I’m in no mood to mince words here, nor is there any good reason to. The truth about our nation’s political and cultural upheavals needs to be plainly stated.

I’ll start with the burner on low and turn up the heat as I go. I think I’ll lose some of you before you’re done reading this. As Jack Nicholson’s character thundered in the movie, A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth!”

But hey – that’s the nature of truth.  It always divides.

Here’s the understatement of the year: “America is in a full-blown mess.” From every vantage point: judicial, moral, legislative, spiritual, philosophical – it doesn’t matter which one – the evidence for this statement is overwhelming. This nation’s meteoric descent into depravity is so profound, I can hardly find words to describe it.

Maybe the best way to give us all a reality check is to look back only three years ago.  It was not that long ago that we had a legitimate President in office – yes, I know, it already feels like a much longer time than it is. Chaos, deception, injustices, and daily nonsensical challenges are a real drag on endurance, right?

But let’s compare. Under President Trump, an amazing feat was achieved with our nation’s economy.  Even the Washington Compost, The Associated Depress, and The New York Slimes reluctantly admitted this.

President Trump’s NAFTA deal, one of many promises he delivered on, remedied a massive $500 billion trade deficit that had burdened America’s manufacturers. It infused fresh oxygen into an economy that quickly roared back under his sensible leadership.

The unemployment rates for African Americans and Hispanics under President Trump fell to their lowest levels on record, and our nation’s overall unemployment rate hit a 50-year low. Consumer sentiments also reached their most favorable levels in 18 years, and U.S. small business optimism hit its highest point in history.

The United States economy grew at a rate of 4.2 percent in the second quarter of 2018, and the stock market had jumped 27 percent after President Trump slashed regulations, implemented sensible tariff policies, and cut taxes. Various environmental and economic policies that President Obama had put in place to hamstring this country were repealed, and all the right arrows began going up.

Just three years ago, all that good news had permeated other fronts in our nation’s affairs too. Kim Jong “Goon” stopped firing missiles over Japan when President Trump told him whose red button was bigger and better. America received back the remains of its Korean War heroes without airlifting pallets of illegal cash in a covert nighttime operation. “Little rocket man” had pledged to disarm his atomic arsenal in North Korea, and the Iranian Nuclear Accord has been exposed for being the shameful house of cards it always was.

President Trump also unshackled his military leaders so they could do their job. They no longer had to get permission to “shoot back.” The result was ISIS was crushed in Iraq and Syria and they scuttled in full retreat. President Trump followed through on his “red line” promises. He dropped massive bombs on terrorist hideouts, unleashed cruise missiles on chemical warfare perpetrators, and required our NATO allies to pay their fair share of the defense account.

Under President Trump’s leadership, it was OK again to say, “Merry Christmas” and to claim we are “one nation under God.” We are not a truly “Christian” nation, but at least we had a President back then who supported the basic expressions of our faith.

The obvious truth that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital was only finally official under President Trump’s leadership, and relations between Israel and America were never better. For a brief period of time, it was deemed proper to screen folks coming into the US from countries which have openly pledged to harm American citizens, and to secure our southern border. It always was proper to do these things, but President Trump had to contend with lawless ideals to make common sense a rule.

I could say so much more of this sort of stuff, but the bottom line is President Trump made our nation stronger and safer. By rejecting a fanatical socialist-globalist agenda, he pointed our country back towards sanity and the world overall was more stable.

Despite mountains of evidence that President Trump did so much good for America and executed so many commonsense decisions, the left has remained completely “unhinged” in their reactions to him and to his supporters through that time and at every point since. Again, words fail me, for that statement hardly comes close to telling the truth.

So, here’s where I may lose some of you – – if I haven’t already.

Although the right was deeply distraught with the elections of President Obama, and with his “Make America Weak” policies, and although conservatives are aghast at all the blatant election fraud of the last few years, they have never rioted in the streets, torched cars, or beat up bystanders.

The right has never threatened to kill electors.  They’ve not shot cops, formed filthy communes in public places, encouraged assassinations, promoted anarchy, planned hit squads against homes, clawed at the doors of the Supreme Court, bankrolled mobs, shut down free speech, nor asked for safe rooms, teddy bears, pet therapy, and Play-Doh. The right has never supported activist judges, planned a false flag event to entrap folks, or schemed in numerous dark ways to steal an election.

