Tag: The End Times

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Marketing Psychiatric Drugs to Jailers and Judges

Drug companies are courting jails and judges through sophisticated marketing efforts.

MAX BLAU – 
 
On a rainy Monday morning in April, more than a hundred sheriffs, doctors, nurses, and jail guards from around the country sat in a ballroom on the outskirts of Nashville, sipping on coffees and listening to Daniel Potenza, a psychiatrist from New Hampshire, describe one of their most vexing problems: treating schizophrenia.

The conference, on medical care inside America’s jails and prisons, had been put on by an organization that sets standards for treatment in correctional facilities. Potenza paced the stage, talking animatedly about a national mental-health epidemic that had burdened jails and prisons. He flipped to a presentation slide showing that nearly half of all inmates diagnosed with schizophrenia were “non-adherent,” meaning that they weren’t taking their daily medications as prescribed.

Then, Potenza suggested a solution: a single shot of long-acting antipsychotic medicine, whose effects last for as long as three months, administered to patients while they’re still incarcerated. To show how this might help, Potenza presented a hypothetical scenario in which an inmate with schizophrenia becomes eligible for release but is denied parole because a medical provider describes the person as non-adherent. Parole-board members might be willing to reconsider if they could ensure that the person would receive his or her medications as prescribed ahead of release. In some cases, a “treatment resistant” patient who is simply forgetful might agree to the shot. However, in some cases, a judge might order a shot to be administered without the patient’s permission.

Potenza didn’t recommend a specific drug, and he was presenting at the conference at his employer’s expense, having been invited by its organizers.  But if you looked inside the conference program, you would learn that the keynote address on schizophrenia had been underwritten by Alkermes, an Irish company that manufactures one of the long-acting medicines, Aristada. If you walked through the exhibit hall, you would see Alkermes banners hanging from the rafters, along with a booth of salespeople expounding on the benefits of the antipsychotic drug. An Aristada flyer they passed out featured two buildings—a guard tower surrounded by a razor-wire fence, and a community health center—with the slogan “Transition of care takes time.”

For most of the twentieth century, pharmaceutical companies expressed little interest in inmates. People in need of mental-health treatment often received it at state-run psychiatric hospitals. But in the 1950s and ’60s, states began shuttering many of America’s psychiatric hospitals, pushing patients toward treatment in their communities. Then, in the 1980s and ’90s, lawmakers passed “tough on crime” policies that dramatically expanded the nation’s corrections population. Taken together, those developments had the unintended consequence of turning jails and prisons into warehouses for the mentally ill. By 2005, more than a million adults behind bars had some form of mental illness, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The dramatic shift in American mental-health care presented new opportunities for pharmaceutical companies. Correctional officials are required by law to provide adequate health care, including prescription drugs, to inmates. They also have an imperative to try to make sure people have enough medication when they are released to tide them over until they can seek care on their own. Federal researchers have found that releasing inmates with a supply of medication, and connecting them to community-based treatment, has lowered the odds of recidivism. But by the turn of the millennium, psychiatric-drug prices were rising. As early as the 2000s, to help mitigate costs, local officials in some states, including Washington and Ohio, sought free samples of antipsychotic medications from pharmaceutical companies.

Since then, the relationship between drug companies and the criminal-justice system seems to have intensified: free samples to detention facilities; comped lunches during which jail and prison doctors learn about medications; and payments to physicians to tout certain medications at conferences for criminal-justice professionals, including those without health-care licenses such as sheriffs and drug-court judges. At recent conferences about correctional health care, Merck, Gilead, AbbVie, and other big pharmaceutical companies have staged “product theaters” or “education luncheons” that show how their products could help treat inmates. The criminal-justice system isn’t just a lucrative market because of current inmates; it also introduces incarcerated people to medication that they might continue using after they’re released. (The full cash price of Aristada is about $1,300 for a four-week shot. The drug is covered by Medicaid and Medicare but can still require hefty copays.)

Dr. Joseph Penn, the director of mental-health services for the Correctional Managed Care division of the University of Texas Medical Branch, which oversees treatment in many of the state’s jails and prisons, says drug companies have awakened to the potential market behind bars. “No other country incarcerates as many people as we do, and they realized, ‘Hey, that’s a whole market we haven’t tapped,’” Penn said.

Long-acting schizophrenia drugs, in particular, can be an effective medication for inmates who might otherwise resist treatment, potentially leading to a safer and more predictable environment for them and for the correctional officers on shift. Potenza, the doctor who presented at the Tennessee conference, told me that meetings with drug companies allow doctors like him “to understand the benefits, despite the amplification”—of a particular drug’s merits—“from the company reps.” And free samples of these drugs can make them more accessible.

But despite having benefits for detention facilities and prisoners—free drugs, more information about new treatments—these marketing efforts have raised worries among criminal-justice advocates that drug companies could influence both the prescribing habits of correctional doctors and the choices of non-health-care professionals such as sheriffs and drug-court judges. A recent ProPublica analysis found that doctors who accepted money from pharmaceutical companies for top brand-name drugs were more likely to prescribe those companies’ medicines than doctors who did not. And Dominic Sisti, a medical-ethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, worries that nonmedical professionals might not be able to analyze drug companies’ marketing messages the way doctors can. “It’s a sales pitch,” Sisti said.

Potenza said that audiences should “apply a keen eye as to anything that is biased.” Dr. Brent Gibson, the chief health officer for the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, which organized the conference at which Potenza presented, said in an email that Alkermes and other sponsoring companies do not have input into presentations like Potenza’s. “We do reserve the right to not accept financial support from a corporate entity that is in conflict with our mission, but we do not feel that is the case with pharmaceutical companies that offer medications that can be useful in the correctional setting,” he wrote.

While drug companies have long marketed to people in a position to help patients make decisions, critics say their efforts in the criminal-justice sphere are particularly troubling because the patients involved, being incarcerated, may not feel that they have as much of a say in their own health-care decisions.

John Snook, the executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, a group that calls for better mental-health treatment, said, “If you’re a jailer, and someone says, ‘We’re going to provide you with a solution that gets regular levels of therapeutic medicine to a population that’s difficult for you to control’”—in the form of samples of psychiatric drugs—“that’s going to be extremely attractive.”

But David Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, expressed concern about whether this kind of marketing, aimed at jailers and judges rather than incarcerated people themselves, further diminishes the agency of prisoners, who are disempowered in nearly every facet of life behind bars. Even in cases where incarcerated patients elect to take a psychiatric drug, he said, it may be a choice made under duress, knowing that they may be medicated against their will if they refuse. “If you know you can be forcibly medicated, can you really make a free and noncoercive choice about medication?” he said.

