I solicited from readers of this column a couple of essays ago information on the apparently entrenched entity within the White House termed Q. The responses I am receiving are many. I’m surprised at the passion involved within the matter.

Many sent their thoughts adamantly supporting the validation or credence of Q. Some who emailed said they wished and/or hoped such an entity exists and is acting on behalf of the president and the nation the way Q and the Qanon  believers indicate–although they aren’t certain of the reality of Q.

Others sent emails imploring me not to get caught up in the whole Q  matter. These exhorted–some in quite pointed ways–that Q and all attendant to things involved was foolish at best and, at worst, counterproductive to my heavenly assignment as “watchman on the wall.” I should, they advised, just deal biblically with everything of prophetic nature in these closing days of the Church Age.

Regardless of how those of you who sent the emails responded with information, thoughts on Q, or advice to avoid the topic and all involved, I thank you very much, each and everyone who answered the solicitation. You  have been most helpful. Please continue to send things you think are relevant.

I’ve had so far only one epiphany. Whether an actually working entity within the secretive echelons of the U.S. governmental and political process or merely the apparition of a clandestine cabal implanted to make the so-called resistance worry about their fate, Q is part of the end-times big picture. Therefore the matter is worthy of investigation.

Again, I think this phenomenon can be placed within the Scripture the Apostle Paul was given by the Holy Spirit to frame our particular time in human history: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).

That there is indeed a mighty struggle going on at the highest levels of America’s government and the governments of the entire world there should be little question. For the spiritually attuned student of Bible prophecy, there should be absolutely no question in this regard.

With the U.S. and the world just prior to the 2018 presidential election going fast and furiously in the direction dictated by the globalists who nefariously dealt within those geopolitical stratospherics, the intervention can’t be missed. The satanic blueprint for the return to Babel was impossible not to ascertain by the clued-in students of Bible prophecy.

The Deep State (those in government determined to bring America into that one-world configuration) had, with the election of Donald J. Trump their part of the devil’s blueprint suddenly snatched from their grasp, in my view. America continues to be at the heart of any internationalist cabal’s planning. This nation must be brought into the construction process. The  diabolical minions of the prince of the power of the air–Satan–must siphon the financial assets and resources of America in order to successfully build upon the Antichrist platform the devil wants to construct.

I wrote about the vital importance of America to the globalists’ ambitions during 2010 and early 2011. Remember that at that time it looked like a total implosion of the American and world economies would happen any day. Experts were saying we would wake up one morning and find the financial world had collapsed.

Excerpts of that writing those years ago are as follows.

So, we come to our present hour. America is the apex nation of the world. That is, it is the most materially blessed nation and one of the most spiritually blessed nations ever to exist. This, despite the fact that it has degenerated in many ways to become perhaps the most wicked in human history. The United States is so blessed with material wealth that every nation on earth is inextricably linked to its economy in one way or another.

It is true that its dominance is under threat and is eroding quickly. The economic meltdown and unavoidable implosion of America’s monetary hegemony is imminent. But everything of global financial significance still hinges on the health and fate of the American dollar. This is to the great consternation of the people Glenn Beck rails against as wanting to bring the dollar down so that a new monetary regime can be brought to bear on the hapless citizens of what they envision as a Babel-like one-world order.

Despite incessant assaults, the American economy hasn’t collapsed. It should have by now, but it hasn’t. It is, despite ominous signs ahead, business as usual–just as Jesus said it would be at the end of the age. If America’s economy crashes–-as Beck says it will very shortly—the entire world will collapse to rubble. The business-as-usual element of Christ’s prophecy about it being like the days of Noah and Lot would be out the proverbial window.

