Those who study Bible prophecy are aware that many prophetic passages refer to times in the ancient biblical past concerning Israel and other nations but then also refer to our future and what is yet to come. A name for this biblical interpretation of prophecy is a “dual mountain” prophecy. This refers to a perspective of the writer of the prophecy in his immediate future, yet the prophecy can have a meaning far into the future, even our future, thus a “dual mountain” prophecy where the writer cannot see the vast and deep valley of time between the two interpretations, but God can and wants us to see both. The second mountain top cannot be seen from the writer’s perspective, but the interpretation applies to far future events as well as immediate ones. For example, Ezekiel’s lament over the king of Tyre. At first, God was directly addressing the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28:1-11. Because the king of Tyre boasted that he was a god, the true God declared that he would die and be thrown down into the pit (v. 8). However, starting in verse 12, the lamentation against the king of Tyre extended to address, without doubt, Satan himself: “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering…You were the anointed cherub who covers…”’” (Ezekiel 28:12-19). Clearly, the king of Tyre was never an anointed cherub in Eden. We see a “dual mountain” prophecy where an interpretation is made in the Old Testament past, but also applies to a future event, in this case the king of Tyre becomes a type of Satan – providing us with a flashback to the fall of Lucifer and forward to his eventual destruction. “You have become a horror, and shall be no more forever.” (Ezekiel 28:19)

Another example of the “dual mountain” prophetic concept can be seen in the second and third chapters of the book of Revelation where Jesus is telling John about seven churches of Asia Minor and the great differences in these churches that were all within a very short distance from each other – all within the area we know today as Western Turkey. We read of the strengths and weaknesses of each church, two of which get no condemnation at all, but the other five have severe issues that Jesus directly addresses. What is amazing concerning these seven churches is that not only do the descriptions fit the actual churches in the first century A.D., they characterize the Church Age from then until now, sort of a chronology of the history of the Christian Church from the first century to the present day where the Church has become, in general, lukewarm or Laodicean. Plus, the descriptions of the seven churches of John’s day describe individual churches that exist in the twenty-first century. We as God’s people have not changed over the centuries. Our morals, our dedication, our obedience to the Lord seem to be identical to what those alive some 2,000 years ago were experiencing making Jesus’ words just as meaningful and challenging to us today as they were then.

It can be successfully argued that most prophecies found in the Bible have a “dual mountain” interpretation. The Psalms are sprinkled with prophecies that apply directly to David and his day while also applying to, and being fulfilled in, Jesus Christ and both His First Advent of almost exactly 2,000 years ago and His Second Advent still in our immediate future. Psalm 22 is the classic example with David’s sufferings being a foreshadow of the Messiah’s future sufferings and death. This means that the prophecy has applications that directly fit into the lives of those at the time of the writing of the prophecy as well as into the time and lives of people later, sometimes much later. The prophecy will be or already has been fulfilled in the time of the writer of the prophecy as well as to be fulfilled well into the distant future of the writer to even our future.

Many of the first century Jews were hoping that Messiah would usher in the kingdom of God immediately (Luke 19:11) because of the oppression of their conquerors – the Romans – and their rulers – the Herods – being non-Jews themselves as Idumeans or Edomites from Esau. The main reason the Jewish leadership rejected Jesus was that they were anticipating a conquering king who would rule from the throne of David, not a suffering Messiah, simply because they were looking at the prophecies of a much distant Conquering Messiah Who certainly will come but had to come as a Suffering Messiah first. Many Old Testament passages promised this. For example, Isaiah 9:6-7 says that the Messiah would sit upon the throne of David forever: “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever…” Many Jews either missed, or chose not to believe, the prophecies regarding a Suffering Messiah (Isaiah 53; Psalm 22). Even the disciples were hoping that Jesus’ earthly kingdom would immediately be set up in Jerusalem, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). What they did not understand at that time was that some of the Old Testament Messianic prophecies applied to a soon event as well as a far future event, “dual mountain” prophecies.

