Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seems to be the lone politician/leader of significance who sees clearly through the smog and fog of deception in the issue of digital demonomics. He has called on the Florida legislature to prohibit federal digital impositions upon the citizens of his state.

“The Biden administration’s efforts to inject a Centralized Bank Digital Currency is about surveillance and control,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. He continued:

Today’s announcement will protect Florida consumers and businesses from the reckless adoption of a “centralized digital dollar” which will stifle innovation and promote government-sanctioned surveillance. Florida will not side with economic central planners; we will not adopt policies that threaten personal economic freedom and security.

The state’s chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, expanded on his governor’s assessment of the proposed digital dollar matters:

Governor DeSantis is ahead of the curve when it comes to protecting individual rights. A Central Bank Digital Currency is the cornerstone of a federal government that could track each and every transaction that happens in the world. There would be no privacy, and if there is no privacy, there are no rights. In the same way Florida is fighting back against the IRS, we need to fight back against this program. It’s how we protect freedom, liberty, and prosperity.

Some years ago, some top people of economic/financial acumen—such as G. Edward Griffin—were concerned, kind, and generous enough to condescend to my request (I am woefully inadequate to dealing with such stratospherics of thought) to contribute chapters to our book, Demonomics: Satan’s Economy and Your Future. I remain thankful to the Lord and grateful to each of those contributors.

These financial experts laid out the way things were trending that would lead to tyrannical control by the globalists elite. At the time of book’s release, things were well on the way to prove their predictions accurate, right down to the details of the coming transformation of America, the singular nation with the most profound influence on global monetary matters.

The one thing I might have somewhat contributed to the book (and I must give Todd Strandberg credit for the idea) was the title. The word “demonomics” accurately frames this world system of evil. The love of money is indeed the root of all kinds of demonically inspired evil.

In that book, I wrote:

Like it or not, believe it or not, you and I are being swept along by the tide of human history toward something profoundly ominous. Hourly news accounts, no matter how much they’ve been doctored to try to present a recovering national and global economic picture, engender fearful concerns about things to come…

History is replete with attempts to reshape national and even global economic realities. Money equals power and power exerts control upon this fallen planet. Power is the ultimate endgame of all who seek it for themselves.

Henry Kissinger put it this way: “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

The declaration can be understood in recalling the most ancient of accounts of an infamous personality seeking the greatest of all power:

“For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” (Isaiah 14:13–14)

Man’s determination to do the same—acquire the power to which the angel named Lucifer aspired—hasn’t changed since the serpent first told Eve that she and Adam would be like God if they ate from the fruit of the forbidden tree (see Genesis 3:5). Following the serpent’s trail of power madness to a later time recorded in the Bible, Nimrod was the would-be one-world-order builder of his day, following the Great Flood of Noah’s time. He, like every megolomaniac since, lusted for God-like power.

Since the publishing of that book, we have watched the voracious appetites of those determined to be the neo-Tower of Babel builders.

Their blueprint to follow Satan’s prideful plunge into perdition says it all: Build back better!

The following is also from a chapter in Demonomics. I hope it describes why things have developed to this point in 2023 and how God will deal in restraint until His judgment and wrath must fall, as described in the “days of Lot” prophecy by the Lord Jesus recorded in Luke 17:28–30:

Such is the way of man, fallen since the moment of rebellion in the Garden of Eden. Humankind has been determined to do things that seem right in their own eyes. The sin-cursed mindset will continue until the catastrophic second when God must end the rebellion as He first had to do when He destroyed all but Noah and his family in the  world-wide Flood.

We are told this in the following prophecy given by the psalmist.

“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.” (Psalms 2:1–11)

History Repeating

The Psalms 2 prophecy is in full sail toward the point at which God will put an end to the power madness of His sin-sick creation called man. The God of Heaven will send the Son of Man—Jesus Christ—to intervene catastrophically in the insanity we are witnessing through today’s headlines.

Man’s lust for power continues to grow; he has not learned the lessons of the past because, as a whole, he regards the Word of God as irrelevant to the governance of the earth. One philosopher of renown [George Santayana] put it this way: “He who does not remember history is condemned to repeat it.”

The corruption that God saw and condemned in antediluvian times, which caused Him to destroy all upon the earth except eight people, has again reached a dangerous level. Dictators prove the truth of another bit of philosophical wisdom [by Lord Edward Acton]: “All power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

We have only to consider the dictators of most recent times to know that lust for power and love of money are locked together in the tyrannical determination to enslave people around the world…

Satan’s economy is being shaped before the eyes and ears of all who will pay attention. But, most of the world—even here in America where the free flow of information is unprecedented in history—is paying scant attention to the true nature of unfolding issues and events.

All is moving toward a predestined finale, according to God’s Word. The grand maestro orchestrating the end-of-days global economic order is none other than the serpent that started it all with his seduction of Eve as recorded in Genesis chapter 3…

Satan is working behind the scenes with supernatural cunning to create chaos within the economies of the world. His intention is to bring about panic at a level that will incite universal demand for new world financial order. That new economic global order can’t be achieved as long as sovereign national monetary systems exist.

Here is Satan’s endgame in a scriptural nutshell:

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.” (Revelation 13:16–18)

Somehow, all nations—all peoples—must come under the 666 system of numbers and marks. This will happen because God’s Word says so. He cannot lie. It will be a totally different economic regime from any on earth today. But, one can sense that the instrumentalities already exist to implement and administrate such a regime. Satellites, computers, and electronic/biological chip devices come to mind, for starters.

The fiat money of the Antichrist will almost certainly be electronic in nature—an electronic funds transfer (EFT) system along the lines of the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) utilized in financial institution money exchanges today.

I personally believe it will be a hybrid Internet system in conjunction with EFT that will give Antichrist the tyrannical control after which Satan lusts. He wants to be worshiped; that is his endgame. He will force all within his reach to do so, and he will use control of economy to accomplish that.

Those who wield the power at the top of the present world economic system will never agree easily to give up their authority. Nations won’t voluntarily surrender governmental or monetary sovereignty. It will require a crisis of unprecedented magnitude to cause fear sufficient to convince the powers that be to bow the knee to the prophesied Beast described in Revelation 13. My own belief is that it will be the Rapture of the church that will provide that crisis.

Despite the obvious efforts to bring in Satan’s demonic plan through central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), God continues to restrain, as promised in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. But the devil hasn’t relented in his determination to lift himself through his son of perdition, Antichrist, and cause all to worship through the 666 marks-and-numbers system of Revelation 13:16–18.

You don’t want to be here when the Church is called into Heaven and the worst times in human history begin to unfold on earth for those left behind.

Here is how to make sure you will be instantaneously safely in the loving presence of Jesus when He says “Come up here!”:

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)

My attention is incessantly drawn to the increasing wickedness that, within just the past few years, seems to have invaded our reality. By this, I mean that nothing now seems to be as near to “normal” as things were, say, in 2020.

