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The filthiness of Joshua's rags reference Israel's stain of her national sin. Joshua stands in for Israel the way Jesus stands in for us now. Interestingly enough, God removed Joshua's guilt and Satan is silenced. He has no rebuttal because he clearly understands that God fully pardons Joshua the way He will fully pardon Israel's sin in the future as God pardons the sins of the unbeliever who comes to God in faith in the finished work of Jesus on Calvary's cross. Satan cannot dispute this.

This vision of Zechariah 2 speaks of the day when God in Christ will restore both – during the Millennial Kingdom. The nation of Israel, and Jerusalem itself. This vision speaks to fact that Jerusalem would have a large population, and…God Himself will physically protect Israel from all harm. Two great affirmations are in this third vision: Our Lord's return will be glorious (2:1-9) and Our Lord's future blessings will be glorious (2:10-13).

God will answer the prayers of His children in the way He sees fit; in the way that best fulfills His will. I'm not a prophet and I've never claimed to be. But simply basing things on God's Word and the examples of how He has done things in the past, helps me understand that this appears to be His chosen method of directing human history to accomplish His will without it being obvious.

This exploratory mission by the riders seems to be related to the rebuilding of Jerusalem and other cities in Judah. Their purpose was to examine the work of God's people to see what they were doing. Interestingly enough, many monarchs used messengers on steeds to travel throughout their kingdoms and report back. God does the same…not that He needs to do this because He already knows all things, but it is a sign of His direct involvement in the affairs of Israel and the world.

All of this should be comforting for the Christian because it is extremely easy to get caught up in the worry, the frustration, and the concerns of this world. We do so because we are not appreciating the fact that nothing happens here without God's permission/approval. But if we are worried, it means we are not trusting God and His purposes. If we are frustrated, it means we are unable to see God's hand in the situation. If we are bogged down by the cares of this world, our focus is not on God but on situations that might occur.

But let's not kid ourselves, please. Things will continue to worsen. This is the spirit of Babylon and though the original Tower of Babel was destroyed and the original city of Babylon (as well as the kingdom itself), was completely destroyed in ancient history, the ideology they were built on has never been destroyed. It has remained and Satan has continued in the spiritual realm to grow the spirit of Babylon throughout the world in order to gain control of the entire world in the final one world global order of Daniel 2.

Like many prophets of the Old Testament, the message Zechariah gave to the people of Israel/Judah was one of hope but required something from them. Like most today, people often do not want to repent because it means relying on something or Someone outside themselves for deliverance. Ever since the fall, humanity has become more and more inward, conceited and arrogant, following in the footsteps of Satan himself.

And so it goes from one empire to another. Following Nebuchadnezzar's death, eventually his grandson Belshazzar (Daniel 5), took the throne. He made a huge mistake, one that appeared to be either unforgiveable to God or God simply knew the king would not repent of his wickedness. This resulted in God's judgment using the Medes and Persians. They were upcoming while Babylon was on its way to being destroyed.

Recently, I had the opportunity to help a grandmother, who is a widow and raising two grandsons. Both grandsons have somewhat serious learning disabilities and the youngest one tends toward violence as well. The widow's husband died a number of years ago and the widow lives on a very small pension of just over $800/month. The (mobile) home they were living in is coming down around them (or should I say, was?).

To simply gain a better mental picture of what they envision, all we need to do is look at Revelation 6 and following where we see specific judgments being poured out starting with Seal 1 and going from there and the result of those judgments. By the time we arrive to the 5th seal of Revelation 6, there are obviously tons of people who have been martyred. This particular chapter is filled with destruction and death. I've always thought that God precipitated these judgments (and that could still be the case), but now I wonder if He simply doesn't choose to use situations created by humanity to use as His judgments?

Why does it appear that in most cases, God is simply silent and/or aloof? Why does it appear as though the evil people in the world control the rest of the world and they have full stomachs and never have a need they cannot fill? But for the rest of us, we often struggle to make ends meet, we are on the receiving end of globalist schemes and from every corner, we are pressed down and often forced to do things "their" way or pay the consequences. Why doesn't God step in sooner to right wrongs and correct evil and inaction?

