Déjà Vu All Over Again

I'm quite sure that many of you recall what transpired in the several years leading up to the REV12 sign back in 2017. Starting in about 2011 or 2012, a burgeoning tidal wave of articles and YouTube videos steadily began to pick up steam in regard to the stunning stellar-planetary alignment of September 23, 2017 that confirmed the first of two "great signs" that John saw in Revelation 12:1–6, with the first sign described in verses 1–2.

What far too many people overlook, however, is that most of those who studied and wrote about the sign in a scripturally competent manner seldom failed to dutifully point out that there was no biblical reason to pin the Rapture to that exact day. Rather, they saw it as an exciting prelude to the Rapture—a sign that we were finally entering the season of the catching away of the body of Christ. That's because the Rapture isn't prefigured until verse 5 and so would likely follow the REV12 sign by an unspecified length of time.

But what came out of all this unbridled YooToobery was arguably one of the greatest breakouts of Rapture mania in living memory. In my personal opinion, that mania came to a disheartening climax on August 20, 2017, about a month before the REV12 sign occurred. On that day, YouTube superstar Scottie Clarke gave a presentation at the Hear the Watchmen Idaho "SIGN IN THE HEAVENLIES" Redemption Convention in Boise, Idaho.

And you might say it was a real humdinger.

Not long afterwards, I watched the entire 90-minute video on YouTube (where it is now blocked as a "Private Video") because I wanted very much to be fair in my assessment of it. And I'll be blunt: It broke my heart.

For 90 minutes, Scottie bounced around the stage like an eight-year-old on a major chocolate rush, using misleading graphics and artfully chosen translations of Scripture to convince his audience that the Rapture was inextricably linked to the Feast of Trumpets (which happened to fall the day before the REV12 sign that year). He also speciously equated Paul's "last trump" in 1 Corinthians 15:52 with the Feast of Trumpets (and using the word "speciously" here is being polite). Then to top it off, he had a delegation from his fan club present in the audience squealing with the electrifying news that he had discovered that "the twinkling of an eye" was a Jewish idiom that referred to sunset (which it isn't according to Nehemiah Gordon, a well-known Jewish scholar who worked on translating the Dead Sea scrolls, whom I asked via email out of sheer curiosity and who was gracious enough to reply).

By the time it was over, Scottie had succeeded in clearly and unequivocally implying that the Rapture was going to occur at sunset Jerusalem time on September 23, 2017. (Of course, he took great care not to let anything resembling those exact words escape from his mouth so he couldn't be accused of saying such a thing.) But the message was so clear that he may as well have had a huge banner to that effect pinned on the curtain behind him. When he was finished, he calmly reassured his buzzing fan club:

"We gotta be careful...we gotta be careful. So, I'm just giving this to you. I don't want you to believe me just because I say it. I want you to just...I just want you to chew on this, that's all. You know? You all have good minds. I just want you to chew on this. And if it makes sense to you, study the Scriptures and try to do your best to rightly divide and keep everything in context."

"Study the Scriptures..." Wise advice indeed, and advice I did my best to follow in an article I wrote in the weeks following his presentation.

As I look around today, however, I see the swells of another breakout of Rapture-related speculation beginning to crest, bringing with them yet another tidal wave of Rapture mania. And it saddles me with a feeling that can be summed up in the immortal words of Yankee legend Yogi Berra:

It's like déjà vu all over again.

Thankfully, the magnitude of this wave doesn't appear to measure up to that of the REV12 sign, but the effect will be pretty much the same:

It's bound to leave a good number of sincere believers disappointed, disillusioned, and discouraged, and many fencesitters who might have taken an interest in the things of God will be even more determined to dismiss all that Bible prophecy stuff as a bunch of baloney.

And that's why I am writing this article: I want you to be aware of this growing wave of Rapture mania and understand why it is not nearly as scripturally well grounded as many would suggest. And why do I want to do that?

So you can safely ignore it and keep pressing on toward the mark, that's why.

Could this possibly be it?!

