Summary of Bible references on the Rapture

1Samuel 12 -- part 2

Do not be afraid of climate change. The Lord is able to save us. Money is a useless idol and it cannot save you. What exactly is money? It was first created as a way to make it easier to exchange goods and services. From its inception we have struggled with trusting it. Initially the coins were made of gold or silver because that was a valuable commodity. Salt was even used as a form of currency. But people soon realized this is limiting to the economy, the ruler then set up a currency with a cheaper metal but with his image and superscription on it. Finally we came up with a “brilliant” invention called “fiat currency”. This is truly brilliant if there were no criminals or con men. However, if there are criminals then the smart ones become bankers. Here is how it works, I want to buy a car and I need to borrow $20,000. I call the bank and I make a loan with the bank, promising to pay them back over several years. So they write down $20,000 on one side of the page (that is their liability) and on the other side they write down my contract to pay them back with interest (that is the asset that offsets this liability) and “poof” they have just created $20,000 out of nothing. I get the car and the dealer gets the $20,000 that didn’t exist until that day. But now there is more money in the system and you will see the value of that $20,000 decrease over time. Spending $20,000 on a car in 1971 is quite different from spending $20,000 in 2021, 50 years later. You could buy a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow for less than that in 1971. Today you can’t even buy a Honda Civic. But look what happens when they are in trouble, like this Pandemic. The Federal Reserve has been “buying” trillions of dollars in ETF funds. These are mutual funds of all the bonds from the fortune 500 companies. On one side they write $1 trillion dollars and on the other side they acquire $1 trillion dollars of these worthless bonds. This is exactly what a termite does, the prices all remain the same and the economy is propped up, but the supporting structure is being hollowed out $1 trillion dollars at a time. There is nothing real backing this up. The idea that the currency is based on the GDP has been completely thrown out the window. If no one repays those debts then the dollar collapses, runaway inflation.

This promise is to “His people”. It should be clear to all that right now the US and the world is a field in which both wheat and tares are growing together. God is not going to reject the wheat, but the tares will be thrown into the fire.

Yes, those that are the Lord have this responsibility. Speak truth and pray. Your job as a believer is to teach others what is right and to pray for them.

It is amazing to me how people have completely shut their ears to any reason and have set themselves to do evil. The Lord’s people have been standing against abortion for as long as this has been an issue. But think about it, every year millions more are aborted and there are men and women responsible for those deaths. Imagine a giant cup of guilt and shame that is being filled with the blood of those aborted babies. Telling people that those babies are people you murdered innocents is condemnation to them. They can’t stand it, they hold their ears, they gnash their teeth, and now they have finally become completely deranged.

1Samuel 13 -- The rapture, like resurrection, will establish the Lord and His people in the eyes of nations

Let’s remember the three experiences Samuel told Saul he would have. First don’t be anxious about your donkeys, don’t be anxious about anything, but by prayer and petition let your requests be made known to God. He blew the trumpet so we know his request was made known to Israel. Samuel told him to wait for seven days, so we know the request was made known to the prophet. Second, the sharing of the sacrificial bread told Saul he was now part of God’s household, God would take care of him. Third, the Spirit came and filled him, making him a different person. The triune God is fully involved and responsible for this kingdom. Trust God. That is the final lesson, wait for me for seven days in Gilgal. The Christian life is a life of faith. This battle was a test of Saul’s faith. He is completely outnumbered and the Philistines are far better equipped, according to the flesh. The difference in the battle is not men, or spears or chariots. The difference is the triune God. He doesn’t want the battle to be even, He wants them to have a huge advantage according to the flesh so that all the glory would be to God. Look at Jesus, one man against the entire Roman Empire and the entire Jewish religious organization. He had no chance, no chance.

“When I saw the men were scattering”. As believers we have to know the ways of God. Remember with Gideon how God whittled down the forces to 300 men so that they would have nothing to boast of. God was designing a victory that would have established Saul in their eyes the way He established David in their eyes with the defeat of Goliath. When you see this you should be scared, you should realize what it means that believers “walk by faith, not by sight”. It will be a very scary thing, so scary that those without faith cannot do it. This failure exposed Saul, he didn’t have faith and yet he was able to reign for 42 years. Judgement was determined against him from this failure and yet God could still use him to train David.

Wow! He just left Saul at Gilgal outnumbered and outmatched! Do you still want to be king? Let’s be real here, the Lord will allow the Philistines to capture the ark in order to train His people, He will allow His people to choose Saul instead of David in order to train them. One way or another you will learn the lesson, you can obey the Lord like Abraham when he offered up Isaac, or you can do your own thing like Saul. But one way or another you will learn the lesson.

This reminds me of today. How is it that Christians who represent over 50% of the country are not controlling 50% of the mainstream media, or 50% of the tech giants or 50% of the elected officials. Why did we allow the Philistines to take all the weapons? They control the message, they control what people can and cannot say on social media, what they hear on mainstream news and what happens in the halls of government.

1Samuel 14 -- No one is going to listen to your idiotic rules.

There is a very strong contrast between Jonathan and Saul in the last chapter. In the last chapter Saul is in a panic because people are leaving, in this chapter Jonathan decides to leave, but not to run away but just to see if God will give them a victory. In the last chapter Saul is looking at the superior numbers and equipment of the Philistines and the lack of armament of the Israelites and he is doubting God’s faithfulness, thinks Samuel has forsaken him, and does not wait on the Lord. In this chapter Jonathan seems oblivious to all that, all he seems to see is God and wonder if God could work a miracle with one sword.

Samuel left so Saul sent for the high priest? Is the priest wearing an ephod hoping to get a word from God? This is very typical, God gives you a word but you don’t like the word you’ve been given so let’s go get another man of God to give us a word hoping that it will be different.

I am reminded of a movie called “Free Solo” about a man who does rock climbing without a rope. It is the most incredibly audacious, terrifying and riveting movie I have ever seen. What a way to live. Someone asked this man saying “I don’t get it, if you make one mistake you die?” He responded, “sounds like you get it just fine”. What a contrast with Saul, stuck under a tree with 600 men, woe is me, the Philistines want to kill me, Samuel hates me, quick let’s ask someone else for a word from God, hopefully it is different.

What exactly is this sign? There are two kinds of bullies in the world, just like there are two kinds of dogs, which I have once heard explained this way: one kind barks, the other bites. Jonathan knew they would be bullies, the question was which kind? If they attack they are the ones who bite, if they say “come here so we can kill you” they are simply barking, they are bluffing. That is the kind of bully you punch in the nose. We are seeing this today, lots of threats, lots of bullying, but then dig a little deeper and you see what cowards they are. AOC, the same woman who wanted to make black lists of Trump supporters is cowering in the bathroom half a mile away when she learns there are protestors entering the Capitol building. I get that she doesn’t want to fight a mob, but she is half a mile away, just go out the back door to somewhere safer they will never find you. She wasn’t even in the Capitol building. Maxine Waters so bold to incite violence and attacks on others is falling all over herself trying to explain away what she has said. Chuck Schumer seems to have gone silent about his inciting a mob at the Supreme court. It looks like a big, powerful organization that will crush us, but in reality it is so riddled with termites that one false move and the whole building will collapse on top of them. Someone asked one question of Biden concerning Xi with China and he became terrified, afraid to criticize Xi. They have surrounded the capitol with barbed wire and thousands of troops. Pelosi says “the enemy is within”. They are all quaking in their boots. This is the kind of bully you punch in the nose.

Hey, I would like to learn a lesson. I think this chapter gives us a great lesson on what it is to follow the Lord. Where is the power of the Left coming from: Bribing people, blackmailing people, and threats. Everyone hates them, they despise them, they know they are liars. Biden speaks at the Superbowl and he is booed. No one believes he is the most popular president in US history. No one would have booed Obama or Reagan. No one wants to die for Pelosi or Schumer. AOC is the boldest one among them and she is cowering in the bathroom.

Let’s understand the math here. The enemy had 3,000 chariots and 6,000 charioteers, but obviously you can’t get a chariot up in an outpost you have to climb up rocks to get to. They also had soldiers without number, but they fill the plain and I guess are just for show. Meanwhile these twenty are spread out in an area half an acre, that is not a big area on flat land, but in rocks where you have a narrow way Jonathan and his armor bearer were probably able to fight against two or at the most three at a time. These guys are cowards. Otherwise they would have sent a company of ten men out to get Jonathan.

Again, we are not fighting alone. God is with us. Jonathan had to have the courage to go take a look. Jonathan had to have the insight to know the difference between dogs who bark and those who bite. But once that happens God is able to use that little spark to light a fire. They are being attacked, that is true, one of the outposts has fallen, that is true, twenty of the Philistines have been killed that is also true. That is enough to spread all kinds of horrifying and scary rumors among an army that knows their leaders are liars and cheats and don’t trust them. This is what we saw on March 4th, evidence is now coming out about Cuomo is going to fall, Newsom is going to fall, Cheney is going to fall and Bill Clinton’s right hand man is now cooperating with the DOJ in an investigation into a pedophile ring that Clinton may have been involved in. They are all terrified, shaking in their boots.

