How Near is the Rapture?

We have been talking about the signs on earth that are preparing the way for the Tribulation....so if we are seeing that the Tribulation is close....and we know that the Rapture of the church happens before the Tribulation....then logic tells us that the Rapture must be close.

Paul tells us in Thessalonians that we are children of the light and that this day (day of the rapture) will not surprise us. But it will surprise the world. The unsaved will look around one day and say, "Hey....who took all the people?"....so for them it will appear as if a thief had come in the night and took a bunch of people.

We found a great article that puts all this information together in a very clear, conscise order. You can access it here; http://raptureready.com/soap/rose4.html

“Of that day and hour no man knows, not even the angels of Heaven nor even the Son, but the Father only.” (Matthew 24:20). But though no man knows the exact time, Jesus did indicate that those living at the time would know when it is near. There are other clues scattered about the Holy Scriptures which, when all put together, can give us a pretty good idea of when it will happen.

Just a quick disclaimer here. I am not trying to set a date for the rapture. Only a fool would do that. Jesus said no man knows the day nor the hour, and neither do I. But He did say we would know when the time was at hand, and based on the Scriptures and current events and trends I believe that time is here.

Are all of us ready to "fly away" and meet our Savior in the air? Many Christians that we talk to seem disturbed by this idea...like they don't really want this to happen because, "I want to see my grandkids", or "We just built a new house in Florida and want some time to enjoy it". Quite frankly, most of us Christians are just too attached to our earthly bodies and have become too entrenched in the patterns of this earth. But let's remember what Jesus told us, "He who loves this life will lose it and he who hate's this life will gain eternal life."

Somalia

Most of us have seen the movie "BLACKHAWK DOWN", about when Bill Clinton sent in the US military so Somalia in an attempt to make it safe for the world to feed the millions of starving people there. You remember that the militants shot down a U.S. helicopter and proceeded to kill and then mutilate the chopper pilots. When CNN showed the pictures all over the news of angry, barefooted, black people...dragging a nice U.S. service man through the streets of Mogidishu....it was too much to bare. Americans everywhere said, "Why are we there having our nice boys die?" So Bill Clinton cut and ran. We high tailed it out of there just as fast as we could....and let Somalia fall into chaos. Satan loves chaos.

And now it turns out that Somalia is going to implement Sharia law...which means the laws will all come directly from the Koran.

CNN) -- Somalia's transitional federal parliament has unanimously backed the introduction of Islamic Sharia law in the country after a vote over the issue was brought to parliamentarians Saturday.
The vote will boost new President Sharif Ahmed's efforts to defeat the hard-line Islamic group of Alshabab, which opposes his government.
Alshabab previously declared that it would continue fighting until Sharia law is imposed in Somalia.
"Calling us anti-Islamic lawmakers is now over," said Osman Elmi Boqore, deputy speaker of the Somali parliament, after voting ended.
The parliament's vote comes amid high tension in Mogadishu after the killings of key supporters of Ahmed's government in recent days.
The new form of law would replace the traditional charter, which was not as strict as Sharia law.
The strict interpretation of Sharia forbids girls from attending school, requires veils for women and beards for men, and bans music and television.

So it doesn't look good for the future of Somalia as they will continue to be ignorant, abusive, backward and poor....a perfect breeding ground for Satan to harvest angry youth who desire to blow themselves up for allah.

We need to pray harder than ever that Jesus will start to appear in dreams and visions to the people of Somalia to save them from a tragic life and an eternally tragic afterlife.

Why the Panic?

Yesterday while sitting at a lacrosse game, the topic of swine flu came up while visiting with the gentleman sitting next to me. We were both wondering why this batch of flu bug is literally setting the world on edge and the news media into a tizzy? Afterall, doesn't the ordinary flu usually kill around 30,000 people per year? Isn't it true that the flu usually attacks the weakest among us...mainly the elderly or young who are already frail?