In September 2015, the UN announced Agenda 2030, an ambitious 15-year program to transform the world into a fundamentally better place for everyone. It comprises a list of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), many of which focus on the environment but that also include broad, sweeping social changes that include things such as ending poverty, ending hunger, ensuring every child has a chance to get a quality education, that every adult has a chance to have a decent job, etc.

In other words, the motto may as well have been:

Fix the world in 15 years.

Such an odd number: Back in the fall of 2015 when this plan was formalized, one thing that struck me was the number 17...17 SDGs. Why not a nice round number like 12, or 16, or 20? Why in heaven's name would they pick an oddball number like 17? God speaks to us through numbers throughout His Word in many ways, and perhaps this is no exception. It is clear that the only conceivable way to reach these goals will be to form a global government, and the Bible tells us a few things about the man who will ultimately take the reins of such a government, or the Antichrist. In Revelation 13:1, the Bible describes the Antichrist as a beast who comes out of the sea (i.e. the nations of the world, especially in a state of turmoil), and says that he will have 10 heads and 7 horns—and bingo: There's your 17. Do with that as you will.

To the surprise of no one, however, it seems that the world hasn't made quite as much progress toward these grandiose, world-changing goals as had been hoped in the first half of this 15-year period. To hear some people tell it, not even close. As a result, the UN is ready to put the petal to the metal. This September, the UN will hold the SDG Summit, and they are making it clear that the world needs to go all out in its effort to reach these 17 goals by 2030, and to do that we need (drum roll, please...)

Seven years of accelerated, transformative action.

Say it with me:

Ooooh...hold that thought. The UN is playing this up as if it were an existential crisis, almost as if life on earth as we know it will cease to exist by 2030 if everyone doesn't obediently follow the rules and passively play along with what amounts to the greatest power grab in the history of mankind.

Yes, a power grab. What power? The power to rule the world.

That's Satan's goal, and this is part of his plan to achieve that goal through various species of useful idiots who have been carefully groomed to play their roles in his grand program. Never forget that Satan is the god of this world, and in his staggering pride and arrogance, he fancies that he can hang on to that position. To do that, however, he must put Christ's kingdom on ice by wiping out the Jewish people so they cannot implore God to save them at the climax of the Tribulation. This is what triggers the Second Coming, when Christ will physically return to earth to save the believing Jewish remnant from annihilation and to establish the kingdom God promised His people Israel through His unconditional covenant with Abraham.

But the fact that the UN's upcoming SDG agreement for "accelerated, transformative action" just happens to be for a period of seven years (2023 to 2030) has got a number of Bible prophecy students all fired up, and that's because of one burning question:

Could this possibly be the seven-year treaty
of Daniel 9:27 that launches the Tribulation?!

That's what a surprising number of Bible prophecy folks are thinking right now, and YouTube is ablaze with videos pushing the idea that this agreement is in fact the treaty of Daniel 9:27, and will launch the Tribulation next month. And we all know what that means: The Rapture is mere weeks away! Do a search on YouTube, and you get a faceful of the following:

RAPTURE SEPTEMBER 2023!!! HOW I KNOW!!!

TRIBULATION BEGINS SEPTEMBER THIS YEAR!!!

TIME IS UP!!! THE RAPTURE IS 1 MONTH AWAY!!!

7-YEAR COVENANT WILL BE CONFIRMED IN SEPT. 2023!!!

IS UN SUMMIT 9/18/23 THE FULFILLMENT OF DANIEL 9:27???

And so on. And since the Rapture must occur prior to that event (which is one part they get right), that means the Rapture must occur before September 18. More specifically, many of these people are quick to pin the Rapture to the Feast of Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah, which occurs September 15–17 this year, while the SDG Summit is slated for September 18–19.

And I can just hear people:

"Well, that's fantastic!! Right?! I mean, it's super exciting to think the Rapture could actually happen in the next several weeks, isn't it? Seven years, dude! Man, this just has to be Daniel's treaty!! C'mon Bible Dude...why the frowny face?"

