Prophecy Line
Terry and Dave discuss their two newest books “HEREAFTER: It’s Far Better Than You Can Imagine,” and “How To Die With A Smile On Your Face”.
Prophecy with Purpose
One of the most false and cutting accusations launched at the belief that the Bible teaches a person cannot lose his or her salvation when truly born again (John 3:3) is: “If you believe once saved, always saved, you are 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 person who is 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.
A kindred sort of accusation is thrown at those who believe in the pre-Trib view of Bible prophecy. The pre-Tribulation view, of course, is the one those of us here believe God’s Word teaches. It is the view that Jesus Christ will call all who are born again to Himself before the Tribulation, which is the last seven years of history leading to the Second Advent (Rev. 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 are going to be rescued before God’s judgment and wrath fall, no matter what.”
The non-Christian accusers 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 of those 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 nonbelievers to be the recipients of God’s judgment and wrath. It is only by God’s 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 becomes 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 into God’s eternal family should make you and me 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 coming time of God’s judgment and wrath. 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 is 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. Bible prophecy has at its center the commission from the Lord to forewarn of God’s judgment and wrath to come upon all who oppose Him–the Lord of Heaven and Creator of all things. It is not 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 forewarnings 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 His plucking 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, we might as believers 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.
The Apostle Peter gave the heart of the reason Christ hasn’t 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 is not willing that anyone should perish (die in his or her sins), but that all should come to repentance (accept Jesus Christ as the one and only sacrifice for sin that God will accept).
The Lord is “longsuffering.” The reason, I’m convinced, 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 in order that they not perish.
It is well past the time for God’s people to begin investing in getting the message of the love of God to those who will otherwise not hear the warning of deadly things soon to befall this Christ-rejecting planet. Considering these times that so dramatically are signaling the coming Tribulation, Bible prophecy can and must be used as a productive tool for evangelism.
Are we there yet?
For those of us who have raised children, you might remember the question. There was a commercial, as I recall, that used the question to emphasize one product or the other in a humorous way.
Children in the back seat of the car in the commercial kept asking “Are we there yet?”
We who transported our young kids on those times–especially on longer trips to Grandma’s or other destinations–have heard that question, often in whining tones as time went on during the longer trips. I certainly remember hearing it. And I’m sure my parents heard it on those trips from Pekin, Illinois, where we lived when I was a child, on the road to Hampton, my grandparent’s home in south Arkansas.
At this late moment of the Church Age I, myself, seem to be whining this question, and I’m hearing it from others on a growing basis.
“Are we there yet?”
It is coming from God’s children–believers in Jesus Christ who, like myself, sometimes grow weary,or vexed—as ol’ Lot might have put it while enduring to the end his time in Sodom.
“Are we there yet?” That is, how long before we reach the end of our Lord’s tolerance for the evil flourishing all around us while we keep “looking up,” as my friend, the late J.R. Church, used to put it at the close of his Prophecy In the News TV program each week?
Each and every day–actually, each and every news cycle—we’re inundated with end-times storm warnings. And it seems as if the words of warning from the chief prophetic meteorologist of all history is speaking directly to those who, as commanded by Him—are “watching” in order to discern where this generation stands on God’s prophetic timeline.
Jesus gave the signals to look for as earth’s inhabitants near the outbreak of history’s most virulent turbulence–that of the Tribulation era. The following is that storm warning.
“Are we there yet?” Is that great storm of the ages about to invade at this particular time? Let’s listen again to that Heaven-sent forecast that we can rely on as 100% accurate, because it was issued by God Himself.
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. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. (Matt 24: 6-13)
Heaven’s forecast, of course, covers a broad scope of history, so many parts of this Olivet Discourse prophecy by Jesus apply to much of history that has already unscrolled. Let us very briefly dissect this warning first in terms of its broad, historical sense.
“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars…”
Hundreds of wars have afflicted humanity since Jesus spoke these words. The greatest wars of all time, World Wars I and II, have caused the deaths of millions. The Romans waged war on the Jews, the Temple was destroyed, and the Jewish people scattered to all the world.
“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…”
As a matter of fact, it has been the ethnic disputes and warfare that have wrought the deaths of millions across the world.
“And there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places…”
Earthquakes have continued to rumble throughout history, while the wars have brought famine and disease to countless generations. We have seen lately in our brief time on the planet lately a tremendous increase in these things.
“All these are the beginning of sorrows…”
These great troubles have been accumulative, indeed been like birth pangs, growing more intense and coming in greater frequency.
“Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.”
The history of hatred of the Jews is in full view of the eyes of the world. The Nazi Holocaust is the number-one sign of history that highlights the satanic hatred God’s chosen people have endured. Their rejection of the very name of Jesus Christ and their being blamed for His crucifixion have been the basis Satan has used to incite the world against Israel.
So history has proven the absolute accuracy of Jesus’ forecast. But it is the question ”Are we there yet?” I wish to address with regard to whether this generation has reached the moment when the Lord will say “enough is enough” and call believers to Himself so the greatest storm of all history can rage upon a world ripe for judgment.
We must place the same template over what is going on at this very moment to try to help answer: “Are we there yet?”
“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars…”
The most profound threat of nuclear conflict might now be in the offing. Even the Cold War could not match the danger. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was effective, as the world’s two greatest superpowers were able to control escalation into man’s final war.
Not so now. There seems no control, as the power centers with the nuclear weapons are scattered around the globe and many decision-makers among the most diabolical of their leaders seem bent on having their way, regardless of possible ramifications of all-out nuclear war.
The primary cause of the conflict again centers around ethnic differences and demands. Greatest among these conflicts is the hatred of the Jews and of Israel by their neighboring countries.
And that hatred has expanded to include many within nations of Europe and even the United States of America.
The seas and waves of peoples are roaring, in that the protests against the Jews and Israel are front and center in even what is generally considered the civilized west.
At this very moment, even some among the Jewish people themselves are shouting along with the Israel-haters, “Stop the genocide” and “From the river to the sea.”
As Jesus forewarned, these Jews on the politically ideological left are “betraying one another.” The genocidal rage is building swiftly toward another holocaust. Jesus also had a forecast about this evil that will mark the very end of the age.
“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).
And hatred is building, too, against the Church–all believers in Jesus Christ and His message of being the one and only way to salvation (John 14: 6).
The comment by a legal defense fund for Christian persecution states the following:
Biden is empowering the radical Left to wage a surreptitious war on our Christian faith – prayer, churches, the Bible, and even Christian kids sharing their faith in school are all under attack. The Biden FBI has even placed spies in churches and targeted “radical traditionalist” Christians for investigation…
We’re in court right now defending a teacher who was banned from praying anywhere a student might see her.
I’ve never seen anything like it. (Jordan Seckulow, ACLJ Executive Director)
While unbelieving Jews must undergo the Tribulation storm to bring forth a remnant that will bring about God’s great promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, believers of this Church Age (Age of Grace) will be taken (paralambano) to be with Jesus in the clouds of Glory–in the Rapture. All indicators are that we have come to be right smack in the breaking turbulence of Jesus’ forecast of the end-times storm.
And this is why I believe we can answer with a resounding “YES!” the question: “Are we there yet?”
Bulletin: Transformed America
During the last days of the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama stated: “We are just a few days from fundamentally transforming America.” Some 8 years later, he said when time to leave the presidency that he would like to just run the country in his sweats from his basement and let somebody be the front person as president. As of Thursday, May 30, 2024, I believe he just might have achieved both objectives.
America was changed that evening from a republic Benjamin Franklin said the founders had given us, if we could keep it, to a third world-type nation Franklin and the others intended to prevent –at the cost of their lives in many cases. The illegal lawfare, as the war against the constitutionally mandated Justice system has been termed, perpetrated by deep state, struck at the heart of this nation once called “the shining light on the hill.”
The actual power behind this perpetration of destroying the republic, the apex bastion preventing worldwide tyranny, is God’s chief nemesis. Lucifer, that old serpent Satan, pulls the strings and pulls and pushes the levers from somewhere in that basement abyss of wickedness.
The real travesty isn’t all the wrongs visited upon Donald J. Trump since he came down the escalator. He is merely the singular figure we can look at to understand Satan’s working out his plan to bring about the hellish regime of his son of perdition.
We watched as if it were all of the hounds of Hades descending upon this one person once he announced his candidacy for the presidency in 2016. His call was to Make America Great Again. The opposition from every quarter began an assault unlike anything seen in the American political process, already a cesspool, correctly called the Swamp.
Trump endured 24/7 attacks from the Democrat Party, the mainstream news, Hollywood and the entertainment industry, and the so-called deep state (all national and international intelligence people that are totally sold out to Satan’s Ephesians 6:12 globalist cabal. Additionally, he was assaulted by those within his own political party whose fortunes are made and maintained through the Swamp’s money-manufacturing machine.
And those mentioned continued to slam at him while he was president. They have ratcheted up those attacks in recent weeks and days. So much so that they have, through uncounted illegal means and unconstitutional methodologies, managed to get him convicted of crimes that don’t exist.
And the news minions can only parrot the Ephesians 6: 12 lying rant that it is Trump and his ilk that are destroying democracy –that are destroying America. All the while, these wicked in the high places are doing the destroying of the republic.
The dark reverse in direction from truth, justice, and the American way was sensed by many millions, not just by Christians or by Trump supporters on Thursday, May 30, when the verdict of “guilty” on all 34 of the phony charges was announced.
The minions seem to have everything going their way, with the chief nation that has stood against global control by them having apparently been rendered unable to resist them.
To make even clearer where all this is going, we consider that June 1 begins Gay Pride Month, an evil from the deepest reaches of that basement abyss of Luciferian control. The LGBTQ, etc., emerge as if from some labyrinthian portal to turn America and, in effect, the entire world into the generation of earth dwellers described by Jesus as living in times “as it was in the days of Lot.”
It is during this time that the Lord said He will next catastrophically intervene into the wicked affairs of mankind. We are most certainly living presently during that time according to every rubric that defines end times.
While the minions within the globalists’ tyrannical high places plot and achieve the quenching of America’s shining light on the hill of human government, Satan’s plot thickens against God’s chosen nation.
Israel, as anyone paying attention knows, is being barraged with hatred from every quarter. The Jewish people were murdered, raped, and tortured in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack. Yet it is the Jewish people and the Jewish state who are hated and accused of genocide against the very people who voted to be ruled by the Hamas beasts.
The nations of the world are pointing the satanic finger of accusation at Israel. They are demanding that the nation stop the war to destroy the terrorist forces that perpetrated the most deadly acts on Jews since Hitler’s holocaust. Most every nation on earth –including many of the West—are demanding that there be a Palestinian state in the land God promised Israel through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is clearly prophecy for the last days in stage-setting for fulfillment. Zechariah chapter 12 and Joel 3:2 are materializing as we look at the hourly news developments.
The fundamental transformation of America is in process technologically. Artificial Intelligence (AI), which can also be called Antichrist’s Intelligence because the one called the beast will use it in the cruelest of ways, is developing exponentially. Transgender evil and transhuman experimentation and implementation are making strides in attempts to change God’s Order in the most diabolical of ways. The very youngest among humankind are more and more the victims of such horrendous activity.
I am convicted with all that is within my spirit that the God of Heaven has about reached the end of His Holy Patience. Things observed through Holy Spirit-controlled senses, with belief in God’s Prophetic Word at the center of the process, cannot help but come to the Truth of the matters involved. Everything of prophetic import seems to be coming to a head. This world is about to experience a transformation exceedingly more profound than the transformation Barack Obama has seemingly accomplished while wearing sweats in his basement lair.
Jesus Promises: “And when you see all these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your head; for your redemption draws near” (Luke 21:28).
Earth’s Fatal Santayana Moment
Sometime when someone has been wronged by another, the one doing the wrong eventually suffers a devastating wrong himself or herself. It is often said in these twists of reversed circumstances, “What goes around comes around.” In other words, an intentionally bad thing induced by the wrongdoer circles throughout the ether of human interaction and finally comes back to inflict similar tribulation on the one who initiated the trouble.
Right or wrong, we often experience schadenfreude—enjoyment of other’s misfortune—when that happens. I must confess that, for example, a broad smile of pleasure is one of my failings when I see the political tables turn on those who strive to fundamentally change America and have their efforts fail—and even rebound dramatically to their detriment.
Demonically inspired Eastern religionists and occultists call this situational turn of events “karma.” God’s Word frames this as the results of wrongdoing: “Be sure, your sins will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). In this sense, we might say the Bible is warning that what goes around does, in fact, come around.
God’s book on wisdom addresses, in part, the following in this matter:
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after. (Ecclesiastes 1:9–11)
The Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana is given credit for phrasing the warning wrapped up in both the scriptural and the philosophical alerts that say “what goes around comes around”: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
This is an explanation I found in researching Santayana.
Santayana is said to have first used the phrase in his book The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense, Volume 1 as a warning against repeating past mistakes. The quote is one of academia’s most cited and paraphrased lines, and explains why it’s important to study history. The quote means that if you don’t learn from other people’s mistakes, you are likely to make those same mistakes yourself. For example, in politics, lawmakers’ mistakes can result in [detrimental effects on] tens of thousands of lives, or more.
