THE HIDDEN CAUSE OF SOCIETY'S DEADLY DECLINE

The Hidden Cause of Society’s Deadly Decline

From the March 2013 Trumpet Print Edition »

We live in a time unlike any other in history. World events are moving rapidly toward the end of this age. There is an unseen reason why troubles are intensifying as never before.You cannot understand events without recognizing this truth! 

An event occurred in 1986 that marked a major turning point in history. It has radically altered everything that has happened since: culture, family, education, religion, science, finance, politics, international relations—everything we do. It has affected the United States in a massive way.

Yet what is most remarkable is, almost no one even knows it happened.

To understand this world-quaking event, let’s first look at some of what occurred right after it took place.

The Demonizing of Robert Bork

On July 1, 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated a highly respected judge, Robert Bork, to become an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Within 45 minutes, Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy took to the floor of the Senate and demonized him. “Robert Bork’s America,” he said, would produce back-alley abortions, segregation, censorship and midnight police raids.

It was a shocking, bald-faced vilification of a man who was obviously qualified and greatly respected, even by many liberals. “There was not a line in that speech that was accurate,” Bork said. Many people agreed—but the attack still worked. Senator Kennedy and others led the way for abortionists, evolutionists, feminists, civil-rights advocates and other liberals to band together and defame Judge Bork’s reputation in an enormous smear campaign. They even aired television ads denigrating him. “They turned him into an absolute gargoyle, into a beast,” one senator said.

Even the liberal Washington Post admitted that it was a “lynching.” Many other liberals saw what was happening too. The head of the Senate Judiciary Committee was Joe Biden, and he said he didn’t believe they could reject a man of Bork’s qualifications. But after special interest groups told him to change his tune, he did. The radical left was on a rampage.

Judge Bork’s name even became a verb. To “bork” was officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2002. It means “to defame or vilify (a person) systematically, especially in the mass media, usually with the aim of preventing his or her appointment to public office.”

Why was Robert Bork so demonized? Why was his nomination to the Supreme Court turned into a witch hunt, when it was obvious he was more than qualified? The reason was that the radical left feared him.

And for what reason? Judge Bork was known for one thing more than anything else: believing in the Constitution. He was one of the most brilliant constitutional lawyers this land has produced! He was considered “a pioneer in constitutional thinking devoted to the text and original meaning of the Constitution,” as Reuters put it. He was known as a constitutional “originalist” or “constructionist” who believed in judicial restraint. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia released a statement through the Federalist Society calling him one of the most influential legal scholars of the last 50 years. The society’s executive vice-president said Bork was “one of our country’s fiercest and most articulate defenders of the Constitution as it is written.”

That’s why they hated him!

Everyone thought that when a popular president nominated a brilliant, well-qualified man who passionately defends what the Constitution actually says, he would be easily confirmed—even by a majority Democrat Senate. But in 1987, radical liberals considered defending the Constitution a very, very bad thing! And they had the power to get their way.

The Senate defeated Judge Bork’s nomination 58-42, the largest margin ever.

Many people at the time recognized that this was a watershed event in American politics. One law professor said it was “the decisive moment in politicizing the process of judicial selection” that “poisoned the atmosphere for judicial confirmations ever since.” In fact, it poisoned a lot more than that!

In 2005, Bork said what he thought made a good Supreme Court justice: “A willingness to apply the Constitution according to the principles that are actually in it, rather than what they call the ‘evolving’ or the ‘living’ Constitution, which simply means the judges begin to make it up.”

The tide turned in a big way in 1987. Law started to get a lot weaker. And lawlessness started to get much, much stronger.

This is a significant clue as to what happened in 1986 that made such impact on the state of our world.

The Architect of Lawlessness

Such a massive lurch toward lawlessness has a cause. I want to show you exactly what that cause is. Most people will scoff at what I am about to say—but it is absolutely true, and you can prove it from your Bible.

The most lawless being in the universe is a spirit being, Satan the devil. 2 Corinthians 4:4 calls him “the god of this world.” What does that mean? It means that this evil spirit being has frightening power—power we can hardly imagine! To say that he is the god of this world means that he rules—and even more: It means most of the people in this world worship him!

