Understanding the Times – 3

“……the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do…” (1 Chronicles 12:32)

 1. Background

The Covid scamdemic is the latest in a decades-long series of “catastrophes” forecast by “experts”, that have been used to induce insecurity and promote fear amongst the peoples of Christendom – that is, the Western world.

They began with the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s book The Population Bomb, in 1968, which forecast the death of hundreds of millions through starvation in the 1970s and 1980s. As a consequence most families in Christendom restricted themselves to just two children, embracing the policy of ZPG (Zero Population Growth). In the event, of course, the prophesied doomsday didn’t occur but Australia’s birth rate declined and immigration increased.

This was followed in the 1970s by the “Coming Ice Age” catastrophe, which, it was said with assurance, would wipe out millions of people through expanding ice and the consequent reduction of food supplies. In April 1975, Newsweek Magazine assured its readers that “the evidence in support of these predictions of global cooling has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard pressed to keep up with it” and that “resulting famines could be catastrophic”. (This particular fantasy has a certain irony about it when viewed in the context of the more recent climate scam).

The 1980s saw the emergence of the AIDS crisis, another horror catastrophe which, we were assured, while it broke out in the homosexual community, would inevitably transfer into the heterosexual community and kill up to a third of the population. However, the disease stubbornly insisted on limiting itself, with very few exceptions, to homosexuals and drug addicts with whom they shared needles.

“Acid rain” was the catastrophe of choice in the 1990s, in which industrial fallout would result in rainfall poisoning crops and bringing about widespread starvation. The most important outcome from this scam was the transfer of most manufacturing industries to Asian countries and a consequent reduction in job opportunities for Australians.

Who can forget the Y2K “catastrophe” of 2000, which saw planes falling from the sky, water and energy supplies cut off and banks becoming inoperative? No-one evidently turned their computer clocks on to 11.55 p.m. 31^st December 1999 to see what would happen. In the event, of course, computers continued to do what they were designed to do.

The 2010s saw a ramping up of the climate hysteria; only this time it was caused by Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, rather than the 1970s Coming Ice Age. Naturally enough, the “experts” didn’t bother to explain how Global Cooling of the 1970s could become Global Warming just 40 years later. Once again though, this “catastrophe” was expected to result in massive loss of life because the heating up of the earth would make the production of essential foodstuffs impossible. Like all the other catastrophes, this one, too, was inevitable. “The science is settled”, we were told.

Finally, we have the Covid “catastrophe”, the daddy of them all, in as much as it has resulted in a host of dangerous, unconstitutional and unlawful actions by governments, and the loss of individual liberties that are part of our Christian heritage. And now we can see that this was what the whole drama of episodic “catastrophes” was designed to do; to induce such fear amongst people that they would willingly surrender precious liberties and submit to a massive abuse of power by governments.

All of these “catastrophes” were and are utterly false but have succeeded in promoting terror amongst the peoples of Christendom, which, I think, was always their purpose. Moreover, they all seemed designed to focus on the view, shared by many of the world’s “experts”, that the world is grossly overpopulated. In this atheist worldview of the elitists, there are too many people living in the world than are able to be supported by the world’s resources; too many of us, they mean, not too many of them. This explains the widespread support by governments, in all western countries, for the horror of infanticide through abortion.

But this succession of “catastrophes” has produced a strange response amongst the population of Christendom. One would think that, given their track record, the latest predictions of the “experts” would be greeted with derision by people generally; but to the contrary, each scam seems to have been received with increasing credulity, so that citizens rush to comply with unlawful government directives and join in the demonisation of those who, having looked at the facts, choose not to do so.

 

 2. Some Covid Facts

Those facts, which derive from doctors in clinical practice, as opposed to medical bureaucracy, and which are being concealed by governments, with the complicity of a corrupt mainstream media, tell us that:

As to the Virus

• There has been no excess mortality.
• The overall death rate is lower than for many years.
• Deaths attributable to Covid have been artificially inflated.
• The majority (86% in the UK) of Covid “infections” are asymptomatic; that is they show no symptoms of viral infection but are classified as an infection because of a PCR result.
• PCR tests used to diagnose Covid are totally unreliable and inaccurate, being run at a scale that makes results meaningless.
• The average age of those dying from Covid is older than the average life expectancy.
• Influenza has almost disappeared globally; meanwhile, a new disease called Covid, which has identical symptoms and a similar mortality rate to influenza, is apparently affecting all those normally affected by ‘flu,
• Covid mortality exactly mirrors the natural mortality curve,
• The virus doesn’t kill equally; it affects the most vulnerable with co-morbidities. Therefore, why vaccinate everyone?
• Covid is simple to treat. Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin stop viral replication; the enzyme is inhibited from making copies of itself in the cell. But Government has restricted use of these drugs. The Commonwealth Health Dept. says “There is currently insufficient evidence to support the safe and effective use of Ivermectin, Doxycycline and zinc either separately or in combination for the prevention or treatment of Covid 19. More robust, well-designed clinical trials are needed before they could be considered an appropriate treatment option”. This is twaddle. Both Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine are proven successful treatments of Covid in its early stages. Dozens of studies support early intervention with these drugs. The most vulnerable may need hospitalisation and some may die; but the death rate has been reduced from 7.5% to .5% with early use of these drugs. This regime has been followed by many clinicians with great success. Most doctors though, follow orders; just as they did in Nazi Germany. The real problem with Ivermectin is that it is off patent, meaning that anyone can manufacture it without patent royalties, leaving Big Pharma in the lurch.

 

As to Lockdowns

• Lockdowns are causing significant increases in mental illness.
• Data reveals that lockdowns do not prevent the spread of the disease, but contribute instead, to social isolation in which the only access to information available to people is mainstream media. This increases dependency on false Government narratives. Thomas Sowell wrote; “Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true; but many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly”. Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels also said “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it”. This is the real reason behind the lockdown policy; to limit the exchange of ideas amongst people and to hand feed them with the relentless repetition of a lie.

As to Masks

• Data reveals that masks do not work in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses.
• Masks are bad for health, contributing to facial rashes, bacterial pneumonia and fungal infections.
• Masks are bad for the planet; hundreds of millions of masks are being used each day with a knock-on effect on sewerage, public health, water, irrigation and waste disposal.

As to Vaccines

• Covid “vaccines” are totally unprecedented; there has been no successful vaccine against a human coronavirus before 2020; since then, allegedly 20 of them have been made in 18 months.
• “Vaccines” do not confer immunity or prevent transmission; the alleged efficacy of Covid “vaccines” is in reducing the severity of illness.
• None of the “vaccines” have been subject to proper trials, being developed and approved in a year.
• Most Doctors who are voicing solutions other than vaccination are being silenced.
• There is no medical necessity for this experimental vaccination. Recovery rates are better than for influenza; 99.98% recovery rate for under 18’s; 99.95% for 18-45y.o; above that the death rate is halved with use of HCO drugs. Natural antibodies are better than vaccination.
• This whole vaccination exercise is a scam. This is a business model to create extraordinary wealth for a cabal of greedy sociopaths who want to administer vaccines to the whole world; regular boosters will be necessary, generating an enormous revenue stream over the continuum.
• Messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA) interferes with the genetic sequence of a gene to produce different programmed consequences. It is at least dangerous and, at worst, allows genetic programming of humans.
• The long term effects of the “vaccine” are not known, but there have been a vast number of adverse reactions in the short term.
• The “vaccines” are known to have neurological and cardiovascular risks and to have a negative impact on fertility in both males and females.
• “Vaccinations” can lead to more serious mutations of the virus.
• “Vaccine” manufacturers have been granted legal indemnity against damage and injury caused by their “vaccines”.

As to the “Plandemic” Generally

• A “training exercise”, (see below) undertaken by the World Economic Forum and John Hopkins University and sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, gamed a coronavirus pandemic, called Event 201, in October 2019. The findings and recommendations were published in November 2019, one month before the first Covid case was recorded in China,
• The European Union was preparing a Vaccine Passport at least a year before the beginning of the “Pandemic”,
• Global elites have made stupendous fortunes as a result of the “Plandemic”. Forbes magazine has reported that 40 new billionaires have been created “fighting the coronavirus” with 9 of them being “vaccine” manufacturers. Business Insider magazine reported that “billionaires saw their net worth increase by half a trillion dollars” by October 2020,
• All of these facts are known to governments as well as media, but are concealed by governments and denied space in mainstream media platforms.

