An infection has permeated the American populace. It isn’t of the bacteriological or viral sort in the biological sense. But, it is an epidemic in some ways more virulent, more septic. It seems to have contaminated society at every level–even Christian pastors I would have thought would have been biblically vaccinated against the anti-God strain.

Unrestrained by apparently any prophylactic inhibitor, such as media censorship or even Moral Majority-type protective shielding, the salacious show goes on. And, it is made manifest before the nation and the world in an observably, unabashedly shameless display.

It shouldn’t surprise, one must suppose. We’ve had hints of such lasciviousness within the White House, particularly since JFK’s passing–that is, since enough time has passed that historical spelunkers have exposed the sexual trysts in the White House of Camelot’s leader way back there fifty-plus years ago. A president was later deemed a “crook” by the Watergate inquisitionist. But, other than often-expletive, deleted language discovered on the infamous recordings of the Nixon White House, there was nothing even remotely approaching the sexual goings-on like during the Kennedy White House years.

Many accounts of LBJ and his rather raw and rowdy approach to the presidency have since produced accounts of sexual debauchery in the White House. But, until Bill Clinton, all was kept in the Oval Office closet. That closet was opened for all to know when that president’s activities with the young intern within the small study just off the oval room was uncovered.

That down-and-dirty activity–a paraphrase of how Obama’s preacher, Jeremiah Wright, put it–opened the once-high office of the presidency to the cesspool humor and conversation once reserved for the porn magazines and shops where only the most derelict would openly venture.

Now, on the presidential election debate stages where once the all-important issues and events of our time were heard, we are subjected regularly to debased topics once only discussed in those forbidden books such as in Xaviera Hollander’s The Happy Hooker.

Talk of male and female genitalia are in today’s political discourse thrown about in vulgar, slang invectives as readily as Richard Nixon might have once thrown accusations that John F. Kennedy was too young and inexperienced for the presidency.

It is an astonishing thing to consider–the Nixon-Kennedy debates (or any other) as against what we are seeing now.

I remember the kind of gutter talk we are hearing by haters of President Trump today thrown about by teenage boys during junior high and high school when I was in the ninth grade or so. Back then, those lunkheads–of which I was much too often one–would never deign to bring that sort of conversation out into the light of adult society.

Now, we have presidential wannabees in the so-called Resistance Movement talking about such things–right out in front of the bright lights and cameras, proudly airing their braggadocios salaciousness for the world to hear.

There is, obviously, according to the polls, a vast, late night show-type audience that is entertained by all of this new political trash-mouth talk. Those who aren’t necessarily amused or entertained by it sit in silence for the most part, overlooking the degree to which the once most- respected office in the land is being debased and degraded.

Some of this silent sort, as I say, are recognized names within evangelical Christianity. It is most distressing to have to acknowledge that this is the case.

This is not to put down any one politician, or to build up another. My only exhortation to the reader is that you use much discretion and pray for godly discernment during this crucial mid-term election season. We are in prophetic times, of this I have no doubt. America is subjected to this political purulence at a time when powers and principalities in high places intend to assert their wickedness upon a generation ripe for the coming Antichrist rise to power.

The Scripture that comes to mind should serve as a mirror into which we, the voters, should look, while doing our best to move in a direction other than moved the once-condemned people the Scripture depicts.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.

I will surely consume them, saith the LORD: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them. (Jeremiah 8:12-13)

Actors for carrying out one of the most famous military actions of prophecy yet future are beating the war drums. At this point they are only the drums of economic warfare, but the beat sounds familiar to the student of Bible prophecy. Like so much of prophetic stage-setting going on at present, the Trump administration is at the heart of this particular end-times development.

President Donald J. Trump a couple of weeks ago announced a steep tariff on Turkish steel and aluminum. This was done, in part, because Turkey has kept an American pastor incarcerated under what the president considers false charges and refuses to release him. Turkey’s lira has fallen significantly as a result, and relations have degenerated. Some within NATO, of which Turkey is a member, have also gotten crossways with Trump on the matter.

At the same time, Russia is having economic problems, with its ruble falling to two-year lows. The trouble is caused in part because the U.S. imposed severe sanctions due to a poisoning incident in Salisbury, UK, for which the Russians were deemed responsible.

So, two nations that are thought to be key players in the Gog-Magog attack in the Ezekiel 38-39 prophecy are reeling economically. Like so much going on at present, one who truly observes from the biblical prophecy perspective can see the orchestrating hand of God directing the actors in preparation for things to come.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, angered by the American president’s actions, called the United States “wild wolves” for imposing the sanctions. He vowed that Ankara would pursue trade with the Russians that doesn’t involve the American dollar. This is a relationship that has been in process of coming ever closer together over recent months and years. It is, most who observe from the biblical prophecy perspective believe, a coming together that is inevitable. Russia and Turkey, financially strapped to prop up their dictatorships, will one day soon seek “spoil” as Ezekiel the prophet, under divine inspiration, put it.

Turkey is in the geographical area believed to have constituted what is termed Togarmah by Ezekiel the prophet. We see the prophetic relevance in the following passage:

And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee. (Ezekiel 38:3-6)

While the United States of America isn’t mentioned by name anywhere in Scripture, we see almost on a daily basis, in my estimation, that America is influencing the shaping of things to come, prophetically speaking. In this case, of course, the American president–no stranger to controversy–is instrumental in pushing Turkey into the arms of Mr. Putin’s Russia. It is an astounding thing to watch, if one keeps in mind at all times that God is directing the end-times play.

