Hi everybody,
 
I felt like I was stood up at the alter when nothing happened on Tu B'Av.  I am a date setter and I can't help it.  Tu b"Av was a huge watch date.  It really hurt.  But I know I can't give up.  I feel an obligation to continue watching.  It just has to be close.
 
The way that I know that the rapture is very near is not so much any one thing, like the current world political situation or even the wild weather, it is how all the signs are coming together in such a "perfect storm," if that is the right word.  The strange sounds all over the world are a big clue.  The mass animal die-offs that have become so commonplace that not even the prophetic web sites are reporting them anymore.  The way things are playing out in the stars.  And then there are the solar flares from the sun.  The recent power grid failure that plunged as much as one-tenth of the earth's population into darkness.  The sudden increase in Christian persecution.  The spike in the viciousness of immorality and the homosexual agenda.  The seemingly recent increase in the number of diseases that are making the news.  Didn't science tell us a few years go that diseases were being wiped out rather than increasing?  The increase in wars and rumors of war makes one wonder how a worldwide conflict could have been avoided for so long.  The worldwide economic situation is so bad one wonders how it could have held together this long and not collapsed.  How could the US have borrowed one-fourth of all the money in the world?  And then there are all of the insults to God.  The homosexual community routinely dares God to strike them.  Scientists tamper with DNA in the same way that caused God to destroy the world in the flood back in the days of Noah, while at the same time scientists are on the very threshold of creating life in the lab through singularity.  There is a political vacuum in the world in search of a leader as one Muslim nation after another fights to the death to overthrow their existing leader.  We all know how nature abhors a vacuum.  And then there are all of the other cultures whose century old beliefs about the end times are converging on this particular moment in history.  I am not just talking about the Mayans and December 21, 2012.  The Aztecs believe Quetzalcoatl is about to return now.  The American plains Indians now have their prophesied white buffalo.  The Jews have their prophesied red heifer for the first time since their temple was destroyed in 70 AD.  The Eskimos have seen the fulfillment of their end times prophecy regarding the birth of a white buffalo as well.  The New Age movements believes the Age of Aquarius is about to begin.  I have heard of reports that New Age people who claim to be able to see into the future can't see past 2012.  I don't know much about that, and am afraid to research any farther, because that is getting into forbidden territory (as in witchcraft). The Buddhists believe Maitreya  is about to return.  Islam expects the return of the Mahdi at and moment.  The I-Ching independently predicts the end to occur on the winter solstice this year.  Meanwhile, the Zohar, which is a collection of books in the mystical Jewish Kabbalah from 13th century Spain, talks about the appearance of the Messiah at about this same general time.   I am sure there are more here, just can't think of them at the moment.  And, of course, there are the wildfires, floods, famines, and droughts.  There are rather spectacular signs that just scream "end times," like the recent plague of locusts, the plague of frogs that hit Greece awhile back, the recently reported turning blood red sea of Azov between Russia and Ukraine, the turning blood red of the Beirut River in Lebanon, and of course, the list goes on.  And lets not leave out the religious signs, like the apparent fulfillment of Saint Malachy's prophecies that put us right at the very end, and the prophesied increase in dreams and visions, and the prophesied falling away of believers in the last days.  And, of course, we are running out of time when it comes to the length of a generation and the fulfillment of Matthew 24 (in fact, we are slightly past due if you look at the definition of the length of a generation in the Psalms).  And before leaving the religious signs, lets not forget how fanatically vehement the atheists have become in their attempt to rip every shred of God from our nation.  And then there are all of the volcanoes that were dormant and are now coming back to life as if awakening from a deep sleep.  And did I mention the string of incredibly rare string of blood moons and solar eclipses that just happen to fall on Jewish feast days?  The Euphrates is drying up.  So is the Nile.  Likewise, the Mississippi is shrinking quickly, just like a lot of other rivers around the world.  Water tables are dropping as well.  The food supply is under attack from every conceivable source and direction.  Bluefin tuna caught along the coast of California are contaminated with radiation from the Fukishima disaster in Japan.  And last but certainly not least, the main reason that I believe the rapture is near is the sudden and dramatic increase in intensity of evil in the world.  I am at a total loss to find the words to describe this, but it is just one horrific event after another in the news, like naked growling zombies eating the flesh of living people, and others trying to kill as many as possible and then can't even remember why they did it, like in the recent shooting in Colorado.  Didn't the Bible say something about Satan being frantic in the last days because he knows his time is short?
 
We have to hang in there a little longer.  Jesus is coming.  He just has to be.  After all, how much longer can the pressure build in the world?  I just can't give up watching.  Not now.  I just feel really, really alone right now.
 
Carl Worline
oaktree3168@aol.com