There is a powerful monetary tide sweeping the world toward what Jesus called the worst time of human history (Matthew 24:21).

One prophetic element stands out in considering the seven-year Tribulation era, with regard to the Antichrist regime. That’s the economic platform prophesied to be at the heart of the Beast system.

With so many signals in view that point to the brewing Tribulation tempest, we should expect—if we’re reading the end-times signals correctly—that this heart of the Beast should be well along in its construction. We’ve covered all the indicators found within current issues and events that we believe are signals like those given by Jesus and the prophets. National and world economies have been dealt with in our efforts to make prophetic sense of the dynamic rearrangements taking place in recent years, months, weeks, and days.

America’s staggering weight of debt and swift economic decline is front and center in pointing to the fact, we believe, that this is the generation that stands at the end of one dispensation–the Church Age—and upon the precipice of the next—the Tribulation. Each hour seems to bring additional confirmation that the Tribulation storm is about to break upon an uncomprehending world. Such confirmation is present in abundance in the realm of geopolitics and global economics.

America, as we’ve pointed out many times, is at the center of this global economic turbulence. President Donald J. Trump’s administration has made it a priority, of course, to bring the US back into fiscal sanity. The cutback in profligate spending to fund causes the world over is being stopped. That effort has thrown the rest of the world–particularly the nations of Europe—into a panic. For example, take a look at this reaction by France’s president:

Now [French President Emmanuel Macron] feels he has to go full hawk in response to US President Trump, as on Wednesday in a nationally televised address he claimed Putin is now threatening all of Europe and has declared, dubiously, that Russian aggression “knows no borders.”

Macron pulled out all the stops, and appears to be making himself into the European version of Russia’s Medvedev, going maximal no limits jingoism. “President Putin is violating our borders to assassinate opponents, manipulate elections,” he claimed in the remarks.

“We need to prepare,” the French president said, amid a broader European push to ‘fill the gap’ in the wake of President Trump suspending all US arms shipments to Kiev, as well as intelligence-sharing. On Sunday during a London security conference of European leaders, UK PM Kier Starmer presented a plan of up to 30,000 UK peacekeeping troops for Ukraine, supported by France.

“I want to believe that the US will stand by our side, but we have to be ready for that not to be the case,” Macron said in reference to shifting Washington policy. (“Macron In Anti-Russia Rant Says France Considering Expanding Nuclear Umbrella To Europe,” Tyler Durden, ZeroHedge, March 6, 2025)

Since Bible prophecy clearly states that the Antichrist government, thus the economic engine that will power that absolute dictatorship, will emerge from Europe, we need keep our prophetic antennae pointed in that direction. We must be especially alert to news involving movement within Europe to cause significant changes to the global economic structure.

Prophecy scholars and others have long pondered why the US, the most powerful nation in history, isn’t mentioned by name–or even by significant reference—in God’s Word. We continue to flounder in attempts at finding an exact answer for that question. However, with the recent astonishing changes nationally and abroad, the answer seems to be in the process of forming.

Monetary manipulation is at the root of the change taking place. The American dollar must be removed as the currency standard so that a global currency not underwritten by any national monetary unit can be established. This is precisely the Beast economic order I’m convinced Bible prophecy describes as outlined in the following:

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

This speaks to me of a computer system–a hybrid Internet—run by highly advanced AI, whereby all citizens of the global economic order will be absolutely controlled at every level of life. Probably, it will consist at its heart of electronic funds transfer (EFT)—a system of special drawing rights (SDR). Anyone refusing to toe the mark of the Antichrist’s regime will face having his or her SDR account blocked or removed completely from the system. Fear of starvation is a mighty motivator to comply.

Pressures are mounting for a completely changed global economic order. Even the king of the kings of the East, China, is at the center of the dynamics driving the changes.

Most economists who are honest will admit that the current building economic heap of debt cannot continue to accumulate. They are amazed, in fact, that everything hasn’t already collapsed into total, worldwide depression. I again offer my belief that it will be the Rapture that causes the ultimate implosion and collapse.

The great world leader called in Revelation “the Beast” will be there to implement a satanically inspired economic scheme that will at first offer hope–that will for a time “cause craft to prosper” (Daniel 8:25). But Antichrist’s plan will achieve what it will be designed to do: enslave most of the world in electronic bondage.

Jesus offers the opposite of what the counterfeit, Antichrist, will produce. Jesus promises: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). We must at every opportunity lift up the holy Name of Jesus before the eyes of a world headed into the terrors of the Tribulation.

Signals are in every direction that Christ will at any moment step onto the clouds of Glory and call all believers to Himself. Thus Christians will be kept out of that time of Tribulation, which will come upon all the world to judge those who have refused to accept God’s great gift of salvation.

Here again is how to receive that gift:

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

Believe me, this is an article I’d rather not write. My grandfatherly heart would much prefer avoiding the stories herein encountered, which I believe the Holy Spirit prompted me to address as I considered topics for this week’s post.

Many times I’ve written about the Apostle Paul’s “perilous times” prophecy found in 2 Timothy 3. I’ve always included the sign Paul termed “without natural affection”—most often along with all the other signs given in this prophecy—in general terms.

I’ve defined “without natural affection” in prophetic terms as mothers’ acceptance of abortion–the murder of their children while still in their wombs. This evil, when examined almost clinically as a symptom of the anti-godliness of the age, didn’t touch the most sensitive tissue of my spiritual heart.

I guess considering this prophesied sign of the very end of the age was somewhat akin to a forensic physician doing an autopsy. One just treated it as a prophetic matter of dissection, but without application of the process to being a personal, flesh-and-blood reality.

