through the window. The "crown" is simply the rotor housing of the helicopter or drone. Image from the Wikipedia article "Helicopter".
Now, let's go to verses 17-19 in Chapter 9. These verses describe what St. John sees as "horses with heads like lions" accompanying a great army of 200 million soldiers from the east in the final days of the world. From out of the "mouths" of these horses come fire, smoke and, brimstone which causes great destruction.
Consider a modern battle tank. When seen from the side, it's turret resembles the head of a male lion with a mane. Brimstone is the old word for sulfur (sulphur) and is one of the ingredients of gunpowder, which propels shells and bullets from guns. If the "mouth" is the cannon of the tank, this explains why fire, smoke and, destruction comes from it. The colors described in this passage are a camouflage color scheme that is typically applied to tanks. Images from the Wikipedia articles "Tank" and "Lion".
My image
Another thing that is interesting is how Ezekiel describes the attack on Israel, in the Last Days of the world, as a "cloud that covers the land". Could this refer to paratroopers? Image from the Wikipedia article "Paratroopers".
Now, considering St. John's obvious descriptions of tanks and helicopters, why should we not think that this legendary "Mark" that people will have is not actually a mark at all but some other modern technology that he was shown but could not begin to comprehend? John writes that people will have such a mark on their right hands or their foreheads.
What about phones? If there is one technology that is really taking over the world, it is phones. There is more and more that apps can do every year, most recently AI.
St. John saw visions of people using hand-held phones, and cards, to conduct business and described it as a "mark". He could imagine a cell phone even less than a tank or helicopter.
So what about the number that goes with the Mark, 666? It says that this number is the "number of a man" For most of human history, people were assigned names rather than numbers. But today, virtually everyone in the world does have a number, a phone number, and banking and financial transactions are being done mostly just by phones and cards. Traditional paper checks are clearly on the way out. A phone also has a numeric IP address and an IMEI number. Other numbers that most people have, aside from debit and credit cards, are driver's license or national ID numbers, car license plates, and social security or national insurance numbers.
A QR code is an everyday mark that is necessary to do business. If this isn't the Mark foretold in the Bible then it is a definite step toward it.
To an ancient prophet, that was completely unfamiliar with modern technology, being given a vision of people far in the future going through an everyday trip to the store, credit cards and bank cards would look very much like such a "Mark". Few people in most countries use cash anymore, instead of a card, and cards are increasingly being used through a digital wallet and the icon for the digital wallet is a "mark". Car keys are now being added to digital wallets.
Some countries have state-run all-purpose apps that are difficult to do without, such as Russia's Max and China's WeChat.
Europe is introducing an age verification app for social media. This is not the Mark of the Beast but is a step toward it. Users will verify their age to the app and then use the app's certification to access social media, without having to verify their age to each different site.
Phones were at the center of the 2020s effort to contain the Covid virus. The idea of "contact tracing" was used. China contained the first phase of the virus quickly because every phone number has to be registered with the government, and it could be tracked where the user went. People were given a color code "mark", not on their hand but on their phone, indicating their virus status.
The global drive to get people vaccinated against the virus led to vaccination certificates being displayed on phones. The Book of Revelation states that people will require the "Mark" to do business. The virus made it so that people required this "Mark" on their phone to enter a business or workplace. A lot of other identification, such as drivers' licenses, are also being held digitally on phones. New York State driver's licenses can now be on phones. Passports are now on chips on cards. Plane boarding passes can now be on phones, and electronically updated if the passenger has to be transferred to another flight.
The "Mark" on the forehead likely means facial recognition or iris scan technology. Most travelers to Europe now have to provide biometric data, including facial recognition, by which their movements in Europe will be traced.
Eyeglasses were unknown in biblical times. The Mark on the forehead could include smart glasses.
Most country codes for international calling and area codes, such as those in North America, are of three digits just like 666. What is the mystery? This is simply a prefix or part of a phone number. Through cell phone records, all that a person has done can be kept track of. A cell phone can easily be pinged to determine a person's location by GPS coordinates.
It will be said " What are those people talking about, no one is putting a "mark" on anyone, how can this be the Antichrist?"
In another example of modern technology being foretold the Book of Revelation, Chapter 8 Verses 10 and 11, tells of a "falling star" that is named "Wormwood". This star is described as "making the water bitter" so that many people die from drinking the bitter water.
What could this mean? How can a falling star make water bitter? In Bible times nuclear science was completely unknown. What if the "falling star" is a nuclear missile?
A nuclear explosion contaminates water because it absorbs alpha particles. A primary rule of surviving a nuclear war or disaster is to absolutely never drink from open water. Alpha particles, basically helium nuclei, are blocked by the skin but are deadly if they get inside the body.
What is so interesting is that the name of Chernobyl means "wormwood". Chernobyl is the site of the 1986 nuclear meltdown. This is another example of St. John, the author of the Book of Revelation, being given a vision of the future and describing the technology as best he could.
This is not a negative thing to have the world end. It is actually the most positive thing that could happen. The Book of Isaiah, for example, describes a rejuvenated world after the Apocalypse under the direct leadership of Jesus. This will be a world where "the crippled will be able to jump high in the air".