Geoff Mogilner, a spokesman for Alkermes, said, “We expect healthcare professionals to utilize their independent clinical judgment to continually assess, with their patient’s input, how a medication is working and to recommend the medication that works best.”

Alkermes, which manufactures drugs for conditions that are disproportionately found behind bars—such as schizophrenia and alcohol and opioid addiction—is among several companies that have embraced the criminal-justice system as a source of customers. Starting in the early 2010s, Alkermes promoted Vivitrol, a treatment for opioid-use disorder, to correctional facilities. The treatment, generically known as naltrexone, had previously been used for alcohol-use disorder, but the drug floundered. When Alkermes recast it as a solution to the opioid epidemic, the company directly lobbied jailers and judges on the shot’s merits, selling the promise of the drug despite scant evidence of its effectiveness compared to competing treatments like buprenorphine, one of the active ingredients in the brand-name drug Suboxone. In closed-door meetings, Alkermes disparaged Suboxone as a “black market” drug that was illegally abused inside correctional facilities, according to a report from The New York Times. The company’s marketing practices received blowback. (Alkermes has pointed to studies it says offer further evidence for Vivitrol’s effectiveness. In some cases, the company has pushed back against criticisms. Earlier this month, in response to a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration, the company responded that it was taking steps to be “fully compliant” with federal regulations.) Alkermes accomplished its goal: People received Vivitrol while behind bars, and kept using it once they were released. Today Vivitrol is widely available in treatment facilities across the country, in part thanks to this early push.

Drugmakers introduced long-acting schizophrenia shots more than 50 years ago as a way to infuse consistency into psychosis treatment. But some psychiatrists and mental-health advocates were skeptical because of concerns about extended exposure to side effects such as sleepiness and low blood pressure, and because the shots seemed like “an attempt by psychiatrists to impose their will on patients,” according to a paper by Ahsan Khan, a psychiatrist at Saint Louis University, and colleagues.

As long-acting antipsychotic drugs improved, along with their public image, drug companies thought they could reinvigorate the market. In July 2009, the Food and Drug Administration approved Invega Sustenna, a long-acting, injectable form of an earlier antipsychotic pill made by Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen brand. Abilify Maintena, from a Japanese company called Otsuka Pharmaceutical, followed four years later. Then came Aristada, green-lit in 2015.

Within the multibillion-dollar schizophrenia-drug market, the makers of all three drugs are seeking to cast long-acting injections as the future of schizophrenia treatment. A 2015 study by the University of California, Los Angeles, found that patients who were given such injections were more likely to adhere to treatment and see reduced symptoms over a 12-month period, compared to those taking the same medication orally. But there’s also a chance that side effects will last longer than with the pill form, and that’s one of the key reasons some psychiatrists still start with the pill.

Recognizing the importance of detention facilities in the mental-health market—approximately 15 percent of state prisoners experience serious mental illness, more than three times the rate found in the total U.S. adult population—drugmakers are, to varying degrees, marketing the long-acting drugs to criminal-justice audiences.

Janssen, whose schizophrenia drug leads the market, offers free samples and financially supports advocacy groups aimed at keeping individuals with mental illnesses out of jails. Last year, the company won approval from the FDA to market Invega Sustenna as a treatment that can keep schizophrenic patients out of jail. Before then, Janssen could market the drug’s ability to treat schizophrenia but not make further claims about how it might help incarcerated populations.

Once it got the additional approval, Janssen rolled out video testimonials of formerly incarcerated individuals receiving injections, including a 31-year-old woman identified only as “Tanara” who was incarcerated after a fight with a neighbor. Tanara explained that the injection allowed her to not worry about missing daily pills for schizophrenia and helped her get a steady job as a peer-support specialist after she was released.

Kaitlin Meiser, a Janssen spokeswoman, said free samples allow doctors to “familiarize themselves with the medicine and for patients to try the medicine and determine if it is the right fit for them.” But she noted that the company does not have any “concerted” efforts to specifically educate correctional doctors through the use of paid speakers or free meals.

Otsuka’s criminal-justice efforts appear more limited. Public records show that psychiatrists who have worked in corrections have received payments or perks from Otsuka, but Robert Murphy, a spokesman, said the company’s marketing does not specifically target the criminal-justice system. It has offered free samples of Abilify Maintena to just one correctional system, in Maricopa County, Arizona—and that was on request. He also said that Otsuka has not made “any payments for meals or speaking fees at any meetings or conferences where the audience was doctors or individuals who work with jails, prisons, or courts.”

Aristada, a relative newcomer in the antipsychotic-injection sector, trails behind Invega Sustenna and Abilify Maintena. As Alkermes seeks to catch up, it has provided the treatment in 40 correctional facilities in 18 states, offering free samples to many of them. And it has paid doctors to speak at criminal-justice conferences about its potential, as well as designing advertisements that depict people reentering society thanks to the shot. Two doctors told me Alkermes paid them to participate in focus-group panels where they were asked by company representatives about how to market the shot to criminal-justice officials.

Mogilner, the Alkermes spokesman, did not answer specific questions about the company’s marketing and sales tactics but noted that they are, to a large degree, no different from other companies’ efforts. He wrote in an email that Aristada can offer people leaving prison or jail “consistent and sustained” treatment during “the often-challenging transition back to the community.”

Corrections officials don’t have to exclusively prescribe Aristada in exchange for free samples, Mogilner added, or continue prescribing the shot after the samples run out. “We work to educate healthcare professionals and other stakeholders with whom they work about the treatment of schizophrenia in diverse settings of care, including criminal justice healthcare settings, community mental health centers, and hospitals,” he wrote. “No one medicine is right for every patient.”

Several health-care officials and practitioners told me that free samples of long-acting antipsychotic shots have helped their patients in the criminal-justice system access helpful drugs that would otherwise be too expensive for them to offer. “Funding is always an issue,” Rachel Waddell, a nurse practitioner who treats inmates in a 662-bed jail in Rapid City, South Dakota, told me. The jail has provided samples of Aristada to 10 inmates but hasn’t accepted payments from drug companies, or perks such as free lunches. “With Alkermes, we don’t have to jump through hoops.”

Officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, have not taken perks or payments from drug companies, but they have accepted free samples of long-acting shots from Janssen, Otsuka, and Alkermes. Grant Phillips, the medical director of Maricopa County’s correctional-health services, said that nearly 120 inmates are on long-acting shots and that they work well. More than half of those are ordered by judges, he said, but judges leave it up to doctors to decide which product is best for their patients. The medication consumes a fifth of the total pharmacy budget for a jail population of about 7,500.

While some jail officials see mostly an upside in drug companies’ marketing efforts, others say it’s more complicated. Jeff Gromer, the former warden of the Minnehaha County Jail in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, said he hasn’t accepted perks or consulting payments, but he has given samples of Aristada to 16 patients since 2018; their symptoms stabilized while on the drug. “When you put someone with anxiety and paranoia in [a jail] environment, it gets hard for them to cope,” Gromer said. “When they can’t cope, there’s behavioral problems such as self-harm or aggression toward inmates or staff, or hiding in their cell.” Still, he’s wary of Alkermes’s efforts to reach patients by marketing to criminal-justice officials overseeing them. “Alkermes’s hope is that the prescription is continued once they’re out of custody, and they’re going to get paid for that,” he said. (Alkermes didn’t comment on Gromer’s characterization.)

Penn, the doctor working with Texas prisons, said his system does not accept samples from drug companies at all and restricts the perks or payments doctors receive. While patients in Texas prisons are sometimes prescribed long-acting antipsychotic drugs—typically as a last resort—Penn expressed concern, noting that “there’s not much literature” on them yet. Though more company-funded studies are emerging, he hasn’t seen enough “good head-to-head studies of the medications,” he said.

Alkermes and other drug companies have marketed not only to jailers but to judges as well. Earlier this year, at a conference for drug- and mental-health-court professionals in Maryland, Alkermes sponsored a closed-door promotional session about using long-acting shots in a court setting. Featured at the session was Richard Jackson, a former psychiatrist at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and Ernie Glenn, a magistrate in Bexar County, Texas, who had helped defendants in his court get access to long-acting antipsychotic shots. While Glenn had received no payments from Alkermes, the company had paid Jackson more than $250,000 between 2015 and 2018 for speeches, travel and lodging, and meals, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’s open payments database. (Jackson also received $252,608 in payments from Otsuka from 2015 to 2018, and said he has continued receiving payments from drug companies in 2019; it wasn’t immediately clear whether Alkermes was one of them.) The conference program, as in the conference in Nashville, directed people to learn about Aristada at Alkermes’s exhibit booth. “It wouldn’t matter to me if the info was sponsored by one company or all the companies, so long as the info about the medication gets out to the public,” Glenn later told me.

“A lot of people in corrections … they’re not even aware,” Jackson said of long-acting injections. “If you’re not getting educated, you’re not using them, there’s no way it’ll ever be afforded to those prisoners.”

Judge Robin Faber, who presides over a Miami-Dade County court division that aims to divert inmates into mental-health treatment, has not been the target of marketing by Alkermes or any other pharmaceutical firm but said he sees the potential of long-acting drugs in his sixth-floor courtroom. One sweltering afternoon in early September, a young man named Chris Sellers took off his orange cap and slouched into the back of Faber’s courtroom. (Sellers’s name has been changed; Faber, Sellers’s lawyer, and Sellers allowed The Atlantic to sit in the courtroom, which isn’t open to the public, on the condition that his real name not be used.) Faber was reviewing Sellers’s medical records.

“You look good,” Faber said. The first time Faber had met Sellers, several months earlier, Sellers had recently been arrested for stealing a $20 T-shirt. Having looked at his records, along with his initial health assessment from a doctor, Faber felt Sellers’s nonviolent offenses were linked to untreated mental illness, and decided to require treatment instead of incarceration. At the time, to ensure that Sellers received his medication, Faber ordered an involuntary shot for his schizophrenia. Faber believed that Sellers would reoffend without it—and hoped that it would break his cycle of incarceration. As Faber continued reviewing the records, he noticed that Sellers had since received another long-acting shot. “That’s probably helping a lot,” Faber said, agreeing to keep Sellers on the treatment regimen instead of sending him to the Dade County Jail.

After Sellers’s hearing, Faber told me he defers to doctors regarding which medications patients should get. Ernesto Grenier, a psychiatrist at Jackson Health, the medical provider for three of Miami-Dade County’s jails, is often the one choosing those drugs.

When I spoke with Grenier, he told me that Jackson Health prohibits free samples from pharmaceutical companies. But, on occasion, Grenier has listened to pitches from Otsuka, Janssen, and Alkermes. From 2016 to 2018, he accepted food or drinks from the three companies 22 times, for a total of $949.92. He said he does not typically prescribe Aristada—which he considers less proven than some other drugs because it is newer—and dismissed the notion that free lunches or drinks from any drugmaker might have influenced his care. “They all say theirs is the best,” Grenier said. “We choose medication based on the patient.” (Click to Source)


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Human workers forced to work in highly radioactive area to topple dangerous Fukushima exhaust stack

Sunday, December 29, 2019 by: Tracey Watson

(Natural News) Back in March of 2011, the province of Fukushima, Japan, was struck by a series of devastating events that culminated in one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. The area was hit first by a massive earthquake, and then by a 15-metre (50-foot) tsunami. That massive tsunami, in turn, disabled the power supply and cooling functions at the Daiichi nuclear power plant, which finally triggered a nuclear accident on the 11th of March that was rated a 7 on the INES scale. Four nuclear reactors were destroyed, and clean-up work has been ongoing ever since.

Experts estimate that the task of decommissioning the plant and cleaning up the site will take upwards of four decades and cost billions of yen to complete.

In August of this year, news agencies reported that work had commenced at the plant to dismantle a highly contaminated, unstable exhaust stack. Before the disaster, the 110m (360 foot) high exhaust stack was used for the No. 1 and 2 reactors, and dismantling it is seen as a crucial part of the decommissioning work.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), responsible for getting the cleanup work done, decided that the dismantling work would have to be done via crane and remote control because of the incredibly high levels of radiation surrounding the stack. Even at the base of the stack radiation levels have been deemed to be too high for humans to work in.

Then, on December 3, Japanese newspapers began reporting that people had nonetheless been sent up to the top of the exhaust stack to cut the cylinder body with power tools, after the cutting device used to cut the cylinder via remote control had become unstable and emergency action had to be taken. (Related: Fukushima — Storage tanks are full, radioactive waste to be dumped straight into the ocean.)

