DEAR SAINTS,

MORE FOR THESE END TIMES.

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April 21

Will The Rapture Trigger A Financial Meltdown?

It has long been thought by prophecy scholars that the days following the rapture will be ones of great turmoil. I’ve read several books by people who have speculated what the post-rapture world will be like, and the vast majority glosses over the impact that millions of missing people will have on society. The ones who do refer to the fallout typically envision a profound physiological shock that is quickly followed by a return to normalcy.

The "Left Behind" series offers the most famous account of what the world will be like after the rapture. The novel focuses on the several days of turmoil the rapture wreaks on an airline. When you consider that airlines are always in some state of chaos, LaHaye's and Jenkins’ account seems to imply business as usual.

I firmly believe the rapture will devastate the American economy so badly that no one will be able to ignore the consequences. The crisis in the subprime mortgage market is what caused me to realize that the rapture will trigger an economic collapse.

A few months ago, I was reading a report on how many houses were in default. When considering the bill for the loss to the global banking system was around $400 billion at the time–now slated at nearly $1 trillion--I figured that around maybe 5 percent of the homes in America were in default. The actual number was around 1 percent.

I realize the financial havoc created by the rapture would make chump change out of the current housing crisis. With tens of millions of homeowners missing, banks would be stuck with losses that could easily add up into the trillions of dollars.

With a glut of houses on the market, the value of the $40 trillion in home equity would spiral down. The resulting collapse would not just mean that banks would begin to fail, one after another. The shortfall will be so massive the whole banking system itself would come crashing down.

The mortgage meltdown would be just one factor. Carnage of equal magnitude would play out in the debt markets for consumer credit, corporate, auto, and student loans.

The people who have asked me if they can have my car after the rapture will quickly learn the folly of their pre-rapture request. The sudden glut of used vehicles will be largely ignored as people’s interest turns more basic. At some point in the tribulation hour, I’m sure a person could buy a brand new Cadillac with a can of baked beans.

America seems oddly set up for a financial fall. It is the most indebted nation on earth. The average American family owes $9000 on their credit cards, less than 2% of the cars on the road are owned by those who drive them, and less than 1% of the homes are owned by the people who live in them.

Foreign governments and investors hold nearly a trillion dollars of our federal debt. When they realize what has happened, they will dump U.S. assets at any price. The world will turn to currencies like the euro and the yen for stability.

“With our money being worthless, there will no longer be the ability to import fossil fuels. The gas lines of the 70's will seem like a pleasant dream compared to what this would be like. Also, this will have a devastating effect upon the agriculture and transportation sectors. The transportation system will not be able to distribute food without gas or diesel. Industry will largely grind to a halt. No longer will the economy be able to function. It will be the end of the American global empire. As with the fall of the Roman Empire, America would be forced out of economic necessity to close its military bases around the world. There would be no money for government services, education, pensions, health care, security, etc.” ("The Collapse of the U.S. Dollar," http://www.geocities.com/northstarzone/EURO.html).

The rapture will have a very painful impact on the rest of the world, but it won’t mean total calamity. Because Christians only make up a small percentage of the population of most nations, they won’t see the anarchy that will likely sweep over North America. This reality is even true for Europe, where only about 2% of the population can be counted as true believers.

Bible scholars have long wondered why the United State is not mentioned in prophecy. I think the rapture meltdown could be the reason Uncle Sam is missing from the end-time scenario.

If you’re someone who has said, “I can’t wait until these Christians are gone,” you might want to reconsider your future planning. I wish the devil, Antichrist and the false prophet would be the only ones left behind after the rapture, but I know that only a minority of the population will be rapture ready. Because the consequences are very high, I ask everyone with any doubt to rethink where you stand with God.

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

-- Todd


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Prophecy Pressures Mounting

Periodically taking a look at the developing big picture, in snapshot fashion, is efficacious to best serving as watchmen of the prophetic clock. With this in mind, let’s–in general terms--examine several current matters of interest so far as might concern Bible prophecy.

Pressures are mounting that indicate increasingly swift movement toward accomplishment of the globalist agenda, in my view. This isn’t shocking, considering all of the other end-of-the-age signals we consistently observe in these columns. The unusual thing I find that activates the sirens of alert is that there is no one, attention-grabbing issue or event that stands out while looking upon the march of eschatological possibilities. All are profound, when viewed in prophetic light, yet they meet in confluence and flow through our daily news without raising much of an alarm, even among those of us who make observing these matters our primary area of work.

We are witnessing a flood of such issues and events. It is at the moment a controlled flood, but a flood nonetheless. I’m convinced it is the beginnings of a torrent that will gush ungoverned once Christ says “come up here” to the Church.

Daniel framed the warning of that flood for the generation that would be living witness to the end of the age:

“And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined” (Dan 9:26).

Daniel was told further: “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased (Dan. 12:4a).

The flood that the prophet was told would come at the end will be a war that will reach its terminus only after desolation is accomplished--i.e., it will end only with Christ’s catastrophic intervention into the murderous affairs of mankind at the end of Armageddon (Rev. 19:11).

We hear these days, even from secular pundits, that we are already in World War Three, but just don’t realize it yet. For my part, I can’t shake the impression that the attacks on America on September 11, 2001 might have been the first of the major salvos from satanic forces opening up the spigots of the end-times flood given Daniel to prophesy to this present generation.

With that as framework, let’s look briefly at the pressures building for bringing in that flood about which Daniel the prophet was given forewarning.

The Babylonian system is with this generation; it has been present within every generation. The system of moving back toward Babel, that is, toward one world government, socio-economics, and religion has never been as evident as today.

The system of humanistic government, represented in prophetic Scripture by the metallic image of Daniel, chapter 2, the weird beast of Daniel, chapter 7, the strange creature upon which the harlot rides in Revelation, chapter 12, and the beast that comes out of the sea in Revelation, chapter 13, is on the rise while the pressures of ancient luciferian ambitions force end-times prophetic manifestations to the surface of our headlines.

All of it is wrapped in globalist thinking. We are marching back toward the one-world attempts in Genesis, chapter 11, that brought God’s direct intervention those many millennia ago.

Attempts at establishing one world government proceeds full-steam ahead. One world economy is the driving force behind the attempts to recapture the spirit of Babel. Both global government and economy are intertwined with a religious fervor for saving the planet from ecological disaster. The world’s most powerful governmental collective–known as the Quartet (the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia)—are doing their utmost to force their will on the main actors in the Middle East. They strive to construct a peace that will never eventuate, in the true sense. Their purpose is to govern the flow of oil and to prevent Armageddon from igniting. Global economic control is the power that can bring all into compliance –the ability to bring the burgeoning world population into subjugation through the stranglehold of buying and selling. Environmentalism is the religion that looks to be the catalyst for attempting to win the hearts and minds of the peoples of the world. Earth Day seems to be the holiday the globalists have chosen as the sacrosanct day of worship at the alter of the developing Mother Earth goddess.

Regardless of the political, cultural, and societal differences, most all religious systems seem to embrace the call to come together for the unified purpose of making life on this sphere equally livable through sustainable development. Even the Christian evangelical Rick Warren has his own PEACE plan to achieve heaven on earth.

But, all the pressures being brought upon this world to comply with the globalists' movement toward one world will produce not peace, but fulfilled prophecy. God will again intervene to put an end to the neo-Babel builders.

“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure” (Psalms 2:1-5).

--Terry