Concerning News

These are concerning stories I’m watching. Mostly just waiting to see what happens next. I’m not going to write a full piece here today about each of them, just some headings and links, with the occasional quote and comment, and maybe a final summary.

 

UN Pact for the Future

On Sunday the United Nations took just five minutes to vote to take over the world. This was the UN Pact for the Future. They called it a consensus, but at least seven nations were opposed, because it did not include amendments they wanted. These included Russia, Iran, North Korea, Belarus, Syria and Nicaragua. Argentina’s President Milei spoke against the pact and excoriated the UN (see below), but Argentina isn’t on the opposition list. The vote was silent; if a nation didn’t speak in opposition in a given moment, their “silence” was considered consent.

While this pact is similar to other UN documents—lofty goals without much accountability—there is an underlying intent with this one to move the UN from an international cooperative body to an international governing body. And it intends to use businesses to assert pressure for them.

·       “World leaders adopt pivotal UN Pact for the Future” UN News, September 22, 2024. 

·       The UN document 

from p 44 of the Pact for the Future

·       “Argentina's 'chainsaw' president tells the UN to shove its 'socialist' 'Pact for the Future'” Joseph Mackinnon, The Blaze, September 26, 2024.   Argentina’s President Milei spoke against the Pact at the UN. He described it as “an attempt to build a totalitarian system of conformity across the business sector.” He said that Argentina would have nothing to do with centralizing world government and taking away sovereignty and human rights. This phrase also caught my eye: the UN “has transformed into a multi-headed leviathan that seeks to decide not only what each nation-state should do but also how all the citizens of the world should live.” I highlighted the phrase, which refers to the Revelation 13 sea beast—the worldwide cabal, the powers of darkness spreading across the nations of the earth. I don’t think the UN contains all of that beast; but I do think that beast includes the UN as presently constituted.

Argentina's President Javier Milei speaks at
the UN General Assembly, image from here

·       “The Most Important Event That No One is Talking About!” The Happy Lady, September 27, 2024.  The Happy Lady podcast is Latter-day Saint interest, with a lot of connecting dots in things in the news; she sees “pay attention numbers” all over the place, and she definitely thinks the Second Coming is soon. Between her and Christian Fire Poppy (who looks at signs in the heavens, and uses Stellarium.com as an astronomy resource far better than I have figured out how to do on my own) and Allie Duzett (who looks at the energy of the planets, a sort of different way of approaching astrology), I see more than my share of odd connections being made—enough to feel like the crazy guy in A Beautiful Mind. Nevertheless, I often find them interesting. The Happy Lady had this in her description box for this video: “America was just given into bondage by our administration as the world system of the beast was officially put into place while world leaders cheered. We're headed into a month of Hebrew feasts, worldwide prophetic revelation, jubilees, judgments, prophecy fulfillment, darkness, while celebrating the Light of the World and preparing for our Savior's return.” So President Milei (above) wasn’t the only one calling the UN the beast from Revelation 13.

·       “The U.S. Must Oppose the U.N. Pact for the Future” Brett Schaefer, The Heritage Foundation, September 16, 2024.  This was ahead of the vote by several days. Unfortunately, the current US administration is gung-ho in favor of worldwide centralized governance.

 

War in Israel

War is escalating in Israel. Last week there was the innovative targeted attack via pagers (see below), and then walkie-talkies. This week Israel attacked headquarters of Hezbollah. Headquarters were hidden beneath neighborhoods in Lebanon. Israel gave warning to residents to evacuate—as they usually do. It appears a major Hezbollah leader was killed in the attack, Hassan Nasrallah. While I wouldn’t call this Armageddon just yet, escalation has continued steadily for nearly a year now, since the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, supported by Hezbollah, Iran, and other anti-Israel sources. In other words, Armageddon is more likely to result from this continuation than from an interim peace before some future war.

air strike in town of Habbouch in southern Lebanon,
AP image from here

·       “Israeli strikes kill 492 in Lebanon’s deadliest day of conflict since 2006” by Melanie Lidman, Bassem Mroue, and Bassam Hatoum, for AP, September 24, 2024. 

·       “Israel Did Not Intercept Hezbollah Pagers That Exploded—It Made Them” The Daily Wire, September 19, 2023. 

exploded pager, AFP via Getty Images, found here

·       “IDF announces name of military offensive against Hezbollah: Northern Arrows” The Times of Israel, September 23, 2024.  I don’t know whether we’ll figure out some symbolic meaning for this name; for now I’m just noting that there is a name.

