The Great Evil of Our Time: Mutilation of Children

The topic of this week’s Nearing Midnight article is so unpleasant, I’ve put off writing it for several weeks. One reason for the delay is partly disbelief. I find it hard to believe that this evil act is taking place in our nation. Thousands of Children are being medically mutilated to change their sex to one that is different from the gender they had at birth.

Our society has become so depraved that not only have we given God the middle finger, but we’ve also given common sense the same gesture. Children do not have the ability to take out loans, sign work contracts, or get married; yet, they are regularly authorized to agree to medical procedures that will last a lifetime.

There was once a time when severe punishment would be handed down to anyone who tried to instruct children about nontraditional sexual relationships. It was generally viewed that the only people who should talk to kids about sex are their parents.

In my early years, I had a friend that was a horrible negative influence on me. We were both around 12 years old, and this guy was pure evil. For some idiotic reason, I thought he was cool, and I looked up to him. We would go into stores, and he would constantly steal things. I didn’t agree or participate in his acts of thievery. I was amazed at his profound levels of criminality. We weren’t even teenagers, and he was trying to talk me into getting a girl pregnant so I could get on welfare.

As I reflect back now, I’m mystified that I contemplated the notion of getting free money from the government. At such a young age, I didn’t have the ability to realize what a dumb move it would be to have a child out of wedlock. Welfare is a bondage that destroys lives. I thank God that my so-called friend soon moved away. I’ve done a web search of his name, and nothing has ever come up. My best guess is that he reformed his ways or he is simply dead.

We are no longer in the days where advocates of sex change operations for Children could only operate in the shadows. These people are proud of their view and are pushing hard to make it a criminal act to resist them. They claim you are abusing your child by denying them sex therapy. The AMA is working to force all doctors to agree to the left’s policy on the mutilation of children.

I’ve read several news articles about drag queens going to schools to meet with children. The article presents the purpose of the visit as just innocent fun, where the drag queen is there to read the kids a story. The reason why a man in women’s clothes is at the school is to advocate for his lifestyle.

Most parents would be outraged if a school had a career day and a bank robber showed up to advocate for his criminal occupation. And yet we have teachers thinking they have the right to tell our children that they can change their gender through surgery and chemical castration.

There are lots of cases where a parent is trying to impose a different sexuality on their own children. In about every example I’ve seen, it has been a mother who is advocating a change for their son. I’m sure it happens with girls in which both parents are involved, but I’ve strangely only witnessed the interaction with a mother and son. If some of these women are putting their children into a harmful situation because they are insane, we no longer have a legal system that protects them.

This mutilation of children is one more example of why I could never doubt the existence of the devil. This is clearly planned by an evil mind to corrupt our natural sex roles. To go after children just shows how Satan’s nature works.

It is not possible to change the sex of someone through a medical procedure. You can slice off the breasts of little girls or the penises of little boys, but they are still the sex they had at birth. Caitlyn Jenner has had all types of surgery and has taken all manner of hormones, but I can still take one look at him and tell he still has the body of a man.

The root of all evil – money – has strong ties to why a growing number of hospitals are promoting sex change operations for children. It is a very profitable business. Since most children’s hospitals have huge endowment funds, the willingness to spend money is the only limit in operations that involve children. With sex change operations the new fad, these types of surgeries easily get the green light.

The hottest part of hell is reserved for anyone who promotes the mutilation of children. Jesus warned that offending children is enough to earn his wrath. I can only imagine that people would curse the day they were born that dared to damage the body of a child.

“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6).

–Todd

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Computing Putin, Politics and Prophecy

The first thing I input in our computation postulation is the politics of the matters involved. The mid-term elections at this point of time are 3 weeks away. If looked at through a prism based on sanity, things do not bode well for the political party in power as Election Day, November 8, approaches.

Some, perhaps many, say that the culture in the nation is so corroded by the woke inculcation by corrupt educators that hope is lost. The anti-God, anti-America voter base, plus the expertise the election cheaters wield means reestablishing an America anything like patriots desire just isn’t going to happen.

These will, it is feared, find a way to retain all three branches of government, thus keep the bureaucracy entrenched to continue taking America down the road to totalitarianism.

Some believe that to avoid being thrown out of power, those bent on shutting down all opposition and resistance will invoke one executive order or another to cancel the mid-term elections on November 8. One possible such executive action is indeed steeped in genuine concern that has arisen almost on cue as Americans get ready to step into the voting booths of the nation.

We have considered previously the great fear associated with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. I, as a young man in college, experienced it first hand, and at that young age was extremely worried that the U.S. was about to go to war because of Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev secretly placing nuclear-tipped missiles only 90 miles from the U.S. mainland. I can’t imagine what adults of the era must have thought, being much better able to assess the situation and the threat to themselves and those they loved and for whom they were responsible.

Such fear, it seems to me, is at present being deliberately generated by those in the current American government. The most profound example of this is the current occupant of the White House saying outright and publicly that Russian President Vladimir Putin is serious in saying he will launch tactical nuclear weapons in his war against Ukraine. –Thus because Putin’s conventional forces are woefully inadequate to carry out their conquest in the war. Mr. Biden said that it is the greatest threat of all-out nuclear war and Armageddon since the Cuban Missile crisis.

This is a thing no president or anyone within his administration would have done previously, given the panic that might ensue among the American public.

My question, wrapped within the title I’ve given this commentary, Computing Putin, Politics, and Prophecy, is: Why is this president allowed to make such a statement publicly and neither his administration underlings, the U.S. State Department, nor the mainstream media are walking back such a likely panic-inducing declaration?

Does it come down to the possibility that those who are determined to maintain power are willing to go so far as to make people think nuclear war is inevitable? If so, why?

Could it be that they seek the suspension of this mid-term election? And are they willing to use the most fear-producing geopolitical diplomatic tool at their disposal to suspend these mid-term elections that many political experts believe will be overwhelming in going against the present make-up of U.S. and state governments across America? Are they willing to declare a national emergency and go to Defcon One (the highest alert of impending nuclear war) in order to keep people from going to the polls to throw the rascals out?

The prophecy part of the computation

While it is very possible that such a tactic could work, that is, the political strategy, wicked as it might be, could lead to the result the perpetrators desire, the worldwide nuclear war wrapped up within their election suspension blueprint, to my way of understanding Bible prophecy, isn’t probable –or even possible. –That is, a global nuclear exchange that would eventuate in fulfilling man’s greatest fear of thermonuclear war consequences isn’t possible. Such a conflict, as I study Bible prophecy from the preTrib view –and that is the only view God’s prophetic Word puts forth, I’m convinced—just isn’t scheduled.

Thermonuclear war that decimates the world is not scheduled this side –the Church Age side— of the Rapture of the Church. (And I’m not saying there won’t be a tactical nuke unleashed at some point, just that massive nuclear war just isn’t prophetically scheduled, as I see it.)

When Christ’s Bride is in the Heavenly Clouds of Glory, all bets are off, as it is said.

I believe this is seen in fore-type by John’s being called into the Presence of the Lamb of God as presented in Revelation chapter 4. Then, when the Lamb (Jesus Christ) unseals the scrolls, things on earth begin playing out in order.

The false peacemaker comes forth (Antichrist on the white horse Rev 6:1). That rider is followed by the red horse rider who takes peace from the earth. This is, quite likely, nuclear war en masse. Yet it will still be controlled by God, else there would be no flesh left on the planet, according to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Another and most important computation to plug into all of this cogitation… seeing all these things beginning to come to pass, what is your and my part, as Royal Ambassadors alive on this darkening planet at this time?

We are, of course, to be looking up (Luke 21:28) for our blessed hope (Titus 2:13). But more than that Command by the Lord Jesus, we are to be salt and light in these dark times, so the Gospel can Shine forth.

Jesus Spoke to this precise time in human history. He is the Alpha and the Omega –the Beginning and the End. He Knows all things –from Eternity past through Eternity future. He Spoke directly to us who are witnessing all these things of end times import.

About these reports we are getting of impending nuclear war –for whatever purpose they serve—Jesus said the following in answer to His Disciples’ question about the end of the age.

“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet” (Matt 24:6).

Do you truly understand Jesus’ words about these rumors of wars and even wars we hear in the news at present? He does not tell us to prepare to fight or defend ourselves. He says plainly, “see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”

The word for troubled is terrified. We are not to be terrified by these wars and rumors of wars. The end is not yet upon us, and prophecy will play out.

Figured Magnificently in our Computation, then, is the Rapture of believers before that end comes. I, like many believers, sense that moment of Christ’s Call, “Come up here!” must be near indeed.

To be part of that Call by the Savior and Lord, here is what you must do.

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

—Terry

***Please go to the following link and see how to get Terry’s new book “MESSIAH: And The Prince That Shall Come”. –A most timely book that gives readers a heads-up on what is shortly to come!***

https://www.raptureready.com/2022/10/12/authors-note-messiah-and-the-prince-who-shall-come-terry-james/

Why Is the Rapture Index Not Higher?

One of the most common questions Terry and I get about the site is people wanting to know why the Rapture Index doesn’t go any higher. It has peaked in the upper 180s for several years. The general thinking is that as we get closer to the tribulation hour and end-time activity increases, the index should move higher and higher. Also, Jesus said His return for the Church would be proceeded by birth pangs that obviously increase with time.

When I designed the Rapture Index, I had to deal with predicting an event of which the Lord said we would not know the exact date. I see the RI as more of a speedometer than an actual index. We are traveling 188, which means we will arrive at the rapture much faster than we would if it was at 100.

The RI has become locked in a very tight range. It has not dropped below 175 for well over a decade. The record low of 58 on December 12, 1993, now seems like an impossible achievement. I don’t think the RI will ever be able to decline below 150. We just have too much activity to allow for such a move.

The RI used to be a lot more complex. Each category had two readings. The one to five rating was based on the simple occurrence of news events that related to the category. The second one was based on the importance of each category and the significance of news events. After a few years, I realized there was no real difference between the two ratings, so I discontinued the one that was more complex.

Most people don’t realize that certain events were once very uncommon. I lived most of my adult life not knowing how a tsunami worked. There is one that hit in 1976, but as a kid, I wasn’t really into the news. Many people lived their whole life without reading about a tsunami. After a tsunami hit Japan in 1896 and killed 27,000 people, there was not another major tsunami for 80 years. The span between the great Lisbon and Krakatoa tsunami is 128 years.

When the Boxer Day tsunami struck in 2004 and killed 240,000 people, it would be logical to assume that we would never live to see one of equal magnitude. Just six years later, Japan was hit by a massive tsunami that killed 27,000 people. The Japanese people thought they were safe behind their 30-foot sea walls, but the walls were no match for waves that reached as high as 100 feet.

One factor that holds down the RI is that some of the categories conflict with each other. When we have more droughts, there tend to be less floods. In 2019 China had a huge drought. The next two years, China was hit by major floods. When we have a financial crash, the Economy and Financial Unrest categories will go up and the Oil Supply/Price and Inflation categories tend to go down.

One thing I’ve learned from operating the RI is that there is no constant increase of end-time-related activity for every category. We could have a record number of events one year and be followed by a period of record low activity. In the year 2011, several records for tornadoes were broken in the US. The next year a record was set for the fewest number of tornadoes in North America. A few years back, we set a record for the longest period without having a hurricane hit the US. Lately, every year has had at least one major hurricane strike our nation.

There are some categories that spend most of the time with low ratings. The devil doesn’t get much love because Satanism is usually rated a one or two. About four years ago, it did manage to pop up to a rating of four as Satanists had meetings and erected statues that generated headlines.

Another factor limiting an increase in the RI is that the category is maxed out. It happened many, many times that I accessed the index to raise the rating of a category and it was already at a five rating. We have a few categories that will likely never drop down a four rating. Our nation’s debt and the crime rate seem set to be a problem all the way up to the rapture.

It is possible that the RI will push into the 190s right before we are taken home. The biggest takeaway from the index is that it’s now at a constant high rating, which is a strong warning that the event we were told to watch for is drawing very near.

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

–Todd

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Author’s note: With most every indicator of the advance toward the Tribulation era in view upon the prophetic horizon, Christ’s call to the Church stands brightly against the darkening gloominess. Thus it is time to again consider what God’s Word has to say about being Rapture ready–to be worthy of Christ’s call to that great event.

This article, written some years earlier, stands more than ever as a reminder of the fact we might at any moment appear before our Lord to give an account for our lives spent here on this fallen planet.

On Being Rapture Worthy

Lately, emails and articles I’ve been receiving are trending toward the thought that Christians not living exemplary lives as believers will miss being taken in the Rapture of the Church, should they not be fully “repented up” and ready to go. These will be “left behind,” as the LaHaye and Jenkins novel title puts it. First, it is perhaps best to consider what is meant by the “exemplary life” in terms of prerequisites for making it to Heaven in the Rapture.

Those who insist that one must be living the exemplary life usually frame that as “living a life of holiness” or “living righteously.” By this, I presume they mean for the most part that one must be doing “good works” rather than living life in the “broad way” along which the pedestrian world moves. I would, of course, agree that the born-again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ should be doing exactly that every day. There’s no question that God’s Word calls us to that model for life while upon this fallen planet.

However, the question is now raise—and it is closely akin to the question raised whenever the declaration is made that one can lose one’s salvation: At what point does one “lose” his or her salvation? What particular “sin-point” is reached that causes the salvation meter in Heaven to go “TILT,” removing the sinner’s name from the Lamb’s Book of Life? Or, for our purposes here, at what point does one sin enough to be taken off the list of those who hold tickets into Heaven, who will be lifted to be with Jesus Christ in that millisecond of time known as the “twinkling of an eye” when Jesus calls: “Come up hither!” (Revelation 4:1–2)?

