Oct 9
The Wiki Way
For nearly every article I write these days, the internet is my primary source of information. In my house, I have four book cases stacked with all sorts of reference books. I don’t use them as much as I used to because it is so much easier to use an online dictionary than it is to thumb through a hardcopy version.
Even the common phone book has become obsolete. If you do a search on Google for a local business, not only will you get the number you're looking for, but the search result will also produce a map of the location of the business.
When conducting searches, I’ve noticed the website Wikipedia.com appears in a high percentage of search results. “Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based free content encyclopedia project. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers, allowing most articles to be changed by almost anyone with access to the website.” I know that is true because I took that quote directly from the Wikipedia site.
What makes the site so pervasive is the fact that thousands of people have joined forces to input millions of articles. I’ve even been contacted by some of these people as they write on subjects that relate to Bible prophecy.
The ability of anyone to edit files has created a problem for the service. Fake anchorman Steven Colbert caused headaches for Wikipedia when he asked viewers to log onto Wikipedia and create entries saying the number of African elephants has increased over the past 10 years.
The site has been locked down for most high-profile listings. Anyone wanting to post negative things about President George W. Bush is greeted with a the notice: “Because of recent vandalism, editing of this article by anonymous or newly registered users is currently disabled." Despite the problems with vandals, the information provided on Wikipedia has proven to be very accurate.
The Wiki way of operating is foreign to most Christian ministries. Generally, the information they produce is generated exclusively from the mind of the person running the show. Ego seems to be a primary factor. Everyone wants to convey his or her own version of the Gospel message.
Rapture Ready has always been based on the idea that the quality of content is the only factor that determines what gets posted. If I wanted the site to only contain things I write, there is no way I could have put together more than 12,000 files. Just yesterday, I posted new articles submitted by three authors.
The pooling of human resources is a key factor in making RR a popular destination for people seeking information on Bible prophecy. As the site grows, it's able to reach more people with the end-time message.
I have no idea how many people have contributed to the site over the years. It would be easy to count the names from the bylines on articles people have submitted, but many additional folks have helped by funding, producing, and organizing the nut and bolts of this massive web operation.
Several times, I’ve used my weekly "Nearing Midnight" update to appeal for help with various projects. It has always been easy to recruit volunteers. The problem has been getting people to fulfill their commitments. One reason they don't always follow through is they don't understand what needs to be done.
I figured the best way to avoid confusion is to focus on a single task at a time. To accomplish this, I’ve added a new feature to the main page. In the left-hand column is a link to a website that lists what section of the site needs input. Todd Doty, our main graphic designer at Flair for Design, can follow up with the graphics.
Please check out the new section occasionally, and send us your input. Just a few minutes of your time can make a lasting impact on thousands of people.
Here is a direct new link to the page: Help us Improve Rapture Ready
-- Todd
Evil Men and Seducers
This past week produced, for all who consider such things, signals of significant prophetic import; i.e., news that has endtime implications dominated our national headlines.
A 16-year-old high school girl was murdered and others sexually assaulted at their school in Colorado. Five little girls were murdered, tied up, and executed at point-blank range. Three died on the spot; two more died the following day. In both cases, the killer was a male with satanic hatred at the back of his crime. The man in Colorado indicated, through a suicide letter left to his brother, that he had been wronged 20 years earlier by a female. The second man, who murdered the children at the Amish private school in Nickel Mines, PA, was said to have an insane hatred for God because his newborn daughter died 9 years ago.
Then there is the politically generated story that is the tip of the cesspool iceberg that our nation’s capital has become. A congressman –one who had the specific committee duty to watch out for the welfare of our children—was caught sending and receiving salacious e-mail instant messages with distinctive homosexual overtones to a male page. His and his political party’s enemies in politics and media, rather than getting right to ending the congressman’s dalliance –or intended dalliance—with the child, held on to the information, apparently for nearly three years, in order –again apparently—to bring it out near mid-term elections in order to make maximum political hay.
Indeed,our headlines just this past week painted a vivid portrait of these perilous times.
“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:13). Can there be argument against the obvious –that these were evil men who murdered these girls? Can there be much argument against the obvious fact that we are seeing more and more instances of pedophile predators on the internet, in and around any function where children are present, and that the nation’s capital is ripe with every form of lascivious behavior? And, spinning from those observations, can we plausibly deny that the seducers of politics –in both major parties, and others-- will do whatever they can to attain political advantage for their own causes, even at the terrible cost of sacrificing our kids for the politicians' own political expediencies?
This is not to say that all people who practice politics are without good character. But those who do have sterling character never –or almost never—get press recognition, except when they are held up to ridicule by political enemies, or by media pundits (which in many cases amounts to being of the same nefarious mindset).
The politicians and media who have attacked the congressman (now resigned), Mark Foley (R-FL), have done so for the most part on the basis of Foley carrying on with an underage person. They want to convince us that all of Mr. Foley’s political persuasion are condoning the former congressman’s tendency toward pedophilia. They don’t want to address the homosexuality aspect, because this is one of their most strongly held beliefs –that the “gay” lifestyle is normal, and should be an integral part of, and embraced within, the American culture. This effort to shift emphasis –again, for political gain—is seductive. It is a concerted effort between one political party and their sycophants in media for political advantage.
This is in no way meant to excuse the sin-blackened activity in which the congressman engaged. It is repugnant and reprehensible in every respect. But, so is the duality of thought that wants us to look at one terrible wrong (pedophilia) and not the other (homosexuality). That, plus trying, hypocritically, to heap scorn upon an enemy political party when the accusing political party –in conjunction with its chief ally, mainstream media—harbors at the very heart of its own doctrines behaviors that are every bit as sin-blackened as the finger-pointing party accuses the other of harboring.
And, it was enlightening to hear the words of one of the accusing party’s hacks, just this last week, describing his glee in being able to cast aspersions on Foley, because, as the operative put it, it was just delightful to throw this in the face of the evangelical Christians, who hold their party (the Republican, I presume) in such high esteem as the bastion of superior morality.
This was quite telling about the direction in which the political hack feels the nation should be taken. But, that doesn’t surprise, does it?
The party in power when prayer was taken out of schools in 1963 was the party still in power –legislatively and judicially—in 1973, at the time the decision was made to allow wholesale slaughter of children in the womb. From those actions have come a plethora of legislation and Supreme Court rulings (effectively, legislating from the judicial bench) that are taking us exactly where people like the political hack mentioned above wants us to go.
Again, evil men and seducers cross party lines. They are increasingly acting, in the human sense, to manifest where we stand on God’s prophetic timeline. We, indeed, wrestle against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
--Terry