During this wrap-up of the Age of Grace (Church Age), we’re seeing Santayana’s alert coming to fruition. We are on the cusp of the entire world of God-deniers and anti-God forces coming to suffer the consequences of sin.
The people who reject Jesus Christ for salvation are about to experience “earth’s fatal Santayana moment” in that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
The first earth-dwellers to experience cataclysm because they rejected God’s salvation message were, of course, the antediluvians. They felt God’s holy, righteous judgment and wrath begin with the first drops of rain that became a deluge from above and water erupting from the earth below.
The next such catastrophe fell upon the people of the time of the Tower of Babel, when God destroyed their attempt to establish a world totally apart from Heaven’s governance.
The next and final such worldwide calamity because of the rejection of God and His Son will begin its final phase with the event that will be, for believers in Christ, the most glorious adventure imaginable.
The Rapture will snatch millions of Christians into the clouds of Glory while leaving billions of unbelievers behind on a planet about to suffer the worst time of human history. The Rapture will, for these left behind, be “earth’s fatal Santayana moment.”
You don’t have to be one of the billions who will endure this horrific period of human history. Here’s how to be with Christ and the safety of Heaven with God the Father for eternity:
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)
About Enduring unto the End
I’ve been thinking yet again on my heartbeat flat-lining on Good Friday April 22, 2011, and going somewhere on the periphery of Heaven.
Again, reflecting on the many hospital pages that documented my heart stopping (I clinically died three times and was brought back with the defibrillation paddles) was a reminder, in large part, about two things. One, it affirmed that the pre-Trib Rapture is the true biblical view and Jesus is on the very cusp of calling His people–the Church—into Glory. Two, it emphasized how important it is for all believers in Christ to finish the race set before us. What I saw was just what we read in Hebrews chapter 12: the cloud of witnesses were accompanying me as we ran toward the very throne of God. It was a victory lap, and we were headed toward Heaven’s finish line! (That’s the title of a book I hope to write soon.)
Obviously I haven’t finished that race, because here I sit telling you about my experience yet again. I know in the deepest reaches of my soul that what I saw on that day in 2011 was meant to encourage me to “keep on keeping on” in the assignment I’ve been given. We believers must all “endure unto the end.”
“Fatigue makes cowards of us all,” said Vince Lombardi, the famous Green Bay Packer coach of the 1960s known for his draconian training regimen in preparing his players. He put his observation into practice against his opponents by making sure it was the opponents, not his team members, who became fatigued. Each Packer player was totally spent at the end of each practice session, having left all he had on the field.
When strength was returned and fully pumped up on game day, there was more than enough to overpower those not as intensively conditioned. The result was a championship team that continues to be memorialized in sports lore all these years later. No team could match Lombardi’s when the exhaustion set in during the later stages of the games they played during the height of their power. There were teams that could match their natural athletic abilities, but none could match their endurance.
The game was won by the intense time of preparation as much as it was won on the actual field of play.
This sports analogy isn’t far-fetched. Paul, the great champion for taking the Gospel of Christ forth, used just such a comparison to describe his life, death, and glorious future in God’s kingdom:
For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. (2 Timothy. 4:4–8)
Paul was obviously a sports fan. In his writings, he used imagery like running a race, beating the air, finishing the course, and others that indicate he at least took interest in the society of his day. That culture was filled with sports activities that were a natural subject matter for the great teacher to interject as he presented the Gospel and biblical matters.
The games of the day included Olympic-type events, with the races in particular turning on the fans’ cheers. Judges placed crowns of laurels (formed from leaves) upon the victors’ heads.
Paul linked the races of his time to the bema judgment (the judgment seat of Christ), where children of God will receive crowns of victory based upon how they ran the race for Christ’s cause during their lifetimes. The very nature of such a race indicates the necessity of enduring–persevering—through the long, sometimes uphill miles of living righteously.
Most often, Paul used such analogies to indicate, as in the verses above, the fact that Christians should be willing to endure. In many places, the apostle taught us how to build our spiritual stamina. That preparation most often was wrapped around prayer, Scripture study, and practical action–witnessing and teaching truth to others.
God’s Word telling us to endure is one topic that has caused anxiety-ridden questions among some. It seems to some that the command to “endure,” according to the language used, is a requirement for achieving salvation. One must “endure unto the end” to be saved—to win in the game of life, thus secure one’s place in Heaven for eternity.
