American stock-market gurus are astonished and baffled. The Dow and other financial/economic averages have plunged in unprecedented fashion. It is not a crash, as in the 1929 stock-market crash. But it has never gone from an unprecedented high to a 10 percent loss in such short order.

The stock market has since somewhat rallied, but still is tremendously down.

It is all, of course, because of a panicked selloff by those whose whole reason for being revolves around making money, the love of which, God’s Word says, is “the root of all kinds of evil.”

At the core of the panic is the coronavirus. The spreading disease—of which little is known as far as its cause and ultimate effects—is feared to eventually bring to a standfill the consumption of products around the world.

It is thought that factories will be unable to produce goods and parts to sell to other manufacturing entities, because workers either won’t, due to illness, be able to attend work, or because workers are afraid to be around other people. This, it is feared, will ultimately bring on a major depression—or something even worse.

The hyperbole is rampant. At the heart of it all are the Democrat Party leaders, the mainstream news media, and the Trump haters, all of whom see in the hyperbole political advantage as the US presidential election date comes into view.

Leaders of that party weighed in almost immediately, accusing President Donald Trump of being inadequate to handle the crisis. They charged that he is doing too little, and compared the coronavirus to Hurricane Katrina of the George W. Bush era. A number of mainstream broadcast networks and cable channels saw their program hosts join in with their Democrat guests. The tenor and tone of their analyses seemed to be that this disease will be Trump’s Katrina.

This refers to the charge made against President Bush that he was inadequate to handle that crisis, so many people died and great dangers existed that wouldn’t have if a Democrat had been in office.

One host urged her guests to just start calling it the “Trump Virus.”

It remains to be seen, of course, just where this outbreak will end. The stock market has fallen, as stated above, and, indeed, unless things turn around and there is a bounce-back of the bottom of the fall, things could severely damage an economy that has been perceived as booming.

My own take has been, as most who read these commentaries know, that the Rapture will occur at a time of economic uptick, not during a global fiscal disaster.

My belief hasn’t changed. I still contend that the Lord Jesus prophesied it will be business as usual, or even better than usual, when He next catastrophically breaks in on the affairs of mankind.

It will be catastrophic for those left behind. But it will be glorious beyond imagination for those who go to be with their Lord in that electrifying instant of Rapture.

All the experts I’ve heard lately say that America isn’t in real danger of the outbreak at the moment, but things could change. They expect measures taken by this administration to keep the coronavirus from becoming pandemic within the borders of the United States.

The experts also say almost as one that it will take many months, perhaps even years, to develop a vaccine that is highly effective against the disease. This is quite troubling to consider.

God has His mighty hand on it all, and that is the spiritual prompting upon which I base my optimism that the resolution to the problem will be forthcoming sooner rather than later.

The following news item speaks to that internal, spiritual prompting I sense.

Israeli scientists are on the cusp of developing the first vaccine against the novel coronavirus, according to Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis. If all goes as planned, the vaccine could be ready within a few weeks and available in 90 days, according to a release.

“Congratulations to MIGAL [the Galilee Research Institute] on this exciting breakthrough,” Akunis said. “I am confident there will be further rapid progress, enabling us to provide a needed response to the grave global COVID-19 threat,” Akunis said, referring to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

For the past four years, a team of MIGAL scientists has been developing a vaccine against infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), which causes a bronchial disease affecting poultry. The effectiveness of the vaccine has been proven in preclinical trials carried out at the Veterinary Institute. (Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman, “Israeli Scientists: ‘In a few weeks, we will have coronavirus vaccine.’” Jerusalem Post, February 20, 2020, https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israeli-scientists-In-three-weeks-we-will-have-coronavirus-vaccine-619101)

It is within prophetic purview to conjecture whether the Lord might be about to bring forth evidence of why Israel is His chosen people. It will be fascinating to watch developments.

The Lord has said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1–3)

 

Once-in-a while, my writer’s cognition takes me into the realm of imagining what would happen if…

Now, I am aware of the bromide of precaution: “’If’ is for children.” Nonetheless, “what if?” is the conduit through which the imaginations of nonfiction writers as well as fictionists have been transported throughout history.

With full recognition and acknowledgment of this precautionary heads-up, I want to think a bit on “what if” regarding a prophetic matter most of us are deeply concerned about.

We are, after all, “children of God,” so, if “what if” is for children,” I feel secure in proposing this “what if” to you.

As you see, the title is “Rapture…What If…?”

While I know this will be read mostly by children of God, I write it with the hope that readers in this category also know they are royal ambassadors of the court of the heavenlies. Therefore, I hope you will share the thoughts herein offered within your spheres of influence as people charged to carry out the Great Commission.

Writing about this “what if” is so important to produce and disseminate at this time because history might well be nearing the prophetic moment that instantaneously dooms millions—particularly in America—because all in this nation will have heard the Gospel. Beyond that stupendous event, some will have no chance to be saved from damnation. They will be lost for all eternity.

Most every signal of the colossal, world-rending change that is on the very brink of striking the inhabitants of the planet is flashing brilliant red. Within the past few days, I’ve received a number of emails listing many such ominous signals bombarding this generation. These are almost identical and come from a number of websites, without any of these sites giving attribution to the original source.

The best I can tell, they originate with Michael Snyder, a blogger with whom I’m sure many are familiar (http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/10-plagues-that-are-hitting-our-planet-simultaneously).

(I must note here that Mr. Snyder does not accept that the Bible teaches a pre-Tribulation Rapture.) The following is a very brief list of some of these signals.

1) Locust swarms as large as cities are destroying entire agricultural crops within thirty seconds of alighting.

2) Rampaging weather events are taking place, such as what’s going on in Australia. After fires that killed a half-billion animals and many people, rain deluged the area in record amounts. Winds in excess of two hundred miles per hour created dust storms that blotted out the sun. Jackson, Mississippi, received record rainfall and flooding.

3): Major earthquakes are occurring around the globe and increasing in magnitude. Those who keep up with them report that there are too many to record individually at times.

4) Volcanoes are erupting simultaneously around the world. The gargantuan Mount Merapi in Indonesia, for example, sent lava and ashes more than two thousand meters in the air and forced people to stay clear of its zone of devastation.

5) The coronavirus is potentially one of the most devastating diseases the world has experienced. It threatens entire national economies as well as the health of citizenry.

6) African swine fever has wiped out much of the pork sources, which threatens food supplies around the world.

7): The H1N1 swine flu kills people rather than the animals, and has already taken the lives of more people than the coronavirus in China.

8): The H5N1 bird flu, which killed many a few years ago, is said to be recurring and threatens to cause even more deaths than before.

9) The H5N8 bird flu is thought to be more virulent than even H5N1 bird flu. It is appearing all over the world, and experts are surprised by it popping up in Germany recently.

My long-time friend and colleague, Dr. Joseph Chambers of Paw Creek Ministries, has weighed in on how near to the Rapture today’s flashing-red-light issues and events must surely place this generation.

I’m thrilled at the many signs of Christ’s soon return. The Rapture is evident, but so are the many great events of the end connected to the Rapture and His return to reign on the earth. Let’s look at the times in Scripture where the writers are using the term, “last days.” This very term mean, “the last of the last.” This is where we certainly have arrived.

Let’s talk about:

1. The days of Revelation: Hebrews 1:1–6
2. The Day of Great Wealth: James 5:3
3. The Day of Great Wickedness: 2 Timothy 3:1–8
4. Time of Many Scoffers: 1 Peter 3:3
5. The Time of Technological Inventions: Nahum 2:3–6
6. The Time of Great Awakening: Acts 2 17–21
7. Infectious Diseases: Matthew 24:6–7

So, with the explosion of prophetic indicators converging at this time, the thought I intend to present in this commentary revolves around “what if” the people of the earth are now about to be catastrophically jolted by the most calamitous event of all time. Specifically, the likely scenarios of post-Rapture America are most troubling to consider. For the moment, I want us to think on one of the situations that would develop in the United States if the Rapture of the Church should take place at this present hour: What if the Rapture happens right in the middle of this presidential election year?

As the days leading up to November 3, 2020, pass, the nation becomes more divided than ever in the view of America’s future. Should we continue to go the way of socialism? Should we allow the people into the public treasury, thus buying votes for the give-away society and culture that Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez propose and that the Democrat Party and mainstream media seems to want? Or should the United States embrace getting back to the way the Founding Fathers intended—the Constitutional republic they framed that caused Benjamin Franklin to quip, “We have given you a republic…if you can keep it.”

By every estimate, it looks as if the president will win the election by, at a minimum, a near landslide. The opposition is so crazed in their abject hatred for the man who occupies the Oval Office that they have gone off track and are headed for a crash. That’s the way even James Carville, the Clinton-era Democrat guru who gave us the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” has described his own party’s current condition.

But “What if…?”

What if, just before the day of the election, the Rapture occurs—catastrophically affecting those who are left behind?

More than half of the president’s voter base would be gone in that instant. What a thing to consider!

There would be no doubt about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election if that scenario played out. The disappearance of most of Trump’s supporters would be a dream come true for the “resisters”—the “let’s-change-America” masses. It would be an absolute nightmare for those who support bringing America back to the constitutional republic Ben Franklin and the Founding Fathers envisioned.

But, the political consequences would be small potatoes compared to the consequences for the individual souls left behind to face the horrors soon to come in America and upon the entire world.

And, this is the message I intend to deliver. As I mentioned above, I hope you will convey the message as a real possibility that might come to pass; it is your job as a royal ambassador.

As an ambassador for Jesus Christ, according to all the signals, you are about to be called home. So, it is incumbent on you to proclaim the message while you remain on this fallen planet.

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:20)