Wallace G. Smith

[The text below represents an edited transcript of this Tomorrow’s World program.]

What Causes the Death of Nations?

The world has seen many powerful nations whose wealth, influence, and reach would understandably cause any who dwelt within them to believe they would last forever—yet the path of history is strewn with their ruins. Today, two of the past century’s greatest powers—the United States and Great Britain—are on the verge of joining the failed states of the past. But, the true reason why goes generally unacknowledged.

Join us today on Tomorrow’s World as we explain how great nations die.

Economies in Turmoil

While many would, perhaps, rather not admit it, much of the modern world has been crafted over the past century by the economic, military, and cultural success the United States, Britain, and British-descended nations of the world have experienced.

As U.S. foreign-policy expert Walter Russell Mead said in his insightful 2007 book God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World,

It is unpardonably vulgar to say so, but in three hundred years of warfare, the English-speaking powers keep winning. To put this another way, either the British or the Americans or both have been on the winning side of every major war in which they have participated since the late seventeenth century. That history of victory shapes the world we live in…. The Anglo-Saxon powers did not just win wars. They changed the way the world lives, thinks, and organizes itself as much as any of the great civilizations of the past… (pp. 13–14).

It’s true. The United States, Great Britain, and the other English-speaking nations of the world have had an incredible impact on world culture and way of life, completely out of proportion to their size. The United States, in particular, has been the sole remaining “superpower” of the Cold War era—a financial juggernaut and a military power the likes of which the world has rarely seen before, if ever.

But things change. The higher the climb, the farther the fall.

Let’s briefly take a look at only one indicator of the current strength of these Great Nations: Their economic status.

The wealth of the United Kingdom was once considered the envy of the world. And today, the United States is still considered by many to be the chief financial engine powering the world’s economies. But just how trustworthy is that engine?

Looking under the hood to examine more closely—or, under the bonnet, for our friends in the UK—doesn’t give cause for hope.

It’s hard to report on American national debt because it is growing so quickly that numbers quickly become outdated!

But as of right now, as I am recording this program, that debt is more than 30 trillion dollars—that’s more than 97 thousand dollars for every single living, breathing citizen of the U.S.—from the newborn to the elderly!

That means that the U.S. public debt is currently about 120 percent of its gross domestic product—the financial output of the nation (“Federal Debt: Total Public Debt as Percent of Gross Domestic Product,” FRED Economic Data, FRED.stlouisfed.org, July 26, 2023).

And as noted by the non-partisan Peter G. Peterson foundation, “[w]ithin 10 years, net interest costs [Note: INTEREST COSTS] will exceed federal spending on crucial programs like Medicaid and [national] defense” (“Interest Costs on the National Debt are On Track to Reach a Record High,” Peter G. Peterson Foundation, pgpf.org, February 16, 2023).

Across the Atlantic, the UK is hardly doing better.

As reported by The Guardian in June 2023,

The UK’s total government debt pile in May reached more than 100% of annual national income for the first time since 1961 as state borrowing more than doubled, according to official figures.

In a blow to [Prime Minister] Rishi Sunak’s plans to cut taxes before the general election, which is expected next year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said net debt reached £2.6tn as of the end of May, estimated at 100.1% of gross domestic product (GDP)

(“UK government debt rises above 100% of GDP for first time since 1961,” TheGuardian.com, June 21, 2023).

And the citizens, personally, are hardly doing any better than their overspending governments.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data recently reported,

Total household debt [in the U.S.] rose by $148 billion, or 0.9 percent, to $17.05 trillion in the first quarter of 2023…. Mortgage balances climbed by $121 billion and stood at $12.04 trillion at the end of March. Auto loan and student loan balances also increased to $1.56 trillion and $1.60 trillion, respectively, but credit card balances were flat at $986 billion (“Household Debt and Credit Report,” Federal Reserve Bank of New York—Center for Microeconomic Data, NewYorkFed.org, 2023).

Of course, economic troubles are only one sign of a nation’s declining health and power. We could spend the rest of our program today looking at others.

For instance, the U.S. military continues facing humiliation after humiliation after the scarring images of the nation’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and recruitment programs that seem more devoted to recruiting social justice warriors and drag queens than maintaining the top fighting force in the world.

As for the UK, The Times reported in May 2023 that Germany was preparing to spend more on national defense than Britain for the first time in modern history—the same Germany whose Gross Domestic Product is around 30 percent larger than the UK’s (“German defence spending ‘to overtake UK within years’,” TheTimes.co.uk, May 17, 2023; “Country comparison Germany vs United Kingdom,” CountryEconomy.com, 2023).

Where the Anglo powers once seemed to govern the course of the world, when the U.S. was seeking Saudi support for its actions intended to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, news agencies around the world reported that the Saudi leaders would not even take U.S. President Joe Biden’s phone call.

History is clear: No great nation—no great empire—lasts forever.

Yet the real reason they die tends to be ignored.

Moral Decline

For truly great, globe-girdling nations, one source of downfall and demise rises above them all: MORAL DECAY.

In this area, we can learn a lot from ancient Rome. The Republic of Rome and the Empire that grew out of it ruled a large portion of the world for a millennium. Its might was unparalleled in its day.

But what is left of it today?

Ruins, ruins, and more ruins.

And while many point to overexpansion, economic policy, military spending and other causes of Rome’s fall, the truth of the matter is that before the borders of Rome could be breached by the forces that would destroy it, it was already rotting within due to decadence and moral degradation.

Many historians testify to the problem, including Roman historians, themselves.

Writing only a handful of years before the birth of Jesus Christ, the ancient Roman historian Livy was well aware even then that Rome had fallen from its greatest heights, and expresses in Book I, chapter 1, of his History of Rome, his hope that each reader will consider gravely what he has recorded of his own people:

I would have every man apply his mind seriously to consider these points… what their life and what their manners were… as discipline gradually declined, let him follow in his thoughts their morals, at first as slightly giving way, anon how they sunk more and more, then began to fall headlong, until he reaches the present times, when we can neither endure our vices, nor their remedies.

The renowned Roman historian Tacitus pulled few punches in addressing the moral state of his people. Writing around 115 AD, in his famous passage mentioning the crucifixion of Christ, Tacitus was no fan of Christianity, calling it a “deadly superstition,” but his description of his nation’s capital city is noteworthy.

Observing how Christianity was only temporarily slowed down when Christ was crucified, but then mysteriously sprang back to life, more dynamic than before, he writes that it “erupt[ed] again not only in Judaea, the home of this evil, but even in Rome, to which all that is dreadful or shameful in the world flows and here is celebrated”

(Annals, Tacitus Cornelius, 2012).

(Of course, one day Tacitus will learn it wasn’t just the faith of Christians that sprung to life again suddenly, but their Savior, as well!)

