Just when it seemed that much new couldn’t be added to the stage being set for producing the Antichrist regime, yet another component has literally exploded into the picture, sending the world of conspiracy theorists—both the Bible prophecy and the secular sorts—into quantum speculation.

I write, of course, about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Saturday, July 13. And certainly the assassination attempt must be considered one of the most dramatic occurrences in the history of the nation–maybe in the history of the world.

Exactly what the dastardly attack means in thinking on setting up things for the fulfillment of Bible prophecy, I don’t pretend to know. But I consider it a duty–an assignment—as a fellow watchman to look into the matters involved.

First to consider is the fact that the initial thought of most, in seeing how near Mr. Trump came to instant death, is that the bullet hit only his ear and missed entering his head. Immediately, it was almost like groupthink. Many observers expressed that it was divine intervention. The thought was suggested even by many within the Democratic Party. The fact that Trump was spared turned attention to God and His ability to perform miracles at any time.

Then the “Trump Derangement Syndrome” kicked in, and insanity entered the mix, as folks pondered what the world had just witnessed. I heard interviews conducted on the streets of New York City, Los Angeles, and other places. The question: “How do you view this seeming miracle, with Trump’s near miss with instant death?”

The question was put to those who were chosen because of their fanatic dislike of the former president. Without exception, as I heard the interviews, the people, sounding to be in their twenties and up to their forties, concluded the whole thing was staged to make Trump’s election more certain.

Each said in one way or another that the former president’s ear wasn’t actually hit, but that it was all a visual deception of some sort when the ear seemed to erupt and the blood flew.

When asked about the fact that one man died and two others were critically injured from the bullets that missed Trump, almost all of those I heard said that it “wasn’t surprising.” “Trump will do anything to win.” “The life of others means nothing to him or the Republican Party,” was the seemingly synchronized mantra.

None of the interviewees could explain how this ruse took place–how the deception was arranged. But none had a moment’s hesitation in saying basically the identical thing: It wasn’t a miracle, but a dastardly, Nazi-type lie to elect the Hitler-like destroyer of democracy–an invective drilled into the heads of the Trump Derangement Syndrome fanatics for months, even years.

Out of all this have gushed many sorts of theories and declarations. This ranges from prophetic ponderings to secular philosophizing and punditry. Some doing the speculation paint Donald Trump as almost deity, having the finger of the God of Heaven designating him as the sure victor in the 2024 presidential election. An almost worshipful attitude seems to inhabit this thinking.

Others, even within the prophetic community, suggest Trump might be the foretold Antichrist–thus because of the head wound he survived.

My own thinking, I must admit, started the fiction writer within me seeing the whole thing as the Deep State’s clever plot to get rid of the person, if elected, who would hold up the globalists’ plans. The automatic fire that immediately followed the would-be assassin’s first eight shots, taking him out within two seconds of his firing, my novelist mind informed, was planned with knowledge of the shooter. Except the shooter wouldn’t know about his being immediately eliminated so he couldn’t be interrogated about the plot in which he was promised to be whisked off to a safe spot where he couldn’t be punished for the crime.

All nonsense—the speculation above as well as my own thoughts of what a great plot for a spy thriller all this would make.

Although…I since have learned that the twenty-year-old shooter had three encrypted platform accounts overseas and a second cellphone on which was found a number of strange contacts. And it is reported widely that strong evidence has come to light of an Iranian plot to assassinate the former president because Trump was responsible for taking out one of Iran’s chief terrorist assassins while he was in office.

All this taken into account, I’ve nonetheless come to embrace the view that the foiled assassination of the former president was, at least in part, Heaven’s demonstration of power to a world of inhabitants who are increasingly tracking in a direction diametrically away from God. Anti-God forces have, through this obviously divine act of protection of the man at the center not only of national political controversy, but of world political controversy, been given proof that the Deity’s Psalm 2 warning continues to be in effect. The Lord continues to restrain evil and wickedness, and that is why the anti-God forces continue to see their grandiose plans to establish a New World Order meet with derision at every juncture.

Donald Trump might have been spared as the Lord’s gracious act of calling him to personal repentance. That is something we know our Lord does to every person ever born. There are reports that Trump seems to be a very changed man and recognizes the saving of his life as providential. I pray that is a sign he has said “yes” to the Lord’s call. However, I don’t believe for a moment that the former president was spared because Mr. Trump is destined to “Make America Great Again.” I believe that at this late date on God’s prophetic timeline, America and the world have gone too far down that track leading from the Lord’s corrective action. Now, it seems from observation and, I believe, spiritual insight, that the time for Sodom-like judgment is very, very near.

