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Rapture Delayed
Author’s note: In preparing for speaking on the topic RAPTURE READY! at the Branson conference a couple of weeks ago, I looked through my files of articles I’ve written over the years. This one is most appropriate. I share it again here.
We have looked a number of times in this column at those who mock the end-times message and the Rapture in particular. Because those who scoff have been of the abrasive, unbelieving variety for the most part, there is a standard Bible verse reply I’ve usually employed in response.
The scriptural reply has most often been intended to let those mocking know that they are, in actuality, fulfilling Bible prophecy.
Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. (2 Peter 3:3-4)
As of late, however, such a reply doesn’t quite fit that which should compose an appropriate response. That is because the questions are coming weekly from genuine believers in the Pre-Trib Rapture of the Church. These Christians are worried–some very worried.
These look around them and on every side they see and feel the satanic pressures from this fallen sphere closing in. Issues and events –the very ambience in which they find their lives engulfed–generate thoughts that their circumstance is beginning to look much like the Bible’s description of the Tribulation itself.
To illustrate the growing angst, I’ve chosen the email of one such Christian brother who wrote this past week. His words pretty much get right to the point of the many other emails expressing like emotion. Here it is in its entirety:
Why is the Lord delaying the rapture? It should have happened years ago. We would be in the millennium now enjoying true peace and prosperity without the suffering. I don’t get it. It’s God call of course but 58 million aborted babies in the US since 1973, Christians tortured and murdered worldwide, people who believe in Jesus longing for his return suffering immensely. I don’t get it where is our Lord and Savior?
The emailer didn’t use any soft nuances of greetings or any other niceties. He just laid his spirit-distressed emotions right out there.
You don’t answer such gut-wrenching concern with the apostle Peter’s prophecy as given above. This child of God is worried. He is puzzled; he is perplexed. It’s the kind of questioning I’ve heard in my own kid’s anxieties when they were young and felt disappointed for one of my failures or the other to keep a promise. “Dad should never let me down like that” is the tone.
Only, this perceived unkept promise isn’t from an imperfect, human father. I say “perceived unkept promise” because the promise isn’t unbroken whatsoever. The error is in the question of the imperfect child asking it. His Perfect Father will, as always, be one hundred percent faithful to keep every promise made.
The Lord Jesus, Himself, in His ascended position, said the following to John the Revelator:
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)
Jesus said it, and that means the Heavenly Father said it–promised it! Jesus said that He and the Father are One. They are inseparable–one and the same–the first and second Persons of the Godhead–the Trinity.
God cannot lie, the Scripture tells us. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. God keeps His promises. So, this brother in Christ, like all the other believers who look to the “blessed hope” of Titus 2: 13, who are in fear and worry while watching this fallen world closing in, need an answer from the Word of God.
The Heavenly Father gave the answer to Peter to pass along to us, just a bit farther on in Scripture. The answer to why the Rapture hasn’t occurred as soon as almost all of us wish it would occur is, at least in part, wrapped up in the following:
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)
The Tribulation that will follow this Age of Grace will be filled with horrors that even John, under divine inspiration, had trouble describing. The Lord wants to provide every moment possible during this present dispensation for those lost in their sin to come safely into the shelter who is His beloved Son Jesus Christ. God wants this for the lost, because, following the Rapture, making the decision to accept Christ for salvation will be more difficult by a multiple of factors. Facing beheading is but one of those factors!
That is the reason–or at least a primary reason–the Rapture hasn’t yet occurred in this generation, according to God’s Word.
That said, I must take notable exception with the emailer’s contention that God is “delaying” the Rapture. You can take this to the bank–well, to the banks the way they used to be–God is not delaying the Rapture. It will happen precisely in the twinkling of the eye at the moment the Father has determined.
Jesus said: But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. (Matthew 24:36)
God knows exactly the instant He will send His Son to get His Bride, make no mistake. There is no delay.
On that note, issues and events closing in on us show that we are almost certainly very near that exhilarating moment of instantaneously finding ourselves face to face with the Lord Jesus. Just how near we are to the Rapture–if we could indeed know–would likely allay all fears.
We want all people to come to the Lord Jesus for Salvation, thus to be Rapture Ready when He Calls believers to Himself.