Finally, consider Seneca, one of the most celebrated Roman philosophers and writers in Roman history, born in 4 BC and living as a contemporary of the first Christian disciples.

His criticisms of Roman morals and culture in his day were stinging, noting that simple honesty and integrity were vanishing, such that mere agreements between men were no longer sufficient, requiring lawyers and legal papers to be drawn up to require individuals to live up to their ends of the deal.

“O, what a shameful admission of the dishonesty and wickedness of the human race! More trust is placed in our sealrings than in our consciences” (Essays, Book 3).

As for the state of marriage and family in Rome at the time, Seneca writes,

“Is there any woman that blushes at divorce now that certain illustrious and noble ladies reckon their years, not by the number of consuls, but by the number of their husbands, and leave home in order to marry, and marry in order to be divorced?… Is there any shame at all for adultery, now that matters have come to pass that no woman has any use for a husband except to inflame her paramour?” (ibid.).

Seneca noted that marital fidelity had become extinct, and the lack of shame in adultery and fornication only meant that the rot of promiscuity spread further and faster. His observations match those of a near contemporary, the Roman poet Martial [MAR-shəl], who implied marriage in Rome had essentially become legalized adultery.

Such ancient accounts fit well with the observation of famed English historian Edward Gibbon, whose classic work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire paints a picture of an nation whose leaders became degenerate in character, and whose military legions brought back corrupting vices and immoral practices from the lands they conquered.

Before Rome became a ruin on the outside, it had become a ruin within. And the death of that great nation became assured.

Family Destruction

A morally corrupt nation cannot suppose that it will last! And moral corruption causes great nations to die.

And my friends, this is vital to understand because America and Britain, and those nations which have descended from her, are in a MORAL FREEFALL!

As explained in detail in today’s free resource, The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy, they have turned their backs on the God who blessed them and are actively—even aggressively—turning their backs on His laws!

Let’s examine just a handful of biblical guidelines and compare them to current American and British culture to see how we measure up.

God stresses in His word the importance of family and the marriage bond between husband and wife. In Exodus 20, the fifth commandment reads,

“Honor your father and mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.”

Elsewhere in Leviticus 19:32, we read,

“You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man, and fear your God: I am the LORD.”

The seventh of the Ten Commandments teaches the same principle expounded by the Apostle Paul in Hebrews 13:4,

“Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.”

And in passages such as Matthew 19:4–6, Jesus Christ reaffirms the definition of marriage as designed in Genesis 2: A union between one man and one woman for life.

God cares PASSIONATELY about respectful relationships between generations, and between children and parents, and about the sacred union of man and woman in marriage.

Yet in the U.S. and Britain, younger generations are casting aside the guidance and wisdom of previous generations, and the nations’ supposedly enlightened academics, leaders, and social engineers are destroying any traditional or biblical notions of sex, gender, or family structure and replacing them with novel designations and configurations of their own design.

One effect of neglecting God’s design of and laws regarding the family is, believe it or not, economic.

In a 2008 study, the Institute for American Values concluded,

“[W]e estimate that family fragmentation costs U.S. taxpayers at least $112 billion each and every year, or more than $1 trillion each decade” (The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing, 2008).

And that was their conservative estimate.

To put this in perspective, by some estimates that amount is the same as the total cost of the United States’ war in Afghanistan.

In the UK, the cost of family breakdown is estimated at more than 50 billion pounds per year, or more than 60 billion U.S. dollars.

But, of course, the real cost of broken families is not measured in dollars, but in the damage it wreaks on the people of a nation.

At the end of 2021, researcher and author Melanie Phillips wrote of this in a commentary for The Times in the UK. What she insightfully calls “the willed disintegration of the traditional nuclear family” has been devastating:

“It is the greatest cause of social inequalities, through educational underachievement, crime and juvenile psychological disorders. At its most extreme, it leads to neglected, abused and dead children. Yet this has become unsayable in the upper reaches of government and cultural life. So what we have instead are unspeakable acts of cruelty and degradation — and nauseating crocodile tears” (“Family fragmentation comes at a tragic cost,” December 20, 2021).

Let’s look another: the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet.” What would be the state of our national and private debt if so many of our citizens were not consumed with desire for the newest cars, technology, entertainment, all beyond our means—but within our credit limits. Jesus Christ teaches us in Luke 12:15, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”

Yet our consumer-based national economies are virtually FOUNDED on the hope that people will IGNORE this advice, resulting in the culture of permanent debt we now enjoy.

Ultimately, our debt is enslaving our nations. In fact, Bible prophecy says that the U.S. and British-descended nations will eventually be crushed by debt, as explained in today’s free offer.

We read in Deuteronomy 28, verses 43 and 44:

“The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.”

Yet the solution isn’t more creative economic policy or more government handouts. The solution is to stop sinning, turn to Jesus Christ, and start obeying God.

There are too many examples like these for us to cover all of them in one program, but in summary let me refer to a statement by educator Vincent Ruggiero, made in his book Warning: Nonsense is Destroying America:

“If we are ever to solve this country’s social problems, we must acknowledge the moral bankruptcy of our time and the culpability, not only of the parents and teachers, but most of all the media. We must take responsibility for creating an environment that nurtures morality in children and adults…. To pretend the Ten Commandments are somehow irrelevant to moral living is a violation of common sense…” (p. 152).

Will Society Turn to God? Will You?

What is really at the heart of the problem?

There’s a verse in the Psalms that haunts me on this matter. Psalm 11:3, “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

While our politicians discuss what color to paint the nation’s walls, they seem to ignore the fact that the foundation, itself, is destroyed—and, unless repaired, the house is doomed to collapse. Concerning the Constitution of the United States, established shortly after the birth of the nation, Founding Father John Adams once said,

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other” (“From John Adams to Massachusetts Militia, 11 October 1798,” Founders.Archive.gov).

Indeed, the freedoms inherent in any great nation rely on the moral self-restraint of its citizens.

The leaders of the U.S. and Britain SHOULD be seeking to turn their peoples to the God who created and blessed their nations—as discussed in today’s free booklet. Instead, they encourage and enable the people’s sin.

Of them, God declares in Isaiah 9:16,

“For the leaders of this people cause them to err, and those who are led by them are destroyed.”

But you, personally, don’t have to wait for a senator, congressman, prime minister, or president to tell you to turn to the laws of God!

You don’t have to wait to begin experiencing the blessings that come from living life the way it was DESIGNED to be lived.

If you’re practicing sexual sin, indulging in lust in your body or mind, you can repent! You can ask God to forgive you, and to help you begin obeying His law! If you are letting yourself be carried away with covetousness and greed, in a real sense worshiping things and centering your life on your next purchase on Amazon, you can repent and turn away from that! You can begin obeying the tenth, first, and second commandments.

If you want a family that is strong and stable—a source of joy and comfort—God has given us laws that we can act on to help craft the sort of family we’ve always wanted to have!

