You and I have come to live in a most astonishing world! Part of that astonishment is change. The changes that comes upon us day by day impart upon us with such intensity and frequency, that they are really becoming hard to keep up with.

In Fact, everyone agrees that we are living in a world in which it almost seems as though time itself is moving faster. The mounting pace of change is bringing to pass the condition Alvin Tolfer wrote about and named: "Future Shock."

The Prophecy of End-Time Change

I've chosen to talk about change under the aegis of a prophetic verse which we find in the Old Testament, which says, "and the end of it shall be with a flood" (Daniel 9:26)

Now, we know that's not a literal flood, because God promised Noah that He'd never again destroy the world with water. We have the rainbow to prove that (Genesis 9:11-17). Rather, the Bible is talking about a Flood of Change: flood of alterations so astonishing, that most of the world will say, "Where am I, and what am I trying to do?"

There is a stable plan that God is working through history. Daniel mentions it, when he talks about how in 70 weeks of years, everything that God designed is going to be brought to pass. Listen to what he says:

"Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah, the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore, and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not of himself; and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctury, and the end of it shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined," Daniel 9:24-26.

There's a dramatic change set forth in this passage. After Daniel says seventy weeks shall bring to pass the consummation of history, he says that time span will be interrupted. Something will happen at the end of that 69th week, which will bring to pass an astonishing change in the design of God for the world. What is that something? In one of the most startling verses in the Old Testament, Daniel tells us Messiah the Prince shall be cut off.

It is just after that extraordinary announcement, then, that we learn "The end of it shall be with a flood" of change. Things will change so dramatically, in such a high-impact fashion, that it will be hard to keep up with it all. So let's consider, first of all, the prophecy of end-time change.

When considering the End of the World, we ask ourselves: is the world going to continue in benign and blissful fashion, with nothing impacting upon it, until it finally comes to some kind of an end? Will the world finish "with a whimper," as one of the poets has said? What is the prophetic scenario that tells us of the changes that will come upon the end time?

We are now living in a period of time called the Day of Grace, or the Day of the Church. While yet in the midst of the Day of the Church, it is easy to become complacent. Because it's all we've ever known, we assume that God will always continue working in benign fashion in history. So it is that we make our exotic little plans for the extended future.

Don't plan like that, because suddenly, something will happen that will change everything. And what is that? It is the Rapture of the Church, when we will be taken home to be with Jesus Christ. The Church will be taken from the world, which is its time of contest, into Heaven, which is its time of triumph.

The Rapture will precipitate a dramatic change in this world. The world will transition from the age of the Church to the age of the Tribulation. The Tribulation begins the Day of the Lord. It's the "time of Jacob's trouble" (Jeremiah 30:7). It is the time of Divine wrath. It is the time when God is able to work in naked vengeance upon the world, because the church is no longer here protecting the world from Divine retribution.

By the way, keep that in mind. The reason the world is still here is because of the Church. God does not strike people dead, or destroy cities, capriciously. God is rather noticing that the Church is still in the world, and is holding back His hand of vengeance.

Once it starts, the Tribulation lasts for seven years, and is itself ended by a very dramatic event. And what is that? The glorious return of Jesus Christ, when He comes to set up His Kingdom.

The world will be changed then, from the anarchy of man's day, with autonomous man running the world, to Christ being upon His Throne. He will occupy that throne for 1,000 years. During that time, the world will be kept safe and secure by the autocratic rule of Jesus Christ.

Even at the end of the thousand years, there will be change! The earth will be turned back for a brief moment to man's will. Under the leadership of Satan, mankind will set up an army and march up against the camp of the saints. Then fire will come down from Heaven and destroy that army.

"But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men," 2 Peter 3:7

That will begin the moving of the monopoly of God into the wilderness of eternity. That is what the prophetic scenario is, that tells us of dramatic changes in the end times. In the Tribulation, there will be floods. There will be warfare. There will be diseases. The very animal life of the world will turn against man. There will be such devastation come upon the world, that at least one half of the world's population will die. There will be a Flood of Change, so that the world will be unable to explain it, or to apprehend what is happening. That's the awesome set of things coming during the days of the Tribualtion. That's the prophecy of what will ahappen.

The Accelerating Pace of Change

Yes indeed, there will be a dramatic set of changes come across our world, prophecied in the Word of God. Question: do we see anything now that would lead us to believe that we are moving into that time? Listen: what has taken place in the last relatively short period on the history of our world should cause every one of us to sit up and take notice. I've made a little list of some of the things which have happened, and I'm sure that this list could be doubled with a little attention.

First of all, there is the fall of the Iron Curtain. For as long as most of us remember, Russia was the seat of communism. From there, Russia controlled the Soviet Union, and all these nations which were absolutely under its slavish hand. So solid was the hegemony that the Russians had, and so terrible was the deadly grip on communism, that the people were terror-stricken of doing anything that would cause the communist guards to come upon them. Those guards did kill 60 million during the days of the Soviet Union.

Well, so total was that system that most of us said, "That won't change in our lifetime. These people are a mounting power that is moving inexorably across the world." It did look like there was no sufficient force to stand against this awful thing, because the might of the United States was being progressively reduced.

But now, poof, the Soviet Union is gone. Russia decided that the satellite nations were to be set free. By the way, it is a provocative thing, to note that those satellite nations did not get their freedom because they had a plebiscite, a vote. They did not get their freedom because they had a military conquest, or were able to shoot their way out of tyranny. It was a simple decision on the part of the Russian leadership, for a number of reasons, I believe. Basically, it's because buffer states have become an anachronism in the day of intercontinental ballistic missles and atomic bombs.

But the point is, so quickly, they were gone! The nation of Eastern Europe, one after the other, Romania, Hungry, Czechoslovakia, and the rest of them, were all divided up. Now the map is made up of many fragmented nations in Eastern Europe. Who would have predicted this even a short time ago?

Incidentally, talking about the inability to predict it, look at what has happened because of the Gospel in these nations. There have been thousands of Christian workers that have now been able to go to Russia, to preach and to teach and to distribute literature. It has been so amazing that most of us have been saying, "How could it have been brought to pass?"

By the way, even though at any given time your prayers about something may seem hopeless, don't forget to pray. Don't stop, because God uses your prayers, and those of somebody else, in order to bring to pass changes for the good and the glory of God that are really very remarkable.

Let's also note the end of the Cold War. The world was locked in a Cold War mentality for a long time. That's gone, and there has been a melting down of all of that. Now we have in some cases what we call a "Cold Peace," but even that represents a very dramatic change.

How about the oncoming of the New World Order? President Bush, when he was in office, published a statement that we are looking forward to a "New World Order." Of course, he put the words "New World Order" at the top of the page, numbered it down the side, and told the rest of us to fill in the blanks. Nobody really knew what that New World Order was supposed to bring to pass. But it was saying, the old order, and most of its details, no longer matter. "Let's put new components into most of these numbers. Let's have a New World Order." And they've been talking about it ever since. They've been talking about the New Age Movement coming out of the New World Order, and even preceding it in some cases.

Well, the New Age Movement is a religion. It's the religion that says, "man, autonomous, independent, capable in himself, can do anything." The New Age Movement made the promise that we can have a dramatic new world religion. We can do away with the idea of God, and Christ, and Salvation, and the Bible, and rather, we can get our vibes from the wind blowing across the landscape, and from within ourselves.

There is now a resurgence of interest in the Age of Aquarius. The Age of Aquarius in effect says, existentialism rules: this moment has no causes; this moment has no consequences. Do what you will. Enjoy it now. Steal it now. It's all back in a cocked hat once again. That's the spirit that is going in our time, and it's happening before our very eyes.

