Aug 27
What Is a Doomsdayer to Do?
Pursuing goals of lasting value is the most important decision we can make in life. The things we desire in our youth often end up being a source of regret later in life. God's people seem to have no better sense when it comes to discerning goals that have lasting value.
Most Christians are so inactive in their spiritual life that they have no meaningful impact on the world. The largest religious group in the U.S. is evangelical Christians. The idea of being an "evangelical" is that you are some who shares your faith with anyone who has not heard the good news. Even among prophecy-minded evangelical Christians, there is a shortfall in the willingness to witness to the lost, and we are the ones with the added belief that time is short.
Someone who closely follows prophecy can be called a doomsdayer. According to the dictionary, this is "one given to forebodings and predictions of impending calamity." If you are a believer who looks for the Lord's return, you are doomsdayer. The Bible tells us that dire events will herald Jesus Christ's return for the Church. As a faithful servant, it wise to be tracking the signs of the time.
There is a problem with watchfulness when it's the only thing Christians do. The internet is full of prophecy sites that exclusively focus on world news. The operators of these sites spend all their time looking for events that might trigger the rapture or the tribulation.
Right now, the growing tension between Israel and the Syria , Iran and Hezbollah axis is the most closely watched flashpoint. Over past few months, I've read some rather ghoulish warmongering articles produced by some prophecy writers. One site sent out a notice that war was about to start because an eyewitness in Israel had said that Arab farmers in the Jordan Valley had fled their fields. It turns out that the person doing the observing had taken a windshield tour doing the heat of the day - a time when the farmers would regularly be inactive.
I'm sure many people were disappointed that Hurricane Dean struck sparsely populated areas of Mexico. If it had plowed into a large city and caused massive destruction, the general thinking is that the end-time clock would leap forward. Because God's control the timing of all events, it's a waste of time to wish for calamity to strike.
Someone might say, "Hey Todd, don't you focus on doom and gloom subjects in your daily news and various updates?" The answer is yes. We do more doomsday reporting than many sites put together. Our goal is to warn people to get ready.
The critical difference between RR and most other sites is that we also do the work of an evangelist. With more than 15,000 articles on the site, we reach tens thousand of people with gospel-based information. As you can see from our section called "The Newest Articles," we are constantly adding new material to the site.
I find that time flies when you stay focused on doing the Lord's work. The day Dean was bearing down on the Yucatan Peninsula, I was busy adding four new articles to the site. I saved time by letting the secular media give me the summation: Dean, third-most intense Atlantic hurricane event.
When the rapture takes place, Rapture Ready will have a huge share of the left-behind market. It will be largely due to the fact that Christians today are too fixated on matters that have temporal importance.
One of the reasons I post these reality checks a couple times each year is because I realize the need to remind you folks of your commitment to contributing to the Kingdom of God. Someday, we will all have to stand before the throne of God and answer that magic question, “What did you do in my name?"
To avoid embarrassment, every believer should wisely be doing something so he or she can instantly reply, "This is what I did, Lord..."
You don't need to help here at RR, but it's vital to be productive in some area. I firmly believe you would be hard-pressed to find a better investment than this site.
In whatever area God has blessed you, put it to good use. If God has blessed you with a wonderful testimony of salvation or deliverance, share it with others. If God has given you a skill for expounding on the Holy Word, open up Microsoft Word and get cracking. If God has monetarily blessed you, RR can certainly use your financial support.
"And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be" (Rev. 22:12).
-- Todd
Enduring Not-So-Sound Doctrine
Strange doctrines, rather than sound doctrine, is observably the order of our time. This is true whether considering doctrines of political thought, or doctrine within the Bible. On the former, the Apostle Paul prophesies: “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3: 13).
Paul was foretelling a time just before the end of the Church Age and the return of Christ, when the world system will become worse on an ever-increasing scale. Reprobate and sin-deluded men, who lie to and seduce people around them, will be part of that growing evil. Their doctrines of devils will be manifest in their ideologies. Since the politicians –the governmental leaders—of the world-system have the greatest opportunities to influence the way societies and cultures are bent, we can see Paul’s prophecy as lumping these sorts at the very top of his forewarning.
