If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you may be aware that at the beginning of 2019 I wrote an article titled, A Prophetic Review. In the article I summarized what I believed to be some of the most prophetically significant events of 2018. As we stay watchful at world events on a daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly basis, it’s easy to get lost in all the headlines and events that surrounds us.
I believe it does us good to take a step back and look at how far we’ve come prophetically speaking and where we’re headed. 2018 was an interesting year, but 2019 even more so! I encourage you to read the article just to see how things have changed. Below are some quick points.
Political Deadlock in Israel and the US
2019 saw 2 Israeli elections come and go. After the first round of elections in April 2019 there was yet another round of elections in September which ended in both Benny Gantz and Netanyahu not being able to get enough votes to form a government. Two elections for a prime minister was a first in Israel’s history, but now Israel is set for an unprecedented 3rd round of elections in March 2nd, 2020.
The April 2019 election made history when by the end of May it became the first-ever Israeli election that failed to produce a government. At the time, Netanyahu was short just one vote of a majority. Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman had refused to join over disagreements on the ultra-Orthodox enlistment law with Netanyahu’s Haredi political allies, precipitating the repeat vote in the fall. Following both elections, neither Gantz’s Blue and White nor Netanyahu’s Likud had enough allies to form a government without the other or the support of the Yisrael Beytenu party, but the two parties could not finalize the terms for a unity coalition (1).
Here in the US, we saw 2 articles of Impeachment against President Donald Trump pass in the House of Representatives in December. The articles were for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress (2). Interestingly enough, Netanyahu was also indited on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust (3).
If Trump and Netanyahu are taken out of their respective offices, we could witness a major shift in America, Israel, and the Middle East going forward. Trump is a good friend of Netanyahu’s and has made bold decisions for Israel’s favor. Netanyahu has historically been strict with Israel’s enemies and Israel has seen growth under his leadership.
If these two are taken out, could we see America’s relationship with Israel take a 180 while Israel’s enemies grow emboldened to go against Israel? I believe this is a possibility. Just in December, US house lawmakers passed a resolution “opposing Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank and supporting a two-state solution” (4). Dividing God’s land is one of the things Jesus will judge the world for upon is return to the earth (Joel 3:2).
Also while Israel is going through their political deadlock their enemies see this as a sign of weakness and a time to strike. Knowing this, is it simply a coincidence that Trump is being impeached and Netanyahu is being indited at the same time or is this an early sign that both Trump and Netanyahu have served their purposes and God is looking to change things up? Only time will tell. One thing is clear, what’s going on isn’t purely physical but also has supernatural undertones (Ephesians 6:12).
Pope Francis’ Efforts Towards Interfaith Dialogue
Last year Pope Francis made leaps and bounds in his effort to bridge gaps between various world religions and foster interfaith dialogue. In February I reported in my article, The Coming One World Religion, on the Pope’s visit to the UAE to sign the Human Fraternity document with Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb, the imam of Al-Azhar – one of the highest authorities in Islam.
In September 2019, the Pope declared he is to host “an initiative for a ‘Global Pact’ to create a ‘new humanism'” (5). This is set to take place at the Vatican on May 14th, 2020. Life Site news stated “In a strikingly secular message containing only one throw-away reference to the Lord, Pope Francis called on people to ‘capitalize on our best energies’ and to be ‘proactive’ in ‘opening education to a long-term vision unfettered by the status quo’ (5) .
I would encourage you to free up some time and watch the video below. In the video, Mother Miriam – a Catholic nun – gives her opinion on this new “global pact” of the Pope and (to my surprise) condemned his efforts and deemed it “deceptive”. Although I don’t agree with Catholic doctrine, this nun displays a great understanding of the Gospel and salvation through Christ and Christ alone. She discusses the article between 1:30 – 26:00.
In November, Pope Francis met with “His Holiness Somdej Phra Maga Muneewong at the Wat Ratchabophit Sathit Maha Simaram Temple in Bangkok, during a six-day Asian trip to Thailand and Japan” (6). On his trip he stated, “On this path of mutual trust and fraternity, I wish to reiterate my personal commitment, and that of the whole Church, to furthering an open and respectful dialogue in the service of the peace and well-being of this people” (6) .
