June 2022 – The Beginning of the End (Part Three)

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June 2022

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(Examining Current Events in the Light of Bible Prophecy)

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The Beginning of the End

Part Three

“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” Matthew 24:21

By Mike Wingfield

From eternity past, God the Father decreed a master plan for all His creation. By His grace, He has revealed much of this plan to us in the Holy Scriptures. It is God’s will that His servants have an overview of His eternal plan so that it might give us hope and wisdom for living in the context of finite time while on this earth. Someone has said that the Bible is …

Basic

Instructions

Before

Leaving

Earth.

For those who have studied the prophetic portions of God’s Word, it is very apparent that our world is at a major crossroads in the plan of God. There have been cycles of wickedness and rebellion in the past that have invited the holy wrath of God to fall upon godless cultures. However, the developments taking place now clearly signal that we are approaching the divinely prescribed end of this age.

God has revealed that the end of His ordered plan for His creation will pass through a series of events during a period of 1,007 years. At the end of this age, the rebellion of man will usher in a response from the Almighty, that will cause Him to pour out His wrath upon the wicked inhabitants of earth for seven years – the Tribulation. This time of death and destruction will be followed by a time of peace and blessings as God’s Son rules over His Father’s creation for 1,000 years – the Millennial Kingdom. This wonderful time of God’s direct rule over His creation will end with the final rebellion of Satan and the masses that the devil will deceive (Revelation 20:7-10). This will bring the end to the history of planet earth!

The Scriptures reveal that the end of this world as we know it will take place under the divine authority and power of the heavenly Father. The end of this world is not some random series of events that will evolve by chance. The Scriptures are precise in their description of the events that will transpire at the end of this age under the divine rule of the Creator.

In the previous two issues of this newsletter, we have examined Jesus’ teaching about the conditions that will prevail at the end of this age. Jesus taught His disciples that the horrific time we know as the Tribulation is to be viewed as painful labor pangs that will give birth to the glorious messianic age – the Kingdom of God on earth. He said that the unique time of the beginning of these birth pangs will feature five global deadly threats to humanity: spiritual deception, wars and rumors of wars, famines, pandemics, and earthquakes. The first three of these contractions of the birth pangs were covered in the two previous newsletters. Let us turn our attention to the last two painful contractions that will usher in the Tribulation.

Contraction #4- Global Pandemics

Global pandemics of deadly disease are not new in the history of mankind. The world has faced deadly epidemics in the past that have been far more lethal that COVID-19. In the second century, 35 percent of those living in the great Roman Empire died due to smallpox. From 1200 to 1393 AD, 53 percent of China’s population died due to the bubonic plague. In 1918, the flu killed 20 million in the world, including 20,000 in New York that fall.

However, the prophetic Scriptures testify that during the Tribulation, there will be an unprecedented wave of deadly diseases that will sweep the world, killing a major portion of the population (Matthew 24:7; Revelation 6:8). Our world is about to enter a deadly time in which hundreds of millions of people will die due to global pandemics for which there is no human solution.

The Bible repeatedly testifies that our Creator has complete control over the body of every person. The health, sickness, and death of everyone is fully under His control! God demonstrated this to Moses in Exodus 4:6-7. When Jesus came the first time, He displayed the power of God over all diseases (Matthew 4:23)!

The Lord has created our bodies to naturally respond to His holy standards – mentally, physically, and spiritually. He designed the immune system of our body to help maintain our health. Our wellness or sickness can be impacted by our mental, physical, and/or spiritual disobedience.

The Bible teaches that diseases can be a form of divine retribution (Leviticus 26:21, 25; Deuteronomy 28:21-22; Romans 1:27). However, not all sickness and disease are the result of personal sin (John 9:3). Godly people get sick, suffer, and die from horrific diseases. The Bible proclaims, “It is appointed unto men once to die” (Hebrews 9:27). The time, circumstances, and means of each person’s death is under the divine control of God. From His perspective, there are no accidents. “There is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

Several decades ago, I was given a book by a medical doctor to aid my research about the subject of infectious diseases in the last days. That book, a 750-page volume, was written in 1994 by a research analysist, Laurie Garrett, The Coming Plague- Newly Emerging Diseases in a Word Out of Balance. As I read this book, I found the impeccable and detailed research and observations of Laurie Garrett to be very helpful in understanding the nature of the global menace of pandemics that will threaten the world’s population during the Tribulation.