Seriously, they had brought the ark of God to the battlefield again? This is superstition. What we need from God is one word. God had already spoken it, this is a paper tiger, one match and they will all go up in flames. Saul rejected that word but Jonathan embraced it. People who don’t have faith become superstitious, needing idols. Our victory is not by power or might. We don’t have more soldiers or more chariots. Our victory is also not by vain idols, they are useless. Our victory is by the Lord’s Spirit. That is what we have. His word. Believe it, receive it, obey it.

This sounds pretty incredible, but not as much as you would think. The day after Biden is elected BLM and Antifa rioted in Washington state, later they protested in Washington DC. Cancel culture is attacking everyone. They are not driven by principles. People who kill and destroy because it makes them feel powerful will kill and destroy anyone. When you put together a coalition of many disparate groups that have no uniting principle then you have a very dangerous and combustible situation. The LGBTQ demand one thing so Biden destroys girls sports, disenfranchising many of those in this coalition. Others demand something else so he destroys tens of thousands of union jobs disenfranchising unions. He cancels the border wall construction and loses more supporters. He cuts peace deals with Iran and China and still more become disillusioned. He doesn’t want to support the Antifa agenda, that was simply a means to an end, well they have figured that out and so hell hath no fury like an Antifa mob that is spurned. They are going to turn on themselves, all they need is the tiniest of excuses. They are terrified about what will be the next shoe to drop. Cuomo refuses to go quietly, who will he take down with him?

People are calling for fasting and prayer. Get off of the social media platforms. Yet how can we communicate and coordinate?

There are a lot of people who have nothing to do with the left. They might have voted for Biden, they might support liberal policies, but that doesn’t mean they support abortion, destroying women’s sports, or releasing felons into the community. Be friendly, be open, communicate, don’t take the insults personally. Open your eyes and we can completely rout this plague among us. Think about Bill Maher, he ridicules Christians and the Bible. That said he is a strong defender of free speech and sees how moronic and childish the entire cancel culture is. We can work together on issues we agree on, that is what mature adults do.

I have an issue with Saul who broke faith with God telling us that we have broken faith, but he is not wrong. Someone can say offensive things like Trump has said, it doesn’t therefore mean that everything he does must also be wrong. The Bible is clear, don’t eat meat with the blood. He may have provoked this by having a call to fast during a battle. This may be one of th most inept and idiotic commands a military commander ever gave. But being a fool in military strategy doesn’t mean he is wrong about everything.

Just when you think Saul being a fool and an idiot was a one time thing he goes and does this. Do not be mistaken, Saul is trying to pin this idiocy on God. “You have sinned, you must die!” He didn’t sin, he ate some honey. He was not aware of this ridiculous rule that Saul made and that rule is not in the Bible. Saul is not God and this is the point of the story. God wants to make sure everyone knows it. You gave this rule, your son violated it, and you know what, so what. No one is going to listen to your idiotic rules. So glad we don’t do things like that. I mean sure, our government is now claiming that the 75 million people who supported the Republican presidential candidate must now be deprogrammed. Sure, some suggestions have been to use predator drones against Trump supporters because we use them against terrorists in Afghanistan. Yes, they seem to have forgotten that the constitution protects freedom of speech and freedom of worship and the right to bear arms, and the right to not self incrimination. True there have been some really idiotic things said recently in the US. They have decided to ban Dr. Seuss and they are claiming that babies that are three months old are racist. And sure, there are now Governors and Attorney generals and Sheriffs saying they will not listen to the idiotic rules coming out of the Whitehouse. OK, I get it, we still have fools and idiots even today.

1Samuel 15 How do you produce a king?

Wow! Can you believe this? It is hard for us now to fathom this. So let me explain what he is saying. This is Samuel, the little kid who has been in the temple since the day he was weaned. He is the one the Lord spoke through when Eli and his sons were so corrupt. Yet Saul is already trying to replace Samuel with some other priest, this would be like the New England Patriots getting rid of Tom Brady after he led them to 9 super bowls. This would be like the Chicago Bulls breaking up the Bulls after they had won their 6th championship. It is unbelievable and yet, sadly, it is true. How arrogant can you get.

Yes, Saul failed in the last battle with the Philistines. He didn’t listen carefully to the word of the Lord, he didn’t put himself on the altar, he had the sin of unbelief. But I think we have all had this experience, I have. When you do, when you realize the Lord spoke to you and you did not carefully follow exactly what He said that burns you. That is something you remember again and again. Now Saul has a second chance. Don’t be a fool, remember how hard it was the first time and this time take it seriously. Start by building an altar. Start by giving yourself fully to the lord. Pray over this word till you are filled with faith.

There is a lot of improvement from the last battle. We see real strategy, he remembers the word of God and treats the Kenites properly.

Not again! Seriously, what did God say? What did Samuel say? “Totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them.” This may seem unchristian to you. Know this, Haman was a descendant of the people that Saul spared, Haman almost wiped out Israel in a mass genocide. This is who the Amalekites are, another kind of bully. They are the dog that bites, but not the heroic guard dog that takes on the robber to protect the house, they are like the hyenas looking to pick off the elderly and the children. They are like a snake secretly planning to wipe out an entire people because one guy (Mordecai) didn’t bow low enough when you passed by. God is omniscient, you aren’t. Also the idea that Saul spared these out of some kind of Christian charity is false, he kept the things that were valuable to enrich himself and his supporters.

Samuel knew that this would be Saul’s second (and last chance), that is why he was so explicit with the instructions.

The hits keep coming. “Set up a monument in his own honor.” This is what the world does but it is not what men of faith do. God has blessed us with all blessings that we would be to the praise of His glory. All praise and glory is to God.

This is the kind of person who just does not get it, can’t get it, he is incapable of getting it. He knew that it was crucial to “carry out the Lord’s instructions” but simply glossed over those instructions, ignoring the things that he wanted to ignore.

Once again Saul pins the blame on God. ‘We ignored God’s instructions because we wanted to sacrifice to the Lord!’

There have to be consequences. If you raise and train people where there are no consequences then they assume there are no consequences.



You used to be small in your own eyes so how is it that you think you know better than God, that you can ignore His explicit instructions? This is a central question to this book, how do you raise a David, how do you produce a David, how do you spot a David? Think about it, every single football team wants this skill. They would all have drafted Saul as one of the top 3 picks and like Tom Brady they wouldn’t have drafted David until pick #199. Tom Brady was not very good that first year, barely made the NFL, how do you produce a Tom Brady from an average or even below average quarterback prospect? Right now it is a mystery, when we see David we can get some more insight.

Jesus was obedient unto death and that the death of a cross. Consider what a delight that was to God.

If God tells you “here is the strategy to victory” and you say “nah, I have a better plan” what is that? Do you have a crystal ball? This is why rebellion is like the sin of divination. Likewise, if you think you got the victory and so you “build a monument to your own glory” you have set yourself up as an idol. Michael Jordan has made it very clear that he has one very big regret, agreeing to the “Be like Mike” campaign of gatorade. They turned him into an idol.

Remember this book is about how to become a king. It starts with overcoming bullies. But in this story there are many, many warnings. Samuel realized that God warned him about Eli and his sons from a very young age. People need that. This is what Saul was lacking, this is what a real father will teach his sons.

In the last battle he was afraid when the men began to leave. This is a very big warning sign, a man pleaser is not a man of faith. If you truly believe in God and have a healthy fear of God your goal is to please Him. If others are not pleased that is not nearly as big a concern. As long as the Lord is telling you “well done” it doesn’t matter that everyone else hates your guts.

I have heard many people reject the word of the Lord in my lifetime. It is a scary thing to me. Recently I heard Bill Maher mock and ridicule Christians for believing in Jesus. The reason I shudder when I hear these things is not because I think God is going to send lightning and strike him dead. Nor is it because of what some religions do to people who mock them. I shudder because I know that when he does appear before the judgement seat, and he will appear before the Great White Throne one day, that at that time those words will haunt him.

God does not play. That is the simple lesson here. You reap what you sow.

34 Then Samuel left for Ramah, but Saul went up to his home in Gibeah of Saul. 35 Until the day Samuel died, he did not go to see Saul again, though Samuel mourned for him. And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.

Samuel mourned and the Lord regretted. I have heard some teachers teach that Saul signifies our mind, many of us are ruled by our mind. We think logically, based on what we can see. We are outnumbered, they have weapons and equipment, we are going to lose. He said utterly destroy, but why would you destroy all these valuable things. We use our brain, our mind, but within us we also have a spirit. We can build up our faith. Inside of every believer there is a king David. To me he is like Joe Montana, the third string quarterback on Notre Dame sitting on the end of the bench. Put him in coach! Each time the coach puts him in when the game is all but over and he pulls out some kind of miraculous come from behind victory. He doesn’t look physically impressive like Saul, but people soon learn they can depend on him when the pressure is on. He is like Tom Brady. The coaches in New England would criticize and blame him frequently during team meetings. He embraced that, learned from that and got better. Saul could not endure such a thing, he needed to constantly be honored by the coaches to the elders of his people. The truly great players like Jordan and Brady are described as being “very coachable”. They are courageous, cool under pressure. In other words men of faith who have put aside their ego. Why did Saul not obey the Lord: Unbelief and ego.

The warning God spoke to Eli through Samuel which was fulfilled a number of years later was a word meant for Samuel as much as anyone. He was able to see from a young age the cost of not dealing with sin in an absolute way. Likewise, the warnings in this chapter are as much for David as they are for Saul. It is clear later in the book that the whole country was aware of what took place. It had to be very significant to David to know that Saul's key failing was in not being absolute in obeying God's command.

2 Corinthians 6 -- The Story of Hanukkah

It seems like these chapters about Saul fighting various battles has nothing to do with the rapture. That is because we don’t have the proper view of what the New Testament ministry is all about. 2Corinthians gives us a vision of the New Testament ministry and the story of the Maccabeans and Antiochus is central to this vision. In chapter six we see the story of Hanukkah. They were greatly outnumbered, had no chance of winning, but God heard them and helped them. This is what started it all. Antiochus and his soldiers were requiring Jews to sacrifice pigs and eat them. That is a stumbling block to the Jews. Mattathias was a priest to God and his sons stood up against the soldiers. The “rebellion” lasted for 3 years. Paul is comparing the hardships of the Maccabeans to the hardships in the New Testament ministry. You could also compare these to the tribulation which will have a 3 year period in there when the two witnesses (the two lampstands) testify. We can also compare it to the hardships that David went through. If Saul had obeyed God it would have been so much simpler, it would have been like the Israelites walking into the Good land when they first spied it out. Instead, David fleeing from Saul was like the forty years in the wilderness where God trained Israel.

Paul describes the ministry as a fair exchange? This is the deal of the ages! Take a stand for the Lord in this age prior to the tribulation and you could be raptured before it and avoid it. You have a choice, three years of great tribulation, or a lifetime of the tribulation we see with those who take a stand for the Lord. The Syrian Greeks were trying to force the Jews to be yoked together with unbelievers. This is what the entire festival of Hanukkah commemorates and why it is a festival of “rededication”. This is also what we see happening in the US government. They want everyone yoked together, everyone paying for abortions, everyone being taught by them in school, everyone beholden to them. In our public schools the unbelievers and the wicked realized immediately there was no fellowship and so they worked to get rid of prayer and the Bible. They then attacked the pledge of allegiance for saying “one nation under God” and they attacked the celebration of religious holidays. They then pushed on attacking marriage and even sexual identity. Abortion became a major issue, handing out birth control to kids without the parents knowledge, and repudiating the Christian heritage of this country followed. There is no agreement between us. Our destiny is to be a Temple of God, to be the people of God. Amen. Therefore come out from them and be separate, that was the call to those at the time of the Maccabeans. We are in a world of Greek culture. They worship “science”, that is their altar. Their temple is the sports arena. There are idols everywhere, singers, movie stars, sports stars. They teach people to commit fornication and in order to worship fornication they have to be able to kill unwanted babies. It has become clear that they can never win an election by winning a majority of votes. So their pride and arrogance has led them to lie, cheat and steal to get their way. Come out from them and be separate.

No half measures, no compromise like Saul did. This is our mission, we are all “missionaries”. The rapture is for those who successfully complete this mission.

2 Corinthians 7 -- Bringing down the entire house of cards

Hanukkah is a celebration of rededication. God has promised to hear and to help when we call. That is a great and wonderful promise to have a God that answers prayers. The Maccabees fought against all the things that contaminate body and spirit. Today a major issue is the mainstream media making accusations that are false. They accused General Flynn of colluding with Russia, they accused Trump of colluding with Russia, they created a bogus “pee pee tape”, they had a three year investigation of Mueller that could not find any evidence of collusion with Russia, the impeachment was also false. Just one accusation after another and all the investigations have shown that they wronged no one, corrupted no one, and cheated no one. This is the same thing that has gone on in the church for the last two thousand years. Remember, judgement begins with the house of God, but it doesn’t stop there. This is what we are seeing with the Deplorables and Trump. They had a rally with the senate candidates where the crowd took over the rally with chants of “Fight for Trump”. It is clear that they have dedicated themselves to fight to the end. How about us? Have we rededicated ourselves to fight for Jesus Christ to the end? We have also seen this as well. People watching that rally said it was not a “farewell tour”. This was not a rally of well wishers accepting defeat. These rallies were not organized by the campaign. They are involved in legal battles, but the rallies are organized by individuals. They rose up almost immediately on November 4th, they have supported the legal efforts with donations, many are concerned about the evidence of sin regardless of their political affiliation. We are seeing Christians who have been trained on these kinds of attacks on their faith rise up for righteousness and to “stop the steal”. Look what has happened because of this election fraud. People have felt grief for the US, for their liberty, for their constitution, for their covenant with God. People are angry, they are sad, but it was a sorrow that led to action. Political leaders have come to realize that if 75 million Americans think the election was stolen they will not be able to govern. It is a sadness that is leading to salvation. For the first time in US history people are seeing that the power truly is with the people. This is what the ministry does, it trains us to be an army, to follow the Lord, and to be a blessing to the nations. This is certainly true of those on the legal team, those in the rallies, and of a few individual politicians who have been particularly courageous. They have fought to prove they are standing on righteousness and for righteousness. But it is quite clear that there are many in positions of authority that are willing to tolerate sin, there are many that are the “unrighteous judge” referred to in Luke. What we are seeing with these people taking it upon themselves to stop the steal is evidence of our salvation, it is evidence that we are becoming the Lord’s letter of commendation. Even Trump’s enemies marvelled that he was able to do 5 “rock star rallies” in a single day. He is relatively old, clearly he gets refreshed by these events not drained, gets filled with joy and encouragement. In summary, what we are seeing play out in the US today is Hanukkah 2.0. We are rededicating ourselves to the Mayflower compact, we are cleansing ourselves from everything that contaminates the body and spirit. People are learning to reject the “idols”, the “TV stars”, “Movie stars”, and other “beautiful people”. These idols are learning to their dismay that no one listens to them anymore. Sports stars thought that they could tweet some foolish comment and the whole world would act at their command. They did act, their ratings plummeted. The mainstream media’s ratings plummeted. We have become aware of the “leaven of the scribes and Pharisees”. As we learned that all of these accusations were false. They were perpetrated by liars with an agenda to smear it has flipped the script. Recently there was a video entered as evidence of election fraud showing workers hiding tens of thousands of ballots, pretending they were done counting and sending everyone home, turning out the lights for thirty minutes then pulling out these ballots and counting them in secret. The Facebook fact checkers censored the video because the person describing the scene described the wheeled containers with a handle were called “suitcases” when apparently the fact checkers claimed they were “boxes”. So a story about election fraud because tens of thousands of ballots that were almost all for Biden and were the difference between victory and defeat were counted in secret was “fake news” because these ballots were not stored in “suitcases” but rather some very nice boxes. What everyone has learned is that the story you want to see is the one that Facebook labels as “fake news”. Whenever they do that it highlights how important that story is to bringing down their entire house of cards. Antiochus was a type of the antichrist, so the story of the Maccabees is also a story that gives insight into the end of the age and the culmination of the New Testament ministry.