My own human thoughts interject that it’s because my 97-year-old mom died early that year. Her passing made everything darker from losing the Lord’s brightness within her that illuminated my path. She gave me my Scripture for life, written in the front leaf of the Bible she gave me when I was very young:

Trust in the lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. (Proverbs 3:5–6)    

Forgetting for a brief time to use that biblical flashlight Mom had handed me as a youngster, during the natural mourning process when she passed away, things did look not to be as life had been before.

But that other light within (the Holy Spirit, not my human thoughts) soon turned on within my consideration the Proverbs 3: 5–6 truth—the light Kathleen James-Basse left behind in February, 2020, when Heaven became a brighter abode than ever.

So, it isn’t anything personal affecting my life that gives this world a sense of increased strangeness and malevolence. There is most definitely a supernatural aura about life today that wasn’t there before–and it’s not from the good side of that other dimension.

My attention is incessantly drawn to the increasing wickedness that seems to have within just the past few years invaded our reality, because the Holy Spirit prompts my spirit that there is indeed an invasion taking place. The other dimension this invasion is coming from is what I call “pre-Trib portals.”

I use this term because the demonic activity that God’s Word says will prevail during the Tribulation (the last seven years leading to Christ’s return) seems to already be seeping, maybe even flooding, into our reality even now. Therefore, there is a pre-Trib intrusion into our time before the Rapture of the Church. This, I’m convicted, is all in preparation for the Antichrist regime of horror Jesus said will be the worst period of human history (Matthew 24:21). Satan is trying to set the stage upon which his son of perdition will step when believers are taken off the earth and the “covenant with many” of Daniel chapter 9 is confirmed by “the prince that shall come.”

In America, this preparation has been taking place for many decades. I believe it began in earnest shortly after the twentieth century began. It has accelerated swiftly and is now at full throttle.

My friend Michael Hile, in an article, presented a record of this invasion through the pre-Trib portals. When the nation, through court action, began removing God and His righteous principles for life from the national conscience, the vacuum created a supernatural opening for the invading forces from the dark side. Here’s what Michael wrote:

The United States has been in a moral freefall that accelerated in the decade of the ’60s with restrictions on prayer (1962) and Bible reading in the public schools (1963). The U.S. Supreme Court has systematically helped destroy religious liberty in America with the following 12 court cases:

• 1925—The Scopes “Monkey” Trial—Tennessee v. Scopes—    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial
• 1940—The Free Exercise Clause is created—Cantwell v. Connecticut—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantwell_v._Connecticut
• 1947—The Establishment Clause is Created—Everson v. Board of Education—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everson_v._Board_of_Education
• 1962—Prayer is removed from the Schools—Engel v. Vitale—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engel_v._Vitale
• 1963—Bible reading is removed from the Schools—Abington School District v. Schempp—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abington_School_District_v._Schempp
• 1973—The Murder of unborn babies is Legalized—Roe v. Wade— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade
• 1980—The Ten Commandments are removed from School Classrooms—Stone v. Graham—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_v._Graham
• 1992— Invocations/Benedictions are Banned from School Activities—Lee v. Weisman—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_v._Weisman
• 2003— Sodomy is legalized by the Supreme Court—Lawrence v. Texas—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas
• 2005—Display of the Ten Commandments is Ruled Unconstitutional—McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCreary_County_v._American_Civil_Liberties_Union
• 2013—Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is Declared Unconstitutional—United States v. Windsor—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Windsor
• 2015—Same Sex Marriage is approved by the Supreme Court—Obergefell v. Hodges—https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obergefell_v._Hodges

(Michael Hile, “The United States and God’s Judgment”)

My sense of discerning the invasion we face at this late prophetic hour tells me that the evil being directed toward children is perhaps the most significant manifestation of what is pouring through the pre-Trib portals. It is concentrated wickedness, and even parents of the children seem to have lost spiritual immunity to Satan’s deadly venom.

Proof that America has reached the reprobate mindset of Romans 1: 28 is clearly shown, I think, through the opinion on children rendered by the top leader in America—the leadership position once considered the highest in the free world:

Monday’s segment of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, President Joe Biden spoke with gay man and former White House staff member in the Obama era, Kal Penn, where he admitted that he thought restricting kids from getting their private parts mutilated was “sinful.”…

“Transgender kids is a really harder thing,” he began. “What’s going on in Florida is, as my mother would say, close to sinful. I mean it’s terrible what they’re doing.”

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis is spearheading laws that would prohibit kids from receiving dangerous surgeries and drugs to change their gender. DeSantis recognizes that there are two genders and that children are not mature enough to make such life altering decisions. While his laws are evidence of him looking out for children’s best interests, the left is twisting it into an anti-LGBTQ campaign by the Republican Governor…

Regardless, Biden insisted that he was looking to pass legislation that would allow transgender youth to harm their bodies and added, “You mess with that, you’re breaking the law, and you’re gonna be held accountable.”

It really is a shame that Biden is using his platform and position of power to facilitate such a grave evil in this nation. Kids need to be protected, not infected by the disease of the woke left. (Source: Biden Calls It “Sinful” To NOT Mutilate Trans Kids,Tierin-Rose Mandelburg, Newsbusters, March 13, 2023)

With such upside-down declaration, can there be any doubt that the pre-Trib portals are as wide open as America’s southern borders?

In thinking on the topics about which I write, I’m blessed to have close friends of spiritually infused intellect and insight who sometimes help inspire commentaries. We speak on the phone occasionally throughout any given week about various topics of possible Bible prophecy import. Thus it was in conversation this week when such a friend presented a fascinating matter that spawned the title you see above.

My friend of many years is clued in to many things going on within cutting-edge technologies. As a matter of fact, he works closely within some of these technological stratospherics as consultant during various phases of development. At least that’s the take from my perspective. He tells no more than he can divulge in order to remain faithful to confidentiality.

So, it is with great interest that I pay attention when he brings forth information of an unusual sort. I listen carefully when I sense he wants me to consider those insider developments in writing these articles meant to look into what’s going on while we obviously are closing in on the very end of the age.

When we discuss things along these lines—well, when I mostly listen, because my thinking process can’t always quite engage due to complexity involved—my friend usually prefaces his comments with: “I don’t quite know what to do with this.” He then says something like: “But isn’t that interesting?”

It usually most certainly at the very least interesting. More like somewhat mystifying and, on occasion, stupefying.

The past week or so this friend wanted to give me a heads-up on something that had come to his attention that he thought I would find fascinating. He said his information came to him from a familiar intel channel/forum. It is obviously one he holds in high regard.

The intel involves something called The Lazarus Project.

My friend said someone, under the cloak of anonymity, posted, in part, the following on February 23, 2023.

