In the imagination, the Apostle Paul could well have been sitting watching a heavenly jumbo screen of some sort while penning what has come to be recorded as 2 Timothy chapter 3:

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as their’s also was. (2 Timothy 3:1–9)

It does seem that Paul was permitted to look at some kind of prophecy jumbotron screen and see directly into this present hour. Certainly we’ve witnessed and/or endured much during these volatile times that we could use to make the case the great apostle’s words here project for our spiritual understanding of God’s dire prophecy for the end of the age.

Let’s have a brief look at some of this “perilous times” future wickedness Paul presents.

Here again I’m going to stay for the most part America-centric in considering Paul’s prophecy about these vexing days in which we find ourselves. That’s because this nation is the apex of all in recorded history, in terms of so-called civilization’s progress. God’s Word tells us that to those whom much is given, much is required.

Our nation has been materially blessed beyond all others of human history, and spiritually blessed beyond all but Israel. America’s responsibility to the God of Heaven is, I suspect, therefore held in Heaven’s most profound contempt for straying from His heavenly directives for conducting life on earth.

About these perilous times, Paul says the following:

“For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud…”

Social media frames this perilous-times characteristic as much as any that come to mind.

We start with the photo-taking phenomenon that arose quickly with the coming of the social-media platforms. The nation seems alive with the prideful sin of narcissism in this matter of taking one’s own picture for all the cyber-universe to “enjoy.”

Following hard on the heels of the selfie came the millions of autobiographical stories of the social-media users. These self-aggrandizing pieces, putting forth everything from personal wealth exaggeration to fabulous descriptions of many romantic and other adventures were and are mostly prevarication to the max.

America has led the way in all of this Hollywood-inspired hype. Those who watch the lives of the movie personalities and their fantasy world then mix and weave such reports within their own wannabe lives’ fictions to present throughout cyberspace.

The perilous aspect of all this is that it invades the very souls of men, women, and children, taking them far from reality, and particularly from the fact that they are, rather than perfect people, individuals who need a Savior from the sin that is carrying them down the broad way that leads to destruction.

“…blasphemers, disobedient to parents…”

God is blasphemed in this nation in that America has degenerated from a time–one in which I was raised—when Christian parents had their children in church and oversaw their teaching of God’s Word, to this current moment when the young are, in many cases, turned over to their devices. This parental failure instills in tender minds that they, under the tutelage of cyberspace inculcation, can determine their own course of life.

Whenever they are then confronted with a parental recall to reestablish control, the children rebel, resenting in the strongest terms their devices being restricted or taken away.

“…unthankful, unholy…”

Statistics from the Barna Group and other organizations show a turn from Christian concepts within the American family. Same goes for every other aspect of life in the nation. All we have to do is observe the daily news reports, even from within our own hometown news sources, to understand that we’re an unholy generation.

The Apostle Paul’s forewarning from God in Romans 1:28—to any people who turn their backs on God—rings an alarm for our nation today. It seems we’ve reached the point in many ways that show God is turning this generation over to a reprobate mind. (As evidence of the upside-down thinking, I offer the wokeness insanity we’ve lately been subjected to.)

“…without natural affection…”

This perilous-times characteristic is one I’ve covered many times in this column. My thoughts haven’t changed–because God doesn’t change.

Abortion–shedding the blood of the innocent—is a matter I believe angers God to the extent few other sins reach. The denial that life begins at conception is the lie from Satan for which the world is about to pay a tremendous, wrathful price, I’m convinced.

Abortion, in which a mother deliberately allows the murder of her child while in her womb, is at the very heart of Paul’s forewarning. It is an act “without natural affection,” as is homosexuality. I believe the Lord is going to display for the entire world to see exactly when life begins, in His holy view.

I believe every child will go to be with Christ when He calls in the Rapture—including each and every child just conceived.

Homosexuality is another characteristic Paul forewarned when he labeled it as being “without natural affection.”

