Time has arrived, I believe, to put together a postulation introspective on biblically prophesied things to come, in end of days scenario fashion--i.e., to offer, in a stream-of-consciousness way, based upon trends in today’s news, a possible course the world might take while we trudge through the end of days toward Armageddon and Christ’s second advent.

As always, when entertaining such thoughts in a public forum, I must state up front that these are nothing more or less than speculations on my part. However, the speculations are undertaken with considerable years of study, writing, and most of all, praying about matters foretold by Jesus and the Old and New Testament prophets. Although I have not received a “word of knowledge” or been given a vision or dream in the Old or New Testament sense, I do believe my thoughts are given here with Holy Spirit-directed thought and insight.

So, where do we begin? Well, maybe at the beginning, the moment when linear time seems to have been introduced for this marvelous story of God and man to begin its run through history. I say it is good to begin at that point, because we have–it is obvious to any student of Bible prophecy who is alert to present day goings-on—come to the point that the very one who created time for mankind is now under satanic attack as a liar and/or a lunatic. Jesus, you see, is the creator of this thing called time, of the being called man, of all that is. The Scriptures say:

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Clear enough, right? God, not evolution, or any other method born of man’s sophistry, brought this world into existence.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (Jn. 1:1-4).

About Jesus, the Apostle Paul wrote: “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Col. 1:16-17).

Jesus himself said: “…I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (Jn. 14:6).

The Bible says that Jesus Christ is God, himself. He said that He and His Father are one. That is, they are the same. When the pious Jewish religious leaders asked Him if He was God, Jesus said: “…Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn. 8:58). This refers to His being the God of His people of His promises –the Israelites, as seen in Exodus 3:6.

The world of entertainment, e.g., “The DaVinci Code” fiction, has been saying Jesus was a mere man who faked His crucifixion, living on to father a child with Mary Magdalene. Entertainment, under pseudo-archaeological auspices, is now telling us that they have found the ossuaries and even the DNA of Jesus' relatives, and possibly of Jesus himself in a tomb near Jerusalem. Jesus addressed this matter in part when He said during His Olivet Discourse: “Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24:25-27).

Matthew 24:25-27 is, I realize, Jesus’forewarning of false christs and false prophets that will deceive all but God’s elect during the tribulation era. Just like in all other endtime signals of significance that are in view today, however, the lying--saying Jesus is not the soon returning God of Heaven--is already underway for setting up prophetic fulfillment to come.

The prominently observable fact that the deity of Jesus is under attack is, in other words, a profound signal that we are bumping up against the very end of this Age of Grace. The attack is scheduled, prophetically, to become even more hateful as we degenerate toward the end of days. Having laid the groundwork for showing that Jesus Christ’s deity and God’s veracity are under attack from our great enemy, the devil, and his supernatural and human minions, we will examine the many developments and what they portend for the future, so far as concerns Bible prophecy. Next , we will begin looking at end-of-days matters that are in our daily, even hourly, news--overlaid by God’s always 100%-accurate Word, the Bible.

Again, I state that the end-of-days scenarios I lay out in this essay are speculation--postulation based upon my years of prayer, study, observations, and thought. I’m sure there are many who view things to come in a much different way, even among we who hold to the pre-mil, pre-trib view. So, I present this for your consideration, as, in my view, likely possibility, not as set in biblical stone.

First, let us look at the way the world is configured.

The United States of America is the world’s lone superpower. Whether looking at military, economic, societal, technological, or whatever category we want to look at, America stands alone at the top of the nation-heap. I use the word “heap” because this world is built upon garbage–filth from the heart and mind of its father, the devil. Boy! I know how cynical that seems. But, God says there is none good but One: “And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? [there is] none good but one, [that is], God” (Mk. 10:18).

Since sin entered the world, man is fallen. Mankind must have redemption found only in God, the Son. People must be born again or they cannot even see the kingdom of God: “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” (Jn. 3:3).

Jesus’ words, here, have dual meaning to me: 1) those who refuse Christ by rejecting their need for a new, spiritual, birth will not go to heaven upon death; and 2) they cannot even understand heaven and things of God without the new birth into God’s family. I base this latter assessment upon the following words of the Apostle Paul: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).

This is going to sound even more off-putting, but it is true nonetheless. Christians are the only “good” in this downward-spiraling world. Now, am I saying that I, in my fleshly efforts, am better than the one who does not claim Christ as Savior and Lord? No, absolutely not! I must say that in one regard, I am like Paul. But it is not his lovely Christian side, rather is the other. Paul said: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but [how] to perform that which is good I find not” (Rom. 7:18).

