“Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near.” (Luke 21:28)

A previous article, “Prophetic Signs of the Coming of the L-rd”, described the signs that are connected specifically with the nation of Israel such as the re-birth of the nation of Israel in 1948, a resurgence of persecution of Jews and Israel, Israel’s discovery of gas and oil (the booty of Ezekiel 38:8-13), the liberation of the Temple Mount in 1967, the birth of a red heifer necessary for the rebuilding of the Temple, the creation of all the Temple articles and priesthood garments that will lead up to the return of our L-rd.

Today, however, we can see the signs that the Lord said would affect the whole world. In fact, the Book of Revelation is beginning to unravel before our eyes. The time of sorrows (for the entire world) described in Revelation 6 is particularly notable: The ‘White Horse’ a Conqueror coming on the world scene, the ‘Red Horse’, a time of Conflict on the earth (wars and rumors of wars), the ‘Black Horse’, widespread famine, the ‘Pale (green) Horse’, widespread death (from wars, famine. and pestilence), A Cry of the Martyrs (those murdered for their faith in Yeshua), and Cosmic Disturbances (signs in the sun, moon and stars).

Although these signs have not met their fullness in all nations, each sign is appearing in almost one-third of the nations of the world.

And despite the fact that it is not obvious who the Conqueror on the White Horse is, the apostle John assures us that the ‘spirit of the antichrist’ has been present since the Lord walked the earth:

“…and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. (1 John 4:3)

“[Beware of Antichrist Deceivers] 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.” (2 John 1:7)

The bodily anti-Christ, the first seal, must be present on the earth today because the second seal, fiery Red Horse, has been released, bringing wars and rumors of wars:

Prophetic News.com’s Doyle McManus writes: “It's a chaotic world out there. But we'd better get used to it; this may be the new normal. The Middle East is in flames, not only Gaza but Syria, Iraq and Libya as well. Russia is massing troops on the border of Ukraine. Central Africa is a mess, as are Afghanistan and Pakistan. Criminal gangs and drug cartels rule parts of Mexico and Central America. And those are merely the crises big enough to command front-page attention.” (August 01, 2014)

In total, there are 62 countries out of 196 countries in the world (30%) that are experiencing wars. Some of these countries even have nuclear weapons. These various wars and conflicts have resulted in widespread unemployment and poverty leading to famine and pestilence.

Computer models demonstrate that even a small nuclear war would cause global famine (the Black Horse) and wipe out billions of people.

According to Michel Chossudovsky in his book, The Globalization of Poverty (First Edition, 1997), humanity is undergoing an economic and social crisis of unprecedented scale leading to the rapid impoverishment of large sectors of the World population. He says:

“National economies are collapsing, unemployment is rampant. Local level famines have erupted in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and parts of Latin America." This 'globalization of poverty' "…was initiated in the Third World coinciding with the debt crisis of the early 1980s and the imposition of the IMF’s deadly economic reforms."

Chossudovsky refers to this economic transformation in the world as The New World Order:

“The New World Order feeds on human poverty and the destruction of the natural environment. It generates social apartheid, encourages racism and ethnic strife, undermines the rights of women and often precipitates countries into destructive confrontations between nationalities. Since the 1990s, it has extended its grip to all major regions of the World …"

“This Worldwide crisis is more devastating than the Great Depression of the 1930s. It has far-reaching geo-political implications; economic dislocation has also been accompanied by the outbreak of regional wars, the fracturing of national societies and in some cases the destruction of entire countries. By far this is the most serious economic crisis in modern history.”

At the same time that poverty and famine began ravaging many parts of the earth, a chemical company, Monsanto, began developing GMO’s (genetically modified organisms). Monsanto is the company that created DDT, PCB’s, Agent Orange and the weed-killer Roundup. In 1994, the FDA approved the sale of Monsanto’s GMO tomatoes and today soy, corn, beets (for beet sugar), cotton, and alfalfa. Many GMO edibles are secretly added to a wide variety of processed foods and GMO corn and soy are used in farm animal feed.

According to an article in Natural News, “GMO seeds are usually genetically created to tolerate herbicides, made by Monsanto and others, that kill weeds, making the GMO seeds disease and bug resistant. The herbicides contain glyphosates. Monsanto's Roundup weed killer is an extremely toxic glyphosate agent. Glyphosates greatly harm grazing animals and pollute the wells and groundwater of farm areas where they're used. They create sterility and birth defects among animals and humans. Most of the honeybee die-off, or colony collapse, is attributed to glyphosates. If enough pollinating bees disappear, our food chain is endangered further. Glyphosate's chelating capabilities remove minerals from the soil where they're sprayed. So crops get increasingly worse.”