Satan constantly strives to take humankind away from belief in God’s order of things. One is the lie that same-sex relations in the matter of sexual pursuit are every bit as legitimate as heterosexual relationships. Another is the insanity of reprobate thinking that people can be whatever gender they think they are, not the one God gave them at birth.

This is a generation steeped in that perilous-times characteristic “without natural affection.”

“…trucebreakers, false accusers…”

There is no better (or worse) example we could consider in thinking on this characteristic than the political process in America today.

Truce-breaking is at every level in this, perhaps the lowest-rated job endeavor in America. Traitorous politicians make and break “deals” without a moment’s concern for whom the action is harmful, whether to opponents or to friends, for that matter.

But it is the area of false accusations that stands out most egregiously in these times. All we have to do is consider the many lies told about former and future President Donald J. Trump to understand we are witnessing Paul’s end-times characteristic termed “false accusers.”

As a matter of fact, the false accusations have become so prolific that they’ve morphed into a malady that refers to a psychological disturbance. We all know about the “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

“…incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good…”

This characteristic can readily be understood in these end times. The word “incontinent” here can mean “addictive” or “in a state of agitation.” This is a precise picture of the tremendous use of illicit as well as prescription pharmaceuticals that saturates today’s American society and culture.

Many of those who exhibit this characteristic rage against those who want only a peaceful existence as they go about their lives. Christian values are particularly targeted by those who want no governance, especially not from the God of Heaven.

“…heady, highminded…”

There are perhaps many ways to look at this characteristic presented by the great apostle. However, I choose to assign this one in particular to American academia.

The colleges and universities of higher education have joined together to try to inculcate young adults to want to change this nation from its founding principles–principles that are influenced by God’s own hand in dealing with the founding fathers.

To paraphrase the Apostle Paul again, “Thinking themselves to be wise, they have become fools.”

Through denying the God of Creation, they teach anti-God, humanistic rebellion. Thereby they continue with the lies from Satan, the father of lies.

And it’s not only the higher institutions infected by the venom of rebellion. The public education system in America suffers this inculcation of evil at every level.

“…lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.”

The one matter that stands out to me in this regard revolves around the churches in the nation that have defected from the true faith.

These have embraced the Sodom-like culture of this late, prophetic hour. They proclaim such lies as “the times have progressed,” thus making changes in order to accommodate is necessary to draw in and retain those who seek to know God.

The current pope, as a tremendously wicked example, proclaims there are many ways to God and eternal life. All religions, he has recently declared, have their route to salvation. He and those who teach this are calling the Lord Jesus Christ a liar.

Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but by me.” (John 14: 6)

That you and I are within these perilous times at the precise moment prophesied for when Jesus calls all believers in the Rapture is abundantly clear. You don’t want to miss that call. To do so means you will endure the worst time of all human history, according to Christ Himself.

Here is how to instead go into the clouds of Glory to enjoy the wonders God has prepared for those who love Him.

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) 

Author’s note: This article was written a number of years ago. It is lengthy in comparison to articles normally presented in this forum. But the Rapture and God’s Word about that great event next on God’s prophetic timeline is of primary importance. Thus it is good to revisit this more in-depth treatment, which is meant answer all who dismiss this wonderful promise by our Lord to keep believers out of the time of history’s worst era, the Tribulation (Revelation 3:10).

Rapture: Answering the Critics

This generation is full of scoffers, mocking the prophesied return of Jesus Christ to earth. This is as the great Apostle Peter said it would be at the end of the Age of Grace (Church Age):

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)

God’s prophecies are 100 percent accurate, so it doesn’t surprise in the least that there is scoffing and mocking today, exactly as one of God’s prophets said there will be as time nears the Lord’s return. Many signals are occurring simultaneously, and with phenomenal frequency and intensity, pointing to where we are on God’s prophetic timeline. Chief among these are all of the geopolitical dynamic intrigues surrounding Israel–God’s prophetic timepiece. The sneering at the thought that there could possibly be a Rapture just throws fuel on the fire of the end-of-days deluge–the end that is coming in with a flood of last-days indicators as described by Daniel the prophet:

And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof [shall be] with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. (Daniel 9:26)

Daniel was describing what would happen from the time the Messiah, Jesus Christ, would die for the sins of humankind, until the very end of human history at Armageddon. Great, convulsing, prophesied issues and events would, near the very end of the age, he said, gush through the generation alive at the time like a flood.

Daniel’s End-time Flood

One of those predicted events of the end-time flood is the level of anger that will be against believers who proclaim that one of the most stupendous events of all human history will one day–perhaps very soon—take millions upon millions from the earth’s surface in a fraction of a second.

We receive each week any number of emails declaring that the truth we champion regarding Bible doctrine and prophecies–particularly the pre-Trib Rapture of the Church—is everything from ludicrous to heretical. This criticism gets especially intense whenever the raptureready.com website is written of or spoken about in a major media outlet. That is to be expected, because there can be no spiritual discernment among the lost. Believers in Jesus Christ can understand, while those who do not belong to God’s family through belief in His Only Begotten Son cannot understand:

For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:11–14)

Defense of Rapture to Lost and Saved

Trying to explain or defend the Rapture to the lost is, therefore, fruitless. There is just no way they can understand or believe this doctrine unless and until they repent, and ask for and accept God’s grace-gift offer of salvation through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross at Calvary nearly two millennia ago. We can go through the vast body of scriptural text, laying out the Bible facts, as we are confident God’s Word presents truth about the Rapture. But, unless and until one is capable of spiritual discernment from the Holy Spirit, a person, no matter how intellectually brilliant, can never come to believe those facts. They might even understand the facts in a purely cerebral sense, but to the point of knowing the Rapture is a cataclysmic event in the future of one particular generation of earth’s inhabitants.

So, our efforts to explain the Rapture will meet with quite limited results, seeing as how there is a great spiritual-discernment disconnect when explaining to those who don’t know Christ for salvation. This we accept, thus can move ahead with limited frustration in putting the truth about prophecy and the Rapture before these as best we can.

Dealing with the Body of Christ–all born-again believers—is quite another thing, when it comes to our frustration meter. It becomes a bit more disconcerting when our efforts to put out truth about prophecy and the Rapture are met with the same arguments, no matter how thorough and cogently we organize and present what God’s Word has to tell His children about these matters.

Hard-shell Rapture Detractors

There are, of course, the die-hard Preterists (believing that most all prophecy has been completed or should be spiritualized) and the Reformed Replacement Theology enclaves (those who declare God’s promises have been taken from Israel and given to the Church). These make their livings throwing mudballs–usually with stones at the centers—at those of us who proclaim that Jesus will come for His Church BEFORE the Tribulation era–the last seven years of human history that culminates at Armageddon. These, who refuse to see two programs of God’s dealing with humankind, Israel, and the Church–these two dovetailing into one magnificent prophetic culmination—castigate us who believe God deals with humans dispensationally (the ages of Adam, Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, the Church, Tribulation, Millennium, etc.).

Sometimes, it seems fruitless to try to break through the thick spiritual iron wills of these. But, these are not the most troubling that seem to fit the 2 Peter 3:4 description, so far as scoffing is concerned.

More concerning are those who, despite being given, time after time, the same in-depth explanation from God’s Word about the pre-Trib Rapture, continue to come to us with the same arguments to the contrary. This, despite the fact that they visit the Rapture Ready website and can read over 15,000 articles on matters of God’s truth, many dealing specifically with eschatology.

These are Christians who just seem to have it in their determination that they must go through–endure—the Tribulation, about which Jesus said the following: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21).

The Tribulation, if we can imagine, will be worse than the concentration camps, torture chambers, crematoriums of Hitler, or the most terrible days of the inquisitions with all of the devilish methods of torture. Yet, there seems to be a need–they deludedly think—for some Christians to go through that time, during which Antichrist will do his dead-level best to kill every person who refuses to worship him.