More to the point, perhaps, I believe it is our Lord alerting believers that He is indeed in complete control of every situation. It should be seen, I think, as divine encouragement. We should take comfort from this demonstration of power, as we should from the magnificent promise given us through the Apostle Paul:

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. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–18)

Geopolitical dynamics are at a fever pitch. That is, there is chaos in every direction we look. There is a sense of a mighty shaking within the stratospheric global powers that be.

Rather than making the great progress toward instituting their much-ballyhooed Great Reset, those powers are, while God restrains, bumping in a lurching fashion against one barrier after another to their blueprint to Build Back Better.

It is as if they sense viscerally that they must have everything in place no later than the year 2030 for whatever is coming next in the evolution of humankind. And this is something they themselves must control, or else the planet is doomed.

We who observe the world as it has morally degraded to this point sense just as strongly as the globalist elites that there is indeed a reset that needs to take place. We, through frustration and Lot-strength vexation sometimes feel as if we, too, are bumping up against barriers to the great change we desire more than anything. Why does the Rapture not happen? is the lament from many of us in this camp. And there is no doubt from this pre-Trib viewpoint: Planet earth is indeed facing doom.

We have looked at before in this column the human-centered drive toward having everything in place for the Great Reset. Now, with the turmoil boiling more intensely by the day, with America’s unique position of nation-state dominance, but in chaotic upheaval politically, the holdup to implementation of their “Build Back Better” effort is exacerbated.

Here, again, is the story of the dilemma the New World Order-builders face.

The United Nations will meet in September for the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, as well as the highly-anticipated “Summit of the Future” where nations will sign the so-called “Pact for the Future.” The Pact is expected to call for declaring a “planetary emergency.” What does this agreement and its policies mean for the future of individual and national sovereignty?

By the end of September, the United Nations member states may vote to radically alter the UN itself, what some are calling UN 2.0, and the very nature of how nation-states make decisions regarding the future of the planet. The UN will convene for the 79th session of the General Assembly in New York City starting on September 10th in New York City. The high-level general debate will begin on the 24th of September.

Although the UNGA is an annual meeting, this year’s gathering will be unique because of the addition of the Summit of the Future, a UN sponsored event taking place in NYC on the 22nd and 23rd of September. The summit has been in the making since at least 2022. It is the latest attempt by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to “rally the troops,” and garner more support for a rapid completion of the Agenda 2030 goals set by the UN in 2015.

In May 2023, Guterres revealed that efforts to complete Agenda 2030, and the corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), were failing. Guterres warned that only 12 percent of the SDGs were on track to be completed. He said progress on 50 percent of the goals is “weak and insufficient,” while 30 percent of the SDGs have “stalled or gone into reverse.” He predicted that if the current trend holds only 30 percent of nations will accomplish SDG1, focused on poverty, by 2030…

For those reading between the lines and seeing through the buzzwords, the language of these documents rings of globalist-speak intended to override or outlaw national and individual sovereignty in favor of world government. A new monetary system, a renewal of the multilateral system – all of this is designed to sell the public on the idea that the UN (or some new international body) is needed to take humanity safely into the future. In truth, we are likely to see major steps towards the creation of a one-world government at the Summit for the Future. (Derrick Broze, “UN 2.0 Coming This Fall – Setting The Stage For Global Government,” Activist Post, 5/1/24)

A great rush to bring into being the Great Reset is moving toward the fall of 2024. Some prophecy watchers from the pre-Trib camp have offered that the fall of this year might be a time particularly likely for God’s Great Reset to take place.

Certainly, with all things shaping for the Tribulation seeming to be front and center, both resets might coincide at any moment.

You want to be caught up into God’s Great Reset when Christ calls all believers to Himself–not caught in the satanically spawned reset on planet earth that will bring on the worst time of human history.

Here is how to go to Jesus when He calls in 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)

Walking through our living room the other day after being outside, I remarked to my wife that the one-worlders are intending to take away our air-conditioning. It was at an hour the temperature in our state had reached a heat index of 115. And that included considerable humidity. It was about as bad as it gets here during the summer.

It was unimaginable that such a thing as removing air-conditioning could actually be in the planning–at least for us here in America. That would cause a riot was my fleeting thought as I then turned to other things.

