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Yearly Archives: 2023
The Escape and the Snare
Note: This commentary—excerpted largely here—was presented in 2019. However, the massive evidence accumulating that God is about to say, “Enough of this wickedness,” convicted me to repost the heads-up to believers in Jesus Christ.
Rumors of war that threaten nuclear conflict in the areas surrounding Israel, and in fact, involving our own nation, are in the hourly news headlines. We’re told that economic collapse of the world’s financial systems is inevitable, if global governance by would-be New World Order builders are not forthcoming. Sodom-like wickedness threatens to overthrow every semblance of morality, assaulting even young children in their satanic plans to reset planetary order in a direction opposite of God’s.
Technology that can provide controls by Antichrist are already here, with artificial intelligence beginning to intrude upon every facet of life. The snare of Revelation 4:1 might be triggered at any moment!
The Snare Is Set
Beware and be aware: God is about to disrupt humanity’s present and tragic trajectory.
Hal Lindsey, of The Late, Great, Planet Earth fame, called it “the great snatching up.” The mental picture is of one of those old Jungle Jim films starring Johnny Weissmuller in his post-Tarzan days.
A leopard or other big cat would be stalking through a thick jungle, and suddenly it would be violently snatched up when it hit a tripping mechanism that caused a thick net to be released. After grabbing the enraged beast, the net would spring upward, keeping it trapped while it flailed mightily above the jungle floor.
Jungle Jim would then have captured a leopard for a zoo or to rid the area of a human-eater. It was all very exciting for a boy of ten or so sitting in an air-conditioned movie theater munching popcorn back in those days.
Catching the beast, of course, required much preparation. Jungle Jim would order his assistants—usually natives of the area—to carefully place the net flat in a jungle pathway, then camouflage it. A sapling or thick branch was then bent to provide the tremendous spring the trap would need to capture and hold a 150-pound or more leopard.
With the big cat captured, the people would be safe from its prowling about and possibly attacking the most vulnerable inhabitants of the African countryside.
Hal Lindsey, of course, was talking about “the great snatching-up” in reverse, so to speak. In his biblically prophetic study presented in The Late, Great, Planet Earth, he was talking about the prophecy given by Jesus as recorded by the Apostle Luke:
And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.
For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. (Luke 21:34–36)
In this case, the viciousness of the beast world will be left on the earth, and the people to be protected will be snatched into the air to safety. Peter the apostle said this about the one who is even now on the ground surrounding us, looking to attack:
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
The Apostle Paul told in great detail about this snatching up. The prophecy most directly pertinent is the following:
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17)
Harpazo, as many know, is the Greek word used in Paul’s prophecy to express this being caught up. People who live to experience the Rapture and Christians who have died during the Church Age (Age of Grace) will be caught up or snatched up. It will happen in the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:52).
This instantaneous event that removes God’s people from deadly conditions on earth, unlike ol’ Jungle Jim’s snare that leaves people on the ground safe from the leopard, takes no preparation by any humans. Jesus finished all preparation on the cross at Calvary when He said, “It is finished.”
All one must do to be removed in that moment is to believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, according to Romans 10:9–10.
While no preparation needs be made beyond simply accepting that call to salvation, the snare is set; it will soon leave those who rebel against God to face the “roaring lion” described above.
In these commentaries over the years, we’ve gone over in depth all the signals Jesus and the prophets said would be in view at the time of this snare-like intervention into the affairs of rebellious earth-dwellers. Those indicators are literally everywhere we look, with Israel, the fig tree in prophetic symbolism, being the key sign.
Spiritually attuned believers can know when that end-times generation will appear at the very end of the age.
Again, we look at Scripture to see that the snare is now set that will catapult Christians to Heaven:
And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees; When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. (Luke 21:28–35)
God’s Measured Judgment
While walking from my office, passing through to another part of our home, I hear my wife’s music CDs playing. On many occasions I hear the same song, obviously among Margaret’s favorites.
Now I find myself humming that song, which has become much more meaningful and even deeply etched into my mind and spirit.
The song is “Teach Us to Number Our Days.” My wife’s favorite version—and now mine—is by Marty Goetz, a Jewish American songwriter and singer.
The words, as I said, powerfully resonate within my spirit. Perhaps that’s because of my advancing age toward the hereafter. However, I believe it to be more and more a God-prompted reminder of just how near I am to facing the Lord Jesus Christ in that glorious, twinkling-of-an-eye instant of Rapture. It might just be a heads-up alerting us to how near all believers, dead and alive, are to looking into Christ’s omniscient eyes at any second and standing before Him to be judged for rewards and crowns at the bema –the Judgment Seat of Christ.
The lyrics of Goetz’s song, based on the words of the following Psalm, are doubly meaningful to those who look for Christ’s soon return. Scripture indicates we should realize the time is drawing near when we will stand before Him, thus we should ask to be totally aware and living righteously every conscious second of our lives.