I’m a Meta insider working on Project Lazarus. We’re building an AI that can take over a deceased persons social media accounts and continue making relevant posts as if that person is still alive. This includes age progressed photos, interacting with other people’s content and everything else needed so that person continues on in the digital realm after physical death. We were originally told this would be a service offered to people struggling with the loss of loved ones and people who had missing children. Seemed like a decent idea. Things are getting weird now and I’m having second thoughts about what this is actually going to be used for. The AI is extremely capable of impersonating people. It doesn’t take as much initial input as one might think to train the AI how a certain person interacts with the digital world. It’s very convincing. An entire island of people could go missing and with little to no downtime the AI could take over all of their social media and the world wouldn’t have a clue that life wasn’t just continuing as usual. A lot of the project is becoming more compartmentalized. Things have taken a dark turn it feels like. They’ve forbidden communication between people working on different things. Something isn’t right and I don’t know what I should do. I’m not going to post any personally identifiable information but I will try to answer questions that won’t expose my role within the project…

The AI came up with stuff that ranged from absolutely hilarious to completely horrifying. I guess that’s pretty accurate for the human experience. That’s more along the lines of a traditional bot but it goes to a much deeper level than a bot just reposting the current talking point. It’s when we have it live data on real individuals that things truly took off. It’s astoundingly accurate with reproducing real individuals”

Now my sensitivity meter is the first to start squawking when so-called reports come across cyberspace that seem bogus and or contrived in any way. If it were not my friend of many years, who interacts within circles to which most of us haven’t entry, I might easily dismiss this insider’s concern as just another fictional creation. However, my friend doesn’t waste his time or mine with fiction. As a matter of fact, I doubt he has read any part of even one of my own novels. So I feel my thinking along these lines is worthwhile for us to consider.

My friend acknowledges that anything coming across even closely guarded, private communications can be of false origin. It has been my experience and observation through these many years, however, that his sense of what has credence and what doesn’t is exquisitely keen. Here are some of his thoughts about this Lazarus Project matter:

1) The project has a biblically significant name: Lazarus; (2) Lazarus is said to be very good at impersonating people; (3) Lazarus is supposed to be strong enough to pass the Turing Test; (4) Meta is developing Lazarus to mimic the missing, dead, or otherwise unavailable; and (5) Meta is developing Lazarus under extreme secrecy (small, compartmentalized teams under NDA).

Regarding his reference to the Turing test, a mathematician/cryptographer/pioneering computer scientist by the name of Alan Turing developed in 1950 what he called “the imitation game,” but what is now better known as the Turing test.  It is a widely accepted test of the power of AI.  The Turing test involves two human beings and a machine (computer) having AI.  One human being serves as an interrogator.  While the other human being and the machine are located out of the interrogator’s sight, the interrogator is tasked with interacting with the other human being and the machine and discerning from those interactions which is the machine and which is the human being.  The machine passes the test if the human is unable to discern between the two.  A machine passing the test is known as a “Turing machine.”  Passing the Turing test does not mean that the machine is as intelligent as the human being, only that the machine appears in that interaction to be as intelligent as the human being.  The Turing test is not the only test of AI, but it is by far the best-known.

Even were the posts false, Lazarus is plausible.  First, Mark Zuckerberg has publicly announced that Meta will focus on major AI development.  Second, Facebook’s user base has been seriously eroding, meaning that Facebook is in desperate need of content to retain and encourage its remaining users; AI is well-suited to generate this content.  Third, with the World Economic Forum and World Health Organization working hard to create and conceal mass casualties, simulating an enduring social media presence by the departed would help.  Fourth, the powers-that-be would be strongly motivated to conceal an act of God that resulted in the sudden disappearance of many millions of people.

From this, I gather that the purpose of Lazarus is to cover the mass disappearance or death of people due to one or a very few major events.  It may not be able perfectly to conceal the absence of people, but it probably can conceal their absence for a short time and should at least create confusion and doubt and provide the basis of an official narrative that the event or events did not occur.  It’s intriguing and plausible.

My friend and I frequently discuss the rapid development across the spectrum of stage-setting for prophetic fulfillment. Spectacular progress in artificial intelligence add to stage-setting, not only for the fulfillment of prophecy about the coming Tribulation, but also about stage-setting for the narratives that will be floated when millions of people vanish from the nation and world. In that light, the Lazarus Project is indeed most interesting, as my friend would have it.

Dr. Dave Breese was my personal friend, but he was much more than that to the believers who were blessed to be beneficiaries of his monumental spiritual and intellectual dissection of God’s Holy Word. In his scholarship and understanding of biblical prophecy–particularly from the pre-Trib, premillennial view, he had no superiors and few peers.

He was on-air host of The King Is Coming television ministry viewed weekly throughout the US and abroad. You may remember that, until his recent death, Dr. Ed Hindson was Dave’s successor to that program. Both were great servants of God, and I’m thankful to have had them in my life as mentors and friends.

Here we continue with Dr. Breese’s answers to the many questions on the Rapture he received throughout his many years of ministry.

Questions and Answers about the Rapture

Why is the Rapture not mentioned in the Old Testament? The prophets of the Old Testament were not given the revelation of the Church, the Body of Christ. Neither were they told of the Rapture of the Church. This is particularly a New Testament revelation. The Scripture speaks of the message of salvation by grace, given to the Church to preach to the world, and testifies of the concern of the prophets. It says,

Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when he testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into (1 Pet.1:10-12).

So, the Church and its message was a mystery in the Old Testament. Paul says,

For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, If you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward, How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery, (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel (Eph. 3:1-6).

Does Israel then have a different calling and destiny from that of the Church? The Scripture teaches that Israel is the heir of the world (Rom. 4:13). But it teaches that the Church is the heir of the universe. “All things” are the inheritance of the Christian, of the Church (1 Cor.3:21-23).

If the Kingdom is now, why the Rapture? Why can’t the Church just grow and take over everything? There are various kinds of “kingdom now” teachings in the world. The fact, however, is that the Kingdom was rejected by Israel and will not be instituted in the world until Christ comes in power and great glory. The Kingdom in its external form is not promised to the world in our time. In this day and age, God represents Himself in this world via the unseen body of Christ and through the seen, observable lives of individual believers. The program of God becomes “visible” in Christians who testify for the Lord Jesus and live holy lives before the watching world. The Kingdom, by the way, will not “grow in the world,” but it will come suddenly, imposed upon the world by its King, the Lord Jesus Christ. [Read Dan 2:44-45]

Where does the Rapture fit into the “big picture” of history? The Rapture ends the day of grace and begins the day of the Lord, which begins with the Tribulation. It will end a day of grace, the time of divine forbearance, and begin a time called the day of the Lord, in which God is at liberty to work with His promised program of judgment upon the world.

