Chronicles of the End Times
Occasionally, people say, are we really in the last days? How do we know? Does it matter one way or another? We will try to answer these questions and many others in this study. But the most important question may be, how can we reach others with hope in these changing times? One part of prophecy is often emphasized over another, causing us to lose perspective and miss the blessing and beauty of prophecy in scripture. I have taken the information in this study from many authors and teachers who have their lives studying God's word. I have added some insight that the Holy Spirit taught me. With God's help, I have endeavored to keep the whole counsel of the word of God in full view to give us an accurate picture of Christ and His great love for a lost world. I pray that this will challenge you and cause you to grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, as it has me preparing it. Let's begin!
Chronicles of the End Times
Why A Rearmed Europe Sets The Stage For A False Messiah
Sirens are blaring across Europe, but not all alarms sound like missiles. We unpack why NATO’s call for urgency, defense spending, and a “wartime mindset” reveals more than geopolitics—it exposes a region wrestling with identity, fear, and the spiritual pressure of our age. As headlines fixate on Russia, we explore a deeper pattern: how rearmament, social fracture, and leadership fatigue can prime a culture to embrace a charismatic figure who promises order while delivering control.
Drawing on Daniel’s statue—the succession from gold to iron and clay—we connect today’s map to an ancient blueprint. Uneven alliances, strong yet brittle, match the mood of a Europe that feels both powerful and fragile. We trace how passive leadership and widening distrust make big promises feel irresistible, and why a final coalition could emerge from the same geography that once housed empires. Along the way, we confront a hard truth: oppression is rising, hate is spreading, and spiritual warfare is not a metaphor. The answer is not panic but a steady walk with Jesus, anchored in Scripture, strengthened by prayer, and lived out in community.
We also tackle tough questions about migration, national loyalty, and the willingness of a younger generation to fight—asking whether conscription-era assumptions still hold in a world of dual passports and frayed civic bonds. More importantly, we return to the hope that frames every warning: God watches over his word to perform it. History has a King. Our task is to stay awake, love well, and carry each other through the pressure with clear eyes and courageous hearts.
If this conversation helped you see the times more clearly, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review. Your support helps others find thoughtful, faith-centered analysis when it’s needed most.
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Speaker 1
00:20
Welcome everyone. This is Russ Scalzo Chronicles of the End Times. Thank you for listening today and for joining me. It's been a week or so since I did my last podcast, and a lot has been going on. Lost my voice there for a while, been sick, but uh got a lot of people praying for me. I thank God for that. So I'm back and feeling good today. Today, I want to discuss war in Europe. Now a lot is going on in Europe today. And if you've been following the news, you know, the real news, not the soap opera news that we see every single day, but the news that tells you the story of what's going on in other parts of the world that will affect us all. And also how it fulfills Bible prophecy, which is really the most important thing. Jesus Christ is coming again. All the prophecies in Daniel throughout the Old Testament, through the book of Revelation, through the words of Jesus Himself, and the apostles are being fulfilled right before our eyes even now. And yes, we have a ways to go, but things are happening very rapidly. And we must concentrate on the mission, telling people about Jesus Christ and how he loves them and how he wants them to turn from their ways, confess their sin, and get a new life, an eternal life with him forever, a healing and amending of the mind and the heart and the spirit. We see these terrible events, these shootings: Brown University, the appalling shooting of Jewish people celebrating Hanukkah in Australia. The list goes on and on. And folks, if you think this is human hate, you do not understand what's happening. Demon possession is becoming more widespread. We're not looking for a demon behind every tree, but we have to be wise. We have to understand both the spiritual and the natural aspects. Yes, there are a lot of people who are depressed. There are a lot of people who are under heavy medication because of the times that we live in, because of the pressure, because of the spiritual pressure that's on everyone, even those who cannot understand it or don't realize it's happening. I want to be clear, I'm not talking about demon possession here. Although they exist, they are rarer and their occurrence is less common. I'm talking about oppression, which can happen to Christians; it can happen to anyone. The world is filled with evil, and it's just accelerating. And our only weapon against it is a walk with Jesus, a tight walk with God, where we're reading the word, being fed by the word, so our faith is growing. And even then, the battle is real. We need to pray for one another because we all have our moments when we go down, when we're under attack. There's nothing unusual about it. It's part of the battle. But if we, as the Church of Jesus Christ, are asleep and we're only thinking about ourselves and our own needs, then we become oblivious to what's going on around us. I need people praying for me, and you need people praying for you, and we need to pray for those around us. It's not an option. Demons existed in Jesus' time. He cast out many of them. They just didn't pack their bags and go away. They are still around. And we can see it by the hate. And those who are living off the hate, they're the ones that are opening the door, whether it be on social media, in person, or the extreme measures of picking up a gun and killing someone. The atmosphere around us in this world today breeds more hate. It breeds anger. It steals away peace from people's lives and hearts. And the more that it's propagated by those who hate, the invitation is sent and the doors open wide for greater demonic activity. It's all part of what's happening in the last days before the rise of the Antichrist and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, how about Europe? Besides the turmoil that's going on there internally, there's also a great fear of a coming war with Russia. Now, do I believe there's going to be a war between Russia and Europe? No, I don't. I think the threat is there. It is forcing the European community to rearm. And that is a step towards the rise of the Antichrist as well. And how can I say that, and why do I say that? Because he will need an army to do what he wants. And that army will come from Europe and other Western countries, unfortunately, like the United States, in times to come. But Europe will be his base. So he's going to need an army. And right now, Europe is just the shell of what it was as far as military strength. Let's listen to what NATO's Secretary General had to say just a few days ago.
Speaker 4
05:24
I'm here today to tell you where NATO stands and what we must do to stop a war before it starts. And to do that, we need to be crystal clear about the threat. We are Russia's next target. And we are already in harm's way. When I became NATO Secretary General last year, I warned that what is happening in Ukraine could happen to Allied countries too. We have to shift to a wartime mindset. This year, we took the big decisions to make NATO stronger. At the summit in The Hague, Allies agreed to invest 5% of GDP annually in defense by 2035. We decided to increase defense production across the Alliance. And we agreed to continue our support to Ukraine. But this is not the time for self-congratulation. I fear that too many are quietly complacent. Too many don't feel the urgency. And too many believe the time is on our side. It is not. The time for action is now.
Speaker 1
06:25
Interesting stuff. So do I believe there will be a Russian invasion of Europe which will trigger World War III in the near future? No, I don't. I believe that Russia is a definite threat, and they may try to take other ground as well. But this is just another chess piece being moved by the Lord himself. For the last ten years, Europe has had a passive mindset. Passive in almost every detail, allowing anyone who wanted to come to their country to pour in people who desire to change France, change Germany, change Great Britain into the country they came from. Makes no sense to me. Does it make sense to you? If the country you're in is not providing for you, taking care of you, and you're not prospering there and you're threatened there, then why would you want to bring that into the country that you're escaping to for freedom, for opportunity, and for the possibility of prosperity? Unless you have an agenda. That's another issue altogether. Now we know that Christianity is about a relationship with Jesus Christ. It's not about a quote religion. What if we looked at Christianity just as a lifestyle? Now we know that's not salvation. But countries built on Judeo-Christian ethics and laws are successful. Do they have problems? Yes, of course, because anytime you put people in a country, you're gonna have problems. It's like I always say, that's what's wrong with the church, right? It's got people in it. But the issue is Christianity works. And as I said, I'm not talking about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I'm talking about the culture of Christianity. It works where other religions do not. Just look around at the other nations. But the point is that Europe in general has been so passive about defending its own citizens and its own way of life that now it realizes it has really no defense against Russia if it decides to invade. This allows them to raise an army that the Antichrist himself will eventually control. Now this is going to be a difficult task for Europe, mostly because they're losing their identity. With the tremendous influx of immigrants into Europe, changing Europe, as we talked about, people don't have that type of dedication. The atmosphere is nothing like it was in World War II, where Britain held off the Nazis, even though they were being bombed daily, because they had the spirit that they wanted to save their country. Those things are changing. There's always a danger when leadership becomes weak. Because then a charismatic leader can come in and win the people over, even if his intentions are not good. Hitler is a perfect example of that. People were in disarray in Germany after World War I. Things were bad, the economy was falling apart, and