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. (Psalms 90:12–13)
The days each of us has been granted are indeed numbered in God’s heavenly accounting system. God’s Word puts it this way:
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. (Hebrews 9:27)
The Creator of all things measures everything with unerring precision. We’re told that every star is named. Every hair on our heads is numbered. Each and every created order is accounted for. The heavens are stretched and measured. The Creator intimates that He is aware of each grain of sand. His omniscience is without error; there is no place that He isn’t there.
Thinking on asking this great God to teach us to number our days brings to mind, in considering His dealing with rebels down throughout the millennia, His judgment against disobedient humankind.
The thing that stands out to me is that His judgment is measured. We see this truth time after time. He always shows divine patience. He never changes His mind about not being willing for anyone to perish, but wanting all to repent.
Consider the time of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Lord talking with Abraham about measuring the sins of the people of Sodom. The Lord had obviously been patient, but now came down Himself to assess the wicked city’s sins. Finally, when not even ten righteous people could be found, His judgment fell—after He removed Lot and his daughters to safety.
Consider how He dealt with Pharaoh in the days of the great Exodus. His judgment was measured. Each succeeding plague became more punishing until the Israelites were free to go.
Think of Babylon and the wickedness there. God had finally had it after years of Belshazzar’s evil doings. God’s divine measurement system was on full display—and was visible for all to see as His own hand wrote on the wall.
And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. (Daniel 5:25–27)
Almighty God measures and numbers everything. All is under His all-seeing eye and His omnipotence. We are made in His image. He wants us to number all things in our lives and measure our actions so we will be accounted worthy when we stand before Him in judgment.
We’re told to judge ourselves in this regard so we won’t have to be deemed unworthy by Him:
For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. (1 Corinthians 11:31)
The prophetic application is that God’s measured judgment system is weighing all that is going on at this very moment. We are witnessing warnings of coming judgment because this world of rebels is being “weighed in the balances, and…found wanting.”
Still, the heavenly assessment is measured slowly, deliberately. God is still not willing for anyone to perish, but He wants all to come to repentance.
But judgment and wrath are on the way, make no mistake. And when they come, it will be the most destructive justice ever delivered:
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. (Matthew 24:21)
Even during that most horrific time of all human history, the judgment and wrath will be measured carefully and precisely.
There will be twenty-one specific judgments to call humanity to repentance, while devastating those filled with anti-God rebelliousness. The seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls of God’s wrath will incrementally rain down God’s holy and righteous anger in measured degrees.
You don’t want to be on this fallen sphere when that judgment falls. God wants us to number our days and live them through Holy Spirit-indwelt righteousness. This means you must be reconciled—made righteous under God’s way of salvation. Here again is how to make sure you go to Christ when He Calls, whether through death or in the Rapture—which we believe can happen at any moment, considering all the signs that are manifesting.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10: 9-10)
Sino Syndrome Surging
The 1979 movie, The China Syndrome, stoked fears of nuclear power plant meltdown. The fear as expressed—only partly joking—was that the melting of nuclear material would keep going deeper into the earth all the way to China, contaminating groundwater and everything else. A real such disaster came only twelve days after the film’s release, when Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania suffered a nuclear power plant meltdown.
The Sino Syndrome, as I call it, in terms of geopolitical-think, is the belief by many today that a deadly danger is coming from the other side of the world toward America at an ever-quickening pace.
Fears are mounting. The Sino threat is growing. The messages I’m receiving amount to being a syndrome, in my view.
China, which I believe without doubt will be the “kings of the east” leading force—that is, the King of the kings of the east—has many worrying that invasion is near. This apprehension includes that of some of my friends, one of whom I will let express his thoughts in brief here.
He says the following in one of his several emails to me:
I’ve seen several other Internet reports also revealing that our government is openly allowing communist China to infiltrate America in many ways. Buying up land, possibly near our military bases! Additional proof that our own pro communist leaders, Obama and Biden, are friendly to Red China and probably not opposed to a Chinese takeover of America. And soon!
I find it quite likely that Barack Obama, wanting to eliminate our free Republic and communize our nation, could simply allow the Chinese communists to help him in that endeavor.
Think about it. Is it not very likely that by now many communist Chinese agents have entered our nation through Obama’s open border and are positioned all across our nation?
I don’t know about you, but I find this news very concerning. You wonder how much longer God will delay the Rapture. Will it not occur until America falls to the Chinese?
There’s been a lot of talk about China invading Taiwan. But, nothing is being said by anybody about how China is rapidly infiltrating our nation, by permission of our leaders. Perhaps as punishment for turning from Him, God may allow us to soon fall to the communist Chinese. Just as He allowed both Judah and Israel to be overrun by their enemies for rebelling against Him.
My friend’s worry is expressed many times over by others who aren’t necessarily close acquaintances. The concern has indeed moved into the arena of near-paranoia in a number of cases.
