It Goes If You Push It

Years ago, when I worked for Bigelow-Sanford (carpet manufacturing) in Greenville, S.C., I asked a thin, hard-working lady who headed up projects in Bigelow’s pilot plant, “How’s it going?”

She looked at me through glasses perched on her narrow nose. She raised a lighted cigarette to her thin lips, took a draw, expelled some smoke, and said, “It goes if you push it.”

She was/is right, in lots of ways. How things “go” often involve how we “push.”

Some things happen that we don’t control, but many things depend on our “push” in order to get stuff moving in a right direction.

Take me, for example: I stayed up late last night and woke up, today, around six a.m. but decided I needed more sleep. When I woke up around nine a.m., I felt as though I was in a fog. I seemed addled. I had been sleeping, as they say, like a log. I guess a log is heavy and lies pretty still in the forest.

As I lay on my bed, I thought, “I need to sit up, stand up, and head to the bathroom. I just can’t lie here and ‘think’ myself ready.” I have a body and can’t live just in my mind, or not much will get done.

The Bible indicates that humans are each made up of a body, a soul, and a spirit. Someone said that if any two of those components agree about doing something, each person will do the thing the prevailing two components agree on.

That idea seems to be a takeoff on some words that Jesus said, recorded in this verse:

“Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:19 NASB).

OK, so I was lying in the bed, and I said to myself, “I need to get up.”

My spirit and soul agreed that I needed to get up, but my body was sassing back, saying, “No, I want to lie here in this nice bed. Leave me alone. Wa-a-a, wa-a-a.”

My spirit and soul agreed about rising from the bed, though my soul seemed a little weak and wanted to side with my body. My old body started moving but was whining, “No, no, I don’t wanna go!”

So, here I am, sitting at my computer. My body is still whining a good bit, but it’s under control, I reckon, for the time being.

"Wrecking Ball"

I made this sketch on a number 10 envelope. Jesus said that he will build his church "and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." So, secular culture will not wreck the True Church, but it will attract many people to follow the world's trend toward humanism and secularism. In this cartoon, the church is represented by a building, a meeting house for believers. The Church, however, is made up of people and is not a building. 

Mike Adams Speaks at Life Care Pregnancy Center Gathering at Sandhills Community College

Pictured are Mrs. Suzanne Clendenin, executive of Life Care Pregnancy Center or Carthage, N.C., and Dr. Mike Adams, speaker, professor and columnist.
 
"Powerful arguments for life are found in this article."

Dr. Mike Adams, a nationally known columnist, commentator and author, spoke at a Sept. 3, 2015, fundraiser for the Life Care Pregnancy Center of Carthage, N.C. The Thursday evening event was held at the Owens Auditorium located on Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst, N.C.
 
Attorney Neil Oakley welcomed a crowd of around 80 people, and Deacon Stephen Dozier gave the invocation.
 
“It is only in You [God] we find true happiness,” Dozier prayed.

 Deacon Stephen Dozier prayed.

Adams, a professor of criminology at UNC-Wilmington, spoke on “Life, Liberty, and Happiness” as related to the Pro-Life movement.
 
“Our Declaration of Independence is really a very simple document,” he said. “We have certain rights for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. … Jefferson did not have in mind to take away life in order to pursue happiness.”
 
Adams talked about Roe Vs. Wade, a 1973 Supreme Court decision that, on the basis of the right to privacy, gave women an unrestricted right to abortion during the first three months of pregnancy.
 
“What an incredibly bad decision,” he said. “It’s a disastrous opinion. It’s very long – about 75 pages – and not all of it is logical.”
 
Some people inferred in 1973 that defining “when life begins” was “complicated.”
 
“No, it isn’t,” Adams said. “If you look at the textbooks, there is a consensus that life begins at conception.”
 
The Supreme Court reportedly took a stand to remain neutral on abortion, he said.
 
