Prophecy And The World We Live In

Well, thank you, Mr. McKeon, and good afternoon again, everyone. Glad to see that we're still here, and hopefully been joined by perhaps a few others.

Beyond Today has been doing quite well. We've been...

we only missed, I think, one month of normal time that we would have missed maybe a couple of extra weeks. We got restarted on taping in mid-May and have been taping monthly since then to an empty audience, an empty studio, no audience. And next week we will tape again, and we plan to have the students come in and sit, and we'll have a limited-sized group before us. We'll have a live audience again. We've had some good responses to the recent programming.

It seems like when we came out of this, all three of us, Gary Petty and Steve Myers and I, we focused a bit on prophecy and helping people to understand what has been going on and how that fits into not only Bible prophecy from general terms, but also just how to deal with the impact of this from a spiritual, personal level. So we've tried to do that as well to keep from sensationalizing it, but we did want to capitalize on the moment.

You might not know this. I think Mr. Kubik did say it, but the May-June issue of the magazine, we actually got the idea to just basically scrap it and redo it with two weeks notice and to focus more on the COVID, which we did. And we had to write all new articles, and we did something we've never done.

We basically, within two weeks, produced a completely different magazine than what we had to produce. That was the May-June issue. So we've adapted and done some things and trying to help people to understand what has been going on and where it fits into an understanding of the Bible and again to deal with the impact of it. I think all of us realize that this has created an entirely different and what we call a new normal. We don't know if it'll ever go back to being the same, and we hope that travel and other things will open up, but the economy is yet to shake out in terms of the impact upon the economy.

I think we all understand that. The Dow Jones closed back up 28,650-something yesterday, and back above that mark, which is where it was before all of this hit, has come back quite rapidly. But I think we all know there are a lot of other underlying issues dealing with the economy that may yet hit, so we'll see what the impact of that will be. But the human fallout from that, of people being impacted by uncertainty, loss of job, just the shake of society that has taken place, and dealing with that emotionally, has created a whole additional set of problems for doctors, psychiatrists, and people to deal with.

And I hope that all of us in the Church are dealing with it well, and we certainly are sensitive to that. And beyond today, to try to point people to the Bible, point people to God, point them to His plan that we don't need to overly fear for ourselves, for our life, be prudent, take precautions, but not be consumed by fear and have a confident faith in God, and ultimately a confident faith in God's kingdom, which is the ultimate hope that we all have.

We have to keep that foremost in our thinking and mind, because that is our true hope. And so, when you have read the scriptures and the prophecies, and we are a Bible-oriented Church, and prophecy is a great deal of the Bible, and we understand that those events, many of them, or most of them, are yet future.

And so, that creates a heightened sense of awareness. And even if you were not interested in prophecy with what has taken place, you suddenly have got a whole new mindset and a new thought about that. So, how do we navigate that? What should we be thinking about? Now, what I want to talk about this afternoon is not so much a lot of the details of, you know, new things that we do know about. I'm going to continue talking about Babylon. But I want to just lay out some thinking and some possibilities from certain scriptures to try to help us to put in a perspective what is, I think, the reality of the world right now, what is taking place, and try to match that up with what we can see in some of the broad strokes of prophecy, and what God says is yet ahead in anticipation of His Son's return and the Kingdom of God on this earth.

I'd like for you to take your Bibles and turn over to the book of Habakkuk, one of the minor prophets.

Very short book, three chapters, follows Nahum, and just before Zephaniah, Habakkuk. Habakkuk is a prophet that I focused on a few years ago in chapter one, and actually used the first five verses of Habakkuk one in what we were doing. We had a series of America, the time is now, public appearance campaigns that we did in United. We actually did, I think we did 19 of, we went to 19 different cities and did that. We were hoping to come to Phoenix, and that didn't happen when we kind of terminated that about two years ago. But we did go to Southern California and did three locations out there and other places, and I focused on my presentation on the first few verses of Habakkuk and what the prophets saw. America, the time is now, was our theme, and I think we were a little bit ahead of our time, because now is still very prevalent. There's still a time for America and Canada and any nation for that matter to heed God's warning, don't understand what's happening. But what I'd like to do today is take you to the third chapter of Habakkuk and look at what the prophets saw. Briefly, the look of Habakkuk. Habakkuk was a prophet who saw his nation Judah crumbling, and he wanted God to intervene. And God said, I'm going to intervene, but I'm going to bring Babylon in, and I'm going to use them as my rod of chastisement. And Habakkuk said, oh God, you can't do that. No, no, God, please. They're even worse than we are, and they work. Well, God said, I'm going to do it anyway, and he did. Habakkuk was the contemporary of Jeremiah. Again, that time of Daniel's early life I talked about this morning. And so Habakkuk spends his time kind of talking back and forth in a dialogue with God, and then he comes to a point where he realizes, okay, what is is it? It will happen. God is sovereign. And in chapter 3, there's a prayer. It opens with a prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet on Shigileth.

And he says in verse 2, and it's a prayer of the prophet to God. I have heard your speech, which he did, and was afraid, because he recognized what that would mean for his nation, that they would be punished by the hand of the Chaldean. And I was afraid. And he said, O Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years, make it known in wrath, remember mercy. And that's always a theme of God's word. God historically judged his people, but he always held out hope for mercy and a return. Eventually, the Jews did go back and they rebuilt the land, and that led up to the coming of Christ as first coming. God always provided, if you repent, if my people who are known by my name will humble and pray, was the prayer, that's the dedication of the temple, that could happen. And so the prophet says, remember mercy. And then he goes into this kind of, it's a very interesting passage. He said, God came from Timon. These are regions to the south of Jerusalem. The Holy One from Mount Peran, his glory covered the heavens and the earth was full of his praise. His brightness was like the light. And so it's kind of a vision in the prophet's prayer here of God coming.

In a sense, moving among the nations. He had rays flashing from his hand and there was power, and his power was hidden. Before him went pestilence and fever followed at his feet. So even in this prayer, we see this image of pestilence, a pandemic that is a part of this. And then in verse 6 it says, he stood and measured the earth.

He looked and startled the nations. God's judgment, ultimately we find from other prophetic writings, will be upon the nations. Christ will return, Revelation 10 tells us, and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. So the judgment that comes at the return of Christ is upon all the nations. And so here the prophet sees this and he sees God standing and measuring the earth. Verse 6, He looked and startled the nations and the everlasting mountains were scattered. The perpetual hills bowed. His ways are everlasting. I saw the tents of Kushan in affliction. The curtains of the land of Midian trembled. Again, these were the contemporary nations of Habakkuk's time of the region of the Middle East, that area around Palestine, today the modern state of Israel. But it's an image of God moving among the nations in a judgment. And in verse 6 it says, He stood and He measured the earth, which is a symbol of a judgment. God taking stock, measuring, judging the nations. And then He says the nations are startled. If the events of this year do not represent a starkling, a group of the nations in unrest. It has been a time of unrest. An unprecedented period in one sense in our modern times has taken place. I'm not trying to say that this was a prophecy for 2020. I'm saying that as we look at 2020 and we try to understand certain things, that this vision of the prophet, and with the prospect of duality of prophecy, and God still we're looking for a period of judgment yet, could we say that God is measuring the nations today? I think we can. I think God is very much involved in world events. Nothing happens of such magnitude that we have had this year, that He's certainly not aware and is not allowed according to His purpose and plan. And we can try to trace some of the broad outlines, I think, of what is currently taking place and what we see ultimately in prophecy. And so what I'd like to do is take about three different segments here and talk a little bit about what is going on right now and what we at least should acknowledge and seek to understand from a biblical perspective. Let me take the first segment, the first world situation, if we want to call it. Let's call it that.

And that is what I call the rise of the anglosphere. The anglosphere is a term used to describe the five of the English-speaking nations of the world today. America, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The anglosphere, who, taken together, have twice the gross domestic product of the European Union and represents the largest economic trading bloc in the world as a unit, those five countries. They're not in a formal agreement at this point, but there has been talk that they should. And earlier this year, as you may know, the United Kingdom left the European Union, the Brexit matter, and they're casting about. And so we have this idea, we have this reality of where we are right now. Now, our prophetic understanding in the Church of God has long been that these English-speaking nations that I just referenced are the descendants of Joseph representing that part of the tribe of Israel upon whom Jacob placed his hands in chapter 48 of the book of Genesis, and he put his name, Jacob, or Israel as it was, upon those two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, of Joseph. We know the story. And in Genesis chapter 49, you might just quickly turn there, as Jacob indicated what would befall the sons of Jacob in the last day, in Genesis 49 and verse 1. And Jacob, on his deathbed, goes around all of his sons, and he tells something about what would befall them in the last days. Now, this is understood to be by many, many Bible scholars when the phrase, the last days, is used, and it's speaking of the time of the end of the age in the same way that Christ used that term in Matthew 24. What would be the signs of your coming into the end of the age the apostles asked him? And so, Jacob gives a description.

