Donation Drive August to October
We were going to have our donation drive last week, but the software that links to PayPal suffered a malfunction. People who tried to help RR were met with a strange notice that said our “organization’s account is inactive.” Once we found the location of the problem, it was quickly fixed.
It amazes me how fast time has been flying these past few years. I was looking at an event from 2016 and was shocked to realize it had occurred 8 years ago. I talked with a young lady who had just graduated from college to be a lawyer, and she told me she was born in 2000.
Bible prophecy is a key factor in making time run so fast. About 30 years ago, it took more time for end-time-related events to unfold. Today, we advance toward the tribulation hour with little opposition.
During this quarter, the U.S. national debt surpassed $35 trillion for the first time in the nation’s history, and the federal government continues accumulating debt at a record-setting pace.
“This news is incredibly sobering – and incredibly unsurprising for anyone who has been following our fiscal trajectory,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement. “Just last month, the Congressional Budget Office warned Americans that debt held by the public is on its way to a new record share of the economy in three years’ time.”
“Enough with the charade of fiscal platitudes followed by deficit-busting records. True fiscal responsibility cannot exist in a vacuum. If we want any hope of putting America back on course toward a sustainable and prosperous future, our leaders need to bridge rhetoric with action,” she said. “Pay for your new spending; pay for your new or extended tax cuts; make deals, shake hands, pass budgets. In a word, govern.”
The real deficit will be over $2 trillion this year and nearly $5 trillion in ten years. I remember when our deficit was $350 billion, and I warned that we could see financial Armageddon when it exploded to $2 trillion. We have reached a milestone that 200 nations have reached, and all of them have suffered a meltdown. We’ve driven over 100 landmines without them detonating, so the general conclusion is that we can hit 100 more.
The upcoming November election has the potential to accelerate events. If Kamala Harris becomes president, we will likely experience a level of prophetic momentum never before seen.
The Presidency of Joe Biden has been a historic disaster. When I ask myself how the American people can elect a man who is senile, I can only conclude that it is part of God’s judgment on our nation.
One key saving grace for Biden is that he has maintained strong relations with the nation of Israel. Biden has threatened to slow the shipment of arms to Israel, but nothing has gone beyond verbal threats.
Biden’s poor mental state does have one positive side. Because he can’t think for himself, the damage he mostly inflicts is because of neglect. Kamala Harris is also in the thinking department, but her malfunction is not caused by dementia.
She may be a loon, but she has an evil nature that comes straight out of the pit of hell. One of her first interviews after Biden passed the torch to her was with a transvestite. If you want to see the main focus of a Harris administration, look at her Instagram account.
When the citizens of Chicago elected Lori Lightfoot in 2011, I knew calamity would be the result. While the city’s murder rate soared, Lightfoot was more concerned about racial strife, homosexual agendas, and gender inequality.
The left is giddy over Kamala’s diversity qualifications. If she wins in November, Harris will make history as both the first woman to be president and the first woman of color in the nation’s highest office—the first Black woman and the first one of South Asian heritage. She’d also most likely be the most pro-LGBTQ+ president.
The most dangerous thing about Harris is that she has an illogical dislike for Israel. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently visited Washington DC, she ran to Indiana to avoid meeting him.
Harris chose the unknown Tim Walz as her running mate because Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a much better pick, was a Jew. Having a president who would be more comfortable meeting with representatives of Hezbollah and Hamas than God’s chosen people would give the Bible’s Blessing and Curse prophecy a thorough test run.
“And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).
There are three ways you can contribute to RR: You can send a financial gift via our P.O. Box address, you can make a one-time donation, or there is a frequent option that allows you to make monthly donations. If you’re interested in signing up, find the input links on the Donation Depot page. Donations can be sent to our P.O. Box at:
Rapture Ready
P.O. Box 969
Benton, AR 72018
— Todd
The Nuclear Stone
Many things of end-times importance aren’t just on the horizon of Bible prophecy but are now upon the actual national and international landscapes—so much so that even those who aren’t interested in anything to do with God’s Word are engaged in wonderment.
While working on a computer matter in my study, my tech guy asked me: “What do you think is going on with everything?”
He then launched into all the things he saw as astonishing developments in just the past several weeks. He brought up the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the lunacy that went on in the introduction to the Olympic Games in Paris, and the world seeming to turn against the Jews and Israel.
He commented: “The world has gone completely nuts.”
This gentleman has been a friend for several years; he’s about the age of my younger son, with two children—one 16 and the other 22. He is concerned that the world will be uninhabitable to any sane extent very shortly and his kids will have to face the terrors coming upon the planet.
He doesn’t know the Lord for salvation, and I’ve witnessed to him for some time. I explained what’s going on from the Bible prophecy standpoint. He listened for the first time with what I could tell was concentrated interest.
Anyone with a trace of comprehension about the things going on knows that something’s up, as my computer expert put it.
Our society and culture are lurching from one insane situation to the next. The rearranging of world conditions is happening too quickly to grasp, and Israel, in particular, is the focus of the fear that a much wider conflict might erupt from that ignition point at any moment.
And it is Israel that I would like to focus on now.
The “stone” in today’s title is a reference to the much-mulled-over-lately prophecy by the prophet Zechariah:
“The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it” (Zechariah 12:1-3).
Although Zechariah’s prophecy, most premillennial prophecy students believe, is primarily for the Tribulation era (Daniel’s seventieth week), it has become clear that, as in the case of many prophecies, this foretelling is casting its foreshadows upon these times so near Christ’s call to the Church in the Rapture.
Explosive events involving Hezbollah’s murderous attack that killed twelve Israeli children on a soccer field have caused great angst around the world. Iran’s proxy terrorist actions continue to burgeon, causing demands that the Iranian atrocities be dealt with promptly. The following illustrates the point.
Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Rabbi Goldstein, reacts to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on the Iran threat, covering Israeli military strategy, US Congress reaction, and the Iran-Israel conflict. The Chief Rabbi delves into an analysis of Netanyahu’s address, discussing its impact on military tactics and the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict.
Rabbi Goldstein opened his comments by saying that, “The unprecedented fourth speech by an Israeli Prime Minister to the United States Congress amidst innumerable standing ovations should not lull Israel into thinking that it can rely on a polarized America to save it from the existential threat that a nuclear Iran poses. If Israel does not destroy Iran’s production of nuclear weapons, no one else will. Israel has been here before.”
Rabbi Goldstein explained that, “In 1981 Prime Minister Menachem Begin faced a similar decision. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq had been pressing ahead with its nuclear program, just like Iran. Saddam had issued genocidal threats against Israel. According to many reports, the country was less than a month away from full nuclear capability, and so Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered a daring Israeli Air Force operation on the eve of Shavuot, 7 June, 1981…
Rabbi Goldstein continued, “So we’ve been through all of this. We’ve seen it before. None of this is new. Today, Israel faces the same situation with Iran. If there’s one thing that October 7 has taught us, it is that the implacable hatred of the proponents of violent Jihad knows no bounds. For them, no evil is too horrific to perpetrate. Anything is possible.
Hamas is Iran’s proxy army. It operated in that capacity on October 7th and gave an inkling of what Iran would do from the moment it possesses nuclear weapons. Iran has stated clearly on many occasions its determination to wipe Israel off the map. An objective deeply embedded in its Jihadi worldview. The prospect of mutually assured destruction, which deterred the atheistic secular Soviet regime during the Cold War, won’t deter Iran.” (“SA Chief Rabbi to PM Netanyahu: ‘Israel needs to know that it is alone in the world’,” Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, July 30, 2024)
Israel is taking out Iran’s proxy terrorist heads, and the ayatollahs are threatening to retaliate with major destructive action. Such threats increase pressures to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capability and are ramping up international jitters, thus adding to the world’s turn against the Jewish state, just as the prophet said.
No matter the atrocities perpetrated against the Jewish state and the Jewish people through anti-Semitism, the world increasingly declares Israel, not its blood-vowed enemies, to be the genocidal evil that threatens to ignite World War III.