“There is no room for neutrality,” Adams said. “After saying they remained neutral, they turned around and said you can have an abortion. If you have no idea when life begins, you have no right to have an abortion.”
 
He noted that in cases involving abortions granted for “the health of the mother,” a mother’s listed health concerns include “emotional distress.”
 
The 1992 Planned Parenthood vs. Casey case was an “even worse decision,” Adams said.
 
In that case, the Supreme Court affirmed (in a 6-3 vote) the basic ruling of Roe vs. Wade that the state is prohibited from banning most abortions.
 
“[Justices] Kennedy, O’Conner and Souter – three Republicans – signed on,” Adams said. “Anthony Kennedy said, basically, ‘If you want to pursue liberty and happiness, you have the right to define human beings out of existence.’”
 
Adams said “the question” is this: “What is the unborn?”

Adams Changed His View of Abortion  
 
“I graduated 734th of 740 in high school,” he said. “I flunked English four years in a row.”
 
But he turned around in college and earned his doctorate in 1993. That year, he hired on at UNC-Wilmington to teach criminal justice. He was an atheist, at that time, he noted.
 
“I voted for Bill Clinton in 1992,” he said.
 
Lisa Chambers visited Adams’ family’s home in 1992. 
 
“Don’t you know Bill Clinton is our first pro-choice President?” she said.
 
She told Adams about crisis-pregnancy groups and the late Bernard N. Nathanson, an American medical doctor and abortion advocate who changed his mind and co-founded in 1969 the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL). He narrated the 1984 anti-abortion film “The Silent Scream.”
 
“That lady planted a ‘stone’ in my head,” Adams said. “She planted this thought: What is the unborn?”
 
Adams had a PhD and hadn’t fixed that conflict, he said, adding that ten minutes with that lady eventually changed him into a pro-life person.
 
“Eighty percent of what we do is getting people to focus on the scientific question: What is the unborn?” he said.
 
He recommended “The Case for Life,” a book by Scott Klusendorf (www.caseforlife.com).

 

Mike Adams speaking at Sandhills Community College

Adams Speaks on Campuses
 
“This is the 86th campus I’ve been on,” Adams said. “If they don’t allow me to show the clip (www.abortionno.org), I won’t show up [to speak].” (Warning: the video shows an abortion performed at seven weeks.)
 
“An abortion doctor usually won’t perform an abortion until after seven weeks,” Adams said, adding that the doctor is afraid he won’t be able “to get it all out” and might risk leaving parts of the baby that could cause infection in the mother.
 
The question is “Does a woman have four hands and twenty fingers?” he asked.
 
When people say abortions should be “safe, legal and rare,” they are “begging the question,” Adams noted.
 
After abortion became legal, abortions increased by 1.5 million per year, he said.
 
“They will say there is something different between the adult you are now and the embryo you were that justifies killing you,” Adams said. “They say, ‘They’re human but not a person.’”
 
He gave this illustration:
 
“Say, there’s a 10-year-old who doesn’t know how to read or write. You decide to kill her. You argue you shouldn’t be charged with her murder because she is less developed.”
 
A pregnant woman at Clarion University in Pennsylvania confronted Adams after he spoke at the school. She said something such as, “If I have a child growing inside me and depending on me for development, what right do you have to tell me … [not to abort that child]?”
 
He gave her this illustration: I shoot both adult conjoined twins. How many charges of murder will be brought against me? She said, “Two.” He said, “Zero.”
He indicated that because the twins were physically connected – reflecting the physical connection of a mother and an unborn child – there should be no murder charge.
 
Adams lectured at Summit Ministries for the last four years during summer breaks from his job at UNC-Wilmington. Summit’s Student Worldview Conferences (www.summit.org) are intensive two-week retreats designed to teach students (ages 16-22) “how to analyze various ideas that are currently competing for their hearts and minds.” Each summer, seven two-week conferences are held in Colorado, Tennessee and California.
 