I recommend a book called The Two Futures, which will give you a presentation of “the big picture.

The Glory to Come

Let each of us be finally reminded that the story of the future is not simply that of one day after another ad infinitum. No indeed! There is a glorious future for the Church, and there is a dismal future for the world. The sojourn of the Church in this world will come to an instantaneous end, at which time every believer will be taken from this dark planet to the glory which is to come.

At the moment of that transition, each of us will receive a new body, a glorified body that is not unlike the body of Christ himself. We will at this point be given the capacity to feel, to appreciate, to enjoy all of the unspeakably wonderful things that will be ours in eternity. The Scripture says, “In thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11).

So great will be the delights of heaven that they are impossible to describe under the constraints, the limitations of human language. It may, therefore, be well to exercise a sanctified imagination, to ask the question, “What will it be like when Jesus comes?” The answer, of course, is that it will be like nothing we can imagine in all of life. There is no human experience that resembles in any but the palest fashion the ecstasy that will be ours when we step across the great divide into the fadeless light of heaven.

What is heaven like? The answer must be that heaven is not exactly like anything that we know in this world. We do well to take the greatest joys of earth and multiply them by a thousand times. Only then do we have even the beginning of the joys that will be ours in heaven.

The Christian is invited to use his “sanctified imagination” to think of golden streets, ivory palaces, a city where there is no night, and endless “pleasure forever more.” In heaven also, we will have the opportunity to meet the saints who have gone before and, of course, loved ones who have in earlier days moved from the Church militant to the Church triumphant. How wonderful to contemplate that golden moment when the Church will be translated from this world to the world to come. What a moment that will be!

The real point is that we be prepared for that moment. The preparation is that we must be Christians. A Christian is one who believes the gospel of Jesus Christ, who has accepted the Son of the living God as personal Saviour. Because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the sufficient sacrifice for sin, each person in all of the world is invited to receive the free gift, the gift of God, which is everlasting life. The single requirement is faith alone. By believing in Jesus Christ – who He was and what He did for man on the cross – by that act of faith I receive the gift of God, which is life eternal.

Meanwhile, in these days, let us gather together at the cross, recognizing Jesus Christ as the Saviour whose sacrifice made eternal life possible. While laboring for Him here, let us also anticipate the sound of the trumpet when we will be caught up to be with Him.

To follow up on Dave’s call to heed God’s invitation to become part of His eternal family, we again present here God’s formula–the only way—to bring you into that relationship with the Heavenly Father forever.

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)

One of my most cherished aspects of the Lord’s bringing me into prophetic ministry is the tremendous teachers, broadcasters, preachers, and Bible scholars I’ve been blessed to know over these many years. None is more beloved, profoundly memorable, or respected in every way than the late Dr. David Breese.

Dave was one of the most brilliant thinkers, writers, and speakers, with that golden voice possessed by only a few of God’s men. He was as intellectually gifted as any—secular or Christian—yet possessed humor and warmth that made him instantly someone you knew was genuine and transparent in relationship.

In thinking on Dave, the thought of Samuel the prophet came to mind. Samuel was brought back from his eternal rest to deliver a message of condemnation to King Saul. In my prompt from, I believe, the Holy Spirit, Dr. Dave Breese needed to be brought back in the spiritual memory sense in order to deliver a message of edification to those of us who long for Jesus to call us in the Rapture.

Dave presented a series of thoughts on the Rapture in a book of mine many years ago, for which he wrote a powerful chapter. The following are those questions and answers presented in that chapter. They are as solid and encouraging as when I first received them from my great friend.

Questions and Answers

There are hundreds of prophetic questions that live in the minds of people. Many of them are asked openly at prophetic conferences, on radio programs, and certainly in private conversations. We do well to deal with some of the frequently asked questions, believing that the answers will be helpful to us all.

What qualifies a person to be caught up in the rapture of the Church? The Word of God teaches that Christ will return again for the delivering of His Church. Everyone who is among those called “brethren” (1 Thess. 5:10) is a member of the body of Christ and will be the object of the deliverance that will come at the Rapture. The single qualification, therefore, is that an individual be a Christian. A Christian is one who has believed the gospel of Jesus Christ and knows God’s Son as his personal Saviour.

What prophetic events must be fulfilled before the Rapture? There are no prophetic events that must precede the Rapture. The predicted events of prophecy have to do with the period of time following the Rapture leading up to the glorious return of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the Rapture could take place at any given moment. It is well for the believer to regularly tell himself, “Perhaps today!”

How shall I prepare for the Rapture? Surely the greatest experience in life will be to be brought into the presence of God as a good soldier, a faithful servant. The essential preparation for the Rapture is that I be a Christian. Then, the fact that I could be taken to heaven at any given moment should motivate me to exemplary Christian service. Earnest prayer, faithful witnessing, godly living – all of these will be a part of the approval that can come in heaven. We all must so live so as to hear Jesus say in that day, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

When the Rapture comes, what will happen to the children of Christians? All children who have not yet reached the age of accountability are counted as “believers” under the doctrine of prevenient grace. We, therefore, conclude that the children of unbelievers will also be included with the children of believers and taken home to be with the Lord. As one person said, “‘All the children of the world will be taken to heaven and all the unborn children of the world as well.”

What impression will the Rapture make on the world? The answer, of course, depends upon the preoccupations and involvements in which the world finds itself at the time of the Rapture. Still, we must conclude that the disappearance of the Christians of the world and the children of the world will leave a stunning impression upon the minds of people. The Antichrist will be hard-put to come up with an explanation. In lieu of this, the dismay at the teaching of Scripture now being so well proved by the Rapture may well cause minions to come to faith in Christ during the Tribulation. They, as Tribulation saints, will face a time of fearful persecution.

Can we take anyone with us at the Rapture? Certainly not by holding on to them, as much as we might desire this. But, we can take all of our loved ones and friends with us to heaven if we will have led them to Christ so that they themselves have become Christians before the time of the taking away of the Church. When the Rapture comes, it will be too late to do any additional things in this world for Christ. The record of each person’s life will stand as indelible forever after that instant of translation.

How can heaven receive and process so many millions of individuals all arriving at the same time? This is no problem to God. The arrival of the Church, the body of Christ, at heaven will be a time of great reunion and rejoicing. A home in heaven will have long since been prepared for every individual by Christ himself (John 14:3). A place at the feast of welcome, of betrothal, called “the marriage supper of the Lamb,” will have been set for each one. No one will arrive at heaven as a stranger; rather, as a brother beloved.

Isn’t it cowardly to wish for the Rapture to deliver us from the problems of life? Anyone who does not particularly wish to be beheaded during the days of the Tribulation can certainly be expected to anticipate with a welcoming sentiment the rapture of the Church and the deliverance from the wrath to come. To want to go into the Tribulation is not courage; it is mere foolish bravado. The doctrine of the Rapture is true, unrelated to human attitudes. Especially remember that we are to love His appearing (2 Tim. 4:8).

