Instagram: The Vanguard of Vanity

The first king of social media was Myspace, then came Twitter and Facebook, and now a new site is taking over the reins. Instagram is a site primarily used for posting pictures and short videos.

Originally launched for iOS in October 2010, Instagram rapidly gained popularity, with one million registered users in two months, 10 million in a year, and 1 billion as of June 2018.

Instagram is owned by Facebook, which bought the company for $1 billion in 2012. With the firm now said to be worth $100 billion, Mark Zuckerberg did quite well on his investment.

As of June 2021, the most followed person is Portuguese professional soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo, with over 300 million followers. The most followed woman is American singer Ariana Grande, with 251 followers. I found a list of the top 50 accounts on Instagram, and over 90% of the list is dominated by people who are known for their looks.

I’ve spent a couple of weeks trying to understand the platform. Because I normally work with PC, I quickly realized this domain is meant to be run on a smartphone. I also made the determination that Instagram sets a new low in self-worship. I would call the site the Vanguard of Vanity. If you are considered to be eye-candy, you can join the club. If you have no talent or looks, you can go somewhere else.

The primary goal on Instagram is to get the highest number of people to follow you. You post pictures and hope for a large number of likes. People can also post comments, and these can lead into the thousands. The average comment is not in any language. People mostly post symbols of hearts, fire, and an assortment of smiley faces.

On Kylie Jenner’s account, she has images that have been viewed millions of times, and there might be 30,000 comments to her post. There is almost zero chance that Jenner is going to see the posts. I looked on dozens of posts and couldn’t find any comment that Jenner gave any response.

I probably lost a few IQ points skimming through Instagram pages. On 4 January 2019, someone posted an image of a bird egg with the caption, “Let’s set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram.” Within days, the egg photo got 54 million likes.

For every Justin Bieber with 183 million followers, there are millions with hardly any followers. I found one guy who works as a model who had one million followers. I did some test inputs by responding to some of his posts. At first, I was amazed that he liked my comments, but I quickly learned that he likes everyone’s comments. He and millions of other people are wasting huge amounts of time on this site.

I read a few articles that said this model was having mental health issues. I posted my concern on his Instagram account about his mental well-being, and not a single person shared my concern. One woman said he was “thriving,” and I should check on my own mental health. He may be thriving at age 24, but where will he be at age 34? At some point, the phone is going to stop ringing because his looks have faded, and younger models have taken his place on the catwalks.

You don’t get to be a star on Instagram for very long. The singer Madonna only has 16 million Instagram followers. If this were 1985, she would likely have over 200 million followers. Instagram fame only lasts as long as you remain very attractive.

If social media had existed in the 1800s, the top accounts would be by authors, ministers, and politicians. Today, you can have an IQ of 70 and be a star on Instagram.

Social media sites like Instagram have driven people to levels of self-promotion that God never intended. Many people have become slaves to what the public thinks of them. It’s nice to be famous, but it doesn’t guarantee happiness. God’s word says that pride generally results in a negative outcome:

“Pride leads to destruction; a proud attitude brings ruin” (Proverbs 16:18).

Anyone who tries to promote their own greatness does not deserve any respect. Greatness can only come from the praise of other people. The only lasting praise is what God thinks of our lives.

“Don’t praise yourself. Let someone else do it. Let the praise come from a stranger and not your own mouth” (Proverbs 27:2).

–Todd

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God’s Weather Warnings

There is, at first glance, perhaps a paradox in our take on the matter of climate change. When I say “our,” I mean those of us in Bible prophecy circles who examine the climate-change matter, which is considered by the Biden administration people to be the greatest crisis faced by mankind today.

The seeming incongruity in our thought process comes by considering the following. While we believe that there is no climate change in terms of the definition given by those on the ideological left, we acknowledge that climate change indeed does exist. And it is becoming exponentially more manifest.

Those who are in the man is destroying the planet camp proclaim all who disagree with that premise to be climate-change deniers. They vehemently declare the same about anyone who disagrees with their dire assessments on any crisis as they delve, in full rage, into whatever problem they believe they must strive to control in their insatiable quest for ever-increasing power. For example, anyone who opposes their claims that COVID-19 is the deadliest virus in modern times is a pandemic denier, and, no doubt, an anti-vaxxer.

Not too many months ago, I have to admit, I was somewhat of a climate-change skeptic, to say the least. And I yet hold that, regarding those earlier times, I still can’t point back to them and see changes in the planet’s weather patterns as being extreme to the point of representing changes of the profound sort.

The evidence is now compounding, however. Reports from around the world of drastic weather events, especially involving flooding and at the same time droughts, continue to erase the skepticism.

Some of the reports just in recent days blazed across our Rapture Ready News headlines. I’ve put a few of these here to display the compiling evidence.

• Europe floods: Rescuers race to find survivors as hundreds remain missing

Rescue crews have been racing to find survivors of floods that have wreaked havoc across western Europe, killing more than 150 people. Hundreds are still missing after record rainfall triggered severe floods in Germany and Belgium. Heavy rains also hit Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands – where PM Mark Rutte has declared a national disaster in one southern province.

• Flagstaff declares state of emergency as Arizona hit by devastating floods

Parts of Arizona have been hit with devastating flooding, with the city of Flagstaff declaring a state of emergency after being inundated with torrents of water that turned streets into murky, fast-running streams.

• Amid a mega drought, federal water shortage limits loom for the Colorado River

The Colorado River is tapped out. Another dry year has left the watershed that supplies 40 million people in the Southwest parched. A prolonged 21-year warming and drying trend is pushing the nation’s two largest reservoirs to record lows.

• “Wither away and die”: U.S. Pacific Northwest heat wave bakes wheat, fruit crops

An unprecedented heat wave and ongoing drought in the U.S. Pacific Northwest is damaging white wheat coveted by Asian buyers and forcing fruit farm workers to harvest in the middle of the night to salvage crops and avoid deadly heat.

• Extreme flooding hits multiple provinces of China, capital Beijing brought to standstill

Prolonged heavy rainfall affecting parts of China over the past couple of days caused extreme flooding in several provinces, including Sichuan, Hebei, Shaanxi, Henan, and Shandong. Severe thunderstorms also affected the capital Beijing, bringing the entire city to a standstill. On July 12, authorities have issued an orange alert, the 2^nd highest in the country’s 4-tier weather warning system.

• Flash floods cause travel chaos in parts of London

Heavy rain has caused flash floods in various parts of London. Cars have been submerged as roads filled with water while train services have also been cancelled. Photos on social media showed parts of south-west London including Barnes, Raynes Park and Richmond had been affected, as had areas of north London including Golders Green and Highgate.

• Shandong hit by largest tornado outbreak in more than a decade, China

Eastern China’s Shandong Province was hit by its largest tornado outbreak in more than 10 years on July 11, 2021. At least 10 tornadoes were reported, with at least 3 of them [reported as] violent. The reports are still coming in and the number of reported tornadoes is rising.

• Extremely heavy rains hit Kyushu, JMA issues year’s first Level 5 torrential rain alert, Japan

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has issued its highest level rain alert for parts of Kyushu, southwestern Japan on Saturday, July 10, 2021, leading local authorities to instruct hundreds of thousands to take immediate safety measures. Reports of river flooding and landslides are coming in.

The floods and droughts are not merely seasonal occurrences. They are indeed phenomenal weather events, and they are in unprecedented, multiple numbers—occurring almost simultaneously in most every part of the planet.

So this prophecy watcher, at least, fully recognizes that something of last-days significance is taking place almost daily. The way I and others who are likewise watchers differ from the leftists who claim there is climate change is they see it as man-made, while we see it as God-induced.

It is a foreboding weather warning from on high. The storm that’s coming is the Tribulation. The Lord, we sense, is warning of things to come by way of His judgment and wrath.

He wants all to come to repentance. He wants no one to be caught in that final great, destructive storm.

The rebellious, progressive mindset declares that man alone can fix the climate. They are making a globalists-elite-engendered, Mother Earth worship system to do exactly that, they think. We know, on the other hand, that only God can either break or fix the planet He, alone, controls. 

The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? (Psalms 24: 1–3)

—Terry

Extreme Weather Events Are Becoming More Extreme

I’ve noticed that more Weather events are being labeled with the extreme. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground. One area of the world is hot and dry while other areas are getting flooded out.

We have a massive drought in several Western states. On the eastern side, we have Pennsylvania and New Jersey under a Flash Flood Emergency. Some of the cities that got dumped on are Croydon, PA, which received over 10 inches of rainfall; Bristol Township, PA 9.85 inches; Bristol, PA 8.69 inches; West Bristol, PA 8.18 inches; and Florence, NJ 7.63 inches.