But turning the thermostats up or down, depending upon the season, is just one of the changes towards the new way of life being planned by the New World Order architects.

Klaus Schwab, perhaps the top spokesman for these globalist would-be masters, has instructed the elitist followers of globalism that they must “force” humanity into a world ruled by artificial intelligence and other dehumanizing technologies. He has intimated to them and us that all under their coming rule will “own nothing and be happy.”

We must, the mantra goes, do this for the good of the planet. There are too many “eaters” and too many abusing the earth through carbon-footprint damage. Ultimately, the population must be brought below two billion worldwide (that’s the latest figure I’ve heard). I guess the figure of five hundred million as the top population allowed to exist was somehow changed with the mysterious and sudden removal of the Georgia Guidestones a few years ago.

When confronted with the question—“What about those who jet around the world, like Mr. Schwab and others of his ilk, and their carbon footprints?”—the answer is similar to that given by Schwab’s fellow elitist, John Kerry. He has answered it by saying something to the effect that their activities are critical to see to it that the planet survives, so their travel requirements are justified. (In other words, they know what is best for us.) I guess that makes them gods in their own eyes, and they expect us to agree, as the following excerpt somewhat informs.

World Economic Forum founder and director Klaus Schwab, speaking at the WEF’s recently concluded summer meeting in China, has informed his elitist followers that ushering in the globalist agenda will require humanity to be “forced” into a “collaboration” with the unelected organization.

And the time for forced collaboration has now arrived.

Schwab made the declaration during his opening remarks at the WEF’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions, also known as the “Summer Davos,” in Dalian, China.

He praised China for its economic policies, which are seen by the globalists as the model of top-down centralized planning in a high-tech surveillance state run through smart cities, smart EVs, smart homes, smart appliances, smart meters, AI, digital IDs and CBDCs, all of which hold one thing in common—they come with on-off switches not under the control of the end user, which is we the people.

In their ideal world, we live as slaves at the privilege of our masters. We get out of line, they can cut off our electric power, our electric car, our electronic digital money, everything.

This is why Schwab told his globalist comrades at a previous meeting two years ago to expect an “angrier world.” When you force people to live in ways that controvert their best interests, it tends to make them angry!

They know their policies related to a green economy, perpetual wars, severe restrictions on travel, farming, eating meat and a host of other activities considered crucial to a middle-class lifestyle will be extremely unpopular and cause civil wars on top of the world war they already have planned.

Remember, as the 2023 World Governments summit, the globalists told us that there would need to be a “shock” event in order to usher in a new world order. Now they’re being even more honest and telling us that we will be FORCED to accept their new world order. (“World Government Summit: ‘Shock’ Needed to Usher in ‘World Order Transformation’,” Slay News)

These pernicious planners have no idea of the nature of the shock that will give them the power to inflict their wickedness on the people of planet earth. However, the demonic minions of their Ephesians 6:12 cabal do know about the shock that will produce the hell on earth the would-be human masters think will produce a Utopia.

Satan, the chief planner, does know of the shock that’s right around the proverbial corner. That stunning event will be the Rapture of believers in Jesus Christ. Satan knows the removal of all in God’s family is coming. He has his minions in place and has been working feverishly over these recent months and years to set the stage for his son of perdition to step upon the power platform of history during the Tribulation. He doesn’t know when that “shock” is coming, but he knows God cannot lie. Satan knows it is coming, and the world is being prepared to accept and endure his devilish blueprint.

You don’t want to be under the brutality of that planning, under that blueprint. To avoid going through the seven years of hell on earth, you must accept God’s grace gift offer of salvation found only in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. You can then be in the safety of Heaven’s clouds of Glory during the time Satan has planned for fallen humanity.

Here is how to go to Jesus when He calls believers to Himself, perhaps very soon.

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

As I compose this article from the hotel in Colorado Springs where the Prophecy Watchers Conference is being held, significant events surrounding this conference come to mind.

The last Prophecy Watchers meetings I attended started on October 7, 2023, with a profound prophetic stage-setting event. On that date, of course, Israel was attacked in a brutal way by Hamas, the chief terrorist organization headquartered in the Gaza.

As many as 1,400 Israelis and others were literally butchered in the most horrendous way imaginable. The details are too grisly to write of here; I’m sure many of you have seen reports of that blood-drenched attack and the satanic wickedness that took place.

