One of the falsest and most-cutting accusations launched at the belief that the Bible teaches that people can’t lose their salvation when they’re truly born again (John 3:3) is: “If you believe once saved, always saved, you’re saying people can live any way they want without fear of punishment.” Or so the line of condemning criticism goes.

The absolute assurance of eternal security, of course, engenders no such thought within the mind truly regenerated by the saving power of Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches that the Lord convicts His children in their spirits, and that habitual, unrepented-of sin will result in severe penalties—even physical death, in some cases. The Heavenly Father’s patience is longsuffering, but it is not infinite.

A child of God cannot sin without severe repercussions if repentance isn’t forthcoming.

But, that person will never be kicked out of God’s family. Never. Here is God’s own promise in that regard, given through Paul the apostle:

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38–39)

A kindred accusation is thrown at those who believe in the pre-Trib view of Bible prophecy, which, of course, is the one we at Rapture Ready and the Prophecy Line blog believe. It is the view that Jesus Christ will call all who are born again to Himself before the Tribulation (the last seven years of history leading to the Second Advent; see Revelation 19:11).

The angry diatribe against the pre-Trib Rapture view—by even genuine Christians, in many cases—usually goes something like this: “People like you, who believe that the Lord is going to rapture them before the Tribulation, think you can live however you want, because you think and teach falsely that you’re going to be rescued before God’s judgment and wrath fall, no matter what.”

Non-Christian accusers who castigate those of us who hold the pre-Trib Rapture view have their own version. It goes something like: “Christians who believe like that don’t care anything about making the world better. You even hope for things to get worse and worse. You wish for earthquakes, famines, pestilence, war in the Middle East, and for Armageddon to hurry up and get here so you will go to your pie in the sky and watch the rest of us get ours.”

Although the first criticism is absolutely not true, I have to admit that, regarding the second, too often I’ve sensed—even heard—such sentiments from some who believe in the pre-Trib Rapture. And, it is entirely the wrong attitude for the Christian to hold. There are no excuses for wanting the Christ-rejecting world of non-believers to receive God’s judgment and wrath. It is only by His unfathomable grace that every one of us isn’t headed into that time of unprecedented horror.

No matter how—to use Lot’s King James Version word—“vexed” we become by the debauched, debased actions of the lost world around us, our job as Christ’s children—His representatives here on earth—is of a completely different nature than wanting to see them “get what’s coming” to them. The changed nature produced by being born again should make us do just the opposite of wanting them, in our vexation, to get what we see as coming to them.

The Christian whose spirit is attuned to the Holy Spirit’s desire for the lost doesn’t want to see them “get what’s coming to them” either during the Tribulation or upon death. Rather, we want to do all within our power to keep them from having to go through the time of God’s judgment and wrath.

Like God Himself, we shouldn’t be willing for anyone to perish, but we should want everyone to come to repentance. That’s what Christ’s Great Commission to His disciples before He ascended to sit at the Father’s right hand is all about, you see. That’s what God’s love—love that those who have Christ indwelling them possess—is all about. (Read Matthew 28:18–20.)

In the same vein, that’s what Bible prophecy is all about. Prophecy given in God’s Word has purpose—profound purpose. It has at its center the commission from the Lord to warn of God’s judgment and wrath that will come upon all who oppose Him. It isn’t the hatred of God for the lost people of this fallen planet that drives prophecy. It is the love of God that powers His prophetic Word. It must be the Christian’s desire, therefore, to study Bible prophecy and put forth those warnings out of a spirit of God’s love, not through an anger-filled abhorrence of those who are lost.

Christians who do study prophecy—and they seem to be few these days, I’m sad to have to say—are often heard wondering about when Christ will call the Church (born-again believers) in the Rapture. Everything seems so ripe for Him to pluck His people from this sin-darkened sphere.

Nothing and no one can change God’s timing for His next catastrophic intervention into earth’s history. It will happen exactly on time, as He has determined since before the foundation of this world. However, as believers, we might look to ourselves for the Lord’s—often in our view—delay in calling us, as outlined in 1 Corinthians 15:51–55 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18.

Again, the Apostle Peter gave the heart of the reason Christ hasn’t yet raptured His Church:

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 purpose of Bible prophecy is to show the love of God to a lost and otherwise doomed world. God isn’t willing for anyone to die in their sins, but He wants everyone to accept Jesus Christ as the one and only sacrifice for sin that God will accept.

The Lord is “longsuffering.” The reason, I’m convinced, that the Lord seems so “slack” to many in His coming is because those same people have neglected their duty to share the love of God with the lost—the lost whom God loves so very much that He sent His only begotten Son so they would not perish.