Endurance is one thing God requires of His children. As a matter of fact, He demands it. But, what does the term “endurance” used in the Scriptures, causing anxieties among some believers, mean, exactly?
A close examination of the key verses involved is necessary to understand the term in God’s prophetic lexicon. One such reference is found in Paul’s words about a departure from Bible doctrine at the end of the Church Age:
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. (2 Timothy 4:3–5)
Paul was prophesying a time–indeed, I am convinced we are in that time—when many within the very heart of the Christian Church will move away from preaching and teaching that people are lost and need the Savior, Jesus Christ, alone (John 14:6). This failure to endure the sound doctrine taught by Jesus, Paul, and the other apostles would, Paul indicated, be a fatigue that would make cowards of many, causing them and those they teach to turn to lies.
We see today this very thing. The Gospel message that declares humankind is lost in sin, thus must turn to the shed blood of Jesus Christ for remission of that deadly sin, has been changed to give the feel-good message that God is love and would never condemn those He knows to be less than perfect. The fable makers teach the do-good message that we must go along with the world of philanthropists who preach a social gospel to feed, clothe, and, in general, show the have-nots that humanism is their savior.
Much of the Church today, thus, has failed to “endure until the end.”
Jesus pronounced, in strong language, the role “endurance” will play in the days leading up to His second advent:
And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. (Matthew 24:11–13)
Jesus even asks in one instance whether He will find any faith on earth when He returns. And, this is where the anxiety comes in for some. Is Jesus saying that those who do not hold to absolute Bible truth until the very end won’t be “saved”? Must we—and those of the Tribulation era—never slip up and sin, departing from truth, or else suffer the eternal damnation of Hell fire?
The answer is found within the character of the One who issued the solemn statement. Jesus, who said, “It is finished,” when He completed the redemption plan of God on the cross at Calvary, also said:
My Father, which gave [them] me, is greater than all; and no [man] is able to pluck [them] out of my Father’s hand. (John 10:29)
Saints “endure” through Christ. We don’t have the ability to resist this fallen world apart from the strength found only in our Savior. The supernatural endurance required to “endure unto the end” is not in us, but in Jesus, who paid the full price for our eternal souls:
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8–9)
When we are “in” Christ, we will “endure,” because Christ “endures.” He is the same yesterday, today, and forever!
Now, this doesn’t excuse the Christian from remaining faithful to God. In that sense, “endurance” is our responsibility. It is our responsibility to the very end of our lives or until the Rapture of Christ’s Body, the Church. We are to strengthen ourselves for spiritual battle in order to not become fatigued through prayer, Bible study, and telling others about Christ. We put on the whole armor of God as we are directed to do in Ephesians 6.
God equips us. He doesn’t demand such a hard thing without providing the ability–even the absolute guarantee—of that sort of “endurance” that takes His child “unto the end.”
Those who fail to exercise their witness, in whatever way God directs, become flabby, ineffective ambassadors in Christ’s royal service. There is always a heavy price to pay for such sloth—not through the loss of salvation for those who are truly in Christ’s grip, but through a loss of position within the kingdom of God.
Those who fail to endure in the center of God’s will suffer loss of rewards when they kneel before their Savior at the judgment seat of Christ.
That is one primary reason we at Rapture Ready exhort Christians to join in our efforts in these closing days of the Age of Grace–the Church Age. There are many, many opportunities to labor, to “endure,” during the trying times presented by this dynamic website effort to reach the lost world for Christ.
Many are writing articles, many are writing encouraging emails, and some are giving in other ways to God’s work on raptureready.com.
One area we very much need help with is finances. Donations have dwindled, yet the ministry-associated needs of Christ have never been more pronounced. Enduring to the end also means supporting Christ-centered ministries with our monetary offerings. If hundreds of millions of dollars can be contributed to myriad worldly causes, many of which actively support anti-God activities, why don’t those who hold to Bible truth support faithful ministries with greatly abundant offerings?
Jesus said: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21).
Let us run the race until we reach Heaven’s finish line. You and I will then hear the Lord who died for us say:
Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. (Matthew 25:23)
End-times Betrayal
The one signal that most powerfully proves where the world is currently located on God’s prophetic timeline is Israel’s present position within the panoply of nation-states.
It is undeniably obvious that Israel today stands in the bull’s eye of rage. This is true in the case of being targeted by the Jewish state’s perennial antagonists, the Arab and Persian Islamist enemies. It is true in the case of the entire international community, whose constituent nations see Israel as the congestive blockage to regional and world peace. But it is the growing antagonism by this United States presidential administration’s operatives that is most disconcerting while this beleaguered planet wobbles toward a time of unprecedented trouble.
