PTNews
P r o p h e c y T o d a y N e w s
April 2022
Published monthly
All Bible references are from the KJV
(Examining Current Events in the Light of Bible Prophecy)
P.O. Box 13006, Roanoke, VA 24030-3006
The Beginning of the End
Part One
“And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and [pandemics], and earthquakes, in [different] places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” Matthew 24:6-8
By Mike Wingfield
When Bible believers speak about the end of the world the people in the world laugh at them. I have seen numerous cartoons that depict a Christian carrying a placard that declares the end of the world is near. In these cartoons the believer is depicted as a deranged, fanatical lunatic. However, when a scientist speaks about the demise of planet Earth they listen with great respect.
For example, the scientific world is promoting the idea that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are destroying the global environment that promotes the cycle of life on earth. They have collaborated with global politicians to scare us with the idea that the world will come to a tragic end if we do not alter our lifestyles by changing the forms of energy we use. All these fabrications have no real scientific foundation. Most importantly, they are in direct conflict with the revelation of the eternal Creator. Tragically, gullible citizens of earth believe the future of earth is in the hand of man, rather than the hand of God. The Bible says, “Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that [trusts] in man, and [makes] flesh his arm, and whose heart [departs] from the LORD” (Jeremiah 17:5).
The Bible is emphatic that God the Father has given His Son, Jesus, power over all heaven and earth (Matthew 28:18). The Son of God is sovereign over all His creation. Jesus the Messiah is the Creator, Ruler, and Sustainer of all things (Colossians 1:16-17). All of time, space, and matter are in His hands. In the last book of the Bible, Jesus is declared to be “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending” (Revelation 1:8). From Genesis, the book of beginnings, to Revelation, the book of endings, Jesus Christ is the Lord of all. You can rest assured that the end of the world is firmly in His hands. We are not doomed by fate. We are in the hands of a good Creator who cares about His creation.
After being humiliated by God in the days of the ancient prophet of Daniel, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful king on earth, declared, “I blessed the most High, and I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” (Daniel 4:34-35)
Only a rebel and a fool openly denies these realities! It seems that we now have lots of them in our world. A day is coming, and it appears to be very soon, when the Lord will demonstrate to the world once again that He, not man, is the sovereign Lord of His creation. When God destroys Russia and its radical Muslim allies upon the mountains of Israel in the near future, the entire world will know there is a God in heaven! God says, “Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD” (Ezekiel 38:23).
The Bible declares that Jesus made the earth and all the galaxies by His command. “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth” (Psalm 33:6). Exodus 20:11 says, “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day…” The Word of our Lord spoke the creation into existence out of nothing (Hebrews 11:3). His same spoken Word is currently sustaining all things at this present moment (Colossians 1:16-17; Hebrews 1:3). In the beginning, He spoke to the atoms, the basic building blocks of all the physical creation, and arranged them to function according to His design. He is the One who created and maintains the electrical charges that hold the atoms together.
The Bible firmly and consistently declares that the future of God’s creation is under His control. This creation is not the product of random chance or freak mutations. Sinful man does not want to believe that God created the world. He knows that if he believes that, He will need to be in submission to God. For most of the people on the planet, they will make any excuse and believe any lie to mentally attempt to escape from this reality. They want to be in control of their life and their world.
Sinful man does not want to believe in creation. Likewise, he does not want to believe that the ultimate destruction of earth is in the hands of the Creator. When the Apostle Peter answered the scoffers of his day, he reminded them that their foolish pride ignored the person and power of God in the creation and destruction of earth (2 Peter 3:1-14). He reminded them that the same powerful Word of God that created and sustains the creation, will be the same Word that brings about the demise of the creation. Peter declared, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are [in it] shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). We now know that Peter was describing an instant atomic explosion that will occur when the Lord speaks to the atoms in all His creation. When He does that, they will implode with horrific force.
The truth about the sudden passing away of the old heavens and earth is consistently taught throughout Scripture (Psalm 102:25-26; Hebrews 1:10-11; Revelation 20:11; 21:1). According to the Bible, the passing away of the original creation will not take place for at least another 1,007 years. After the Rapture, the creation will face a horrific time of seven years of Tribulation. Following this, the earthly kingdom of our Lord will be divinely initiated. Earth will enjoy its best days since the Garden of Eden for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:1-10). At the end of that earthly kingdom, the old creation will pass away.
Since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, the creation and mankind have been waiting for their ultimate redemption. In Romans 8:18-25, the Apostle Paul described how all of creation is groaning in pain waiting for the final redemption of mankind that will ultimately bring about the kingdom of God. During that kingdom, the creation will be set free from the bondage of sin that has enslaved it since the fall of man. Paul wrote, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22). Here, Paul depicts creation and mankind to be like a woman who is pregnant and is waiting for the birth of a new life. This analogy is used consistently throughout the Bible to speak of two things. God is waiting for the new life that will be the redemption of His creation, and the spiritual redemption of His chosen people, Israel. The Bible depicts the painful struggle of His creation and the spiritual blindness of Israel as the condition of a woman’s difficult pregnancy. The end of the pregnancy enters its final stage when the woman goes into labor and experiences the gut-wrenching pain of birth pangs. In the Bible, the Tribulation is that final time of the birth pangs before the new life is born, and the Kingdom of God comes on the earth. The Tribulation will be the most difficult time in history for all of mankind (Matthew 24:21-22), and especially for the Jewish people (Jeremiah 30:4-7; Daniel 12:1).
