As things in the Middle East are ramping up with a major conflict in progress (Operation Epic Fury), stage-setting for prophetic fulfillment, I think, comes into quickly tightening focus. The Iranian regime’s intransigence, in particular, helps bring matters regarding Mideast hostilities into understandable Bible prophecy perspective.

The same level of comprehension is not true for observers who don’t have God’s Word as the centerpiece of their thinking on the present warfare in that volatile region.

The primary consideration regarding what to address in the swiftly moving Iranian situation is the question the president of the United States was asking, according to a recent news item.

US envoy Steve Witkoff said in an interview with Fox News that aired on Sunday that President Trump was “curious” that Iran hasn’t “capitulated” to US demands due to the major US military buildup in the Middle East and threats of war.

“I don’t want to use the word frustrated because [Trump] understands he has plenty of alternatives, but he’s curious, he’s curious as to why they haven’t, I don’t want to use the word capitulated, but why they haven’t capitulated,” Witkoff told Fox News host Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law.

“Why, under this sort of pressure, with the amount of sea power, naval power, that we have over there, why they haven’t come to us and said, ‘we profess that we don’t want a [nuclear] weapon, so here’s what we’re prepared to do,’ yet it’s hard to get them to that point,” Witkoff added. (“President Trump ‘Curious’ Why Iran Hasn’t ‘Capitulated’,” Dave DeCamp, zerohedge, February 23, 2026)

It’s easy to wonder over the Ayatollahs’ refusal to cooperate, as did President Trump, knowing how devastating was the US military’s previous “obliteration” (in Trump’s own words) of the Iranian regime’s underground nuclear-weapons’-development facilities.

It is easy to ask this question the president was apparently asking. Why did the Iranian leadership not prefer to give in rather than face an even more decimating action if negotiations failed to produce results this president wanted—an ongoing assault that Trump has now delivered?

In last year’s so-called 12-Day War, American military forces proved beyond any doubt that powerful bombs of unprecedented capability could penetrate—precisely—deeply within Iran’s hiding places, and that the bombs could be delivered by aircraft so advanced they couldn’t be detected even though Iran’s defense forces knew they were going to be hit—i.e., the B-2s delivered the penetrator ordnance and were gone before the Iranians knew of the assault.

Understanding that this president doesn’t play games—he does what he says he will do—the Ayatollahs still refused to stop threatening Israel and the Mideast region…and America, for that matter. They refused to give up their ambition to develop nuclear weaponry and delivery systems that would give them the ability to accomplish those desires.

This attack in Operation Epic Fury by the American military—and by the Israeli Defense Force in Roaring Lion—proved to be much more destructive, with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and most of Iran’s leadership killed –as forewarned by Mr. Trump’s own words.

So, why indeed did the fanatic Islamic regime not do all things necessary to avoid the inevitable?

Bible prophecy answers the president’s question from thousands of years ago.

Daniel, the great Old Testament prophet, was and is the conduit through which the answer to today’s question by President Donald John Trump was given.

The same commander of the same evil forces Daniel faced in that long-ago time is still in charge of stirring problems in the Middle East. He whispers into the demonically inspired thoughts of the Ayatollahs who want to initiate worldwide war…so their Mahdi, whom they believe will help them rule the world, will come on the scene as prophesied when total war begins.

The following gives a clue identifying this evil, Ephesians 6:12 demonic minion that is as active as ever today.

My friend, the late Dr. John Walvoord, once addressed the time when the prophet Daniel had troubling questions about the threats he and his people, Israel, faced.

At that time, according to Daniel chapter 10, an angel was sent to inform and comfort the old prophet:

10:12–14 Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the vision is for many days.…

Daniel is further encouraged by the exhortation, “Fear not, Daniel.” To allay the fears of Daniel still further, the angel informs him that from the very beginning of his intercession, three weeks before, God had undertaken to answer his prayers and send the angelic messenger to him. What a reassurance it is that when one comes to God as Daniel did, setting his heart to understand and chastening himself before God, one may expect Daniel’s experience of the response of God that his words were heard and the messenger dispatched. The delay is explained in verse 13 as being occasioned by the opposition of “the prince of the kingdom of Persia” who “withstood me one and twenty days.” This “prince” is not the king of the kingdom of Persia but rather the angelic leader of Persia, a fallen angel under the direction of Satan, in contrast to the angelic prince Michael who leads and protects Israel. That the angel described as “the prince” of Persia is a wicked angel is clear from the fact that his opposition to the angelic messenger to Daniel is given as the reason for the delay of twenty-one days. (Chapter 10, The Vision of the Glory of God, https://walvoord.com)

Mr. President, this is the answer to your query. That same entity–the Prince of Persia—continues in his demonic activity. As a matter of fact, this prince of evil, like his master Lucifer the fallen (Satan), knows he has but a short time. His activity is growing in virulence, as is manifested more dramatically in each succeeding news cycle.

The Ayatollahs were and are satanically driven in their madness. Regardless of the success of this latest action to eliminate those who foment evil in the region, Bible prophecy tells us the evil minions that hate Israel will yet assault God’s chosen people, according to Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39.

All the dynamic rearrangements in the areas involved in Operation Epic Fury show clearly just how near is the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7).

Christ will call all believers into Heaven in the Rapture before the seven-year Tribulation begins. The dynamics triggered by that great event will no doubt quickly arrange all things prophesied for the Gog-Magog attack and all other prophecies yet to be fulfilled.

That twinkling-of-an-eye moment of Rapture must be near indeed!  

We must, therefore, as Royal Ambassadors on this Tribulation-bound world, instruct those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior how to come to accept God’s grace-gift offer of salvation through His Only Begotten Son. When a person accepts Jesus as Savior, he or she is Rapture Ready. –That is, he or she will go to be with Christ before that great and terrible day of the Lord begins. Here is how to accept Jesus Christ right at this moment and become a child in God the Father’s eternal family:

That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)

As if to frame the entire set-up for how near we are to the last moment of this Church Age, the exodus of God’s chosen people from around the world back to their God-given land is suddenly in stark view.

The set-up includes all the eschatological stage-setting things—the issues and events we’ve pored over for many months—particularly the prophetic signals that have become manifest over these last few weeks. There can be no missing it for those whose eyes and ears are spiritually attuned to God’s Word regarding how things will be when this age is at an end.

Key among the signals is the world’s treatment of the Jews. Jesus gave the conditions that would eventuate when the time of His return at Armageddon nears:

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. (Matthew 24:9)

Jesus was stating what will take place, full-blown, during the time of Jacob’s Trouble (Jeremiah 30:7). This will come to pass in its most virulent manifestation during the second half of the seven-year Tribulation (Daniel’s seventieth week).

However, it becomes more obvious with each passing hour that the nation Israel—and that includes all Jews worldwide—is in the crosshairs of satanic hatred. Anti-Semitism is on the rise, and not just in Europe or Germany as in Hitler’s day.

The effects this madness is having make clear that one of the most profound reasons for the coming Tribulation era is right before our eyes. The Jewish people are at the beginning of the great drive to return to the Promised Land—whether knowingly or unwittingly.

By this I mean that some Jewish scholars and others who believe God’s chosen people are prophetically scheduled to come into their God-given land see what is happening as prophetic fulfillment. They are wrong about Jesus Christ His involvement, but they non do believe that God gave Israel the Land of Promise and see the forced exodus from the nations of the world to that land as God’s hand in the matters involved.

The following excerpt from an in-depth article on aliyah (a call upward to a synagogue or to Israel as homeland) frames this observation and shows just how near we must be to the Tribulation, thus to the Rapture:

With antisemitism surging worldwide, Israeli officials believe more Jews will opt to make aliyah; but the path isn’t as easy as they think.

In December, when two gunmen opened fire at a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more, Israel’s message to the global Jewish community was clear.

“Today, Jews are being hunted across the world,” Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said in the aftermath of the massacre, calling on Jews in Australia, Britain, France, Canada, and Belgium to “come home” to Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed the sentiment, urging Western governments to do more to protect Jewish citizens, while framing Israel as the only place where Jews could truly be safe.