China is having to deal with crippling floods that have killed hundreds of people and displaced millions across the central and southwestern parts of the country. There are 71 rivers already exceeding warning levels, and the rainy season has just started.

Eastern China’s Shandong Province was hit by its largest tornado outbreak in more than 10 years on July 11, 2021. At least 10 tornadoes were reported, with at least 3 of them violent. The reports are still coming in, and the number of reported tornadoes is rising.

China’s National Climate Center this month predicted “generally poor weather conditions” for the rest of the summer and warned that the country will face more extreme weather events than usual.

Last summer was also a bad year for flooding in China. The floods were said to be the worst floods in decades and forced China to import large volumes of corn, soybeans, and pork. With 2021 looking to be a repeat of 2020, the global food supply may reach a breaking point.

Heavy rain and floods have caused extensive property damage and the loss of over 160 lives in Germany’s western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, At least 70 people are still missing. Two firemen drowned and the army was deployed to help stranded residents, after a slow-moving low-pressure weather system caused once-in-a-generation floods

“In some areas, we have not seen this much rainfall in 100 years,” Andreas Friedrich, a German weather service spokesman, told CNN. He added that “in some areas we’ve seen more than double the amount of rainfall which has caused flooding and unfortunately some building structures to collapse.”

Another extreme weather event is the heat. Cities are not just setting daily records for high temperatures; all-time records have been set all over the world.

Death Valley, California, is a very hot place. Last Sunday, the morning low temperature was a sweltering 107.7 degrees, the highest ever recorded in North America. By the late afternoon, the mercury had swelled to a blazing 128.6 degrees. The combination of the two produced the highest daily average temperature ever observed on the planet: 118.1 degrees.

We may have set a world record daily average temperature at the Stovepipe Wells weather station in the northern part of Death Valley National Park. The measurement will have to undergo review by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) before being declared officially valid. This process can take a few years. The current record holder is Furnace Creek, which reached the highest maximum temperature recorded on the planet: 134 degrees on July 10, 1913.

Canada has had a heatwave that smashed several records. On June 29, Lytton, a small town about 124 miles from Vancouver, hit 121 degrees, setting a national record for the highest temperature ever recorded across Canada.

A team of researchers says that the deadly heatwave that killed around 500 people was a one-in-a-1,000-year event. These 100, 500, and 1,000-year events are occurring on a regular basis.

Las Vegas tied its all-time high temperature of 117 degrees. Within a 24-hour period, Las Vegas went from record-breaking heat to record-breaking rainfall. The next day, Sin City registered 0.10 inches of rain, the most rain the valley has received on July 11 since records began in 1937.

The Middle East has always been a hot place during the summer. Last month a dozen major cities managed to set record highs. Nuwaiseeb, Kuwait, reached a record high of 127.7 degrees. I’ve been to Kuwait, and it is the most miserably hot place I’ve ever visited. Because it’s right next to the Persian Gulf, the humidity is very high.

All these extreme weather events can be attributed to global warming. The burning of fossil fuels is blamed for the greenhouse effect. Global warming should be a gradual process.

To find out why we are having so many extreme weather events, we need to turn to Bible prophecy. Jesus said that calamitous events would be the warning sign of the last days. They would get worse over time, like birth pangs. This is what we are experiencing, so the rapture must be very near.

“As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”  Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.  You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.  Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these are the beginning of birth pains” (Matthew 24:3-8 NIV).

–Todd

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These Days of Lot

Listening to a television news report one morning recently I heard noise almost like a howling pack of wolves, I thought. (No longer able to see due to blindness, I “listen” to TV on occasion.)

So, remote-clicking through the channels, wanting to catch a bit of news, I wondered what was going on when I stopped on a frequently visited news network, hearing this strangely mixed combination of what sounded to be both humans and animals making unearthly noises. The sounds continued with no commentary, so I continued to listen to find out why the howling.

After about two minutes of the narrator-less noise, the reporter said it was a large group of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters. They were raving—and I do mean raving—against a black, formerly gay, Christian pastor who stood before them. There were so many bleeps deleting the expletives in the audio that they were almost continuous, with the raving disrupted to the point of not being able to make sense of what was being said by individual protestors.

Among the protesting mob was a large contingent of LGBTQ.

The report then cut to the young preacher speaking with the reporter. They were then in a quiet setting, following the confrontation.

The pastor was explaining that he was now a Christian, a husband and father of two young children. He had been preaching in Chicago about what Christ had done for him in bringing him out of the homosexual lifestyle. He was completely free from that sinful life. He was now preaching that Jesus is the answer to those he formerly was part of in trying to convince them to get into a Christ-centered lifestyle rather than a sinful one.

The preacher said he received death threats, and even had his home damaged; his relatives had been surrounded in their homes and threatened to be burned along with their homes as well.

The TV report then went back to the video and audio, with the lunatic-sounding raving that was full of bleeped-out expletives.

Many years ago, I heard a radio news report of a group of twenty-five or so members of a pro-homosexual organization surrounding a small San Francisco church. They weren’t chanting, but in eerie, almost whispered tones, told what they planned to do in taking the children from the parents of the church parishioners and making them their own.

This was quickly dismissed as almost aberration. It was unusual at that time, even for San Francisco.

Today, that evil has grown into full-fledged threatening on the level of an infamous, ancient gathering in the now-disappeared city of Sodom. We remember the story as found in Genesis, chapter 19.

Angelic visitors, in the form of men, came into Sodom and entered the home of Lot, the only man God found as righteous—the only man who was a believer.

The men of Sodom surrounded Lot’s home and demanded that he send the visiting men out to them so they could “know” them. (That meant “know” them sexually.) These were raging homosexuals, burning in their lust to have sexual relations with the strangers.

The following is God’s Word on that time:

But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter: And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.” (Genesis 19:4–7)

Lot’s plea went unheeded. The homosexuals—and that must have been almost all of the males who were not younger children—said they would do worse to Lot than to the strangers if Lot didn’t comply.

The story, of course, is that the angels blinded the would-be attackers.

It’s most interesting that the next thing that happened was that Lot and his daughters were removed to Zoar and out of the city, which was then completely decimated by God sending fire and brimstone.

It is fascinating because Jesus said it will be just like that removal and judgment—just like in the “days of Lot” He next catastrophically intervenes by being “revealed” (read again Luke 17:26-–30).

This is the moment when Christ raptures His church from planet earth. Jesus prophesied that it would be just like that terrible time of homosexual evil when He makes Himself known to the world in a cataclysmic way. Judgment will begin falling the very day He removes the Church, just like it fell on Sodom and her sister city Gomorrah the day Lot and his daughters were removed from that wicked, judgment-destined area.

Evidence that we are quickly coming to be like in the days of Lot is shown in reports like the following.

The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus has released, and then deplatformed, a new video with a threat to many American parents:

“You think we’re sinful, you fight against our right, you say we all lead lives you can’t respect. But you’re just frightened, you think that we’ll corrupt your kids if our agenda goes unchecked. Fine, just this once, you’re correct,” the lyrics go.

“We’ll convert your children, happens bit by bit, quietly and subtly and you will barely notice it, you can keep them from disco, warn about San Francisco, make them wear pleated pants, we don’t care—

“We’re coming for them, we’re coming for your children! We’re coming for them, we’re coming for them, WE’RE COMING FOR YOUR CHILDREN!!!”…

“I guess it must be fun to fancy yourself a god!”

Explained the commentary, “Keep it up guys! You’re doing great. There is nothing more unifying than telling people you are literally coming for their kids. Nothing!”

At PJMedia was, “It seems the people who want to convert your children to their lifestyle and way of thinking don’t even bother to hide it anymore. The so-called ‘anti-racists’ who peddle racist, anti-Western ideology say it out loud. They even have pet thug blackshirts to scare people into it. Antifa holds a summer camp to teach protest tactics to children. Men who wish to normalize pedophilia now call themselves ‘minor-attracted persons’ (they used to be NAMBLA ) and pretend to fight for children’s sexual freedom. Don’t scoff, it’s picking up traction.” (“Gay chorus threatens: ‘We’re coming for your children’-‘You’re correct’ that agenda will ‘corrupt your kids’, Bob Unruh, WorldNetDaily, July 8, 2021)

The raving, like howls of voracious wolves, can be heard across an increasingly, downward-spiraling society and culture. But, the Lord is still in complete control. His Restrainer is with us, so who can be against us?

And when you see all these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your head, for your redemption draws near. (Luke 21:28)

—Terry