Prophecies of Daniel

A lot of people today are so skeptical that they hardly believe anything is true. To me that’s pitiful. Maybe it’s because I grew up around newspapers and worked for two years in the newsroom of a large daily newspaper here in Texas that I just feel, for the most part, all the news is not staged and false, as so many (even Christians) now believe.

It seems there are multitudes now only too ready to gulp down the latest filthy, enticing falsehood, the latest dirt and exposé of someone, the latest unfounded conspiracy theory. It gets to where everyone just reverts to their shell and has become fatally numbed to the world around them, “deer in the headlights”, stunned into stupor and unable to any longer even discern truth from a lie.

And, believe it or not, the Bible seems to indicate that in the End Time this will be happening. In Revelation 12:15, speaking of the very last days, it says “the serpent” released a stream of water out of his mouth. This “water” from the serpent is the putrid, stench-filled essences of Satanic falsehood unleashed on the world. This is the symbolic opposite of the pure living waters of truth that Jesus said would flow out of the belly of believers in Him (John 7:38).

But then what does the Bible say will happen? This is hard to believe. Revelation 12:16 goes on to say “the earth” opened her mouth and drank the waters of the dragon. And isn’t that what’s happening now already? Talk about zombies.

The Bible has a phrase for it, “Because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.” (Romans 1:28) “A reprobate mind.” A mind no longer able to discern truth from falsehood, good from bad , right from wrong. And, folks, this is not coming; this is not what may happen. We. Are. There.

“Mark, what’s the solution?! This is so discouraging, Mark!”

Well, personally, I believe in truth. I’m pretty sure I always have. In my university years I didn’t believe in God or Jesus because I just didn’t believe they were the truth. I very surprisingly found out I was wrong.

Jesus said, “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” (John 18:37) It is written of the final world dictator to come, the “Antichrist”, that he will “cast down the truth to the ground.” (Daniel 8:12) In a very real sense right now in the world, there’s an onslaught against every vestige of the presence and Spirit of God.

Truth is under attack so much that I think most folks have really no idea what to believe. Love, both God’s love and even natural and beautiful human love are also under attack. The Bible talks about “the author of confusion” (I Corinthians 14:33) and that’s what we seem to have more and more. The author of confusion and lies, Satan himself, is rolling out ever evil machination and foolish falsehood imaginable.

It’s like what Jesus said in the book of Revelation to one of the mostly fallen churches at the time of the writing of that book, around 90 AD. To some of them He said, “You have a name, you live and are dead.” (Revelation 3:1) Christians, the saved, but who were so far fallen from the living presence of the Lord that He called them both alive and dead. To these ones He said, “Strengthen the things that remain.” (Revelation 3:2)

This may be extreme for some of my fellow Americans but maybe it’s worth saying here: I’m not trying to save my country. And I don’t know how apt the comparison is but I don’t think Jesus, when He was here on this earth, was trying to save His country. He knew what was to come, that in the lifetime of many of those who saw and heard Him would come another mighty judgment on Israel, greater than that brought by Babylon 600 years before.

Forty years after Jesus’ crucifixion, in 70 AD, the Romans basically destroyed Israel. And Jesus, in His divine omniscience, knew while He was on earth that this judgment was to come and spoke of it. So He spent His energy in trying to win and save individuals to Himself and to bring a new heart and new soul to His lost countrymen.

For me, that’s the only battle worth fighting. For individuals. How? By sharing, pouring out and witnessing to as many as I can and as many as I can help others to witness to. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.“ (John 10:27) And His voice is the voice of truth. He even said that He was “the truth”. (John 14:6)

So many are “multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision.” (Joel 3:14) For those of us who know the Lord, God help us to be like beacons and transmitters in the gross darkness of these times, pulsing out the light, truth, love and sincerity that we have from Him, out into the teeming masses in the mists of this earth, to draw those seeking truth and the things of God, to be the Light to the World He has called each of us to be. “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me and he that comes to Me I will in no wise caste out.” (John 6:37)