·       “Israel-Hezbollah live updates: Israel says strike in Beirut targeted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah” NBC News, September 27, 2024. 

·       “Israel Targets Leader Of Hezbollah In Strike On Terror Group’s HQ” Ryan Saavedra, The Daily Wire, September 27, 2024. 

 

 

Assassination Attempts on Donald Trump

Initial Findings Report p. 1

This week a J13 (i.e., July 13, 2024) Initial Findings Report came out, of the investigation into the Secret Service and other government security lapses. I believe this comes from the Senate investigation so far. There are two versions: short and long. There also continues to be more information about the September 15 assassination attempt:

·       Initial Findings Report (2 pages) 

·       Full report (133 pages)  

·       “Man charged in apparent Trump plot wrote 'This was an assassination attempt,' court filing shows” by Marlene Lenthang, Jesse Kirsch, and Maria Piñero, for NBC News, September 23, 2024. 

 

 

J6 and Other Plots

Two pieces of information came out this week. One is a record showing that President Trump made a direct order to the military to use National Guard or active duty military—whatever it would take to maintain safety when so many people would be at the capitol.

Trump post about this news,
image is screenshot from here

·       “Bombshell transcripts: Trump urged use of troops to protect Capitol on Jan. 6 , but was rebuffed” John Solomon, Just the News, September 23, 2024.  Since the prosecution of Donald Trump for inciting violence on J6 requires a guilty mind, the prosecutors have hidden this information, which shows Trump’s priority was safety at the capitol; he wanted no violence. It should mean the charges are dropped.

The other piece of information relates to the media-forgotten story about the pipe bomber at the DNC on J6. After four years, officials still have not identified the person who planted the bomb. The security footage they released was grainy—in a way that current technology is not—and would not provide enough clarity, they said. This week Revolver News released testimony from a whistleblower—an investigator from a different government organization—who saw the actual security footage, which was clear, included both camera angles, and might possibly have provided identifiers (markings on clothing, facial recognition). He saw this at the DNC, not provided by the FBI. It appears FBI officials do not want the person identified. I (and plenty of others—see Dan Bongino) speculate that this was a plot to make it look like the soon-to-be-sworn-in VP Kamala Harris had an assassination attempt against her, but when adequate rioting broke out at the capitol building, they decided to push that insurrection narrative instead. We still don’t have an explanation for why Harris was at the DNC that historic day, when she was about to be named the first woman VP (and first Asian VP, and first black VP). We know she was at the DNC; her security entourage/vehicles are there. But she now claims she was afraid for her life at the capitol, with other senators supposedly under attack.

·       "BREAKING: Government Source Confirms FBI Dirty Tricks with Key Jan 6 Pipe Bomb Footage as Cover-Up Unravels” Revolver, September 25, 2024. 

Original footage, in video included in this Revolver story

One more Trump lawfare-related bonus item. Robert Gouveia had a conversation with Joe Sweeney, a former CIA lawyer specializing in classified document protection in legal cases, about his book Dangerous Injustice: How Democrats Weaponized DOJ to Protect Biden and Persecute Trump.  He details the many things wrong with the case against President Trump and the raid at Mar-a-Lago.

·       “Ex-CIA Lawyer Reveals TRUTH about Trump Raid and MORE” Joe Sweeney is on with Robert Gouveia, September 27, 2024. 

 

P Diddy Arrest

I do not know much about this performer. I would not recognize any of his music and would have to have any photo of him labeled to recognize him. However, this looks a lot like the Jeffrey Epstein case, in which a very rich person is surrounded by elites, and rumors abound that he has video of them in compromising situations, for blackmail or control purposes. While I heard it brought up on a number of podcasts, a quick online search for stories is bare of the conspiracy angle.

·       “Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs arrest and indictment: A timeline of key events” AP, September 18, 2024.

·       “The Reason P. Diddy's Famous Friends Have Likely Remained Silent Following His Arrest, According To A PR Expert” Erick Swann, CinemaBlend, September 28, 2024. 

 

Hurricane Helene

Water on Guy Ford Road bridge in Sugar Grove, North Carolina,
image from Jonathan Drake/Reuters, from here

This storm hit landfall near Tampa, Florida, as a category 4 hurricane. As the storm moved north and inland, six states have declared emergencies: Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. Warnings went out to 60 million people in 12 states. Many people remain without power, water, or cell service.