As a matter of fact, that coming time of unparalleled strife that will bring all nations to Armageddon is termed “the time of Jacob’s trouble” by Isaiah the prophet:
Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble. (Jeremiah 30:7a)
And, it is Jacob’s trouble—the prophesied end-of-days dastardly treatment of Israel by the nations of earth—that will cause the God of Heaven to bring them to Armageddon. This is what the prophet Joel foretells:
I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. (Joel 3:2)
This will be the gathering of the nations of earth predicted in the book of Revelation:
For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty…And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. (Revelation 16:14, 16)
This will be the culmination of humankind dealing treacherously with God’s chosen people, the Jews. The Lord’s promise to Abraham includes severe repercussions for anyone who would curse the progeny of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob:
And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. (Genesis 12:3)
God’s declaration is most dramatically validated by looking at twentieth-century history. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime made hatred of and genocide against the Jews the focus of the unalloyed evil they spewed. The ashes of the Führer and his Nazi colleagues are scattered in ignominious disgrace across the landscape that Josef Goebbels and the Nazi propagandists arrogantly boasted would be über alles—the all-powerful homeland for their thousand-year Reich.
Any consideration in research of Germany’s history involving the last two years of World War II and the years immediately following must acknowledge that it was as if the very wrath of God was upon the nation. Such documentation includes black-and-white film footage of German men and women forced by Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower to walk by the skeletal remains of thousands of Jewish corpses. That, Eisenhower stated, was so that the German people and the world would never forget the Holocaust. Its aftermath would forever be recorded.
Yet today, mainstream news journalists are more and more denying the genocide that took perhaps six million Jewish lives as well as the lives of other peoples. They show their loss of memory—even their anti-Semitism—by not jumping full-force down the throats of the elite Ivy League professors who regurgitate the lie that the Holocaust is a fable conjured by the Jews of the world. Rarely is there a repudiation of such blatant lies coming from the would-be destroyers of the Jewish State and the Jewish people.
Tragically, the refusal to educate generations that came after World War II on the truth about the insane treatment of the house of Israel is leading to a future time of even greater atrocities, thus judgment, according to God’s Word. The God of Heaven will react violently—more violently, even, than He reacted to the death-dealing of the Nazi demoniacs:
The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it… it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. (Zechariah 12:1–3, 29)
Now we come to the matter of “end-times betrayal.” This blog entry’s title is emphatic in its pronouncement, because the maneuvering actions by this president’s political party in dealing with Israel are wrapped in an impenetrable fog of political doublespeak. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham made manifest the doublespeak in his grilling of the Democrat secretary of state, who is a former top general in the American military establishment.
Lindsey Graham [grilled] Defense Secretary Austin on the Biden Administration’s freezing of weapons shipments to Israel, [asked] if Austin would support dropping the atom bombs on Japan.
Graham asked, “What’s Israel interested in? Do you believe Iran really wants to kill all the Jews if they could? The Iranian regime. Do you believe Hamas is serious when they say we’ll keep doing it over and over again? Do you agree that they will if they can?” Austin answered, “I do.” He also answered in the affirmative when asked if Hezbollah was a terrorist organization. (“Lindsey Graham: ‘Blocking weapons to Israel obscene, Hiroshima, Nagasaki on steroids,’| Israel National News – Arutz Sheva, May 8, 2024)
This former general admitted in the committee probe that Israel, in effect, had a right to defend itself. But at the same time he, as secretary of defense for the Biden administration, withheld promised vital weapons shipments Israel needs to keep its raging enemies from a repeat of October 7, 2023, when Hamas slaughtered and raped 1,200 or more Israelis and others in an unprovoked attack. Hamas, as of this writing, is believed to continue to hold many hostages, including a number of corpses. The terrorist captors reportedly continue to rape and torture their captives.
President Biden himself said he would never give Israel offensive weapons, only defensive ones. This itself is an insanely irrational response to the matter of America remaining faithful in its commitment to its chief ally in the Middle-East–the only truly democratic nation-state in the region.
Israel is one thing more. It is the only invincible nation on earth. And America has nothing to do with its invincibility. Here are the words of the One who will never betray His chosen nation’s promise of invincibility:
This is what the Lord says, “He who appoints the sun to shine by day, Who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord Almighty is His Name; Only if these ordinances vanish from My sight,” declares the Lord, “will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before Me.” (Jeremiah 31:35–36)
I DIED AND WENT TO HEAVEN! :: Terry James and Jonathan Brentner
Destruction like the days of Lot?