Anti-Rapture Example

I’ve chose one letter from such a Christian. It is a simple and mild letter, no mudball throwing. But, it represents the most troubling of all of the critics of the Rapture of the Church, in my view, because it shows an almost willfulness against accepting God’s promises, summed up by this passage: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:9).

Here is what she wrote, in part.

I know that the Tribulation is going to be extremely bad and even worse than I can imagine but I sincerely believe I along with you and other Christians that are living at the time, will be going thru the bad. I am prepared mentally and will do whatever comes my way to either get thru or stand up and say no when needed. If I am one that is to [be] beheaded then so be it. I know GOD will be holding my hand and whatever comes my way, HE will see me thru. If I can be of any use to GOD to help save people then I am prepared to do as HE wants. I have many family members that are not believers now and pray daily that will change. I do believe that many souls will be saved. I know that I am a sinner and do not like verses of the Bible taken out of context. The whole book or at least the chapter needs to [be] read and understood not just a verse here and now to prove a theory that did not even come into being until a couple of hundred years ago.

How is every eye going to see JESUS return if HE comes back in secret. Just don’t believe any are going to be “raptured away.”

The Bible states that HEAVEN will be coming down here not us going up there.

Tragic Misconceptions Unscriptural

The Christian sister makes a number of statements of misconception that are dealt with through hundreds of the thousands of articles on the Rapture Ready website. This is my problem. Many criticisms of us who hold to the pre-Trib Rapture are issued by those who obviously have never mined the rich resources available before making their arguments.

She writes that she is sure she will be going through the Tribulation in order to stand for Christ and help God save people out of that horrendous time. She charges that she has disdain for those who twist Scripture out of context, with those (like us, I presume) using scattered and sporadic verses to make our points.

She, at the same time, provides no Scripture for any of her criticisms of the Rapture “theory,” as she puts it. However, most who make this charge do so, using passages from Revelation that they declare show saints in the middle of the Tribulation. Thus, they conclude, the Church is right there, taking the brunt of Antichrist’s rage and God’s wrath.

Dispensational Discernment Required

Indeed, believers will populate that era by the millions. It will, many who study that period believe, be a time of the greatest coming-to-Christ event in history.

What she–and the others—fail to recognize, or even consider, is that God deals with humanity, including His children, in dispensations. There are saints of the Church Age at present, and there will be saints during the Tribulation. Neither will be together in the same dispensation.

Jesus told us He would build His Church upon the gospel message the Apostle Peter had just given, telling Jesus that he believed Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God:

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:17–18)

Do you see that? The gates of Hell–Satan—will not prevail against the Church. That’s all about the Church Age saints.

The Revelation tells quite another story for God’s saints. The following is speaking, of course, about Satan’s great tyrant, Antichrist, during the Tribulation era: “And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations” (Revelation 13:7).

The Church will not be “overcome” by Satan, because it won’t be here. The Tribulation saints (those who accept Christ after the Rapture) will be overcome to a large extent–lose their physical lives for the cause of Christ.

Myth-making against Rapture

Our Christian critic-friend proves she has at least done some study, but not from God’s Word. She has read the books and literature of those who incessantly and speciously claim that we who believe in the pre-Trib Rapture have learned our “false” doctrine from a nineteenth-century witch, who somehow influenced John Darby to later perpetrate the hated Rapture theory.

The most ludicrous of the criticisms is that we base our view that there will be a Rapture upon Margaret MacDonald’s vision in the 1800s. It makes me almost nauseous to have to even address this–for the thousandth time, when, if the critics would just read what is already written on the subject on the site, it should quell their proclivity to make such ridiculous claims. But, I will briefly answer again, these who are so intellectually and spiritually lazy.

The Rapture, the catching up (harpazo) was revealed by Paul the Apostle. It is a mystery he gave us through Holy Spirit inspiration, as recorded in 1 Corinthians 15:51–55 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18.

The Rapture was not the concoction of John Darby, who picked up this teaching and gave it improved order of presentation centuries after the doctrine was believed and taught by the early church fathers (in the first two centuries AD.)