It is well past the time for God’s people to invest in getting the message of the love of God to those who otherwise won’t hear the warning of deadly things soon to befall this Christ-rejecting planet. Considering these times that are so dramatically signaling the coming Tribulation, Bible prophecy can and must be used as a productive tool for evangelism.

While the newly elected president declares a golden age ahead for America–an eventuation I, like you, wish I could foresee but cannot—the world around this generation continues to darken. We are in a time Jesus spoke of, I believe, while He and His disciples were approaching a man with whom I can somewhat commiserate.

The man had been blind since birth, while I lost my eyesight at around age 51, so my suffering with the affliction of darkness had been much less than this man’s.

Here is that account:

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing. (John 9:1–8)

This story of Jesus’ encounter with the blind man touches me as few other stories about our Lord’s interaction with people while He was in the flesh. The man no doubt had spent his life unable to do what society would consider productive work. Perhaps he spent his entire life begging for sustenance from passersby.

I, on the other hand, had very good vision until, at age 50 or 51, retinitis pigmentosa (a hereditary retinal disease) invaded my central vision and quickly caused total blindness. So I can in no way fully appreciate the degree of suffering this man endured.

Today I know people blind since birth who have accomplished far more than I did when in full possession of visual acuity. But in that culture in Christ’s time, there were no such technological marvels to give the blind the means to accomplish great things, as I have witnessed.

I, myself, am using one such technological marvel while composing this week’s commentary. It is a word-synthesis program called JAWS (Jobs Accessible Word System). A young woman, blind since birth, taught me how to use this phenomenal computer-based system nearly thirty years ago. Liz is as close to my heart as a daughter, in that regard.

All this I mention is to reveal that God, in this encounter between Jesus and the blind man, has put at the center of my spirit what He desires for my life. In regard to the key phrase in the scriptural account above is the following:

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

Also, Jesus’ answer to His disciples about the man’s or his parents’ guilt that caused the blindness keeps my thoughts focused each and every day regarding the purpose for the time I am allowed to live here and now at the end of this Church Age–the dispensation of Grace. The Lord gave the reason this man was allowed to suffer total blindness:

But that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

This truth that Jesus gave at the time of the encounter with the blind man He healed has powerfully spoken to me personally. Time is limited; soon there will not be any opportunity to serve Heaven’s purposes–to serve the True, Living God. And we are here to serve Him. That is our great overall purpose—yours and mine.

One moment, perhaps much sooner than any of us can imagine, our time on this sphere where we have been placed by Heaven’s appointment will be over. We will be called into God’s presence, either through the Rapture, to be with Christ forever, or through the portal of death, at which time we must answer for the days of light and life we were given to accomplish Christ’s Great Commission–spreading the salvation message in order that souls will be redeemed.

In these times that certainly look like night is about to fall and the Tribulation is about to begin, it is wise for us, as believers, to work in the way Jesus worked to accomplish His Father’s will.

The Lord knew His time to do that earthly work was rapidly approaching the final moments. He was about His Father’s business in a mighty way and, as we know, He said with finality while on that old rugged cross, “tetelestai,” meaning, “It is finished!”

That is what you who come to Raptureready.com and Todd, Jonathan, editor Cindy, and yours truly are all about–finishing the work we have been put on earth to do in our God’s great cause: the saving of souls of men and women, boys and girls.

Rapture Ready–which is your website as well as ours—is devoted to carrying out our Lord’s Great Commission. Because of monetary requirements on the rise and attempts by some to interfere with our efforts, increased funding is very much needed to carry on with this work. We thank you with all the thankfulness possible to our Lord and gratitude to you our wonderful RR family for your love and generosity as we do our very best to serve the purpose we believe Heaven has assigned this website that is so Christ-centered and focused on the Lord Jesus’ any-moment call to you and to us. We ask for and will apply with all due diligence the donations you send, under the direction of our Heavenly Father.

So let us together forge ahead in full service while there is still time and light to share, even as we see the nighttime of Tribulation approaching.

Here is how to contribute to this effort on behalf of Jesus Christ, who died and rose again so that we can, on one eternal day (perhaps today), hear Him say, “Well done, good, faithful servant.”

There are three ways you can contribute to RR: You can send a financial gift via our P.O. Box address; you can make a one-time donation; or there is a “frequent” option that allows you to make monthly donations. If you’re interested in signing up, find the links on the Donation Depot page. Donations can be sent to our P.O. Box at:

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Great disservice has been done to the pre-Trib Rapture truth of God’s Holy Word. People such as Harold Camping and others have, by setting dates, thrown disrepute on the fact that Christ will call all believers into the clouds of glory before the dark and terrible time of the Tribulation (Daniel’s seventieth week).