The American dollar, as example of the U.S. being used to shape the prophetic picture, is the most powerful influence on earth, economically speaking. All the while, the dollar is supposed to have collapsed–to have died, bringing the economies of the world down with it. I, as most who read these commentaries know, believe that the dollar and all other things in the global economic scheme of things are being supernaturally propped up in order to prevent world financial collapse. That will happen, I’m convinced, when the Rapture of the Church takes place.

Russia and Turkey, along with all of the other players in this end times drama, are being channeled into precise positions for prophetic fulfillment. This doesn’t mean that free will has been done away with by the Grand Director of things. It’s just that the Lord knows the end from the beginning.

Turkey–Togarmah–is being channeled into the camp of Rosh–Russia–as many who observe Bible prophecy believe. The stage continues to be set.

We have looked a number of times in this column at those who mock the end-times message and the Rapture in particular. Because those who scoff have been of the abrasive, unbelieving variety for the most part, there is a standard Bible verse reply I’ve usually employed in response.

The scriptural reply has most often been intended to let those mocking know that they are, in actuality, fulfilling Bible prophecy.

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. (2 Peter 3:3-4)

As of late, however, such a reply doesn’t quite fit that which should compose an appropriate response. That is because the questions are coming weekly from genuine believers in the Pre-Trib Rapture of the Church. These Christians are worried–some very worried.

These look around them and on every side they see and feel the satanic pressures from this fallen sphere closing in. Issues and events –the very ambience in which they find their lives engulfed–generate thoughts that their circumstance is beginning to look much like the Bible’s description of the Tribulation itself.

To illustrate the growing angst, I’ve chosen the email of one such Christian brother who wrote this past week. His words pretty much get right to the point of the many other emails expressing like emotion. Here it is in its entirety:

Why is the Lord delaying the rapture? It should have happened years ago. We would be in the millennium now enjoying true peace and prosperity without the suffering. I don’t get it. It’s God call of course but 58 million aborted babies in the US since 1973, Christians tortured and murdered worldwide, people who believe in Jesus longing for his return suffering immensely. I don’t get it where is our Lord and Savior?

The emailer didn’t use any soft nuances of greetings or any other niceties. He just laid his spirit-distressed emotions right out there.

You don’t answer such gut-wrenching concern with the apostle Peter’s prophecy as given above. This child of God is worried. He is puzzled; he is perplexed. It’s the kind of questioning I’ve heard in my own kid’s anxieties when they were young and felt disappointed for one of my failures or the other to keep a promise. “Dad should never let me down like that” is the tone.

Only, this perceived unkept promise isn’t from an imperfect, human father. I say “perceived unkept promise” because the promise isn’t unbroken whatsoever. The error is in the question of the imperfect child asking it. His Perfect Father will, as always, be one hundred percent faithful to keep every promise made.

The Lord Jesus, Himself, in His ascended position, said the following to John the Revelator:

Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. (Revelation 3:10)

Jesus said it, and that means the Heavenly Father said it–promised it! Jesus said that He and the Father are One. They are inseparable–one and the same–the first and second Persons of the Godhead–the Trinity.

God cannot lie, the Scripture tells us. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. God keeps His promises. So, this brother in Christ, like all the other believers who look to the “blessed hope” of Titus 2: 13, who are in fear and worry while watching this fallen world closing in, need an answer from the Word of God.

The Heavenly Father gave the answer to Peter to pass along to us, just a bit farther on in Scripture. The answer to why the Rapture hasn’t occurred as soon as almost all of us wish it would occur is, at least in part, wrapped up in the following:

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

The Tribulation that will follow this Age of Grace will be filled with horrors that even John, under divine inspiration, had trouble describing. The Lord wants to provide every moment possible during this present dispensation for those lost in their sin to come safely into the shelter who is His beloved Son Jesus Christ. God wants this for the lost, because, following the Rapture, making the decision to accept Christ for salvation will be more difficult by a multiple of factors. Facing beheading is but one of those factors!

That is the reason–or at least a primary reason–the Rapture hasn’t yet occurred in this generation, according to God’s Word.

That said, I must take notable exception with the emailer’s contention that God is “delaying” the Rapture. You can take this to the bank–well, to the banks the way they used to be–God is not delaying the Rapture. It will happen precisely in the twinkling of the eye at the moment the Father has determined.

Jesus said: But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. (Matthew 24:36)

God knows exactly the instant He will send His Son to get His Bride, make no mistake. There is no delay.

On that note, issues and events closing in on us show that we are almost certainly very near that exhilarating moment of instantaneously finding ourselves face to face with the Lord Jesus. Just how near we are to the Rapture–if we could indeed know–would likely allay all fears.

Because of the lateness of the prophetic hour, I sense that my book released just recently: “Essays In Apocalypse: Some Thoughts On the End Of Days,” is a book I’ve been commissioned to write.

It is a time such as never before to listen for our Lord’s Shout: “Come up here!” (Rev. 4: 1)

Obama, when president, made the statement, in effect, that anyone who tells us the economic situation in the United States was not getting better was “peddling fiction.” This he said despite the fact that the debt clock was ticking and continues to tick at a rate that will soon have Americans and generations to come owing beyond $20 trillion.

