August to October Donation Drive
For nearly 30 years, Rapture Ready has been an online resource for end-times information. I started the site in September of 1987, while I was an airman stationed at Offutt Air Force Base. My first computer was an Apple II clone made by Franklin Computer Corp. It became my method of sharing prophetic-related news and the gospel message.
The changes in technology have been spectacular; the changes in the field of Bible prophecy have been equally stunning. In the early days I could go on a month long military deployment, and come back home without anyone noticing my absence from the Internet. Today, I have to check something related to the site a dozen times a day.
In the late 80s, there were times when prophetic activity was stagnant, but there was always something important enough related to prophecy to mention. In 2017, there is a strange sense that the Tribulation hour is about to begin.
I have my own special indication of how close we are to the last days. A couple weeks ago, I wrote an article that questioned the possibility of Pope Francis being the False Prophet. If I had written that same article 20 years ago about Pope John II, Rapture Ready would have received a flood of angry emails. I did not receive a single complaint about Francis, and I knew that would be the case when I wrote the article from two key reasons.
The first reason is because Francis perfectly matches the character of the False Prophet, which leaves no room to debate many of his universalism statements. And second, the polarization of religious views. Because there is no middle ground in faith today, liberal Catholics would not likely visit this type of site. The few conservative Catholics that visit RR, would agree with our observations about the Pope’s apostate doctrine.
An important ongoing task for RR is the continued work of updating the site. Our design team works daily on updating our Web presence. It has been 14 months since they started to make the necessary changes. They have transferred nearly 10,000 articles to the new WordPress format. If anyone has any ideas for improving the site, don’t be shy about sending me your suggestions.
I’ve added a new Prayer Center page to the Rapture Ready most active pages. The devil has become so powerful in the news media, academic and political realms, I think prayer has become the only way to influence world events.
We are still locked in a massive struggle to keep Rapture Ready from being overwhelmed by censorship. The technology firms that have appointed themselves as gatekeepers to the Internet are doing everything they can to block Christian and conservative sites. This bias against true believers has forced us to spend large amounts of time and money to keep our heads above water. The more determined they are to drown us in a sea of data, the more convinced I am to keep paddling against the deluge of hate.
In order to keep the end-time data flowing, the site needs your financial support. One of the blessed things I hope for our donors is a point in time when checks sent to RR will no longer be deposited. Your checks will be in the mail, but we will be in the air.
We have three ways you can contribute to Rapture Ready and enable our efforts to expand our reach. You can help us keep getting our message out by sending a financial gift via our postal address; you can make a one-time donation by a credit card, or you can sign-up to make monthly donations via PayPal. More information can be found on our Donation page.
Rapture Ready’s P.O. box address:
Rapture Ready
P.O. Box 969
Benton, AR 72018
–Todd
Mr. President–Cursing or Blessing?
There continues to be much turbulence stirred within the American government and America in general. I’ve written a number of times here that I believe God Himself intervened in the 2016 presidential election. He, I’m convinced, answered the prayers of the people called by His name–Christians. He turned the American ship of state around–or at least began that process of steering in a better direction.
Donald J. Trump, a man who was and continues to be far from a godly man, in my view, was nonetheless chosen by the Almighty to head the project to at least slow if not completely halt globalism’s takeover of the United States.
Globalism, I believe, is the conveyance Satan intends to use to take America down the pathway to the eventual installation of his man of sin, Antichrist. That intention has been greatly slowed with the election of Mr. Trump, and the fallen one isn’t happy. The uproar amongst his many minions, both demonic and human, is witness that gives testimony to Lucifer’s enragement.
Donald Trump is God’s man of the hour, even though not a godly man. In that regard, I support God’s decision totally, as anyone who reads these commentaries knows. I continue to believe that if the other candidate had won the election, the effects, especially for those of us who value American ideals as founded and who believe that God’s Word, the Bible, is truth, would have been terrible.