Those who believe that the names of the redeemed can be removed from the Lamb’s Book of Life, of course, use the following Scripture as one that prove their position is true: “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels” (Revelation 3:5).

This is proof, say the “conditional security proponents,” that one’s name can be removed from the Book of Life. But, let’s have a closer look to examine whether this is true.

Those who hold that believers’ names can be erased from this blessed Book of Life insist that the born-again must “overcome” sin. In their belief dictionary, this means we must stay sin free—that is, either live above sin or stay continually “repented up” in order to keep our names in the Book.

They miss the point entirely as to who actually does the overcoming. It isn’t the believer who overcomes all sin, but the Lord Jesus who died in order to take sin away from those who believe so that we are no longer separated from God the Father in the eternal sense. This is seen, for example, in the following: “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4-5).

It is simple belief in the Savior who takes away the sins of the world that makes us overcomers. We still sin and come short of the glory of God, but His precious blood shed at Calvary covers all of our sins—past, present, and future. We overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil–all sin in this earthly sphere—only by belief in the only begotten Son of God (John 3:16). Our overcoming is only through God’s great grace, through faith. We can never overcome by our own power.

When we sin, we break fellowship with our Lord, but we never break the eternal, family relationship. We do the following to take steps toward making right the sinful break in fellowship that we have caused. First, we must realize and admit that we are not sinless, because repentance cannot truly be made unless we confess that we have sinned. Upon such confession and repentance there is given blessed remedy: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).

God’s Word shows us that our salvation and our ability to overcome is totally based on what Christ did for us and our faith in Him alone. This brings us to the matter of being “Rapture Worthy.”

Going to Christ when He calls, as Paul outlines in 1 Corinthians 15:51–55 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, and given by John in Revelation 4:1–2, is a salvation matter. We know that from the overall gospel message and from the total context of God’s dealing with His family. Remember when Jesus prayed that beautiful prayer to His Father, as the Lord faced the cross (John 17)? Read it again, and you will see that it is absolutely clear that born-again believers are forever secure in the Father’s hand, based upon what Jesus did on the cross.

We know with absolute certainty that we are once and forever in God’s family because of the words of the One who created all that exists: “My Father, which gave [them] me, is greater than all; and no [man] is able to pluck [them] out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:29).

Paul confirms that the Rapture is a salvation matter as follows: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-11).

The Rapture will be Christ keeping us from the hour of temptation or Tribulation (read Revelation 3:10). The Tribulation is the time of God’s wrath–to which Paul tells us we are “not appointed.” However, there are many who insist that Christians who haven’t properly confessed their sins will go through that time of God’s wrath (and the entire seven years of the Tribulation will be God’s judgment and wrath). These use the following verse to make their case: “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:36).

The key word they hold forth as relevant here is the word “worthy.” Does this word not mean that we as born-again believers must be good enough to stand before Jesus in that raptured throng? Does this word not mean, therefore, that if we fail to live up to God’s standards while on this Earth, we will (at some point in God’s holy view of what it takes to fall from being Rapture ready) lose our ticket in that translation moment, thus not be taken when the shout is heard, “Come up hither!”?

Like in examining the issue of salvation, in looking at the term “overcoming,” we now look at the word “worthy.” What does it mean to be “worthy,” as given in this Rapture example? Again, the answer is wrapped up in the same name as before: “Jesus.” Jesus is the only person “worthy,” in God’s holy eyes, to be in the heavenly realm.

Remember what Jesus said to a man who addressed Him as “Good Master”? “And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God” (Luke 18:18).

Jesus, the second person of the Godhead, was not seeking to chastise the man for addressing Him in this way. The Lord was confirming through this question that He is indeed God, the only good, the only righteousness. Righteousness is the only ticket to Heaven–either through the portal of death, or through the Rapture. Only through Jesus–being born again into God’s family through belief in Him–can a person enter the heavenly realm.

Jesus spoke to this all-important matter by addressing Nicodemus: “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

God’s Word says about fallen mankind: “As it is written, There is none righteous no not one” (Romans 8:10) and, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 8:23).

So, Jesus is the only person “worthy” to enter Heaven. It is through Him that any of us are worthy to stand before Him in that heavenly realm. That is the truth found in the Scripture in question.

On a less magnificent scale, the word “worthy” in this passage means that we should be in a constant mindset of prayerful repentance. We should always want to be found “worthy”–cleansed of all unrighteousness, as stated in 1 John 1: 9, so that we will hear our Lord say to us on that day, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).

—Terry