This examination of Paul’s “without natural affection” sign hit me much differently. As I alluded to above, the stories I encountered touched the grandparental tissue of my spiritual heart.

Truly, this generation has continued to experience all of the symptoms Paul said will be present in the days leading up to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. In America, this symptom is manifesting with women of certain political, ideological, reprobate thinking doing bizarre things to their bodies to prevent even the capability of having children. I won’t go into the details, but these insane acts are almost as terrible as the acts of those who engage in self-immolation in order to demonstrate for one cause or another.

The abortion movement has, in effect, ingrained into the mind of many young women that birthing children is an evil act, or at least, an act they see as abortion being an after-the-fact, birth-control option.

Discarding a baby, the abortion culture has infused into their thinking, is no more than removing unwanted refuse. The abortion mentality is a spiritually reprobate mindset that is “without natural affection.”

The following news item makes the case, I think, that we’re witnessing the Apostle Paul’s perilous times as perhaps never before.

A newborn baby is dead after an American tourist, who was on a study abroad trip, reportedly threw the child out of a Paris hotel’s window just moments after giving birth to it. A witness to the horrific incident reported to French police that they discovered the corpse at the Ibis Style hotel in the 20th arrondissement of Paris on rue des Realizes.

Authorities reported that the incident occurred around 6 a.m. Monday morning and that the child had been tossed from the establishment’s second-floor window. According to the witness, they heard screaming and were quick to raise the alarm.

Emergency services rushed to the scene in order to help the infant and rushed them to Robert-Debré Hospital, in the 19th arrondissement. It was also reported that a young woman, believed to be the child’s mother, was taken to the hospital.

Emergency services rushed to the scene in order to help the infant and rushed them to Robert-Debré Hospital, in the 19th arrondissement.

It was later confirmed by the Paris prosecutor’s office that the mother was on a study abroad program along with other students from the US. Law enforcement also confirmed that the baby had been thrown from the window “with the umbilical cord” still attached. It was reported by a local outlet that despite doctors’ best efforts, the baby perished…

The news of the dead child comes after a Russian mom was accused of giving birth in a Turkish airport bathroom and leaving her newborn submerged in freezing toilet water as she left to catch a flight home. Ekaterina Burnazkina, 29, has been charged with attempted murder after she allegedly abandoned her baby in an Antalya Airport restroom in October 2024.

The baby girl was discovered by a cleaner just 12 minutes later, narrowly avoiding a tragic death. Surveillance footage allegedly captured Burnazkina entering the facility on her own, only to emerge and rejoin her family as if nothing occurred. It was reported that Burnazkina pleaded for the return of her child in court. (“American Tourist, 18, ‘Throws Newborn Baby Out of Paris Hotel Window with Umbilical Cord’ Still Attached,” MSN, Jack Hobbs, Rapture Ready News, February 24, 2025)

The “without natural affection,” perilous-times indicator now manifesting worldwide isn’t just confined to woke America, as the story above proves. Those so against childbearing now term mothers who are with child as “inseminated persons,” so reprobate is their level of anti-God, cognitive malfunctioning.

This is but another reason I strongly believe all children will go to Christ when He calls believers in the Rapture. The children are innocent in God’s holy eyes. The world has treated them with contempt in far too many instances. The Lord, I’m convicted, will make a great heavenly statement about when life begins, and what He thinks about abortion and all other abuse of the children born into this fallen world.

Abortion, like all other sins, is forgivable. And our loving God is waiting to forgive the repentant. Here is how to be forgiven of this and any and all sins, to be forever in Christ’s presence and Heaven either when entering that realm through the portal of death, or when transported instantaneously into the clouds of Glory at the Rapture.

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

The stunning swiftness of moves made by this newly elected—or would that be re-elected—president brings into question just where the stage-setting for Antichrist’s ultimate base of power stands.

I refer to the fact that Mr. Trump has left America’s western European allies standing on the sideline and gawking from a distance as he enters negotiations with Vladimir Putin. The American president has unilaterally taken on the peace initiative in seeking to put an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine.

His administration’s operatives, in preparing the way for the peace probe taking place, have stated that European nations will be consulted, but may not be present at the direct negotiations between Trump and Putin. This, to my way of thinking, is no doubt insulting to those governments. But I think it perhaps somehow will be instrumental in making Europe the most powerful governmental and military power to exist on earth.

This is a possible future reality when considering the Bible prophecy truth that the one who will be Antichrist will come from Europe—that is, from within the region surrounding the ancient city of the Caesars. Daniel the prophet gave us clue to this eventuation:

And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. (Daniel 9:26–27)

The “prince that shall come,” of course, refers here to the one who will be Antichrist. That prince, Daniel prophesies, will “confirm the covenant” with Israel and “the many.” This is the peace that begins the seven years of Tribulation. That prince comes out of the Roman Empire, whose capital, of course, was Rome. We know this will be a man from Rome, because it is the Roman Legion, led by General Titus, that in AD 70 destroyed the city and the sanctuary, as given in this prophecy.

Europe will be central to the ascension of this, history’s last and worst dictator. He will also be the most powerful tyrant to ever rule on earth. He will cause all, no matter their status, to obey him, or else die through execution or starvation.

So, in surveying the present status of this geopolitical nucleus out of which that future Antichrist will arise, it’s more than interesting to witness the almost inconsequential regard with which European leadership is being treated.

This announcement by the US president frames the situation.

TRUMP’S ULTIMATUM: THE U.S. HAS GIVEN EUROPE THREE WEEKS TO AGREE ON TERMS TO END THE UKRAINE WAR! IF WE DON’T, THE U.S. WILL WITHDRAW FROM EUROPE! BOOM!

It’s happening. President Donald J. Trump is DONE playing games with NATO and the corrupt Ukrainian war machine. The message is clear: either Europe agrees to terms and ends this disastrous war in Ukraine, or the United States pulls out of Europe completely. No more free rides. No more U.S. troops babysitting Europe while their leaders drag their feet. Trump is a man of action, and he just put NATO and Ukraine on notice. Three weeks. That’s all they have. If they don’t sign the deal, America is out. (“Trumps Ultimatum: The U.S. Has Given Europe Three Weeks to Agree on Terms to End the Ukraine War!,  amg-news.com, American Media Group Telegram, February 22, 2025)

And I believe this treatment of Europe we’re witnessing at this time in actuality is beginning a process that will result in establishing Antichrist’s power base.

The prophecy Jesus the Ascended Lord gave John to write foretells the power of this future “beast,” as he is called.

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? (Revelation 13:4)

Perhaps we’re watching through our hourly news at present the foundational moments of the construction of such awesome power as described here.

The Europeans now understand that America’s president isn’t playing around in the matter of the seemingly endless war between Russia and Ukraine. He has pushed that leadership aside, obviously considering them as blocking progress in bringing the bloody war to an end.

They’re now looking into what happens when America stops providing the greatest amount of money and military assets for Europe’s defense, which has been the case since World War I. Donald J. Trump has indicated in strong geopolitical, diplomatic language that things will change in this regard. The following report further provides some food for thought.

US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine has yet to be made public, but it is already abundantly clear that he expects Europe to play a far bigger role in the continent’s future security and the fight against Russian aggression. With the United States now looking to scale back its transatlantic commitments at a time when an openly revisionist Russia is embracing an expansionist agenda, European leaders must urgently adjust to the new geopolitical realities and prioritize security.

The Trump administration has moved rapidly to underline its expectations regarding an increased European role in the continent’s defense. Just days after his inauguration, Trump used an appearance at the World Economic Forum to reiterate his call for European NATO members to increase defense spending to five percent of GDP…

The starkest message so far has come from US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “Safeguarding European security must be an imperative for European members of NATO,” he told a February 12 meeting of Ukraine’s Western allies in Brussels. “Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine.” (“Europe Must Prepare to Defend Itself in an Increasingly Multipolar World,” Mykola Bielieskov, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org)

Increasingly, European leaders are seeing the handwriting on the wall, as the following validates:

The USA has, among other things, declared that Europe cannot count on American support for peacekeeping forces in the event of a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

European leaders fear that the USA’s President Donald Trump will make a peace agreement with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, over the heads of Ukraine and Europe.

Europe is aware that its relationship with the USA has entered a new phase, according to Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The Paris meeting was unanimous that a “significant increase in defense spending is absolutely necessary,” he summarized.

There is no point in getting irritated about our ally USA saying “spend more, get stronger, become more resilient,” said Tusk.

Leaders from Germany, the UK, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, and Denmark, as well as the EU and NATO, participated in the meeting. (“Europe after the Meeting: Must Build Up,” Sweden Herald, February 17, 2025)

This president, I believe, could well be fulfilling, unwittingly, the end-times movement toward Europe’s development of a unified military power base. When the Rapture occurs, America will be in disarray perhaps more than any other nation due to Christian influence within government and military being no longer here.

I believe the probability is strong that a greatly weakened US, because of disunity, will at a future time have to join with a powerfully unified European defense consortium. This coalition will then possess America’s awesome nuclear arsenal, along with all of its technological war-making assets. This would certainly bring to fulfillment the prophecy: “Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?”

These sudden and forceful dynamic rearrangements involving Europe indicate, I’m convicted, how near might be Christ’s call in the Rapture to believers of this Church Age.

It is time as never before to deliver to those who don’t know our Lord, Christ’s soul-redeeming message:

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

All during the Obama and Biden administrations, I considered the decline of America—deliberately perpetrated by those administrations in conjunction with the globalist cabal, i.e., these worked tirelessly to take down United States from the awesome American world hegemony the nation exerted for more than a century.

Now, everything is in such obvious change from the downward trajectory wrought from the four years Biden debacle that the ravenous media-haters of Trump can’t regain their balance in order to dig in against his prolific “winning,” as he terms it. And I must admit that I am off balance, too. What is this head-and-neck-twisting change in direction, with America again being looked to by even America’s enemies as standing at the top of the nation ladder, as they seemingly look to the new US leader for direction?

As I’ve related here before, I thought that with the coming of the first Trump presidency in 2016, the stage was being set for fulfillment of Luke 17:28-30. It seemed that Trump, the business mover and shaker, would bring the US and, in effect, the world back to a business-as-usual configuration. It would be, as Jesus said, “as it was in the days of Lot.” And that did to some extent happen. Business was beginning to boom.

Following the drastic downturn in the national and global economy during the Obama administration, I thought Trump and his immediate actions portended America’s return to dominance, with the dollar returning to prominence in being intricately linked to all other economies of the nation states. Then the shock set in when Donald Trump, in what I still consider a stolen election, was removed from office. This, in my estimation, took this nation and the world’s economy in general out of the business-as-usual time the Lord said will be the circumstance when He next intervenes, like He did in Lot’s day.

The country and the world did indeed then begin to degenerate under the Biden administration, particularly in the area of economic well-being. Then another shock–at least to those who so hate Donald J. Trump. He won the 2024 election–and with a healthy mandate to implement all of the many promises he made during the presidential election campaign.

Can anyone who is paying any attention at all deny that Trump has attacked the amazing number of things he promised to accomplish, and with lightning-like swiftness? And his actions go far beyond anything we could have anticipated.

Trump said he would bring an end to the Russia-Ukraine war-making, and in short order. No one in the upper-crust diplomatic community believed that, for example, Russia’s Vladimir Putin could be brought into a reasonable negotiation mindset.