Their fears aren’t without basis. I, too, don’t take lightly matters coming out of that troubling area. But my concern is greatly tempered, because it’s undertaken with the absolute knowledge of truth found in God’s Word—which I hope to go into a bit later.
First, a look into some of the things feared to be going on with regard to America’s number-one enemy so far as national entities are concerned:
- Some fear that Taiwan is China’s Ukraine—that the Chinese are about to invade that island. Biden and his administration, they say, are sending American assets to Taiwan just as they are to Ukraine.
- China has developed advanced weapons with nuclear capability, while America’s military is being diminished purposefully by the Marxists in power.
- China is mounting a space force that can destroy satellites, thus debilitating America’s defensive capabilities.
- China has been sending high atmospheric spy balloons to map and plan for assault on America.
- China is, like in the case of the so-called Chinese virus, preparing to create more such biological attacks.
- Chinese are crossing America’s open southern borders, with more than 14 million now in the US.
- China has purchased vast land swaths within the United States, usually near American military bases and key defense areas.
- China is destroying America economically, through every nefarious pathway available, including electronic hacking and interference.
- The Biden administration and the globalist cabal include China and possible war with that nation and Russia as part of plans to fundamentally change America, like Barack Obama said he intended before he was elected president in 2008.
- China, along with Russia, is planning full military invasions of America by having forces on both northern and southern borders.
When thinking on this entire range of assaults, all one can say is: “Whew!”
If all this threat from China—and from its ally Russia—comes to fruition, we will, as my friend fears, soon be under the thumb of the most despotic, torturous regime to exist on the planet. Americans will be facing the darkest of times, almost rivaling the conditions prophesied under Antichrist’s regime in Revelation.
But, as always, I stick to my absolute confidence that this just isn’t going to happen. While it is a possibility–even a likelihood—that this nation and others of the West will suffer even military attacks following the Rapture of the Church, I’m of the studied opinion that neither China nor Russia will conquer the United States—or any major nation-state of the Western hemisphere, for that matter. This is even though the Marxists and communist types have made great inroads into this part of the world.
The reasons I am so confident of what I write here are found in God’s Word. I have written the following consistently.
Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 say that Russia and its forces will meet their doom on the mountains of Israel as they attack. All the while, the other areas of the world–the Western world—will be observing Gog’s defeat and only issuing diplomatic notes of protest (this being evidence that China and Russia have not conquered the West).
China, on the other hand–the king of the kings of the east—will be held back until the late Tribulation era by a God-ordained and stipulated barrier that separates the Occidental and Oriental worlds.
This barrier is the Euphrates River of the Middle East.
That holding back of the great invading force until near the time of Armageddon is found in Revelation, chapters 9 and 16.
This, my take on the matter, I realize, will make little difference to most who view developments in China, Russia, and the Middle East, because most don’t take into account God’s Word on matters involved. The Sino Syndrome is building. Troubles coming out of those areas of this ever-darkening world are likely to appear much more ominous in the very near future.
I can only urge those so fearful of things they believe are coming to consider studying God’s prophetic Word–to overlay all of the portentous things they fear with the template of the Bible.
I’m speaking to Christians, of course. The lost mind can be brilliant in IQ, but totally oblivious to truth. The Christian, however, has every promise of the ability to find truth in all matters—including those concerning their future so far as war and peace are concerned.
And the only peace to be found is in the Prince of Peace. He has promised to keep us from that hour of Tribulation (Revelation 3:10).
If you haven’t yet come to Him for the “peace that passes all understanding,” here is how to instantaneously embrace the only way God has provided to be saved from the troubles coming upon this fallen world of rebels:
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)
Rapture and the Righteous
The end-times scent is in the very ambience that surrounds us. Something profound is about to bring change in ways that we can’t fully anticipate. I believe what’s about to change things in this world forever is the great Rapture event.
The Rapture will be the sudden disappearance of people from the earth. Only those who are righteous will vanish. All who are left behind will, at that moment, be unrighteous in God’s holy eyes.
Again, I believe the key prophecy involving the timing of the Rapture is given in the words of Jesus:
Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. (Luke 17:28–30)
So it is essential that we understand the righteous and the unrighteous. Who exactly are these? To get to the heart of what’s involved, I repeat here what I wrote in a previous article.
To begin, we must first consider God’s words to Lot’s uncle, Abraham.
The Lord said He would tell Abraham about things to come, because He knew Abraham would do righteously. God wanted him to know His plan to deal with Sodom’s wickedness, once He determined that action was necessary. The Lord, Himself, stood with Lot, then, and discussed Sodom’s fate, while the Lord’s angel-representatives headed down toward Sodom and Gomorrah.
And the LORD said, because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD. And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? (Genesis 18:20–23)
There was then a profound back-and-forth between the Lord God and a lowly human being—Abraham. God answered each of the old man’s questions. Abraham was appealing to God to have those in the wicked cities spared from destruction. He asked if God would relent if 50 were found to be righteous—then 40, then 30, then 20.
