There has long been controversy about the following words the Apostle Paul was given concerning the falling away that will happen as an introduction to Antichrist coming on the world scene:

“Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition” (2 Thessalonians 2:1–3).

Paul had, during a previous visit to the Thessalonian Christians (1 Thessalonians 4) prophesied that the Rapture would occur and that the Day of Christ would usher in God’s vengeance on those who opposed His righteousness. Some naysayers had come to those believers since that previous visit and planted the seed of disbelief that the prophecy had been fulfilled already and that the believers’ loved ones who had died since had missed the Rapture, et cetera.

Paul straightened out the believers’ falsely received information by saying the Rapture and all of God’s promises to deal with the evil oppressors had not yet taken place, and that the loved ones who had gone on to Heaven had not missed anything.

He told them that the great Day of Christ—thus, the ushering in of the Tribulation and the coming of Antichrist—wouldn’t come before the falling away took place.

The controversy among eschatological viewpoints is: What is meant by the “falling away”?

The “falling away” comes from the Greek word apostasía. It means “to stand away from” or “a departure.”

Some who study the matters involved believe the “falling away” of 2 Thessalonians means a departure from or a falling away from belief in Jesus Christ—from the gospel.

Others believe the phrase here means “a spatial or physical departure”—as when one leaves one place to go to another.

My own belief is that the term in this prophecy has the characteristics of both the spiritual meaning of departure from faith in Christ alone for salvation and departure in the spatial sense—the Rapture, when all believers will leave Earth to be with Christ when He shouts, “Come up here!” (Revelation 4:1).   

I want to address where I believe we are on God’s prophetic timeline with regard to the departure from the faith—from the gospel of Jesus Christ. Particularly, I want to present how that falling away, or departure, is on full display at this moment, showing just how near must be the spatial departure—the Rapture, followed by the arrival of Antichrist on the world stage.

I believe the following information provides that evidence.

Walk into certain churches today, and you may encounter something that would be almost unrecognizable to Christians who worshiped in the same denominations only a generation ago.

Rainbow flags surround the sanctuary. Pastors preach in Pride-colored vestments. Worship services feature queer hymns and transgender themes. Glitter replaces traditional ashes. Rainbow bread appears at Communion. Special ceremonies celebrate transgender name changes, while Pride Month brings its own sermons, liturgies and church celebrations.

These aren’t simply changes in decoration or attempts to make visitors feel welcome. Taken together, they reveal how deeply LGBTQ+ ideology has worked its way into the worship and theology of parts of the modern church.

Christianity already has its own worship, hymns, sacraments, symbols, sacred language and understanding of identity. Increasingly, each is being reworked through the lens of sexuality and gender. (“10 Ways LGBTQ+ Ideology Is Reshaping the Church,” by PNW staff, Prophecy News Watch, RR News, September 16, 2026)

The Prophecy News Watch story goes on to give ten specific and clearest examples of how LGBTQ+ forces are fulfilling the 2 Thessalonians 2 prophecy by apostatizing within churches formerly of true faith, as I understand the report. I will let the reader find the item and read the details of ten specific ways this is happening. Here they are in brief:

10. Transgender Worship Leaders and Bands

The worship platform has become one of the most visible places for churches to demonstrate LGBTQ+ affirmation. Transgender and nonbinary worship leaders are sometimes deliberately celebrated as representatives of a congregation’s commitment to queer inclusion.

9. Queer Hymns and Trans-Inclusive Worship Songs

Even the songs are being rewritten.

8. Glitter Blessings

Few examples capture the transformation as vividly as “Glitter Ash Wednesday.”

7. Rainbow Communion

Even the Lord’s Supper has received a Pride makeover.

Communion was given to point Christians toward the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ. When Pride symbolism surrounds—or becomes part of—the sacrament itself, the symbolism competing for the congregation’s attention is impossible to ignore.

6. Transgender Renaming Ceremonies

Some churches now conduct special ceremonies recognizing the new names and gender identities of transgender members.

5. Pride and Trans-Themed Sermons

The transformation inevitably reaches the pulpit.

At that point, the debate has moved far beyond hospitality. It has become a debate over who gets to define Christian truth.

4. Rainbow Symbols Throughout the Sanctuary

Sometimes you don’t need to hear the sermon to understand what a church is proclaiming.

Rainbow flags hang from sanctuary walls. Pride banners appear around altars. Churches illuminate their buildings in rainbow colors. LGBTQ+ symbols appear on church signs, windows and Communion tables—sometimes within sight of the cross itself.

3. Rainbow Clergy Vestments

Pastors themselves have become part of the visual transformation.

2. Queering the Bible

This transformation reaches much deeper than flags and clothing.

Queer theology can reinterpret Scripture through LGBTQ+ categories, challenge historic Christian understandings of sexuality and gender, reconsider biblical relationships through a queer lens, and alter traditional language concerning God.

1. Pride Has Become a Church Season

Christmas. Easter. Pentecost.

Now some churches effectively add Pride Month to the calendar.

It is most interesting to see this end-times falling away spiritually. Much more than merely interesting, however, it is most telling of exactly how near we must be to the moment of Rapture—that Departure we as Christians are looking for—and the appearance of Antichrist—a matter we are thankful not to experience.

Here again is how to make sure you go to Christ in that departure and are not left behind to suffer that coming seven years of Antichrist-spawned Tribulation.

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10: 9-10).

—Terry

Wtjames1@swbell.net

Here again, I’m on my soapbox. My contention continues to be that Jesus’ prophecy about the days of Lot is coming into view in these times when Sodom-like wickedness is burgeoning.

Again, I believe as strongly as ever that Jesus said the following about the moment of Rapture:

“Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:28-30).

There should not be a question among true believers that we are in Sodom-like days. News reports each hour bring information that burns our eyes and ears with tales of evil. That these days can be likened to Jesus’ prophecy is almost a given.

But there have been reports that the world is about to collapse into a financial heap of disaster and calamity. This goes counter to the Lord’s statement that people will be buying, selling, and building—doing all the things that indicate good economic times like in Lot’s day. It will be just like those days, Jesus said, when He next breaks into this world to bring about God’s ownership again of planet Earth. This will begin with the Rapture of all believers—the Church, as Jesus described His building project. Speaking to Peter and the disciples, Jesus said:

“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).  

The news of pending economic catastrophe continues to come, with some writers in the Christian community believing that Christians will soon go into the time of Tribulation (Daniel’s seventieth week—seven years of hell on Earth). There will be no Rapture to rescue believers in Jesus Christ of this Church Age in this view of biblical eschatology—even though Jesus Himself gave John the beloved disciple the following in the book of Revelation:

“Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Revelation 3:10). 

The predictions of the world getting worse in terms of economic conditions until the Tribulation starts continue to mount. These predictions erroneously compete with the Lord’s prophecy about the days of Lot, if I may kindly put how I see the views of those counter to the Lord’s foretelling. Here is one such counter opinion to what is happening as the time of Christ’s intervention nears. While the writer is reporting facts, the one-sided view fails to take into account the other, which I next give as an example.

“The global energy supply crunch is only going to get worse as long as the conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe are raging. A lot less oil is getting through the Strait of Hormuz than normal, and diesel production in Russia has been significantly diminished by relentless Ukrainian drone strikes…

If things are this bad now, what will they look like a few months from now if World War 3 continues to intensify? …

The clouds on the horizon are getting really dark, and at this point everyone can see that a major storm is rapidly approaching. (“Goldman Sachs Warns Oil Could Soon Rise Above $120 A Barrel, And the Price of Diesel Just Set Another Record as World War 3 Continues to Escalate,” The Economic Collapse, RR News, September 9, 2026)

The economic picture, worldwide, isn’t as bleak as presented above. As a matter of fact, the following news item seems to indicate quite the contrary in validating the buying, selling, and all other things economic in similarity to the days of Lot, as foretold by the Lord.

Last year, lefty corporate media outlets pushed the narrative that President Trump’s trade war with the world could trigger a 1929-style economic collapse. However, a new UBS report presents a markedly different picture: global trade growth is running at historically high levels, supported by AI-related demand and rising export prices. 

Let’s take a trip in the “wayback machine” and look at Bloomberg’s headlines when Trump was ratcheting up the trade war with China in early 2025. The outlet pumped out an ungodly number of headlines about “recession” and impending economic doom.

Roughly 1.5 years later, UBS’s latest data show continued growth in global trade, despite the recession risks economists highlighted when the tariff war broke out in the first half of 2025.

UBS chief economist Arend Kapteyn wrote Tuesday morning that global export values are rising about 19% from a year earlier, placing growth in the 84th percentile of the past 25 years. Higher volumes account for roughly 8.8 percentage points of that increase, while rising prices contribute another 10.3 percentage points…

The report suggests that global trade remains resilient, but its core strength is concentrated in technology and Asia. That leaves the expansion heavily sensitive to the AI and power grid investment boom. It seems that all the doom-maxxing forecasts lefty corporate media outlets made last summer have fallen flat on their faces. (“Where’s the 1929-Style Collapse MSM Predicted? UBS Finds Global Exports Surging to ‘Historically High Levels,’” ZeroHedge, September 9, 2026)

Now let me say that despite these optimistic economic figures worldwide, this report doesn’t bode well for this fallen world that’s rebellious to God’s governance. It just means that Jesus’ prophecy about the days of Lot is now fully in view in these last of the last days before He calls all believers to Himself. The world’s economy will then indeed crash into chaos, and the times will become worse than any economic depression in world history.

There is indeed a storm of unfathomable destruction on the horizon, including a hurricane-like devastation of the world’s economy. But Christians will be sheltered within the clouds of Glory when that storm hits.

The Rapture will vacate all Christians, and the Tribulation will begin with the making of the covenant with Antichrist, as outlined in Daniel 9:27.

You don’t want to be here during that horrendous era. Here again is how to go to Christ and eternal safety when He shouts for believers to come to Him.

“That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10: 9-10). 

—Terry

Wtjames1@swbell.net