Why the frowny face

Well, it's partly genetic. But it also has to do with the fact that these people are leaping to the conclusion that this seven-year agreement simply must be the treaty of Daniel 9:27 without examining certain things in the light of what Scripture tells us. And please understand that I'm not caustically criticizing all these people. There are some good, prophetically knowledgeable folks who have gotten caught up in the excitement—and there is certainly no reason for me to direct criticism their way. There are people out there who have a good grasp of the end-time scenario that have gotten understandably excited about this agreement. The only problem, however, is that they are primarily cuing on the simple fact that it's for seven years, as is the treaty that launches the seven-year Tribulation. Unfortunately that is causing them to overlook other important factors in regard to this agreement. They see "seven years" and it's BAM...this could be it! And I can certainly empathize.

But is that all there is to it? Is the mere fact that it's for seven years the primary feature that pegs this treaty?

I forced myself to scan through a few of the videos on YouTube pushing the idea that this agreement was Daniel's treaty, and I was struck by one telling characteristic they all seemed to have in common. When they talked about the confirmation of this SDG agreement, they invariably used the passive voice. Now, for most people this would probably pass unnoticed, but here's the thing: I teach adult English for a living, and the idea of using the passive voice is significant to the topic at hand—so time out for a quick English lesson.

Verbs in English can be used in one of two ways: the active voice or the passive voice. In the active voice, the agent applies the action of the verb directly to an object. For example:

Active: The boy kicked the ball.

The boy (who performed the action of the verb) is the agent, and the ball (the thing that received the action) is the object. And we know who performed that action because the agent is clearly mentioned as the subject.

In the passive voice, the sentence becomes:

Passive: The ball was kicked.

To form the passive voice, we simply take the object (the ball) and make that the subject of the sentence. Then we insert a BE verb using the same tense used by main verb in the active version of the sentence (in this case, the simple past tense, or was), and this is followed by the past participle of the verb, or the form we would use with have (in this case, kicked).

Whew. OK, notice that in the passive voice, the agent is typically left out of the sentence completely. Of course, we can add the agent if we choose:

The ball was kicked by the boy.

But the reason we use the passive voice in the first place is typically because we either don't know, don't care, or simply choose not to mention the agent for any one of a veritable smorgasbord of reasons.

Some verbs in English are used with objects, some are not, and some are used both ways. Note, however, that the passive voice can only be used when the verb takes an object (or is transitive), since if there is no object then you obviously can't make it the subject. Verbs that don't take objects are intransitive, and die is a common example. You can't die someone—they just die. (But you can kill someone because kill is transitive.) For example, here's a common mistake I've heard countless times from students in Taiwan:

When I was two years old, my grandfather was died. (X)

I put on the most sympathetic face I can muster (no easy task for yours truly), and gently offer the following heartfelt reply:

Gosh, I'm sorry to hear that. Tell me, who died him? (X)

After a few seconds, the blank look on their face turns to an enlightened grin.

And this will be on the quiz. Now, as far as the SDG Summit is concerned, what virtually all of these excited YouTubers will do is simply talk about the fact that a treaty will be confirmed, as if that were the only thing that mattered:

"Yep, a seven-year treaty will be confirmed this September!"

Passive voice, and the agent has gone AWOL. Now, there's nothing wrong with using the passive voice—it's common. But these folks are doing it every single time. For example, I saw one YouTuber who insisted that the SDG agreement "checked off every box" to be the treaty of Daniel 9:27, since it...

1. Must be a pre-existing covenant (it was launched in 2015). ✔

2. Must be reconfirmed (which it will, and there's our passive voice). ✔

3. Must be with "many" (which to him just means "many" nations). ✔

4. Must be for seven years (which it is). ✔

Check..check...check...check...BINGO!! That nails it!! But not one word about who would confirm that treaty. Not one word about the fact that it would be confirmed by the man who would become the Antichrist.

I suspect that many of these people are using the passive voice subconsciously. In other words, they're so overtaken by the fact that this agreement is for seven years that they're not focusing on the man who will confirm it. They are casually skipping over him without giving him a whole lot of conscious thought, and I can hear people now:

"Well, why does that even matter?! I mean, that's just a stupid grammar thing. A treaty. Will. Be. Confirmed. That's all that counts!!"

Well, why does it matter? It matters for one simple reason:

That's not what Scripture says.

Scripture doesn't say "a treaty will be confirmed" (passive voice, no agent mentioned). Scripture places the agent front and center in the active voice:

He will confirm a treaty.

And who is "he"? Who is the agent? Who is going to confirm that treaty?

As we study Scripture, we can garner a modest amount of information about this man: He is apparently a man who will rise to global prominence as a peacemaker and a charismatic global visionary who will ultimately rule the world for three and a half years during the Great Tribulation...and who will also have believers in the gospel executed by the millions and do his utmost to wipe out the Jewish remnant before Christ returns to crush him.

But most of the people claiming the UN's SDG agreement this September is the treaty that launches the Tribulation casually gloss over his very existence and fail to even mention him.

Why? Because inconveniently enough, he is nowhere in sight, that's why. No one knows who he is. He hasn't presented himself on the world stage in any overt or obvious manner. I guarantee you that he is lurking in the background as I write this, waiting for his moment—which is coming soon enough. But the fact remains that for now, he is still a big question mark.

Speaking of which, I have one simple but burning question for all the YouTubers out there who are excited over the idea that the treaty that launches the Tribulation will be confirmed this September at the UN, and it is this:

Where is "he"?

Where is he who will become the Antichrist? Where is he who will rise to global power and rule the world during the Great Tribulation? If he is just about ready to confirm a world-changing treaty like that of Daniel 9:27, he would have certainly made his way into the media spotlight by now, wouldn't you think? After all, we're talking about a treaty that will reshape the world in ways few others have: It will appear to finally settle what is arguably the single biggest roadblock to World Peace—the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The UN's SDG agreement has much more
to do with pesticides than with world peace.

So who is "he"? I assume this agreement will be ratified or confirmed by a vote at the UN. So...what individual man could we say confirms it, the Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres? Is he the "he" of verse 27—the future Antichrist? No offense, but I strongly doubt it.

The people of the prince: For the record, Guterres is Portuguese—and yes, Portugal was indeed part of the Roman Empire. So if you interpret "the people" in the phrase "the people of the prince who shall come" in Daniel 9:26 in a "national" sense, as in being from some country that was part of the Roman Empire, technically he would qualify. But if, like me, you interpret the word "people" in an ethnic sense (the exact same way it is used just two verses earlier in Dan. 9:24 in reference to Daniel's "people" the Jews), he doesn't. In that case, verse 26 would seem to point to an Arab Antichrist, since it has been documented that it was Arab conscripts in the Roman army who destroyed the temple (conscripts who made up a significant percentage of the Roman legions that laid siege to Jerusalem in AD 70). These Jew-hating conscripts set the temple ablaze against the wishes of their commander and future Emperor Titus, who reportedly intended to rededicate this magnificent structure to his father, then Emperor Vespasian.

I talked briefly about Daniel 9:27 in my last article:

"He" is without a doubt the man who will be revealed as the Antichrist at the midpoint of the Tribulation. In verse 27, he launches the Tribulation by confirming a seven-year treaty between Israel and her Arab neighbors, and then midway through that treaty he reneges on the deal and puts a stop to the sacrifices being made in a rebuilt Third Temple in Jerusalem. Rebuilding the Third Temple and allowing unbelieving Jews to continue their Levitical sacrifices are major terms of that treaty—a treaty that brings a temporary false peace between Israel and her Arab neighbors that the prophet Isaiah calls "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell" (Isa. 28:15).

I also mentioned in my last article that the word "many" (sometimes rendered "the many") used in verse 27 is an expression Daniel uses to refer to Israel in all three of the other instances where he uses the exact same Hebrew word (Daniel 11:33, 39; 12:3), and there is no reason to assume it suddenly means something completely different in this case.