Four years ago in Colorado, Adams met “Dan,” who held that an unborn child is not a human being.
 
“He changed in four years,” Adams said. “Dan now believes that abortion is OK only in the case of rape or to save a life.”
 
Dan has come a long way, Adams indicated.
 
“He saw the videos [Planned Parenthood videos showing a staffer discussing body parts “trafficking”] on Facebook,” Adams said, “and he unleashed profanities on Planned Parenthood. … Most [of Dan’s] progress has been made in the last four weeks.”
 
Adams said that pro-life advocates should seek “not to impose guilt over past decisions but to provide wisdom for future decisions.”
 
“Abortion should become not only illegal but also unthinkable,” he said, noting that there are two crisis pregnancy centers for every abortion center in the U.S. 

Two Big Challenges Face Pro-Life
 
Adams sees two problems facing the Pro-Life movement:
 
First, universities indoctrinate students to accept abortion – and often illegally use funds to accomplish that indoctrination.
Second, churches don’t speak out against abortion.
 
“I noticed my pro-life pastor never talked about abortion,” Adams said. “I offered to talk [to the church] about it. The pastor declined my offer. I left that church.”
 
He began attending another church, and a similar scenario took place.
 
“Do serious research on what you give money to,” Adams said. “Do you send checks to your alma mater?”
 
We get lulled into apathy and end up funding assaults on our own cherished values, he said.
 
“If they [alma maters] are involved, withdraw your donations and give them to this crisis pregnancy center,” Adams noted. “And talk with your minister. 
Abortion only exists with the assent of the Church in America. … How do you think you’ll be judged after you die? … If your church [doesn’t support pro-life] … take your tithe and give it to this crisis pregnancy center. And you leave that church.”
 
He condemned advancing sexual liberty as if it were the most important component of our nation’s concerns.
 
“How can we win this thing?” Adams asked. "It is all up to you, ladies and gentlemen. God bless you all.”

LCPC Sandhills Report
 
Oakley introduced Suzanne Clendenin, LCPC executive director.
 
“Thank you for bringing us the truth,” she said to Adams.
 
Clendenin noted that when LCPC clients are asked “How’d you hear about us,” they most often say “from a friend who’s been to LCPC” or “from the Moore County Health Department.”
 

 Attorney Neil Oakley is shown as he speaks in front of a photo of “Jennifer,” who became pregnant at age 16.

The audience viewed a filmed testimonial.
 
Shown on video was Jennifer, who was 16 years old and pregnant with daughter Juliet when her friend told her about LCPC of Carthage.
 
“I got so much more than a confirmation of pregnancy,” Jennifer said. “I finally told my parents.”
Her parents took her to a doctor who asked Jennifer, “Are you going to keep this baby?”
 
“I was 24 weeks; she was fully formed,” Jennifer said about her unborn child.
 
That baby, Juliet, is now 16 years old.
 
“It was a hard road,” said Jennifer, who now serves as a nurse. “You can make it.”
 
Jennifer says she hopes to become a nurse practitioner and says that LCPC needs people to get behind it.
 
“Thank you, Life Care Pregnancy Center, for what you did for me,” Jennifer said.

Pledges for LCPC
 
After that video, Neil Oakley said, “Light is the only thing that can conquer darkness. We can choose to be the light. … Now is the time to choose the light.”
 
Attendees filled out cards and decided on making donations. As ushers moved among attendees, Annelle and Adria Staal sang “Life is Beautiful.”

Annelle and Adria Staal are pictured at the LCPC meeting. 

 
Questions and Answers
 
Oakley brought Dr. Mike Adams back to the microphone for submitted questions from attendees.
 
Responding to the first question, Adams said that socialist and Marxist views are very different from Christian views.
 
“It’s a worldview issue,” he said. “Marxists worship themselves and humanity. We worship God.”
 
Someone asked, “How can Christian high school groups continue to meet on campuses?”
 
