The Powerball Generation

The recent hype over the Powerball lottery has been hard to ignore. For several nights the major news networks had the lottery craze as their lead story. People were waiting in line for up to at least three hours to have a shot at winning $1.5 billion.

The weirdest thing I noticed throughout this national drama was how hundreds of people were flooding into the California 7-Eleven—the store that had sold one of the winning tickets; the prevailing mindset was to tap into the magical energy in the place.

Lottery fever passed over me, because I have a full comprehension of the odds against some- one winning. How long are those odds? According to Powerball’s website, the odds of winning the grand prize is 1 in 292,201,338.00. A few years ago, the odds were a mere 1 in 195,249,054.

But the folks operating the lottery decided to increase the jackpot by doubling the price of a ticket from 1 to 2 dollars and by increasing the number of balls in play in each drawing. People fail to realize it is far more likely for someone to die due to an accident on the way to buy a lottery ticket than to actually win the lottery.

The annual odds of anyone dying in a car accident is 1 in 6,700. Here are a few more sobering statistical odds:

One in 3,703 odds of being wrongfully convicted of a crime.
One in 4,464 chance of losing an appendage in a chainsaw accident.
One in 18,000 possibility of being murdered in a given year.
One in 115,300 likelihood of going to the E.R. with a pogo stick-related injury.
One in 700,000 odds of being crushed by a meteorite.
One in 1,000,000 chance of dying in a plane crash.

People who don’t fly or own a pogo stick may think luck is on their side. They should try an exercise that demonstrates the foolishness of such dreams. Even though the drawing had already taken place, I wrote down six random numbers. When I looked at the winning numbers, I didn’t get a single number right; which is the case for over half of the tickets sold. Unlike millions of people, I still have my two bucks.

One of the worst things about gambling is the temptation and burden it places on the poor. There was a study in 2010 showing that households with annual take-home incomes under $13,000, on average, spend $645 a year on lottery tickets (which comes to about 9 percent of their yearly income). I know people who have played the lottery for decades, and would have a sizeable nest egg if they had put all that money into a savings account.

I once listened to an interview featuring Steve Wynn. He has overseen the construction and operation of several historically notable Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos. Wynn said he has never witnessed someone winning big in his gambling joints, and then walk away rich. “They always give it back,” said Wynn. His own father died with $350,000 in gaming debts, so Wynn obviously decided it’s better to be on the other side of the blackjack table.

Winning a lottery can be more of a curse than a blessing. We’ve all heard stories about people who win millions of dollars, and then blow it all. What you don’t hear about is the corrupting nature of money. When parents win the lottery and play the role of a financial Santa Claus to their kids, the result more often than not is a life of idleness.

Because easy money destroys productivity, people who are given wealth are often sent into a spiraling downward direction. Studies have shown that 7 percent of wealthy families lose their wealth by the second generation, and a stunning 9 percent by the third, according to the Williams Group Wealth Consultancy.

I know of a Christian who came into a vast future. He gave millions of dollars to various ministries. The money was to be used productively for the kingdom of God, but it went down a rat hole because those entrusted with the funds failed to wisely administer the money. Some of the deadest churches in America got that way because someone died and left them a fortune.

Not many years ago, it was possible to accumulate wealth through honest and intelligent hard work. Today, the quick payout is the primary goal of most people. This short-sightedness is the reason why America is floundering both financially and spiritually.

The jackpot I’m looking forward to is the one we’ll receive when the Lord takes us home. If you are a believer in Christ, your chances of winning that grand prize is 100 percent. In heaven, there is no lump sum cut, and the mansions are tax free.

“In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).

–Todd

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Satan’s End Times Surgery

Academia, it is becoming more apparent each day, is serving as the devil’s workshop. Specifically, for example, Yale University is being sought out to serve as the devil’s operating room for carrying out an excision of truth in an area that is most troubling to him in restricting his end of days stratagem.A report I received the past week from a friend and fellow watchman on the wall immediately impressed scriptural implication upon my spiritual senses.

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be… Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof… (2 Tim 3: 1-2a, 5: 1a)

My friend’s email provided two letters to the editor that were recently sent to his local newspaper. He lives in Connecticut, near Yale University, the curriculum of which is the target of the letter writer’s proposals.

