When “the One who restrains” (the Holy Spirit) is “taken out of the way” we’d see this and more.
One puzzle to me is what ever happens to America in the Revelation. The New World simply isn’t mentioned in unambiguous terms. All the big action has centered back in the Old World.
Here’s where I’ve dabbled in prophecy and just suppose this — that America immediately pre-rapture turns out to have a faith revolution like has never been seen. God will have seeded the whole place with the elect, no matter how unlikely it seemed. Now, poof, they’re gone. All that’s left to hold the fort is some animistic American Indians who don’t want the old white man ways. Result: America supremely unimportant.
And my head boggles like mad at the notion. And it’s a wild guess based on circumstance. God forgive me if I am way, WAY wrong here.
Well, I hope you are WAY WAY right. Amir Tsarfati of beholdisrael.org has some interesting ideas on that. I saw him preach at SM Lanang, Davao City, earlier this year. VERY interesting. 👍
“...that America immediately pre-rapture turns out to have a faith revolution like has never been seen.”
It’s either that or America’s destruction.
You bring up an excellent point. My wife and I have been discussing this ourselves, and she believes that we in the US are Babylon. It says in the Bible that all the World trades with Babylon, and in Revelation, the world is shocked and dismayed that Babylon Has fallen.
Now imagine this... Things are going along just as they always have then suddenly POOF! The Rapture happens and a whole mess of people in America and all over the world suddenly disappear. This includes many members of the administration, possibly including the President and Vice President. Without people in power, and a whole bunch of other people suddenly missing, chaos erupts. The economy implodes. Wall Street implodes. Babylon Has Fallen, and the world’s going to step back and go “whoa”.
They’re going to be freaking out, looking Every Witch Way to try and find something or someone to step in and make things right again. Lo and behold, in steps a person who says “I can fix this if you’ll let me just take over”, and there you have your One World Government, led by the Antichrist himself.
The wild idea I pray for: let us have such a devastatingly thorough, radical repentance and return to our Creator that when He takes all His believers out, there would be nothing but an empty landscape where the United States of America used to be.