Observe the progress of an ancient civilisation:


King David presided over a united land… but his sons fought to take it away from him.


Later, when the land was divided, his descendant King Jehoshaphat attempted to mend relations between Judah and Israel… but the corrupt nature of Israel sought instead to have him killed, and damaged the line of Davidic rule.


When Israel was captured by the Assyrians, the prophet Isaiah would point to the forces approaching Jerusalem; the spokesman for the Assyrians gave a final warning… and finally King Hezekiah appealed to God to save them… which He did.


As later generations corrupted the land of Judah and Jerusalem beyond measure, the prophet Jeremiah would point to the (far more ruthless) Chaldeans as they approached Jerusalem… But the king Zedekiah chose not to rely on God; the walls of Jerusalem was breached, he fled, was caught, and retained his eyes only long enough to see his sons slaughtered by the Chaldean King.


- and that was the “progress” of a land which was uniquely owned by God!


Now, the world is filled with prophets – scientists, rulers, and ordinary people - looking over the battlements at our approaching nemesis, and calling out:




We had already long lost the unity in the world... our Jehoshaphat has not succeeded in turning all swords into ploughshares, and statecraft has depleted the world of its resources…


So… we are waiting for our Hezekiah to call to God to save us, to pray for the army of climate anomalies to be wiped out overnight. But it is worth noting from history that although King Hezekiah was a good man, he was reduced to wearing sack-cloth – and the starving people of Jerusalem were on the verge of having to eat their own excrement and urine [2^nd Kings 18:27] – before he heeded the prophet Isaiah and approached the God Who had long been waiting to hear from him.


We need not be reduced to that state. We have just a few moments in which to heed the prophets before the Rabshakeh of the climate crisis shouts its penultimate threat. Instead, we could choose to taste that resignation at our vulnerability, sigh a little, but approach God calmly – gratefully – instead of in desperation. We can dress neatly – as is fitting for an approach to a King – with a warm demeanour and a genuine yearning to meet Him, rather than crawl with a pained expression on the face.


The events of history are set in the scriptures to show us what will happen – and yet, good King Josiah postponed the dreadful calamity by being pro-active in rushing toward his God to ask for favour, years before Jerusalem was overthrown… we have the opportunity, our Hezekiah can still be a Josiah…


All it takes is to look at what the prophets and the vast majority of the land already see so clearly… it is as straightforward to do as is our destruction if we do not act. An aloof king has a Pyrrhic victory - and their names are quite well known - but now look at those finer kings, mostly less familiar names and faces, the ones we have barely heard of, whose voices are repeatedly ignored, and remember them – because they are already warmly remembered in the Heavens to which we must approach for our rescue.

There is no shortage of claims for prophetic fulfilment: the Schumacher-Levy string of rocks which struck Jupiter’s Jovian atmosphere was marked as an assault on God - a sign of the last days; the terrible on-going world events declared to be a sure sign that the adversary had been thrown out of Heaven in fulfilment of Revelation 12 - quite forgetting all the centuries of mayhem prior to John’s writing of Revelation; the child prodigy who can recite the Torah from memory being proof of his being the Messiah - ignoring that he also memorises your bank account details; and even the American embassy moving to Jerusalem has been marked by some as "the disgusting thing" of Luke 21 prior to the great tribulation.


A little wishful thinking, a pious attitude, a lilt to the voice, and every-day events are imbued with prophetic significance - most especially when a religion or a preacher depends upon it being so.


The surest way of checking if our days are fulfilling prophecy is to reject all emotion, all grand statements, and simply look at what is there - and then, ask some non-believers what they think! Our Lord declared that we could all discern the weather and the seasons - believer and non-believer - so let them be the touchstone for credibility.


We have three undeniable facts:




From the viewpoint of an atheist, a belief in God is not directly the issue. Crudely, the message in the scroll (albeit attributed to a Divine Being) is on trial, just as a writing of the mystic Nostradamus would be on trial. The climate crisis is attested to by countless atheist scientists - all long-term experts in their field. And the leaning of human nature toward profit - even in the face of a crisis - is well known. And while a crisis tipping-point does make people co-operate, there is no certainty that such a tipping-point can be overturned just by human intervention.