If you listen to people today who are so deceived by every lie imaginable, it is easy to understand why they believe those lies based on Paul's words. Many of those people are almost giddy in their embrace of lies and they seem always on the edge of insanity. They can go off on anyone who holds a differing opinion, either verbally, physically or both.

I'm coming to the conclusion that God wants the same thing for all His children living today. We know we are facing difficult times and for many, this may be dire now. Daily I read from the prophecy "experts" one more thing that is creating undue hardships for many. It's not so much "prophecy," but simply news they're reporting. It's funny though how rarely do I read from many of these same people (not all!) that God has a plan for His people, that He is using these difficult times and circumstances to draw us closer to Him so that we can benefit from our relationship with Him and become an encourager to those who have not yet understood what God is doing. By the way, it's not merely words that encourage. It's actions.

Shortly after I became a Christian at the age of 13, I began to sense some type of call to ministry. It was weird because no one in my family served as a pastor or evangelist or even a missionary to a foreign country. I wasn't sure if my "calling" was simply a response to the truth of the Gospel and wanting to present it to others or if it was something that God was nudging me toward.Over the decades since that time, I've served as a youth minister, an associate pastor and even as a youth director/janitor in a church. It was interesting that in all those service opportunities, the only direction I received from any pastor I served under was to pursue my masters of divinity degree because if I was really called into the pastorate, I would need that. It made sense. I already had a bachelors in Bible degree.

In the meantime, might I suggest that you simply do what you can do for yourself, leaving all the rest to God. If you have extra cash to be able to stock up on perishables (including vitamins and other supplements since they usually have a two-to-four year shelf life), then do that. If you cannot do that, do you really believe God will ignore you, not hear you and not provide for you? He knows your circumstances better than you do.

Here Paul expressly speaks of a "man of sin/son of perdition" who would rise to power, oppose everything that is God and exalt himself instead (as Antiochus IV did). He will even do what Antiochus previously did by going into the Jewish Temple, sit inside the Holy of Holies (possibly on the Mercy Seat on top of reconstructed Ark of the Covenant), and declare to the world that he is God. Obviously, in order for this to occur, the Jewish Temple must be rebuilt during the coming Tribulation period. Antichrist will then confirm a covenant with Israel for seven years. Neither Antiochus in 167-168 BC or Roman Emperor Vespasian in AD 70 fulfilled all aspects of this prophecy. This will be fulfilled in the future.

I cannot think of a better use of fulfilled prophecy than in evangelism, can you? This is why we need to study and know it as best we can. This is why we should be mentally prepared for the time when prophecy is fulfilled. The world will see the reality of the attempted attack on Israel led by Gog (a title, not a name), and the results of it. They will not understand exactly what just occurred. Christians will be on hand to explain it but I believe they will have a very short time to do so because of the rise of the physical Antichrist, who will redirect everyone's attention to something else.

People today - both within and without the Church - are so opposed to anyone who does not agree with them that the vitriol directed toward opponents is constant and visceral. What would have been unheard of to utter to someone in public is now the new normal. There is no relief in that exercised passion because people refuse to find common ground. This applies to politics as well as prophecy.

Just as Hezekiah had no clue how God planned to thwart the Assyrians, he only believed (based on Isaiah's message from God), that God would somehow stand against Assyria. I'm sure God surpassed Hezekiah's thinking in a very powerful way that it was unmistakably God's work and left the king in absolute awe. Do you think he forgot that instance any time soon afterwards?

I have found that the more I focus on the corruption, evil and the terrible events occurring in the USA and the world, I tend to think that I have to solve those problems. This, as I mentioned, gets my brain going and I end up using a good amount of energy trying to "figure" things out, when in point of fact, I don't need to figure anything out at all. It's all God. He will lead me. He will help me make decisions. He will provide for me, but He really needs me to get to the end of myself in thinking that I need to actually come up with solutions to problems. I can't do a thing when it comes to the upcoming presidential election or WWIII. I have zero control. God does have control over it and His purposes will prevail, period.