Didn’t the doctrine of the Rapture come from a strange source? The doctrine of the Rapture comes from the Word of God. It is the apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who presents this marvelous truth. It is best to avoid silly stories, from whatever source, related by people who would draw our attention away from any doctrine of the Word of God.

What is the difference between the Rapture and the second coming of Christ? The Rapture is a very special mission by the Lord to deliver the Church from the awful scenes of the Tribulation. The Rapture, therefore, comes before the Tribulation and takes Christians out of this world before that seven-year period of the wrath of God. Notice that, in the Rapture, Christ does not come all of the way to this world. Rather, Christians are caught up to meet Him in the air (1 Thess. 4:17).

At the second coming of Christ, His glorious return, He comes with His saints. In fact, He returns with an army from heaven for the conquest of the world (Rev. 19:11-16). Remember, since this is an army of His saints (Jude 14), you and I will be a part of that glorious conquest that centers on the return of Christ in power.

You see from the above that Dave was a powerful messenger for the Lord’s service. His voice lives on in the marvelous teaching and biblical exposition he left with us. I’m looking forward to seeing Dave again in glory.

Next week we continue with God’s answers to prophetic questions through Dave’s recorded words that bless us all still today.

“Preppers” are sometimes deemed wise, sometimes lauded, and often criticized as conspiracy theorists—and worse. Whatever their acceptance, praise, or condemnation, their very existence and proliferation gives credence, even validation, to their fear that “something wicked this way comes,” as Mr. Shakespeare would have it.

And whether one’s a prepper or not, even a non-Bible prophecy observer can recognize that there is growing wickedness in every direction on the cultural and societal landscape.

Prepping, of course, is gathering all sorts of things to prepare against hard times to come. Fear is prevalent and growing that there will be a complete fiscal breakdown—the dollar will massively lose value and be replaced by alternative economic systems worldwide. There is belief that society will collapse under the despotic hands of tyrants seeking to bring America down. Fear of attacks of cyber and even kinetic sorts are on the rise. There is trepidation that things like this are now being planned by the likes of Russia and China against a once well-protected America—a nation no longer secured against such destructive possibilities.

I admit to writing myself about these fearful prospects, in context of trying to be discerning about what God’s Word has to say about this generation as it approaches the time Jesus said will be the most horrific of human history (Matthew 24:21).

So a growing percentage of earth’s inhabitants are looking at what they see coming, and are trying to protect themselves and those they love from a possibly unprecedented assault against humanity. Some are intensively doing so, pulling out all stops.

The billionaires we hear about are doing things like buying up old, deserted missile silos and fixing them up for long-term living underground while the chaos of nuclear war and other deadly things occur on the planet’s surface. Lesser financially secured folks who are equally fearful of things to come are stockpiling foods, medical supplies, and all they think necessary to survive.

Of course, admittedly, the vast majority of the world’s populations, if they think at all about such dire possibilities, do so for only a fleeting moment. They are too busy doing life from one minute to the next.

There is one, however, who is doing a different kind of prepping. And he is doing so at breakneck speed. We can see his handiwork in that regard by simply observing the times and watching headlines unfold. It is as if he knows that he has a short time to prepare in consideration of his biblically forecast destiny.

I’m talking about, of course, Lucifer the fallen one. Satan is in an all-out phase of prepping, as I believe I and others who are watchmen and watchwomen can discern in these increasingly troublesome times.

The devil observably has his collars and chain around the necks of the dogs of government, military, economy, science, entertainment, and especially religionists.

We go over these matters every week in the many columns of those who present observations on Bible prophecy development.

In government we see developments shaping swiftly into the final, global entity Daniel the prophet spoke of to King Nebuchadnezzar. In military matters, we see war being threatened in areas of prophetic significance. World War III is considered almost a certainty by some of the most revered military affairs experts. In the economy there are developments that can be nothing less than preparing for the coming marks-and-number (666) system of Revelation chapter 13. In science, AI and all things digital are bringing all of humanity under surveillance and controls that will provide Satan’s man, Antichrist, everything needed to enslave a world—a world that obviously is already in a compliant mood to worship Lucifer.

Last week’s Super Bowl LVII made it clear, at least within the microcosm of that screaming throng, that the masses might be all in on welcoming the coming man of sin and his Beast state.

At Super Bowl Halftime Show, Rihanna Keeps The Satanic Spirit Of Last Week’s Grammys Alive And Kicking In Demonic Aerial Display With Fallen Angels

Last week, we showed you how the Grammys invited to world to enjoy something “beautifully unholy,” and then cheered as Satan was prayed to, invoked and worshipped on international tell-a-vision, and “sponsored by Pfizer” no less. Moments ago, the 2023 Super Bowl Halftime Show opened with filth merchant Rihanna descending from the sky, surrounded by what could only be described as dancing fallen angels, and sang “Bi**h Better Have My Money.” What was the reaction? Cheering and applause so loud that it competed with the music for your ear. You can stop having that debate now on whether or not America is a Christian nation, we absolutely are not. (RR news story link/prompt Rapture Ready News, February 13, 2023, NTEB story)

In religion, there is movement of all religions (all belief systems) attempting to come together as one. Pope Francis is consistently seen at the forefront of the effort while he applauds and approves of the World Economic Forum (WEF) efforts to bring the world back to Babel. We witnessed a meeting on traditional Mount Sinai in Egypt, where globalist minions came down after visiting the top, bringing down (in a way that mocked God’s Ten Commandments), their ten commandments for dealing with climate change and other world problems.

All of this is Satan’s prepping. While the world preps to survive what they fear is coming, the devil is prepping with all at his disposal to bring on that very devastation the human preppers fear.

I believe one of the chief signs we see in Satan’s prepping is the activity going on with the unidentified flying objects for which nobody within the military command system seems to have an answer.

The question I have: Is the world, with this sudden rash of UFOs, being further prepared to accept a space-brother-visitation explanation for that stunning moment when the Rapture occurs? This sudden phenomenon, in conjunction with the insanity being perpetrated against children, gives reason, in my view, to wonder. As many who read these commentaries know, I’m convinced beyond any remedy that every child under the age of accountability will go to be with our Lord when He calls the Church. God is going to, I’m convinced, demonstrate how He hates the way the world has dealt with the helpless little ones. The judgment and wrath will be great on this collective sin, I have no doubt.

We can expect Satan’s prepping to become more intensive as 2023 proceeds. Perhaps part of the reason Jesus told us to keep looking up is that Satan’s prepping—the so-called UFOs, etc—will be a key indicator of the Lord’s very near call to believers.

