(Matthew 24:6-8) “You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places” (Luke 21 also mentions “pestilence”). All these are the beginning of birth pains.”
In 1938 Irving Berlin updated the lyrics of “God Bless America.” The phrase appears six times in the lyrics. However, is God really blessing America? In fact is America blessing God? When you look at the western nations as a whole it is clear that they are not heading for a blessing but possibly a war that no one wants but will have because of the nations that want global supremacy both economically and militarily. When Donald Trump was President the Islamic world, the globalists with their left-wing socialist agenda, Red China, North Korea and Russia were being kept in check by President Trump’s clear and decisive threat to retaliate with force if America or its allies were attacked.
Added to this, he had the same attitude towards America’s support of Israel. Even the moderate Arab nations such as the UAE, Bahrain, and even Saudi Arabia were willing to deal with America if only to protect them from Iranian aggression from across the Gulf. Despite videos on Iranian television of young Jihad minded Muslims in Iran chanting “death to America, death to Israel” the Trump Administration conveyed a strong and determined stance to deal with this rogue nation hell-bent on America’s and Israel’s destruction and to his credit President Trump binned the Iranian Nuclear Deal much to the chagrin of Obama and the left-wing socialist politicians and the deep state.
Now with Joe Biden at the helm and after the fiasco in Afghanistan the Iranians are still chanting “Death to America, Death to England and death to Israel!” more rigorously than ever before! The militant nations of China, North Korea including Iran and now Russia are making their move for a power grab over territories they believe belong to them and thumbing their noses up at America. China has Hong Kong despite the “sabre rattling” from the western democracies and now the Chinese are after Taiwan. North Korea is still launching ballistic missiles and maintains hostilities with South Korea if the truth be known.
Iran is nearing nuclear capability and on one hand thumbing their noses up at the Biden Administration while on the other hand wanting financial support on their terms from America and the EU to complete nuclear capability. The astounding thing is that the Biden Administration and the EU wants to keep negotiating the Iranian Nuclear Deal brokered by Obama in 2015 despite Iran’s ongoing militancy and open hostility towards America.
Of course Obama the puppet master is pulling the strings behind the scenes of the Biden Administration and Biden is the puppet dancing his merry jig to Obama’s tune! Why would any leaders of a nation support another nation that is hell-bent on destroying it? It beggars belief! Well, this is the irony of the Biden Administration.
The whole world knows that America is no longer the global police force but very much becoming a nation in decline. Is God really blessing America? Not only do we see a rapid downward spiral in wickedness at every level of society of America but a downward landslide of Biblical truth and godliness being laid aside and trampled underfoot by wicked and unprincipled politicians and billionaires with a globalist agenda to replace God and the Bible with humanism and the exultation of man above his creator. At present Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are no longer democracies but fast becoming socialist-left wing countries whose governments do not care for God or for His commandments or for His people who stick to His Word the Bible. America is also heading this way.
As for Europe by and large it is not only seeing left-wing politics and socialism spreading like gangrene but an invasion of Islam which has been happening for years. Macron of France is a dictator and no doubt as the current head of the EU wants to have a European Army at his disposal to enforce ‘law and order,’ if that is what you might call it, when in reality it is a political power grab to establish a totalitarian tyrannical regime that controls every aspect of people’s lives not only in France but in the wider continent of Europe. There is no doubt that the three dominant powers arising in the earth today is global Islam, Communism in China and socialism in the western democracies. America is most definitely a nation declining in power and influence in the world. Now you have Russian military forces on the border of Ukraine seemingly with the intent of invading that nation.
From the time that the Lord Jesus spoke these words in Matthew 24:6-8 down through history even to the present day there have always been wars, rumours of wars, ethnic and global wars, famines, earthquakes and pestilence. He also had the last days of this present age in mind when He spoke about these things and this is clear in the context of Matthew Chapters 24 and 25. Notice that He also said that we were not to be alarmed because such things were to happen and that these things would mark the end of the age, yet He also said such things must happen but the end was not yet but still to come.
It has now been well over 2,000 years since He spoke these words and He was a true prophet lining up with the Hebrew prophets whose prophecies were 100% accurate. He also said that before the end comes, that “nation will rise against nation.” The word “nation” is the word from which we get the word “Ethnos,” in other words there would be civil wars within individual nations. Added to this He said “kingdom would be against kingdom” and of course we have seen two world wars and a third world war is yet to come which will see a third of mankind killed in this Middle–Eastern conflict which may well see European nations drawn into the arena of this conflict (Revelation 9: 14-19). Wars always lead to famines and pestilence and in some cases earthquakes if the fire power is strong enough. Today with the global nuclear arsenal this is a very present reality and possibility.
Right now the situation on the border of Russia and the Ukraine is a flash-point that may well kick-start a conflagration that will see other nations resist the Russian incursion of the Ukraine. Whether the situation there will lead to a global conflict remains to be seen but we must always keep in mind that WW1 started with a local assassination in Europe and WW2 started with an invasion of Poland by the Germans. There have always been wars, rumours of wars, civil wars and two world wars in past history and famines, pestilence and in some cases even earthquakes often resulting from war.
Notice also that the Lord Jesus said that these wars, rumours of wars, civil wars, nations fighting nations and famine, pestilence and earthquakes were “the beginning of birth pains.” For example, when a pregnant woman goes into labour the contractions or birth pains start and then stop and then start again but become more intense and more frequent as the birth of the baby draws near. When the contractions are coming one upon another you know that the birth is imminent. Once the baby arrives who remembers the birth pains after that as the celebrations start happening after the baby has been born.
When the ‘birth pains’ the Lord Jesus mentions start to increase in intensity and frequency and come one upon another we know that the end of this sinful wicked age is rapidly approaching and that the physical and visible Kingdom of God is about to be birthed on earth. What makes this time in history unique is that Israel is now a nation in its own right after almost 2,000 years of exile and this is no accident but what the Bible predicted would happen in the very last of the last days. Israel is God’s prophetic time-clock for the nations. Of course Israel’s rebirth as a nation must not be overlooked. Before 1948, when “a nation was reborn in a day,” the end of the age was a variable. Now with Israel established as a nation in its own right for over 70 years God’s prophetic clock to wind up this present evil age is not far from striking midnight when everything will change!
As yet we still have to see the final apostasy and the revealing of the man of sin and the persecution of faithful New Covenant believers globally and the breakdown of society to the point where God must intervene otherwise no flesh will be saved. For the sake of the world’s survival and for the sake of His elect God will cut those days short by sending His Son our Lord Jesus back to earth to sort everything out and that big time! (Matthew 24:21-22). Immediately after the tribulation of those days when He returns to this planet He will destroy all opposition, rescue Israel and rapture and resurrect faithful New Covenant believers (Matthew 14:29-31). Under His Messianic reign the regeneration of the earth will commence!