And upon Joseph, he makes a statement to him down in verse 22. And remember that Joseph, two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, received that blessing upon him. We tell this story in our booklet about the United States and Britain in Bible prophecy, so I'm skipping over a lot of that, and taking that as an understood matter for us. And Joseph is described here as a fruitful bow. A fruitful bow by a well whose branches run over the wall. The archers have bitterly grieved him and shot at him and hated him. But his bow remained in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. And he goes on to talk about his blessings, the blessings of heaven above in verse 25, and the blessings of the deep that lies beneath. It's a very prosperous, benevolent, wealthy picture that is given here about Joseph in the last days. And it's been a benchmark verse that helps us to understand if we are to look into the modern world, the period of the last days, for a fulfillment of what Jacob set upon his sons, and particularly Joseph. I've left with a conclusion, as many of us have and others that even came before us, that that has been fulfilled in the English-speaking peoples. And that's been a benchmark point of our prophetic understanding of the Bible, and of our understanding of the fullness of the promises of Abraham.

The promise that God made to Abraham included the spiritual and a physical dimension that is multidimensional in their fullness that I don't have the time to go into all today. But it is a part of that promise of Abraham that we must understand to understand the modern world, and also, frankly, the full mercy and kindness and the enduring faithfulness of God to that promise that he made to Abraham that includes the spiritual promise of Christ, and ultimately, the spiritual salvation to all the nations through Christ, which is a part of that promise. And so, what we see in the fulfillment of the fullness of that promise, to the descendants of Joseph in the modern age, is a precursor of that fullness of that spiritual promise to all the nations that God will fulfill through his eternal plan that we understand and observe as when we keep the eighth day and the knowledge of the dead, small, and great coming up out of the grave and all mankind having the ultimate opportunity to know God. Great understanding that God has given to us. What we see today, then, the way I place it, with the fullness of God's covenant promise being fulfilled physically to the descendants of Joseph, is a marker that God is going to do the full spiritual promises to all the nations, all the races through his kingdom and the world to come. To me, it's the only way to really understand the injustice, the evil, the lack of equity in the world today and every age past. And, you know, I've been to Africa many times. The Knutson's have as well. They go over there regularly. You go to Africa and I've seen the poverty. I've seen the corruption. I've seen the beauty. I've seen what it is. And you wish that you could take everyone and give them what we have. When I drive by somebody in Malawi or in Zambia, literally beating the dirt to eke out a few potatoes. And they see me driving by in an air-conditioned Toyota land cruiser. And they look at me. And I look at them. I see this vast gulf. I see this vast distance that is in the world. To me, that is a symbol. And I cannot bridge that by myself. No NGO can bridge that. No plan humanly has been able to bridge that gulf. But I know that God's kingdom will. And it inspires me. And I know it inspires Mr. Knutson as he labors and does his work in that part of the world to bring the message of the gospel.

I told my wife a few days ago, if I were to list all the things that I've done, been able to do in the 47 years in the ministry and rank them, you know, with the biggest pleasure, satisfaction that I've ever had of all the things that I've been able to do, I've been blessed. The number one on my list is to stand under a thatched roof in the bush of Africa, teaching people about God and his son, Jesus Christ. That is the number one thing that is number one privilege that I've had in 47 years.

I can't think of any greater thing to do. And, you know, you, Debbie and I said, you know, we haven't really been overly fearful about COVID. We go to Africa, you know, and you take your life in your hands with disease, different food. Let me tell you some of the places that we've eaten. And you, so that hasn't worked. COVID hasn't worried us that, you know, unduly so. We take our precautions, but there it is. We're incredibly blessed.

And you know what? The Anglosphere and the time of the Anglosphere is not over.

Now, we've taken a wallop this year. I look, I liken what has happened to America as a satanic pit job designed to take us out. And we kind of crumbled just a little bit or faltered, but we're not out. Far from out. Now, we're going to have some rough patches ahead.

But I don't think it's over yet. We have not yet reached the time of Jacob's trouble, that Jeremiah talked about. There are a lot of other prophetic events that have to line up before we get to some of the events in Revelation. We're not there yet. In December and into January, Debbie and I, along with Mr. and Mrs. Cubick, made a trip to the Philippines, Singapore, and Hong Kong. We went to the Philippines to do a week-long training with all the elders and deacons and leadership of the Philippines. That was a wonderful experience.