What conclusion can be drawn from all of this history and all of these facts is a matter for each individual to decide. But, in my view, the logical conclusion to be drawn from these facts is that the Covid “Plandemic” has been deliberately conceived, planned and implemented by a cabal of sociopathic globalists, intent on accruing stupendous wealth and establishing one government for the earth, in which they, alone, will exercise power. This process is already underway, and is known as the Great Reset.

 

 3. Planning the “Plandemic”

Recall that a trial run of a global coronavirus pandemic had already been undertaken. The details are as follows:-

As part of its global vision, in May 2018 the World Economic Forum (WEF), a private institution established by Klaus Schwab in 1971, partnered with John Hopkins, a private research University in Baltimore, Maryland, to simulate a fictitious pandemic, styled “Clade X”, to see how prepared the world would be if it were to be faced with such a crisis. The Clade X exercise included mock video footage of actors giving scripted news reports about a fake pandemic scenario. The Clade X event also included discussion panels with real policymakers who assessed that governments and industry were not adequately prepared for the fictitious global pandemic.

“In the end, the outcome was tragic: the most catastrophic pandemic in history with hundreds of millions of deaths, economic collapse and societal upheaval”, according to a WEF report on Clade X.

A further simulation of a pandemic, specifically stipulated to be a coronavirus epidemic, was staged in October 2019 by the WEF and John Hopkins University, facilitated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As part of the scenario for the simulation, the entire global economy was shaken, there were riots on the streets, and high-tech surveillance measures were needed to “stop the spread.”

Together, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation submitted seven recommendations for governments, international organisations, and global businesses to follow in the event of a pandemic.

The Event 201 recommendations call for greater collaboration between the public and private sectors while emphasising the importance of establishing partnerships with un-elected, global institutions such as the WHO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the International Air Transport Organisation, to carry out a centralised response.

One of the recommendations calls for governments to partner with social media companies and news organisations to censor content and control the flow of information.

According to the report, “Governments will need to partner with traditional and social media companies to research and develop nimble approaches to countering misinformation. National public health agencies should work in close collaboration with WHO to create the capability to rapidly develop and release consistent health messages.”

“For their part, media companies should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritised and that false messages are suppressed including through the use of technology.”

Sound familiar? Two fake pandemics were simulated in the two years leading up to the real coronavirus crisis. And we are asked to believe that the actual “pandemic” happened accidentally! Both simulations concluded that the world wasn’t prepared for a global pandemic. The results, published in November 2019, stated; “The next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life, but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering”.

Just a few short months after the conclusion of Event 201, which specifically simulated a coronavirus outbreak, the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially declared that the coronavirus had reached pandemic status on March 11, 2020.

Since then, just about every scenario covered in the Clade X and Event 201 simulations has come into play, including:

• Governments implementing lockdowns worldwide
• The collapse of many industries
• Growing mistrust between governments and citizens
• A greater adoption of biometric surveillance technologies
• Social media censorship in the name of combating misinformation
• The desire to flood communication channels with “authoritative” sources
• A global lack of personal protective equipment
• The breakdown of international supply chains
• Mass unemployment
• Rioting in the street
• And a whole lot more!

After the nightmare scenarios had fully materialised by mid-2020, the WEF founder declared “now is the time for the Great Reset”.

4. The Great Reset

The Great Reset is an initiative of the World Economic Forum (WEF), an organisation established by Klaus Schwab in 1971. He describes it as the International Organisation for Public-Private Cooperation, the purpose of which is “to empower global leaders to shape the future for the better”. Since its inception, the WEF has gained credibility with elitists throughout the world and mounts annual conferences in Davos, Switzerland. It claims to be a “trusted platform for all stakeholders of global society to integrate and aggregate their efforts to improve the state of the world”.

Its participants, or stakeholders, include governments, major international corporations, top ranking global research universities, the world’s leading media organisations, cultural leaders, trade unions etc. The WEF functions through high level personalised interaction of its participants and integration into digital and knowledge networks. It has become a fashionable organisation with which to be identified by international poseurs and “influencers”. It is an important institution to which the international chattering class is deeply attached, offering a wonderful stage for self- aggrandisement, forums and conferences, opportunities for posturing before an international audience and significant international media exposure.

Essentially, however, the WEF is a global fascist organisation that seeks to reset the world’s governmental and economic systems so that they are organised and managed at the behest of, and for the benefit of, a group of international elites. There is no provision for the citizens of the world to be given the opportunity of considering whether such a model is what they want for themselves or their country; indeed, the notion of country, or the nation state, is to disappear and be merged into just one international governmental vehicle for the entire world.