When conservatives disagree with the liberal-socialist agenda, they don’t flood Twitter with murder threats or roundhouse kick peaceful protesters. They don’t menace the left with threats of rape, and they don’t shoot democrat lawmakers at baseball games.

Conservatives clean up after themselves at their own (peaceful) rallies and they don’t chase administration staff from restaurants. They don’t talk about blowing up the White House and they don’t pose with severed heads of the President. Conservatives are not out there shouting at folks in elevators, stabbing opposition candidates, encouraging supporters to harass liberal lawmakers wherever they find them, or burning the left’s campaign headquarters to the ground.

The right has not compared Obama’s or Biden’s supporters to segregationists or Nazis, and they have not claimed that a democratic President is worse than the 9/11 terrorists. Conservatives don’t scream that the left has placed a madman in The White House, and they don’t publicly appeal for violence in the streets. Conservatives don’t attack and berate Christians for their beliefs and values at the same time as they are protecting and aiding Sharia law.

Conservatives don’t call for impeachment just because they don’t like someone, and they don’t protect a two-tiered system of justice at all costs. They don’t turn venerated proceedings for Supreme Court picks into chaotic protest rallies, and they don’t stonewall cabinet nominees for over a year. The right does not register illegal immigrants in a dishonest effort to create sympathetic voters, and conservatives do not go on national television to protect criminals from that group over the rights of their unfortunate – and legal – victims!

OK, sure, the right is imperfect. Believe me – the “right” is awash in its own issues.

Nobody is going to argue with this fact, and I’ll be first to say I’m very unhappy with many of the “reds.” No one disagrees with the fact that far too many Republicans are really “Republicrats” under their tailored suits. The “never-Trumpers” behave like “blues,” and we can look at who the Bush family voted for as just one case in point.

But, those things said, we have much bigger problems, and that’s what I’m focused on here. The conduct of the left – from top down – is now commonly unlawful, frequently depraved, routinely deceptive, habitually self-serving, frankly phony – – and on so many points, outrageously wrong!

It’s not that the left doesn’t understand the virtues of common sense, law, due process, and faith – but rather, they don’t WANT them! This is why committed liberals are engaged in a war against all things reasonable, righteous, and respectable. Their actions prove beyond a shadow of doubt that they’re agents of hate.

We naturally wonder, “Can it get any worse?” Unfortunately, it will.

I’m convinced that these rapidly eroding cultural and political trends we see within our nation are showcasing a prototype population that will reach full expression in the Tribulation.  These events taking place now are just the tip of the iceberg.

After the Lord raptures His church, many liberals will be the antichrist’s strongest allies.

“GASP!!!! Whaaaaat?!? How can you say that? That’s so intolerant, so racist, so totally, uh….white male! You’re creating division! You are not promoting healing. Shame on you!”

Whatever.

The left doesn’t want healing! They want their way – and they’ll play by any rules they need to play by to get it. They govern by mob rule and if they can smear others and move the goalposts in the process, that’s just fine. Disruptions and crises are useful to them. It’s all patently obvious.

Think about it. My points are less an issue of partisan labels, and more an assessment of the facts.

Those who most despise God, His gospel, His values, His followers, and His systems of law and order which find their source in God’s Word – are those who are MOST likely to be left behind in the Rapture.

And it’s these hateful postures that routinely marinate the passions of the left. In the past decade, we’ve seen many examples of liberals ignoring the laws to advance their agenda, and that’s because they despise laws. Laws remind responsible people how to color inside the lines and so laws are inconvenient for the left. If laws are in their way, the left ignores or attacks them.

None of the left’s behaviors are about making a cogent case. The left will elevate the absurd, the insane, the deceptive, and the patently corrupt things to achieve their goals. Over and over, we’ve seen the left praise anything which calls sound reason and moral integrity into obvious question.

This is why liberals are the ones to most exalt the senseless premise of climate change, and it’s why they celebrate economic policies which are not supported by third grade math. It’s why it is predominately the left that attacks secure borders, pushes for government dependence, expands welfare, riots against free speech, hates Israel, promotes violence as a means of expression, lies to gain an advantage, puts down Christians, and believes in redistribution of wealth. None of these positions hold any honest water, but they absolutely ARE the left’s identity.

