Book Review by Terry James

I begin by offering my apology to Don McGee, author of this booklet, Return to Shinar. At the same time, I must apologize to you who read this review. This is information I should have long ago presented to those interested in Truth about Bible prophecy.

Normally I don’t do reviews on booklet-length material. Book reviews are for books, not booklets.

This booklet, however, despite its brevity, is one that lays out what is prophetically scheduled for the near future, according to God’s Word, in such masterful, descriptive detail that it far exceeds ininformational indispensability most full-length books I have read on things to come.

Please, please, don’t think of my words here as hype. Don McGee has nailed, in contemporary terms, almost the precise, step-by-step progression of the changing order of local, national, and world society, culture and government we see taking place daily today.

Return to Shinar is a treatise on Lucifer’s ages-long methodology for enslaving God’s creation called man as it relates to our time right at this moment. Satan obviously senses the time is drawing near when he can grasp the reins of control. The author writes the following: “The mantra the world seems to be repeating is that the answer to the discrepancies is for all people everywhere to submit to a single governing authority and to socialism, which are key components to globalism. Though that solution is as senseless as it is destructive, it is exactly the system Satan will implement through his Antichrist after the rapture. He understands what all evil men have understood for centuries: In order to control and exploit people, they must be limited in liberty and taxed into poverty. The combination of totalitarianism and material depravation forces people to depend upon the government for everything, and such dependence is the bit in a horse’s mouth.”

McGee frames what is happening and why in such clear, powerful explanation as to almost dazzle in its brilliant simplicity. He begins by writing: “The reason things are happening politically and socially in America—and all over the world, for that matter—is that such a grand global aspiration requires an equally grand global plan.

Is all this just another “conspiracy theory”? No. This has nothing to do with the reputed efforts at a one-world government as commonly attributed to the Bilderbergers, the Council on Foreign Relations, etc. This has to do with two comprehensive and exhaustive plans, both of which are humanly inconceivable…”

The author then launches into an in-depth dissection of the on-going spiritual battle –put in a literal, moment-by-moment unfolding manner. His analyses impressed me so dramatically that they sparked in me the impetus I was searching for to begin writing my next book.
McGee certainly understands exactly what we see taking place, offering proof aftger proof that the governmental planners and would-be masters cannot hide what they are up to in these strange times. He presents analysis like the following.

“…People all over the world, even in America, will be willing to trade liberty for what they believe is security. Those same people will accept the cessation of liberty more easily if it is paralleled with ‘“social reform’ in which moral standards are relaxed, thus freeing them to soothe their loss with uninhibited self-indulgence.”

The author writes further: “Today it seems that the most comprehensive solution to every international problem is globalism, which has been referred to by some as something of a political dilemma. But, it is not simply a political dilemma, and its growing popularity is not an accident. It is actually a spiritual disease tailor made for what is coming to this planet and for the one who is behind it all.”

Don gets right down to the shoe-leather in addressing how swiftly the spiritual battle is assaulting basic structures in America and the world.

“Anyone who works regularly with high school and college kids and young married couples knows of their concern for their futures. They sit in Bible classes and listen to sermons in bewilderment because what they are seeing in the world and what they are being taught are two different things.
Typically, they’re being taught to interpret current events as being outside the parameters of the Bible; that the world has always been this way and always will; that it will all somehow work out OK just like it has always worked out OK. They are being told all kinds of things about where the world is headed, but are never encouraged to see what God has to say about the topic…”

He then gets really to the heart of the problem in this nation.

“…Their pastors’ message to them is pure secularism: Vote for the humanities candidate, support efforts to promote social justice, be tolerant of everyone, and extend moral equivalence to all religions and lifestyles, etc. Seldom are these young people told to pursue God’s standard for any endeavor.”

Please don’t neglect your education in these most important areas. This brief, concise booklet, as I mention above, has certainly provided the impelling thrust needed for a book I believe the Lord is prompting me to write. I don’t make such recommendations as this one lightly.

Book Review by Terry James

Bill Randles, a pastor, called to ask if I would have a look at his book, A Sword on the Land: The Muslim World in Bible Prophecy. My time spent with him on the phone certainly turned out to be something I believe was preordained.

I found while researching for my own book soon to be released,CAULDRON: Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East, that information specifically encompassing the history—both historic and current—of the many peoples of the Middle East is hard to pin down and form into understandable presentation for the reader. Also, I found myself, while reading A Sword of the Lord, wishing that I had known about the book sooner. Having at my fingertips the author’s excellent organization of facts about the nations of Bible and modern times would have made my own efforts less laborious and the work go in a more time-efficient way.

One doesn’t have to be a scholar of Mideastern matters to comprehend this book. The explanations and descriptives the author has taken care to make clear to the reader are among this volume’s best attributes, in my opinion. Readers will actually find themselves delving into the intricacies of what is more often than not considered to be an enigma too involved to be explored.

I used to think that Hal Lindsey’s Late, Great, Planet Earth gave the best, quick-sketch description of the nations surrounding Israel. Bill Randles’ book surpasses that great work in this one particular area, in my view. You will get a true picture of what the world today faces, and why, with regard to the planet-rending potentialities within that caustic region.

The author says the following about his reasons for writing the book:

I wrote the book, “A Sword on the Land: The Muslim World in Bible Prophecy,” because I want to draw attention to the stunning modern relevance of the often read but little appreciated prophecies in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Zechariah and the others, as well as the words of Jesus and the apostles concerning events in the last days.

Events such as the so called “Arab Spring” have been illustrating these prophecies right before our eyes, but unfortunately too few have been taught to interpret them. My goal is simplicity, and my method has been to take the place names in the Biblical prophecies, (Edom, Persia, Tyre and Sidon, and Babylon, etc.) translating them into their modern names, (Southern Jordan, Southern Lebanon, Iraq…etc).

When this is done, suddenly the prophets read like versions of today’s newspaper. Egypt’s civil war has been happening before our eyes (Isaiah 19), Syria’’ nightmare is beginning (Isaiah 17), the UN is “Casting lots for God’s people” just as Joel 3 predicted, Zechariah 12 is being set up right before our eyes.

There has never been a time like the one we live in and the events in the Middle East are a major aspect of the last days. The Arab Spring has a meaning, but not the one imputed to it by the talking heads and pundits, who treated it like a democratic breakthrough for the Middle East.

Arab leaders such as Hussein, Asad, Kaddafi, and Hosni Mubarek, were brutal by our western standards, but they were secular and not Islamic, other than for convenience. They served as corks, stopping up the pent up, frustrated rage engendered by radical Islam. God has been un-corking the bottles, and unleashing the Muslim world, for the final conflict of the nations prophesied in places such as Psalm 83, Numbers 22–24 and Zechariah 12.

I wrote this prayerfully hoping for Christians to wake up, and for sinners to realize why it is that they have this foreboding, and what to do about it, as well as for Muslims, people for whom Jesus died also, and who also can see that something is coming, and how to get ready for it.

I have no doubt that you will agree, upon reading A Sword on the Land,that Bill Randles accomplished what he set out to do. This is a book I can strongly recommend.