And we had planned that. Mr. Cubick wanted to go. They said, well, we're going over there. Let's go to visit our few members in Singapore. So we went to Singapore. And they said, well, we're there. We might as well stop in Hong Kong. I'm saying, yes, sir, boss. I was just going to the Philippines.

Then it turned into a big trip. And it was a good trip. We met a lot of people. One of the things I walked away, came away from that trip thinking about, in Singapore, you're looking at the Straits of Malacca. And you see the world's commerce flowing through the Straits of Malacca, the tankers, the ships, the commerce. Hong Kong, which has now radically changed with what China's done, but Hong Kong, the New York of the East, the Vasia. And I got to thinking, and I was thinking about these things. And I realized, in the Philippines, you saw the influence, the standing of America. Still. And then COVID came in March. It hit us. And it's been a blow. But I've been thinking this through. The time of the Angles Faire is not over yet. I think we will come back. I don't know how the election will go this year. We can all have our opinion, and it's only that. Okay? But there are things that are going on in this world, and we have yet to come to that point. There was an article written by a historian named Andrew Roberts just earlier this month. We're still in August. August the 8th. Wall Street Journal. It's time to revive the Angles Faire. And the Angles Faire are these five nations that I'm talking about. Andrew Roberts wrote a book called The History of the English-Speaking Peoples from 1900 forward. He picked up where Winston Churchill left in his magisterial work by the same title, but Churchill stopped about 1900. And Mr. Roberts wrote a very thick book about 10 years ago, and he finished the story, at least to that date of 10-12 years ago. It's a fascinating book. Essentially what it shows is, as I read it, we've been right in our understanding about Joseph.

Because Mr. Roberts, a secular historian who doesn't believe what we believe, but just looks at the historical record, traced in a very thick volume, the benefit, the blessing of Joseph, as we just read here in Genesis 48, to all the nations through everything from a polio vaccine for the 1950s to systems and programs, a Marshall plan that rebuilt a shattered Europe that we beat in 1945 and following, economic aid, education, science, and technology that has benefited the world. You read a book like that, and you realize he doesn't shy away from the negative problems of American Britain as well, and the mistakes we've made with peoples, whether it was in China, Vietnam, or other places. But to say that we are a systemically racist country is just one of those myths that has been woven. Is there racism? Yes. Is it systemic? Are we inherently corrupted? No. No more than any other nation by virtue of human nature. We have had the blessings of Abraham upon us in the fullness of those promises. And on balance, as Mr. Roberts shows, we've been a greater blessing to the world than we have been a curse. It was those nations that stood together against Hitler, first England by itself in 1940, and then finally America came on in 1942, and in three-plus years beat the beast.

Beat back the last revival that we've seen of the beast. Now, when we look at the prophetic flow of Revelation and we look for one more beast, one more revival of that system that Revelation 17 describes, it will not be pretty. We're still talking about, and we're still getting over, World War II. When we were in the Philippines, we went out to Corregidor, where MacArthur made his last-ditch stand. They left it as it was, bombed out buildings. It was an American military base. And the remnant of all those bombings and the guns that are jammed and everything, it's all still there. And we were walking over that and thinking, we're still dealing with, through books and through movies and through discussions, the impact of World War II, which was the last revival of the beast. And it got beat back by Joseph. Undeniably. Mr. Roberts is calling for a revival of this Anglosphere. Will it happen? It could. And if, frankly, my personal feeling is only personal, I think it will. I think we're in for another run.

I'm not going to tell you how to invest, and I'm not going to tell you what to do. That's your business. The way I look at it, if we've got more time, that means we've got more time, the church, to preach the Gospel, to do the work, to prepare the bride for people to be called. And to understand the truth, that's how I look at it. And so it hasn't impacted. I don't go rushing out buying gold, hoarding cash. I begun to rethink about toilet paper, though. I might hoard some toilet paper. Okay? Still can't figure that one out. I mean, I can, but I can't. You're smarter than I am on that one. But I think we've got more time to work as a church, and I think that America's not down, and this Engels' idea could very well produce. I mean, England just built two new aircraft carriers, and they sent one of them to the South China Sea to go along with America in its fleet over there to seek to contain China. All right? And so we're still projecting power, and yes, we've ballooned multiple trillions of dollars of debt as a result of the stimulus package. And I look at that, just like you do, and I wonder, and I say, by the grace of God, we're still standing as a nation. And you're grateful, and I'm grateful, because your credit cards still work when you put them into your gas pump, and your 401, your IRA, your retirement from wherever, even Uncle Sam, is still there, right? We're still eating. And if I retire, then I've got mine to think about. And so it's been an incredibly prosperous people that God has blessed. It's not because we're great. It's because God is faithful to His promise.