Finally, after Abraham asked if God would spare the cities if the Lord could find even 10 righteous and 10 couldn’t be found, Sodom and Gomorrah’s fate was sealed.
God had said to Abraham before the countdown began—following Abraham’s initial question about the possibility of the cities being spared:
That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? (Genesis 18:25)
It was almost as if the Lord was mildly indignant to be thought of as being so unjust that He would condemn the righteous with the unrighteous.
Alas, there were not 10 righteous left in the city of Sodom. There were only Lot and his small family. God’s Word calls Lot “righteous,” even though Lot dwelt among perhaps the worst culture and society biblically recorded in such detail. The detail was so graphic it made the level of unrighteousness unmistakable.
It was business as usual during daylight hours, with the cities being apparently prosperous—buying, selling, building, planting, etc. But when the sun went down, they became a habitation of every sort of evil—particularly of debauchery, with homosexual rapaciousness leading the wickedness. The lustful males came even against the angels who visited Lot.
The raging men of the city threatened Lot with the worst possible attack if he didn’t go along with them and send out his visitors. They were on the verge of tearing down the door to get at their would-be victims. The only ones God considered righteous in the city at that moment were hated and threatened by the rest, who were the unrighteous.
And this is the angle I would like us to consider for now.
Jesus said in Luke 17:28–30 that it will be for those alive at His next revealing like it was at that time for Lot when he was hated and threatened by the wickedness of that society.
Lot and his two daughters were the only people who escaped the total destruction that descended upon Sodom and its sister city Gomorrah following their removal from those doomed cities. Thus they were the only people God considered righteous.
Now this is a point of considerable questioning of God’s Judgment, in thinking about Lot and those two daughters.
Lot…righteous?
How can a man who offers his daughters up for rape to a town full of sexual deviants be considered “righteous”?
As a matter of fact, how can those two daughters be considered “righteous” when they got their father drunk then had sexual relations with him once they were safely away from Sodom?
Yet Lot and those daughters were considered “righteous,” they were, therefore, the only ones who escaped God’s devastating judgment.
Here is how Peter confirmed Lot’s righteousness:
And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.) (2 Peter 2:6–8)
So Lot and his daughters and their comportment are presented as proof that salvation—and the saving out of Sodom—was not because of their good works. They were obviously, in some ways, as corrupt in behavior as the culture in which they were immersed. What, then, made them “righteous”?
We go again to the story of Abraham to discover the answer. Here it is, the answer to what makes anyone righteous—thus able to escape God’s wrath against the unrighteous.
Moses said of Abraham, under Divine Inspiration: And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness. (Genesis 15:6)
When a fear-filled jailer asked the Apostle Paul, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16: 31).
In other words, Paul was saying that the jailer, those of his household, or anyone else can be saved only through belief in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the way, truth and life (John 14:6). He is the only way to reconciliation with God the Father.
This was true looking forward to the cross during Abraham and Lot’s days. It is true today, looking back to the cross on which God’s Only Begotten Son died for the sins of humankind.
Belief in Christ is the only way to escape from this doomed planet when Jesus calls believers to Himself in the Rapture. Belief in Jesus as God’s designated route to salvation is the only way to be considered righteous.
The story of Lot and his daughters answers the question: Will only Christians walking perfectly with God and looking for the Rapture go to Christ when He calls?
Good works will not get anyone to Heaven. Only Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world–the only righteousness God recognizes—will put the believer in the presence of Christ when He says: “Come up here!” (Revelation 4:1).
Again, here is how to make sure you hear that call and are taken out of the Tribulation that will devastate the rebels of earth, just like God’s judgment and wrath destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10: 9-10)
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Just a note here to say again how pleased we are that Jonathan Brentner has joined us in writing for Nearing Midnight. He’s not only a colleague, but a Christian brother and friend I value very highly.
—Terry
Jan Markell: A Preview Of Things To Come — God Is Warning The Unbelieving World
All of us were heartbroken at the images coming out of Maui in early August. Everyone said it was like the end of the world. It was apocalyptic. The scenes remind us of images from WWII when dozens of cities looked like Lahaina, Maui.
But this wasn’t a war time ordeal. This was a peaceful day in paradise that was interrupted by the unthinkable. A wildfire of suspicious origin violently ended the lives of hundreds, and potentially thousands, of people whose day started like any other and ended in a hellish ordeal. We see why the Bible says, “Today is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2) Life can end abruptly and unexpectedly. No one is promised a tomorrow.
The word “apocalyptic” is being used all over the world as the planet groans, awaiting the liberation of Jesus Christ when He will set it free.
Elsewhere in Europe, a month of rain fell on parts of Slovenia in a single day. China experienced devastating floods. Crops throughout the region were completely wiped out, and the property damage that has been done is off the charts. Devastating heat has tormented millions of people around the world. Hail pounded Germany. Fires in Portugal created an “apocalyptic inferno.”
This, and much more, as we are in a run-up to the Rapture—the ultimate apocalyptic event.
