‘The World Is Descending Into Chaos’
Islamic terrorists have conquered a large part of Iraq and Syria. These are surely the worst terrorists on Earth. They are killing men, women and children, and committing horrible atrocities against people of different religions. Nations throughout the Middle East are shaken, and nations around the world are horrified by what these terrorist monsters are doing. We have never seen anything so demoniacal as the nightmares the “Islamic State” is unleashing.
As serious as this situation is, however, it is just one of many terrible crises hammering the world right now.
The Jewish nation in the Middle East has been in a war with Palestinian Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Hamas terrorists have been shooting powerful missiles from Gaza’s cities while hiding in schools, hospitals and residential areas. “Look at the danger that we face when they have rockets and missiles,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on August 7. “Now imagine what kind of danger we’d have if they can put a nuclear warhead on top ofthese missiles” (emphasis mine throughout). Look at the actions and the character of these Palestinian terrorists, and you know exactly what they would do if they obtained nuclear weapons—unless some power were to stop them.
In time, these nuclear weapons will get into the hands of Hamas terrorists. With the world’s attention diverted elsewhere, Iran is racing forward with building nuclear weapons. The Iranian government is the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Do you think the mullahs would give nuclear weapons to terrorists? I do. Somehow the terrorists will get those weapons. That makes this situation extremely important to all of us.
Look elsewhere throughout that region—in Libya, in Syria, in Egypt, in Pakistan—and you see instability increasing. Elsewhere in the world are still more serious crises. In Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is waging an outright war, taking over territory, even threatening nuclear war! Ebola is spreading in Africa. Tensions are growing between China and Japan. And the United States is experiencing multiple dangerous crises, including race riots, rampant illegal immigration that most certainly includes criminals and terrorists, crushing drought, a sluggish economy, and multiple political scandals.
Mr. Bolton is right, and this is a chaos like this world has never experienced before!
Bolton talked about this chaos just weeks ago. But did you know that your Bible talked about it millennia ago? This chaos we are experiencing in 2014 was prophesied in the Bible!
We have been prophesying about this crisis of crises for 70 years. That is because the Bible foretells, in quite a lot of detail, the great carnage that would come upon the Earth in this very end time.
Shaking the Nations
The book of Haggai contains a number of forecasts about the future that God gave to a prophet. Haggai 2:23 dates this book to a certain time period: “in that day.” “In that day” always refers to what Numbers, Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Hosea call “the latter days.” That is a time far beyond when Haggai lived—in fact, it is the time we live in now! You can prove that by putting together what this and other prophecies say and comparing them to what is happening in the world.
Notice especially what God says in verse 7: “And I will shake all nations ….” This is global. This has never happened before. This is in the end time, and it is happening to all nations. Even now, many are shaking—and all of them should be.
This verse could read, “The world is descending into chaos”—because God says He will shake all nations! God prophesiedthis turmoil wouldhappen.
Why would God shake all nations? He is clearly heavily involved in what is happening, and for a specific reason. He is shaking—but He isn’t wiping out the planet altogether. Why? Because of the end result it will produce.
Notice what will come as a result of God shaking all nations: “And I will shake all nations, and the desireof all nations shallcome: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts” (verse 7). The God of love wants to give the nations what they desire: peace, prosperity, joy and happiness. And He will! However, they must first be corrected. And God is doing that, just like a loving father does for his children.
Right now God is shaking the nations. God is doing this out of love! The nations need strong correction. He will shake us to our very foundations, and even destroy our foundations, because He wants to save us and turn us from our self-destructive ways, and turn us toward our loving Father. That is what will result from Him shaking all nations!
God has to shake the nations first—before He can give them what they desire. They desire peace. They desire prosperity. They desire for everyone to have exciting, wonderful lives. God is going to give that to them. But He has to shake them to their senses first.
This prophesied shaking is coming to pass right now, and it will conclude with the fulfillment of the most amazing prophecy in the Bible.
This world is about to be filled with light! God is about to illuminate this world with all of the brilliant beauty and love you can ever imagine.
‘It Could Happen Again’
Recent news reports show just how much the nations are shaking. And when you compare these events to the Bible, you can see that they correlate exactly with what God prophesied. Reporters can see it happening. That is startling, and it ought to shake all of us.
In Atlantic magazine, Roger Cohen wrote a July 29 article titled, “Yes, It Could Happen Again,” with the quip, “Instability in Ukraine, chaos in Syria, conflict in the East China Sea—the trigger points for WorldWar iii are in place.”