Workers exposed to extremely high levels of radiation

As reported by Strange Sounds, after the robotic remote-controlled equipment failed, humans had to be sent in to assist with cutting the cylinder body:

Some weird stuff is happening at the TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant right now. While Japan has decided to drop radioactive water in the ocean, Tepco sent humans to repair where robots failed. …

The workers at the top of 110-m high Fukushima Dai-ichi vent stack were exposed to an estimated 810 ?Sv, making this action an emergency response.

This, despite the fact that officials had assured workers and the public that radiation levels would not exceed 300 ?Sv. (Related: Is Fukushima radiation affecting the West Coast? Consider these signs.)

According to Japanese sources, work initially commenced late in the afternoon of the 3rd, when three workers were lifted by crane to the cutting device located at the top of the cylinder. The workers were busy for around three hours, all the while wearing protective masks to cover their faces. Work had to be suspended in the evening over concerns about strong winds that had come up.

The following morning, another three workers climbed up to the cutting device where they refueled the generator. Within 4.5 hours, exposure levels had increased to 0.47 mSv.

TEPCO plans to cut the cylinder body of the exhaust pipe into sections of between 2 and 4 meters at a time, and estimates that its size will have halved by March 2020.

Since TEPCO officials were initially adamant that humans should not be involved in this work at all because of the dangerously high radiation levels involved, it can only be hoped that the robotic equipment will not fail again before the project is completed. Stay abreast of the latest developments at Fukushima.news.  (Click to Source)

Sources for this article include:

StrangeSounds.org

Genpatsu.Tokyo-NP.co.jp

Asahi.com

NSEnergyBusiness.com


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These Maps Show America In Great Despair As Our Nation Turns Away From God: Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Had Warned The Turning Away From God Would Lead To ‘End Times’

By Stefan Stanford – All News Pipeline – Live Free Or Die

June 20, 2019

According to this incredibly sad June 12th story over at NBC News, death rates in America from suicides, drug overdoses and alcohol related causes have reached an all-time high here, with this new report released by the Commonwealth Fund examining data from all 50 US states finding the states of Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania particularly hard hit.

Reporting that these so-called ‘deaths of despair‘ are exploding across the country with the rate of overdose deaths from drugs in West Virginia called ‘mind boggling‘, the NBC News story contained 3 different maps which we’ve put into this story, maps which show just how many people are dying from these preventable deaths and hinting that there are very few possible long lasting solutions to all of the different crisis our nation now faces: America’s return to God. Or the Return of Jesus.

As we had reported on ANP back in January of 2018, America has been suffering a huge spiritual vacuum as the masses turn away from God and have instead embraced evil and as the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has warned numerous times that if the world continued upon the path that it is now on, the world was approaching ‘end times‘. First, from NBC news.

“When we look at what’s going on in mid-Atlantic states — West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania — those are the states that have the highest rates of drug overdose deaths in the country,” David Radley, a senior scientist for the Commonwealth Fund, said.

Rates in those states are at least double the national average of fatal drug overdose rates. West Virginia had the highest drug overdose death rates, fueled mostly by the opioid epidemic. What’s more, those rates rose by 450 percent from 2005 to 2017, according to the report.

“The rate of growth in drug overdose deaths in West Virginia is absolutely mind-boggling,” Radley told NBC News.

It’s not just prescription painkillers and heroin that are driving these death rates. The study authors also point to fentanyl and other potent synthetic opioids that are creeping into illicit drugs such as cocaine. Fentanylis similar to morphine, but 50 to 100 times more potent, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Following West Virginia, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Delaware and New Hampshire had the next highest drug overdose death rates in the country, according to the report.

Death rates from suicide and alcohol also showed regional disparities. People died at higher rates by suicide or from alcohol than from drugs in Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Oregon and Wyoming.

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Just a few months ago, I received one of those phone calls that one never wants to receive.

My mother was calling to let me know that a friend I had grown up with during the early 1980’s had passed away.

While I’ll always remember a huge number of us sitting around with ‘Ed‘, watching every Clint Eastwood movie ever created as Eastwood’s characters were the embodiment of who ‘Ed‘ wanted to be, I was further saddened to learn in the phone call with my mom that ‘Ed‘ had committed suicide, taken his own life at a time in America where our nation was suffering from record numbers of suicide all across the country. None of us would have ever seen it in ‘Ed‘.

Yet as Mac Slavo also reports in this new story over at SHTFPlan, America is now witnessing a massive surge in ‘deaths of despair‘; suicides, deaths from drugs and deaths due to alcohol, and as we’ll see in the excerpt below taken from his new story, all of this is happening at a time when the government had abandoned America, funnelling money away from the American people to themselves and putting trillions of dollars and great time and energy into creating their ‘global new world order‘. They’ve left the American people behind and this is what tens of millions have gotten in return.

In the United States, which is obviously not the happiest nation on Earth, Americans are committing suicide or “deaths of despair” in record numbers. There are many issues that can rightly take the blame, but lack of personal freedom and the manipulated economy are creating generations of hopelessness.

Feelings of hopelessness and despair are overwhelming many in the U.S. So much so, that people are turning to alcohol, drugs, and suicide to numb the pain of their lives. Government enslavement and the stranglehold on the economy are making life even more difficult on those already struggling to get by. And this is seen in new death numbers released.

According to a report by RT, the suicide rates among teens and young adults aged 15 to 24 (the older end of “Generation Z”) spiked in 2017, reaching their highest point since 2000, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). “Deaths of despair” have risen 51 percent in the past 10 years, buoyed by rising rates of anxiety and depression that comes along with social media use. Drug use, hopelessnesses, and a lack of free will are taking their toll on people. And the statistical figures may be even higher since some intentional drug overdoses are not counted as suicides.

The rise of millennial and Gen Z “deaths of despair” can be traced to the gap between reality and expectations. Raised on the myths of the American Dream and Freedom, these are the first Americans to experience a markedly lower standard of living than their parents and an increase in the authoritarian control on their lives. The Baby Boomers who grew prosperous on the fruits of the postwar economic boom had far more freedom and paid a loss in taxes that the newer generations, who have effectively sold their children and grandchildren into slavery.

Young people aren’t the only ones afflicted by suicide. Life expectancy nationwide is down for the third year in a row, and a report from Trust for America’s Health published last year projects that this “epidemic” – which they define as drug and alcohol deaths plus suicide – is on track to kill more than 1.6 million people by 2025 if it continues to grow at its current rate.

