I was thinking this morning about a song that some of you might be old enough to remember. It’s called I Wish We’d All Been Ready. It was by Larry Norman. Larry Norman was kind of the grandfather of contemporary Christian music. The introduction to that goes, “Life was filled with guns and war, and everyone got trampled on the floor. I wish we’d all been ready.” It’s talking about being ready for what’s coming as we get closer and closer and closer to the end times.
Now, don’t panic about this. I will share some really practical things I think we need to consider right now. You know, we are in Christ. He conquered death and Hades. He conquered the devil. He conquered all things that would be destructive for us through His death, burial, and resurrection. In Him, we share in that victory. But the key is we must stay in step with Him.
The Bible discusses when Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you.” Taking on His yoke means that we sync up and get in step with Him. We get in harmony with Him so that we’re walking where He’s walking, going where He’s going, and following whatever He says and however He leads. Sadly, I don’t think that’s happening much in the body of Christ today.
Now, you guys are really incredible people. I get so much great feedback from the people who follow our ministry, who are taking life seriously and serving God. But I still feel like there are some things that I want to share with you.
Ten years ago, I released my book Apocalypse: A Spiritual Guide for the Second Coming. In that book, I gave some very, very specific—you could say warnings or encouragement—some things that I encouraged people to do, and some things that I warned would probably happen. I’m not speaking as a prophet. I’m not claiming to be a prophet. I am just claiming to be someone who can read the signs, pays attention, and understands the times and the season we’re in.
One thing I warned about before the 2016 election was that I had a sense that Trump would win. I knew that the agenda that had been planned for America wouldn’t happen. But my warning was this: it doesn’t matter if Trump or anybody else wins. I’m not saying that because I think he’s the cure-all and be-all. I’m not saying that for any reason other than how it fits into what was happening in America during those times.
Had he not won, America would have already fallen. I hate to say that, but it is absolutely true. When you read the writings of the people who were ready to take power, and their plans and the laws that would pass, you realize that this would have been the end of America. My warning to people was that Trump is not our savior. No president is our savior. Nobody that gets into office can be the cure-all and fix-all.
I encourage people to understand that whoever wins, even if they bring relief to America, instead of acting like everything is fixed because of who won, you must realize you’ll have about four years, and it will all change again. I encouraged people, church leaders, and believers to take specific steps during those four years. It wouldn’t be the time when all the puzzles were solved, just a temporary reprieve. Honestly, people didn’t listen.
When I first started seeing these things happening in the seventies, people much more mature and stable than me gave us warnings. It wasn’t that people didn’t listen as much as they didn’t know what to do with the information. So today, I will share some things I see on the horizon and offer suggestions on what to do. More than anything, I want you to take these suggestions and go to the Lord for yourself, to listen to God in your own heart.
When you make up your mind to hold nothing back from God, your heart changes, and you start recognizing His voice.
In my book on the apocalypse, and anytime I teach a message about the last days, I emphasize one consistent command Jesus gave: “To him who has ears, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.” If Jesus commanded us to do something, that means it’s possible—we can do it. There’s no substitute for personally hearing what God wants us to do with our lives.
If you’re not in a place where you’ve developed that ability, you can. It can become a reality. The quickest way to develop your ability to hear God’s voice is by deciding that anything God shows you or leads you to do—you will do it. In Hebrew, the words for “hear” and “obey” form a continuum: to hear, understand, and obey. From this continuum, we understand that we won’t have the capacity to hear and understand anything we aren’t willing to obey.
If there’s any part of our lives we hold back or don’t trust God,
even if we perceive what He’s saying, we won’t fully understand it
or trust enough to follow it. But when you make up your mind
to hold nothing back from God, your heart changes,
and you start recognizing His voice.
My grandparents grew up on a small farm in Estill Springs, Tennessee, between Tullahoma and Winchester, out in the boonies. There wasn’t much around them. They had a small garden, some goats, and a few animals. Interestingly, out by the well house, where they got water, they had a root cellar. That was common back then. In the root cellar, they stored canned food from their garden. They also had a smokehouse where they cured meat from their animals. They had systems in place for growing and storing food.
Brenda’s parents didn’t have a smokehouse or root cellar when we first married but followed the same principle every year. They put back enough food to get through summer, fall, and winter and even prepared for a poor growing season the following year. They ensured they could survive. That was wisdom. Until about the last 50 years, preparing for things was considered wisdom.
About 50 years ago, suddenly, through the corrupt leadership of our government, people started living on credit cards. They began feeling like they could just go out and buy whatever they needed if a crisis came up. The United States had never seen a crisis like the ones in other countries that had become socialist or communist, where suddenly, there was no food in the grocery stores. It didn’t matter if you had money or a credit card; if there was nothing on the shelves, there was nothing to buy.
But I want you to understand something. My grandparents and Brenda’s parents didn’t prepare because they were expecting the end of time. They did it because it was simple wisdom. In this part of the country, we have a lot of tornadoes. If a tornado hits and you’re without power for four or five days, which has happened here several times, you’re in trouble if you haven’t stocked up on food and water. It’s about wisdom, not paranoia or fear—just wisdom.
The previous generations planned ahead in case of a long, cold winter or a bad growing season. They made sure their families would be taken care of in a crisis. I’m going to share with you today about planning ahead, just a little, so that if a crisis occurs—and it will—people who are not prepared will fall into a couple of categories. Some will be prepared and survive the short-term crisis, while others will die. They could die from starvation, disease, polluted water, or simply from lack of water. Those who aren’t prepared will become dependent on government management, which means they’ll rely on the government for survival.
In countries where this has happened, millions of people have died because the government is not good at organizing things that benefit its citizens. The government is good at doing things that benefit politicians but not the people. If you’re hoping the government will save you from harm or crime, you will be desperately disappointed—and it could cost you your life.
I was looking at the crime statistics just last week, and what we know for a fact is that through our southern border, somewhere between 12,000 and 13,000 convicted murderers have crossed into the U.S., and no one knows where they are. We’ve had about 14,000 people convicted of sex trafficking—kidnapping women and children and putting them in the sex trade. These people were released into our country, and nobody is keeping track of them. Over 400,000 convicted felons are roaming around, and no one knows where they are.
This is heartbreaking for me. I have loved America all my life, even when I was a hippie and didn’t agree with what the government was doing. I loved this country and believed in its freedoms. But this is not the same country it was 40, 50, or 60 years ago. The people in power now don’t care how many American citizens get killed, raped, or lost their wealth. They need these things to happen, so we’ll surrender our freedoms in exchange for their protection.
Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” When something you hope for doesn’t come to pass, it makes your heart weak, worn down, and sorrowful. Faith is a factor of the heart, and if your heart gets sick, you’ll have trouble trusting God, trusting people, or making it through tough times because you’ve lost hope. When people lose hope, they give up and make compromises. So, if we put our hope in the government and politicians, our hearts will get sick because hope will be deferred—it won’t come to pass.
I’m not trying to promote my book Apocalypse, but if you want to understand the history of the world from a biblical perspective, how we got here, and what’s going to happen, you might want to read it. It will open your eyes to what’s happening in the world and why it’s happening. It’s a long read but take your time.
Jesus warned us about the last days. Some may say, “How do we know this is the last days?” The Bible says that skeptics will say we’ve been talking about the last days forever, but nothing’s changed. However, God declared that man would have 6,000 years to labor and establish righteousness on Earth. Well, man never did that. After that, there will be a thousand-year period, the Sabbath, where Jesus will rule and righteousness will be established.
Looking at biblical genealogies, we know we are on the brink of the end of the 6,000-year period. We are entering what Daniel called the “70th week,” a seven-year period known as the tribulation before Jesus returns. This isn’t just a warm, fuzzy feeling—it’s based on the Bible’s timeline.
Jesus warned that when this time comes, it will be like in the days of the flood. People will be going about their lives, ignoring all the warnings, just like before Noah entered the ark. They won’t take it seriously because they don’t want to or fear what it represents. But you can get ready and make sure you’re prepared.
A well-known economist who has accurately predicted many crises over the past few decades says something significant. He predicts that Trump will win the election, but the establishment will never allow him to take office. This could lead to war in the streets, as people realize that the America we knew is gone. He believes the stock market will crash, losing at least 50% of its value, leading to a worldwide financial crisis.
One of the things I have warned about for the last 20-plus years is that when the economy in the United States falls, the economy of the entire world will fall because we are. We are the primary purchaser of goods produced in every country in the world. So, to a great degree, what we purchase worldwide sustains their economy. And when our economy crashes, their economy crashes.
Another thing that he says will happen, of course, is that the value of the dollar will crash. One of the things that will occur in a global market is that the dollar will no longer be used as the international petrodollar. The United States dollar became the petrodollar, which was the only currency countries worldwide would use to purchase oil or petroleum products. Well, now China and Russia, and I don’t remember who else is involved in this, are already creating their own petrodollar. So, the dollar will be worthless when the United States economy crashes and the dollar crashes.
When they create a petrodollar so that we don’t have money in banks worldwide, this means that the trillions of dollars we owe in debt will be called due, and we won’t have the money to pay it because our money will be worthless. There will be massive inflation. I believe that even if he’s wrong about some of these things, they will happen. Most of them will happen, and they’ll probably happen much sooner than you would ever imagine.
I believe that the crash of the American economy will set the stage for the emergence of a one-world economy, which, of course, will lead to a one-world government, eventually giving rise to what we call the Antichrist. Now, the Antichrist doesn’t come on the scene attacking God and Christians. The Antichrist comes onto the scene, and one of the primary things he will do, especially as the war in Israel escalates, is bring about peace in the Middle East. That will stabilize the world’s petroleum production.
To some degree, everything will look great. Still, the only problem is, at some point, when the Antichrist gains enough following and power, he will reveal his true agenda: to destroy Israel, destroy all Christians, and require every human on Earth to pledge allegiance to him, deny Jesus as Lord and God as Father, and Creator. Thus, he is called the Antichrist—a false savior.
Am I prepared? Am I prepared in the natural, and am I prepared in the supernatural?
Again, if these things don’t happen around the November election, they’re still going to happen. Through a thorough search of Bible prophecy and a good understanding of economics, you know this will happen. There’s no way around it, and it will happen soon. So the question we’ve all got to ask is, am I prepared? Am I prepared in the natural, and am I prepared in the supernatural?
Am I fully sold out to God? Am I going to listen for and look for what God is telling me to do to survive this? Now, I will give you some suggestions and then wrap this up. I know this is not the most encouraging or exciting news you can ever hear, but let me tell you this: Years ago, when a lot of crazy weather things were happening here, we faced tornadoes regularly in Huntsville. Sometimes, we had several bad tornadoes and would go days without power. So, I got together water, food, and supplies—not because I thought it was the end of the world, but because I just wanted to ensure my family was safe.
I went to Canada for a meeting, and Brenda was pretty critical of this. She wasn’t on board and thought I was being an extremist. But while in Canada, a terrible series of tornadoes hit Huntsville. Everyone was powerless, but she wasn’t because I had a generator. People were without food and couldn’t go to the grocery store, but she was okay because we had put food back. And again, we weren’t doing this out of fear but of wisdom. Even though I was gone, she had light, food, and everything she needed to be comfortable. It took me about four or five days to get a phone call through, and when Brenda answered, she said, “I owe you an apology.” She had thought I was nuts when I did all this stuff, but she was the only house with light and food and was safe. She told me she appreciated what I had done.
I want to help you be prepared. I want the freedom to help my neighbors and minister to people.
That’s what I want for you, too. I want to help you be prepared. And worst-case scenario—if I’m wrong and none of this happens—you’ll still be prepared for any natural disaster. With the things happening in the weather, there could be natural disasters. But I want to give you a couple of things to consider. And remember, I’m not a survivalist, a prepper, or a prophet, but I recognize the times and seasons and understand what we should do.
I realize that as these things happen, if I’m here before the rapture or the harpazo, I want the freedom to help my neighbors and minister to people. I don’t want to be so burdened with my family’s survival that I can’t help anyone else. If we don’t fall into the crisis mode the rest of the world falls into, two things will happen: we can help others and won’t panic. If you panic, you’re going to lose.
Don’t put yourself in a position where you are holding on to this world.
So, the first thing to do is to take care of anything that would cause you to hold on to this world. When Jesus calls us to leave, don’t hold back. Share Jesus with your loved ones. If you don’t know how to share Jesus, visit my website, find a great video that shares Jesus, and send it to them. Don’t put yourself in a position where you are holding on to this world.
Secondly, be ready to face any crises and survive for a short time. Put food and water back—a three to six-month supply. Even if you can’t afford packaged food, the best thing to get is beans and rice. Together, they provide all the amino acids your body needs to make protein. Store them in five-gallon buckets to keep pests out, and make sure you have water. You’ll die quicker from lack of water than anything else. Put back about 50 gallons of water; in most crises, those prepared for the initial shock will survive and even thrive.
Jesus said that where your treasure is, your heart will also be.
Lastly, if you want to do anything for God, do it now. Store up treasures in heaven. Jesus said that where your treasure is, your heart will also be. If you invest in eternity, lead people to Jesus, and serve others, your treasure will be in heaven, and you’ll be ready for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ without anything holding you to this world.
I know this isn’t pleasant or exciting, but I hope you will prayerfully decide what you must do. Don’t get extreme or fearful—just get ready. If you’re interested in understanding the last days, I have a series called The Mysteries of the Ten Virgins in CyberChurch. It will give you a great understanding of what’s happening in these last days.
Don’t get extreme or fearful—just get ready.