The letters to the editor, I’m of the opinion, encapsulated a stratagem of the old serpent I have for some time been observing. He seeks desperately to destroy the true, unvarnished witness of the veracity of God’s word. Key to his strategy seems to be the mixing in of biblical truth with the false religions of the world. On some levels it appears that he is having success.

Lucifer has “enlightened” (seduced) the world’s religionists to a large extent to his seductive whispers proclaiming God is love. Anyone who denies that God is love must be put within the theologically and politically correct detention camp—the gulag—where haters must be dealt with appropriately. Anyone who claims that God condemns is a hater, a bigot, a person filled with an inhuman phobia of one sort or the other.

All within humanity are on the heavenly highway to salvation, no matter their sin—which, in fact, Satan whispers, doesn’t exist. That is, all are on that salvation highway except those who insist there is but one way to redemption—to Heaven. Such are haters, who preach that God is judgmental—that He is vindictive and vengeful.

The Bible and other “holy books” show—Satan whispers to the theologically and politically correct—that God is only love. The parts that indicate that the Christian Bible’s God judges humanity for sin other than the sin of failing to take care of the physical needs of fellow man is to be disregarded—to be spiritualized as meaning something other than what the hate-filled bigots who hold to the fundamental, evangelical view say it means.

This is the surgery Satan is attempting to perform—cleaving the love portion of religiosity from the judgmental. And, this brings us to the letters to the editor concerning that prestigious academic institution, Yale University.

The writer, from Vermont, is, he informs, a former student of Yale’s School of Theology. He points to apocalyptic prophecy as the primary reason for all of mankind’s problems today. That a loving God would condemn anyone to suffer eternal punishment…well…let’s let his own words explain…

Yale shouldn’t simply change the name of Calhoun College to that of an alumnus who is not a white supremacist. It should re-examine the mission of the Divinity School (where I received a Master of Divinity degree in 1980) which treats eschatology like a benign academic theological category, instead of the dangerous and incendiary belief-system that it is, in whatever religion it appears.

It is not Christianity or Islam which is responsible for many of the mass killings we have seen in my lifetime. It is the unchallenged belief in eschatology (end time; final judgment; apocalypse) which has produced Jim Jones, David Koresh, the Tsarnaev brothers, Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, and the San Bernardino husband and wife shooters, all in the last half-century.

It is time for President Peter Salovey’s challenge for Yale to engage in soul searching to be expanded to include the Divinity School on a topic equally as poisonous as institutional racism: the belief that God will punish mankind for not obeying his sacred word, by imposing a final judgment in an end-time of hellfire and torment or of eternal bliss. (Source: Letter to the Editor: Yale needs deeper ‘soul searching’ www.nhregister.com)

The letter to the editor writer later replied to a response given his charge by the dean of Yale’s School of Divinity. The dean explained how Yale and other such institutions were working with the U.N. to “remove all religion as a rationale/cause of extreme violence.” The dean said he wasn’t certain eschatology was the cause of the violence.

The letter writer wrote:

Isn’t Dean Sterling missing the forest for the trees? All religions which include Armageddon belief-systems, throw gasoline on the inflamed minds of wannabe martyrs, terrified of eternal torment and hungry for eternal bliss, from Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana, and David Koresh in Waco, Texas, to the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston, Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan in Fort Hood, [Texas], and the husband and wife mass murderers in San Bernardino, California.

Armageddon should be banished from the religious canon as a paranoid delusion, not taught as benign theological embroidery. That would assist “the UN to try to remove religion as a rationale/cause for extreme violence,” as Dean Sterling puts it.

At the least, scholars at Yale’s distinguished divinity school should pursue the truth wherever it leads, without fear. (Source: Letter to the Editor – New Haven Register, January 8, 2016. Eschatology fuels ‘inflamed minds’.)

Lucifer’s attempted surgery is focused in laser-like fashion upon those who present end times matters to the world. The old serpent has a volcanic rage against prophecy from the Bible because such prophecy tolls his soon-coming doom, and because that truth might resonate with anyone who looks around them and sees how world conditions align perfectly with Biblical eschatology. The world today demonstrates the absolute veracity of God’s holy word. Satan has decided on the brilliantly evil tactic of lumping all who preach and teach that truth with the likes of the murderous Mullahs and Jihadists who have as part of their madness to bring on their version of Armageddon so their prophesied Mahdi can rule the caliphate they seek to establish.

Anyone who thus puts forth that there is coming a tribulation and an Antichrist—and God’s judgment for rebellion and sin—are wicked and no different from those raping, murdering and beheading people by the thousands.

It is a stratagem that is working—within academia and even within the pseudo-Christianity held by many of today’s liberal theologians.

God’s love, however, cannot be cleaved from His judgment. It is all part of the same divine plan for the ages. Sin must be dealt with in final judgment so that pure, unadulterated love can reign throughout eternity.

That love is a person, and His is a name like no other name. Jesus Christ is coming to make all things new and righteous. The first phase of that return—the rapture—is on the very brink of taking place. We must not and will not be silent regarding prophetic truth.

–Terry

Donation Drive January to March

There really isn’t anything all that special about the calendar rolling over to a new year. Now that January, 2016 is here—it’s still winter, there is still unrest in the Middle East, and we still have Barack Obama as the “leader” of the free world.

What makes the arrival of a new year important is how we can use milestones to track the progression of events. Reflection is important because it is easy to lose track of where we are on the timeline of Bible prophecy. We are in totally uncharted territory in relation to one key factor—apathy. It is a very sinister thing because it eats away at our ability to comprehend the significance of birth pang signs.

Jesus talked more about the lack of awareness than any other sign of last days. The Lord was so insistent about getting this point across, He repeated Himself four times in the space of a few verses:

“But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew 24:36).

“Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come” (Matthew 24:42).

“Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 24:44).

“Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 25:13).

What has convinced me that we are very near to the Tribulation hour is how extreme the apathy has gotten in recent days. We are approaching what I can only describe as a total collapse of discernment.

A good example of this is the problem of Islamic rape in Europe. Muslim immigrants have raped so many citizens of Sweden, it has turned the nation into “The Rape Capital of Western World.” If Muslim men see a woman walking unaccompanied by a man, they think they have a right by Islamic Sharia Law to have their way with her.

These Muslim attacks have reached an unbelievable scale. In the city of Cologne, Germany during the New Year’s celebration over 1,000 drunken newly arrived Muslims robbed, or sexually molested nearly 500 women at the central railway station. This is crime on a completely new dimension.

The truly crazy part is how leadership tolerates this type of behavior; defending the Muslims attackers as if they are the victims. After the Cologne attack, the local Integration Commissioner Aydan Ozoguz, warned against refugees and foreigners being put under “blanket suspicion.”

The mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, blamed the women for attacks saying:

There’s always the possibility of keeping a certain distance of more than an arm’s length, that is to say to make sure yourself you don’t look to be too close to people who are not known to you, and to whom you don’t have a trusting relationship. We need to explain to people from other cultures that the jolly and frisky attitude during our Carnival is not a sign of sexual openness.

We have sunk to a very low level of irrationality; I’m not sure how to address this problem which will affect the future. Demonic delusion has gotten so strong, humanity has losing its grip on common sense. Over the past few weeks I have been contacted by the heads of several other prophetic ministries. They have been alarmed by a large decrease in their web traffic, ranging from 30 to 50 percent. I keep track of these cycles, and this is one is indeed, one is the steepest slowdowns since December of 2008.

What I find the most remarkable about the downturn is that it has occurred right after the Islamic terror attack in Paris and Russia’s deployment of troops into Syria. During any other timeframe these events would cause a surge in web traffic for all prophetic sites. The lack of awareness doesn’t trouble me because this is clearly the “think not” hour.

I am very thankful to everyone who has helped financially support the site during this dark time. The fact that you are reading this page right now is an indication that you are one of the few who remain faithful to the gospel message.

I believe 2016 is going to be a very pivotal year for Bible prophecy.

We have three ways you can contribute to Rapture Ready: You can send a financial gift via our postal address, you can make a one-time donation, or there is a “frequency” option that allows you to make monthly donations. More information can be found on our Donation Depot page.

Rapture Ready’s P.O. box adddress:

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

–Todd

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America’s Contribution to Armageddon

I caught the tail-end of a former general saying on FOX News, I paraphrase, “This administration is complicit in prepping the way for World War Three…”

Such a statement from a top military commander who is recently retired grabs one’s attention as few others pontificating on geopolitics can. The retired officer –perhaps one forced from service by this president, I can’t say because I don’t know the circumstance of his leaving the U.S. military– went on to talk about the upheaval in most all of the Middle East caused by American withdrawal in so many key areas of the region. The vacuum created, the general was saying, is setting up the world for a war of unimaginable scope.

Particularly, he was commenting on the growing threats and actions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which has flared following Saudi’s execution of a high profile Shiite cleric and a number of others.

Iran’s response was the takeover of the Saudi embassy building and the looting and ransacking of its contents. The reaction on both sides continues to escalate, dividing Islamic nation from Islamic nation along Shiite/Sunni religious lines, and threatening a war that could spread into a global conflagration, according to the general and other pundits.

President Obama has come under consistent criticism from military officers who have either resigned because of differences with the administration’s way of handling military involvement around the world, or who have been forced out because of conflict with advice offered the president on military matters.

Those retired or resigned officers who continue to criticize Obama’s use of military, and his dealings with America’s and Israel’s destruction-vowed enemies, point to the danger to the nation –and the world– in the administration’s actions, paving the road for Iran to build a nuclear force.

This, they say, is insanity –giving the very Islamists who want to bring on their version of Armageddon the capability to do so through acquiescence to Iran’s demands on nuclear development and their demand that sanctions be lifted, and access given to $150 billion as part of the lifting of those sanctions.

The protest of America’s military experts seems to make no difference whatsoever, any more than did the advice the generals gave in warning the president against first telegraphing the removal of American forces from Iraq, then in actually removing those forces. Such action was all but unprecedented in modern, American, military strategy. The result has been, and continues to be –as predicted by the generals– a power vacuum that is in the process of igniting the whole region in a conflict that is almost certainly unstoppable.

As written about before in this column, Israel remains strangely silent as all of the Arab and Iranian states around the tiny Jewish state begin to burn like a grass fire surrounding a log cabin. But Israel is no such inanimate, ordinary spectator. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF know that Israel is the actual target when these wild men –as the Bible terms them– finally zero in on their most hated enemy. Israel’s trigger finger is on the ultimate weapon and will pull that trigger to defend itself.

Thus there is a cry for peace and safety by the likes of American Secretary of State John Kerry. It is really, however, a demand that Israel be disarmed and marginalized. This is so Kerry’s new friends, the Iranian Mullahs, can have their way, bringing, he and the rest of the world’s diplomatic fools believe, peace at last.

It is arguable to contend that the whole Middle East region would have been far better off if America had never gotten involved there. This is something that is said time and time again by those who want to blame George W. Bush and his father for committing troops to the region in two military actions. This is, at least in part, a mistaken contention, however. The Lord, Himself –it is obvious to students of history, when combined with study of Bible prophecy– determined that the United States would be a major part in the founding of modern Israel and a major physical agent of Israel’s protection.

The current American president and his ideological, leftist bedfellows display the reprobate thinking that comes from anti-God rebellion as forewarned in chapter one of Romans. A prime example of this upside-down lunacy is on display when thinking on the situation in the president’s dealings with both the nation of Iran and with the American people.

In the matter of Iran, Mr. Obama and his ilk indicate they think it is just fine to arm the Armageddon-planning Mullahs with nukes. This, despite the fact these madmen have stated time after time they plan to destroy the great Satan,and the little Satan (America and Israel). At the same time, the president and his leftist, political associates indicate they think it will make America safe by disarming American citizens by the threatened executive action on so-called “gun control.” The Iranian Mullahs can be trusted with nuclear weapons and their delivery systems that can destroy the world, but the American gun-owner can’t be trusted to have a Second Amendment-guaranteed right to own and bear arms.

Such insanity almost certainly is in the process of making our nation culpable in helping bring on man’s final war.

Thankfully, all of this means, as always, that Christ is about to call His church –all born-again believers– to the safe-shelter of their Heavenly home.

It is imperative, therefore, that all who belong to Jesus Christ determine to lift that name that is above every other. Thus, so that many who are lost will be drawn to the Lord. He is the only hope for those who are heading into the worst time in all of human history.

–Terry