8) SOLAR STORMS
As electronics become ever more intricate and sophisticated, it also becomes more vulnerable to the severe radiation from a storm on the sun. This radiation could induce strong currents in electrical circuitry, which would fry their sensitive components. Suppose you take a phone, or other such communication device, and run the current right through it's circuitry from a wall outlet. It would utterly destroy it, and the currents that would be induced by a solar storm would do the same.
Computers use surge protectors to shield their sensitive components from fluctuations in electric current. Just imagine what the induced current from a major solar storm would do to those components.
A nuclear bomb, particularly one exploded high in the air, would have a similar effect on sensitive electronic devices. This is known as electromagnetic pulse (EMP), but only affects a limited area. A solar storm could affect the entire world.
The last massive solar storm that afflicted the earth was in 1859, and is known as the Carrington Event. You can read about it online if you wish. The crude electrical circuitry in those days was much less vulnerable to solar storms than the fine circuitry of today, but the induced current in telegraph wires was so strong that it set fire to the paper in the machines that received telegrams.
In the early days of radio, it was considered as important to ground both transmitters and receivers. One wire would go to the antenna, and another from the metal chassis of the radio to a metal water pipe or metal stake driven into the ground. I always though that this grounding was to improve transmission and reception of the signal, but now I wonder if part of the reason was memory of the 1859 solar storm which has since been forgotten.
If such a storm happened today it could virtually shut down all electronic communications on earth, including land line phones. Car engines would not start because the computer modules would be fried. There might be no electricity, and probably no water because most water pumps are electric.
We have gotten to be utterly dependent on this technology, and few people today could "live off the land" without it. There would certainly be mass starvation.
In the Book of Revelation in the Bible, when depicting events at the end of the world, it states how people will be "burned by the heat of the sun". I always thought that this meant more ultraviolet radiation would reach earth because of nuclear explosions blasting holes in the ozone layer, which protects the earth from such radiation.
But now I wonder if it could mean a massive solar storm shutting down virtually all electronics on earth. Such a solar storm could well be a part of the Tribulation period. It would not be described as such simply because prophets in biblical times had not the slightest idea of modern technology, and the damage that such a solar storm could do to it. God just gave them a vision of the distant future and they described it as best they could.
9) HOW THE VIRUS CRISIS MIGHT BE EXPECTED TO HAVE CHANGED THE WORLD
One thing that is absolutely ideal to spread a virus is cash. We are so glad to have a bunch of it that we rarely stop to think about how filthy it is.
There has long been discussion about the emerging "cashless society". A cashless, or nearly cashless, society will be much cleaner and more efficient. But there is one drawback. Everything that is done in a cashless society can be readily traced.
Like cash, any paper documents are ideal vehicles for virus transmission. There has long been discussion about the emerging "paperless" society. Also, the virus has greatly accelerated the trend of working from home.
But once again, this makes everything readily traceable and watchable. Vast amounts of harvested data used to be useful only if we knew what we were looking for because it would take millions of people to go over all of the data. AI has completely changed that and can quickly do the work of those millions of people, scanning the vast amount of data and flagging anything out of the ordinary or that it had been instructed to look for.
You can also see why I believe that the fabled "Mark of the Beast", without which no one will be able to buy or sell, is actually phones, specifically digital wallets and the cards that they store.
In the same part of the Book of Revelation that describes the "Mark of the Beast", an image of the Antichrist is described that will speak and praise the Antichrist. Today there are chatbots everywhere, including priests and religious leaders, powered by AI.
Donald Trump has had a number of AI images made of himself as the Pope or Jesus.
10) THE TREMENDOUS GROWTH IN POPULARITY OF THE APOCALYPTIC PROPHECIES
One thing that must be said about this subject of the Apocalypse that was foretold in the Bible occurring in our times is it's tremendous growth in popularity.
When I began to read about this, in the early 1980s, I knew that it was correct but it was very much a "fringe" topic among Christians. In most Christian bookstores, apocalyptic books were typically kept separated from the "mainstream" Christian books because it was understood that most Christians would not be interested in this subject. There was essentially no Catholic literature about the "End Times", just the acceptance that Jesus would return "someday", when God was ready.
But now all of that has completely changed. The Antichrist followed by the Apocalypse is a major topic of discussion everywhere. Hundreds of millions of people are awaiting this. There is a vast amount of Catholic, and every other denomination, literature about it. Doing a Google search for terms associated with this subject brings up tens of millions of hits. "Last Days" brings up nearly a billion hits.
But having so many people who are waiting for the world to end, and for Jesus to return, can actually make the world a dangerous place and it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Gospels describe how Jesus, knowing that it would fulfill prophecy in the Old Testament, said that he was thirsty and drank wine from a sponge while on the cross. So why couldn't people in power today, even national leaders, help to move the fulfillment of prophecy along?
The Covid-19 virus left people across the world isolated in lockdown. Could it be that God allowed this to happen in order to prompt the people to come back to him by spending some time in prayer and Bible reading?
Many people are facing dire economic uncertainty due to inflation. Could God be allowing this to happen so that they might ask Him for help and guidance?
We tend to put more of our faith in the world than in God. But then this virus can come along and shut the world down. Could this be to get us to put more of our faith in God? We thought that the Cold War was over and the Middle East was mostly at peace, at least on a national level, but now that has definitely changed.
The ways of the world are actually the opposite of the Ways of God. This is why the world as we know it must come to a conclusion. For the majority of people who are not blatantly sinful, the greatest obstacle to finding God is putting our faith in the world instead.
