Top news--is Obama the anti-Christ spoken of in the Bible? No, I don't think so, but he could be the forerunner since he has all ready accepted a position with the UN. (Which it is illegal for a sitting president to accept any paid position. However, "legal" has never been a word in Obama's vocabulary. Or apparently, Cong-resses either, and I suggest whenever they are up for re-election, they are replaced too. Lack of action on their part has allowed a sitting president to completely ignore the Constitution and the law in general.) But Obama may be the one who ushers in the person referred to as the anti-Christ. The UN is most certainly going to try and be our one-world governing entity, and probably for the rise of the one-world religion, Muslim, which is certainly Obama's religion.
I was raised in church when I visited my grandmother in the summer. She was "old" at the time of my birth in 1958, so I only had her until she was 82. She was the love of my life, and I still miss her every day. My grandmother taught me about Jesus and the Bible. She taught me what it meant to be "saved" and how to serve God. She also taught me that Jesus would return in the clouds one day, and this was called the "rapture". I was taught that the rapture was broken into three parts: The Pre-Tribulation Rapture; The Mid-Tribulation Rapture; and The Post-Tribulation Rapture. I was always taught the Pre-Tribulation Rapture, in which Christ will return just before the world is so bad no one can survive, and take all of His children home.
In the Pre-Tribulation Rapture, the world has completely turned from God, and are embracing foreign gods, like when the children of Israel were crossing the wilderness, they begged Aaron to make them a god from the gold they brought out of Egypt. Prices are sky high, jobs aren't available and crime is on the rise. The world is slowly going to ruin but Jesus arrives just in time to save the Christians from going through what is to come.
The Mid-Tribulation Rapture says that the world is in even worse shape. Food is hard to find, the world has turned from anything good. Crime, sex, pornography, and a lackadaisical way of viewing the world has arrived. There are those who will say this is impossible because God will never poor out His wrath on the righteous. However, if you read the Bible, you will find that the Lord did allow His disciples to be stoned to death, boiled in oil, beheaded, hung, nailed to a cross upside down, and other horrendous ends of life. So what makes us so special some 2,000+ years later that God is going to keep us out of any type of danger? We are just human like the rest of the world, and I believe we are going to be tested through at least half of the tribulation, the last days before Christ returns to rule and reign.
The Post-Tribulation Rapture is believed that Christians will go through the entire tribulation just like non-Christians as a test of our faithfulness to God. If we survive the tribulation, and miss out on being beheaded for not confessing and giving our lives over to the new world religion, God will rapture us and take us to Heaven.
Even though I was raised to believe in the Pre-Tribulation Rapture, shortly after I was licensed as a minister in 1995, I received three visions from God about the end of days that led me to believe in the Mid-Tribulation.
The first vision was of Japan. There was a massive earthquake, and Japan was no longer there. Then a chain of earthquakes went up the west coast of South America and North America to Russia. While these earthquakes were opening the earth, I could see San Francisco, which was in ruins. Fires from broken mains spewed into the sky, it was just a wasteland. There were so many dead, there weren't enough alive to dig for any who might have lived, and the National Guard was trying to help, but it was useless because there was a Tsunami from the Japanese earthquake, that rolled over the west coast, putting out the fires, but leaving the entire west coast, parts of Nevada and most of Arizona, and some of New Mexico as ocean view property.
The fire has gone on and was spreading over the mid-west. I kept looking for my children, but my husband, (who was Bear at that time), was no where to be found. When I told him about this vision, he said it must be because he was helping people. Later I knew why I didn't see him, he would pass away before this event ever occurs. I found a type of bunker made from cement, and my youngest son and I got in it, and the fire blew over us but we were unharmed. When we came out, there was a dark-haired woman with a large, blue school bus, filled with boxes of macaroni & cheese. I actually laughed and said, "Lord, you know if mac & cheese is all there is to eat, I'll die from starvation!" I absolutely hate the stuff.
A few nights later, Bear & I went to a worship and deliverance meeting and I met this woman I had never seen before. We talked a bit, but later she asked for my phone number, (yes, this was long before email), and she called me the next day. I invited her over. I write down everything the Lord tells me, or things I think are from the Lord, and have all of this written in longhand in notebooks. We sat down to talk and she starts telling me about a dream the Lord gave her in 1975 about the end of times, and they were nearly identical to mine. I began to shake and told her about the bus and macaroni & cheese. She looked like she had seen a ghost, and told me she had a bus, it was blue and had 600 pounds of macaroni & cheese on it. God always confirms what He tells us so that we will know we aren't just dream-ing.