·       “September 26, 2024 news on Hurricane Helene” CNN Weather, September 26, 2024. Other stories from subsequent days also appear on this page. 

·       “‘It’s shocking’: Asheville devastated after historic floods from Helene” Angeli Gabriel, Fox Weather, September 28, 2024. This story showing damage from up to 30 inches of rain in North Carolina exemplifies the type of damage the storm has wrought over a large area. This story includes video. 

 

Conclusions

It was a big news week. And these stories may seem random. Maybe they are. But maybe we can look at them as signs of the times. The UN story and the various stories related to the Deep State in the US relate to the Revelation 13 sea beast, helped along by the other beast—the false speaker or propaganda beast. The P Diddy story may be part of that sea beast. Maybe not, but it definitely exemplifies evil.

Then there’s war in Israel, which might be a precursor to Armageddon. We’ll wait and see, and hope for mercy.

And the seas surge beyond their bounds, with catastrophes spreading across many states. Just a normal hurricane season? Maybe. Or maybe it’s an example of the bad stuff—the tribulations—of the last days. At some point, if I’m understanding scriptures accurately (a very iffy if), then other plagues or catastrophes will come that will be aimed mainly at the wicked, rather than anyone in the way. That means the ones we’re seeing now are a wake-up call: repent now; there’s not much time left. In scripture, blessing prophecies are always certain, but warning prophecies can be averted by repentance. And, at the very least, there is protection for the repentant.

The woman in the sky constellation, with asteroids, on the day of Hurricane Helene,
screenshot from here

There are interesting signs in the heavens. Christian Fire Poppy showed what was in the skies when the hurricane hit Florida.  As is typical, the signs in the heavens—often aptly named asteroids or comes or other heavenly bodies—show up around the constellation Virgo, or woman in the sky described in Revelation 12. We’re also about to see the coinciding of Rosh Hashanah, an annular eclipse, and probably more I’m not remembering in about a week. That also happens to be the weekend of the Worldwide General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’ll definitely be watching to hear from our 100-year-old prophet and other wise leaders, in case they have something to tell us on how to navigate these crazy times we’re in.

So, it’s just another week of concerning news, typical of the very last days foretold in prophecy.

A Little Last Days Speculation

This post is going to be somewhat different from the usual. I’m working through trying to understand some scriptures that apply to our day, and looking at what’s happening to see if they correlate. I am not unique in this particular interest. There are a multitude of YouTube channels dedicated to this. There are speeches and sermons and books galore.

But one of the benefits of this blog, for me, is that it helps clarify my thoughts. I clarify what I think by writing it out and trying to order things. And anyone who reads it is along for that ride, and hopefully also benefits from it.

So, with that, welcome to some last days speculation.

 

Let the Studies Begin

For me there has always been a back burner interest in the last days. But the emphasis at church had always been that we need to live our daily lives to be ready to meet God. That would most likely come through death. But maybe 20 years out we might imagine the Savior’s Second Coming. Always 20 years out. A moving goal post.

Until 2020. The pandemic was a wake up call for me. Was that one of the plagues foretold for the last days? When you read about those things in Revelation, they seem more dire. This was a bad illness. But it was treatable—although treatments were withheld. The economy and life in general were shut down for a good long while. Churches and temples were closed. In fact, the reaction to the pandemic seemed more of a plague than the pandemic itself. And then came the so-called vaccine—experimental, forced upon us, ostensibly to let society open back up—but it didn’t actually prevent illness or spread and couldn’t actually meet the definition of a vaccine. And lately health issues from the vaccine are the main news. Meanwhile the virus itself has mutated into the endemic status of a bad cold.

I may talk about the possibility that this was a particular apocalyptic plague some other day. For now, let’s just say it was a catalyst to get my attention. Sometime early in the lockdown, late spring of 2020, I saw a couple of videos that really got my attention.[i] They were speculating that the Second Coming could be much sooner than 20 years away. It might be within 10, or maybe 3-4 years. And I got excited. Great—more than dreadful—I thought. We can last through almost anything for a few more years.

This was comforting to me, as I watched the decay of our constitutional republic, which I love and have dedicated a lot of my time to preserving. It is unthinkable that we should have to tolerate a socialist dictatorship on this promised land for decades into the future, after all we have done to preserve freedom, prosperity, and civilization. May the Lord come quickly! Hosanna! (which means come and rescue, among other meanings).

