Today’s world is rapidly approaching the end of its destruction. In the Bible, there is a passage in which God says, “I will once more shake not only the earth but also the heavens” (Hebrews 12:26).

God will shake up the current global system led by the spirit of the devil and lay the foundation for the Messianic Kingdom of the Lord Jesus.The current global system, which God describes as “Babylon,” will collapse, and current events show that this collapse has already begun: “Babylon the Great has fallen, has fallen! It has become a dwelling place for demons, a prison for every unclean spirit, a prison for every unclean and hateful bird, for all the nations have drunk the wine of the fury of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich through the extravagance of her luxury” (Revelation 18:2–3).   

All that will remain then will be what you have done for the God who created us and still grants us the grace and time to find the path to salvation. Everything done without God will be in vain (Matthew 12:30).

Yet most people ignore God’s warnings and cling to false hopes that everything will be fine in the future. Pride prevents most people from accepting the truth. This is what happened in the past as well. Let us remember the Titanic, which was said to be unsinkable—even by God. How much pride there can be in people’s hearts! The ship’s collision with the iceberg was inevitable. Water flooded the ship, and it sank. Some passengers boarded the lifeboats. Most of those who had room to get into the lifeboats were rich, while the poor were left to drown. And the same thing happens today. Most people ignore God’s warnings, and the rich try to save themselves by building bunkers deep underground.

The global system is like a ship that is about to sink. With so many different crises closing in on us from all sides, it is already too late to change course. The world has turned its back on God, the Bible, and His commandments, as well as on the only path to salvation given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

We are heading toward the time of great tribulation prophesied by the Lord Jesus for the last days preceding His return, and toward God’s judgment, which will strike all who reject Him. The Lord Jesus said that in the last days, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for all these things must take place. But the end is not yet. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be earthquakes in various places, as well as famines and plagues” (Matthew 24:6–7).

There are many conflict zones, such as in Ukraine, Russia, China, Taiwan, and the Middle East. The war in Ukraine has brought Russia into conflict with NATO. Putin wants Russia to control Ukraine, just as it did during the Soviet era. Another flashpoint is China’s plan to take over Taiwan, which would put it at odds with the U.S., which has pledged to protect Taiwan. A conflict in Taiwan could affect the global economic system, as approximately 90% of the world’s most advanced computer chips are manufactured there. These chips are used in a wide range of products, from cars to computers, and are vital to the proper functioning of the global system. 

Statistics show a global increase in hunger: over 300 million people are facing hunger in many countries. Conflict remains the main driver of acute food insecurity, affecting millions of people. Many millions of people have suffered due to extreme weather events, as more and more countries face severe floods, storms, droughts, wildfires, and outbreaks of pests and diseases—all of which contribute to food crises.

All these conflicts and economic problems will lead to the collapse of the global system, but God has forewarned us of these events, and they are a sign that God’s final judgment is near. Thus, if we look in the Book of Revelation, we read about the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the second of whom is the rider on the red horse: “Then another horse appeared, a red one. The one sitting on it was given the power to take peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another, and he was given a great sword” (Revelation 6:4). Likewise, in the Book of Daniel, we see that King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream whose details he could no longer recall, but he knew it was important, so he asked his wise men to uncover its meaning. Daniel was the only one who was able to do this with God’s help, and he told the king both the dream and its interpretation: “You, O king, were looking on, and behold, you saw a great image. This image was very large and of an extraordinary radiance. It stood before you, and its appearance was terrifying. The head of this image was of pure gold; its chest and arms were of silver; its belly and thighs were of bronze; the shins were of iron; the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay. You were watching it, and a stone was cut out without the help of any hand; it struck the iron and clay legs of the statue and shattered them.  Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were all shattered together and became like chaff on a threshing floor in summer; the wind carried them away, and not a trace of them was found. But the stone that had struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth (Daniel 2:31–45).

This dream is a revelation from God concerning the empires that would follow the Babylonian Empire. The head of gold is Babylon; the chest and arms of silver are Medo-Persia; the belly and thighs of bronze are Greece; the legs of iron are Rome. These four empires succeeded one another, and each ruled over the Jewish people and the land of Israel. 

Although these four empires belong to ancient history, the spirit behind them—which originated in Babylon—will continue in some form until it reaches its final stage, represented by the feet that are partly iron and partly clay. The stone that strikes the image is the second coming of Jesus the Messiah, when He will destroy Babylon’s world system and establish God’s visible kingdom on earth. 

The interpretation of the dream states that this kingdom will be divided, but some of the strength of iron will remain within it, just as you saw the iron mixed with clay. And just as the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so too will this kingdom be partly strong and partly fragile. If you saw the iron mixed with clay, it means that they will be mingled through human bonds of marriage, but they will not be joined together, just as iron cannot be united with clay.”