At the same time, the election of Donald Trump and his economic acumen and action indeed has begun a boom. None-the less, extrapolated out over an extended number of years, some economists are saying unfunded liabilities of this nation amount to in excess of $200 trillion.

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 presented an improving economic picture, Trump’s opposition engender fearful concerns about things to come. It is almost impossible to grasp the causes and effects of the evil shaping and moving America and the world toward a destiny the supposed best minds on the planet can’t determine. However, that inability to define the problems, much less find solutions, doesn’t stop them from making seemingly wild stabs at trying to channel all of us into a drastically changed economic national and world order.

But, are the powers that oppose this president at every turn just playing politics,  or is there method to their madness? 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)

Humankind’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). Tracing the serpent’s trail of power madness to a later time recorded in the Bible (Genesis chapter 11), Nimrod was the would-be one-world- order builder of his day, following the Great Flood of Noah’s time. He, like every megalomaniac since, lusted for God-like power.

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, this by Lord Edward Acton: “All power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

In my estimation we see this level of power being sought in the insane attitude and action of those who hate the  current president and even his family. Circumventing the U.S. Constitution at every opportunity because this president has “a phone and a pen” poses a danger to this republic. To at the same time have another branch of government that is supposed to act as a check and balance to an out-of-control executive, yet does nothing to present opposition, creates real and present danger to this nation.

While mainstream media types of network and cable seemingly sway acceptingly in the mesmerizing flute notes of the charmer — Satan, the real peddler of fiction  who foments hatred for all things Trump– the immediate economic future looks brighter. according toBible prophecy, however, The nation and the world are about to experience economic collapse the likes of which has never occurred.

There will come a trigger point, or a tipping point. This will be one moment in time, and it will prick the immense financial bubble that the money powers that be have manipulated to this point of crisis we face.

My own belief continues to be that it is God’s great hand of control rather than the would-be economic masters that has prevented the bubble from bursting. As a matter-of-fact, I’m of the belief that God has put his man, Donald J. Trump, into the most powerful position on earth to see to it that the bubble not yet be allowed to burst.

The crisis awaits the moment in time when the Lord, Himself, will burst the bubble. If one studies carefully the news of late, it becomes clear that the term “cashless system” is coming more and more into vogue. The economic gurus at the highest levels — in human terms and in supernatural, satanic terms — seem to be preparing a system of Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). They want to do away with physical currency and go to the cashless, computer system so they can carry out their sleight-of-hand, monetary machinations electronically.

The marks-and-numbers system of economics of Revelation 13:16-18 is more than just on the drawing board. We are seeing it come to pass in our daily news. All that is required for its implementation is the crisis that will bring it forward. I am convinced that crisis will be created by the Rapture of all who name the name of Christ.

Just as suspected, the year 2018 is on track to be a pivotal year in the shaping of biblically prophetic destiny. The sudden loss of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016 has produce ramifications far beyond those posed by then President Barack Obama further stacking that court with yet another justice of like-mindedness to his own ideological bent.

The decision involving replacement of the constitutional champion that was Scalia with Justice Neil Gorsuch will perhaps, in one way or another, help determine the future course of all of mankind. And, President Trump’s naming yet another justice to replace retired Justice Kennedy will have profound effects beyond which we can now fathom.

American Founding Fathers, whether fully aware in every case that they were listening to the directives of the Almighty, gave Americans yet unborn a republic based upon Judeo-Christian principles. And, indications are overwhelming that almost all of them–even the deists like Franklin and Jefferson–knew that Providence had a divine hand in winning the War of Independence and in composing the liberty-laden document that is the U.S. Constitution.

Moving on from the producing of that founding document, the writings of the founders show they recognized that it was not merely an existential deity that started the national ball rolling then left America to its own devices. It is more than obvious that the one and only God’s mighty hand has been on this most materially blessed nation to ever exist throughout its 242 years of nationhood.

Antonin Scalia was consistently a Supreme Court justice who, with each decision he rendered, demonstrated that he believed that our God-influenced Constitution should be defended and preserved. With his passing, we were faced with the possibility that it was a document in danger of degeneration to ineffectiveness at best and to complete disregard at worst. Providence has, thus far, Intervened to offer a brighter prospect in the area of Supreme Court influence.

The Supreme Court has teeter-tottered on the fulcrum of cultural dichotomy, particularly since 1963, with the decisions to eliminate Bible reading and prayer from public schools. By this, I mean the traditional, God-fearing part of America was on one side and the America that wanted no such constraint on the other. Anti-God, humanistic gravity has consistently been tugging the nation downward with succeeding Supreme Court decisions. We witnessed a dramatic increase in the latest such tugging during 2015.

America then faced action by a president who, immediately upon Scalia’s death, announced he would nominate a replacement within the ten plus months left of his presidency. We didn’t have to wonder very long about the sort of nominee that he  would put forth. All that was necessary was  to consider Mr. Obama’s ideological forays into jurisprudence at the Supreme Court level over the past years of his presidency.

With decisions of the land’s highest court steadily slanting toward the anti-Constitutional side, and the loss of perhaps that court’s strongest voice for preservation of the document the Founders gave us, we indeed faced perilous times.