But have you noticed, it's happening at an accelerating rate? That's what produces that "Future Shock" that Alvin Toffler has been talking about. Once upon a time, it took months for the changes to come to pass that now happen in days or even moments. The world is attempting to get used to this accelerated pace of change that is coming upon us.

Remember economic globalism. We've had in recent days, economic treaties that have been signed, that have to do with an economic combination centered around Asia. Also, we have NAFTA, which ties the United States with Canada, Mexico, and potentially all of Latin America. It already is starting to cost us a ton of money, by the way, to bail Mexico out of its problems.

Regarding a new economic order: somebody has said that there is a new economic government being established across the world, even as we think together about the future. A new economic government: my, that sounds like a condition that can very quickly bring to pass a set of situations that we call "the rise of Antichrist."

The rise of Antichrist has been made even more certain, because of the power vacuum going in the world today. Leaders: where are they? In no nation in the whole world is there a leader that has the respect, the prestige, of an onlooking world so that he can assemble any kind of new combination within history. A world without leaders, creating a power vacuum, is a very dangerous condition for the world to be in. Somebody could easily move into that void, beguiling everybody to believe in him, and really take over the leadership of the world quicker than we think.

The Increasing Signs of the End

Do we have signs going right now, that should warn us of the possibility that the end of the world is approaching? The answer is yes. Recently in the state of California, we had devasting rain such as has not been remembered by people in a whole century. It was almost enough when the earthquakes were tearing things up. Nobody in California is ever going to believe that you can sit comfortably in your house and be very sure that the weather isn't going to get you wherever you live.

Well, that event in California was very quickly surpassed by an earthquale in Kobe, Japan. Within days, that smashing earthquake took more than 5,000 lives. Tens of thousands were left homeless, and the injured could hardly be counted. To view the pictures representing that devastating event is like looking at the city of Beirut on a bad day. But anyway, that earthquake was the kind of thing that Japan had never seen before - not that kind of an earthquake. Most earthquakes are spotty, but this one was like a carpet of ruin that came across the whole area.

The people of Japan had thought of themselves as being very self-sufficient. Nobody is self-sufficient when it comes to handling the details of an earthquake. That happened very quickly.

Another earthquake occured in Columbia, in South America, in a more rural area. These events started us to think about earthquakes once again. Here is what the Bible says about one of them, that can be quite interesting.

"And I beheld, when he opened the sixth seal and, lo, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every slave, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the ricks of the mountains. And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; For the great day of his wrath is coming, and who shall be able to stand?" Revelation 6:12-17

An earthquake is a terrible thing, right? Is there anything more to be feared than an earthquake? Yes. It is the "wrath of the Lamb." Notice, "the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men. . .hid themselves." More frightening in their minds was the "wrath of the Lamb" than anything else that could happen to them, including an earthquake. That should be a reminder that when the Bible say "the great day of his wrath is coming," the day of the tribulation, you and I should be very carefully warned.

These things are happening in our time, so much so, that the world looking on says, "What next?" Can I predict what next? No. Neither can you. Will we see an earthquake in the United States? Maybe. Could we see a terrible wind storm in the central part of the United States that takes out a whole city, like Wichita, or St. Louis, or Kansas city? Perhaps. Could we see a plague that moves across the culture, killing people by the thousands, and then by the millions? The answer is very possiby, and they are talking about it now.

Take, for example, the AIDS epidemic, and it's elusiveness. They are finding out that they could invent a serum that will work in one set of circumstances, but the AIDS epidemic virus jumps here, and then jumps over there, until they are now talking about 32 different viruses that are a part of the terrible curse of AIDS, coming upon the culture.

Recently, those who do research on these things - the doctors and the medical personnel involved in opposing the AIDS epidemic - looked into this and said that they have nothing that works. They are no further down the road than they were years ago. They are helpless before this epidemic, and 10,000 new cases every day are being reported. That is where the problem is in our present time. Already, billions upon billions of dollars have been spent, and nothing seems to work.

The world was very confident, once upon a time. When it talked about disease, they said, "No problem. We've got a pill; we've got an antidote; here it is." When they talked about earthquakes, they said, "No problem. We've got earthquake-proof buildings that can stand up against anything." When talking about anything else, travel or whatnot: "No problem. The trains, the planes, the ships are all controlled. High technology has taken over. No problem."

Well, they're still researching why one of U.S. Air's fleet went straight down 6,000 feet and killed 132 people. They're saying, "How did this happen? What happened to the control mechanism? Why couldn't we foresee this tragedy?

They're talking, by the way, about forecasting earthquakes. They're saying, "There's bound to be a major earthquake in the Los Angelos area sometime in the next 30 years." What kind of a prediction is that? But, the point is, we are seeing increasing signs that point to the fact that soon, we won't be able to handle anything!

Not long ago, I rode with some friends back to the "old neighborhood." This was in Connecticut; they now live in a different place, as do I. But as we went back to the "old neighborhood," really, it looked like it was falling apart. They showed me the house that they had lived in, and it was almost a wreck. Their observation was, "Everything is changing. Nothing is the same."

Well, let me tell you something: there is no such thing as the "old neighborhood." Things are changing so fast, that the old neighborhood is unrecognizable. People are putting it in many ways, but what they are saying is, "All this thing called change, we can hardly stand it. Nothing is stable any more."

People want stability. They want to be able to have some small ability to predict where their lives will be tomorrow, as against where they are today. Well, that is never going to be the case. Predictability is gone. The Bible says:

"Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth," Proverbs 27:1.

Never has that been true like it is today. Change has become so endemic, that people are will to do almost anything to bring order to the world. Is there going to be a world order? Will all of the instabilities of our time finally produce a day in which people say, "We've got to have some stability - someone to run things - so that we can have some predictability rather than all this serendipity stuff?"

The answer is yes. There is going to be a world order, a government that will impose predictability on everyone. Let's think about that in three areas or phases.

Enter - the Antichrist

First of all, out of all of the changes going on in the world today, we are creating a situation that will produce the grand entrance of an individual called in the Bible, the Antichrist.

One could almost visualize how that would come to pass. It's becoming less and less possible to predict tomorrow. There are catastrophic changes that are both man made , and that also appear to be allowed of God, like mighty earthquakes, and floods, and human catastrophes. People, coming to the end of their ability to be patient in the midst of all of these things, are saying, "We've got to have some kind of an order. We've got to choose a person who can run things. It's time to put life back on a schedule that we can handle."

That attitude is already spreading across the world. Perhaps very soon, there will be a person who steps on the world stage, smiling, affable, confident, perhaps well-known, perhaps unknown. But remember, in this day of instant media notoriety, someone you had never heard of yesterday can become internationally famous today.

He will stand before the onlooking nations of the world. You may well call him, "the man with a plan," and I can almost hear what he is going to say. He will say, "Look. You cannot depend on the value of your money. You don't know who's going to be running your government day to day. You are not at all sure that a revolution will not overtake you in the next week. You don't know what the price of milk for the children will be. You aren't sure that you won't be standing in line for foodstuffs within a day. You simply aren't able to handle things because we can't predict tomorrow.

"Notice the stock market. Notice the bond market. Notice the collapse of the world's financial institutions. Notice what is happening in the Third World, as Latin America, Asia, and Africa become drains down which the substance of the world is poured. All of that is happening, but I have a plan that will turn it around."

They're using an expression today that I think to be very interesting. They are saying we must re-invent government. In the United States, that's being said by both the Democratsand the Republicans - the age of the re-inventing of government.

Well, that worries me just a little bit, because that's just another way of saying, "We're going to throw the whole thing into a cocked hat; we're going to come up with a whole new set of ideas; re-invention is the name of the game." You'll recall when hippies used to run around back in the '60's. They said, "Let's knock everything apart; let's do away with the establishment; let's build a great new society on the ashes of the cities that we will tear down."