Only through Christ is any Christian viewed as “good” in God’s sight. Only through Jesus does a person become fit to inherit an eternal home in heaven. All humanly born and humanly-devised matters are due for God’s judgment and for eternity apart from God because He cannot abide sin. Sin must be dealt with, and Jesus is the way sin is forever eradicated.

When it comes to the future, all hinges upon the person and presence of Jesus Christ as redeemer.

So, why all that, to get to the speculation of what will happen from here to eternity? Because Christians are the key, in my stream-of-consciousness unfolding scenarios for the end of days. God’s final wrath and judgment will not begin falling until the only good there is in this world is removed. This Bible prophecy truth is found in the words of the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thes. 5:9).

When Christians are removed in the rapture (read 1 Cor. 15:51-55 and 1 Thes. 4:13-18), the things on Earth will change dramatically. We get a prophetic glimpse of that removal of Christians from the planet in Paul’s additional words to the Thessalonians: “And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way” (2 Thes. 2:6-7).

The word “he” in verse 7 refers to God the Holy Spirit removing from His office as He interacted with mankind during the age of grace (church age –which is this present dispensation). The Holy Spirit, resident in the church during this present dispensation, will, in the moment of rapture, no longer work in exactly the same way as now. He will interact with the human creation much as He did during the time before the church was born at Pentecost (Acts, Chapter 2). (I know some believe the church was born on the shores of Galilee earlier, when Christ called forth the first disciples. I disagree.)

God the Holy Spirit, living within Christians, is the only “good” to be found in people. The rapture will take that "good" to be with Jesus Christ for eternity. All who are “born again” (see John 3:3) will go to the heavenly homes (dwelling places) Jesus has been preparing for them since He ascended to the right hand of God the Father (read John 14:1-3). These will include everyone–dead and living--who have accepted Christ for salvation of their souls. There will be no good people left on the planet –that is, none that are “good” in God’s holy view.

With the Holy Spirit no longer acting to influence the consciences of humans in as powerful ways as He does at present, mankind’s actions and reactions will be exponentially accelerated for the worse.

The rebelliousness of the creature called man is, in my view, manifest blatantly for the student of God’s truth to discern in a recent news story. It involved media and the politically correct crowd’s uproar over the U.S. chairman of the joint chiefs of staff making the comment –when asked his personal opinion-- that he thought members of the same sex in the military who engage in sex with each other are committing immoral acts was quite telling. The voracious feeding frenzy to start the drumbeat for having Gen. Peter Pace removed from his position in the Pentagon has fueled new vitriolic invective against those who hold to such “unenlightened” prejudices.

God, incidentally, is obviously included in our ranks. His Word, the Bible –the instruction manual for the creature, mankind, whom he made from the dirt upon which we stand—says about homosexuality:

“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was [fitting]” (Rom. 1:26-27).

The Creator’s Word against homosexuality is even more powerful in an Old Testament prescription for those who engage in that activity. (If it makes you angry, get mad at God, not me. I don’t make the rules. He does.)

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [shall be] upon them” (Lev. 20:13).

I know what will be one of the objections: This was for the Israelites, not today’s people. Really? Well, in giving the prescription for living, God hasn’t changed for any people at any time. Jesus, we have established, is Creator of all things, and by His power holds all things together. This, God’s Word says about the Lord of all creation: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Heb. 13:8).

The problem is, as we’ve seen this week with this one issue, fallen mankind will not have the God of heaven rule on Planet Earth. Since the fall, man has determined to do what is right in his own eyes. This is an attitude for catastrophe. Human government is fatally flawed. These have tried to create a utopian earth for millennia. All efforts to do it their way –apart from God—have met with abject failure.

The earliest attempt of human government, which followed the flood of Noah’s antediluvian era, was Nimrod’s attempt to build the tower to heaven (read Genesis chapter 11). The Lord knew this would end in disaster for mankind, so He came down and separated the one-world builders by giving multiple languages, thus driving them to diverse places around the globe. But man has spent the millennia since that time circumventing God’s intervention. The one-world drive is again being pursued in a concerted effort by the powers elite. When things reach a certain point of depravity, God always has intervened. A prime example was when He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. (Read Genesis, chapter 19 to learn about both the depravity and the Lord’s intervention.) Which gets us to the thing about end-of-days scenarios I would like to explore.

