"Is the Current News Cycle Prophetic?"

Imagine a world where everything is watched, recorded, and filed. Omnipresent government surveillance is the norm and our personal right to privacy is routinely violated--all justified in the name of the greater good.

Sounds like today's headlines, given the revelations over the weekend by Edward Snowden, who leaked details of a top-secret government surveillance program sponsored by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Actually, it's the premise of George Orwell's perennial classic, 1984, the story of totalitarian states using technological advancements to keep the masses under surveillance. The themes explored in this novel are so relevant President Obama even mentioned it in his news conference Friday in an attempt to defend the government surveillance programs:

"In the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential program run amok, but when you actually look at the details, then I think we've struck the right balance."

(the "right balance" for who?)

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, also made a reference to Orwell's famous book:

"Kids will grow up knowing that every damn thing that they do is going to be recorded some place in a file. And I think that will have a very Orwellian and very inhibiting impact on the way we live our lives."

In Matthew 24. Jesus says the generation that sees the events He described beginning to happen will not pass away before everything happens; in other words, the end-time events will all take place within one generation.

Most prophecy scholars agree that 1948, the year the nation of Israel was reborn, started the prophetic clock ticking down the last generation.

In 1948:

• Israel became a nation again after over 2,000 years
• The transistor chip was invented
• The global economy was born
• The United Nations was created
• The Treaty of Rome was signed which evolved into the European Union
• The World Council of Churches was formed
• The Treaty of Brussels was signed (a predecessor of NATO)
• UFOs became a national obsession
• and George Orwell's 1984 was written about a futuristic government with overreaching, abusive powers

Prophetic? Maybe. Maybe not. But on the heels of the IRS and DOJ revelations, these new super-secret surveillance programs of the NSA put the United States (in the words of Timothy Carney from The Washington Examiner) "on the slippery slope of tyranny." And let's not forget: The Bible predicts a slide in that direction.

A wise man once said: "Big Brother is Watching You." -- George Orwell, 1984

"Obey the government, for God is the one who put it there. All governments have been placed in power by God...For the authorities do not frighten people who are doing right, but they frighten people who do wrong" (Romans 13: 1-3).

"Another reason for right living is that you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for the coming of our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed" (Romans 13: 11).

News:

• Daily Caller: IRS allegedly seizes millions of medical records from California healthcare provider; House committee to investigate
• CNS News.com: IRS cancels an order for spying equipment including miniature cameras after the order became public
• KFI Radio: Colorado wildfire claims 360 homes