Feb to April Donation Drive
As 2019 ended, I was stunned to reflect on 12 months where we lost such a huge chunk of our collective sanity. Currently, every major central bank around the world is printing vast sums of money and handing it out like there is no tomorrow, a giant meteor would have to crash into Asia to distract the liberal media from attacking Trump, and the Pope said Christians should forget about mission work and accept the fact that we live in a secular world. At some point in 2020, we are going to have to bounce off the bottom. If we continue the freefall, by November the world will look like a Mad Max movie.
Another indication of how bad 2019 was is the number of Christian leaders we lost last year. I ran across a list of more than a dozen names, but I thought four names really stand out. They will leave a void that is unlikely to be filled:
Reinhard Bonnke, founder of Christ for All Nations who was known for his large-scale evangelistic events held in Africa, died at age 79.
Phillip E. Johnson, a professor and author credited with helping to found the modern Intelligent Design movement whose book Darwin on Trial became a best-seller, died at age 79.
Charlie VanderMeer, popular children’s Christian radio personality, commonly known as “Uncle Charlie,” died at age 84.
VanderMeer hosted the “Children’s Bible Hour” radio ministry for decades, adding voices to scripts, reading poems, lessons, and Scripture during a global broadcast.
Warren W. Wiersbe, a prolific author and Bible commentator credited with influencing thousands of pastors, died at age 89. A native of East Chicago, Indiana, Wiersbe was ordained in 1951 and pastored multiple churches. He also wrote around 150 books, among them the “BE” series of expositional commentaries on Bible books.
This is going to be a very important year for all end-time ministries. The fate of Rapture Ready and our nation hang in the balance over how the November election goes. If the socialist Bernie Sanders is our new President, his field organizers are talking about very scary things:
@martinthemanic: “I’ll straight up get armed… I’m ready for the [expletive] revolution”; “Guillotine the rich”; ‘send Republicans to re-education camps.’ He praises Marxism, expresses hatred of Israel, law enforcement, & more.
Another campaign staffer spoke of sending American billionaires to gulags: “Let’s force them to build roads, re-build our roads, re-build our dams, re-build our bridges. Let’s force them to do that.”
Just to be clear, Sanders’ folks are advocating for the killing and institutionalizing of American citizens. During all previous elections, it would be impossible for a campaign worker to make this type of remark and not instantly get fired. It’s equally shocking that the press has turned a blind eye to all hate speech that comes from the left. The Apostle John’s warning that tribulation saints face martyrdom is quickly becoming a reality.
“…And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (Revelation 20:4).
The last quarter was our best period for viewer traffic in the past two years. When Trump dropped a bomb on Iran’s terror mastermind General Qasem Soleimani, a huge number of people flooded into the site to check to see if the tribulation had started. I hope the next spike in traffic is the result of people trying to figure out if all the reports of missing people are related to that site on the rapture. I highly encourage anyone who is still not convinced about this crazy end-time prophecy stuff to have RR saved in your bookmarks.
In response to social media sites blocking our access in search results, we have utilized ads to be the main connection point for new viewers. We get about 40,000 hits each month. We had to increase our ad budget three times last year to keep up with the tide of anti-Christian censorship. I expect this year to be even worse. Please help us financially to reach what I hope will soon be the end of our earthly mission.
There are three ways you can contribute to Rapture Ready: You can send a financial gift via our P.O. Box address, you can make a one-time donation, or there is a frequent option that allows you to make monthly donations. If you’re interested in signing up, find the input links on the Donation page. Donations can be sent to our P.O. Box at:
Rapture Ready
P.O. Box 969
Benton, AR 72018
–Todd
Building toward Rapture
Listening to the news as I began my morning, the host of the morning program was lauding the Trump administration’s amazing accomplishments—despite the fact that President Trump is in the middle of only the third impeachment trial in the history of the nation.
The “wins” just keep coming for this president, the show’s host was saying. —Thus while he has faced the bitterest of attacks during his first three years since his inauguration.
Always, of course, I look at news while keeping in mind Bible prophecy. That’s what being a ”watchman on the wall” is all about.
The host said, after going through the many hate-filled, angry rages Mr. Trump has endured, “Construction is at a thirteen-year high.”
The declaration punched my “prophetic-observer” button. The Scripture recording what the Lord, Himself, gave about the very day of His next catastrophic intervention into the affairs of fallen man echoed in my still-awakening brain.
Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. (Luke 17:2–-30)
The word “builded” in the KJV, combined with the host’s word “construction,” is what triggered my thinking on the title of the commentary.
As I’ve written before and continue to believe, Jesus was, in this Luke passage (as well as in the Matthew 24:36–42 account of “the days of Noah and days of Lot” prophecy), foretelling an unusually robust economy at the time of His next intervention into this fallen world. That will be the Rapture of the Church, the calling of all believers of this Church Age into His presence.
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. (Revelation 4:1)
Every economic indicator suggests that the nation is at the moment in record territory. The Dow Jones Industrial Average continues to build toward 30,000, having just the past couple of weeks hit the 29,000 mark.
Construction—building—is at a thirteen-year high, as the program’s host informed. Trade deals and other phenomenal economic trends, such as a coming explosion in agricultural exports (can you say “extraordinary planting”?) is in the offing. The economic uptick is stunning in its movement toward…toward what?
The escalation in the markets and most every other stratum of fiscal indicators continues. This is happening even though the underlying structure of the tremendous uptick is fatally flawed. The undergirding simply cannot, if reality prevails, support the weight of the multiple trillions of dollars that can never be found to match what is needed to resolve the debt that’s been accumulated.
So, what is the outcome? Toward what end is this untenable rising economy building?
A number of experts in finance and economy say there will soon be a reset, an adjustment of disastrous proportion. The great, economic structure being built will collapse under its own weight, bringing on a depression worse than that of the 1930s.
However, the highest-profile economic gurus—those seen on the most noted broadcast and cable networks—see no end to the build toward…again, toward what?
The facts about economic circumstance are like so many things in today’s daily news; they are both true and false. They are based upon perception and spin in many cases. This is because we live in a world where people would rather believe a lie than face truth.
When Jesus spoke about truth to Pontius Pilate just before the crucifixion, He elicited the answer that fallen mankind prefers: “What is truth?”
Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou safest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all. (John 18:38–39, emphasis added)
The sudden return of Jesus Christ is the truth about where this building economic bubble is leading. His return is truth that even many among professing believers in Christ deny to varying extents. I refer to those who mock the pre-Trib Rapture. They say, in effect, “Where is the promise of His coming?”
Again, about the prophesied economic uptick, Jesus said:
But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. (Luke 17:29–30)
Can it be that the unprecedented boom, at least in perception, means we’re building toward that stupendous moment of Rapture?
And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. (Luke 21:28)
—Terry