But obviously the UN's SDG agreement this September is not a treaty with Israel, and so has nothing to do with peace between Israel and her Arab neighbors. That much is clear. But those who are so eager to view this SDG agreement as being the treaty Daniel refers to in verse 27 that they are willing to assume that Daniel's treaty could merely be with "many" nations should be made aware of something.

The Rosetta Stone: Much of what we know about the overall course of prophecy throughout the Bible, especially its culmination in the end-time scenario, is based on one stunning passage of Scripture: Daniel's Prophecy of the 70 Weeks (Dan. 9:24–27). I am fond of referring to this passage as the Rosetta Stone of Bible Prophecy, and here are several of the key prophetic girders we garner from this breathtakingly comprehensive passage:

• The fact that Christ would be crucified 69 weeks (483 years) after a command to rebuild Jerusalem went out.

• The fact that one final seven-year period devoted to purging Israel, saving a believing remnant, and judging a Christ-rejecting world remains to be fulfilled.

• The fact that the Antichrist will confirm a seven-year treaty with Israel that will allow them to rebuild their temple and reinstitute sacrifices.

• The fact that the Antichrist will break this treaty and desecrate the temple at its midpoint via the abomination of desolation.

And others. Make no mistake: The fact that this treaty in verse 27 is a treaty brokered between Israel and her Arab neighbors/enemies has been a bedrock principle in the dispensational, premillennial, pretribulational view of end-time prophecy for nearly 200 years, and was hammered out by some of the greatest, most gifted Bible expositors in history.

But as with anything else, of course, not everyone agrees.

Those who disagree with this widely held interpretation of Daniel 9:24–27 include such people as those who see all Bible prophecy as being fulfilled by AD 70. Or who spiritualize away end-time prophecy and see Christ reigning in our hearts, not in a literal future kingdom. Or others for whom the Rapture, the seven-year Tribulation, Christ's literal return to earth, and the Millennial Kingdom that follows are the pinnacle of wild-eyed tinfoil-hattery. And it goes downhill from there...I'm just saying.

So if you disagree with the idea that the treaty of Daniel 9:27 is a treaty made with Israel, that's fine with me.

But be polite and say hello to some of your new prophecy compadres.

Markers

One thing this wave of Rapture mania has accomplished is that it has brought to the surface something that has nagged at me for a long time.

The subject of date-setting has been a touchy issue for some in the prophecy community for years, and there is general agreement among scripturally competent believers that it is unbiblical and hence wrong to emphatically set specific dates for the translation of the Church. Few people I know really have much of an issue with that—you know, stuff like...

"The Rapture will occur on August 12, 2024...thus saith the Lord!"

This is not the same as prophetically knowledgeable people studying Scripture and paying close attention to the ongoing fulfillment of prophecy, and observing how the end-time scenario is congealing as outlined in God's Word and as a result making guarded estimates as to how close we may actually be to the Rapture. Or studying possible scriptural connections between the Rapture and certain Jewish feast days, and so on.

That's not date-setting—that's simply being a watchman.

That's just obeying Christ's command to watch and observe the signs of the times, and seeking to rightly divide the Word.

But consider: Just exactly what kind of attitude are we commanded in Scripture to have toward the Rapture? This is fundamental, and there are several verses that speak of the hope in the Rapture we are to have. For example:

The Rapture is our blessed hope.

And it is to be a purifying hope as we look forward to His appearing.

Most everyone is familiar with these verses (and there are others I could mention), but there is one passage of Scripture pertaining to the Rapture that reminded me of something important that people can easily lose sight of, and it has an impact on the situation at hand in which we have a growing wave of believers thinking the Rapture must occur by September 18–19 of this year because of something that is scheduled to happen at the UN:

Yes, the Rapture is to be our blessed hope, but we need to remember that hope is in things we do not yet see. As verse 24 says:

Hope that is seen is not hope.

