Donation Drive May to July 2017
For nearly 30 years Rapture Ready has been an online resource for end-times information. I started the site in September of 1987, while I was an airman stationed at Offutt Air Force Base. In these three decades many things have changed, and some have come full circle. I started on an Apple computer that had a small screen and no mouse. Today, most people access the site on an Apple smart phone with a tiny screen and of course no mouse.
The credit for RR’s success goes to the dozens of people who have helped build and maintain its content over the years. Every day we have people posting news, monitoring the message board, creating new articles, and keeping our various categories updated.
I am always open to receiving article submissions from new contributors. Our main guideline for submissions is simple; they should have a general promotion of the gospel message and/or sound biblical content relating to Bible prophecy and/or the end-times. I do have a word to say about commitment: I’ll have five people ask about submitting articles to RR, and I’m yet to have more than one person follow through.
We are still working on transferring articles to the WordPress format. Since last June, our Web design team has posted 5,200 articles to our new format site. We have several thousand more to relocate. If we don’t make it before the Rapture, there is already a vast amount of information for people to find.
As I mentioned in a previous a Nearing Midnight update, Rapture Ready has become locked in a life and death struggle with technology giants that act as gatekeepers of the Internet. If you are a Christian or conservative, your content is frowned upon by the Web overlords.
Throughout Scripture Jesus and the Apostles urge us to “watch” and be ready for His return. We post a lot of information on Rapture Ready that speaks to how close we are to the final years of world history—to the end of the Church Age (while at the same time emphasizing the need for people to come to a saving faith in Christ). It is also our intention to encourage believers in their walk with Christ by offering edifying content, and providing a place to visit and feel a sense of belonging in these days of uncertainty.
It has become more of an effort to maintain the site because of the anti-Christian, anti-conservative bias of the tech giants who play fast and loose with their power over those of us who are dedicated to the gospel and Christian/conservative principles. Your prayers are very much needed. I believe we are battling “the prince and power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2b)—the devil himself.
A friend told me he visits a site on home gardening that is run by a Christian couple. Even though they don’t express any political views, their ability to function is being undermined; their videos are banned, blocked or diminished because of various hurdles to get to their site. It has become quite clear that if you want to have a presence on the Web, you need to keep your religion to yourself.
In any other age the mere allegation of a company deciding to discriminate against Christians would have people rioting in the streets. We have overwhelming evidence that this is happening, and yet people in general have very little concern. In February, I mentioned a petition that aimed at getting President Trump’s attention on this matter. It failed because not enough people signed up.
We have made steady progress in improving the ranking of RR. We have used ads and the posting of our content onto social media to combat the negative bias. A couple months ago, “Rapture Ready” was the only way get the site to show up in a search result. We have now been able to get first and second page listing in several prophecy-related phrases.
I do not think the bias against Christian sites is going to get any better. The left has become so insanely radical in their opposition to the folks on the right, they are going to use every opportunity to seek our destruction. Because of this blind madness, I can only conclude that it would be a fatal blow to democracy in America to even have the Democratic Party get back into power. Even with Trump as president and with Republicans controlling Congress, the left is making inroads.
Contributions which enable us to share the gospel message are not consistent. Over the years, we’ve lost faithful supporters due to death, poor health, and financial reversals. I think the greatest limiting factor now is time—it is rapidly running out.
As we get closer to the Tribulation hour, it is important for every Christian to have an end-time mindset. With the devil doing everything he can to silence promoting Bible prophecy, we must be close to the end. Because it has become very costly to keep our heads above water, it is vital that we receive your financial support along with your prayers. Your participation in this ministry is greatly appreciated and we could not continue reaching others without your help.
We have three ways you can contribute to Rapture Ready and enable our efforts to expand our reach. You can help us keep getting our message out by sending a financial gift via our postal address; you can make a one-time donation by a credit card, or you can sign-up to make monthly donations via PayPal. More information can be found on our Donation page.