Immigration action

Now the government appears to be backing up the words with action.

According to the Hebrew newspaper Makor Rishon, officials have begun advancing an emergency immigration plan called Aliyat HaTekuma, designed to fast-track the immigration process for those coming from countries experiencing a surge in antisemitism. (“Israel urges Diaspora Jews to come home, but will they?” Jerusalem Post, February 16, 2026)

Those who study Bible prophecy as it is meant to be studied–to be taken literally, unless otherwise directed by Scripture—know that most Jewish people alive at the end of the Church Age will return to God’s chosen land for them. Sadly, it won’t be a time of jubilation, but of great trouble, according to the Lord Jesus (Matthew 24:21).

From that regathering, God will bring out a remnant of people who will finally recognize their True Messiah, Jesus Christ. They will be rescued by the Lord Himself as He descends with the armies of Heaven to put an end to enemies at Armageddon (Revelation 19:11).

In the same sense, I’m convicted that God has gathered another remnant on this violent, Genesis 6-like present earth. This remnant, I believe, consists of those who are saved by the matchless grace of the same Lord who will rescue the Jewish remnant of people who look to Him as He descends and who believe in Him (as given in John 14:6).

A considerably smaller group within the Christian remnant are those looking for Jesus to rescue them before that dark and terrible Day of the Lord begins, when the Tribulation is initiated by the confirming of the covenant of false peace by Antichrist.

(I want to make it clear that ALL who accept Christ for salvation will go to Him in the Rapture, not just those with the pre-Trib Rapture understanding of Bible prophecy.)

The even-smaller remnant–those of the pre-Trib Rapture belief—consists of those who hold to Christ’s promise that we won’t have to endure even one second of the Tribulation.

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)  

You want to be part of this Age-of-Grace remnant—those who know Jesus Christ for salvation. You will thus not have to endure the terrible time of Tribulation that’s about to break upon a violent, unbelieving world that will become subject to Antichrist’s vicious reign. You will not have to suffer God’s Holy wrath that will rain down on sin and rebellion to bring out of that horrendous era that remnant of Jewish believers and all who will accept Christ during that most terrible time in human history.

The pre-Tribulation Rapture will, in the twinkling of an eye, take (paralambano) all believers in Jesus Christ into His presence in the clouds of Glory.

Here is how to make sure you are part of this present-day Christian remnant before the coming judgment and wrath of God:

That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)

Rapture Ready…Or Not

Author’s note: I believe I am prompted to again present my book Rapture Ready…Or Not: 15 Reasons This Is the Generation That Will Be Left Behind, published in 2016 by New Leaf Press.—Thus because all indicators are pointing with flashing forewarning that the Tribulation (Daniel’s seventieth week) is almost upon this generation of those who reject Christ’s saving grace.

My article this week is the preface to that book (very lightly edited). It leads into the book by my telling of my clinical death.

I heard recently Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas, cautioning in the strongest terms against believing accounts of those who claim to have died, gone to Heaven, then returned to tell of the matter. I agree. I have always been most wary of such accounts.

Dr. Jeffress says that the Bible is sufficient, and there is no need for any extrabiblical information about Heaven or what happens after death.

Again, I agree totally. However, I can do no other than testify as to what happened the moment my heart stopped that fateful day.

This book, I sense, is one of the most relevant for this late hour of the Church Age (Age of Grace) even though things described and reported are dated to the times ten years ago, and don’t account for the tremendous prophetic stage-setting taking place, especially since the influences of the second Trump Administration.

I think you will agree the book nonetheless is on point about Bible prophecy truth in every chapter. In-depth information about the pre-Tribulation Rapture and the reasons it’s about to happen is needed at this critical hour. My prayerful hope is that many reading this will, even if they have that volume already, want to get additional copies for pastors, teachers in the churches, and people in the pews, many of whom have no idea of just how near we are to moment when Jesus steps onto the clouds of Glory and shouts “Come up here!”

Information about how to get the book is posted below the article.