And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. (Luke 21: 28)  

Can there be any doubt? In every direction we look, Romans 1:28 projects from our TV screens and computer monitors. The proof of reprobate, aberrant thinking reddens the horizon with warnings of dangerous times ahead.

Anti-God forces have put the planet’s populations in a position that, like in the time of the antediluvian world of rebels, God’s wrath and judgment must again fall. This article will, I hope, point to several examples that typify the reprobate mindset and show how far into upside-down thinking those, particularly within leadership positions, have descended.

Being several months older than the current US president, it gives me no pleasure to point out what everyone knows but few amongst the media and elective government will verbalize. Joe Biden is in obvious cognitive decline. His leadership as a US senator and ice president has been the topic of concern for many years, but lately the mental decline is manifest anytime he is off the prompter. He answers practically no questions from the press assigned specifically to solicit answers that inform the American public.

A mainstream news media with a collective ideology that views America’s founding as being wickedly flawed–even evil from inception—covers up the president’s refusal and/or inability to cogently frame thoughts that American presidents have always been demanded to verbalize. I offer as evidence, for those old enough to remember, the way the wolves of the mainstream media tore at Vice President Dan Quayle for simply misspelling “potato.” This president makes gaffe after gaffe constantly without a word from the sycophantic press. They consistently prevaricate in their “reporting” in order to make the anti-America-as-founded charges, apparently wanting to move this nation as far ideologically left as most of Europe now is—or even farther left politically.

The most recent cover-up situation by what used to be referred to as “the fourth estate” involves Biden’s apparent business partner, China. The balloon sent from that Far-Eastern enemy of the United States floated across the Pacific Ocean, the largest body of water on the planet, then traversed the entire nation at 60,000 feet before finally being shot down in US waters less than 12 miles off our East Coast.

The balloon was technologically directed by China, according to some in the know. It did not just drift accidentally into American air space. The Biden administration allowed the invasion of territory some 60,000 feet above the nation. The excuse so far offered for not shooting it down is a fear that the heavy parts would crash to earth, endangering the American people.

The balloon first attracted public controversy Wednesday as it hovered near multiple military sites in Montana.  China has insisted that the balloon was a civilian airship that went off course.

A report on Bloomberg said that U.S. officials were aware of the balloon back on Jan. 28, when it first entered American airspace over the Aleutian Islands. The balloon then drifted into Canada before returning over Idaho on Tuesday…

Despite downing the balloon on Saturday, the Biden administration took withering criticism from E. Casey Wardynski, a former assistant secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs in the Trump administration, according to Fox News…

Wardynski said the lack of action that took place as the balloon drifted across America amounted to” an excuse to do nothing, which is the kind of government we’ve got—a do-nothing government.”

He noted that the balloon was treated differently than almost any other aircraft.

“It’s our airspace. They [China] would’ve shot this thing down long ago if it was an American aircraft,” he said.

The Biden administration’s blustering “feeds into the overall picture of the Defense Department, which is that it’s a crowd that can’t shoot straight,” he said. (“Breaking Update: Chinese Spy Balloon Shot Down,” Jack Davis, Patriot Update, February 4, 2023)

More troubling than not being able to “shoot straight” is the fact that the administration no longer seems able to “think straight.” It seems the “reprobate mind” infects Washington, DC.

And it infects governments of lesser status as well. Minnesota state government manifests the Romans 1:28 malady, too, it is more than obvious:

Democrats [who hold a 34–33 majority in the state senate and a 70–64 advantage in the state house] in Minnesota banned coal, oil and gas after passing historic legislation in the state House of Representatives on Thursday…

And the legislation will cause electricity prices to skyrocket.

This comes at the same time that Joe Biden banned mining in the Iron Range, a Democrat-dominant working-class area in north-eastern Minnesota.

The new energy infrastructure in Minnesota will ban mining here at home as Biden struck a deal with African nations who use child labor and China where they use slave labor.

All in the name of climate change – the new religion of the left…

This is an unrealistic timeline that could endanger the lives of Minnesotans if it fails while causing their electricity bills to skyrocket, Republicans argued throughout the night.

They unsuccessfully offered several amendments to the bill, including lifting the state’s moratorium on new nuclear power plants, allowing for the use of carbon sequestration technologies, and delaying the standard to consider its impact on child and slave labor in the green energy supply chain.

“Frankly, what this bill will be doing today is making Minnesota reliant on nations around the globe that have no labor standards and no environmental standards. Minnesota in this bill will build a clean grid economy on the backs of child slaves in China and poor environmental regulations in Indonesia and the Congo,” Rep. Spencer Igo, R-Wabana Township, said at a press conference ahead of the debate.

He said the resources to build a clean energy future are right in Minnesota’s backyard, yet the federal government has now banned mining on 250,000 acres of the Iron Range.

“The third-largest deposits of copper, nickel and cobalt that exist in the known world are only 250 miles north of this Capitol. Instead of investing in those resources … we have decided to export it around the world where carbon emissions will be 20, 25, or 30 times higher than if we were to do it here in Minnesota,” he continued. (“Suicide Pact: Minnesota Democrats Pass Bill to Ban Coal, Oil and Gas in One of Nation’s Coldest States – As Biden Bans Mining in State’s Iron Range,” Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit, February 3, 2023)

Minnesota, one of the very coldest states of the Union, has as its elected leadership a majority that insists on doing away with affordable ways to keep warm. Reprobate minds, to be sure…

I tend to agree with the assessment that says blame for this and most other craziness shouldn’t be placed on this cognitively dysfunctional president. These things are being perpetrated and/or allowed—certainly directed—by the globalists. Mr. Biden is but a useful tool in the hands of those such as Klaus Schwab, George Soros, and others, it seems to me.

This upside-down non-reasoning all means that Christ’s Rapture call to believers in this anti-God age so near the Tribulation can’t be far distant. Christ’s promised return to end the madness is a bright beam of hope piercing the darkening horizon.

He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. (Revelation 22:20) 

Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, made a most interesting comment in a sermon recently televised. He said something to the effect that he believes the Rapture will occur at the moment a global holocaust of some sort is in progress.

It is interesting to me, because I remember many years ago watching a docudrama-type program, produced by Peter and Paul Lalonde, I think, that portrayed just such a scenario. Just as nuclear-armed missiles started to fly, something miraculous happened. I can’t recall whether the missiles vanished, failed to fully ignite, or what. But I believe at that moment the fictional account had the Rapture taking place.

Dr. Jeffress indicated he believed that such a holocaust situation on a global scale could be used to provide reasons for the massive disappearance of people from the populations of the world. The globalists elite might use this as part of the big lie of 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 is, I presume, what he meant.

I’m not sure I can fully embrace that particular scenario, but it fascinated me back when the Lalonde brothers presented their version, and it again piqued my imagination when Dr. Jeffress mentioned it while I was sipping coffee early the other morning.

