Watchman on the Wall

Southwest Radio Ministries: Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and swrc.com. Today, Josh Davis shares the latest headlines from the end times.

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An estimated 4,000-plus Protestant churches close in America each year. In some former church buildings, Muslim crescents have replaced the cross. But the real issue is Christian apathy and spiritual erosion. Plus, Canada has quickly become a cautionary tale of how fast citizens' rights can be stripped away when the government marches toward liberal progressivism with little objection. Josh Davis details these stories and connects them to Bible prophecy on today's Headlines from the End Times.

Josh Davis: Greetings, fellow watchmen on the wall, and welcome to another Headlines from the End Times. In recent episodes, I've alerted you to some of the moral and spiritual decline in the United States of America, and especially within the bounds of our local churches. As some mainline denominations become increasingly woke, those mainline denominations, by the way, tend to be losing members each year by the thousands, including many churches closing across the United States of America.

What is left? And what happens when churches in neighborhoods across America begin to close? What happens to those former properties? Maybe we think they get turned into apartments or some kind of housing situation. Maybe a business buys it and turns it into a restaurant or a shopping center or gathering space or something happens to that former church building. Maybe it just gets demolished because it's so old and it sits there for so long. Any number of things.

But increasingly, something else is happening to former church properties. Something that I want to alert you to and make you aware of as my fellow watchmen on the wall. I want to begin today's episode with this story from Prophecy News Watch and verified in multiple other outlets as well. There's a move for former church properties to be purchased by Muslims and mosques built in their place.

In fact, a recent story from New Jersey bears this out, as another church is preparing to disappear from the American landscape altogether. This wasn't because an angry mob stormed in there and burned it down. It wasn't because the Christians were driven out by soldiers. It wasn't because the government was outlawing the gospel. No, the former Richfield Christian Reformed Church in Clifton, New Jersey, was purchased by the Islamic Center of Passaic County.

Now, plans call for that existing building to be demolished. The former church property will be torn down, and in its place, a mosque will be built about 40,000 square feet, to be precise. That is about six times bigger than the size of the current church building. The cross of that building has already given way to the crescent, and soon the former church itself may be gone.

Again, it's tempting to look at this as a conquest, but this wasn't a Muslim conquest; it was a conquest by vacancy. The Muslims didn't storm this particular church; the Christians left it. And again, as we untether ourselves as Christians from biblical authority, from biblical doctrine, and from rightly dividing the word of God, you can open the door to all kinds of things.

When the church begins to erode internally, it also begins to die. And as churches begin to die and they're disconnected from the life that they should have, then anything and everything can happen. Within a generation, or perhaps two generations, that church will die. It'll be vacant. The doors will be closed on a Sunday morning. This is a powerful symbol of what's happening when the church in America continues to decline and what will come in to take its place, and what could happen in communities across America, like we see happening currently in New Jersey and across the nation.

The numbers tell the story. As this report continues, New Jersey's Muslim population more than doubled between 2010 and 2020. It reached approximately 321,000 adherents to Islam. During those same years, many Christian denominations continued losing members, consolidating congregations, selling buildings they could no longer fill or afford. We see this pattern repeating itself across the United States of America.

In fact, the Pew Research Center found that Muslims represented approximately 0.6 percent of American adults back in 2007. Fast forward to the 2023-2024 Religious Landscape Study by the Pew Research Center: that figure had doubled to 1.2 percent of American adults. Islam remains a relatively small minority faith in the U.S., but its share of the adult population has doubled, while Christianity's share fell from about 78 percent in 2007 to 62 percent today, dropping major percentage points.

Especially when you're talking in terms of the millions of American adults who are here today, when you talk about a drop of over 15 percent, think about how many millions of people that represents. The number of mosques is climbing in the U.S. as well. Back in 2010, there was a little over 2,000—about 2,100 mosques. Fast forward to a recent survey conducted back in 2020, so a 10-year gap: the number of mosques has increased about 31 percent to just under 3,000 in the U.S.

That number continues to go up, by the way. That's from a 2020 survey, and here we are six years later. Average attendance at the Friday congregational prayer rose about 16 percent in the U.S. The big picture here is that Islam continues to grow in the United States of America. Yes, it's still a small percentage, but there is incremental growth, whereas within churches, the numbers are declining for Sunday worship attendance.

Again, as mainline churches, who have many, many buildings across the United States of America—many of those buildings are owned by the local denomination, not by the local church. It's owned by the diocese or a group that's controlling that. It could even be owned by the national denomination. Just to give you a little back story to all of this, this goes back almost 20 years. There was a conservative church within a mainline denomination. They had just spent a couple million dollars to build a brand-new building. They had been renting a school space for a long time, and they had worked hard to save up money to invest in their own property, to build their own building.

That building technically did belong to the denomination that they were a part of at that time. As wokeness began to come into that particular denomination, they said, "We want to get out of this denomination." The group, the denomination, said, "Not so fast. If you leave us, you're leaving your building. We own that building. Even though you're the ones who bought it, you're the ones who built it, we own the property." The church decided—that local congregation decided—it would be worth leaving this building and maintaining our commitment to God's word than to acquiesce to your request to keep this multimillion-dollar facility that we have just moved into.

That was a bold stand, and thank God for them honoring the truth of God's word and the authority of scripture by making that difficult decision to remove themselves from the building that they had just completed, to go back to meeting in public schools or any place that they could find until they could raise enough funds to build another building suitable for their worship. That's the stand that one church took some 20 years ago or more.

But friends, when we get back to this larger story about the increase of Islam and how they are taking over several church properties, we need to keep in mind what's happening inside Christianity. Many American Christians have treated their faith as a private thing, something that gets squeezed in when we can do it: between our vacations, between our travels, between our weekend errands and running here and running there, and family get-togethers. Yeah, I may make it to church, maybe I won't.

With Islam, they build mosques and establish schools and they have their charities and they mobilize voters and they're teaching their children that religion touches every part of life. Too many Christians have reduced Christianity to just something that you do on a Sunday every now and then, whenever you can squeeze it into your activity among your choices of other things. But you see, if we point the finger of blame at the Muslims, we're pointing the finger of blame in the wrong direction. This report calls that the most dishonest response, and I agree with their assessment.

You see, the Muslims didn't force American churches to abandon biblical authority. They didn't convince Christian parents to stop disciplining their children. They didn't make pastors replace the gospel with entertainment, with politics, with therapeutic self-help "live your best life now" kind of thing. No, the Muslims didn't come in and empty out the pews in our American churches. Christians have done that by their own volition, by their own decision.

The rise of Islam in America is partly a story of immigration and birth rates, and we understand that part of it, but it's also a story of taking your religion seriously and the complacency of many modern American Christians, the apathy with which we have. The answer is not harassing another group or attacking their constitutional rights, but we need to understand the theology behind everything that's happening and the apathy within the Christian world.

Wherever Christianity retreats, the vacuum will be filled with something. It could be turned into a bar; it could be turned into all kinds of deplorable places. But when the gospel is stopped and when the gospel message does not go forth any longer, that vacuum won't remain empty; something will take its place. I'm sharing this story with you today to alert you to what's happening, not to cause you panic, not to cause you distress, but to help you to understand how we need to pray in this day we find ourselves.

Thank you for tuning into Headlines from the End Times. More stories in just a moment. As we continue thinking about the moral decline in our world, we're going to turn our attention to our nation to the north, Canada, and how that without opposition, Canada has become one of the most radically progressive nations in the world. How has that happened so suddenly, so swiftly, and without very many whimpers across the world?

But first, I want to remind you that you can connect with our ministry at swrc.com. There you'll find all kinds of great information and resources that you can equip yourself with so that you can stand firm in the days that we find ourselves. Friends, we have our weekly Prophecy in the News television show. Have you watched it recently? It's great. It's going to equip you and give you some biblical insight into how we can live in today's world and how that we can face the chaos and the concern—the things that we are alerting you to—with peace instead of panic.

Check out the weekly episodes of the Prophecy in the News television show. Many different ways you can do that. It's available at swrc.com, also on YouTube. If you go to Prophecy in the News on YouTube, you can watch it there every single week. And then if you have the free SWRC mobile app, you can watch the television show right inside of the mobile app. That's a great way to stay connected with our ministry, by the way. Also check out the Southwest Radio Ministries YouTube channel for exclusive content there.

Plus, on the SWRC mobile app, you can listen to this Headlines from the End Times and all the great content from Watchman on the Wall five days a week, Monday through Friday. New episodes uploaded there, and the Sunday episodes of the Prophecy in the News television show are uploaded to the mobile app and YouTube and all those places. Check those resources out, avail yourself of this wonderful information designed to equip you to stand firm on God's word in these days that we're navigating together as fellow watchmen on the wall.

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Please don't forget that in September, we're coming to Minnesota, and we would love to see you there. More information is available on our ministry website. Also don't forget about our special mission trip that we're taking together. You don't have to get on a bus or a plane or any other kind of transportation. As a matter of fact, you don't even have to leave your house. We're going to be joined with TWR to raise money to purchase radios to send to people in Africa who need to hear the good news of God's word while we still have a window of time.

Let's get to our next story today. Again, without opposition, Canada has become one of the most radically progressive nations in the world. This story comes from Brianna Clausen, the editor of harbingersdaily.com, a wonderful Bible prophecy website to keep people like you and me, watchmen on the wall, updated on events that we need to be aware of. Brianna is very familiar with what is happening in Canada as a resident there herself and describes some of those events.

Many Western nations are careening down a path of radical progressivism, but no nation may be further down that track than America's northern neighbor, Canada. As liberal policies are taking over Western nations, what makes Canada strikingly more radical is the lack of voices in politics willing to stand in opposition. Now, we understand that there is something of an East-West divide in Canada and some talk of even going so far as secession from the Western Canadian provinces from the Eastern Canadian provinces, and that remains to be seen.

But what are some of the moves that are being made in Canada to push it in this direction? One of those is conversion therapy bans. They are referred to as a Trojan horse against religious freedom. You see, you can't talk to somebody who wants to get out of the LGBTQ lifestyle, and if you're especially approaching it from a biblical standpoint, well, you're going to be accused of a crime and found guilty. You are breaking the law. And so this has been used to silence religious freedom in Canada.

Brianna Clausen writes: "More startling, the Conservatives were the party that requested a rare unanimous consent motion to fast-track this ban, granting immediate approval and bypassing legislative debate only two days after the bill was introduced. No study of the text, no amendments were added. Not a single member of the Canadian Parliament took issue that God's design of sexuality was referred to in the legislation text as just a mere myth. Nor did they even venture to examine the threat posed to religious liberty, which was questioned by virtually every other nation to consider this kind of a ban."

Well, it doesn't stop there. Euthanasia is another big component to this. So how does a nation respond to the most vulnerable of its citizenry? Canada's answer has been to pressure them into ending their lives. This is something that I've brought to your attention on Headlines from the End Times before. I've shared with you stories of individuals in Canada, of families who are mourning, and of people who felt pressured.

One former Catholic priest, retired, went in for hip replacement surgery, and two or three times he was asked, "Do you want to end your life?" "No, this isn't a fatal disease that I have. I'm not going to die in just a couple of weeks. Just give me the surgery and let me recover. Let me live several more years." The pressure that they put on people. Well, it was legalized some 10 years ago, and they reached a grizzly mark not too awful long ago: over 100,000 lives have been ended in Canada through their euthanasia program, making it one of the leading causes of death in the country. And that yearly number is surpassing all the other countries with legalized euthanasia combined.