The “Great Reset”, which is the name given to the fundamental objective of the WEF, has as its present agenda, “the future state of global relations, the direction of national economies, the priorities of societies, the nature of business models and the management of a global commons” (or One World Government). It envisages a controlled international economic system with all of the world’s citizens taking part at the level assigned to them. Individual enterprise will disappear and large multinational corporations will operate and control all business activity, which will be in the hands of a very few elites.

There is, of course, nothing new about these fantastic plans and purposes;

In 1755, pre-revolutionary French philosopher Etienne-Gabriel Morelly articulated the principles that should govern society as;

“1. Nothing in society will belong to anyone, either as personal possession or as capital goods, except the things for which the person has immediate use, for whether his needs, his pleasures or his daily work;

2. Every citizen will be a public man, sustained by, supported by, and occupied at the public expense;

3. Every citizen will make his particular contribution to the activities of the community according to his capacity, his talent and his age; it is on this basis that his duties will be determined, in conformity with the distributive laws.”

In other words, there is to be no individual freedom or choice, nor private property, nor an individual life.

Of course, that model has been trialed and implemented many times, not just in revolutionary France, but also in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany; it is still the social policy of Communist China and North Korea. In the west, today’s social revolutionaries, such as Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter and the Greens, are at the frontline in facilitating the unrest that will inevitably lead to greater governmental surveillance and control over the lives of citizens. Although they may not know it, they are being manipulated in their activities by global elites, responsible for devising, planning and engineering the Anthropogenic Global Warming and the Covid Plandemic scams.

But the main problem with the WEF’s vision and programme is that it ignores the fact that it was individual liberty that grew economies and improved living standards and rescued society from the stultified lifelessness and inefficiency of an economic system where the workers producing the wealth were, in effect, slaves. Probably, the most important factor leading to the defeat of Germany in World War 11, for example, was that its economy was based on industries using slavery. Klaus Schwab, although a German, seems to have overlooked that.

The WEF claims that the Covid 19 “crisis” presents the ideal environment for launching the Great Reset. “The Covid 19 crisis, and the political, economic and social disruptions it has caused, is fundamentally changing the traditional context for decision making”. In other words, governmental responses to the Covid 19 virus, have created such a mess that “the traditional context for decision making” must be altered. The “traditional context for decision making” in Australia is that the people decide how, and by whom, they are to be governed. The Great Reset envisages this being discontinued and being replaced by a local outreach of an unelected international government directed by “experts”, not unlike the European Commission.

The Great Reset is supported by major international institutions, such as the UN, national governments (including the US) and the World Economic Forum, as well as influential individuals such as the Pope, Prince Charles, President Biden, ultra wealthy powerful plutocrats and Hollywood celebrities. Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a past member of the Bilderberg Group, and now Special UN Envoy for Global Education, has called for the creation of a one-world government as the only way to deal successfully with the consequences of the Coronavirus “crisis”.

But looking ahead, it is obvious that the inevitable, and intentional, consequences of the implementation of the Great Reset will be:-

• The end of individual independence, entrepreneurship and private enterprise.
• End of all religious faith except that directed and controlled by the Global Government (GG).
• Individual slavery.
• End of justice and objective law.
• All activity to be directed and monitored by the GG.
• Citizens to belong to a class determined by the GG.
• Citizens to be directed to work by the GG and only hold those jobs designated by the GG.
• Citizens to be directed to the appropriate training and education by the GG.
• All global citizens required to be identified with a mark on the forehead or hand (Revelation 14:9-11).

This is not prophecy, but prediction, and whether these postulations are correct or not remains to be seen. But certainly the prophetic scriptures point to an era when there is a world totalitarian government directed by the anti-Christ.

I have long thought that the Nazi era in Germany was a prophetic forerunner of the reign of the anti-Christ and Hitler a type of the anti-Christ. Nazism was compressed into only twelve years, 1933-1945, but it was characterised by violent hatred of God’s chosen nation and inhumane brutality towards them and indeed, an attempt to obliterate them altogether from the world. Other characteristics of Nazi Germany were:

• Rigid and ruthless control over all people, including all the professions requiring Government licensing,
• The loss of small businesses in favour of big business,
• A compliant press and radio,
• A corrupt education system that was engaged in brainwashing and corrupting children,
• Acquiescence and submission of churches to Nazi directives,
• Control over the movement of citizens within Nazi territory,
• Bypassing of Parliament and established constitutional practices.

