My mind was truly blown today after my dear friend Robin in Virginia Beach, VA, texted me that my post on Saturday was a subject of conversation on Pastor Joel Hayes' Monday morning YouTube podcast out of Fellowship Bible Church of Orlando, FL!
A World on the Brink? | Grace Life Podcast | Joel & Friends
I couldn't have asked for a bigger plug of my blog!
Here's part of what he said in response to the article I included at the end of my post, written by Peter West, about The Economist magazine's "World Ahead in 2026" edition released at the end of last year:
"No. 1, first of all, I would argue that there's hardly any connection between anything going on now and the tribulation, " said Hayes, who grew up in Springfield, OH. "Now I know a lot of people are like, 'Are you kidding?! There's a total connection between everything going on now!'
"No, there's not. If there is a connection, it's incidental. I'm not totally eliminating any possibility that something going on today may carry over into the tribulation after the Rapture.
"You know, is it possible the Antichrist could be alive now? Is it possible the 144,000 are already alive? It's absolutely possible.
"Now I know a lot of saints would believe there's a gap after the Rapture. That's possible; God can do what He wants. I think it's also possible that after the Rapture you could just go straight into the tribulation.
"It's possible that the 144,000 might be alive now and thus, once the Rapture happens, then we will get to on Day 1, they will be marked by the angels.
"You know, grace began in a transitionary period in the Book of Acts. So, I don't see any reason why there could not be any kind of transitionary elements at the end of the age of grace.
"After we're out of here and the tribulation starts, the Lord is going to allow that 'strong delusion' and you've got the horsemen of the Apocalypse on Day 1 of the tribulation. And those two things alone will absolutely radically alter life on Planet Earth.
"This world will become completely unrecognizable from the world we're living in now. Those two things will absolutely alter the direction of the world after we're gone, more than anything else that's happening now.
"Is it possible a war taking place now will carry over into the tribulation? Absolutely. But it's not something that would be a sign that the tribulation is near.
"I would also argue, based on hundreds of articles I have seen on Christian news sites, technology has nothing to do with the 'mark of the beast.' Technology today has NOTHING to do with the mark.
"I am very comfortably convicted telling saints that technology will absolutely be dead in the tribulation. How do you think technology and AI is going to somehow survive the first 14 judgments of God in the first three-and-a-half years of the tribulation?!
"You've got wars, rumors of wars, economic devastation, plagues, famine, pestilences, multiple global earthquakes. You've got balls of fire coming down from heaven. You have grass and trees burning up. Water turning to blood. Hail that's on fire. You have those freaky locusts with stingers getting into everything and then they're will be those 200 million fiery horses from heaven coming down, burning everything down, shooting fire out of their mouths.
"How's technology supposed to survive all of that?! Make no mistake, technology will absolutely be DEAD in the first half of the tribulation.
"How is it that the mark of the beast is going to be implemented? I would argue demonically. Now don't take my word for it; be fully persuaded in your own mind and study it out. Study those 14 judgments of God and ask yourself, 'Can technology really survive this?'
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"Now, this is a point that a lot of saints out there really need to understand. The age of grace that we live in does not operate on a timetable like the prophetic program.
"Grace can last as long as God wants it to last. We're living in an interruption of the prophetic program. It can be as short or as long as God wants to allow it to be.
"I say all of that because of Romans 11. You remember in that illustration of the tree that we're warned that the continuation of the age of grace is contingent upon the global Gentile response to His grace.
"If the broad global response is generally to reject His grace, and those who get saved are going to decide to abuse His grace, they're going to boast against the branches and they're going to take His grace but yet refuse to continue in His goodness . . .
"What's God going to do after that? That is what's going to cause Him to cut off the wild branches, which is to say, that is when He's going to choose to end the age of grace, because when He cut off the branches, that's when a change of dispensations happened.
"I think God could end the age of grace any time He wants. He's not looking at world events to determine how long He's going to continue this age of grace.
"He's looking at the Gentile response. He's looking at the church to determine if He's going to continue offering His grace to the world.
"And if God wants to, He could allow for a gap between the 69th and 70th week (of Daniel in the tribulation) to continue for another 1,000 years.
"It does not matter. He could do whatever He wants; we're living in this gap between those prophetic weeks. We're living in this period of the interruption of the prophetic program and the only thing that has kept this age of grace afloat has always been the broad Gentile response to His grace."