Left Behind ARMAGEDDON Chs 16 and 17 It is now six years, five and a half months, into the Tribulation. Rayford and Buck have both kept themselves very busy to lessen their painful loss of Chloe.
Nicolae Carpathia (the Antichrist) is about to plan the battle of Armageddon.
Lionel has his left arm pinned under a huge boulder. He is alone near a wooded area and extremely hungry. Judd left Lionel to find help. But when he got to the safe house where they had been staying most recently before leaving for their trek home, the GC police were already there rounding up his friends in that house. He has just gone to a police car and faked an announcement of where to go to find those who had run off. The GC believed him.
Cheryl is having hero you is our baby at this moment. Vicki and Josey are trying to help her as best they can.
Matt Walsh is a blogger, writer, speaker, and professional truth sayer.
It’s very simple. If a man has no moral center, if he has ambition but no faith, if he does not demonstrate humility or integrity, I will never vote for him for president. I don’t care who he is, what he’s done, what he says, or what positions he holds. None of that will matter when we are living under his tyranny, and tyranny is sure to follow when you give unspeakable power to a man who believes he is God.
I’ll put this another way: if you vote for a man who worships himself over God, you deserve the tyranny that happens next.
You deserve it because you chose it, just as the souls in Hell deserve Hell because they chose it. If you go to the ballot box and say, “I am going to do my part to put this self-absorbed pagan in charge of my nation” you are directly consenting to the inevitable result. You are embracing it. You are literally asking for it.
I know this will not resonate with atheists, but for us God-fearing folk it is extraordinarily obvious and irrefutable that we ought to only vote for other God-fearing folk. John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” I think it goes without saying that if the governed ought to be moral and religious, certainly the governors ought to be the same, and arguably more so.
That brings me to Donald Trump. I’ve tried to talk sense into Trump fans a thousand different ways and to no avail. It is a mob mentality driving Trump-mania, and mobs are famously difficult to reason with.
There is no use in trying to appeal to them as one group, anyway. Many elements comprise the Trump base, and most of them have values and principles that are completely antithetical to what any real conservative believes. But in the middle of this bizzare Trumpling potpourri are, apparently, Christians. Perhaps a vast number of them.
Indeed, many Christians have fallen for the Donald; there’s no way he could be doing well in Iowa without them. The melding of Trumpianity with Christianity has been among the more awkward and grotesque phenomenons I’ve ever witnessed in my life. I watch it unfold feeling like a guy whose best friend just started dating the town floozy. I try to tell him that she’s sleeping around, she’s betraying him, she’ll break his heart, but he’s too smitten to hear me. I fear many of my brothers and sisters in Christ are making the same mistake, and the spectacle is causing me an immense amount of emotional and spiritual pain.
Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures during a speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., Monday, Jan. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
The situation boiled over on Monday when Trump was invited to speak at Liberty University, a private Christian college in Virginia. After that display, I had no choice but to write this final desperate plea to Christian Trump fans.
Granted, all presidential candidates have been offered an audience at the university, but one wonders if they all receive such an adoring welcome. Jerry Falwell Jr., president of the university, came out to introduce the great Trump. Falwell showered him with effusive, worshipful praise, calling him a “visionary,” a “breath of fresh air” who “speaks truth.”
Falwell said his “admiration” for Trump continues to grow, and he’s especially excited whenever he gets to visit the Donald’s offices in New York. With each sycophantic sentence he sounded less like the head of an academic institution and more like a boy bragging about his dad to his friends on the playground.
Falwell rattled off a list of Trump’s charitable endeavors, calling him generous and friendly and personable. He beamed that Trump “cannot be bought” because he’s not a “puppet on a string,” unlike “other candidates.” The unrepentant butt kissing went completely off the rails when Falwell hailed Trump’s “servant leadership” and insisted that Trump “lives a life of loving and helping others, as Jesus taught.” Falwell didn’t stipulate whether trying to steal property from elderly widows so he can build casinos fits under the “loving and helping others” umbrella.
He dismissed Christian criticisms of the candidate by saying the qualities needed to run the country aren’t the same as the qualities needed to run a church. Finally, in a moment that appeared to be a desperate cry for help, Falwell began comparing Trump to Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr, and his own father. After about 15 excruciating minutes, he wrapped up his introduction/adoration ritual by declaring that Trump “loves this country and desires more than anything to make American great again.”
AP Photo
It wasn’t an endorsement. It was practically a marriage proposal.
I didn’t watch the Trump spiel that followed in full, but I did see him begin his remarks, as Jesus used to do, with the requisite 10-minute boast about his poll numbers. Trump did make one attempt to pretend to know something about the Christian faith, and it was, as Trump would say, a total disaster:
“And I asked Jerry, and I asked some of the folks, because I hear this is a major theme right here. But two Corinthians, right? Two Corinthians 3:17. That’s the whole ballgame. Where the spirit of the Lord — right? Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And here there is Liberty college…. But this is really, is that the one? Is that the one you like? I think that’s the one you like. Because I loved it. And it’s so representative of what’s taken place. But we are going to protect Christianity… And we’ve gotta protect it. Because bad things are happening. Very bad things are happening… If you look at this country, it’s gotta be 70 percent, 75 percent, some people say even more. No matter where I go, we’re having tremendous crowds and we’re setting records…”
Some people are having fun at Trump’s expense because of how he pronounced the verses — “two” instead of “second” — but that’s an unfair criticism. Obviously Trump can’t be expected to know the correct pronunciations. The guy can’t even name a book in the Bible, for goodness sake. And that’s because Trump is not a Christian by any stretch of the imagination.
Trump says he loves God but he never asks for forgiveness because he doesn’t need it. When asked to clarify that bit of heresy this past weekend, he explained that he’s “good” and he “lives a very good life.” Then he cited his poll numbers.
His behavior doesn’t appear to be any more “Christian” than his theology. We won’t talk about the fact that he’s a serial adulterer who abandoned his family (twice) to shack up with younger women. We won’t get into how his ex-wife once alleged that he ripped out chunks of her hair and violated her. We won’t delve into how the great Christian Trump sent his lawyer to intimidate and censor journalists who write about those accusations, and how his attorney recently told The Daily Beast, “I’m warning you, tread very f**king lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be f**king disgusting. You understand me?” (Is that what you call “servant leadership,” Mr. Falwell?)
Donald Trump, president and chief executive of Trump Organization Inc. and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, holds up a Bible while speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, Sept. 25, 2015. The annual event, organized by the Family Research Council, gives presidential contenders a chance to address a conservative Christian audience in the crowded Republican primary contest. Photographer: Drew Angerer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
To be clear — but, like I said, I’m not harping on it — Trump believed that it should be legal to stab a child in the skull as it is in the process of being birthed, cut a hole in its head, and suck its brain out through a tube. Trump thought such atrocities should be legally protected, and he thought that up until the moment when he developed an ambition to run for president as a Republican. Even after this miraculous conversion, he still says abortion isn’t murder, that he’s only pro-life “with caveats,” and that Planned Parenthood “serves a good function.” Worst of all, he’s made it clear that he wouldn’t mind putting radical pro-abortion zealots on the Supreme Court.
But whatever. That was then, this is now. Well, a lot of it is now, too. Probably all of it. But forget that. Let’s pretend he was by his own admission a conniving, ethically bankrupt, womanizing, billionaire elitist TV star who believed in the legal legitimacy of butchering viable infants, but that all ended a few years ago when he turned 65 and finally grew up.
So what about now? Is he running as a Christian today? We know he can’t speak semi-coherently about the Bible, he has no understanding of basic Christian teaching, he thinks Christianity does not require us to ask for forgiveness, and our relationship with Christ can be measured using polling data, but does he otherwise carry himself as anything resembling a Christian?
I don’t see it, do you?
I see a guy who lies constantly and blatantly. I see a man who changes his positions and his principles at the drop of a hat. I see a deeply immature man who insults people on Twitter but lacks the courage to face them in person. I see someone who fashions himself “politically incorrect” but is really just a cruel and bitter old man who thinks it’s funny to mock the disabled. I see a man with no honor who launches vulgar attacks on women and then lies about what he said. I see a phony who brazenly exploits the fears of the American public. I see a guy whose recklessness and greed drives his businesses into bankruptcy, and I see a guy who tries to silence journalists when they report on it. I see a guy who jazzes up the crowd at campaign rallies by bragging about his money and threatening to throw protesters out into the cold without their coats. And so on.
Christian?
Really?
Where? How?
Look, I know none of these criticisms resonate with many Trump fans because Trump fans are fans of Trump. Period. That’s all. The end. They like him and whatever he says and whatever he does. It’s a cult of personality like any other the world has seen.
That’s why I’m only talking to Trump’s Christian supporters. The question you have to ask yourselves is this: Is there any evidence at all that Trump is a Christian? I think the answer is clear.
Next you must ask: Should we, as Christians, elect someone whose actions and beliefs run counter to our core values? Should we elect someone who is not only godless, but represents himself as God fearing for the sake of using and manipulating us?
Again, the answers are clear. Any Christian who is serious about his faith knows, first, that man separated from God cannot be trusted. Our faith and trust should be in God alone, and we can trust another man only to the extent that he has faith in God. A man who rejects God is a man with no true strength, no identity, and no fidelity to truth. A man who rejects God is a man spinning uncontrollably in the darkness; a man who soon becomes his own golden calf, his own idol, the center of his own universe. How could any Christian possiblychoose to elevate such a man to our nation’s highest office?
Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Friday, Dec. 11, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP/Charlie Neibergall)
Second, our country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and it will only be saved if it returns to those principles. That is, if it rediscovers its reverence for God, its belief in the dignity of human life, its understanding of justice and Natural Law, its respect for and recognition of Truth, etc. If our country continues to ignore and undermine these values, we will be destroyed. We may or may not retain our name and our borders, but what’s contained inside will be dead and rotten and not worthy of saving anymore. This reclaiming of our foundational ideals will not happen just by electing a Christian president, but I fail to see how electing a power hungry secularist liberal could possibly help the effort.
Third, everything we do must be for the glory of God.
“Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” – 1 Corinthians 10:31.
I do not think voting is excluded from this directive. We should make our politics subordinate to the Gospel, not the other way around. When we vote we should think, “Am I glorifying the Lord with this decision?”
Falwell suggested that the abilities of a pastor and president need not be the same. Perhaps Falwell is correct that their resumes ought to look a little different, but certainly he must realize that their character traits should be virtually identical:
Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)…He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap. – 1 Timothy 3
Yes, Paul is not specifically telling us what sort of man should be president of the United States, but he is listing characteristics necessary for effective leadership. Temperate, self-controlled, respectable, not a lover of money, able to manage his family, etc. As Christians, should we not take this into account when we decide who to put in charge of the entire country? Can you as a Christian possibly argue that our nation would be somehow hurt by a leader who carries himself in this manner? Can you say Trump fits the bill here? I mean can you say it without laughing?
I’m not telling you who to vote for. Even someone who appears to behave and speak as a Christian may still be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. We can’t know for certain. But when the truth is advertised so clearly, when the character of a man and the sincerity of his convictions (or lack thereof) are made so obvious, we must respond accordingly. We can’t close our eyes to the truth, no matter how unpopular the truth may be.
Our country will not be helped by more godless, self-serving, petty, morally weak leadership. We’ve had quite enough of that, and I think it’s time to go a different route. A man of faith and integrity in the White House — now there’s a novel approach.
Record-breaking Blizzard Threatens Thirty Million People on the East Coast
30,000,000 people on the East Coast are bracing themselves tonight for one of the heaviest snowstorms ever to hit America. Ray has the story right now. Join him to hear it.
Thirty million people on the East Coast are bracing themselves tonight for one of the heaviest snowstorms ever to hit America. A severe snowstorm began to drift toward the East Coast on Thursday as the National Weather Service added the New York City and Philadelphia areas to a blizzard watch already in place for Washington, D.C., New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland. An inch of snow has already fallen in several areas and continues to fall.
The storm, which started to form in parts of Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky, created icy conditions that snarled traffic and left two dead in North Carolina. The ominous forecast caused officials in Mid-Atlantic States to urge residents to stay off the roads and hunker down when the worst of the weather begins on Friday. T The Baltimore Airport will be closed starting Friday he Washington Metro subway system and its bus service will also shut down for the weekend starting Friday night.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City, urged residents to use mass transit or stay at home as much as possible on Saturday and Sunday, when the worst parts of the storm are expected to cause severe winds and drop between 24 to 30 inches of snow. A blizzard watch issued on Thursday for the New York area and parts of Long Island and New Jersey is forecast to begin on Saturday morning and will last until Sunday afternoon.
In a somewhat ominous sign, people in Washington and Baltimore had been struggling Wednesday night, after the inch of snow effectively brought traffic to a standstill on many major streets and highways. Routine commutes lasted up to three hours and some people abandoned their cars, after the inch fell – a fraction of what is expected on Friday and Saturday.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser tweeted an apology to her constituents, saying that officials had “failed to deploy the necessary resources in response to the snow – for that I am sorry”.
Among those affected was President Barack Obama, whose motorcade spent an hour and 12 minutes trying to get him from an airport back to the White House – a trip that typically takes about a half hour.
* Hazard types… heavy snow and wind with blowing and drifting snow Friday afternoon through Saturday night. Sleet may mix with the snow Friday night into Saturday morning east of Interstate 95 before changing back to all snow by Saturday afternoon.
* Accumulations… snow accumulation of 18 to 24 inches in the eastern suburbs of Washington DC… and 24 to 30 inches in the western suburbs. The city of Washington DC is expected to receive around 24 inches.
* Timing… heavy snow will develop late Friday afternoon and continue through Saturday night. Conditions are expected to deteriorate Friday afternoon with the heaviest snow… strongest winds… and potential life threatening conditions expected Friday night through Saturday.
* Impacts… heavy snow and blowing snow will cause dangerous conditions and will be a threat to life and property. Travel is expected to be severely limited if not impossible during the height of the storm Friday night and Saturday. Visibility will be reduced to near zero at times in whiteout conditions.
* Winds… northeast 25 to 35 mph with gusts up to 50 mph… becoming north Saturday.
* Temperatures… mid to upper 20s.
Precautionary/preparedness actions…
A Blizzard Warning means severe winter weather conditions are expected or occurring. Falling and blowing snow with strong winds and poor visibilities are likely. This will lead to whiteout conditions… making travel extremely dangerous. Do not travel. If you must travel… have a winter survival kit with you. If you get stranded… stay with your vehicle. Prepare for the possibility of power outages during snowy and cold conditions.
The largest storm in D.C. history was called the Knickerbocker Blizzard after the theater that collapsed due to the heavy snow accumulation. The flat roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre, the largest and newest movie house in D.C. at the time, collapsed during a Jan. 28 evening showing of the silent film “Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,” killing 98 people and injuring 133.
2. Great Blizzard of 1899
Feb. 11-13, 1899 Saturday-Monday Snowfall: 20.5″
Dubbed the Great Blizzard of 1899, this storm paralyzed much of the eastern United States, including southern states all the way down to Florida. D.C. experienced record cold temperatures, with thermometers registering at -15 degrees.
3. President’s Day Snowstorm of 1979 Feb. 18-19, 1979 Sunday-Monday Snowfall: 18.7″
The President’s Day Snowstorm of 1979 caught D.C. by surprise since forecasters predicted that the storm would bypass the city. The storm caused the Smithsonian museums to close for two days in a row, something that hadn’t happened in 50 years. Farmers who were in D.C. to protest agricultural policy used their tractors to help plow streets and get emergency personnel to hospitals.
5. Blizzard of 1996 Jan. 6-8, 1996 Saturday-Monday Snowfall: 17.1″
Beginning at 9 p.m. on Jan. 6, the crippling blizzard of 1996 dumped 12 inches of snow in D.C. in just 24 hours. The storm was so bad that President Bill Clinton had to shut down the federal government for nearly a week, History.com recalls. Total property damage estimates range from $600 million to $3 billion.
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6. President’s Day Snowstorm of 2003remember the names out there the author Feb. 16-18, 2003 Sunday-Tuesday Snowfall: 16.7″
Snow fell heavily from Boston to D.C. during the long weekend, partially due to moisture from El Nino. Whiteout conditions, heavy snow, sleet and bitter cold shutdown the D.C. area. While 16.7 inches of snow was reported at Reagan National Airport, Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport had an astonishing 28.2 inches fell, “breaking the all-time Baltimore record set during the Knickerbocker Storm of January 1922,” WeatherBook.com reported.
7. Megalopolitan Blizzard
Feb. 11-12, 1983 Friday-Saturday Snowfall:16.6″
Known as the Megalopolitan Blizzard, the 1983 storm left some areas of northwest Montgomery and Frederick counties with the greatest amount of snow ever recorded in those areas, even more than that recorded during the infamous Knickerbocker Storm of 1922. The storm crippled the region, closing the area’s three major airports and shutting down Metro, according to the Washington Post.
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8. Snowpocalypse
Dec. 18-19, 2009 Friday-Saturday Snowfall: 16.4″
The 2009 “Snowpocalypse” that blasted the East Coast caused usual snowstorm troubles, but D.C. took the weekend to recover, with only a few weather-related delays and closings the following Monday. However, the snow stuck around,giving D.C. residents a rare white Christmas. There are only 13 years on record that had an inch or more of snow on the ground in D.C. on Christmas.
9 (TIE). Feb. 7, 1936 Friday Snowfall: 14.4″ More than 14 inches of snow fell during the storm that ranged from the Virginia mountains to the lower Eastern Shore. The heavy snowfall helped to set up the March 1936 Great Spring Flood of the Potomac River, the National Weather Service said.
9 (TIE). Feb. 15-16, 1958 Saturday-Sunday Snowfall: 14.4″ The 1958 coastal storm affected much of the East Coast, and it was the first of two major nor’easter storms to hit the area that winter. More than 14 inches of snow fell in the D.C. area, with another snowstorm in March northeast of the city, according to the National Weather Service.
In spite of all hard the storm rages, tens of thousands of people from across the nation are expected to gather on the National Mall Friday to protest America’s embrace of abortion during the annual March for Life rally, which this year holds the theme “pro-life and pro-women go hand in hand.”
Although forecasts are calling for snow this upcoming weekend, activists are still planning to bear the frigid temperatures and march down Constitution Avenue in Washington D.C. on the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade with the purpose of speaking in defense of the nearly 60 million babies that have been aborted since the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973.
The march is set to take place at 1 p.m. and will be preceded by musical acts and an hour-long rally near the Washington Monument that will feature a number of prominent Christian speakers such as Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, Southern Baptist Convention ethicist Russell Moore, social conservative leader Jim Daly, and a number of other prominent pro-life activists and politicians.
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Participants will march down Constitution Avenue until they arrive behind the U.S. Capitol building and in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building. At around 3 p.m., women who have had abortions will provide testimonies of how their abortions caused devastation and pain in their lives. At around 3:30 p.m., participants will have a chance to meet and present their concerns to members of Congress.
“There are so many confusing messages about women and what it means to be pro-life; especially this year, we are going to hear a lot in the media and different political messages as we are entering into this election cycle about what it means to be a woman and some of the ‘war on women’ rhetoric,” March for Life President Jeanne Mancini told The Christian Post.
“We very much chose the theme with that in mind, wanting to tell the truth about the fact that pro-life is pro-woman and that we want to offer a beautiful and powerful alternative the old and soggy messages that we are hearing right now from abortion proponents about the false ‘war on women."”
Although the threat of a major East Coast snowstorm this weekend might prevent some pro-lifers from attending the rally, organizers believe that the snow will have only a small impact and believe the event will go on without a hitch.
“I joke with my kids that God wants to make sure that we are really committed to this issue because the whether is frequently so bad,” Maureen Ferguson, senior policy adviser with the Catholic Association, told CP. “But people always show up in massive numbers in rain, snow or frigid temperatures. We are a hardy bunch and committed to the cause.”
As Catholics have historically dominated attendance at past March for Life rallies, The Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and Focus on the Family will host a Evangelicals for Life conference in Washington that will take place the day before and the morning of the march in hopes of encouraging more Evangelical Protestants to join their Catholic brothers and sisters in participating in the March for Life.
“A number of years ago we began to do outreach to Evangelicals because they are so pro-life but they weren’t really coming to March for Life very often,” Mancini, who will speak at the Evangelicals for Life conference on Friday morning, said. “So, we have had a lot of collaboration and planning for this for a while. I am beyond delighted that Evangelicals for Life is kicking off this year.”
As Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard, is the only presidential candidate scheduled to speak at the rally, Mancini confirmed that although other presidential candidates are welcome to attend the rally, Fiorina was the only candidate invited to speak.
“Mrs. Fiorina was chosen not because she is running for president but because she has been so articulate and she embodies the theme so well,” Mancini said. “Her voice on the public stage over the course of the last few years has been very powerful in terms of this messaging. We didn’t invite her with her candidacy hat, so to speak. She is committed to not speaking on her campaign, she is speaking on the theme.”
As many on the left advance the notion that pro-lifers are in the midst of a so-called war on women, Mancini said she believes that such rhetoric might have impacted the opinions of moderate individuals who don’t consider themselves to be in the pro-choice or pro-life camp.
Ferguson stated that if abortion proponents really wanted to help women, they would advocate for programs that would help make it so that pregnant mothers wouldn’t have to choose between raising a child or aborting the child in order to continue down a career path.
“The message is that women deserve better and that we should refuse to choose,” Ferguson said. “The idea that abortion is good for women is just a lie. Women are left wounded both physically and emotionally through abortion and we should have better choices than being pressured into abortion when we find ourselves in a difficult situation.”
Record-breaking Blizzard Threatens Thirty Million People on the East Coast
Chloe was executed on the guillotine. An angel named Caleb was with her and gave her not only the strength that she needed but at the time the Global Community did its awful work, he blinded the eyes of the onlookers with a great light.
The members of the Adult Tribulation Force who are in Petra, held a memorial for her that was deeply moving.
Now it is 6 years, 5 1/2 months, into the Tribulation. That means that there are 6 1/2 months before Christ returns for the rest of the believers.
Ray picks the story up at this point. Join him now.
