OVERVIEW of CHAPTER 1: The Age of Anything Goes

Ours is an age of decadence, self-delusion, and depravity of every variety—and each time we think things can’t possibly get worse, they do. The shameful acts of yesterday are the celebrated of triumphs of today. Perversions are normalized, purity is labeled puritanical, and the only act that cannot be tolerated is dissent from this brave new world where pleasure is king.

Scripture tells us that the road that leads to life is narrow, while the path that leads to destruction is wide. A glance around our culture today and one would be forgiven for thinking that the words found in Matthew’s Gospel are an understatement.

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OVERVIEW of CHAPTER 2: The Bleeding of Our Borders

Immigration, both legal and illegal, has been a hot button issue for decades, but never more so, it would seem, than now.It’s an issue with political, practical, and moral facets that are not easy to reconcile with one another. While some call for walls and deportation, others cry out for mercy and amnesty. It’s a problem with no easy answers and millions of lives at stake.It goes without saying that ours is a nation founded, built, and sustained by immigrants and their descendants. Whether driven by poverty and persecution or drawn by opportunities, immigrants have enriched our culture from the very beginning.

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America was once a place where Christians were free to worship and live according to their consciences. In fact, our country was built upon the principles of religious tolerance, individual liberty, and the right to dissent. In our founding documents, the source of these rights and freedoms is clearly acknowledged as God, not the government. Yet, the moral sea change we have experienced in the past century has so turned our culture on its head that to exercise those rights and freedoms means that a Christian risks marginalization, repression, and even outright persecution.

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America is blessed in so many ways—with freedoms, prosperity, and equality that others yearn for and often risk their lives to attain.But this nation didn’t become what it is through blind chance—and it cannot be sustained by wishful thinking.America’s founders powerfully felt God’s hand moving as they put everything on the line in order to design and implement an equitable government that derived its power from those it governed. Those men weren’t perfect, but they were sincere in their belief that a representative form of government that decentralized power was the most humane and just form of government mankind could devise.

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The church around the world is growing at an unprecedented rate.Yet we take a good hard look at our own supposedly Christian nation and see nothing but opposition to God’s Law, rejection of His Grace, and ridicule of His people. Our natural response is grief, even despair. It’s tempting to think that things have never been this bad, that the church is dying, that God has abandoned us. That nothing can be done about it.And yet, it is in the dark ground of apostasy that the seed of revival takes root.The Bible testifies to God’s tendency to keep His promises and preserve a remnant of the faithful.

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Long ago, God set aside a people for himself.Starting with one man whom He called out of a pagan nation and to whom He promised great renown, innumerable descendants, and a good land. That man was Abraham. Four thousand years later, his name is still held in the highest esteem by Jews, Christians, and Muslims; his descendants have survived the harshest persecutions imaginable in ancient, medieval, and modern times; and the land into which God brought him is once again in the possession of the Jews.Clearly Abraham’s God is a God who keeps His covenants.

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Hardly, a day passes anymore without dire news of the expansion of ISIS.Whether they are recruiting disenfranchised youth through social media, bombing busy marketplaces full of civilians, kidnapping journalists, or beheading Christians, ISIS looms large on our TVs, on our smart phones, and in our imaginations. Fear is their greatest weapon, and they wield it without mercy.As they continue to expand their reach and spread violence throughout the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, we have seen their incursion on American soil. We remember September 11, 2001, and declare resolutely, “Never again.”

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The world is quickly changing but not all of the changes are good.At the epicenter of a growing storm in the world lies God’s Chosen People. Surrounded by instability and extremism, Israel remains a stalwart outpost, a sheep among ravenous wolves. And from our perspective, time appears to be running out.After two decades of seeming slumber, Russia is flexing its muscles, annexing territory, and making alliances with dictatorial countries that daily call out for Israel’s destruction. The threat of radical Islamic factions like ISIS seems to grow like an unstoppable cancer, devouring all people and nations in its path.

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Due in large part to the phenomenal success of books such as the Left Behind series, the Rapture has been solidly on people’s minds for the past twenty years. Some look for this event as a release from a world that seems increasingly broken beyond repair. Others find the concept terrifying as they consider whether they may, in fact, be left behind. And because the Rapture is an event without precedent, it’s understandable if we approach it with a bit of trepidation. After all, can we really know what will happen? The Rapture of the Redeemed sifts through dozens of prophetic writings that speak of a time when Christ will remove his church from this world.

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Over the centuries, many people have made predictions about coming catastrophes. Sometimes the prognosticators are correct. More often than not, they are wildly off base. One source of prophetic declarations that has never been proven false is the Scripture. God has warned human beings of judgment, famine, defeats and victories in battle, periods of bondage, and the manner of His coming into His creation, both as a helpless baby and as a conquering king. We can be sure that whichever prophecies we read in the Bible that have not yet come to pass will be fulfilled in God’s perfect timing. So what does the Bible have to say about the times yet to come?

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