Let’s tell everyone with whom we contact how to leave this Judgment-bound earth and to be with Jesus and the safety of Heaven. Here again is that message.
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)
Profound Prophetic Pronouncement
Prophetic stage-setting continues at a torrid pace. No signal of the nearness of the Tribulation (Daniel’s seventieth week) is more observable than the dynamics revolving around the nation Israel.
Anti-Semitism is coming to a boiling point again like in the times of Nazi Germany, beginning with Hitler’s persecution of the Jewish race. America’s universities are at the center of the rise in hatred for the Jews.
We witnessed the October 7, 2023, evil perpetrated against the gathering of young people celebrating in Israel’s southern region. The evil was as heinous as one could imagine even in thinking about times when the Nazi regime was mass murdering God’s chosen people.
It doubtless took satanically engendered rage to do the things the Hamas beasts filmed themselves doing that day.
Yet the world didn’t turn against Hamas and the other terrorist organizations that cheered those wicked ones on. Rather, the hellish activity quickly spread like an infection, bringing about anti-Semitism to the supposed rational, Western world. The malicious evil went viral and had college students joining protests against Israel for fighting back against the Hamas murderers, baby killers, and rapists.
Why is this happening? That’s the question of many—not only Jews, but Christians and all sane-thinking people as well. Why is God allowing this evil to raise its wicked, satanic head?
The answer, I believe, is found within the following:
“We are telling our Jewish brothers and sisters that Israel is your home… We are bracing ourselves and calling for a mass immigration from Europe”, announced Israel’s Prime Minister, Netanyahu. And they were not just words – a while ago the Cabinet approved a ₪180 million ($46 million) plan to finance the absorption costs of thousands of potential new immigrants, following numerous anti-Semitic attacks, along with political and economic troubles in the Ukraine, France and Belgium.
Netanyahu broadcasted his message via social media; “I would like to say to all of Europe’s Jews, and Jews everywhere, Israel is the home of every Jew.”
Not everyone is impressed with these remarks – European leaders insist that they can protect their Jewish communities, and many Jewish people just don’t want to leave. But many others are packing their bags nonetheless, feeling they have no choice…
“They shall come trembling from the West…”
“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt’, but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’” (Jeremiah 16:14)
The miracles of God’s promises to Israel continue to unfold; the good, the bad and the ugly. In very many places, the Scriptures prepare us for the fact that God was planning to bring His people back to His land by hook or by crook. With anti-Semitism spiraling out of all control around the world, many Jewish people are now deciding that they would be safer in war-torn Israel under the protection of the IDF than they are in Europe, and are escaping while they still can. (“God Is Gathering His People Back to Israel, ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry)
And now the most religious of the Jewish community in Jerusalem are calling officially for all Jews to return “home.”
The nascent Sanhedrin in Jerusalem has made an official ruling, calling on Jews outside of Israel to come home.
“We are the beis din (rabbinic court) of Yerushalayim (Jerusalem), and we have poskened (officially ruled) that all Jews around the world have an obligation and chiyuv (religious requirement) right now to do whatever is in your power, to come to Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel), and that is the mitzvah of Torah (Biblical requirement). And that is the mitzvah of today, especially because of what’s happening around the world and the dangers that all the Jews are in around the world. It’s necessary now more than ever to come to Eretz Yisrael, and we as a beis din have poskened that all the Jews have to come as soon as they can back to eretz Yisrael.”
The Sanhedrin’s ruling was intended for Jews worldwide, so it was recorded in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, French, and Spanish. (“Sanhedrin Announces Ruling: All Jews Worldwide Must Come Home to Israel Immediately,” Israel365 News, Biblical News, November 27, 2024)
To those who “watch” as commanded by Jesus (Mark 13: 37; Luke 21: 28):
God’s feathering of His chosen people in order to begin the process of bringing a remnant out of the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30: 7) becomes more obvious with every passing hour. This means, of course, that the Rapture, which must take place before the Lord’s final dealing with Israel in this way, must be even at the door, as Jesus put it.
You want to be a part of Christ’s call in that glorious event, not left behind to go through what Jesus said will be the worst time of all human history.
Here is how to go to the Lord when He steps upon the clouds of Glory and calls all believers to Himself.