One of the Bible’s most remarkable passages to help us understand the extent of the devil’s power is Revelation 12. This chapter prophesies of a war in heaven where great angelic beings fought against the devil and his demons, of which there are millions. Here is the outcome of that spiritual war: “the dragon fought and his angels [the fallen angels—the demons], And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (verses 7-9).

Notice: This verse says Satan deceives the whole world. He is sitting on the throne of this Earth, ruling this world. He is stirring up people’s emotions, moods and attitudes. When people get into a negative emotion, a bad attitude or a wrong mood, he works on those people. He has power to influence those wrong emotions; he has deceived the world through them! People don’t understand God’s Word—they don’t have any depth spiritually—so they just follow along emotionally, and Satan just deceives them all. That is amazing, but it’s biblical and you can prove it to yourself, and you certainly should.

This verse is also an end-time prophecy. It tells us that Satan was cast to this Earth. When did this happen? God’s very elect must have this revealed to them, or why would God make the prophecy? You must know if you are to understand what’s going on in your nation and in this world.

The devil and millions of demons are now confined to this Earth. Their fruits and Bible prophecy will tell us when and how it all happened and how it continues to unfold. What are they doing? These are evil beings with awesome power.

Surely such an event would have enormous impact on world affairs. We must be seeing things happen that would indicate the reality of this end-time Bible prophecy. How did it affect this world? And how much is it going to impact your life? Their dirty work is going on now, but do we see it? Do we understand it? If this is actually true, then there must be a lot of damage. God’s Word stands or falls on whether or not we can prove this. And we certainly can prove it.

This is earthshaking—even universe-shaking in many ways! It is bad news, and yet, in the bigger picture it’s also very good news—the best news we could possibly hear. Here is why: “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! [even of the sea, it’s so bad] for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (verse 12).

Satan was already being worshiped on this Earth, but now it’s even worse. Now he’s cast down, and he is full of wrath for a very definite reason. Satan knows he has a short time—but a short time before what?

This statement also shows that this is an end-time prophecy. Satan was cast down just a “short time” before Jesus Christ returns to this Earth and kicks Satan off his throne! (e.g. Revelation 20:1-2, 10). That is the spectacular, joyfully good news.

Christ had to overcome that devil and so do we. By overcoming him, Christ qualified to sit on the throne talked about in Luke 1:30-33. Christ will not return to a nonexistent throne. There is a throne on Earth right now that Jesus Christ is going to come and sit on! That throne is already here. (This is covered in our free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy and many other booklets we’ve written.) Everything is set for a new government to be in place on Earth very shortly—almost certainly in less than a decade.

In just a short time, Satan will be kicked off his throne at Christ’s return. However, you need to understand what Satan is going to do before that happens. It will be the worst time of suffering ever on this planet!

Satan knows he has a short time to do what? What is he doing that he won’t be doing in a very short time?

When Satan Was Cast Down

Look again at this Revelation 12 prophecy. In verse 12, it warns the inhabitants of the earth and sea because Satan was cast down. Then as soon as that happened, what was the very first thing Satan did? Verse 13 shows that He attacked the Church of God and wrecked its work! That is what this “woman” is prophetically.

That specifically dates this prophecy.

We can point to a specific time when God’s true Church was forcibly attacked by the devil. This is spoken of in another prophecy—in 2 Thessalonians 2—that links directly with Revelation 12 in order to establish the time frame.

There the Apostle Paul prophesied, “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand” (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2). When is Christ coming? How can we know? God tells us what will happen just before He returns.

Notice this astounding prophecy: “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day [the Second Coming of Christ] shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition” (verse 3). This is a great falling away in God’s Church—exactly what Revelation 12:13 is about. When Satan was cast down he attacked God’s Church, which triggered a great falling away because most of God’s people were conquered by the devil!

This prophecy says a “man of sin” would be revealed inside that church. This man is called the “son of destruction”—the same title as Judas Iscariot, who was actually possessed by the devil (Luke 22:3; John 13:27). Satan has a lot of power.

