Apocalypse soon - Strange days - Chronicles of the end of the age

Pietro Arnese, the founder and editor of Apocalypsesoon.org is available for speaking engagements, seminars and addressing church services on Bible prophecy. Contact

August 20, 2008

The state of the heart
The moral and spiritual decline of Western Civilization is nowhere more evident than in its arts and forms of entertainment. Strange Days indeed we are living. When one thinks that things can't get any worse, immediately comes proof to the contrary. Perhaps, no photo better than the one here depicted shows the state of the heart of man circa the year 2000.

a child, in Africa, dying of hunger while being devoured by insects.

Singer Daniel Küblböck, appearing in a German TV "reality show," immersed in 30,000 cockroaches, for a shot to fame.

Sure, there are probably much worse things one could choose to show the callousness and the dramatic moral decay of our society, but when I saw this photo, for me it was seminal. In its simplicity it shouted at my soul: shame, shame, how low have we fallen!

There is nothing to comment or to add. Unless one is lobotomized, looking at those pics sends a fit to the brain and to the heart. The comical angle (if we dare call it so) in all this is that Mr. Küblböck 's show is of a type called "reality shows." I find it very painful and hard to believe that our society can entertain such oddness with so much casual nonchalance. And it's all done in the name of money and of course, the audience just loves these "reality shows," and the weirder, the better. In the name of freedom, they are transforming people into depraved peepingtoms while making them slaves to it and wanting for more. Like a song of yesteryear proclaimed, "freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose." Sure, after loosing his concern for others, his self-respect, his power of reaction and protest, man-2000 is loosing his soul in a relentless descent into oblivion. Lobotomized indeed. And this serves very well the ruling elites for whom, a comatose sudditance is a welcome relief. I will follow shortly with more on this subject.

March 25, 2008

I have been silent, (again) for several weeks. I have noticed there is a method to this, and not of my own doing. As a cooking pot that gets to the boiling point and then blows its lid off with its steam, I do not write at will but only when moved to do so, I find myself bubbling over with new insights and urgency in the matter of prophetical (End Times) study. I am just coming out of one of these periods and I have to say that this time, the mood is quite different. Long time readers of this column know what I am talking about.

Let me be quite explicit, without being speculative or appearing manipulative: I am quite positive that we have crossed into Final Days matters and that this year, 2008, will be a pivot point for several threads which lead into the End zone. Prophecy unfolding before our eyes indeed and while it is a sad fact that most Christians do not understand prophetical events even if slamming headfirst into one of them, nonetheless there are some who are aware of the times.

I remember seeing a movie, in my pre-Christian days, which left with me with a powerful image of what I am trying to say here. The movie, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," a sci-fi directed by Steven Spielberg, was a huge hit back then and it dealt with space aliens wanting to land on earth and all that. In the movie plot, several men and women were "impressed upon" by the aliens about their landing spot so that they would be obsessed to understand what it all meant and eventually to find their way to Devil's Mountain, the not-so-accidental name of the mystic landing spot. Now, never mind about the aliens blah blah blah, the principle being used was very interesting. For whatever reason or criteria, somebody was being chosen while others were not. When I became a Christian (born again) and the Lord impressed strongly on my spirit the study of the Bible's End Time prophecies, I was simply amazed that most Christians were neither interested nor concerned about them as if those prophecies were reserved for a very nebulous future and/or a very different people, if they would reach fulfillment at all. In the course of my Christian life, I found out that there were "others" who like me, were strongly impressed with the same interest and urgency regarding the Times of the End. As in the movie, those who were/are impressed with this knowledge, find it very difficult to communicate to others what they are experiencing.

Leaving the movie comparison aside, one fact however appears extremely clear: The Lord has always had His sentinels through whom He reaches out to His people and apart from the present sad and painful state of the Church, the Holy Spirit is impressing the sentinels with the urgency of the hour.

In this column, we strive to present events which we believe are related to Biblical prophecy fulfillment and as we move ahead, there is so much happening worldwide that even a child could put two and two together, but the Church, in true ten-virgins-mode, remains mysteriously asleep. But the sentinels MUST speak up and speak out.

One of the principal (if not the most important) thread which has to do with End Time prophecy is the Jewish people.
They are indeed the chosen people, and while they will fully inherit the promises of God, before that happens, Scripture, both in the Old and in the New Testament tells us that they will undergo a terrible time of trial, (Jacob's trouble - "Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it." Jeremiah 30:7)
Unfortunately, it is not over for them. One would think that after the Holocaust of recent memory, humanity would never have to live through another such dark and evil time, but it will, and if possible, it will be even worse than that.

Sometimes I despair over the aloofness of the Jewish people. Surely some of them see the darkness coming, but most of them (like the Church) are uncaring and totally unprepared. The Christian sentinels are sounding the alarm, but alas, they are deaf and they do not hear the sound of the trumpet over the walls of Zion. Rightly God several times called them a "stiff-necked people":

"Furthermore the LORD spoke to me, saying, 'I have seen this people, and indeed they are a stiff-necked people." Deuteronomy 9:13

We, at Apocalypse soon have been sounding this alarm for years, while things have been growing steadily worse.

Report: Anti-Semitism on the rise globally
March 14, 2008
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A report from the U.S. State Department details "an upsurge" across the world of anti-Semitism -- hostility and discrimination toward Jewish people.
"Today, more than 60 years after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is not just a fact of history, it is a current event," the report says.

The report -- called Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism and given to Congress on Thursday -- is dedicated to the memory of the late U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, a survivor of the Holocaust, the extermination of 6 million Jews during World War II.

The report details physical acts of anti-Semitism, such as attacks, property damage, and cemetery desecration. It also lists manifestations such as conspiracy theories concerning Jews, Holocaust denial, anti-Zionism and the demonization of Israel.

"Over much of the past decade, U.S. embassies worldwide have noted an increase in anti-Semitic incidents, such as attacks on Jewish people, property, community institutions, and religious facilities," the report says.
>>read rest of the story here