But Trump was almost immediately on the phone to Putin and reported that the former Soviet KGB agent-turned-president of the Russian Federation was willing to negotiate a settlement of the Ukraine matter. The power that continues to be exhibited by this unusual man called Trump now seemingly places America’s position again at the nation-state apex level of interaction.

For example, in the situation in Gaza, Trump, apparently even without the foreknowledge of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, announced America might take over there and clean up the mess so that the people of the area, after being exported from the region, could return to their home that would be almost resort-like.

The announcement, mentioned casually during Netanyahu’s Oval Office visit, took everyone by complete surprise. The mainstream media and all Trump-haters melted down, furious over such colonial audacity.

Trump said that Jordan and Egypt, he believed, would accept these Palestinian refugees for the time it takes to clean up the deadly ordnance and damage done by the Gaza war–damage caused by Hamas and their years of evil in control of the region.

The king of Jordan and the Egyptian leader both said they would not take these people into their countries under any circumstance. That was their initial and official statements.

Now, after being on the phone with Donald Trump, both have, it seems, relented, saying they would take some of these people–beginning with the very young, the elderly, and the infirmed.

Fact is, this complete change of mind by the Jordanian and Egyptian leaders is due to the man who is obviously the world’s top leader, just as America’s presidents have been touted to be, but have rarely attained such heights of power-wielding.

Additionally, the leaders of both Jordan and Egypt, as well as others of the Mideast, have indicated they are willing to consider funding the cleanup of the Gaza–a thing they previously scoffed at even considering. –Thus, it is conjectured, because they don’t want America having such presence and influence in their part of the world.

So Mr. Trump has begun shaping things in the way he apparently intends. He, it is thought, never intended to send American assets, economically, militarily, or otherwise to get Gaza cleaned up and Hamas completely out of the region. Some believe he used brilliant threat of American presence to get those in the region to do what needed to be done. His negotiation prowess is almost supernatural.

Now, we come back to earth. We ask: What is this all about, prophetically speaking? I haven’t a clue of the details.

I do, however, have a clue of a general nature from God’s Holy Word. There will be a peace arrangement that will come out of the region surrounding and involved with God’s chosen nation, Israel. This, I’m convinced/convicted, is precisely what is going on. This is all to prepare the geopolitical Middle East stage for the peace that will bring on Antichrist at some point, the man of sin who will confirm the covenant with Israel and the many. This is foretold for the last seven years by Daniel’s sixty-nine weeks of years and Daniel’s seventieth-week prophecy that leads to Christ’s triumphant return.

In all of this, Donald J. Trump is at the center. And…no, he will not be the Antichrist.

Again, I haven’t a clue of the details, but having witnessed all the things, including that miraculously foiled assassination attempt surrounding this strange human being (and one cannot deny he is out of the ordinary), I can conclude with certainty in my own thinking that he is God’s man for this equally strange end-times hour.

So whatever America’s ultimate fate, this nation, too, based on the power it now demonstratively is beginning to exert, is being used by heavenly prerogative as a stage-setting instrument to help bring God’s foretold things to conclusion. And that conclusion appears to be coming very quickly!

Even so, come Lord Jesus!

One of the falsest and most-cutting accusations launched at the belief that the Bible teaches that people can’t lose their salvation when they’re truly born again (John 3:3) is: “If you believe once saved, always saved, you’re saying people can live any way they want without fear of punishment.” Or so the line of condemning criticism goes.

The absolute assurance of eternal security, of course, engenders no such thought within the mind truly regenerated by the saving power of Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches that the Lord convicts His children in their spirits, and that habitual, unrepented-of sin will result in severe penalties—even physical death, in some cases. The Heavenly Father’s patience is longsuffering, but it is not infinite.

A child of God cannot sin without severe repercussions if repentance isn’t forthcoming.

But, that person will never be kicked out of God’s family. Never. Here is God’s own promise in that regard, given through Paul the apostle:

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38–39)

A kindred accusation is thrown at those who believe in the pre-Trib view of Bible prophecy, which, of course, is the one we at Rapture Ready and the Prophecy Line blog believe. It is the view that Jesus Christ will call all who are born again to Himself before the Tribulation (the last seven years of history leading to the Second Advent; see Revelation 19:11).

The angry diatribe against the pre-Trib Rapture view—by even genuine Christians, in many cases—usually goes something like this: “People like you, who believe that the Lord is going to rapture them before the Tribulation, think you can live however you want, because you think and teach falsely that you’re going to be rescued before God’s judgment and wrath fall, no matter what.”

Non-Christian accusers who castigate those of us who hold the pre-Trib Rapture view have their own version. It goes something like: “Christians who believe like that don’t care anything about making the world better. You even hope for things to get worse and worse. You wish for earthquakes, famines, pestilence, war in the Middle East, and for Armageddon to hurry up and get here so you will go to your pie in the sky and watch the rest of us get ours.”

Although the first criticism is absolutely not true, I have to admit that, regarding the second, too often I’ve sensed—even heard—such sentiments from some who believe in the pre-Trib Rapture. And, it is entirely the wrong attitude for the Christian to hold. There are no excuses for wanting the Christ-rejecting world of non-believers to receive God’s judgment and wrath. It is only by His unfathomable grace that every one of us isn’t headed into that time of unprecedented horror.

No matter how—to use Lot’s King James Version word—“vexed” we become by the debauched, debased actions of the lost world around us, our job as Christ’s children—His representatives here on earth—is of a completely different nature than wanting to see them “get what’s coming” to them. The changed nature produced by being born again should make us do just the opposite of wanting them, in our vexation, to get what we see as coming to them.