The end of the Book of Daniel provides several questions and answers. They point to the fact that Daniel simply could not grasp all that was revealed to him. However, in our day, as we are much closer to the return of Jesus physically, things are making much more sense. As the prophetic Word unfolds, it will lead us to the seven-year Tribulation ended by the physical return of Jesus, who will then judge the nations and prepare for the Millennial Kingdom.

Daniel 11:36-12:4 highlights several things: The Coming Ruler (36-39), Attack Against the Ruler (40-45), Deliverance of Israel (12:1-3) andEnd of the Vision (12:4).

First and foremost, Babylon is an ideology or worldview and mindset. It is also a serious religion. This just happens to be the same religion of the current set of globalists who are doing their level best to gain control of the entire world. That control will allow them to rule over the rest of humanity. As I've mentioned many times, they long for a two-tiered system; the lords and the serfs.

There appears to be a very intricate invisible system created by Satan to gain control of humanity and use humanity to overthrow God. This has always been Satan's plan and I believe it's why he first went after Adam and Eve, not only to make them fall, but to enslave them and use their progeny to attack God. Satan uses people, though he hates us with a strong passion, to do what he can to bring about a coup de gras to destroy and replace God. This is what Satan's entire plan is all about in a nutshell. It has taken him this long to get the world to this point from the failed Tower of Babel but we appear to be here once again.

Daniel 11:21-25 highlights Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who is a biblical type of Antichrist. What we see in this section is how Antiochus deceived people to gain their favor, only to turn on them to destroy them later. This will be magnified by a great degree by the coming man of sin; Antichrist.

God sees all of this. He keeps track of everything. He is also powerful enough to provide for His own and see us through the darkness in spite of what Satan is allowed to bring to fruition. But if we are unwilling to exercise faith and trust in Him, we will not receive what God wants us to have.

What will the demeanor and demeanor of the unsaved be as they stand before God in judgment? Will they hate God? Will they resist Him still or will the truth create abject humility before Him or will they grudgingly acknowledge Him as Lord of All? How will understanding this situation cause Christians to be better witnesses of His love to the lost in order that their eyes might open in this life and embrace the only salvation that is available?

Consider this please. God made all of Creation including all human beings to reflect His intended purposes. He made all things for His glory, which means in part that our lives should always glorify Him in thought, word and deed. This is how we were made and this is how Adam and Eve lived until their fall. In fact, it's how Lucifer/Satan lived until his fall as well.Sin blinded us to the main purpose of our life here. Instead of living lives that bring glory to God continually (as authentic Christians will do in eternity with Him), sin makes us believe lies, causing us to think that God is there for us, to make our lives happy and complete. The problem is that He most certainly wants us to be fulfilled according to His will, but that only comes when we do things His way starting with receiving His salvation. Since He created us to glorify Him and we often don't, we are ruined. We don't glorify Him because we are blinded to the fact that this was our supreme purpose in being created in the first place.

Verse 11 reveals what will occur in Daniel's near future and it almost seems like a soap opera as we read it.Historically, in this verse, the King of the South (Egypt) was Ptolemy IV Philopator (222-203 B.C.) who attacked Antiochus III (King of the North, Syria), on the southern borders of Israel, specifically at Raphia in 217 B.C. Initially Ptolemy was successful, but as Jerome tells us, Antiochus nearly lost his entire army and was almost captured as he fled.

However, if we go through life completely unaware of what God has personally revealed in His Word (or allegorize His text), and is designed to occur as well as what He is allowing to occur, we will simply not be prepared for those events when they start to take place. We will not have done any preparation for anything and will be forced to deal with events as they happen instead of using foresight to prepare for their arrival. It is clearly not the way Jesus expected His disciples (and us), to handle the future that He took the time to tell them (and us) about. How many times did Jesus say, "Do not be alarmed"? (Matthew 24:6).

But in reality, Babylon in some form will rise physically in the soon coming years and will serve as the center of the coming ESG, DEI and social credit scoring system for the entire world's population. How else would it be possible for Antichrist with False Prophet to force everyone to take the mark (Revelation 13:16-17), if this was not the case? Because of this coming system in Babylon, they will be able to enforce their will digitally so that anyone who does not have the mark won't eat, buy or sell. It's all coming together. I don't know exactly when this will all occur and cannot give a date. It is certainly being built now, thanks to the way the world caved with C0V hit.