High schools tend to take “viewpoint neutrality” stances, Adams said, adding, “Contact ‘Alliance Defending Freedom’ (www.adflegal.org),” he said.
 
Someone asked about his thoughts on Donald Trump, a candidate for the Republican nomination for President.
 
“I like having a guy in the race who just doesn’t care [what he says],” Adams said.
 
Trump has been “very shifty” over the years on the abortion issue, Adams noted, adding, “I’m a one-issue man. I go to the view of abortion. It’s possible to overturn Roe v. Wade.”
 
He declined to endorse a candidate. 
 
How can we engage young people in “the cause for life”? someone asked.
 
“Young people don’t understand marriage,” Adams said. He referred to today’s youth as “Generation U,” meaning that they grew up with “Ultrasound,” an imaging method producing images of structures within human bodies. (Ultrasound images of the unborn have helped persuade some mothers to “choose life.”)
 
He suggested that Christian college students join serious Christian apologetic groups on campuses – groups such as Ratio Christi (www.ratiochristi.org). Ratio Christi (Latin for ‘The Reason of Christ’) is “a global movement that equips university students and faculty to give historical, philosophical, and scientific reasons for following Jesus Christ.”
 
He also suggested Summit Ministries (referred to earlier in this article).
 
Someone asked, “What will be done about Planned Parenthood?”
 
“The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) … first made headlines in July after it released secretly-recorded footage of employees of Planned Parenthood and StemExpress, a biomedical tissue firm, casually discussing the costs of transferring fetal tissue to a (fake) third party” (news from csmonitor.com).
“A lot of it has to do with the climate set by the President of the U.S.,” Adams said. “He sets the moral tone. … The answer: getting a pro-life President.”
 
The Rev. Jacob Skogen of Sandhills Presbyterian Church (PCA) prayed as the meeting ended, “Almighty God, … pour out your mercy on the unborn of this land. … We pray this in the victorious name of Jesus. Amen.”

Life Care Pregnancy Center of Carthage is “a Christ-centered ministry that promotes the sanctity of human life by providing Christian direction, compassionate care, accurate information and practical assistance for individuals and families facing crucial decisions surrounding an unplanned pregnancy or pregnancy related crisis,” says Suzanne Clendenin, LCPC’s executive director.

LCPC is located at 261 Niagara Carthage Road in Carthage. For information, call 910-947-6199 or see www.lifecarepregnancy.com. 

 ------------------------------
Some people who help with LCPC of Carthage are shown in the below photographs.

If You Honor Your Parents, Is Long Life Promised?

When I recently asked my Uncle Fred Crain, age 90, to what he attributed his long life, he said, “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.”  

That’s all Uncle Fred said when I asked him how he’d lived so long. He quoted the fifth of the Ten Commandments found in the Bible (Exodus 20:12 KJV).  

I’ve observed that Uncle Fred – who was almost 22 years old when I was born – did a good job of honoring his parents (my paternal grandparents).

The word “honor” in Exodus 20:12 is reportedly the Hebrew word “kabad,” which in that verse means “to give glory, to glorify.”

Here’s something the New Testament says about offspring.  

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ – which is the first commandment with a promise – ‘so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth’” (Ephesians 6:1-3).

Children who honor their parents will have better lives and longer lives, the Bible indicates.    

The first four of the Ten Commandments tell us how to honor God. The fifth commandment heads the last six, which tell us how to interact with people.  

As someone said, “They are the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions.”

As a child, I thought about that fifth commandment. I pictured a defiant son sassing his dad and then revving up his car’s engine, screeching onto a road, and crashing and burning.

D. Gene Sample, Jr., writes (sermoncentral.com), “A lot of people are dead today because they just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but if they had listened to their parents, they would not have been there in the first place. Listen to the people today in wheel chairs and on canes who say I would not be in this fix, today, if I had just listened to what my parents had told me.”