So again, let me be blunt. The kind of folks that are going to enthusiastically rally behind the antichrist and his depraved policies are exactly the kind of people the progressive-liberal-socialists are today.

For any of my readers which are offended by my assertions, you need to take a deep breath.  Seriously, you do.

Let’s all be honest here – politics have changed! The democrats today are not the party of your mother or your grandmother! The left is not the party of John F. Kennedy anymore. His past speeches ring with more conservative fervor than an entire apple-pie-eating Republican congress can muster today.

The left of our times has morphed into a radical, hateful, Marxist anarchist movement that wants to constrain freedom, create chaos, control power, and change the responsible order of things. Like it or not, that’s the plain truth.

Let’s assess my conclusions from another point of view. Let’s see what the Bible says about the antichrist and his style of leadership. I believe that will help us imagine the sort of people his supporters will most be like.

A pithy portion of Scripture that lays out several bullet points about these matters is found in Daniel 8:23-25. Here, the angel, Gabriel, explains some things about the antichrist to Daniel, and the picture that emerges is a telling one. Let’s review these details.

First, the antichrist throws truth to the ground. This is an over-arching condition that is stated back in Daniel 8:12, and it reinforces that the end times will be upside down. Lying lips will be the foundation of this last chapter of human history. Good will be bad and bad will be good. Right will be wrong and wrong will be right. It’s all going to be topsy-turvy.

Gabriel elaborates on this matter more in Daniel 8:25 where he says of the antichrist, “He will cause deceit to prosper.” The antichrist’s political system and the people he will set up to advance his globalist agenda will ACTIVELY promote deception. That’s the goal – and his efforts will be strategic, ruthless, and unapologetic.

Lies of all kinds will infuse the antichrist’s brand, and his supporters will approve of his ruses the same way those tactics are defended by the ranks of the left today. For unprincipled liberal socialist-globalists then and now, “the end justifies the means.”

Various other translations state the antichrist’s deceit will come by way of his “cunning,” and “policies.” This is simple to understand. He’s intentional about his shams. If someone wants to advance law and order, promote accountability, and fight for justice during the antichrist’s rise to power, they’re not going to be welcome. He’ll see to that. Deception is key to the end times depravities at every turn and level.

I have little doubt the antichrist’s agenda will promote “hope and change” during turbulent times post-Rapture, but that’s all part of his deception. His real objective is a godless one-world government with himself at the top. He wants to be seen as God and he wants to be worshipped as God (2 Thess. 2:3-4).

To achieve this, he must control the minds of the masses. His supporters will believe things which are not true because they have already rejected God and their minds don’t work properly anymore (Romans 1:28). They will also be this way because the antichrist has “…. caused deceit to prosper,” and – despite the obvious – his followers will be just fine with that.

Second, the antichrist will destroy mighty men. This phrase closes out Daniel 8:24, and it emphasizes the theme of destruction which marks the antichrist throughout the Scriptures. But here, every translation states he will destroy two specific groups of people, and I think there are details we should take note of.

“Mighty men” is the most used term for the first group, but other translations call them “powerful leaders” or “powerful people.” These are folks with resources and networks, and they are probably wealthy. They are powerful, prominent, and privileged.

In other words, they have the potential to resist the antichrist and to influence others. It’s vital to recognize that despots throughout human history have always destroyed this class of people in their own rise to power. Rich people, scientists, scholars, politicians, and businesspeople have always been a threat to narcissistic dictators, and so they are eliminated at the outset. The antichrist will do the same thing.

Many of these “mighty men” in Daniel 8:24 will be self-made. Many of them will be independent – not in the political sense, but in terms of shaping their own destinies. They may be suspicious of the antichrist’s plans, and they’ll hesitate to give up what they’ve worked hard to achieve. These “powerful people” missed the Rapture so we can assume most of them by this point will still be godless – but like many of their classic type, they will be self-reliant. They will “march to the beat of their own drummer,” and this will mark these non-conformists as a lingering threat to the antichrist’s agenda. The Bible says he will eliminate them when they least expect it (Daniel 8:25).