The Rapture isn’t built on one or two verses, but on an entire body of Scripture. When viewed in totality, and in context, the doctrine flows with prophetic signals we observe occurring in the world today—i.e., the world isn’t getting better and better, as the Kingdom Now people believe (that the Church will make the world better until Christ can return to set up His throne). The pre-Trib Rapture view puts forward that the world will grow worse and worse. The Church will be removed from earth, then God’s judgment will begin to fall on rebellious earth-dwellers.

Which do we see happening today? The world getting better and better? Or are things looking worse and worse? Read the daily headlines or watch the hourly news, and you will have your answer.

Two Phases of Second Coming

Again, Paul shows us the mystery; he reveals the mystery of the Rapture in 1 Corinthians 15:51–55. The mystery he is expanding upon is the wonderful promise Jesus made in John 14:1–3. Jesus is coming for us—before God’s wrath must fall.

A foreshadowing of that principle is seen in Genesis 19, when God said He could do nothing in the way of sending judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah until Lot was first removed. Lot represented the only righteousness God recognized. It was Lot’s faith—as puny as it was—that kept him and the other few believers of his family from the time of God’s wrath (again, Revelation 3:10).

Our critic asks how all eyes can see Christ return if He comes secretly in some Rapture.

She declares she just doesn’t believe anyone is going to be raptured away, and she states Christ will be coming down to earth, rather than Christians going up to Him.

Again, she and those who fill her head with anti-Rapture rhetoric fail to (or willfully refuse to) see God’s dispensations in dealing with humanity. In the case of the return of Christ, Scripture makes it clear there are two separate returns at least seven years apart.

Jesus will return at some unknown time in the Rapture. He likens that coming to a thief-in-the-night experience for those on earth. They won’t know what has happened, and they certainly won’t see Christ. Paul says it is a moment in time when all believers (the Church) will meet Jesus in the air:

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17)

Jesus will come the second time, following at least seven earth years, at the close of the Tribulation era, known also as “Daniel’s seventieth week.” This time He will come all the way to the planet, and every eye will behold Him.

There will be absolutely no doubt about this re-entry and landing:

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.

And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. (Revelation 19:11–15)

Scriptural Proof Required

As stated before, each of these things intended to deny the validity and credence of pre-Trib Rapture are dealt with at great length, and in tremendous depth, throughout the Rapture Ready website. All opposing views are carefully dissected, and with Scripture given at every point along the way in addressing any and every question. But, it DOES take determined research to seek out truth found in the articles–truth that is God’s Word, not merely ours.

And, here is the crux of this dear lady’s problem in not discerning truth about Christ’s coming for the Church–for her. She presents not one Bible verse to back up any of her assertions, declarations, or suppositions/postulations. She simply parrots things critical of the Rapture doctrine she has read or heard from those who mock, without anything of spiritual substance to back the criticisms.

My intention is not to pick on her. I want only to use her method of criticism–a method used in almost every instance by those who listen to the anti-Rapture crowd—as an example to show there is no foundation to the denial that the Rapture is a doctrine taught in God’s Word.

This is our answer to such critics. Study the Word of God. Make your criticisms from His Word–as the dear woman says—not from just a verse or two here or there, but from the whole context of the matter, whatever the matter happens to be.

I’ve studied most all of the positions and variations involved in these arguments for decades—which gives away my age, I guess. The pre-Trib view of prophecy is absolutely the only one that makes sense in the totality of scriptural context, and in terms of what we see unfolding today in geopolitics, global socioeconomics, and religion.

Salvation–Rapture Inseparable

The Rapture is an issue incontrovertibly linked to salvation—something Jesus did on the cross, which puts us in God’s family, when we truly believe. That faith keeps us from the time of God’s wrath—both in the coming Tribulation and in eternity. Wrath and judgment must fall upon rebellious humankind because of sin. Jesus paid the price for that sin. He said on the cross, “It is finished.” Sin was forever paid for at that moment, for those who would accept his sacrifice—the only sacrifice God will accept—the precious blood of His Blessed Son.