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)
Restraint, Rapture, Recompense
Most educators in higher academia who make space in their thinking for the existence of deity believe that entity to be existential—i.e., any such God who might exist has, at best, created the world and left it to evolve or whatever, as through some natural process. It is a hands-off, not a hands-on God who inhabits their worldview.
While it’s unlikely that any exploration of these ideas will penetrate the hard shell of their intellect, I nonetheless believe it a worthwhile endeavor. That is, it’s worthwhile to look into God’s Word, overlaying that holy template upon the issues, events, and ongoing developments which, to those who truly “watch,” as Jesus commanded, prove the nearness of Christ’s return.
As one who has done so for decades, I can with certainty confirm that the God I serve attends to the minutest detail of every life, including what the academicians would term the “lower forms.”
I was thinking about Jesus once stating that God clothes the flowers of the fields with glory not even Solomon in his kingly attire and wealthy splendor could match. I remembered that beautiful, radiant face of Ethel Waters, her eyes seeming to project light from Heaven itself while she sang “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” at Billy Graham crusades: “His eye is on the sparrow…and I know He Watches me…”
Jesus’ words:
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:29–31)
Our God is not an existential God, as even some of our founding fathers believed. He is hands-on, giving attention even each person who has ever lived—attention the depths of which far exceed any degree the finite mind can fathom.
The title of this commentary is meant to encapsulate the Heavenly Father’s complete oversight of this world, many of the inhabitants of which neither accept nor want to accept His governance. But He governs regardless.
God’s restraint has been governing in recent months in ways starkly observable to those who “watch” as commanded in, for example, Mark 13: 37: ”And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch.”
We have, for example, watched God deal in derision with the “powers and principalities”—the globalists that comprise the human element of Satan’s Ephesians 6:2 cabal. Despite all-out efforts by that so-called deep state entity to destroy God’s obviously appointed man for this late hour of the age, Trump triumphed and is now in position as president, just as the Lord determined. His restraining hand was starkly on display when He spared Mr. Trump that day in Butler, Pennsylvania. I believe His hand continued to be on display as the many-pronged attack from Satan’s forces came against Trump, and failed miserably in changing the minds of voters–except, perhaps to change minds in direction opposite to what Trump-haters desired.
We know the result. The people voted overwhelmingly to return this supposedly universally hated man to the most powerful governmental office on the planet.
Only God’s hands-on activity could have bent the election in direction it went.
We who “watch” through the lens of Bible prophecy are convicted through Holy Spirit influence. We understand that all God is doing with His hands-on shaping—the stage-setting we see that indicates the Tribulation is near—means that Christ is at the very door He will open to welcome all believers into His glorious presence.
It will be the Rapture of His Church. That “twinkling of an eye” moment when we will hear our Lord shout, “Come up here!”
Then there will be God’s recompense.
For Raptured believers, it will be a glorious time of recompense.
God’s just-gathered family will stand before their Lord at the judgment seat of Christ to receive rewards earned in life while on earth.
About this, God’s Word says:
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. (1 Corinthians 2:9)
For those left behind on the earth, however, the recompense will be filled with punishment from God’s cup of wrath that will be beyond anything ever experienced by humanity. It will be recompense for wickedness of the sort that caused the Lord to completely destroy all the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, once righteous Lot and the few with him were removed from that doomed region.
The recompense will be for such activity as reported in a recent news item that proves we are living in the days like Lot’s day just before God’s judgment and wrath fell.
“Children, boys and girls, are being sold for sex,” Tara Rodas, a whistleblower from the Department of Health and Human Services, told Congress. “Just last month I spoke with a care provider in Florida who told me about cases of migrant children as young as 8 with sexually transmitted diseases.”
Rodas, a former deputy to the director of the Federal Case Management Team at the Department of Health and Human Services, had been working on spotting red flags for child trafficking among the underage migrants who were being wrongly released to sponsors,
“Today, children are being sold for sex. Some children, girls and boys, will get sexually transmitted diseases. Some girls – as young as 12, 11, or even 10 years old – will give birth to children of their own. Forced labor and prostitution among underage migrants have more than tripled,” she warned, under the Biden-Harris administration…
Tara Rodas had watched as underage migrants were turned over to non-family sponsors with no tracking or accountability. No welfare checks were conducted on those children and the word of the sponsor was considered enough. But some of those sponsors were the worst of the worst.
