“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace …” (Luke 2:14).

During the final month of the year, those words are intoned by countless preachers, choristers and celebrants as part of the annual season of Christmas, the chief festive season on the calendar of Western-based Christianity (for the plain truth about the origins of Christmas, read this). It’s been that way ever since Christianity grew out of the religion that became the spiritual bastion of Western civilization, gestated in Rome so long ago, popularized under the aegis of the Holy Roman Empire.

Yet we are as far from the realization of that dream of peace on Earth today as when those words were spoken to a group of rustic shepherds in the Middle East during one balmy autumn eve two millennia ago.

Could that have anything to do with the fact that though we are so prone to repeating the mantra “peace on Earth,” we have ignored the reality that to obtain such peace, first this world must give “glory to God in the highest”?

As the year 2007 per the old Roman calendar tottered to its conclusion, a beautiful woman politician was assassinated in Asia, creating havoc in Pakistan and posing the threat of an increase in turmoil in Eurasia, and upsetting an already volatile stock market. A family of six were murdered in their own home on Christmas eve in Seattle. Clerics from two different denominations of Christianity fought a pitched battle within the very church that is the object of worldwide pilgrimage at this season, the Church of the Nativity in the City of Peace, Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, 30 armed conflicts raged around the Earth.

So, yet again, it is the lot of the commentators on human affairs to report that the year 2007 was no different from 6,000 other years of recorded history in that man’s attempts to bring peace to this Earth, domestically, provincially, nationally and internationally, have failed once more.

Once again, though religion featured in more headlines than ever in the history of modern journalism during the past year, all of the various religions of man have failed to deliver the desire of ages—peace on Earth. In fact, in too many cases, religion has either stimulated or added to most of the world’s current conflicts.

Now we face a new year on Christianity’s calendar, 2008. Many will hold to the tradition of making “new year’s resolutions.” Many of those resolutions will be forgotten by the time the first month of the new year has elapsed. Then the year will roll on to the theme of more of the same: murder, mayhem, rapine, pillage, famine, disease, accursed extremes of weather, economic problems, catastrophe—and wars, always wars, ceaseless, senseless, seemingly never-ending wars.

When will it all cease?

Are we really destined to make such a mess of this once-jewel-like planet that we shall have to find another livable place in the universe? Is it really that bad? Certain scientists believe it so. But their whole concept of the universe denies one great reality. It’s the very reality that the angelic host shouted out at the birth of a tiny infant in Bethlehem so long ago on that clear autumnal night. It’s the provable reality that there exists a great, supreme Being, very GOD, dwelling, as the host declared, in the very “highest” of the vastness of the heavens, who alone is deserving of glory! And that is the key to why mankind cannot find “peace on Earth,” given that it has tried every means at its disposal.

It’s the missing link.

Global peace simply cannot be delivered to mankind until the masses understand the need to glorify God first!

Forget all the religions of man, forget all the ideologies, forget all the multitudinous institutions set up to explore ways to peace. None of them has ever worked, nor will they—ever!

There is but one way, and that is via the One who declares of Himself that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6). The very One who was born of woman to become the Son of man, a member of the very Godhead of the universe who was willing to humble Himself and become but a tiny zygote within the womb of an earthly virgin mother. One who lived perfectly in the flesh, who ministered for but 3½ short years on Earth and was then slaughtered at the very hands of His own creation! Resurrected after ceasing to exist for three days and three nights, His cadaver having been sealed in the tomb, appearing to His followers just prior to being caught up to that very throne in the highest, to be crowned King of kings, Lord of lords … Prince of PEACE!

All of the commentary you read from theTrumpet.com is predicated on the knowledge of the very living, vital prophecies of God—of the knowledge of their absolute inerrancy, and of the sure march of the progressively fulfilling prophecies of Almighty God, through observable current world events, toward that grand smash, climactic event of the coming of the Savior of mankind, that Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), who alone is destined to enforce perfect peace on Earth through the imposition of God’s great law of love on Earth forever, and forever!

There’s nothing surer in the universe than this impending, great consummating event.

Jesus Christ Himself said that no man can know the day, or the hour, of His imminent return to bring peace to this Earth (Matthew 24:36). But He also commanded us to watch! To watch world events and check the prophecies of future events foretold to occur in definite order in the lead-up to, and as signs of, His return to this Earth—for that is the only way we can be aware of that great event’s proximity and thus be well prepared to face our Maker!

That’s what theTrumpet.com is all about!

That’s why we daily comb the very best sources of intelligence, search the newswires, dig deeply into the best of commentaries and delve into critical analysis of world events. It’s to bring you the proof of the fact that these very events, sometimes prophesied millennia ago, and documented by the ancient sages for our benefit today, are happening with increasing speed before your very eyes! For as Jesus Christ declared, “So likewise you, when you shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors” (Matthew 24:33).

Stay tuned to theTrumpet.com during 2008. Listen to the Key of David program. Download or request your own print copies of our ever-increasing range of booklets. Use all these freely given resources to build your vision of the coming of the Prince of Peace as we move forward into a new year, a year that is guaranteed to be chock-full of exciting events demonstrably fulfilling the great prophecies for this age.

As the year 2008 commences, remember those timeless words of your Savior: “Take you heed, watch, and pray: for you know not when the time is. … Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch” (Mark 13:33, 36–37).