The Mass Murder Cycle

There have been at least a dozen times in the history of Rapture Ready that I’ve written a Nearing Midnight article about some mass murder event. I’ve never produced an article that had two such events that occurred within days of each other. As you all know, 22 people were killed in El Paso, and 9 people were killed in Dayton.

The pointless loss of life is always the most distressing thing, but I am increasingly bothered by how methodical the media and politicians have become in reacting to these events. The press rushes in to milk out all the emotional points from the victims. Then they place the blame on Republicans, the NRA and Fox News for fomenting hate; never mind the fact that the shooters were once again fans of Democratic causes. Finally, we are reminded that all gun violence can be solved by us turning over our weapons to the government.

The liberal media can get my blood pleasure up with some of the most subtle remarks. One Yahoo news article simply said that Trump broke his silence over the El Paso shooting. The reporter was sneakily implying that Trump shared some blame in the tragedy, and he was at a rare loss for words. Another reporter did even better while going after Senate leader Mitch McConnell. While blaming McConnell for inaction, he noted that he was the current leader of the Senate. The reporter must have physic powers that senses balance of power is about to switch sides.

With the news business long dead, we have propagandists manning the news desks. These political hacks are longing for the days of the Obama presidency. It was eight peaceful years where no one mass murder events took place. To put this work of fiction to bed, someone created a list of events that remind us of the rivers of blood that plagued Obama’s term:

July 23, 2015 — Lafayette, LA — 3 dead, 9 injured

July 16, 2015 — Chattanooga, TN— 5 dead, 3 injured

June 17, 2015 — Charleston, SC— 9 dead

February 10, 2015 — Chapel Hill, NC— 3 dead

May 23, 2014 — University of California, Santa Barbara. — 7 dead (including gunman)

April 2, 2014 — Fort Hood (Second Shooting). — 3 dead, 12 injured

September 16, 2013 — Washington, DC. — 12 dead

December 14, 2012 — Newtown, Conn. — 27 dead (including gunman)

September 27, 2012 — Minneapolis, Minn.— 7 dead (including gunman), 2 injured

August 5, 2012 — Oak Creek, Wis.— 7 dead (including gunman), 4 injured

July 20, 2012 — Aurora, Colo. — 12 dead, 59 injured

May 31, 2012 — Seattle, Wash.— 6 dead

April 2, 2012 — Oakland, Calif. — 7 dead

February 22, 2012 — Norcross, Ga. — 5 dead (including gunman)

October 12, 2011 — Seal Beach, Calif. — 8 dead, 1 injured

January 8, 2011 — Tucson, Ariz. — 6 dead, 14 injured

August 3, 2010 — Manchester, Conn. — 9 dead (including gunman), 2 injured

November 29, 2009 — Parkland, Wash. — 5 dead (including gunman)

November 5, 2009 — Fort Hood, Texas — 13 dead, 30 injured (including gunman)

April 3, 2009 — Binghamton, N.Y. — 14 dead (including gunman), 4 injured

March 29, 2009 — Carthage, N.C. — 8 dead, 3 injured (including gunman)

March 10, 2009 — Geneva County, Ala. — 11 dead (including gunman), 6 injured

The most important list is a constantly updating mass murder list. This record of ever-changing highest death counts is a testament of how crazy our society has become:

1  2017 Las Vegas shooting; 58 killed

2  2016 Orlando nightclub shooting; 49 dead

4  2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting; 27 dead

5  2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting; 26 dead

6  1991 Luby’s shooting; 23 dead

7  2019 El Paso shooting; 22 killed

8  1984 San Ysidro McDonald’s massacre; 21 murdered

9  2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting left 17 dead

10 1966 University of Texas tower shooting; 16 killed

There is another mass murder list that is taking place in our major cities. We don’t read reports about these deaths because they occur in the single digits. The city of Chicago during the first week of this month had shootings that left seven people dead and another 52 people wounded. The victims ranged from 5 to 56 years old.

The city’s emergency rooms were so badly stretched to the limit that Mt. Sinai Hospital in Douglas Park was forced to go on bypass for several hours. All wounded were directed to the city’s four other trauma units.

It should be obvious that the reason for the violence is that our society has drifted from biblical moral values. If someone dares to bring up sin as the possible cause, they get shouted down.

