Tom Gilbreath

Consider how many of God’s greatest gifts to humanity flowed through the pipeline of Israel. Western civilization goes hand in hand with Judeo-Christian values. Many others also helped create the culture we now enjoy, including the Greeks and the Romans. But ultimately, the best part of the civilization built and bequeathed to us by our ancestors, rests on the shoulders of Abraham, Moses, and, most of all, Jesus. 

These ways of thinking have infected American adults, but not just Americans. It is global. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 describes it as a phenomenon of “the last days,” explicitly attributing childlike behavior and attitudes to adults. Society is geared to childish thinking. Social media encourages simple thoughts condensed into short, ad copy style wording. People in our time don’t want detailed, thoughtful reasoning, but drop mic moments.

A thousand miles away, New York Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani declared on X, “This morning, an ICE agent murdered a woman in Minneapolis.” He needed no investigation and no trial. And with that we begin to see what a socialist/communist future looks like. That kind of knee-jerk rush to judgment is fueling the new lynch mob mentality permeating a large portion of American society. 

Without knowable truth, everything rests on opinions, and opinions mold themselves into whatever shape seems most convenient. In such an existence, the thing we call “truth” becomes a mere justification for our desires and feelings. In politics, truth has become a commodity to be manufactured, bought, and sold — something that can be molded to fit the tastes of whatever audience the politician wants to reach at that moment. While freedom from objective truth can at first feel liberating, it eventually entraps and entombs people in a nightmare of shifting ground.

Uses of digital ID will grow. How long before people will need it in order to access healthcare or to open a bank account? And as we move into a cashless world, some kind of bank account will soon be mandatory for buying and selling. A digital ID allows government to extend its reach into the minutia of daily life like never before. 

When people called on Heritage to cut ties with Carlson, Roberts made an angry video defending the interview in no uncertain terms. Conservatives across America condemned him and the foundation. So, he tried to walk it back. Roberts pointed out that, under his leadership, Heritage had started something called Project Esther, meant to combat antisemitism. But after his video, several members of that team resigned. Then, after his “apology,” even more of them quit.

The woke say they stand against “occupiers” and those who try to “erase” indigenous people. But anti-Jew hatred has become so great that they freely use the name given to the land by occupying Romans who renamed it for the express purpose of erasing the Jews. Is their problem really with “occupiers” or is it just Jews and Christians they hate?

Bible prophecy makes clear that humanity will remain stuck with the scourge of war until the Prince of Peace Himself returns and begins His millennial rule. Roosevelt called that “a distant millennium,” but it may not be all that distant. Bible prophecy centers on Middle Eastern wars in the last days. So, no, don’t expect the present peace plan to lead to “an everlasting peace in the Middle East.”

The shooting of Charlie Kirk was especially difficult because, while only one person pulled the trigger, millions rejoiced. That thought staggers the mind. Large numbers of Americans were positively overjoyed by the gruesome murder. In Matthew 12:34, Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” If we go by the words we find on social media, we must conclude that hearts have grown dark and evil across the land.

Today, people have been programmed to see the Bible as a collection of oppressive myths — no more true or holy than the collective works of Steve Martin. “The Bible says…” does not carry the weight it did with previous generations of Americans. For this reason, some Christian ministers have concluded that the Bible should no longer be the centerpiece of evangelism. They could not be more wrong.

Modern education’s most egregious sin may be that of intentionally driving a wedge between children and their parents. They do this in hundreds of ways. It makes teachers more powerful, but it messes up kids. The educational establishment seems intent on destroying families and churches. And they are reaping what they have sown.

Bringing peace to Ukraine and Russia is a goal worthy of praise. But it’s not enough. Being as perfect as our Father in heaven requires an entire life of righteousness. Think of God’s law as a unified whole. Break any part of it, and you have broken the law. Break any part of it, and you are a lawbreaker. That’s us. That’s all of us. Getting to heaven requires more than we can achieve. Only Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness.

According to the Bible, all generations sin. But that does not mean all generations are the same. Things can get better, and they can get worse. The morals of individuals and of societies can improve or deteriorate. Choices have meaning and consequences.

Martin Luther, one of history’s great men of faith in Christ, took a wrong turn. The results in human history have been devastating. His achievements are many, and they have endured across time. Sadly, so have his flaws. Martin Luther let an age-old evil rise up within him, and it wound up ruling a significant part of his life and legacy. At one point, it practically destroyed his German homeland. The old evil was an unreasoning hatred for Jews.

Will we stand on God’s Word, or conform to this world? It has become politically expedient for many on that side (though far from all) to call Israel an “apartheid state,” or even equate them to the Nazis who once murdered more than a third of all Jews worldwide. Then, in just the last few months, a large group of conservatives have joined the most extreme liberals regarding Israel. Conservative voices you perhaps once thought you could trust are today saying things like, “Drop Israel.”

In 1981, Israel struck and destroyed an almost finished nuclear reactor in Sadam Hussein’s Iraq. The backlash was severe. The New York Times called it “inexcusable” and “short-sighted.” The Times turned out to be wrong on both counts. New Delhi Television wrote in 2023, “Many nations condemned Israel for the airstrike on the nuclear reactor. But after the first Gulf War in 1990-91, leaders retroactively supported the incredible operation as the Israeli attack prevented Iraq from eventually acquiring nuclear weapons.”

“If your Christian faith is discovered in North Korea, you could be killed on the spot. If you aren't killed, you will be deported to a labor camp and treated as a political criminal. You will be punished with years of hard labor that few survive. And it's not only you who will be punished: North Korean authorities are likely to round up your extended family and punish them too, even if your family members aren't Christians.”

We do not see the events of tribulation, but we can see shadows of that future. The world is being prepared — the stage set. When we see shadows of the tribulation creeping into our time, it reminds us that those terrible days are close. And if the tribulation is close, then the rapture has to be closer.

On a map, the world’s only Jewish state looks like a small sliver in the vast lands of the Middle East. Including Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank), Israel occupies only 10,000 square miles in a Middle East region of 8.4 million square miles. Yet in the news and in the minds of humanity, the nation of Israel looms large. 

The Bible talks about a future war where Russia and Iran lead a coalition of nations in an all-out assault on Israel. That war will one day happen whether Iran has nukes or not. The Bible says this massive attack will not defeat Israel. But it gives no such assurances about the future of the United States.

To honor such a nation is an insult to Christians and all those who hold liberty dear. State Representative Joanne Shofner and a few others voted “no” on the resolution. She gave a brief, but profound reason for her no vote to the Texas House Journal. She said, “I support the persecuted Christians of Pakistan.” So should we all.

The fires of antisemitism run hot and go deep, and the winds of war blow its embers everywhere. As rage against Israel grows throughout the world, Israel becomes ever more desperate for peace. And that is setting them up for the deceptions of the Antichrist.

In Qatar and Egypt — far from the fighting in Gaza — Hamas leaders live in luxury. They make their considerable money working as administrators of a giant terror machine. These leaders show little consideration for the people of Gaza, or even for their most fervent followers. Their loyalty is to themselves and the continued wealth brought to them by the war. 

It’s perilous to live in a world where people’s greatest love is the love of self and of money. Ungodly pride makes humans dangerous; makes them easily offended and quick to vengeance. When brutality becomes the norm, society grows more perilous. When people hold truth in low regard, slander becomes widespread, and widespread slander erodes all systems of justice.

From that continent, Christianity, along with the freedoms that follow it, spread to much of the world. Now, rights such as the freedoms of religion and speech abruptly end with the application of one of several labels. And those labels are easily applied by the government so that government leaders can protect their power. The labels include “hate,” “radical,” and “extremist.”

Today, lying and deception have become industrialized. We now have machines with which to spread lies like no generation before us. More than that, we have machines with the ability to create their own lies. That’s new and unexpected. The internet and artificial intelligence (AI) have done for deception what paved roads did for cars. 

On the first night of the Palisades and Eaton fires, the Los Angeles news media began using the word “apocalyptic” to describe what they saw — fires sometimes as far as the eye could see, burning some of America’s most beautiful neighborhoods. Later, they would look at the areas left by those fires and see a moonscape of gray ash.

He has spoken. Ezekiel 12:25 says, “For I am the Lord. I speak…” Stop and consider the wonder and the beauty of that statement. God, the Creator of the universe, has chosen to speak to humanity. He has chosen to communicate with us. He declares to us “things to come.”

Continue “the good fight.” Realize that we are still in a spiritual battle zone. Finish “the race.” Don’t relax too soon. Fulfill God’s calling in your life. We will soon be going home, either by death or by rapture. What we do in this world, we must do quickly.