Our granddaughters Ella and Izzy dropped off their favorite dog Kora Jean for us to dog-sit a few weeks ago. Kora is a Shepherd-BlackLab mix, and she’s a sweetheart—menacing in outward appearance (her ears straight-up pointed, her shiny black coat with gray betraying her age)—but she’s a charmer inside. Every morning first thing I take her on a two-mile walk. And she loves greeting the others we meet.

But Kora has also discovered the flock of wild turkeys that tramps all over our neighborhood. The other day she didn’t have her leash on in the backyard—and I’ve never seen those grumpy Turkeys rocket into the sky so fast! But it’s the deer I’m concerned about, fearing that if she spots one of them she’ll chase it until she collapses (and trust me—you can’t outrun the deer around here).

So I tried to find an inexpensive halogen flashlight yesterday (still looking)—because for our night jaunts I need to make sure we aren’t walking into a herd of those deer. The piercing halogen will hopefully spot their yellow-green reflective eyes staring back at us from the field behind our house. Gotta keep Kora from that chase.

In many ways, the ancient apocalyptic prophecies serve as halogen flashlights peering into the dark uncharted future. And given everything we’ve been going through the past seven months on this planet and across this nation, more and more people are wondering aloud about the connect there might between current events and Scripture.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been pouring over those apocalyptic snapshots of uneasy weirdness and terrible implication. Is there an interface between what we are living through on the cusp of a new school year and those dusty, long-forgotten, symbolic portrayals? Do they speak with decipherable messages? Does the light of the Word of God expose the dark mastermind behind what we endure right now? From them can we know with greater clarity the direction today’s stunning trends are headed?

Rhetorical questions, all four of them. This is why I must invite you (and the friends and family you have) to join us Sabbath mornings, beginning August 22, the eve of a new school year on all three of our campuses. Join us, join me as we seek to shine the halogen of prophetic light on what lies ahead. “American Apocalypse: ‘What Is Past Is Prologue’”—because if Shakespeare is right and the past is but prologue, then we have every somber need to be armed with Holy Scripture at this critical time. Period.

And if we can decipher the beauty of God’s character and the face of our Lord Jesus in these ancient words—and if it is true that “when we as a people understand what this book [Revelation] means to us, there will be seen among us a great revival” (TM 113)—then can you think of a more essential, opportune moment in history to discover or rediscover all God has embedded in these ancients words for His endgame friends?