2 Corinthians 8 -- The privilege of participating in God’s move

I don’t know that much about Macedonia but I can talk about the deplorables. Under Clinton NAFTA was passed and resulted in manufacturing moving from the US to Mexico and China. This was an ordeal of severe distress to them causing many places like Detroit to be turned into a wasteland. Then in 2008 we had the mortgage crisis. In brief banks sold mortgages that they knew people would not be able to afford and in five years they would default. When they default the houses would go back to the banks after these people had paid $60,000 or more to them on the house. It was a scam to get rich quick for the banks. Then in 2020 we had a “pandemic”. Yes there is a real virus called Covid19 and yes it was quite contagious and even deadly to some people. But the response was irrational. Social distancing and face masks have greatly reduced the viral load that people are being exposed to when they get it. As a result we are seeing huge numbers of people testing positive, a hundred times greater than in March when NY first shut down, and yet the numbers going to the hospital are far lower. Government enforced shutdowns of the government are both arbitrary (restaurants are forced to close whereas movie production and their outdoor dining are not) and irrational. They are trying to destroy small businesses to the benefit of the large conglomerates like Amazon.com and McDonalds. In this context these are the same people who are giving lavishly to this “Stop the Steal” movement. There is a steal going on in this country, not just from the banks and big tech, but the elected officials are complicit in this. If people are poor and dependent on handouts from the government then they are much more submissive. Everything that is being done is designed to bankrupt the middle class for the benefit of the rich multinational corporations. They support globalism. There are fewer regulations they have to keep and wages are lower. As a result they can make a better profit margin. In addition they want the entire world to be their market, they are tired of sanctions on countries because of genocide or terrorism. Increased market share, fewer regulations and lower wages, the only thing standing in the way are the middle class and blue collar workers of the US. Bankrupt them and the complaints will cease. The ministry is about “God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven”. It is about “thy kingdom come”. This requires all of us. We have those like the apostle Paul who can share the vision with us, we have those like these lawyers and witnesses who are exposing the corruption, and we have the deplorables who are giving voluntarily because they see participation in this historic movement as a privilege. Satan’s kingdom has “elites” and “slaves”, God’s kingdom has brothers and sisters. You see this every day, one more person, one more state. Texas filed a lawsuit saying that it is unconstitutional for them to follow the laws concerning elections if other states don’t also follow the laws. Everyone wants to be part of this work. Then eight other states joined Texas in their lawsuit. Florida and Texas have lawsuits about censorship and the tech giants. Wyoming is taking action against Liz Cheney, California is recalling Gavin Newsom, NY is doing the same with Andrew Cuomo. Talk is cheap. But action speaks volumes and points the way for others to follow. The media has tried to hide this but if you know where to look you can see the enthusiasm. It is not a crime to be rich. Being a billionaire does not necessitate that you are therefore a criminal. The Lord Jesus was far richer than that, but He came to us so that we might become rich. He understood how these evil spiritual and demonic forces were enslaving us and abusing us. He exposed them even though it meant they would crucify Him. December 12th there is another “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington DC. This will be the same time that the Supreme court is deciding this lawsuit from Texas. The deplorables need to finish what they have begun. January 6th was still another. Mike Lindell has released documentary movies that reveal the way in which the election was stolen. Peter Navarro issued a report that covers all the ways in which the election was stolen except for the issues with Dominion machines. You give according to your ability. Some people can do the research, others are lawyers, still others produce movies or have talk radio programs. Everyone else gets the word out and responds to calls for action. This is not communism. It doesn’t mean that everyone has to give $100 trillion to AOC and then she will decide how to spend it. This is a system where everyone gathers according to their own ability, but where they don’t worship money. This is not soulless capitalism where they bail out the crooks while they devour widow’s houses. This is free enterprise where we worship the God of love and mercy, where we pray “give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. Whenever you are in a battle like this certain individuals show themselves to be true men of faith. Sydney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Lin Wood, Vernon Jones, Mike Lindell and Ken Paxton. They are an inspiration and an answer to prayer. For two thousand years there have been individual men of faith that were a true inspiration to the church. BLM argued that they were not responsible for the riots and looting, that others were doing that. But look at Paul, he realizes that if he is given a gift to give to those in distress you have to take regard for what is honorable, above suspicion not only in the sight of God but also in the sight of men. BLM would protest into the dark, the “Stop the Steal” rallies end before dark. ANTIFA thugs show up at these rallies with baseball bats and other weapons so the men at the “Stop the Steal” rally know it is there responsibility to be very visible about setting a safe perimeter. When the rallies protected against a direct attack from Antifa they planned a different way to smear people on January 6th. A false flag event. The problem for them is that every person in the rally had a phone, had a camera, had video. The people who organized the riot left their footprints on social media so it can be tied directly to Antifa and right wing extremists and anarchists, none of which were part of the MAGA movement. They accused them of being an “armed insurrection” and yet they did not confiscate any arms nor is there any evidence of anyone having shot a single bullet. No person was killed by the “rioters”. Several people had health emergencies, they lied about how a policeman died and to this day have not explained those lies, and the capital police shot and killed one unarmed protestor. By definition this was a “mostly peaceful” riot unlike all those Antifa riots they tried to depict as “mostly peaceful”.

The rapture precedes the tribulation, and for those Christians who are left behind it takes place again in the middle of the tribulation. What is the point? Isaiah 13:11 I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless. This is the purpose of these lawsuits and rallies, this is what we are praying for. We believe the Lord cares about us and will hear our prayers, so we praise Him. He is the Lord, He is faithful. What He has said He will do He will do.

2Corinthians 9 -- I will not be on the wrong side of history

What we are seeing now is epic, historic, Biblical. You have a chance to be part of this. We have been preparing for this moment for the entire age of grace. Once again the only reason we are reading this book and care about this book is because Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ bringing a message from Jesus. The Lord has been boasting of us! He has said that when He comes He will find faith on this earth, He will find a great camp, the army of the Lord that hears his voice, obeys His command and will not allow their house to be broken into by thieves. Again, I don’t know that much about this particular event, but I do know that in my life and in this age the Lord has sent many brothers to us to make arrangements in advance. Every experience you have had from the Lord has prepared you for this day, every word shared with you by these brothers was to prepare you for this day. Exactly, don’t lose your sense of humor! All these “prosperity” gospel preachers have drilled this point into our head, so now is the time for us to deliver on this word. Cheerful, joyful, triumphant giver. A giver marching around Jericho blowing the shofar and seeing the walls fall down! All jokes aside, lay every care on Him. Let’s pray that He would give us our daily bread. Now you have a chance to give an offering of yourself that will be righteousness and last forever! This is the harvest. The angels will gather the weeds into bundles and cast them in the fire first, and then they will gather the wheat into the barn, the rapture of the saints. Look around this is precisely what we are seeing. A congressman caught in a “close” relationship with a chinese spy. The same man who was so vocal in accusing Trump of colluding with Russia. Hunter Biden being investigated for fraud due to his dealings with China. Too many politicians and officials trying to obfuscate about their responsibility to deal with the fraud now caught in a lawsuit with 17 other states about them undermining the integrity of the US election. The weeds are being gathered into bundles to be cast into the fire. Thank you Lord! You hear our prayer, you will deliver us with a strong arm. There are so many people overflowing in expressions of thanksgiving right now. This is the gospel to love one another, to show mercy to one another, to welcome all including the outcasts, the chumps, the irredeemable and the deplorables. All the slander that Christians have received, attacks because of these phony televangelists caught in sin, and accusations of being hateful towards others. This is a chance for the world to see the indescribable gift of Jesus Christ in our hearts. Think about it, the Lord has been preparing to cast down Satan’s kingdom for two thousand years and here you are, on His team, chosen to be part of that army. Abraham,David, Moses, Paul, they are all looking to us, and we are looking to Jesus.

Comparison and Contrast of the three gospels

The three gospels have some very interesting discrepancies that have been the source of a lot of discussion. Some read the gospels oblivious of the differences, others simply ignore them. However, one theory that is quite interesting is that the differences indicate that the three gospels are written to three different groups. Using the word that “the last shall be first and the first last” the thought is that Matthew is written to those who are taken at the end of the tribulation, the Jews. Mark is written to the Christians who are left behind at the time of the first rapture and Luke is written to those who are taken in the rapture before the tribulation. I want to drill down on this idea and compare the three gospels. Because this will give us a really good idea of the key prophecies and signs of the Lord’s coming.

Mark vs Luke

Mark is significantly shorter, approximately 60% of the size of Luke. Mark is the “cliff notes” version of the gospels. Luke presents one long journey to Jerusalem whereas Mark bounces around some Galilaen towns and some Gentile territory. In Luke you have a goal and you are pressing towards that goal the entire time, in Mark you are more reactionary. At the beginning of the tribulation you will have the rapture of some saints and then the ministry of the two witnesses, who are called the olive trees and the lampstands. Those that are left behind will need to repent. In Mark it starts with “the beginning of the gospel” and the ministry of John the Baptist. The message that John is sharing is to repent for the kingdom. Luke begins by saying it is an orderly account. It is like a book to your honor students describing them getting everything in order before the semester begins. We then see the birth of Jesus and John with the accounts of Elizabeth and Mary. In Luke they are preparing for Jesus and His ministry a year before He is born whereas in Mark they are reacting to events thirty years later as though they were caught by surprise. Elizabeth and Mary depict your firstfruits, those who are raptured first. The first event of Jesus ministry is also very telling. In Luke the first event is Jesus reading the account that this is the year of the Jubilee from Isaiah. However, Mark begins with Jesus casting demons out of someone in a synagogue in Capernaum. It says that He entered the synagogue and began to teach and they were amazed because He didn’t teach like the teachers of the law. In Mark the major opponents are the pharisees, priests, scribes and elders. The Herodians are also an issue, these are Jewish leaders who have become married to the world. So the picture here is of the “synagogue of Satan” described in Revelation 3. Philadelphia is raptured as a church and then “those of the synagogue of Satan” realize that God was truly in their midst. The Last words on the cross are also very telling. In Mark it is “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” In Luke it is “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” directed at those that crucified Him. “This day you’ll be with me in paradise” directed to the thief on the cross with Him. And “into thy hand I commit my spirit”. Mark focuses on the crucifixion as a tragedy. This event is a tragedy to those who are left behind. Luke focuses on Jesus' innocence. The last major event is also very telling. In Mark it is an empty tomb with the women leaving in fear and silence. Again, this is what those who are left behind will be seeing. In Luke it is the ascension, the rapture with the disciples returning to Jerusalem with joy and praising. Luke is one long journey with this one goal at this one moment. Also in the two books you see Jesus in two different aspects. In Mark He is always arguing with religious leaders while in Luke He is always healing and forgiving. In Mark the message to the disciples is to persevere in faith despite suffering whereas in Luke it is to leave everything and to accept everyone, especially outcasts, poor, and even enemies. In Luke we see the Spirit moving in these kids from conception along with a prophetic anointing on each one. In Mark we see the Spirit at the Baptism. The Baptism is a public declaration for all to see, whereas the events in Luke are far more hidden that only a select community would see and know about.