And you can choose to follow those laws and build that family.

The only way to prevent great nations from dying is for the people of great nations to seek their God and Jesus Christ and turn from sin.

It isn’t too late. In 2 Chronicles 7:14, God says to King Solomon words that are just as true today:

“[I]f My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

If we want to make a difference, turning in a heartfelt manner to the God of heaven and seeking His way with passion, zeal, and humility, that will accomplish more than 1,000 phone calls to your senator or congressman ever will.

Thanks so much for watching! All of us here at Tomorrow’s World work very hard to help you understand your world through the pages of the Bible.

If you’re interested in what we offer today, the free study guide The United States and Great Britain in Prophecy, you can go to our website at TWTV.org/Prophecy. You can get it there or you can click on the link in the description.

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Thanks so much!

[The text below represents an edited transcript of this Tomorrow’s World program.]

A Widely-Held Falsehood

A vast portion of professing “Christianity” is obsessed with a myth—a myth that clouds their understanding of the end-times, that obscures other doctrinal truths of the Bible, and that provides a false hope concerning the Great Tribulation and the days before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. And yet, it is widely believed! When I travel to various cities giving public presentations concerning the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and what to expect before Christ’s return, some of the most common questions I receive are centered around this myth.

So, it’s about time we put that myth to rest.

Join me for this episode of Tomorrow’s World, where we’ll debunk the Rapture myth.

What IS the Rapture Myth?

Warm greetings, and welcome to Tomorrow’s World, where we work to help you make sense of your world through the pages of the Bible.

You know, if I had a dime for every time I’ve been asked about the Rapture, I’d be a wealthy person. When is it coming? Is it before the Great Tribulation, during the Tribulation, or after?

At the heart of most of these questions is a more fundamental one: Is the common belief in the Rapture actually true?

Today, we’re going to tackle that question, and we’re going to do it with irrefutable evidence from your Bible.

Now let’s begin by being as clear as we can. Before we can address what the Bible does or does not say about the “Rapture,” we first need to define what we mean by the word “Rapture”—because people use it to say many different things.

Most use the word to indicate their belief that before Jesus Christ returns to rule the world, and before the time of trouble and suffering known as the Great Tribulation, Christians all over the world will be “raptured” into thin air—taken to heaven. Those who are NOT Christians will simply see that many people have suddenly vanished without explanation. Planes will plummet as their Christian pilots disappear, non-Christian husbands or wives will despair as they wonder where their Christian spouse has disappeared to. And as the world sorts through the mass disappearance, the Great Tribulation will be unleashed on those who are “left behind”—as the book series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins worded it. Then, 3 or 7 years later—depending on who’s explaining—Jesus begins His reign on earth.

This idea of the Rapture as being mysteriously and mystically whisked away from the earth is often associated with the words of the Apostle Paul, who says in 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17,

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”

This is an important passage for those who believe in the “Rapture” because in the Latin Vulgate translation of verse 17, the word for “we shall be caught up” is rapiemur /ra-pee-Ā-moor/, from rapere / rah-PEHR-ay/. Thus, the “Rapture.”

But is Paul describing what many think of as “the Rapture” or is he talking about something else entirely?

God wants us to read His word CAREFULLY, putting the details together to get the most complete picture we can, and that takes diligence. As Paul told the evangelist Timothy,

“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

Similarly, the prophet Isaiah wrote the following:

“Whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breasts? For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little” (Isaiah 28:9–10).

Let’s do that. Let’s “rightly divide the word of truth” and put the WHOLE of God’s word together to help us see the truth about the Rapture theory and to understand what to truly expect of the end times.

And since ideas differ so widely in their details concerning the Rapture and what it really means, we are going to focus on Bible passages that will help us clarify the most common elements that are central in most people’s beliefs about the Rapture. So, as the program progresses, keep in mind these three crucial questions:

Will Christians vanish around the world without explanation?

Will Christians be caught up into the air years before Jesus returns?

[And] Will Christians spend the Great Tribulation in heaven?

Remember those questions! And as we look into what the Bible says will ACTUALLY happen with true Christians at the return of Jesus Christ, you will see each of these questions answered plainly and simply in God’s word. And when you do, you will see that the popular idea of the Rapture is little more than a popular myth.

Resurrection, NOT “Rapture”

So, does the Bible teach that YEARS BEFORE Jesus returns in visible glory to rule the world, Christians around the world will VANISH and secretly be caught up into heaven right before the time of global horrors known as the Great Tribulation?

No, it doesn’t. We can begin to see this if we go back to 1 Thessalonians 4. But this time, let’s begin in verse 13.

“But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:13–17).

Too many are so “enraptured” (pun intended) with seeing the “Rapture” in this passage that they skip right over those elements that prove Paul is NOT talking about their idea of a “Rapture.”

For instance, Paul says that this is the time of the RESURRECTION of those who died in Christ—those he describes as “asleep”—saying, “the dead in Christ will rise first.” He also says that “the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.”

This doesn’t seem like a quiet, mysterious vanishing to me—more like a triumphant event announced to the world by the returning Christ.

But my personal opinion doesn’t matter—and neither does yours. Instead of settling for opinion, let’s look into additional Bible passages that describe this event—as we read earlier, “precept upon precept… line upon line… here a little, there a little….”

For example, the Apostle describes this EXACT SAME event in another passage 1 Corinthians 15. Let’s read there starting in verse 50:

“Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the LAST TRUMPET. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” 

Now notice: The dead are raised in incorruptible glory and the living will be transformed at that time, as well, just as we read in 1 Thessalonians. Now, is this done quietly? No! AGAIN just as we saw earlier, this happens with the sound of a mighty TRUMPET:

“…in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the LAST TRUMPET. For the TRUMPET WILL SOUND, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:50–53).

In fact, read that again CAREFULLY: It happens not just at ANY trumpet, but at the LAST trumpet. This implies that there is a SEQUENCE of trumpets, and the resurrection and glorification of the saints occurs at the LAST of these trumpets.

So, ask yourself: Is there any passage of Scripture that describes a series of trumpets in the end times? Because if there is, then we have located the time of this resurrection and transformation of faithful Christians!

And, in fact, YES, the Bible DOES describe a sequence of trumpets! We don’t need to guess, or theorize, or debate about it. The Bible makes it plain! And as it does, we will see the answers to our three questions beginning to take shape as well.

The Real Sequence of Events Before Christ’s Return

The book of Revelation gives us a specific sequence leading up to Jesus’ return and the commencement of the Kingdom of God. Revelation chapter 6 reveals the Seven Prophetic Seals of Revelation, which the Apostle John sees in vision, opened in sequence by Jesus Christ to reveal the end-time events ahead. The FIRST FOUR SEALS represent the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, symbolizing global Religious Deception, Warfare, Famine, and Disease. Verse 8 says, that “power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth.”

