Bifurcated 'Ranks-Thinning'

Ranks-thinning or thinning out the ranks is a formal or informal process in which large organizations reduce specific people or numbers of people or things engaging in an organized activity. It is typically a practice of any significantly large enterprise—an army, large corporation, governmental agency, etc. Reductions-in-Force (RIFs) are more formal, less personal ways such organizations reduce and restructure themselves by focusing more on positions than specific people or things. Other such terms include right-sizing or down-sizing, organizational trimming, trimming the fat, etc. 

 

But what might ‘bifurcated ranks-thinning’ signify?? Moreover, what place might it have in a blog that accentuates and promotes patterned analysis of Biblical strategies?! It is my label for what I perceive The Lord may have done during the winding-down of the pre-flood age—the 1st Biblical age of human history, and possibly during the winding down of the pre-cross age—the 2nd Biblical age. Let’s try to define ‘bifurcated ranks-thinning’, then consider whether this scenario might be yet another repetitive pattern revealed and/or hinted across the pages of The Bible.

Context

 

In Mid-ages Musings (Part 3), I shared a general, repetitive strategic pattern that appears to signals how the 6 Biblical ages of human history on this current version of Earth would transition from age-to-age. This pattern was clearly evident across the first 2 Biblical ages as:

 

1. Humanity’s ‘cup of iniquity’ overspilled its rim,

2. Righteousness on Earth was figuratively ‘hanging by a thread’,

3. Apparent age-relevant judgment precursors (pre-conditions) reached their fullness, and

4. There was ‘silence from Heaven’, possibly dreaded by some and welcomed by others.

 

In case you missed it (as I did), the ‘silence from Heaven’ before the global flood was the long period between Genesis 6:21 and 7:1. History affirms there was another lengthy silence from Heaven near the end of the 2nd Biblical age—the intertestamental period. Ancient Israel, the nation that was entrusted with The Lord's revelations, reached a condition in which its religious leadership became increasingly disconnected from genuine allegiance, and ended up leading the rejection and crucifixion of its long-predicted Messiah.

 

History of this current 3rd Biblical age affirms the first 3 points of this pattern echo Paul’s predictions about the end of this age. Based on your study of The Bible, and especially of Revelation, see if you can perceive how this pattern also echoes many Bible predictions about how the 4th and 6th ages will end. Finally, using insights across our history, and especially human nature, try to intuit periods of silence from heaven between the 4th-to-5th ages, and the 5th-to-6th ages. (See: The 7th Seal (Series). Evidence of this particular point in the age-closing and transition sequence seems remarkably evident in both history and in human nature!

 

In light of the above, I pondered whether Genesis 6 might possibly be a prototype that would depict key aspects of how each Biblical age would end. In response, The Lord led me to use available Scripture passages and insights into human history and nature to imagine, then develop indicative Genesis 6 versions for those remaining ages. (See: Age-ending Stock-taking (Series)) A key aspect of that process was to perceive how, towards the end of each age, righteousness on Earth would be ‘hanging on by a thread!’ as it was when, towards the end of the 1st age, only one man across the pre-flood population—Noah—was counted by The Lord as righteous. Try to imagine that!

Why Only One Man?!

Genesis 6:8-9 may have been written to prompt us to ponder:

 

Why did only ONE man fit The Lord’s description of Noah

so many years before the global flood?!

 

Here is what The Bible reveals. A spiritual war that was started long ago in Heaven, continues to rage across the ages of human history. Jesus, The Lord God, and satan, a former, highly exalted angel named Lucifer, are unequal ‘captains’ of two spiritual armies. The recruits in those two armies, respectively, are The Lord’s genuine saints, and the rest of humanity who will reject His lordship across human history on this current version of Earth. (See: Human History Ages (Series), and Earth’s Next Versions (Series))

 

The ultimate objective of these captains is NOT for one side to win, and the other side to lose this war. The Lord pre-determined that point long ago! (See: Revelation 20:11-15 and Hiatus from Hades (Poem)) Rather, these captains’ ultimate objectives are for their recruits TO LIVE and DIE in their FERVENT service! * Read that again. As immortal, spiritual beings, both captains are aware when the end of each Biblical age is approaching, but satan likely doesn’t know the details of The Lord’s strategic moves. Don’t think for a minute satan and his crew of demons and devils were not aware of the approaching end of the 1st age! Thus, I intuit both captains may move in different ways to confirm, then protect their recruits—their ‘harvests’ from each age, especially as each age approaches its designated end. (See: Revelation 12:10-12) Consider this…

satan’s key tactics are temptations and deceptions for us to sin in increasingly gross ways against any and all things The Lord has declared to be righteous. Largely spiritually ignorant, the overwhelming majority of us easily fall victim to his ploys. This greatly reduces the numbers of righteous people on Earth, especially as Heaven’s pre-determined, age-ending judgments approach.

 

I intuit that, towards the ends of each age, satan aggressively catalyzes his army of demons, devils and humans to agitate and aggravate life across Earth. Thus, like a fire that cannot be satisfied, or a snowball rolling downhill in an avalanche, the size of his army GREATLY increases. He celebrates people who will die in the mayhem of service to him! They will be clueless that their recruitment in his army guarantees their presence in The Lord’s declared, eternal judgment for satan and his entire army—eternity in a brimstone-lit lake of fire!

 

The Lord’s tactics are quite different. He promotes increasingly 'discerning His spiritual presence, guidance and warnings, to grow our faith and patience and to practice His righteous requirements. Read that again. As we do, our deaths are precious in His sight, and by faith, we know we will be resurrected as GLORIFIED immortals, and will join all alive saints in The Lord’s subsequent rapture events. 

 

Towards the ends of each age, I intuit The Lord may cause many of His saints to die prior to His age-ending judgment, or to be ‘Goshen-effect’ protected during His pending judgment. Isaiah 57:1–2 introduces the first point. Paul echoes it often in his letters, revealing that, for a genuine, not fake believer, dying prior to Heaven’s pending, major judgment events on Earth is actually a gain, transferring us directly into Christ's presence, in spirit and soul form, pending our bodily resurrection. In The Goshen Effect (Series), I explore the second point.

 

Both sets of tactics help to lock-in the age-specific gains (people harvests) of these two, unequal captains, and thin out the number of people on Earth (physically and spiritually) prior to the start of Heaven’s age-ending judgments. I intuit this might be why The Lord allowed only one righteous man to survive the global flood. Recall, He never declared Noah’s family members were ‘righteous in His sight’. Moreover, He foreknew the spatial allotment for humans and animals in the ark! 

 

NB: I do not intend to imply this type sequence applies only to Heaven’s age-ending/transferring judgments. But perhaps it applied more intently and intensely to them as the climax/culmination of each age, as the global flood and the crucifixion of Jesus were the climaxes/culminations of the first 2 Biblical ages of human history. The flood judged the corruption of the 1st age, and Christ’s crucifixion judged EVERY HUMAN SIN that would have ever been and ever will be committed on Earth.

 

In The 6th Seal, Civilization’s Reset? (Series), I explain why I intuit the event depicted in Revelation 6:12-17 might be the climax/culmination of this current 3rd age, possibly triggering a ‘parade of false saviors’ that will result in revealing of the final anti-Christ global leader.

 

What Do They Share?

 

Following are some commonalities among the armies in this ongoing spiritual war across the ages: 

 

1. These unequal captains are fierce immortal enemies who are invisible to us. Revelation 12 ‘spiritually signifies’ how this war began. Revelation 12:7-12, Luke 10:18, Isaiah 14:12-14 and Ezekiel 28:11-15 reveal why.

2. Both have a cohort of invisible/immortal angelic agents (holy and fallen) that facilitate their orders, and serve their people counterparts.

3. Both armies cut across national borders, ethnicities and languages, and will eventually have recruited people ‘from every tribe, tongue and nation’.

4. Both armies have ‘fence-sitters’—people who, by their wishy-washy lifestyles, are not fully committed to either captain’s cause. They don’t realize they effectively are in satan’s army! The Lord spiritually promises to vomit lukewarm, fake, believers out of His mouth! (See: Christianesque (Poem) and Secret Agent Christians (Series))

5. Together, by the end of the 6th age, these two spiritual armies will have covered the ENTIRETY of the human race since Adam and Eve!

6. The Bible affirms ALL humans were effectively BORN into satan’s army! Only Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection paved the way/opened the door for ALL of us to ‘switch sides’, by joining and passing His ‘salvation internship’. (Have you??)

 

VOILA! Two opposing spiritual captains pursuing different ranks-thinning strategies to secure the eternal destinies of their respective recruits, as each Biblical age of human history approaches its conclusion.

 

Points to Ponder

 

• Your lifestyle today is the BEST signal to you and others of which captain …you fervently serve.

• If The Lord offered you a choice, which would you choose and why: to be ‘thinned out’ prior to, or to be alive throughout His pending, age-ending judgment sequence?

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 * This excludes all genuine saints who will be raptured, and will not 'taste death'. 

Progressive Performance Probation Plan? (Part 1)

See the series here

In Salvation, an Internship (Poem), I posit that Christianity is effectively Heaven’s internship for The Lord’s would-be eternal saints. Revelation 3:14-22 give us the clearest evidence of this concept that is also evident across The Bible. While The Lord’s Grace is extended to all who will believe and receive Him as Lord, the persistent storyline, from Genesis-to-Revelation, is that His eternal Grace is only guaranteed to those of us who pass His tests until death in this earthly life. So the ‘touchstone’ notion of Christianity (i.e., confess Christ, get baptized, go to church, get on with life) is a false version of Christianity that satan and his crew would ABSOLUTELY LOVE for more of us to embrace, rather than a ‘good works, performance-based’ version of the Christian life. Apostle Paul iteratively attests we are created in Christ FOR GOOD WORKS that, in various ways, promote His kingdom on this version of Earth. Revelation 19:6-8 give us the clearest explanation of the eternal objective of our good works—to adorn The Lord’s Bride which is apparently NOT the 3rd age church, as most of us have likely been taught. (See: The Bride of Christ (Series))

Progressive Performance Probation Plan? (Part 2)

 See the series here

The Lord is THE most STRATEGIC being in existence! The breadth and depths of His various strategies are unknowable to us. BUT, The Bible gives us more than adequate repetitive patterns and insights into His thoughts, ways and preferences for us. He must intend us to study them diligently, and to perceive well beyond the written texts with the aid of His Holy Spirit. Apostle Paul’s writings collectively signal to all bona fide saints that the mysteries of God are hidden FROM sinners, but FOR us believers. But their availability does not mean they are automatically known by all of us. That requires diligent, Holy Spirit-guided study and meditation, followed by diligent Spirit-led efforts to share with interested others what we have perceived, just as Jesus, the prophets and the apostles did. 

Progressive Performance Probation Plan? (Part 3)

 See the series here

Who Will Judge Whom?

 

While The Bible iteratively affirms Father God has delegated ALL judgments to Jesus, The Lord God, Paul indicates Jesus will delegate judgment of angels to His tested/proven saints. Are you ready for that?! Paul does not reveal which angels we will judge, or when that judgment will occur. This is what I intuit: 

 

The Bible attests that human saints will stand before The Lord’s judgment seat for our performance/good works to be scrutinized. This might either occur sequentially when the various ‘first resurrection’ groups will enter into Heaven, or possibly when all of His saints will be together in Heaven. (See: Biblical Raptures – Types and Timings (Series)) Paul signals that we immortal saints ‘will judge angels’. It is unclear which group of angels we will judge. Here’s what I intuit:

This Scene Will Never Happen! (Poem)

The Bible says the 'FIRST’ resurrection/rapture,

Is for God’s saints who, in life, will have sacrificed,

By transforming our lifestyles, His heart to capture,

Since for us, He sacrificed, and paid our sin price. ¹

The Lord and AI (Part 1)

See the series here 

Jesus, The Lord God, is The Quintessential lesson planner! He patiently prepared a wide range of lessons to capture our attention in order to warn and teach us about His ways and expectations of us in order to attract His boundless blessings. Reflecting on this pattern across The Bible, I pondered why has AI manifested on the scene, especially in such a speedy manner, during what may be the late stage of the 3rd Biblical age of our history? While pondering, I quickly perceived The Lord and AI have several things in common, but in uniquely different ways. So let’s explore whether AI might in some way be or become His latest lesson for us, and if so, what might that lesson be.

The Lord and AI (Part 2)

See the series here

AI, Heaven’s Possible Lesson Plan?

 

Part 1 posits whether the development of agentic AI might possibly be or become an instrument The Lord has allowed to develop at this stage in the 3rd Biblical age, to teach us some pivotal lesson(s). If/IF this is possible, the natural question is:

 

What lesson(s) might The Lord intend for us to learn from agentic AI,

lessons we very likely will deny, ignore and refuse to learn,

then pay high costs because we didn’t,

like we did with all of His prior lessons?

 

Of course, no one knows, but here are a few good, Bible-based clues:

Late-age Lessons (Part 1)

See the series here

Over the last few years, The Lord inspired me to perceive and ponder persistent patterns in His multi-millennial, Genesis-to-Revelation strategy for humanity, including observing when some of those patterns appear to be disrupted. Reviewing what I learned and shared, I pondered what repetitive patterns I might have missed? Recent events in mid-2026 triggered me to search for a new one: 

 

The repetitive pattern of a final lesson for humanity,

manifested in or as totally unusual events

prior to the global, age-ending judgment.