If the U.S. economy collapsed, taking the world’s buying and selling capability into the darkest times in history, it would take years–if ever–for everything to recover so that things would again come into business-as-usual configuration. Yet the devastating, world-rending collapse is coming. It cannot be stopped. I completely agree with Glenn Beck and Hal Lindsey in seeing that coming economic catastrophe in the immediate future. However, I disagree that the folly of man or the deliberate manipulations of human diabolists will bring the fearful disaster. And the disaster will not happen until God’s prophetic timing allows. It will continue to be business as usual despite increasing harbingers of economic calamity. Perhaps conditions will even look like they are improving. But if so, it will be smoke and mirrors–-a sham “recovery.” The damage is done. Recovery is impossible. (“Scanning a Fearful Future, raptureready.com)

Today, in 2018, news headlines hourly report of the great economic boom that is in progress at the present. America’s and the world’s economies haven’t collapsed.

We are buying, selling, building, planting, marrying, etc.–everything that indicates economic boom, not bust.

Jesus said it will be just like that when He next makes His presence known to the world. Again, we read about that break-in as a thief in the night in Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17: 26-30.

I wrote further in that series of articles in 2010 and 2011.

This all means that Jesus Christ is poised to do exactly what He foretold. The prophetic signals and conditions prevalent in America and the world should have the attention of every believer. Jesus is about to fulfill His glorious promise as recorded in John 14:1-3.

The Rapture, I believe Jesus is telling us, will be the sword of judgment that pierces the building, festering boil of humanistic rebellion. When the Church is taken to heaven, the minds of those left behind who want to control will no longer have restraint on their thoughts and ambitions. There will cease to be a governor on man’s conscience, according to 2 Thessalonians 2:7-8, because the Holy Spirit will allow the evil within mankind to do its dastardly work.

This will be the time–during the chaos of the days immediately after the Rapture—that all of Mr. Beck’s fears will come to fruition. Neither patriots nor anyone else will be able to save America and the world.

The Church, with the Restrainer resident within each believer, will continue to be salt and light–to exert influence over America’s societal and cultural conditions. That influence, although observably becoming less and less effective, will be sufficient to prevent all-out, Nazi-like persecution against Christians in this nation.

When the Church-Age saints go to Christ upon His call to them (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; Revelation 4:1-2), America and the world will be devoid of the Church’s buffering influence. Those who accept Christ during the Tribulation will undergo the most horrific persecution of human history.

It is at this time–the disappearance of all born-again believers in the Rapture–that the Deep State within America and the world community of nations will collectively, quickly, become the Beast State.

That transformation will come within the “twinkling of an eye”:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)

We, as the American people, stand upon the precipice of a great chasm. The chasm is a dark abyss into which every major empire has leaped. The fallen nature of man since Eden’s catastrophe has reacted to the abyss like shards of scrap iron to a powerful magnet’s tug. The immense gravity created by societal and cultural corruption has been irresistible to avoid.

America’s collective fallen nature has become profoundly manifest since just before the 2016 presidential election. So profound, in fact, that observers of prophetic stage-setting for the final throes of cultural and societal decay wonder in amazement. How does the United States–certainly no longer “united”–manage to avoid falling off that precipice upon which we as a  societal order perch, apparently contemplating collective self-destruction?

The chasm, gateway to the abyss that pulls at our nation with greater strength each day, separates “we the people” from the other side, where is found God’s divine protection and peace. That great divide, the creation of our own sinfulness and made infinitely destructive by the prince of this world system, consists of political forces admittedly intent on changing America into an entity totally unlike that envisioned by the founding fathers–men who relied to a great extent on the God of Heaven for direction in the nation being brought to birth.

The Lord of Heaven directly intervened again in 2016. It was so obvious that the truly spiritually attuned member of God’s family couldn’t miss it. Others could only wonder in awe at what had happened–a total political neophyte descending, literally, a high-rise escalator to announce his intention to run. That candidate, now as president, continues to baffle the elite, political class with his achievements and accomplishments in America’s behalf. And, most of that cabal hate everything about him–and they demonstrate each and every day that they hate us who support him, by the way.

America is–it is apparent to me, at least–being held back from tumbling into that abyss where every major civilization has fallen. But, most who sense as I do that this is the case believe it to be only a temporary reprieve from falling victim to the beckoning leap into national destruction.