None of this will change until people are free to make their own decisions – including the bad ones – and the economy is no longer manipulated by the elitists who funnel money to themselves away from the masses.

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As Fox News had reported back in April of 2017, America’s up and coming generation the Millennials are far less likely to hold religious beliefs than any other generation, with over 60% of that generation believing Christianity is too ‘judgemental‘ while 64% of Millennials claim that ‘anti-gay‘ was the best way to describe most churches in America today.

As FaithWire had reported back in April of 2019, while 77% of Americans believe that America is suffering from a ‘moral crisis‘ according to a Pew Research poll, Americans were still turning away from God in near record numbers. From their story.:

Our nation’s moral compass is spinning out of control, and it will only get worse as we continue to turn away from True North.

A recent survey from the Pew Research Center shows a stunning 77 percent of Americans are at least “fairly worried” about the country’s morals, with 43 percent describing themselves as “very worried.” But despite their concern, 50 percent of everyone surveyed said religion — the source of absolute truth and morality — will be “less important” in 30 years. Forty-three percent said faith will be equally important in 2050 as it is today.

The survey also showed 56 percent of Americans believe faith in God is not necessary to have good values and to be moral.

Interestingly, I think that number reveals something quite incredible: God’s general revelation and His imprint on humanity is so strong, we don’t even need to believe in Him to see His impact on the world. The problem, though, is the longer we separate truth — the absolute morality of right and wrong — from the source of all truth, the sooner our moral compass will come apart completely.

Yet as we had reported on ANP back on June 8th in this story titled “With The World Teetering At The Edge Of The Abyss, Nearly At The Point Of No Return, The Implementation Of The Globalists ‘Total Control’ System Is Ripping Out The Heart And Soul Of America“, with America’s smaller communities quite literally dying as the Survival Blog had reported in this June 19th story which Steve Quayle had linked to on his website Wednesday, America needs a ‘Revival‘ and there has never been a more important time than now for us to rise up and fight to restore America’s soul.

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Back in January of 2018, we published this story on ANP titled “‘We Are On A Very Dangerous Path Of Self-Annihilation’ Warns Head Of Russian Orthodox Church: ‘If Evil Prevails, End Times Will Be Upon Us‘” within which we shared a dire warning from the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, that the world was approaching ‘end times‘, largely due to the normalization and global acceptance of evil.

Patriarch Kirill warned back then that evil was driving away the good from society and while warning that the world was on a very dangerous path towards self-annihilation, he also said its the church’s duty to warn of what they see unfolding.

As Patriarch Kirill stated, never before have evil and righteousness been put upon the same level as we are witnessing now and the Patriarch issues this firm warning, “if evil prevails, the end times will be upon us.”

When asked about the apocalypse and if ‘the end is near’ and what would bring about such a scenario, Patriarch Kirill tells us “In the case when the human society stops to be viable, when the resources to exist will be exhausted which would happen in the case when we have absolute dominance of evil”. Warning us that evil is not viable and in cases where systems are taken over by evil, those systems will fall, Kirill continues “If evil drives away good from human society, then the end will come”.

When asked by the interviewer “why do we have to talk about this today?”, Patriarch Kirill replies “Because we are now living through a special period in history. Never before did human society put good and evil on the same level. There were attempts to justify evil but never to say that good and evil are relative and not absolute truths. People’s perception of good and evil was that they were absolute truth. But today they are relative. When can evil unrestrainedly grow in human society? EXACTLY when this point of view that good and evil are the same triumphs globally. And we are currently not at the beginning of this process but a certain amount of time has passed. History as we know it is exhausted, so how can the church keep silent? How can it avoid sending up an alarm? How can it avoid warning that we are on a very dangerous path of self-annihilation? If the church will not say this than who will?” 

Yet, should we really even be surprised about all of these ‘deaths of despair‘ coming at a time when Western Civilization is itself committing ‘suicide‘ as we hear in the final video at the bottom of this story from Infowars? It’s clear that a huge spiritual vacuum has struck America and only America returning to God will get our nation out of the mess we’re in.

And with the mainstream media helping to push America into mass insanity with their lies and fake news triggering ‘Trump derangement syndrome‘ and great panic among many Democrats, should they be held responsible for the mass explosion of ‘deaths of despair‘ across America? Those who are still getting their news from the mainstream media, and believing their never-ending lies, are setting themselves up for a major fall ahead as truth finally comes to light.

In the first video below, videographer Martin Brodel talks with us about the soaring ‘deaths of despair‘ amongst ‘Generation Z‘ and the Millennials while the 2nd video below from the Wall Street Journal originally published back in February of 2018 warned that the growing number of ‘deaths of despair‘ were a very loud and clear warning sign for America, a warning we now see coming true before our eyes: America is on the edge of disaster.

(Click to Source)

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Pastor Loses Job After Church Sign Stating ‘Homosexuality Is Still A Sin’ Causes Uproar

January 14 2019

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Pastor Justin Hoke of Trinity Bible Presbyterian Church in Weed, California, has lost his job following both community and alleged internal backlash over the language used in his most recent church sign.

In early January, Hoke designed a sign that read: “Bruce Jenner is still a man. Homosexuality is still a sin. The culture may change. The Bible does not.”

According to SFGate, “a couple dozen” community members gathered to protest the sign on January 6. The protest, called the “Shastina Love Rally,” was organized in part by local resident Amelia Mallory.

A second protest was held on Sunday. According to the most recent count on the official Facebook invite page, 71 people were “going” to the event, and 182 people were “interested.”

In a pinned post on the official Love Rally Facebook page, a message from Mallory reads in part:

We are there to support the LGBTQ+ community in a positive way. Debating with any church members isn’t the goal. We are not there for them. Some of us on our side of the street still are also religious. All of us are capable of treating everyone with respect, even if we disagree. Do not engage anyone trying to escalate the situation to violence.

On or around January 9, the sign was vandalized:

In an article published just several days ago, Yahoo Lifestyle quoted Pastor Hoke, who said: “We believe that Jesus commands all Christians to let their light shine. We also believe that salvation is only for sinners. Jesus said he came to call sinners, not the righteous. If we give in to cultural demands to stop calling sin ‘sin,’ then we are robbing people of opportunity to hear the truth.”

Despite there being no outward sign of fracture within the church, on Saturday evening, Hoke published the following unexpected update on Facebook:

As of today, I am no longer the pastor of Trinity Bible Presbyterian Church.

After much prayer and counsel, I have decided that it is best to briefly communicate what has taken place.

