Donation Drive Dec to Feb

I had hoped by delaying our final donation drive for 2020 to the end of November, the election would be fully decided. With Trump behind in at least four states, we need to face the sad reality that Joe Biden may soon occupy the White House. I think the American people have made a colossal error that will come back to haunt them. One man once wisely said, “People who get what they want are often surprised when they also get what they deserve.”

I think Trump’s likely loss is part of the general degradation in society. In a landslide, the earth doesn’t occasionally halt and move backwards a few feet. It can only slow down before speeding up again. Trump is out because voters are now content with a party that kills babies at birth and promotes nearly all forms of sexual perversion. We need to pray that the Senate remains under Republican control to delay total depravity.

Last week I wrote an article on the record hurricane events to show that we are clearly living in the last days. The day after I posted my article, I read about tropical cyclone Gati making landfall in Somalia, setting four more new records:

It was the strongest tropical cyclone ever measured in the northern Indian Ocean.

It’s the first recorded instance of a hurricane-strength system hitting the nation of Somalia.

Gati broke numerous records for rainfall by generally dropping two years’ worth of rain in a 48-hour period.

Its intensification from about 40 mph to 115 mph was the largest 12-hour increase on record for a tropical cyclone in the Indian Ocean.

I need to address a couple general issues related to the site. The first one related to things going haywire on RR. Because we were forced to move to a database system three years ago, we have to contend with various glitches that manifest themselves from time to time. I remember about a year ago, the server suddenly decided to display a version of the site from 4 years in the past. If you see something that is broken or acting odd, please let me know.

The second issue deals with people who have written for us who have their own site that conflicts with general views posted here on RR. As a general rule, we don’t endorse any site by any of our authors because we don’t have the time to regulate things outside what we post on RR.

The vast majority of authors share our core beliefs, but when we do have a conflict, it has to be judged on a case-by-case basis. We once posted work by a man who wrote very good financial articles. I was fine with the fact that he held to a post-trib view. When he wrote a book that basically said that being a pretribulationist is an unforgivable sin, I cut all ties with him.

Earlier this month I had to deal with an issue with one of our writers being attacked on another site because they didn’t like her tone of voice toward unbelievers. The world is in full-stage meltdown mode, and the left is out shopping for guillotines to use on their enemy (us). Some Christians must think the only way to make up for not doing anything to prevent this calamity is to start policing the views of fellow believers.

Last quarter in our letter to donors, I said we are going to greatly expand our advertising budget. We have had tremendous success in maintaining our audience and drawing new viewers to the site. A couple years ago, when all the major social media and the search engines began to shadow ban nearly all Christian sites, I thought my 31-year run was about to end. We will now end 2020 as the busiest year going back at least a decade.

If you are someone who found the site because of the people who made our ability to advertise possible, please consider joining them in helping to keep this beacon of end-time hope alive. I see this election as a clear indication from God that we are past the point of no return. Every day we now wake up, it should be a surprise to us that we are still here on earth.

There are three ways you can contribute to Rapture Ready: 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 page. Donations can be sent to our P.O. Box at:

Rapture Ready
P.O. Box 969
Benton, AR 72018

–Todd

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Division and the Two-edged Sword

The monumental film produced by Cecil B. DeMille, The Ten Commandments, continues to carom within the memories of those still living who first saw it on the silver screen. The movie continues to be shown around Christian holidays, and it’s still a magnificent production, even on the screens of televisions and laptops.

Who could forget the very finger of God—as portrayed in the film as lightning from Heaven—carving the Ten Commandments for conducting life on this fallen planet upon the tablets of stone?

While Moses fearfully cowered, scarcely looking up, the mountainside exploded as the tablets were cut out with heavenly, surgical precision. Charlton Heston, as Moses, then very tentatively picked the tablets from their place and followed God’s directive to return to the Israelite people below the mountain where he stood. They were greatly engaged in sin, the Lord told Moses.

Heston (Moses) came to the base camp, where the thousands and thousands of Israelites were engaging in an unbridled orgy. Naked and dancing around the golden calf they had fashioned for worship, the sight was cutting-edge filmmaking for that early period of movie production.

Moses was heartbroken to see the people in such a debauched state. He was more angered than heartbroken, however. He screamed at the people for their evil doings, shouting, “Choose you this day whom you will serve!” He called for those who were with Him to come to his side.

Moses then divided the masses of people, many of whom hurriedly moved, terror-stricken, to his side. Others remained defiant and stayed where they were in order to continue their debauchery and golden calf worship.

Moses’ anger arose to an even greater level; he raised the tablets carved by the hand of God and flung them at the crowd of unbelieving rebels. We remember how the earth began to shake and crumble in front of the defiant mass of people. The ground gave way beneath them and swallowed them all.

The Lord had used His man, Moses, to separate those who believed from those who would never believe, no matter what the circumstances. Even when they had seen the magnificent hand of God divide the Red Sea so they could pass through, and had witnessed the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night to guide them, they wouldn’t believe. That is, they might have head knowledge, but not heart/spirit knowledge of who God is. Neither did they want to know.

There is a division taking place even as I write this and as you read it. And, God is again using a man, I believe, to divide those who will believe from those who will not believe in His way of comportment for humankind His only way for the salvation of the souls of lost mankind.

Donald J. Trump—certainly no Moses, in character, and not having had the Commandments handed him directly from God’s throne—nonetheless is chosen. In the vein of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus, he is chosen to separate the wheat from the tares, the sheep from the goats, so to speak.

He has been a divisive figure in America’s political realm and culture like no other president, with the exception of Lincoln. And Lincoln was chosen, but obviously for a different purpose, although one as important in the sense of human freedom.

Trump’s purpose, in my view…well…“trumps” that of Lincoln in advocating for Israel, anti-abortion, and constitutional rights with regard to religious freedom.

Now, I fully realize that unless your view is biblical and from the point of view that God is hands-on and not existential, you see as foolish our believing that these tremendous upheavals of culture we have endured stem from spiritual chaos. I understand that in your thinking, the so-called revolution represented by the likes of BLM and Antifa and the raging hatred against Trump and our wanting things to be back to America as founded is righteous revolutionary action.

And this is where the division is at the moment. It is a schism running smack down the middle of the United States of America. There are decisions to be made upon the political spectrum, and people for the most part have made it.

But it is the spiritual elements within the American cultural and societal dividing line—that national earthquake fault line where lies the true danger in these troublous times. It is God who defines where to stand on either side of that fault line.

Now, I am fully aware that the story of Moses coming down from the mountain, finding the evil, and acting as God’s hand of judgment in slamming the tablets of Law into the fault line of that time involved His dealing with His chosen people, Israel. But His dealing with Israel, the Bible tells us in total context of His making Israel His chosen nation, was to place before the eyes of the world a prototype people. These are the people He chose to serve as example for the rest of the world’s nations to, in general, comport themselves. So in that regard God’s righteous anger still arises—and against all peoples—when evil reaches its final stages.

There comes a time that a dividing line is drawn—an earthquake fault line of sorts is defined for the whole world to see.

It is my contention that that moment might be upon us now. There is a distinct line of division down the middle of America at present. God has dealt with Israel and America in special ways, I believe. The two nations’ close links since Israel’s rebirth—indeed, America’s amazing history of birth and extraordinary achievements as apex nation of history—is nothing short of Heaven-directed.

So the chaos, created by the rebels who want to do what is right in their own eyes—like the golden-calf-worshipping folks of antiquity—has great relevance, I’m convinced. The Lord of Heaven is deliberately making manifest the division between those who will come to Him and those who are diametrically opposed to His governance.

Trump, unwittingly, I have no doubt, is a type of Moses, in that process of saying symbolically, “Choose you this day whom you will serve”—or at least “Choose you this day whom you will not oppose.”

God’s Word has the only TRUTH that exists. In that love letter to mankind, the Creator has given all that is needed to go through life in the way He has prescribed. It is a blueprint for life more abundant, and full of light to illuminate dark pathways. Jesus is that Light of the world. He is also the Living Word. Here is what that Word tells us about division in God’s holy view.

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews4: 12)

Millennia and DNA separates those people of Moses day from our time. But God’s ways change not in the ultimate sense. We can take the God-inspired words of Scripture and apply them at this very hour. There is a separation coming. The spiritual fault line and the historical dividing line are before us. It is time to choose.

“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24: 15)

–Terry

A Hurricane Season Like No Other

At the end of each year, I often do a composite of all the prophecy-related events. The 2020 hurricane season has been so active, I think it is needful that I do a special Nearing Midnight article on this subject. We have broken so many records, it’s hard to know where to begin.