Or as the author of Hebrews puts it:

Faith and hope are in things we do not yet see. When we see those things, we have no more need for faith or hope—those things have become reality.

That's the basic problem with date-setting: If we are convinced the Rapture will occur on a specific date, we effectively have something we can see. We can circle it on the calendar. We've got a target to focus on, and ideas about patiently waiting and watching in active anticipation are out the window.

"Forget that watching and waiting stuff...it's time to celebrate!"

There is no scriptural way to mesh the idea of watching and waiting in active anticipation and having hope in something we cannot see by the very definition hope with being convinced the Rapture will occur on a specific day.

I think most believers understand this (even though they might waver a bit now and then at the news of a high watch date). But there is a secondary aspect to this principle that needs to be fleshed out a bit.

OK, so we shouldn't set a firm, specific date for the Rapture because if we do, then we really can't obey God's commands in Scripture to wait in active anticipation and have hope in Christ's appearance.

But consider: What about an event that we know for a fact must occur not long after the Rapture, and before any other major prophetic event? A specific, scheduled event on the calendar we can look forward to and know for certain the Rapture has to occur before that date? An event we might call a "no-later-than marker" for the Rapture, or just a "marker"?

Like the confirmation of Daniel's treaty that launches the Tribulation?

In other words, we know that whatever date the Tribulation begins must come after the Rapture, so if we had a solid, scheduled date for the confirmation of the treaty of Daniel 9:27 that we could circle on our calendar, that would serve as a marker we could anxiously look forward to for the Rapture, right?

Note that I briefly considered Gog-Magog as a potential marker for the Rapture, but it quickly occurred to me that there are two major problems with that:

1. The timing of Gog-Magog in relation to the Rapture (as well as the launching of the Tribulation) is highly speculative in nature. Personally, I believe it will occur after the Rapture and before the Tribulation, since in Gog-Magog we see God turning His attention back to Israel, which suggests to me that He has turned His attention away from the Church, which suggests to me that we have been raptured. Also, I believe it is the aftermath of Gog-Magog that effectively sets the stage for the treaty of Daniel 9:27 that launches the Tribulation. And if I happen to be right, that would make it a great marker. But other highly capable Bible teachers such as Mark Hitchcock see Gog-Magog occurring in the early days of the Tribulation. So who's right? Who knows?

2. Just from a commonsense military point of view, it's kinda hard to believe that the type of sudden attack on Israel described in Ezekiel 38–39 would be scheduled for a specific date that's publicized well in advance, you know?

Announcement: Major attack on Israel
planned for June 30, 2024! Circle the date!

So, forget Gog-Magog. That pretty much leaves us with the confirmation of the treaty of Daniel 9:27 that launches the Tribulation as our only real potential marker for the Rapture. OK, so what am I driving at? The point is this:

What's the difference between having a specific calendar date for the Rapture to look forward to, and having a specific calendar date for the launching of the Tribulation to look forward to, knowing the former must occur before the latter?

Uh...none! Think of it: OK, so you are 100 percent convinced that the UN will confirm the treaty of Daniel 9:27 on September 18–19. So what do you do? You circle those two days on your calendar, knowing full well that the Rapture must occur before then. So where does that leave your active anticipation and your hope in the Rapture?

It eliminates your need for hope in precisely
the same way date-setting the Rapture does.

It's pretty much the same deal:

"Forget that watching and waiting stuff...it's time to celebrate! Hey, the Rapture might happen a week or two before the SDG Summit...who knows?! Who cares?! Even better!! YEEE-HAAA!! Heaven here we come!!"

I honestly see precious little difference between having a specific date for the Rapture to look forward to and having a specific date for launching of the Tribulation to look forward to. The end result is pretty much the same: Our hope in His appearance is no longer necessary and goes flying out the window, and we can no longer obey God's commands to look forward to our blessed hope the way He commanded us to in His Word. I don't know about you, but that tells me something of critical importance:

What that tells me is that God will never allow us to have a solid, specific date to look forward to for the confirmation of the treaty of Daniel 9:27.