This man “opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (verse 4). He acts like he’s God, taking the place of God in that temple. That is how arrogant Satan is—acting like God. He thinks he’s God—and has rebelled against God and tried to overthrow God!

That is why he was cast down in this end time. He tried to overthrow God once (Isaiah 14:12-14; Ezekiel 28:14-17), and then tried again just before Christ is to return (Revelation 12:7-9). This time, he was thrown down to Earth and confined there; he is no longer allowed in the rest of the universe.

The prophecy in 2 Thessalonians 2 also includes another important individual. Verse 7 says, “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way” (English Standard Version). This “mystery of lawlessness” was working in God’s Church already, but somebody (“he who now restrains”) was controlling it and ensuring it didn’t openly manifest itself. As long as he was there, Satan could not take over the Church; the falling away couldn’t occur.

Do you know who this man is? Herbert W. Armstrong was the head of God’s Church for over 50 years, and God used him to keep the Church on track. Then, he was taken “out of the way.” That happened when God allowed him to die in 1986.

And notice what happens immediately after that: “And then shall that Wicked [Satan the devil] be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming” (verse 8).

Yes, after that man was taken out of the way, Satan was cast down! Now everybody can see him because he is full of wrath and wreaking great destruction! God had to raise up another work to get His message out.

These prophecies have come to pass. Once Satan was cast down, he used a “man of sin” right at the head of God’s Church to lead in the destruction of that church from the inside, from right at the top! You can understand this history in detail if you request our free books Malachi’s Message and Raising the Ruins.

There is another version of this prophecy in Daniel 8. There it describes Satan’s violence within the Church in a very telling way. It says he and his “host,” his demon army, “cast down the truth to the ground.” Their primary attack was against God’s truth and God’s law.

Satan hates God’s Church most of all. As soon as he was cast down, he started destroying within that Church, which the Bible calls spiritual Israel. Then he turned his full attention on physical Israel—the modern descendants of which are the nations of Israel—concentrating on three of these nations in particular: the birthright nations and the scepter nation, or America, Britain and the Jewish nation in the Middle East.

This is what changed in 1986. The devil was cast down to Earth, and he began his lawless rampage, casting truth to the ground. I saw with my own eyes the damage he wreaked on God’s Church. Now, it is becoming ever clearer that he is unleashing the same kind of destruction on our nations!

And he is using the same tactics to do it. When he attacked the Church, he got people in at the top that cast all the truth to the ground. Is he going to get people at the top of the nations of Israel to cast the truth to the ground? I believe so. That’s the most efficient way to do it. Then he can use them to wage an assault from within on the truth and the law!

The only difference is this: The destruction in God’s Church was on a spiritual level, and the three nations are being destroyed on a letter-of-the-law level because they don’t yet have God’s Holy Spirit. This will lead to these nations being conquered from without.

Lethal Lawlessness

What happened to Robert Bork marked the beginning of a vicious attack on the law of the land. In the two decades since, we have seen a rapid breakdown of law and an increasing amount of poison spreading through America’s political system. Today, because Satan is cast down, America is a different nation!

Melanie Phillips made this observation: “To an astonishing silence by the media on both sides of the pond, the U.S. along with the UK and a number of European governments is leading the West into an abyss” (Dec. 21, 2012; emphasis mine throughout).

The proof to support her statement is abundant. For example, look at the bankruptcy in America’s foreign policy. Over the past year, the U.S. and others have given power to Islamist extremists who are hostile to the free world. We have handed Egypt and Libya to some of our worst enemies! That is the state of American policy today.

There is abundant proof that America is now actively and intentionally supporting Islamist rebels in Syria. American agents are funneling weapons to the rebels, making no attempt to keep them from the Muslim Brotherhood and extreme Salafists.

Don’t our leaders realize that these bloodthirsty Islamists are jeopardizing the Middle East and especially Israel? The astonishing answer is yes, they do.