We currently have the most number of hurricanes in any season. Subtropical storm Theta in the northeast Atlantic was the 29th, breaking the previous record of 28 set in 2005. With the formation of Iota, we have had 30 storms. After 170 years of record-keeping, it’s no small accomplishment to witness the busiest Atlantic hurricane season. The average number of hurricanes in a season is 12 storms.

Hurricanes are named in alphabetical order, restarting with A at the beginning of every year. If more storms occur than the alphabet allows, meteorologists move on to the Greek alphabet. The WMO’s hurricane name list consists of 21 alphabetic names. The Greek alphabet has 24 letters, meaning a storm season would have to observe an unprecedented 45 named storms in a single year. The WMO has no policy or procedure in place should the Greek name list be exhausted.

Hurricane Iota just rammed into Nicaragua with Category 5 winds of 155 MPH. It is the strongest hurricane in the month of November. It also marked the first time that two hurricanes have formed in the Atlantic in any November. An old man being interview in Nicaragua, as Iota began making landfall, said he had experienced 6 tropical storms in his lifetime. Two of them have occurred this year.

This makes five consecutive years with Category 5 storms, which is itself also a record.

The state of Louisiana has been a punching bag for tropical storms. Zeta hit the state at the end of October, becoming a record fifth named storm to make landfall in the state this season. Hurricane Laura tied a record for the strongest storm to hit Louisiana.

The 2020 hurricane season tied 1995 for the most rapidly intensifying storms. Maximum sustained winds in Iota increased by 70 mph in 24 hours. That doubles the criterion for the rapid intensification of a tropical cyclone, which is a wind speed increase of 35 mph or more in 24 hours or less.

We still have two more weeks before the Atlantic hurricane season ends.

Such activity has focused attention on climate change, which scientists say is causing wetter, stronger and more destructive storms. Sea surface temperatures were consistently 2 to 3 degrees above normal through the summer months, and these anomalies increased to 3 to 5 degrees during September, especially around the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and off the coast of Africa, where many storms start to develop.

Wind shear was extremely low through the summer months, and this allows tropical storms to intensify and maintain tropical circulations rather than being torn apart by opposing winds in the different layers of the atmosphere.

A pulse of enhanced rainfall, known as the Madden-Julian Oscillation, moves eastwards around the equator. When it is located over West Africa, it causes more rainfall and thunderstorms, which can give birth to tropical storms over the eastern Atlantic.

La Niña, a change in Pacific Ocean temperatures with cooler water being pushed eastwards across the equatorial Pacific, has also been more influential. It can affect global weather patterns, and one of the effects is an increased number and strength of Atlantic tropical cyclones, especially late in the season.

The 2017 hurricane season broke a similar number of records. I was stunned by the number of records that Hurricane Irma set. It was the first Category 5 hurricane to strike the Leeward Islands on record. At the time, it was considered the most powerful hurricane on record in the open Atlantic region, outside of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, until it was surpassed by Hurricane Dorian two years later. No storm in recorded history has sustained winds of 185 mph for as long as Irma: a record-breaking 37 hours.

The previous record was 24 hours, during Super Typhoon Haiyan in the northwest Pacific in 2013. Irma is tied with the 1932 hurricane in Cuba as the longest time (3.25 days) spent as a Category 5 hurricane. Hurricanes Irma and Jose mark the first time in recorded history that there were two hurricanes with winds of at least 150 miles per hour in the Atlantic at the same time.

When I looked at the historical record for all recorded hurricanes, there were times when a decade could pass without any major storm event. To have a year like 2020, that just goes off the scale, is a strong indication that Bible prophecy is the reason why we set so many records. Because we seem to be at the limits of what nature can produce and what mankind can endure, I think we must be very close to the tribulation hour.

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring” (Luke 21:25).

–Todd

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Salt, Light, and the Spirit of Antichrist

We’ve looked a number of times at Jesus’ words about the very end of the age. The Lord told us in very specific terms that it will be like the days of Noah and the days of Lot at the exact moment He will again intervene—catastrophically—into things going on in a world in rebellion against God.

Ezekiel the prophet clues us a bit on that generation of Sodomites, who had moved so far away from God that destruction was the only remedy possible. God told Ezekiel to report the following:

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good. (Ezekiel 16: 49–50)

Sodom had reached the point that every form of debauchery was carried on, perversion of the most disgusting sort being the norm rather than the exception. The sexual immorality had progressed to the ultimate deviancy, marking the city and the people for destruction by the forces of Heaven.