Late-age Lessons (Part 2)

See the series here

As noted in Part 1, I currently know of no clear, Biblical predictions of TOTALLY unusual developments and lessons people should learn several years prior to the ends of the 3rd, 5th and 6th Biblical ages. But I perceive of a few possibilities. 

 

Ponder Some Possibilities

 

3rd age (Church/Grace): Thus far in this age, the invention, rapid scaling and globalized use of agentic AI has been the most TOTALLY unusual development. In The Lord and AI (Series), I noted 7 points The Lord and AI may have in common, though on significantly different scales. I also pose the question:

What lesson(s) might The Lord intend for us to learn from agentic AI—

lessons we will very likely deny, ignore and refuse to learn,

then pay high costs because we didn’t,

like most of us did with His prior lessons?

Better Melt Now than LATER! (Part 2)

 

See the series here

Preparing to Reshape Earth

 

On August 15, 2026, as I prayed about and pondered the dramatic increase in glacier melt over the past few decades, I asked The Lord whether/how that development might relate to the GREAT earthquakes predicted in Revelation 6:12-17 and 16:17-21. Eleven days later, on August 26, a catastrophic slope failure involving a glacier along Nepal’s border with China triggered a massive debris flow and flood that traveled nearly 62 miles down the mountain, swelling into a tsunami-like wave as it swept through riverside villages in both countries. Sadly, many people were caught in the flow, and broad areas were destroyed.

 

Only after I recovered from the shocking news did I remember the question I had asked The Lord 11 days earlier. Mind you, I am not inferring that crisis was His answer to my question! Rather, as I continue to study The Book of Revelation in context of the entire Bible, I regarded that crisis as an opportunity and challenge to explore my question more deeply.

 

The Bible affirms The Lord’s plan for a substantial reshaping of Earth for His Millennial Reign age—the 5th of 6 Biblical ages of our history, after which He promised to destroy this current Earth and universe, and reveal a MASSIVE, new, eternal Earth. (See: Earth’s Next Versions (Series), and Ephemeral then Eternal Earth (Series)) As we transit what I understand is this 3rd Biblical age, my studies lead me to conclude the following:

• Ages-wise, our history very likely pivots on the mid-point of the number of ages He has planned for us; BUT

• Years-wise, according to the relatively few yet-fulfilled Bible prophecies, we may have passed the mid-point of the number of years He has planned for us! (See: Mid-ages Musings (Part 1))

 

This has peaked my interest to understand, according to The Bible:

 

1. What will lie ahead during the relatively short remaining 3 ages, 

2. What current and future developments might indicate the successive arrival of the last 3 ages, and

3. What role(s) I might play in encouraging The Lord’s saints to prepare for what lies ahead for us.

 

As Apostle Paul’s writings serve as a quasi-roadmap through the end of this 3rd age, Apostle John’s Book of Revelation serves as a quasi-road map through the last 3 ages—the indicated 7-year tribulation age, the Millennial Reign age, and the ‘little while’ post-Millennial Reign age. In Daniel 7:25, an angel revealed to the prophet that what we now understand will be the tribulation age, will be divided in half of 42 months each. It will end with the apocalypse erupting during the second half. It will end with this awful scenario:

 

Earth Utterly Shaken

Then the 7th angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the Earth. Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great.

 

This scenario strongly indicates Earth’s surface might become a global plain. Moreover, since other prophecies across The Bible indicate life on Earth will return to conditions before the global flood that ended the first age, I ponder whether Earth’s surface back then was a plain; and whether mountains may have been created during the flood, to open spaces for flood waters to drain—creating the surface we have today? If so, that presents a massive problem lying ahead for humanity. During the flood, there were no people on the surface, but there will be a relatively few people on Earth when all mountains and islands COLLAPSE!!

 

I originally imagined that awful scene with the highest snow-capped mountains, and glaciers in their full strength. BUT climate change is gradually melting both the glaciers and that snow! Thus, if my scenario about draining the flood waters may be right, then The Lord perfectly knows how to undo what He did during the flood! Thus I ponder whether allowing some snow-caps and glaciers to melt BEFORE that future event, might, in His Grace, account for the fact that, this time, there will be people on the surface of Earth. Of course no one knows. Thus, I intuit allowing some or all melting now, might attenuate the impacts of the collapse then.