The last of the dreams dealt with the aftermath of these earthquakes and tidal waves. It's not a pretty sight but one I constantly pray about so I will never forget, and will always be ready when the Lord is.
I also believe in the mid-tribulation rapture because the Bible says we will never see the wrath of God, which in the book of Revelation 14 is also the verses that those who believe in a pre-tribulation rapture use to deny the mid-tribulation.
But this is what I believe. The Bible is very clear in chapter 14 that the following happens:
There is much preaching to every tongue and nation so those who have never accepted Christ as their Savior still have a chance to.
In 14:7-The angels announce that God's wrath is about to come and this is like a last call to Christianity. And the announcement that Babylon has fallen is made.
Then comes the Mark of the Beast. Revelation 14:9 warns those who take the Mark will drink the wine of God's wrath. 14:11 says they will be tormented day & night with fire and brimstone forever.
Verses 12 & 13 calls for the patience of the Saints. (Those who know the Lord.) And those who have remained patient and died because of their belief in God will be rewarded.
Verses 14-16 calls for the harvest of the Saints. The angel with the sickle goes among the Christians and brings the living Christians home for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. The rest of chapter 14 goes on to tell what happens to those who turned their backs on God and worshiped the beast.
While the Bible says that only the Father knows the exact time and hour when any event in the Bible is going to occur, especially the rapture and the end times, we are told to be on the look out for the signs of Christ's return. It's kind of like earthquakes. Geologists can read the rumblings underground and know an earth-quake is going to happen, they just can't say exactly when it will happen. Some of the things we can look for are:
Matthew 24:5 "For many will come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and will mislead many."
Matthew 24:11 "And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many."
We have seen this all over the world. People claiming they are Christ, or sent by Christ to save the world. Jim Jones, David Koresh are but two I've seen in my own life. They are but paving a way for the real anti-christ who will come saying he is Jesus, and do marvelous signs and deceive many.
Matthew 24:6 "And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end."
Matthew 24:7 "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes."
I was born in October 1958, just in that time, 54 years, look how many wars has occurred. Korea, the Middle East always at war, Ireland, the attacks on our Marines, and our warships, just to name a few. And the earthquakes. I can't even count the number of earthquakes there has been that I was in, much less, the number of earthquakes all over the world.
Matthew 24:7 "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes."
We've seen the wars and earthquakes, and now the famines. Look how many countries are starving, and how many organizations are trying to feed them just a little rice so they won't starve to death. They have no crops because of droughts, no medical care, AIDS is out of control in African countries, and those who do find work, is generally out of their own country and in places where they harvest poppies or other drugs just to feed their families.
Matthew 24:7 "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes."
Although I used this earlier, you can go to this link to see the current number of earthquakes that happen every day. http://www.iris.edu/seismon/
Matthew 24:8-9 "But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations on account of my name."
Who is Jesus talking about in this verse? Christians. Yes, the believers in Jesus will be killed and hated for believing in Jesus. It happens to missionaries all of the time. In China, it's illegal to possess a Christian Bible, the penalty is death. In Muslim countries, death is also the penalty for preaching Jesus. And it's going on right now.
Matthew 24:14 "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come."
Even though they may be killed, there are people who work to fulfill the great commission of preaching Jesus to the whole world. Even here in the United States, people are pulled away from the Gospel by stupidity. Vampire Clubs, Werewolf Clubs, Satanic worship, to name a few. There is no other name under Heaven by which you will be saved. (Acts 4:12)
The apostle Paul tells us-
II Timothy 3:1-5,7 "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of god; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
Apostasy is also another sign of the end times. This is the falling away of 1) the gospel by individuals and 2) the church falling away from the gospel and preaching "good time" messages that do not point out sin, nor does it point to Jesus as the only One who can save us.
So, like the seismologists who can't say exactly when the earthquake will strike, they can give an approximate time. The same goes for us. We might not know the exact time of Jesus' return, we can look around at what is happening in the world and see that the time is getting close.
If you are not ready to meet Jesus face-to-face, accept him with a thankful heart and ask Him to forgive your sins and lead you in the way He wants you to go. Find a Bible-believing church, such as a Pentecostal or Assembly of God, and go. Go to both of them and see which you belong in and are comfortable with the pastor, and has new Christian classes, or something along those lines. Get a Bible. The NIV is a good Bible for new Christians because it's written in current day language that makes it easy to understand.
God bless you and keep you until we meet in Heaven!