Well, these people had other nutty notions as well, and of course, they were totally irresponsible about it all. They didn't even know where to get their clothes cleaned, much less how to do something to change society. But that spirit of anarchy continues to grow in the minds and hearts of many: we need no ruler, no law, no government - we'll do it our own way.

Today, that thought has progressed to where frustrated and insecure people are reacting, by saying, "It's time for us to have order that is not changing every day. We'll take it in whatever form it may come. Bring us a New World Order that will guarantee stabilty!" The Antichrist will promise this, and he will be elevated to world power.

Do you know how he will come to power? Think for just a moment. He first of all will escalate to the leadership of a 10-nation complex which is a revived Roman Empire. "The people of the prince that shall come" are the same ones that "shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end of it shall be with a flood" (Daniel 9:26). He will come to power as the leader of that complex that once was Rome.

From there, he will move to greater power. He will make a deal with the nation of Israel. He will promise to defend their land against fearful aggression from the outside. He will actually do this, in my judgment, lending credibility to his claim of world leadership. He will promise a future for the nation of Israel, but he will break his covenant in the midst of a series of years called the Tribulation.

He will be escalated to world power and establish a world government. Everyone in the world will have to register. They will receive a mark on their right hand or their forehead, without which they cannot buy or sell. The whole world will be organized, nation by nation and individual by individual, and absorbed by his government.

How can this be done? Easy: we have computers to do it right now! It is all there. Any ruler today must be able to identify every individual in his kingdom. That surely will be true about the Antichrist.

The False Prophet and His Religion

The Antichrist will organize the whole world into a business, into a kingdom, into a government. World governmemt is inevitable, and that will be the name of his game. But there eventually will come a time, in his quest to build a world government, when he will say, "Just a mechanical government is enough. We've got to have a kind of mucilage, an adhesive that holds the world together that's more than just economic, and more than just raw power."

What will it be? He will look across the world and come to the conclusion that religion is the answer. He will look into the history books and realize that everybody has a disposition toward religion. Every national entity in all of the history of the world, to the last tribe on the face of the earth, has had some kind of a religion to keep it all together. Then he will say, "That's the path I must follow." The Bible teaches that he will organize a world religion, and focus it upon himself.

The first thing that he will do is choose a person. He will say, "Who can I put in power, that will be the leader of this world religion? Who has the commanding prestige and the religious insight, and knows enough about people and politics, that he can be the top man in history's first all-inclusive religion? He will choose such a person, and the Bible calls this person the False Prophet.

So there will be a kind of a duo who will run the world in those days: the Beast, who is the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. That False Prophet will issue a call in the name of the Antichrist, and say, "Let's all get together, and have a world religion. After all, we have been divided so long by differences in our world's nutty little religions. Forms of Baptism, ways you wear robes, what the choir sings, what kind of buildings you put up - all of these things are irrelevant. In this new and enlightened era, the destiny of the world is dependent upon a great program of religious mutuality. So let's lay aside all of our differences, and have a vast new ecumenical spirit, that will pull together the existing religions of the world."

Do we see anything like that going on today? You bet. We have got a sentiment within liberal Christianity, within the cults, within the pagan religions of the world, and within evangelicalism, that to one degree or another says, "Let's get together. Let's find a basis of mutual agreement." Unity, even at the sacrifice of doctrine, has become the name of the game.

Unity - is that what God wants? Well, everybody that says "Yes" quotes Jesus Christ as praying that they all would be one (John 17:21). But let's realize that unity, as is espoused by Jesus Christ, is the unity of the members of the Body of Christ, those who know Him as personal Savior. It's not organizational unity. Organizational unity and real unity are two different things, and they are at opposite poles of the will of God.

Spiritual unity is a great thing. You belong to me; I belong to you; we are members of one Body, the Body of Christ: that is spiritual unity. But the moment you say, "Let's produce a manifesto. Let's have a system of things on which we agree, let's publish it, and let's make everyone sign this document that will enforce our unity" - at that moment, you are doing the devil's work, rather than the Lord's work.