In Mark the basis for judgement is whether you persevere in faith despite persecutions: Mark 13:13 Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. In Luke there is a far more detailed basis for judgement: Luke 16:9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. You need to use whatever you have so that you will be “welcomed into eternal dwellings”. When my cousin died it seemed the entire town turned out because he had been very active to raise money for the local high school’s Lacrosse team and for a hospital that treats those who are paralyzed. It was as though they were all welcoming him into eternal dwellings. Luke 16:16 “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing their way into it. “ Those who are raptured are often those who are “forcing their way into the kingdom”. The context is that you cannot change one jot or tittle from the law and yet every one of us is condemned by the law. Therefore we plead the blood of Jesus, we tell God that He must honor His son’s sacrifice in order to fulfill all righteousness. If He does not forgive us our sins then He is the unrighteous one because Jesus paid the full price. Finally we are told to listen to Moses and the Prophets: Luke 16:31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’” In Luke we see the fulfillment of God’s plan and a reversal of fortunes. Rich rulers living in luxury suffer torments while sinners and tax collectors believe and are saved. In Mark the Lord’s return is a secret and the main disciples do not understand while minor characters believe and receive.

Luke is the gospel concerned with healing the situation and who accompany the Lord during His heavenly ministry wherever He goes. Mark is the disciple that abandoned Paul and that Paul refused to have accompany them on the next journey. Later he worked with Peter and got reconciled to Paul. So Luke typifies a believer who would be raptured prior to the tribulation while Mark typifies one who would be raptured in the middle of the tribulation.

For the most part the two gospels contain the same stories concerning the Lord’s ministry. However, there are a couple of key differences. Luke of course has accounts of Jesus genealogy going all the way back to Adam and it has the early accounts of Jesus birth and childhood. The first rapture will be to the church and they are composed of Jews and Gentiles from all over the globe. That is not in Mark. On the other hand Mark has this account of a Gentile woman coming to Jesus to save her demon possessed daughter and He says “it is not right to give the children’s bread to the dogs” and she says that even the bread that falls from the table is fed to the pet dogs. In Mark Jesus is the bread that has fallen from the table, He is the scraps.

All three accounts have a record of Jesus transfiguration, but in Mathew and Mark it is six days after the prior events, in Luke it is about eight days. There have been various explanations for this discrepancy but the one that I feel is most instructive is that this is spoken to different saints and for each of them the event is different. To my understanding the reference to “about eight days” is a reference to the festival of rededication, Hanukkah. But for now it is simply a significant difference that sheds light on the Lord’s coming.

Another interesting difference is that only Luke refers to a total solar eclipse taking place during the crucifixion. So a couple of interesting coincidences. This is a year of jubilee and Luke is the only gospel that begins with the reading of the year of Jubilee. Luke is also the only gospel that the transfiguration occurs about the eighth day and the only gospel where Jesus crucifixion occurs during a total solar eclipse. Again, an interesting coincidence as December 14th, 2020 we had a total solar eclipse which took place at the same time as Hanukkah and also the same time that the stolen election in the US was certified.

There is also a distinction in the colors of the robe that Herod put on Him. Matthew it is a scarlet robe, Mark it is purple and in Luke it is “elegant” (sparkling white).

What signs have we seen concerning the rapture. The Lord tells us to watch and that we should be watchmen on the wall. I have been trying to be faithful to that by posting “alarms” or “trumpet blasts” every day as I see them happen. But I realize this is a valid request to put them all together, that is what a watchman should do.

Luke 21:36 Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”

To escape all that is about to happen is to be part of the first rapture.

Revelation 3:3 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

This is a warning to watch, if it were not possible to know at what time the Lord is coming this would be a meaningless warning.

1. Return of Israel and budding of the fig tree -- this generation Luke 21:29 He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. 30 When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. 31 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32 “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. This prophecy sets a time frame of a generation which can be as long as 80 years for all things to be fulfilled. May 14th, 1948 to May 13th, 2028 for those who are strong, and for those who aren’t May 13th 2021. According to Moses a generation is 70 years, 80 if you are strong. But the rapture that takes place prior to the tribulation will then show up at least 7 years before that, so it would be by May 13th 2021. This is not “setting a date” rather making a logical conclusion based on a literal interpretation of this prophecy.

1. Great sign in Heaven -- Revelation 12:1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head., Luke 21:25 “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. This sign appeared September 23, 2017 which was also the Festival of Trumpets. The last time this sign appeared it was around 4,000 BC and is thought to be the sign for the prophecy that the woman’s seed would crush the serpent’s head and he would bruise His heel.

1. The festivals are a shadow of things to come -- Colossians 2:16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Jesus was crucified on Passover as the Passover lamb. That week including the days Jesus was in the tomb celebrated the feast of unleavened bread. Jesus was raised from the dead as a celebration of the firstfruits. Then the church was born on the festival of Pentecost. So far every festival has been critical in the timing of these very significant events in God’s economy. The Festival of Trumpets is the next major festival. People celebrate this by sounding the trumpet 100 times as an alert that the king is coming. This starts the ten days of awe concluded with the Day of Atonement -- God’s judgement. After this we have the Feast of tabernacles signifying the thousand year reign. However, these feasts are not given as something we must keep in the New Testament. Rather the only feast day we are to keep in the New Testament is the Lord's Table which takes place on the first day of the week (or about the 8th day). The rapture of the church precedes the completion of this age with the Jews.

1. No one knows the day nor the hour -- This is idiom for the Festival of trumpets just as Turkey day would be understood by everyone in the US as the fourth thursday of November. The Festival of trumpets signifies the “birthday” of the human race. Israel’s year starts based on when they left Egypt, but this day is a day that applies to all creation, not just Israel. This word is in Mark but not in Luke. It appears that Luke is the gospel for those who are raptured in the first rapture and Mark refers to those who are left behind and are raptured in the middle of the tribulation. So this term is not referring to the first rapture but the second. Mark 13:32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Luke 21:34 “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. Again, just like the word to the church in Sardis, this warning does not make sense if we cannot know when that day is. You should see it coming and not allow yourself to be caught in the “trap”. 35 For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth.36 Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.” The word of God is the light to my path. The way I watch every day is to get into the Bible every day and go to the Lord to see what He would say just as the priests would seek the Lord by having him shine a light on the ephod. The day that no one knows the day nor the hour refers to the festival of trumpets. On that day it begins when the two witnesses see and report that they have witnessed the new moon. Many thought the first rapture would occur on the festival of trumpets for this reason but then learned that Mark refers to those who are raptured mid tribulation while Luke refers to those taken in the first rapture and does not say this.

There is no precedent for what happens in Joel. Even though we have had plagues before that have killed millions, have we ever seen anything like this? The entire world shuts down? Every creature moves at God’s command. He is describing them like an assembly line in which the entire world’s economy is dismantled and consumed. The ability of this little virus to so completely destroy the economy is what makes this judgement so remarkable and unique.

Awake from the drunken stupor. The people fail to see the hand of God in the terrible calamity. You can compare this virus to locusts. We had people sounding the alarm in January of 2020 while it was still at the gates yet the mainstream media was ridiculing and mocking them like a bunch of drunken revelers.

The term nation has the meaning not only of a people but of a foreign people. The bible often refers to creatures like ants and bees as “a people”. But this virus is not simpy a people but it is a “foreign people”. It is the “Wuhan virus”. It devours everything. A lion doesn’t just eat the meat, it eats the bones, it will devour everything. And just like a lion, once it has the prey there is no hope of rescuing it from him. Joel also refers to this plague as “He”. It has been compared to insects, worms, a foreign nation, a lion, and now “He”. That is it represents every enemy that wastes the inheritance of God. “The prince of this world”. This plague will be used by those seeking a new world order to impose the mark of the beast. The pandemic was built in a bioweapons lab, it was designed to unseat Trump from the US and give more support for the globalists attempt to seize power. The church is the vine tree, the Jewish nation is the fig tree. The gathering of believers in the church and in synagogues is the greatest threat to the prince of the power of the air, so they have attacked the church and God’s people during this age.

The analogy is to a virgin lamenting because she has forfeited her marriage due to unworthy conduct. I go into detail on this point in the book of Habakkuk. In the US the church has allowed the government to tell them what they can and cannot say, that is disrespectful to Jesus, it is unworthy conduct, all to preserve their tax exempt status.

All the outward and visible signs of communion with God are cut off due to this pandemic. The field is where we work, where we labor. That has been laid waste. The land mourneth, you see this on the news, and on social media. The grain is our wealth, that is destroyed. The New wine is the delight of ife, that is dried up. The oil makes our face to shine, instead of shining we see languishing. People are weak, feeble, losing their vitality. Be struck with confusion. Look at all the leaders, the “husbandmen” and the “vinedressers”. They don’t know what to do. The economic loss is universal. All the trees of the field are withered. This is not just the US, or Europe, or Ethiopia. Prepare yourself for a national humiliation, there are no offerings, it will be a time of fasting for religious leaders.

Joel refers to a festival day, the Feast of Trumpets.


The Feast of Trumpets foreshadows this event. It kicks off the “days of awe” and it is a wake up call before it is too late. This is a day of rest, it is a day to blow trumpets and offer sacrifices. The trumpet was sounded to indicate the Lord’s coming as a conquering king. It is a day of trumpets, these trumpets announce the soon arrival of the coming king and conclude with the voice of an archangel and the blast of God’s shofar, and the dead in Christ rise first, and then those of us who remain. Jesus said that He would return and when He did we would need to settle accounts with Him. This settling of accounts begins after this day. The feast of trumpets announces His return. All of this is happening right before your eyes. Use the TV, use the internet, whatever you are watching you are seeing all the food cut off and you are seeing the joy and gladness from the house of God cut off. We are not just talking about the present but also the hope for the future. The collapse of the economy is not only temporary, it will result in a great depression for years to come. The prophet is crying. Even the beasts are echoing his cry. Why are the people still dumb?