Those of us who were at that 2023 Norman, Oklahoma, conference talked among ourselves about it being significant that the attack took place at the moment we were opening the meetings. It had to be, we concluded, more than coincidence. There had to be some providential significance to the timing.

I sense the same now. I continue to believe it was prophetically consequential, not coincidental, that Hamas attacked on that celebratory get-together in Israel.

Prophecy Watchers is among the Bible prophecy ministries most faithful to adhering to true biblical study of end things. It was at that conference that this heinous attack could be properly understood, and thus it was during the series of lectures.

And make no mistake that the attack has proven monumental in terms of setting the stage for things to come–looking toward the Tribulation era, Daniel’s seventieth week.

There should be no doubt the attack has opened the doors of worldwide hatred for the nation and the Jewish people. By that, I mean Zechariah 12 has suddenly and full-in-our-faces been made manifest. The entire world seems to have taken up anti-Semitic rage. Many young people in every major university in America, and those around much of the world, now chant the same hate-filled mantra: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Hundreds of studies have documented the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis, and thousands books and documentaries have been written and produced telling of that Holocaust. Yet in one day, when Hamas attacked, the demonic portal seemed to be opened that again unleashed the genocidal demons across the world. Hatred for God’s chosen people and nation is on the rise to levels not thought possible just a decade or two previously. The Jews are blamed for defending themselves against these vicious hordes from Hell. Israel and the Jews are to blame for their “occupation” of “Palestine”—a state that doesn’t exist.

This matter at this late date of the Age of Grace is profound. It forewarns of development toward the time Jesus Himself said would be the worst of all human history (Matthew 24:21). It is readying the world of rebellious humankind and God’s chosen people for the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7).

And I believe, like in the case of the Norman conference of October 7, 2023, that it is not coincidental, but extremely consequential, that a profound validation of the proof of God’s prophetic Word was manifested at the time of this Colorado Springs Prophecy Watchers conference I’m currently attending.

The wickedness that foists evil against all of God’s truth was dealt a blow of heavenly resistance in the presidential debate of Thursday night, June 27, 2024.

I am not being political in pronouncing my findings. All politics are corrupted by human incorrigibility—of fallen humanity’s rebellion against God. I’m not promoting one political party over another.

But I am trying to say the party most responsible for foisting the wickedness and evil on America and the world was in the spotlight when the cognitively dysfunctional leader of the free world was there for all to see.

To me, it was total validation of God’s Word on those who turn their back on God—who rebel against His governance. They are turned over to a reprobate mind–that is, they are given over to doing things that are upside down from rational thought and action. Can we think anything other is true of the so-called woke mindset and the sheer lunacy we’ve witnessed in recent weeks, months, and years?

Again, to me, God’s Holy Word of prophecy is validated beyond any doubt by the upside-down belief system of wokeness being exposed for all to see on worldwide TV through the often not-understandable thinking processes demonstrated by the person who has been designated leader of the so-called progressives and leader of the free world.

God expressed in the most holy, caustic terms His disapproval of those who come against His divine order and His Son Jesus Christ. Here is what the psalmist says in the matter:

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. (Psalm 2:1–5)

To have this display of God’s derision on the reprobate “wokeness” just as our prophecy conference was beginning is, to me, nothing less than consequential to unfolding prophecy. God the Holy Spirit is still restraining evil in a mighty way. He is holding back the beginning of World War III, while the Ephesians 6:12 minions are doing all within their power to ignite the unleashing of nuclear conflict.

This cannot happen until all of God’s family on earth is called to be with Jesus Christ in the clouds of Glory.

Don’t miss that call. Here is how to be sure to go to Christ when the Rapture takes place–which can be at any moment.

That if you will confess with your mouth the lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised hinm  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)

Authors note:  Due to my need to concentrate on other matters as I prepare for speaking at the Colorado Springs Prophecy Watchers Conference, my commentaries this week will be selections I’ve written in the recent past. This is from February 20, 2023.

This Rapture Generation

My commentary title this week will likely be construed by some as audacious because it implies that people of Earth alive now are those who will, without doubt, be the generation of believers who go to Christ in the Rapture, doesn’t it?

Those who have named specific dates for that stupendous event have earned consternation through the years, and deservedly so. Jesus Himself declared that no one but the Father knows the day or hour when it will occur. And certainly, to date, that truth has played out exactly as He said.

