Are we Done?

It’s surprising how hard it is to find a simple timeline of the end times, including the rapture. I am Googling today, and I haven’t found it yet.

The rapture is a real event. It has been foreshadowed clearly more than once. Noah and his family were lifted up above those who hated God. Lot was drawn out of Sodom before it was destroyed. Moses and the Hebrews were protected from the plagues of Egypt, and they were moved to a place of safety while their enemies drowned behind them. God does similar things over and over, and he expects us to notice and understand that there is a pattern he follows.

The Lord and his prophets gave us information so we would have a general idea when to expect the rapture. Certain events have to occur first. I’m trying to find out what those events were. The world is descending rapidly into unprecedented turmoil, and it seems to me, for various reasons, that it will be unsustainable. It won’t be like past challenges that left mankind standing. Because things are going so badly, and for other reasons, I’m wondering if the rapture is closer than we thought.

The end of the current age will lead into the tribulation, which will be a time of terrible suffering on earth. It will be as though the upper boundary of hell had been raised above the surface of the earth. Christians who are really on board with the Holy Spirit won’t be here to see it. Like Noah’s family, we will be extracted in advance.

Unfortunately, we will still suffer, because Jesus made it plain that we would be here long enough to experience terrible persecution. We will be murdered and imprisoned. We will be hated. We already see these things happening. It’s nothing new in the Muslim world, and it’s spreading to the US. We’re not being murdered for our faith very often, but we are being driven out of jobs and we are facing increased ostracism and reviling. Anti-Christian sentiment is now mainstream.

Powerful Christians suffer less. I can tell you that right now. I’ve seen it. God puts bubbles around people he has chosen. Weak Christians have less help and protection. They don’t listen, and their prayer lives are not good. They leave doors open.

My understanding of the way things work is that even a powerful Christian may be martyred, but that such a person’s suffering will ordinarily come toward the end of his life, over a relatively brief period. I don’t believe strong Christians can live in defeat for decades on end. It’s not consistent with God’s promises.

Paul suffered a lot, but he seems to have been an unusual case, and my feeling about Paul is that he didn’t always do the right thing. He appears to have been an angry, argumentative person, and he may have gotten ahead of the Holy Spirit and exposed himself to danger unnecessarily from time to time. We know he had a problem with pride, because he said God allowed him to have a thorn in his flesh to prevent him from being overly exalted.

We tend to think of great Biblical figures as perfect role models, but that’s not true. They were flawed.

The Bible says “the son of perdition” must be revealed before the rapture. Does that mean we can’t go until a single identifiable person becomes famous as the Antichrist?

Maybe not.

First of all, even if there is a single man who will be called the Antichrist, he’s just part of a bigger entity. Satan has a body of people who are controlled through their flesh because they aren’t Spirit-led. Satan, who is the real Beast, speaks and acts through this body. The voice of the mobs we are seeing now is the voice of the Beast, even though we don’t know of one man who can conclusively be called the Antichrist.

Second, the Bible says the son of perdition will be “revealed.” Does that mean we have to know the name and face of one person? God has shown me that the Beast is here, in the mob movement. Doesn’t that mean the son of perdition has been revealed? I got it by revelation. Revelation is what happens when something is revealed.

It’s interesting that Paul used the term “son of perdition,” because Judas was called “the son of perdition” in John 17:12.

Judas was a disciple. He probably believed Jesus was God. A lot of Christians think the Antichrist will be a Muslim or some kind of sorcerer, but the term “antichrist” actually comes from the discussion of Christians who turned against God because they didn’t listen to the Holy Spirit. The Bible talks of antichrists who “went out from us.”

Some people believe Judas did not want Jesus to be killed. They think he tried to manipulate him into overthrowing the Romans and defeating their puppets in the temple. The idea is that if Jesus were in trouble, he would have to use his power to crush the people who were against him. This may well be true.

God showed me that his human enemies don’t promote evil while calling it evil. They call it good. I use the term “alternative righteousness” to describe it. They claim they’re doing good when they promote homosexuality or they burn cities or martyr Christians for Islam.

Christians are supposed to do what the Holy Spirit tells them, and they are supposed to rely on God’s power. Instead, most of us strive in our flesh, doing what we wrongly think is right. We exalt ourselves. We brag about how hard we work for God and how much we suffer for him. We feel that our accomplishments, which are worthless, are our own, and that we should be admired. We rely on natural tools instead of supernatural power.

Jesus had a plan, and that plan was to be crucified in order to crush Satan. The Holy Spirit gave him this plan. Judas didn’t care about the Holy Spirit. He was a natural man, like a pope or a rabbi. It may well be that by betraying Jesus, he wanted to force him to advance the Judas plan. Get rid of the Romans, get rid of the priests, put the Jews back on top, and make Judas a wealthy and powerful ruler.

It would certainly explain why a man who knew Jesus was powerful would sell him to the priests.

Most Christians rely on natural tools, and they try to advance their own plans, so they are children of perdition and antichrists. Many, many of the rioters who are abusing us now identify strongly as Christians.

If the mob is part of the body of the Beast, and at least one Christian is saying so publicly, hasn’t the man of perdition been revealed?

In the Bible, “man” doesn’t necessarily mean one person. Paul used the term to describe the entire body of Christ. Look at Ephesians.

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.

“In himself” appears to mean “in the body of Christ,” or, to state the same thing another way, “in the group of people who are led by the Holy Spirit.”

If the Christ is one man and many people, how can the Antichrist not be one man and many people?

There is always symmetry in the supernatural.

Smug Christians like to sneer and say, “People have always said the end is near.” They’re not good at math or analyzing current trends. They’re asleep because they like to sleep. There are nearly 8 billion human beings now. The earth has a limited capacity, and we are filling it up. That has never happened before. Technology is destroying free will, and that has never been possible until now. Without free will, there is no reason for the current age to continue. Free will is essential in order for God’s work of separating the righteous from the wicked to continue.

I keep having the feeling that what I do in the natural doesn’t matter now. I keep feeling that I don’t have to take care of my earthly responsibilities because something is going to happen to make them unimportant. If you knew your house were going to burn down, you wouldn’t paint the kitchen or fix the roof. I keep wondering if the end, or at least my own end, is very close.

The mobs are divided. We have a violent, murderous mob on the left, and we have a carnal, civilized mob playing defense on the right. One mob behaves like a pack of animals, hurting even those who make it clear they side with them. The other mob thinks hard work, AR15’s, and voter turnout will save them. Neither mob hears from the Holy Spirit, who always brings agreement between those who listen to him. The Holy Spirit is the one who creates one new man.

People identify with colors, parties, and nations. We are supposed to identify with the body of Christ. We divide ourselves in accordance with trivial distinctions, and we don’t seek the only unity that works.

Patriotism has some usefulness, but I can’t see myself primarily as an American. I can’t think of myself as someone who has obligations to the white race, either. I can’t have conflicts. God has to be number one. Not many people feel this way. Right now in America, most black people are taught that their earthly race has to be the most important, most controlling thing in their lives, and that they have to believe what their leftist leaders tell them. Blacks are just like Jews. They have no freedom of thought or allegiance.

I’m not black or Jewish. I can belong to any political party I choose. I can believe Jesus is the Messiah without having my family and friends tell me I’m a Nazi. I can associate with most gentiles without worrying that I’ll be reviled for thinking for myself. If I were black or Jewish, I wouldn’t have any of this freedom. Blacks and Jews live in straitjackets, and so do many Hispanics.

Non-black, non-Hispanic gentiles have much more freedom than anyone else, but it isn’t helpful if we align ourselves primarily with anything other than the body of Christ.

Jesus said the end times would be marked by betrayal. How can our friends betray us if Christians aren’t vulnerable to delusion? If our enemies are against us, it’s not betrayal. It has to be people we loved and trusted. It has to mean weak Christians. I wonder how many black friends I’ll lose. I’ve already lost family members, and I have certainly been betrayed by preachers and the cult members who follow them.

All of us have to be ready to put the body of Christ before loved ones. You have to be prepared to drop people so they won’t pull you down and drown you.

I feel grief for America. I’m not unhappy, but I feel cut off from my country. Should I call it my former country? I feel separated from the people who will not make it in the rapture. There is nothing I can do for them except talk and pray. In the end, they have to save themselves by giving in. I can’t force that, and God won’t.

I am concerned that the grief I feel may actually be the grief of the Holy Spirit, warning me about the future. If so, then it’s well-founded, and things are worse than I thought.

Is there any way the rapture could be far off? Our population’s growth would have to stop. There could be a real plague, unlike coronavirus, but it seems improbable. We are very good at dealing with infectious diseases now, even when we can’t cure them. We might develop strict laws regarding who gets to reproduce. Forced abortion might make a move from China to the rest of the globe.

What about technology? Can we slow down the destruction of free will and privacy? I think this is impossible. Technology never goes backward. It’s like a fatal viral disease. Once you’ve got it, you can’t get rid of it or make it stop progressing.

Things aren’t proceeding linearly. They’re getting worse exponentially. Our decline is accelerating. It’s not a steady thing. How much faster will it be moving in a year?

Part of me hopes the rapture will come ASAP. The world is looking more and more like a dish of moldy food with a few bits that can still be cut out and eaten. Participating it is becoming very unrewarding. It would be nice to move on to something better. But the rapture will be followed by horrible suffering, and people I know will be here to feel it. The Bible says receiving salvation during the tribulation will be a terrible experience. It would be nicer for those who are not ready if they had more time under the current rules.

Let’s see where we are a month from now. If our cities still look like Mogadishu, it may be a sign that the end is very close.