Believe me – the antichrist will find strong support for destroying this influential group of people. We already see the basis of this argument today. Millennials and Generation Z form the bedrock of the liberal activists and mobs. They constitute the majority population of “Occupy Wall Street,” “Black Lives Matter,” and “Antifa.”

These two groups prove you only need two things to succeed: ignorance and confidence.

Because they fail to understand basic economic principles, and because they generally lack a strong work ethic, Millennials and the Gen Z bunch distrust capitalism. They deeply resent those who are successful. They constantly demand entitlements, even if it means others need to give up what they’ve legitimately acquired. Newsweek called the Millennials “The Me Me Me Generation” in 2013, and it’s one of the very few times this publication has stated the truth.

I’m painting with a broad brush here, but if the brains of many Millennials’ and Gen Z were taxed, they’d get a refund. Several studies reiterate that most Millennials want socialism which proves this group has learned nothing from history. Obvious modern political and economic failures like Venezuela, South Africa, and most of the European continent are shrugged off. Millennials don’t have a clue about the facts, and so they still want everything for nothing.

In defense of these two groups – the Millennials and the Gen Z crowd – it’s impossible to be informed when your news source is SNL and The Comedy Network. It’s hard to find the truth when CNN admits they’re pushing lies, but they push them anyways. It’s challenging to gain a responsible perspective of the world when you’re still pivoting around Frosted Flakes and Pop Tarts, when you think we have a legitimate President in office, and you’re dependent on your parents’ basement as an adult.

But here’s the kicker: this entire state-of-affairs is a convenient situation for the globalists! At a campaign-style rally in Las Vegas some time back, Michelle Obama encouraged folks who “know nothing about nothing” to get out and vote.

It’s clear it is the “low information voter-type” that fuel the liberal agenda, and it’s the same bunch that will endorse the antichrist’s destruction of “powerful people.” His plan will appeal to their ignorance, to their progressive-socialist ideals, to their lack of responsibility, to their foolish prejudices, and to their warped sense of justice.

Thirdly, another group is mentioned which the antichrist will target, and it’s also going to receive more of the same biases we already see from the ranks of the left today. The antichrist, in Daniel 8:24, will also destroy the “holy people.” Other translations call them “God’s people,” “saints,” and “Holy ones.”

These are folks which will have come to saving faith after the Rapture. They didn’t have a right relationship with God before that point, but they do later! The Bible makes that clear. “Seeing is believing” I guess.

But these people are the real deal! Revelation defines them as those who will be killed “for the Word of God and the testimony they had maintained” (Rev. 6:9; 12:11). It’s clear from Revelation and related passages that the antichrist will do all he can to get rid of them. This is also the point of Daniel 8:24.

The followers of God during the antichrist’s reign share something in common with the “powerful people,” though they differ in most other ways. This second group also resists the antichrist and his system. They are therefore ALSO a threat to his plans.

Now, the motives of “God’s people” will be much different than the motives of the “powerful people.” Since the saints are marked by a right relationship with God, their stance is a righteous one. But it’s the same net result for the antichrist. This second group will not conform to the antichrist’s godless, deceptive, and self-serving ideals because these things are in violation of a Holy God and His standards.

They will not yield to the antichrist’s economic policies and his corrupt governance. In fact, we know the saints will speak out against all of this. Again, Revelation makes that clear. This second group will be reviled, attacked, persecuted, and killed for placing their faith in Jesus Christ and for living according to God’s Word. They will refuse to conform to the sham of a one world system.

Putting all this another way, “God’s people” of Daniel 8:24 will be square pegs in a new world order where all the holes are round.

It’s that way for “God’s people” right now, so it’s easy to see this dynamic becoming much worse. The seeds of hate against “God’s people” are already flourishing in the left today, and nobody set that prejudice in motion more effectively than our nation’s first Muslim President, Barak Hussein Obama.

Let me chase an important rabbit trail for a moment.

It was B.O. who showed up at the National Prayer Breakfast to remind attendees about the terrible deeds done in the name of Christ. He was the one who mocked folks for “clinging to God.” His White House asked Georgetown University to cover a symbol of Jesus’ name before he spoke there. He tried to implement a non-religious Christmas. It was President Obama who said in 2006, “….we are no longer a Christian nation,” and it was him who said it again to his Turkish buddies in 2009. Finally, it was President Obama who decided against recognizing the National Day of Prayer, but who chose to host a Ramadan dinner instead.

