Midnight Cry: Last Days of the Terminal Generation

By Stefan O. Benson

Midnight Cry is a close look through the eyeball of Scripture at the fifth through the twentieth chapters of the Book of Revelation.  A look that fostered a scenario regarding our Day that was brought into focus by the prophecies of Daniel, Ezekiel, and the Lord Jesus in the Old Testament and the Apostles Paul and John in the New Testament.  This book is my written testimony of what I saw when I superimposed these biblical texts over our present world society.  For I saw answers to the developing trends and the persistent mysteries impacting our generation-the UFO phenomenon, the rise of the New World Order, the coming Antichrist, the pending war in the Middle East, Satan’s last day agenda, and some of the less heralded but equally compelling end-time signs.  What God gave me to understand with the insight of some of the most gifted Bible prophecy teachers of our generation, initially shocked and amazed me.  Nevertheless as an evangelical theologian I was challenged to publish a provocative yet plausible message, a message that is not publicly endorsed by a majority of the conservative theological society with whom I share a deep affinity.  Midnight Cry therefore is offered according to the spirit of faith; I believed therefore I have written.  As an evangelist I am constrained to cry loud and spare not, because I am indebted to every man living in the terminal generation to deliver this message to you for your most sober reflection.  I strongly recommend that each one read this book slowly and during a quiet time.  Also, refer to the Bible frequently to see if the things that are written in this book are in line with the Word of God.  Midnight Cry may well prove to be one of the most important books that you will ever read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 7, 2006
• ISBN: 9781467809337

Stefan O. Benson

My name is Stefan Benson, I am 55 years old and I have been in Christ for thirty years.  Since the day God called me into His service I have known His plan for my life involved the ministry of the Word at the time of the end, from the midst of a dark and foreboding context.  Further, that I would be given a specific message that must be delivered to the people of the terminal generation.  This book constitutes that message.  It is the message of the Hebrew prophets of the Old and New Covenants, which includes Jesus the Christ, who spoke volumes and proffered numerous predictions about our day.  Indeed, with the exception of Jesus Himself, the Hebrew prophets had more to say about the time of the end than about any other topic in all the Scripture.  For while they prophesied of God’s future interventions, especially His climatic coming to the Earth at the end of the age, invariably they described in great detail a world society that remarkably mirrors our own. Since their pronouncements are true and can be accurately interpreted, the people of the terminal generation have been given the certain knowledge of the future.  After all, isn’t Bible prophecy human history written in advance?  In this book I forthrightly identify the Baby Boomers as the terminal generation, meaning the generation that shall not die off before the Second Coming of Christ.  While unbelievers disagree and may scoff at this designation, believers among us are excited by the prospect because like Queen Ester of old, we know that for such a time as this we have been brought to the Kingdom.  We have been given life spans in a day when the living God shall once again dramatically intervene in human history, and we shall be more than witnesses.  We shall be participants!

Book preview

The Covenant Making God

It may come as a surprise to some to learn that for the most part the founding fathers of America were theists; meaning they believed in God but maintained that He created the world but then left it to go off to do something else. Such a position falls well short of the Judeo-Christian doctrine of faith, which requires that mankind believe God. This latter position understands God to be much more than a creative force, but ascribes to Him personality and assumes that He speaks and that He wants to be known. More than that, He wants to know man and be known by man in relationship-fellowship-Person to person. Such is the case because GOD IS LOVE. Indeed the Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas argued for the doctrine of the Trinity based upon God‘s love and His own joy in relationship. Remember from the very beginning it was God’s habit to come down in the evening of the day and commune with Adam and Eve. Therefore God underscored this truth by revealing Himself to be a covenant making God. Interestingly His covenants are unilateral, He sets all the terms; some are conditional and some are unconditional but each one defines the basis on which mankind will relate to Him. Under the Adamic Covenant before the Fall, for example, man was to live forever and enjoy open fellowship with his Creator, was given the Earth as his dominion, and was instructed to multiply and fill the Earth. After the Fall, God enacted several other covenants because His holiness mandated that He set new terms and conditions by which fallen man could approach Him, and ultimately hope for salvation. At the present time in redemptive history God is relating to mankind by the terms of the New Covenant, which was ratified by the blood of Jesus the Christ. By its terms we Christians have been given a standing before God so intimate that the Apostle Paul could only compare it to the marriage relationship; additionally under the terms of the New Testament every believer is a child of God, and some among us are friends of God. Therefore we are privileged to the secrets of the Lord, especially as they relate to His interventions in human history. And because we live in the terminal generation and are surrounded by the well known signs of the Second Coming, we ought to find comfort in the knowledge that the Lord Jesus will certainly tell His friends everything necessary in order to prepare the Church, His Bride, for His coming.

Servants in the Old Covenant-Sons in the New Covenant

Before Christ’s first advent God used the prophet John’s baptism of repentance to cleanse the nation Israel in order to, in the words of the angel Gabriel spoken to his father Zacharias, make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Today just before the Appearing, also known as the Rapture of the Church, the Holy Spirit is using certain ministers of the Word in the role of prophets to the Church, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Since the Rapture occurs before Christ returns to the Earth and is to happen without any preceding signs, discerning students of the Word should expect that a few, or even a handful of believers will be blessed with special knowledge of this unprecedented time and season. One compelling reason for such an expectancy can be gleaned from the abiding witness of the little known biblical personality named Simeon.

And Behold, There Was A Man In Jerusalem Whose Name Was Simeon, And This Man Was Just And Devout, Waiting For The Consolation Of Israel, And The Holy Spirit Was Upon Him. And It Had Been Revealed To Him By The Holy Spirit That He Would Not See Death Before He Had Seen The Lord’s Christ. So He Came By The Spirit Into The Temple. And When The Parents Had Brought In The Child Jesus, To Do For Him According To The Custom Of The Law, He Took Him Up In His Arms And Blessed God…¹

I firmly believe that the Holy Spirit’s inclusion of this incident in the Scripture, in addition to it serving as one of many signs granted to Israel to confirm the true identity of the infant Child, was to lay a biblical precedent that would speak to our day. For though Simeon was a faithful Israelite who yearned for the kingdom of God, his status under the Old Covenant was that of a servant of YAHWEH. However Simeon’s anointing by the Holy Spirit, a grace normally reserved for the kings, prophets, and priests of Israel, distinguished this ordinary man and accounted for his receiving special knowledge regarding his day. The status of believers in the New Covenant however is that of children of God, in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. Shouldn’t some among us today expect to receive a similar blessing of illumination regarding the Second Coming of Christ, since we are in a better Covenant founded upon better promises? Moreover, the Lord Jesus on the night before His passion elevated believers’ status to that of friends.

Sons and Friends

No Longer Do I Call You Servants, For A Servant Does Not Know What His Master Is Doing; But I Have Called You Friends, For All Things That I Heard From My Father I Have Made Known To You. ²

Truly the hallmark of friendship is intimacy, an unreserved communion of persons, which experientially surpasses that among family members and sometimes even that between husbands and wives. The Lord Jesus called each and every believer unto this honor, that we might know what is personal to Him, His secrets, and dwell with Him as it were in the bosom of the Father. Abraham was called a friend of God and it was given to him to know the happenings of his day. Daniel the prophet was given one of the most exact and far reaching prophecies in all the Scripture because by heaven’s testimony he was greatly beloved. The Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was chosen to write the Book of Revelation. Yes, the Lord Jesus will share all relevant knowledge with His friends. Let each believer, however, note the qualifying statement spoken just before the Bible verse quoted above.

You Are My Friends If You Do Whatever I Command You.

Notwithstanding, during Jesus’ earthly ministry as part of His humiliation, Christ was the obedient Servant and did not know all things but entrusted the glories of deity to the Father. During that time therefore Jesus could only disclose to His disciples the things that the Father told Him in real time. This was demonstrated when He spoke on one occasion regarding the passing away of the heavens and the earth.

But Of That Day And Hour No One Knows, Neither The Angels In Heaven, Nor The Son, But Only The Father. ³

Again after His resurrection His disciples asked Him would He then establish the kingdom of God.

And He Said To Them, ‘It Is Not For You To Know Times Or Seasons Which The Father Has Put In His Own Authority. ⁴

But after Christ’s ascension into heaven and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, only then was it given to Him to know all things regarding the Rapture, His Second Coming and the kingdom of God. This truth is set forth in the opening verse of the Book of Revelation, the bulk of which (chapters 5-20) this book endeavors to provide a brief commentary.

The Revelation Of Jesus Christ, Which God Gave Him To Show His Servants-things Which Must Shortly Take Place. And He Sent And Signified It By His Angel To His Servant John… ⁵

Accordingly, the Book of Revelation is a prophecy that spans the history of the world from the end of the first century to the actual passing away of the heavens and the earth, onto the eternal state in the New Heaven and the New Earth. This period of time of course includes the Second Coming of Christ and the establishment of the Millennial Kingdom, known by a technical term in the Scripture as, the Day of the LORD. Having received then this final revelation from God the Father, the Lord Jesus has caused it to be delivered in written form to the Church, His friends. Predictably then, as the fulfillment of the Revelation’s predictions appear ready for manifestation, the Holy Spirit again is granting illumination or understanding of the prophecy to all sincere seekers, but especially to the Church living in the terminal generation. Thus as it relates to the Rapture, the event I believe will trigger the start of the Great Tribulation, alert believers yearn to know whether there are any Simeons among us. I submit that there are.

The Last Word to the Church

Known in the Bible as a mystery or sacred secret (a truth concealed in the Old Testament but revealed in the New Testament), the Rapture of the Church is an event that is imminent and will occur without any preceding signs. Keep in mind as well that the Book of Revelation is a prophecy, therefore Bible interpreters and commentators know that when the text warrants it they are at liberty to interpret events, symbols, numbers, and the like. This would be in addition to the words of the text; and in doing so they would still come under the purview of sound biblical interpretation. A most relevant example is the view of some scholars that John the Apostle is representative of the Rapture of the Church when he is caught up to heaven as described in the opening verse of the fourth chapter. Strengthening this view is that the event happens in the Book of Revelation after the prophecies of the Church Age recorded in chapters two and three. John is then told that he will be shown things which must take place after this-literally from the Greek after these things- the Church Age. Lastly, only then and from heaven’s perspective does the Apostle John see the things happening on the Earth, beginning with the Great Tribulation onto the eternal state.

In fact John saw and recorded some of the most astonishing events ever witnessed by human eyes. Remember he saw nearly two thousand years ago the events that are yet in our future. Nevertheless John, along with all the prophets, was handicapped by an ancient vocabulary and yet challenged to describe phenomenon 2,000 to 4,000 years in the future. Thus an angel was sent to signify the prophecy to the Apostle, presumably via some type of holographic projection, the visions he saw and then recorded. Additionally in the writing of the Book of Revelation John utilized the apocalyptic genre, picture words, to communicate this last Word from God to the Church and to the world. This last Word does not stand alone however, for no Scripture is of any private interpretation-literally from the Greek, private origination. Indeed the Book of Revelation is the capstone neatly meshed atop a mountain of prophecies from 40 different writers which were used to pen 66 books spanning more than 4,000 years. Yet it is an integrated message which clearly demonstrates that its Author must be the holy eternal omnipotent loving creator God!

Chapter Two

God Does Nothing Unless

God Cannot Lie

One great truth that can be discovered in all the Scripture is found in the prophecy of Amos, one of the earliest writing prophets. SURELY THE LORD GOD DOES NOTHING UNLESS HE REVEALS HIS SECRETS TO HIS SERVANTS THE PROPHETS.⁷ At face value the statement suggests the unimaginable, that of a divine limitation even if Self imposed. For it certainly speaks of something that the Almighty cannot do. Notwithstanding, the import of the verse would be expanded by future prophets, being specifically expressed in the Apostle Paul’s declaration, …HE (God) CANNOT DENY HIMSELF:⁸ If God sets conditions by which He will or will not act, in this case He will do nothing, then God has limited that which even He can do on earth by that which He has first made known to mankind. The declaration then assumes the stature of an axiomatic truth in light of the absolute holiness and righteousness and truthfulness of God. In other words God is limited by His nature. His holiness prevents Him from even looking favorably upon evil, for example, let alone committing evil or tempting another to do evil. Moreover God, as the writer of Hebrews asserts, cannot swear by anyone greater; He cannot lie. God knows all things therefore He cannot learn anything, nor can He be surprised. Such is the case with respect to all of the attributes that are exclusive to deity. His being omnipresent means that nothing exists outside His presence, He inhabits eternity…He fills heaven and earth. He is omnipotent and therefore cannot cease being God. God is immutable, He cannot change. God is love, the source and definer of all that can be good. Hence the Scripture cannot be broken as Jesus said, therefore mankind can bank on the pronouncement of the prophet Amos. Thus we rightly conclude that that there will never be any divine intervention without prior divine revelation. God will not enter the affairs of mankind to save or to destroy, to bless or to curse, to give life or to take life, unless He by a prophet’s voice first warns and/or prepares and/or separates His own people.

God’s Prophetic Warnings and Prehistoric Interventions

This truth has been demonstrated throughout mankind’s history even before the Word was first committed to Scripture by the hand of Moses more than 1500 years before Christ. Enoch, the seventh from Adam and the very first prophet not only prophesied of the Second Coming of Christ with tens of thousands of His saints, but