On January 7, President Obama nominated Chuck Hagel to be the United States’ next secretary of defense. This former Nebraska senator has consistently spoken out against Israel, and for Palestinians, terrorists and Iran. He has voted against sanctioning Iran to stop its pursuit of nuclear weapons; he voted against labeling Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization; he has declared that a military strike against Iran is not an option; he urged President Bush to establish “direct, unconditional” talks with Iran; he wants to establish diplomatic relations with Tehran; he has said repeatedly that sanctioning Iran will isolate America.

Mr. Hagel refused to sign a letter asking the EU to name Hezbollah a terrorist organization. In fact, during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, he said Washington should “engage Iran and Syria,” the nations that back the Hezbollah terrorists. He accused Israel of “sickening slaughter” and “the systematic destruction of an American friend: the country and people of Lebanon.”

Over and over again through the years, when nearly all of his fellow senators agreed to sign various letters of support for Israel, Hagel has been one of the few—sometimes the only one—to refuse. He supported the “Saudi Peace Initiative,” which calls for Israel to forfeit the Golan Heights, the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem, including the Jewish Quarter.

Why, then, would President Obama want to make this man secretary of defense? Here is Phillips’s answer—and it is profound: “What therefore is the factor that Obama brings to the West’s dismal foreign-policy table as illustrated by these truly appalling choices? Malice. Against the West, and also against the ancient civilization that lies at the heart of its moral codes.”

What is the ancient civilization that lies at the heart of America’s moral codes? She is talking about Judeo-Christian history—and the morality of the Bible. She is absolutely right in saying that the current administration of America views that civilization—along with its moral law—with malice.

You see that hatred for law in everything it does. Its decisions spring from the same lawless mindset that was exposed in the Bork nomination process!

Caroline Glick wrote, “Obama wants to hurt Israel. He does not like Israel. He is appointing anti-Israel advisers and cabinet members not despite their anti-Israel positions, but because of them. … Obama wants to fundamentally transform the U.S. relationship with Israel. … [T]he most urgent order of business for Israelis is to stop deluding ourselves in thinking that under Obama the U.S. can be trusted” (Dec. 16, 2012).

Israel is facing extermination, and the U.S. is turning its back! It is forcing the Israelis to look for help elsewhere. If you continue to watch, you will see that Israel will turn to Germany for help, along with Britain (Hosea 5:13)—and the Germans will commit an enormous double cross against them. This is prophesied in Scripture, and we can see events leading step by step to that end.

The more time that passes, and the shorter Satan’s time gets, the angrier he grows. Now he has been revealed so anybody ought to be able to see him and the crises he’s causing—especially in those three nations, but also throughout the world!

Irrational Foreign Policy

As a nation, America is trashing the law! As a result, it has grown out of control. Just look at some of the irrational decisions it is making today.

In December, it was revealed that al Qaeda had established a new base in Libya. America bombed Libya—and then left, just hoping good guys would take over! But the good guys never do: It’s always the worst of the people that rise to power—especially when they are supported by a powerful Iran, which is the biblically prophesied “king of the south.”

The Trumpet said this would happen both in Libya and in Egypt (see our October 2011 cover story, “Egypt and Libya to Join Iran’s Terror Network”). In fact, we said that before anything had happened in Libya. How did we know? We looked in the Bible, saw what God had prophesied, and believed Him. And the proof is plainly evident today.

In Syria, reports say that Bashar al Assad has hundreds or even thousands of tons of chemical weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. Intelligence reports say he’s already been mixing these chemicals and has been pouring sarin nerve gas into missiles. Just a single drop of that poison will kill—and each missile holds a much larger amount! Assad is apparently threatening to use it on his own people.

This is the same gas that Saddam Hussein inflicted on the Kurds who were rebelling against him—his own people. Reports spoke of sheep and goats in the field dropping over dead; lifeless birds would fall out of the sky. These are weapons of mass destruction! They don’t just kill one person with a bullet—they kill thousands, even millions, depending on how they are used.

What if the terrorists get control of those chemicals? Do you think they won’t bring them to the U.S.? They hate Americans as much as or more than the Jews! On Dec. 7, 2012, authorities caught two Pakistanis who are American citizens trying to get a wmd. Can you imagine what would have happened on September 11 if, instead of just knocking down buildings, the terrorists had dumped sarin nerve gas all over New York City?

