After the Rapture – Part 24
Striking Gold the Easy Way!
This introduction to the Rapture Ready (RR) file entitled “Left-Behind Letters” is from the RR administration and reads as follows:
“What could possibly be more terrifying than to suddenly realize God has supernaturally removed his true believers from the surface of this earth, and for whatever reason, has found you unprepared to enter into his kingdom? The following letters (go to websites listed below) were written by Christians to help instruct, encourage and guide you through what will soon become some very difficult and dark days. Before you do anything, you first need to turn your life over to Jesus Christ. Because it’s very doubtful this website will be around for any great length of time, I highly encourage you to download and save any materials you find helpful.”
(Dick’s added comments): I counted 57 letters presently in this file from people trying to reach family and friends who might be left behind after the rapture. But we are also talking about presenting a letter to the unsaved BEFORE the rapture, and there is a goldmine of good information in the 57 letters for just that.
So download hard copies and read through the 57 letters for ideas and guidelines on how to write your own letter BEFORE the rapture; make copies of the 57 letters you want to use in your letter; present your letter to the intended, but also run a copy of that letter and the 57 you find useful, and put them in your left-behind box in case your “Before the Rapture” letter doesn’t achieve its intended purpose. But if your intended reader is raptured, surely others might find these letters and also benefit spiritually from them.
You start out by getting on the Rapture Ready website in case you are not already: www.raptureready.com
To find those 57 letters, go to the following in the search engine:
Rapture – Left Behind Letters Rapture Ready
You can also access the same site plus others directly related to it by scrolling down the home page and clicking on: For Those Left Behind.
Suicide after the rapture
There could well be a large number of suicides amongst those left behind due to a variety of reasons. The Biblical fact is, He won’t permit suicide in one certain situation and instance recorded in Revelation. Let’s speculate a bit and examine what some of the reasons might be for some who do commit suicide.
The “I just can’t take it anymore” group could well lead the pack in numbers. Many would be forced into a wilderness lifestyle that is a 180-degree turn from the spoiled and easy world of microwaves; riding lawnmowers for your quarter-acre lawn; drive-thru windows; air conditioning (even in your 3-car garage); big screen TV’s with over 200 channels; home pizza delivery; babysitters for your kids; pets and home; ice machines in your refrigerator door, etc.
Switching to a life of tepid pond water and raw turnips; trying to sleep in a cold and damp cave with the bats and rats; and forever on the lookout for bears, forest fires, antichrist’s gestapo, turncoats and tattletales; God’s 21 judgments of wrath; invasions by who knows who, etc., will drive many into the self-pity “I just can’t take it anymore” mindset. So they decide to take matters in their own hands and end it all (or so they think).
Please refer back to article #13 entitled “Wilderness Boot Hill” for suggestions on how to bury your dead undetected from view.
The safest group will be in your small group of 10 or 12, but “the new normal” is the big city and large- populated urban communities that will be present but pose a threat to your well-being. Most of them just won’t be able to make the adjustment necessary. Nobody said that missing the rapture would be the easy way.
You might also have some that have the “I absolutely won’t take the 666 mark; I’ll kill myself first” bunch which isn’t doing God any favors, but rather helps antichrist put more souls in hell so he doesn’t have to sharpen his dulled guillotine blades as much.
In my way of thinking, suicide is “self-murder.” There is little difference, if any, between a paid-for professional hit-man, an abortion doctor (many do now accept Mastercard and Visa) and a suicide victim. They are all guilty of taking innocent life.
You will also have some who get separated from their group and end up all alone in the wilderness. They probably won’t know where they are; how to find food; will get sick from bad water; or will climb a tree to escape wolves only to find out those wolves aren’t going anywhere, especially with dinner just being a few feet away. All of those strange haunting sounds at night will work on a lonely, scared and terrified mind.
