When I was just a kid, back in the 40’s and early 50’s, before TV was a household name and radio was still the king of entertainment, with only music and voices coming from a box, we had to use our imaginations to “see” what was happening on the programs we listened to. One might think that experience limited our development, but it encouraged us to develop and use our imaginations.
Besides listening to great radio programs, such as “Burns and Allen”, “Jack Benny”, “The Shadow”, “Fibber McGee and Molly”, “The Inner Sanctum” and others, we had other games and pastimes to keep us busy in the evenings, especially when the programs on radio were not especially interesting. Dominoes was one of those fun games to play.
We started with a set of “double-six” dominoes and then advanced to the much more challenging “double-twelve” set, which certainly dates me since there are now domino sets that are “double-eighteen”, possibly even higher. In any case, our whole family would sit around a table and try to win the game; it was a lot of fun and calculating a specific score as a new domino was added to one of the lines actually helped in our learning of arithmetic.
But there were other fun times when my older brother and I would each take one of our double-twelve sets and stand each domino on end, curving and curling them around the table in beautiful snake-like patterns with each domino being close enough to its neighbor to hit it as the first domino was tapped. By turning one domino either to the right or the left, in our game, the “fall pattern” could be varied; even as today, one nation might lean right or left, it matters not and will not mean escape from the collapse.
With each of us having 91 dominoes to carefully place, it took a bit of time to get them all just right, but the care was extremely important since the end game was to try to make the most beautiful crash when the first domino was given a slight push.
We each had to push our first domino at exactly the same time to start the game.
We would watch as they fell, one by one, and hope they all reached the last domino at the exact same time. Of course, the end result was a table littered with 182 dominoes, all lying flat in a chaotic mess.
Dominoes on the World Table
Now, we are watching a scenario being set up, ready to be played out, on the world scene where each nation, kingdom or group is represented by an invisible domino standing precariously on end. Even though nations, at least most of them, are not close enough geographically to their neighbors to touch them, the idea of any one nation being able to avoid being struck by a falling domino somewhere is ludicrous since the entire World is now linked financially, culturally and in some cases, militarily. Though the response may not be “staccato” and/or instantaneous, when the falling begins, no domino will escape the carnage unscathed.
The Olivet Discourse
In the Olivet Discourse, recorded in Matthew 24:1 – Matthew 25:46, Jesus provides some very clear signs of what events to look for and expect when the World has entered the end-times.
Politically speaking, in chapter 24, verse 7, Jesus prophesies that “nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom”, and we certainly are seeing that right now and the results are catastrophic.
There are other major catastrophic events He mentioned in that same verse that are on the increase: “and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places”. The Lord called these “the beginning of sorrows”.
Many prophetic teachers call these events “the convergence” since they appear to be coming closer and closer together and in conjunction with the other signs, and will certainly accelerate as we get nearer the end.
So many of those events are now occurring in so many places around the globe, with some of them happening concurrently and others with gaps of days, weeks or even months, it is impossible to say that no dominoes have fallen; only God knows that and as the owner of the Earth and everything in it (Psalm 24:1) He and He alone would know when a specific event represents one of the dominoes that will precipitate the falling of all of them.
His intent with the Olivet Discourse was to let His disciples know what they should be looking for to avoid being caught off guard as the dominoes begin falling. Even so, in our time which is much closer to the end than was theirs, we need to be aware of the signs that Jesus spoke of and be ready for whatever is demanded of us as the disciples of Jesus.
The entire World is on a collision course with the most evil beings imaginable. Satan knows how short his time is and he is ramping up the evil he plans to use in his destruction of humanity. If we are to avoid that collision and be useful as faithful disciples until the return of Jesus, when He finally, finally will end all the madness and put an end to evil, we must be aware of the timing of certain events and endeavor to NOT miss them.
The First Domino
It is important to understand that God is the One “setting up the dominoes”, getting them ready for the roles they will play in the end-times scenario which will culminate in the Valley of Jehoshaphat in Israel when He will gather them there to plead with (judge) them (Joel 3:2). The name Jehoshaphat means “Jehovah is Judge” and all the nations of this World have an appointment for a face to face meeting with God, the righteous Judge where He will spell out the charges against them, pronounce sentence and then carry the sentence out to its conclusion. The end result of that judgment will resemble the collapsing and chaos left by a bunch of fallen dominoes, only it will be a bloodbath.
When God has determined which domino will be placed in a certain order, no man or group of men will be able to change that. It may sound to some as though God is indiscriminately placing some nations in positions that will spell certain destruction for them and their peoples, but it must be remembered that God is righteous, just and perfect in all His ways and since He knows all the sins of every person and every nation, He alone is worthy to judge them.
The first domino may well have already fallen and, with a potential gap in the timing until the successive ones begin to tip over, it becomes all too easy to relax and believe the worst is over, while the opposite is true. God’s word explains that when we see the arrival, the convergence, of the times spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 24, deception will increase along with persecution from many sources (2 Timothy 3:12-14).
The world political system we see being assembled right now is the same system that Antichrist will use to consolidate his power in his attempt to take control over every being on Earth; it is evil beyond imagination, but it is also made deceptively attractive to the people who have become mesmerized by the narratives of “peace, equity and inclusion”, not to mention the monetary rewards they are promised.
Those who are enamored of the evil system are already in danger of accepting the state of delusion spoken of in 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12, “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness”.
End of the Game
Unlike the dominoes we used playing our childhood game, where the first domino is tipped and all the others follow in rapid succession, the dominoes representing the World’s nations do not necessarily follow suit.
Diligence and patience are required by all believers in determining just where we are on God’s timeline, but I can assure you that, even if the first domino has yet to fall, we are seeing the dominoes being lined up and made ready for that one event, that one “push” that will send them all crashing down.
What is that event? Has it already occurred? Both good questions for which I have no answer, but seeing what is unfolding is enough to let us know that it is close, if not already a matter of history.
Unlike the game I enjoyed so much as a child, we are NOT in a game now; this is reality and many are in danger of missing the main event promised to all believers in Jesus Christ: the glory of standing with Jesus and being declared the winners.
Maranatha and Blessings
©2023. Bud Hancock. All rights reserved.
