Europe in crisis and the rise of the Beast, 666
Europe seems to be falling apart. Pieces of the EU are falling like dominoes. Greece is bankrupt, Great Britain has left the union, and Italy is in turmoil. Europe is caught between sticking with the Iran deal or siding with the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia in opposing it. Not that I think that the last days are imminent, but it is when things become desperate that we often see the rise of a dictator, one man who says he can bring peace and prosperity out of chaos.
The ultimate scenario that will play out is the rise of the beast, 666, and a false prophet deceiving many who live on the face of the earth. He will be joined by ten kings, the heads of ten countries who will cede authority to the beast giving him authority over the whole planet. The beginning of the end of the world as we know it will be the signing of a peace treaty by Israel with 666.
That means that somewhere along the line America will lose its place as the premiere global superpower. China and Russia, too, will lose their respective huge influences on the world stage. How we will get from here to there, I have no idea. Nor do I know what time frame we are looking at.
One way to date when we will be in the time of the Great Tribulation can be found in Revelation 8:8 - "And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;" I believe that John is describing here an asteroid hitting the earth because that is exactly what an asteroid entering earth's atmosphere would look like - "a mountain burning with fire". I don't believe back in the days when John lived that people had any idea there even existed any asteroids, nor would they have known what an asteroid was.
Some have given a slight chance of the asteroid called Apophis hitting the earth in either 2029 or 2036. There's another asteroid named Bennu that is given a slight chance of impacting our planet on September 25, 2135. Whether either of these asteroids or even another not yet discovered will be the one John referred to, I don't know.
There's an excellent book explaining the Book of Revelation called "The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church", by Marvin Rosenthal, available at Amazon.com.
