Joel Rosenberg writes, “God has not given us Bible prophecy to scare us but to prepare us.”
We reserve a few minutes to discuss current trends that you’d expect from reading Bible prophecy.
We are futurists. We interpret all unfulfilled prophetic passages as future events that will occur in a literal, physical, apocalyptic, and global context.
Biometrics, Artificial Intelligence, cashless commerce, the manipulation of human DNA, global government, the exponential growth of human knowledge, and the rebirth of national Israel are End Times phenomena the Bible predicts. All of these are increasingly trending in the news.
We haven’t talked about human trafficking. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defines it, the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.
Every year, millions of men, women, and children are trafficked worldwide – including right here in the United States. It can happen in any community and victims can be any age, race, gender, or nationality. Traffickers might use violence, manipulation, or false promises of well-paying jobs or romantic relationships to lure victims into trafficking situations.
According to a September 2017 report from the International Labor Organization (ILO) and Walk Free Foundation:
An estimated 24.9 million victims are trapped in modern-day slavery.
Of these, 16 million (64%) were exploited for labor, 4.8 million (19%) were sexually exploited, and 4.1 million (17%) were exploited in state-imposed forced labor.
Forced labor takes place in many different industries:
Of the 16 million trafficking victims exploited for labor.
7.5 million (47%) forced labor victims work in construction, manufacturing, mining, or hospitality.
3.8 million (24%) forced labor victims are domestic workers.
1.7 million (11%) forced labor victims work in agriculture.
The breakdown of men, women, and children is:
71% of trafficking victims around the world are women and girls.
29% are men and boys.
15.4 million victims (75%) are aged 18 or older, with the number of children under the age of 18 estimated at 5.5 million (25%).
Reading the Bible as a futurist, you expect this “new slavery” (as some call it) to be increasing worldwide.
You expect it because in the Revelation of Jesus Christ there is a list of commodities that characterize the economy of the future Great Tribulation.
It lists the following: “merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen and purple, silk and scarlet, every kind of citron wood, every kind of object of ivory, every kind of object of most precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble; and cinnamon and incense, fragrant oil and frankincense, wine and oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and bodies and souls of men” (18:12-13). That’s trafficking.
You’ve heard of ‘preppers,’ right? They are stocking up, getting ready for a catastrophe. There’s nothing wrong with it. Like Scar said in The Lion King, “Be prepared!”
The devil is something of a prepper.
He is preparing Earth for the antichrist’s global government. Trafficking the bodies and souls of human beings is one thing he is establishing going into that awful time.
We believe the resurrection and rapture of the church are imminent. It could happen any moment; nothing needs to happen before it. It will happen before the Great Tribulation.
Jesus will return in the clouds.
He will raise the dead in Christ.
He will transform the bodies of living believers to glorified, resurrection bodies.
We will all join Him in Heaven while the earth endures one final seven-year campaign of severe evangelism.
Are you ready for the rapture? If not, Get ready; Stay ready; Keep looking up.
Ready or not, Jesus is coming!