By making predictions of the exact date when the Rapture will happen, such as found in the book by Edgar C. Whisenant titled 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988, some have contributed to fulfilling the Apostle Peter’s 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) 

We seem to have a growth of pre-Trib skeptics within Christianity today. That’s because the erroneous date-setters have skewed truth in the Bible that Jesus said no one knows the time except His Father.

Now, some might say these skeptics are doing little or no harm. All believers, if the pre-Trib view is biblically correct, will be raptured. The only prerequisite for going in the Rapture to be with the Lord is to be saved–that is, believe in Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross at Calvary. It isn’t necessary to believe in the pre-Trib Rapture to be saved. Those who believe in another view of prophecy are “in Christ,” so will be evacuated from this fallen planet when Christ shouts, “Come up here!”

This is, of course, true. One doesn’t have to believe in the pre-Trib Rapture to be saved.

However, the first thing I would say in answer to that reasoning is that we who are in God’s family–are saved—are to strive to understand things God wants us to understand:

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)

The pre-Trib Rapture of the Church is built upon an extensive body of Scripture. The Rapture is a clearly presented doctrine, and even most pre-Trib naysayers admit that the Rapture is in God’s Word. However, they, in most cases, adamantly deny that it is a pre-Trib Rapture that the Bible presents.

They give all sorts of arguments for when it will occur, all pointing to the Rapture taking place during the Tribulation, the time when Antichrist will be ruling as history’s last, most despotic dictator.

But these ignore—or convolute through twisting—God’s promise to keep believers out of that terrible time of God’s wrath:

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)

This promise to spare believers of the Church Age, or Age of Grace, is seen while Jesus in His ascended form is revealing prophetic truth to John, who wrote the Revelation. Jesus here is talking to the seven churches. That’s the churches now in the dispensation of the Church Age. Jesus is telling believers of the Church Age that He will keep them out of the Tribulation.

Most who come against the pre-Trib timing of the Rapture refuse to accept that God deals with humankind in dispensations. And therein lies much of the problem with them not being willing to “rightly divide the word of truth,” as found in 2 Timothy 2:15. Unless this concept of dispensations is understood, the pre-Trib Rapture cannot be easily discerned.

And this matter of not understanding dispensational truth, I prayerfully hope, brings this article’s title into proper focus. Looking at prophecy yet future through the pre-Trib prism procures discernment. The pre-Trib viewpoint provides accurate perspective on issues and events as they might pertain to things to come. For an example, we only have to look at the prospect of nuclear war at this moment in history.

As I mentioned above, we, as a generation alive on the earth, are in the Age of Grace, or Church Age dispensation. Within the pre-Trib view, a nuclear war or even a World War III that would decimate the planet just isn’t foretold in God’s Word.

Yet rumors of nuclear war are abounding at present. Even writers on Bible prophecy are warning that nuclear war is about to break out at any moment. These writings are coming from those who are, in some cases, avidly against the pre-Trib Rapture viewpoint. These also, in most cases, deny that God deals with humanity in dispensations, as I’ve mentioned.

As of this writing, I have before me several articles proclaiming that China is on the verge of attacking the United States. The drone sightings, the huge balloons shot down some months ago, the sightings of Chinese subs off the coasts of America…all of these things indicate that China is scoping out our defenses in order to launch nuclear attacks.

I heard just hours ago a U.S. representative voicing that all of the illegals pouring into the nation, many of them young Chinese men of fighting age, portends an attack from the Chinese war machine that is about to take place.

And these kinds of warnings have been going on for several years.

I can say with authoritative confidence based upon God’s Word that such war-making by China is not in view for this dispensation. Here is what I mean.

Any such massive nuclear attack would bring equally massive retaliation by this nation. America has submarines under the ocean waters of the world–including waters near China. Each of the subs has as its nuclear repertoire MIRV ballistic missiles, each with multiple warheads armed with nuclear ordnance. These would obliterate the Chinese mainland when launched upon America being attacked.

So the world would be drastically and profoundly damaged if this scenario was played out.

Jesus told us (Luke 17:28–30) that when He next catastrophically intervenes into earth’s evil, all will be going along as it was in Sodom at the time Lot and his family were removed. There would be no destruction preceding that removal. People would be, as we are at present, conducting the business of life as usual–buying, selling, planting, etc.

Massive nuclear exchanges involving earth’s military powers simply are not scheduled this side of the Rapture.

We can logically understand that China will be a power as part of “the kings of the east” found in chapters 9 and 16 of Revelation. At that time, they will indeed destroy one-third of all humankind, the prophecy says. So they won’t have been destroyed, but will be greatly enhanced militarily.

So looking, dispensationally, at the fearful things to come through the pre-Trib scope of the Bible’s prophetic radar, we get an accurate—even precise, in some cases—picture from God’s great and perfect perspective.

Author’s note: I decided to reach way back in time in my files of articles I’ve written to present this week’s commentary. I’ve done so because the current Catholic pope continues to declare during 2025 that there are many ways to Heaven–to be saved.

There is no matter more important around which to put forth biblical truth than that involving redemption of lost souls. There is one way to God and eternal Life. Jesus Christ is that only way! He said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but by me” (John14:6).

The following article was first posted on September 11, 2006.

History’s Most Troubling Name

Many names come to mind when thinking of individuals who have caused great consternation among the generations of earth-dwellers over the millennia.

We can immediately bring them to the surface of our thoughts. Adolf Hitler stands pretty close to the top, so far as people who have troubled humanity during their time is concerned. His was perhaps the most genocidal regime ever, although if we could hear from some of the other generations of human history–for example, that under the regime of Antiochus Epiphanes—we might hear good evidence for those tyrants being the worst ever. Christians under some of the Caesars and holy Roman emperors could also tell horror stories, giving names of dictators who bedeviled them.

Josef Stalin, the Soviet dictator, is another who has troubled the minds of historians and the rest of us in more recent times. He murdered, it is estimated, between 30 and 40 million of his own people, based upon his paranoid concerns that they were out to topple his rule.

Mao Tse-tung, the beast from China, Pol Pot, of Cambodia, and the man on trial for crimes against humanity, Saddam Hussein, the incarcerated Iraqi strongman known as the “Butcher of Baghdad,” are other troublesome names of recent vintage. And we might throw in guys like Iran’s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Kohmeini and even its current tyrant, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as candidates for the most troubling names in human history.

It is such an agonizing thing to do, writing about the next troubling name after bringing to mind all of the above horror-blighted names of history, that I can scarcely do it. But I must, because it is a name that is growing in disrepute, and in hatred among this present generation. The person whose name I will write about is dividing the peoples of earth, just as He said His name would do.

It is doubly agonizing for me to write, because evidence of this growing hatred is already well underway, even in the heartland of America. It is, as a matter of fact, manifesting itself in my own community. So, I didn’t have to go to distant sources or lands to make the point that we’re indeed nearing midnight of this Church Age (Age of Grace).

Proof of the growing antagonism to the name is observable in the portion of an article from a newspaper very near my own home. That’s right. Right in the heart of the Bible Belt. And, I must tell you that Arkansas was just listed as one of three of the states that have the most people who believe the Bible is the Word of God, a supernatural book directly from the mind of the Creator.

Little Rock city directors should apply discretion in the words they use when praying before board meetings, Mayor Jim Dailey said Tuesday night. Dailey’s statement followed the board’s receipt of a memorandum from City Attorney Tom Carpenter in which he cautioned board members about using certain words in prayers.

Prayer to open a board meeting is not unconstitutional but can cross the constitutional line of separation of church and state if the prayer emphasizes one religion over another, Carpenter wrote.

In the memorandum, Carpenter advised board members to avoid phrases such as “In Christ’s name we pray” or “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost” (“LR directors discuss prayer options,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Sept. 7, 2006).

The above report, I realize, doesn’t equate with people considering the name of Jesus in the same castigating way people view Hitler, Stalin, et al. But, again, marginalizing the name of Christ is taking place in the heart of the Bible Belt. The world at large is on the fast track to bring that Holy Name into hated status on a global scale. The being with the worst of all names–Satan—wants the name of Jesus to become the equivalent of the worst, most terrifying figures of history. Satan has sown in the minds of people that Christianity should be seen as narrow-minded bigotry and hatred, as proven in the Crusades, where, Christ-haters imply, many were murdered in the name of Christ.

The tactic continues to work. Tragically, it is becoming a tactic that even convinces some pastors in churches who fall for and preach the line that thinking there is one way to God is foolish at best and hatred at worst. By preaching and teaching that there are many ways to God and Heaven, that the Bible is actually just a book written by men in order to show us how to just get along, these preachers and teachers are calling Christ a liar–putting His Holy Name in the category of the many tyrants of history who led people down the pathway to destruction.

But the Scripture says: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

There is coming a time at the edge of eternity that is awesome in its prospect. Every human being who has been born on this fallen planet will give absolute acknowledgement of the name that is above every other, the blessed name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ:

For it is written, [As] I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. (Romans 14:11)