Sodom was living the high life in economic terms. As a matter of fact, Abraham’s nephew, Lot, saw its prosperity and chose to move there when his uncle gave him the choice. Lot became deeply involved in the city’s government and commerce. He was, we believe, a judge who held court at the city gate, as was the way of government of the time.

The ease of life and the leisure time provided for its citizens, God told Ezekiel, led to pride, self-sufficiency, and gluttony, with no regard for those truly in need. The people were therefore haughty, and their sin-corrupted senses, they were led into abominable sexual evil before the holy eyes of God.

Lot was caught up in the stream of the city’s rebellious activities, but he was considered “just” by the Lord, we see from the account given in Genesis chapter 19. When Abraham was told by the Lord He would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded for Him to relent. Abraham said there had to be righteous people in the cities—those people would make it worth saving the cities from destruction.

We know God agreed to spare the doomed cities if just ten righteous people could be found. He then decreased that number until, when no righteous person besides Lot could be found, Abraham gave up and no doubt agreed that God had no other choice.

Lot, as representing God’s light in the sin-darkened Sodom, no longer was enough of an influence to provide hope of saving illumination, so Lot was removed from the city to Zoar. Judgment then fell that very day and destroyed everyone in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Jesus, in the Olivet Discourse, foretold that it will be exactly like that again: God’s judgment will fall in one day at the time in this generation when His cup of wrath is full.

The question is: How near are we to that time?

No matter which direction we look, we see evil proliferating. The Church of Jesus Christ is the salt and the light in this darkening world. We Christians, indwelled by the Holy Spirit—the Light Bearer—are all that stands between the total evil of this world and God’s judgment and wrath. The Lord said the following:

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5: 13–16)

The spirit of Antichrist is manifesting in physical outbreaks. The evil is no longer hiding just beneath the surface of civility. Proponents of rebellion against every godly principle are attacking the Bible and true Christians in a way that makes headline news on an hourly basis.

We are—as I like to say in using the KJV vernacular—sorely vexed, just as the righteous Lot was in Sodom.

The New York governor just gave orders to shut down worship in his state, or limit it to completely keep congregations out of houses of worship. It is the same in many of the Democrat-run cities and states, like California, for example.

If the election goes in a direction other than that we as God’s people are praying, it will likely be a short time to the implementation of anti-God measures to protect through law the Sodomite activity that caused God to finally say to those cities, “Enough is enough.”

Norway is victim of the prototype government that is coming to America and the world, unless the Lord sees otherwise.

Norway’s parliament has voted to expand the protections that the LGBTQ community has enjoyed in that nation since 1981 by expanding the definition of “hate speech” that can land a person in prison.

Reuters reported Norway already was among the “most liberal countries in Europe” on the issue, “allowing trans people to legally change gender without a medical diagnosis” and more…

Now those found guilty of hate speech face a fine or up to a year in prison for private remarks, and a maximum of three years for public comments.

Monica Maeland, minister of justice, said transgendered people are “an exposed group when it comes to discrimination, harassment and violence.”…

“LGBTQ+ ideology has been mainstreamed in every sphere of life imaginable. Still, radical gender activists will not be at rest until every private citizen repudiates biological truth and relinquishes his every doubt about their dogma.”

Reuters noted that under the penal code, “people charged with violent crimes can receive harsher sentences if a judge decides their actions were motivated by someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” (“Norway criminalizes private criticism of LGTBQ people, Adopts law imposing punishment of up to a year in prison,” By WND Staff, WorldNetDaily, November 14, 2020)

The Antichrist spirit is becoming almost tangible as we watch the lawlessness explode across our nation and the world. Nonetheless, we, as God’ salt and light, are here at the most exciting time in human history. It’s exciting because the Lord is, we believe, on the brink of calling His ambassadors home.

Our just-released book, LAWLESS: The End-Times War Against the Spirit of Antichrist, presents, through seventeen top prophecy experts, just how near that time of Rapture must be, based on the rebellion exploding across America and the world.

But, Jesus Christ, who is infinitely greater than Satan or his coming Antichrist, isn’t taken by surprise by all of this end-of-the-age evil. He will prevail. And so will we who are called by His Holy Name!

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Our new book that covers the evil assaulting the U.S. and world is now available.

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–Terry