The Christian whose spirit is attuned to the Holy Spirit’s desire for the lost doesn’t want to see them “get what’s coming to them” either during the Tribulation or upon death. Rather, we want to do all within our power to keep them from having to go through the time of God’s judgment and wrath.

Like God Himself, we shouldn’t be willing for anyone to perish, but we should want everyone to come to repentance. That’s what Christ’s Great Commission to His disciples before He ascended to sit at the Father’s right hand is all about, you see. That’s what God’s love—love that those who have Christ indwelling them possess—is all about. (Read Matthew 28:18–20.)

In the same vein, that’s what Bible prophecy is all about. Prophecy given in God’s Word has purpose—profound purpose. It has at its center the commission from the Lord to warn of God’s judgment and wrath that will come upon all who oppose Him. It isn’t the hatred of God for the lost people of this fallen planet that drives prophecy. It is the love of God that powers His prophetic Word. It must be the Christian’s desire, therefore, to study Bible prophecy and put forth those warnings out of a spirit of God’s love, not through an anger-filled abhorrence of those who are lost.

Christians who do study prophecy—and they seem to be few these days, I’m sad to have to say—are often heard wondering about when Christ will call the Church (born-again believers) in the Rapture. Everything seems so ripe for Him to pluck His people from this sin-darkened sphere.

Nothing and no one can change God’s timing for His next catastrophic intervention into earth’s history. It will happen exactly on time, as He has determined since before the foundation of this world. However, as believers, we might look to ourselves for the Lord’s—often in our view—delay in calling us, as outlined in 1 Corinthians 15:51–55 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18.

Again, the Apostle Peter gave the heart of the reason Christ hasn’t yet raptured His Church:

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

The purpose of Bible prophecy is to show the love of God to a lost and otherwise doomed world. God isn’t willing for anyone to die in their sins, but He wants everyone to accept Jesus Christ as the one and only sacrifice for sin that God will accept.

The Lord is “longsuffering.” The reason, I’m convinced, that the Lord seems so “slack” to many in His coming is because those same people have neglected their duty to share the love of God with the lost—the lost whom God loves so very much that He sent His only begotten Son so they would not perish.

It is well past the time for God’s people to invest in getting the message of the love of God to those who otherwise won’t hear the warning of deadly things soon to befall this Christ-rejecting planet. Considering these times that are so dramatically signaling the coming Tribulation, Bible prophecy can and must be used as a productive tool for evangelism.

While the newly elected president declares a golden age ahead for America–an eventuation I, like you, wish I could foresee but cannot—the world around this generation continues to darken. We are in a time Jesus spoke of, I believe, while He and His disciples were approaching a man with whom I can somewhat commiserate.

The man had been blind since birth, while I lost my eyesight at around age 51, so my suffering with the affliction of darkness had been much less than this man’s.

Here is that account:

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing. (John 9:1–8)

This story of Jesus’ encounter with the blind man touches me as few other stories about our Lord’s interaction with people while He was in the flesh. The man no doubt had spent his life unable to do what society would consider productive work. Perhaps he spent his entire life begging for sustenance from passersby.

I, on the other hand, had very good vision until, at age 50 or 51, retinitis pigmentosa (a hereditary retinal disease) invaded my central vision and quickly caused total blindness. So I can in no way fully appreciate the degree of suffering this man endured.

Today I know people blind since birth who have accomplished far more than I did when in full possession of visual acuity. But in that culture in Christ’s time, there were no such technological marvels to give the blind the means to accomplish great things, as I have witnessed.

I, myself, am using one such technological marvel while composing this week’s commentary. It is a word-synthesis program called JAWS (Jobs Accessible Word System). A young woman, blind since birth, taught me how to use this phenomenal computer-based system nearly thirty years ago. Liz is as close to my heart as a daughter, in that regard.

All this I mention is to reveal that God, in this encounter between Jesus and the blind man, has put at the center of my spirit what He desires for my life. In regard to the key phrase in the scriptural account above is the following:

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

Also, Jesus’ answer to His disciples about the man’s or his parents’ guilt that caused the blindness keeps my thoughts focused each and every day regarding the purpose for the time I am allowed to live here and now at the end of this Church Age–the dispensation of Grace. The Lord gave the reason this man was allowed to suffer total blindness:

But that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

This truth that Jesus gave at the time of the encounter with the blind man He healed has powerfully spoken to me personally. Time is limited; soon there will not be any opportunity to serve Heaven’s purposes–to serve the True, Living God. And we are here to serve Him. That is our great overall purpose—yours and mine.

One moment, perhaps much sooner than any of us can imagine, our time on this sphere where we have been placed by Heaven’s appointment will be over. We will be called into God’s presence, either through the Rapture, to be with Christ forever, or through the portal of death, at which time we must answer for the days of light and life we were given to accomplish Christ’s Great Commission–spreading the salvation message in order that souls will be redeemed.

In these times that certainly look like night is about to fall and the Tribulation is about to begin, it is wise for us, as believers, to work in the way Jesus worked to accomplish His Father’s will.

The Lord knew His time to do that earthly work was rapidly approaching the final moments. He was about His Father’s business in a mighty way and, as we know, He said with finality while on that old rugged cross, “tetelestai,” meaning, “It is finished!”

That is what you who come to Raptureready.com and Todd, Jonathan, editor Cindy, and yours truly are all about–finishing the work we have been put on earth to do in our God’s great cause: the saving of souls of men and women, boys and girls.