this charismatic rebel rose and led them into a devastating war in which millions upon millions were slaughtered and killed. When I was writing my first set of novels on the edge of time, I was writing about the end times and how they would unfold. And the Lord clearly spoke to me, You don't have to come up with anything new, because history will repeat itself only in a magnified way. Now there's a lot of debate as to what nations shall be involved in the kingdom of the Antichrist, and what kingdom shall he rise out of. Any good biblical theologian will tell you that the Bible must testify to itself that no one scripture is enough to base a belief system on or a finding. That if you look through the whole Bible, Genesis to Revelation, you will find that the Bible does testify to itself. On many occasions, it testifies multiple times about a certain truth or prophecy. I find this in the book of Daniel in chapter two. You may be very familiar with this; others may not, so I'm going to just read about Nebuchadnezzar's dream and the image that he saw. Now I won't go into the whole chapter, but I want to bring to light a couple of things. In this dream, Nebuchadnezzar sees a giant figure. The head of this image was fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you look, the stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold altogether were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. What is intriguing about this dream Daniel interpreted is that it is the same area, but under different kingdoms and leadership. See, the head of the image was fine gold, and that is Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom. Its chest and arms of silver were the Medes and the Persian kingdom, and its middle and thighs of bronze were the Greek kingdom under Alexander the Great. The legs of iron that crushed everyone were the Roman Empire. And later, towards the end of the Roman Empire, it was divided into the east and the west. There are two legs. And now we see that its feet were partly iron and partly clay. Those are the kingdoms that remain, and of course, the stone that came and crushed him, and they all fell to dust is the kingdom of God under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Now, at the time of this prophecy, it was alarming to Daniel. As we read this prophecy, those of us who study it and are aware of the times we're living in can see what the Holy Spirit is saying. But then we look at the feet, and that's where it takes us to today. It says that the feet were made of clay and iron. And we look at the interpretation, and it says that these nations will occupy the same landmass. Do you understand that's important? The image represents the land, the part of the world that Babylon and King Nebuchadnezzar ruled over, and later, Rome increased its control over many nations. So all these kingdoms are coming from the same area. And eventually, in the end times, these feet and toes represent ten other nations or ten other groups of nations that will be the final kingdom. Part will be iron and part will be clay, which means the iron will be a little stronger, obviously, and the clay much more brittle. And so there will be stronger nations and weaker nations in this mix. Now I realize the prophecy can get confusing, especially when so many people offer different interpretations. But this, to me, is the simplest way to look at it. This image of the warrior Nebuchadnezzar represents all those nations in that area. And what do they end up with at the bottom? We end up with both the East and West Roman Empires, which together covered most of Europe. These ten toes are part of that. And this is where the Antichrist will rise out of one of those ten toes. And as I said, those ten toes represent ten kingdoms, ten regions. Either way, they are part of the original image that Nebuchadnezzar saw. So to me, this is the clearest vision of where the Antichrist will rise out of. And this is where we get the theory of Europe being part of that last day's image. So we have all these nations come together, and eventually they will all have the same theme, and we see that the theme building is the hate for Israel. And that theme will continue and intensify as we get closer to the end. So the Antichrist will rise out of these nations. He will be the little horn that Daniel talks about in later chapters. And he will overcome three of those kings and rise. But he will be identified as a Jew, for he has to be, if he's going to be the Messiah. Let's keep in mind the words of Jesus in John 5:43. Jesus states that he writes with divinity and authority from God, yet people, particularly the religious leaders, refuse to believe or accept him as the Messiah. And then he goes on to say, if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. This is a warning that people are prone to welcome false teachers or claimants to power who appeal to their own desires or worldly standards rather than God's. This is where we are heading, and this is what the false Messiah will bring to the world. Now, before we end, I would like to go back to what we were talking about when we started, and that's the possible war in Europe and the state of Europe right now, especially England. And as you listen to this little clip I'm gonna play you, keep in mind how many illegal immigrants have come into Europe over the last, let's say, six or seven years. I believe it's an angle that no one else has approached, at least that I have heard. Take a listen.