All right? We can you and you can debate and have all your feelings about make America great again.

That's not the point. We were whatever greatness we had was only because of God.

And to the degree we've used it, we've all benefited from it. As I said, they still want to come to America. They still want what we have. And the poorest among us have a whole lot more than a lot of people in some of these parts of the world. And so we look at this and we see this, and I think we should understand that we may yet be looking at a time before the sun sets on what we have known. Mr. Roberts makes this one point toward the end of his article.

A second, anglospheric superpower would mean that the political values we share will be better defended and promoted. And we would be a fine neighbor and a trading and a defense partner in the world. As the world order undergoes its most profound transition, since the end of the Cold War, it's an idea whose moment has arrived. So we'll see. Britain's got to go somewhere. And America and Britain share a common language with these other three nations and a common cultural heritage. And there's a lot of attention that is being paid to that. You don't normally read about it, but there's a great deal that is there to understand. And so the rise of the anglosphere and the continuation with certain changes. Now, we can fear that, well, it depends on who wins the election, as to how much time we have and what policies will be in place. I'm well aware of the onslaught of social cultural changes that would take place if the Democrats would win. Just looking at what they have said they would do. And I know that.

And so when you look at the issues that are there, you know that, and you have to know, from a biblical worldview, that they could likely usher in further moral, spiritual, cultural decline that would bring about a time of God's judgment. But that's in God's hands.

And we need to be at least aware of that and understand it as we deal with it. That's the way I tend to view it. And believe me, there are deep, deep issues that are at play this year.

And I pray that, you know, as Paul prayed, and we should pray, that we will be able to continue to have an open door to preach the mystery of Christ, as he said to the Colossians in chapter 4, a door to continue open to preach the mystery of Christ, and the gospel of Christ, Jesus Christ, and the kingdom of God. And so that area is still big. We are still a very powerful nation with all of our problems. And yet we mourn over the sins that we see being played out in our headlines, in our streets, in our cities, and the actions that are being taken right now in America. Which leads me to the second point that I want to talk about here this afternoon. And that is this idea of globalism, sometimes called transnational globalism, in a global world. Which is really a secular term for what I talked about this morning and what I'm writing about in this booklet that I'm trying to get out the door of the coming Babylon. Let's turn over to Revelation 17. We'll not have time to go through all of this, but chapter 17 and 18 do describe what is called Babylon the Great, Mystery Babylon the Great. In verse 5, this image, this woman writing the beast that John has this vision of, it's called Mystery Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled with great amazement. It goes on to describe it here in chapter 17.

And then chapter 18 opens up a bit more of a detailed description along with the actual fall of this system called Babylon. Now our prophetic narrative that we've long understood in the church is that this will be the final revival of a system that we began reading about in Daniel chapters 2 and 7 and continue in Revelation 13 and 17 and 18 here of a system that began really at the Tower of Babel, back in Genesis of Babylon or Babel, and a system that arches all the way through Scripture to this very point in the book of Revelation as Babel the kingdom of Babylon that we read about in the Old Testament period of Daniel and the kings that took Judah captive and that God rails against the prophets talked about and then now this system that comes to pass in this rise of this entire world girdling global system. When you look at chapter 18, you begin to see a description of what this system is as it will be brought down. Verse 2 talks about the angel cries out, Babylon the Great is fallen, is fallen, and become a dwelling place of demons and a prisoner of every foul spirit and a cage for every unclean and hated bird. And what we have described here when we bring in chapter 13 is a combined religious political super system, which Babylon has always been. One of the research that I've done and try to bring out in the booklet is from the very beginning of the ancient Babylon, and even at Babel. It is Babylon, what was built around Babylon, what it became, what it sought to do was to create a really for this time a global spiritual religious system of deception and economic control. Why did God confound the languages at Babel? Because they would have progressed far beyond His purpose and plan as they sought to build this culture, this structure there. God scattered them at the time. And Babylon, that then finally rose, that we see in the time of Daniel, was an economic structure built on economics and religious deception, which is what this woman holds in her cup of her hand as she rides this beast. It was and is and will be a religious political structure. That's what we see in Revelation 13. But at the heart of it is economics.

