Prophecy and the Election
By Dene McGriff
November 1, 2004
The results will be interesting. What we have right now is a marriage between the Republican Party and the so-called “religious right”. Evangelicals are being motivated to vote for Bush like never before. The nation has never been more polarized. When CNN asked their viewers the other day on Lou Dobbs, if the opposition candidate won, would they support them, 87% said “no.” For the most part “Christians” believe that Bush is God’s man for the hour – both to return the nation to a solid moral base and to rid the world of evil. I’m not taking sides. Now let’s look at prophecy and what it may say about the issue.
As we have said in many places on this site, two things need to occur before we enter into the 70th week of Daniel, popularly known as the “Tribulation”: the Gog Magog War and the Treaty that Israel signs with the antichrist. Revelation 17 is a picture of the apostate church in an alliance with the government of the antichrist. One of the things that makes the church “apostate” is that it has become entangled in the world political system. It probably begins with very good intentions – to rid the world of evil and to establish a righteous government, bring world peace and prosperity. So if we put all of this together we have several factors that have come together. Please see Doug’s commentary on the Gog Magog War. This describes a battle between Islamic nations and Israel and the antichrist. It concludes with a defense treaty between the antichrist and Israel.
So what do we have here? Israel is surrounded by enemies and is supported by a very powerful nation. There is a war and a treaty. Where does that leave us tomorrow? If Kerry wins the momentum of the U.S. in the Middle East may stall or falter, and relations with Israel may cool. If Bush wins, the momentum continues to build. If Kerry wins, we may have more time. Whatever happens, God is in control.
There are other factors here. I think most scholars would agree that the United States is in decline. Its empire is over extended throughout the world. The cost of maintaining it is breaking her. Her economic situation has worsened, having gone from a producer to a consuming nation. Please see an article I wrote in January. If we had another hundred years or so, the U.S. would probably decline and the balance of power would shift to Asia (predominately India and China). There are a couple of problems with that. Neither India or China can be considered heirs of Western Civilization (language, culture, religion, etc.) and the Greco Roman tradition. Nor are they likely to be aligned with the apostate church. So if America represents that “little horn of Daniel” – the antichrist representing a young nation, coming out of the Holy Roman Empire (Western Europe), it has to act now while it still can, while it still has the religious fervor and the economic and military power.
Bottom line. Bush will win because, if America is that nation, and I believe it is. America has a part to play in the Gog Magog War and in the Treaty with Israel. It is Israel’s only real friend. It also has to have the military power to go forth and conquer, (spending more on the military than all the nations of the world combined) and is the dominant commercial power on earth (Revelation 18). Finally, the church in America is the Laodicean, luke-warm, apostate church the Bible talks about in the last days. Europe is post-Christian. The Church in much of the rest of the world is the real thing – the suffering churches of the Middle East, Africa, China, India, etc. The churches in Europe are dead. We in America still consider ourselves a “Christian” nation and have a crusading “Christian” spirit that no other nation in the world possesses. If Kerry wins, this whole process loses momentum and America gets weaker by the day. If Bush wins, the momentum builds and we may be closer to the end than we think.
November 3, 2004
Last night as Doug and I watched the election results, he kept telling me Kerry was going to win, but I kept insisting, “no, Bush will win.” I don’t think we can lose “PM”. “What’s PM”, asked Doug? “Prophetic Momentum,” I responded. As I mentioned in the November 1 blog below, a Kerry win would have interrupted momentum in the Middle East and temporarily disrupted the momentum between the Church and the Republican Party.
I shouldn’t have titled this “The Coming Deception” but the “present deception” because we are already being deceived. The administration has consistently been able to speak the truth into existence (even though the facts were otherwise). They were able to convince the majority of Americans that Iraq had WMD, that Saddam was behind 9/11 and was in collusion with Al Qaeda, that the administration had supported education reform (which it failed to fund), that Medicare reform was a tremendous help for seniors (while it mainly helped the drug companies), that they supported veterans (while cutting benefits, etc.) The depth of the deception is so great that troops overwhelmingly supported Bush, even though commanders on the ground criticized the administration for sending them into battle without sufficient logistical support, armor, ammunition and in sufficient numbers to guarantee their security. I could go on and on, but the point is that they were able to convince the majority of voters that either these things were not true, or they didn’t matter. People are blind to the true impact of the twin trillion dollar deficit (trade and budget), the bubbles created in the stock and housing markets by low interest rates, the subterfuge behind the inflation, employment, tax cuts, etc. No matter who wins, the administration has the power and ability to change voter sentiment to reflect whatever they want them to believe (not to say Kerry would be any better than Bush).
Satan is the “angel of light” as well as the “father of liars”. The evangelicals fell in behind the Republicans for two very good reasons – abortion and gay rights issues which trumped everything else. It is fascinating that the working class Republican voted against their own pocket book knowing that Bush was favoring the elites. Without judging the President’s heart or salvation, we can certainly look at his words (which seem to indicate a more universalistic belief in God whether you are Islamic, Buddhist, etc.) and look at his actions. Would a real Christian play as fast and loose with the truth on so many issues? There certainly seems to be a clear pattern of saying one thing and doing another.
