End of year 2021 (1): world events

Just like last year, I want to look back on the past year in this last week of the year in a pair of blogs, and also draw some lines toward what lies ahead for us. In the second blog I hope to zoom in specifically on the work of GoedBericht, while in this first blog I want to provide interpretation of various developments in the world. And especially how we are to understand them in the light of “the prophetic word.”

corona and yet more corona

No one could have foreseen in March 2020 that the subject ‘corona’ would dominate world events for several years. At the end of last year, RIVM top official Aura Timen still expressed the general feeling in society when she stated:

If the vaccines arrive in time and do what they promise, society will look somewhat more normal again by the end of next year.

Now it is “end of next year” and what do we see? The promise that “the vaccine would be 100% effective” already fell through after only a few months. To this day, people still like to point to the ‘unvaccinated’ as scapegoats for that, even though that explanation has long since been overtaken by the facts. Now the failing ‘vaccine’ is being used as a stick to force people to get a third (and fourth and fifth…) jab. It seems to be becoming a ‘never ending story’ and thus an ideal profit model for Big Pharma. Despite the fact that numerous experts warn of possible long-term side effects and risks to the immune system. Vaccination is being imposed with increasing pressure: everyone will and must take this ‘vaccine’. Of the initially guaranteed voluntariness little remains and even in the Netherlands serious consideration is being given to ‘mandatory vaccination’. It is a threat that hangs as a dark cloud over 2022. Politicians constantly hide behind the unpredictability of ‘the virus,’ even though experts assured a year and a half ago that COVID‑19 would mutate wildly. New variants are no surprise but rather a constant. Not the unpredictability of the virus but the (totalitarian) whims of leaders and governments form the greatest threat. According to the expert quoted above, our society should look more normal now. But with all the vaccination programs, lockdowns, travel restrictions, bans on gatherings, ‘one-and-a-half meter’, mandatory face masks and corona passports, we seem further from home than a year ago.

dead-end path?

The question is of course how all this will develop in the coming year. Many, also elsewhere in Europe, hold their breath. Will there still be room for people who do not want a vaccine? Or will they increasingly be excluded and even have to fear for their jobs? Such scenarios are long no longer unthinkable. Corona is being seized for ever further control and a “Great Reset.”

A contrary scenario is that the current corona policy is a dead-end from which the end is in sight. Either because the virus becomes increasingly harmless and/or because herd immunity is achieved. Or due to declining social support. Or because of vaccine damage. Or a mix of these and other factors. You name it. No one knows.

“after two days”

What we do know (from Scripture!) is that the term of two millennia (which for the Lord are “two days”; 2 Pet.3:8; Hos.6:1‑3) is ending. If we assume that He ascended from the Mount of Olives in AD 30, then exactly two thousand years will have passed since His departure by 2030. That is a milestone, even regardless of whether these two thousand years form a rounded number in prophecy or not.

Now suppose that 2030 is precisely the year in which the Lord will set foot on the Mount of Olives again (Zech.14). Note well: suppose… Then in that year Israel’s great tribulation of three and a half years would end. A tribulation which would therefore begin in 2026 or 2027. Take into account that before that tribulation there will also be a period of peace, in which a temple and sacrifice service will be restored in Jerusalem. Also, in that same period, a federation of ten countries would be formed with Babylon as the financial center. All of that would then find its fulfillment between now and 2026/2027. Indeed, that comes very close…!

Again: it is not said that it will go that way. Even though some may now only hear the clock (read: a year number) ring… So be it. What I mean to indicate is that the coming years (or decades) are going to be extraordinarily significant from a biblical perspective. We had already become acquainted with the phenomenon that many names the prophets once spoke of have again spectacularly been ‘put on the map’ in recent history: Egypt (1922), Lebanon (1943), Syria (1946), Israel (1948), Jerusalem (1967), Palestine (1988), etc. That also indicates that time is short. Six thousand years of human history are coming to an end and the onset of the Sabbath for this world is approaching!

2022: terra incognita

If we zoom out as above, we clearly see prophetic lines and patterns. But zooming in on the specific year ahead of us yields little more than an extremely vague image. Little is certain. Will the QR‑society be further rolled out? Or will we see corona policy dismantled instead? What significance should we give to the pioneering role Israel played last year in terms of corona? Will the world’s eyes again be fixed on that small country in 2022? And how will it go in the rest of the Middle East? Will new candidates apply for the ‘Abraham Accords’? Will relations between Iran and Israel be further sharpened? Or are there ‘black swans’ that will give a surprising twist to 2022? And what hangs over the world geopolitical and macroeconomic? Will the financial bubble (monetary easing, money printing, inflation) burst? And so on, and so on.

2022 is still a blank slate and only One knows the answers and holds the script. There is nothing that gives a human being as much peace and courage as trusting in this great Director!

Delen: