Oct 26
Standing Firm
This past month, I had to totally reload my main computer. A malware virus somehow got into the operating system. Vista was so badly corrupted that I had to reload the whole program.
As a result of the reload, I found myself looking at files I had not viewed in a few years. I ran across a photo taken at a hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The picture was of me and about eight other people who were friends of the site. Most of them were connected to our message board.
There was obviously something unusual about the photo, or I wouldn't be writing about it. What caught my attention is that none of the people in the group shot are still active on RR or any other Christian site. They have all disappeared for various reasons.
For the past five years, Rapture Ready has had around 200,000-250,000 people visit the site in any given month. Despite this stability, I know this number does not represent the same people each month. We have had millions of people come and go over the years.
What causes this massive turnover rate is a lack of endurance. People have an interest in prophecy that is very fickle. If a war breaks out in the Middle East, they all come running to the site to see if it means the end is near. Once the fighting dies down, they go back to whatever they were doing before.
I can understand why the "Curious George" crowd would come and go so quickly. What fascinates me, however, is the number of people who have had a long-standing commitment to doing the Lord's work, but yet eventually fall away.
I know some of the individual reasons for the disappearance of a few folks in the photo. One had financial problems, another had trouble with a marital breakdown, and one even had sexual identity issues.
Most of them just drifted away as if they had lost all interest in prophecy. I traced a couple of these folks down by searching various account names they regularly used. One is active on Amazon.com. He had left a few comments about various tech gadgets. The other person had joined a political board and had made some rather shocking posts.
A key factor that allows people to shift in their commitment is called "social desirability bias." People will maintain a positive view of what they are doing despite the reality of their actions.
This phenomenon turns up in poll results when people are asked questions according to what they think they should be doing, rather than what they are doing. For example, a poll by Barna Research showed that 17 percent of American adults say they tithe 10 percent or more of their income to their church. However, tax records show that only 3 percent actually do. Various studies have shown that 40 percent of Americans attend church services at least twice each month. When you use a more indirect method, like telling people they may have been exposed to a deadly virus and then asking them to list all the places they've been in the past week, the number drops to 20 percent.
"Social desirability bias" is just a fancy phrase for lying, but it’s useful because it explains how people rationalize their actions. In the area of prophecy, people believe they are still watching for their Lord’s return, when in reality they are doing nothing because they are waiting for things to get more active. This is why we should always judge our commitments by our actions, not by our intentions.
Each week, I normally receive something in the mail from someone who has put together a compilation of the end-time dates. Up until now, all of their forecasts have obviously been wrong. Last year, a gentleman sent me a book about how the Rapture would occur in 2008. He had a website with the address of 2008rapture.com. If you click on it, 2009-rapture will come up. It's getting to be late in the year, so I wonder if he has registered the domain 2010-rapture.com.
The secret to being a successful end-time watcher is not figuring out some magic code regarding when the big events will take place. The true secret is endurance. Jesus said that when He comes back, He is going to catch the Church off-guard. If you want to know how late it is, don't look at charts. Take a gaze at the level of commitment in the body of Christ. Of course, if you do, you'll know time is very short.
"Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book" (Revelation 22:7).
"Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch" (Mark 13:35-37).
-- Todd
***[RAPTURE READY CHANGE OF ADDRESS]***
Rapture Ready has had a post office address change. The new address for all postal mail is now:
Rapture Ready
P.O. Box 969
Benton, AR 72018
America and Mother Earth Worship
Globalism's call is out to require all nations to bow before the altar of sacrifice to Mother Earth. The United States of America is expected to lead the way by giving up its sovereignty to the priests of new world order, those who will be in charge of the Climate Change Conference to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December of this year.
All nations will be expected to sign a treaty that the globalists elite proclaim will save the world from what formerly was termed "global warming," but now has been changed to "climate change." The sleight-of-hand switch in terminology is due to the fact that: 1) there is, and has never been, true scientific evidence that global warming is occurring; and, in fact, 2) all indicators point to the reality that the planet is actually in a period of global cooling, much to the chagrin of Al Gore and his brethren in the perpetration of ecological chicanery. The new term, "climate change," is designed to take into account both global warming and global cooling, of course.