The website says, “The Maui gay community is substantial and accepting. There are numerous LGBT and gay-friendly businesses on the island, exclusive Maui gay resorts and plenty to see, do and experience on this magical island. Maui Gay Pride is a staple event taking place each year around the first weekend in October.”
The promotion continues, “In 2011, when Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie signed legislation legalizing gay marriage in Hawaii, he sealed the State’s fate as one of the top gay destinations in the world. We welcome you to plan your Maui gay vacation or wedding today!”
And interestingly enough, about the only structure in Lahaina not destroyed was a church, though it was not a gospel preaching church.
During the seven-year Tribulation, every city and nation will look like Maui. Can you imagine? I cannot. The city of Lahaina is a preview of things to come. The earth will reel from earthquakes, meteor showers and asteroids, stars falling from heaven, and the moving of mountains. One- third of the trees will burn up.
The sun will go dark and the moon will turn to blood.
Mankind will hide in caves and rocks and plead, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Rev. 6:12-17).
When things are at their worst, Christ will suddenly appear on planet Earth during His second coming or “no flesh would be saved.” (Matthew 24:22)
God is warning the unbelieving world about what is coming. Billions perish during that unprecedented time, and modern-day disasters are a pale foretelling of things to come.
If you have Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of your life, none of this is of concern. Believers escape the wrath to come in the Tribulation. (Rev. 3:10) But all of us have loved ones who know little about God’s plan of the ages. They have never been told about eternal life. They are unaware that God’s wrath is not destined for true believers—unless you tell them. And, unless you outline the plan of salvation to them.
Do so today.
They’re Coming for Your Children
The chanting is chilling: “We’re coming for your children…We’re coming for your children…”
Earlier, I wrote the following in an article titled: “Those attacking children.”
We recently reported the San Francisco LGBTQ organization that put out the song lauding their cause that has as its lyrics, “We are coming for your children…” We reported on numerous occasions the transvestites who, with and without parent’s permission, hold readings in libraries and, in some public-school settings, offer presentations that graphically display and verbally describe every sort of perverted sexual activity of their wicked practitioners—some even doing so while dressed in costumes that partially expose their nudity.
The assault on the children of America and the world hasn’t abated. It is ramping up dramatically. And the true nature of its origin is being made known. The following news item sheds light to some extent on the source of the assault:
The Walker Art Center, a taxpayer funded museum in Minneapolis, held a “playful demon summoning session” for families and children, with a performance called “Lilith the Empathic Demon.”
“Demons have a bad reputation, but maybe we’re just not very good at getting to know them,” an event description reads.
“Families are invited to create a vessel to trap the demon that knows them best—perhaps the ‘demon of overthinking’—and then participate in a playful ceremony to summon and befriend their demon,” the website explains.
The event was designed for families, with children encouraged to participate, and finished with a “playful demon summoning session.”
This is a free country. If adults want to dabble in the black arts in their free time, that is up to them. But family friendly? For children? Taxpayer funded? Really?
It’s not even exaggerated…
Why would anyone play with things like this? (“Taxpayer Funded Museum in Minneapolis Holds ‘Demon Summoning’ Event For Children,” Baxter Bitri, The Voice, August 15, 2023)
“We are coming for your children” is a chant that has been at the center of some elements within the LBTQ movement for a number of years. They sometimes claim the chant is done just to make fun of the stiff-necked religionists—especially Christians—who oppose the freedom to live without some deity’s restrictive morals.
And from the story coming out of Minneapolis, we are apparently expected to believe the “playful demon-summoning session” is to further the fun-poking. However, the ceremony is, I believe, opening the portals of the demonic realm even wider. That opening is exposed by the ratcheted-up activity of wickedness here and across the world.
I’m aware that many who observe these times in light of Bible prophecy castigate author Jonathan Cahn for his recent book, Return of the Gods. But I believe it is on the mark in helping expose what’s going on in the supernatural realm, as that realm seems to be infusing a profound increase of evil into the world. This assault is particularly virulent in attacking even the smallest children.
What is mind-boggling is that parents would actually, even playfully, bid demons to interact with their children. This is the point to which Satan has been able to delude these parents and others into believing the demon world is just a myth, something to consider as fodder for foisting spoofs. This demonic ploy can thus convince people that because he—Satan—is a myth, God must be, too.
Seems to me the devil is making significant inroads in bringing about such deception. Take, for example, how Satan has convinced doctors, school boards, teachers, and even parents in some cases to embrace the transgender madness.
As I’ve written previously, with regard to the transgender perversions going on, even die-hard feminists are beginning to see the insanity and detriment caused by the Satanic attempts to blend the genders. I use the word “Satanic,” because it is Satan who places the ideas from which these perversions flow into activity that is meant to take children’s innocence.
The attack on children has taken on much more sinister movement toward satanic control. You can almost hear the demons hissing within their human minions’ voices as they chant, “We are coming for your children…We are coming for your children.”