All of these things could be accomplished only because Chancellor Hitler persuaded President Hindenburg to grant his government Emergency Powers so as to deal with social unrest and street violence that was organised and managed by the Nazis themselves.

In the intervening years following the Second World War, cultural changes have been achieved in Christendom by following the Fabian technique of gradualism, small step by small step, so that the people of each generation hardly feel that the changes are too radical. For example, the generation that decriminalised homosexuality could hardly have envisaged that it would lead to normalisation of homosexual practices, homosexual grooming of children in schools, homosexual “marriage”, taxpayer funded sex change operations and the abolition of gendered pronouns such as “he” and “she”.

But the reality is that Christendom has succumbed to the “world rulers of this darkness” in much the same way as did the German Church in the 1930s. What impressed German Christians then were the spectacular successes of Hitler in foreign affairs, his rebuilding of the German economy and the establishment of law and order on the streets. It wasn’t until later that Germans realised that they had lost all their individual liberties and had become slaves, living in fear and unable to undo what had been done.

The parallels with today’s Australia are staggering.

The media was no more one-eyed in Nazi Germany than it is in Australia now. But whereas, in the Nazi era, the press was censored by the Propaganda chief, Josef Goebbels, in Australia today the press is censoring itself, bearing testimony to the fact that media moguls are all part of the global conspiracy. Moreover, Government policies have protected Big Business and seen it flourish while small business has floundered. Local offshoots of large international conglomerates, such as McDonalds, have been deemed to be “essential services” while small locally owned businesses like gymnasiums, hairdressers and physiotherapists have been obliged to close their doors. And just as in Germany, doctors followed government directives on clinical matters, so too, do doctors in Australia today. In fact, if a doctor fails to follow government directives, he/she will not be allowed to practice.

And who would have thought that churches could be closed by government directive for worship of God, fellowship with the saints, breaking bread and preaching of the apostles’ doctrine – in Australia, of all places, where our Constitution begins with the words; “WE, the people…..relying on the blessings of Almighty God….” And what Christian in Australia, fifty years ago, would have obeyed the government and forsaken their ‘gathering together” (Hebrews 10:25).

But most revealing of all is the fact that governments in Australia have followed the Nazi technique of using emergency powers to impose their dictatorships.

In all these things that have taken place in the last fifty years, step by fatal step, the church has been compliant, unwillingly perhaps at first, but becoming increasingly compromised with each change, to the extent that large sections of the church actively campaigned for the authorisation of homosexual marriage.

Called to be salt and light to the world, the church has become instead, a pathetic mirror of the world.

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Knowing What To Do

“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3).

This is the vital question for these times.

Most Christians are completely unaware of the situation with which the world is confronted. They hasten to respond to the unconstitutional and unlawful demands of governments that deprive them of their liberties; they rush to comply with the rules regarding lockups and masking unquestionably, and embrace the injection of genetic editing material developed from the cell lines of murdered infants without demur; in their responses they are no different to the world at large. Yet to obey the ungodly demands of government is to show friendship to the world, by which the scripture identifies the enemies of God (James 4:4).

The early people of the Christian faith were predominantly Jews who had followed Jesus in His lifetime and, as a result, had been excluded from fellowship in the Jewish community. So in the early days of the Christian era, the persecuted were Jews, as were the persecutors. But God plucked a faithful remnant from the apostate Judaism of the Old Covenant to establish a New Covenant “with the house of Israel and the house of Judah”, just as He had promised (Jeremiah 31:31).

The New Covenant was born in blood; not just the Blood of Christ, but the blood of those of His determined followers who refused to be turned away from the peace with God that they had found in Christ, to the peace offered by the world, which requires passive conformity to the world and its values, standards and opinions.

Now at the end of the age, when God is calling a faithful remnant of His people to follow Christ, as Christ followed the Father, it can be expected that history will repeat itself; it will be the unfaithful Christians who persecute Christ’s faithful followers, as Jesus Himself prophesied; “And in that time, many will be caused to stumble and will betray one another and will hate one another” (Matthew 24:10).