The prophetic pathway continues with the FIFTH SEAL, describing a martyrdom of many true Christians. In Matthew 24:21, Jesus describes this time, saying, “For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.” This is a time so terrible that no time before nor after will ever compare.

After two and one-half years of this Tribulation, the SIXTH SEAL is opened, and the Heavenly Signs take place: a great earthquake, the sun darkened, the moon red as blood, the stars falling from the sky, and every mountain and island on earth shaken! These announce that GOD AND JESUS CHRIST are about to PERSONALLY INTERVENE in world affairs! That time is described by the prophet Isaiah as “the day of the Lord’s vengeance, the YEAR of recompense for the cause of Zion” (Isaiah 34:8).

This year-long Day of the Lord begins when the SEVENTH SEAL of Revelation is opened. We read of this in Revelation 8:1–2: “When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given SEVEN TRUMPETS.”

Finally, we see where a SEQUENCE OF TRUMPETS appears in end-time events—exactly what Paul’s description told us to expect! AFTER the end-time rides of the Four Horsemen, the Great Tribulation, and the Heavenly Signs, we come to the series of Trumpets indicated by the Apostle Paul!

And those first six trumpet blasts are devastating. One-third of earth’s vegetation is burned up; one-third of the seas become blood; one-third of ships and marine life are destroyed; one-third of the planet’s waters become bitter; and one-third of the sun, moon, and stars cease to shine. Then, in the most destructive military exchange in history, one-third of mankind is obliterated.

Joel 2 calls the Day of the Lord “great and very terrible” (v. 2) for a reason! It represents God’s wrath unleashed on unrepentant mankind! Yet, these terrors are only the first SIX of Seven Trumpets! The Seventh, Last Trumpet is described in Revelation 11:15: “Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!’”

Paul says that at THIS TRUMPET—the SEVENTH, declaring the authority of the Kingdom of God over the world—the Resurrection occurs, when faithful Christians, past and present, are gathered, glorified with immortality, and brought to meet Christ to become His Bride and to participate in the vanquishing of His enemies and the inauguration of the reign of God’s Kingdom!

All of this PROVES that this no secret “vanishing!” In fact, Jesus Christ personally described this moment to His disciples to make the PUBLIC nature of this event very clear. Read it yourself, starting in Matthew 24:29: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then ALL THE TRIBES OF THE EARTH will mourn, and THEY WILL SEE the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a GREAT SOUND OF A TRUMPET, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matthew 24:29–31).

My friends, these passages are inseparable. Their descriptions of the end-time events are consistent and in perfect sequence: The Great Tribulation, the Heavenly Signs, the Seven Trumpets, the revealing of Christ to the world at the Last Trumpet, and the resurrection, gathering, and glorifying of true Christians as the Kingdom of God commences its glorious reign.

And where will that reign begin? Not in heaven! Rather, as Revelation 5 [v. 10] says, those glorified Christians will have been made kings and priests to [their] God; and [they] shall reign on the earth.

No one will vanish into thin air as unsaved loved ones wonder where they went. All eyes will see, and all ears will hear. The Rapture is simply a misunderstanding that conceals the magnificent truth of Scripture.

Still, that might leave some worried. Does this mean that every Christian must go through the Tribulation?

No, it doesn’t, though some will, while others are protected—though NOT by a “Rapture.”

God’s Saints Protected on Earth During the Great Tribulation

We asked:

1. Will Christians vanish around the world mysteriously and without explanation?

We saw in the pages of the Bible that, no, they will not. Christians will join Christ at the first resurrection at the same time when ALL the tribes of the earth will see Jesus returning.

2. Will Christians be caught up into the air years before Jesus returns to rule?

Again, no they won’t. The resurrection of true Christians occurs at the very Last Trumpet when Christ is inaugurated as Ruler of the world, only days before Satan is bound for 1,000 years, as described in Revelation 20.

Finally,

3. Will Christians spend the years of the Great Tribulation in heaven?

Again, no! They rise to meet Christ at the commencement of His reign, AFTER the Tribulation. Indeed, from that moment on, they will reign alongside Him, ruling ON THIS EARTH, with Him, for 1,000 years.

At the same time, some Christians WILL be protected during the Tribulation—but they will be protected HERE ON EARTH. While God reserves many details to Himself, He does make this plain in a number of passages. For instance, in Revelation 12, we read of the Church in the end times, symbolized by a woman, persecuted by Satan the Devil, symbolized by a dragon-like serpent. Starting in verse 14, we read, “But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.” The “time, times, and half a time” here is the two-and-one-half years of the Great Tribulation before the Heavenly Signs, followed by the year-long Day of the Lord we read about earlier.

This passage makes plain, too, that while a portion of the Church is protected, she is NOT protected in heaven. Note that the passage says she is protected in “the wilderness”—a word which is never used by God to describe heaven in the Bible, but which He does use to describe locations here on earth.

If we’re going to let God interpret His own word, then we have to agree that Christians are going to be protected during the Great Tribulation, but that protection is NOT going to be in Heaven as many Rapture fans would have us believe. It will be right here, somewhere on planet earth.

But notice, too, not all Christians are protected. As we read in verse 17, “And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Yes, some Christians, “the rest of her offspring,” must endure the trials of the Great Tribulation and the anger of Satan.

The distinction—one group protected and one sent into the Tribulation—is reflected in Christ’s comments to the two prophetic End-Time Churches of Revelation 3. The zealous Christians of Philadelphia are told by Jesus that He will “keep [them]from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world” [v. 10], while the lukewarm Christians of Laodicea are told that they must “buy… gold [from God] refined in the fire [of persecution]” [v. 18] and that they need His “chasten[ing]” [v. 19].

Those Laodicean Christians who must go through the Tribulation are described as those unable to see their need to repent and to change—too self-satisfied in what they already believe they know, and too willing to compromise in their actions.

There is a reason that Jesus Christ says to all of us concerning the times to come, “Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted WORTHY TO ESCAPE all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36).

Yes, there will be protection during the climactic, earth-shattering events of the end times—not in a Rapture off to heaven, but right here, somewhere on earth—for zealous, faithful Christians who are unwilling to compromise on the truth God has shown them.

Thank you so much for watching. All of us here at Tomorrow’s World work very hard to help you understand your world through the pages of the Bible.

And if you’d like today’s free DVD talking about heaven, hell, the resurrections, the rapture, everything, just click on that link in the description.

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The Antichrist—Already Here in Today’s World

Perhaps no figure looms larger in our prophesied future than the ANTICHRIST. Your Bible is clear that he IS coming, and that a level of destruction, persecution, and death arrive with him—such as the world has never seen before or will ever see again. And there is cause to believe that he is alive TODAY—certainly, his tools of deception are ALREADY in place and ALREADY impact the lives of most who consider themselves “Christian” today.

Will you be among the few to recognize him when he steps onto the world stage? Most won’t—but you can.

Join us for this episode of Tomorrow’s World, as we reveal Seven Signs of the End-Time Antichrist!

Relevant Prophecies About the Antichrist and His Impact

Greetings, and welcome to Tomorrow’s World—where we help you make sense of your world through the pages of the Bible.

Consider this list of famous—or infamous—men: Ronald Reagan, King Juan Carlos (of Spain), Saddam Hussein, King Charles III, Bill Gates, Henry Kissinger, and Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum.

What do they have in common? Well, each, at one time or another, has been accused of being the Antichrist—that dark and mysterious figure foretold by Bible prophecy.

Some of these men are dead. Some are still alive. NONE of them fit the Bible’s description. Today, we will reveal SEVEN SIGNS of the END-TIME ANTICHRIST, as detailed by Bible prophecy, that will enable anyone to identify who the final Antichrist is.

Now, in our world of high-tech wonders and modern comforts, talk of an “antichrist” might seem archaic—“doom and gloom” preaching in an age that has moved beyond scriptures and prophecies.

But the opposite is true. Time hasn’t left prophecy behind—rather time has finally CAUGHT UP to prophecy, and only now do the times in which we live fit the circumstances describing the end-time stage onto which the Antichrist will enter.

For instance, Matthew 24 and verse 22 says that in those prophesied days, it would be possible that “no flesh would be saved” from mankind’s destructive capacity. That has only really been true since we entered the era of weapons of mass destruction, capable of eradicating humanity. And Daniel 12:4 describes the end-times of prophecy as an era when many “run to and fro” and “knowledge shall increase”—ancient words that describe our modern world, in which global travel is commonplace and we are beginning to suffer from a daily deluge of information.

No, the prophecies of the Antichrist are not dusty old writings, irrelevant for our modern age. They were WRITTEN for our modern age—inspired by the God who declares the end from the beginning! [Isaiah 46:10] And His warnings about the final Antichrist are VITAL. Because his rise is profoundly connected to more death, destruction, and human suffering than humanity has ever before experienced—a period called in the pages of Scripture, the Great Tribulation.

During the lives of most of you watching this today, the Antichrist WILL rise to power and deceive the VAST MAJORITY OF HUMANITY—subtly and seductively swaying men and women around the world to willingly accept a false and demonic COUNTERFEIT of Christianity! In fact, that version of Christianity is ALREADY present on the earth, possessing great influence. Many of you watching, right now, are already under its sway, making you all the more vulnerable to this future tyrant.

Imagine the full complement of modern warfare—the almost limitless destructive capacity of mankind—available at the beck and call of a man under the direct influence of Satan the Devil, devoted to destroying true Christianity—and true Christians—from the face of the earth, ensuring that it is replaced with a religion that SOUNDS like true Christianity, and uses the NAME of Jesus Christ, but which represents the very opposite of the Christianity of Jesus Christ.

That individual IS coming. Whether or not you will be able to recognize the Antichrist WILL BE a matter of life and death. And prophecy is plain: Most WILL NOT recognize him.

But you CAN recognize him with the SEVEN SIGNS that we will reveal on the remainder of today’s program.

These Seven Signs Identify Him

And this first sign is one most get wrong.

1. According to God’s word, the Antichrist is NOT a military or political leader. Rather, the Antichrist will lead a RELIGION, a great FALSE CHURCH.

This mistake arises because many confuse the Antichrist with the Beast of Revelation, which IS a military, political, and economic powerhouse that WILL dominate the world. However, while they are connected, the Antichrist and the Beast are two distinct beings. Turn to Revelation chapter 17. Here the Apostle John records a vision, shown to Him by Jesus Christ and the angels under His command:

And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” (Revelation 17:1–5).

There is MUCH that is worth noting in this passage, but I want to focus on one particular point. The Beast here with seven heads and ten horns, ridden by a prostitute, is the end-time military-economic juggernaut called the Beast of Revelation. But what of the woman?

Normally a rider mounts a beast to control it and influence its movements—and this beast is being ridden, or guided, by a prostitute.

If you’ve watched Tomorrow’s World for long, you know that we allow the Bible to interpret its own symbols, and women in the Bible are frequently used to picture different faiths and religious organizations.

But rather than the chaste virgin that God uses to symbolize His church in passages such as 2 Corinthians 11:2 and Revelation 19:7–8, the church that is riding this powerful Beast is described as a wealthy prostitute.

Fornication, adultery, and harlotry are often used by God to symbolize the corrupting influence of RELIGIOUS COMPROMISE with pagan practices and pagan worship, as in Jeremiah 3 and Ezekiel 16.

The religious system of the ANTICHRIST is the Harlot riding this Beast! It is not the SAME as the Beast. In fact, later in Revelation 17:16, we see that the Beast will eventually TURN on the woman to destroy her. No, the Harlot RIDES the Beast—manipulating it, influencing it, guiding it for her purposes.

This is why the Apostle John, in 1 John 4:1–3 speaks of the Antichrist in the context of false prophets—because he will be the ULTIMATE false prophet!—not a military or political ruler, but a RELIGIOUS FIGURE who will control the most powerful church on earth. In turn, he and that church will influence the military-economic powerhouse known as the End Time Beast Power of Revelation.

What more can we understand about the religious system led by this Antichrist?

That brings us to today’s second sign of the Antichrist:

2. The Antichrist will appear CHRIST-LIKE and come IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST!

In his powerful Olivet Prophecy given on the Mount of Olives in the area of Jerusalem and recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, Jesus Christ warned His disciples that many would come practicing religious deception, and come in HIS OWN NAME—that is, the NAME of JESUS CHRIST! And they did! John reveals the spread of that deceptive, counterfeit Christianity even in the first century, saying in 1 John 2 and verse 18, “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.”

Yes, many antichrists had come by the time John wrote those words, and the deceptive, counterfeit Christianity they wove, falsely under the name of Jesus Christ, persists and dominates world religions today!

Many fail to recognize that the word “antichrist” represents more than a person. It represents a system of belief that APPEARS Christian, but is actually a COUNTERFEIT to true Christianity. Paul writes in the Bible of those who preached “another Jesus” and brought a “different gospel” (2 Corinthians 11:4). This system has been in place since the time of the Apostles, and in John’s own day, many representing that system, “many antichrists,” were already preaching.

The final, end-time Antichrist will be the culmination of this deception—a great False Prophet representing this false Christianity who will APPEAR very Christian on the outside. Turn to Revelation 13 with me, where we see the Antichrist described in prophetic symbolism.

Beginning in v. 11, we read of a different beast rising from the earth—not the seven-headed Beast of Revelation: “Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon” (Revelation 13:11).

Scripture consistently uses the Lamb as a symbol for Christ but a Dragon as a symbol for the devil! So this False Prophet to come, this final Antichrist, will LOOK like the Lamb, Jesus Christ! He may seem kind, compassionate—he may seem to teach from the Bible! Yet prophecy says he will be speaking the words of the DRAGON, the DEVIL! The Christianity he teaches will be a subtle, twisted version of Christianity—NOT the Christianity of Jesus Christ, even though it will claim His name!

The Antichrist and His Laws and Teachings

One of the tools the end-time Antichrist will use to deceive even the skeptical and bring them into his twisted version of Christianity is our next sign:

3. He will eventually work “miracles” and supernatural “wonders.”

Staying in Revelation 13, let’s continue to read, beginning in verse 13: “He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast…” (Revelation 13:13–14).

This individual will have the ability to call fire from heaven, much like the prophet Elijah did in the Old Testament. How amazing will that be! In 2 Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul describes this coming false prophet, mentioning in chapter 2 verse 9: “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:9).

But the key to resisting the appeal of supernatural signs, intended to deceive, is to compare the “miracle worker’s” teachings to God’s truth. Remember, the Antichrist LOOKS like Jesus Christ, but SPEAKS like the SUBTLE DRAGON, Satan the Devil.

That brings us to the fourth sign:

4. He will DENY that Christ continues to come in the flesh.

This is a VITAL point, but a subtle one—easy to miss. We dive into detail on this crucial sign in our free booklet, but let me summarize.

This doctrine of the Antichrist is described in 2 John 7: “For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.”

Now, many think John just means that antichrists teach Jesus didn’t really come in the flesh 2,000 years ago. And, yes, John condemns such falsehoods.

But read carefully: John says that the deceivers do not teach Christ “as coming in the flesh.” That is a present tense verb—continuing to come in the flesh.

Dr. Charles B. Williams, whose translation of the New Testament is praised for its attention to the detail of the Greek verbs in the original New Testament text, translates this passage as saying that the antichrist does not confess that Christ “continues to come” in the flesh.

But what does that mean?

It means that the Antichrist does not teach that Jesus Christ CONTINUES to live in Christians TODAY, reliving the life He lived 2,000 years ago, helping them to grow in obedience and godly character.

The Apostle Paul explained this in a beautiful passage. Let’s read it in the King James Version, Galatians 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

This is why Paul says in Romans 5:10 that we are reconciled by His death, but SAVED BY HIS LIFE. As opposed to Christ doing it all at His crucifixion as many false preachers teach, Christ lives His life in the converted Christian daily, helping him or her grow and conquer sin NOW, in THIS life! The Antichrist will deny this fundamental but often ignored teaching, and this connects directly to our fifth sign:

5. The Antichrist will REJECT God’s law.

Remember: we read in 2 Thessalonians 2 that Paul called the final Antichrist “lawless.” But God isn’t concerned here with HUMAN laws. The Antichrist will oppose the laws of GOD.

In fact, he will REPLACE GOD’S LAWS as REVEALED in the BIBLE with religious laws rooted in HUMAN TRADITION and PAGAN SUPERSTITION.

Daniel chapter 7 describes this effort of the Antichrist. We see this end-time false prophet described in detail in verse 25: “He shall speak pompous words against the Most High, shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to change times and law. Then the saints shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time” (Daniel 7:25).

He will “CHANGE TIMES AND LAW”—he will replace the times of worship as God designed them with a counterfeit set of worship days, and he will replace the laws of God with a different set of laws—laws that will feel Christian, but will NOT be rooted in the laws of God, revealed in the Bible.

The Antichrist will promote MAN-MADE church laws, creeds, confessions, and traditions and will claim the authority to OVERRULE the clear commandments and laws of God revealed in Scripture! Church calendars with man-made holidays will OVERRULE the holy days and festivals of God, found in your Bible! This coming “lawless one”—the Antichrist—will claim authority that no one but God Almighty has, attempting to change the very law of God... And, frankly, many of you watching today are ALREADY affected by this.

Who Can Escape the Antichrist’s Persecution?

However, the Antichrist will not be content with simply converting the world to false teachings. He will also want to deal with the few who dare to believe the true teachings of the Bible that contradict His false doctrine. That leads to our sixth, tragic sign:

6. The Antichrist will PERSECUTE true Christians.

We saw this mentioned in Daniel 7:25, where we read that the Antichrist “shall persecute the saints of the Most High”—true followers of God and those who keep his laws and his commandments, not the man-made doctrines, holy days, and teachings of the Antichrist.

Jesus Christ warned of this time when He told His disciples in John 16:2 that a time will come when those who kill true Christians will think they are doing God a service!

Think back to the images you have seen of concentration camps and the horrors of World War II, in which millions of Jews were herded to their deaths. Now imagine such machinery turned onto a new minority, those Christians Jesus calls His “little flock,” who actually believe in the Ten Commandments of God and in the need to obey them.

Revelation 12 describes the anger true Christians’ obedience engenders in Satan the Devil and how he will respond: “[T]he dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17).

How does the Antichrist accomplish this persecution? That power is connected to our final sign:

7. The Antichrist will point the world to a revived “Roman Empire”— a political/military powerhouse of strength and might such as the world has never seen before.

Remember—the woman RIDES THE BEAST! Revelation 13 tells of how the False Prophet will influence the people of the world to support the coming Beast of Revelation, and how the Antichrist will influence the might of this Beast Power—an end-time, revived “Roman Empire” that will outshine even the power and might of the United States today. He will direct the might of the Beast AGAINST those who refuse to cast aside the laws of God and the true worship of Jesus Christ, and who refuse to accept the FALSE Christianity the Antichrist offers. The result will be a MODERN-DAY INQUISITION on a horrific scale, never before seen in human history.

This unholy alliance of false church and tyrannical state will DOMINATE THE WORLD in the end-times just ahead of us.

Even with their powers combined, this most powerful of religious, political, economic, and military entities will still be NO MATCH for the returning Jesus Christ! He will return in their days to glorify His faithful followers and to establish the Kingdom of God, forever!

So, what do we DO about these things? Remember: The “Antichrist system” that this final Antichrist will sell to the whole world exists TODAY, and most are already deceived by it! We do not need to wait until this religious despot appears on the scene—we can act NOW to reject his system and his Counterfeit Christianity. As Jesus admonishes all of us in Luke 21 and verse 36, “Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36).

Yes, Jesus does promise protection for those who are not ashamed to reject the false Christianity around them and who are willing to embrace the fullness of His teachings and life—allowing Him to live His life of obedience to God’s commandments in their lives today.

We hope you will heed His admonition and avoid the deceptions of the coming end-time Antichrist and his religious system at work in the world today.

Thank you for watching, from really all of us here at Tomorrow’s World, where we work very hard to help you make sense of your world through the pages of your Bible.

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[The text below represents an edited transcript of this Tomorrow’s World program.]

Destruction of Values

In sex, gender, and sexuality, what is normal? What is normal marriage? Normal family? Western Civilization once knew. But no longer. Academics, philosophers, and politicians are waging a passionate ideological war to establish a world in which NOTHING is considered normal—where even SUGGESTING that one thing is normal and another is abnormal is considered an act of hatred and violence. That conflict is eating away at the foundations of civilization itself.

Join us for this episode of Tomorrow’s World, where we expose the war against normal.

Ideological Attacks and Radical “Theories”

A warm welcome to you from all of us here at Tomorrow’s World, where we help you make sense of your world through the pages of the Bible.

In Jeremiah 10:23, we see a statement made of profound importance: “O LORD, I know the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.”

Our topic today illustrates the truth of that statement and the civilization-wide tragedy that unfolds when we ignore it.

We asked at the beginning—in gender, sexuality, marriage, and family, what is normal?

Many can no longer answer this question, thanks to a long-running war against all things “normal.” In fact, we are in the final stages of that war in the West, which we will demonstrate today.

We used to know what “normal” was. At least we thought we did, right? Marriage was a lifetime commitment between a man and a woman, defining family and creating the healthiest environment for childrearing. Mankind was organized into males and females, and sex was to take place between a male and a female, and that was an obvious matter of biology.

That was our world as recently as 20 years ago. But today, simply ASKING what is normal is offensive to many—and may offend some of you. That’s because we’re living in the final stages of a war against normality. Social engineers have mounted an aggressive campaign over multiple decades, seeking to eradicate ANY idea that some things are normal and some abnormal.

And as normality is losing this war, an abnormal world is quickly filling the space left behind. It is this NEW world that our children will inherit—in which there is no such thing as “normal” and it’s the highest offense to suggest that there should be.

How did we get here? How bad is it? Can it get worse? And finally, what does God think of a culture in which anything normal is the enemy?

While the combatants attacking normality are not as coordinated and conspiratorial as many think, there ARE common doctrines and goals that drive and unite them. Originating in the infamous Frankfurt School in the 1920s, so-called “Critical Theory” in various forms has become all the rage. The 1970s saw the rise of Critical Legal Theory, and more recently, Critical Race Theory became the hot topic of discussion.

No less pervasive in its influence on modern culture is QUEER THEORY. Queer Theory seeks to “deconstruct” common ways of thinking, to overturn widely held norms, and to define all of society as a power play between the “oppressed” and their “oppressors.” Developed in LGBT Studies and Women’s Studies programs at universities across the Western world, Queer Theory focuses on deconstructing SEXUALITY AND GENDER—and, consequently, everything affected by those facets of life, such as family structure.

Academics steeped in these ideas seek to subvert what has been considered normal and celebrate what were previously “abnormal” ideas and practices. To them, it is not enough for society to merely accept or allow the fullest spectrum of sexual behaviors and “gender constructs.” Their goal is to “queer” the discourse entirely, meaning to change mainstream thinking so that nothing is even thought of as “normal” or “not normal” any longer.

For example, Dr. Roberta Chevrette of Middle Tennessee State University has written of the need to “‘queer’ family communication” (Theories of Human Communication, December 22, 2016, p. 235)—changing discussions WITHIN FAMILIES so that heterosexuality is no longer treated as normal in those families. The goal of these social engineers is to change societal thinking so that all forms of sexual activity are considered equally “normal.”

Weaponizing Language and Changing Terms

The prejudice against normal, healthy sexuality and gender expression can be seen in, essentially, a new vocabulary. Are you familiar with its words? Because your college-educated children probably are—and, increasingly, your younger children are, too. More importantly, those designing school policies and programs definitely are.

One new word is heteronormative. As of mid-2023, Merriam-Webster defines it as “of, relating to, or based on the attitude that heterosexuality is the only normal and natural expression of sexuality” (“Heteronormative,” Merriam-Webster.com), and an Internet search is enough to show you that “heteronormative thinking”—that is, thinking that the normal expression of sexuality is between a man and a woman—is no longer “right thinking.” In fact, if you think that sexual relations between men and women are more normal than others, you are considered guilty of heterosexism.

Similarly, if you are a man or a woman who, like almost all humans beings, still considers yourself the same gender the doctor observed you to be at birth, it is not enough to call yourself a man or woman anymore. Now, you must be a cisgender man or cisgender woman, to distinguish you from a transgender man or transgender woman. If you are, say, a man who thinks referring to himself as a “cisgender man” instead of just a “man” is strange, watch out—now you’re engaging in cisgenderism. Also, you had better not think it is normal for someone in a male body to think he is a man, because if you do, you’re practicing cisnormativity. How dare you think ANYTHING—ANY sexuality, ANY relationship between sex and gender, ANY family structure—is NORMAL?

For a glimpse at how normal sexuality and family structure have been recast as evils, one need only look at—believe it or not—Black Lives Matter.

While the Black Lives Matter movement made global headlines in the wake of George Floyd’s death, some interested in the cause were distressed by what they found on the organization’s “About Us” webpage. There, under the heading “What We Believe,” they saw Black Lives Matter declare, “We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege,” “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” and “We foster a queer-affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking” (“What We Believe,” Black Lives Matter, sourced from Web.Archive.org).

While that page was removed in the days leading up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the question remained: What does ending discrimination and violence against black people have to do with transgender ideology? Why would supporting black lives require standing against “heteronormativity” or traditional family structures?

The answer is that the war against normal has successfully woven itself into nearly every effort to create social change. As critical theorists irrationally recategorize human relationships as expressions of coercive power, any attempt to address injustice then also has to be made to connect with all other injustices, real or perceived. Believing there is a normal family structure, a normal human sexuality, and a normal understanding of sex and gender is increasingly equated with power structures designed to oppress.

To today’s social engineers, if you believe that family is best grounded in a marriage between a man and a woman, sex between that man and that woman represents normal and natural sexuality, and that it actually is possible in virtually all cases to identify a child’s gender at birth, well then you’ve aligned yourself with the likes of Mussolini and Hitler or the Ku Klux Klan. Presuming someone’s gender based on their appearance is labeled an act of ignorance at best and violence at worst. If a young girl is plagued by thoughts that she might be transgender, to help that girl feel more comfortable being a girl is committing the sin of “conversion therapy.”

But as bad as things are, we are far from how bad they can get.

Ultimately, the war on normality is a war on BOUNDARIES. Human beings crave sexual “freedom,” unbound by any rules, definitions, laws, and even shame—to define sexuality based solely on individual desires. So, the boundaries keeping sex within marriage must fall, the boundaries defining marriage as between one man and one woman must fall, and the boundaries defining differences between sexes or genders must fall.