The ever-increasing assault on children is a primary reason I believe God is about to say, “Enough!” The devil’s war against the most innocent–the little ones who haven’t reached the age at which they’re accountable for decisions in the matter of salvation—might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. This might be one indicator of just how near the Rapture might be to taking place.
Be certain you are not left behind when that great event occurs. Here is how to be ready:
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)
New Lockdowns: “Battening Down the Hatches”
A couple of weeks ago in my blog article, “Looking Up While Locking Down,” I attempted to foster a bit of comfort. I tried to make the point that while we see the powerful and wicked minions, both human and demonic, going all out to bring all people on the planet into global gulag, we can know that Jesus’ call to believers in the Rapture must certainly be drawing near. Surely we are in the time of Luke 21:28, because we’ve been seeing “all these things come to pass” for quite some time.
Jesus said when we see all of these things, we are to “look up,” for our Redemption–Jesus, Himself—will be drawing near. Paul told us we should “take comfort” in anticipation of that glorious event.
For those who are “watching” as Jesus admonished (Mark 13:37), the evidence is literally in every direction on the prophetic horizon. All of the signals are converging—in a proliferation of end-times signals that hasn’t happened before.
So there is every reason to be “looking up” as Jesus instructed those two thousand years ago when He was sitting atop the Mount of Olives.
And now the ominous reports are beginning to come forth, as if they’re paving the way to prepare for the minions’ next major attempt at bringing the populations of earth under the lockdowns that are obviously a part of the blueprint for the Great Reset. It is all within the Luciferian scheme the World Economic Forum and other Ephesians 6:12 powers and principalities intend to implement in establishing their New World Order.
Apparently, this September through December is the time they plan to again bring about the lockdowns that were successful in their previous such wicked, freedom-robbing test to see who would and would not comply.
The following somewhat gives a heads-up on what we might be facing before this year is out.
The Biden regime is preparing to reinstate full COVID-19 lockdowns, beginning with masking mandates for TSA and airport employees reportedly as early as mid-September, Infowars first to report.
A high-level TSA official reached out to Infowars, detailing a Tuesday meeting where TSA managers were informed of new memorandums and policies that would reimplement mask-wearing.
These policies will reinstate the mask mandate for TSA and airport employees starting in mid-September.
According to the TSA official, further details on how the policy will escalate will be provided next week.
The official added that by mid-October, mask-wearing will be mandated for pilots, flight staff, passengers, and all airport patrons…
[A trusted Border Patrol source] corroborated the directives, confirming that similar measures were being planned for Border Patrol personnel.
“They were told it was not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’ official Covid numbers will go back up and they expect by mid-October a return to forced-masking policies that the Biden administration previously only reluctantly ended after massive pressure. (“Biden Regime to Reinstate COVID-19 Restrictions Beginning with Mask Mandate as COVID Cases Rise, Say TSA and Border Patrol Whistleblowers,” Jim Hauft , Gateway Pundit, August 19, 2023)
The lockdowns are apparently going to be used to again influence the US presidential elections in their favor—i.e., steal the election. As we’ve said many times, America must be brought into compliance with the globalists’ plans. This nation is the holdup to their Great Reset blueprint implementation. They can’t allow an administration that believes in national sovereignty and borders to win as did Trump in 2016. Their plans were upset then, and they are doing all within their power to prevent Mr. Trump or anyone who puts national interests above globalist interests to again attain power.
So, while they think they are locking down America and the world’s populations, they are, in nautical terminology, battening down the hatches for a storm, the likes of which they cannot survive. It will be that great Tribulation storm Jesus said will be the worst time in human history.
Considering that all flesh except for Noah, his family, and the animals aboard the Ark was completely destroyed in the Flood of Noah’s day, Jesus’ description—followed up by His presentation in Revelation, is indeed a terrifying forecast!
Jesus said:
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. (Matthew 24:21)
There will be no battening down of the hatches…no place to find safety during that future Tribulation storm on earth. You don’t want to be here during those seven years of hell on earth. Here is how to go to the safety of Heaven when the Lord Jesus calls His own from this judgment-bound sphere:
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)
No More Natural Affection
Lucifer’s drive to destroy humanity has, from the time he was found to be with iniquity, been his priority. His incessant drive to kill and destroy is his ceaseless endeavor. We are warned of his never-ending campaign to eradicate humankind in the following:
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
We and others have many times looked at this all-consuming hatred Lucifer has for us. It seems that when God created us in His own image, it was more than the most gloriously arrayed angel could bear; he couldn’t stand that there was a creation more God-like than himself.
From this jealous rage, the mystery called “iniquity” flared within the mighty cherub, and the result, as we know, was the rebellion of one-third of the angels and their eviction from Heaven.
Apparently, a first hate-filled act Lucifer undertook was to plan a way to separate humans from their Creator, then destroy them.
Now known as Satan, Lucifer not only continues the assault against humanity begun in the Garden of Eden, but steps on the accelerator in his drive to destroy us during these times so near the moment when Christ will call believers to Himself in the Rapture.
Satan has increased his attempts at terminating humankind, having been at the center of the world’s two most destructive wars. Of course, we are told through Bible truth that wars come from the hearts and minds of fallen people, but at the nucleus of that war-making proclivity is the “father of lies”—the chief instigator of death and destruction, Lucifer.
Only God’s restraining hand has prevented the eradication of the human race. With the advent of atomic weaponry, Satan no doubt thought he had at his disposal the means of doing us in through inciting conflicts and, ultimately, total nuclear annihilation.
Satan knows Bible prophecy, but he, in his supreme arrogance and now total anti-God, reprobate mind, still believes he can defeat God’s foreknowledge. That foreknowledge has promised us, that through belief in His Son, Jesus, we will on one eternal day be in the Father’s house forever.
So the devil tries not only war-making but, more subtly, more deceptively, to take humankind down through, primarily, two other ways.
One of those ways is through the sin of homosexuality. He has worked feverishly to encourage the practice that guarantees, if carried to the full, that the human race will disappear. Homosexuality can never procreate, so the “lifestyle” fits Satan’s plans perfectly. This is really a “death-style, not a “lifestyle,” for the human race.
The second way, and even more egregious, perhaps, is through the evil of abortion. Through this wickedness, Satan has convinced those who should be the fiercest defenders of life within themselves to literally murder babies in their wombs.
This shedding of innocent blood–a thing God says He hates—fits perfectly, for example, within the designs of the human minions of Ephesians 6: 12 to achieve their goals for their so-called New World Order.
The plans for those who want to implement the Great Reset, those of the World Economic Forum and other one-world builders, include the intention to bring earth’s population down to five hundred million people or less. This was engraved on the recently removed Georgia Guidestones, you perhaps remember.
The following item encapsulates how Satan has convinced the child-bearing members of the human race to participate in his hellish scheme to seek and destroy all of humankind.
A Nebraska teenager was recently sentenced to 90 days in jail after she burned and buried the remains of her aborted baby, a case U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar called a “frightening violation of privacy and autonomy.”
Omar published a screenshot of a New York Times article about the case of 19-year-old Celeste Burgess, who was not charged “under Nebraska’s abortion law,” the article notes. At the time, Nebraska prohibited abortions after 20 weeks; that has now been moved up to 12 weeks.
Instead, she “pleaded guilty in May to removing or concealing human skeletal remains, a felony. Prosecutors agreed to drop two misdemeanor charges against her: concealing a death and false reporting,” the New York Times reports.
Burgess, 17 at the time, was “almost 30 weeks pregnant” in April 2022 when she used abortion pills obtained by her mother to terminate her pregnancy, according to the article. Her mother, Jessica, has pleaded guilty to violating Nebraska’s abortion restrictions along with providing false information to police and removing or concealing human skeletal remains, according to the Times.
Courthouse News reports that the mother and daughter tried to hide the remains, “at one point attempting to burn the remains with apple-flavored charcoal briquettes.” The baby was “buried, moved and reburied,” Courthouse News says.
Police obtained Facebook messages between Celeste Burgess and her mother where the daughter talked “about how she can’t wait to get that ‘thing’ out of her body,” according to the Associated Press. (“Omar expresses support for woman who burned and buried aborted baby’s remains. Courthouse News reports that the mother and daughter tried to hide the remains, “at one point attempting to burn the remains with apple-flavored charcoal briquettes.” Anthony Gockowski, Alpha News, 8/9/23)
Of all signals that this generation is bumping up against the very end of the age, it is the mounting evidence that many fall under Paul’s prophetic warning that gives proof:
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be… Without natural affection. (2 Timothy 3:1, 3a)
There can be no greater “natural affection” than that of a mother for her child. But millions have been deceived into believing that the baby within is a thing that is to be gotten rid of from within their bodies, as the above tragic story of the young woman’s experience attests. This burgeoning, without-natural-affection slap in the face of God evil, like homosexuality, is surely a profound sign that God who created us in His own image is about to say, “Enough,” and begin the divine process of bringing back heavenly order.
But there is still redemption for those who will but turn to God’s way–the only way—to forgiveness and acceptance into His eternal family. Here is how to be forgiven, even of the sins of homosexuality and abortion:
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)
“Rapture Verdict” Overturned
“There are a lot of people coming against the pre-Trib Rapture,” a friend I was on the phone
with said.
I asked him to name names, and he said, “Guys like Joel Richardson and Walid Shoebat.”
These and many others, my friend said, are saying things like those of us who believe in and
teach a pre-Trib Rapture are heretics. And some are saying worse, like we’re leading people to
Hell with our false teaching.