As I began to study, I’ve found that there are a lot of people doing similar study, fitting it in among their daily lives, or maybe letting it take over. We’re supposed to watch and be ready. Those of us who have taken up this study sometimes even call ourselves watchers.[ii] Even if we don’t know the day nor the hour of His coming, we can see the signs and the season. It will be like a woman in travail; you don’t know the day nor the hour, but you feel the preparatory birthing pains, and recognize when they get harder and more frequent, so you know the time is imminent.

See, by the way, Revelation 12: 1-2. If you’re into looking at signs in the heavens, you might be aware that in September of 2017 the constellation of Virgo had Jupiter, the royal planet, birthed from the womb area after about nine months inside, while Virgo was “crowned” with twelve stars. You can, if you know how better than I do, find this on constellation trackers.

sign of woman in the heavens constellation,
screenshot from here

I’ve learned a lot since 2020, and I’m just scratching the surface. What I’m recognizing is that reading the scriptures, especially something as symbolic as Revelation or the dreams of Daniel, is open to interpretation. I try to find official sources when I can—in my Church, what do the prophets say about particular verses? And what do other Christians say? And what do other religions believe about these last days? At the bottom I’ll share some resources. There are plenty to keep a person occupied for all the time we have left.

I want to look at just one segment, relating I think to this nation, America.

 

The Two Beasts

Let’s look at Revelation 13, starting in verse 1 [note that I’m using the King James Version of the Bible, linking to ChurchofJesusChrist.org, which has a lot of helpful footnote links]:

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

La Bête de la Mer, a medieval tapestry depicting John the Revelator
seeing the dragon and the sea beast from Rev. 13

The beast coming out of the sea, if I understand the symbolism, means it crosses the oceans, covering multiple nations, or maybe all nations. The Joseph Smith Translation of this verse says, “And I saw another sign, in the likeness of the kingdoms of the earth: a beast rise up out of the sea, and he stood upon the sand of the sea, having seven heads….” I think that’s a clearer way to look at the verse.

Verse 2 further describes this beast, a leopard’s body, feet of a bear, mouth of a lion. Then,

And the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

The dragon refers to the devil. This beast, or multi-national entity, is empowered by Satan.

Verse 3 gets interesting. One of the heads gets a deadly wound, and then is healed, amazing all the world. I’ve speculated that in the 20^th Century we thought we had defeated the Marxist ideologies that led to so much mass murder—in addition to war and famine. Now, it’s as though these socialist ideas are revived to become mainstream, even here in America. Maybe that’s the head that the world thought was dead but that revived.

There’s a footnote in verse 4 for beast, describing it as Babylon. Symbolically, Babylon is Satan’s kingdom; Zion is God’s kingdom. As Neal A. Maxwell used to say,

“Let us once and for all establish our residence in Zion

and give up the summer cottage in Babylon.”

So, the beast represents Satan’s kingdom, an international entity, perhaps a cabal of many nations and organizations, given power to do evil.

I want to come back to a subsequent verse or two. But further down in the chapter is another beast, starting in verse 11:

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

This beast, this symbolic animal, has two horns like a lamb. But it is not a lamb—certainly not the Lamb. It speaks as a dragon—and as we know from just above, the dragon is Satan. It speaks the Devil’s words. It speaks falsely. Verse 12 tells what this false speaking land beast does:

And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

Verses go on to say this beast deceives the people of the earth, directing them to do the bidding of that other beast, the sea beast. This land beast can create images that seem incredible and convince many.

I call this land beast the propaganda beast.[iii] The liar. It says whatever the message of that sea beast might be. The worldwide cabal is given voice and image by the propaganda beast.

There are plenty of people who look at these verses and see one or the other of them as “the anti-Christ.” They are certainly both anti-Christ. But I do not believe these verses say we are to expect to see a particular person embodying them. I think the worldwide cabal is something we are actually seeing today. We could try to name the various heads and crowns and horns, but I don’t think it’s necessary to do more than say, Yes, there is certainly a worldwide cabal, and it’s as fierce and ugly as that symbolic description.

As for the land beast, the false speaker, I think we’re looking at mainstream media (speaking the lies), plus Hollywood (creating the image), plus academia (inculcating the lies)—anything that gives the lie that empowers that sea beast, or worldwide cabal. Propaganda beast seems to cover it, although that does sound milder than it is.