There is, however, at least one boundary that remains—one land the War Against Normal has not yet conquered, but that is under siege and could fall at any moment—the age boundary.

Targeting Children with Perversions

Thankfully, many still consider childhood a time for protection from the incursions of modern sexual “liberty.” Yet many of our self-appointed superiors deem that this boundary, too, must fall.

Consider the flood of sexual content into school libraries. In the United States, the American Library Association found that nine of the top ten school library books most challenged in 2021 were challenged due to their sexual content and explicit nature (“Top 10 Most Challenged Books Lists,” American Library Association, ALA.org, March 26, 2013). The MOST challenged book, which we will not name, so as not to risk promoting it accidentally, contained imagery that any reasonable person would consider pornographic. Not long ago, any teacher who shared such a book with a child would have been labeled a pedophile and a predator, and that teacher would have been disciplined or dismissed.

Consider, too, the phenomenon of Drag Queen Story Hour, in which men who dress as women—often in exaggerated and sometimes sexually suggestive clothing—read to children in libraries and other venues. Such events are designed to blur sexual and gender lines and family attachments in children’s impressionable minds so that they grow up thinking that everything is just as “normal” as everything else.

Don’t take our word for it. Take theirs. In the academic journal Curriculum Inquiry, “critical pedagogy” researcher Harper Keenan and a drag queen organizer of events known as “Lil Miss Hot Mess” collaborated on a paper titled “Drag pedagogy: The playful practice of queer imagination in early childhood” (“Drag pedagogy: The playful practice of queerimagination in early childhood,” January 25, 2021, pp. 440–461).

The authors are COMPLETELY PLAIN concerning the goals of Drag Queen Story Hour. “Ultimately, we suggest that drag pedagogy offers one model for learning not simply about queer lives, but how to LIVE QUEERLY.”

They note that drag is “implicitly transgressive” and that “While drag has some conventions, it ultimately has no rules—its defining quality is often to break as many rules as possible!” they note that drag “is all about bending and breaking the rules,” often, “turn[ing] rejection into DESIRE, transforming the labour of performance into the pleasure of PARTICIPATION.”

They tell us “Drag Queen Story Hours offers a QUEER RELATIONALITY with children that BREAKS from the reproductive futurity of the normative classroom and nuclear family.”

In their conclusion, they point out that they “have occasionally encountered critiques that [Drag Queen Story Hour] is sanitizing the risqué nature of drag in order to make it ‘family friendly.’ We DO NOT SHARE this PESSIMISTIC view,” noting, “it is less a sanitizing force than it is a PREPARATORY INTRODUCTION to ALTERNATE MODES OF KINSHIP.”

It’s not an exaggeration or hyperbole: The war against normal IS coming for our children.

You might wonder—how could things get so far? Well, a large part of the answer is that, to a great extent, the attitudes and philosophies motivating this are nothing new. Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, “That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, ‘See, this is new’? It has already been in ancient times before us.”

Indeed, the attack on sexual barriers between children and adults goes back to philosophers and academics whose ideas helped lay the foundations of today’s Queer Theory. In 1977, supposedly “enlightened” souls such as Paul-Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Jacques Derrida signed a petition to the French government to allow adults to engage in “consensual” sexual relations with children. As reported in the Guardian, these intellectuals demanded that French law “should acknowledge the right of children and adolescents to have relations with whomever they choose” (“Calls for legal child sex rebound on luminaries of May 68,” TheGuardian.com, February 23, 2001).

The same article reported on the positions of French philosopher and author Tony Duvert of the 70s, who “praised ‘the great adventure of paedophilia’ and raged at ‘the fascism of mothers.’” According to its English-language publisher MIT Press, Duvert’s 1976 book Diary of an Innocent ends with “a fanciful yet rigorous construction of a reverse world in which marginal sexualities have become the norm.”

God Set the True Standards for “Normality”

We began by reading Jeremiah’s comment to God, “O LORD, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” (Jeremiah 10:23). But the very next verse (v. 24) gives us the key to resolving the war against normal: “O LORD, correct me, but with justice; not in Your anger, lest You bring me to nothing” (Jeremiah 10:24).

God is creator of all reality! It is His design, His law, and His will that defines what is normal—or what SHOULD BE, and what WILL be normal in the world Christ will bring at His return.

Concerning sexuality, gender, and family, God made it plain from the beginning. Referring back to the Genesis account of creation, Jesus taught about marriage. In Matthew 19 we read, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE,’and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:4–6).

In one fell swoop, Jesus definitely affirmed the gender binary of man and woman, the biological design of male and female, and the place of sex in marriage between a husband and a wife.

While the War Against Normal seeks to abolish any sort of boundaries, God seeks to ESTABLISH boundaries and to make them clear and firm. In fact, the VERY FIRST PAGES of SCRIPTURE illuminate exactly how our Creator deals with boundary-obliterating chaos—and that is REESTABLISHING ORDER AND NORMALCY by REESTABLISHING BOUNDARIES.

The opening pages of Genesis [detail] chaos: “The earth was without form, and void” (Genesis 1:2). A world “without form”—without guiding distinctions, shapes, and ideals—is exactly the society today’s social engineers seek to create.

The Creator brought order to that chaos by establishing clear boundaries. He separated light and darkness (v. 4), the waters below from those above (vv. 6–7), and the land from the seas (v. 9). He established a distinct boundary between animals and humanity. Humans are created beings, yet unique in bearing God’s own image (vv. 25–26). He organized humans into two sexes: male and female (v. 27).

Upon ordering the world He had created, God declared it “very good” (v. 31). We enjoy the goodness of that ordered world today.

Eradicating all borders, boundaries, and limitations does not produce a better world. It only creates a more chaotic one—in which the joys God designed go unrealized, and the sufferings He intended to keep at bay become the new normal.

Still, let’s be careful. It’s ironic that so much of the world is waging a passionate war against normal, because Jesus Christ Himself will fundamentally correct the definition of what is normal when He establishes a new world at His Second Coming.

Often, those who lament the war agains normal also fail to see that the traditions THEY see as normal are tainted and broken in their own ways. The Kingdom Jesus will establish will not look like 1950s America, nor the Judea of Jesus’ day. Nostalgia for a better past is no substitute for the full transformation called for in His Gospel, and the life to which Christians are called transcends what was ever lived throughout history. To live God’s way requires a complete change in how we see ourselves, our relationships, and our obligations. And, frankly, no civilization has ever fully gotten it right. As God tells us through Isaiah: “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9).

After Jesus’ return, the world will learn what family, sexuality, relationships, and society can be when we follow the original design and intention of our Creator. From the blessings that follow, mankind will finally understand why no one should ever exchange God’s normal for anything less.

It is that time to come that we proclaim here on Tomorrow’s World. If you want to begin seeking the power of tomorrow’s world in your own life, seeing through the madness of today’s world is a great start.

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