Israel is the nuclear “burdensome stone,” to be sure, in these darkening final days of this Age of Grace.
The Rapture is next on God’s timeline, and all the stage-setting for the Tribulation is pointing to Christ’s soon call to His Bride, the Church. You want to be part of that great event. Here is how to go to the Lord when He calls believers into the clouds of Glory:
“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart a man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).
—Terry
The Glorious End to Human Chaos
We live in the perilous times that Paul wrote about in 2 Timothy 3:1-5. Lawlessness, deception, and violence define our day. We see expressions of evil that exceed anything we could have ever imagined just ten years ago. Wars, ethnic strife, and the threat of nuclear warfare fill our newsfeeds.
What is it that gives us hope in the midst of all the human chaos around us? Is it not Christ’s return to the earth that assures us of His sovereign control over all the madness of our day? Although our immediate expectation is that of meeting Him in the air, it’s His Second Coming that guarantees a glorious climax to the chaotic history of mankind.
Between the Rapture and Jesus’ return at the end of the Tribulation, life on planet Earth will become even more treacherous, deceptive, violent, deadly, and evil. Jesus, however, will put an end to all that upon His arrival back on the planet. He will destroy the kingdom of the antichrist and establish a thousand-year period of righteousness and peace on Earth.
No single word adequately describes the splendor and glory of Jesus’ Second Coming, although terms like triumphant, powerful, magnificent, and spectacular fit with what Scripture reveals about His return. Revelation 19:11–16 describes it as a majestic procession the likes of which the world has never before witnessed:
“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King Of Kings, and Lord Of Lords.”
Author Ed Hindson beautifully describes these verses in his book Future Glory:
The singular vignette of Christ’s return in Revelation 19:11–16 is the most dramatic passage in the entire Bible. In these six verses, we are swept up into the triumphant entourage of redeemed saints as they ride in the heavenly procession with the King of kings and Lord of lords. In this one passage alone, all the hopes and dreams of every believer are finally and fully realized. This is not the Palm Sunday procession with the humble Messiah on the donkey colt. This is the ultimate in eschatological drama. The rejected Savior returns in triumph as the rightful King of the world—and we are with him. (pp. 113-114)
Oh, how Satan and his hordes must hate hearing the words the verses quote above, which majestically portray Jesus’ Second Coming. Revelation 20:1-10 reveals His rule over all the nations, which the “prince of the power of the air” (see Ephesians 2:2) currently governs through his minions. During Christ’s reign, our adversary will remain locked away, unable to influence the world in any way. The grandest hope of all the ages will spell his final doom (Revelation 20:10).
The story contained in Revelation 19:11-20:4 exceeds our wildest imaginations. What will we feel as we ride on white horses behind our Savior as He rides triumphantly across the sky? And the good news doesn’t stop there; we will reign for a thousand years alongside our Lord (Revelation 2:26-27, 5:9-10).
Christ’s Second Coming will mark the grand finale of human history and the inauguration of the greatest kingdom the world will have ever seen. Jesus gave His own description of His spectacular return to Earth in Matthew 24:29-30:
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”
This morning, my search for stock market futures took me to the CNN business site, which indicated that fear was the driving force behind the current volatility in the financial markets. It listed a recession as the primary source of anxiety, but I can think of other factors that might be frightening investors.
If not for Bible prophecy and my hope in Jesus’ soon appearing, I could see myself easily giving into the panic that abounds in our world. But I know that regardless of how dark and chaotic our world becomes, Jesus will have the final say. The globalists will someday succeed in bringing about the “Great Reset,” or the kingdom of the antichrist, but Jesus will destroy their realm.
Don’t let anyone lead you astray on this matter. Jesus’ return at the end of the Tribulation will exceed our most fanciful imaginations, and He most certainly will rule over the nations and a restored Israel for one thousand years. Those who teach otherwise don’t know Bible prophecy, nor do they understand Jesus’ preeminence as described in Colossians 1:15-20.
-Jonathan