We are told we as Christians, while in the flesh, will have tribulations (troubles). Certainly Christians have had troubles down through the years. Persecutions—genocide, martyrdom, etc. These horrors are still happening in some places around the world. But, this was not, and is not, God’s wrath and judgment, but was, and is, satanic rage against God’s people. The Tribulation will include satanic rage, but it will be within the horrific storm of God’s wrath and judgment.

Christians (those who have been—as our critic says—saved following the Rapture) will certainly suffer satanic rage, but not God’s wrath. Many will be martyred, as in the times of the early persecutions—like Christians are being martyred in some nations today. But, we are told that we (Paul denotes the difference between Christians of the Church Age and those who aren’t in God’s family by the use of pronouns) aren’t appointed to wrath, but to salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. We are told by Paul to “comfort one another with these words.” We’re not to fear, but to comfort. (Read 1 Thessalonians 4:18 and 5:9–11.)

We will be kept out of “the time of testing” (the apocalypse or Tribulation), John was told by Jesus (Revelation 3:10).

Rapture Ready or Not…

Now, you might not agree, and that’s fine. If you know Christ, you are going instantly to Him anyway, when Jesus says “Come up hither,” as He did to John (Revelation 4:1–2). You will have no other choice, if you are in God’s family.

But, please don’t ever think—or claim—that there is only scattered verses here and there, or that there is no tremendously deep body of scriptural evidence and proofs beneath the truth of the pre-Trib Rapture.

Again, you can disagree, but, please don’t accuse us of not knowing about the other views, and, don’t just blindly accept what opponents falsely say when they lie, proclaiming that we just believe in something a nineteenth-century Englishman said, or that we follow some woman who dabbled in the occult. That isn’t true, and you should look more deeply into the evidence upon which we base these understandings than just to take the word of those who make such shallow and deceptive accusations.

Put this Scripture in a place where you can memorize it–and make it your model truth for avoiding the pitfalls of intellectual and scriptural laziness.

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)

Fear is on the rise in America and the world at the beginning of 2025. It is a dementia-like fear that comes upon humankind almost like nervous milling about that stirs within the wildebeests of the Serengeti just before predators set them to flight. There are many reasons this is so. But one in particular especially agitates the simmering fear. It is the culprit more than all of the other reasons combined for the building anxiety today.

Before we address that reason for fear of things to come, let’s look at the many other causes that make fear levels rise across the nation and world. Those causes involve myriad issues and events. We and others who consider our times in light of Bible prophecy continually attempt to analyze those matters and present our findings to anyone and everyone who will stop, look, and listen.

For the masses of humanity in third-world regions, such as vast areas of Africa, Asia, and other bleak places, panic is a daily search for the next bite of food and swallow of untainted water. We see the frail bodies, the distended stomachs, the flies on the faces of those whose wide, searching eyes look to the cameras filming them for their next life-sustaining morsel.

These suffering souls are not often demonstrative with their fear because their circumstances have denuded them of energy, and have robbed them of the ability to know how near to starvation they have come. The world turns a blind eye, for the most part, to the plight of these emaciated hordes. The group of people who are looking the other way too often includes even those of us who are watchmen on the wall for the signals of Christ’s return.

Starvation, nonetheless, is one of the sure signs of where this generation stands on God’s prophetic timeline. That millions of people are caught up in growing famine dramatically forewarns that the black horse of the Apocalypse will one day, perhaps soon, ride forth. But growing famine is not the greatest reason for the geometrically progressing worry around the globe.

Thinking on fear burgeoning within the civilized areas of the world, we briefly review the more familiar causes. These involve topics we’ve exhaustively examined in recent days:

• Iran is on the verge of possessing nuclear weaponry. Israel can’t and won’t let this happen. The potential for war—nuclear war—breaking out in the Middle East is not just possible, but likely, considering the realities involved.

• North Korea is a loose cannon that already has nuclear capability, according to some experts. Even China, its chief governor in the nation-state sense, can’t seem to control the North Korean madmen and their threats.