We are in the middle of the spring storm season here in my state. Having just stayed up half the night and early morning listening to sirens screaming out tornado warnings, I sat thinking about some of the destructive reports from that line of storms. —That, and anticipating another round of severe weather building to our west in Oklahoma, in an area known as “Tornado Alley,” the origination point of the most devastating twisters on the planet.
When that news finished blaring those reports, I then switched to one of my favorite early-morning programs: Dr. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist of Dallas—Pathway to Victory.
He is in a series waxing eloquent on end-times prophecy. As part of the message that aired that particular day, Dr. Jeffress made some thought-provoking comments regarding the Rapture of the Church and what might be the attempted explanation for the millions of people instantaneously disappearing when Christ shouts, “Come up here!”
I have, myself, often waxed not-nearly-so-eloquently on that very topic, in sessions at churches and prophecy conferences across the nation and even out of the country. My firm belief, of course, is that we as a generation are in the times like they were in “the days of Lot” in Sodom, as forewarned by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
I have said and written frequently that I believe America might well have been the nation on the Lord’s mind when He gave the prophecy recorded in Luke 17:28–30:
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.
The United State is the apex nation of history, in terms of human achievement and material wealth. This is in keeping with the biblical description of Sodom, where Lot lived. Sodom and Gomorrah were cities of greatest wealth.
Also like Sodom of Lot’s era, America is perhaps the most wicked geographical area of its time, exporting every sort of vileness, such as pornography, and embracing such evil as the murder of millions of children in their mothers’ wombs. Homosexuality is now at the heart of our nation, with LGBTQ, etc., ruling the roost under a presidential administration and leftist government that allow such Sodom-like behavior to bloom and control.
Thinking on the possible destruction effervescing on the day the thunderstorms were building to our west and listening to Dr. Jeffress talk about the coming destruction following the Rapture and the possible explanations for it, I considered a point I might have missed with regard to Jesus’ words about the days of Lot.
Dr. Jeffress conjectured that when the Rapture occurs, it could possibly be at a time of great catastrophe. That is, the Rapture could coincide with something such as nuclear war erupting at exactly the same moment, with missiles flying. This would provide those trying to explain the millions vanishing. For example, it might be said to be a physiological reaction and interaction within human bodies, with such unprecedented thermodynamics taking place.
I have believed and expressed that, like when Lot and his family were removed from Sodom by the angels, then Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed that very day, America, for example, will suffer great destruction when Christians leave in the Rapture. This scenario certainly seems to fit all things, like economy, societies, and everything else crashing at once and bringing a great cry for someone to rescue the world, to bring things back to the way there were before the destruction. This would be a perfect storm allowing Satan to bring his man of sin onto the stage of history.
Dr. Jeffress’ engendering the thought that the Rapture could take place during a great calamity caused me to consider Paul’s words as recorded in 2 Thessalonians 2. The prophecy tells us that God, Himself, will send “strong delusion” to those left behind after the Rapture. And God does that so all who wouldn’t accept His truth during this Age of Grace, and who will not do so following the great disappearance, will “believe a lie.”
The lie will no doubt include that the people who left were removed for reasons Antichrist and his regime will explain. We’ve examined before that UFOs might have a part in this great lie.
So, sudden destruction, like the sudden destruction of Sodom, certainly might take place at the same time the Church goes to be with Christ in the clouds of Glory.
Many of you might already have concluded this on your own, before my epiphany. But it’s an alteration, of sorts, to my thinking on these last of the last days.
It all fits better than my previous thoughts—that America, as one example, might suffer a more or less slow-motion collapse and eventual crash of the economy and of our national existence following the catching-up of the Church. Regardless, my original contention—that the Rapture will cause the great collapse of America and the world into chaos—remains unchanged. Dr. Jeffress’ TV presentation offers the real possibility, even the probability, that the great disappearance will take place at the same time of national and worldwide collapse in sudden destruction, exactly like in Jesus’ prophecy of Luke 17:28–30.
In any case, you don’t want to be on earth when whatever is going to happen happens. It will bring destruction far greater than any storm of nature one can imagine. Here is how to escape that coming time that will be like the day Lot and his family left Sodom and the city was obliterated. You can be within the safety of Christ’s arms forever, whether you’re entering Heaven through the portal of death or go to Him while you’re still alive at the time of the Rapture.