Speaker 2
16:44
And frankly, I'm not surprised. And yeah, it's a curious thing, because you know, I was listening to some of those messages coming in, and the sentiment is very similar in every instance. But of course, what's most interesting about this is what Mark Grutter, the uh chief of NATO, is suggesting is that we would have sort of a continental-wide uh situation where everybody is preparing for war. And it would be people who are a little bit younger, I suspect, than a lot of the people, um, texting in and calling in. And I guess that, uh, many of them would be even less inclined than a lot of your listeners would be, uh, to step up and defend Britain. And of course, that is because of one of the things that uh somebody who texted in said, which is how people are being treated. I think that, you know, a generation or two of younger people is, and when I tell people, let's be clear here. We mean young men. That's actually who we're talking about. It's not young women who are going to be sent to the front lines. But these young men who are locked out of a housing system, who are in a situation where wages are artificially suppressed, and they're artificially suppressed for two reasons, one of which is mass migration, but the other is in a bid to have financial equality, male wages have been kept low in order for women's to be allowed to catch up. These people who are told that they are racist, that they are bigots, that they are dangerous, that they are potentially uh very violent at any stage, that these people would lay down their lives for what is an older generation, let's be clear, an older generation has that has put them in this situation and that is broadly speaking antithetical to a lot of the things that they think this country stands for. I don't think that this would happen. And of course, I think we also need to take the uh the the the the the the the this thing into an element, which is of course the sheer number of people who are in this country who are not fully British, who are dual nationals or are the children of migrants or who in fact are migrants themselves have come here very recently. There is no guarantee that a huge swath of people who are in this country and who would be of age would be interested in fighting for this country. And the example that I would give, and this is interesting, of course, because we're talking potentially about fighting Russia, is when Russia announced general mobilization to fight in Ukraine, and overnight, hundreds of thousands of young men who had dual passports for places like Kazakhstan and Belarus and all of those places in Russia, they just left. Overnight they said, we're not interested in being Russian anymore. Up until this point, when the opportunities were there, when the job opportunities were there, we were more than happy to be Russian. But the second that it comes to actually being asked to fight for your country, we're not interested at all and we'll flee. And I think that's exactly what would happen in the UK if we announced general mobilization or conscription. Hundreds of thousands of young men who, up until now, would have shouted, “Oh, I'm British 100%,” would go, “Yeah, maybe not.”
Speaker 1
19:34
The world is definitely a different place than it was even 20 years ago. But nothing escapes the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's in Jeremiah chapter 1; verse 12 says, “He watches over his word to perform it.” Sometimes it's hard for us to accept, but even the things that look evil are directed by God. You might say, Man, that can't be right. God is the one moving the kings of this earth. Into position, changing the borders of countries, allowing all these things to take place for his good pleasure. As Bob Dylan once said, The times they are a-changin’. And when you see this kind of thing going on, know that God is in the midst of it. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We say that a lot. Do we understand what it really means? That He is truly the King of all kings of this earth and the Lord of all spirits in the spiritual world. He is the God of gods, and he has two things in mind. One, the salvation of this world, and two, the coronation of his son, Jesus Christ. Come to this earth to claim what is his. This is Russ Scalzo for Chronicles of the End Times. Love you all. Keep looking up. The King is coming.
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