This is the third edition of the After the Rapture series which will provide you with suggestions on how you and your group can establish an underground home church (Matthew 18: 20) in the wilderness; plus, I will add to some of the topics we have already covered in the first two editions.
Before you start establishing the church, make sure everyone in your group has a Bible plus a writing tablet and a wooden lead pencil with an eraser. I recommend and prefer the King James Version (KJV); and I informed you in the first edition how you can buy KJV with both New and Old Testaments in paperback form for as low as $1.00 each. Get more than you need and be sure to search the homes of the raptured saints for their worn-out and tattered copies.
You should also attempt to make sure the group members don’t have mixed versions and translations of Bibles, for the sake of eliminating confusion and arguments during your Bible study. You can’t have all of your church members reading from Bibles that read and translate differently.
But before we start building your church, I’d like to point out one more major threat to your safety in the wilderness. In the #2 edition I pointed out two major threats: one being the animal world going insane over starvation and attacking anything and everything that breathes and bleeds; and two being the increased number and intensity of forest fires (Revelation 8: 7) caused mainly by terrorists, arsonists and Acts of God.
Another survival threat is the fact that there are thousands of state, county, city and federal park rangers in the U.S. employed by the various levels of government. Add to that a variety of nature groups such as the Sierra Club, Green Peace, etc., that regularly patrol and oversee many of America’s parks and wilderness areas. You must also beware of area residents and farmers.
Some of these rangers, club members and area residents will be raptured, but many will be left behind. Some of those left behind will see the light and decide to follow Jesus, but many will take the 666 mark and become a part of antichrist’s gestapo. In all probability they will all know your wilderness areas much better than you, so you must be on guard for these threats.
Needless to say, that when I say “build an underground church” I don’t mean a literal building or structure. In the first century, after Christ’s Resurrection and the Christian church was established (Acts 2: 1-4), nearly all church meetings were held in members’ homes. These were the first “home churches,” and I bet this is where the carry-in covered-dish suppers were invented.
You should hold services, prayer meetings and Bible study anywhere that is safe and concealed from detection. This wilderness church will no longer have a bowling team, hold fund-raising chili suppers or have a co-ed volleyball league!
Get out of the present-day habit of church services on Sunday at 10 AM and Bible study on Wednesday at 7 PM. You should be holding these church functions anytime you can. Don’t cancel due to bad weather. Instead be blessed that God provided your group with a day and night of heavy rain. This way you can spend that day and night praising Him by giving Him all the Glory, plus studying His Word, singing hymns of praise and holding group prayer meetings. If it rains all week, then God has blessed you with the time for a camp meeting and revival. You no longer have distractions like the Super Bowl, kid’s soccer games, mowing lawns, TV, cell phones, 18 holes of golf, etc.
Get everyone in your group involved. Try to avoid those who just want to sit there and listen (1 Corinthians 12: 4-31). Look at many of today’s church services and observe how many just sit there and listen (or daydream) without cracking open a Bible (if they even brought one). And many of today’s churches center their teachings on undermining the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. Some of them will be present in your left-behind church.
Give them something to do within the church so they will soon feel they are a part of the church. You don’t want anyone there just because everyone else is doing it. Getting them active and involved is a way you are witnessing the Gospel to them, and it is also good for your own personal spiritual growth.
Remember that Satan is just as present in your underground church as he is in today’s pre-rapture churches. This is where all of his future customers are, and he is on a selling spree with his intense lies and deception.
Read Revelation chapters 2 and 3 on Christ’s message to the seven churches in His day, which is the same as now in our day. He is very critical of five of the seven churches. So be sure your wilderness church is not in that group of five.
Avoid arguments that divide the church body like: does baptism save, once saved always saved, questioning miracles, what is a proper Biblical baptism, etc.
Take God’s Word literally. He means what He says. He is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14: 33). He is not wrong on anything. Everything is possible with God (John 1: 1-5; 2 Corinthians 4: 18). His Word is His Word (Revelation 1: 1-3). Any time you disagree with God’s Word or reinterpret what He says and commands, you are calling God a liar!
One function your church should perform immediately is a group baptism by total immersion (Matthew 4: 13-41; Mark 1: 9-11; John 1: 29-31; Acts 3: 35-41). A church leader should come forth. Maybe a joint leadership, which would be better, as the two could discuss the church agenda, plans and problems beforehand. But whoever leads must either lead or get the hell out of the way!
You don’t have to be an ordained preacher to baptize people. You just need to be a Christian who will ask those to be baptized if they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Then say these words as you immerse them (briefly down & up):
“I now baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”
If you have ten people to be baptized, have five do the dunking of those to be baptized, and then have them swap places and do it again. Make sure that nobody gets left out!
