12 Sep 2022

Biden’s Hate Rhetoric

Whenever I talk about the Biden administration, I fully realize I’m not addressing an individual. The person Joe Biden is very much an invalid, and he just says what is posted in the promoter in front of him. Clearly, whoever is in charge of writing Biden’s speeches has the mentality of a dictator.

There’s nothing unusual or wrong with a President delivering a political speech. Biden spoke about the soul of the nation outside Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia in a setting that looked like it was built by Lucifer and his union buddies. Why would anyone stand in front of a hellish red background to give a speech about unity? All “Adolf” Biden left out was a room full of torch-bearing commandos.

I was very ticked off by the use of two Marines standing at attention and the Marine Band playing, which is a break with White House traditions. It is a violation of the Hatch act to involve military members in the political debate. The optics of having Marines as stage props are indications that they are attack dogs that he can sick onto his enemies.

Biden referenced military might when he attacked defenders of the Second Amendment who argue that the right is necessary for self-defense against foreign enemies and a tyrannical government. The president suggested that guns are useless because the American government can use F-15s on the civilian population. The Taliban only had guns, and they had no problem pushing the US out of Afghanistan.

I don’t understand Biden’s problem with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. Why would anyone be against making our nation great again? Biden can only speak in generalizations by talking about the “extreme MAGA philosophy” or the MAGA Republicans’ “threats” of “clear and present dangers.”

“MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies,” Biden said.

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel assailed Biden after the speech.

“Joe Biden’s wretched attacks on millions of Americans have fueled attacks on pregnancy centers, Republican offices, and an assassination attempt on a Supreme Court Justice,” she said in a statement obtained by the Washington Examiner. “His agenda has pitted neighbors against each other, rewarded the wealthy while punishing working families, and trampled on the rights and freedoms of Americans. Joe Biden is the divider-in-chief and epitomizes the current state of the Democrat Party: one of divisiveness, disgust, and hostility towards half the country.”

Since he has no answer to America’s broken board, high inflation, and huge national debt, he prefers to stay in attack mode. Hillary Clinton saw her political enemies as “deplorable.” Biden sees Republicans as being fascist in nature.

Biden tried to lighten his attack by saying many on the right are “semi-fascist.” Joe doesn’t understand that there is no such term. You are not slightly pregnant or leaning racist. You are either fascist or not a fascist.

The liberal media have defended Biden’s fascist statement about MAGA Republicanism because they claim it fits the bill of a cult-like loyalty to an autocratic leader (Trump). I would argue that the press’s blind devotion to Biden in the face of his many gaffes is a much stronger sign of a cult. They are perfectly fine with him shaking hands with some invisible friend, frequently forgetting his current location, or him referring to himself as Senator Biden.

In the 2014 and 2016 elections, the Democratic party ran on the slogan that the Republicans had “declared war on women.” When they lost several races where many female Republican candidates won against Democratic males, the slogan quickly died out. The one thing I hate about Republicans is that they have no long-term strategy. If they did, they would press the Democratic about what happened to our side having “declared war on women.”

The most disgusting thing about Joe Biden is him coming out and demeaning almost 50 percent of voters and then claiming he is the one holding out the olive branch. He is the one who is being divisive and destructive to the constitution. If someone thinks they have a monopoly on truth, they are the one who is more dangerous to our democracy.

Well, at least Jimmy Carter can die happy knowing that he is now not the worst president in US history.

When Donald Trump was in office, I had no respect for him. I found him to be a narcissistic man-baby. I voted for him twice because he has a basic understanding of good and evil that Clinton and Biden lacked. If both candidates don’t grasp this reality, you might as well be voting for the devil himself.

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).

_Todd


Death/Rapture Timing

The subject of this commentary title is admittedly among the hardest I’ve tried to wrap the aging gray matter around. This, of course, is because it isn’t a provable thing to consider by mere intellectual endeavor. And it is so deep in its implication that it is too labor-intensive if we can’t just allow that we can only look at matters involved with self-agreement that we can’t for sure know the truth about it.

Although I’ve thought about the question/possibility many times, especially since my Good Friday clinical flat-line experience on April 22, 2011, it was a friend of our Rapture Ready website who prompted me to write this article.

The gist of her email to me follows.

“Something you wrote in your ‘Home Going’ blog post was extremely intriguing to me. You stated: It has been conjectured, and I believe, that when Jesus calls us to Himself (Revelation 4:1), those still alive will somehow arrive at that face-to-face meeting with our Lord and Savior at precisely the moment those who have gone through the portal of death will see His wonderful face. God’s eternal realm is outside of the thing called time that He created for man. Anything is possible in that eternal sphere.
     If you are saying what I think you are saying, those who have passed on before us, no matter how many years they died prior to that blessed event, could possibly arrive to see Jesus and thus enter Heaven at the same time we who are raptured see Him.”

It is a fascinating question to be sure. Will my dad, who went to the Lord in October of 1992, and my mother, who passed away in February of 2020, arrive at the same twinkling-of-an-eye moment as will I when the Lord Jesus calls us in the Rapture?

This might be a bit presumptuous of me—but you get the question. Like you, I fully expect to hear that call at any moment.

But the question involves further asking whether it makes any difference in terms of God’s timing regarding those who have died arriving in Christ’s presence more than a split second before those who are still living at the moment of Rapture.

The Rapture Ready friend who emailed asked if I could provide more information about my statement. I suggested that she check my late friend Chuck Missler’s website. I know he did lots of things in this area. Sure enough, she found some fascinating studies, learning that another great prophecy scholar, Lambert Dolphin, has done tremendous writing on the topic. She sent me the link to one of Lambert’s articles; here it is if you want to get really deep into the subject of God’s timing in regard to death, the Rapture, and many other areas: http://www.ldolphin.org/time.html.

Our column space here is much too limited to give this subject the treatment it deserves, but the article above will certainly give more than one needs to delve as deeply into these questions as one could want. Here are a few excerpts from Lambert Dolphin’s major study.

“In the experience of the Christian, one’s personal death corresponds exactly with the Second Coming of Christ, though this event will also happen on earth at the definite date and time in recorded human history. This is what Paul meant when he said to be absent from the body was to be at home with the Lord, not as a spirit, but in a resurrection body along with everyone else who knows God. This can be seen at the Martyrdom of Stephen in the book of Acts.

‘Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth against him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together upon him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.’ (Acts 7:56–8:2)

“As Stephen died he saw heaven opened and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Throughout the New Testament Jesus is ordinarily pictured as seated at the right hand of God. Evidently He stands to receive His bride, the church, at the rapture. Thus all Christians get to heaven at the same moment. In one sense, then, heaven is now empty. There is no value in praying to the Virgin Mary or St. Jude since they aren’t there yet! But as will be seen shortly, there is another sense in which all believers are already in heaven…

“Although our spirits and souls are made new if we know Jesus Christ personally, our bodies are not yet redeemed. It is our present mortal physical bodies (connecting us by the five senses) which link us to the ‘old creation.’ In spirit we already have been ‘raised’ from the dead, we are dwelling in the heavenly places—we are already seated with Christ at the right hand of God. If we had our resurrection bodies ‘put on’ instead of our old earth-tents, we would immediately perceive that we all had arrived in heaven together…

When Time Ends

“All this may sound quite confusing, and it is true it contains great elements of speculation. But let us return to the Scriptures and the problem of what happens to the believer when he dies. Holding firmly to the essential point that time and eternity are quite different, then when a believer steps out of time, he steps into eternity. What was perhaps a far-off distant event in time is suddenly present in eternity if one is spiritually prepared for it. Since the one great event for which the Spirit of God is now preparing believers here on earth is the coming of Jesus Christ for his own, that is the event which greets every believer when he dies. It may be decades or even centuries before it breaks into time, but this particular person is no longer in time. He is in eternity. He sees ‘the Lord coming with ten thousands of his saints,’ just as Enoch did when he was permitted a look into eternity, and at a time when he was the seventh from Adam and the population of the earth was very small (Jude 14).

Where The Ages Meet

“But what is even more amazing is that in the experience of that believer he does not leave anyone behind. All his loved ones who know Christ are there too, including his Christian descendants who were not even born yet when he died! Since there is no past or future in heaven, this must be the case. Even those who, in time, stand beside his grave and weep and then go home to an empty house, are, in his experience, with him in lorry.

“Dr. Custance carries this even further.

‘The experience of earth saints is shared by all other saints, by those who have preceded and those who are to follow. For them all, all history, all intervening time between death and the Lord’s return is suddenly annihilated so that each one finds to his amazement that Adam, too, is just dying and joining him on his way to meet the Lord: and Abraham and David, Isaiah and the Beloved John, Paul and Augustine, Hudson Taylor and you and I–all in one wonderful experience meeting the Lord in a single instant together, without precedence and without the slightest consciousness of delay, none being late and none too early.’ (Doorway Paper No. 37, p. 28)

“This truly astonishing quality of eternity is the reason Jesus could promise his disciples with absolute certainty, ‘And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also’ (John 14:3). That promise not only applied to that generation of Christians, but would apply to all, directly and personally, through all the intervening centuries. This also explains the strange promise at the close of Hebrews 11. Speaking of Abraham, Moses, David, Jacob, Joseph, and others the writer says, ‘All these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.’

“To be ‘made perfect’ is to be resurrected, so this passage specifically states that the saints of old will not be resurrected without us. Either they are disembodied spirits waiting for the resurrection (which we have already seen is not likely) or there is some way by which we can leave time one by one and yet participate together in one glorious experience of resurrection. The proper understanding of eternity supplies the answer.

Eternity Invades Time

“There are other references in Scripture that present this same phenomenon of the apparent eclipse of time. For instance, in Revelation 13:8, Jesus is referred to as ‘the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.’ Now the cross occurred at a precise moment of history. We know when the Lamb of God was slain. But the Bible says it occurred before the foundation of the world. How can an historical event which occurred at a certain spot on earth, in the biblical reckoning be said to have occurred before the earth was even made? The passage does not say that the Lamb was foreordained to be slain before the foundation of the world, but it says he was actually slain then. Surely it means that the cross was an eternal event, taking place both in time and eternity. In time, it is long past; in eternity, it forever occurs. So also would the resurrection, and in the same way, the second coming of Christ. When any Christian dies, he passes from the realm of time and space into timelessness, into the NOW of God when the full effect of these timeless events is experienced by him to whatever degree his spiritual state requires. But the Lord’s return is an event yet to take place in historical time when the Church is complete and the end of the age has come. Perhaps this is the meaning of the Lord’s words: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live’ (John 5:25). (“Complexity of Time,” Lambert Dolphin, http://www.ldolphin.org/time.html) 

*************

Again, Chuck Missler always stressed that God created time for mankind on earth. Time, in that regard, is linear. It stretches from one of its ends to the other. God is outside of time, thus we can’t put death and the Rapture within linear time constraints. Both death and the Rapture, for the Christian, is not an ending, but a beginning. I, like my great friend, Chuck, believe that both portals are somehow, inexplicably to the finite mind, infinitely inseparable wonders of the homeward going.

 —Terry

5 Sep 2022

Sleepwalking Into an Energy Disaster

For many years the US government warned Germany of the dangers of becoming dependent on Russia for its supply of natural gas. Germany ignored our advice and proceeded to become all the more addicted to Russian natural gas. As of last year, Germany imported 80% of this form of fuel from Russia.

In 2018 President Trump spoke in a UN speech about how dangerous it was for Germany to become dependent on Russia. The German diplomats at the UN openly laughed at Trump. Now that Russia has cut off the supply of natural gas to the German economy, no one in Berlin is laughing. The brutal invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops has forced the European Union to pull away from Moscow.

The EU’s 27 member states agreed to voluntarily cut gas consumption by 15% between August and March 2023. The ultimate plan is to cut all oil and gas imports from Russia. Here are some early steps that nations are taking to break the dependence on Russian natural gas:

In Germany, Cologne’s magnificent cathedral — normally lit throughout the night — now goes dark overnight. Public buildings, museums, and other landmarks — such as the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin — will no longer be illuminated overnight either.

In France, Shopkeepers will now be fined for keeping doors open and air conditioning running, a common practice.

In Spain, Congress agreed to temperature limitations — air conditioning no cooler than 81 degrees Fahrenheit.

In Italy, air conditioning in schools and public buildings has already been limited in what the government labeled “Operation Thermostat.”

Europe is facing an energy crisis, and most people still don’t grasp its full magnitude. Natural gas is very hard to move from one place to the other. You cannot store large quantities of it. Some nations’ operating plan is to buy natural gas from Norway. It will take each one of them a few years to tap into Norwegian gas fields. The question is, what are they going to do this year?

It is very dangerous to become over-dependent on one form of energy. Many areas of China rely heavily on hydropower for the production of electricity. A drought has forced China to close factories because there is not enough water to run turbines. Texas learned about the need for energy diversity when cold weather in 2019 greatly hampered its supply of natural gas for electrical production. I had no idea that cold weather can freeze up gas wells.

It has become very popular to ban the usage of fossil fuels by a given date. The California Air Resources Board just approved regulations that ban the sale of new gas-engine vehicles by 2035, requiring all new cars to run on electricity or hydrogen. Despite the strong demand for electric cars, sales made up only 3% of total car sales last year. The board mandated that by 2025, 40% of all cars should be carbon neutral.