One day, perhaps soon, the U.S. and the world will experience those feared results of losing such elections. For now, however, there is a Heaven-sent reprieve and we must support godliness and a movement back toward God’s way, rather than continue on the path to destruction.
This is why I–we as Christians–must call out ungodliness when it pops up its ugly head, no matter where it does so.
That brings me to the title of this article “Mr. President–Cursing or Blessing?”
The turbulence I mentioned at the outset was full-blown in the White House the week of July 14. It was no doubt stirred and fanned by the breath of the old serpent, the devil. The winds of inter-White House turf war continued this week just past.
President Trump, always one to keep the mainstream media–and the rest of us as well–off-balance with his actions and tweets, did so in his own inimitable fashion. He removed his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and replaced him with Ret. General John Kelly. But, it wasn’t that cut and dried.
Mixed in with the shake-up of White House staff was the matter of the desire–the absolute necessity, in my view–to get rid of the so-called leakers. These holdover personnel from the previous administration were wreaking havoc on the president’s efforts to move forward with his agenda.
Sean Spicer, the communications director was also let go. In his place came one Anthony Scaramucci. We know now that this mouthpiece seems to have no boundaries on usage of language. And that is what inspired this commentary.
Mr. Scaramucci, chosen by the president to clean out the leakers, began his new job by talking with a reporter of The New Yorker–the hip New York City magazine that looks down on the rest of us as most generally just not with it.
The president’s new man in the communication director’s seat indeed began to communicate. He did so in a cursing rant he thought was, but in actuality was not, “off the record.” It was so bad that it apparently caused Chris Wallace of Fox News to blush when he read it.
Wallace said, “I’m no choirboy, but his [Scaramucci’s] language took even me aback.”
It was anger, framed in sewer language, whether real or feigned for impact, that to this point we hadn’t had a close associate of a sitting president use. I’m no choirboy, either, having grown up amongst my male peers as a youngster in junior high school, high school, university, and even the U.S. military. The report of Scaramucci’s vulgar tirade made me feel uneasy. I don’t like one so closely associated with my president using such ungodly language. It somehow dirties–sullies the office.
Of course, I realize that this president sometimes uses less than godly language himself. I don’t like that, either. This I say for those of you who were about to ask “Well, how about Trump’s language?”
When I first heard the report of Anthony Scaramucci spewing forth as he did, my mind began searching for words I once heard reported as spoken by our first president on use of vile language.
I soon found the quote. It was George Washington, then the head general of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, issuing a written command. That command said the following:
The General is sorry to be informed —, that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice heretofore little known in an American army, is growing into a fashion; — he hopes the officers will, by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it, and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our arms, if we insult it by impiety and folly; added to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests and despises it. (Source: George Washington, Extract from the Orderly Book of the army under command of Washington, dated at Head Quarters, in the city of New York [3 August 1770]; reported in American Masonic Register and Literary Companion, Volume 1 [1829])
We have, of course, become a profane nation in ways that would make our first president wonder, no doubt, how the Lord of Heaven could let us proceed farther as a country. As much as I back Donald J. Trump and his much-beleaguered presidency, I must ask the question: Mr. President–cursing or blessing?
How can we expect the continued blessings of the Almighty when we allow such cesspool thinking and expression as Mr. Scaramucci used, representing a president of the United States, therefore representing us?
Anthony Scaramucci might be a tough, New York guy who uses street language to get things done. He did not have the right to use such while in an office that represents the rest of us, many of whom still prefer a more godly means of expression.
It is good that another general of excellent reputation, General John Kelly, evidently, according to reports, feels the same way. Scaramucci’s vulgar tirade to the New Yorker, in concert with his demand to be allowed to bypass the new chief of staff, General Kelly, was asked to leave the communications position he had occupied for only ten days.
Wise decision, Mr. President. Please consider the following in regard to your own language.
God’s Word says the following in use of language for the Christian–a tremendous number of those who voted for you:
Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. (Ephesians 4: 29)
Even more to the point, James put it this way:
But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. (James 4: 8-15)
–Terry