Yet, at the same time, the Apostle Paul implied that he would be part of the generation that would be raptured:

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 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. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:15–18)

Paul obviously expected to be part of those who would be living when Christ calls believers to Himself in the Rapture. The pronouns used are pretty clear, aren’t they? Yet Paul has been dead for two thousand years or so, and the Rapture is still in the future, as we are all too aware.

So is God’s Word (the “Word” who, in fact, is the Lord Jesus Christ, according to John 1:1) less than truthful through the prophecy given Paul regarding the Rapture? We know the answer to that is a resounding “no.” God cannot lie, therefore we are to think through Paul’s words with our born-again, Holy Spirit-influenced discernment to understand the statement. Paul’s declaration was as audacious as my title for this commentary, I think.

So what is this seeming contradiction all about?

The answer, I believe, is found in another familiar statement by Paul, one we use frequently in studying the Rapture.

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. (Titus 2:13)

I believe that wrapped up in this profound statement of faith is an instruction to all believers. During this Age of Grace (Church Age), we’re to be earnestly expecting Jesus to snatch us from this fallen sphere at any moment. This instruction—this commandment—has been in effect since the Church was born (Acts chapter 2). Every believer since that time should treat the promise of the Rapture as if it absolutely will take place while we are still living on Earth.

As a matter of fact, all who love the prospect of Christ’s appearing are promised a crown of righteousness.

With this in mind, the title, “This Rapture Generation,” is appropriate for those of us who are believers now. Jesus will come for us in the Rapture at any moment—perhaps today!

I hope to go much deeper in expressing this certainty. And we do go deeper with each and every article presented. At least that is our aim.

The signals are brilliantly projected for those with discerning spirits to understand. Our Lord is unfolding prophetic signals of such unmistakable significance that we would have to look in another direction to miss just how near we are to the Tribulation. The Rapture is thus right at the exit door of human history for believers in Jesus Christ.

Sadly, most who should be helping God’s children focus on the lateness of the hour continue to feed only baby’s milk about how to grow into Christian adulthood.

Such spiritual food isn’t bad, of course. The Scripture is necessary to spiritual growth. But there comes the time that requires us to take a deep look into just how late the hour is on God’s prophetic timeline. We are now very near that instant of Rapture.

This is almost certainly the Rapture generation, and I cannot feel sheepish in declaring it.

Tell everyone you know, using your own words, the soul-saving truth encompassed by Paul’s Holy Spirit-given formula for going in the Rapture when Christ calls:

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)

The Lord tells, through the prophet Joel, the dire recompense for the rebellious evil of opposing His righteousness:

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. (Joel 9–14)

We are at this moment very near the beginning of that time, at the end of which everyone will be gathered into the Valley of Jehoshaphat–the killing field of Armageddon.

As Joel declares, we now see wickedness growing daily—even hourly. It is indeed an exponential growth of evil directed primarily at God’s prescribed order of things for planet earth.

Armies of the world, particularly those of nations primary to prophetic fulfillment, have already turned pruninghooks and ploughshares into swords and spears that are the incredibly powerful instruments of modern warfare. They have awakened the men of war and gathered them, as witnessed by Russia’s threatened invasion of Ukraine and China’s voracious glances at Taiwan. The world is, to any observer with a rational eye for developments, preparing to make war.

It is just a matter of time until the multitudes will gather to oppose God and storm toward His touchstone to humanity, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. They will at first rage against one another, each wanting to make that satanic prize–Jerusalem and Mount Moriah—their conquest. They will be filled with the madness their father, the devil, has planted in their reprobate minds. They will then see the black skies above earth split apart and the glory of Heaven beaming through as the Lord of Lord and King of kings and His army of redeemed saints begin their descent.

Today we are in a valley of decision, of sorts. The decision is whether to be on the side of the heathens destined to oppose God and His righteousness, thus be in colleague with those who will face Christ the King in the Valley of Jehoshaphat or whether to be on God’s side by accepting His only way to redemption, thus to be on the side that opposes the wickedness we see proliferating in every direction we look.

Another valley I think we can see very plainly at this time is a valley of derision.

It is a place of profound struggle against the powers and principalities in high places of Ephesians 6:12. Christians who determine to fight the evil that opposes God’s righteousness comprise the nucleus of this force. While many others who don’t know Christ as their Lord also fight in this arena against wickedness, God’s people are the glue that holds fast the frontline resistance to the assaults by Lucifer’s minions, both demonic and human.

Paul the apostle says the Restrainer will hold back the assaults of evil and wickedness until He is taken out of the way. The Holy Spirit is that Restrainer, and He works primarily by indwelling all who know Christ for salvation. So it is the believers of this age who must continue the struggle, empowered by God the Holy Spirit.

And there is plenty of evidence to validate that God is restraining in these times so near when He will call the Church out of this doomed world of rebelliousness.

We’ve witnessed time after time, for example, blockage of legislative efforts that would take America into dictatorship. The evil continues to advance, but is not allowed to completely infect the world with the sin disease that will cause God’s judgment and wrath to finally fall upon the incorrigible rebels who oppose His righteousness.

The time will come when “earth dwellers” will have their way, mostly unimpeded by God’s governance. But this condition will not last long. Devastating things will begin to happen as God prepares for His Son, Jesus Christ, to return and put an end to all evil, wickedness, and rebellion.

The Lord has these anti-God, anti-Christ forces in derision at this very moment. His Holy Spirit is holding back Satan’s all-out assault until the Church is taken to be with Jesus in the Rapture.

Again, here is what the Lord says about what is going on now and into eternity.

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. (Psalms 2:1–12)

Most Christians who have seriously studied Bible prophecy for years have given Israel as the number-one signal to watch for.

This has been especially true since the Jewish people—hated, hunted, and murdered throughout millennia, and finally killed by the millions in the Nazi Holocaust—came back into the Promised Land following World War II in 1948.

Many among the Reformed denominations joined the Catholic Church in writing off the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as having any further rights to the promises God made. Obviously, in this collective view, God had given up on them. Their rejection and crucifixion of His Son had, in the minds of these religionists, negated any rights Israel had as a nation.

When the Jews miraculously became a nation again in the area surrounding Jerusalem, the chosen people suddenly took on tremendous prophetic importance in the eyes of those who looked diligently into the study of end-times things.

Although attacked on every side from the time they were reborn as a nation, Israel not only survived, but grew and prospered as no other people of the Middle East. The land began to bloom like a garden–which was, in fact, fulfilling a prediction from God’s Word about what would happen to the land of promise anytime the chosen people occupied it.

Major assaults against the Jewish state in 1956, 1967, and 1973 only proved God’s Word to be infallible. The nation won against all odds in those wars and sent their hate-filled enemies scurrying away in painful defeat.

But, just as God’s Word also prophesies, the assaults, although of somewhat lesser virulence, have continued to thrust at Israel, as we’ve all seen very recently.

Israel remains at the center of nations in a conflict the would-be, world-governing peace purveyors fear will result in World War III and nuclear Armageddon. These minions, who I am convinced make up the human element of the Ephesians 6:12 wickedness we struggle against, no longer hide their satanically-fostered hatred for God’s chosen nation. They strive to turn all of earth’s peoples against the Jewish state. The following illustrates the point.

GENEVA, June 3 (Reuters) – A group of United Nations experts called on Monday for all countries to recognise a Palestinian state to ensure peace in the Middle East.

The call came less than a week after Spain, Ireland and Norway officially recognised a Palestinian state, prompting anger from Israel, which has found itself increasingly isolated after nearly eight months of war in Gaza.

The experts, including the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories, said recognition of a Palestinian state was an important acknowledgement of the rights of the Palestinian people and their struggle towards freedom and independence…

Israel has repeatedly condemned moves to recognise a Palestinian state, saying they bolster Hamas, the militant Islamist group that led the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel which sparked the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. (“UN experts urge all countries to recognise Palestinian statehood,” Reuters, 6/3/24)

Anger and threats similar to those in Germany in the 1930s are again being heard in Europe and around the world.

EJA Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin opened the meeting with a stark message. “We are in a fight for the continuation of Jewish life in Europe,” he said. “Jews wearing traditional clothing or displaying mezuzahs on their doors are facing relentless harassment. Jewish students are receiving threats on their lives and being excluded from university courses, while hate graffiti defaces Jewish homes, synagogues and cemeteries without any deterrent.” (“Leading rabbi warns mass exodus of Jews from Europe to Israel may be imminent,” Rapture Ready News, 6/4/24)

The buildup is accelerating toward the time Jesus said would be a period of trouble unlike anything that’s ever been. He placed Israel at the center of that time of Tribulation.