The treaty is intended to establish an organization called "Conference of Parties" (COP). This entity would define and implement taxing policies for all nations who are members of COP. The concept of the COP is to tax the wealthy nations in order to pay for poor nations who, when it is so determined, can't act properly as good stewards of their own environment. Redistribution of wealth has long been the fervent desire of the present-day Marxist ideologues. Now there is impetus--led by the president of the United States--to take from the productive and give to the masses in a blatant attempt to garner an overwhelming power base of political support from those beneficiaries of the forced "largesse."
COP, in other words, is a ruse that for public consumption is said to be designed to save the world from humanity-caused ecological destruction. In reality, it is a move that would do the Bolshevik Revolution of Lenin's day proud. America's citizenry is intended to be the future proletariat, should the would-be globalist masters have their way. People would, if this attempted travesty is ratified by the U.S. Senate, ultimately suffer even more than did the worker bees of Lenin's, Stalin's, and Mao's brutal dictatorships.
I say this with the beast regime of Revelation chapter 13 in mind, toward which all of this is leading, in my view. Ratification of the treaty will require two-thirds of the U.S. Senate. This will be a very difficult thing to accomplish for those who want it done in this way. The president can, however, go to the meetings and sign the treaty--and it is, in effect, a done deal, apart from Senate ratification or other congressional action. The new world order builders prefer the Senate ratification route, because once ratified and implemented, it would require quite strong legislative action to undo the treaty obligation. The president's fiat signing could be simply negated by a future administration, with a different president taking America out of the treaty obligation by his signature only.
It is strongly suspected that President Obama will go to the December 6-18 Copenhagen conference and obligate the U.S. to abide by whatever liberty-destroying globalist edicts come forth. One well-qualified observer of things involved in the effort to, in effect, enslave America and the world under the auspices of the elitists who want absolute power, thus control, weighed in on what the results of U.S. ratification or presidential signature would almost certainly mean to this nation.
Lord Monckton, former science advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is a well-known critic of the theory of anthropogenic causes of global warming. He says the following about what he thinks would be the results of America's obligations under the treaty, and an ultimate changed world order planned to come out of the Copenhagen Conference.
I read that treaty and what it says is this: that a world government is going to be created. The word "government" actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity.
The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to Third World countries, in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, "climate debt"--because we've been burning CO2 and they haven't. We've been screwing up the climate and they haven't. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement...
So thank you, America. You were the beacon of freedom to the world. It is a privilege to stand on this soil of freedom while it is still free...But...unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy, and your humanity away forever. (Bill Wilson, "Copenhagen Climate Conference Ruse to Establish Global Government Even to Rule Over American Youth," http://bible-prophecy-today.blogspot.com/2009/10/copenhagen-climate-conference-ruse-to.html)
When considering this seemingly mindless rush to throw America's blood-bought freedoms upon the base of the reemerging Tower of Babel in the form of worship of Mother Earth, under the guise of saving the planet from humankind, God's Word focuses the spotlight of truth on these dark days:
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man... Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen... And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind." (Romans 1: 21-23, 25, 28a)
Rational-thinking people today ponder and wonder out loud about what has happened to America and the world in only a short number of months. Why is everything held sacred being turned upside down? Why the perplexity within this nation and in nations around the globe? Why are we now worshiping the environment, and willing to give up sovereignty, and considering giving away liberty for the sake of elitist demands that we follow their insane dictates?
The road to global governance has been paved with callous disregard. For example, when the president of the United States declared that America is not a Christian nation, most people of God were, and remain, silent. It is true that this nation's people in general long ago turned from principles within God's Word--who is Jesus Christ--and worshipped instead many gods--materialism being chief among them. But, to remain silent for the most part when our top leader declares, in effect, war on all that is Christian, is symptomatic of spiritual sin-sickness that must be what is meant by God having turned the apathetic over to a "reprobate mind."
Why should we be surprised at the swiftness with which the reprobate thinking that is systemic within our government is moving America away from God's prescription toward a religion of satanically inspired worship of the creation rather than the Creator? One thing sure: It is a signal that global gulag and Tribulation loom for earth's rebels, perhaps in the very near future.
Terry