Instantaneously, I stood before a throng of cheering people who appeared to be in their mid-twenties. Young men and young women looked at me with expressions of absolute jubilation projecting from the most beautiful faces I’ve seen. Their hands were thrusting at full arm’s length above their heads while they looked into my eyes. I knew theirs was a cheer for some immense victory. They were bidding me to join them—or so I thought at that eternal moment.

But everything turned dark again, and I heard someone say, “I had to hit him with the paddles.”

“What paddles?” I asked.

“Your heart stopped and I had to use the defib paddles,” the young man’s voice said.

In what seemed mere moments, I heard a strange sound, the same one I had heard immediately before standing in front of that cheering throng. It was a blip sound, like that of going from one computer application to another.

I instantly stood for the second time before the same wildly cheering young men and women, their hands again thrusting upward, as if expressing victory. They laughed and gracefully jumped up and down while looking into my eyes with pure delight projecting into my core being, causing an inner warmth I had not known before that moment.

Things started darkening around me again, and I said—whether audibly or not, I don’t know—that I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay with them—wanted to join them.

But I was again on the gurney, or hospital cath-lab table. “What are you doing?” I asked the people who were working feverishly on me.

“They’re trying to save your life,” came the voice from the one who had said he had to use the defib paddles.

Then it happened again. I heard the electronic-sounding blip. Immediately, for the third time, I stood with the beautiful young women and handsome young men. This time I joined them while they continued to look into my eyes and wave their hands high above their heads.

This time we were running, and they were looking over at me while we ran. Toward what, I don’t know. We were moving swiftly, with no effort whatsoever, toward something wonderful—toward the reason for this “victory lap.”

The darkness came again, and I was again on the table. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be with the group I had somehow gotten to feel a visceral part of during my three trips to…where? I don’t know.

It was Good Friday, April 22, 2011, and I was said to be dead on arrival, and then was clinically dead—flatlined—on two other occasions. The interventional cardiologist told me that 95 percent of people with the “widow maker” never make it to the cath lab. Of those who do, he informed, only 50 percent live. Then he wanted me to look at the picture of my artery and what he had done to remove the blockage that had stopped my heart.

I told him I couldn’t see it. I’ve been totally blind since a hereditary retinal disease took my eyesight almost twenty years earlier.

“You should see where I’ve just been,” I tried to tell the doctor and the others who had just pulled off a medical miracle. They were too busy to listen.

My case was so unusual and the “miracle” of my recovery was so astounding that the cardiologist association of my state gave me the “Cardiologist Patient of the Year Award,” which still sits on a shelf in my office.

There isn’t a day that passes that I don’t think deeply on the reason for my experience—my trip into that realm, suspended somewhere between life and death, that could only be described as being on the periphery of Heaven.

Although there are reasons beyond my ability to know why I was allowed that Good Friday trip to be with those cheering, young, heavenly beings, I have been given over the months since some answers as to what the experience was about. I intend to share that knowledge here. Not only do I want to share what I know the experience involved, but I must tell you, because I am absolutely required to do so. It is my commission from God in Heaven. The purpose is that important.

My commission is to tell you that there is coming—and very soon—one specific tick of the clock’s second hand that is going to convulse every culture, every society, every individual on planet earth. God has spoken it. It will happen. That instant of time will be the event that is one of the most derided, the most mocked, of all biblical truths. It will come without any immediate forewarning. But it will not happen without a great number of prophetic signposts that presage its occurrence.

As a matter of fact, those signals are literally pulsing all around us at this moment. The very atmosphere is electric with the heavenly siren call to be alert. Something of earth-shocking impact is about to happen.

Multiplied millions of people across the world will disappear in less than a microsecond. The aftermath of the sudden vanishing in America in particular will produce carnage that staggers the imagination. Those left behind will face problems that will make any situations they are presently experiencing seem nothing by comparison.

Beware and aware: Believe it or not, it is going to happen. According to the signals that warn of its horror-filled aftermath, the Rapture is about to rip civilization as no other event since the Flood of Noah’s day.

This is the distinct impression permanently engraved into my spirit on that Good Friday, 2011.