King Jehoshaphat learned he had erred by siding with King Ahab, who resolutely stood against the Lord. Because of that misstep by King Jehoshaphat, Jehu announced that "the wrath of the Lord is upon you." This wrath would come later in the form of invasion and commercial reversals for Jehoshaphat. But notice that never did God leave or forsake Jehoshaphat. Never.

Lift up your eyes. While I believe it is good to know what satanic globalists are attempting to accomplish throughout this world, our focus should be on God and what He is doing. This goes a long way in relieving the pressure and frustration from the type of things happening in the world that can potentially negatively impact us. Focusing on those things can also cause us to become worried and even take our eyes off the Great Commission of Matthew 18.We are here for a purpose and it is to bring glory to God. By shifting our gaze to Him and His purposes, the things that Satan is doing will be noted but will not overcome us.

Let's stop here and remind ourselves that all of this was completely new to the prophet Daniel because all of it was in Daniel's near future, compared to the latter half of Daniel 11, which speaks of events that will occur at the end of this age. All of this proves that God and only God knows the future because He determines it. He doesn't have to go against people's free will to get His will done. All He needs to do is find someone who is predisposed to go in a certain direction and use that person to accomplish what He will accomplish.

If you find yourself acting like a deer in the headlights of an approaching vehicle, don't beat yourself up about that. Simply recognize that this is the first step in helping you to understand that you - by yourself - cannot do this alone. We need God every day and throughout each day. He is attentive to our needs and wants. He cares deeply about our frailties and our concerns. He wants what is best for us. You cannot fear situations and God at the same time. You'll fear one or the other. Which do you choose?

I believe we are now living in the days Daniel and other prophets saw occurring far down the road from their perspective. Because of what is occurring today as God's prophetic calendar unfolds, as noted it can be a bit unnerving as we try to remain strongly anchored to God in spite of everything that is now happening. The difficulty for the Christian during these times, is to continue persevering in God's will in spite of the "tornadic" spiritual activity all around us. Because all of it has been previously revealed in His Word, we have no excuse to not understand it. It should prompt us to fall on His mercy and understand that His purposes will be accomplished. During the process, He will not ignore His own who humble themselves before Him and continue to seek His will daily.God has done us a tremendous supernatural favor by taking the time to stoop and reveal His future will to us. He has done this over the centuries through numerous prophets, including Daniel. To ignore the writings of these godly men is to suffer for it. Forewarned is forearmed.

Verse 12 confirms that we should not give up in prayer because we do not know what may delay a response to our prayers. The angel tells Daniel he was dispatched the first day Daniel began to pray. The term "withstood" can mean ~ "be in the way" or "prevent by force." In essence, the angel was telling Daniel that there was some sort of battle being waged in the heavenly realm between the angel and likely a fallen angel or demon who was fighting against Cyrus to keep God's will from unfolding with respect to Jeremiah's prophecy concerning the end of the 70 year captivity.

So, while Israel is starting to show signs that it is learning to rely on itself (and will eventually and ultimately come to rely on God alone), more headway needs to be made clearly. In essence, it seems clear that God's plan is to put Israel on one side of the aisle completely alone and ultimately vulnerable, while all other nations actively stand against Israel (or don't care and won't help Israel). Why? Because it will force Israel to come to her knees before God, to learn to depend solely and only on God Almighty, the very Creator of Israel.

So why is society so unable to think clearly, to see reality? Even though more people appear to be waking up to some truth, by and large, society as a whole continues to walk the path of deliberate obfuscation. Moreover, they are content with it. Why? Well, it seems to me that at least five things are happening throughout the world now that are creating this global problem of complete blindness to truth and reality. Those five things are highlighted in Scripture.

To sum up, a total of 490 years are set aside to deal with Israel's sin and rebellion. After the second set of weeks/sevens (the 62), there is a break or gap in which several things occur that lead up to the actual beginning of the Tribulation period when the Antichrist brokers or confirms a peace deal with Israel and Arab nations. Once the Antichrist confirms this peace treaty, it will be then that the final week/seven begins, which is called most commonly, the Tribulation period. This period of time is still in front of us.