If you understand that Satan has been cast down, and is in a frothing rage because his time is short, you know that we can expect to see these devastating weapons put to use! I think this could have a lot to do with the burning of Israel’s cities prophesied in Isaiah 1:7.

JewishPress.com ran an article titled, “Has Obama Decided to Get Rid of Jordan’s King Abdullah?” on Nov. 22, 2012. It talked about how a State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, stated that there was “thirst for change” in Jordan’s leadership. King Abdullah and his cabinet were greatly disturbed by it. This is probably the most peaceful country in the Middle East, the Arab nation that is friendliest toward America! Why would he say such a thing? A few hundred people demonstrated against the government, and America acts like they want to see King Abdullah removed from power! Just a couple years ago, tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the government in Iran, and the Obama administration said nothing! What is wrong with these people?

This too is an indication of Satan being cast down and exerting his influence at the highest levels. Every decision they are making in foreign policy and just about everything else is dangerously wrong. And we need to prepare ourselves for more terrible decisions.

America has done nothing about Syria, with its witch’s brew of wmd. We really have done nothing in Libya—we won’t even go in and fight for our own people. We won’t speak out against what’s happening in Libya. In Egypt, after it had peace with Israel for 30 years, we helped kick Hosni Mubarak off his throne, and now we will not speak out against Mohamed Morsi as he is essentially declared himself pharaoh of Egypt and a bitter enemy of the Jewish nation.

Can you explain these decisions with any logic?

Hijacking the Political Process

These are not normal times. They are not even as stable as they were before 1986. What we are seeing is a nation and a government completely tearing away from law. They think that is what “freedom” means, but they are dead wrong!

America’s federal government has a law that establishes a limit to the amount of money it can borrow. The principle behind this law is sound: that you shouldn’t spend money you do not have. However, both political parties have voted to raise this debt “ceiling” over and over again. And some people have said we should completely ignore the law and just blow the top off altogether!

2 Corinthians 12:14 says that parents should lay up for their children—yet what have we laid up for our children? More than $16 trillion in overwhelming debt!

The president spent his first time escalating that debt at a record pace. Yet Americans decided to award him a second term. In 2008 and again in 2012, you saw a president elected with an amazing ability to pull in votes from people who know nothing about politics, much less law or the Constitution. He was especially popular among college students and single women.

What is happening to our political process?

When the president was campaigning for a second term, he said, “You may be frustrated sometimes with the pace of change. I’m frustrated too sometimes. But you know where I stand. You know what I believe. You know I tell the truth.”

Does the president tell the truth? Is anyone paying attention?

Here is how Glenn Beck responded to the president’s statement: “This is more a judgment on America and the press. I’ve never looked back and marveled at how many people will fall for and accept, knowingly accept, a falsehood. I’ve never seen it before in my life.”

That is because times are different! None of us has ever seen anything like this before—because something very powerful and absolutely massive happened to this world in 1986. We are now in the advanced stages of the aftermath of that change.

Racism Everywhere

The 2008 election contest was for the most powerful office in America at a critical and dangerous time in our history. Yet news anchor Tom Brokaw admitted that the press never did vet candidate Barack Obama. They never conducted a rigorous evaluation of this man. Why not? This man was never vetted, never subjected to scrutiny—and he won the highest office in the land! Twice!

If you recall, many people said a black leader would solve our nation’s racial problems. Has it? It has done the opposite!

Mr. Obama had attended an anti-Semitic, anti-white church for 20 years! Barack Obama sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years hearing him rant about his malicious hate toward this country. And Republicans were—and are—afraid to go after him. Why? Because the by-now very powerful liberal left would accuse them of racism.

Then he ran for president, and a majority of Americans voted for him. He has held power for four years and has been inaugurated for four more. Yet the radical-left bomb-throwers still haven’t stopped: racist accusations are flying and getting far worse each year!

Every week it seems, mainstream media and radical Democrats are talking about Republicans being racist. In almost every case, they’re lying and they know they’re lying. That is sick and satanic to the core!