Paul also gave a straightforward prophecy about certain religious leaders and people in general who would fall for their deception during that same end-of-days time frame: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim. 4:3-4).
Unfortunately, I must report a disturbing reality –as my duty as a "watchman on the wall” in these days, which I believe to be the end of the Church Age. This generation is in the midst of what looks to be a time of growing evidence of geopolitical doctrine of demons combining with religious doctrines of devils. It seems we are well into the period the Apostle Paul declared would be the end-time era when people would “not endure sound doctrine.”
Now, I must parse my words carefully, here, because they must not be perceived to be a condemnation of particular individuals. As a matter of fact, although I have come to see the two men I’ve chosen to include for purposes of pointing to diversion from sound doctrine, both geopolitically and religiously, as not the shining knights they might appear to many, I nonetheless believe them to be sincere, and well-meaning for the most part. I view them as caught blindly up in the delusions they now espouse/perpetrate/perpetuate.
For purposes of brevity, I wish to dwell upon one issue that brings the end-time delusion involved in departing from sound doctrine into focus. The state of modern Israel is that issue.
Former President Jimmy Carter, being invited by pastor Bill Hybels’ Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, contains profound prophetic overtones. The invitation represents severe departure from scriptural truth for certain. Carter’s views and declarations have long since departed from sound American foreign policy doctrine.
The former president, invited to speak at the 2007 Leadership Summit by Hybels’ church (a thing unthinkable without Hybels’ complete endorsement), has, like so many within the international community, advocated remedies in the Middle East egregiously counter-productive to the modern state of Israel. Hybels, by welcoming Carter and his views within a church-sponsored venue, throws fuel on the fire of anti-Semitism in the already-troubled diplomatic waters of the “Holy Land.”
Eighty thousand are reported to have attended the event, speakers for which included in addition to Mr. Carter, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, author John Ortberg, and British management guru Marcus Buckingham. The presentation was beamed into 176 sites via audiovisual technology. Hybels’ church website demonstrates the heart of the problem of departure from sound biblical truth, even among self-proclaimed “evangelicals.” The website lauded Carter as one who has demonstrated his prowess as a master of conflict resolution, as well as one who provides much-needed diplomacy and does invaluable humanitarian work throughout the world.
The following opinion, I believe, is one upon which to cogitate these days, in which Israel is looking increasingly to fit the characteristics and geopolitical position on the end-time landscape, i.e., Israel is more and more looking to be the marginalized and ostracized nation prophesied by Zechariah in chapters 12 and 14.
"Jan Markell of Olive Tree Ministries takes issue with that assessment [that of Willow Creek Church’s website], noting that Carter has roamed the world delivering negative messages about America.
‘He stands up for dictators. He has not been pro-American in his diplomacy. He failed the Shah of Iran in 1979, which allowed Ayatollah Khomeini in, which resulted in our war on terror,’ she says.
Markell says even some of his former staff members believe Carter is anti-Semitic. ‘That is why these 20 staff associates on the Carter Center staff resigned,’ she asserts. ‘They felt that [Carter's] book, Palestine--Peace, Not Apartheid, was just plain filled with, they said, “lies and fiction.” And many of them felt that Carter is just plain anti-Semitic,’ she adds.
Markell says she cannot help but question the judgment of Hybels and Willow Creek for inviting someone like Carter to address the leadership conference…” (OneNewsNow.com, August 22, 2007.).
God’s dealing with the nation Israel is a massive part of His overall interaction with mankind. The truth involved within Jerusalem being the “apple of God’s eye,” and Abraham’s, Isaac’s, and Jacob’s progeny being central to the revelation and the wind-up of human history should be undeniable by true believers. But, as is demonstrated in this particular instance, Hybels’ approval of embracing those who, in effect, “curse” Israel, flies in the face of God Almighty. The action, for me, constitutes a possible fulfillment –in part at least—of Paul’s Holy Spirit-given prophecy that “the time will come when they will not endure strong doctrine.”
Certainly it appears these particular “evangelicals” are turning to a fable, exactly as prophesied –the fable that the land God promised Israel really belongs to the so-called "Palestinians.”
--Terry