Did you catch that? All the other nations that have legalized euthanasia, Canada outpaces all of them combined. It's so radical that it's become a global cautionary tale. Many countries are using Canada as a case study against legalizing or expanding euthanasia in their own nations. It's sad to see how horrific this is becoming just north of the United States.

But that's not the only component. Abortion is really on the rise in Canada. They've also thrown in the towel on the sanctity of life. Even the Conservative Party is treating abortion as a settled issue, unworthy of further debate. Back in 2023, the Conservative Party released a declaration vowing that should they be elected, "A Conservative government will not support any legislation to regulate abortion." The Canadian government proudly states that "abortion is one of the most commonly performed medical procedures in the country," adding that "roughly one in three women in Canada will have an abortion during their lifetime."

That just grieves my spirit as I read that line to you, friends. One in three women in Canada will have an abortion during their lifetime. How grievous this truly is. France and Sweden are the only other countries to have no major political parties willing to oppose abortion. However, both of those nations enforce limits between 14 and 18 weeks of gestation. In Canada, there is zero gestational limit, no requirements of consent from the father or from a parent, and it's all tax-funded; taxpayers are footing the bill. One in three women in Canada will have an abortion during their lifetime.

Friends, I wish that the startling developments would stop there, but it continues to go on. If those examples aren't enough, Canada has recently passed the Online News Act; that was back in 2023. That resulted in Canadians being blocked from viewing news reports from outside the country on any of Meta's platforms—that's like Facebook, Instagram, etc. So this coupled with the liberal government's suppression of conservative news groups within the country should set off a lot of alarm bells for people, harkening back to regimes that sought to control the information accessible to its citizens.

Today, Canada is the only nation in a total and permanent blackout from foreign news sources through Meta, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Of all the Western nations, Canada stands out in the worst possible ways. Within the last 10 years, this nation has startled the world by arresting pastors, freezing bank accounts of dissenting voices, suppressing press freedom, killing its most vulnerable, taking direct aim at religious liberties. Even members of the highly progressive European Union have pushed back against what they view as a dictatorship steadily emerging in Canada.

Now, despite the astonishing state of affairs there, it's even more shocking to hear the views of many average Canadians who routinely express delight that their politics are just not as messy as those in the United States. Well, by making that claim, they're failing to recognize that the so-called messiness stems from having individuals willing to push back, to defend their freedoms and morality, something which is present in varying degrees in all other Western nations.

When all your politicians are careening down the same treacherous path, there is no stopping that runaway train. This is something to be in prayer about, dear friends, and we need to seriously consider the direction that the Western world is going, the direction that North America is heading, and how all of this connects with Bible prophecy, how it ties into the signs of the times of moral decay, of the geopolitical alignment of nations, and how it ties into the spiritual collapse that will be part of the end times.

All of these things paint the picture, our individual pieces of the puzzle that show us the things that scripture talks about are soon. We believe that the rapture of the church is an imminent and signless event. It could happen at any moment. While we alert ourselves to these things that are happening, we remember we keep our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ. We keep sharing the good news of the gospel while we can.

This is the day, this is the age, this is the hour for Christians to wake up, to stand up, to speak up, and to show the gospel message loud and clear while we still have opportunity, while we still have the freedom to do so, while we still have this window open to us to declare: "Thus saith the Lord." May we stand boldly on God's word in these days. May we not slow down, may we not back up, may we not give in to the pressure to remain silent. But may we stand, and having done all to stand, may we hear our Lord one day tell us, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." Until that day, I want to remind you, friends, to keep looking up and to remember that God is still on the throne and prayer changes things.

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Order your Lost and Found Collection today by visiting swrc.com or call 1-800-652-1144 and say you want the Lost and Found Collection. That's swrc.com or 1-800-652-1144. Lord willing, we'll be back here Monday, ready to once again bring clarity to the chaos. Head into the weekend with the encouragement that God is still on the throne and prayer changes things. Watchman on the Wall is a production of Southwest Radio Ministries and is supported by faithful friends just like you. Please visit swrc.com. That's swrc.com.