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
Through the Fire
Fear has a loud voice right now—storms, ice caps, politics, and headlines that never seem to cool down. We take that unease head-on and shift the focus from anxiety about the world to awe for the One who made it. By tracing a path through Romans 1, Isaiah 26 and 43, and Ephesians 5, we unpack how the world steals our peace, how a reprobate mind forms, and how dedicated love reclaims the ground our worries have taken.
We start with a hard look at the modern habit of worshiping creation: treating nature as ultimate, centering our hope on our control, while living under the constant threat of what could go wrong next. We turn to the deeper truth—peace is not found in better forecasts but in better focus. Isaiah promises perfect peace to the mind stayed on God, and we break down what that looks like in practice: gratitude replacing panic, trust reorienting our days, and reverent fear aimed at the Lord, not the circumstances.
From there, we press into the spiritual core of our cultural moment. Rebellion ripens into chaos, and chaos craves leaders who echo the mob. Romans names the disease—trading the truth for a lie—and Ephesians gives the antidote: imitate God, walk in love, reject impurity and empty words, and refuse to partner with darkness. This is not about retreating from the world; it is about walking with Christ in it, with lives that carry weight because they are shaped by grace and marked by dedication.
Finally, we anchor hope where it holds. Trials will come, but Isaiah 43 promises presence in the waters and fire. We remember past deliverances to face current storms, and we fix our eyes forward: the world is not spiraling at random, and the King is coming. Listen for a clear call to realign your awe, guard your peace, and walk in love with steady courage. If this speaks to you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs peace today, and leave a review to help others find the message.
Welcome everyone. This is Russ Scalzo Chronicles of the End Times. It's good to be with you today. Today we're going to look into the worship of creation rather than the worshiping of God. The song I use here on the podcast, Superman, is a song I wrote some years ago. And it really tells the story of what the unsaved world, you know, and I was in that unsaved world, what we're doing with our lives, and really we're playing with fire. And it's only the grace of God, his great love for us, that keeps us from being destroyed. There are two kinds of children in this world. They're the children of God and the children of disobedience. Paul talks about that in Ephesians. There's sons of disobedience and sons of God. Where is our focus today? We want to save planet Earth, and we're fearing nature, you know what it might do to us if we don't control our emissions, not damage the atmosphere, and create a new ice age. Now I'm a kid from the 60s and 70s. We were fighting for clean air a long time ago. So I'm all about, hey, let's make things better. But we can't forget who made everything. We can't begin to worship the creation that is around us. Or as some might call just the accident that happened billions of years ago that led us to where we are today. As for me in my house, we believe in a creator, in a divine order. I think there's a lot more peace in believing that than an accident. If it was an accident, then maybe another accident is right around the corner where the whole world could be wiped out. There are people living in that type of fear. But yet we go about our lives and do whatever we want, and we don't fear the one who deserves to be feared. Now I know we talk a lot about the love of God, and without the love of God we'd all be lost. None would be saved. But because of his divine love, his compassion, and his desire to see us set free from sin, and his desire to share all that he has with us for eternity, we have peace. Those of us who have given our lives to Christ have peace, or we should have. The word tells us that if our minds are set on him, we will have peace. In Isaiah chapter twenty six, verse three, it reads, You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. Peace that cannot be disturbed. That's what the world is starving for. We just can't figure out how to get it. But if we allow ourselves to get distracted and swallowed up by the rudiments of this world, then we will lose our peace. Many of you might be acquainted with Romans, and I'd just like to read a few verses in there to remind us what the Holy Spirit is telling us, and I believe it applies more today than it ever has. I'm gonna read from Romans beginning in chapter twenty. People cannot say they do not know God. From the beginning of the world people could see what God is like through the things he has made. This shows his power that lasts forever. It shows that he is God. They did know God, but they did not honor him as God. They were not thankful to him, and thought only of foolish things. Their foolish minds became dark. They said they were wise, but they showed how foolish they were. They gave honor to false gods. They looked like people who can die and to birds and animals and snakes. This honor belongs to God who could never die. So God let them follow the desires of their sinful heart. They did sinful things among themselves with their bodies. They traded the truth of God for a lie. They worshiped and cared for what God made instead of worshiping the God who made it. He is the one who is to receive honor and thanks forever. Let it be so. There's some versions of the Bible that call that a reprobate mind, which is a mind that cannot make a sound decision, incapable. And we see that today. We see that among our leaders. That has permeated the entire world. When we thumb our nose at God, when we decide we know better, God puts up with it for a while, but the word of God tells us that at some point that only God knows, He turns us over to all our foolish ideas and thoughts. And he lets us run with them. Only God can decide when a person has gone across the line that they're not going to come back. When they are not just in error, but they have drawn the line in the sand and they have become enemies of God. There's a big difference. In case you're not aware, there is a movement among the intelligentsia of our country to alter, and some believe do away with the Constitution of the United States and the Supreme Court. Can you see the underlying thing that's going on here? It's rebellion. Chaos is brewing. Their theory is everything should be controlled by the majority. Mob control is what some people call it. Because whether we are a believer or not a believer, the Constitution of the United States and the laws that we abide by are really framed from the Bible. We didn't come up with these ideas all on our own. These are the freedoms that God has given us. Once we take that away and it becomes mob rule, we have total chaos, and that's what rebellion always brings. Then once rebellion has ripened, it always leads to the people crying out for a leader that will agree with them and lead them where they want to go. And we know that the Antichrist will fulfill that prophecy sooner than we might think. It seems to me that we need to be more fearful of God than we do nature. Because God is actually in control of nature. He's in control of this entire world. This world is headed for a prophetic end. That's what we should be thinking about. Are we right with God? Do we have a relationship with him? Has our sins been forgiven? Are we starting over again? Have we been born anew? They're the questions we should be asking ourselves. Now I know many of you listening to this podcast love Jesus and you're following him. This is a reminder. For when we take God out of the equation, no one is in control. Because the human race is not in control. We can't even control ourselves, let alone a town or a state or a country. We need the peace of God. And that only comes by recognizing his word and living in it, knowing that we don't have to worry. We don't have to worry because we've already aligned ourselves with God through his word. We don't have to worry about the ice cap melting, tsunamis coming upon the entire world, mankind being wiped out by nature because we've screwed everything up, because we know there is a God in heaven. The truth be told, we create most of our problems. We live outside of what God has for us. We create circumstances that shouldn't exist. We walk down roads we shouldn't be walking down, and then we wonder why everything's coming apart. The world is living in a storm of hate, distrust, unbelief. And that storm is not going to go away. Those seeds have been sown and now they're growing into a dangerous vine. And that is not going to go away in five years or ten years. It's just going to go on to something else. Because the author of that is Satan himself and his dark minions that follow him. This is not a political or cultural issue. This is a spiritual issue. This is rebellion against what is good and wholesome and against God's word. So we don't have to worry about the tsunami that's going to come from the ocean and wipe out 500 miles of the coast on either side. We have to worry about the tsunami of evil and rebellion that is flowing already over the land. And there is only one weapon that can be used against it, and that's the power of Jesus Christ through his people that are dedicated to him. You can't be successful at anything without dedication. It's impossible. If you want to be good at what you do and you want to see the fruit of what you do come to pass, you have to be diligent, whether it's your job, you're an athlete, musician, artist, corporate leader, I don't care who you are, carpenter, plumber. You have to be good at what you do if you want to be successful. And it's no different walking with Jesus. We can cry grace, grace all day and night, and thank God for his grace. But where's our effort? There is an effort that we need to make. And that's defined by Paul the Apostle in Ephesians in chapter five. Let me just read just a little bit of that. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetedness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them. For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. That's a lot. If we're to break that down in just a couple of minutes, the first thing he tells us is to walk in love. We can't walk in fear, we can't walk in hate. We have to walk in love. As we walk in love, we must illustrate to the best of our ability with the help of the grace of God and the Holy Spirit to live a life that's worthy of the calling that God put on our hearts. Trust me folks, we're all going through stuff. We're all going through deep water of some kind. I don't know anyone who's walking on the water above everybody else. We're all going through it. I love this scripture in Isaiah chapter forty three verse two. I'm reading it in the amplified version. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you. Does that mean we can jump in the deepest water if we don't know how to swim? God's going to take care of us. Or we should try walking over some burning coals just to prove we have faith. It's a spiritual application. The flood of the enemy. When the fire comes upon us of testing and trial and hardship, he will be with us. He doesn't say if the flood comes, no, he says when the flood comes, you will not drown. God will be with you. That's real Christianity. I've been serving the Lord for a long time. And I can tell you many, many times, what I didn't know which way was up or down. So many things were going on. The attack was from every side. But he never let me down. He never let me go. He was always there. And that's what gives me strength today with the trials that I might be going through now. Is that I've been delivered many times and God will deliver me again. Trust in him. He has not forgotten you, he is with you, and he wants to show himself to you in even greater ways than you ever dreamed. God bless. This is Russ Kalzo for Chronicles of the End Times. Keep looking up. The king is coming.