Having 150 people die of the flu in Mexico hardly seems to call for worldwide-global concern. I'm sure 150 kids died in bicycle accidents during the same period...and we aren't shutting down bike riding. So why is the Vice President saying we should stay off public transportation? Why is the CDC (Center for Disease Control) rolling out the map board every half hour? Is something strange going on here??

After leaving the game, I went to my men's bible study meeting and we continued the discussion. The consensus among these men was that this administration "Never wants to miss an opportunity to create a new crisis".

See what Reuters had to say about this flu bug;

A rapidly spreading flu outbreak may quickly overload a U.S. health system already straining from hospital closures, cuts in public health funding, a nursing shortage and too many uninsured patients, health experts said on Friday.
They said the threat of a flu pandemic caused by an unusual new strain of the H1N1 influenza virus has shone a bright light on what may see as a broken U.S. health system.

Did you catch that?? By screaming about how broken our health care system is and by showing how many poor folks out there have no health insurance....they can make the call that the Government HAS to do something to save us!!

Read full article here; http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5404W420090501

Something deceptive seems to be happening. I'm not saying that anyone is intentionally being deceptive, but the world just may be falling under a spell of deception as Satan gets prepared for the his last hurrah. Furthermore, this issue continues to widen the gap between the people who are looking for the Government to save them...and the people who are looking for Jesus to save them.

"I Have a Gift"

Sorry...but we simply can't take our eyes off of Obama! And the media just can't quit talking about this guy. The world has simply never seen anything like him!

In today's Wall Street Journal, Dan Henninger has some comments that perk up our prophetic ears;

If opinion polls were real life, Barack Obama would be walking with the immortals. In polls taken as he headed to his 100th day, his numbers are high and heavenly, cruising on issue after issue at 70-plus percent.

"Mr. Obama cast himself as an eager listener, sometimes giving warring classmates the impression that he agreed with all of them at once." Also: "People had a way of hearing what they wanted in Mr. Obama's words."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a book out next week, tells of congratulating freshman Sen. Obama on a phenomenal speech. Without a hint of conceit, Mr. Obama replied, "Harry, I have a gift."
He does. We know from tradition, though, that when the gods bestow magic on mortals, the gift can also imperil its possessor.

Can you smell the new black top being laid...as the world seems to be paving the way for the entrance of the anti-christ?

Read the full article here; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124105013014171063.html

Why should this be exciting to born-again believers of Jesus Christ?? Because the bible is very clear in Thessalonians that the rapture of the church will happen before the anti-christ is revealed on planet earth. So if we can smell the new blacktop....how close must we be to the time when we hear the trumpet announcing that our Bridegroom has finally arrived for His bride? (That's us folks!)

Deaf Ears

As all of you know by now, America is nowhere to be found in biblical prophecy. That means that something is going to happen to America so that she becomes a "non-issue" in the Last Days. Many of you have heard my thoughts on this, but I will restate that I believe America was made great to serve a few Kingdom purposes....mainly to incubate the country of Israel in 1948. We were the first to recognize her and the world has known that they can't mess with Israel WITHOUT expecting some altercation with America.

As we get closer to The Day of the Lord (Last Days), we know that God is going to handle Israel all by himself and in a supernatural way. So America will not be needed as a protectorate of Israel any longer.

Also, when the rapture of the church happens and 20-50 million (?) Americans get snatched by our Savior, in the twinkling of an eye,....America will not recover from the carnage caused, and the non functioning of the infrastructure. Think about it...how many military men will be gone? How many engineers, pilots, electrical grid technicians, doctors, phone line repairmen, etc....will simply be gone? Who will be left to clean up the mess and who will know how to turn on the lights and keep the power plants functioning?

With that as a background of my thoughts, I ran across this article today which spells out very clearly why America is soon going to be gone...we are hanging on by the tiniest of threads.