This is the festival of trumpets. We, the prophets of God, sound the alarm. This day announces the coming of the day of Jehovah. It is an approaching judgement.

It is a thick, dark cloud settling on the nation. What we are experiencing and going to experience, there has never been the like. So he is using analogies of locusts and other figures of speech, but this is something unique in human experience. What we are seeing is not simply a plague, but for the first time we are seeing the entire world shut down together.

It is like this army came to the Earth when it was a paradise and when it leaves all that is left is a desolate wasteland. And no one on the face of the Earth escapes this invader. Therefore this cannot be literal locusts as many would escape the plague of locusts. But it can refer to this pandemic, no country will escape.

This virus appears so rapidly it as if it was like horseman running on us.

The virus leaps from place to place. He is comparing this very unique plague as locusts, and as worms, and as horses, and as chariots. A horseman could be bringing a message, but chariots, that is the sound of war. When you hear the chariots coming you know the battle is on. In those days a few advance riders would come racing back from the front warning that the enemy is approaching, then when you hear the chariots you know they are here. So today you hear the warning on the TV, you see what happened in Italy and NYC, but then the next thing you know you are locking down some small town in Texas. In NYC we heard ambulances from morning to night, “the sound of chariots” telling us the battle is here.

There is a feeling of helplessness and resignation as the virus approaches. While it is still in China or NYC you can feel that it isn’t here, but once it gets to your town you know there is nothing you can do to stop it. Also, one strange thing about wearing the masks, all of our faces are waxed pale. Now the comparison is to an army moving across the land in wave after wave.

Fascinating imagery that would be totally incomprehensible a year ago. Today we are practicing social distancing, that is our weapon, and it means that “neither doth one thrust another” and we are “marching everyone in his path”. But it doesn’t matter, the virus burst through our weapons. We have not been able to cut them off from their course. There is no place that this virus will not go.

Fear ripples through the earth. The highest among them tremble, the kings and queens are darkened, they have no insight, no guidance. God can make even microscopic viral agents into an army. God is giving notice of His judgement. This is the most authoritative and weighty utterance. This event precedes the Day of the Lord and let’s you know the King is coming.

Who can abide it? Jesus! Our Lord! Turn to Him. There is nothing you can do. Call your scientists and soothsayers, you who worship science. They can not abide it, only Jesus. Our only hope is if God repents of His evil. As you have done it will be done to you, repent of your evil so that God may repent of His evil. The best way to repent of your evil is to be gracious and merciful to others. Leave a blessing to others and who knows, God may leave a blessing to us.

This is the festival of trumpets. This time we blow the trumpet to let the world know God is gracious and merciful, we are calling a fast to abstain from all fleshly appetites. Everyone, old, young, even the babies need to assemble. We need to abstain, even from lawful delights. Shut down the restaurants, shut down the stadiums. The only way people can assemble is in a rally or protest.

We are a royal priesthood. We are ministers of the Lord. We need to weep that the Lord would spare His people, His heritage. This shifting of gears that “the nations should rule over them” indicates that the worldly rulers will use this plague to introduce stronger bondage, the mark of the beast. This plague will bankrupt the middle class, it will make the working class dependent on the government and it will make the large multinational corporations more powerful.

The world’s attempt to use this plague to tighten the yoke on God’s people provokes His jealousy and His pity. The end of the age is a battle to determine who your redeemer is. Do you belong to Jesus or to the beast? Does the beast tell you what to say, what to think?
The mark of the beast is instituted with the threat that you cannot buy or sell without it. To counter this the Lord promises to send us food and remove our reproach. The mark of the beast treats people like they are cattle, slaves, a possession of the state.

This makes it clear that the use of “locusts” is an analogy as they don’t come from the North they come from the South.

God will provide the latter rain, a word that restores us back to life. Satan did his worst and now the Lord steps in to save with a mighty hand. The church will be full of believers, and our spirits will be full of life and of the Holy spirit.

There will be divine compensation for the losses we incur during this time. However, the losses will be over years, not a single year. The army was sent among us, but not to us. Before the Lord can plunder the strong man’s house He must first bind the strong man. This army bound the strong man that wanted to turn us into slaves, then we were plundered by the Lord to be His ministers. This experience helps us all to know that God is in our midst and that there is none else and to know that it is through the cross that Jesus put the enemy to shame. If you see this you would rejoice and praise the Lord.

This is the Festival of Trumpets. Believers all over the world, of every nation, will be praising the Lord, proclaiming the gospel, giving bold and faithful preaching, telling of the latter day judgements, and proclaiming the coming of the King. The wonders in heaven can refer to the great sign of the woman travailing in birth that we saw at the Festival of Trumpets in 2017. The blood and fire and pillars of smoke can refer to the apocalyptic fires we saw in California and Australia. The sun and moon turning to darkness refer to a number of solar eclipses and lunar eclipses which have taken place on the various sacred days of the Bible. There is ample discussion on this on Youtube and other sites.

The great day of judgement, foreshadowed in the Day of Atonement. We saw this at the beginning of this age, with the day of Pentecost followed by the destruction of Jerusalem. That was simply a foretaste of the end of the age. How often do the atheists claim that those stories of the plagues in Egypt, Noah’s flood, or even the time of Jesus were “myths”. So to put them to an open shame yet once more will God shake the heavens and the earth. This age is all about “who is Lord”. So, whoever calls on Jesus as Lord will be delivered. At some point everyone will bow the knee, the sooner the better.

He is describing the days and the time when this happens. It will be when Judah and Jerusalem are restored from captivity. This is an amazing story, Israel was menaced by an opposing army, they fasted, they prayed, they went down to this valley praising and worshipping God and God defeated the enemy. His people watched as God delivered them. The same will happen at the battle of Armageddon.

Treated God’s people as slaves, chattel. To feed their debauchery and evil appetites. Pedophile rings that go all the way up to the most powerful in this country have been exposed. Biden has tried to stop these investigations but it is too late. As you have done it will be done to you. Their attitude had been “what are you to me” well now God replies with the same judgment. These are God’s people they have stolen. These are ones dedicated to the service of God’s house. Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, I will repay. The day of atonement is a day of judgement. The Lord has noticed the contempt and scorn, He will repay.

Wow! They thought they were so strong, they despised the weak and fatherless, and they challenged God. So God is now challenging them to a test of strength. Armageddon will be a battle between God and these unbelievers. Once again, I would remind all the believers that “vengeance is mine, saith the Lord”. The Lord’s vengeance is far more severe and extensive than anything that I would hand out, but His knowledge and searching the hearts is also far more extensive. God’s judgements are just because He knows the whole story, no one is hidden before Him. He knows their wickedness is great. We should not look at ourselves as being “weak”, instead we should see ourselves as lion cubs going to the war with the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. There is no escaping, even if they don’t want to come they will be “caused” to come.

The prophet stares in disbelief at the multitudes that are gathered in the valley.

The political, ecclesiastical and economic state of antichrist shall be shut down and destroyed.

All of these arrogant “mighty men” will realize they are simply the weaker beasts of the field when they hear the Lord’s roar. “The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God”

Once again we are told that the reason for this is so that all would know that Jehovah is our God and He dwells in Zion. If you understand that this is the reason for these great and terrible days you would rejoice. You will never convince the wicked and the atheists with your arguments, you need this great and terrible day for them to know.

This is hysterical! God has a wonderful sense of humor. We have been told about “trickle down” economy that cutting the taxes on the rich will result in more prosperity for the poor. Yet, since the time of Reagan’s weird economics we have seen the opposite, the divide between rich and poor grew wider and wider. Well after God judged and defeated them He will institute a divine “trickle down” economy.

“Because they have shed innocent blood in their land”. Habakkuk goes into detail on this, and this points us to the 5th seal with the the souls of those who have been killed because of their testimony and because of the word of the Lord.

When the 5th seal is opened they ask how long till the Lord avenge their blood. Here He says that He has avenged it, and will avenge any that has yet to be dealt with.

The sign of Jonah -- Luke 11:29 As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.30 For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.

This word is not in Mark, those in the middle of the tribulation after the first rapture do not need this sign to know what is going on. This word is only spoken in Luke as a sign to the evil and adulterous age prior to the first rapture.



Jonah is a Bible story that every kid thinks they know, but no one tells them the real story. I believe people should know the whole story, warts and all, so I’ll tell you the story but you won’t believe me, you’ll think I’m making the whole thing up (I wish I had that good an imagination).

So this prophet is not like all the other prophets. If you read Jeremiah he also walks around telling them God is going to judge them, but his message is to repent. Jeremiah 18:8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. But Jonah, he knows that God will relent and not inflict evil if the nation he warns repents, so he doesn’t want to warn them. He hates Nineveh, this really evil city, and he hates their really evil king. All he wants is for God to inflict the disaster he is planning, so when God tells him to go to Nineveh he runs in the opposite direction. But the story gets weirder, he is on a boat running away, the boat is about to sink when the sailors learn that it is because he is running from God and they ask him what they should do to please God. Jonah tells them they need to throw him overboard? This is how much Jonah hated Nineveh, he would rather die than see them repent. So these sailors all beg God forgiveness that he doesn’t hold this against them, they do what Jonah said, and then they worship God. But then a fish swallows him and takes him to Nineveh (this is the part we tell kids). So the fish vomited Jonah up on the beach near Nineveh and he goes to this great city. It says it will take him four days to walk through the city but after the first day they all repent. From the evil king all the way down to their cows. What does Jonah preach? All he says is that in forty days you will be overthrown (doesn’t ask them to repent, doesn’t tell them God will forgive if they repent, nope, just you all are doomed). But that is not the end, because if it was you might not really understand. Jonah then goes away from the city in the hills to watch. He is hoping that they will repent of repenting and that then they will be judged, maybe fire falling from the sky like Sodom and Gomorrah. He is angry and he tells God this is why he didn’t want to come because he knew God would forgive and have compassion on them! Can you believe this guy is a “prophet of God”. To really bring home the point of how much he hates them, a tree that was shading him dies. Jonah blames God for that as well. He is now angry for two things, he is angry because God didn’t wipe out 120,000 people in the city and he is angry that God did wipe out the tree that was giving him shade!

So look, I get it, people back then don’t make any sense at all. So instead let’s consider the Black Lives Movement and say that their leaders are prophets of God, like Jonah. The “great city Nineveh” that Jonah hates so much will be the United States, a country of people who “don’t know their right from their left” according to God. The sailors that threw these protestors into the ocean to die will be the cops. The fish that brought them across the ocean to Nineveh and vomited them onto the land, that will be the slave trade.

If we do that then the story goes like this. God spoke to the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement to go tell the evil king of the United States (Donald Trump) to repent or else they will be judged. These guys knew that God would forgive them and that was the last thing they wanted, so they ran the other way. Meanwhile this great storm has arisen, we have a pandemic raging throughout the entire world, we have climate change causing “biblical fires” in the arctic, in Siberia, in California and in Australia. It is also causing record breaking hurricanes, drought and floods. In the midst of this the cops go down into the ship, find these prophets of BLM, and wake them up. These prophets tell them that the “chickens have come home to roost” for all their sins. They want to know what they need to do? These prophets want the police to throw them into the sea, get the whole thing on video, and post a video that will go viral for all to see. They know they can’t fake it like Jussie Smollett, no, the cops need to do it. So they do that, but they beg God not to hold this sin to their account. And they worship God by sacrificing everyone who says or does anything that could be construed as an insult to God and to Black Lives Matter. Meanwhile the BLM prophets tell us how horrible slavery was. They were “deep in the realm of the dead”, God “hurled them into the depths, into the very heart of the sea”, “I said I have been banished”, “seaweed wrapped around my head, to the roots of the mountain I sank down”, “But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit”, “What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘salvation comes from the Lord’”. So they go to the great cities in the US and their message is “No justice, no peace”. But they repent! According to the Bible it will take Jonah four days to walk through the city (similar to the protests by the BLM), but they repent after 1 day! They even write “Black Lives Matter” in big giant letters in front of the Whitehouse where the Evil king Trump lives, and also in front of his house in NYC. Everyone in the entire country repents, managers of restaurants are fired, politicians are fired, any person found to say one thing against them is fired. Are they happy? Well, one prophet said “If this country doesn’t give us what we want we will burn down the system” (Hawk Newsome) and another said the fourth of July was “a celebration of white supremacy” (Colin Kaepernick).

Now Jesus says that just like Jonah was in the belly of the fish He will be buried for three days and three nights. So in some ways Jesus is very similar to Jonah, only without sin. He was sent from heaven to preach salvation to us, He walked in love, whereas Jonah was full of hate. Like Jonah He was treated unrighteously with a monkey trial, all kinds of corruption and Roman privilege. The Bible says He was “in all things like us, only without sin”.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that last thing about the animals (I figured you wouldn’t believe me). Apparently these people in Nineveh were so clueless that many cared more about how animals were treated more than how people were treated. Yes, I used BLM prophets as an example, but at the same time there were people demanding the ethical treatment of animals as well. God heard them all. There is one other weird thing that absolutely no one talks about in this story because, frankly, it just makes the Bible seem completely unbelievable. There were other prophets who were very angry about trees dying, but didn’t care if God wiped out all the people and cities, just so long as the blasting heat and pestilence didn’t wipe out the trees. The climate changed while Jonah was hoping to see God rain down fire on Nineveh. Jonah represents all of these “angry prophets”. Oh yeah, even the cows repented, what was that all about? Apparently the cows were farting and that was what was changing the climate and making the plants die. Laugh if you want, I’m just telling you what the story said.

First 3 days similar to a wedding where the bride circles the groom 3 times, in the same way the earth has circled the sun three times since the great sign was seen in 2017. The rapture at the beginning of the tribulation is the rapture of the bride and refers to the coronation and wedding of the Lamb. The idea is that the Great sign in the heavens at the Festival of Trumpets in 2017 was our first “trumpet” alerting us to the Lord’s coming. Since then we have been blowing the trumpet with all kinds of alerts, alarms, light, dreams and visions. However at this point the three days are over and the bride can be raptured at any moment.

1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.

Let’s discuss what these demons teach. First, they will negate the necessity of faith in Jesus to be saved. As long as you do what you think is good then that is OK. Second they will undermine the faith in one God and Father. Since God is the God of all then “all Gods” are referring to this God. This is a direct contradiction to the word of the Lord that He is the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but by Him. They will deny specific commands and laws in the Bible like capital punishment. This is arrogant and opens the door for anyone to treat God’s word in a way that you can pick and choose what you will receive and what you will reject. They will teach people to commit fornication. They will teach ecumenism as a way to short circuit preaching the gospel. On the surface ecumenism sounds good, the oneness of all Christians. But when someone denies the faith once for all delivered to the saints, that is not something you can tolerate. So what they are really teaching when they say “ecumenism” is to tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and teaches my servants to worship idols and commit fornication. That is what these teachings are doing. Also, instead of referring to preaching the gospel as preaching the gospel they call it “proselytizing” and condemn it as unfriendly. This is a big deal, you must not share the gospel with atheists, you must respect the “freedom of religion” of every person. So preaching the gospel is now “disrespectful” of someone’s freedom not to believe. Along these lines they teach you to worship in silence, just like Paul said, they worship dumb idols that make you dumb. They will teach there is no hell, that Islam and Judaism and Christianity all worship the same God. Again, blurring the lines of the gospel in an attempt to deceive the elect. They will undermine the faith by referring to certain passages in the Bible as “magic” and “God is not a magician”. They will confuse and distort what the Lord did on the cross. Jesus bore our judgement for sin on the cross. He didn’t commit sin, but He bore the full judgement for the sin that we have committed. In that way He has paid the full price for our redemption. But they will distort that and say Jesus became a sinner for us, it isn’t our sin, it is His. In this teaching liberating us from sin becomes liberating us to sin. They will undermine marriage and reject God’s condemnation of homosexual acts.

We see certain sects forbid the priests and nuns to get married. This sounds holy and chaste, but what has happened is that about 25% of priests do have sexual relations with other adults. As a result you have a serious problem. Either you don’t have enough priests or you cover up this behavior. This teaching pushes many priests into committing fornication which in turn compromises their ability to condemn sin. Then you have pedophile priests. If they excommunicate the pedophile priests they might in turn expose the priests who are committing fornication, so the whole house of cards comes down. So instead they simply shuffle the pedophile priests around from parish to parish. This teaching promotes a religion of lies, deceit, hypocrisy and evil.

This becomes a distorted and twisted view of the Bible. God doesn’t forbid priests to marry, the Bible doesn’t, but because the Catholic church does people then think that God does. That in turn makes everyone think that if they are married they are somehow less holy or less consecrated to God. The backlash is what we are seeing now with an all out assault on God and the Bible.

The worldly society is filled with godless myths. Santa Clause, Halloween, horror movies, zombies, vampires are all examples of godless myths. Don’t have anything to do with them.

Train yourself like someone going to the gym. We have put our trust in the living God who is the savior of all people. That is why we preach the gospel, that is why we speak of the Lord, that is why we teach people to repent of sin, that is why we obey the Lord’s word. We do His commands because we love Him and know Him. We know that He is the savior of all people and we want all to receive Him by faith and repent of their sins.

The deceiving spirits mock the idea of “command these things” they even attempt to discourage you from teaching these things.

The Lord is coming and until He does come we need to devote ourselves to these things: public reading of scripture, preaching and teaching.

The more diligent we are the more we will progress. It is like the guy who goes to the gym and works out. When we preach and teach and read scriptures it can save those who hear, but it will also save us. Doing this is a salvation to you first and foremost.

I have become alarmed by the very clear use of this pandemic to bring in the mark of the beast. Because of that I wanted to take a very careful look at exactly what is going on and the word the Lord is speaking through many is to reexamine the gospels. Our goal is not to somehow short circuit God’s declared judgement, our goal is to attain to the salvation in the kingdom of God. Before we were happy with a very general overview of the end times, but now many of us are looking for the minutest detail. I see saints comparing the account of the plague given in 2 Samuel with that given in 1 Chronicles and finding important details in how these two accounts differ. That we would fully know the truth is the goal of the book of Luke. We want to know the full truth, there are those who don’t want to know. “It is in the Lord’s hands”. My boss would be pretty upset with me if that was my attitude at work. We are coworkers with the Lord, I want to be a good and faithful servant who when the Lord comes finds me doing what I am supposed to be doing “at the proper time”. Many of us are watching the news carefully. News of a global currency, economic collapse, natural disasters, rumors of China going to war, and of course the global pandemic. But the key point was not on the front page of the news, the key point was a certain priest named Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth. Hmm, surely this is a misprint. Where is the part of how he pastored a mega church and had a powerful evangelistic ministry on the TV and internet? Was he a best selling author? Did he make movies? We are talking about an old couple who had no child? It is so easy for the world to overlook a person who is walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. What the world values and what the Lord values are two different things. According to the world you have to get clicks, get views, get subscribers, etc. That is the “staff” of the world and it is a snake. We have seen Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook demonetize, shadow ban and censor channels according to their whim. The only one to trust is the Lord and the only one He will trust is one who walks blamelessly in all His commandments and requirements. At a time when there are many scandals with many corrupt televangelists and false teachers, there is this man who is focused on serving the Lord. Many falsely conclude that since many of these “priests” are corrupt that you cannot trust any of them. The more accurate conclusion is that since many are corrupt and being paraded in front of your face the enemy is trying to distract you and tell you to go elsewhere. In football I was always taught to fight the pressure, if the other player is pushing you one way don’t go, that is what he wants. The more the enemy is telling me how terrible and corrupt the priests are the more I know that there is an exception, and that man is the key. So it may seem difficult to find this man, a needle in a haystack, but he is surrounded by a throng of people praying. These people are where they are supposed to be, they are doing what they are supposed to be doing, and they are there when they are supposed to be there. You could have found all that out by going to the Bible to see what it is that God requires. We are getting many saints with dreams and visions. Obviously we have heard of many frauds and false teachers who claim this same thing. How are we to distinguish between them? The first thing I would point out is that this man is walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of God. Too many try to claim that their dream or vision is evidence that they are a man of God. No, walking blamelessly in the commandments and requirements of God is the evidence. Doing what you are supposed to do when you are supposed to do it is evidence. If there is no evidence that this person is a man of God who cares what kind of weird or demonic dream or vision he has. It is easy to read this and assume his petition was to have a son. But if that was the case then the angel would stop here. You asked for a son, done. Since he doesn’t stop here I understand that Zachariah was asking for everything that followed, his wife having a son was the surprise bonus to the answer of his prayer. If you look at Zachariah he seems completely oblivious to the despicable state of Christianity with all these people hawking the word of God. But he isn’t. It is another mistake of the world to assume that people who walk according to the laws and requirements of God are quaint, simple folk who are just too naive to grasp what is going on around them. He understood and was praying for someone to turn back the hearts of the fathers to the children, who could reach the disobedient and unpersuadable to the wisdom of God’s law. Zachariah was praying that they needed such a man and God also needed a man like Zachariah to raise this man. This is why I don’t think he was praying for a son, because he doesn’t believe his wife could have a son. Please note, there is an appointed and proper time. What we are discovering is that no word in the Bible will return void, so when the Bible gives a specific date, the day and month, that something happened, that is very significant. It is prophetic. What is really fun about this little portion is the Lord’s sense of humor. Elizabeth getting pregnant is funny, but what is even funnier is that while all these scam artists are out hawking the word of God, shouting and screaming in the village square about their dreams and visions, the one person with an earth shattering vision is silent. The way this group of praying believers knows he has seen a vision is that he is silent. There is a stark contrast between the two. Let’s learn from this. Paul said do not judge before the time. There were many people who had children, they had ministries, they had great works they were doing for God at the time. Sadly, I can’t remember a single one of them. It could be because I slept that day in history class, or more likely it is because their work was wood, hay and stubble which has long since turned to dust. But, even when I was a small boy I knew about Zachariah, Elizabeth and their son John. They both wanted a child, but they feared God and refused to take short cuts. They obeyed God, walking in His laws and requirements and it seemed like it took them down a path of reproach. But even so they stuck to that path, it wasn’t up to them, it was up to God to take away their reproach. This story goes from one incredible twist to another. Elizabeth getting pregnant takes away her reproach, Mary getting pregnant is a reproach. Mary wondered what this greeting might mean, me too. The girl is not married yet and turning her into a single mother is how you bestow great favor? We need the view of eternity. For all eternity we are going to call her blessed and a big reason for that is how willing she is to embrace this word and despise the shame. With Zachariah we are told that he was blameless and righteous beforehand. With Mary we can learn a whole lot about her by how she responds to this angel. Hold it, didn’t Zachariah ask the same thing, “how can this be”? Why was Zachariah rebuked for his lack of faith and Mary isn’t? Superficially it looks the same, but in reality Zachariah is doubting the word because his wife is old, he lacks faith. Mary on the other hand doesn’t doubt in the least, she however, wants to know “how it will be” since she has never been with a man. She wants to know down to the minutest detail. Being full of faith doesn’t mean not knowing God’s word or His mysteries. This is what we learn. No word of God is without power. If someone had picked up on the fact that Elizabeth was pregnant was due to some vision Zachariah had in the temple they might also have learned about Mary at that point. It would be idiotic and profane for God to put this news on the front page of the paper. You have to be tuned into the family of God to learn this news. Look at her attitude! She understands what this means and she was already fully consecrated to the Lord. So, she was ready when the Lord came. You want to be fully consecrated to the Lord before something like this so you can embrace it the same way Mary did.

Here is another secret we need to learn. The most earth shattering news was known by these two women in this little town in the hills. Do not despise any saint, the Lord can reveal his hand to anyone and that is the beauty of the Body of Christ. OK, revealing the secret to a baby who hasn’t been born yet is a little unusual. This is a story like no other. The book of Luke is thought to present the gospel to the firstfruits, those who are raptured before the tribulation. These are the ones who believe there would be a fulfillment of the things spoken to them by the Lord. The principle is “the first shall be last and the last first”. Those saints that you thought were “last” well, surprise, they will be first. His mercy towards the miserable and afflicted is not because they are miserable but because they fear Him with godly reverence. On the other hand the fact that they are afflicted may very well be because they fear Him with godly reverence. They are strangers in a strange land. Those who are of the “synagogue of Satan” will come to the church of Philadelphia and confess that God is in their midst. The rapture will be the ultimate proof of that. The first rapture will also scatter the proud and haughty. The church in Laodicea thought they were rich, but at the rapture they will be sent away empty handed. At the rapture we are laid hold of and caught up to God. God is faithful to the promises He has made. Sounds like the church of brotherly love. Six months before Jesus is born they are already rejoicing.

Please note, John’s circumcision was at the appointed time. Six months before Jesus comes Zechariah’s tongue is loosed. The church in Philadelphia gets this speaking, blessing, praising and thanking God as a wake up call that the Lord is coming. This kid has a testimony of the Lord being with him. And this community understands that they need everyone’s testimony, even of the kids. So this is the word they heard him speak. The Lord has come. He isn’t talking about John. He isn’t going to put a bumper sticker on his car about his own son being an honor student. From day 1 the focus is Jesus. His focus is on the word. His focus is on the savior. His focus is on the covenant. His focus is on our serving the Lord in holiness and righteousness. Wow, imagine having a prophecy from the day of your circumcision that you are a prophet of the Most High. No wonder everyone kept their eye on this kid. God’s word is a light, when Jesus was in His earthly ministry it was the light of the noon day sun, but at this point this is the morning star with the promise of the coming dawn. These people were watching for the Lord’s coming, it was in the darkest night when Zachariah was praying in the temple. This is where the Lord prepared John and where the Lord prepared Paul and where the Lord prepared Moses. All three had top notch education, but not just at elite universities, they also were trained in the desert. I am reminded of Teddy Roosevelt. He was a rich kid, he went to Harvard, was quite smart, but he was also trained to be a fighter. When he went to North Dakota he looked like a dandy and was mocked right up until they saw him fighting. Soon he gained the respect of all these ranchers and outdoorsmen.

"And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh" Luke 21:28

I think many look at the rapture as some kind of distinct event that is somehow unrelated to the rest of the Christian life. But to my understanding it is completely tied in with what it is to be redeemed. Imagine you are sitting in Satan's warehouse, in the world, a slave to sin. Then the Lord redeems you via the internet. After that some clerk or robot is going to "snatch you up" and take you away to be delivered to the Lord because now you belong to Him. The rapture is simply part of the process of being redeemed.

Romans 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

We have received the Spirit and we are filled with joy because that is proof that we are redeemed even prior to the completion of the purchase takes place.

Ephesians 1:14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

This is why the Bible talks about "the day of redemption". Isn't that simply another word for the rapture?

Ephesians 4:30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

If we see the rapture this way then we'll realize that many, many more verses talking about our being servants of the Lord, waiting and watching, are talking about our redemption and therefore are also relevant to "the day of redemption".