Children were handed over to “traffickers, members of transnational criminal organizations, bad actors, bad, bad, bad people” after the Biden administration “stripped all the vetting out of the process.”
And Rodas said that “after nearly 3 and a half years of sounding the alarm, no significant action has been taken to rescue children.”…
Alicia Hopper, a consultant on human trafficking, described “a young girl who arrived at the border in the custody of individuals claiming to be her family was bruised, disoriented and in pain. Medical examinations revealed that she had been raped, yet she was sent back to her abusers because no verification was done to confirm her guardianship.” (“Open borders tripled child prostitution” | World Israel News, Daniel Greenfield, Frontpage Magazine, November 26, 2024)
God neither slumbers nor sleeps. He is restraining evil and has anti-God forces in derision, despite the abhorrent things reported above. The Rapture is next on His agenda to bring this Age of Grace to a close. Then will come recompense, and God’s process of prophetic fulfillment will unfold precisely as He has promised.
Even so, Come, Lord Jesus!
The Jeremiah of Our Time
by Jan Markell
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When Righteousness Removes
Observing these times so near the end of this quickly fleeting age conjures thoughts about Lot’s days in Sodom. This, of course, has been an ongoing train of thought for me, as those reading my articles can attest.
Those ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the remains of which archeologists are just now digging up from the south end of the Dead Sea region, had at their black hearts a term that believers in Jesus Christ don’t often give much thought to: unrighteousness.
Unrighteousness isn’t merely the lack of righteousness. It is the diametrical opposite, contrary in every respect to righteousness as defined by God. It is a determined, conscious—and even militant, in some cases—effort to move in a direction other than toward God and His holy prescription for living.
They need no deity to govern their comportment, the lost sinners declare.
But here is what God in Heaven, through Paul the apostle, has to say in regard to the soul:
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. (Romans 4:2–8)
So righteousness in God’s holy perception isn’t based on doing good rather than evil works, but rather on genuine belief in His way of salvation. Jesus described that way:
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14: 6)
Getting back to Abraham’s nephew who lived in Sodom, I remain convicted that we’re living in the time Jesus described as being like “the days of Lot” (Luke 17:28-30). Moreover, I believe Jesus might have had our very nation in mind when He told of a coming day that would be like Lot’s day–that time in the future when God’s righteous people will be removed from a place of wickedness and evil, as Lot and his family were removed from judgment-appointed Sodom.
The United States of America is the most materially blessed, technologically advanced nation in history. In that level of attainment and achievement, America likely matches Sodom as that city existed in ancient times.
The people who will be evacuated in that future removal will be God’s people because of their being like Lot himself. Here the Apostle Peter delivers God’s message, reporting the facts about why Lot was removed from the doomed region.
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;) The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the Day of Judgment to be punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. (2 Peter 2: 6-10)
Lot was righteous in God’s holy view. He and his family were removed from among the unrighteous people Lot had dwelt with in Sodom. Jesus said it will be just like this for His people in a future time. His people are righteous because they/we have believed in the Holy Name of the Only Begotten Son of God.
Certainly God’s people live today within a Sodom-like society and culture among a generation that has turned their backs on God’s prescription for life on earth. The reprobate minds of Romans 1:28 have long ago been reached, according to the wokeness and debauchery we’ve been witnessing.
My thoughts lately, in consideration of the Rapture and America and the world’s likeness to the days of Lot, turns to percentages. The question: Percentage-wise, have America and the world reached relatively the same configuration as Lot and those few taken out of Sodom, as compared to the number of those left behind to be judged and destroyed during those business-as-usual, but wicked days of evil? In other words, has this nation and the entire world reached the time when God will take the righteous from among the unrighteous so He can begin bringing His prophetic blueprint–the establishment of Jesus Christ upon His millennial throne—to fulfillment?
When will the only righteousness to be found on earth be removed? Seems to me that we might not be far from knowing the answer.
Even so, come Lord Jesus!
Third Temple and Trump
Rather than slowing prophetic progression, the election of Donald Trump to be the 47th president of the United States seemingly continues to speed things up. (That’s although we know God’s timing is perfect and He doesn’t speed up or slow things down. He knows precisely when each prophetic event will take place).