It likely induced me to start ruminating on writing this article, because there is such a build-up to war-making I believe the New World Order types are fashioning. That build-up is more than obvious to Christian and secular observers as well who see that increase in warmongering by those who are determined to have their Great Reset so they can remake planet earth into their own imagined Utopia.

Again, the United States of America is at the center of the one-worlders’ thinking. This nation must be brought under their all-encompassing control. America is the hold up to implementing their plan to construct a world along the lines of the demonically inspired imaginations of Lenin and Lennon. We must be forced to believe that there is no Heaven, no Hell, and we all will be “as one” under the gods of this new creation—such as Klaus Schwab and his WEF henchman Noah Yubal Harari.

Americans are still buying, selling, building, planting—doing all the things pretty much as normal. While most of the rest of the nations of earth are struggling mightily, economically and in other ways detrimental to human freedom, our nation, while headed down a track that will lead to destruction, isn’t headed that way fast enough to satisfy the one-worlders.

As expressed many times in these commentaries, America is exactly in the position, the situation the Lord Jesus Christ foretold as recorded in the book of Luke. This is why I am convinced that America, the apex nation of history so far as being materially blessed is concerned, might be the specific nation and people Jesus foretold in this passage, which I believe refers to the Rapture:

Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. (Luke 17:28–30)  

As I’ve mentioned many times, all nations are linked in one way or the other to the United States and the dollar. Yes. I agree completely that things are changing, and there are tremendous pressures being brought to bring down the dollar, to create alternatives to the American-dominated global financial interaction. But America continues to stand, and nothing the powers that be have tried has collapsed either the United States or the world’s economy to this point.

Nor will any earthly power be able to do so; I am of the firm opinion, based upon Jesus’ “days of Lot” prophecy. It is God, Himself, who will collapse America and the world—all deserving of His judgment and wrath, it’s sad and tragic to have to say.

Dr. Jeffress believes that a great holocaust-type catastrophe will initiate God’s judgment while the Rapture at the same time occurs. If it will be this scenario that is in play, the build-up to war we are witnessing certainly could be that global catastrophe.

Jesus said God’s judgment will, like when Lot went out of Sodom, fall that very day. That judgment completely destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, the twin cities of anti-God rebellion.

Presently Iran is said to have nuclear weapons and are going to add to their arsenal quickly. Israel has declared they will never allow Iran to have an arsenal of such weapons. So the ignition point for at least a regional war of devastating potential is in place. The Russian-Ukrainian war is building, with Putin threatening almost daily to strike a conflict-ending blow, possibly using nuclear weapons.

A general in charge of one of America’s powerful military branches is predicting war with China, the nation with the largest land army.

In a startling memo released last week, a four-star Air Force general said that he believes the United States and China will fight a war in the upcoming two years.

“A four-star Air Force general [Gen. Michael A. Minihan, USAF] sent a memo on Friday to the officers he commands that predicts the U.S. will be at war with China in two years and tells them to get ready to prep by firing “a clip” at a target, and ‘aim for the head,’” reported Reuters.

The head of the Air Mobility Command, General Minihan, is in charge of about 50,000 service members and roughly 500 planes. He is also in charge of transport and refueling…

“I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.” (“Four star General: Be ready for this war,” New Conservative Post, January 30, 2023)

All things are building toward something earth-shattering. God continues to restrain until the instant of His next catastrophic intervention. Christ will first call believers to Himself.

Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. (Luke 17:28–30)  

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. (Revelation 21:1–5)

The Lord Himself expounded upon what that day would be like. I believe He spoke directly to what the very start of that day would be like for both God’s children (all born-again into God’s family through belief in Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross) and for unbelievers who are alive at the time of His sudden break-in upon the world:

In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.

Remember Lot’s wife. Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.

I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.

Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together. (Luke 17:31–37)

 Again, this corresponds to the words of Jesus:

And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through. Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not. (Luke 21:39–40)

Significant Differing View

Some—likely, most—of the great seminary scholars in premillennial, pre-Trib teachers of eschatology hold that the Scriptures in these passages predict the Tribulation, just before Christ returns in the Second Advent. They for the most part believe these refer to the people who are to suffer God’s wrath and judgment.

I fall into the Dave Hunt camp regarding these matters. I am more and more convinced that these prophecies, given in more or less parabolic language by the Lord, are not about the last of the Tribulation era, but about the time when the Lord calls the Church to be with Him—the Rapture.

Actually, I believe the Lord is talking about both the middle of the Tribulation in the first part of His prophecy and the time of Rapture in the second part.

First, Jesus says:

In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. 

Remember Lot’s wife.

Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.

Jesus was talking about, I’m convinced, the same directive to the Jews as He gives in the Olivet Discourse:

When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: 

Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: 

Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. 

And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 

But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: 

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 24:15–21)

As Different as Day and Night

The second part of Jesus’ prophecy is not about the “day” (time) when the Jews are in the middle of the “day of the Lord” (the middle of the seven-year Tribulation when Antichrist is in the Temple declaring himself to be God). Jesus talks next about “in that night.” I believe He’s referring to the end of the Church Age. He abruptly stops foretelling the conditions in the middle of the “day of the Lord” and reverts to talking about “that night,” the night into which He likens the unguarded moment when the thief breaks in. And, note that this time of taking is in all different time zones, referring to both time of sleep and of the working day:

I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

Jesus Not PC

One of the problems many seminarians will argue is that Jesus can’t be talking about the Rapture because of the distasteful, even grisly, analogy He draws in describing this one-taken, one-left account:

And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.

Jesus would never make such a reference in describing His Bride, the Church, as “eagles” (“vultures” in Biblical vernacular), or to Himself as a dead body (after all, He is the Resurrected Lord!).

That argument is very weak. We see where the Lord gives the analogy of breaking in on an unsuspecting world, likening himself to a thief. That’s not a very attractive description of the Living God. He is the Creator of all things, and by Him all things are held together. Jesus Christ, however, who is God, doesn’t have to worry about the wokeness, the political correctness, or the false niceties of this phony world system. He makes His points in the strongest terms at times because He doesn’t want the fallen minds of men to miss His point.

This is the description of the Rapture, I believe, as my late friend Dave Hunt once wrote. And, why should we not trust that the Lord of Heaven would forewarn in the strongest terms about the stupefying event that will mean absolute joy and ecstasy to believers alive at the time of its occurrence, and abject terror to those who don’t know Christ for salvation?

He would not and did not leave such an astoundingly vital prophecy to the Apostle Paul without adding His own words of foretelling. As a matter of fact, as I’ve often expressed, I believe Jesus’ words recorded in the Gospel account by John were about the “mystery,” which Paul later prophesied (1 Corinthians, chapter 15).

John’s earlier recording of Jesus’ prophecy was a mystery not understood by those listening at the time.

