Rapture Near: Part I
By Terry James"How near do you think the rapture might be?" This or similar questions issue from people, both believers in Christ and nonbelievers. The queries come during question-and-answer sessions at prophecy conferences, and from interviewers such as my History Channel interviewer last June during filming for a series of documentaries on prophecy.
Despite innate skepticism, even within believers, one senses that there flows just beneath the surface of decorum in posing the question a visceral trepidation that there will be such a thing as "the rapture." While those who attend prophecy conferences and secular media types seem genuinely to want an opinion on how near the rapture is, there is almost zero interest in that great event within Christ's church in general. This singular reality is, by itself, a factor worth examination while contemplating the question: "How near do you think the rapture might be?" More about that in due course.
To begin considering matters involved, the question can't be adequately entertained to any degree of understanding without analyzing our strange times — this bordering-on-bizarre generation that Jesus himself was most likely prophesying in the Olivet Discourse and other places in Scripture.
America presently has a collective nervous twitch. Worry about the diseased economy is the instigator of the societal surface spasms. Uncertainty about what direction —and how quickly — will be movement into the changes President Barack Obama promised and is trying to deliver has, rather than put minds at ease, caused a form of national schizophrenia. The schism separates Americans in crucial areas of politics and morality, which are in most aspects inextricably linked.
Those divisions threaten to raise the national temperature to a fever pitch. There is a sense that, as radio talk-show host Glen Beck says, a powerful crisis event lurks in the immediate future. It will be the crisis, Beck believes, that will cause government to snap its voracious, all-consuming, lust-to control jaws shut on liberty.
So, it is more than a matter of curiosity that leads me to think upon the many issues and events swirling about this generation that seem almost certainly of biblically prophetic significance. This, while there is the obvious disconnect of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the most part, from those foreboding issues and events that are everywhere we look.
Pocketbook issues almost always lead the way with the adult American citizen. This is a fact, whether talking about those who produce income or those who don't. And, therein lies much of the division in America today. The great political — and cultural — schism, like it or not, is provably engendered and perpetuated by those who work, pay taxes, and contribute to the nation's economic progress, versus those who don't work, but receive the taxpayer-funded largesse of growing government that is devoted to taking care of and growing exponentially its voter base from cradle to grave. This is not to say society — particularly private charity — should neglect the truly needy, those who can't work because of physical or mental incapacity.
Cynical? If so, it is cynicism steeped in provable statistics, the presentation of which isn't the thrust of this essay. Such thought — at least in a general sense — is necessary, however, in order to understand the role the riches of this fallen world play in setting up today's prophetic alignment and the nearness of the rapture.
The wallet issue that is front and center — that is most intensely focused on — is the “healthcare for everyone” debate. Universal coverage so that no person will go without healthcare is the proclaimed great concern the politicians parade before the sycophantic mainstream media microphones and cameras. But, in the cabals of behind-the-scenes power politics, it is ever-increasing governmental control — not equitable health care for allAmericans — that many within government seek. Congressional leaders, as we know, have not been leading the way en masse to give everyone the same premium healthcare system they themselves enjoy.
Control, then, is the operative word in thinking on the question: "How near might be the rapture?" Control of economy, of monetary matters, is the thrust that impels human leaderships within government toward the time of absolute power that will corrupt absolutely. The Antichrist regime is the ultimate government that lurks in the dark haze of the prophetic future.
Glen Beck, although I'm convinced he hasn't a clue of what will be the true crisis that will fling open the gate to enslavement, is on the mark in sensing that there hovers an unprecedented moment of crisis somewhere just ahead. That crisis will with unbelievable swiftness sweep everyone into its vortex of soul-rending calamity.
Next week, we will look more deeply into how near the rapture might be.