When Jesus was asked by His disciples to describe the nature of the time at “the end of the world” in Matthew 24:3, He alluded to this biblical analogy of the birth pangs. He clearly described the nature of the events that would transpire before and during the Tribulation Period.
Jesus explained to His disciples that the beginning of the birth pangs – “the beginning of sorrow” (Matthew 24:8) – would be characterized by five things. Those five trends would be spiritual deception, wars, famines, pandemics, and earthquakes (Matthew 24:4-8). All of these will occur on a global scale.
It is my firm conviction that we are now experiencing the prelude to the birth pangs that will unfold during the Tribulation Period. These five trends have become a reality. The contractions of a woman in the process of giving natural birth is manifested in two ways. Her contractions will become more painful and intense as she gets closer to the actual time of the delivery of her baby. Also, the muscle contractions will become more frequent as she approaches her delivery. So, the Bible is telling us that what the world is experiencing now will intensify and grow much worse. The process will unfold with lightning speed as the world approaches the end of the Tribulation and Christ returns to establish His millennial kingdom.
Jesus has told us to not be afraid of what is coming upon the earth. As believers, we know that He will remove His church before this awful time of the Tribulation. In Revelation 3:10, Jesus said to the church, “I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.” Furthermore, He has told us that the Tribulation will not be the end of the world. He said, “See that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet” (Matthew 24:6).
Let us examine these five global contractions that are heralding the suffering and conflict that is ahead for the world and Israel during the Tribulation.
Contraction #1- Global Spiritual Deception
The very first contraction of the birth-pangs that will usher in the Tribulation is spiritual deception. Jesus said, “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ: and shall deceive many. … For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders: in so much that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matthew 24:4-5, 24).
Spiritual deception is nothing new. It has plagued man since Eve was deceived by Satan and ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Spiritual deception has always been the root cause of man’s sin. Spiritual deception takes place when man trusts in his own intellect and experiences, rather than trusting in the revelation of God. Eve yielded to Satan’s temptation because she was trusting in her own feelings and sensual desires to eat a fruit that was appealing to her. She knew what God had said, but she chose to ignore the Word of God and trust in her own judgment.
The Bible repeatedly warns us against trusting our own thinking. “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD and depart from evil” (Proverbs 3:5-7). The Bible warns us, “There is a way which [seems] right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs 14:12). Sinful, finite man does not think like God! Read Isaiah 55:6-11. Un-less we fill our minds with the truth about the holiness of God, and the awfulness of sin, we will act foolishly and take sin lightly. If we had a better spiritual grasp of the deadliness of sin, we would hate it more. We would quickly grasp our desperate plight as sinners. We would be more genuine as we cry out to God for forgiveness and plead for His mercy and forgiveness.
Victory over deception begins when we recognize and openly embrace the message found in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” We live in a fallen world full of lies and liars (2 Timothy 3:13). However, our greatest enemy is ourselves! The Bible frequently warns us about self-deception (1 Corinthians 3:18; James 1:22; 1 John 1:8). Without the help of our sinful culture and Satan, we do a great job of believing our own lies about ourselves!
The greatest tool to protect yourself from being deceived is the written Word of God that has been embedded in your memory. First, a person must passionately believe the Bible is the perfect and eternal standard of truth that has been supernaturally provided to us by God. The Bible is the inspired Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16). That means it is the product of the very breath of God. It is totally accurate and adequate for all our needs. In our world, it is really the only source of truth.
To identify deception, we must know the truth of God [the Bible] to compare everything to this one and only eternal source of truth. We must saturate our minds with the Word of God so that we live by God’s truth, not by the deception of our age. “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2).
We are living in an age of incredible biblical illiteracy. I will never forget what happened to me years ago that helped me grasp this reality. I was witnessing to a man. In the process of sharing the gospel, I explained to him that we are all sinners. I mentioned to him the account in Genesis 3 of how man be-came a sinner. I was shocked that this man, probably in his 40s, had never heard of Adam and Eve! Friends, we are living in a pagan culture that is biblically illiterate. They know very little to nothing about the Bible and the message of the Bible. When we talk to people about salvation, we must assume they know nothing about God and the Bible.
Not only are they void of the knowledge of God and the Bible, but they have also been brainwashed by this pagan culture to reject God and His Word. Several years ago, I was flying home from a conference when I began to talk with the person beside me on the flight. As I began to talk to him about the Lord, he stopped me and told me he was an atheist and that he did not believe the Bible. So, I said to him, “Oh, so you have read the Bible.” He gave me a strange look and said, “Well, I have never read the Bible.” I said to him, “How can you say you do not believe the Bible when you have never read it for yourself?” He was at a loss for words. I said, “A good scientist thoroughly examines a matter before he draws a firm conclusion.” I encouraged him to read the gospel of John and prayerfully left him with that challenge.