Scripture contains numerous examples of prophecies with “dual mountain” fulfillments. In fact, most (if not all) of the Messianic prophecies had both a near-term realization (applicable to the human author and his day), as well as a long-term fulfillment found in Jesus Christ. In addition, the Word of God contains countless types and foreshadows which point to Christ. A type of Christ is a person in the biblical past that echoes or resembles Christ well before He really came to Earth. Jesus explained that all the Scriptures testify of Him. Joseph, for example as the eleventh son of Jacob, is a beautiful type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Like Jesus, Joseph loved his father and was the father’s beloved (over his other ten brothers at the time as Jesus was loved by His Father); he was hated by his Jewish brethren (his ten older brothers as Jesus was hated by the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees); sold into the hands of his enemies (his brothers sold him to the Midianites and Judas sold Jesus out); he was tempted yet he did not sin (encounter with Potiphar’ wife and Jesus being sinless); he was punished unjustly (neither Joseph nor Jesus was guilty of wrong); though he was thought to be dead, he was exalted and became the savior of the world (the famine was overcome by Joseph’s plan and Jesus was resurrected to offer salvation); he received a Gentile bride (Joseph an Egyptian and Jesus the Gentiles or the Church); was exceedingly fruitful (Joseph succeeded by providing food and Jesus is Lord and saves multitudes to eternal life); and Joseph ultimately saved his brothers (and many others) and was reconciled to them in the end (Genesis chapters 37 and 39-50) just as all who come to the Lord Jesus Christ!

God’s Word contains many prophecies of the End Times or the Last Days which were partially fulfilled soon after Jesus’ Resurrection, but remain to be completely fulfilled in our immediate future. For instance, the disciples asked Jesus, “When will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3). The Lord responded by giving them a number of signs to look for recorded in Matthew 24; Mark 13; and Luke 21. Some of these prophecies were fulfilled in 70 A.D. when the Roman armies attacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. In fact, the Roman Emperor Titus destroyed the temple so that “not one stone (was) left…upon another” (Matthew 24:2) just as Jesus prophesied. “Not one stone left” means just that because what Jesus says is the Truth. If no stone was left upon another, how could a wall of the Temple be left standing today? Isn’t it logical to conclude that there would be no Western Wall of the Temple left in the End Times? What the Jews use as the former wall of the Temple known today as the Western Wall must be something else if “no stone would be left upon another”! So, what is the Western Wall of today? The Romans had a very large military installation in Jerusalem in order to control the unruly Jews of that day. The installation was on the highest point of land because of military readiness, and it was called the Fort Antonia. It held a Roman Legion consisting of 6,000 men according to the Jewish historian Josephus. This size of a Roman contingent would require a military compound and a very large portion of land. Josephus also described this fortress as overlooking the Jewish Temple, which would be Herod’s Temple, immediately adjacent to the fort and connected to it by colonnades.  This description from Josephus places the Fort Antonia high on the Temple Mount North of the Jewish Temple – Herod’s Temple – so that the Roman Soldiers could keep a watchful eye on the rebellious Jews adjacent to the Fort. There were towers at the corners of the Fort to aid in their surveillance.

When Titus came in 70 A.D. and destroyed the Temple, he set it on fire which melted all the gold in the Temple which covered the walls of the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies causing the melted gold to run down in between all the stones the Temple was constructed with. The Romans tore the place apart, including the Western wall of the Temple since it was connected to the Temple itself. The Roman soldiers would have expended every effort in moving every stone associated with the Temple to get to all the gold thus “no stone was left upon another”! So, what is the Western Wall today? It is logical to assume that it is not the Temple wall as believed. It is probably the remnant of the Antonia Fortress’ Western Wall and not the Temple. The Temple destroyed in 70 A.D. was probably located in the City of David near the Gihon Spring mainly because a great amount of water was needed for all the sacrifices taking place in the Temple daily. The Gihon Spring is located just South of the height of Mount Moriah suggesting strongly that the location of the Temple was in the Northern section of the City of David, just South of what we call the Temple Mount today. Every stone in the Temple as well as the wall surrounding it was totally removed so that no trace of the Temple could be found – just as Jesus said. It is also possible that the original Mount Zion on which the Temple was built was removed by Hadrian in 135 A.D. as he totally destroyed Jerusalem, sowed the land with salt, and renamed the land Aeolina Palestina after his own middle name and the invaders from far away that resided there. This marked the starting point of the land being called “Palestine” which lasted until the present-day and the new nation of Israel. Correspondingly, Jesus never walked the land of Palestine. He walked the land of Judah and Samaria as the Bible tells us.