Watch Israel and the world’s increasingly hate-filled treatment of its people. This is the number-one signal that shows definitively where we are on God’s prophetic timeline.

This means Jesus Christ is about to step out on the clouds of Glory and call believers (the Church) to Himself.

You want to go to Christ when He says “Come up here!”

Planet Earth, following the Rapture, will descend into the time of horrors depicted in the book of Revelation. Here is how to avoid that most terrible time of 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)

One element about prophecy about the future that has puzzled me in a certain context is the phrase “sudden destruction” in the following:

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. (1 Thessalonians 5:3)

As I say, my perplexity has stemmed from the context. This is a follow-up passage from the Apostle Paul’s further revelation on the mystery about the Rapture:

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. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:16–18)  

For me, the disconnect came from my long-thought belief that there will be, following the disappearance of millions of believers, a collapse–a meltdown—of human interaction on a global scale. Chaos would immediately follow this staggering event, but it would, I believed, be a more-or-less controlled chaos; the cry for peace and safety would be like a growing worldwide emotional breakdown and financial, societal, and cultural collapse that would cause people to beg for somebody to fix it all.

Antichrist would be willing and able to step up, and the panicked people would readily accept the back-to-normal promises he offered, giving him growing control over the nations.

But why, then, the term “sudden destruction”? It smacks of instant devastation, not of slow or even rapid collapse into chaos and dystopian existence for the world of left-behind people.

The realization strikes that “peace and safety” seems to connote something far deeper than freedom from chaos and disorder from financial catastrophe and the breakdown of law and order. It indicates, I am convicted, a desperate desire for a preservation of life itself, not just a call for restoration to something akin to normalcy.

I have long held, as anyone who has followed my commentaries knows, that Jesus Himself told of the exact circumstances in which this generation now finds us. His “days of Noah, days of Lot” prophecy found in the Matthew chapter 24 Olivet Discourse and again in Luke 17:26–28, says it will be business as usual right until the moment believers are taken to be with Him in the clouds of Glory. It will be just like it was in the time of Lot in Sodom. The very day Lot was taken by the angels out of the wicked city, the town and its sister town of Gomorrah were totally, and I mean totally, destroyed. As a matter of fact, those excavating the area today are just beginning to uncover just how total the destruction was in that judgment.

My puzzlement was always that Jesus indicated it will be just like that when believers are taken to Heaven. Destruction of the sort Sodom experienced, He said, will fall that very day. How, then, could there be this slow collapse into societal and cultural dystopia that could take weeks, months, or longer? Sodom and Gomorrah were instantly destroyed in a deluge of fire and brimstone–devastation that might have been similar to the nuclear devastation such weaponry can inflict today.

All we must do to see the potential for nuclear conflict is to read the news. One report leaves little doubt the potential for Sodom-like destruction can be easily dealt by the hand of humankind, without even the need for wrath directly from Heaven.

More and more European officials and NATO countries are on board with allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons to strike deep inside Russian territory. Among the latest to speak openly about this are NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell, and the government of Sweden, which is the NATO alliance’s newest member state.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday issued one of his more dire warnings yet, putting Europe on notice by commenting on their possessing small land areas and dense populations. The veiled threat is very ominous especially in light of the fact that Russia just wrapped up tactical nuclear drills near Ukraine. (“Putin Threatens West’s ‘Dense Populations’ In ‘Small Land Masses’ In Response To NATO Escalation,” ZeroHedge, May 29, 2024)

With nuclear weaponry in the hands of leaders who are more and more threatening to use them, it’s a wonder the nuclear genie hasn’t escaped the bottle. It is indeed amazing that a nuclear weapon hasn’t been accidentally discharged; there are accounts of massive hydrogen bombs that have come within a hair’s breadth of accidentally exploding.

The fact is, I have no doubt, the staying hand of Almighty God has prevented such disaster. He continues to restrain nuclear and all other sorts of satanic evil from being unleashed. He has, as promised in Psalm 2, had the diabolists of this judgment-bound world in “derision”–intervening to disrupt the devil’s plans to bring on yet another world war.

But God’s patience is not without limits. There is coming a time when, like with Lot‘s case, He will call believers from the planet’s surface and into Jesus’ loving arms.

You want to go to Christ when He shouts, “Come up here!” You will be forever safe in God’s family, saved from the sudden destruction taking place on earth. Here is how to make sure you go in the Rapture, which will happen at any moment.

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)

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)