No long-term, outside studies have been done to determine the lasting effects of GMO’s on humans. Recent headlines underscore that Plagues and Pestilence (the Pale Horse) are sweeping the earth.

Ebola outbreak out of control; 600 dead and counting (From The Extinction Protocol blog)

Ebola has spread through several West African countries…. The death toll from the virus has surpassed 600 despite efforts … to contain the epidemic. There is currently no known cure for Ebola…

Deadly airborne plague strikes four in Denver, Colorado (From Bloomberg.com)

A rare airborne form of the plague that can spread through coughing and sneezing has infected a Colorado man…. Following that story, Bloomberg went on to report that the airborne disease had already begun to spread to other victims.

Chikungunya explodes across 35 U.S. states (From the New York Daily News)

There is no vaccine and no treatment. The Centers for Disease Control has listed a total of 497 cases in the U.S. in 35 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands….

Drug-resistant infections explode 500% across U.S. hospitals   (From Natural News)

Drug-resistant superbug infections have reached near-epidemic levels across U.S. hospitals, with an alarming 500% increase now documented … (the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America).

MERS mutates into airborne pathogen  (From TheWeek.com)

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) may be airborne... "These data show evidence for the presence of the airborne MERS in the same barn that was owned by the patient and sheltered the infected camels," the study authors said in a statement.

Chinese government quarantines entire city after outbreak of bubonic plague

To the shock of international observers, an entire city in China has been quarantined by the government following an outbreak of the plague.   (From Fox News)

Insect plague reaches Biblical proportions in Wisconsin (As reported in TheWeek.com)

This year's mayfly hatch in the Mississippi River reached Biblical proportions.

Rising Acidity of Ocean Waters Threatens Ocean Health (Natural News 7-25-14)

Signs continue to emerge showing that the ocean waters are changing in pH, moving toward a more acidic state. As jellyfish populations explode in specific areas of the oceans, scientists warn of a new era of declining ocean health teaming with imbalances of ecology. In fact, marine biologists are beginning to notice intense jellyfish populations expanding in areas never seen before. These invertebrates can compete with whales for food and threaten their survival. Not only are the growing jellyfish populations damaging fishing trawlers, costing millions of dollars in damage, but they also pose a threat to nuclear power plants, threatening near meltdowns. In fact, a Swedish nuclear plant was recently shut down when tons of jellyfish clogged the cooling pipes that bring in water to the plant's turbines. The economic impacts of rising acidity have also been devastating to the shellfish industry.

The Pale Horse (death from wars, famine and pestilence) precedes the vision of the martyrs under the altar. Christians are persecuted in more than 65 countries around the world, with the vast majority in Asia and Africa — and especially in the Middle East, where Islamist rulers often make being a Christian a crime. An international interfaith conference has revealed that “105,000 Christians are being killed every year simply because of their faith.”  The shocking figures revealed at the International Conference on Inter-religious dialogue between Christians, Jews and Muslims held in Hungary, show that "a Christian is killed every five minutes somewhere in the world because of their faith.”

Cosmic Disturbances

We are also living in times of great cosmic disturbances. For instance, NASA reported that a solar “Superstorm” just missed the Earth in 2012. In addition, the earth will experience a Blood Moon Tetrad, i.e. four consecutive eclipses of the moon (see article on Blood Moons Rising) in 2014 and 2015 and an eclipse of the sun in each of those years as well.

In 2014, a 400 Earthquake Swarm was detected in California. Also, seismographs have picked up a swarm of earthquakes in the northwestern corner of Yellowstone National Park, in Oklahoma, in Mauna Loa in Hawaii and in the Northwest Arctic. Earthquake swarms are events where a local area experiences sequences of many earthquakes striking in a relatively short period of time. Earthquake swarms are one of the events typically preceding eruptions of volcanoes.

While all of these signs of sorrows are accelerating, we must keep our eyes on Israel. When all the surrounding nations make war against Israel and when the Temple in Jerusalem is rebuilt, then, we can say, “Look up, for your redemption draws near.”

“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Excerpts from Matthew 6:25-34)