20 Jan 2025
Peace: Still the Mantra in 2025
While thinking on the inauguration of the 47th president of the United States on this 20th day of January 2025, I reflect on things more than a decade earlier.
I wrote in January of 2010 the following. Peace is more than the absence of war in which blood is shed while weapons destroy and death tallies their toll. Peace is contentment, with prospects for a future free of worry that conflict will disrupt tranquility. There is neither contentment nor tranquility upon this fallen sphere:
Conflict is everywhere one looks. Unsettling issues assault the eyes and ears—the senses—of the world community. Anxieties and perplexities inundate societies and cultures, nations, and continents. The voices of humanity cry “Peace! Peace!” when there is no peace. As much as I would like to bring tidings of great joy—having just celebrated the birth of Christ—I cannot do so from the perspective of what is going on here on Earth. The year 2010 just ahead looks bleak for a world of inhabitants who, by and large, reject the only One who can bring peace. The rejection portends the ascent of evil that is prophetically scheduled to grow worse, according to the apostle Paul: “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13).
That forecast certainly has proven accurate. But it is God’s prophetic Word, not this poor messenger’s predictive acumen, that made the 2010 prognostication an easy one. The times here at the beginning of 2025 have changed only in that the outlook for peace this darkening world seeks flees farther distant by the hour.
While seducers are on the scene in this generation at every level of human interaction, deadly conflict lurks just around the geopolitical corner in the region of planet Earth foretold to be the host geographical area of man’s most horrific war. The prince of Persia foments rage against God’s chosen nation, inciting the likes of Iran’s Islamic leadership to create weapons that can destroy Israel, thus hoping to derail God’s prophetic plan to install the King of all kings upon the throne of David. Alliances form that make the wary student of Bible prophecy know that the prophet Ezekiel’s Gog-Magog coalition is coming together. One day the “evil thought” of Ezekiel 38:10 will come to a Russian leader’s mind. All hell will break loose in the most volatile region on Earth.
Politicians in America and in other nations lie to their publics, promising resolution to civil and economic strife and perplexities that have no chance of improvement, based upon those leaderships’ self-serving motives and intentions. They seduce the publics they are supposed to serve, and instead rule with deluding words that flow from the mind of the great deceiver himself—the father of lies.
Religious leaders—even supposed Christian leaders—move their flocks in directions away from, not toward, the God of Heaven and His prescription for living a peaceful life on this ever-darkening planet. Indeed, the seducers of religiosity grow worse and worse, and the gospel light dims for America as it has been dimming for so long in Europe, out of which the American republic burst under God’s great providence.
Still, the self-delusion that man-made peace can prevail over this sin-blackened world persists. The cry for peace and safety is exponentially ratcheting up in the region prophesied to host the worst and final war of the age—Armageddon. That cry for peace and safety predicted to characterize the end of the age is front and center in today’s headlines.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking to the 79th session of the UN General Assembly on September 27, 2024, laid out the opposition to peace God’s chosen nation faces in this time so near the end of the age:
Mr. President, Ladies and gentlemen, I didn’t intend to come here this year. My country is at war, fighting for its life.
But after I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight. I decided to come here to speak for my people. To speak for my country, to speak for the truth. And here’s the truth: Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again. Yet we face savage enemies who seek our annihilation, and we must defend ourselves against them.
These savage murderers, our enemies, seek not only to destroy us, but they seek to destroy our common civilization and return all of us to a dark age of tyranny and terror. When I spoke here last year, I said we face the same timeless choice that Moses put before the people of Israel thousands of years ago, as we were about to enter the Promised Land.
Moses told us that our actions would determine whether we bequeath to future generations a blessing or a curse.
And that is the choice we face today: the curse of Iran’s unremitting aggression or the blessing of a historic reconciliation between Arab and Jew.
But, that cry for peace isn’t working—not yet, anyway. One day, the “prince that shall come” (Daniel 9:27) will confirm such a covenant of peace that will temporarily induce euphoria for a fearful world. But the present Israeli prime minister isn’t fooled into thinking such a covenant is at hand. His words haven’t changed since back in 2010. He said at that time: “There’s no more time for excuses. It is time for action.” Netanyahu also said that Israel’s most important challenge is Iran’s attempt to get nuclear weapons.
We have witnessed since that time now fifteen years ago not the trending toward peace between Israel and its enemies but a severe ratcheting-up of terrorism and war-making. The Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, have thrown fuel on the fire of Middle Eastern volatility.
Iran continues to be at the center of all of it, with the new president of the United States, as of today, January 20, 2025, promising quick and devastating action against Iran’s nuclear threat, and against the Hamas perpetrators of the most heinous evil against the Jewish state since Hitler’s holocaust.
All of this gloom for this new year is depressing, you say. What a downer to begin 2025! The hope in all of this is glorious beyond imagination, however. It is the “blessed hope” of Titus 2:13 who remains in complete control. For the student of Bible prophecy, whose Lord is the King of kings, all of the foreboding for this world that is passing away means Christ’s return to make all things right on planet Earth must be near indeed. The Prince of Peace is about to intervene dramatically into the disastrous affairs of humanity.
—Terry
Note the Difference
As the fires rage in the Los Angeles area, the casting of blame continues unabated. Die-hard environmentalists insist that climate change is the primary culprit. Those making such a claim overlook the vast array of other factors that have contributed to the ongoing disaster.
Water mismanagement was a key factor. Fire hydrants with no water or low water pressure clearly made matters much worse. In his January 12 morning message, Jake Hibbs highlighted this critical factor by pointing out that California had received record rainfall during the past two years but let most of it drain into the ocean rather than store it. The video of firemen carrying water from their truck to the fire with small vessels due to no fire hoses is a sight I won’t soon forget.
When I lived in the Los Angeles area in the mid to late 1970s, I noticed how the authorities controlled the vegetation and forests on the foothills that surrounded the area. I saw several large breaks in the landscape where they had stripped the land bare of all vegetation and trees so as to slow the momentum of fires once they started. During this time, a fire left a light dusting of ashes on the sidewalk outside my apartment, but the firefighters were able to contain the blaze mainly to the foothills because of such careful protection of the environment.
Fifty years later, the lack of preventative land management allowed the fires to grow with unstoppable force by the time they reached the populated areas.
It’s Not the Apocalypse
Some are using the language of the book of Revelation to describe the devastation left by the fires. I hear the word “apocalyptic” used to describe the widespread devastation.
The word “apocalypse” is a transliteration that comes from Revelation 1:1, “The revelation of Jesus Christ” (my emphasis). In the Greek, the word denotes an appearing or manifestation. The last book of the Bible reveals the person, might, and character of the Lord Jesus on all its pages.
While for many, the word communicates the horrors of what the world sees on the videos that continue to stream from Southern California, what we see is not yet the unveiling of the Lord and His wrath upon the world. It’s not the apocalypse. That cannot happen until after the Rapture.
In addition, the horrific scenes from Los Angeles do not rise to the level of carnage that will mark the seven-year Tribulation. The seal judgments that will come early in this period will result in the death of one-fourth of the population (Revelation 6:1-8).
The Great Day of Wrath
There’s another noteworthy aspect of the Tribulation that sets apart the judgments of the book of Revelation from the disasters that we continue to witness in California and elsewhere. Please note the world’s responses to the horrific events that will mark the start of the Tribulation:
“Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?'” (Revelation 6:15-17, emphasis added).
Not only will the horrific events of the Tribulation exceed what we now witness in terms of devastation and death, but people will correctly identify them as the “wrath of the Lamb.” I have heard a great many explanations for the fires that continue in the Los Angeles area, but I have yet to hear government officials, the elite, or the rich attribute them to “God’s wrath.”
Though people will recognize the Lord’s hand of judgment during the Tribulation, the vast majority of them will refuse to repent of their sins (see Revelation 9:20-21). If there’s any similarity between now and then, it’s that what we see warns mankind of its urgent need to turn to the Savior.
It’s Not a Coincidence
Although it’s not the apocalypse, I believe God has a purpose for the unmitigated disaster that’s unfolding before our eyes in Southern California. He has allowed incompetent government officials, DEI hiring practices, serious lapses of judgment, fierce Santa Ana winds, and evil people starting fires to lead to this deadly calamity. It’s not a coincidence that the fires not have not only struck at the heart of America’s entertainment industry, which has long polluted minds with trashy films but also at what has become the headquarters of a multi-billion-dollar porn filmmaking industry.
Perhaps it’s also not a coincidence that the fires started soon after Hollywood verbally mocked God at the Golden Globes award ceremony on January 5, 2025.
It’s difficult for me not to see God’s hand in bringing together the many factors that contributed to the dreadful images that continue to stream our way from the West Coast. It’s not the Day of the Lord wrath, but we would amiss not to see it as His warning of what lies ahead for those who refuse to respond to His gracious offer of salvation.
It’s understandable that people would compare the Los Angeles fires with the judgments they read about in the book of Revelation. It’s important, however, to note the key difference. What we now see is not yet the “wrath of the Lamb” but rather a warning of its impending arrival and a call for repentance.
There’s coming a day when many will correctly identify the dreadful events of their day as the “wrath of the Lamb,” but then it will be too late for them to escape the Lord’s fury.
-Jonathan
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