Today we frequently hear racist remarks on television and radio. One black tv commentator on nbc said, “This is no country for young black men!” Won’t that stir up hatred? That is a very ugly statement.

What will be the outcome of such racist remarks? When you accuse people or racism without any proof—which most of them don’t have, they just spout out the words—you’re filling your country with hatred and division that leads to civil war and violence! These commentators are either ignorant of what they are doing—or they want a race war. I believe some of them do want a race war.

Isaiah 1:7 prophesies that cities in Israel are going to burn. Do you know what that means? You can prove it from our free booklet Ezekiel: The End-Time Prophet.

Do we understand what is happening in America and around this Earth? And do we know why it’s this way? A major part of it is because Satan has been cast down, and he’s full of wrath because he knows he has only a short time. He isn’t going to be able to operate very long, so he’s as enraged as he could possibly be—more than he ever has been.

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). We are seeing the work of this lying murderer at his worst!

Same-Sex ‘Marriage’

Something else Satan is viciously attacking is family. God created marriage and family as one of the greatest blessings we could possibly have. In fact, marriage and family resonates with awesome spiritual meaning! The human family, if practiced the right way, is a God-plane relationship. The husband-wife relationship is a prophecy of Christ marrying the Church and expanding the God Family. It pictures the gospel of God, which is about the good news of the coming Family of God!

Satan hates that. He never was offered that opportunity, and he hates God for it. He has waged a concentrated attack on family for years. But since being cast down, he has attacked in a particularly perverse way—and achieved almost unbelievable success—through same-sex “marriage.”

Very rapidly, a majority of the American people seems to have come to accept this. But if you know your Bible, you know this is something God is strongly opposed to. Call it what you like, but God says it is absolute depravity. It destroys the true gospel, which is the good news of the coming Family of God!

How do people think about marriage and family after this very sinful sodomy? Does it bring them closer to God? It’s going to do just the reverse.

The people who are strongly pushing this issue demand that our society become like Sodom and Gomorrah. If you’re not supportive of that, they say, then you don’t have any love! They are not really interested in same-sex “marriage.” They want to undermine family as God created it! They would destroy any right family that will teach a little girl or boy about God! They hate that! They hate what God is doing.

Who is really behind that? Satan knows he has but a short time, so he is going all out, in every way he can, to throttle anybody who would dare do things the lawful way. If you don’t believe that, you don’t understand Revelation 12:12. Satan cast the truth to the ground in God’s Church, and he’s casting the truth about family—what truth Israel has left—to the ground.

What are “Christians”—those who are supposed to follow Christ—doing about it? Very little. Many of them are actually supporting Sodom and Gomorrah!

Revelation 12

What is happening to America’s leadership, its domestic and foreign policy is not just a quirk of history. The fact that Americans have cast the Constitution to the ground and are encouraging lawlessness in their marriages, in their government and in their policy toward other nations has a very definite cause. Most of it traces back to Satan having been cast down.

Now all those millions of demons and Satan the devil are confined to this Earth. That is making an astounding, dumbfounding difference in what’s happening on Earth. If we believe God and know this is true, what is happening as a result of it? We saw what happened to God’s Church, and we’re seeing what’s happening to three nations of Israel in particular, three of those 12 stars (Revelation 12:1).

All of mankind must become a part of Israel to be saved.

God will abase the nations of Israel until they wake up and see their own sins and what is happening to them and how vulnerable they are to Satan the devil.

Many people scoff about there even being a devil—while he’s tearing them apart! They don’t understand anything about God, nor do they know the devil. Until they do, the problems will only intensify and get worse and worse.

Satan’s growing wrath against the nations of Israel as his time grows shorter will climax in the worst suffering in human history—what the Bible calls the Great Tribulation. After 2½ years will begin the Day of the Lord, a full year of God’s punishment on the nations. Then at last will come the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to solve all these problems forever! Once He banishes the devil and takes His rightful place on the throne over the Earth, we will have joy and happiness and peace for the rest of eternity!

Thank God for that! ▪