Without speaking of prophecy or God’s intervention, the average atheist looks at these and concludes we are on the road to global catastrophy, perhaps even human extinction.


Current events certainly prove the 1^st prophecy of the scriptures that Mankind would crumble if it lived independent of God [Genesis 2:17] - we have not all died, but civilisation is fracturing and will become harder to maintain as the crisis deepens. But the secondary proof - that staying close to God would have protected us - requires Divine intervention, a rescue; in the face of our nemesis, such a rescue for everyone alive would be greeted with world-wide appreciation! ... exactly what the 1st earthly sign of the vision of Revelation describes [Revelation 5:13]. These two scriptures act as book-ends - not for belief, or religion, or worship, but for our era of independence from God. The first is already being proved, the second completes the proof and grants credence to the rest of the vision of Revelation, Christ’s active earthly reign.


...so what of the view of believers?


A great drawback of religions’ repeated claims to the fulfilment of prophecy in the past is that they tend to reflect a religion’s own doctrines. For example, one which does not believe that the Messiah had already been in the form of Jesus Christ will believe a young Jewish prodigy, whereas Christian churches will not; a church which owns a "holy relic" will believe it to be genuine despite evidence both Biblical and carbon-dating evidence to the contrary; and as each religion is the mythical "one-true religion" it will refuse to give credence to anything which contradicts its own beliefs...


Some religions preach that Christ’s reign has already begun - even though that first earthly event of the vision of Revelation has not yet taken place. Others claim that the state of the world proves that Armageddon is imminent - any day or week or month now - yet this 16^th or 20^th event cannot take place before the first. Others preach that their friends have gone to Heaven and are guiding them, or that some of them have been "raptured" up to Heaven - all of which is even further in the future than Armageddon. The first things must come first - one doesn’t put on shoes before the stockings.


With so much vested interest in their own doctrines, religions reject the Divine Rescue. No matter how well the evidence fits, however straightforward, they have to resort to their own claims of an imminent Divine slaughter of the unrighteous - as if the kindness of God to rescue everyone, believer or non-believer, is somehow too kind when every innocent of the world is facing an unprecedented disaster.


Here we have the touchstone: that atheists can understand the very scriptual issue which theists refuse to consider. All emotion, all colouring aside, these scientific ones understand the reasoning, and are prepared to give a measure of credence to it, whereas believers feel they have to reject it because it portrays God as kind enough to rescue all who are in danger.


Actually, that kind all-encompassing rescue was mentioned by our Lord, who compared the Kingdom of Heaven to a trawler catching fish of every kind - which were only sifted later, on the shore. Revelation describes some truly horrible people - surely if it were only the righteous who were rescued, they could not sink so low in such a short space of time.


Every eye which can understand the weather can understand the time - that we are approaching a Biblical style catastrophy. And lacking all other options for survival, each of those eyes sees that it is sensible to give - not complete belief, but a measure of credence in the Bible’s promised rescue; they still remain atheistic, but they have reasoned on what is there - something which religion, through its self-importance, has long lost sight of.


We are undoubtedly living in prophetic times; the devil has not been cast out, Armageddon is not imminent, but what we can all see is plain to see. The situation is so dire that we are mere spectators, waiting to see what will happen, and hoping there will be civilisation enough for our grand-children to enjoy. Yet the Almighty - Who cited this as an issue of authority - has placed the solution in our hands: simply for all world leaders to call to Him for help, and He will respond. That may still be hard for atheists to accept, and yet - when times get tough - do we not all call out:




We will do what comes naturally, even if we do not believe in God, we will do it because we have no other options. At that point, the touchstone changes from the unbiased opinion of atheists - putting believers to shame! - to the Heavens, which will actually prove the matter once and for all. For now, we much keep calm in the face of this horrendous nemesis, and wait to see the salvation by God.