Just a few weeks ago, a lady in my church shared with me a conversation she had with her granddaughter. Her granddaughter had been deceived into accepting the homosexual agenda of her peers. As she began to plead with her granddaughter, she told her that the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin. Her granddaughter looked at her and said, “Maybe God is wrong!” I was stunned by what she told me. That conversation was heavy on my heart for days. This represents what Jesus said when He spoke about the spiritual deception that will permeate the global culture before the time of His divine judgment upon the wicked at the end of this age.
The biblical illiteracy of our culture is only a small part of the spiritual deception in our day. Just as Jesus told His disciples, our world is filled with many false messiahs and false prophets. The airwaves of America are filled with false prophets who parade themselves as men of God. Many of them are nothing more than religious hucksters, trying to milk their audience for money and fame. You will not hear them speak about sin, judgment, or hell. Jesus continually warned His audience about these false teachers (Matthew 7:15-23).
The Apostle Paul also warned the church at Corinth about the false teachers in their culture. He identified them as being ministers of Satan. “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15). One of Satan’s great methods of deception is to masquerade himself as a religious person who cares about people.
Jesus said that the spiritual deception of the last days will be so great that there would be the possibility that “the very elect” [true born-again believers] might be deceived (Matthew 24:24). We are living at a time of the great apostasy in the professing church. I know many preachers who once claimed to believe the Bible and have since turned their back upon the doctrines of the Bible. They all did this in the name of appeasement. They do not want to offend sinners. Therefore, they stopped proclaiming the truth of the Bible that was offensive to those who were walking in spiritual darkness. These deceived preachers have forgotten that the mission of the church is to call people out of darkness into the glorious light of the gospel. We are called “to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins” (Acts 26:18).
We have been warned that this would happen (Luke 18:8; 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 4:3-4). 
God’s calling to the pastors of our churches is to preach the whole counsel of God. The ministry of the church is to be saturated with sound doctrine. This is the foundation of our faith! The church is to proclaim the teaching of Christ and the apostles, along with the foundational teaching of the Old Testament.
The church is called to biblically confront deception and doctrinal errors (Jude 3-4). Pastors need to openly rebuke the false teachers of our day (Romans 16:17-18). This is a vital part of the ministry of the ones who really care for the members of their own flock. God has entrusted the spiritual care of our church members to our spiritual oversight (1 Peter 5:1-4). God is saying to the Pastors of our churches today, “Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee” (1 Timothy 4:16).
Church members should rely upon their pastors to protect them from false teachers and spiritual deception. The Bible commands all believers to obey and submit themselves to their godly pastor. “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you” (Hebrews 13:17). If you are not strong in your grasp of the Bible, you should always ask your pastor about the people you listen to outside of the local church. Pastors have been called by God to watch for your soul. They are to protect you from false doctrine and false teachers.
Most pastors and churches today have forgotten that we are daily involved in a real spiritual war. The forces of darkness are all around us. We must “fight the good fight of faith, [and] lay hold on eternal life” (1 Timothy 6:12). The church is not to be a place of rest and comfort where people sleep while the war for the souls of men rages around us. The church needs to wake up!
We need to put on the whole armor of God and take a stand for the Lord (Ephesians 6:10-18). We are wrestling with the powers of darkness (Ephesians 6:12). If you are not aware of this spiritual warfare, then maybe you are on Satan’s side or you are asleep in the trenches. I am aware of Satanic attacks on my soul almost every day. Are you?
[This article will be continued in the next newsletter.]
New Wave of Terror in Israel
Israel is facing a new wave of deadly terror. Arabs are no longer using knives and rocks to attack Jews. They have acquired guns and are beginning a rampage of attacking Jewish targets across Israel. In response, Israel is adding more military personnel to their police forces around the nation [see photo].
In a televised announcement on Israeli TV on Wednesday, March 30, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said, “Citizens of Israel, we are currently experiencing a wave of murderous terrorism. What is expected of you, citizens of Israel? Alertness and responsibility. Open your eyes. Whoever has a license to carry a weapon, this is the time to carry it.”
Many radical Islamic groups are predicting that the beginning of the fall of Israel will take place this year. This prediction is based upon numerous Islamic prophecies. All of this is fueling the current rise in violence and terror in Israel.
10,000 Ukrainian Jews Arrive in Israel
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, 10,000 Jews have already arrived in Israel. Israel is expecting thousands more to arrive in the next few months. This is the beginning of the great influx of Jews to come home from the nations in the last days. According to the ancient prophet Ezekiel, the future Russian invasion of Israel will set in motion a large exodus of the Jewish people from the nations back to their homeland. In the context of the Gog and Magog war, God said, “Then shall they know that I am the LORD their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there” (Ezekiel 39:28).
Please be sure to check out the articles I am placing on our website. New developments that impact the future according to the Bible are occurring every hour. Things are moving very fast. Tell a friend!