Rapture - A Word of Warning :: By Hannes Joubert

Hi Everyone; I hope everyone is well? It has been quite some time since my last contribution to the Rapture Ready article library, and I sincerely hope that this piece gets the “go-ahead.” Be warned, it is direct.

I must admit that I have had many topics come to mind to write about, but, invariably, I wait too long to put finger to keyboard; and the Lord has someone else make the contribution that I was lax in making, for whatever reason. For this I repent.

However, two things that are major in my eyes have happened recently here in my country, South Africa. These two things stand out far above the usual end-of-times “goings and comings” that we are unfortunately all too used to, which means, in the South African context, they are pretty “major” as we have our fair share of disappointments in this beautiful country. These two occurrences caused me to despair in the first instance, but that despair gave way to hope, and then to a sobering realization.

I will expound on these two “signs of the times” items and then finish with the actual theme of this letter, and that is – A word of warning.

Whilst I do not have all the nitty gritty facts about the two things I am about to discuss with you, I do know enough to be able to discuss them and will restrict my comments to that which I do know.

Not too long ago, about 3 weeks or so, the major Afrikaans “mainline” church body, known as the NG Kerk, or Dutch Reformed Church, which used to be the “go-to” Church body for the Afrikaans community, finally succumbed to the relentless pressure applied to it by the liberal left and the LGBTQ+ community and officially declared that they would approve of and perform confirmation of same sex marriages. To be honest, I could never understand why any person of a homosexual bent would want to fight for acceptance within a community whose ethos clearly does not support their membership. My homosexual brother could never explain it to me. I am a pragmatist and I understand, of course, that Satan was listening when Jesus said in Mark 3:25,

“If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”

So, the best way for Satan to bring the Church house down? Divide it by using contemporary hot-button issues like feminism and homosexuality i.e. female preachers, homosexual preachers and, of course, homosexual marriages, in front of God, no less, seeing as the Bible is outdated (that is meant to be sarcastic btw). This caused grief in my heart, and I thought that this would be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. To be honest, I am not entirely surprised that this mainline denomination took this stance, as in all my years I cannot remember hearing a sermon on prophecy, Revelation or even too much on sin. I do remember hearing about how the Church has replaced Israel and how tithing is the right thing to do to receive Blessings, ad nauseam. This says a lot, I believe. When my local Church started bringing in new age symbolism, I and my family checked out.

On an entirely different note, but just as disconcerting, if not more so: yesterday, a video made by a parent of a child in a school started making the rounds via social media. This parent made a video of an exhibition of art of a final-year high school student of the school. I am not sure what the topic was that was given to the students, but this student decided to interpret this topic to mean “make a mockery of Jesus, His death, the Bible and to elevate the status of the devil.” I am also not sure of how many students were involved in this terrible display, as there were so many different pieces ranging from technicolor paintings, to monochromatic paintings, paper mache work, bead work and even some clay, if I am not mistaken.

To describe what I saw on the video is, well, difficult; but suffice it to say, the Last Supper was rendered to be an assembly of animals, demons, and ghouls as the 12 disciples; and Jesus was depicted as… wait for it… Ronald McDonald! There was a painting of Jesus dressed like a hippy – ray-bans and all – with His shirt open, insides spilling out, with the devil standing behind Him with his hand on the shoulder of Jesus.

A Bible, or many Bibles, in fact, were destroyed to make paper mache models picturing what seems to be the “de-evolution” of the devil, represented in bust form by the likeness of the Baphomet (goat man) going through various stages that finally end with the bust of a normal-looking man.

The “creation of man” painting was rendered to show God as being a demon and man represented by a chimpanzee.

There was plenty more where that came from, and was just as disturbing. I am sure that my new-age following sister is quite chuffed (pleased) with all of this.

The school, a private franchise-type institution that has many schools throughout the country, is supposedly founded upon, gulp, CHRISTIAN VALUES… Wait, what?

The response by the schools’ group executive to the furor this exhibition created was telling: after condemning the parent for making the video and then releasing the video, even though they asked him not to release it, they defended the exhibition on the grounds that Christianity is a religion of Love, Forgiveness, understanding and JUSTICE… nothing about Jesus, just the social justice gospel. Yes, the rot has even reached our beloved shores. I personally suspect that the Christian values that the school espouses are simply a marketing tool/ruse and that no such values are engendered in the school.

So, those are the two events that caused me to despair. Even though I know times are ripening, I still have trouble accepting it.

The responses to these two events from what seems to be a fundamental Christian community is what gave me hope again:

A part of the Dutch Reformed Church published a large ad in one of the country’s largest daily publications announcing their split from the general Synod, stating that they could not abide by the decision surrounding homosexual marriages, supporting their decision with various parts of Scripture and so on. They stated that they would maintain the status quo that existed in their congregations before this latest decision. Well done, but you have more to do.

The reaction to the school art exhibition, which seems to be one of revulsion and disbelief, seems to indicate that there is still a remnant that will not stand the profaning of God’s Holy Name.

Given what we know about our Father’s character in how He handled the situation surrounding Noah and Lot and what He says about the Rapture and how it will “go down,” whatever judgment comes to this country, those of us who really name the Name of Jesus will be safe.

We also see in the Holy Scriptures that, when the judgment of God falls, it is always preceded by numerous warnings by way of His prophets, watchmen on the wall, and His prophecies. I am no prophet, nor can I be considered to be highly educated, but I can read the Bible. Therefore, to those reading this piece: