Posted on 03/31/2021 6:37:26 AM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
During this troubling movement into ever-increasing evil, those among Bible teachers, writers, broadcasters, et al., who proclaim there is to be no pre-Tribulation Rapture are having a field day. They feed the business of prepping for a dystopian world. They stoke the fears of those who agree that life as it’s been known here in America will collapse into a Mad Max-type struggle for existence any day now.
And, in a way, they can’t be blamed. Everything points to a profound loss of sense of reality. End-times insanity certainly seems unstoppable while mankind moves farther and farther from God and toward that time John described in the book of Revelation.
Hearing podcasts today that talk of the horrors to come is disturbing. Not hearing anything about what is coming from the pulpits of most churches is even more disturbing. What disturbs most is that nothing is being told of the truth that Jesus Himself promises: the glorious calling of the Church into His presence at a time of enveloping darkness, like what’s taking place now.
I recently began listening to a particular podcast because I wanted to hear the host’s take on the stealing of the 2020 presidential election. After I heard that, I continued to listen as much out of daily habit as for any other reason.
The blog’s host paints—correctly, for the most part—a bleak future just ahead for the nation and the world. He points out the globalist minions who want to bring the rest of us under their domination. He includes that he believes the vaccines are all part of the control they intend to establish. They are, he offers, designed to do physical harm to recipients in order to bring the world’s population down dramatically over the ensuing months and years—i.e., he insists the vaccines will interact with immune systems in deleterious ways to cause people to die from the vaccines’ effects.
He believes the world—and the US, in particular—is in for some of the darkest times in human history. Only a few will survive.
And this is where he loses my attention. He says only those who prepare properly will survive—that is, those who are true patriots with a godly or morality-based belief system.
The globalists elite and others of the would-be rulers will submerge into their extravagant underground bunkers and even fully-equipped-for-survival cities.
Folks without these resources will still be able to survive if they follow the prepper rules for survival, including buying survival products such as those offered in his store.
When the blog host began talking in terms of his belief in God—even in Jesus Christ—and his acceptance that the book of Revelation speaks of exactly the time of coming unprecedented trouble he is talking about, my interest was piqued.
He is apparently friends with a couple of well-known writers who delve into the subject of the hard times ahead for the nation and world. These are known to come against any notion of the Rapture of the Church. They’ve even on occasion scoffed at the idea of a pre-Trib movement of God’s people out of harm’s way. Christians will go through the Tribulation, but if properly prepared, will be kept more or less safe by God, they insist. Therefore, they must stock up and brace for the great hardships to come in order to survive.
I perceive that the blog host is, if he is a true believer—and I believe he is—he is a very immature one. That is, he has no understanding of Truth found in God’s Word in regard to prophecy yet future. I gather this opinion based upon several months now of listening.
When he began talking about the judgment and wrath in Revelation, earnestly imploring people to prepare to go through those times, I could do no other than find his email through a close friend who knows one of the men I mentioned earlier—one who is not a pre-Tribber. I emailed the blog host an offer to send him several of my books dealing with exactly the time of terrible trouble to come he’d been talking about. I also told him that his friends who teach against the Rapture are wrong, and, since he says he wants to consider all sides of matters, I wanted to present him with the truth about Christians not going through that coming time of horror.
I haven’t heard back from him. To even consider an alternate possibility to the position his anti-Rapture associates teach would go against his—and their—business models, as well as against their belief system regarding Bible prophecy.
I sensed, however, that I should make the effort to provide truth on that most glorious promise of our Lord that we will be delivered from the time of evil the likes of which mankind has never before seen.
Things going on in every facet of life at this moment, to the observant Bible prophecy student, point to very dark times ahead. The blog host I mention sees a moment coming when things will suddenly and catastrophically change. He thinks it will be brought about by the sudden fall of the US dollar as prime currency for the world, or because of some other financial disaster. Everything will collapse around the people of the nation and the world, and only those who are prepared—by having essentials of life stored, etc.—will survive. Billions will eventually die, he proclaims.
He is right about the coming calamity, except for being able to store enough gold, silver, and food to survive, and the cause of the catastrophic crash and movement into that world that will make the fictional era of Mad Max seem tame and rational by comparison.
That great, catastrophic time of unprecedented trouble will take place when millions of believers are called to be with their Lord in the heavenly clouds above this wrath-bound planet. That moment is drawing near. We can be sure of this because the Lord Jesus Himself said that when believers see the things that are now beginning to take place, we’re to “look up” because He (our Redeemer) is drawing near (Luke 21:28).
My friend Pete Garcia and I are just completing a book on all of this, to be released in a few months, titled THE DISAPPEARING: Future Shocks That Will Rock the World.
The Apostle Paul says the following to what looks to be this generation:
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep.
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18)
End Times Ping
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Maranatha!
In before the anti Scripturites find the thread!
I have heard the “end is near” (like next few years) pablum since childhood. I am now 51
You just barely made it ;)
The only way to prepare for what is coming is to be tucked away safely i. Jesus Christ. No other prepping will save you
And it is 51 years nearer than when you were born. The truth if the human condition is no matter when Christ returns the end for each of us is no more than 80 years or so down the line. The end is that close for all of us
*in Jesus Christ - absolutely correct!
Romans 10:9-13
Note the word “all”
Same here, and I am 63. It just keeps adapting to whatever the current news headlines are.
Millions of people who were in a panic about the imminent rapture in 1976 and 1985 (just to mention only two past notable years of “rapture fever”) have since died and gone to meet the Lord. This is the meeting with the Lord they should have been preparing for, not being safely raptured out of the world.
to be fair, we don't know how bad it's going to get before the rapture happens.
Sure a personal end is near for everyone...but that is not what is being preached. It is claimed the imminent “end times” apocalypse, rapture, blah blah blah is happening anyday now which has been proven to be anything but.
2 Peter 3:1-10 This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done in it will be exposed.
Oh I also believe we are very close to Christs return. But even if we are not our personal horizon is very short
That is undoubtedly true. But their attitude was that the Lord will never come and that they might as well keep sinning and not turning to the Lord. But that is different than recognizing that it is more important to prepare for our own personal meeting with the Lord than to obsess over reading the signs of the times. Millions throughout history have spent untold fruitless hours doing just that.
I used to have a friend who used to say “Pray for ‘Pre’ and prepare for ‘Post’”. Sadly, she is no longer following Yeshua, having let the world’s teaching overwhelm her brain after several years of college. It told her that her desires were what she needed to follow, not what His Word says.
But I digress....
I am still convinced that those who do not believe the Rapture is real have a desire to see others destroyed. It’s like they point at those who believe and say “You’re weak! You’ll never make it!”. It’s like they want people to be imprisoned, tortured, and executed as “proof” of their loyalty to Him. And if it’s too much for them and they break, then they’ll point and laugh and say “We knew you weren’t good enough!”. That’s the vibe I get from these people. THEY’RE better believers because THEY WANT to go through the Tribulation.
Forgive me if I don’t particularly want to go through that. I KNOW I am weak, and I know I can’t take being tortured or starved. Personally, I look forward to being caught away and removed from this increasingly insane world to be with Yeshua.
Trust me...I’ve thought hard about what it will be like if I have to go through the Tribulation. From the time Israel signs that peace treaty, brokered by the Antichrist himself, it’ll be nothing but seven seemingly endless long years of running and hiding, hoping they don’t catch you.
And, if they do, they’ll do everything in their power to get you to renounce Christ and take the Mark.
I do NOT want to go through that. The thought is terrifying. If there’s no Rapture, I’d just as well that G-d end my life before I have to go through that.
In Texas we have survived the Chinese virus and icemagedeon.
Both of these were, I believe, man/demon induced. Those “tribulations” (lower case) we know will continue.
However, I do not understand how the no rapture crowd could confuse those little prequels with THE Tribulation (cap T) which the Creator of the universe Himself will soon come on this world.
They would have us believe that the Trinity has a civil war. The Father rains His wrath on the Church that is covered by His Son’s blood and indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
As Chuck Missler used to say, their problem isn’t eschatology, but ecclesiology.
We do know that it has been 42 months since the Revelation 12:1-2 Great Sign. If pre-trib means before Chapter 12 starts it is obviously wrong. Jesus talked a lot more about his followers being persecuted that he did about getting away without tribulation. Hold fast. Read your Bible and pray. Listen and do what the Holy Spirit tells you to do.
Heretics/heresy (those that want to be Christian but go off in weird directions) are created several ways:
Folks that think the Bible is just sort of written for fools and not really to be taken by its word, i.e. ELCA.
Folks that have visions and think they are some sort of new prophet, i.e. Mormons.
The Synchronist folks. People that have certain native cultures and even though wanting to be Christian attempt to accommodate mutually exclusive ideas with Christianity, i.e. a saint for Drug lords and dealers in Mexico (Jesús Malverde), Voodoo Christianity...
Folks that think after 2,000 years and billions of minds studying the Bible, ***they*** have discovered something new, i.e. John Nelson Darby who came up with all this Rapture BS in the US ~ 1860s : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nelson_Darby
Keep it simple, keep it basic, take it literally by its word, and don’t add to it. I know this is the US and everyone can have it their way, everyone needs to win the popularity contest and get their 15 minutes, but that’s not the point here folks.
What does it mean to “call upon the name of the Lord”? Does it mean only to “call out the name of the Lord”? What is the name of the Lord, is it Yahweh? Jehovah? Christ? Jesus? LORD? Eli? In fact, YHWH is unpronouceable. The Jehovah/Yahweh controvsersy exists because the vowels aren’t written in Hebrew, but are implied following rules of what consonant combinations imply which vowels. But there are no combination of letters which follow these rules! The name of the Lord has never been written! Rather, only placeholders like “LORD” and “YHWH” exist in ancient texts. How will you call on what cannot be pronounced? If you cry out, “God,” which god do you cry out to?
In Greek, Roman, and Jewish culture, one’s name was one’s authority. Can one who breaks the law of the Lord call out on the law of the Lord and hope to be saved? Yes, if he has repented. When you cry out to him, will you say, “I know I have sinned against you and against my fellow man! Cleanse me from my sin and wash away my iniquity, that I shall be counted among your heirs?”
Cheers! I often have to tell my fellow Catholics that the Pope cannot add to or subtract from the Law in any way. (We seem to have a heretical pope, but we still have Pope Benedict, whose abdication was invalid.) Nor can any apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary add to or subtract from universal revelation (i.e., the events and inspirations handed down to us as Scripture). The Pope has authority to bind or to loosen matters of Earthly discipline (such as meatless Fridays), but these matters are mere implementation of biblical commands (such as of fasting)
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