And finally, in a dialogue with Catholic high school students in Rome in December, Pope Francis made it clear to “Never, never bring the gospel by proselytizing. If someone says they are a disciple of Jesus and comes to you with proselytism, they are not a disciple of Jesus” (7).
This came after his comments about his view that we should let our actions speak to unbelievers and then they should approach us. Although I do believe we should be living Godly lives, to say we shouldn’t share the Gospel at all and even deem Christians who do so as not not Christian is unbiblical.
The language of “human fraternity”, “peace”, “dialogue”, “coexistence”, “tolerance” sounds nice, but it all means nothing if it rejects salvation through Christ, and him alone. In my article, Do All Religions Lead to God?, I show how it’s not possible for all religions to lead to a centralized truth.
In Are We All God’s Children?, I also address the fact that the bible states only those who believe in Christ for salvation are his. These are two ideas the Pope continually speaks on. These are two simple yet very important ideas we followers of Christ must have a clear understanding of in order to better share the gospel with others.
The Climate Change Movement
In 2019 we saw an increase in the push to not only recognize climate change as an important issue, but also as an existential crisis that defines our generation. In many ways it’s a movement that’s transcended cultures, religions, ethnicities, languages, etc. We even saw Greta Thunberg – a teenage Swedish girl – become, in some respects, the face of this movement.
The purpose of this section is not to go into whether I believe climate change is “real” or “fake” but rather encourage you to view it biblically. Whether you believe climate change is real or fake, or the earth’s regular cycles of warming and cooling, or somewhere in the middle, we must first look at this issue as well as any other, through God’s word.
Something else I believe we should have in the back of our mind is what this movement could be used for. The bible tells us that during the tribulation there will be a one world system in place controlled by the antichrist (Daniel 2:41-45, Daniel 7:23-25, Revelation 13:1-8). I – along with many other bible believers – believe this movement could be one of many things that could be used to bring the world together.
Yes, I believe we should be good stewards of our environment and the earth’s resources, but not in exchange for critical thought and God’s word. Just because God wants us to be good stewards of the planet doesn’t mean we should give in or buy into any wind of doctrine.
This doesn’t mean we should buy into the statement that it’s either we take action or the “world will end in 12 years”. This doesn’t mean we should willfully participate in something if it means it’s contradictory to God’s word.
Increase in UFO activity
2019 saw an increase in UFO activity. Yes, you read that right. ABC News reported, “The National UFO Reporting Center, which tracks calls and messages from people around the U.S. and Canada about strange sightings in the sky, reported that it received 5,971 sightings in 2019 — a jump from 3,395 in 2018″ (8).
Even the New York Post reported 2019 as a particularly active year for UFO sightings (9). You may have noticed too, but UFOs and the general conversation pertaining to aliens is no longer simply relegated to fringe “conspiracy” theory communities or the stereotypical overweight man living in his mother’s basement wearing a tin foil hat.
Recently, UFO activity (this includes video footage and audio recordings) have been the topic of serious conversation on mainstream news channels for the past couple of years. This has also grabbed the attention of the government.
According to the New York Post, the Pentagon themselves admitted to investigating UFOs in secret, “In a statement provided exclusively to The Post, a Department of Defense spokesman said a secret government initiative called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program ‘did pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena'” (10).
Pilots have gone on record to speak on this topic and even expressed their concern as to what this may be. This, my friends, would be what you’d characterize as a “soft disclosure” – meaning the information revealed to us is on some ways still up in the air, but we can see some evidences for it.
Whether you believe aliens exist or not, the truth is there are videos of actual Unidentified Flying Objects that defies any of our current technology. It’s caused some people to wonder if we’re truly alone. Bloomberg writes, “To be oblivious of another civilization for a long time, and then suddenly encounter it, is a common theme in human history. Perhaps this has not happened for the last time” (11).
Many of alleged UFO “sightings’ can be chalked up to the weather, aircrafts such as balloons and planes, astronomical alignments, etc. It’s also not in the realm of impossibility that some occurrences may be secretly developed technology we’re unaware of. However, a small percentage of these are unexplained.