There is no chance we will meet this goal. They might as well vote that all cars should be able to fly by 2030. We do not have the capability of transmitting the power needed to charge that many vehicles. We do not produce enough key metals to build that many cars. Something in the order of about 90% of the lithium that’s used in batteries is processed in China right now, which is not a desirable situation. The Democratic Republic of Congo produces 70% of the world’s supply of cobalt. With an average price of an electric vehicle currently $66,000, most people cannot afford one.

The Paris Agreement on climate change is a key reason why energy prices are so high. As soon as it was adopted by 196 Parties on 12 December 2015, oil companies quit investing in fossil fuels. Seven years later, we are still using these products, and they are at record highs in price.

Some people are waking up and are trying to prepare for the coming energy disaster. In Poland, people have lined up for days to buy coal. A small town in Germany of 60 people has been stockpiling sawdust to power homes and businesses.

There has been one factor that has forced people to face reality. In the past few months, businesses have started receiving shocking gas and electricity bills. One pub owner in Great Britain was told her annual gas bill would go from $30,000 to $60,000 over the next year. Most bills have doubled, but some have gone up as much as 500%. Millions of businesses still weak from the COVID-19 lockdown will be forced to close forever.

I firmly believe that demonic insanity is the only way to explain why world energy policies have become removed from basic common sense. As the world becomes more evil, the devil has greater control over the minds of people.

“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13).

–Todd


Critical Race—Not Theory

If there is one term in today’s upside-down culture that pushes the button that brings division in America, it is the word “race.” But concerning the life of the Christian, that is a word that should trip movement diametrically opposite of division in the spiritual minds of those who claim Christ as Lord.

I’m referring, of course, not to the colors of the skin of humanity, but to the force with which the believer runs his or her course that is assigned by God beginning with the believer’s new birth. Running the race set before us in the right way never brings division, but oneness in the most critical matter in God’s holy eyes.

The race is that of believers in Christ following the course set for each of us individually. But the collective race is for the high calling of our Lord Jesus Christ. That call unifies the Body of Christ. It does not divide one from another in the family of God.

What is that calling? It is found in the Great Commission, the commandment with which the Lord left the apostles who stood gawking upward as He ascended (Acts 1: 9-10).

“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matt 28: 19-20)

While obeying this one commandment—the Great Commission—is a critical collective effort that includes every believer of the Church Age (Age of Grace), obeying Christ’s last words (what He said before He ascended) is just as critical to each person who follows Jesus. How we run this race throughout our lives determines our eternal future. We are running it at this very moment. We—you and I—have been in this race since the moment we were born into the family of God.

And no matter our station in life in our jobs, health, society, wealth, class, or any other, we each have a certain course God set for us at our new birth. We are, individually, to run our race with all that is within us, as we let the Lord lead (Proverbs 3:5–6).

The words that frame this race we’re in were indelibly stamped into my spirit on that Good Friday, April 22, 2011—the clinical death I experienced three times within forty-five minutes, according to hospital records. The scriptural application has been with me every day since.

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1–2).

Those who have read of that experience know of my report of the race I perceived I was a part of, surrounded by young, beautiful, heavenly beings with their arms raised in victory. We were running, I’ve been told in my spiritual understanding, to serve as, in part at least, encouragement to finish this earthly, spiritual race in which we as believers are presently participants. That’s why I continue to share the matters involved with my fellow believers. I am convicted I must.

We’re not running this sometimes very difficult course in vain. Paul said further:

“Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” (1 Corinthians 9:24–27)

As we observe the prophetic stage-setting that is literally bursting from all our news reports, our eyes should be affixed on Heaven’s finish line. We are already victors through our Savior and Lord and His finished race on the cross at Calvary two millennia ago. All we have to do is carry out His Great Commission collectively and, particularly, individually.

The great apostle, as he faced the moment of his execution, said further:

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:7–8)

Our Lord could appear at any moment, or we could at any moment appear before Him through the portal of death (a passage into that glorious dimension I look back on as nothing to fear as a Christian.)

So it is a critical race you and I are in at this very moment, and it’s not a “theory,” as the nonbelieving world sadly views Bible truth to be. We want, when our race is finished on this earth, to hear the Lord Jesus Christ say, as I’m sure He must have said to the Apostle Paul the moment Paul had his physical life ended by a Roman sword: “Well done, good, faithful, servant. Enter into your eternal rest as my joint heir.”

But you will never hear those words from the Savior who died to take away your sin that separates you from God and Heaven if you don’t accept Christ’s grace gift of salvation. Here, yet again, is how you can join and finish the critical race toward the high calling of Christ.

“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