Rapture Ready–which is your website as well as ours—is devoted to carrying out our Lord’s Great Commission. Because of monetary requirements on the rise and attempts by some to interfere with our efforts, increased funding is very much needed to carry on with this work. We thank you with all the thankfulness possible to our Lord and gratitude to you our wonderful RR family for your love and generosity as we do our very best to serve the purpose we believe Heaven has assigned this website that is so Christ-centered and focused on the Lord Jesus’ any-moment call to you and to us. We ask for and will apply with all due diligence the donations you send, under the direction of our Heavenly Father.

So let us together forge ahead in full service while there is still time and light to share, even as we see the nighttime of Tribulation approaching.

Here is how to contribute to this effort on behalf of Jesus Christ, who died and rose again so that we can, on one eternal day (perhaps today), hear Him say, “Well done, good, faithful servant.”

There are three ways you can contribute to RR: You can send a financial gift via our P.O. Box address; you can make a one-time donation; or there is a “frequent” option that allows you to make monthly donations. If you’re interested in signing up, find the links on the Donation Depot page. Donations can be sent to our P.O. Box at:

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Great disservice has been done to the pre-Trib Rapture truth of God’s Holy Word. People such as Harold Camping and others have, by setting dates, thrown disrepute on the fact that Christ will call all believers into the clouds of glory before the dark and terrible time of the Tribulation (Daniel’s seventieth week).

By making predictions of the exact date when the Rapture will happen, such as found in the book by Edgar C. Whisenant titled 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988, some have contributed to fulfilling the Apostle Peter’s 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) 

We seem to have a growth of pre-Trib skeptics within Christianity today. That’s because the erroneous date-setters have skewed truth in the Bible that Jesus said no one knows the time except His Father.

Now, some might say these skeptics are doing little or no harm. All believers, if the pre-Trib view is biblically correct, will be raptured. The only prerequisite for going in the Rapture to be with the Lord is to be saved–that is, believe in Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross at Calvary. It isn’t necessary to believe in the pre-Trib Rapture to be saved. Those who believe in another view of prophecy are “in Christ,” so will be evacuated from this fallen planet when Christ shouts, “Come up here!”

This is, of course, true. One doesn’t have to believe in the pre-Trib Rapture to be saved.

However, the first thing I would say in answer to that reasoning is that we who are in God’s family–are saved—are to strive to understand things God wants us to understand:

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)

The pre-Trib Rapture of the Church is built upon an extensive body of Scripture. The Rapture is a clearly presented doctrine, and even most pre-Trib naysayers admit that the Rapture is in God’s Word. However, they, in most cases, adamantly deny that it is a pre-Trib Rapture that the Bible presents.

They give all sorts of arguments for when it will occur, all pointing to the Rapture taking place during the Tribulation, the time when Antichrist will be ruling as history’s last, most despotic dictator.

But these ignore—or convolute through twisting—God’s promise to keep believers out of that terrible time of God’s wrath:

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)

This promise to spare believers of the Church Age, or Age of Grace, is seen while Jesus in His ascended form is revealing prophetic truth to John, who wrote the Revelation. Jesus here is talking to the seven churches. That’s the churches now in the dispensation of the Church Age. Jesus is telling believers of the Church Age that He will keep them out of the Tribulation.

Most who come against the pre-Trib timing of the Rapture refuse to accept that God deals with humankind in dispensations. And therein lies much of the problem with them not being willing to “rightly divide the word of truth,” as found in 2 Timothy 2:15. Unless this concept of dispensations is understood, the pre-Trib Rapture cannot be easily discerned.

And this matter of not understanding dispensational truth, I prayerfully hope, brings this article’s title into proper focus. Looking at prophecy yet future through the pre-Trib prism procures discernment. The pre-Trib viewpoint provides accurate perspective on issues and events as they might pertain to things to come. For an example, we only have to look at the prospect of nuclear war at this moment in history.

As I mentioned above, we, as a generation alive on the earth, are in the Age of Grace, or Church Age dispensation. Within the pre-Trib view, a nuclear war or even a World War III that would decimate the planet just isn’t foretold in God’s Word.

Yet rumors of nuclear war are abounding at present. Even writers on Bible prophecy are warning that nuclear war is about to break out at any moment. These writings are coming from those who are, in some cases, avidly against the pre-Trib Rapture viewpoint. These also, in most cases, deny that God deals with humanity in dispensations, as I’ve mentioned.

As of this writing, I have before me several articles proclaiming that China is on the verge of attacking the United States. The drone sightings, the huge balloons shot down some months ago, the sightings of Chinese subs off the coasts of America…all of these things indicate that China is scoping out our defenses in order to launch nuclear attacks.

I heard just hours ago a U.S. representative voicing that all of the illegals pouring into the nation, many of them young Chinese men of fighting age, portends an attack from the Chinese war machine that is about to take place.

And these kinds of warnings have been going on for several years.

I can say with authoritative confidence based upon God’s Word that such war-making by China is not in view for this dispensation. Here is what I mean.

Any such massive nuclear attack would bring equally massive retaliation by this nation. America has submarines under the ocean waters of the world–including waters near China. Each of the subs has as its nuclear repertoire MIRV ballistic missiles, each with multiple warheads armed with nuclear ordnance. These would obliterate the Chinese mainland when launched upon America being attacked.

So the world would be drastically and profoundly damaged if this scenario was played out.

Jesus told us (Luke 17:28–30) that when He next catastrophically intervenes into earth’s evil, all will be going along as it was in Sodom at the time Lot and his family were removed. There would be no destruction preceding that removal. People would be, as we are at present, conducting the business of life as usual–buying, selling, planting, etc.

Massive nuclear exchanges involving earth’s military powers simply are not scheduled this side of the Rapture.

We can logically understand that China will be a power as part of “the kings of the east” found in chapters 9 and 16 of Revelation. At that time, they will indeed destroy one-third of all humankind, the prophecy says. So they won’t have been destroyed, but will be greatly enhanced militarily.