A quick scan of the American political landscape demonstrates, for those with spiritual senses activated, things shaping yet again that will require Heaven’s intervention–if we are to remain on the cusp of destruction rather than tumbling to our demise as a culture and society.

The lies against Judge Kavanaugh, in my opinion, blatantly shine prophetic light on Paul’s “perilous-times” indicator for the end of the age. Evil men and seducers have indeed grown and are growing worse and worse. The “perilous times” signal Paul calls “false accusers” is right in our faces–again, in my opinion.

The murder of babies in their mother’s wombs, even the leftist TV pundits admit, is at the heart of hatred for Judge Kavanaugh. They resist with such insane ravings and lies because they fear that Roe v Wade will be overturned. Thus will end their right to use abortion as the remedy for the unwanted consequences of  their unbridled lust for pleasure.

My prayer is that every Christian–and all others who read this commentary–will recognize the critical nature of the midterm election this November. It is absolutely essential that we as believers again go to the Lord as we did before the 2016 presidential election. We need to follow God’s prescription for invoking his intervention. That prescription, of course, in 2 Chronicles 7: 14.

I am persuaded beyond any doubt that Christians across America followed that Rx preceding the election of Donald J. Trump. The election was a miracle to us who asked that God provide that miracle. To those who went insane following that election, it was a tragedy of tragedies. Their losing candidate, if victorious, would surely have continued leading America into that abyss upon whose ledge we remain poised.

Instead of making the U.S. the socialist Utopia the Alinsky ideologist envisioned, their globalist blueprint and construction were put on hold.

Please know this. The midterm elections will require another miracle. We must–MUST–again invoke the Lord’s help. The abyss awaits and Satan and his minions–both demonic and human–stand ready, if they regain the controls necessary, to push the nation into that evil, destructive black hole from which there is no escape.

We are facing one of the most important elections in the history of our nation. The leftist forces, party-wise and media-wise, are insanely fixated upon grabbing power at any cost. There is now no tactic that is too egregious.

In one case with which you are by now familiar, the siblings of Congressman Paul Gosar of Arizona’s 4th Congressional District were recruited into making an attack ad against their own brother. Satan and his minions have the entire nation suffering with ideological infection that is steeped in evil spirituality that is now emerging to the surface as it has  seldom done before.

If the Democrats win the House or Senate, they will bring the federal government to a standstill. There will be one impeachment hearing after another. With congressional committees under the control of the Democrat party, every one of Trump’s cabinet members could expect to be dragged before numerous witch-hunt hearings.

Political chaos in Washington, if the election was to go the way mentioned above, will likely lead to financial chaos on Wall Street.

As example: The 1973 Arab oil embargo only caused the Dow Jones to decline by 16 percent. The 1974 Watergate scandal, on the other hand, caused the Dow Jones to plunge by 26 percent. Fomenting chaos at the highest level of the U.S. government–the presidency–is obviously the proven strategy the devil and his minions intend to use as long as they are not in total control.

Absent God’s staying hand, in such a case as the change-America-at-any-cost  powers getting full control of the reins of government, the nation would almost certainly tumble into the abyss reserved for those who have turned their backs on Him.

It is our prayerful hope that God may intervene with yet another miracle in the November 6 election. Each of us who names the Name of Jesus Christ can do three things in this election process:

1) Pray for God’s intervention in the election in accordance with 2 Chronicles 7: 14.

2) Vote God’s way when you go into the booth (as the Holy Spirit Leads).

3) Urge others to be sure to vote and to vote for candidates who hold to godly and constitutional principles.

You and I as members of God’s family stand at a crucial juncture in American–and human–history. How we conduct our lives at this time is absolutely critical to carrying out God’s message to those who face certain, unbelievably horrendous futures if they aren’t forewarned.

Ezekiel the prophet tells under divine inspiration that the blood of people who don’t know  of God’s salvation will be upon the heads of believers (prophets) who know about things to come but fail to inform those who are lost.