  1. I was informed by our other elder that he felt he could no longer follow my lead as Pastor of TBPC.
  2. I was informed that essentially all but one couple in membership would leave the church if I continued as pastor of TBPC.
  3. Our other elder and the couple felt that those who left would likely return if I would leave.
  4. Our other elder was agreeable to stay and assume the pastoral responsibilities.

Therefore it was determined that it would be in the best interest of the local body for us (TBPC and the Hoke family) to part ways.

Over one hundred people have commented, a majority of whom are supportive of Hoke:

“I am sorry the church doesn’t support your stance. God bless you for being faithful to the Word of God, and not the ungodly secular culture.”

“Brother, I am speechless but not surprised. You preach the true Gospel of Jesus Christ and that is hard to handle for most. I am praying for you and the family right now. God bless you and keep you.”

“We are praying for you brother. You boldly spoke the truth. Galatians 1:10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

The Daily Wire spoke with Pastor Hoke, who walked us through the situation from his perspective.

According to Hoke, he was inspired to create the sign after seeing the news story in which a biological male who identifies as female “threw a fit because a clerk had accidentally referred to him with the masculine gender [pronoun].”

Hoke said that because “the culture has drawn a line in the sand and dared [Christians] to step over,” he came to the conclusion that the church should accept the challenge — not with hate, but by simply preaching “the gospel.”

The pastor also noted that he wasn’t “fired,” but that the church faced a potential fracture in the wake of the fervor surrounding the sign, and that in order to keep the church intact, he felt it was best to vacate his position. Hoke repeatedly stated that he wanted to be circumspect in the way he spoke about the incident because he “loves” the people at Trinity Bible Presbyterian.

Regarding the protesters, Hoke said: “I believe they’re sincere — sincerely wrong, but sincere. I believe that it is hypocritical that their position is taught in schools and pushed on children, while our position is asked to be kept within the walls of the church.” He added that he hopes and believes that “within their midst, there are people whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life, and that the command for all Christians is to preach to them the gospel faithfully, calling them to repentance and faith, that they might be changed by the Holy Spirit and brought into the family of God.”

Hoke concluded our conversation by stating that if he could stand in the pulpit again for just a few minutes, he would continue to preach “the gospel as concisely as [he could].”

Reported by: Frank Camp – The Daily Wire (Click to Source)

 

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Will People Awaken when it is “High Time”?

DECEMBER 23, 2018 / C.H. FISHER

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“And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” – Romans 13:11

The Greek word for “high time” is hōra, which means; a definite time or season, the twelfth hour or end of the day immediately before darkness. Of course, it is an unnatural response to awaken when darkness comes, but rather to sleep. However, in the spiritual sense, when darkness according to eschatology arrives, we must be awake.

“But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:4-8

Therefore, let us consider what is occurring today with our eyes open and minds alert. A recent Barna poll discovered that 90% of political liberals have never read the Bible. Is it any surprise that that sector cannot discern between good and evil? I say to every true Christian, stop appealing to the sense of justice in liberal politicians and other godless influential people in our nation. They have no concept of justice. Instead, they believe justice is persecuting individuals that are just. Stop appealing to their common sense. They discarded that as a hindrance to political “correctness” long ago.

Cease attempting to embarrass liberals concerning their imbecilic and moronic statements. They are “unembarassable,” having no sense of propriety by which shame can be provoked. Why attempt to make them consider reason and logic when they embrace unreasonable and illogical as twin strengths of their “integrity?”

There is no purpose in appealing to their sense of fairness since they insist that their evil works are righteous. Thus, they howl as if egregiously wronged when exposed by the law or standard of common decency. They believe that outrage is proper against expressions of goodness, godliness, and common decency. But when people are outraged at child molestation, infanticide, gender perversion, or other scurrilous behavior, they screech that such outrage is hatred that should be punishable by every means possible.

Don’t appeal to their integrity; they dissolved it to retrofit the mind of Satan. Nothing from the kingdom of God appeals to or makes sense to them. Appealing to them about the great damage they are causing only makes them indignant and angry. The legacy of their wicked political leadership is as a massive pile of rubble, but they see it as a great mountain of hope.

So it is time to face the truth about what has a lion’s mouth grip on the throat of America. We (Christians) are under an aggressive attack by the secular realm with our demise as the intended result. Their plan is the total annihilation of truth and godly conscience by the Saul Alinsky method to achieve the Hegelian Dialectic. It is an implosion of the United States society so that a godless and brutal gulag can be established on the grave of our Republic. The United States will be joined to the godless Global government.

Furthermore and essential to understanding the whole picture, one must recognize the great apostasy of Christianity as a parallel great work of wickedness. It will completely destroy and/or subdue godliness and replace it with delusional wickedness, all under the false titles of peace and unity. It is actually peace with Satan and unity with unrighteousness. That fact is easily identified by the fruit.

The big picture is that the great wickedness professing Christians see occurring in the world system is occurring on an equal scale in Christianity. However, many Christians are very politically aware of the bizarre wickedness in the World System but completely refuse to recognize the same degree of wickedness in Christianity.

The two sectors are on parallel paths that are now speeding toward conversion. We know that is occurring when we witness complete abandonment of love for truth by an abundance of evil leaders in each sector.

So professing Christians are politically involved and believe they have a political Savior in the President. They completely ignore the spiritual destruction at work with equal force in Christianity. If they would only pray and take off the blinders, they would understand the danger. But they will not and they refuse to hear the watchman or join the Remnant. Here is what is likely to occur.

The whitewashed wall weak professing Christians are trusting in that provides their false hope will come down in an instant. They will turn back to trust in Christianity only to discover that it too has collapsed. Bewildered and fearful, they will accept the first way out, which will be the offer of peace and security by Antichrist and the False Prophet. They will be too weak to resist, too spiritually blind to recognize evil, and too dependent on comfort, security, and escapism, to endure to the end.

I pray daily that they will turn their focus back on God and away from the satanic sideshow. I hope and pray that they will open their minds to what God wishes them to see and prepare accordingly. One day their cries of, “Too late! It’s too late!” will echo off the shut door. (Matthew 25) (Click to Source)

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Malibu church ‘pressured to end meals for the homeless’ because it ‘lures the needy’

‘Very succinctly, they claimed we are increasing homelessness’

 When the Son of Man comes in His glory (His majesty and splendor), and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.

All nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them [the people] from one another as a shepherd separates his sheep from the goats;

And He will cause the sheep to stand at His right hand, but the goats at His left.