As further examples of the “dual mountain” concept, many of the Olivet Discourse prophecies will not find their ultimate fulfillment until the final Tribulation period. For example, Jesus warned, “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened” (Matthew 24:21-22). This was certainly and obviously not fulfilled in 70 A.D. as the Preterists claim since they do not accept that the End Time prophecies are in our future. Since the first century there have been many periods of much greater world-wide tribulation. However, during the Great Tribulation – during those horrific 7 years before Christ’s Second Coming, nearly all flesh will be destroyed (Isaiah 13:6-16; 24:1-23; Revelation 6-19). That has, of course, not happened yet, totally disproving a Preterist position, but it will be fulfilled in the very near future.

The Old Testament prophets wrote of the wiles and disobedience of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah and God’s displeasure in the form of His Wrath on the two kingdoms which came to pass almost three millennia ago starting in 931 B.C. with the split of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah and ending in 586 B.C. with the destruction of Solomon’s Temple and the completion of the Jewish exile to Babylon. These prophecies relate directly to the Jews back then but also are applicable in our day as well – thus another example of “dual mountain” prophecy. And, since God is outside of time, is not a respecter of persons, and desires that all come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, those judgments about disobedience of the Jews back then apply to our present time as well as to the End Times and point directly at us, Gentile 21^st Century Christians and the Jews of today. The United States cannot be found in Bible Prophecy directly, possibly hinted at as “Merchants of Tarshish”, but God holds at all times – past, present, and future – everyone accountable to His Word and His Will, so interpretation of Old Testament prophecies for Israel and the End Times certainly applies to us today in our modern and utterly corrupt culture. We should expect that God is certainly aware and displeased of the selfish, disobedient, defiant, evil, and satanic actions and intentions of today’s world regardless of location.

In a series of articles, we will look at many of the Old Testament Prophets and see how they prophesied about the Jews back then and in their ultimate future, and how those prophecies actually affect us today in our “modern” and very secular world and culture. We will see how utterly applicable Old Testament prophecies are to our present day – prophecies that are life-changing, obviously taking place in our “modern” world, and, to the unbelieving mind, frightening to say the least. We start out with Zephaniah, who is referred to as a “Minor Prophet” in the Bible not because of status but simply due to the length of his book compared to other prophets.

Zephaniah was a prophet (635 to 625 B.C.), a contemporary of Jeremiah, but unique among the prophets of God. He was of royal blood, descended from King Hezekiah, King of Judah (715 to 686 B.C.), a fourth generation from Hezekiah. Zephaniah prophesied during the reign of King Josiah (640 to 609 B.C.) while Judah was still in idolatry and wickedness resulting from the terrible reigns of Manasseh (695 to 642 B.C.) and Amon (642 to 640 B.C.). King Josiah eventually rid Judah of the idolatrous images from the high places, after Hilkiah, the high priest, found the Book of the Law in the Temple, and Zephaniah’s prophecies no doubt had much to do with Josiah’s efforts. From Zephaniah’s short book in the Old Testament, we hear of the Lord’s warning that Judah’s final days were near because God was going to use Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to come and bring divine judgment on Judah which indeed did happen with three invasions in 606 B.C., 597 B.C., and 586 B.C. when Solomon’s Temple was destroyed.

But, as in many of the prophecies of the Old Testament, Zephaniah’s words speak of near and also far prophecies, “dual mountain” prophecies and foretellings or warnings of things to come on the Jews immediately, as in Nebuchadnezzar’s impending threat back in the late 600’s B.C. (remember, years count down backward before Christ), but also for Israel and the world in the End Times – meaning TODAY, truly “dual mountain” prophecies! Zephaniah uses the term “The Day of the Lord” and describes it as a day that is near (verse 1:7). What we see is a time when Judah is going to be punished for their disobedience and abandonment of God which came to pass starting in 606 B.C. with Nebuchadnezzar’s deportation of Jews to Babylon. What we will also see is that Zephaniah is also painting a picture of today’s time where we are witnessing the same characteristics and disobedience not only of Israel but of today’s Christians and the world leading to God’s final Judgment of the Tribulation and the ultimate “Day of the Lord” which is Christ’s Second Coming. The Bible is current, applicable to our daily lives in the twenty-first century, and absolutely amazing and fascinating in its accuracy!