America was moving rapidly downward on the slide into national oblivion., The facts were staring us in the nation’s rebellious face.

America’s Supreme Court and its problems were but a reflection of that rebellion. We have sown to the winds with disregard for God’s biblical guidelines for upright comportment. We were in line to reap the whirlwind of reprobate thinking and conduct warned about by the apostle Paul in Romans chapter 1.

I believewith all that is within me that 2 Chronicles 7: 14 caused Heaven’s Supreme Court to, for the moment, give reprieve from the Judgment headed America’s way. Those called by the name of God –of Jesus Christ– prayed under the  Biblical Prescription, and national healing began almost immediately, proving the Lord’s Faithfulness to His Word.

Perhaps the final straw for Heaven’s Supreme Court would have been we the people allowing a wicked leadership to turn America against Israel and take up the cause of those who are vowed to destroy the Jewish state. Mr. Trump is, thankfully, takeikng the nation in the opposite direction it was headed under the previous administration.

 There is still the frightening prospect of rebellion that threatens America’s blessings being turned into curses in accordance with Genesis chapter 12. At the heart of the nation’s rebellion in this regard are the so-called Christian churches of America joining in the cursing of Israel. We hear every day of those churches that have joined in the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction) movement to punish Israel for “occupying” land that these say doesn’t belong to Israel.

To add insult to injury, these proclaim that they–the church–have replaced Israel as inheritors of the promises God gave Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Israel, they declare, has forfeited the claim to the promises and is no longer God’s chosen people. The Lord is finished with that people.

That is what these would-be usurpers of God’s promises say. But, here is what the Lord God of Israel says in His Holy Word:

“He Who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar–the Lord Almighty is His Name; Only if these ordinances vanish from My sight,” declares the Lord, “will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before Me.” (Jeremiah 31:35-36)

Just as the above promise is still in effect, so is God’s warning of Genesis 12:3. America, if national repentance is not forthcoming, faces a Supreme Decision far more serious than the replacement of a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Regarding the title above, I don’t mean to imply light being shed on the Tribulation–although that is part of what I hope will be done. By using the term “Tribulation light,” I mean we are now seeing issues and events occur in this Age of Grace much like, but not actually those prophetically scheduled for, the seven years of worldwide horror leading up to Christ’s Second Advent–i.e., those issues and events are but similar to those much more horrific, apocalyptic events; foreshadows of things to come.

There are several specific prophecies expounded upon by Jesus while giving His Olivet Discourse that I would like to examine as being “Tribulation light” events in our headlines today.

The Lord gave these as recorded in the following prophecy:

Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven. (Luke 21: 20-21)

I would like to probe a bit into the less-prominent “Tribulation light” prophetic indicators within the above Scripture before getting into that which I view as most pronounced in these days so near the end of the Church Age.

Jesus was foretelling that these troubles will be unprecedented in their ferocity during the Tribulation era when God’s wrath will fall upon incorrigibly wicked mankind. He exhorted that when those with discernment see these things begin to happen, they are to know that His return is drawing near. Note, the Lord said when these things “begin” to come to pass, those with discernment are to “look up…for your redemption draws near” (Luke 21:28).

Jesus said as recorded in other places that these issues and events will be like birth pangs. They will come upon end-time’s mankind like pains a woman experiences during the incrementally increasing contractions of having a baby. That is, these pains will begin in a milder manner than they will become the nearer the moment of birth.

Earthquakes, Jesus said, will mark the beginning of “sorrows” (birth pangs). Again, these, obviously, staying within the birthing analogy, will be lighter in severity than they will become during the full-blown Tribulation when Christ’s return is about to happen. We are told in Revelation that there will occur the ultimate earthquake as Christ is breaking through the black clouds of that terrible time. Every mountain will fall. That describes a mighty earthquake indeed!

Anyone who reads the news as presented in our Rapture Ready News section knows of the reports of tremblers from around the world. There seems no geographical region of the planet that isn’t experiencing seismic activity on an increasing scale. All of these quakes are light in severity when compared to the Revelation description of the final quake that will bring every tall structure on earth crashing down. However, the cumulative effects have prophetic evidentiary significance, it becomes ever more obvious.

Within recent times, covering a very brief number of hours, we have the following posts:

• 5.7-magnitude earthquake felt in New Zealand capital
  New Zealand’s capital city Wellington was rocked by 5.7-magnitude earthquake on Tuesday (Feb 9), according to the country’s earthquake monitoring service.
• Massive earthquake hits near Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville
  A 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit near the Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville early on Tuesday morning. The undersea quake struck at 3.19am local time…
• Taiwan Quake Kills at Least 18 as Search for Missing Continues
  A strong earthquake rocked a region of Taiwan that’s a hub for chipmaking suppliers to the likes of Apple Inc. and Qualcomm Inc., killing at least 18 people
• 5.2 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Nepal, Tremors Felt In Bihar
• Earthquake shakes Tokyo, no tsunami risk
  An earthquake has struck close to Tokyo, shaking much of the metropolitan region. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, and no tsunami
• Chile earthquake: Strong tremor strikes near Tongoy and La Serena
  A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 has struck off the coast of central Chile, centered off Tongoy and La Serena, seismologists say.
• Strong earthquake hits Solomon Islands
  A magnitude 6.4 earthquakes hit the Solomon Islands at 12.19am today, according to the Malaysian Meteorological Department.

Such reports continue in a never-ending cyberspace headlines crawl. The tremors are coming with increasing frequency and intensity.

The second “Tribulation light” indicator I pluck from the Luke 21:20-21 Olivet prophecy Jesus gave is the matter of “pestilence.”

To be brief, I bring to your attention the things we have seen develop in this regard. Remember the Ebola scare. Think of the HIV natter that was on the front pages and growing, seemingly, uncontrollably. And now it is the Zika virus that is apparently spread by mosquitoes and which has no medical defense to combat it. There is growing concern among the medical research community that many of the pestilences are in the process of mutating–developing resistance to antibiotics and other forms of combating disease.

The Tribulation era will see these diseases become full-blown. The toll in human life will be beyond comprehension.

All of these above-mentioned developments are but sidebars to the real story regarding signals that show how near this generation is to the Tribulation era.

“Nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom”: This is the real scriptural crux of proof in thinking on where we stand on God’s prophetic timeline.

“Nation” in the Greek language, as used here, is “ethnos” or “ethnic” in English. Jesus was predicting that the very end of the age would produce great ethnic upheaval. People will be raging against each other for reasons of race. Likewise, the Lord said that “kingdom against kingdom” will mark the era leading up to His Second Advent.

Is there any doubt whatsoever that these indicators are in our headlines today? In the very streets of America, there is ethnic rage that sometimes boils to the uncontrollable level. The rioting in places like Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, leap instantly to mind. Such rage is at the heart of problems around the world. Religious fervor, inciting ethnic hatreds, mark this generation as the one Jesus must have had in His omniscient mind when giving this prophecy.

We are experiencing today “Tribulation light” prophetic birth pangs on a moment-by-moment basis. It will be fascinating, as watchers on the wall, to see what the rest of 2018 and beyond will bring. We, as born-again believers, hope it brings the shout of the Lord Jesus: “Come up here!” (Revelation 4:1)

A country song from way back in the 1960s and 1970s, during the Vietnam War era, plays through my mind these days. The chorus goes as follows:

God bless America again. You must know the trouble that she’s in. Wash her pretty face, dry her eyes and then,… God bless America again.

The war was raging while Walter Cronkite read the mainstream view of the news to us at dinnertime. Film of bloodied American GIs and corpses of black-pajamaed Vietcong projected from our TV screens while we downed our evening meals.

B-52s dropped hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives, carpet-bombing an unseen enemy many thousands of feet below. Rolling Thunder, as it was called, churned up killing fields of earth mixed with flesh and blood night after night–day after day.

More than fifty thousand American soldiers and airmen went through the horrific, grinding process of becoming casualties of war their country’s leaders, it turned out, never intended to bring to total victory–giving their last measure of devotion for America the beautiful. At the same time, the ugliness of political warfare was being uncovered and displayed in a news media orgy of, in my view, pro-Communist gleefulness.

A U.S. president of the United States was turned out of office in disgrace–and, rightfully so. Watergate became forever an ingrained term within the American-English lexicon.

Would America ever recover? Would the curse that had descended since the time of Korea, with America’s young men and women dying in a “police action” purposely fought to stalemate rather than to complete victory, ever lift from our nation?

There have been moments of seemingly possible national egress from the plunge into the abyss of political corrosiveness. It looked like the nation might pull away from the cultural rot begun in earnest during the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the legitimization of murdering babies in their mother’s wombs.

The Moral Majority appeared for a brief, shining, moment to be making headway in engendering movement toward moral sanity. Somehow, however, a national, cultural darkness began descending following the Reagan years. An almost tangible veil separating America’s formerly flawed but Judeo- Christian-governed morality from a new immoral malignity fell with the Clinton years, the White House intern’s stained, blue dress and all the rest.

Jeremiah Wright, Barack Hussein Obama’s black-liberation theology ”pastor,” from his Chicago pulpit, spewed a venomous rant that America’s chickens had come home to roost and implied that the Lord of Heaven should damn America–using God’s name in vain with the invective. Wright was, I infer, talking about the Islamist attacks on the Trade Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

As much as I detested “Reverend” Wright’s hate speech against the United States, I must admit that indeed, America’s chickens appeared to have come home to roost, suffering on that September 11, 2001, Tuesday at least some degree of God’s judgment. In my view, the eight – years of Wright’s best-known parishioner’s time in the Oval Office brought an intensification of that judgment.

The year 2016 was  a truly pivotal year for this nation and the world. it was proper, I believe, to wonder whether God’s judgment was on track to preclude that of the corrective sort, such as in the past. I’m thinking of times like the Great Depression of the 1930s, following the debauched era of the Roaring Twenties, as it was called.

It was within reason to consider that  God’s judgment might be entering a destructive rather than another corrective phase. Was America entering a time such as when Sodom and Gomorrah came to their end–i.e., was it possible that God would never bless America again?

Like that country song tells throughout its lyrics, I, too, love America and don’t want to ever let it fall because of my not doing my part in helping keep it upright in every sense.

All of this said, spiritually enlightened Bible students know that neither the leaders of this nation nor of any other will rectify the rapidly mounting problems. Only Jesus Christ will solve the otherwise unsolvable, sinister evil that is at humanity’s core.

