The nations of planet earth are presently engaged in a deadly game of brinksmanship. It’s happening on every continent.

In Europe, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine threatens to engulf the region. And European wars have a tendency to become world wars. Finland and Sweden, two previously neutral countries, recently joined NATO. Sweden had been neutral since the early 1800s. It resisted taking sides in World Wars I and II, as well as the Cold War. But not anymore. Sweden finally joined NATO this year, while its neighbor Finland joined in 2023.

What happened to Finland and Sweden’s traditional stance of neutrality? Putin happened. The communist leaders of Soviet Russia were not enough to get them into NATO, but Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine scared everyone in Europe. It awakened memories of Adolf Hitler, of global war, and of holocaust.

Nations across the globe feel vulnerable and are looking for safety. They are arming as never before. China’s new high-tech weapons, its unprecedented military buildup, and its aggressions in the South China Sea and Taiwan have also scared the nations. Reuters reported a year and a half ago that between then and 2027, “Japan will undertake its biggest arms buildup since World War Two in a race to deter Beijing from war in East Asia.”

Direct acts of violence resulting from the Israel-Hamas war have already touched nations everywhere. With Iran’s lock grip on the Shiite Muslim world, it has stirred up nation after nation into acts of war against Israel and anyone seen as Israel’s allies. The Middle East has been a powder keg for a long time, but now it is a powder keg in a lightning storm.

These and a host of other things going on today make a perfect setup for events that the Bible says will take place during seven years of tribulation. I believe those years are very close. But they are not imminent. The global conflagrations described in Revelation will not take place until after the Rapture — that is until after God has evacuated His people from the planet.

Some ask what is holding things up. Why doesn’t God just get on with it? 2 Peter 3:9 answers. “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”

God’s “slowness” is a result of His mercy. But He will not delay forever. In the Old Testament, Israel came under God’s judgement many times. Over and over, they failed to live up to the bargain they made with God. They sinned. The rejected Him, His messengers, and His word. But the thing that often triggered His actual judgements was harm to children. For instance, when they engaged in child sacrifice to idols.

Children are being abused on an institutional level today, and it’s happening all over the world. Millions are being slain in the womb. If they survive those early days, psychological tricks are played on them in their classrooms and in their entertainments — tricks designed to inoculate them against receiving the Gospel and tricks made to confuse them and make them miserable. Could these things trigger the time of judgement on the earth? Yes.

In the meantime, every day is an act of God’s mercy and kindness, giving people time and space to come to Him, and allowing those of us who know Him to preach the Gospel to the whole world. Jesus said in John 9:4 (NASB), “We must work the works of Him who sent Me, as long as it is day; night is coming, when no man can work.”

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