The exact phrase, the “Day of the Lord,” is used 28 times in the Old Testament and five times in the New Testament. It is always referred to as a time of judgment and punishment by God against ungodly sinners who worship false gods. The day of the Lord is a term used by many in the Bible such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Solomon, Ezekiel, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Zechariah, and Malachi. Sometimes it refers to the end days (such as Isaiah 2:12 and Joel 3:14), and sometimes it refers to a near future event when God would judge Israel’s enemies at that time in history (such as Amos 5:18-20 concerning the Assyrians and Obadiah 1:15 concerning the Edomites).

In the Old Testament, The Day of the Lord can refer to the actual 24-hour day of Christ’s 2nd Coming or the entire 7 years of the Tribulation, otherwise known as Daniels’ 70th Week or the time of Jacob’s Trouble. Joel 2:11 is an example of the actual 24-hour Day of the Lord, the day of Jesus’ Second Coming, “And the Lord shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executes his word: for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?” An example of the alternative 7-year-long Day of the Lord is found in Isaiah 13:9-22, “Behold the day of the Lord comes, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners out of it” (Isaiah 13:9). In the remaining verses, Isaiah describes the conditions of the earth during the Great Tribulation and of the slaughter of mankind during that period. Babylon, the evil ancient city mentioned so many times in the Bible, is especially in focus for total destruction. Chapter 18 in Revelation gives further details of this prophecy.

Long-time president of Dallas Theological Seminary and one of the most prominent evangelical scholars and biblical prophecy experts of the 20^th century, Dr. John F. Walvoord, had this to say about the Day of the Lord, “How does the Coming of Christ for his Church relate itself to the Day of the Lord which precedes the Second Coming of Christ by a number of years? This Day of the Lord will come suddenly and unexpectedly. What is the point? The point is that just as the translation (The Rapture) of the Church is the end of the Day of Grace, it also marks the beginning of the Day of the Lord. In other words, the one event seems to do two things: it serves as the closing of one day and the beginning of the other.” Dr. Walvoord is giving us detail for our understanding of biblical terminology so that we are not confused. Just as prophecies can have “dual mountain” meanings, it is also true that references to the Day of the Lord can have different applications all based on context of the particular prophecy.

2 Peter 3:8 says, “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” The Age of Grace started with the giving of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples at Pentecost (the very beginning of the Church) and will end with the Rapture of the saints (the end of the Church Age and the Church). The Age of Grace has lasted two thousand years since Pentecost, approximately, corresponding to the “two days” of Hosea’s prophecy in Hosea 6:1-3. “Come, and let us return unto the Lord; for he has torn, and he will heal us, he has smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his site. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth”. After the two days is the Day of the Lord or the Time of Jacob’s Trouble to bring the Jews back to their Father Jehovah. The time of the Day of the Lord will start with the Rapture and will end with the 2nd Coming of Jesus to the Earth. The Day of the Lord consists of two sections – first, an “in-between” time from the Rapture to the start of the Time of Jacob’s Trouble or the Tribulation of around three years where the Psalm 83 War and the Ezekiel 38 and 39 War will occur; and then the seven-year Tribulation culminating with Jesus’ Second Coming to end all unrighteousness and to set up the Millennial Kingdom. The third day from Hosea consists of the 1,000-year Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords over all the nations of the earth.

The prophets who spoke regarding the Day of the Lord only knew it was to be a time of great judgment and punishment for the inhabitants of the earth, and then their Messiah would come and set up His Kingdom on Earth. When Jesus came the first time and delivered His Word as recorded in the gospels and later revealed to Paul the secret of the Rapture, the Day of the Lord was expanded. It now included the Rapture itself and the gap of time, the in-between time, the time between the Rapture and the start of the Tribulation. Matthew 24:37-39 compares the Rapture to the time of Noah and the great flood. Notice verse 37, “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Notice verse 37 says days, not day. In other words, it is talking about the days and years before the flood, not the day of the flood itself. This verse is comparing those Antediluvian days to the days before the 2nd Coming, not the exact day (24 hours) of Jesus’ return. The Rapture is included in those days and is essentially the start of the Day of the Lord (but not the start of the Tribulation). The Day of the Lord is a time of judgment. Those left behind after the Rapture will have to go through the horror of the Day of the Lord which includes the Tribulation and will probably die.

Zephaniah prophesied to King Josiah’s Judah concerning the “Day of the Lord” as a day of wrath, trouble, distress and anguish, ruin and devastation, desolation, darkness and gloom, clouds and thick darkness, of trumpet blast and battle cry (Zephaniah 1:15, 16). He was first warning Judah that their sins had reached the point of no return, that God had reached His divine limit with their rebellion, that despite what Josiah was going to do in cleaning up his kingdom, the Wrath of God through Nebuchadnezzar was coming, and soon. “Soon” at that time meant within 25 years or so before Nebuchadnezzar came to Judah in 606 B.C. “Soon” is a term that can vary significantly such as in the timing of Jesus coming soon (Revelation 22:20 ) which we are still waiting for after twenty centuries since His Resurrection.

The kings of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, all nineteen of them, were bad, disobedient, rebellious, and evil starting with Jeroboam. The Kingdom of Israel had already been punished and banished from their land in 722 B.C. by the Assyrians resulting in the “lost ten tribes of Israel” not to return to their land until 1948. The kings of Judah, the Southern Kingdom starting with Rehoboam, were very mixed in their devotion to God. Half of the twenty Judah kings behaved badly like their counterparts in Israel. The other half were also mixed with only five completely obedient and the other five partly good, partly bad. So, God’s Wrath had to come to Judah like it did to Israel to bring Judah back into God’s favor to fulfill Jeremiah’s Seventy Years of Desolation (Jeremiah 25:12) prophecy of 70 years of exile of Judah in Babylon to rid them of their disobedience and idolatry. Judah returned to the Promised Land in 536 B.C. after the 70 years of exile to rebuild the Temple and soon to rebuild Jerusalem as well as to restore the Jews to “pure speech” (Zephaniah 3:9), remove their pride (verse 3:11), restore humility and seeking of God (verse 3:12), and remove fear as well as restore fortunes (verse 3:16, 20). But the greatest promise is 3:17, “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.” God issues His Judgment, but He also remembers His promises and blesses Israel in spite of their disobedience.

Indeed, God did all these things, bestowed upon Judah at that time all the blessings he promised. But time passed and the Jews fell away from God into legalism and works salvation as today accompanied with worldly and sinful thinking, a secular existence in a restored and blessed land of today. Could the few verses in Zephaniah apply to the Israel of today, a “dual mountain” prophecy, and even to our nation and culture today, a nation of strong divisions, of intense conflicts, of abrupt rhetoric and abusive tendencies? Zephaniah prophecies against Judah’s enemies in the Day of the Lord. Remember, that refers not only to the time of Nebuchadnezzar but to today as well. Zephaniah 1:17 and 18 says, “I will bring distress on mankind, so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord…In the fire of His jealousy, all the earth will be consumed; for a full and sudden end He will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.” That obviously has not happened yet, so it will come in the near future, in the ominous “Day of the Lord” known as the Tribulation and many things after that. God also warns us of His coming extreme judgments by bringing smaller but similar judgments to His disobeying people. Zephaniah describes judgments against Judah’s enemies back in his day that directly correlate amazingly to Israel’s enemies of today. Isn’t it interesting that Israel’s enemies are the very same ones as back in Zephaniah’s time? Let’s look at the details found in Zephaniah and how they relate to today.

