Being tricked about the »Rapture«.....................................................................................................................................Being tricked about the »Rapture«. .................................................................................................................................... In the final days, the Earth will be covered in spiritual darkness.People will exalt and love evil and hate and rebuke truth.Like in the days of Noah, people will be partying and be selfish right up until it’s too late. But as the darkness covers the Earth, God will pour His spirit on all people.The young will prophecy and have visions and the old will have dreams. The Bible says as much and predicted it thousands of years ago. O_O¡And it is happening right now! ÔoÔ People are having »Rapture« dreams and visions, both about going »¡WOOSH!« but also about what the years of »Tribulation« are going to be like. The »chip« , the »Mark of the Beast« , that whole shebang. Very recently, however, people are claiming September 23rd is going to be the day Christ returns... ¡¡¡Yeah, I’m NOT falling for that again!!! Jesus Himself said: »But of that day and hour, no one knows. No, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only.« (in [Matthew 24:36]) . ¡And, despite knowing that, I STILL got tricked two years ago! This is what happened... I had just been called back by God, in October 2023, and started finding preachers, teachers, prophets and testimonies on YouTube. Some were encouraging, some were warnings, some were garbage and some were just flat out lies. Most of the garbage and lies was easy enough to spot and tell apart from the real ones. But one channel got me... -_-;; A preacher streaming on Facebook and uploading the streams as multi-hour long videos on YouTube. Preaching a good game about having a special Hebrew »Bible Code« that, when prayed over, could be interpreted correctly and reveal secrets from God, about people and events, not meant to be understood until now in this day and age. He nick-named his Facebook group »Night Watchers« (or something like that) , which, by the way, I didn’t find a way to join what-so-ever, despite wanting to at the time. Figured it must have been some private club or something. »shrug« He was also very insistent that people should go and subscribe to his YouTube channel, so that it would grow, get pushed by the algorithm, have more people notice it and his Bible code messages would spread to reach more of God’s people... ¿But if he really wanted his channel to grow and be noticed, wouldn’t he have had his comment sections turned on?... Strange... A few times he’d come out with new »Bible Codes« , provided by another guy in a different country. Apparently, he would receive specific dates (like birth dates and other significant dates) , convert them into »Book, Chapter, Verse« messages in the Bible and give that to the preacher to share with the people in the group. This »Bible de-coder« fella, was also writing a book about Bible codes, and was periodically updating the PDF. It ended up being 777 pages long when he was finished with it, right before December 2023. The preacher encouraged people to donate - nothing wrong with that, a lot of ministries do - but some time after the 777 update, the preacher suddenly had the »¡Rapture Confirmation Code!« What he did next sickens me to my stomach... he told everyone to give ALL their money to the Bible de-coder guy, because, according to the preacher: »¿What are you gonna use it for? ¡The world will end before 2024!« Now, I wasn’t that stupid. But believe me when I say that this guy sounded extremely convincing. ._.;; His tone of voice, attitude, expression of emotions, aura of authority and knowledge of the Bible... e-yerp - he was a preacher alright. So far, this preacher had managed to manipulate me into staying up all night - going outside and stare up at the moon and stars, waiting for Jesus to come pick me up, because: »¡Any time this week, it’s gonna happen folks! ¡Be ready!« Oh, and it was DEFINITELY gonna happen at night in America, because it was gonna happen in the middle of the day in Israel’s time. For 3 months, this preacher, this- pharisee ... managed to discourage me, make me depressed, lose sleep, destroy my daily routine and make me give up on wanting to do ANYTHING . Because: »¿What’s the point in starting something that I couldn’t humanly possibly finish, when time was almost up?« That was the solemn somber thought invading my mind. So, I asked God if I should donate to the Bible de-coder guy. Oh, by the way, this Bible de-coder was supposed to become one of the »Two Witnesses« (mentioned in [Revelation 11:3 - 12]), THAT’S why we were supposed to throw all our money away to him T_T God loves a cheerful giver, true. ¡BUT! I didn’t wait for an answer... so... I ended up being manipulated out of... a sum of money I will not disclose -_-; It wasn’t until later that night that my mind went: »Wait - ¡¿What’s HE gonna use the money for?!« ¡UGH! >_< I felt so... ¡stupid! A) Because I didn’t think of that before donating.andB) Because I got tricked... ¡AS AN ADULT! It’s one thing to be a young teenager and be tricked into giving money away to some guy, just because he tells you a long sob story about wanting to save young girls from being raped in a foreign country... But it’s another thing to be tricked as an adult, because some preacher talks a very convincing game and manipulates you to do the exact same mistake. ¡AGAIN! (That first one, happened in the Christian boarding school by the way... ¡I blame the teachers for even allowing that charlatan to come spew his lies in the first place!¡14 year olds are still children, you’re supposed to protect them! ¡You can’t expect them to know better yet!) Anyway... ¡Talk about double the shame! -~-;; So... 2023 passed... we didn’t celebrate Halloween or Christmas, (which is probably a good thing. According to some sources, Christ’s birthday is on the 29th of October, and Halloween glorifies the devil -_-) ... but rapture didn’t happen. So, checking in on the preacher’s channel, not ONLY was he making excuses as to why rapture didn’t happen, ¡but THIS wasn’t even the FIRST time he’d done so! EVERY year, for SEVERAL years, his excuse was: »Guys, we didn’t have all the information and details - we didn’t know as much then as we do now about de-coding Bible codes. The code changes with new knowledge and- « ¡¡¡Blah blah blah BLAH BLAH!!! ¡¿WHY didn’t I investigate SOONER ?! ¡Stupid, stupid, STUPID! Sad to say, but it took a whole year to recover emotionally from that one.