> “When the end times comes, and you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the sacred place, then it is time for those that dwell in the cities to flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetops turn to save anything that is in the house; neither let those working in the field go back to fetch their belongings. Sorrow, to those who bear children in those days! May their flight not be in winter, nor on the Sabbath: for there will be great distress, unequaled since time began. Except such days be shortened, few would endure: and yet those days shall indeed be shortened, for the sake of God’s chosen.” –Jesus

Rush Limbaugh has stated to his vast radio audience, on not a few occasions, that he will assuredly let them know when it is time to panic!

I wonder if Rush is listened to in Iraq?

A note Franklin Graham posted on social media recently:

> “Up to 40,000 Iraqis, many of them Christians, are trapped right now on a mountaintop in northern Iraq surrounded by Islamic terrorists. Children are dying of thirst, and if the people come down they will be slaughtered. ‘Genocide is taking place today in northern Iraq, where Christian and Yezidi populations are being exterminated,’ Congressman Frank Wolf said in a letter to President Obama. They desperately need our prayers and immediate international intervention. Why is the world standing by and doing nothing?”

Genocide and inhumanity are as much a part of the world’s history as invention and progress. Throughout history the Jews, especially, have been targeted for annihilation; seven times to be specific. Jesus’s warning regarding the end times adds a new twist to an age old plot: his followers would also be targeted for termination!

Knowing the premium Jesus has on righteous character, the number of times He’s commanded His followers to not fear, and the revelation that cowards will not occupy his Kingdom, does it strike anyone else as odd that He’d instruct his followers to flee?

Pinning His prophetic words to actual events can be an exercise in futility…ask the believers in Mosul whose houses were identified with the Arabic letter “N” for Nasrani, followers of the Nazarene, who, out of necessity, abandoned their homes, but not their faith, if this is the Great Tribulation! Rather, look how their faith is being broadcast to the whole world while exposing the wretchedness and brutality of a false, man-made religion bent on domination, not salvation.

Certainly what ISIS is doing – identifying Christians, forcing them from their homes, brutalizing men, women and children – is abominable and leads to desolation; it is a cryptic demonstration of the power source behind it: diabolical, demonic, satanic. And for these dear brothers and sisters in Christ, matters little that it fulfills this or that eschatological perspective.

But it may give the rest of us a little perspective on Jesus’s words on fleeing at the trigger point of massive, worldwide persecution of both Jews and Christians alike that precedes His Divine intervention into the affairs of mankind. If we see the world falling apart, He knows it is falling into place right where He intends: the final confrontation between good and evil. The wrath of satan versus the wrath of God. Death versus Life.

Our part, as always, is to obey His divine directives. Flee, not out of panic, but with resolve to minister along the way prepared and purposeful in our understanding that all these things must happen to fulfill all righteousness!