So looking, dispensationally, at the fearful things to come through the pre-Trib scope of the Bible’s prophetic radar, we get an accurate—even precise, in some cases—picture from God’s great and perfect perspective.

Author’s note: I decided to reach way back in time in my files of articles I’ve written to present this week’s commentary. I’ve done so because the current Catholic pope continues to declare during 2025 that there are many ways to Heaven–to be saved.

There is no matter more important around which to put forth biblical truth than that involving redemption of lost souls. There is one way to God and eternal Life. Jesus Christ is that only way! He said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but by me” (John14:6).

The following article was first posted on September 11, 2006.

History’s Most Troubling Name

Many names come to mind when thinking of individuals who have caused great consternation among the generations of earth-dwellers over the millennia.

We can immediately bring them to the surface of our thoughts. Adolf Hitler stands pretty close to the top, so far as people who have troubled humanity during their time is concerned. His was perhaps the most genocidal regime ever, although if we could hear from some of the other generations of human history–for example, that under the regime of Antiochus Epiphanes—we might hear good evidence for those tyrants being the worst ever. Christians under some of the Caesars and holy Roman emperors could also tell horror stories, giving names of dictators who bedeviled them.

Josef Stalin, the Soviet dictator, is another who has troubled the minds of historians and the rest of us in more recent times. He murdered, it is estimated, between 30 and 40 million of his own people, based upon his paranoid concerns that they were out to topple his rule.

Mao Tse-tung, the beast from China, Pol Pot, of Cambodia, and the man on trial for crimes against humanity, Saddam Hussein, the incarcerated Iraqi strongman known as the “Butcher of Baghdad,” are other troublesome names of recent vintage. And we might throw in guys like Iran’s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Kohmeini and even its current tyrant, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as candidates for the most troubling names in human history.

It is such an agonizing thing to do, writing about the next troubling name after bringing to mind all of the above horror-blighted names of history, that I can scarcely do it. But I must, because it is a name that is growing in disrepute, and in hatred among this present generation. The person whose name I will write about is dividing the peoples of earth, just as He said His name would do.

It is doubly agonizing for me to write, because evidence of this growing hatred is already well underway, even in the heartland of America. It is, as a matter of fact, manifesting itself in my own community. So, I didn’t have to go to distant sources or lands to make the point that we’re indeed nearing midnight of this Church Age (Age of Grace).

Proof of the growing antagonism to the name is observable in the portion of an article from a newspaper very near my own home. That’s right. Right in the heart of the Bible Belt. And, I must tell you that Arkansas was just listed as one of three of the states that have the most people who believe the Bible is the Word of God, a supernatural book directly from the mind of the Creator.

Little Rock city directors should apply discretion in the words they use when praying before board meetings, Mayor Jim Dailey said Tuesday night. Dailey’s statement followed the board’s receipt of a memorandum from City Attorney Tom Carpenter in which he cautioned board members about using certain words in prayers.

Prayer to open a board meeting is not unconstitutional but can cross the constitutional line of separation of church and state if the prayer emphasizes one religion over another, Carpenter wrote.

In the memorandum, Carpenter advised board members to avoid phrases such as “In Christ’s name we pray” or “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost” (“LR directors discuss prayer options,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Sept. 7, 2006).

The above report, I realize, doesn’t equate with people considering the name of Jesus in the same castigating way people view Hitler, Stalin, et al. But, again, marginalizing the name of Christ is taking place in the heart of the Bible Belt. The world at large is on the fast track to bring that Holy Name into hated status on a global scale. The being with the worst of all names–Satan—wants the name of Jesus to become the equivalent of the worst, most terrifying figures of history. Satan has sown in the minds of people that Christianity should be seen as narrow-minded bigotry and hatred, as proven in the Crusades, where, Christ-haters imply, many were murdered in the name of Christ.

The tactic continues to work. Tragically, it is becoming a tactic that even convinces some pastors in churches who fall for and preach the line that thinking there is one way to God is foolish at best and hatred at worst. By preaching and teaching that there are many ways to God and Heaven, that the Bible is actually just a book written by men in order to show us how to just get along, these preachers and teachers are calling Christ a liar–putting His Holy Name in the category of the many tyrants of history who led people down the pathway to destruction.

But the Scripture says: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

There is coming a time at the edge of eternity that is awesome in its prospect. Every human being who has been born on this fallen planet will give absolute acknowledgement of the name that is above every other, the blessed name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ:

For it is written, [As] I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. (Romans 14:11)

In the imagination, the Apostle Paul could well have been sitting watching a heavenly jumbo screen of some sort while penning what has come to be recorded as 2 Timothy chapter 3:

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as their’s also was. (2 Timothy 3:1–9)

It does seem that Paul was permitted to look at some kind of prophecy jumbotron screen and see directly into this present hour. Certainly we’ve witnessed and/or endured much during these volatile times that we could use to make the case the great apostle’s words here project for our spiritual understanding of God’s dire prophecy for the end of the age.

Let’s have a brief look at some of this “perilous times” future wickedness Paul presents.

Here again I’m going to stay for the most part America-centric in considering Paul’s prophecy about these vexing days in which we find ourselves. That’s because this nation is the apex of all in recorded history, in terms of so-called civilization’s progress. God’s Word tells us that to those whom much is given, much is required.

Our nation has been materially blessed beyond all others of human history, and spiritually blessed beyond all but Israel. America’s responsibility to the God of Heaven is, I suspect, therefore held in Heaven’s most profound contempt for straying from His heavenly directives for conducting life on earth.