• Strange signs in the heavens and in the planet’s atmosphere have inhabitants looking up with growing fear of what’s coming on the earth. Consider the recent sudden appearance of the inexplicable drone swarms.

• Terrorists threaten to blow up things and kill people in every part of the world. New York and other major American cities and their large, densely congregated populations are in the bull’s eye for attack by terrorists with possibly horrific weapons, including those that are nuclear, biological, and chemical.

• The United States of America daily experiences assaults from within, chipping away at individual rights and national sovereignty. The US Constitution is under perpetual assault, and the system of checks and balances is out the window. Congress shrinks from its responsibility to the American people, while there is observably a power grab of unprecedented proportions. Morality plummets, while entertainment madness infects old and young alike, taking thoughts of preserving the republic far from the citizenry. U.S. leadership in economy, diplomacy, and most every other category is on the skids. Corporate America has become a sick, dying entity—thanks to elected officials who seem intent on the government owning/running private enterprise. By their constant striving to meld the American economy with the socialist economic structures of Europe, they are destroying this nation—whether wittingly or not. These, by running up multi-trillion dollar deficits, are giving away hope for future generations to know the prosperity of past generations of Americans. The neo-Babel builders herd America’s great wealth, technology, and influence toward end-times Babylon—the long-anticipated New World Order.

The leaderships of most top-tier nations are violating at every turn God’s prescription for interacting with His chosen nation, Israel. The world’s diplomatic community, of course, has no idea of the prophetic ramifications of dealing treacherously with Israel, so it has no qualms about trying to force a peace that can never truly be made this side of Christ’s Second Advent. However, there is a sense of extreme danger that even the international community of nations feels in dealing with Israel and its enemies in the “Roadmap to Peace” plan. Most fearful of all—from the perspective of those of us who watch the stage-setting for biblically prophetic things to come—is the fact that the church as a whole is oblivious to America’s dealing treacherously with Israel. Most in this late hour, in fact, think the church has replaced Israel as inheritor of God’s promises given to the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Today, much of the church is in total prophetic ignorance, and is so fat, lazy, and lethargic that I almost wonder if she can be lifted at the Rapture, even by the Lord Jesus.

All of the foregoing, however, does not account in total for the almost tangible fear about the future. The one, all-encompassing reason for the fear that is driving people to look anxiously at what’s ahead for themselves and their children is the spirit that pervades this generation of earth-dwellers. It is the spirit of Antichrist.

The world has cast God aside. This has been happening in the US since 1963, when prayer, Bible-reading, and things of a religious nature—meaning Christianity—were suppressed in public schools. Today, the crops sown in that decade are being reaped in the generation that saw American leaders assassinated, its economy bankrupted, a war that eventually took 50,000 American lives, and a drug culture develop that continues to plague the nation.

To deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh to seek and save the lost is to invite another one to step in and fill the void that exists when attempts are made to keep God out. We have seen and heard the raves, like for example back during the 2008 presidential election,  with media using words like “messiah” and “savior” to describe the type of adulation attributed to a political candidate. One day, the one called “the Beast” will step into the spotlight of end-times history to fulfill the role of that long-prophesied Man of Sin.

Because Christ is denied, fear terminally infects all of humankind today. It is an insanity born of Christ-rejection. It is the development of reprobate spiritual dementia in a world of people ripe for God’s judgment:

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient” (Romans 1:28).

There is an antidote for the madness that infects humanity in these end of days:

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).

Jesus Christ is the antidote to the fear-insanity rampant today. He is coming to above earth soon to call all believers to Himself in the Rapture. —Perhaps today!

Here is how to hear that call and go to Him and not be left behind to suffer the worst time of all human history.

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)

Author’s note: I am amazed at the Lord’s omniscient consistency in managing humanity—now in a fallen state—keeping all things within the boundaries of His holy will.

By that I mean that no matter how people try to go in directions prophetically prescribed, God’s Holy Word is validated as absolute truth.