My thinking involves the fact that movement toward war on a global scale, emerging out of profound rumors of war, seem to be on the fast track now that Trump is president-elect. The Biden administration, under the ominous guiding hand of the deep state (the globalists elite), has slapped Russian President Vladimir Putin with the militaristic glove of insult. The US military complex now will give Ukraine advanced missile weaponry that can reach deep into Russian territory with greater firepower and precision.
This is being done following Putin’s declaration that such direct intervention by the US will likely bring a nuclear retaliation—at a minimum, that of a tactical sort. In fact, the Russians did release, in an unprecedented action, an experimental mid-range missile in a precision strike into Ukraine. The missile, which travels at a rate ten times the speed of sound, had no nuclear warhead. But Putin intimated in a speech following the attack that the next such superweapon launched might be nuclear-tipped.
It is conjectured, and I’m convinced, that this militant move by the military/industrial complex of which Eisenhower warned is intended to somehow hamstring Donald Trump’s presidency–perhaps even prevent him from taking office next January.
Whatsoever the case, Jesus’ words come to the forefront of current events.
And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. (Matthew 24:6)
I point you to the last of Jesus’ words here: “the end is not yet.” Jesus has this totally in control. There will be no all-out nuclear war this side of His taking God’s family of Church Age believers into the clouds of Glory!
So, as referenced above, the Trump election seems to have speeded up prophetic progression. Jesus’ words seem to be today’s prophetic headlines. The prophetic progression continues as part of this spectacular comeback of Donald J. Trump as president. We remember that Trump was in the middle of some prophetically important diplomatic movement when he was shortly thereafter defeated for a second term in what I continue to believe was a stolen election.
His involvement with God’s chosen nation, Israel, was, to those who observe Bible prophecy as absolute truth, action as from the hand of God. (Not meaning that Trump is godly, but that God used him to accomplish His holy will.)
President Trump announced the movement of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a matter that had been declared pending by previous presidents. A Jerusalem Post report explains.
SEOUL—President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the US recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and would move its embassy there, upending decades of a diplomatic consensus over the status of the city pioneered by his predecessors.
Citing a 1995 law, the Jerusalem Embassy Act, compelling the president to make the move absent national security risks, Trump said the time had come to recognize what everyone already knows to be true. “Jerusalem is the capital the Jewish people established in ancient times,” he said. “Today Jerusalem is the seat of Israel’s government.” (“Trump announces US moving embassy to Jerusalem, US president told regional leaders he intended to declare the city the capital of the Jewish State,” By Michael Wilner, Jerusalem Post, December 6, 2017)
The United States Embassy was indeed moved to Jerusalem on May 14, 2018, despite major angst of world diplomats and fierce threats from Israel’s blood-vowed enemies.
In keeping with that obvious use of this less-than-godly individual to move prophetic progression along at what looks to be an increasing pace, we now consider the words of one of the new administration’s presidential cabinet picks.
Donald Trump’s choice as the next United States defense secretary has called for the building of a third Jewish temple on the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Speaking at an event in Jerusalem in 2018 he said there was “no reason why the miracle of re-establishing the temple on the Temple Mount isn’t possible”, using the Israeli name for the raised plateau in occupied East Jerusalem where Al-Aqsa Mosque stands. “I don’t know how it would happen, you don’t know how it would happen, but I know that it could happen. (“Next US defense secretary Pete Hegseth called for new Jewish temple at Al-Aqsa,” Middle East Eye, November 16, 2024)
While Mr. Trump, who has appointed a Baptist preacher and former governor, Mike Huckabee, to be US ambassador to Israel, observably supports the Jewish state, background issues in the former president’s dealing with Israel are less than perfect.
Trump, so far as I know, continues to support the idea of a two-state solution to the Mideast trouble. This perhaps is forewarned of in Joel 3:2.
His advocating that Israel have the third temple is also an issue to consider. This will not be a temple approved of by the God of Heaven. God has announced it will be built, but it will be a temple of false worship (Judaism is a false worship system). It will be where the Antichrist will declare himself to be God.
This all means that things are aligning exactly as we have been told in God’s Word. The next great event on God’s prophetic timeline is not Israel’s capital being divided or the Jews having the third temple. The very next great event is the Rapture of the Church–the taking of all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation into Heaven.
God will then again begin dealing with His chosen people and nation as before His crucifixion. This will be the Tribulation, which Jesus said will be the worst time of all human history.
Here again is how to go to Jesus when He calls and not go through that terrible era ruled for a time by Antichrist.
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)
Prophecy Watchers Conference
Terry James will be speaking at the Branson Christmas Prophecy Conference in Branson, Missouri on Saturday December 7, 2024 at 10 a.m.
We hope you will live stream the conference and join Terry in his session.
It will be titled: RAPTURE READY!
Below are some details of the conference and how to enjoy these many speakers and their exciting topics!
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The late, great Hal Lindsey :: From the Rapture Ready Family
Two days after his 95th birthday, on Monday, November 25, the Lord called Harold Lee Lindsey home. The prolific author and beloved “grandfather” of the modern Bible Prophecy movement leaves a loving family and a gargantuan fan base—although he would encourage us by pointing to Jesus Christ rather than himself.
Born in Houston, Texas, weeks after the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Lindsey earned a Master of Theology degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, and later worked with Campus Crusade for Christ in Southern California for about a decade before authoring one of the biggest-selling books of the 20th century, The Late Great Planet Earth. Written in the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War, the book electrified the country and led to many people studying eschatology. It has sold more than 35 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 50 languages.
No one could have anticipated such a sales tsunami, but the landmark title set the stage for increased evangelism and millions of people eagerly awaiting the Rapture. Lindsey went on to host the International Intelligence Briefing and the Hal Lindsey Report for years.
After decades of pushback from mostly mainline Bible scholars, Dispensationalism made a roaring comeback in the United States, propelled most by Lindsey’s influence. Scores of testimonies buttress the view that Hal Lindsey’s emphasis on evangelism and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the real point of studying prophecy.
Lindsey’s influence also extended to a flood of Christian tour groups to Israel. Interest in the Jewish state, in the light of prophecy fulfilled as the Jewish state began to repopulate the ancient homeland, swelled to unprecedented levels. As he wrote:
“The State of Israel may seem normal. But it’s not. It is no more normal than the restoration of a withered hand or the parting of a vast sea. Israel is not normal. Israel is a miracle!”
“Prophecy authenticates the message,” he liked to say.
Lindsey gave his personal testimony at a prophecy conference in 2013. He said that after a riverboat accident, he picked up a Bible and began to read. The book of Acts particularly caught his attention and he yearned for fellowship with believers. He was invited to a gathering at Rice University in the 1950s.
“There are turning points in every life and you are blessed if you don’t miss them,” he said.
After the Rice event—which, incredibly, dealt with Bible prophecy—Lindsey went back home and began studying his “copious” notes, along with his Bible.
“I stayed up all night. Being a draftsman, I drew a map and looked at the power blocs [in the international community]. I became consumed studying prophecy.” He said that after work each day, he’d go home and study the Bible for up to eight hours. His eyes were then opened to the great battle between good and evil. Lindsey saw that Marxism was becoming popular at Berkeley by 1960, when he started with Campus Crusade for Christ. His passion for the remainder of his life was evangelizing the lost.
This week, he heard the sublime words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
See you soon, brother!
SALVATION ROADMAP
Author’s note: I sense it good to again present this salvation roadmap. Never has the truth of God’s saving grace been more urgent or more important than now, so near the Rapture of believers into the presence of Christ.
Salvation
Salvation is rescue from something that is death-dealing in nature. That is, it is the plucking from a deadly situation or circumstance and placing in a position of safety. This is what God offers to all of humankind. He offers salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Salvation from what?
Each human has been born under the penalty of sin, since Eve was seduced into eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and Adam knowingly disobeyed by joining the woman in eating that fruit.
God warned the first two people that if they disobeyed by eating fruit from this tree, they would surely die. Lucifer, in the form of the serpent, put the question of whether to believe the Creator in their minds by asking, “Yea? Hath God said?”
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:1–5).
With that disobedience—just as God said—sin and its consequence, death, entered the world. The man and woman lost fellowship with God. They began aging and degenerating toward death. Human beings now needed salvation from sin and death.
God loves His creation called humanity, and wanted to have the people become part of His eternal family—to live with Him forever in Heaven. The Creator, in His grace and mercy, said He would redeem them; He would bring into the world One who would save them from sin and death.
He cursed the serpent, Lucifer, who became known as Satan, and the devil, and said to him:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15)
Sin had begun its life-sapping work, and the man and woman had to be ejected from the Garden of Eden. Many Bible scholars believe this was done to keep them from the Tree of Life that grew in the Garden. If they had access, they would eat its fruit, and rather than eventually dying, they would grow increasingly grotesque in every way. Angels were placed at the Garden’s entry to keep them from returning.
God shed the blood of His creation for the first time when He provided animal-skin coverings for the naked man and woman. This was the first of the blood system of sacrifice that would foreshadow the awful price that would be paid for sin upon the cross at Calvary, when God’s only begotten Son died there.
John the Baptist announced Jesus’ purpose when Jesus approached while John stood at the Jordan River, baptizing people.
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. (John 1:29)
Jesus lived on the earth for thirty-three years, then was sacrificed by crucifixion—the cruelest of all executions of the day. Jesus became sin for all of humankind on the cross that day. God the Father could not look upon Him while Jesus took all sin upon Himself for all men, women, and children.
Jesus’ true agony of that moment, when He became the horrendous thing His Father could not look upon, was recorded by the Gospel writer Matthew.
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46)
Matthew recorded the moment when Christ completed His mission on the earth:
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. (John 19:30)
Jesus Christ, the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world, had fulfilled the supreme sacrifice.
Jesus spoke of that salvation mission while preaching, teaching, performing miracles, and ministering during His time here as the Son of man—the only sinless human ever to walk the earth’s surface.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:14–18)
The question often arises: What about those who haven’t heard of Jesus? This was asked of the late Dr. Tim LaHaye, and when he started to answer, he was allowed only a few seconds. He was put on the spot by the host, who asked a question that called for a profound answer.
Dr. LaHaye had only a moment to answer the TV host’s assertion that it isn’t fair of a God to send anyone to Hell if they don’t hear the message. Dr. LaHaye used Scripture in a split-second decision in answering, then was abruptly cut off from continuing with his answer.
The Scripture in question is Romans 2: 12:
For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.
Tim was saying, I think, that the totality of Scripture teaches that people are without excuse who have the understanding that there is a creator who judges sin. This is true whether Gentile or Jew.
Implicit within Dr. LaHaye’s response were things he never got to explain. I knew him well, and he would have made his case something like the following, had he been given time.
God’s precepts are one upon another, remember, and often truth comes from an entire body of scriptural proof, rather than from just one or two verses.
Paul was addressing, particularly, the Jews, who labored under the Mosaic Law (although by that time, the Law was not in effect because of the Cross), juxtaposed against the Gentiles, who didn’t have the Mosaic Law.
Keep in mind that God’s Word says:
Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth [it] not, to him it is sin. (James 4:17)
Scripture says also:
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:13–17)
All of this adds up to the fact that Jesus Christ, alone, is the way to redemption. But, He must be lifted up so that all will be drawn to Him. If there is no preacher to preach, then there can’t be faith, because faith comes by hearing (the Gospel). Just as an infant is innocent in God’s eyes, because the child can’t “hear”—i.e., understand—so are those who haven’t understood (truly heard) that Christ is the way to salvation.
However, even among savages in the darkest places where the Gospel hasn’t reached, if they “know to do good, and do the opposite,” they are not guiltless. God will hold them accountable for the light they have, which the Law would have provided for more civilized peoples.
The key here is that Jesus fulfilled the Law when He said “It is finished!” and gave up His spirit to death. Remember, Jesus once asked those around Him, “Why callest me good?” He then said, “There is but one good, and that is God” (Matthew 19:17).
Jesus was, of course, saying He was the only good, because He is God. He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world to cover the sin debt owed by fallen humankind. So, when the savage knows to do good, he is given that light by the Holy Spirit. He still chooses or rejects Christ, who is the only good.
The simple explanation is that people are accountable to the extent that they have been given light (understanding). But, that doesn’t unveil the whole Gospel story, regarding its application to those who haven’t had a preacher or teacher.
The Bible speaks to savages and the so-called civilized as well. Here are some relevant salvation Scriptures that cover every person who has been or will ever be born.
I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.