Most Christians will be unaware that these things are on our doorstep; generations of listening to the misinterpretations and scriptural manipulations of false teachers, coupled with religious complacency and a neglect of personal scriptural study, has left western Christianity generally, blind to the realities confronting the world and, particularly, those of the Christian faith. For, while we are saved from the wrath of God, the wrath of Satan is to be endured by true believers when his season comes and the lawless one manifests.

The restoration of Jerusalem to the Jews, which ushered in the end of “the times of the gentiles” (Luke 21:24) also sounded the trumpet for the prophesied “end times”, which features the revelation of the “man of lawlessness” and the “Day of the Lord” (2 Thessalonians 2:2-3).

According to scripture, this man of lawlessness has been restrained to date by the Lord Jesus Christ until the end of “the times of the gentiles”, so that “in his season he may be revealed” (2 Thessalonians 2:6). The return of the Jews to Jerusalem, the apostasy of the Church, and the degradation of the culture of Christendom, all bear testimony to the loosing of that restraint, so that the “lawless one” may do those things for which the prophetic scriptures give him authority. Everything points to the fact that his season is imminent and we can expect that he will be revealed in due course. Just as the “mystery of Godliness” was manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16), so too, will the “mystery of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:7-8).

As it is written; “…and then that lawless one will be revealed – who the Lord will destroy with the spirit of His mouth and will nullify by the appearance of his coming; whose (the lawless one’s) coming is according to the working of Satan in all power and signs and counterfeit wonders and in all deception of unrighteousness to those being lost, because they did not take hold of the love of the truth so as to be saved. And for this reason, (that they did not love the truth sufficiently) God sends to them a supernatural working of deception in order for them to trust in the lie so that they all may be condemned, those not trusting in the truth, but taking pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thessalonians 2:8-12).

This is what scripture teaches us; the lawless one is coming; the only issue is the timing; but in respect of this, we are told; “See to it that no-one misleads you” (Matthew 24:4), and “be not deceived” (Luke 21:8; Deuteronomy 11:16 and many others). However, we are told that the lawless one will deceive many of God’s people, just as he did at the end of the Old Covenant. Already, the willingness with which people have accepted the necessity for “vaccination”, suggests that it is but a small step for them to accept the necessity of an identifying mark. Certainly, it will be embraced by the world when it arrives, and the ability of people to buy or sell will be restricted to those who have the mark, which will be an encrypted biometric identifier as well as a replacement for credit cards and all the other identifying documentation that is carried by people today. Remarkably, Bill Gates has already proposed that everyone in the world be fitted with an encrypted digital device in the hand, similar to that which already happens for dog registration.

Moreover, people generally, and churchgoing Christians too, are in such bondage that they will rush to comply; the only fear they have is the fear of death, by which they are bound. Having no knowledge of God or true faith in Christ, they do not believe that Jesus can “….liberate those who, through fear of death all their lives, are being held fast in bondage” (Hebrews 2:15). They do not know that it is through fear of death that Satan controls people. As long as life in this world holds pride of place in the thoughts, desires and ambitions of people, whether Christian or not, Satan can control them.

For those who truly belong to Christ, who hear His voice and follow Him (John 10:27), the scriptures, apart from warning us what is to come, give us instruction as to how to act. Apart from the repeated warnings to be not deceived, there is much more in the scriptures to guide believers in the way ahead. Here are some thoughts:-

“Examine all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

Vital choices will be made by Christians in the coming times; it is imperative that we examine all things in the openness of our own spirit in communion with the Holy Spirit of God. Hold fast to that which is good, that which is true, that which conforms to the Word of God and the Spirit of Christ, As Paul wrote to the Philippians;

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is righteous, whatever is holy, whatever is pleasing (to God), whatever is praiseworthy if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of commendation, keep these things in mind” (Philippians 4:8).

Great pressure will be brought to bear on believers in the years ahead. Now is the time to prepare oneself by developing an intimacy in communion with Almighty God so that we may be strengthened in relationship with Him and equipped to know what is right and then to do what we know is right.

“Test the spirits, to see if they be from God” (1 John 4:1).

Intimidation, bullying, harassment and demonisation of those refusing to conform to the rulers of this world doesn’t come from God.

“For the struggle in us is not with blood and flesh, but with the beginnings, the authorities, with the world rulers of this darkness, with spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies” (Ephesians 6:12).

In other words, know your enemy!

