Bible Prophecy Update, Being Prepared For Persecution Pre-Rapture And Pre-Tribulation – Sunday, August 30th, 2026

TODAY I WANT TO IN THIS FIRST SESSION OR FIRST SERVICE GET A LITTLE BIT WONKY ON YOU.

I WANT TO TALK ABOUT SOME FACTUAL DATA THAT IF YOU'RE NOT PREPARED TO LISTEN OR ABSORB THEN I APOLOGIZE.

YOU MAY WANT TO COME BACK SOME OTHER TIME.

BUT IMPORTANTLY I THINK THAT There's a passage in 1 Chronicles 12, 32, where it talks about the sons of Issachar, and it says that one of the things that was notable about them is they understood the times that they were living in and what Israel should do.

And we're in a time in our own nation where, as I talked about on Thursday night, that we're living in an age of great perplexity.

In other words, we have some amazing situations and problems that are developing around the world.

And the question is, well, how is a nation, and even more personally, how am I as an individual supposed to prepare As I was sitting on a deck and watching the container ships coming in and out of Honolulu Harbor the other day, I thought to myself, if that stopped happening, how long would this island break into chaos? How crazy would it be, kind of your own zombie apocalypse without the zombies? It's that realization that we live in a world that's basically a chain that has very many weak links in it.

And if one of them breaks, then things can begin to fall apart or come to a standstill.

And that can be cataclysmic.

We've had our experience, you of course, With the Lahaina fires and with the Palisades fire in California, we just had the Spokane fires, 700 homes destroyed.

And the problem is that there's not a lot of places for people to live and so there's a real housing crisis.

But that problem came up overnight.

It came very quickly and we found ourselves relatively unprepared to respond to it.

And that becomes the real challenge.

And so the idea that there was this sector within Israel, these individuals who were notable for being able to keep an eye on the horizon and see what's coming and be able to forecast how they should respond, was cited by the writer of Chronicles as being a key element of the kingdom of Judah's survival and their efficiency and success.

And I think that's true of us, because one of the things that Jesus said at the end of chapter 24 in verse 42 and 43 and 44 of the Gospel of Matthew, after he gives this great statement about what the future holds, he said, watch, and then he said, be ready.

And the question is, what am I supposed to be watching for? How do I live with a readiness? And I would say the vast majority of people who are professing to be followers of Jesus Christ are not operating on that premise.

They're basically operating on the assumption that everything that's happening will continue to happen the way it's happened ever since.

And yet Sir John Glove in his book, Fate of Empires, made the comment as he listed some 21 different things that indicate that a country is in a, a great nation is in a period of rapid decline.

He says that at that point, the citizens of that country never imagined that the power and the prosperity of their nation would ever cease being.

And he said the irony is when that nation reaches its pinnacle of power and prosperity, it becomes kind of what we call hegemonic.

It has influence everywhere and controlling assets around the world.

He says when it reaches that point, it usually hits the pinnacle and then the decline comes very quickly afterwards.

It goes from a very powerful, strong leader to basically dissembling.

And I am of the opinion, I think many historians are of the opinion, and many others, prognosticators are saying, we feel like that the United States may have hit that pinnacle point.