But what should a child do if he or she is asked to do something wrong?  

Writer David Reagan says, “Children are to obey their parents ‘in the Lord.’ … First, to obey their parents is to obey the Lord. By obeying them ‘in the Lord’ they are also in obedience to the Lord.”

The reverse is also true, he says.  

“To disobey their parents is to disobey the Lord,” Reagan notes. “Second, this passage [Eph. 6:1-3] gives guidance to those dealing with wicked parents or parents that would lead the child into sin. If they [the parents] are to be obeyed in the Lord, then obedience is not absolutely required if they [the children] are asked to do something that is in direct disobedience to God.”

If a child is told by one of his parents to steal something and the child knows stealing is a sin against God, the child may refuse to obey that directive, Reagan says.  

“They are not simply to obey because of fear or necessity,” Reagan notes. “As they grow in the Lord, they should learn to obey because it is the desire of God and it is the right thing to do.”

Honoring one’s father and mother goes beyond obedience, Reagan indicates.

“It means to ‘hold high’; it means to give a special place of respect,” he says. “Obedience will be the result of such honor, but obedience can be performed without honor.”

Obeying parents without honoring them is better than not obeying, but that may lead to bitterness that can breed rebellion, which perhaps eventually can’t be restrained.

Adults should honor their parents, even if they feel their parents don’t deserve respect. Tragically, some parents experience abandonment.  

Writer S. Ann Wildey says (www.abandonedparents.net), “Being abandoned by your adult children is the most painful grief that a parent can experience. And as the world becomes more complicated and global, this experience becomes more prevalent.”

Abandonment by adult children of their parents at all ages is a “growing global and cross-cultural phenomenon,” she notes.

Someone said, “When you deny your parents as if they are not your parents, that’s when you've rejected the very essence of who you are – where you came from.”

St. Paul wrote, “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, … without love, unforgiving, … “(2 Timothy 3:1-5).

Will all children who honor their parents live to age 90 and beyond?

“Of course not,” Writer David Reagan says. “But they will extend the length of their lives and improve the quality of their lives by their honor and obedience.”

Shark Attacks in North Carolina -- and Things in the Ocean I've Learned About

  I learned on Monday morning that a 12-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy lost their left arms and suffered other serious injuries in separate shark attacks in Oak Island, North Carolina, according to a newscast.

I found this info on the Internet: “The youths are hospitalized at New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, said Martha Harlan, a spokeswoman for the hospital. The girl's left arm was amputated below the elbow, and she suffered lower leg tissue damage, Harlan said, while the boy's left arm was amputated below the shoulder.”

Sunday's late afternoon attacks happened less than 90 minutes apart. The girl was attacked first; the boy was attacked about two miles away – both of them were said to be in waist-deep water.

I am praying for the victims of those attacks.  

When I heard that report, I thought about the times I stood in waist-deep ocean water in Charleston (S.C.) or Myrtle Beach. I sometimes ventured neck-deep from shore, never thinking much about sharks. I guess we didn’t hear a lot about shark attacks in the 1950s and ’60s, when I lived near Greenville, S.C.

During my 1971 stint in Vietnam, I was privileged to leave Long Binh for a one-day excursion to Vung Tau’s beautiful beach. Little kids sold us pineapple slices on sticks before a bunch of us GIs splashed into waves rolling in from the South China Sea.

We later heard this message over a loudspeaker: 

“Get out of the water! Get out of the water!”

We clamored to shore and asked, “Why?”

A short distance down the beach, some GIs were gathering. We hurried to see what they knew about that get-out-of-the water warning. They were looking at a dead, 3-foot black snake lying on the sand.

“That’s a sea snake,” one of the soldiers said. “There’s a herd of them going up the beach. They can kill you.”

(A group of snakes is generally called a bed, den, pit or nest – not a “herd.” I was later told that a bite from a sea snake is not usually fatal. But I think tangling with a sea snake could possibly scare you to death.)

According to “Wikipedia,” sea snakes, also known as coral reef snakes, are “the Hydrophiinae” and are found in warm coastal waters from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific. Sea snakes are a subfamily of “venomous elapid snakes that inhabit marine environments for most or all of their lives.” They are closely related to venomous terrestrial snakes in Australia. All have paddle-like tails and many have “laterally compressed bodies that give them an eel-like appearance.”

Yes, there are things in the ocean that can “get you.” 

As a youngster, I used to read about electric eels and wonder if one might “get me” when I went to the beach. And on occasions when I’d hear my pastor preach about the account of Jonah and the big fish that swallowed him in one gulp, I'd remind myself to “get right with God” before moseying into the briny main spilling onto Myrtle Beach.    

I guess you won’t find the kind of sea snake we saw in Vietnam swimming off the coast of North Carolina, but you may find sharks, and sharks are the sea creatures that seem to terrorize us most.

The movie “Jaws,” a 1975 thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's 1974 novel of the same name, put shark-phobia into lots of folk. In that fictional story, a huge great white shark attacks beachgoers. A police chief, a marine biologist, and a shark hunter tangle with Mr. Shark. The music in the film is pretty spooky, too.

At my age, I don’t intend to “bathe” in the ocean, anymore. I enjoyed doing that as a young person. But, now, I don’t move very fast, and I’m a bigger shark-bait than I used to be. And I know lots more about things in the ocean that can “get you.”

The Great Tribulation

What about the “Great Tribulation”? When will it take place? And will Christ remove Christians from the world before the Great Tribulation begins?    

Those questions recently prompted me to begin watching these two weekly programs televised by the Daystar network:

“The Hal Lindsey Report” (11 p.m. EST) is a half hour series hosted by Hal Lindsey, a Christian author and Bible prophecy theologian.

“The End of the Age” (11:30 p.m. EST) is a half hour presentation hosted by Irvin Baxter, a prophecy teacher and founder of “Endtime Ministries.”

Hal Lindsey appears to believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Church. “Pre-Trib” folk believe the Church will be raptured – taken out of the world to be with Christ – before the Tribulation begins.

(Note: Most Bible scholars say the Tribulation lasts seven years. The Great Tribulation represents the last 3.5 years of the Tribulation. The second or last part of the Tribulation will exceed the first three and one-half years in severity and is called the Great Tribulation.) 

Here is the Bible passage many Pre-Trib believers say will be fulfilled before the Tribulation:

“For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 NIV).

Baxter seems to purpose a Post-Tribulation view of “the last days.” That view holds that Christians will experience (go through) the Great Tribulation before the Rapture and Second Coming of Christ.

Baxter says, “ . . . this 'great tribulation' is also prior to the return of Christ and the rapture . . . ” ( from http://www.endtime.com/the-rapture/).

There are also at least three more Christian end-times views: Pre-Wrath, Mid-Trib Rapture, and A-Millennial. But for this discussion, I’m talking about Lindsey’s and Baxter’s perspectives.

I gathered the following about “the Tribulation” from http://www.gotquestions.org/Great-Tribulation.html:

“The length of the Tribulation is seven years. This is determined by an understanding of the seventy weeks of Daniel (Daniel 9:24-27) … . The Great Tribulation is the last half of the Tribulation period, three and one-half years in length. It is distinguished from the Tribulation period because the Beast, or Antichrist, will be revealed, and the wrath of God [some question whether that will be the wrath of God or still be the wrath of Satan, at that time] will greatly intensify during this time. Thus, it is important at this point to emphasize that the Tribulation and the Great Tribulation are not synonymous terms. Within eschatology (the study of future things), the Tribulation refers to the full seven-year period while the ‘Great Tribulation’ refers to the second half of the Tribulation.”

I also read this at that same Internet site:

“It is Christ Himself who used the phrase ‘Great Tribulation’ with reference to the last half of the Tribulation. In Matthew 24:21, Jesus says, ‘For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall.’ In this verse Jesus is referring to the event of Matthew 24:15, which describes the revealing of the abomination of desolation, the man also known as the Antichrist. Also, Jesus in Matthew 24:29-30 states, ‘Immediately after the tribulation of those days . . . the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.’ In this passage, Jesus defines the Great Tribulation (v.21) as beginning with the revealing of the abomination of desolation (v.15) and ending with Christ's second coming (v.30).”

Hal Lindsey says four empires have ruled the Jews: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. He notes that the European Common Market is the “revived Roman Empire” and will figure in end-time events that include persecution and intended destruction for Israel.

Russia, Lindsey says, is the country referred to in Ezekiel 38: 15-16 (NIV):

“You will come from your place in the far north, you and many nations with you, all of them riding on horses, a great horde, a mighty army.  You will advance against my people Israel like a cloud that covers the land. In days to come, Gog, I will bring you against my land, so that the nations may know me when I am proved holy through you before their eyes.”

Russia is the furthest country directly north of Israel, Lindsey says, adding that Russian may be drawn into war against Israel due to its relationship with Iran.

Lindsey talks about great destruction that is predicted to happen during the Great Tribulation.

Revelation 9:13-18 (NIV): “The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the four horns of the golden altar that is before God. … ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’  And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of the mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand [200 million]. I heard their number. The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths.”

In that passage, John, the writer of Revelation, was perhaps describing (in terms he knew) images of modern warfare, including nuclear devices.

Lindsey says the United States probably will have lost its world influence and not figure greatly in world affairs during the Tribulation.

“There is no mention of America during the Tribulation period . . . nor of any righteous nation,” Lindsey says.

He says that judgment is coming and that God will withhold judgment while his people are still on earth. For that reason, God’s people, the true Church, will be taken out of the world before the Tribulation, Lindsey says.

Irvin Baxter may agree somewhat with Hal Lindsey on how events will unfold as the  Tribulation approaches, but he appears to feel that Christians will have to endure the Tribulation, which includes the Great Tribulation.

He says that a secular peace-making leader (the Antichrist) will arise in Europe and a religious leader (the False Prophet) will arise in Israel. The Antichrist will be a political figure who is also religious, and the False Prophet will be a religious figure who is also political, Baxter says.

The False Prophet will be someone perhaps “like” “the world’s leading ‘Christian,’” Baxter says, adding, “Most so-called Christians will support the Antichrist.”

The two figures, the Antichrist and the False Prophet, will deceive people. The Antichrist’s powerbase will be Europe, Baxter says.

“All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast [the Antichrist] – all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. …  Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb [the False Prophet], but it spoke like a dragon. It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And it performed great signs … ” (Rev. 13:8-13).

To unify the world, a form of identification of citizens will be implemented.

Baxter says “E-Verify” has evolved and perhaps will be accepted in the U.S. as a way to use “national ID cards.”

“A cashless society is not far off,” Baxter says.

Microchip implants in humans will usher in, perhaps, the worldwide ID system (the “mark of the beast”).

“It [the second ‘beast’] also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. … calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666” (Revelation 13:16-17).

When will the Tribulation (7 years) begin?

Lindsey indicates it will begin after the Rapture (the “catching away”) of the Church.

When will the Great Tribulation (3.5 years) begin?

Baxter says, “The Great Tribulation begins three and one-half years after a peace agreement.”

At that time, right before the Great Tribulation, the Antichrist will reveal his true evil intentions toward the Jews, some scholars say.

Baxter referred to Jesus’ words found in John 14:29: “I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe.”

Lindsey and Baxter may largely agree on much the Bible reveals about end-time events, but they seem to differ about when Christ will come for his Church.

I believe Christ will come for his believers either before or during the middle of the Tribulation. I don’t want Baxter to be right.