In Revelation 9:3-6 God doesn’t allow suicide to occur with a certain group of people during the tribulation period. One of His angels releases a massive swarm of locusts from the bottomless pit that can sting like scorpions. They will be directed by God not to sting anyone that has the seal of God in their foreheads. That leaves folks like the antichrist’s gestapo and others who have taken the 666 mark to receive these extremely painful scorpion attacks.
The Bible doesn’t tell us if those left behind that have now received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior will be tormented by the locust-scorpion plague. My opinion is they won’t since, once they belong to Jesus, they are His.
Why scorpions in the form of locusts? Scorpions don’t fly but locusts do fly, and in very large swarms. Scary thought, isn’t it?
The Apostle John writes of this wrath from God in Revelation 9:2-6, “In those days man shall seek death, and shall not find it; they will seek to die, and death shall flee from them.” They will gnaw on their own tongues searching for pain and suffering to end.
Revelation 9 also tells us that these stings, pain and agony will be continuous for five months.
What those left behind need to learn, and the crazy uncles need to remind themselves of, is that when Jesus shed His Blood and died on the cross for the world’s sins, that didn’t stop when He came for His Church at the rapture. It continues through the tribulation period and up into the one-thousand-year millennium. Christ Jesus will be sitting on His kingdom’s throne as the ruling King.
Those born during the millennial reign of Jesus will have a sin nature like Adam and Eve. They will be educated with the truth of God by angels and raptured saints, among others. The Bible doesn’t tell us what becomes of the 144,000 witnesses after the tribulation period; but my guess is that they will be there also working hand-in-hand with the crazy uncles, the angels, etc., to spread the truth of Jesus to the masses of millennial newborns.
Those left behind and in the tribulation period must gather inner strength, faith and trust that Jesus is still there for them during those difficult times as He doesn’t wish that any should perish.
Many won’t be able to do that on their own, as they don’t yet know Jesus; thus, they will have to be educated by crazy uncles, etc., and what they will be leaving behind in stacks and stacks of boxes. It is mainly up to the Holy Spirit, 144,000 witnesses, the two Jerusalem prophets, and the crazy uncles to enlighten and educate the left behind as to what is in store for them if they don’t rethink their future and start making better spiritual choices.
If you buckle-under to the antichrist’s 666 lie, you go to hell. Just because you’re in the tribulation period, don’t think for a second the Ten Commandments of God will become null and void. Sin is still sin. Adultery will still be adultery. Stealing will still be stealing.
It is important for the left behind’s eternal salvation that they surrender their hearts and souls to Jesus and become born again, thus have their sins forgiven them at the foot of the Cross just as the raptured saints did before the rapture.
What an easy choice to make when the easiest one is to accept Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ over Satan before the rapture. That should be a no-brainer for most.
But have heart. It is not all lost. That is why this series is entitled “After the Rapture.” We must hope and pray that those who just don’t get it now will soon come around. Getting the left behind into heaven is the most important goal, even if they have to do it the hard way through the evil tribulation period. There are no back doors for getting into heaven.
Reader Feedback
Keep the emails short and clean. You already know the rights of a copy editor, don’t you?
PETER JONES sends an email that seems to be the most popular subject in these fast-approaching end times. That is the growing Laodicean church age we are now living in, which Jesus wrote of in his final of seven letters to the seven churches in the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Revelation. We often use other terms like “apostasy” and “falling away” to describe Satan’s devised plan of going after the church people. He already has most of the rest of the world outside the churches (and a growing number within). See article #6.
Peter J. states, “Have we not been too quiet about the evidence for the truth of the Christian faith?” He continues with many apologetics, supplying ammunition to defend the faith, but suggests a website that would list Christian truths in the form of an uncluttered list of the main evidence headings.
He also suggests printing business cards that read, “For a summary of the evidence for the Christian faith, visit (web address).” He also states that a website he follows regularly is: www.knowwhatyoubelieve.com/believe/evidence/summary.htm.