This phenomenon is real but the question for the Christian is, how should we approach this? Biblically of course! Although the bible does not speak on extra-terrestrial life on other planets in a galaxy far far away, here are some basic truths from God’s word we can use to apply to this issue:
So what does this mean for the average Christian? Why should we care if people want to believe aliens exist? Based on the above passages, we can see there’s some difficulty with the existence of flesh and blood aliens from a biblical worldview.
Wouldn’t flesh and blood aliens also be affected by the fall and need to be saved as well? However that would contradict Philippians 2:7-8 and Romans 6:7-10. No where in the bible do we see mention of Jesus incarnating on various planets into other alien races to redeem them.
Another important fact is that we’re in the end times. This time period is categorized by deception and it will increase and blow up in the tribulation (Matthew 24:4-5, 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12). My opinion is – and many also share this thought process – after the rapture of the church, a type of “mass alien abduction” explanation may be given to explain away the sudden disappearance of millions of people from the face of the earth.
Many have claimed also that by the name of Jesus, alleged alien abductions were stopped (12). Why would flesh and blood beings be afraid of what many in the world to be a dead Jewish teacher? In the future, I plan to further flesh this out but encourage you to take a critical and biblical look at this issue.
Advancement in Technology
In September, I wrote the article, Prelude to the Mark of the Beast? III, highlighting the fact that Amazon has been testing their hand scanning technology in secrecy and eventually plan to roll it out to Whole Foods stores. As I usually state, I do not believe this is the Mark of the Beast. However, I do believe technology such as this, as well as RFID chips, microchips, electronic tatoos, etc could be used in the future for the mark.
Believe me when I say I could’ve included 100 more points and even then each one could have its own article. I also wanted to cover the growing Christian persecution, increase in frequency and severity of natural disasters among other things but also wanted to keep this article relatively “short”. I believe the problem of not being able to keep up with all the events occurring in the world is another sign in and of itself.
Where are we Headed in 2020?
As usual, I believe in 2020 we’ll see further escalation and increase in many of the aforementioned points. Biblically speaking, none of these things will be slowing down. In fact, from the publishing of this article on January 13th, we’ve just had an eventful 2 weeks to start the new year! Whatever happens this year, we know God is still on the throne. He has control of it all. Let’s not put our hope in this world or the things of this world, but instead focus on our true home.
2019 was a significant year where God was no doubt moving! If you’re interested in other articles like this, navigate to my commentary page and follow me on my social media platforms to stay up to date with the latest news.
These are amazing times we’re living in as we see bible prophecy unfolding right before our eyes and the world stage being set up for the fulfillment of many prophecies. Time is short and tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. Make sure you’ve made the right decision about Jesus today! It will be the most important decision of your eternal life.
Sources
- Knesset dissolves, sets unprecedented third election in under a year (December 12th, 2019) – The Times of Israel
- Trump impeached by the House for abuse of power, obstruction of Congress (December 18th, 2019) – NBC News
- Israel’s Netanyahu Indicted on Charges of Fraud, Bribery and Breach of Trust (November 21st, 2019) – The New York Times
- In rebuke to Trump and Netanyahu, US House passes resolution supporting 2 states (December 6th, 2019) – The Times of Israel
- Pope Francis invites religious, political leaders to sign ‘Global Pact’ for ‘new humanism’ (September 13th, 2019) – Life Site News
- In a meeting with Thailand’s Supreme Buddhist Patriarch, Pope Francis encourages peace (November 21st, 2019) – Catholic Herald
- Pope says Christians should never seek to convert unbelievers, anyone who proselytizes “is not a disciple of Jesus” (December 22nd, 2019) – Disrn
- UFO sightings in North America jumped to nearly 6,000 in 2019 (January 8th, 2020) – ABC News
- 2019 was banner year for credible UFO sightings (December 14th, 2019) – The New York Post
- The Pentagon finally admits it investigates UFOs (May 22nd, 2019) – The New York Post
- The Aliens Among Us (May 1st, 2019) – Bloomberg
- The CE4 Research Group – Alien Resistance
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