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions:

if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:1–3)

This declaration by the Lord Jesus Christ has a significant and direct connection to His Olivet Discourse words:

I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

The Greek word paralambano is all important here.

Many seminaries teach that those removed or taken away in the “days of Noah” prophecy are those being taken for punishment. Therefore, they say, this isn’t a Rapture passage, but a reference to the Tribulation.

During Dave Hunt’s lecture at the Pre-Trib Conference in Dallas in 1998, the following statement of biblical fact was presented (taken from a transcript of that lecture):

In the 24th chapter [of Matthew], we read that they were all taken away in the flood [in judgment]. Well that’s there, and I’m not a Greek scholar, but [that word for “taken” away to punishment would be] kai erenhapantas, a completely different expression than when Jesus says, one will be taken, and one will be left behind. The “taken” there is from paralambanó, the same word Jesus uses in John 14:2–3, “I will come and receive you.” “Receive” and “taken” use the same word, paralambanó, “I will receive you unto myself, for where I am, there ye may be also,” and that’s the Rapture.

As also expressed many times before, I believe prophecies about the days of Noah and the days of Lot, as well as Jesus’ words about the thief in the night breaking in on an unsuspecting world, cannot be the end of the Tribulation when Christ returns. Perhaps as many as three-fourths of the world’s population will have died by the time the horrendous wrath of God has fallen in judgment upon the wicked. It will NOT be business as usual. People will not be building, marrying, buying, or selling in anywhere near the normal fashion Jesus described in the Luke 17 accounts. It will be hell on earth at that time.

Frightening/Exciting Time to Be Alive

This is a generation that can, if one’s head isn’t buried in the sand, sense the groping fingers of ungodly forces reaching, grasping, to strangle anything that puts forward the name of Jesus Christ and His righteousness. In sheer political terms, there is wicked law such as the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) that will, it is almost certain, stifle biblical teaching against the abominable practice of homosexuality. Legislation to increase legalization parameters for killing babies in their mothers’ wombs continues to expand in Congress and can’t be overridden by presidential veto, or even filibustered against in the legislative process. There now is a president who is favorably inclined to support both of these egregious anti-God actions.

Time and time again, we have pointed to the signals that illustrate dramatically the almost certainty that the present generation is experiencing the birth-pang convulsions Jesus described in the Olivet Discourse.

The geopolitical upheavals moving the world toward globalization at a dazzling rate, with the likely prospect of sudden economic meltdown, are drawing even avowed foes into new arrangements to try to avert international financial collapse. All of this should alert us that the shout “Come up here!” can’t be far from happening.

At the same time, the terrifying prospect for those who will be left behind is mind-boggling. So we must be about the Father’s business. We must witness to the saving power of Jesus Christ’s finished work on the cross.

Again, here is the message to present to those who will be lost in sin for eternity if they do not heed the grace gift of salvation offered:

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)

Every prophet of God is inerrant in his foretellings given through God’s Word. Each prophecy must be considered solemnly and soberly. God said the following through one of His prophets, the Apostle Peter:

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (2 Pter 1:20–21)

Jesus’ Prophetic Words

How much more solemnly and soberly should we study the prophetic words of Jesus Christ, who is God Himself, with prayerful, reverential awe. It is with this realization, while pondering these strange times, that I was impressed to revisit the passages from one of the Lord’s prophecies I and others have used numerous times in thinking about things to come. I am usually hesitant to use such an extensive block of Scripture in this limited space. However, I believe it’s good to look at the prophecies involved here, rather than send you off to look up the Lord’s words elsewhere.

Jesus spoke about two specific past generations in order to forewarn one particular future generation, the generation that will be alive when He returns to intervene into the affairs of mankind.

And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. (Luke 17:26–27)

God’s People Hated, But Work Continues

The primary point I want to address here is that Noah and his seven family members had been pushed to the limits of their unwelcome status upon earth by the beastly, anti-God masses that inhabited the planet. Noah and the others had no choice but to trust God in His instructions to build the ark, in preparation for leaving their hate-filled environs. Noah didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, but he did trust God to deliver him and the others. The others were perhaps less certain than Noah of things to come, but the proverbial handwriting was on the wall. Violence and corruption filled the whole earth. Hatred against them was pressing in from every quarter.

They believed God was going to move by supernatural cataclysm as Noah preached forewarnings of certain judgment. These eight souls didn’t dig bunkers and gather weapons of war against the world of violent, corrupt earth-dwellers. They simply took God’s plan to construct the ark and carried it out to the letter. They trusted God, not humans, as they believed the day of God’s judgment and wrath would surely come. They were true believers. They took God at His Word, through His preacher, Noah.

While Noah and the others worked on constructing the vessel—which most likely no one could fully fathom (because it had never even rained, much less come a flood)—the mocking, demon-indwelt people threatened the believers, wanting these judgmental religious fanatics gone from their presence. Just as the hatred reached a crescendo, with the totally corrupted masses groping viciously to get their fingers around the throats of the believers, God told Noah to go inside the ark, now fully prepared, and the Lord himself sealed the door.

The “work” was complete. Noah and his family had carried out the Lord’s directive to build a vessel upon which anyone who would believe could enter for safety from His coming judgment. The God-haters got their way; the planet was rid of the religious nuts. God’s people were lifted above the floodwaters that destroyed all of incorrigibly wicked mankind.

The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were likewise as corrupt as the whole world of Noah’s pre-Flood days. Jesus told us about Lot’s time, in continuing His prophecy of earth’s final days:

Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. (Luke 17:28–30)

Day of the Lord a Stunning Surprise

Jesus was forewarning here of a specific “day” when He said:

Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

That is the day the entire book of the Revelation addresses. It is the day that begins, according to Jesus, like a “thief in the night” experience for the world.

Jesus prophesied about His stunning return to earth using metaphorical language that you and I would not use in describing our Lord. He said:

And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through. Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not. (Luke 12:39–40)

The apostles Paul and Peter addressed this special “day” using similar metaphorical language. Paul described how Jesus’ return at the end of the age will begin:

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. (1 Thessalonians 5:2)

Peter foretold how the Lord’s second coming will begin, in describing that astounding “day”:

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. (2 Peter 3:10)

We should understand, then, that the “day of the Lord” starts Christ’s Second Coming from the moment He breaks in upon an unexpecting world of rebellious earth-dwellers. That “day of the Lord” lasts through to the complete remaking of the heavens and the earth, as reported by John, who recorded the vision he was given.

We can discern signals of the coming judgment of God in every direction we observe upon the prophetic landscape today. In the second part of this series, we will look further into how close our own time might be to the seven years of God’s judgment and wrath known as the Tribulation.

Meantime, if you are in God’s family through belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross, always tell others about that saving power. Here is the message we are commissioned to take to the whole world of unbelievers.

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)