The beast turns on the false prophet in this, as we're told here, and ultimately the economic structure comes down. But verse 8 talks about her plagues will come in one day. It will be very quick when it happens as God brings it down at the very end of the age. Verse 9 talks about a little bit more of a description of the kings of the earth that committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her when they see the smoke that were burning, standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying, Alas, Alas, that great city of Babylon, that mighty city for when one hour your judgment has come, and the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise anymore. Merchandise, economics, trade.

Think what I described. Sitting on the Straits of Malacca in Singapore, watching this continual line of ships passing through that critical area of the world, taking oil and goods to and from east and west, the internet, other structures, and trade. It's all about trade. It's all about economics. And what God has described here are the mourning of the merchants because this system now comes to a close. But in verses 12 and 13, we find a shopping list of gold and silver and stones and pearls and silk and scarlet and wool and citron and wood and bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon incense. It's a shopping list. It's the New York Stock Exchange. It's the FTSE. It's the Japanese Exchange. It's everything. It's what you and I have invested in, right? It is the world economy. It's a global trading, political, ultimately, even for a moment, spiritual system that holds the earth in thrall in a unique moment at the close of the age and in a unique way. And we could sum it all up by, in one sense, the term globalism, which is what they tried to do, began to do at Babel, and God disrupted it. Babylon, the head of gold, was an economic system, and every successive empire from that extended that. Alexander the Great sought to create a global world that was Greek. And Rome, at its height, the Pax Romana, ruled people of diverse origins and languages and religions from what is the British Isles to the sands of Arabia, and held them under the iron grip. There's a reason it's called iron, that fourth beast, that fourth part of the image, and held order for that period of time. And it was a trading system. It was a religious system. It was a Babylon. And this is what is described here, and it will be global. We've had a little bit of a setback, but it's just a little bit of a hiccup. Globalism is here to stay. That's the future. And there was an interesting article that came out about a year ago on the American Thinker website. I was put to it by listening to a radio commentator who was explaining it. He was explaining it in the context of why everybody hates President Trump. Not only in America, you know, Democrats in America and others, but many in the world. Why do they hate him? And he was quoting this article. And so I went to the site, I got the article, and it was written by a reputable think-take scholar, a man by the name of John Faunt. The article, Who Makes the Rules in a Rules-Based Liberal-Global Order?

And he talks about globalism or transnationalism, which he says is an ideology with a social material base, with a very strong American connection. Globalism, he says, is an ideology that is utopian. The age-old dream of worldwide peace and prosperity under a benevolent, global regime. Further, he says, the globalist project today is bipartisan, meaning it's Democratic, Republican, liberal, conservative, worldwide. The idea of creating a world order. Now, I know, let me say this at this point, this really sounds conspiratorial. And I'll tell you right now, I'm not into conspiracies. All right? But I do understand a little bit about how things work in the world. And what he's describing here is globalism and the continual march toward globalism over the last, frankly, since the end of World War II, and especially since the end of the Cold War, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. And it's been done by virtually every American administration, every American president from that time up until the current president. And as the author brings out, part of the reason, and a big reason he has been opposed by the elites and other governments is because he has put a stop to it. At least for the moment, by his Make America Great, Bring Everything Back to America ideas. This is just the reality of what's taking place. And I think it makes a lot of sense. Because the world since 1946 has been moving toward a, in a sense, a one world order with the United Nations, with the World Health Organization, with so many different entities. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Union project is a project toward ultimate globalism. And whether it's the corporate leaders, whether it's governments of America, Canada, and all of the trade in order to bring things together, it has been with that idea of eventually, by the deep-seated thinkers on this subject, the eventual idea is to cede national sovereignty to a global order. A global order. Because that would bring peace. That would bring prosperity. And with Brexit, it began to put a grind against it. And certainly then, a year later, with the election of Donald Trump as president, and his policies, it's kind of put a hold on it. And it's created, in part, a lot of the background to the friction and the opposition that we see, apart from politics and apart from personality.

It's a matter of understanding, because in their view, the arc of history has been altered with these events. I would say that it's only stalled, because Scripture tells us, with what we read in Revelation 18 and 17, that it's ultimately going to triumph for a period at the close of the age, and bring about the events that we read about in the book of Revelation.