Spiritual unity is what Christ is talking about, but the False Prophet will put together a program of organizational unity, that will be based on the lowest common ecumenical denominator you can think of. All you've got to believe is, that you feel good about God, or you feel good about higher power, or that you acquiese to the leadership of this beguiling False Prophet.

The False Prophet may be somebody already famous in the world of religion. I would not be so presumptuous as to name him, but watch out for any religious leader who is escalating to world prominence. That kind of authority is totally without good sense, and is groundless, yet it exists in increasing fashion, in our society. The False Prophet will have such authority. He will put together a religion. Listen to what the Bible says.

"And they worshiped the dragon (the devil) who gave power unto the beast; and they worshiped the beast (the Antichrist), saying Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?," Revelation 13:4

This verse illustrates two characteristics of the final world religion. One is that they worship the beast. That means it will be humanistic. Then they worship the dragon, the devil himself. So it will be Satanic, as well as humanistic. That diabolical religion will control the world at the end of the age, under the leadership of the False Prophet.

It also will be phenomenalistic. It's hard for people to believe in what they cannot see, but that is exactly what we must do, in order to be Christians. We don't believe in what we can see, but what we cannot.

"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal," 2 Corinthians 4:18

Since people will want to worship something they can see, look at what the False Prophet does:

"And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke like a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them who dwell on it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, that had the wound by a sword, and did live," Revelation 13:11-14.

He makes fire come down from heaven - fantastic! The world will look at that and say, "That's a person who is to be believed in." Phenomenalistic: he works miracles, so the world says we can trust him. Don't trust anybody just because they work what you think is a miracle. That is not proof of Divine involvement. It is rather an indication of the manipulative ability of the leader, and the gullibility of those who watch. The False Prophet will be big time in that regard.

It will also be idolatrous. He produces:

". . .an image to the beast, that had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he hath power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed," Revelation 13:14-15.

You've got to worship that image, says the False Prophet. So in the midst of all the ecumenism going today, remember, we're watching a foretaste of the False Prophet and his religion.

As we see these things coming to pass, as predicted in the Word of God, I do hope that many of us say, "My, there is a whole set of unhappy events coming upon the world." What an awful world this Flood of Change will produce: a world government that will be so coercive, that you have no choice if you want to live, except obey the Antichrist. A world religion that will be so demanding that you will be put to death for not believing in it, and the image that it represents to you. It will be a classic illustration of strong delusion, that God will send upon a world prone to belive in delusion, as we move toward the end of the age.

Escaping the Coming Flood

So, you ask, "How can I escape all of these things that are coming to pass? What shall I do in a time like this, so that I won't be caught up in the dreadful slave state of the Antichrist, and maybe put to death because of the witness of Jesus?"

Here is the wonderful answer to that question. We yet live in a period of time called the Day of Grace. How, then, am I saved?

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourself, it is a gift of God - Not of works, lest any man should boast," Ephesians 2:8-9.

When you are saved during the Day of Grace, you will not come under the aegis of the Antichrist. You will be raptured from this world before that monster takes over. So my first suggestion is, believe the Gospel. Come to know Christ as your personal Savior. It is highly beneficial to accept Christ now, and not simply wait to believe until the Tribulation comes to pass. When you accept Christ, you become a member of the Body of Christ, part of His eternal Kingdom. You'll be taken into Heaven before the Tribulation begins. It is a marvelous thing to know the Lord. That's my first answer to the question, "How shall I escape?"

But it may be that there are those even now reading who will not believe, but who will move into the Tribulation. The Church will be raptured, but not you. Then you'll have some very serious questions and concerns. "What shall I do now?"

All right, here is my answer for you: believe the Gospel of the Kingdom. There will be a message made available to the world in those days, which is a continuation of the message given to Israel in the Old Testament and in the synoptic Gospels:

". . .the kingdom of heaven is at hand," Matthew 4:17.