This combination of the two working in tandem does great damage, described in verse 15:

And he [the propaganda beast] had power to give life unto the image of the beast [the sea beast], that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

Cancel culture—figuratively killing anyone that doesn’t go along with the prescribed lies—could be one meaning. The loss of ability to work or function in society might be another. It could also mean literal death to some—at some point maybe to many. There’s more about being able to buy and sell—only if you take upon yourself the “mark” of the beast, which has to mean choosing to go along with the beast. That is, choosing Babylon instead of Zion; it can’t be inadvertent, it seems to me.

I want to back up to verse 5, talking about the sea beast again:

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

I was thinking about that forty and two months recently, which is what I’m really speculating about here today.

There are people who have put together timelines, using the numbers in scriptures. Forty-two months is 3 ½ years, which comes up a few times in last days scriptures. Forty-two months also comes up a couple of chapters earlier, referring to the two prophets raised up to Israel, who will walk in Jerusalem, witnessing and prophesying of God, and protecting Israel for forty-two months, before being killed and then rising again just before the Savior’s coming. I don’t know if that forty-two months coincides with this forty-two months of the beast’s reign, or any other 3 1/2- year segment. I just don’t know.

But I’m looking at this Chapter 13 time in conjunction with another possible last days thing.

 

The Eagle

There’s a prophecy in Esdras 2, or the second book of Ezra, an apocryphal book I was unaware of until my 2020 studies began. I’m looking at Chapters 11 and 12 mainly, a prophecy often called Ezra’s Eagle. One common interpretation of it is that it refers to America, in the last century or so. I’ve resisted this, but there are parts that may be true. The main image is a 3-headed eagle, which soars over the earth, influencing everywhere. Sounds like America, with its three co-equal branches of government. However, every interpretation I’ve heard says, rather casually, that those three eagle heads don’t depict the three branches of government, but three individuals who control things.[iv] I just say, no, that’s not how symbolic representation works. Why represent a nation with a three-headed eagle that has nothing to do with the nation’s three heads? So, let’s just agree this represents America, and maybe I’m right about the three branches of government.

As an aside, the three heads don’t survive; one is killed in sleep, and another gets eaten by the remaining head. Symbolically speaking, I’d say what you see is the legislative branch giving its work over to the executive branch through the regulatory state, and then the executive branch killing off the judicial branch through executive orders and a corrupt department of justice, plus all the corrupt three-letter agencies. Just a thought.

Image taken as screenshot from here.

The eagle is somewhat bedraggled. On one side it has a wing with feathers attached. Some are long, some are short, one is quite long. The interpretation chapter says these are rulers who come in turn, rule, then don’t show up again. A short feather means that rule was cut short. If you start with Herbert Hoover, these feathers line up to be the US presidents from him through Obama on that side. A regular long feather can go with a four-year or an eight-year presidency; either way it is a complete presidency. The short feathers happen to coincide with JFK and Nixon, and the really long one is FDR, who was elected four times, before the law was made to limit the president to two terms.

I can’t tell you why they start with Hoover. I heard a completely different interpretation recently in which there are parallels to the kings of northern ancient Israel. So, who knows. Anyway, if the modern America interpretation holds, there are a few more feathers on the other wing. The first one is a short feather, meaning it is an incomplete presidency. The second one is also a short feather, and is to be even shorter than the one before it. Some say there are two more feathers, but it looks to me like after the two attached feathers, then come two feathers that are loose, trying to attach, or rule, but unable.

So, if the other side completed with Obama, then the first short feather on the other side is Trump. When I first heard this interpretation, I resisted just because it looked like that meant removal from office because of death or impeachment. I think he’d already been through a failed impeachment attempt by then. What I didn’t anticipate was that he might actually be elected but unable to complete his presidency because of a stolen election. And I do believe that is what happened. It strains credulity to think a senile old man who didn’t campaign got more votes than anyone in history. And there’s plenty more to say about that, but I’ve mostly said it before.

So, if that interpretation of Ezra’s Eagle is accurate (a big if), then we should expect the Biden presidency to last a shorter amount of time than the full four years (that should have been eight) of Trump. Four years is forty-eight months. You know what is shorter than forty-eight months? Forty-two months.

Total speculation here, but what if the Biden presidency is the forty-two months of sea beast (the worldwide cabal) giving a mouth (and not much else) speaking what the sea beast gives the mouth to say, including blasphemies, or false doctrine, as the footnote indicates?

