Posted on 02/22/2021 10:44:59 PM PST by Cronos
FIVE years ago, rumours spread around the globe that — according to an ancient Mayan calendar — the world would come to an end in December 2012.
Over the past 2000 years, there have been hundreds of confident predictions of the same kind, all of which have, to date, come to nothing. One of the most famous was in 1844, when the Millerites (followers of the American prophet William Miller) prepared confidently for Judgement Day.
In 2011, a radio evangelist, Harold Camping, used the supposed date of Noah’s flood to predict that Judgement Day would be 21 May. Like Miller, he convinced an army of followers worldwide to prepare for the end, sell all they had, and travel the world to warn others. When judgement day passed uneventfully, his followers — like the Millerites before them — were left disillusioned and disappointed (News, 25 May 2011).
In the church calendar, Advent is the time to prepare to celebrate Jesus’s First Coming, and an opportunity to think about his promised Second Coming. In some Christian traditions, however, eschatology — the study of the final days — is the dominant theological focus almost all the year round. The biblical texts found in the books of Daniel, Revelation, and Jeremiah, and in St Paul’s epistles, are studied in greater detail than any other, and related to Christ’s words from Matthew 24.
AT THE start of the Christian era, most of the new followers of Jesus Christ expected an imminent revelation of the glory of God. Christ would return in majesty, and there would be the great and ultimate reckoning. “In truth I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming with his Kingdom,” Jesus promised in Matthew 16.
St Paul also encouraged the first Christians to expect the end times sooner rather than later: “We who remain alive be taken up in the clouds . . . to meet the Lord in the air,” he tells the Thessalonians (1. Thessalonians 4).
This is the passage much quoted by believers in an event known as “the rapture”. It is thought of by many as a “Beam me up” moment for Christians. They will suddenly vanish — dematerialise — from this earth, and be taken to another place. There is even debate about whether the chosen will rise in their clothes, or leave behind little piles of clothing where they last stood.
To reinforce this particular understanding of scripture, there is now a genre of Christian fiction which takes the rapture as its theme. The Left Behind series of bestselling novels describes the rapture from the perspective of an airline pilot and his crew. They are flying at more than 30,000 feet above the Atlantic on their way to London, when the cabin crew notice that some passengers are missing, and find seats that are empty apart from piles of clothes. Given the scope in the story for special effects and graphics, the book has, not surprisingly, also been turned into a film and a computer game.
This “Left Behind” understanding of “rapture” is relatively modern, however, and it is not an agreed or mainstream Christian teaching. Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians received no special attention for 1700 years, until verses 15 to 18 were plucked from their relative obscurity and popularised — largely through the teaching of John Nelson Darby — in the early 19th century. Since then, the rapture has found a home within almost all Protestant movements that have focused their teaching on the idea that the Second Coming, or Judgement Day, is very close.
The idea is central to the doctrine of several large Christian groups, such as the Assemblies of God, the United Pentecostal Church, and the Southern Baptist Church, who accept it as an indisputable biblical teaching.
There remains, however, much discussion about the timetable. In particular, will the rapture occur before the period of suffering (“the tribulation”), or some time during it? The pre-tribulationists believe that all Christians, including those who have already died, will be raptured and go to heaven at the start.
Pre-Wrath Tribulationists say that the rapture happens only once the end times are under way. Seventh Trumpet Tribulationists believe that the rapture will occur at the sound of the Seventh Trumpet. The Mid-Tribulationists say that the believers will have to endure at least half of the tribulation before being allowed to escape; and the Post-Tribulationists believe that Christians will have to wait until it is all over before receiving their eternal reward.
An online Rapture Index brings together all the likely pre-end-time factors — wars, earthquakes, false prophets, and the like — and melds them together into a numerical index, which the compilers describe as “a Dow Jones Index of end-time activity”. It currently stands at 184: 24 points above the level when we are warned by the website to “fasten our seatbelts”.
WHILE Advent is indeed a time to think about such matters, Christianity is such a multi-faceted faith that to become obsessed with eschatology is to take a very unbalanced view of the gospel message. To believe that any individual preacher has special insights into God’s timetable is especially unwise, as many disappointed believers have found in the past. No one, Jesus said, knows the day or the hour, “only the Father”.
To live every day as if it might be your last is always good advice, and the probability is that we will all face our own death before any collective day of reckoning occurs. What will happen on Doomsday, and whether we will be raptured clothed or naked, is speculation best left to the fiction writers.
What is 15 December?
Will they ever learn?
The end of the world. Rapture time
Matthew 24:42-44 tells us ...” So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming”....Matthew 24:26-27 also states...” For as the lightning flashes in the east and shines to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes.”
In the meantime we have our orders... 2 Timothy 4:2-5 tells us to “ preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.”.....” For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”..... As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
Sharing the Gospel message is STILL our calling.....
Let me save you a click — the countdown was to Dec 15 of 2017. Notice anyone missing since then?
People would do better to read the Bible and “leave behind” spiritual junk food like those novels.
correct, sharing the Gospel and living each day as if it may be our last, so living our lives in emulation of the Christ
*** It is thought of by many as a “Beam me up” moment for Christians. They will suddenly vanish — dematerialise — from this earth, and be taken to another place. ***
I always want to tell my rapture ready ziogelical neighbors, I will do my best to take care of their pets after they get sucked up.
Ping for later when I have more time.
One day, one of them will be right....
Maybe.
well I don’t live my life as if it’s my last....that all changed the day Jesus saved me. He said “eternal Life” was now before me therefore I believe Him....and so live life that way.
Read them all
The day after the 14th of December?
John 6:54
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Ours is not to cling to the life on this temporal plane - but to live it in emulation of Him
John 12:25
He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
As Paul said
Rom 2:6
the just judgment of God, 6 who will repay everyone according to his works:[a] 7 eternal life to those who seek glory, honor, and immortality through perseverance in good works,
and 1 Tim 6:18 That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;
19 Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
Love, faith, endurance, eating of His body as He said. And as Paul said in Rom 2 God will repay everyone according to his works
What’s your review of them? 16 is a pretty large corpus of work
Hey, you’re mentioned in the bible.
2 Peter 3:3-8 “First, you must understand this: In the last days people who follow their own desires will appear. These disrespectful people will ridicule God’s promise by saying, “What’s happened to his promise to return? Ever since our ancestors died, everything continues as it did from the beginning of the world.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.