We at Rapture Ready are determined to stand as watchmen on the wall in these times so near to Christ’s calling His Church to be with Him. We want to hear our Lord say, “Well done, good, faithful servant.”

Once upon a time I wrote in an early draft of a book manuscript about the spirit of Antichrist as given in the Bible. It was more or less a question positing whether this passage might have something to do with anti-Semitism to some extent. Here is the Scripture.

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” (1 John 4:1-3)

My cogitation revolved around whether the words:”in the flesh” might somehow include/involve the fact that Jesus came into the world through Jewish ” flesh.” After all, Christ came into the world through the Jewish race. Satan has always wanted to have the world deny that the Jew has any special place in God’s plan for humanity.

The Jew has been hunted and hated throughout history. Adolf Hitler said the Jew is sub-human, and much of the communist world would agree with the Nazi thought in that regard, history shows. They were mistreated–brutally–by Stalin and subsequent dictators and held as the scapegoat for all problems the dictators themselves created and perpetuated. This is still going on in our time in Russia and other places. Anti-Semitism is on the grow in virulence and scope in Europe in a way that has not been seen since pre-Nazi Germany.

Islamist hatred is not only on the grow as violently as at any time in history, it is accepted with hardly an objection by the rest of the world. Our most previous president, in my view, was culpable in looking the other way as burgeoning anti-Semitism exploded around the world. As I was saying, I wrote in the manuscript about this question–and it was in an inquiring, speculative tone, intended as mere examination, not as adamant postulation. I wondered if denying that Christ came in Jewish flesh somehow figured into the matter of anti-Semitism, because Antichrist, himself, will certainly champion great hatred for God’s chosen people.

Bible prophecy is replete with foretellings of how Antichrist will persecute and murder those of the Jewish race during the Tribulation–i.e., might denial that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” mean, in part at least, that the Antichrist spirit has at its core hatred for the Jew because that is the “flesh” through which God chose to usher His only begotten Son into this fallen world?

This went over not at all well at the publisher with whom I was under contract to do the book. I was told this was false teaching–or as I recall, that was the tone and threat I inferred the response to mean. The words were rather strongly put that I must cut that portion or they couldn’t be a part of such heresy. Well, again, that was how I interpreted the charge and subsequent threat.

Someone at the publishing house had a quite sensitive spot which I had obviously touched, not able to understand that I wasn’t challenging the standard take on what constitutes ”the spirit of antichrist.” I know that the meaning is, primarily, that there is a visceral denial among those of this lost world that God came to earth in the flesh to die for the sin of mankind and to redeem mankind. Still, He did enter this world through the Jewish flesh.

I find the fact that Christians who truly have a pre-Trib, pre-Millennial view of Bible prophecy seem the only core entity that doesn’t display animus for Israel. Most of the world sees Israel as the cause of the problems with regard to the so-called Palestinian question. That the Jewish state is illegitimate, and the illegal occupier of land belonging to the Palestinian people, is the never-ceasing mantra. Those who aren’t openly hostile to Israel either give nods of approval to those who say Israel is the problem or say nothing at all as that nation is verbally pounded and hounded from every quarter.

So-called Christian organizations–even those churches claiming to be evangelicals–join in the satanic stream-of-consciousness insistence that Israel no longer is inheritor of God’s promises made to that people. These enthusiastically join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction” (BDS) movement in their denial that the Jews are God’s chosen people.

Okay, I might be way off the mark in my ruminations about the Jewish race–about Israel–being a part of John’s warning in this antichrist spirit passage. But, the Jews are indeed being hated today like throughout all of history. That anti-Semitism is on the rise can’t be denied by anyone other than those who are cerebrally incapable of realizing it, or who are liars.

Every indicator points to the likelihood that the one called Antichrist is about to step out of the shadows of this rising hatred and into the spotlight for doing his dastardly deeds against God’s chosen people, the Jews.

Thankfully, born-again believers will have to exit the world stage first. The antichrist spirit so prevalent today is proof-positive that the time of that exiting–the Rapture– must be near indeed.

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.