My point is really simple. God wants us to understand that regardless of what we may think of individual Jewish people and whether or not we support Israel's ability to defend itself, the nation of Israel is the nation that God created and raised up in order that He would bring the Messiah/Savior into this world. If not for Israel, would Jesus have even been born as a man? God's plan was to create a nation that would literally be a light to the world; a nation where God could work to reach all of humanity. Is Israel perfect? Absolutely not and in fact, most of Israel (including her leaders), are completely blind still to the truth of what God has done and continues to do. This blindness, as Paul says, is temporary in order to bring in the full number of Gentiles, but God has not completely forsaken Israel.

In Matthew 24, the Olivet Discourse, Jesus issues several warnings for His disciples and ultimately for believers today. What are some of those warnings and how are we meant to react to them?We look closely at Matthew 24:4-13 to learn what Jesus is telling us and why He is doing so.

The Seventy "weeks" of Daniel 9, what do they stand for? How can we learn from there where we are on God's prophetic timetable? Do those weeks apply to us today or in the future or have they all been fulfilled?

Daniel had obtained and been reading a copy of Jeremiah's prediction concerning the length of the captivity of Israel/Judah once captured by Babylon's Nebuchadnezzar. Because of his study, Daniel understood the 70 years to be a literal 70-year period. Since the end of that 70 years was approaching, Daniel began to pray.

Interestingly, Bossche also notes that he "...learned that the virus had to slow down its spread and is now awaiting rising temperatures to be able to select a highly virulent lineage!" Originally, he thought that later in the fall new variants with severe virulence would visit society but now he believes it'll happen much sooner, as temperatures begin to rise due to the coming months of summer.

Most conservative Bible scholars believe verses 20-22 have been completely fulfilled in history. The sticking points of disagreement occur with verse 23 and following. In my opinion, verses 23-25 could represent a near/far view. The near fulfillment sees Antiochus IV as the historical persecutor as in vv 9-14 (MacArthur). Antiochus as king in 164 BC was "in the latter period of their rule." Rome conquered Greece in 146 BC and Antiochus died "broken without human agency" from insanity and disease of the bowels.

In order to create a compliant society, one fit for the governance of the coming self-worshiping Antichrist, the world must be prepared in their minds and outlook. Their thinking must be adulterated and changed so that they will comply to messaging presented fearfully. Revelation 13 tells us that one day, a true son of Satan will step up to rule over the entire world in the final human-led global kingdom. During that time, he will cause everyone to take a mark on their hand or forehead that promises allegiance to him and allows them to buy and sell. In other words, by their visible outward sign of allegiance, people will be able to participate in society. Those who do not take the mark will become marked in another way by becoming the hunted. Those who do take the mark (just like those who took the jab), will call for the government to come down on those who do not participate in taking that mark.

Antiochus IV was the 8th king of the Seleucid dynasty and he ruled as king from 175 to 164 BC (1 Macc 1:10; 6; 16). He conducted military campaigns in all those directions. Here in Daniel 8, the vision begins to focus on future Israel and the Jews. In fact, much of this vision is future to Daniel, but the second half of the chapter is still yet future from our perspective. Antiochus was especially vengeful against the Jews whom he persecuted brutally (Constable) and Whitcomb notes he was one of Israel's worst persecutors ever.

It is obvious to me that the presence of the Church in this world (the invisible true Church), acts as a dam against things becoming exceedingly bad in this world all over as they will during the Tribulation. It also seems to be clear that until the Holy Spirit is out of the way (meaning no longer operating through the present Church), the Antichrist cannot be revealed. The Church effectively blocks the Antichrist from being revealed. That's how I understand it and I realize there are many who disagree with me on that.

All the earth shall become the 11th horn/fourth beast for a time, times, and half a times - three and a half years total from midpoint of Tribulation (2 Thessalonians 2); the second half of Tribulation. Jesus refers to this as the Great Tribulation in Matthew 24. This is a truly global government at this point and the question to ask is how does the world get to that point?