Through a Glass Darkly

Here’s one for the “fig tree” watchers (see Matthew 24:32).

Check out this article, Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request:
Secret Warrants Granted Without Probable Cause, by Ellen Nakashima.

The article provides interesting insight into yet another potential opportunity for some “Big Brother” of the future to step into a ready-made infrastructure for the exercise of abusive power. Click on the link to read it all. My comments and article excerpts follow.

The article reports:

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.

While this is a useful spying tool for the sorts of characters referenced above, other sorts of characters (ie. you and me), may not be exempt from unknown scrutiny at some point:

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

The ability to use a cell phone as a tracking device has marketable aspects.

With Verizon’s Chaperone service, parents can set up a “geofence” around, say, a few city blocks and receive an automatic text message if their child, holding the cellphone, travels outside that area.

But we have a two-edged sword here. Consider that these “good” uses demonstrate the possibilities available to those with other intentions.

To make matters even more interesting, you don’t even have to be using the phone to be spied on. Notice the word “routinely” in the following quote:

“Law enforcement routinely now requests carriers to continuously ‘ping’ wireless devices of suspects to locate them when a call is not being made . . . so law enforcement can triangulate the precise location of a device and [seek] the location of all associates communicating with a target,” wrote Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA — the Wireless Association

Some courts are demanding probable cause warrants, but not all. The “majority of districts” do not. Also note the argument that the decision to carry the “tracking device” can be construed as permission to be spied on:

But judges in a majority of districts have ruled otherwise on this issue, Boyd said. Shortly after Smith issued his decision, a magistrate judge in the same district approved a federal request for cell-tower data without requiring probable cause. And in December 2005, Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein of the Southern District of New York, approving a request for cell-site data, wrote that because the government did not install the “tracking device” and the user chose to carry the phone and permit transmission of its information to a carrier, no warrant was needed.

Seems like a practice that is only going to get worse:

The trend’s secrecy is troubling, privacy advocates said. No government body tracks the number of cellphone location orders sought or obtained. Congressional oversight in this area is lacking, they said. And precise location data will be easier to get if the Federal Communication Commission adopts a Justice Department proposal to make the most detailed GPS data available automatically.

Often, Gidari said, federal agents tell a carrier they need real-time tracking data in an emergency but fail to follow up with the required court approval.

Just “trust us.” They are, after all, acting in behalf of the federal government, right?

Well, I’d love to stay and discuss clues upon which to speculate about possible future scenarios, but I gotta go. I think my wife is looking for me and my phone is ringing.

A few years back a group of engineering students in a Bible study I was leading became very animated when it was suggested that “pre-tribulationists” should not be too presumptuous in thinking they have a handle on all-things-end-time. Sensing a teaching opportunity, I picked up the opposing viewpoint (post-trib rapture) and began making a case for it while pointing out weak spots in their arguments. One argument the group made that really caught my attention, not because it was a great one but rather because it was so different from any I had heard before, went something like this:

God has always told His people where to go and where to get their food(?!) before He brought judgment to those around them. Since He does not tell us those things, He is not planning to have us around during the Great Tribulation and therefore He will rapture us out beforehand.

Their manner in making the point made it obvious they had been taught or discussed this idea previously. Yet it was completely new to me. I sensed unnavigable “rabbit-trails” with the explanation of that one so I let the origin of the point pass in favor of the larger conversation. But I was a little curious as to where in the Bible they got this idea.

Assuming it was probably based on logical extrapolation of biblical principles or record, I made a mental note to keep an eye out in my daily Bible reading for clues to the source of this idea.

Then one day, some time later, I was stunned to see something in Isaiah I must have read a number of times before but had never noticed: God actually gives His people end-time survival instructions! While the source of the students’ point is still unclear, it is clearly refuted with a fascinating peek at a message that will be of vital importance to some generation someday. The instructions are directly addressed to God’s faithful in the last days and tells them where to go while giving them enough information to let them figure out where their food is to come from!

Obviously those students had not seen it, but there it was: God’s end time survival strategy for His people laid out plain as day. While it will be most relevant to a quite possibly future generation, an application of it even today could prove quite beneficial to you. But first, the biblical teaching.

Isaiah 24 and the three following chapters foretell a great desolation of the Jews except for a faithful few who trust in the Lord’s deliverance. The prophecy could be, and has usually been, applied to any or all of three great desolations (by Shalmaneser, Nebuchadnezzar, and Antiochas Epiphanes).

There are, however, elements that suggest that it also refers to a greater and final desolation. A desolation of not just Jewish lands, but of the whole earth both in judgment and in setting up an earthly reign of a heavenly King. There also seem to be parallels to other end time prophecies. Here are a couple of the clues that tell me that Isaiah 24-27 also has an ultimate, yet to happen, fulfillment:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously. (Isaiah 24:21-23 KJV)

And:

For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain. In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. (Isaiah 26:21-27:1 KJV)

Immediately preceding and grammatically linked to the verses quoted above, the Lord turns and directly addresses His people and tells them what to do:

Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. (Isaiah 26:20 KJV)

That’s it. Short, sweet, and simple. Don’t head for the hills*, don’t dig in a defensive position, don’t take an offensive stance, don’t go on “the lam” running from place to place, just lay low. It’s not unlike the command Moses gave to the Israelites when the destroying angel was to go through the land of Egypt. He told them not to go out the door of their houses until the morning (Exodus 12:22). Notice some of the details: be prepared to go into your (”thy”) home and shut your (”thy”) doors behind you. “Hide thyself.” How long? Until the terrible but short-lived trouble is past. What about the food part? That’s easy.

Since God’s people are to go inside and stay behind shut doors they will need to have food stored in their “chambers” with them. That’s logical. It also fits the situation well:

There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone. In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction. When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done. (Isaiah 24:11-13 KJV)

Catastrophic events, as described in Isaiah 24-27, would put a serious damper on food supply and distribution. Isaiah 24:13 suggests that the food and drink will be just a fraction of what is considered plentiful (ie. shaking the olive tree to get every last remaining olive out of it and going through the vineyard trying to gather the remnant of a harvest).

Tah-dah. There it is for those who will someday need it. God’s direct instructions for surviving the last days. Does it imply that Christians will be present during the Great Tribulation? Not at all. It is originally addressed to Jews. It may be for the benefit of those Jews who become faithful after the rapture of the church. On the other hand, does that fact imply that it is not a message of instruction to the church through the Great Tribulation? Not at all. It is addressed to God’s people, of whom the Christians have been grafted into. So it neither makes a case for or against either a pretribulational or postribulational rapture. But it does offer a fascinating example of how some very old prophecy is waiting to have some very new relevance to some people some day. How might we benefit today (assuming we are not “that” generation)?

Putting away a limited supply of food and water in case of emergency is considered wise and practical by the US government and emergency response charities. Both the American Red Cross and FEMA both advocate every person and family put away several weeks worth of food and other supplies in case of emergency. This is advice based on experience and we would all do well to take it. I personally have benefitted.

The small congregation I lead is too poor to pay me consistently. Over one particularly difficult period my family and I were able to spend virtually nothing on food or personal care products for a couple of months because we had the items stored away.

So even if you don’t think there is much chance of personally needing enough supplies to ride out the Great Tribulation, go ahead and take the government’s advice and put up a couple month’s supply. Even if you don’t need them yourself, it’s always nice to have extras on hand to help others around you out of their own personal tribulations.

*Jesus does say that those in Judea should run away as fast as they can (Matthew 24:16, Mark 13:14, Luke 21:21). But keep in mind that His instruction is to those in an exceptional situation. They are at “ground zero” when end times conflict is imminent.