I have been in prison ministry for over 20 years; and one example of this was a prison in Pennsylvania where the chaplain there would not baptize inmates upon their repeated requests, even though the chapel had a baptism tank on wheels that could be rolled around from cell to cell. So some inmates on laundry detail filled a laundry cart with water and did the baptizing themselves.
Start and end all camp functions and events with prayer.
Here are a few more items Christ’s Church can be collecting to leave behind for the left behind, and those left behind can try to round up before the satanic 666 mark system (Revelation 13: 17-18) comes into play:
fishing gear, poles, hooks, sinkers, line, floats; seine nets; snake bite kits;
rolls of wire, cord, rope; wire cutters;
hatchet, axe, shovel, hoe, pick axe, rake; everyone should have a Swiss Army knife;
hymn books; silverware; boxes of stick matches, cigarette lighter with extra flint and lighter fluid (or cans of naphtha);
bundles of legal pads or tablets, packets of wooden lead pencils with erasers;
wood chisels, small hand tools (pliers, hammers, saws, etc.);
All clothing should be camouflage design; extra hiking, thermo and work boots for men and women; insulated underwear; jackets; overalls, hats; lots of extra socks; gloves; full coverage rain gear.
Another excellent source for many items needed for the end-times tribulation period is the150 Orscheln’s stores in 9 midwestern states which are actually the “Wal-Mart for farmers.” They ship all over online. See www.orschelnproducts.com or www.orscheln.com and they have everything from bib overalls to salt blocks to fence posts!
When the left behind find their camp area, they should make sure it has fairly steep hills so they can dig out food cellars and caves, where their group can have shelter from the elements and hold Bible study and other functions. I would suggest crawl-in entrances instead of walk-in for the sake of concealment from the outside. I advise against constructing shacks and out-buildings, as they are easy to spot from the air and also by foot troops.
I doubt if the antichrist’s gestapo will do much Christian hunting on foot while looking behind every tree over millions of acres nationwide. Instead they will use the helicopters and light planes that can fly low and cover more area, trying to spot “unauthorized activities.” Three people in a low-flying plane or chopper can cover more area than a company of foot troops on the ground. When those “evil Christians” are spotted, the pilot radios in the location to the gestapo and they send in their troops.
When digging out caves and food cellars, you will need to cut down trees to reinforce the interior walls and ceilings. Cut these trees close to the ground so not much stump is showing. Then cover the stumps with fill dirt and plant any kind of seed on top whose growth will conceal the stump. Don’t cut trees in the open but rather back in the thickets where cuttings won’t be noticed.
Don’t leave piles of dirt after you’re through digging caves, cellars and other dirt work. Move it somewhere else and hide it or use it as fill dirt where needed.
The food cellar can be used to store potatoes, onions, cabbage, carrots, sweet potatoes (very healthy), peanuts, field corn, etc. Be sure there is plenty of brush and underbrush to hide and camouflage the cave and cellar areas. Save seed from produce like cantaloupe, squash, zucchini, beans, peas, sweet corn, etc., for next season’s planting. Keep your eyes open in the woods. You might come upon an old wild pear tree. Plant an herb garden and perennials like asparagus.
Now I’ll get a bit controversial and say some things you might not like or agree with.
Most of what I’ve written thus far sounds pretty elementary to some of you; but I want to assure you I am not talking down to anyone. But I am sure there are a lot of city slickers also reading this, and much of the information is new to them. I hope all of you are copying these letters and putting them in your left-behind box.
Since we don’t know when the rapture will be (Matthew 24: 36), this may be a bit hard to do. But I don’t have a problem with maxing out my credit cards to buy stuff for my left-behind stash! The only problem that worries me a bit is leaving a lot of debt for family members who might be left behind. But everything I bought on credit would be for them. And they would have to head for the hills soon after the rapture anyway. For those left behind, I would urge them to max out their credit cards while they can still buy or sell.
Get as much of the essentials as you can while you can. When you can’t buy or sell, you can’t pay your credit card bills either! If the stores you buy from are still in operation, that means they are left behind too, and they might have already taken the 666 mark. You don’t want to be doing business with tattletales. Antichrist doesn’t care about you paying your bills. His time is short anyway (Revelation 12: 12). He wants your soul, so don’t worry about your low credit rating scores.
And remember that if you hear helicopter blades above whirling loudly, don’t look up. Just run like hell for cover as fast as you can!
Dick Ainsworth
PO Box 156
New Franklin, MO 65274