The crowd’s cheering—the young, heavenly beings which were, I believe the cloud of witnesses of Hebrews 12:1–3—my spirit-impression tells me, is for the message I have been disseminating for many years through books, speaking engagements, broadcasts, and articles on our website, www.raptureready.com. However, the young heavenly cheerleaders were mostly praising. They weren’t praising me or the others who present the message of the Rapture in all its truth—although that was part of the reason they cheered. They were praising God that this astonishing event is on the very brink of bringing the vast body of believers into the Father’s house, just as God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, promised. Their jubilation was Heaven’s validation of the view of the Rapture that proclaims that believers in Jesus Christ—alone—for salvation will be brought instantaneously into His blessed presence before the most horrendous time of human history breaks upon a world ripe for judgment. Be assured: Rapture ready or not, these things are about to take place!

To order Rapture Ready…Or Not: 15 Reasons This Is the Generation That Will Be Left Behind, here’s the link:

https://www.masterbooks.com/rapture-ready-paperback-single

Satan and his evil minions, both demonic and human, almost hourly seem to turn down the rheostat of spiritual enlightenment. The incremental darkening can’t be missed by those who are observing these times.

However, while that hellish darkening process intensifies, as witnessed here in our own nation in places like Minneapolis, Chicago, and other blue cities, and in the Middle East with the slaughter by the Iranian regime, we who belong to Christ have within us the light that cannot be turned down or extinguished.

Our Lord said the following:

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5:14–16)

Dear Rapture Ready family:

Jesus’ words, issued two thousand years ago, describe His thoughts about you and me as we strive to put forth light in His holy name. We’re here on this fallen planet at a time He knew would be the spiritual environment of darkening evil at the very end of this Age of Grace.

This website strives to put forth in this ever-darkening world truth from the very heart of God. Our purpose is to fit within Christ’s definition: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hil [that] cannot be hid.”

You—as a citizen of Heaven and as a sojourner, a royal ambassador for God’s Kingdom upon this fallen planet—are part of that light. It is the heavenly light that all who are lost in the darkness of sin will forever be without…apart from God’s saving grace. 

It is vital to the great cause of bringing souls under God’s saving grace for Rapture Ready to have the support of you, our RR family—that is, the family of God.

We’ve been assigned to be the light of the world. We’re like the Lord’s description of the shining city on a hill that cannot be hidden. We cannot let our efforts diminish but must make that light brighter than ever in these darkening hours so near the Tribulation.

The minions of the Ephesians 6:12 cabal (the wickedness in high places against which we struggle) are doing everything within their demonic power to turn off God’s light. This includes coming against this website as we strive to enlighten the world of cyberspace with truth.

For example: During this last quarter, Todd has had to increase the ad budget for RR. This is necessary because of restrictive movement placed on the site by those who govern Google, et cetera. This interference has diminished our prominence in regard to being easily accessed by those looking to link to Raptureready.com.

Unfortunately, the greatly increased expenditure is the only way to reach new people. Social media sites have a monopoly over the internet. The move has increased our traffic by 20 percent.

But this attempt to boost traffic to the level needed is expensive. We need more revenue to make Raptureready.com more easily accessible to those searching for God’s truth. We need you, our RR family members, to help keep God’s light bright in this spiritually darkening time so near Christ’s call to the Church in the Rapture.

I heard Dr. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas just as I was writing this appeal. He quoted a pastor he knows, who said: “When we leave this earth we will leave all in our bank account behind. That is, except for that which we send on ahead to our Heavenly Bank Account.”

The compounding interest that accrues from that investment over the trillions of years into eternity will reap heavenly riches beyond anything we can imagine.

But the souls saved because of our contributions will doubtless reap the greatest heavenly rewards of all!

There are three ways you can contribute to RR: You can send a financial gift via our P.O. Box, you can make a one-time donation, or you can make monthly donations. If you’re interested in signing up to do that, find the links on the Donation Depot page.

Donations can be sent to our P.O. Box at:

Rapture Ready
P.O. Box 969
Benton, AR 72018

–Terry