This week’s commentary was initially posted January 1, 2018. My thinking at the time was that now things were lining up precisely as I had believed them to align. Luke 17: 28-30–as many readers know—is the prophecy by Jesus Himself that I am convicted is the most important for this end-of-the-age moment.

Then, over the following years, with the Trump 2020 loss, all seemed to come completely apart with the direction things went as the world grew darker and “business as usual” seemed no longer in view.

But here we are at the beginning of the year 2025 and things seem suddenly back on the heavenly course I believe Jesus gave for this time so near His calling His Bride, the Church, into His presence.

I am amazed! But should not be… 

Unheralded Prophecy in View

We’ve been over it before in this column. However, things are shaping so rapidly it again needs our attention. Prophecy watchmen on the wall should pay close attention.

The seminaries consistently ignore this prophetic indicator altogether. Or they steadfastly say it is to be applied to Jews alive during the Tribulation. It is not for the Church.

I say–and have done so for years–that the prophecy is specifically for our time–that is, the Age of Grace. I’m referring to Jesus’ foretelling of the time of His next intervention into the affairs of humankind. He described those days as being like the days of Noah and the days of Lot.

The prophecy involved is so important for us to consider as this new year begins that we will include it here it in its entirety.

In the Matthew Olivet Discourse account, the Lord says no one can know the day or hour of His coming. He next informs of what this time will be like and what to look for in being watchmen.

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. (Matthew 24:36-42)

Jesus further expands in the Luke account:

And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. 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 17:26-30)

We have looked numerous times at these words of Christ. We’ve noted that the time of which He spoke in prophesying these matters could not be the time of His Second Advent. The world will be almost totally destroyed when Armageddon is raging. Perhaps as much as three-fourths of the earth’s population will have died as a result of God’s wrath and Satan’s evil through the Antichrist’s reign. it will not be business as usual.

This prophecy about Christ’s “revealing” indicates plainly that it will be a time of buying, selling, marrying, planting–all of the activities that indicate business as usual. I maintain that because Christ doesn’t emphasize things that are mundane; He was talking here about a time when business was much better than usual.

As long as five years ago, we expressed in this Nearing Midnight column our belief that it would be a time of economic boom, not bust, that would mark when the Rapture of the Church would occur. It would be the “think-not” time because the world, economically speaking, would be doing quite well.

Of course, not all the world is doing well at present, economically or in any other way. This has always been the case. The poor will always be with us, the Lord, Himself, told us.

However, for the part of the world where economies have the capability to thrive, the world, Jesus said in this prophecy, will be doing quite well at the time He is next “revealed.”

Almost every economic indicator is moving upward in America at this moment. This nation is the economic engine for the rest of the world. The better the US does, economically speaking, the better the other nations who have the capability to thrive will do.

I’m dumbfounded at the fact that the true, Bible-teaching seminaries of America see this prophecy as being only for the Jews of the Tribulation. It seems to be a blindness they suffer.

However, I do know why the tremendous economic potential that has burst onto the scene is unheralded by the mainstream news media. They hate Donald Trump, plain and simple.

Now, I’m not so foolish as to think that the economic upswing is one built on sound economic principles. We are in a tremendous financial bubble that continues to grow by the hour. At some point it is going to burst. It simply defies the fiscal laws for it to continue without imploding.

However, it will not come to that point of implosion, I’m of the belief, until the Lord says so. He is allowing it to move exactly toward the prophetic point the Lord Jesus foretold in the above scriptural accounts.

As I’ve expressed many times, this president is God’s chosen man for this hour, a builder, an entrepreneur extraordinaire. But, the mainstream news prevaricators refuse to report the tremendous economic growth the nation is experiencing. To do so would move in the opposite direction of trying to bring America down so that the globalists can usurp its wealth and power to construct the world order they wish to establish. They want desperately to destroy this president’s efforts to restore the United States to its former, leading status.

Antichrist’s global platform will be constructed, I believe, when the Rapture occurs and this phenomenal economic bubble explodes and comes down around the ears of an unsuspecting world.

The year 2018 could be the time. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

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No, but perhaps today! the year is now 2025. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!