False doctrines might include things like “abortion is a woman’s right,” “gender is mutable, but sexual orientation is not,” “using fossil fuels is going to end life as we know it,” and “all white people are racist but black people can’t be racist.” I’m sure you can think of some more.

That would mean somewhere around late summer of 2024, the Biden presidency ends. I don’t know how. I do not wish him dead, nor do I predict that will be the way. Impeachment seems much more likely for someone as corrupt as he is. If it turns out he indeed caused the sabotage of the Nord Stream Pipeline, that is an act of war. Doing so unilaterally as president, putting the entire nation at risk, is treason. Add in the proof from the Hunter Biden laptop that he has taken money to favor foreign nations against US interests, and impeachment seems inevitable.

If that should happen about that time, then what? I don’t know. It’s only a couple of months before the 2024 election. I cannot accept (I cannot stomach the idea of) a Kamala Harris presidency, even for a few months. And the prophecy, if accurate, would say there would not be another attached feather after Biden. What then?

Well, maybe rule by the King of Kings, who has returned. That would be how I’d like to see it play out.

If things go longer, then one thing we could be looking at is a breakup of the United States. There’s what could be considered last days prophecy in the Book of Mormon, which we’re told is a parallel for our day, how precise we do not know. But in the years prior to the Savior’s coming to the Nephites on this continent following his resurrection, the people destroyed their government (which had been an elected government) and broken up into tribes. Are we going to see that? Breaking up into individual states? Or is the intersectionality going on now a kind of tribalism?

Everything seems easier to see in retrospect—like that sign of the woman in heaven we saw in  2017, coinciding with an eclipse and the biblically proportioned floods in Houston called Hurricane Harvey, which certainly got our attention here.

Earthquakes are picking up. Birthing pains, are they? Maybe. There’s snow on the beach in California as I write this, which is pretty weird. In 2020 there were so many weird things, we started referring to them as apocalypse bingo. It included summer snow in China, and locusts, and murder hornets, and fires over large swaths of he earth.

Do we really need to wait until things are cinematically apocalyptic looking? Or are we seeing things now? I believe we’ll know soon. And I wish I knew precisely how to define soon.

 

Resources:

As I mention in the footnotes, I started with these two videos:

·        “7 Year Tribulation in the Seventh Seal Timeline,” by Masayoshi Montemayor, on Millennial Reign, March 12, 2020. 

·        “NEW Revelation & Daniel SECOND EDITION (PART 1 of 4)” by Jodi Stoddard 

o   Part 2 

o   Part 3 

o   Part 4 

Here are a few on Ezra’s Eagle:

·        “What Do The Scriptures Say About President Donald J Trump -See Ezra's Eagle?” Last Days Timeline, March 10, 2017

·        “Ezra’s Eagle,” Michael B. Rush, January 31, 2021 

·        “Ezra’s Eagle, The Background,” Christian Homestead, May 26, 2022

·        “Ezra's Eagle Repent America” New Evidences for Joseph Smith, November 14, 2022. 

A few YouTube Channels and Websites:

·        Christian Homestead. Jared Davies puts out content daily. He’s very low-key and casual, but he does good research. He has a spreadsheet available online with a wealth of information he’s tracking, from things Latter-day Saint prophets have said, to earthquakes happening around the world.

·        Watcher Palmer. Scott Palmer talks about a lot of gospel related things, and sometimes things related to what’s going on in the world. His followers are called the Community of Watchers, or COWS, which is fun. Again, low-key, low-budget, and an individual thinker. As I mention in the footnote, I grew up with him from elementary school, and my husband knew him as a missionary, because in the Church it’s a small world.

·        The Last Dispensation.  Troy Ables also covers a wide variety of topics, but often last days. He and Scott Palmer and Jared Davies all know each other and sometimes collaborate on videos. All three are from a Latter-day Saint perspective.

·        The Happy Lady. This is another Latter-day Saint. I’ve only watched a few. They are long. She sounds bubbly and not what I’d expect, but her research is actually pretty fascinating. Sometimes she makes connections where I would not (a lot of numbers have meaning to her, and she sees them everywhere), but that’s OK. There was one I watched on the Sami people and other “lost tribes” that had me wanting to go do a DNA test.  Not all are last days related, but the ones I’ve seen have been.

·        The Watchman with Erick Stakelbeck. This is a Christian guy in the US who covers daily news and all things related to Israel.

·        One for Israel Ministry. This is a ministry of Jewish Christians. It’s an interesting perspective, not typically last days related, I don’t think, but it’s good to understand Jewish customs to help understand last days prophecies.

·        The Temple Institute. This is a website of all things Jewish (not Christian), preparing for the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. It’s fascinating.

 

Scriptures to Get Started and Study Aids:

·        Revelation 

·        Daniel  

·        Doctrine & Covenants 45 

·        Old Testament Student Manual Kings-Malachi 

·        New Testament Student Manual, especially chapters 53-56 on Revelation 

 

---

[i] I started with this one by Masayoshi Montemayor, and one by Jodi Stoddard, which were redone and posted in four parts, starting here. Both do timelines, slightly different, showing things happening very soon. Both are from a Latter-day Saint perspective. Both have things that I do not totally agree with, now after more study. But there are some good facts in them, and they’re a good starting place.

[ii] One YouTube channel I follow regularly is Watcher Palmer. (I actually went to school with him, elementary through high school, and my husband knew him as a missionary. Small world.) He and his followers started referring to themselves as the Community of Watchers, or COWS, which allows for some good cow pictures for graphic T-shirts and whatnot.

[iii] I first came to this understanding of the sea beast and the land beast from a lecture by Hyrum Andrus, posted to YouTube around 2017, but was actually from the late 1980s. I saw it in 2020. They all look alike, but I think it is this one. 

[iv] The first introduction I had to Ezra’s Eagle was this video from 2017, which I watched in May 2020. I still resist much of the interpretations, but some of it keeps coming to mind, so I’m entertaining the possibilities.

What’s Going On?

There’s a meme going around this week, picturing Forest Gump saying, “And just like that your social media friends change from infectious disease experts into international relations experts.”

I am neither. Just a curious person who reads and listens to a lot of different sources in my efforts to understand what’s going on. I think I’ve gotten better at understanding, the more I educate myself. Right now I’m just beginning to try to understand this Russian invasion of Ukraine.

I’m going to step back from that and look at some history, starting with a prophecy.

Doctrine and Covenants 87:1-2

1 Verily, thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls;

2 And the time will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at this place.

That was given December 25, 1832. It was reiterated April 2, 1843:

Doctrine and Covenants 130:12

12 I prophesy, in the name of the Lord God, that the commencement of the difficulties which will cause much bloodshed previous to the coming of the Son of Man will be in South Carolina.

The Civil War indeed began in South Carolina, not quite 30 years after the 1832 prophecy was given. After that time, what has war looked like throughout the world? It may not look to us as if war has been continuous, but since that time, somewhere in the world there have been nation-entangling wars.

screenshot from the PragerU video "WWI: The War That Changed Everything"

This is more obvious when we get to World War I, in 1914. As historian Andrew Roberts explains in a Prager U video,

If there had been no World War I, there would have been no Russian Revolution, no World War II, no Holocaust, no Cold War.

And that doesn’t even consider the millions who died in the war itself.

It happened after a period of growth and prosperity brought on by the Industrial Revolution. As Roberts puts it, “The future of civilization never looked brighter. And then, suddenly, it all went up in flames.”

It was kind of a forest fire, with one tree lighting another. Roberts makes the connections for us:

The fuse was lit in June 1914, in a street in Sarajevo, Bosnia. It was there that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist. It should have been no more than a sad footnote in history. Instead, it changed history.

In its attempts at revenge for the murder, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. They got the blessing of their ally Germany to do so.

Small and vulnerable Serbia then reached out to its ally Russia for protection, which Russia agreed to do.

Russia sought support from France, in case war broke out. France was suspicious of Germany’s intentions and agreed.

Germany then thought it wise to move pre-emptively against France, invading through neutral Belgium. This invasion got Britain’s attention, and they stepped in to protect France from Germany.

And just like that an obscure murder led to the outbreak of war across a continent. Germany’s long-time Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, had designs on dominating Europe—and then the world. (As I read that description, I picture the mad laughter that must accompany such a declaration.)

Fighting raged on for three years, and then seemed to be at a stalemate, with appalling casualties heretofore unseen.

Andrew Roberts, screenshot from PragerU video
 "WWI: The War That Changed Everything"

Then the US got involved. Woodrow Wilson, who was elected on the promise that he would keep America out of the war, changed his mind. Canada, as part of the UK, was involved and pressuring their American neighbors, if I’m remembering right. But, as Roberts explains,

[Wilson’s] attitude changed when Germany attacked American merchant ships in the Atlantic.

The final straw was the infamous Zimmerman Telegram in which Germany promised to give Mexico, in exchange for its military support, much of the American southwest, including Texas.

A year later the war ended. There were massive casualties. And the outcomes did not really look like peace:

Russia was now in the hands of Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks. France and Britain were physically and morally shattered. Germany, forced into a humiliating surrender treaty at Versailles, would soon be further decimated by runaway inflation that destroyed what was left of its economy. Meanwhile, the United States retreated into isolationism.

It was pause, not a peace. The stage was being set for a new and very much worse disaster—a second World War, one that would lead to three times the deaths of the first one.

It would be instigated by a madman who fought for the Kaiser and shared the same dream of world domination.

Had it not been for WWI, we would have never heard of him.

But we did hear of him. A literary time-traveler question is, if you could go back in time and assassinate Hitler before he could come to power, should you do it?

You can’t change history after it has happened. And evil has a way of finding those willing to perpetrate it.

So, the years between WWI and WWII were really just a pause while pressure built up.

screenshot from PragerU video "What Was the Cold War?"

WWII ended without completely ending—which led to the Cold War. Andrew Roberts does another Prager U video about that. In describing it, he says,

It was cold only in the sense that the Russians and the Americans never came to direct blows.

But it was certainly not cold for the Cubans, Koreans, Vietnamese, and others who got caught up in the Communists' relentless drive to destabilize the free, democratic, capitalist world.

There were, to be sure, many morally complex moments during this long struggle, but the Cold War was, at its core, as clear a conflict of good versus evil as World War II had been. Just like that war, the Cold War was a death match between the forces representing freedom and the forces representing totalitarianism.

The instigator, Roberts asserts, was the mass-murdering Russian dictator Joseph Stalin. As he says,

Stalin knew that his Soviet armed forces could not take on the might of the free West. Instead, he decided to wage this fight through the use of proxies, and by a massive use of disinformation and misinformation.

screeenshot from "What Was the Cold War?"

Did we mention that he was mendacious? At the end of WWII, he had troops in Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia. He promised President Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference that he would remove them, but he never had any intention of doing so. Instead, he easily took control of their governments, pulling them into the Russian-dominated Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

When he threatened Greece and Turkey, that’s when Pres. Truman stepped in and declared the Truman doctrine of containment. It was at this point that:

The Cold War was on.

For the next five decades, and across four continents—Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America—the US and the Soviet Union battled for influence—sometimes overtly, like in Korea and Vietnam; and sometimes covertly, through their various spy agencies. But the moral lines of this battle never changed: the freedom of the West versus the communist tyranny of the Soviet East.

Containment wasn’t really enough. Stalin and his successor made it clear then—and archival evidence now proves—that there was no appeasement possible. The intention was always to make Communism the worldwide preeminent ideology—which is tyranny.

It was thanks to three strong leaders—Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II—that liberty prevailed in the Cold War. The USSR at this point was defeated—and broken up. Roberts explains,

The Soviet Union was, at the close of the 1980s, to use historian Paul Johnson's description, “a bewildered giant”—economically bereft, militarily exhausted, no longer able or willing to enforce its will.

Communism, he reminds us, failed economically, politically, and morally—as it always has. All that suffering was for a “never-viable and now badly discredited cause.”

The Cold War ended. Take a breath, and almost immediately thereafter was the Gulf War. That ended with a treaty that was never kept, so ills just kept brewing.

Then in 2001 came 9/11, and that meant war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Relative peace was forfeited in Afghanistan just months ago. Now Russia has invaded Ukraine.

Wars and rumors of wars are mostly continuous now.

Are there reasons and intrigues that it would help to understand? Yes. But our understanding won’t prevent them.

Another scripture, about the approach of the Second Coming of Christ:

Matthew 24:6–7

6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

I think this means the wars we’re seeing now are not temporary. Specific ones may end, but others are likely to rise up elsewhere.

If you want to understand what’s happening, study the scriptures and read about the last days. And then, instead of being in fear, stand against tyranny and savagery, and stand up for freedom and civilization. Stand on God’s side. Then watch, with personal peace, as His coming, for you, is the long-anticipated Great, rather than Dreadful, Day of the Lord (Malachi 4:5-6).