Awaken Bible Prophecy Update 4-26-23: The Return of the Gods – In Technicolor

Jonathan Cahn’s recent book The Return of the Gods provides the background and context for this Prophecy Update.  For those who have read it, what I say and describe today will likely make more sense to you than to those who have not read the book.  I do highly recommend everyone read it.

An incredible phenomenon is happening in America and the rest of the world.  Cahn frames it very well and puts into perspective the reason everything – and I mean everything – is headed downhill in all spheres of society and culture.  We who have a Biblical, prophetic worldview can appreciate how prophetic events and the advent of what Cahn describes as The Return of the Gods are on a collision course.  What Cahn portrays is exactly what I’ve said for several years, although Jonathan does a much more elegant job of it, plus his audience reach is slightly bigger than mine – just slightly.  Hopefully, it will wake up more people – particularly Christians – to the fact that the end has come and this world as we know it is burnt toast.

For those who have not read the book, I’ll provide a very brief outline of the premise.  From there I’ll explore various aspects and outcomes that have resulted and will further impact life on this planet.

As many of you have come to expect, what I say here is exceedingly dire for both the unbelieving world and, I think, for Christians who prefer to keep their heads hidden under the pews rather than lift them up and see the encroaching darkness.  Once more, you won’t find a feel-good message from this quarter.  I can only say, however, that those of us who truly make Jesus our Lord have the greatest of hopes and expectations – a promise unmatched in human history.  Ours is truly a glorious future; for unbelievers – not so much.

Transcript:

Jonathan Cahn’s recent book The Return of the Gods provides the background and context for this Prophecy Update.  For those who have read it, what I say and describe today will likely make more sense to you than to those who have not read the book.  I do highly recommend everyone read it.

An incredible phenomenon is happening in America and the rest of the world.  Cahn frames it very well and puts into perspective the reason everything – and I mean everything – is headed downhill in all spheres of society and culture.  We who have a Biblical, prophetic worldview can appreciate how prophetic events and the advent of what Cahn describes as The Return of the Gods are on a collision course.  What Cahn portrays is exactly what I’ve said for several years, although Jonathan does a much more elegant job of it, plus his audience reach is slightly bigger than mine – just slightly.  Hopefully, it will wake up more people – particularly Christians – to the fact that the end has come and this world as we know it is burnt toast.

For those who have not read the book, I’ll provide a very brief outline of the premise.  From there I’ll explore various aspects and outcomes that have resulted and will further impact life on this planet.

As many of you have come to expect, what I say here is exceedingly dire for both the unbelieving world and, I think, for Christians who prefer to keep their heads hidden under the pews rather than lift them up and see the encroaching darkness.  Once more, you won’t find a feel-good message from this quarter.  I can only say, however, that those of us who truly make Jesus our Lord have the greatest of hopes and expectations – a promise unmatched in human history.  Ours is truly a glorious future; for unbelievers – not so much.

We’ll explore this in a moment.  First we’ll pray and read from God’s Word.

<PRAY>

Scripture:

Psalm 37:10-11

In just a little while, the wicked will be no more;
though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace.

The Return of the Gods – In Technicolor

• For anyone wondering why things in America and elsewhere seem so bad . . .
• For instance, why the trans agenda is so prevalent and in our faces . . .
• Why sex is almost the only thing we hear about these days . . .
• Why lawlessness is everywhere we look and getting worse . . .
• Why our elected officials turn a deaf ear to their constituents . . .
• Why entertainment is increasingly vile . . .
• Why the media is no longer a journalistic enterprise of integrity as the Fourth Estate to expose corruption in high places and bring truth to light . . .
• Why the church no longer stands against the flesh and the world system; rather has become a part of them . . .
• What Jonathan Cahn brings to light in his book helps us to understand all this and more

• In the very beginning the light of God shone in every corner of the world he had created
• Once sin entered, this began to change
• When Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden it wasn’t long before sin’s corruption brought death – violent death – with Cain murdering Abel
• After that, God’s light shone less bright
• Darkness had entered the world and would only grow greater
• Why?
• Satan – the serpent – had plenty of help and support as time wore on
• The entry into the world of the rebellious sons of God as recounted in Genesis 6 added a new chapter to the shaping of man’s relationship with God and the world’s descent into darkness
• These divine entities had determined that they wanted to be image-bearers just like their Father in heaven
• They were just a little too successful in a perverse way
• Their offspring and the resultant generations from them so corrupted the world and the DNA of man that God had no choice but to start over
• The black hole of those antediluvian days was so great that we today – even in this mess of a world we’re living – cannot comprehend it
• Following the Flood, God’s light shone once more and the spiritual darkness was minimized, but it never went away
• The forces behind it simply bided their time
• Before long, as I’ve chronicled elsewhere in my Prophecy Update titled The Curse on Canaan, the incident recounted in Genesis 9 with Ham and Canaan, and what occurred with Noah and his wife, opened the floodgates of evil into this brand-new world
• From there until the time Jesus came and the Gospel spread outward from Israel, the darkness once again consumed all it touched
• What did this blackest of eras look like?
• The incident at the Tower of Babel described in Genesis 11 is what enabled all this to occur
• Men disobeyed God’s command to scatter and multiply; instead they gathered together to exalt themselves
• Not only that, they intended to reach into the heavens so as to control God, since they had no intention of heeding what He said
• God’s response was to place men in nations and put His – at the time – loyal sons over those nations
• These divine beings were supposed to point mankind back to the God who chose Israel as the place that He would be known and worshiped
• But, since these sons of God had the same free will as He had given to men, they all – inexplicably – decided they wanted to be worshiped themselves
• They became the gods over the nations
• It was to them that idols were built and mankind sacrificed – giving their hearts to these foreign, pagan gods
• This was a very territorial arrangement
• It was geographical in nature because of the separation of nations that the confused languages facilitated
• Because these gods were fallen from the heavenlies and were in rebellion to the One true God, they instituted various practices they knew would grieve their Father
• This is the reason we get God’s strong injunction against the practices of the pagan nations that we see in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and elsewhere in the Bible
• Again, I recount this in The Curse on Canaan
• These pagan gods encouraged extreme sexual immorality as a means of reverence – again so contrary to what God intended – but absolutely necessary to craft societies that were extremely anti-God
• We know from Paul’s statement in Ephesians 6:12 that the spiritual realm is exceedingly hierarchical
• There are beings in this realm that are higher and more powerful than others
• This is where Jonathan Cahn’s book comes into the picture
• He describes three primary gods whose influence transcends the boundaries of the nations
• In other words, there are gods – again these are the rebellious, fallen sons of God, a.k.a. fallen angels, that reign over specific geographical areas
• These are extremely powerful gods
• Just reflect on the time in Daniel when the angel Gabriel came to deliver a message to the prophet
• Gabriel was hindered for 21 days in getting there by the Prince of Persia
• Imagine how strong and mighty this wicked prince of the spiritual realm had to be in order to delay Gabriel
• There are also gods that rule a nation, perhaps a region, certainly cities, villages, and downward in scope from there
• But we have at least three gods that don’t seem to be limited like this
• Of course, we know that Satan isn’t limited either
• He is known and feared worldwide
• Likewise, these three gods have similar reputations
• One thing we have to understand in our discussion is that only the God of the Bible is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent
• It’s the omnipresent part we have to deal with
• Satan isn’t everywhere at once – right?
• Neither can these three gods manifest personally and directly in anywhere but one place at a time
• These three gods – named Baal, Ishtar (also known in ancient Israel as Ashtoreth), and Molech – despite this limitation that they are not omnipresent seem to be many places at the same time just like Satan
• How is that?
• We can’t know for certain, but I have a theory
• First their spirit is one that is spreads far and wide
• There’s something about their power in the spiritual realm that enables what they stand for to extend throughout the earth
• In subsequent generations of man, these beings may very well have manifested directly, but still only at one place at one time
• Thus, Ishtar from ancient Mesopotamia could then directly become Ashtoreth in Israel
• Beyond that, I think that each one of these entities effectively deputizes other, somewhat lesser, gods to do their bidding in each of the geographical areas they operate when they have to simultaneously appear in multiple societies
• For instance, we might have the god who appears to be Ishtar set up shop in Iraq, but she’s basically a proxy for the real Ishtar wherever she generally hangs out and calls home
• It’s the same concept we use for a king or for God Himself
• We’re told in Scripture that Solomon built the temple to the Lord
• Did he do so with his own hands, or were many workmen engaged in that project?
• Yet, who are we told did it?
• Similarly, God delegates to both His spiritual sons in heaven and to Christian saints on earth
• The account of the prophet Micaiah watching the proceedings in the heavenly throne room as noted in 1 Kings 22 is a great example
• Once the spirits come up with the right means of deceiving King Ahab, God says for that spirit to go do the task
• Yet, who is it that is given credit?
• It must absolutely be God
• The same happens with us today
• We operate as God’s ambassadors of the Gospel
• When someone get saved through our efforts, who – rightly – gets credit?
• Certainly not us!
• I think this is the pattern by which Baal, Ishtar, and Molech operate
• They aren’t in all these same places at once, but because of their public relations efforts, it appears as if they are
• Their spirits animate their proxies, and they appear as if they’re in multiple and various places
• What is it that these three gods do?
• What is the darkness they spread?
• How does it impact the world?
• All this falls under the concept I call the Big Narrative
• The church in general is largely ignorant of all this
• The emphasis is on Jesus, but He is basically put into a box, and the larger rationale behind His need to come to this world – this ages-long, massive spiritual battle – is not understood by pastors and/or certainly not communicated to congregations
• As proof to what I say, just ask yourself how many churches you’ve been to over the years and how often you’ve heard extensive messages about the sons of God from Genesis 6 or 11 and how their rebellions have impacted humanity and all the earth
• Or, if you’re familiar with these concepts and you brought them up to fellow Christians, what kind of response did you get?
• How many people have you talked to about this that didn’t want to hear about it because it supposedly glorified Satan?
• No, what it’s done is leave the church as a whole in great ignorance
• The Big Narrative is what enables us to fully, i.e. as fully as possible to the extent that God allows . . . to fully understand what’s going on behind the scenes . . .
• What comprises the spiritual warfare we reference . . .
• Why it’s so intense and pervasive . . .
• And why – just like in pre-Flood times – we now must have a thorough cleansing of the world
• For those in the church who say we shouldn’t learn all these things because it glorifies Satan . . .
• I say: Hogwash
• If you don’t know your enemy, how can you possibly defeat him?
• A quote by Sun Tzu in The Art of War is helpful in this regard:

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

• By understanding this context and background, you should be better prepared and able to deal with the enemy’s spiritual attacks because you know what he looks like and how he operates

• Baal is one of the most well-known of the many gods throughout the world
  • His function has inevitably been to turn people away from the One true God
  • His forebears – if you will – would have been the sons of God placed over the nations who all turned away from Him as recounted in Genesis 11, Deuteronomy 32:8 (ESV), and Psalm 82
  • Or perhaps he was the reason behind their rebellion to set up shop as their own gods
  • He was known in the ancient world as the cloud rider, taking for himself and promoting that aspect of power and glory that belonged to God alone
• Ishtar, was the goddess of sex and sexual perversion of every kind
  • We see that in ancient Israel with Ashtoreth – also referred to as the Queen of Heaven
  • Once a person or a people turn from the truth of God to the lure and lie of worshiping another god, inevitably sexual immorality follows
  • This is what Paul described in Romans 1
  • The sexual deviancy encouraged by Ishtar is what God warned against in Scripture such that the Israelites must not do what the pagan nations do
  • It was from this goddess’s influence that sex, which was intended to be good between a man and his wife, morphed into all that God admonished against and which has polluted the world today
• That paves the way for the appearance of Molech
  • This god is the one that causes abomination to spring up and flourish
  • His specialty is human sacrifice, i.e. the destruction of life
  • It is from him that children and virgins were thrown into the fire in the hopes of appeasing his voracious, insatiable appetite for blood
  • His influence is what has animated the obsession today in many quarters to mutilate and eradicate our young, both inside and outside the womb
• These gods have taken many forms over the millennia
• They’ve been called by different names and they’ve been universal in their presence, but again, none of these gods has the capability of omnipresence, so it’s the spirit of what they represent and their proxies that has infiltrated and corrupted mankind
• These powerful gods spread their gospel of paganism and their dark practices as the world expanded and men ventured into new lands
• Everywhere that men were, the spirit of these gods accompanied them
• They were worshiped and given sacrificial offerings
• They became integral to every aspect of the life of humanity following the Flood and the Tower incident
• They brought dark light that was completely contrary to the light of God that brings life
• All men everywhere were under this dark spiritual influence that leads to death and no one knew any better other than a few who somehow heard the true voice of God and heeded it – but these people were miniscule in number
• The vast majority of mankind was encased in pagan darkness
• With this darkness came harassment, oppression, and possession of the human soul, by demonic beings subject to their overlords – these gods
• These gods ruled and there was no means of escape from their control
• We hosted a missionary to Tibet several years ago
• He related how he was given a tour of a Buddhist shrine
• As soon as he got to the door of this shrine with the large statue of Buddha inside, he was overcome by a powerful, oppressive force that compelled him to bow down in worship
• Needless to say, he quickly left that place before that happened
• This is very real and exceedingly dangerous
• So pervasive was the dark night of the soul in the world of the past that very few people could even comprehend that this wasn’t the way things were supposed to be
• The influence of these gods made the pagan lifestyle normal
• The gods told people that every kind of sexual immorality was good
• Thus, all the practices God spoke against in – for instance Leviticus 18 – were deemed appropriate in everyday life
• The God-given conscience of man was completely seared
• Here is just a taste of this from Leviticus 18:6-10:

“None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am the Lord. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether brought up in the family or in another home. 

• The passage continues, but you get the idea
• Here is God’s injunction against all this as reported in Leviticus 18:24-30:

“Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.”

• From this, you can see the complete and stark contrast between what the gods of paganism encouraged with their dark practices compared with that of the God of the Bible
• It was into this world that Jesus came, heralded by John the Baptist as we see in John 1:1-13:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

• Given the context of what we’ve just examined, doesn’t this passage make a lot more sense?
• As Jonathan Cahn shows in The Return of the Gods, this repetitive scenario is clearly depicted by Jesus in His parable recounted in Matthew 12:43-45:

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

• From the very beginning this has been true
• Following the incident of sin’s origin in the Garden with mankind thrust into the world . . .
• It was into this clean-swept house that the demonic entered
• It culminated in depravity so abominable that God had to purify the world and begin again after the Flood
• But once more – as I noted in the Prophecy Update of The Curse on Canaan – this pristine house-swept-clean condition didn’t last long
• The dark spiritual realm reasserted itself and rose to once more encompass the world prior to the advent of Jesus
• The pagan practices were ingrained in the vast majority of the population of the earth with only a very few having interaction with and faith in the One true God
• The worship of multitudes of foreign gods, the perverse sexual practices, and the abomination of human sacrifice were all deeply integral to life
• Thus, God once more had to sweep the house clean
• It took time
• The Gospel spread slowly
• But as it did it pushed back the darkness and allowed God’s light to shine
• As Cahn puts it, the gods retreated to the shadows with power only in their own little spheres
• This doesn’t mean they went poof! and disappeared from the face of the earth – not at all
• They went where they were welcome . . .
• Such as India, the Islamic nations, and in those places and nations that worshiped their ancestors and the animal spirits
• In the Western world and America, these gods were effectively banished for a time
• But, in this world, all good things must come to an end
• Evil is such a strong force
• Combined with the sinful nature of the heart of man, what else could we expect?
• Men began questioning the God of the Bible and turning from Him
• As they did, the spirits of these gods started to return
• Other gods began to be worshiped
• Sexual immorality increased
• Abortion – the sacrifice of children on the altar of self – became a sacrament
• As this phenomenon proceeded, faith in Jesus Christ receded
• Recently, in the Prophecy Update titled The Countdown, I noted the Barna study that showed how the true Christian worldview has diminished – now comprising only 4% of all Americans – down from 6% just three years ago
• The Christian faith is about to be swept clean out of this American house and all of the Western nations
• With such little belief in Jesus Christ, that has opened the floodgates for the iniquities of these three gods to rise to dominance
• We are no longer a Christian nation
• In that respect, let me ask a controversial question:
• In the context of the Once Saved, Always Saved doctrine, if we’ve gone from 6% of Christians holding a true Christian/Biblical worldview down to 4% with that belief, what happened to that 2% – the 50% reduction . . . those who no longer believe this way?
• If one has stopped believing in true Christian doctrine, is he still a Christian?
• If this unbelief has turned his heart from Jesus, what do we call such a person?
• Apostate – right?
• And if someone is apostate and dismisses the truth of Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord, what will be his fate?
• Will there be any unbelievers in heaven?

• Baal has brought every other god imaginable into the life of America
• Ishtar has capitalized on this absence of Christian sexual values and brought the perversions of homosexuality, trans ideology, pedophilia, and even bestiality back into play within the public sphere
• Sex is everywhere and in every facet of the news
• Children are being groomed from the youngest of ages even in public schools – even in some churches
• The goddess behind all this is obviously extremely powerful and capable of causing immense delusion and deceit
• Molech has been busy in the extreme since the 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision
• Abortion has become a religious rite – a sacrament – and the supposed right of every woman to kill the child in her womb
• The sacrifice of 70-some million children in this nation alone attests to the influence of Molech and horrific spirit of death that he wields
• As I noted in the Prophecy Update The Countdown, there is a confluence occurring of the falling away of those who believe Biblically and the absolute rise of sin and deviancy
• Soon the breaking point will occur
• Could God stop it and change the course of humanity’s descent into paganism?
• Of course, but He won’t
• One clear reason for Bible Prophecy is so that we will know the times and what is coming
• God foretold these very days
• He’s not going to stop this train wreck
• He will allow man to destroy himself now just as man did in the pre-Flood days
• In effect, our American house – along with those houses in every other Western nation – will be swept clean
• It will happen completely at the point of the pre-Tribulation Rapture
• Once that happens, there will be no closed doors or windows to the return of every unclean god in existence – every god that hates the I AM and desires to place itself above His creation
• It is this scenario which sets the stage for the Tribulation to occur
• What this means, of course, is that – basically – you ain’t seen nothin’ yet
• In other words, the horrific aspects of life in our world today that reflect the actions and intents of these gods is only just getting started
• For those who think we’re already in the Tribulation, all I can say is that you are immensely mistaken
• For those who think they can prep their way through the world as it soon will be: my goodness, you need to read your Bible!
• What are the major indicators today reflecting the presence of these gods – really the dark spirits of these gods – and what might they look like during the Tribulation?
• Let’s ask and answer a couple questions
• Q1- Why is the road to destruction so broad?
• A – Because when the pagan gods take over, the darkness encompasses everything and everyone
  • They actually possess millions of people who succumb to the intentions of these evil gods
  • We can see this in the videos of various protests . . .
  • Those who have a lust for abortion and will do anything to prevent this sacrament from being propagated
  • Those who have a hunger to mutilate children with their trans ideology
  • Look at how they scream and rant in uncontrolled rage
  • None of this is natural
  • It is fueled by the spirit of the gods living within many, many people
• Q2 – Why are those who are saved so few in number – as on a narrow path and through a straight gate?
• A – Because the truth of Christ is a small flame, i.e. a light in the darkness that illuminates the path for those to follow it
  • Beyond the path, the darkness is all-encompassing
  • Some years ago, we were in Austria and visited one of their famous deep underground salt mines
  • At one point in the tour all of us in the group sat around a salt pool and the tour guide turned off the lights
  • If you’ve ever been in a similar situation, you know exactly what I mean when I tell you that the darkness was almost palpable, it was so black and dense
  • This is a picture of the world and life without Christ
  • Yet someday the darkness will be dissipated and God’s light will shine everywhere
  • No darkness will remain
• Recall what the Apostle Paul said in recounting his experience on the Road to Damascus in Acts 26:15-18:

And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

• It is the darkness of this world which is from the power of Satan – and the many gods who are with him – that covers the world
• It cannot be overcome in any way except through the might and power of God, which is so much greater than that of Satan
• We see this truth a couple verses later in Acts 26:22-23 in which Paul proclaims:

To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass: that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”

• The light of Christ is our only hope
• Here’s another question:
• Q3 – Did the gods really go away when Jesus came and the Gospel was spread throughout the world?
• A – No, they simply remained in the shadows out of sight from where the Gospel penetrated
• If you’ve read This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti, you received a pretty good tutorial on how the spiritual realm works
• The dark angels, the pagan gods and all their minions, are ever-present, but when people turn to Christ, His angels gain power
• Prayer and the reading of God’s Word are potent weapons in spiritual warfare that enable God’s angels to drive back those entities which are evil
• There has been this back-and-forth war going on for millennia
• In our latest bout, as America and the rest of the Western world have turned from the truth of Christ, and His church has been weakened through lack of prayer and Scripture, so too did the gods strengthen
• This time they are pushing back God’s angels to the heavenlies as they take over the earth
• They’ve been doing this successfully for many years and have almost succeeded in alienating the world from God
• This will only change when Christ returns in His 2^nd Coming with His faithful army, and darkness will die
• Listen again to Psalm 37:10-11 which gives us this hope:

In just a little while, the wicked will be no more;
though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.
But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace.

• It’s for these reasons that all this darkness is happening in the world like it is
• The pagan gods have become almost all-powerful in this earth – after all, Satan is the Prince of the Power of the Air, and he’s not called that for nothing in the Bible
• Not to recognize this is to be deceived
• It’s why there will not be a true revival this side of the Tribulation
• The pagan world with its all-encompassing darkness has almost completely been renewed
• But just like God had a plan in times past, so His plan will go forward today
• Yes, the entire world is close to returning exactly to what it was when there was no Gospel
• Psalm 78:56-62 describes in some measure how this happens:

Yet they tested and rebelled against the Most High God
and did not keep his testimonies,
but turned away and acted treacherously like their fathers;
they twisted like a deceitful bow.
For they provoked him to anger with their high places;
they moved him to jealousy with their idols.
When God heard, he was full of wrath,
and he utterly rejected Israel.
He forsook his dwelling at Shiloh,
the tent where he dwelt among mankind,
and delivered his power to captivity,
his glory to the hand of the foe.
He gave his people over to the sword
and vented his wrath on his heritage.

• However, just think of when Jesus returns after those horrific seven years of anti-God fervor, utter chaos, and complete lawlessness
• Never forget that the return of these pagan gods with all the destruction that comes with them only occurs BECAUSE God allows it
• They don’t return in a vacuum
• God is sovereign and His plans and purposes will prevail, despite the power and might of these entities
• In all things, our God is greater
• Imagine what those still living on the earth will see and experience when God determines it’s time to bring an end to the foolishness of those who contest with Him
• Unbelievers will see their lives flash before them in an instant as they are consumed
• How stark their terror will be!
• The believing remnant in Israel and elsewhere will see the glory of God in His magnificence as the armies of heaven come to dispatch the wicked and rescue the righteous
• How amazed and joyful they will be!
• There will be Christ leading the angels and His glorified sons and daughters – those of us who today are true believers! – we who will be Raptured! . . .  prior to the horrendous seven years of wrath to come
• What a day – The Day of the Lord!
• In all these years of darkness, the gods have preyed on the weak: children, widows, the poor
• How this has grieved the God of the Bible!
• This is why He has given us a glimpse of His wrath toward these entities in Psalm 82:

God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
“How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
they walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

I said, “You are gods,
sons of the Most High, all of you;
nevertheless, like men you shall die,
and fall like any prince.”

Arise, O God, judge the earth;
for you shall inherit all the nations!

• These pagan gods, the Baals, the Ishtars, the Molechs, and so many more, have run the earth in the way of their own hearts – far from the love, mercy, and grace of their Father who created them
• God describes them further in Psalm 58:1-2:

Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?
Do you judge the children of man uprightly?
No, in your hearts you devise wrongs;
your hands deal out violence on earth.

• Because of this they are destined to lose their immortality and die like mere men
• They will be thrown into the Lake of Fire on that day of God’s judgment
• Their stranglehold on earth and the hearts of men will be completely cut off
• That day of judgment will see God inheriting all the nations while His enemies – those rebellious spiritual beings who lusted after the means to replace Him – will gnash their teeth and bow down before Christ the King

• While we who believe in Christ as our Savior and Lord wait for our deliverance that will soon occur when He appears for us in the clouds prior to the Tribulation, consider your longing for this moment in relation to Psalm 55:4-8 which reflects our very hearts:

My heart is in anguish within me;
the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
Fear and trembling come upon me,
and horror overwhelms me.
And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest;
yes, I would wander far away;
I would lodge in the wilderness;
I would hurry to find a shelter
from the raging wind and tempest.”

• In a very short time, Christ will satisfy this desire to fly away as we join Him in the many mansions of His Father’s House
• Until then, our job remains
• We must reflect the light of Christ into this terribly dark world
• This is the command of our Lord and our privilege