When Chicago voters elected Lori Lightfoot as mayor, I was very disappointed that she was a lesbian. I was absolutely mortified that there is not a single Republican among the 12 people running for that office. You would think that after 40 years of failed socialism, some part of the voters would seek an alternative. If California continued having major earthquakes, the current mentality would call for the election of a Satanist for the governorship.

The mass murder cycle cannot continue on forever. Eventually, we are going to reach a point where lawlessness will make people willing to give up their freedom to have some form of security. When we become so blind as to make such a choice, we no longer deserve to have either.

“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

–Todd

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Deal-of-the-Century Update

One has to wonder how many times President Trump has heard the following words, or those similar: “You must not give away land God has given Israel, Mr. President.”

Or: “Mr. President, America must never abandon Israel or deal treacherously with the Jewish people.”

The reason it is reasonable to wonder this is, in part, because of recent developments in the process known as “the Deal of the Century.”

Emails received have indicated on numerous occasions the trepidation the emailers feel–that is, the uneasiness about the probability of the Trump administration making a “deal” that will almost certainly include giving the Palestinians part of Israel’s land in a ”two-state solution” to the conflict in the region.

The deal, of course, involves the Trump Administration trying to broker a peace agreement between Israel and the so-called Palestinians. I say “so-called” because the word “Palestine” is a term concocted, many scholars believe, from the ancient people who were Israel’s enemies, the Philistines. This is the people from whom, of course, the giant Goliath and his brothers came in the biblical David and Goliath account.

There has never been such a homeland for those called “Palestinians.” The Arab/Muslim world has used its claim that Israel is an illegitimate occupier of the Palestinian homeland in recent times to foment hatred against the Jewish state.

There is fear amongst the diplomatic world that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians could at any moment flare to trigger thermonuclear response from the Zionists, as the Muslim-haters of Israel terms that nation. Israel, it is known by all, although not officially admitted, has one of the world’s most lethal nuclear capabilities.

The Trump administration has been working to construct what the president, in his usually outspoken manner, calls “the Deal of the Century.” By that, he means he intends to come up with a plan that will make peace in the region, thereby eliminating the fears of war that might ignite because of the conflict.

It was rumored that the American administration intended to include as part of this plan for making peace the dividing of Israel’s land in order to create a separate nation called Palestine.

Christians who are savvy about Bible prophecy and who observe the times in light of Christ’s promised return have weighed in heavily on this possibility. They stringently oppose such division of Israel’s land, based upon, in part, passages in the book of the prophet Zechariah and Joel.

Joel prophesied: “For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land” (Joel 3: 1-2).

The prophet was foretelling about Armageddon, of course. He was saying that God will bring the nations of the world into the killing fields of the Plains of Esdraleon–the Valley of Jezreel surrounding Megiddo–to punish them for their maltreatment of His chosen people of Israel.

Those who hold to the premillennial, pre-Trib view of Bible prophecy believe that to be instrumental in dividing the land God gave Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will bring a curse on the perpetrators– based upon God’s promises found in Genesis 12: “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 was, as I say, trepidation amongst these Christian believers that President Trump planned to make the division of Israel’s land part of the Deal of the Century.

Something has, perhaps, seemingly put a stop to that troubling rumor. The following news excerpt explains in part.

There is no Palestinian statehood in the “deal of the century,” only autonomy, as U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, a silent member of the administration’s Mideast peace team, has revealed.

Friedman warned the Palestinians that the Clinton, Olmert, Kerry and Obama proposals are no longer on the table…

Now the architects of the peace plan are making clear that all those proposals are a thing of the past and there is no better deal on its way.

When Arab countries are disintegrating because of jihad on one hand and Iran on the other, no stable Arab government would see the formation of a new Arab state as a dream come true. A bold new peace plan should propose taking a completely different direction. (“There might be something to ‘deal of the century’ after all, opinion by Ben-Dror Yemini, Published: 8-01-19 Rapture Ready News)

Again, based upon this overt declaration that there will be no Palestinian state constructed as part of negotiating peace, one must wonder how many times President Trump has heard the words, or those similar: “You must not give away land God has given Israel, Mr. President.”

It is fodder for conjecture whether Bible prophecy adherents close to the president, such as Dr. Robert Jeffress or John Hagee, have had an influence. Certainly the Holy Spirit is at work in these closing days of the Church Age (Age of Grace). We will keep watch, with great interest, on unfolding things surrounding this “Deal-of-the Century” process.

–Terry

 

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Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 Puts Final Nail in the Tea-Party Coffin

The Tea-Party movement began as a reaction to the massive budget shortfall that was triggered by the Great Recession. To save Wall Street from its bad bets on subprime mortgages, the Federal government created the $700 billion TARP program. The loss of millions of jobs caused the annual budget deficit to skyrocket.

By 2009, the deficit had exceeded $1 trillion for the first time, reaching $1.4 trillion. Horrified by Washington spenders, CNBC’s Rick Santelli stood on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on February 19, 2009, and called for a “tea party” to end the bailouts, stimulus payments, and red ink. Grassroots Tea-Party groups formed and helped Republicans capture the House in 2010 with a stunning 63-seat pickup and also pick up seven Senate seats.

Unfortunately, this victory proved to be the apex of the Tea-Party movement. Without the leverage of the debt limit, President Obama and Senate Democrats could easily block House Republican spending reforms. The Tea-Party members managed to get $200 billion in promised budget cuts, but these so-called cuts were frequently pushed off into the future until they were finally forgotten.

Many of the Tea-Party lawmakers who had come to Washington to reform government quickly became part of the swamp they had promised to drain. It is simply more fun to spend money. When it’s taxpayer’s money, the thrill is all the more seductive.

The death of the Tea-Party movement and all efforts for budget control came last week when Republican and Democrat leaders agreed to the bill labeled the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019. This two-year agreement raises spending to $320 billion above previously negotiated spending caps and suspends the debt ceiling for two years.

The Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, may have difficulties in trying to sell IOUs to balance the nation’s books. By using budgetary tricks, Mnuchin has allowed the cash reserves of the Treasury to trickle down to dangerously low levels. To get back to normal, Mnuchin will need to find buyers for $815 billion in new debt in the next few months. The world has always purchased up whatever debt we offered them, but bond auctions north of $100 billion may cause the Chinese and Japanese to question the soundness of owning more of our debt.

For the past few years, Washington has used the end of the fiscal year in Sept to lower the size of the annual deficit. In 2017, we were said to have a deficit of $660 billion; and in 2018, we were reported to have a $780 billion budget deficit. If you go back two years and look at the Treasury’s total nation debt records, you would see it increased by $2 trillion. The missing $560 billion deficit is the result of the Treasury spitting out new debt in October and then not counting it as part of that year’s budget.

In fiscal year 2019, we are projected to have a deficit of $1.25 trillion. The real number is $1.5 trillion. If we add the $170 billion that just passed in the Bipartisan Budget Act, the current shortfall will now be around $1.7 trillion. Since there will be more spending projects in the near future, we are going to reach a $2 trillion annual deficit in a very brief period of time.

There is no way we can afford to have another recession without triggering a financial meltdown. Since the last recession, the world has added $63 trillion of debt. Wall Street has leveraged up to levels far beyond where it was in 2008. It is easy to see a deficit of $3-5 trillion if the Great Recession II were to play out.

We are now going into the 10th year of what is the longest period of economic growth in American history. The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates last week by .25% during a time of low unemployment and record stock prices. It made that unusual move because the Fed governors can see the strain debt is having on the global economy. Calamity is headed in our direction, and it is only a matter of time before the fundamental rule of basic economics catches up with us.

Because the rapture is said to be a timeless and tranquil event, I believe it will happen before we reach the breaking point. The longer things hold together, the more convinced I’ve become that there is a connection between the economy and the rapture. It is obvious that something will happen in short order.

“But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:37).

“For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way” (2 Thessalonians 2:7).

–Todd

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Roaring Sea in Roaring Twenties

An old apothegm applies, I think, in considering where this generation stands and what it faces: “What goes around comes around.”

This nation, in particular, is beginning to revisit times like experienced early in the twentieth century. I refer to the era termed the “Roaring Twenties.”

The 1920s in America–and in France and other places–saw an outbreak of loosened morals and observable detachment from common sensibility. Also called the “Flapper Era,” because it featured young women scantily dressed and exhibiting comportment totally foreign to earlier modesty, America seemed poised to throw off all shackles of godly influence.

It seems that as we go into 2020 and beyond–the “Roaring Twenties” of these latter days–we’ve reached the point on that turntable of “what goes around, comes around.” That is, we are watching while America is shedding any modesty left and is casting off its common sensibility. The next step on that turntable of history repeating itself isn’t a pleasant prospect.

History shows that judgment of a sort followed the 1920s of a hundred years ago. The judgment was in the form of a corrective action from Heaven. The Dust Bowl followed in the wake of the Roaring Twenties. The Great Depression brought America to her knees and nearly choked the life out of everyone who went through that terrible time.

It took a horrific World War, with the lost lives of millions, to start this nation on the road to recovery from its sinful, life-debilitating addictions.

So it is that we are about to enter the twenties of the twenty-first century. The addictions are not on the cusp of afflicting the people of America; they’re already full blown, with nearly half of the nation seemingly in full-blown rebellion against the God of Heaven. If this generation is at the end of this Age of Grace as I believe it to be, there will be no time for remedial or corrective action by Heaven’s hand. The judgment and wrath will finally put an end to the rebellion of the incorrigible among God’s creation called man. 

In terms of Bible prophecy given for the Tribulation, the words of Jesus come to mind: “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).

That nations are currently in “perplexity,” there should be no question. We’ve dissected matters involved many times in these commentaries, as have journalists of every type in their own forums. Whether considering things geopolitically, socioeconomically, religiously, or any other way, governments are “perplexed” as to what to do about mounting financial distress and violence among the masses they seek to govern/control.

To touch briefly on the latter of these worldwide problems, let’s look at Jesus’ forewarning about these very times, which I’m convinced we find ourselves in today.

The Lord said the nations would be in distress with perplexity with “the sea and waves roaring.”

There are differences of opinion, some believing that Christ was talking here of the physical sea and waves, while others believe He meant the peoples of earth would be raging in wave-like motion. I believe He meant both.

It is the symbolic meaning I wish to look at briefly.

Politically in this nation, we have seen an uproar of epic proportion. The anger and rage over the last few election cycles have been phenomenal–unprecedented in the history of America, as far as I can discern.

But, we’ve looked at all of that many times here. I want us to consider the things going on at this moment not just in our nation, but around the world.

France has seen multiple uprisings against the French government of Immanuel Macron for his confiscatory taxation. The governments of Greece and Italy have been in flux for years due to the mismanagement brought on by social spending insanity.

The people of Great Britain have been roaring against the sovereignty-robbing impositions of the EU. They voted to remove their nations in what has come to be known as Brexit.

Protesters by the thousands have ignited an uproar in Hong Kong as their government has moved toward giving the Chinese Communist government control over previously promised self-government. Many observers fear that a Tiannanmen Square-type massacre could take place in the near future.

We remember the roaring going on in and around Venezuela, with the people trying to take back their nation from the communist-influenced dictatorship.

The masses were raging recently in Puerto Rico, demanding the resignation of their dictator-like governor, Ricardo Roselle.

We are too familiar with the roaring in recent days, with masses of South and Central American citizens trying to illegally break into the U.S., and this administration’s efforts to combat the assaults. As of this writing, despite President Trump’s best efforts, the roaring of the masses from the south continues.

The videos have gone viral–often to the laughs and applauding of many on social media–of New York City policemen being doused with water and hit with buckets and other objects.

Flash mobs continue around particularly America’s big cities, with thugs stealing thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from stores.

Now, gangs of young women–mostly teenagers–in the inner cities of the country have formed and are attacking those with whom they come in contact, beating their victims senseless for no reason.

The sea of humanity is definitely roaring, with wave after wave of violence that, it seems to me, matches the violence of Noah’s day as given in Genesis chapter 6.

Jesus’ foretelling of this very hour at the end of the age appears to be right in front of us. We see it all developing in these viral videos and even through our hourly news. It all indicates that we’re nearing the midnight hour of human history.

Christ is about to call the Church–all born-again believers living and dead—to Himself. Christians don’t face gloom and doom because of having to endure God’s judgment and wrath; believers can look forward to a truly glorious prospect indeed!

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

–Terry