I mean never. I don't see any possible way He could do that and still have His Word remain true and consistent, and for us to remain able to obey it the way He intended. In other words, that means that as far as the confirmation of the treaty of Daniel 9:27 is concerned:

The Church cannot be here to see that day coming.

At least not in terms of a specific date, that is. We cannot be here to see a solid, specific date for the confirmation of Daniel's treaty—it's scripturally inconsistent. Period. I just don't see any other way to slice it.

Now, will we see it getting close? Will we see the events that set the stage for it start to come together as outlined in Scripture? Don't look now, but we see these things beginning to come together more with each passing day as it is—at least we do if we are obeying His command to watch. It's reaching the point where just about the only thing left that God could do for the Church would be to give us a specific date for either the Rapture itself or for the confirmation of Daniel's treaty to look forward to, but I'm here to tell you based on the authority of Scripture:

God cannot do that.
God will not do that.

And the reason is simple: If He did, He would be making it impossible for us to obey His Word and look forward to our blessed hope with hope, which only applies to things we cannot yet see.

Because when we finally do see them, our hope has done its job.

Where are you going?

Part of me almost hates to write an article like this, because I know there are a few good people out there I love and respect that have perhaps said or written things that indicate they are at least open to the possibility that this UN SDG agreement might be Daniel's treaty. And I certainly don't want to be seen as criticizing or coming against any of them in a snarky, know-it-all manner. Because none of us knows it all...especially this snarky, know-it-all writer. Besides, it's always possible that some of them have already changed their minds about that agreement being Daniel's treaty after a bit more study.

Well, look who's talking: A few people got the idea that I agreed that the SDG agreement might be the treaty that launched the Tribulation based on something I wrote a couple of months ago in an article entitled "Disclosure," but that was not my intention. I went back and reread the passage being referred to, however, and I quickly realized I had been a bit careless in my choice of words and saw how what I wrote could easily be misconstrued to some degree. I have since added a note to the passage in question to indicate what I was actually thinking at the time of writing, and that wasn't that the Tribulation was going to start on September 18, 2023. At the time, I was locked in on the general time frame involved, not the SDG agreement itself. Mea culpa—I clearly should have chosen my words a bit more carefully.

But please...whatever you do, don't come away from this article with the idea that I'm trying to put the Rapture off at a safe, cozy distance, the way too many are inclined to do. We are at the door, and that door is just about ready to be flung wide open:

It could happen today, it could happen in mid-September, it could happen next year. What I really want you to take away from this article is that although this UN SDG agreement may not be "it," it scarcely matters at this point because we are drawing so close to the Rapture that date speculation is almost becoming redundant. (I don't mean it's wrong...speculate away. It's just that it's getting to the point where we are so close that such speculation is actually beginning to wane a bit in importance.)

So get out your hope...polish it up and pin it on your chest. And be prepared to give to every man an answer:

And not necessarily just of the hope of heaven, but also the hope of how we're going to get there soon and very soon. It's like I've said in the past:

Many of the people we witness to at this point may not believe and get saved now. But when they realize that you're among those "evacuees" who have disappeared in the bizarre event that is being spun as an alien race showing up to help mankind through the coming "earth changes" by removing all those who are not prepared to "evolve spiritually," they will remember your words and be much more likely to reject Satan's lies and avail themselves of the grace and mercy of a holy, just, loving God before He drops the hammer on a world that has staunchly rejected it.

We have the hope of spending eternity in the presence of our Lord and Savior, and dwelling in a place that is wonderful beyond our imagination. And we are going there sooner than many suppose—a flurry of signs are screaming for our attention. And unlike an unsaved world that has foolishly rejected God's amazing grace and mercy, we know exactly where we are going.

But for those who have yet to come to know the Savior who gave His life so that we could spend eternity in a place He has prepared for us, some other immortal words of Yogi Berra ring true:

If you don't know where you're going,
you might wind up someplace else.

Greg Lauer — AUG '23

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