About these perilous times, Paul says the following:

“For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud…”

Social media frames this perilous-times characteristic as much as any that come to mind.

We start with the photo-taking phenomenon that arose quickly with the coming of the social-media platforms. The nation seems alive with the prideful sin of narcissism in this matter of taking one’s own picture for all the cyber-universe to “enjoy.”

Following hard on the heels of the selfie came the millions of autobiographical stories of the social-media users. These self-aggrandizing pieces, putting forth everything from personal wealth exaggeration to fabulous descriptions of many romantic and other adventures were and are mostly prevarication to the max.

America has led the way in all of this Hollywood-inspired hype. Those who watch the lives of the movie personalities and their fantasy world then mix and weave such reports within their own wannabe lives’ fictions to present throughout cyberspace.

The perilous aspect of all this is that it invades the very souls of men, women, and children, taking them far from reality, and particularly from the fact that they are, rather than perfect people, individuals who need a Savior from the sin that is carrying them down the broad way that leads to destruction.

“…blasphemers, disobedient to parents…”

God is blasphemed in this nation in that America has degenerated from a time–one in which I was raised—when Christian parents had their children in church and oversaw their teaching of God’s Word, to this current moment when the young are, in many cases, turned over to their devices. This parental failure instills in tender minds that they, under the tutelage of cyberspace inculcation, can determine their own course of life.

Whenever they are then confronted with a parental recall to reestablish control, the children rebel, resenting in the strongest terms their devices being restricted or taken away.

“…unthankful, unholy…”

Statistics from the Barna Group and other organizations show a turn from Christian concepts within the American family. Same goes for every other aspect of life in the nation. All we have to do is observe the daily news reports, even from within our own hometown news sources, to understand that we’re an unholy generation.

The Apostle Paul’s forewarning from God in Romans 1:28—to any people who turn their backs on God—rings an alarm for our nation today. It seems we’ve reached the point in many ways that show God is turning this generation over to a reprobate mind. (As evidence of the upside-down thinking, I offer the wokeness insanity we’ve lately been subjected to.)

“…without natural affection…”

This perilous-times characteristic is one I’ve covered many times in this column. My thoughts haven’t changed–because God doesn’t change.

Abortion–shedding the blood of the innocent—is a matter I believe angers God to the extent few other sins reach. The denial that life begins at conception is the lie from Satan for which the world is about to pay a tremendous, wrathful price, I’m convinced.

Abortion, in which a mother deliberately allows the murder of her child while in her womb, is at the very heart of Paul’s forewarning. It is an act “without natural affection,” as is homosexuality. I believe the Lord is going to display for the entire world to see exactly when life begins, in His holy view.

I believe every child will go to be with Christ when He calls in the Rapture—including each and every child just conceived.

Homosexuality is another characteristic Paul forewarned when he labeled it as being “without natural affection.”

Satan constantly strives to take humankind away from belief in God’s order of things. One is the lie that same-sex relations in the matter of sexual pursuit are every bit as legitimate as heterosexual relationships. Another is the insanity of reprobate thinking that people can be whatever gender they think they are, not the one God gave them at birth.

This is a generation steeped in that perilous-times characteristic “without natural affection.”

“…trucebreakers, false accusers…”

There is no better (or worse) example we could consider in thinking on this characteristic than the political process in America today.

Truce-breaking is at every level in this, perhaps the lowest-rated job endeavor in America. Traitorous politicians make and break “deals” without a moment’s concern for whom the action is harmful, whether to opponents or to friends, for that matter.

But it is the area of false accusations that stands out most egregiously in these times. All we have to do is consider the many lies told about former and future President Donald J. Trump to understand we are witnessing Paul’s end-times characteristic termed “false accusers.”

As a matter of fact, the false accusations have become so prolific that they’ve morphed into a malady that refers to a psychological disturbance. We all know about the “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

“…incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good…”

This characteristic can readily be understood in these end times. The word “incontinent” here can mean “addictive” or “in a state of agitation.” This is a precise picture of the tremendous use of illicit as well as prescription pharmaceuticals that saturates today’s American society and culture.

Many of those who exhibit this characteristic rage against those who want only a peaceful existence as they go about their lives. Christian values are particularly targeted by those who want no governance, especially not from the God of Heaven.

“…heady, highminded…”

There are perhaps many ways to look at this characteristic presented by the great apostle. However, I choose to assign this one in particular to American academia.

The colleges and universities of higher education have joined together to try to inculcate young adults to want to change this nation from its founding principles–principles that are influenced by God’s own hand in dealing with the founding fathers.

To paraphrase the Apostle Paul again, “Thinking themselves to be wise, they have become fools.”

Through denying the God of Creation, they teach anti-God, humanistic rebellion. Thereby they continue with the lies from Satan, the father of lies.

And it’s not only the higher institutions infected by the venom of rebellion. The public education system in America suffers this inculcation of evil at every level.

“…lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.”

The one matter that stands out to me in this regard revolves around the churches in the nation that have defected from the true faith.

These have embraced the Sodom-like culture of this late, prophetic hour. They proclaim such lies as “the times have progressed,” thus making changes in order to accommodate is necessary to draw in and retain those who seek to know God.

The current pope, as a tremendously wicked example, proclaims there are many ways to God and eternal life. All religions, he has recently declared, have their route to salvation. He and those who teach this are calling the Lord Jesus Christ a liar.

Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but by me.” (John 14: 6)

That you and I are within these perilous times at the precise moment prophesied for when Jesus calls all believers in the Rapture is abundantly clear. You don’t want to miss that call. To do so means you will endure the worst time of all human history, according to Christ Himself.

Here is how to instead go into the clouds of Glory to enjoy the wonders God has prepared for those who love Him.

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