Jesus himself set the prophetic stage for a future time when He will again intervene–catastrophically—into depraved man’s playhouse of lasciviousness. He said: “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” (Lk. 17:28-29).

This is a description of a society, a culture, a generation going forward with business as usual. Jesus prophesied that it would be just like this, when judgment from heaven would fall, at the time of His end-of-days intervention. It is not, however, description of the tribulation era when Jesus comes physically to earth, as foretold in Revelation 19:11. At that time, as many as two-thirds of the earth’s population will have died in the apocalyptic judgments. It will not be business as usual, like the Lord describes here. The things that transpire here, though not as disastrous as things will get later in man’s last grasp to rule himself, will still be calamitous. And, the possible scenarios presented are mesmerizing. Let us look at my postulations, based upon the pre-trib view of the rapture, which, of course, we at Rapture Ready are convinced is the correct view, from God’s perspective.

Jesus’ description of Lot’s being removed from that condemned city is almost certainly a picture of the rapture of the only good God sees on this earth…born again Christians… the church Jesus began building, and which was born at Pentecost (in Acts, Chapter 2). Lot, Abraham’s nephew, although not a perfect example of living a godly life, was nonetheless considered a “just” man in God’s eyes. That is, the Lord saw Lot as righteous, a believer –one who accepted God’s governance over his life, accepted God’s salvation plan. Lot and his family lived in a society that was–well—much like ours. It was wicked to its black core. Incidentally, homosexuality had, in that society, become accepted as, even expected to be, part of life in Sodom.

God removed Lot, and His wrath began to fall upon that wicked, ungovernable people. Jesus indicated that this is exactly what will happen near the time of His coming again. It will happen at the rapture --at least seven years before He comes back and touches down on the Mount of Olives. The first part of God’s wrath, I’m convinced, will be His removal from the consciences of earth-dwellers. The people left behind will have rejected God’s governance. Now, raptured saints will perhaps, from the balcony of heaven, be given a God’s-eye view of whether the rebels' claim that they don’t need God to govern them is true.

Millions will vanish in a millisecond –an “atomos” of time-- the prophecy tells us. This nation, the United States of America, which had at the same time more gospel light than any other nation of history and access to more filth and depravity than even ancient Rome at its decadent, orgiastic worse, will experience an implosion that, upon its contemplation, staggers the imagination.

We will have a look at how the endtime stage is set for the scenarios we will explore.

America is at the top of the food chain, so far as nations of Planet Earth are concerned. She is the richest, most materially blessed nation-state ever to exist. Her achievements in almost every facet of human endeavor are without peer in the annals of the ages.

The European Union is developing rapidly into a colossus that will challenge the U.S. for the title of world champ, so far as superpowers are concerned. But Europe lacks one ingredient in order to achieve America’s superpower status, no matter how economically strong the EU becomes. That one missing element is the military might–particularly the high-tech military complex, firmly entrenched and fortified by (likely) the most horrific thermonuclear capability and the most sophisticated means to deliver total devastation to any other nation foolish enough to initiate such conflagration.

Russia is again beginning to show signs of beefing up for super power military status. It, too, however, lags far behind in high-tech matters –things that prevent it from achieving the degree of hegemony over parts of the world formerly under the dictatorial eyes of the USSR. The Russian economy continues to be in shambles, and achieving the high-tech needed is thus impeded.

China is biding its time, building a strong economic base for one purpose: to attain a level of fiscal power that can buy and/or develop the high-tech sophistication essential to superpower status. The Chinese raw manpower capabilities unquestionably present potentially the greatest threat, in terms of sheer numbers, of any military force in human history.

All other nations are bit players in the scenarios we will examine. But, combined, they present massive--even insurmountable--problems for the prophesied frightening world of the perhaps not-too-distant future.

Israel is smack in the center of all this global chemistry. That nation will be –according to the very Word of the Creator of all things—the catalyst that will galvanize earth-dwellers into rebellion against Him, thus, will bring all armies of the world to Armageddon. Here is what the One who knows the end from the beginning has to say about Israel and all other nations at the time of the end of days:

“And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it” (Zech. 12: 3).

So, with the world stage set, as far as geopolitical matters are concerned, let’s begin to try to look into the future, again with the crucial caveat that this is all speculation, though well-studied and prayed-over speculation on the part of yours truly. Daniel the prophet gave the endtime wrap up in one concise prophetic passage:

“And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate” (Dan. 9:27).

Will the consummation as foretold in that passage begin to rumble upon this judgment-bound earth something like this? Business will be going along at a dynamic clip, despite occasional blips, flare-ups, and glitches. Jesus tells us that in Luke 17: 26-29. The rich will be getting richer, the poor will be going further into poverty –despite the socialist-elites promises to the contrary. Terrorism will be pervasive, and increasingly so, just as Paul the apostle foretold when he said that men and seducers would grow worse and worse, and just as Jesus prophesied when He said things would be just like in Noah’s day, a time when violence filled the whole earth (Gen. 6:11,13).

The Arab Islamic states, wanting--as they have for millennia--to erase the Jews from the earth, will be looking for ways to penetrate Israel’s protective shell, fearful of direct assault because of Israel’s lethal nuclear arsenal. The world of diplomats–the so-called international community—will, led by the American State Department— be looking for a way to placate the hostile Islamics. Israel’s territory, as always, will be the offering on the altar of Mid-East peacemaking. This, while giving Israel little or no say in the offering.

Every major Mid-East terrorist organization, with headquarters in Damascus, Syria, will beat the drums of hatred against Israel as never before. Concern that Israel will take preemptive action will trouble the James Bakers of the times in this scenario. Even some who call themselves evangelical Christians will join with other religious entities to point a finger at Israel as the obstinate party in the growing threat to regional, maybe even world, peace.

We have seen that Jesus forewarned that the time of His coming again to Planet Earth will be “as it was in the days of Noah.” That is, the characteristics of the endtime generation will be like in the days presented in Genesis, chapter 6. When we look at that chapter, we conclude that it must have been a terrifying time. This must have been true especially for Noah and his seven family members while the time just before the Flood surrounded them. But, the whole generation of earth-dwellers must have lived under threat of violence. Violence filled the whole earth, God’s Word reports (Gen. 6: 11, 13). Even though business was moving along at a good, even accelerated pace, violence–terroristic activity--filled the earth.

Does this sound familiar? What did the president call the war declared upon an almost unidentifiable enemy following the 9/11 attacks? That’s correct,he called it “the war on terrorism.” And now the whole international community is uptight about the possibility of ramifications of the terror–the violence—that threatens to ignite war in the Middle East.

Every time such sparks begin to fly, members of the media begin to contact Todd and me, as well as others who have studied and expounded upon Armageddon and the “end of days,” as media like to frame the endtime. Violence of the deadliest sort fills the world with terror, and the cry for peace and safety from media and government diplomatic types proves it.

Jesus also said in His Luke 17 prophecies that things of society and economy would be pretty much business as usual at the time of His return at the end of days. People will be eating and drinking. Men and women will be marrying, divorcing, just like nothing fearful was going on in their world. Daniel the prophet said in Daniel chapter 12 that great progress would be made in technology, travel, and communications at the time of the end.

Again, does any of this sound familiar? As we can see from the strength of the American economy, things are booming, despite the fact that we are now a debtor nation at an unprecedented level. The United States is inarguably the most materially blessed nation-state in the history of the world. The greatest king of Bible times lived at nowhere near the level of luxury and comfort as do even lower middle-class Americans today.

So, in that sense, business is going along, in this country at least, better than merely business as usual. It is just at such time as described that Jesus will step out on the clouds of glory and shout “Come up hither!”

Bible prophecy tells us that the day of the Lord will come (will begin) as a thief in the night. A thief suddenly breaks in. He doesn’t say “Hey! I’m coming to break in!” That is how we can know that the thief-in-the-night-coming analogy is for another coming, not for the second advent –the time when Jesus’ foot will touch down on the Mount of Olives, which will then cleave in half and create a rift all the way to the Mediterranean. Nearly two-thirds of the world’s population will have perished in God’s full-blown wrath by the time of that Revelation 19:11 coming back to Planet Earth. Everyone on the planet still alive will see Christ’s coming to the earth’s surface.

The coming as a thief reference is to the rapture. It will be sudden, it will be stunning, it will be catastrophic.

Let us look at the potential calamitous things that will likely immediately follow the twinkling-of-an-eye intervention into this humanistic, last-days world of earth-dwellers.

In the United States, a young mother, pregnant with her second, and with a small daughter riding in the basket, will be walking down an aisle in a supermarket. A truck driver will be steering a semi-tractor/trailer rig onto a superhighway in order to merge with the heavy traffic flow. A 757 captain will push the throttles to full power, headed down a runway at JFK in New York. A surgeon at a major hospital in Minnesota will begin to make the initial scalpel cut that will open a heart patient’s chest for a bypass procedure. A funeral director will straighten a collar of the starched white shirt worn by a corpse, whose funeral is next on the services schedule.