This is a literal translation from the original language. It does not say “our struggle” or “we do not wrestle” as some translations have it. What Paul is telling us is that the struggle is IN us; we are the battlefield in which the struggle between God and His enemy, Satan, is taking place. It has its origins in the beginning of man’s domicile in the Garden of Eden. It was there that the authority over the earth that God gave to Adam was transferred to Satan. Since then, the vital question for everyone has been “to which authority do you yield?”

Despite Jesus, the “last Adam” taking back the authority that the first Adam lost, Satan still exercises authority in those who yield to him, that is, the Godless world generally and a vast proportion of those calling themselves Christians. So the struggle that we are part of is with spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies. That is where it originated. Note too, that the struggle is with “the world rulers of this darkness”; world rulers are becoming more visible in this present darkness.

It is well to bear in mind too, that the prophetic scriptures give Satan authority to do what he do is doing and will do. We have all known him as the serpent, tempting and deceiving God’s people with craft and guile, misleading them by falsely using the scriptures, just as he did in the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. All of these things he is allowed to do; it is his job. In the last days we will know him as the dragon, persecuting and tormenting those who belong to Christ, just as he did in the first days of the New Covenant, when the garden of faith was watered with the blood of the saints. Christians who rely upon false translations and interpretations of the Word to envisage an escape from the wrath of Satan are deluding themselves.

“I am the One forming light and creating darkness; the One making peace and creating evil. I am the Lord God, the One doing all these things” (Isaiah 45:7).

In other words, know that God is sovereign and all things are under His hand. And this is what the prophetic scriptures have to say about the times such as those in which we live.

“And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent being called the Devil, and Satan, the one leading astray the whole world: he was thrown down into the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is become the salvation, and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is thrown down, the one accusing them before our God day and night.

And they overcame him on account of the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore be glad O heavens, and those dwelling in them! Alas the earth and the sea! For the devil is gone down unto you, having great wrath, having known he has a little time (kairos)” (Revelation 12:9-12).

“They loved not their lives unto death”. Those truly belonging to Christ are delivered from the wrath of God, but not from the wrath of Satan, whose malignant activity is increasing because the time of the end draws near; he knows that he has but little time. We need to memorise these scriptures and remind ourselves that there is a generation of God’s true people who have to face the wrath of Satan; there is no escape from the Word of God. Satan will have his day and even this is under the sovereignty of God, for all he is doing in his persecution and terrorizing is that he is separating the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the tares, and the faithful unto death from the unfaithful.

“And Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2).

This world belongs to the ruler of this world (John 14:30) and is controlled by the spirit of the world (1 Corinthians 2:12). Those who are Christ’s must not yield to the pressures and intimidation that the world presses upon them. All of the things which are to happen are under the sovereignty of God, being foretold in the Holy Scriptures. We need have no fear of what the world can do to us; our vital task is to stay faithful to Christ. Fear makes us easier to bring into demonic bondage. Remember; “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defence of my life, whom shall I dread? (Psalm 27:1).

“As for the rest, be empowered in the Lord and in the might of His strength; clothe yourself with the whole armour of God, for you to be able to stand against the wiles of the devil; for the struggle in you is not with blood and flesh, but with the origins, with the authorities, with the world rulers of this darkness, with spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies.

On account of this, take up the full armour of God, in order that you my be able to refuse to yield in the day of evil and, overcoming everything, to stand.

Stand therefore! Girding your waist in truth and putting on the breastplate of righteousness and putting on the feet in readiness, the gospel of peace; in all things taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

And receive the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the rhema of God”.

We have to put on the armour of God ourselves; He doesn’t do it. We begin with the belt of truth. In the military armour of the day, the belt went around the waist and over the shoulders and was used to support the breastplate. If you have the wrong truth, the breastplate of righteousness won’t fit, so a deep commitment to searching the scriptures is fundamental, as is a willing submission to the truth revealed. It is only direct communion with God through the Holy Spirit that can bring light into this world of darkness. Cast aside the doctrines of men and ask the Lord to teach you Himself. He will do it, because He promised that the Holy Spirit would “teach you all things” (John 14:25). If you put Him to the test, He will not fail you.

The days ahead will require what many have never had to do in their life thus far;

“Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also in Him, and He will do it” (Psalm 37:5).

“Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

The greatest and most underused power we have is the power of prayer.