This is just a sampling of all the ways President Barak Hussein Obama rejected Christians and their faith during his eight years in office. Under his grossly carnal leadership, the left found energy and justification for disparaging Christians, and their bigotries have only grown since. These biases are still in plain sight under “Sloppy Joe.”

Here’s the cold hard truth: we’ve reached a point where the left is truly anti-God.

The Democrat party has veered so far in the pro-choice, anti-family, pro-gay, anti-Israel, pro-transgender, anti-prayer, pro-child mutilation directions (etc.) that former 2013 nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, E. W. Jackson, stated, “Christians should leave it.” He added in a radio interview that he thinks believing in God and voting Democratic are fundamentally incompatible. Frankly, I think he’s probably right.

The “demon-crats” today attacks the tenets of Christian faith with a venom that is truly otherworldly. Their angst against the Bible and against those that rightly believe it is the inspired Word of God boils down to one basic reason: liberals are anti-God. Get that through your head.

Pick your poison – call them whatever you will: “liberals,” “the left,” “democrats,” “progressives,” “socialists,” “globalists,” “fascists,” – define them anyway you choose. It’s clear the lines between these terms are heavily blurred. All these sub-groups despise conservatives, Christians, law and order, constitutionalists – – and they all hate God.

Members of one sub-group are active in the next. Labels mean very little when the depraved behaviors are the very same across the spectrum. Because liberals are anti-God, they are an intellectually dishonest and unprincipled people. They’ve checked their brains at the door because they are always in search of a world without moral consequences, and that’s not the way God designed things.

This situation renders the left as “fools” because they refuse to admit the obvious facts and to “give God glory” (Rom. 1:21-22). The truth about God is an unrelenting and clarion accountability to the left’s corrupt desires (Rom. 1:18-19). Liberals don’t want the Gospel because that implies their choices are wrong.

Furthermore, liberals cannot stand the fact that their own conscience is supernaturally wired to remind them of their sin. This is a key reason why so many liberals are violent and angry people. They are constantly at war within themselves and against others, when really their battle is against their own need for God’s grace.

It is a key reason why the left makes “the State” their god. Liberals worship “the State” and the one-world community they desperately want everything to become. The left attempts to use their “god” (big government and absolute control) to achieve their globalist ideals and to eliminate all consequences for their immoral behavior. This is why the left despises Christians now, and it’s why liberals make every effort to shut down ALL expressions and standards of the Christian faith. It’s why liberals scream bloody murder against any warnings about the true Islamic agenda while they turn a blind eye and deaf ear to those who persecute Christians and mock The One True God. Their patently-obvious double standard is evident to all.

The Tribulation Scriptures plainly lay out the loathsome behaviors directed against God and His followers by those who support the antichrist. Several passages provide startling parallels between the vile behaviors that are prominent in liberals today and the abhorrent deeds that qualify the globalists during the end times.

For example, the antichrist will oversee and orchestrate the relentless persecution and killing of the Tribulation saints (Daniel 7:21, 25; Dan. 11:33; Rev. 12:11; 20:4; et. al.). He cannot tolerate their resistance, but more importantly, he absolutely hates God. In exact imitation of the antichrist’s hatred of God’s followers, his supporters will rage en masse against God’s truth and against those who dare to speak it. The mobs will react in unspeakable ways as a result.

A particularly grotesque example of this is when the two witnesses of God are killed in Jerusalem (Rev. 11:5-10). This text says the world will applaud the death of these two witnesses and will refuse their burial. They will even “send each other gifts” to celebrate this occasion. It’ll be party time for the real “deplorables.” This occasion will be a big deal to the unsaved world because these two witnesses will have had a strong “testimony” (vs. 7) and they will have backed up their words with evidence of God’s power (vss. 5-6).

The world that will reject Christ at that time will want no reminders of WHO they have rejected – in the very same way the world that has rejected Christ today is obsessed with ridding our culture of His values.

It’s plain there is very little distance to connect between the two dots: the way the left hates God’s people now, and the way the antichrist’s supporters will hate God’s people then.

