The United States dominated much of this year’s Olympic Games in Paris. More than interesting to me is the gold the American athletes won for the apex nation of the world in relationship to another object of gold. That object is the infamous “golden cup” described in the Bible—first in Jeremiah 51:7 and second in Revelation 17:4.

My fascination centers around the wickedness surrounding the Paris Olympics. The games began and ended with blatant bookends of evil ostentation to anyone watching proceedings from the biblical Christian perspective.

More about my thoughts on all this later.

America burst forth from history’s slow-motion movement with brilliant inventiveness that would mystify if viewed from any perspective other than that of Bible prophecy. The stunning achievements within the mix of that quantum leap continue to engender awe. Human genius almost certainly had to have been infused with supernatural influence in accomplishing the exponential progress humanity has achieved within one hundred years. We have moved, within that time, from traveling at speeds horses can run to streaking at the speed of light through communications technologies.

The United States of America has been the nation at the very heart of the explosion of human technological progress. We have no peer in this regard. Just as God’s hand of providence guided the founding fathers in bringing the country to birth in 1776, so His omnipresence inspired the American genius and industry resident in the nation to achieve things essential to opening the book of end-times prophecy.

The prophet Daniel’s words resonate in our day:

“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” (Daniel 12:4).

This ranks as perhaps the foremost signpost encapsulating our generation’s place on God’s prophetic timeline when considering the question about whether America is anywhere in Bible prophecy, even if not mentioned specifically by name.

The prophet’s words tell us:

1) There is a book that has written in it the end of all things regarding the human realm.

2) That book was purposely shut in order to not reveal details about the end.

3) The book was sealed during Daniel’s time, and no one would be able to break that seal.

4) The world would experience a great population explosion near the end.

5) The people of that future time would go at a phenomenal speed, literally to and from points all over the earth.

6) Humankind’s knowledge would increase tremendously.

Many, including myself, believe this detonation of knowledge at the very end includes an understanding about end-of-days prophecies from God’s Word, as well as human knowledge that has erupted like at no other time in history in what we now call the Information Age, which has grown out of the creation of the computer. The major implication in the first part of the prophecy is that the book of understanding end-times matters would be opened at the time of the running “to and fro” and of the exponential increase in knowledge. Therein is the validation of our claims that this generation is bumping up against the very end of the age and that the signals we are witnessing today are, indeed, signs of Jesus Christ’s soon return to the earth.

Again, the United States is inarguably the matrix out of which the geometrical progression of knowledge, thus the spectacular increase in our ability to travel to and from anywhere on earth, has grown. The unsealing and opening of the book Daniel told about by the angel might well have taken place during one specific incident about which we’ve all learned in our rudimentary studies of American history. The occurrence certainly seemed an explosive epiphany, with God reaching down to man in a spectacular fashion. More than coincidentally, I am of the firm conviction that one of America’s most famous founding fathers was the recipient of this brilliant stroke from the heavens.

Benjamin Franklin’s Shocking Experience

Benjamin Franklin, whom we know as one of the key founders of the US, in fact, appropriated through his God-inspired genius the key to the greatest discovery of humankind. His use of a key opened up new vistas dreamed of by only a very few inventive minds in previous history.

Franklin believed electricity could be harnessed from lightning. So, he tested his theory in 1752 by using a contrivance we’ve all become somewhat familiar with by way of our history books.

Mr. Franklin was knocked on the seat of his pants in a shocking discovery, as we know.

American Industriousness on Display

Of course, much groundwork was laid by others as well as Americans for the explosion of modern technological achievements. But it is American industriousness—a genius for taking groundwork laid and rocketing into the future with that foundational creativity—that makes the US unique among the nation-states of history. Electricity and its many fantastic applications have continued to power the still-surging explosion of knowledge and travel in the twenty-first century.

Like ancient Babylon, America has been a “golden cup” in the hand of God:

“Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD’S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad” (Jeremiah 51:7).

What a dichotomy! Babylon was considered a “golden cup” in God’s hand when equating the use of that cup to export wickedness on a worldwide basis, as described by the prophet!

We see that same “golden cup” next in the hand of the whore of Babylon—the false religious system—as she sits astride the Beast:

“And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication” (Revelation 17:4).

In both cases—the nation Babylon and the prostitute astride the Beast—God’s Word speaks to His judgment and wrath because of worldwide rebellion against His governance.

To my thinking, this absolute turning from the God of Heaven was manifest for all to see with the graphic display leading into and out of the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024.

America, which sure looks similar to the Babylon mentioned by the prophets Jeremiah and John, has exported wickedness as have no other people in human history because of the tremendous technologies it has been instrumental in developing.