But when you look at, as this article goes on, it's an effort that has been championed by President Clinton, both President Bushes, even Ronald Reagan to a degree. And we might think that virtually every administration and people have been working toward that. And it's couched in various interesting terms, like values and global order, but it is moving in that direction. And it's inexorable. But it's kind of been put on hold. But it is a lot, and the author brings out here how some of the scholars and the elite scholars who think about this and work on it, they argue that democracies, such as we have in America, cannot be relied upon to create global rules that would create the type of world order that they seek. And especially, as one puts it here, because of the disregard of the interests of foreigners. And they cite the United States and Israel as major transgressors of those who disregard the interests of foreigners. Again, build a wall. Well, that's against foreigners.

Keep the Palestinians down and in camps and not joining Israel or letting them, in a sense, take over Israel. That's against foreigners. And so these ideas work and continue to churn and create the policies and sometimes the conflicts that are kept alive as a result of this. And they do help to explain the animosity against the state of Israel and against the United States. And if you couple that, frankly, with a biblical worldview, which we do have, as we read back in Genesis 48 of the archers shooting at Joseph out of envy, then you begin to recognize that it's not politics. It's far more than even sovereignty. It has to do with the basic fabric of reality of God's purpose and plan as represented by His kingdom and Satan's opposition as represented by His kingdom, i.e. Babylon. Which is important, why it's important to understand what Babylon is. Has been from the biblical description and what is developing in our midst as we deal with this right now. It goes on to show that without a doubt, the American leadership class is crucial to the success of this global governance project. Because of the power of the American nation-state, U.S. submission to global authority would have to be voluntary. Which is true, and that's an interesting statement. But America, in essence, would have to submit to the rules of a supranational legal regime and the global rule of law. There's a lot of catchphrases that we hear of all the time. They just kind of float over our head, but they are the real underpinnings of this ideology. Now, Mr. Faunt comes down to one final point that's going to lead me to my third here point today. He said, this is all just one part of the core issue of our time. He says there's another core issue of our time, and it is what he calls the challenge from identity politics, multiculturalism, political correctness, social justice, wokeism, whatever you want to call it. He said that is a part of this as well as a major, major issue of our time. Globalism is one, and then he calls it the identity politics. Wednesday, I'm going to do a program on identity, identity politics to a degree, more the transgender issues and how it's robbing us of our ultimate spiritual identity in Christ as potential children of God. That's the ultimate problem here. But what we've been seeing in our headlines these recent weeks since the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis, especially, and the eruption of violence, Black Lives Matter, and TIFA, and all of these issues that have just they've always been there, and now they have erupted like a like a cancer into the body, politic and culture. And where it's going to go, I don't know. Will it be tamped back down? Possibly. But it's going to remain. It's been decades building.

The children doing this now are the grandchildren or the children, and ideas, if not in literal fact, of those of the 60s and the early 70s that were rioting and burning down the streets of America. It's now filtered through academia, media, cultural leaders, even the politics. Why do the Congress, why do the leaders of Seattle or Portland not stop it? Because they have been inoculated through their years with these ideas. And Mr. Faunt brings out this truth that the second big issue of our time is this identity area that comes out in all these multiculturalism, and there's an intersectionality of all of it. LGBTQ, transgender, and all of that. And frankly, I think what we are looking at as we deal with this and seek to understand it, identity politics, I think that it is, I'm coming to think in my own mind, I'm just speaking a little bit more personally, that this could very well be the rot that will destroy the America we once knew. And the cancer that Isaiah chapter one talks about, with the body being sick from head to foot, as God says there. This could very well be the rot that does this, this identity politics, gender wars, trans issues, multiculturalism that we are seeing work through every aspect of our society. It's not going to go away. And we've got to certainly identify it and understand it for what it is. My program this week will be dealing with the fact that it is here. I mean, and it's, you know, I found a story some of you probably heard of a woman who's a doctor, who's been in a court custody battle with her husband over one of her sons, who's eight years old, and she wants to put him through trans therapy at the age of eight. And the court in Dallas just a few weeks ago gave her the authority to continue the trans therapy through counselors in school and otherwise to trans this eight-year-old boy named James into something called Luna. And he goes to school, treated like a girl, but he wants to be a boy, which is what an eight-year-old want boys want to be. They want to be a boy. But his mother wants him to trans him to a girl. And a court is ruling in favor of allowing the therapy at least to continue. This is where we are. It's abominable. But all across the board as we see it, more and more, and being forced, oppressed to accept it as normal, to affirm it, it's gone beyond same-sex marriage.