The U.S. economy is in such bad shape, watch out for more subterfuge, followed by a devastating crash. Interest rates can’t really go any lower, taxes can’t be cut any more and we are reaching the limits of printing more money. Yet wars continue, entitlements grow, unfunded pension liability grow, jobs flow to lower cost labor markets, etc. The problem is that an economy always seeks equilibrium – debit/credit, but the piper will eventually have to be paid. You can’t run these huge federal deficits and huge balance of payment deficits without adjustments finally being made. Last month the average American income increased by .2 percent and spending by .6 percent. What is the difference? More debt. We can’t keep going this way. The longer bankrupt companies or our government keep going in debt, the greater the fall. The longer the easy money continues, the harder the fall once interest rates start going up and housing prices go south. The more money the Fed prints, the lower the value of the dollar and the higher inflation will be. The longer they keep interest rates low, the longer they will have to keep them high. The pendulum may swing in one direction but it always swings in the opposite direction since economics demand equilibrium. One way to mitigate this dire economic situation would be wars of conquest in resource rich, sparsely populated countries. Any ideas on that one?
But now we come to the “coming deception”. As we have said in previous blogs and articles on this website, there are several things that have to happen before we enter the final seven year countdown: economic meltdown, political turmoil in the Middle East leading to the Gog Magog War and a treaty between a very powerful country (headed by the antichrist) and the nation of Israel.
We don’t know what the next moves in the Middle East will be by the administration, but they will come, whether against Iran, Syria or even Saudi Arabia. This will continue to inflame Islamic anger at the U.S. and Israel. Most American evangelicals view this as a war of a great Christian nation against evil Islam. Evangelicals are aware of the position of Israel in prophecy and the fact that the dispersion and return of Jews to the land was foretold literally thousands of years ago. The danger of deception for Christians is if they get caught up supporting political Israel, they may very well be on the side of the antichrist and not even know it. Hardly any understand the Treaty we keep referring to between the antichrist and the nation of Israel. Few Christians see any place for America in last days prophecy. No one is connecting the dots – America, the ONLY superpower in the world, the leading economic power in the world, the leading evangelical force (though tending toward being apostate Laodicean Christianity) as Israel’s only friend and the only nation with the military might to stand behind a defense treaty. Please see the introduction and the first several chapters of my book on “Apostasy and Deception.”
American Christians are a naive group. They want to believe the best of their leaders, their country and their church. The idea of a righteous war against evil and mindless terrorists, of supporting values at home and of standing behind Israel are so compelling, they are in great peril of being misled on all three of these issues. The doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture led to an even greater deception – dispensationalism. If the church (all real Christians) were suddenly removed from the earth, the reasoning goes, the church dispensation must be over and God must be turning his attention again to the nation of Israel. And if these Christians are living under the assumption that they will not be here, and they are, they may not only miss the signs of the times, they may get caught up in the deception – supporting a crusading “Christian” nation as it goes about its conquests and makes a treaty with Israel.
As both Doug and I have said in numerous articles on this website and as we will cover in great detail in the future, the church has missed the most important concept in prophecy – the role of the two witnesses – God’s eternal plan and purpose with His two corporate peoples. Christians tend to discount one or the other and no one sees the importance of both, at the same time. The reconstructionist and dominionist position says Israel has lost out by rejecting Christ so they do not believe Israel has any real role in the last days other than possibly supplying the world with the antichrist. The dispensationalist rightly sees Israel, but it removes the Church. Careful reading of the Old and New Testaments clearly shows a theme from beginning to end of God dealing with the Jews and the Church – two corporate peoples. (Please see Chapter 6 of Doug’s book) He is the “Lion of the Tribe of Judah” and the “Lamb of God.” There are the two olive trees and the two lampstands as we have written about extensively. There are two groups of 144,000: in Revelation 7 we see Israel “from every tribe of the Sons of Israel…” and the second in Chapter 14 we have the church - “having his name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads… who had been purchased from the earth. These are the ones who…follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have been purchased from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb.”
The church is also blinded by the fact that the Bible clearly talks about an apostate (fallen) church in the last days. Again, I would urge you to see the relevant chapters in my book. Nor do they understand the fact that the antichrist is not Jewish, the Pope, a New Age guru, the head of the United Nations, a Russian or Iraqi but looks, acts and talks like a Christian and is someone that could deceive the very elect. They can’t conceive of the fact that the church, their country, their leaders and their end time view may not be all they are cracked up to be. A great delusion has come over the land.
The Bible clearly describes a lukewarm, fallen church that will be easily beguiled because it is drunk with material wealth and political power. It doesn’t understand or care about prophecy and has set itself up for deception. The average believer does not have a close personal relation with Jesus or with other Christians. He doesn’t know how to read the Bible with “spiritual eyes” so he blindly follows the leader and his own misconceptions. If God is going to judge the earth, “judgment begins with the house of God”. (I Peter 4:17) Just as the fires of tribulation separated the true believers from the false, the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats, so will it be in the days to come. Do not fear, for this will be the true church’s most glorious hour!