Our leaders have failed to assess many things properly in God’s eyes and so our nation remains firmly seated in defiant rebellion against the One who raised us up for a time such as this. For many years God has sent a wide variety of remedial chastisements to our land in the form of hurricanes, tornado outbreaks and severe storms, destructive flood and fire events, terrorism and lately the financial crisis. All this, it seems, has fallen on deaf ears. Like beasts penned up for slaughter, the vast majority of us, both Christian and non-Christian alike, living here in United States have failed to notice the sword that is hanging so precariously over our heads. Our nation has been living in the shadow of the “Damocles Sword” of God’s judgment for a long time and our new presidential administration under the guidance of Barack Hussein Obama is working feverishly to carry us to a much deeper level of rebellion against our Creator.

Here is the link to the entire article; http://raptureready.com/soap/king3.html

It really is a MUST READ for all those who understand that this country can't go on aborting babies, selling sex, bathing in pornography, worshiping false idols (wealth), turning our back on Israel, doing drugs of all kinds, using violence and death as entertainment, endorsing perversion....and all at the same time becoming biblically illiterate and TOTALLY LOSING THE FEAR OF THE LORD!

More Dreams and Visions

The prophet Joel said that in the Last Days, "your young men will dream dreams and your old men will see visions." The apostle Peter also repeated that prophecy. It's amazing to hear how people are coming to Jesus all over the world....and a frequency that has NEVER happened before.

I was personally made aware of this probably 4 years ago when I read an article by a retired Iraqi General named General Sada. He wrote about the huge outbreak of Christianity that had taken place in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was run out of town by U.S. forces. He estimated that 90% of the people coming to Christ were the result of dreams and visions. Remember that 99.9% of Iraqis are muslims.

In very short order I then spoke with a Pakstani woman at our home. She was a born again Christian and wanted desparately to get back to Pakistan because entire villages were coming to Christ through "the dream",...and she wanted to be a part of this exciting phenomenon. When I asked what the "the dream" was, she told me that Jesus was appearing to people and showing them the way to salvation. She knew it was going to be dangerous to go back because her uncle and cousins had been sexually abusing and raping her since she was 7, and they would want to kill her because she had "enticed" these men. Again, 99.9% of Paksitanis are muslim.

Yesterday I received a letter from a good friend who was just in Kosovo. While there he spoke with a woman from Bulgaria who was being trained to be the next leader/teacher of women at her local mosque...so obviously she was a staunch muslim.

One day (about 10 yrs ago) she had a dream that she was on a crowded bus when the bus driver, who was all dressed in black, locked all the people in the bus and set it on fire. She was screaming, just like everyone else was, but she never caught fire. She looked out of the bus and she could see Jesus all dressed in white. Jesus opened the bus door and and led her out of the burning bus and spoke to her saying, "I am the way, follow me." When this woman woke from her dream, she asked some friends for a bible and went to a place where she knew believers were meeting and told them she wanted to be a follower of Christ. That was the first dream.

That same year she dreamed again that she was standing in a line of people. Jesus went down the line and touched people and when he did, their clothes would start to glow. When he touched her, her clothes also began to glow. She told of how wonderful it was to see him again...as peace, love and acceptance flowed out of his eyes. She told Jesus that she loved him and would do anything for him and then she began to cry because of the joy she was feeling. Jesus told her, "Don't cry, I am going to take you. Go tell everyone to get ready because very soon I am coming." She watched him as he ascended back into heaven and Jesus kept repeating those words as he went away.

Did you catch that?? He is coming soon to "take" her...sounds like a clue of the rapture which is the next prophetic thing to happen on planet earth...when in the twinkling of an eye we will all be transformed...at the last trumpet...two men will be in the field, one will be taken the other left....two women at the mill, one will be taken the other left. The dead believers will be raised first and then all of us who are still alive will quickly follow them where we will meet Christ in the air and be with Him forever more! Amen!!

If you are interested in reading more about dreams and visions and the hundreds of thousands of muslims who are coming to Christ....read Joel Rosenberg's new book, INSIDE THE REVOLUTION.