No such instrumentalities have made this more possible than electricity, computers, satellites, and the burgeoning artificial intelligence. And these are being used by the Ephesians 6:12 minions, both demonic and human, to make the world ready for Satan’s son of perdition, Antichrist.

America could well be pointed to as possibly being that “golden cup.” Certainly our most blessed nation in all of humankind’s history fits the description. And it looks as if the American “golden cup” of exported evil to the rest of the world will be used in God’s righteous indictment as He sits as judge to bring down the anti-godliness described by Jude:

“And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him” (Jude 1:14-15).

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

The title of this commentary will likely grab the attention of many who are fascinated by the conundrum presented to the finite mind: How can God, who is omniscient, have known in eternity past that most of His creation called humanity would go to a lake of fire prepared for the devil and his fallen angels? Yet God still isn’t willing for anyone to perish; He wants all to come to repentance—meaning that people must have the free will to choose or reject God’s offer of salvation.

Well, this is the wrong article if solving that infinite query is your quest. I mean this title to indicate an examination of this presidential election and God’s omniscient foreknowledge about all involved and the outcome. To what extent is all this predestined by Heaven’s governance?

To those who believe in God being in complete control of everything at all times, there can be little doubt. God reached down on July 13, 2024, and turned Donald J. Trump’s head at the precise moment a speeding bullet was about to enter the presidential candidate’s skull.

Even pundits totally opposed to Trump stated that the near miss was providential. The Lord of Heaven, then, is certainly intervening in America’s electoral process. God Himself has made it quite clear that He is doing so.

He has intervened before—for example, in the 2016 election, many of us believe. Mr. Trump was given almost no chance of winning against Ms. Clinton. But win he did.

However, with the miraculous turn-of-the-head moment as Trump was addressing the rally throng, God asserted that those wanting the former president removed from the process, no matter the method, would not get their way. At least not on that occasion.

What does the Lord’s obvious statement mean in terms of the election this year? I, like you and everyone else, have no idea. The only thing I can add with certainty is that God did make that statement. He does nothing without great purpose. This is especially true when the statement–the intervention—is so blatantly done in front of the entire world.

This makes me quite excited about just what it does, in fact, mean: what it means to America, what it means to the election, and what it means in terms of God’s prophetic timeline.

Founder Todd Strandberg’s and my website, Raptureready.com, has at its center, of course, a certain anticipation. That anticipation is found in the prophetic insight Paul gave all believers:

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

Those who have read my series, “Scanning a Fearful Future,” know my long-held belief is that if America were to suffer a catastrophic fate that would bring the nation down to rubble, the entire world would suffer in a way that it would take decades, perhaps longer, to ever get back to business as usual.

Business as usual is exactly what the Lord Jesus said would be the condition when He next intervenes in the affairs of wicked, rebellious humankind. That condition is outlined in Luke 17:28–30—the “as it was in the days of Lot” prophecy.

Jesus said all of life’s business—buying, selling, building, marrying, and planting–would be going on when He next catastrophically intervenes into the human condition.

A calamity that destroyed the US would be a world-rending matter because the nations of the world are so intricately linked to America.

This being the case, Jesus’ intervention must take place before America’s demise or world-rending circumstances, such as total economic collapse or World War III.

That intervention will be the Rapture of the Church—all who believe in Jesus Christ for salvation. Jesus told us that it would be just like the day when God removed Lot and his family from Sodom. The righteous will be taken to be with Christ. The word for “taken” is the Greek word paralambanó. It is the word used when the Lord said “one would be taken and the other left” in His Olivet Discourse, describing how it will be at the time of the Rapture. This is the same Greek word used by Jesus as recorded in John 14:1–3 when He said, “I will receive (paralambanó) you unto myself, that where I am there you may be also.”

All that said, it is more than obvious that the minions of Ephesians 6:12, both demonic and human, are doing all they can do to destroy America as founded so they can bring about the changed global order essential to establishing the one-world rule of Satan’s son of perdition—the Antichrist.

The following article outlines just how they are attempting to do so with this presidential election. Here is the link; check it out: https://www.wnd.com/2024/08/god-trump-america-and-democrats-all-out-plan-to-steal-the-2024-election/.

Yet the God of Heaven has this Luciferian force in derision through God’s Great Restrainer, the Holy Spirit, resident within the Church. The fact that Donald Trump was supernaturally spared that day in Butler, Pennsylvania, is proof of that derision and restraint, I have no doubt.

Again, I have no idea what our Lord is up to in all of this intrigue. But it is fascinating and even infused with great expectation as this November approaches. Has He predestined this election to serve His prophetic purposes?

As the title of our website would have it, being “Rapture ready,” which Paul the apostle exhorted in the above Scripture, is most appropriate. And the Lord Jesus makes that a commandment for the Christians who will be on the earth when He next is revealed, as given in the “days of Lot” prophecy.

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!