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)
Deafening Silence! :: By Jan Markell
A ministry supporter in Washington State a few years ago, sent me a flyer that was handed out in his church. It is more mocking. The flyer asks if folks have met “End-Times Eddie” in the church. It denigrates “Eddie” and suggests he is so focused on end-times that he has missed all the present opportunities and people in front of him.
“Eddie” is gloom and doom. Why isn’t he looking for Jesus to bring Heaven to earth right now they ask?
Then, the flyer suggests some questions for the church’s small groups. Here are a few samples:
- What are your emotions when you encounter “End-Times Eddie”?
- Is the last days’ message one of hope or fear?
- Jesus told us to pray for “your will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven. “What does Heaven on Earth look like today?
- Who in your life needs Heaven to come to earth right now?
Two things stand out to me:
1) Here is just one more church preaching, “Come, Lord Jesus, but not too soon.”
2) They have embraced the false teaching promoted heavily by the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) that we can have Heaven on earth now. This is called Kingdom Now or Dominion Theology.
Show me just one square mile of this planet that can demonstrate a Garden of Eden-like Heaven on Earth. You will find only chaos. And the church trying to perfect the world for the next one million years won’t fix it.
Those of us who have promoted the important message that the King is coming are painfully aware that young believers no longer uphold Bible prophecy as a key component of the faith. They would rather focus on social justice, the green agenda, and Christian Palestinianism.
When I was a teenager in my church, we had regular prophecy conferences and I never once heard that Israel was “occupying” her God-given country. I never would have heard the denigrating title of “End-Times Eddie.”
I was never taught that we had to “save the planet” because I learned that it was hopelessly lost until Christ’s return. I was never given the delusional teaching that, in time, my church would be able to “save the planet” by seizing the Genesis mandate of dominion — which is about dominion over animals and not mankind.
Kingdom Now or Dominion Theology tries to humanize God and deify man. Sadly, the world will continue to deteriorate and spiral into chaos, forcing man to consider the hope of Heaven and abandon thoughts of a glorified earth. Only when Jesus Christ returns at the Second Coming will all things be made new!
The church is not in the business of taking anything away from Satan but the souls of men. The world is a sinking Titanic ripe for judgment, not Garden of Eden perfection. Jesus will take dominion of the cleansed earth. For men to speak of doing that before the judgment of this earth is spiritually arrogant.
Yet “End-Times Eddie” is the one with unsound theology according to the Washington church, not those preaching this unsound theology that the church can perfect the world.
One of my conference attendees wrote me recently. He had been tagged an “End-Times Eddie.” He writes, “I no longer feel safe talking about the issues you deal with in your ministry. I am scorned and ridiculed by friends, family, and co-workers if I talk about the Lord’s imminent return or any prominent headline. To suggest that life, as we know it may end soon, is simply the ultimate in lunacy to all of these folks. I feel so alone.”
David Barnhart once wrote in his magazine Vine and Branches, “God’s prophetic clock is counting down to the appointed hour. If you don’t believe it, listen to the latest news reports or read the paper. Scriptures are replete with signs, prophecies, and promises of Christ’s return.”
He continues, “The signs are everywhere, yet the silence of the churches is deafening when it comes to proclaiming this vital truth of Scripture. Slumbering preachers and sleeping saints need to wake up to the reality that the King is coming and His coming may be sooner than any of us realize.”
Bible prophecy is given as a light shining in a dark place (2 Peter 1:19). Talking about it should not instill fear in the Christian; rather, provide confirmation that the “blessed hope” is ever nearer and the time ever shorter to snatch people from the fire.
There are many “End-Time Eddies” around. May their numbers increase. May our pulpits grow bolder and talk about things that really matter. Our message is hardly doom and gloom. It may be about the only good news left. The supposed ‘good news’ that we’re taking the planet back to the Garden of Eden isn’t the truth — it’s an end-time delusion.
I’m honored to be among the “End-Times Eddie” crowd. I’ve got the best news there is. This world isn’t it. God believed the topic of eschatology was so important that He devoted one book exclusively to it: Revelation. Almost 30% of the Bible is prophecy-focused.
This message, when coupled with warnings, encourages evangelism and repentance like no other. So, I’m looking up because the King is coming, perhaps even today.
And today we celebrate #76 for Israel – her re-birth 76 years ago today. She’s not the miracle of the 21st Century. She’s the miracle of all time! If God says He will do it, He does! He’s a covenant keeper.
Terry James Prophecy Line 