He suggests that these cards could be handed out when witnessing or like a tract and mailed to media who regularly attack our faith.
I definitely didn’t want to discourage Peter but informed him of what an uphill battle that would be. Peter is really on fire for the Lord and this end-times world needs many more like him. But mailing to secular, Satan-controlled media folks might be a counter-productive way to give them more ways to attack rather than convert. “No sense in feeding the alligators!” Most of these media people are lost anyway.
I think you would have more success if you approached “real people” who have yet to make a decision for Christ. Most of the media people have already made their hell-bound decision. As far as a website that displays Christianity the way God wrote it in the Bible, there is none better than Rapture Ready. No fuzzy-pink fluffy stuff there but straight how-it-is Bible truths by a wide range of writers.
I also referred Peter to #6 (establishing your own underground church) and #8 (tract-distributing ideas),
MARILYN YORK writes that she is a “crazy aunt” along with being a mother, wife, aunt and grandmother who is hard-copying RR articles to stash away in her root cellar full of goodies for whomever the left behind people are that the Holy Spirit of God puts in line to find them. You might call it, “Marilyn’s gold mine.”
She lives in a small British Columbia community with three churches that teach no-nonsense, literal Bible from their pulpits. She states “We love each other and work in the same vineyard. We are blessed.” She continues, “May His anointing continue to break any yoke in your life as I pray for mine as well.”
Dick’s response is, “I’ll bet you my best wheelchair that after the rapture your small British Columbia community will be quite empty along with the cellars, left-behind boxes and church parking lots!” Wanna bet?
It sounds to me that your three churches need to give the world lessons on how to “do church” God’s way.
LANGSTON ROWE, JR. writes, “I know that you already know that if Jesus didn’t return, no flesh would be saved or spared. I don’t even see these left-behind people having a computer or cell phones because they can be traced. It will be hell on earth, and I think there is very little that can be done for them. With that being said, let’s try to keep as many from being left behind. It looks like to me the church acts like this period of time is far, far away.”
(Dick’s response) In these end times we can no longer depend on most churches to give their congregations sound Biblical principles in which to follow, as they no longer follow the Bible themselves but have a gospel of their own making. They need to read and follow Revelation 22:18-19 and Deuteronomy 4:2 (or at least have someone read it to them!). I don’t think “far, far away” is even close to some of them.
We may not be able to do much, but I do believe we have to give it a good try. What will our chastising by the Lord be at the judgment-bema seat of Christ if we don’t even try? We don’t know God’s complete will and plan in this matter other than He doesn’t wish that any should perish.
I really have a lot of faith in what the Holy Spirit, the 144,000 witnesses, and two Jerusalem prophets will accomplish in their efforts to evangelize those left behind. And the world’s crazy-uncle numbers need to pile on and help in this challenge also. The crazy uncles are also guided by the Holy Spirit of God. He’s everywhere!
Let’s say the 144,000 witnesses are only able to convert one left-behind person each during their time on earth. That in itself is another 144,000 souls saved in the 3½ plus years remaining. And since the 144,000 witnesses are guided by the Holy Spirit of God, I feel confident they will do better than one each.
I believe many of the left behind won’t make it into the millennium, but a good number will. Or else where will this huge population explosion come from? Only followers of Jesus Christ will be admitted into the millennium so as to do God’s Will and “be fruitful and multiply.”
I agree with you 100% that we need to change hearts and souls now before the rapture. That would sure make it a lot easier leaving antichrist on earth for seven years with nothing to do and nobody to torment but his own mob. And they’d be lining up and crowding in line to take his evil 666 mark.
Prayer Requests
RHONDA WILLIAMS has family and friends that she wishes all of you readers will pray for them becoming “born again” believers before the rapture. Besides her two sons (Daniel, age 43, and Charles, age 39), she wants to add two granddaughters (Amiyah, age 17, and Sariyah, age 13) whose family has a Jehovah’s Witnesses’ background, plus four brothers and sisters (Faye, Vickie, Sharon, Greg) who are very much into the world and need to become “born again.” Rhonda thanks you for all of your past prayers.
Please keep the LIGHT OF THE WORLD Ministry in India in your daily prayers as they struggle to witness and teach the Word of God to the lost and needy souls in their local services and witnessing travels. Pray that God will continue to provide His protective hand over their church and protect them from further violence, harm and destruction by Hindu terrorists. You can contact Sister Deevena at: lightoftheworld_90@yahoo.com
PAULA PARSONS wants to thank everyone for their prayers for her daughter who has now accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior. She now has a prayer diary where she records names of people she is praying for, plus she has started distributing tracts.
Paula is also requesting prayer for her good friend Nicky White who is not a believer. She just underwent a biopsy of her right lung.
Pray for MARILYN YORK’S unsaved family, sister and brother. Open their eyes to the Saving Grace of Jesus Christ.
CYNTHIA needs prayer for two grown children and a grandson, plus her husband’s parents who are lost. Her son states he is an atheist, and her daughter claims to be Christian but is quite fickle and doesn’t live like one. Her son (Cynthia’s grandson) is open to Jesus but his father forbids any talk about Jesus to him. Pray that the Holy Spirit will come to Cynthia’s rescue and pull down these satanic barriers between her family and the Lord Jesus Christ.
MATT JACKSON emails us that he is truly thankful for the prayers of this readership for the Rohr family and their daughter Rachel. It really upsets Matt to think that a beautiful, kind person like Rachel will spend eternity in hell due to the false teachings of the Catholic church.
Let’s take a look at what God has already done.
First, he put you in her path, which has resulted in you arranging for worldwide prayer for both the Rohr family and Rachel. But I don’t believe God is done with them by any means. God said, “My ways are not your ways; my thoughts are not your thoughts.” He has recorded all prayers in their behalf, and He does answer all prayers.
Secondly, the world is full of good Catholic people who have been deceived and tricked by Satan into false beliefs and man’s “religions.” Some will be converted before the rapture, but many will be left behind and into the tribulation period. So have faith and continue to pray for the Rohr’s and Rachel. If you can’t trace her down while on earth, pray that you will again cross paths in the millennium. Also pray that God will place good, solid Christian people in their paths to shine the light of God’s infallible Word into their lives.
Survival Tips
We have discussed food storage in previous articles, and this piece will be more on the containers to use and what the crazy uncles can leave behind. While the survivalist groups look for a shelf life of 20-30 years, in this series we are concerned with 7-years tops. I don’t think you will need long-term food storage in the millennial kingdom of Jesus Christ. Everything needed is provided. The big hurdle will be getting into the millennium.
Since I am an old-school type of guy, I will again regress back to my childhood when my parents saved all the farm feed sacks for something! Mom made us kids our “new” school shirts out of chicken feed sacks. She would go to the farm supply store with dad to pick out the pattern of sacks. Dolly Parton had “a coat of many colors,” but us Ainsworth’s had to all look alike. Of course, for the first 3 or 4 clothes washings, we all smelled like chicken mash; but no big deal. So did all of the other kids in school.
We also saved the gunny sacks (or burlap bags) which were great for storing potatoes, onions, apples, turnips, etc., in our cellar for the winter. But don’t store potatoes near apples. Keep them apart at a good distance. In the springtime, the old potatoes were ready to be good seed potatoes for the new planting. Just cut into 3 or 4 sections with “eyes” in each chunk. Then plant. You can still buy gunny sacks from several outlets including burlapfabric.com, uline.com, tractorsupply.com, and ebay.com.
Food-grade 5-gallon buckets (not the ones at Home Depot) and #10 cans (holds about 100 ounces of food) are also used in food storage. I have both; however, you need sealing tools for both. Any food you store (except in the gunny sacks) needs to be airtight with a tight seal. Humidity and oxygen are not good for preserving food supplies – no leakage and make pest-proof. Some outlets you might check out are: www.provident-living-today.com, houseofcans.com, survivalistboards.com, wellscan.ca.
You can get oxygen absorbers in bulk supply. Drop one in medium- or small-sized containers (two in the larger size). You can check out: usaemergencysupply.com, uline.com, amazon.com.
I am writing this with a group of 10 or 12 people in mind in your group. Your meals now for the left behind will be for survival purposes only. It won’t be an all-you-can-eat buffet where everyone pigs out on what they want. You are eating for survival. When you open a container of food, it is for the whole group. Don’t be opening several containers per meal just because you want some variety. The food selections will be much, much better in the millennium.
When storing food, it is important to maintain a consistent room or cellar temperature. 60 degrees (F) is very good, and many food items can last up to 10 years. Take the same food at 80 degrees and it only has a shelf life of about 3 years. Food also has less chance to rot or spoil if you keep it in a dark place without light. That is why the old food cellars worked so well for the pioneers, settlers and Native Americans in the olden days. They were both dark and cool. And the marketplace is full of inexpensive thermometers that take up little space in your left-behind boxes.
I would stay away from the Mason food jars. They are fine if you live in a house, but out in the wilderness you don’t need broken glass and bulky items that are hard to transport. Keep it simple and easy. Mylar zip-lock bags would work for low shelf-life items. Save old 2-liter soda bottles, wash them good with kitchen soap and hot water, rinse with hot water, add a few drops of bleach and let air dry. Great for storing purified drinking water.
The best foods to store that will keep over time are dried beans and peas, rice, grains, flours, dried fruits, milk powder and jerky. We did an article on how to make your own jerky awhile back (see the directory). Plastic containers can and will leech into food over time but a 7-year tribulation period will see you not letting stored food sit in one place for too long.
If you are rich, then you can get a truckload of MRE’s (what the U.S. military uses) and live like a wilderness king. But if there are a dozen in your group, be sure to get enough for everyone! You can max out several credit cards by being a good host!
The best rule for food storage is “first in, first out, last in, last out.”
Everyone should learn the HEIMLICH maneuver and also take classes on CPR.
WILD LETTUCE (Lactuca Virosa) is a herbal medicine that is probably growing in your backyard. The leaves, blossoms and stalks can be brewed into a tea (quite bitter) and used for migraines, insomnia, anxiety, asthma and coughs. No opium in it, but it acts like morphine. Having a supply of wild lettuce seed is a good idea if you can’t recognize it in the wild. Be sure to harvest seed after it grows for future replanting.
A good book entitled “Seed to Seed” is a manual on how to save seed for next year’s planting. The big sin is starting out with hybrid seed, which is definitely a no-no. The book is available through www.seedsavers.org along with the usual Amazon, Ebay and Barnes & Noble.
Solar ovens and stoves can be a safer piece for equipment when you are trying to avoid open fires for food preparation. They take more time to cook something, but there’s a lot less chance of the gestapo spotting your campfire. You can get information from: www.gosunstove.com; www.ussunsolar.com; www.alleasonsolarcooker.com; www.engineeringforchange.org (they have ten models they say work at night), plus Amazon. Cooking food in the wilderness creates odors that are easily detected by animals with a keen sense of smell. And also the gestapo.
Another manual entitled “The Forgotten Skills of Self Sufficiency” by Caleb Warnock documents the survival times of the pioneer Mormons in the 1800’s. It’s available thru: www.thriftbooks.com; www.utahpreppers.com; plus EBay, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Batteries for flashlights and LED battery-powered lanterns can be useable if you have a long-term solar recharger: www.thewirecutter.com; www.realgoods.com; www.batterystuff.com; plus Amazon, Wal-Mart and Home Depot.
Dick Ainsworth
FOCUS ON JESUS Ministry
PO Box 156
New Franklin, MO 65274