There are, within the community of Bible prophecy observers, those who wonder whether America is the most likely candidate for being the Babylon of the eighteenth chapter of Revelation–according to the Bible, the country that will be the most materially accomplished of all nations of earth’s history. I am one of those who pondered this possibility more seriously with each passing news headline involving the Obama Administration and State Department dealing with Israel.

God, it is abundantly clear, has through His dealing with America more than lived up to His promise to bless those who bless the progeny that would come from Abraham through Isaac. America, acting as midwife in the rebirth of the Jewish state into modernity in 1948, has been the recipient of bountiful material blessings beyond measure. God has truly blessed America.

Conversely, God has promised to curse those who curse His chosen nation, Israel. The cultural war is observably causing the loss of America’s former striving to promote Judeo-Christian values the Founding Fathers infused into the Constitution. Just as troubling was the obvious disdain the most previous president and those around him had for Israel, even choosing to champion Israel’s enemies at every diplomatic opportunity, it seems to me.

Such continued folly would not perhaps, but would certainly, bring national disaster the likes of which our previously blessed nation has never experienced. If indeed forgiveness of our national sins is possible, given the lateness of the prophetic hour, let us who name the matchless name that is above every name implore God to bless America again. This must be done, however, not with vain repetition in the idle words “God bless America” often used by presidents and politicians when ending their meaningless speeches.

There is but one heavenly Rx for obtaining an answer to such a prayer:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

God does not change. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That call to repentance to His people is still in effect–and it is for Church Age saints, just as it was for His chosen people of ancient Israel. But, time is swiftly fleeting.

“We will make America great again!” is a current presidential politics proclamation. No, “we” won’t. We have proven, through our actions and lack thereof, that as a people, we want to take America in the other direction. “We” didn’t make America great in the first place, and we certainly can’t make it great in the future.

“God bless America again,” when offered in genuine spiritual, obedient humility–not in politically-prideful demand–before the throne of Almighty God, is the only petition that has a prayer of a chance to save our nation.

Thankfully, we seem to have been given a chance to make America great again God’s Way.

There are many in America, it is more than obvious, who are only minimally aware or not aware at all of the enragement spawned by the 2016 presidential election. Because I am so intensely aware of the rage ripping at the heart of the nation, those who don’t seem to even notice the damage being done irritate me to distraction. My only comfort comes from the knowledge that God has it all under control. –That, and the conviction that a reconstituted silent majority will manifest its own enragement when it’s time to enter the voting booths during this year’s mid-term elections.

Then, I come to my spiritual senses and realize that politics are of a temporal nature that render effects on the human condition fleeting at best. Only investment in things of God will triumph at the end of the day. Humanistic influences—be they constituted of political or any other man-centered ingredient—are of no lasting consequence.

Still, we must endure present circumstance, so it’s best to do so by, as calmly and thoughtfully as possible, analyzing things as they exist.

Always, it is our purpose at Rapture Ready to probe with the sharp, revealing Word of Bible prophecy. Doing so makes possible the understanding of even the absolute insanity exhibited by the political left, pumped up in its enragement by ideological steroids injected by mainstream news and entertainment media.

It takes no more than a modicum of effort to get to the very center of the anger. The winner of the 2016 presidential election is the object of rage for hatred central—the political party which, it seems, becomes more radical by the day.

To get right to the proof of the pudding, as the term goes, we look at an individual party member that more than most others represents the radicalized left in the matter of hatred for the duly elected president.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is the apex mover and shaker in the so-called resistance. We remember her inflammatory rhetoric upon her learning of White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders being ejected from a Washington, D.C., restaurant because she worked for the Trump Administration.

Waters said, “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them! And you tell them that they are not welcome, anymore, anywhere.”

Despite some within her political party making limp attempts to distance themselves from Waters’ lunacy, the enragement just continues to mount. Waters, rather than back down from her incitement, continues to throw fuel on the fires started by the so-called Antifa movement, an organized group of haters equating the Trump Administration to the fascist government of the days of Benito Mussolini, axis partner with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis of World War II.

The enragement will soon reach a dangerous level, it is feared by those who observe from the perspective of students of history.

World Net Daily (WND) columnist Dennis Prager said the following:

“Because of the ever-descending moral and intellectual state of the mainstream news media, there has been no outcry against the leftists who call President Donald Trump and all Americans who support him Nazis. Indeed, members of the media now regularly do so.

“Without that outcry, this labeling will only increase; and this steadily increasing drumbeat of hysteria is likely to lead to one result: violence against conservatives,” he warned.

“It is not plausible to foresee any other outcome of left-wing normalization of the terms ‘Nazi’ and ‘white supremacist.’”

A WND report presented the following regarding the political rage that is building. Veteran political adviser and longtime columnist Pat Buchanan warned inflammatory rhetoric sometimes is followed by very real violence.

“The left, to the point of irrationality, despises a triumphant Trumpian right and believes that to equate it with fascists is not only legitimate, but a sign that the accusers are the real moral, righteous and courageous dissenters in these terrible times,” he explained.

It has happened before, he pointed out.

“After Dr. King’s assassination, a hundred cities, including the capital, were looted and burned. Scores died. U.S. troops and the National Guard were called out to restore order. Soldiers returning from Vietnam were spat upon. Cops were gunned down by urban terrorists. Bombings and bomb attempts were everyday occurrences. Campuses were closed down. In May 1971, tens of thousands of radicals went on a rampage to shut down D.C.,” he said.