And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. (John 10:14–18)
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. (Romans 1:16–20)
Here once again is how to come to salvation, thereby to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, 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)
Back to Business as Usual
Once again, I want to address the belief expressed by a number of those who watch in anticipation of the Rapture of the Church. I’m referring to those who assert that now it looks like that glorious event will occur later than expected. Things now look not so Tribulation-like in the wake of the election of Donald Trump. It is now back to business as usual, with prospects much brighter. “It will have to get much darker again before Christ will call the Church out of this doomed planet of God-rejecting rebels” represents the thought of many.
The prophecy by Jesus frames how the times must be when He calls the Church in the Rapture. I’ve written about this prophecy many times. I believe this prophecy is exactly where the world is on God’s prophetic timeline. I believe it is the most relevant prophecy for this moment in regard to expecting the Rapture. Here, again, are Jesus’ words:
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)
My series of articles I titled “Scanning a Fearful Future” had this prophecy at its center. I therefore did have some reflective/introspective moments when I observed the economies of America and the world growing extremely tenuous under the Biden regime. With inflation, the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, and an invasion of illegal aliens this administration was increasingly funding with US taxpayer money, I was reflecting on whether my thoughts about this prophecy might be in error. It didn’t look like it was the “business as usual” environment I thought necessary to meet Jesus’ words recorded in Luke 17:28–30.
Here is a snippet of what I wrote in the series–written at the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011.
Yet Jesus tells us that it will be business as usual right up until the moment He removes believers from the planet. There is no man-made, worldwide catastrophe in Christ’s prophecy. As a matter of fact, Jesus says all will be relatively normal, in terms of human activity, until that removal. Then He will be revealed by way of His cataclysmic judgment that begins to devastate planet earth. It is God who causes the cataclysm, not George Soros or any other human or other entity.
I went on to say in the series that business as usual, like in the days of Lot in Sodom, meant that business would be more or less booming, not on a downward trajectory like during these last four years.
So, unlike those who look for the Rapture in a darkening economic environment as the most likely time for Christ to call in the Rapture, I see the opposite. Jesus says business will be as usual. And business in Sodom in Lot’s time was apparently booming, even though the culture and society beneath the surface of activity there was as wicked and evil as our own subculture has become within the last number of years.
And unlike those who think the Rapture must be farther off than before because of Mr. Trump’s election, my thinking is opposite. I believe it is Back to business as usual… There will be no collapse into economic dystopia that will be in effect at the moment of Rapture.
Since Trump’s landslide election, the business world, even as reported in Trump-hating European media, is looking for business to boom. The American stock market recorded a record high immediately following election results.
Here is one such report.
LONDON, Nov 13 (Reuters) – Global investors changed their expectations on the global economy in the wake of Donald Trump’s election win, and now see higher growth than they did before, as well as higher inflation, according to Bank of America’s monthly fund manager survey.
As a result, investors have increased their allocations to U.S. stocks and to U.S. small caps, which are more domestically focused and so potentially likely to benefit particularly from a stronger U.S. economy.
BofA polled 179 participants with $503 billion assets under management. Of those, 22% responded after the U.S. election, won by Republican former president Trump.
A net 23% of those polled after the result said they expected the global economy would get stronger in the next 12 months, the most optimistic since August 2021.
This is a turnaround from October’s survey, which had shown more respondents thought the economy would be weaker in 12 months’ time…
Investors upped their allocations to U.S. stocks. A net 29% are overweight U.S. equities, the highest since August 2013, the survey showed. (“Investors expect more growth and inflation after Trump win, BofA survey shows,” Reuters, November 13, 2024)
All of America’s most knowledgeable folks in the world of finance and business are optimistic about the coming Trump presidency. He is a businessman of first order. It is provable that he had the nation going in a positive direction that verged on a boom when, in my view, the election was stolen in 2020.
My desire is to exhort pre-Trib Rapture believers to not be part of the think not generation. We are certainly in times like the days of Lot as recorded in Genesis chapter 19. At the same time, there appears on the immediate horizon every signal Jesus gave as what to look for when the time of His Return nears.
Let us therefore do as our Lord instructs through that conversation He had with the disciples who were at His side that day on the Mount of Olives:
And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. (Luke 21:28)
Terry James Prophecy Line 