Fourth, one of the clearest displays in The Tribulation of behaviors we see in the left today is the way the followers of the antichrist will choose to remain in their sin. Their depravity will persist even when they are presented with the truth and when they face consequences for it (Rev. 9:20-21, Et al.).

All around them during the Tribulation, the evil ranks of humanity will have been killed by God’s judgments. There will be constant evidence of God’s sovereignty, power, and truth. It will all be on plain display like no other time in history. It seems none of this will matter to the antichrist’s followers. They will choose to remain in their sin, and they will curse God instead of repenting (Rev. 16:9).

They will do whatever it takes to protect and continue in their depravity the same way the left today does whatever it takes to protect their wicked ideals. One only needs to look at the violent behaviors of liberals today who defend abortion, transgenderism, pedophilia, and gay rights to see this egg has been let out of the shell – and it’s not going back in. There is no doubt the unsaved masses today have chosen darkness rather than light (John 3:19).

Fifth, the antichrist will be the ultimate socialist, and so he will be a hero to the likes of the left today. One of the hallmark qualities of liberals is their desire to control the flow of money, to redistribute wealth, and to implement a global system of economics. This highly regulated situation defines the liberal-socialists’ utopia, and the antichrist will succeed at accomplishing what other before him have been unable to do.

Perhaps it may all start matter-of-factly enough. The Rapture will take out millions of people and this will result in abandoned properties and resources being left for everyone who remains. There will be money and other “goodies” to redistribute for a while, and this will further cement within the future earth dwellers the socialist ideals they are already conditioned to want.

Eventually, even these resources will run slim. There will be too many takers and not enough givers to keep the corrupt process going. The bottom line is socialism never works. Former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, said, “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” This dilemma will inevitably arise in The Tribulation as it has with every socialist experiment before it.

There’s no doubt that the “mark of the beast” (Rev. 13:16-17) is strategically designed to cause further persecution of the Jews and Christians during The Tribulation. It is also designed to promote worship of “the beast.” The Bible makes these points very clear.

But – given that the antichrist will be the ultimate socialist dictator, it is no surprise his mark will also be a tool to institute global economic control. Quite simply, this worldwide fiscal rule is the ultimate objective of liberal-socialist-progressives today. If they can control the flow of money and resources and place themselves at the top of the food chain, then they can acquire everything else they most covet. It all follows from there.

Other facets describing the antichrist’s socialist constitution emerge elsewhere in the Scriptures. He redistributes land and wealth (Dan. 11:39), his policies become the economic ruin of many (Dan. 8:25), he accumulates vast amounts of resources for himself (Dan. 11:43), and he will speak out against God throughout the entire process (Dan. 7:25; Rev. 13:5-6).

Stride for stride, these things are the hallmarks of every socialist despot in human history, and sadly – they are also the passionate bent of the left today. The antichrist will emerge to become the ultimate “show and tell” of the left’s agenda, and the entire world will suffer unfathomable traumas as a result.

In closing, this article emphasizes a common theme running throughout. It focuses on end times’ deception. It is blatant deception the antichrist will employ to achieve his goals, and it is lies of every sort that the left advances within our own times to achieve theirs.

The socialist ideals of liberals cannot succeed where truth is given priority and a proper stage, or where virtue is encouraged. And so it will also be during The Tribulation. An atmosphere of crisis and a thick stew of lies will be fostered by the depraved world to justify a collectivist oppression.

We see many examples in our time of the left calling evil “good” and calling good “evil.” Daily, we see law and order being rejected by the violent and ignorant masses. Every evening we are saturated with news stories that feature the blatant corruption and injustice of those who have rejected God’s standards. We see the mounting hatred of God and His people. We see physical attacks and calls for assassination against people just for their political views. There are so many examples like these – even 15 years ago, we would have marveled to think we’d be where we are now.

But it has happened.

The depraved world is preparing itself for its false Messiah, the antichrist. He’ll find great favor from the likes of many folks who are around us today. Things are bad now – really bad! – but they’re going to get a whole lot worse.  The Bible promises that.

There is no remedy for this grievous situation except the Gospel. That is true now and it will be then too. The Gospel is indeed “good news,” and it will culminate in the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) for those who have believed it.

It why those who are truly “in Christ” do not need to be afraid.