The Kingdom of Heaven is going to come to pass in this world, within seven years after the beginning of the Tribulation. By believing the Gospel of the Kingdom, you can accept Jesus Christ as your Messiah.

Remember, in the Day of Grace, you are saved by accepting Christ as your Messiah. You are saved by believing in the finished work of the cross, and accepting Him as your personal Redeemer and Savior from sin.

The Messiah concept of the Savior is that He will be a great leader to lead His people, which He will do at the end of the Tribulation. You can accept Christ as your Messiah, and you will be saved. You'll be saved, by the way, unto inheriting the earth, rather than inheriting all the universe. But it will be a marvelous thing to be a part of His Kingdom.

Then, having been saved by believing the Gospel of the Kingdom during the days of the Tribulation, my second suggestion is to be resolute for Christ. That's my suggestion to any Christian, even now. But during the Tribulation, you may be called upon to give the last full measure of devotion to the Savior. You may be called upon to die, because of your faith in Jesus Christ. Don't turn back.

". . .be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of Life." Revelation 2:10.

You may even be beheaded for the witness of Jesus, but remember, that pain of an instant is the prelude to a glorious eternity. Be resolute for the Lord.

Especially, look to His glorious appearing. You'll know with absolute certainty, that Christ will return soon to establish His Kingdom. That day will be just seven years after the Rapture! That is the blessed message which is your hope, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!"

During the Tribulation, you will be a part of an unusual set of events. It may be that you will join those people of Israel who will be delivered from the Antichrist, and taken to a place of God's choosing, where they will not be persecuted, but will be protected, during the days of the Tribulation. That will be an adventurous thing, of course. But, the Tribulation is coming. It may begin 24 hours from now. Christ may come in the Rapture before this day is done. Tomorrow, the Antichrist may emerge, and present himself to the world.

It could happen so very quickly! It's all part of the Flood of Change! Once upon a time, change used to come very slowly. But now, it comes to pass quite rapidly. Nations rise and fall in 30 days. Rulers are here today, and are gone tomorrow. Sometimes a ruler of great prestige is a pariah two weeks later, because of some news story written about him. This Flood of Change will cause the world to become fearful in light of its instability. It will be willing to accept that world government and its promise of stability.

But you, living in this Day of Grace, and knowing Jesus Christ as personal Savior, will not face the dreadful agenda of the Antichrist. So here's a final admonition: not only know Christ in this day, but be a witness for the Savior. Your mother, or your father, or your children, need to know Christ. Tell them about Him. Your neighbors need the Lord. Don't be embarrassed. A lot of people will go to Hell, because of the reticence of their Christian neighbors who did not tell them about Christ. Be outspoken about the Savior.

What else is there? Your reputation? Your prestige in the neighborhood? It doesn't matter whether you have a million dollars, or nothing at all. All those thing are irrelevant! God put us in this world to prepare people for eternity. "Am I making a difference for the Savior?" That should press upon our minds, as we realize that we may be the ones upon whom the end of the worlds have come.

I'm saying this most categorically to you. "Only one life, will soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last." That is a truism that we must not avoid facing up to in life. So while the doors of grace are open, tell people about Christ and His power to save. Be a good witness for Him. I pray that you will.

Finding Your Anchor Amidst the Storm

In the midst of a flood of change, there is a solid thing. And what is that? It is to know Jesus Christ as your Savior. Then you will have eternal life, and that isn't going to be changed by the problems of this world. You're going to Heaven when you know Him. Do you know Him? Would you like to know Him, even today, to be a Christian, and know that Jesus lives in your heart?

If you want to be a Christian today, believing in Christ, and the finished work of the cross, pray this prayer, believing Jesus Christ to come into your life.

"Heavenly Father, I know that I'm a sinner, and that Jesus died on the cross and rose again, and I want now to take Him as my very own. Please come to live within my heart. Give me the assurance of salvation. I pray in Jesus' Name, Amen."