The iron legs represent the Roman Empire, which ruled over much of the known world—including Judea and Jerusalem—at the time of the Messiah’s first coming. The two legs of the image are significant because, in its later stage, the Roman Empire was divided, east and west, into two centers of power in Rome and Constantinople. This East-West division persisted after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, when two forms of Christianity emerged: Roman Catholicism in Rome in the West and Eastern Orthodoxy in Constantinople in the East. Both church systems drifted away from first-century Christianity, as preached by the apostles, becoming apostate churches that often persecuted true Christians and the Jewish people and set aside the message of the Bible.

The historic East-West schism continued in various forms over time. In the period following World War II, Europe was divided between communism in the East and a form of democracy in the West, separated by the Iron Curtain that ran through Europe. After the fall of communism in 1989, the countries of Eastern Europe, from Poland to Bulgaria, switched sides and moved from Russia’s sphere of influence to become part of the Western alliance within the EU and NATO. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Baltic states also broke free from Moscow and joined the EU.  For a brief period, there was talk of Russia joining the Western world as well, but Vladimir Putin changed everything; the division between East and West persists, with Russia now in direct confrontation with the West due to the war in Ukraine.  Putin wants to revive the former power of the Soviet Union and create a multipolar world, opposed to the Western unipolar world, so the East-West divide represented by the two legs of the image in Daniel’s prophecy persists, just as it was prophesied.

We read further that the iron and clay are “partly strong and partly brittle,” composed of elements that do not “adhere to one another, but are mixed with the seed of men” (Daniel 2:41–43).  This image may represent this East-West division, with the nations of the West being stronger and those of the East weaker, but, in essence, both are becoming increasingly anti-Christian and are in danger of imploding in the event of an economic collapse or war.  Iron and clay do not hold together, yet they have been forced into the same global economic system. In the current global situation, there is a danger that they will destroy one another. Therefore, someone needs to step onto the stage and bring “peace and quiet”! But this will be nothing more than a deception.

The UN has declared a “planetary emergency” and organized a conference in 2024 with the aim of saving the world from climate change, war, and the financial crisis. A key focus of the “Summit of the Future” is the proposals for “A Global Digital Pact and the Reform of the International Financial Architecture.” Among the proposals is a new “overarching body” responsible for the entire financial system, which will “enhance coherence and align with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”  A vital part of the agenda is “digital connectivity” and the establishment of a Global Digital Compact, which will create a digital network connecting people, entities, devices, and things, directed by those who lead the system. This is also what the World Economic Forum outlined in its 2020 report, “Unlocking Technologies for Global Goals.”

This plan is risky because a dictatorial form of government could use the social credit system and the central bank’s digital currency to curtail human freedoms and rights—by controlling people’s finances and their ability to use them, that is, the very act of receiving one’s daily bread. Those in power could declare a “planetary emergency,” as happened during the pandemic, and then strip us of our freedoms to “save the world from disaster.”  In this case, iron and clay unite and bring about the final global dictatorship. The power behind globalization is the spirit of “Babylon” that ruled the ancient empires mentioned above. The Lord Jesus described this supreme power of control as coming from the devil, the ruler of the darkness of this present world (John 12:31).  The Antichrist will receive power from the devil and take control of the global system; he will persecute anyone who opposes him and claim the status of a god, demanding to be worshiped.  He will establish a new economic system in which you will not be able to buy or sell without the Mark of the Beast: “And he caused all—small and great, rich and poor, free and slave alike, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and that no one may buy or sell unless they have this mark—that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. Here is wisdom. Let anyone who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. And its number is six hundred sixty-six” (Revelation 13:16–18).

These prophecies were foretold to be fulfilled during the seven years of the Great Tribulation, before the Lord’s return to earth, when the Antichrist will persecute the saints (Daniel 7:25, Revelation 13:7) and speak against the Most High God (Daniel 7:25, Revelation 13:5), but in the end he will be cast into hell (Daniel 7:11, Revelation 19:20). The devil’s power will come to an end with the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory”  (Daniel 7:13–14, Matthew 24, Revelation 19). The Kingdom of the Lord Jesus will be an eternal reign for all the tribes that serve the Lord. He will return to bring order to the chaos created by humanity on the earth that Heentrusted to our care, and He will establish His Kingdom—which will never fall—where peace and tranquility will reign (Isaiah 2:1–4, Revelation 19–20).

Therefore, it is not man-made boats that will save us, but the lifeboat of salvation that God has prepared for us. Those who hide in the bunkers of the wealthy will share the same fate as they do. Death and, ultimately, eternal hell. Unlike the lifeboats on the Titanic, there is room in the lifeboat of eternal salvation in Jesus for anyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ—that He died for our sins and rose from the dead— to bring salvation and eternal life to all believers. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; He was buried and rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:2–3). Then confess your sins. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you (Isaiah 59:2). For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  (Romans 3:23). Pray that Jesus will be Lord over your life, that He will give you the Holy Spirit to guide you into all the truth of God’s Word (John 14:16–18) and, together with other believers, to be part of the true Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!