Also, you can check out this site; http://www.truthnet.org/dreamsandvisions/

Friends...lest you be skeptical about these supernatural happenings, may I remind you that the apostle Paul met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and it changed him from being a Christian -killer into a Christ follower...and it literally happened overnight.

Disease Warning

Luke 21:10-11 tells us, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven."

Of course, these are the words of Jesus written by Luke and are describing the terrible things that will be happening during The Tribulation. It will be a time like the world has never seen....or will ever see again. Jesus tells us that had those days not been cut short...no flesh will have survived.

As we have said often, great things of the Lord cast their shadows backward. That means that we can start to see glimpses or shadow images of what is coming. Jesus talked about birth pangs which means it starts with smaller contractions that are a precusor to huge contractions and ultimately a birth. We know that The Tribulation will be the major contractions that will lead to the 2nd advent of Jesus Christ....

We are seeing wars, rumors, eathquakes, famines and now pestilence visits us in the form of swine flu. Again, this may prove to be nothing or it may kill 2 million people.

The worst case scenario, according to U.S. government planners: Two million dead. Hospitals overwhelmed. Schools closed. Swaths of empty seats at baseball stadiums and houses of worship. An economic recovery snuffed out.

Read the CDC worst case scenario here; http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/us_med_swine_flu_worst_case/2009/04/28/208249.html

This will be nothing like what is coming during the Tribulation in regards to pestilence...but it may wake up more people on planet earth to make us realize that we ARE NOT in control of the universe...in fact a tiny flu bug could cripple the global economy and change millions of lives in a really big way.

We are in control of nothing....and for people who have no relationship with their Creator...that must be terrifying.

North Korea Want Apology

Let's assume you have a bratty, 4 yr. old child that constantly defies you, doesn't do as he's told and screams at his parent's whenever he isn't getting enough attention? What do you think would happen if the parents "spared the rod" or even worse...they constantly gave him candy or other treats whenever he acted up? In essence, they would be encouraging his bratty behavior by giving him something he wants....even though he has been behaving inapropriately.

Now let's look again at North Korea....the bratty 4 yr. old of the world who has not done what they are told and screams for attention every chance they get. What have we done to stop that behavior? We actually sent them a whole bunch of money (candy) if they promised to quit screaming. But once the candy ran out....they started screaming for more. Now we have encouraged the beast.

North Korea has threatened a nuclear test unless the UN Security Council apologises over sanctions, which some analysts said confirms the isolated state's determination to have an atomic arsenal.

Read article here; http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/2373512/North-Korea-threatens-UN-with-nuclear-tests/

Did you catch that?? They want the world to apologize to them for the disciplinary action that they recieved!! And if they don't get it....they are threatening to act even worse!!

Who is left in this world who will offer them the rod?

War is Coming

We know that the world is putting pressure on Israel. We also know that in the Last Days, the focus of the world will be on Israel. So when we see this in the headlines...we can know that something big and out of the ordinary is in the making.

Israel faces all-out war within 18 months if it does not come to terms with the Arab world and allow the establishment of a new Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem, according to Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

Read full article here; http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/131050

Are you serious? Can the world truly demand that Israel give up what tiny slice of land that it has? Can the world truly expect Israel to give up Jerusalem, the site of Solomon's temple and the 2nd Temple that Jesus talked about while on earth? The very place that Jesus rode into on the back of a donkey and fulfilled his role as the sacrificial passover lamb?

And finally...how long will God sit by while sinful, Godless men continue to poke and prod in His Holy land...the place that God himself called the "Apple of my eye"?

Something is coming.

Where is Iowa Going?

As we all have heard by now, the state of Iowa has allowed gay marriage. How did this happen? Did the people of Iowa vote on this? Of course not. It was basically put into law by some supreme court judges who ruled that disallowing gay marriage was unconstitutional. So when you say, "The people have spoken!"....that is totally not the case. It's a case of a few judges who have decided the course for the entire state.