At the beginning of her book, Garrett explained, “The history of our time will be marked by recurrent eruptions of newly discovered diseases, … epidemics of diseases migrating to new areas, … diseases which become imported through human technologies, … and diseases which spring from insects and animals to humans, through man-made disruption to local habitats. [There exists] the increased potential that at least some of these diseases will generate large-scale, even worldwide epidemics. … The world has rapidly become much more vulnerable to the eruption and, most critically, to the widespread and even global spread of both new and old infectious diseases” (Laurie, Garret, The Coming Plague, p. xv).

The opening events of the seven-year Tribulation Period are recorded in Revelation 6. During the beginning of this time of God’s judgment, one out of every four people on earth (a current population of 8 billion) will die because of war, famine, economic collapse, and disease. According to Revelation 6:8, billions will die because of “death, and with the beasts of the earth.” The word “death” in this verse refers to diseases. Therefore, the Bible has predicted there will be a connection of diseases with the beasts of the earth in the last days. Today epidemiologists are discovering that approximately 60 percent of diseases are zoonotic [they come from animals]. In recent decades we have had swine flu, bird flu, mad-cow disease, West Nile Virus, and most recently monkey pox. This initially occurs when people live near animals, and sometimes eat the infected meat. This is especially true in China and other far eastern cultures. As a result, sometimes people become infected with the animal’s disease. In some cases, the diseases mutate and are transmitted from animals to humans. This makes this virus extremely dangerous and unpredictable because this introduces a new virus to the human body. Occasionally, there is no known medical provision to protect mankind from these new viruses.

Our world has drastically changed in the last 120 years. At the beginning of the 20^th century there were only 1 billion people on earth. Now we have 8 billion. Furthermore, more people now live in big cities, rather than in rural areas. In 1900, only 15 percent of the world’s population lived in urban areas. Now, almost 60 percent are in cities where they live in extremely confined areas. Since 1950, we have watched the development of mega cities [cities with a population of more than 10 million people]. In 1952 there were only two. Now there are more than 34. In 13 of these mega cities, they have a population of more than 15 million people. Six of these are in China, India, and Japan. These mega cities are magnets for the outbreak of dangerous diseases. Therefore, it is not an accident that most of our deadly pandemics are originating from these mega population centers.

People in these mega cities are usually poor, undernourished, and they tend to be more immoral. They have issues with pollution and filth all around them. They have poor diet choices and are forced to purchase their food from unreliable sources. Their lifestyles are filled with desperation as they try to survive in this difficult situation. They are given over to drugs and violence. This kind of lifestyle produces a natural breeding ground for disease. God warned Israel while they were wandering in the wilderness that when they came into the Promised Land and were living in cities, they would be more vulnerable to diseases (Leviticus 26:25).

Another factor in the rise of infectious diseases in the last days is due to the increase in sexual immorality. America and the world are suffering from an avalanche of sexually transmitted diseases. When people violate God’s sexual standards, they will suffer the consequences. God has designed sexually transmitted diseases as a form divine punishment for their disobedience (Romans 1:27).

The use of illegal drugs and overuse of prescription drugs has in many cases enhanced the origin and transmission of viruses. The overuse and misuse of antibiotics over the last few decades have forced viruses to mutate. This creates more resistant viruses that are becoming immune to all the antibiotics we have available.

One of the major factors contributing to the rapid spread of diseases can be traced to our methods of travel. In many cases, people encounter infected people on airline flights and in other modes of mass transportation where people are forced to sit close together for long periods of time.

Pollution and the undoing of nature’s balance are other facets of our modern lifestyles that are creating the perfect environment for the proliferation of deadly disease. Unhealthy water conditions and bad food choices contribute to poor health and weaken immune system. These conditions are making us more vulnerable to viruses that are parading themselves in our environment.

Most people today are consuming food that are mass produced by commercial farmers. To meet the demand of feeding the expanding global population and to sustain the farming industry, farmers are forced to use agricultural practices that result in producing food that is nutritionally depleted. The mass production of food demands the use of fertilizers, which destroy the nutrients of the soil. This is further complicated by the use of radiation on our food when it is shipped long distances to other countries or states. Vegetation is contaminated due to the use of pesticides and the increasing use of genetically modified seeds. Meat is contaminated with antibiotics and hormones. All of this has a negative impact upon the delicate chemical balance of the human body. Our food may look good and taste great, but it is literally killing us!

I often think about my maternal great-grandfather King. He did not visit a doctor’s office or hospital until he was 83 years old. He and my great-grandmother lived very healthy lives until the time of their deaths. They worked hard to raise their own food. All their income and the food they consumed came from a little farm where they lived. Their food choices were very simple. Their water came from a spring house on their property. All their food was void of any pesticides, antibiotics, and hormones. They did not have a car and they rarely visited a store to buy the very basic staples they could not raise on their own.

We live at a unique time in human history. In my lifetime our world has radically changed. On the surface, it appears that our lifestyles are good. However, when one looks at the Word of God and what is coming, and examines the conservative research, we are in deep trouble.

These are some of the reasons why pandemics will become a major contributor to the death and misery of the last days. We are just beginning to witness the impact of this contraction of the birth pangs of the Tribulation.

Contraction #5- Global Earthquakes

Jesus stated that the fifth and final contraction of the birth pangs of the Tribulation will be massive global earthquakes. He said, “And great earthquakes shall be in [different] places” (Luke 21:11). This judgment of God on earth and its inhabitants will be far more than the modern human mind can comprehend. I have given much time to research this subject and it has profoundly influenced my life. I can only imagine how God’s revelation to Noah about the global flood must have impacted his life. I am sure it gave him a sense of urgency to warn his generation of the magnitude of God’s warning. History is repeating itself. Today, few people are really taking the biblical warnings about the end of this age seriously. They think those who sound these warnings are religious fanatics.

When the Lord destroyed the physical world and decimated the global population in Noah’s day, He used a powerful global earthquake to accomplish His divine judgment. He said to Noah, “The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth” (Genesis 6:13). The prophets of God in the Old Testament, while speaking about the Tribulation Period, pointed to a time when the Lord will arise “to shake terribly the earth” (Isaiah 2:19). God spoke through His servant Isaiah to warn the world that the day of the Lord [the Tribulation] “shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. … Behold the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. … Therefore, I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger” (Isaiah 13:6, 9, 13).

Perhaps nothing demands man’s respectful attention like catastrophic natural disasters. Major natural disasters have the potential to immediately threaten our lives and alter our lifestyles.

The Bible informs us that earthquakes are the work of the hand of God (Psalm 102:25). He has designed the foundations of the earth to deteriorate so that they will be like a rotten piece of cloth that will eventually unravel (Psalm 102:26). Like birth pangs, as the time of God’s judgment approaches, they will increase in frequency and intensity (Luke 21:11).

I9have noted that all the earthquakes mentioned in the Bible were perfectly timed to display the power of God. The walls of Jericho came down just like God said they would (Joshua 6:5, 20). Earthquakes accompanied the display of God’s power at the death (Matthew 27:51) and resurrection of His Son (Matthew 28:2). God sent an earthquake to release Paul and Silas from prison in Philippi (Acts 16:26).

The Holy Spirit directed the prophet Isaiah to write an entire chapter about the devastating earthquakes of the Tribulation Period (Isaiah 24). According to Isaiah, the earth will be annihilated (verse 1), spoiled (verse 3), and disfigured (verse 4). The earthquakes will drastically depopulate the earth (verses 1, 3, 6). The destruction will be so great that the global population will be destitute – without house or shelter (verses 10, 12). The pride of the upper class will be disgraced so that they will be placed on an equal footing with the poor (verse 2). A sense of hopelessness and fear will grip the inhabitants of earth. They will feel like they are trapped in a pit and their doom is sealed (verse 17).

Earthquakes are becoming more frequent. Collected geological data indicates that earthquakes have increased by 2,000 percent since 1900. As previously mentioned in the April newsletter, the birth pangs of the Tribulation are directly connected to the physical and spiritual rebirth of the nation of Israel. Eleven of the 12 most powerful earthquakes since 1900 have occurred since 1948 (the beginning of the modern state of Israel)! See chart on Worldwide Earthquakes.

Earthquakes are becoming more powerful. Geologists report that a major earthquake can release enough destructive energy as is equal 10,000 nuclear bombs per second. An 8.0 earthquake releases more destructive energy than all the nuclear weapons in man’s arsenal. At some point in time, as it was in the days of Noah (Genesis 7:11), several earthquakes will have a global impact. A global earthquake will take place at the time of the Gog and Magog invasion of Israel (Ezekiel 38:19-20). An earthquake near the beginning of the Tribulation will move every mountain and Island (Revelation 6:12-14). At the end of the Tribulation, the most powerful earthquake in the history of earth will cause all mountains and islands to vanish from the face of the earth (Revelation 16:18, 20).

Many of the global earthquakes of the last days will trigger massive volcanic eruptions and their subsequent impact upon climate change during the Tribulation Period (Isaiah 24:6; Ezekiel 38:19-22; Revelation 6:12-14; 8:7-13; 16:8-11). The global earthquakes will set in motion a domino effect that will radically alter the earth and its climate.

God in His grace is speaking to us today through the increase of natural disasters. Unfortunately, foolish man has attempted to remove God from His creation. The deception of evolution and the pagan concept of “mother earth” have replaced the biblical thinking of many people. The Bible emphatically, consistently, and repeatedly teaches that God created the world and everything in it (Genesis 1:1; John 1:3). He has complete control of all of it (Colossians 1:16-17; Hebrews 1:3). The Bible proclaims that the heavens and the earth “continue this day according to [God’s] ordinances: for all are thy servants” (Psalm 119:91).

God is using natural disasters to demonstrate His power and sovereignty. The powerful forces of His creation are at His constant disposal. Jesus displayed this when He spoke to the winds and the waves on the Sea of Galilee, and they obeyed Him.

God uses natural disasters to remind us that we are not in control. He is!! Read Psalm 46:1-3 and see God’s command in verse 10, “Be still, and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”

God uses natural disasters to humble us and destroy our prideful, independent spirit. Isaiah 2:19-22 informs us that when the end of time comes, God will violently shake the earth to humble man and exalt Himself. Disasters have a way of making us realize just how weak and vulnerable we are to God and His creation at any given moment.

God uses horrific disasters to remind us of eternity. After Job’s life was devastated with disasters, he said, “Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this? In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind” (Job 12:9-10; see also Job 14:2 & 21:13). This world and all that is in it is passing away (Revelation 21:1). This should teach us to not fall in love with the world and the things in this world (1 John 2:15-17). Only what is done for Christ will count for eternity (1 John 2:17).

The biblical record from Genesis to Revelation gives testimony that God has used His powerful creation as a tool of retribution and judgment upon the wicked who strive with Him (Isaiah 45:7, 9; Amos 4:6-11).

Friends, the birth pangs of the Tribulation are here! They are increasing with frequency and intensity. Jesus said, “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

God is in control of His creation. Is He in control of your life? Have you surrendered your life into the hand of God? This is the wisest thing a person can do.

God, not man, is in control of our world. The wicked are in rebellion against the Lord. Read Psalm 2:1-3. This does not disturb the Almighty. He is laughing at them in His heaven (Psalm 2:4).

The wicked are planning to take over America and the world. Their schemes will miserably fail! God has said, “The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken. The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Psalm 9:15-17).

Be ready for the shout that will take us out!

Russia Attacks Israel

For years, Israel has repeatedly attacked Iranian military positions in Syria. The Jewish state has put the world and other Middle Eastern countries on notice that it cannot and will not tolerate an Iranian military buildup in Syria. Israel considers this to be an existential threat. Russian and Israeli leadership have openly discussed this on several occasions. In the past, Russia has verbally agreed that Israel has the right to defend itself. Therefore, Russia’s policy has been to not interfere with Israeli aircraft when they destroy Iranian military positions in Syria. This has now changed.

In May, Israel reported that Russian forces opened fire on Israeli aircraft in Syria while they were targeting Iranian military positions in Syria. Russia joined Syrian forces in an attack to shoot down Israeli military jets while they were conducting their mission. This was the first incident in which Russia has shown any aggression against Israel in recent years.

As a result of this attack, Israel Today gave the following report on May 17, 2022. “The situation in Ukraine has opened a widening rift between Israel and Russia that many fear could ultimately result in armed confrontation.

“If an Israeli Channel 13 News report is to be believed, the first shots in the Israel-Russia conflict have already been fired. Last week, Israel Air Force (IAF) jets allegedly attacked targets in northern Syria. That’s not out of the ordinary. But this time, according to unnamed sources cited by Channel 13, Russian military units stationed in Syria opened fire on the Israeli aircraft.

“Syrian military air defenses have been almost entirely ineffective in preventing Israeli airstrikes on targets in the country. But there are a number of advanced Russian-made S-300 anti-aircraft batteries deployed throughout Syria that until now have not been activated against the Israelis.

“Those batteries are operated by Russian military personnel and are under Russian military command. And one of them reportedly joined Syrian air defenses in attacking Israeli planes last week.

“If true, experts said this marks a significant and dangerous policy shift on the part of Moscow” (Israel Today, May 17, 2022)

Could this be the beginning of the conflict between Israel and Russia that will lead to the Gog and Magog war mentioned in Ezekiel 38-39? Only time will tell!