Perspective

The pastor read aloud Matthew 24:42-44: “Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore, you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Each day could be a game changer. Time has made no guarantees it will serve us. The apostle James admonished the early Church: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit;’ whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:13-14).

History is filled with leaders who saw the clear signs of imminent disaster, but they did nothing, and they perished along with those they led. When Mount Vesuvius started to erupt on the morning of August 24, 79 A.D., it caught the population completely off guard—although there had been obvious warning signs. Sixteen years before the eruption, a number of small earthquakes rocked the Pompeii region, but the people dismissed the quakes since they were so frequent in Campania, according to the writer and eyewitness, Pliny the Younger.

Tragedies like Hurricane Katrina, which wreaked havoc with flooding and winds up to 175 mph on the U.S. Gulf Coast, and especially New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2005 is a case in point. Though people were warned to evacuate, it affected 15 million people and 1,836 died. In New Orleans, breached levees flooded 80 percent of the city. The reason, officials charged to maintain the safety of the levees protecting the city had not been upgrading them. As a consequence, levees were ill-prepared for the largest and third most powerful storm ever recorded to make landfall in the United States.

Little to No Warning 

The recent wild fires which wiped out the city of Lahaina on the beautiful island of Maui, Hawaii, is another example of officials not being prepared. A total of 271 building structures were burned, and the death toll stands at 115 with around 100 still missing. The 60 mph high winds caused by Hurricane Dora fanned the multiple fires that started shortly after midnight on Tuesday, August 8. The fires rapidly consumed homes and buildings in its path. 

People were not warned properly. There were no warning sirens. People had to run for their lives. Instead, officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations. The problem, widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach. The New York Times reported the infrastructure of the destroyed city of Lahaina and nearby communities is under scrutiny after reports that hydrants and water pumps were knocked out during the Hawaiian island’s biggest crisis, with the wildfires taking out the power needed to operate them and even melting the water pipes. Consequently, there was no water to fight the fires.

This will not be the last devastating event for the United States or other parts of the world. The Bible reveals far greater terror-filled events are coming in the future. Prophesy reveals powerful earthquakes unlike anything we have seen before, when every island will be moved out of its place (Revelation 6:14). Jesus warned the disciples in the Olivet prophecy that in the end time these things would transpire: “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:7-8).

Devastating Events Will Come Suddenly

Devastations, whatever their nature, have a way of coming suddenly when least expected. Isaiah the prophet warns modern Israel about what will occur as a result of rejecting God: “Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel: ‘Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perversity, and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach ready to fall, a bulge in a high wall, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant’” (Isaiah 30:12-13).

He told the future apostle to not be troubled by future end time events. He said they must come to pass; and the end wasn’t to occur in their time (Matthew 24:6). However, we are now in the end of this age of man when these prophesies will be fulfilled. So, what should we be doing to prepare? 

God doesn’t want us to flee to the mountains and hide in a cave. He wants us to be working, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God as a witness to the nations before the end can come (Matthew 24:14). 

What did our Lord instruct us to do? He taught and warned:

“Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:45-51).

Jesus Said, “Watch”

Jesus even said when He returns most people will be completely surprised: “Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning— lest, coming suddenly, he finds you sleeping” (Mark 13:35-36).

What are we to watch? Certainly, we need to be constantly aware of the times in which we live, and there must be a sense of urgency in our preparation for the Kingdom. In conjunction, we must watch ourselves spiritually that we aren’t caught up in this world and its ways. He said, “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth” (Luke 21:34-35).

“Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36). And pray for one another in our daily struggles to overcome ourselves, Satan, and this corrupt world.     

This is my Perspective and the current edition of the Prophetic Times follows below.

Prophetic Times

Russia Objects to US Supply of Depleted Uranium Rounds to Ukraine

September 7, 2023 voanews.com reported:

Russia is criticizing a new U.S. aid package for Ukraine that includes depleted uranium tank ammunition, saying the decision to send the rounds ‘is a clear sign of inhumanity.’

Russia’s embassy in Washington said on Telegram Wednesday that the United States is ‘deliberately transferring weapons with indiscriminate effects’ and that it is fully aware of potential health and safety consequences from the ammunition.

The tank rounds could help Ukrainian forces destroy Russian tanks and have previously been provided to Ukraine by Britain. Pentagon spokesperson Marine Corps Lt. Col. Garron Garn defended the use of the munitions in a statement to The Associated Press in March, saying the U.S. military ‘has procured, stored, and used depleted uranium rounds for several decades, since these are a longstanding element of some conventional munitions.’

Garn said Russia is among the countries that have long possessed depleted uranium rounds.

Abbas: Hitler killed Jews for money laundering, they are not semites 

September 7, 2023 jpost.com reported:

Ashkenazi Jews stem from Europe, not the Middle East, and were murdered during the Holocaust due to hatred against them for their historic role as money lenders, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said in a speech that sparked an international furor.

Nazi leader Adolph Hitler said ‘he fought the Jews because they were dealing with users and money,’ Abbas told a meeting of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council on August 24th. 