I was listening to Michael Medved and he believes that the people of Iowa will ultimately demand that this issue be put to a vote....and they will turn it around just like they did in California with Prop 8.

But what Mr. Medved said next turned up my prophetic ears.... He says that a day will soon be coming when Bruce and Steve will show up at the local church in Iowa and ask the pastor to marry them, so they can say their "I do's" in front of God and friends...since they now have a marriage certificate from the state. If the pastor says, "We don't marry gay couples in this church." Bruce and Steve could then go to the state and complain. The state could then turn to the powers available to them and tell the church that if they refuse to marry Bruce and Steve...then they will lose their tax-exempt status. They may quote "hate language" laws or they may just threaten the church with having to pay taxes and back taxes....which could bankrupt the church.

Certainly for those who are listening, we should be able to hear the drums of persecution coming for Christians. Those who refuse to hear the drums do so at their own peril.

What's up with the Golan?

When the news we are watching talks about "The Golan Heights" and then continues on into the latest news between Syria and Israel...most of us have no clue what, why or where The Golan Heights is. Forget about knowing why it a huge point of contention between Israel and Syria.

With that being said, it is obvious that the world seems to be turning against Israel. The Golan is just one other problem that the world is going to use to build hatred against Jews and Israel. So it is important for us (supporters of Israel) to understand the basics of this long running problem.

I found a site that has some very basics and a nice map of The Golan; http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/golan_hts.html

Please notice that Syria used The Golan for 20 yrs as a place to pick off Israeli citizens. When Israel complained, this is what they got;

For example, Israel went to the UN in October 1996 to demand a halt to the Fatah attacks. The response from Damascus was defiant. "It is not our duty to stop them, but to encourage and strengthen them," the Syrian ambassador responded.

Also, please take a look at the map and realize just what a tiny chunk of land the Golan actually is in comparison to the rest of Syria.

So when Syria joined in with the other Arab armies in 1967 in an attempt to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews....it would have been with great embarrasment that not only did none of the advancing armies succeed in any of their goals....but they lost a lot of military power and equipment and they lost land when Israel chased the offensive Arab armies back to their bases and kept some of the land as booty and for future defensive purposes. (The Golan Heights)

The fact that the world fails to see the fairness and logic of this outcome is just further evidence that there must be supernatural power pushing this issue.

All Riled Up With No Place to Go

It seems to be the American way that if you aren't happy with your job...then do something about it and find a different one. If you don't like your state....then move to a different one. But how about if you aren't happy with your country?

It seems quite a few conservatives are getting pretty fired up about the direction that Obama and his D.C. supporters, are taking us. The divide between liberals and conservatives is growing wider and wider, and that gap is going to be increasingly difficult to bridge with compromising solutions.

So what if Texas were to seceed and become it's own country? Would it be a place where conservatives could flock...where people who want to cling to "God and guns" could actually thrive and not have to spend all their time fighting liberal agendas?

Perry (Gov. of Texas) was quoted by local media afterward as saying: "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people ... who knows what might come out of that."

Read article here; http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE53M13D20090423

Many people we have spoken with have their antennae up and are listening for voices of divide that could lead to serious civil unrest in this country...the people of Texas may already be talking about it in back rooms and bar rooms. "Don't Mess With Texas," may end up being more than just a slogan.

How Long Can This Work?

According to the article below, today is the day that the U.S. Federal Government has spent all the money it is expecting to take in for 2009. That means that from now until December 31, the government will be borrowing everything it needs to keep the bills paid.

It seems to me that it doesn't take a whole lot of common sense to figure out that spending 3 times what you make....won't be sustainable.

Read it here; http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/24/happy-debt-day-government-run-cash-sunday-earliest/

And how strange is it that the very government who is so incapable of running their own financial house is now telling the banks, General Motors, and the rest of the world...how to "fix" the financial crisis?