Regarding President Putin gobbling up parts of Ukraine, Cohen wrote, “[A] major power has forcefully changed a European border for the first time since 1945,” when World War ii ended. Meanwhile, terrorists are conquering every inch of territory they can possibly get in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The Telegraph, one of the best newspapers in the world, published an article on August 1 titled, “Today’s parallels with 1914 are veryworrying.” Speaking of the serious conflicts raging in Gaza, Syria, Ukraine, Iraq and even China, it reported, “All this might not matter so much if it were against the backdrop of a generally stable world economy. But very few would describe it as such. Pregnant with record amounts of debt—emerging markets are now piling it on with the same reckless abandon as the West—and highly reliant on the steroids of artificial monetary support, financial markets have rarely looked more vulnerable to unexpectedshocks.”
We are about to see a lot of shocks. That is what the shaking of nations is all about! Our economies are so weak and indebted that they won’t be able to withstand these shocks.
“I don’t want to over-egg the point,” author Jeremy Warner continued, “but the parallels with the calm before the storm of 100 years ago are impossible to ignore.” He then described 1914, the year World War i broke out. Here we are 100 years later, and we have the same situation—but with far more terrible weapons.
There are also many parallels between the present and the time leading up to the Second World War. The period before World War ii witnessed unparalleled international travel—ambassadors of peace were flying everywhere, trying to keep their nations from descending into the Second World War. Their failure is a matter of history. In the worldwide catastrophe that followed, over 60 million people were murdered.
Today, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and countless other diplomats are flying all over the world trying to deal with the multiplying crises. I’m sure these leaders are sincere in trying to bring world peace, but according to Bible prophecy, their efforts are all going to fail. We are about to experience another worldwide catastrophe, and God will see to it that His plan is implemented in the process.
Thankfully, in the end we will have peace like they can’t even imagine—but it will not come the way they think it will.
The Ambassadors of Peace
The July 30 Wall Street Journal published “Winds of War,Again.” This article said, “In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, not unlike John Kerry today, shuttled tirelessly between London and wherever Adolf Hitler consented to meet him to discuss a non-violent solution to Hitler’s intention to annex the Sudetenland, the part of Czechoslovakia inhabited by ethnic Germans. Hitler earlier in the year had annexed Austria, with nary a peep from the world ‘community.’”
Chamberlain was racing all over Europe trying to appease Hitler, giving him chunks of territory without him having to fire a shot! The attitude was, Let’s not voice criticism; let’s keep quiet about Hitler’s takeovers. Maybe that way we can have peace. But that attitude made war certain!
Britain and its allies were so weak! And Chamberlain and others virtually forced Czechoslovakia to give up the Sudetenland to the Germans. Even the Sudetenland’s inhabitants didn’t want to join Germany, but these nations handed Hitler their sovereignty and forced them to.
Chamberlain signed off on that in Munich, Germany, and came home with a little document that he waved in the air, declaring “Peace in our time!” The people who saw him wave that piece of paper were almost hysterical with happiness. They really believed they were going to have peace.
Less than a year later, Hitler invaded Poland, and World War ii started.
And, as the Bible prophesied, the ambassadors of peace began to weep bitterly (Isaiah 33:7).
Winston Churchill warned for years that they would not have peace, but virtually every newspaper proclaimed there would be peace, and every Briton seemed to believe that. The papers lauded Prime Minister Chamberlain for his brilliant efforts—but there was no peace. Why? Because of what Hitler believed. He believed in conquering, and he was determined to have war from the very beginning. Many will not accept the fact that people think this way. But people have thought like Hitler throughout history! Evil men have killed masses of people—especially the appeasers—time and time again.
We have been prophesying about the rise of these evil men and these destructive trends for 70 years. Now it is happening—in a horrifying way. How were we—and Herbert W. Armstrong before us—able to prophesy this situation? Because God revealed it in the Bible. U.S. race riots; economic disaster; even fires, droughts and floods are all discussed in detail in prophecies like Amos 4 and dozens of others.
‘Consider Your Ways’
Here is what Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote July 25 in the Telegraph:“In the 30 years or so that I have been writing about world affairs and the international economy, I have never seen a more dangerous confluence of circumstances, or more remarkable complacency.” This esteemed analyst sayshe has never seen the world in such crisis—and never seen people so unconcerned! What a perilous situation we are living in!