Rapture Ready’s P.O. box address:
Rapture Ready
P.O. Box 969
Benton, AR 72018
–Todd
Posthumous Post Profoundly Personal
Please indulge me as I yet again engage with personal memory of Easter season six years ago. It is a memory that I couldn’t put out of the forefront of my thoughts even if I wanted to do so–which I don’t.
Good Friday, April 22, 2011 was the day that, after a workout session, I felt as if my chest would explode. It was a widow maker heart attack.
Once the emergency guys got me to the hospital about 2 two miles from our home, my heart stopped. I was instantaneously in the presence of a throng of beautiful young people–male and female–who cheered vigorously, all the while bidding me to join them.
I started to do so, but everything grew dark around me and I was on the gurney being whisked toward the cath lab.
I heard a young man say he had to “hit him with the paddles.”
I asked, “What paddles?” and he replied: “Your heart stopped and I had to use the defib paddles.”
My heart stopped two more times that afternoon. Each time I was instantaneously in front of the same wildly cheering throng of young men and women who bid me to join them.
The third time I joined them and we were running a victory lap of some sort. They were looking over at me and laughing joyously, with their hands extended at full arms-length into the air.
The sensation was…well… heavenly. I have no other way of describing it. We were running–without any physical exertion whatsoever–toward some wonderful destination. (I have, in reflecting on this experience for years, come to the conclusion we were headed toward the Throne of God.)
I know these were the “cloud of witnesses” of Hebrews 12:1-3.
But, things grew dark again and I was again, after seemingly several seconds, on the cath lab table and the cardiologist interventionist was working on me. He had removed the arterial blockage.
Astonishingly, I had no permanent heart damage and have had absolutely no problem with my engine since. My life, however, continues to be affected every waking moment by that Good Friday trip to somewhere on the heavenly property that I will someday inherit–as will you, if you know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. (We are joint heirs with Christ, God’s Word promises.)
So, with that memory indelibly etched in my spirit, I naturally–or perhaps supernaturally would be a better term–was reflecting on my trip of six years ago the other day as Easter 2017 approached.
One of my things to do every morning is to read The Omega Letter. This email newsletter is well known by most who love Bible prophecy, of course. It is the letter mailed daily to subscribers that was written by Jack Kinsella, perhaps the most prolific such writer I’ve known.
Jack was a dear, personal friend who went to claim his heavenly property inheritance in 2013. I miss him immensely, as do all who knew him. He was indeed a special friend and Christian brother.
More than that, he was a special teacher of all things biblical–especially of the prophetic Word of God. In that regard I don’t miss him, because his many hundreds of articles continue to instruct, implore, exhort, admonish, and inspire on a daily basis. His writing is, amazingly, as fresh as the day he wrote it.
So it was on Saturday before this past Easter Sunday that I opened my Omega Letter.
There it was–Jack’s inspiration and exhortation for this Easter. Only it was originally written April 23, 2011. That’s right. It was written one day after my trip onto the heavenly property that Jack now owns for all of eternity. I probably shouldn’t, but I envy him that fact…
Jack’s words were wonderfully poignant and personal that day as he waxed eloquent yet simply in his own inimitable, communicative style.
Since there is no such word as coincidence in God’s vocabulary, according to Jack’s dear friend Hal Lindsey, I know that the Lord somehow used Jack’s and my close friendship to convey this special message on the day following Good Friday.
Jack, in closing that Omega Letter, addresses the question: What happens when we die?
He wrote:
If the Bible is true and Jesus can be believed, then when a saved person closes his eyes in this life, he awakes fully conscious in the next – where he is whisked by the angels into heaven… There is a choice. But it is admittedly limited. One can repent and trust Jesus or one can face God clothed in one’s own righteousness and see how things work out…
Jack pointed out in the article that,tragically, the rich man Jesus told about in the rich man and Lazarus story is still in the place of torment, eternally regretting depending on his own righteousness to get him to Heaven. Jack’s posthumous post delivers to me the profoundly personal exhortation to do more to reach the lost with the Gospel at every opportunity–opportunity I’ve been given by having been returned to earth for awhile longer.
–Terry