And Buchanan cited the left’s frequent comparisons of Trump to Nazi Germany, which “are absurd.”

“Does anyone truly believe that the centers where the children of illegal migrants are being held, run as they are by liberal bureaucrats from the Department of Health and Human Services, are like Stalin’s Gulag or Hitler’s camps?” he wrote. (WND.com, July 3, 2018)

Again, while humanistic rage and political enragement are troubling, it is incumbent upon the spiritually-attuned to consider the real battle being waged. We find that battle in Ephesians 6: 12—We struggle not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

We get right to the heart of the cause and effect by considering the following:

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Pet 5: 8)

Satan—the devil—is enraged. So, too, are his minions, both demonic and human. However, we are not to fall victim to the enragement of minions who want to throw off the bonds of Heaven’s governance. Jesus is our strength and our fortress. We are told: “Greater is he who is in you, than he who is in the world.” (1 Jn 4: 4)

While those who truly grasp the lateness of the hour and what the issues and events of these strange, troubled times mean, there is the overwhelming majority that hasn’t a clue. This is neither surprising nor unexpected, because the vast part of the world’s population is in spiritual darkness–without Christ, therefore without the Holy Spirit to guide thinking and comportment.

There are millions upon millions of others who are within Christendom–that is, who claim to be under the umbrella of Christianity. Most of these, statistics bear out, would not qualify as “Christian” under the definition of being “born again.” That is, they haven’t truly “believed” as given in Romans 10:9-10:

“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.”

It is not my place–nor the place of any other person to say who is and isn’t “saved” on an individual basis. However, we are to definitely hold to what the Bible tells us are the qualifications for becoming a child of God who will spend eternity with Him in Heaven. In the sense of discernment, we can say that those who hold to those biblical qualifications are “saved” and those who do not hold to those qualifications are not.

We will deal in this essay with those who fit within the category defined by the above prescription for being born again. I would like to get even more specific.

Among those who are truly born again, there are many views of how things will play out, prophetically speaking. At the same time, there are also many who don’t know and many who don’t care about prophecy–what God has foretold about their future. They are too busy living out their increments of life one heartbeat and breath at a time.

Sadly, the latter by far constitute the majority. That is, most don’t know about Bible prophecy, and most don’t care. They are aided and abetted in their willful ignorance by the pastors and Bible teachers within their church bodies in this disregard for the prophetic portion of God’s Word. That prophetic Word is almost one-third of the Scripture the Lord has given us through His Love Letter to mankind.

Even more specifically, I want to concentrate for the moment on the doctrine of the Rapture of the Church–that twinkling of an eye moment Paul wrote about as recorded in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:52-55.

Of those who have truly been born again, there are few in number who know about the Rapture in concrete terms or who grasp that there will come that moment of being called into Heaven by their Lord. In America, even those who do understand that the Rapture is an event prophetically scheduled according to the Bible resist embracing the promise intrinsic within the doctrine of that imminent call from Christ. That is, rather than desire to hear Christ’s call, “Come up here,” (Revelation 4: 1) these want to first live life on earth and fulfill all of the anticipated pleasures it offers. It is primarily this group of believers to whom I address the thoughts that follow.

Notice, please, that I wrote as a qualifier, “in America.. It is in America that this attitude of not embracing the Rapture among Christians is most pronounced. Proof of that statement is made clear through the thousands upon thousands of sermons that are preached each week. The number of prophetic messages amongst those thousands of sermons are infinitesimal. People don’t want to hear that Christ’s call is imminent. The pastors–in overwhelming numbers–demonstrate that they don’t want to delve into that portion of Bible truth–even if, indeed, they in fact believe that the Rapture is an imminent event.

Not desiring the Rapture is, for American believers, as natural as breathing. Life in the United States is not bad, and for the most part, pretty comfortable. Compared to living as a Christian in, say, the Middle East, Africa, or other parts of the world, being a Christian requires that no heavy price be paid. That is what I mean when I say it is as natural as breathing.

Christians in America, unlike their counterparts in less blessed, heavily oppressed, persecuted parts of the world, rather than worrying about whether they will be able to provide food for themselves and their children for the day, look forward to their upcoming marriages, vacations, or new purchases that will satisfy their latest comfortable lifestyle aspirations. These physical and psychological wants and needs are the natural outflow from abundance. Longing for the Rapture is a spiritual–supernatural–exercise that requires, for most, effort that seems to offer no tangible, immediate gratification. Such effort is just too taxing for most of America’s Christians and their pastors. It takes them out of their comfort zone, much as does prayer and Bible reading.

When American Christians in this category do think of the Rapture–which, again, they in fact believe is a thing that will happen, but somewhere in the hazy years of the future–they fear it will take them away from the pleasures of this earthly life. That event will, they think, snatch them from their comfortable American lifestyle. It will present a completely changed paradigm–one that will cause them to lose homes, family closeness, friendships, other relationships, and their “stuff”–all of which provides familiarity and pleasure.

This is especially true among the younger people. Their disinterest in prophecy in general and in the Rapture of the church in particular is more than obvious in the make-up of prophecy conferences. I can’t see any longer, due to a retinal disease, but am told that the conferences are almost without exception attended nearly exclusively by those with gray hair.