Notice Haggai 1:3-4: “Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled [luxurious] houses, and this house lie waste?” Is it time for self-luxury as God’s work is neglected? Or is it a time to be sobered and shaken by God as never before?
“Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consideryour ways” (verse 5).
God tells us to consider our ways. Consider how much you concern yourself over acquiring luxurious goods and other personal things. Consider how little you are concerned about God’s house and the work of getting His message to the world.
Where is God in this world crisis? Where is His will, His wisdom, His input, His reason? Man is trying to solve his own problems and telling God, Just stay out of it! We’ll take care of it ourselves! But human beings can’t solve these conflicts. After millennia of war and two world wars in the past century, that ought to be obvious to anybody!
Our entrenched problems and conflicts are of such great magnitude that only our Creator can solve them. But we leave God out of the picture. So He tells us, Consider the way you’re living. The Hebrew in Haggai 1:5 means to set your heart on your ways. God is telling you to ask yourself, Am I really thinking the way God wants me to? Or are all my efforts just directed toward myself?
God is shaking the nations! And He is just starting. Conditions are going to get a hundredfold worse.
Notice: God repeats this to drive it home to us: “Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways” (verses 6-7). God is reasoning with people who are focused on themselves and their possessions—people who are working harder and harder yet have less and less. He points out to us: You’re not being blessed. We’re not receiving prosperity and peace and happy marriages and families. Yet all of those are blessings God wants to give us! So why are we not experiencing those blessings? God says, Consider your ways. You’re not living the way that causes these things you desire! Consider your ways!
God wants to give these blessings to us—to the whole world. And the Bible promises He will do it—within the next few years! Can God just take us as we are—selfish, evil, godless, ungrateful, greedy, violent—and pour all these blessings on us? Or does He need to shake us and correct us first?
Correction
“Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house” (Haggai 1:9).
What does that mean? God’s “house” is His work of proclaiming His message of warning and repentance and hope. That message ought to be going out to the world with power! But the people God is addressing are not concerned about that! God says, You are concerned about your house and your work, your ideas, your thoughts.
And when you try to acquire more for yourself, you are just putting those earnings into a sack with holes. That way of life never works out.
“Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands” (verses 9-11). God called for a drought upon the land. Do you think God wouldn’t do that? Do you think God’s job is to only send blessings of wealth and peace, and to never send you the blessing of punishment and correction?
God is going to get our attention one way or the other, and if we are so stubborn that He has to use deep horror to do it, He will. In fact, He has already prophesied it. God is shaking us out of our selfish little empire!
Another Way
But there are some few people on Earth who have a totally different lifestyle. God discusses them too. Haggai 1:12 describes more about Haggai’s end-time prophecy: “Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the Lord.”
These people do something different: They fear God. And look what happens to their lives: They are blessed at every turn. God wants to give the rest of the world such blessings, and He will! That is what this is all about—that is why the nations are being shaken! God is going to insist that they have these blessings and have their desires for peace and joy filled.
“Then spake Haggai the Lord’s messenger in the Lord’s message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord” (verse 13). I, God, am with you! That is why you’re being blessed! I am with you! He is not with those in the nations who need to be shaken from rank selfishness and rebellion and sin. They don’t want God with them! They want to build their own empires, not God’s. But they still want Him to give them rain and crops and peace and safety—and then to stay out of their business.
This tiny minority is not that way, and God says: “I am with you.” “And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God” (verse 14). That effort just prospered and prospered and prospered. That is amazing.
Jeremiah 8 tells a similar story. It shows how God is going to bring His judgment upon our peoples because, as verse 9 says, “they have rejected the word of the Lord.” Verse 11 describes how people are going around “saying, Peace, peace;when there isno peace.” They want so desperately to believe that they can solve the world’s problems—but those false hopes are going to explode in their faces!
Isaiah 59:8 says, “The way of peace they know not”! This world’s ambassadors, diplomats, presidents and prime ministers don’t know the way of peace! Soon the chaos that this world is descending into will grow so fierce that they will have to acknowledge that truth!
God wants to show us how to have peace. All these prophecies of the troubled time we live in show us, in spectacular detail, where this is all leading. At the end of these crises, JesusChrist is going to return! Though chaos will engulf the nations for a few short years—tribulation so severe it will shake mankind to its knees—Christ will come to put an end to all that trouble. All these nightmares are directly tied to His Second Coming! And that is the best news we could hear!