In less than the time it takes for a neuroelectrical synapse firing in the brain to take place, the young mother’s womb is empty. She sees her little girl vanish as she, herself, starts her fall to the floor from the shock of the physiological changes that are taking place in her body. The 18-wheeler is careening into the traffic, driverless, out of control, crushing and demolishing vehicles and their passengers, while raging ahead in its ungoverned course.

The 757 on the JFK runway is at full take-off speed, but the pilot and co-pilot are not at the controls, while the right wingtip dips toward the runway and catastrophe. The surgeon in Minnesota finds the scalpel cutting air, rather than flesh, because the patient is gone. The funeral director staggers backwards, astonished, because the burial apparel he has been making just right for presentation has collapsed, and the corpse is no longer in the casket.

Those snippets –still-frame snapshots of the paradigm-changing dynamics of the rapture will geometrically burgeon from the instant this stunning event takes place. It will be the most powerful occurrence of human history since Christ’s first advent intervened into the affairs of mankind.

Believers are translated, changed in an atomos of time–in a fraction of an element of time that cannot be divided. They now look into the holy, omniscient eyes of their Lord that are fathomless in the depths of God’s love. He leads them through the portals of glory, to the city called heaven.

On earth, millions have vanished into nothingness before the stupefied eyes of billions of others. All earthly things that belonged to the departed ones remain behind, including clothing, jewelry, and prosthetics of every description.

I once heard a nationally known “reverend” –so-called-- (I don’t like the word “reverend” in reference to anyone on this fallen planet, because there is only one reverend, and He has just whisked all who are His into heaven for their eternal rewards) say something like this: “A rapture --if it were to be something that really happens—would mean that there would be unbelievable carnage upon the earth. God won’t let that happen.”

Hello, Reverend, but, what about the judgments for the end of days given by the Old and New Testaments? What about the Book of Revelation? The seals, trumpets, and vials don’t exactly give us the warm, fuzzy feeling that the era of apocalypse will be a tiptoe through the tulips.

The "Kingdom Now" folks, with their replacement theology, however, see these things written in the areas of biblical judgments and God’s wrath as allegory or symbolism. They spiritualize these prophecies, or treat them as already fulfilled. They preach and teach that the Church (Christians) will make this earth a better and better place until Christ can safely return to occupy His earthly throne. My dear Rapture Ready visitors and family--they are simply not looking at the same headlines as yours truly. And the headlines I’m experiencing each and every day coincide precisely with what God’s holy, inerrant Word has to say about the end of days –again—as the secular media like to call the end time.

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

Jesus himself prophesied for the very end of the tribulation: “And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days” (Mar. 13:20).

This world is in for a very rough ride, and the “reverend” was and is wrong in pronouncing that God would not allow carnage, thus a rapture is not in the future of mankind. Nothing could be more ludicrous.

The “thief in the night” prophecy is aimed particularly at the people who will be left behind after the rapture. That great event will certainly take most willfully ignorant Christians by total surprise, but it will not be like a “thief in the night” experience to them. We can know this from Paul the apostle's foretelling, when he writes to the Thessalonians –to all Christians of the Church Age (Age of Grace): “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness” (1 Thes. 5:2-5).

Note Paul’s use of the pronouns “they” and "them" versus "you,” “ye,” and “we.” He is differentiating between unbelievers and believers during this Church Age. The rapture, for all Christians who are alive at the time, will be an entirely different experience than the “thief in the night” experience of those left behind. We see this in John 14:1-3, and in Paul’s following comforting prophecy: “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ…” (Titus 2:13).

So, getting back to our earth-bound scenarios that we speculate will immediately follow the rapture, let us look at some dark probabilities.

The most immediate things that assault the senses, while people look around them, are the clothing and other things that fall to the ground, the pavement, the floors. The only evidence that those who suddenly vanished were ever on earth are the clothing and other personal items they no longer need. The prosthetic devices, too, of every sort, give the news pundits something to talk about on the programs that are dominated by one subject: the disappearance of millions.

But, in my speculative view, the most frightening, then, as the knowledge sets in, the most agonizing thing that will grip the world will be the fact that every single child who hasn’t reached the age of accountability for his or her soul will be gone from the planet in that millisecond of time. Every womb, of every left behind woman who was with child at the time of the disappearances will be instantaneously empty. God, in that astonishing moment, will make a monumental, and unmistakable statement about His opinion of when life begins in the conception process!

Continue with Part Two...