Now, I’ve been perhaps too harsh on Christians in America. However, we are approaching the very end of this Church Age. The perhaps overly stern exhortation is to focus attention on the reality that we might within months, weeks, days, or even hours, look our Lord in His holy, omniscient eyes. He said He was going to prepare a place for us and would come again and take us there with Him (John 14:1-3). That “place” is something we can’t even begin to fathom in its wonders and luxuriant surroundings. All of the relationships in this life we thought we might lose in the Rapture will be magnified in their joy and intimacy a million times over. We are going to find that all earthly treasures we so valued are as refuse compared to things the Lord has prepared for those that love Him.

I sense that the newlywed couple who belong to Christ will find their relationship with each other dazzlingly more intimate than anything planet earth could have nurtured. The “stuff” left behind will be instantly forgotten when we behold the heavenly treasury that holds us spellbound. The best days of our lives in this earthly confinement will seem as a time of terrible, debilitating paralysis. The Rapture will instantaneously bring life unencumbered by gravity and all laws of what we know as physics. The Lord put us here to enjoy the many good things He provides. There’s nothing wrong in living life to its absolute fullest. But, this is not our home. We are but travelers in a foreign land. We are here for, at best, 70, 80, 90, or 100 years, then we slip these surly bonds.

We, as God’s children, should not resist the doctrine of Rapture, but anticipate that glorious instant when the whole purpose of our being born into this universe reaches fruition. We will at that incomprehensible moment understand what it means to be joint heirs with Christ. Even so, Come, Lord Jesus!

Progressive is the term for the mind-set most lauded by media today. The word “progressive,” of course, is the label media and “progressives,” themselves have pasted over the word “Liberal” in order to distance themselves from the many failed policies of liberalism. Even those of the progressive mind-set recognize that those failed policies within the arena of American politics and government has been proven to be…I don’t know how else to frame them… insane.

We’ve all heard that one definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing again and again, even though it fails every time. Nothing more aptly describes the liberal mind-set in American politics and government than does the policy begun by the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration in 1964.

Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” to create his “Great Society,” was to eliminate poverty and assure that every citizen become more equal in achieving a prosperous life. A noble thought, right? Well, yes. I’ll concede that many –including the president, himself, most likely really wanted that to happen. With Liberals –I mean– Progressives– it’s always the good intentions that count. But, it didn’t happen. It still has not happened.

Our government has now spent more than $22 trillion in exactly the same manner since 1964 –over and over again. Poverty is worse, and the welfare state has created and perpetuated a class of totally dependent people –people that for the most part are healthy, able-bodied, and who would be capable of doing for themselves –if not for the slothful element government has encourage and exacerbated.

I mention this economic fact only to show the insanity of the Liberal —excuse me– I mean the Progressive thinking to which we are subjected every hour of every day. This mindset goes far, far, beyond economic madness, as we will see.

Such thinking is prophetic. Paul foretold just such a mindset and where it would lead as the end of the age and the return of Jesus Christ nears.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened… And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient…” (Rom 1: 18-21, 28)

Reprobate thinking, as we have seen before, is upside-down thinking. It is thinking which can neither see a problem in a clear-headed way, nor can it formulate a reasonably effective solution to a problem. Thinking that excludes God produces a reprobate mind –one that will –for example– keep throwing trillions of dollars that don’t exist (because we are broke) at a problem which that money only makes worse, not better.

The Progressive mind-set demonstrates time after time, again and again, over and over, that it wants to carry on with life apart from governance from the God of Heaven. Humanistic government on an ever-increasing grasp for power and control is at the core of the Liberal –excuse me– the Progressive way of thinking.

The Creator –God– has said that marriage is for one man and one woman for life. The Progressive says that this is a new time and place and Biblical thinking is old fashioned –outmoded. We must Progress…

But, nature itself –the way male and females of all species capable of reproducing are constructed, show plainly that it is male-female, not male-male or female-female that constitutes the sexual union God –or if you prefer– nature intended.

Paul the apostle, in His letter to the Romans, again put’s a scriptural finger on the rebellion that festers within the Progressive mind-set.

“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.” (Rom 1: 26-27)

God says plainly in His Word what He thinks about the killing of babies in the womb. He speaks clearly about shedding blood of those who are a threat to no one, because they are, in human terms, “innocent”.

“These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood…” (Prov 6: 16-17)

The Progressive says that, in effect, God –if there is in fact a God– doesn’t know what He is saying in His Word. Life in the womb isn’t life –at least, not yet human life. The Progressives have the right to choose whether the child in the womb is to live or not. They have the right to choose what is convenient for their own life, and this includes the right to choose to execute a defenseless baby before it takes its first breath for expediency’s sake.

Entertainment media is the incubator for the Progressive mind. In these last days every thought of the heart is only on evil continually, as in Noah’s day. The entertainment calls good evil and evil good, and the progressive mind becomes more reprobate by the hour.

Now, let me say as a caveat that political conservatism deserves little more praise than does progressivism. Humanism rules at the heart of all political and governmental entities upon this fallen and soon to be judged planet. The greatest desire of all who name the Name of Christ should be to wage a campaign to win the hearts and minds of mankind for the Lord we serve.

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Cor 2: 14-16)