Matthew 24:42-44: Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

When does a thief come upon you? As a police officer, I can tell you it most often takes place when you least expect it, when you're least prepared for it --- while you're asleep. So it will be for the world when Christ comes to Rapture His Church!

As I look at everything taking place in the world today, screaming to us Christ's return is coming in the not-too-distant future, as I'm about to demonstrate yet again, I find it absolutely disturbing how few people (many of them Christians no less) realize how similar the world we're living in today is to the world described in the end times prophecies of the Bible!

How close is our world to the end times world described in Bible prophecy? Close and getting closer by the day! Let's look at a few examples currently in the news.

The EU is playing peacemaker

An EUBusiness.com article reports the European Union is calling on its Middle East partners, including Israel, to work together to make a success of January's planned Palestinian leadership election in order to breathe new life into Quartet's roadmap to peace process.

Dr. Javier Solana, foreign policy chief of the EU, is quoted in the article as saying, "We, collectively and individually, must help the Palestinian people to succeed in their transition to a new direction. Everyone will be a winner: there will be more security for the Israelis and Palestinians, and more stability for the whole of our region and beyond."

Interestingly, Bible prophecy tells us the European Union will be the final empire to rule the world prior to the return of Jesus Christ (Daniel, chapters 2 and 7). We're further told the event that will mark the beginning of the final seven-year period of human history before Christ's visible, physical, bodily return to the earth (not to be confused with the Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Church) will be a peace treaty between Israel and her enemies seven years in length (Daniel 9:26-27). The man who will somehow confirm this covenant --- the Antichrist --- will, in all likelihood, come from within the EU itself as he will become its leader.

Solana and others involved in the peace process, as seen above and as I've documented in the past, are promising security and stability in the Middle East, precisely what we've been told would be being said prior to everything falling apart for unrepentant mankind.

1st Thessalonians 5:3: For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

According to a Jerusalem Post article, Israel is only a word or two away from reaching an agreement that will give it many of the same rights afforded states within the European Union. The question in my mind is this: Are the two words peace agreement? If so, the Church may be heading home soon.

100 million could die from bird flu!

The World Health Organization, according to an ABC article, is making the dire prediction that the bird flu virus could kill up to 100 million people around the world!

We're told there will be pestilences during the end times, as well as told the beasts of the earth will play a role in a quarter of mankind dying in the early Tribulation Period. Could bird flu, a virus that could become transmittable from bird to human, be an example of this? The more I hear about the potential bird flu has to be a global killer, the more convinced I become it could well be!

Matthew 24:7-8: For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these [are] the beginning of sorrows.

Revelation 6:8: And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

Turkey's courtship of the EU going nowhere fast

In the 38th chapter of Ezekiel, we see all the nations named that will someday gather together in a military alliance to attack the nation of Israel in the prophetic future in an event most refer to as the Gog-Magog invasion. Among those who will attack, in the opinion of many noted biblical scholars, is modern day Turkey. Turkey, in case you've never heard, is trying to get into the European Union.

In a 10-6-04 commentary, I wrote the following, concerning Turkey's hopes of joining the EU: