Just look at what is going on in the nations and our own culture. There are plenty of indicators. Nearly all the end time prophecies have been fulfilled. Have you heard this: “If Jesus doesn’t return or God doesn’t send a surgical nuke strike soon, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom & Gomorrah.” As I have archived the prophet’s warnings, I have calculated whether the Earth’s nations have witnessed such barbarism, immorality, disrespect, hate, greed, ad infinitum earlier. Yes. And there was no Rapture. Jesus did not come back. Could there be other things going on—like activity in the Heavens? Or crazy behavior by mankind that is an outlier to God’s eternal plan?

2026 will be the 250^th anniversary of America as a nation. I’m not sure if we will make it through 2024 or even have an election in November. Rabbi Daniel Lepin appears on TV occasionally. I have a couple of his books. He is a mystery to me. He conducted research on history and found that nations, Empires last about 250 years—approximately.

• Babylonian Empire (1780 BC to 1530 BC): 250 years
• Assyrian Empire (860 BC to 612 BC): 246 years.
• Pax Romana of the Roman Empire (27 BC to 213 AD): 240 years.
• Spanish Empire (1492 to 1742 AD): 250 years.
• Pre-Communist Russia Empire (1682 to 1916):234 years.
• British Empire (1700 to 1950):250 years.

Pastor Phil Hotenspiller (Influence Church—California) It’s Midnight in America, Charisma House, ©2024, Quotes Rabbi Lepin:

“…In Genesis we see “ten generations” as repeated blocks of time, specifically, the ten generations from Adam to Noah (Gen. 5:1-29) and then from Noah to Abraham (Gen 11:10-26). More than seeing generations merely as specific time spans, he observes the significance of Hebrew names provided and discerns a pattern of how empires grow and then decline.” (Page 122):

First Generation: bold breakout and conquest

Second Generation: commercial expansion

Third Generation: splendid buildings

Fourth Generation: widespread affluence

Fifth Generation: zenith and the best of days

Sixth Generation: extending influence beyond borders with money instead of military

Seventh Generation: rising political power of women & of the intellectual & academic elite.

Eighth Generation: influx of foreigners

Ninth Generation: eat, drink and be merry

Tenth Generation: internal political and civic fracture

“Each generation has a little less character strength than its preceding generation. Each generation’s parents want their children to “have it better that we did.” Invariably they mean materially, not spiritually. Additionally, each generation views the previous generation’s luxuries as its necessities. Eventually, this seems to lead inevitably to a generation incapable of sustaining its own verity. The sad process typically takes about ten generations.”

“If we are talking about democracies, Rabbi Lapin’s estimate of 250 years may be a little optimistic.” (Page 123—Midnight;  &  Only Six More Years?—Lapin

Day after tomorrow my cardiologist is going to shock my heart back into rhythm. I didn’t know it was out until a doctor said after looking at me “You’re in A-Fib right now.” When I read the above quotes, I felt like I had been shocked or shaken into a clearer, focused vision of what may be going on.

“If 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 I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

It must have been 2020 when serious Jesus followers started quoting 2 Chronicles 7:14:

After a few weeks or months, I began to ask questions. I had turned from all the wicked ways I could dig up. I questioned my humility, my prayer habit and if I really was seeking. I wondered if not only did my family have to pray, but the people who depend on MSNBC and CNN for their news would also have to turn, humble, seek, pray. And if they would not or did not, would the promised healing be withdrawn?

Dean, don’t forget that some of the Old Testament covenants were God-given to the Hebrews and not necessarily to the people of the New Covenant. Is “heal their land” referring to The Promised Land? I think any nation, any land, any people that practices the requirements of 2 Chronicles 7:14 meet God’s requirements and the healing is on the way. Am I responsible for humbling others? How about seeking, turning, praying as a proxy? God doesn’t accept mail-in repentance. Am I to conclude I did not humble myself adequately?

There must be something else going on!

Around the turn of the nineteenth century a Scottish lawyer/ historian (Alexander Fraser Tytler) made this observation:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greats civilizations from the beginning of history has been 200 years. During those 200 years these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

• from bondage to spiritual faith:

• from spiritual faith to great courage;

• from courage to liberty;

• from liberty to abundance;

• from abundance to selfishness;

• from selfishness to complacency;

• from complacency to apathy;

• from apathy to dependence;

• from dependence back into bondage.”

(Adam Drakos, “Tytler’s Circle of Civilizations” ThinkingWest, November 16, 2022, https://thinkingwest.com/2022/11/16/tytlers-cycle-of-civilizations.)

Dean, let me ‘splain’ a possibility:

Someone posted an explanation for the decline of faith and/or church attendance. “Christianity has outlived its ‘use by date.’” Could the nations of this world have faced the “end times” before and some other country became “owners” of the land? Is that what is happening to USA now? Splain to me why scholars I trust say we are butting up against the Second Coming of Jesus?

I am (most of the time) a pre-millenialist—which means I believe Jesus will rapture His People before the Tribulation. I have been wondering why Jesus did not return around the time of WWII—and the attempt to extinguish the Jews. God knows we have some historical anti-Christs.

I’m also wondering if we could be facing “the end times” of Western Civilization that is distinct from Jesus’ Rapture. Something very thought provoking about this evaluation of God:

“God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change” (2 Peter  3:9Msg.).

Mystery is everywhere in God’s economy of time and global plans. There are clues we are wise to sort. I’m not claiming Revelation or wisdom, just questions and maybe some wondering.

Shouldn’t the biblical prophets and the traditional secular futurists be examining the repetitive causes, behaviors, worldviews, sins that dominate reasons nations and empires self-destructing at 200-250 years? Should not the most evangelistic local churches be busy proclaiming hope, healing and deliverance?

“Look among the nations and watch—be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe though it were told you” (Habakkuk 1:5).

Don’t want to be predictable here. 200-250 years—I don’t know how much time we have. This blog is not complete without the words of these two songs.

Redemption Draws Night (Written by Gordon Jensen)     Performed by Mylon Hayes Family

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfE_TDyG9DY

“In A Little While,”   (Written by Alvin Love III–CeCe’s son) Performed by  CeCe Winans, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI70E6SVmBQ 

Copyright (c) D. Dean Benton