¡Not to mention faith and trust-wise! O_O I have forgiven the pharisee preacher, the Bible de-coder, and even the teachers from way back in the day, since then. It was a lesson about trust and betrayal, learned the hard way. But this is why I’m on higher guard this time. It’s good to have hope, but foolish to have your whole life fall apart because you’re convinced about something. And even if rapture DOESN’T happen, or , it happens and you’re left behind , what matters is to keep trusting God to guide you. Both on your good days and your bad days, as well as on your best days and on your worst days.....................................................................................................................................trophyIf You Give a Rat a Cookie... [writing]In a small white house on a ragged old road, a man returned home. The smile that parted his lips gave his expression a sharp quality that, while foreign to many of the faces of his modern fellows, was more than fitting on his own. It graced his visage for every reason and no reason at all. He took several steps into his own living space, shadowed by a teenager much younger than him, much smaller than him, but just the same as he was at that age in all the ways that mattered to them. No grin cut across the kid's face, but their eyes held the same ferocity. Wild and excited, they followed the man to a coffee table in the center of the room. He sat down on a blanket-covered couch, and they followed suit in an armchair perpendicular to it. The man set a paper bag down on the table. The teenager watched it as it went, glancing up once or twice to meet the eyes of the one holding it there. The man let go of the bag, set his elbows on his knees, and leaned forward to return their gaze. Both parties looked at each other, looked at the bag, and back again. Neither moved toward the item on the table. The shuffling of small clawed feet on the carpet grew steadily louder, accompanied by the occasional squeak of the floorboards. A long nose peeked over the edge of the coffee table. It sniffed around for a few moments before disappearing, only to pop back up as the rest of its body jumped up onto the table. It was a large rat, clearly well-fed and sleek-furred, patched gray and white all over its body. Both individuals sat still with bated breath as the rodent padded toward the bag and took a whiff of it. They tensed as it looked over at each of them, its beady eyes considering both figures seated around the platform upon which it stood. After far too many prolonged, harrowing seconds, the rat finally turned to the bag, gripped it firmly in its mouth, and began dragging it along the surface… directly toward the figure in the armchair. "Yes! " The kid in question exclaimed quietly, so as not to spook the small creature that had single-handedly decided their win. They stood briefly from their seat to strike a victorious pose at the man in front of them, but sat down again rather quickly to take the item that the rat was offering. Skylar Zawinul reached into the paper bag, retrieved a donut and a cookie, and gave the rodent some well-deserved love and attention (and maybe a tiny piece of their winnings). The man on the couch, called by the name Vendyr, rolled his eyes. "Alright, kid, come on," he said, his voice light and raspy, "Sharing is caring and all that." He moved to reach for the bag, but Skylar playfully batted his hand away. "Nuh-uh," they retorted through the pastry in their mouth, " I am sharing, see? I care!" They motioned toward their other hand, which was held closer to the floor in order to distribute small crumbs of oatmeal cookie to several other rats that had begun to funnel into the room. Another one poked her head out of Vendyr's sleeve to join them, but he scooped her up onto his shoulder just before she made the leap, where she then rested contently for the time being. "You're not sharing with me!" The man reached again for the bag, only to have it stolen from his grasp mere millimeters away. "Hey! I bought them!" Skylar stuck their tongue out in response, and went to put their hand back in for another treat, only to find that the bag had disappeared from their possession. They whipped their head around to look for it, but locked right back in on Vendyr when he let out a maniacal chuckle. He was chewing on a donut of his own in one hand, a suspiciously familiar paper bag being held in the other. "Wh– hey! How do you always– give it back!" The kid stumbled over their words as they scrambled over to him, carefully avoiding stepping on any rats along the way, only to stop short with an "oof," when the item was pushed into their chest halfway there. After a moment, they hurriedly snatched it away again. "You've gotta show me how to do that," they said, taking out another pastry to munch on, "I swear I wouldn't use it for evil! Trust!" "You've got plenty of your own tricks, kid. Besides," Vendyr reached up to his shoulder to pet the creature that resided there, his sharp grin sly, "a magician never reveals his secrets." Skylar pouted pitifully. Vendyr laughed. The rats shuffled about, vying for attention from their favorite people. The walls creaked every time the building shifted on its foundation, but the roof stood still above their heads even so. This house was alive; never still, never stagnant. Its current residents did not reflect on this as they continued to banter and laugh over their regular rituals, but it was important to them both nonetheless. The house was alive, and they were alive, and they didn't need introspection or sentimentality to value those things. The lingering taste of bread and sugar on their tongues did that just fine.trophytrophytrophytrophytrophytrophypersontrophytrophytrophy