It’s my opinion that we cannot overemphasize the importance of the Work the Holy Spirit is accomplishing at this moment in history. The Third Person of the Godhead – sent here by the Lord Jesus upon Ascending to the Throne room in Heaven to dwell within each and every believer of the Church Age (Age of Grace) – is presently doing truly phenomenal acts of Restraint.
While, on the surface of Planet Earth, evil seems to be uncontrolled and even uncontrollable, God the Holy Spirit has a Firm Hold on Heaven’s Chain attached to the old serpent’s Collar of Restraint.
We have looked at this supernatural Restraint a number of times in these columns. And doing so should provide a degree of confidence and comfort. God will absolutely not, in this present dispensation, allow Satan and his minions to get away with all their nefarious wickedness. We look in this instance of exactly the kind of holding back the Luciferian plans with regard to a specific, big-time prophetic entity scheduled to be unleashed at some point yet future.
The Scripture, again, that promises God’s Restraint is the following.
“For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he [the Holy Spirit] who now letteth [Restrains] will let [Restrain], until he [the Holy Spirit] be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked [Antichrist] be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming” (2 Thes 2:7-8).
Nuclear war is, at present, the biggest fear of most every diplomat around the world. It seems to me that the average person – at least here in the U.S. – has nowhere near the fear of a nuclear war as did that of my generation those years ago. I’ve expressed a number of times of being worried as a teenager in high school, reading in the school library during study hall about how the Soviets were threatening to nuke anyone who stood in their way of dominating all of Europe – and anywhere else they wished to dominate.
So, with the diplomats who are supposedly in the know about how serious are the threats made by China, as we will look at here, I should be worried, at least to the extent I was worried as that teenager all those years ago.
But I’m not worried – not in the least. There, of course, is a very good reason. I know what God’s Word has to say about your and my future. Bible Prophecy, to me and to those who view it from the preTrib perspective, provides both the confidence and the comfort I mentioned above.
The prospects a little further out in the future, on the other hand, should terrify with abject fear and dread those who don’t know Jesus for Salvation. Nuclear war is almost a certainty as part of the Tribulation era. And China is, I’m certain, to be perhaps the deadliest of all entities in bringing forth destruction – so far as consideration of human involvement in destruction is concerned.
Bible Prophecy foretells that there will be a force to rival that of the great fuehrer of the Fourth Reich. The power will come from the oriental world. John the Revelator was given the prophecy about this tremendous force by the angel assigned to relay the Message from God’s Throne.
We are told of this military juggernaut in two prophetic passages.
“And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them” (Revelation 9:13-16).
“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared” (Revelation 16:12).
This huge military force will approach the occidental world from the far reaches of the oriental world. The numbers are staggering to consider!
China looks at this time in history to be the King of the kings of the east. And they are threatening to invade Taiwan at any time, expressing their willingness to use even nuclear weaponry against the U.S. to accomplish their intention.
The same thing that has kept the nuclear Genie in the bottle is obviously now being used to slow this great military power – to keep the Sino giant bottled up, so to speak. I believe it is a powerful example of God’s Restraining Hand. The following excerpt might further enlighten.
Taiwan’s foreign minister said last week that the US and Taiwan are in talks on the possibility of the island being brought under Washington’s nuclear umbrella, a step that would make a catastrophic war between the US and China much more likely.
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu made the comments before Taiwan’s parliament, the Legislative Yuan. Wu declined to detail the talks when pressed if Taiwan had asked the US to bring the island into its nuclear umbrella.
“Regarding the discussion of this issue with the United States, it is not suitable for me to make it public here,” Wu said, according to The South China Morning Post.
Many of the US’s allies are considered to be under the protection of the US nuclear umbrella, including Japan, South Korea, and every member of NATO. Giving such a guarantee to Taiwan would mean the US could use nuclear weapons if China invades the island or if war breaks out by other means. [Source: Taiwan Says It’s in Talks on Being Brought Under US Nuclear Umbrella – Taiwan’s foreign minister declined to share details about the talks, by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, May 28, 2023]
As stated in the above news analysis, it is feared that America’s thinking on including Taiwan under America’s nuclear protective umbrella will provoke the future King of the kings of the east to start a war leading to nuclear Armageddon. But I see it as the Holy Spirit doing His Restraining Work.
The Chinese communists were becoming aggressive to the point of doing something reckless and invading with conventional force. Being so near their target in proximity, they could have perhaps gotten ahead of their prophesied role as the hegemonic King of the region.
America, uncharacteristically of this particular president, is now thinking of making Taiwan a protectorate under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Therefore, once again, that nuclear Genie hasn’t gotten out of the bottle because even CCP dictators don’t want to be incinerated in a nuclear holocaust.
In my view of things, this prophesied force of mass destruction – the Sino giant – is thereby Restrained by the Hand of God, using a weak presidential administration to do the Restraining.
It is exciting, not troubling, to see the Holy Spirit at Work, and doing so with ease. It is a Mighty God we serve, indeed.
All this points, of course, to the soon removal of the Restrainer from Planet Earth – at least removal in regard to the level He is Restraining at present. Wherever the Holy Spirit goes, believers in whom He dwells go. It’s exciting because we are talking about Rapture being very soon!