Todd’s latest YouTube Video

TRANSCRIPT

Hey, what’s up everybody? It’s been a week or so since I had a chance to shoot a video and I was at the Lamb and Lion Ministries “Contending for the Faith” conference. Just got back from that yesterday. It was awesome. Just great talking to people, seeing them face to face, hearing feedback about how people are using the book and stuff like that and just hearing different aspects about how people are seeing prophecy fulfilled and how they’re teaching prophecy in their churches and how they’re excited about the Lord’s return and how we’re living with a lot of energy and intention as we wait because we don’t know when that is, but it seems like we’re in the season of the Lord’s return, so that’s a really exciting thing.

I might sound a little bit low energy. I’m kind of tired from the conference, but it was amazing and just wanted to share a couple of thoughts that I had from the conference and also some things I was studying today about earthquakes.

First of all, with the conference. One thing I want to say before I forget. Please pray for Ron Rhodes. He’s a great author. He’s written somewhere between 60 and 80 books. I think they said 60 at the conference, but I think from talking to some other people that know him really well that I think it’s upwards of 80. The guy just cranks out books. He’s a Dallas Theological grad, great guy, super solid theologically. He endorsed my first book and actually, my second book that’s coming out, so that was a huge blessing, a huge answer to prayer. To have someone like that endorse your book is just awesome. And I’ll also with others like Jeff Kinley, another good friend of mine who’s another Dallas Theological grad and a great guy and super respected in the world of prophecy and theology. Just really count my blessings, having those guys and Mark Hitchcock and a couple others, Terry James, just so many solid people have endorsed my book and it’s humbling beyond belief. I can’t believe it.

It’s also affirming to know that I’m really trying to be solid theologically as I draw crazy pictures and try to write books that are written in a way that people can understand. So anyway, I didn’t mean to do a book promo, but I’m just humbled by those guys.

But anyway, Ron Rhodes is going through some health issues, so I’d really appreciate if you would pray for him. I believe the Lord really has a lot of ministry left for that guy and he’s had some debilitating tough times with some physical ailments lately and they shared that from the stage, so it’s not secret knowledge or anything like that. So just pray for him, that the Lord would heal him, that he’d kind of get everything under control and still be able to write books and do ministry as frequently as he used to, so I want to see that happen for sure.

And speaking of Ron Rhodes, there’s one thing in his message at the conference that really spoke to me. In my book, I talk about the two super signs on the either end of the sign category. One is Israel becoming a nation again. And the final one is convergence. The fact that all the sign categories are converging in our day. And that’s why I say we know that we’re in a season of the Lord’s return, however long that is.

But one thing that really struck me on Ron’s simple graphic about convergence, because he talked about that as well. In my book, the analogy I used is like heat seeking missiles come into meet at a plane, at a point of convergence where they hit the plane and the plane blows up. But Ron had a graphic that I’d seen before but never really thought much about and sorry for this crude drawing of it.

But if you could see that, his graphic is kind of like that, where it has the converging lines converging at one point. But the thing that really struck me was once things converge, as they keep going in that direction, they un-converge and he didn’t talk much about that. I’m a visual learner and the graphic just really spoke to me because it made me kind of really think about some things that I’ve heard other prophecy authors and teachers talk about is that convergence doesn’t last forever. In other words, all the things that we see converging at this time, they kind of have a shelf life. They’re not gonna stay this way for an indefinite amount of time. We don’t know how long they’ll stay the way they are and keep building, like for example, just the alignment of the Gog and Magog battle or Ezekiel 38 nations in Syria right now, that is a convergence of things, several elements of scripture coming together, prophecy happening right before our eyes.

And we don’t know how long it’s going to take for all of that to fall into place perfectly, but at some point it’s going to be unset and it’ll un-converge, based on our human understanding. So that’s the reason convergence is such a super sign in our day because first of all, it’s statistically impossible for all of these signs to line up exactly like scripture said at the same time. And it’s very unlikely that the table’s going to be unset, that Iran is going to go back home, Syria is going to, you know, become a solid nation again. Israel’s enemies are going to stop trying to attack her and that kind of thing. But anyway, so that really struck me about convergence and were several of the things at the conference that stood out to me. It really wasn’t about Bible prophecy, Ron Rhodes’ message was, but the rest of them were really about contending for the faith.

And I guess they were about contending for the faith in the last days and what the Bible says about the challenges to our faith and the apostasy that takes place in the last days and the falling away from truth and falling away from the truth of society and things that God has set up, like traditional marriage. And all the things that have been solidly understood and accepted for thousands of years, but now all of a sudden are kind of unraveling in our society and in the world. So, I guess in that respect it wasn’t end times, but really it was more about contending for the faith. Like, one gentleman’s message, and I’m blanking on his name at the moment, but he was a lawyer, was talking about religious freedom and he talked about how religious freedom cases in his firm and his ministry in the last 20 years, have ramped up from about five or six a year to around 50 to 70 per year. Something in that range.

So that right there shows you that there’s some things that are increasing. And many of you are familiar with the birth pains that Matthew 24 talks about or Jesus talked about in the Olivet discourse. But that’s why we talk about things ramping up, when we see that that exponential curve happening in any category or especially when it’s like this, kind of like birth pains and that’s what Jesus talked about. That’s what he said the end time signs would be like in the last days. So we’re seeing that, along with convergence, we’re seeing an increase in frequency and intensity.

And one category that Jesus specifically mentions that with is earthquakes. And of course as you know there were two big earthquakes in California a week or so ago. And then of course the flooding, which was going on while I was in Texas, the flooding from Tropical Storm Barry and the sudden flooding in DC and just all this weird stuff. It’s not coincidence. It’s getting worse. There’s epic floods, epic storms, epic earthquakes happening with increasing volatility and increasing intensity and that kind of thing.

But one thing I wanted to point out with earthquakes was, and I talk about this in my book, and this was something that I really didn’t realize until I had to do some study and research for the book. And I think a lot of people, unless they’ve studied earthquakes and unless they’re geologists, they may not even realize this with earthquakes. And it’s significant to the in time signs and the birth pains. So, when you see these big earthquakes, like in California, it was a 6.4 and then a 7.1. I had always thought, and this is what most people think that you know, a 7.1 is less than 10% stronger than a 6.4, but what’s being measured there is, that’s a tenfold.

So each whole number increase on the Richter scale is tenfold increase in amplitude. And basically what that means is the charts that do the big squiggly lines, they measure the biggest squiggly line and that’s the maximum amplitude or the maximum vibration from that earthquake. So that measures the Richter scale. But even though that’s only a 10% increase on the Richter scale, in terms of destructive power that’s released from an earthquake, the difference between a 6.0 and a 7.0 is 32 times. So, a 7.0 is 32 times stronger, 32 times more destructive than a 6.0, so that’s why, like the other week with the 6.4 and then the 7.1, which almost a full point bigger. That that basically was about 30 times stronger than the first one. And that’s why it was such a big deal. So, keep that in mind as you hear about earthquakes around the world.

You know, my whole life, I’ve never been in any earthquakes until just a couple of years ago. I find that kind of funny, and I was in two different places where earthquakes are not very common. One was here in Georgia, there was a, I think it was a 4.2 earthquake. The epicenter was about 40 miles from where I live. And man, it shook the house. It was crazy. And then the very next year, I was on a mission trip in the Dominican Republic and there was, I think it was a 5.3 earthquake in Puerto Rico, but we felt it in the DR. I was on a mission trip and after working one day, we were in a big kind of grocery store kind of thing, and all of a sudden the floor started doing this and the lights were swaying and everybody ran out of the building.

But anyway, you’re just hearing about it more and more in weird places. And that’s exactly what scripture says, that the earthquakes would be in diverse or different or strange places, like not just the normal places that they are.

But anyway, I had a couple more things to share, but I think I’m gonna save them for the next video so that this one isn’t too crazy long, but I just wanted to kind of hit on a couple of those.

Please pray for Ron Rhodes. Please just keep looking at what’s going on in the world. One thing definitely pay attention to is what’s going on with Iran. Again, I know I keep hitting on that the past few times, but that’s where the hot spot is right now. They’re escalating things. I just read an article today about how they’re setting up a military base just outside of Iraq in Syria and just the rhetoric they’re saying, the things they’re doing, the things that intelligence sees them doing, how Israel’s responding, I don’t have time to unpack all the details, but if you study the prophecy of Elam, which is in southern Iran, where the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant is, if you study what Isaiah 17 says about Damascus being destroyed in a day, and if you study Ezekiel 38 and 39 about the War of Gog and Magog, all of those things, any and all of those are in play right now, and ramping up. If you look at the details and just watch the news or read some articles from the Mideast, particularly some of Israel’s newspapers, they kind of highlight it pretty well.

But anyway, I’m sure I’ll unpack more of that as things develop, but keep an eye on that. And the last thing I want to say is just, the Lord is really impressing this on me, we do not need to fear. He is an omniscient, omnipotent God. He’s 100% in control of the events of the world and he’s 100% in control of the events of your life. There is a tension between personal responsibility or man’s responsibility and God’s sovereignty. Meaning, we take actions, we have free will, we do stuff. World leaders make decisions, but at the same time somehow mysteriously, and we can’t reconcile this in our brains, but God is still sovereign over all of those.

And all of those are leading to the specific things that he has prophesied, when he told history in advance and we’re seeing those things happen exactly like he foretold. The Ezekiel 38 stuff. The Isaiah 17. All that is about 2,500 to 2,600 year old prophecies happening. Exactly like the Bible said. So that should get our attention, not an accident. It’s specifically things that God said would be occurring in the end times as this age draws to a close.

So, be encouraged. Know that the Lord loves you and wants a relationship with you, and I don’t highlight this enough. If you don’t know the Lord, please look below. I have a link that I often share about how to receive Christ. And if you’ve stumbled onto this and you don’t know the Lord or you’re wondering about the Christian faith, feel free to put a message down there. I’d love to answer, you and walk through that with you.

And then the last thing, because I get some goofy comments sometimes from people that are bashing what Christians believe and what prophecy’s about, don’t waste your time. I’m going to ignore those and delete them, if I get a chance, but just, I want to stay positive here. If you disagree with me, just disagree agreeably and no need to get nasty. Just do your thing and I’ll leave you alone.

But I will challenge you to please consider the things of God. Please consider the claims of the Bible. Your eternity depends on it. And Jesus died for our sins. He wants a relationship with us. He wants us to come to him. You know, John 3:16 says, you know, “God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that anyone who believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.” But we often forget John 3:17, that says he came to the world not to judge the world, but that the world would be saved through him, so that’s his heartbeat.

Another place that says God’s not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. That all should come to him for salvation. So that, that’s my prayer and that’s my goal. That’s what I want more than anything else with this, is for God to leverage it and use it for his glory and to save people and get us ready for his return, whether we meet him by death or whether we meet him by Rapture. So anyway, have a great day. Talk to you soon.