DAILY ARTICLE - 10/30/07
by Terry James
Judge Robert H. Bork, viciously, and in my view unjustly, attacked by bitter congressional opponents when he was proposed as a candidate for Supreme Court justice by President Ronald Reagan, foresaw before most in D.C. and elsewhere this nation’s slide into gross immorality. The title of a book he wrote subsequent to his withdrawal from the Supreme Court selection process framed perfectly the direction of American culture. Bork’s 1996 volume, Slouching Toward Gomorrah, was certainly appropriately descriptive, befitting a people who were becoming more and more materialistic, and increasingly entertainment mad by the minute. Although his was mostly a critique of the politics of liberalism, the descent into immorality about which he warned, from the top (the ruling elites) down (those who are the ruled over), clearly unveiled the pattern that puts this nation in grave danger today.
Gomorrah, of course, was the sister city to Sodom, home of Abraham’s nephew, Lot, and Lot’s family. God himself supernaturally destroyed both of those cities with fire and brimstone from heaven, according to the account in Genesis chapter 19. God sent divine judgment because the society and culture of those cities had become irreversibly debauched, with every facet of human life debased to the point the stench of their sins were a constant irritant in the nostrils of the Almighty.
The question addressed here will revolve around whether America –slouching toward Gomorrah-like immorality two decades ago during Judge Bork’s time in the national spotlight—now might have reached the time Jesus Christ described when prophesying about the end-time generation that will exhibit debauchery and base deportment “as it was in the days of Lot”:
“Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Lk. 17:28-30).
Key prophetic signals that this generation –worldwide—is at the time very near the culmination of the Church Age (Age of Grace) are flashing across our daily headlines. Those who are Bible students, if they miss these end-time prophetic signals of the days in which we find ourselves, are either deliberately ignoring those indicators, or have a world view that requires the denial that God’s Word, the Bible, is truth. They must see Bible prophecy –indeed, the whole Bible—as simply a volume of interesting literature, or as an ancient morality tale. Let us examine the key end-time things going on just this past week.
Leaders of the Gog-Magog Confederation In Unprecedented Meeting
For the first time in modern history, the leader of the nation that will almost certainly be the nucleus nation of the Gog-Magog force of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 met in Iran with the leader of Iran, the nation known as Persia until 1935. Russia and Persia are to be key members of the juggernaut that will storm toward Israel at some prophetic point yet future. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, soon to be head of Russia in some new role he has chosen for himself, met with Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran. As if to portray Putin as brave and undeterred by anything or anyone, the Russian press boldly announced that he would attend the meetings in the face of terrorist threat to assassinate him. Putin then, with a not-too-veiled threat to reinstitute the cold war, warned the U.S. against a military strike against his good buddies in Iran.
Turkey Pushed from West to East
A group of mostly Democrat congressional leaders seemed to have deliberately insulted the Turkish government and people, saying in a resolution that their actions against the Kurds in the early 20thth century was genocide. This not-so-diplomatic insult, coming on the heels of the European Union’s consistent rebuffing of Turkey for membership in the EU, intimating that they just aren’t sophisticated enough or sufficiently economically viable to warrant inclusion in their elite club, might be the catalysts that move the Turks (Togormah, in Ezekiel’s Gog-Magog parlance) into Gog’s camp.
EU Searching for Formula
The European Union continues to pare down, searching for just the right configuration that will make it the world’s top geopolitical-economic superpower. The EU Parliament is thought to be in process of removing 17 members as presently formulated, bringing the membership into something much nearer the number 10 mentioned in Daniel 2, Revelation 17, and other passages. This is a red-hot issue within Europe at present, and destined to become hotter.
Israel and the Pressures for Peace
We have covered the most significant of all present signals of where we stand on God’s timeline. We watch carefully the American State Department cause Israeli Jewish citizens to be removed from hard fought-over and won Israeli territory. We observe while the Quartet (U.S., U.N., EU and Russia) work behind the scenes with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to find just the right equation that will bring everyone in the region to the peace table. This, of course, includes apparently putting Jerusalem on the block for dividing among the adversaries.
God’s Word prophesies that there will be a covenant of peace on the table at the time the “prince that shall come” –who will be Antichrist—will confirm, or guarantee. This, however, will be a “peace” that God equates to a covenant made with death and hell. He will personally disannul this hellish agreement.
Slouching Toward Sodom
Lot lived in Sodom, the city so wicked that the Lord’s righteousness demanded He destroy it, along with Gomorrah. Jesus said, as given above, that it will be like the days of Lot when He takes His people out of that generation. Destruction will then begin to fall in the form of His wrath and judgment.
After looking at the primary geopolitical indicators of just this past week, giving us a snapshot of where this generation might stand on God’s timeline of prophecy, we must ask whether there is a specific marker that was in the account of Sodom and Gomorrah –in Lot’s day—that is prevalent in society at present. Glad we asked, because –again, just this week—the pages of Bible prophecy, given by Jesus himself, leap from the pages of today’s news:
“A call is being issued to Christians who have been engaged in the culture wars in California's schools to abandon the system, after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a ban on ‘discriminatory bias’ against homosexuals and others with alternative sexual lifestyles. ‘We're calling upon every California parent to pull their child out of California's public school system,’ Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, told WND. ‘The so-called “public schools” are no longer a safe emotional environment for children. Under the new law, schoolchildren as young as kindergarten will be sexually indoctrinated and introduced to homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality, over the protests of parents, teachers and even school districts,’ he said. The law at issue went through the California legislature as SB 777, and now bans in school texts and activities any discriminatory bias against those who have chosen alternative sexual lifestyles, Meredith Turney, legislative liaison for Capitol Resource Institute, said” (Bob Unruh, “Brave New Schools: Ban on ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ Sparks Call for Exodus” http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58154).
Lot, one of a very few citizens of Sodom whom God saw as righteous in His eyes–his family members, obviously being the others—was “vexed” at the things going on in that society. He was distraught at the debauched culture surrounding him, smothering him and his family. The primary debauchery, if one reads the Genesis 19 account and subsequent accounts of that culture/society in other places in God’s Word (e.g., Romans 1) we find homosexuality literally ruled everyone and everything.
That was the day of Lot. The end-time flood of godlessness is gushing this generation toward exactly that judgment-bound end. But, God’s judgment will not fall until His people are removed from the coming day that will be like that Lot endured for a time. We see God’s mercy and grace in removing His servant Lot, when the Lord assured Lot: “Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar” (Gen. 19:22).
Again, Jesus said about that time of Lot’s vexation: “But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Lk. 17:30).
SOURCE: Rapture Ready