First, there is Gaza where Hamas resides today (2:4). Then Ashkelon and Ashdod and Ekron which were in the Philistine-controlled land today controlled by Hezbollah or Southern Lebanon (2:4) as well as the land of the Cherethites otherwise known as the old land of the Canaanites. God promises that all of these close to Israel lands will come under Israel’s control which will happen as a result of the Psalm 83 War soon to happen just after the Rapture. Moab and Ammon today are the land of Jordan (2:8) which only recently has abandoned their semi-friendly relationship with Israel and turned to a war-games stance against their immediate neighbor. Not a smart move on the part of King Abdullah. Zephaniah’s declaration to this area East of Judah is rather stark because of their taunts against God’s People. He says Moab will become like Sodom and Ammon like Gomorrah, a waste forever (2:9). Next the Cushites or Ethiopia of today (2:12) will be slain by the sword, then destroy Assyria or Syria of today to the North (2:13). All of these seem to coincide with the Psalm 83 War of the In-Between Times after the Rapture and before the start of the Tribulation.

Then, Zephaniah turns to Jerusalem and then to the nations (Chapter 3). He describes the then rulers of Jerusalem as rebellious and defiled as they were then and as the majority of them are today. Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel has to deal with a majority of rebellious liberal and Arab representatives in the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) to the degree that despite two different elections over the past year, they have been unable to put together a coalition government for Israel to operate correctly. Netanyahu has also been and is being subjected to the same ridiculous and satanic attacks that our President has been subjected to with no basis but the hatred of anyone bold enough to stand up against the globalists and the socialist mindset so prevalent today. Zephaniah goes on to describe in intimate and excruciating detail the very descriptions of leaders of his day in Judah and surrounding nations, but also to the leaders of today’s liberal and disbelieving hierarchy that display incoherent, evil, even childish behavior which defies logic, common sense, or common morality. Such descriptions as judges as ravening wolves (think district judges issuing nationwide injunctions against Presidential orders), treacherous men (think George Soros and his incessant expenditures politically to disrupt elections and get radical leftists elected as well as an out-of-control, do-nothing Congress that does nothing for the American people but concentrates on hatred for a non-traditional duly-elected President), profane priests (think an apostate Pope who cannot be Christian as well as the corrupt and unbiblical preachers claiming the Old Testament is no longer applicable in our “modern” times like Andy Stanley), fickle and treacherous prophets (think prosperity gospel and name-it-and-claim-it preachers of today), all ripe for God’s wrath. It is sometimes puzzling to wonder how God can wait to exact His Judgment on such horrible people since they are so blatantly unrighteous, but God is in control and His timing is perfect.

God says through Zephaniah that He will lay waste the nations (3:8) which we know He will do after the Rapture. But what if He does some of that “laying waste” BEFORE the Rapture? God is the same “yesterday, and today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), so what makes us think He will not see us today and do the same things He did back in Old Testament times, even to the point that, “for in the fire of My jealousy all the earth shall be consumed”? We should all be ready to see God issue His Judgment in partial doses like He has done in biblical times. He must be getting ready to do so because we also see the Enemy ramping up his schemes and demonic activity just as he did in the time Jesus walked the Earth. Be watchful and on guard. We have never been closer to the End Times than we are today!

In conclusion, we must remember that there is a silver lining in all of this because God is gracious and forgiving. Despite the Wrath of His jealousy, He promises in Zephaniah to His people Israel as well as His Church, “The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; He has cleared away your enemies…you shall never again fear evil.” (Zephaniah 3:15) Why? Because, “The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst.” (Zephaniah 3:15) God will restore His People Israel as He has promised although it will be only a remnant of about a third as Zechariah 13:8 says.

Do not let your heart be troubled as John 14:14 tells us. We must all trust God in these unusual and disturbing times we live in. God is always in control. He is ever with us through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Lean not on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). We are saved from and out of the Wrath of God (1 Thessalonians 1:10 and Revelation 3:10), so sit back and watch how all of the Earth’s circumstances and situations are coming into line, falling into place, aligning exactly with Bible Prophecy and wonder and give God Glory for all that He is, all that He does, and all that He will do. Christ is at the door, the Rapture is imminent, eternity awaits us! Maranatha! “Even so, Come Lord Jesus!