I, of course—as reported in these commentaries—have heard those invectives and worse
against those of us who believe in and teach the pre-Trib Rapture of the Church. However, I’ve
met both Joel Richardson and Walid Shoebat. Mr. Richardson never came across as a man who
would make such strong condemnation. And I haven’t heard much about Mr. Shoebat, an
admitted former Mideast terrorist who is now a Christian, since we met at a prophecy
conference some years ago. He was passionate, to be sure, and I knew he didn’t believe there
will be a pre-Trib Rapture, but I never heard from him any such diatribe accusing us of being
heretics, as my friend said he and others were declaring.
So I did some research to see, in particular, what Joel Richardson (not his real name for his own
reasons, I’ve heard) was saying.
I could find no written documents of significance by Joel on the subject, so listened to his in-
depth discussion with a podcast host as they dealt specifically with Joel’s opposition to the pre-
Trib Rapture of the Church.
I totally disagreed with all of his reasons the pre-Trib view is unbiblical. I found them so weak as
to wonder why anyone should even worry about his view making inroads against the truth
regarding the timing of the Rapture.
I did agree with him on one thing, though. The pre-Trib view is diminishing amongst believers.
But it is not, in my view, Richardson and others providing anti-pre-Trib Rapture teaching that is
causing the diminishment. Rather, it’s a part of the end-times falling away from the faith in
general that is caused in part by the lack of biblical prophetic truth being preached and taught
in churches.
That said, however, when I met Joel Richardson, I found him to be a gentleman and a gentle
man, as Paul Harvey used to say about those he found to be so. And, upon listening closely to
him and the podcast host who was of the same anti-pre-Trib Rapture mindset, I heard the same
gentleness in his presentation.
As a matter of fact, he lamented that some within the pre-Trib prophecy preacher camp had
called him a heretic and much worse. Someone who had hosted, or cohosted, a seven
thousand-attendee prophecy conference had said these things about him.
Mr. Richardson said when he confronted the Christian brother, the conference host admitted
he was wrong, but had just “needed a scapegoat” to make his point while speaking at the
gathering.
I don’t know of any prophecy conference of that size, or what the man meant by “needing a
scapegoat” in this case, but I believe Joel Richardson to be a brother in Christ in every respect,
and one who tells the truth as he understands it. (It’s just that, after listening to him and the
host of the podcast, neither understands the truth in the matter of when Christ will call the
Church to Himself.)
Another anti-pre-Trib Rapture Bible-prophecy proponent I find to be otherwise quite accurate
on the way things are trending toward the Tribulation is Michael Snyder. He is excellent at
gathering information and reporting news of developments in the Ephesians 6:12 minions’
attempts to bring in Antichrist’s regime of control.
He wrote a book with the title The Rapture Verdict, in which he attempted to tear apart
evidence from God’s Word for the pre-Trib Rapture. His “verdict,” of course, was that he had
managed to prove there will be no pre-Trib Rapture.
Neither Mr. Richardson nor Mr. Snyder denies there will be a Rapture. But they lump Israel and
the Church together, so to speak. Their verdict is that both Israel and believers who comprise
the Church will go through the Tribulation. Mr. Richardson, at least—I can’t remember the
position of Mr. Snyder—denies that God deals with people in dispensations. They both put
forth that the Rapture will take place within the Tribulation, as I understand. Their belief is
based upon the “last trump of Revelation,” to a large extent.
Mr. Richardson, as I heard him in the interview—and the host agreed wholeheartedly—said the
best we pre-Trib Rapturists could come up with was Revelation 3:10. He admitted it did seem to
indicate believers will escape God’s wrath. However, he said that Scripture didn’t mean we will
not go through the seven years of Tribulation, but that we will be kept “through” that time,
which will be, according to the Lord Jesus, the worst in all of human history.
To me, Mr. Snyder and Mr. Richardson’s “Rapture verdict” is overthrown–overturned—in one
simple word in the following promise from our God:
Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of
temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.
(Revelation 3:10)
As I understand, Joel Richardson believes the word “wrath” means in the eternal sense, not in
the sense of the physical—i.e., we won’t suffer the eternal wrath reserved for the lost, but must
be here for the physical punishment phase.
But even more confusing is the that he said, if I heard him correctly, that this Scripture says we
will be kept “through” this period of horror during which God judges and makes war on
unbelievers and on Satan and his angelic hordes. I find this to make little sense, as millions of
new believers will die during that era.
But one word totally overturns the Rapture verdict of the anti-pre-Trib argument, in my view.
That term is the simple little word “from.”
It is the Greek word ek, which means “out of,” not “through.” We will be kept “out of” that
hour that will come upon the whole world of rebels during the Tribulation.
Of course, there is an overwhelmingly extensive body of evidence that could be brought into
play that proves the pre-Trib Rapture is truth. And that evidence has been presented over and
over, beginning with the great Apostle Paul’s words that we should “take comfort.”
No “comfort” can come from knowing you are going through the worst time of all human
history. Here are Paul’s words of comfort:
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we
which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet
the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one
another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–18)
Terry James Prophecy Line 