It's gone to what I might identify with this morning and how I am addressed at school, in the workplace. It's gone that far and it'll go further. It could be very well, but it's designed to hide the very identity of our potential as the children of God.

We're one in Christ. There's neither male nor female, neither Jew nor Gentile, Paul said.

But that's at the spiritual level in our spiritual relationship with God. And this counterfeit, if you want to call it, this abomination that is becoming the norm in so many parts of our society that can begin to then control so much and change so much, you wonder why I'm fearful for my grandchildren going off to college as you are for yours. I think, and I wonder, and this is perhaps Darris McNeely's opinion, but it is, I think, a lot of, certainly in principle, we've talked about issues in Romans 1 that are backed up by Scripture. But these are the cultural issues that we're dealing with and it connects to the global idea because globalism is an idea that seeks to knock down national borders, whether it's between American Mexico or between Europe and the Middle East, to allow the free movement of peoples to live in freedom wherever they want without any national sovereignty under some type of a pan-global order, to live where they want, how they want, and to become who they want. This is the language that is being used and it ties into this global issue. These globalism and this identity issue are the two big ones right now that could be game changers to create, ultimately, a sexless society, which in itself really won't work. I mean, history shows that. Biology, you cannot go against biology and DNA. And history even itself. I mean, there's ample reasons there, but with what we see building toward this crisis at the close of the age, if we look at trying to figure out what is going to be a spiritual deception to hold the nations in thrall where they worship the beast, it'll probably be something bigger than what we've ever come across ourselves and seen.

And sometimes I think, at least I have tried to step, take a step back, broaden my thinking about what's going on in the world to try to understand what kind of deception will come that could deceive the very elect. You, me, what would it be? I think it has to be something even beyond what we've even imagined and thought about. I mean, the evangelical church down the street holds some of the same ideas about the Antichrist and the beast and the false prophet as you and I do.

We don't have a corner on that. So I think we have to allow that God might have something else in mind. And I've seen certain things in recent years myself that kind of blew my mind, even within our church fellowship, to help me realize that, you know, how maybe the elect could be deceived. And with this latest COVID and a vaccine and all the issues and some things that we've had to address, brethren, be careful. Be careful. I am more concerned that I have the mark of Jesus Christ on me than I am about the mark of the beast. I'd rather have the mark of God on me, His Spirit in my heart, His law being written on my heart, you know, Christ in me, the hope of salvation. That's the mark I'm interested in. Don't get caught up in a lot of vain speculation that can be divisive, trying to figure out the mark of the beast by certain other things. I'll just leave that open. All right? Don't go there. Sometimes in the church of God, we've been a little bit too quick to go to some of these extreme ideas. And I've been around long enough to I can rattle them all off. So I know where I speak. So let's be careful. Let's keep our feet firmly rooted in Scripture and have a bit of humility that God might have reserved a few things to Himself that He hasn't yet revealed to us. In all of our wisdom, and again, to bring in what I've said this morning, I do like to be kind of like Daniel and seek wisdom and understanding.

I'm not trying to interpret my dreams or your dreams or anybody else's dreams necessarily, but I do want to understand. But I recognize the pitfalls that I could be subject to in any of this, and we have to be careful regarding that. You go back to Habakkuk, and if I could just conclude with that. That's the signal that I'm about done.

Of course, where my wife grew up as a kid in the church when the minister said that, she knew she was in for another 30 minutes. But you're not, so don't worry about that, okay?

Let's go back to Habakkuk 3 and verse 2, which I've thought a lot about, and I think we all should think a lot about it and apply to ourselves. Oh Lord, I have heard your speech and was afraid. Oh Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make it known. In wrath, remember mercy. I think it's time for a revival, a renewal of all of us, in our faith, in our belief, in our walk with God. Anytime's a good time for that, but more so as we grapple with the events of 2020, that we pray and seek that God would revive his work, first within us, in our relationship with him, through prayer, through study, through seeking his will, but collectively as well as a church, that we can be that instrument that God uses to preach the gospel, Jesus Christ in the kingdom of God, and to make disciples that God will call.

In the process of his greater work of adding many sons to glory. Appreciate being with all of you here today and this weekend and today. I hope that I've given you some things to think about and certainly a number of things to pray about as we seek to understand where we are and what happens next.