His speech was translated into English and published by the Middle East Media Research Institute. Abbas in that speech put forward the claim that European Jews had no historic ties to the land of Israel, as documented in the Bible, because they were descended from a Turkish-linked tribe known as the Khazars that disappeared over a thousand years ago.

Palestinians including Abbas put forward this theory as part of an argument that they are the true Semites, who descended from those who lived in this area during the time of the Bible. They argue that European Jews cannot, therefore, be the largest of antisemitism.

‘The truth that we should clarify to the world is that European Jews are not Semites,’ Abbas said. ‘They have nothing to do with antisemitism.’

The Foreign Ministry recalled that Abbas had written a doctoral thesis denying the Holocaust.

U.S. military to launch ICBM in display of nuclear forces’ readiness

September 6, 2023 spacewar.com reported:

The U.S. military is scheduled to launch an unarmed Minuteman III inter-continental ballistic missile from California overnight in a display of the U.S. nuclear forces’ readiness, officials said.

The Air Force Global Strike Command launch is to occur during the window of 11:47 p.m. PT Tuesday and 5:47 a.m. Wednesday from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in North Vandenberg, Calif.

The launch is a routine test that was scheduled years in advance and is done to ‘validate and verify the effectiveness, readiness and accuracy of the weapon system,’ Vandenberg Space Force Base said in an August statement announcing the launch.
Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters during a press conference Tuesday that the United States has transmitted a prelaunch notification to the Hague Code of Conduct and that it has notified the Russian government in accordance to existing bilateral obligations.

‘The purpose of the ICBM test launch program is to demonstrate the readiness of U.S. nuclear forces and provide confidence in the lethality and ineffectiveness of the nation’s nuclear deterrent,’ he said.

China warns against ‘new Cold War’ as big powers meet in SE Asia 

September 6, 2023 spacewar.com reported:

China’s premier said on Wednesday major powers must oppose a new Cold War, a thinly veiled reference to Washington as top Asian and US officials gathered for talks in Indonesia.

Beijing has expressed concern about US-backed blocs forming on its doorstep, while facing disputes with other powers in the region over the South China Sea and other issues.

‘Disagreements and disputes may arise between countries due to misperceptions, diverging interests or external interferences,’ Li Qiang said at the start of an ASEAN-plus-three meeting with Japan and South Korea in Jakarta.

‘To keep differences under control, what is essential now is to oppose picking sides, to oppose bloc confrontation and to oppose a new Cold War.’

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) is holding separate summits with China, Japan, South Korea, the United States and Canada, providing an arena for big powers to lobby the bloc and their rivalries to play out.

US Vice President Kamala Harris is attending in place of President Joe Biden, while Li was taking part instead of President Xi Jinping.

North Korea test-fires missiles as part of mock ‘nuclear attack’

September 4, 2023 spacewar.com reported:

North Korea staged a ‘simulated tactical nuclear attack’ drill at the weekend with mock atomic warheads attached to two long-range cruise missiles that were test-fired into the ocean, state-controlled media reported Sunday.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the operation early Saturday was a ‘counteraction drill’ in response to joint military activity by US and South Korean forces that the agency said had escalated tensions in the region.

‘A firing drill for simulated tactical nuclear attack was conducted at dawn of September 2 to warn the enemies of the actual nuclear war danger,’ KCNA reported.

‘Two long-range strategic cruise missiles tipped with mock nuclear warheads were fired’ from North Korea’s west coast into the sea to the south, it said.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Saturday that an unspecified number of cruise missiles were launched at around 4:00 am (1900 GMT) towards the Yellow Sea, adding that the specifications of the missiles were being evaluated. 
A JCS official dismissed Pyongyang’s claims, calling them ‘exaggerated’, the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported Sunday.

California School District Settles Lawsuit for $100k over Secret Gender Transition

September 3, 2023 breitbart.com reported:

The Spreckels Union School District in Monterey County, California, has settled a lawsuit that alleged it encouraged a girl to change her gender while concealing the transition from her parents.

The settlement came to $100,000 — $48,000 for the mother who was deceived; $48,000 to the girl who was the alleged victim; and $4,000 for medical expenses the plaintiffs had to incur with the California Department of Health Care Services. 

The Los Angeles Times reported: The settlement, agreed to in mid-June and approved by a federal judge Aug. 3, brings an end to the legal action pursued by Jessica Konen and her daughter Alicia, who went by the initials A.G.

Report: New Hamas rocket has one ton warhead, can hit Israel’s northern border

September 1, 2023 israelnationalnews.com reported:

A Telegram channel bearing the name of Mohammed Deif, supreme commander of Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, reported that a missile that threatens the majority of Israeli territory has recently become operational.

According to the report, the new rocket has a range of 190 KM (118 Miles), can reach Rosh Hanikra, on Israel’s northern border, from Gaza, and its warhead weighs one ton.

It was also reported that the rocket is manufactured by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades in the Gaza Strip, and its explosives are imported from Iran. On August 17th, 2023, this model of rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip toward the Mediterranean Sea, and according to the report, the launch was meant to send a message to Israel.