Then the King will say to those at His right hand, Come, you blessed of My Father [you favored of God and appointed to eternal salvation], inherit (receive as your own) the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you [h]brought Me together with yourselves and welcomed and entertained and lodged Me,

I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me with help and ministering care, I was in prison and you came to see Me.

 Then the just and upright will answer Him, Lord, when did we see You hungry and gave You food, or thirsty and gave You something to drink?

 And when did we see You a stranger and welcomed and entertained You, or naked and clothed You?

 And when did we see You sick or in prison and came to visit You?

And the King will reply to them, Truly I tell you, in so far as you did it for one of the least [in the estimation of men] of these My brethren, you did it for Me.

Then He will say to those at His left hand, Begone from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels!

For I was hungry and you gave Me no food, I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink,

I was a stranger and you did not welcome Me and entertain Me, I was naked and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not visit Me [l]with help and ministering care.

Then they also [in their turn] will answer, Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?

And He will reply to them, Solemnly I declare to you, in so far as you failed to do it for the least [in the estimation of men] of these, you failed to do it for Me.

Then they will go away into eternal punishment, but those who are just and upright and in right standing with God into eternal life.  ( Matthew 25: 31-46  Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC) Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation

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A church in upmarket Malibu has decided to stop providing free meals for those in need after claiming they were told by officials they were attracting too many homeless people.

The United Methodist Church, one of many churches that provides food and help, has been offering free meals twice a week. But it said it was going to stop after being told the meal servicewas luring too many homeless people.

Dawn Randall, a member of the church, said it recently received an email from city officials. “Very succinctly, they claimed we are increasing homelessness,” she told CBS.

Reports suggest that the California city of Malibu, famed for its gorgeous beaches and multi-million dollar homes, has a growing problem with homelessness, an issue that was met with both charity and taxpayer money.

The Los Angeles Times said the city, which has a population of 13,000, has roughly 180 homeless residents, but no shelter or housing for poor people.

The United Methodist Church and Standing on Stone, a Christian group, had been hosting twice-weekly homeless dinners on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

But the newspaper said once the metro line to Santa Monica opened last year, a number of residents complained that mentally-ill and other homeless people were camping at the beach and entering schools.

“A homeless person was taking a shower in the girls locker room in middle school – that wasn’t real good,” Gary Peterson, a retired developer, told the newspaper. “Providing dinner is a nice thing to do and a good thing, but it’s the location.”

At a public hearing this week, Malibu Mayor Skylar Peak denied making the order and apologised for any miscommunication.

“No they were never formally asked to stop feeding the homeless,” said Mr Peak. “Not at all.”

Neither the church or Mr Peak immediately responded to inquiries. (Click to Source)

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‘Unbelief’ and ‘Comfortable’ Christianity Fueling Millennial Interest in Occult, Astrology, Pastors Say

But the [Holy] Spirit distinctly and expressly declares that in latter times some will turn away from the faith, giving attention to deluding and seducing spirits and doctrines that demons teach,

Through the hypocrisy and pretensions of liars whose consciences are seared (cauterized),

Who forbid people to marry and [teach them] to abstain from [certain kinds of] foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and have [an increasingly clear] knowledge of the truth.

For everything God has created is good, and nothing is to be thrown away or refused if it is received with thanksgiving.

For it is hallowed and consecrated by the Word of God and by prayer.

If you lay all these instructions before the brethren, you will be a worthy steward and a good minister of Christ Jesus, ever nourishing your own self on the truths of the faith and of the good [Christian] instruction which you have closely followed.

But refuse and avoid irreverent legends (profane and impure and godless fictions, mere grandmothers’ tales) and silly myths, and express your disapproval of them. Train yourself toward godliness (piety), [keeping yourself spiritually fit].

For physical training is of some value (useful for a little), but godliness (spiritual training) is useful and of value in everything and in every way, for it holds promise for the present life and also for the life which is to come.

This saying is reliable and worthy of complete acceptance by everybody.

With a view to this we toil and strive, [yes and] [a]suffer reproach, because we have [fixed our] hope on the living God, Who is the Savior (Preserver, Maintainer, Deliverer) of all men, especially of those who believe (trust in, rely on, and adhere to Him).

Continue to command these things and to teach them. (1 Timothy 4:1-11) Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC) Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation

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Millennials are increasingly exploring and turning to occultic spirituality and astrology, as statistics continue showing rising numbers of “nones,” those who do not identify with any particular faith. This is in part due to a mindset of fear and unbelief and comfortable Christianity, some pastors say.

Market Watch reported Monday that the psychic services industry grew 2 percent between the years of 2011 and 2016, an industry now worth approximately $2 billion. Also in recent years, according to Pew, the percentage of people ages 18-29 who “never doubt the existence of God” dropped from 81 percent in 2007 to 67 percent in 2012.

Pastors who spoke with The Christian Post believe the lack of spiritual power and a “comfortable” Christianity in the Church has created a vacuum of sorts, and a mindset of fear has constricted the real power of the Holy Spirit.

“Though some churches do explore the mystical realities of the spiritual realm, they are often marginalized due to misunderstandings or possible lack of biblical integrity,” said Wanda Alger, field correspondent with Intercessors for America and a pastor at Crossroads Community Church in Winchester, Virginia, in a CP interview Thursday.

“At the same time, the devil can’t do anything new.”

She noted that Ecclesiastes 3:11 states that God has “put eternity into man’s heart” and because human beings are made in God’s image and God is Spirit, “our very DNA connects us to the spiritual realm.” Therefore, we have a “natural” desire to know what’s happening in that realm because we were created from it, she added, pointing to how God breathed life into Adam in the creation account and how in John 4:24 Jesus said the Father seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.

“Unfortunately, unless the church provides the proper context for this reality, nonbelievers will look elsewhere to satisfy their spiritual hunger,” Alger said.

All other experiences with the spiritual realm — be they from psychics, astrologists, or mediums — she continued, are counterfeits, replacing something that is very real and powerful. She mentioned that Hollywood is exploiting this realm with greater attention on the supernatural nowadays which leads unsuspecting seekers into deceptive experiences that yield more spiritual darkness.

“Rather than deeming everything that is supernatural ‘demonic,’ the church needs to wake up to the reality of this realm and begin to approach it from a Kingdom perspective which understands its place and purpose,” Alger stressed.

“The sad thing is that these millennials who are exploring the dark side of the supernatural have more faith and belief than most Christians. Because they are open and spiritually hungry, the spirit realm responds. The biggest hindrance to understanding the realities of the Spirit realm is unbelief,” she emphasized.

Ken Thornberg, executive director of Freedom Encounters, an interdenominational equipping and deliverance ministry in Boise, Idaho, concurs.

“By and large, the church does not operate in power,” Thornberg said, “and it actually operates with a lot of unbelief. We don’t want to rock the boat.”

Churches have gotten too comfortable, he stressed.

“We like our tithes and offerings and we can’t afford to lose them and the Enemy has convinced the leadership of the Church that if they begin to walk in signs, wonders, miracles, and healing that it is going to turn people away, when history has shown that exactly the opposite occurs.”

He has observed youth who meet people involved in the occult, witchcraft, and New Age spirituality, who hear stories of supernatural power and are intrigued. “But these are nothing but imitations of what the Holy Spirit can do in people’s lives,” he said.

“But the youth don’t know that because they have not been taught or they have not experienced it. But they want to.”

When Thornberg recounts to youth testimonies of the Holy Spirit’s power and work in the world that he has seen personally, they are wide-eyed and engaged. Many pastors, however, do not go near this out of fear, he noted.

“But my Bible says that the Enemy is the author of fear,” he said.

“When millennials see the faith and the power and the excitement of others in the occult, they don’t see fear, they see curiosity” and an invitation to do exciting things, when such language ought to be coming out of the leadership of the Body of Christ, he said.

He believes that churches cannot afford to ignore the demonic realm especially since in the last several years it has come into the observable dimension of human events.

Alger added: “In our attempt to be biblically accurate and doctrinally guarded, the church has ended up operating in more doubt and fear than faith. That’s one reason Jesus said, ‘When I return, will I find faith on the earth?'” (Luke 18:8) (Click to Source)

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Should We Use The End Times To Inspire Our Teenagers To Live For Christ?

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I’ll never forget the first time I watched a Christian movie on the Rapture. It was a 1972 poorly produced film called “A Thief in the Night.”

But what this movie lacked in production quality it made up for in premise…When Jesus comes back you should be ready or you will be left behind. The song in the movie still pops in my head from time to time. It’s Larry Norman‘s “I’d wish we’d all been ready.” Here are the cryptic, catchy lyrics,

“Life was filled with guns and war
 And all of us got trampled on the floor
 I wish we’d all been ready.

The children died, the days grew cold
 A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold
 I wish wed all been ready.

There’s no time to change your mind
 The son has come and you’ve been left behind.

A man and wife asleep in bed
 She hears a noise and turns her head he’s gone
 I wish we’d all been ready.

Two men walking up a hill
 One disappears and ones left standing still
 I wish wed all been ready.

The father spoke, the demons dined
 How could you have been so blind?

There’s no time to change your mind
 The son has come and you’ve been left behind

There’s no time to change your mind
 The son has come and you’ve been left behind

I hope we’ll all be ready
 You’ve been left behind.”

This movie set the bar low for the long-line of cheesy Christian movies that would follow. But, in spite of it’s poor production quality, it had it’s desired effect. “A Thief in the Night” scared the living tar out of everyone who watched it…including me.

No, I wasn’t afraid of being left behind. I had put my faith in Jesus and was sure of my salvation. But I was afraid of others being left behind. And that righteous fear became part of my evangelistic fuel.

Yes, I come from a pre-tribulational, pre-millennial, pre-everthing background. The dispensational, fundamental teaching I was raised on ingrained in me an urgency factor when it came to evangelism (because Jesus could come back at any time) and a readiness factor when it came to personal holiness (because Jesus could come back at any time.) This urgency helped shape both me and the ministry I lead today, Dare 2 Share.

While the Lord has enabled me to scrape off many of the legalistic views I was raised in, by his grace, I’ve been able to keep much of my urgency. And I’m deeply thankful for that.

Regardless of your eschatological leanings most of us can agree that a primary purpose of prophecy is to be ready for the return of Jesus. The Lord himself said, “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming” Matthew 24:42.

We must be on the alert. We must be ready. We must be sharing Jesus.

So how does the reality of the impending return of Christ help fuel teenagers spiritually? In the same way it fueled me when I was a teenager. It sparks urgency in them!

Use natural phenomenons (blood moons, solar eclipses, etc), natural disasters (floods, hurricanes and earthquakes), wars and rumors of wars (Matthew 24:6-8) as an excuse to talk about end-times readiness. Of course, along with this, we want to do what we can about helping those who are hurt by them now. But we don’t want to miss the opportunity to point to the skies and say, “What if today is the day that Jesus returns?”

Obviously this requires wisdom and balance. In no way to we want to listen to the date-setting, fearmongering koo-koo-catchoos out there. But we don’t want to miss the point of what Jesus was reminding his disciples of either. He was reminding them and us to be ready and to make sure everyone we know is ready, because he is coming back someday when we don’t expect it.

Consider doing a series on end-times prophecy in youth group. Maybe you could show a cheesy end-times movie and then have a serious open Bible disciussion about it afterward. Perhaps you could invite someone in who is a Biblically solid end-times prophecy teacher and let your teenagers do a Q & A session with him or her.

Whatever you do don’t avoid the subject. It provides a much-needed DNA strand to our motivational muscle. It can help fuel holy living and Gospel giving.

On September 23rd we are doing Dare 2 Share Live, an unprecedented live simulcast event in 70 cities across the nation. We are praying that we can inspire, equip and unleash 50,000 teenagers to have 300,000 Gospel conversations in a single day!

Someone asked me recently, “Did you choose the date because some are saying the apocalypse will begin on September 23rd?” They went on to explain that there are a whole bunch of end-timers online saying that September 23rd will mark the beginning of the end.

My answer to them was, “No, we didn’t pick September 23rd because of any other reason that it happened to be the Saturday before See You at the Pole. That is the only reason.”

But, to be honest, down deep inside I think it’s kinda cool that Dare 2 Share Live happens to be on a date that some people are buzzing about. It adds to the “what if?” factor. Do I think that September 23rd will mark the return of Christ? Nope. But do I think I should live everday like it could be that day? YES!

Let’s use every Biblical truth possible to motivate our teenagers to live for Christ and share the Gospel! Let’s help build the urgency DNA in each of them. Let’s do it in a way that smacks of urgency, not insanity.

Hope to see you and your teenagers on September 23rd at Dare 2 Share Live.

Don’t be left behind! 😉 (Click to Site)

Originally posted at dare2share.org

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