Posted on 02/01/2021 2:35:55 AM PST by Cronos
We've all heard stories about the Rapture — when all the righteous people will be bodily lifted into Heaven, leaving everybody else to endure years of tribulation. It's a popular idea, that appears in loads of books as well as movies. But where did this bizarre idea come from?
It turns out the notion of the Rapture is pretty new — dating back less than 200 years. So who developed this doctrine, and how did it become so popular, almost overnight?
Where did all the people go? The best known treatment of the Rapture is probably Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye's Left Behind book and movie series. The Left Behind tie-in movies feature a wide-eyed Kirk Cameron leading people through a world that looks like a PG-rated issue of Garth Ennis' Crossed. Planes crash into the ground, and cars that are suddenly missing their drivers careen into each other, as a chosen group of people are "raptured" and disappear from the Earth, leaving the rest of the world to fend for themselves.
Depending on which theologian you speak to, only one or two passages from Judeo-Christian religious texts make reference to an event akin to what is portrayed as the Rapture, leaving the idea with very little Biblical support. Instead, most of the lore surrounding the Rapture originates with two people in the early 19th Century: a teenage girl living in Scotland, and a London-born preacher.
Margaret McDonald, a fifteen-year-old girl living in Scotland, experienced a "vision" of the end of the world in 1820. In McDonald's vision, the chosen few are saved from a "purifying" fire. This is not exactly the disappearance in the middle of the day that popular culture views as the Rapture, but an early prototype. Not everyone leapt to follow her view — and in fact, several contemporary religious leaders deemed her visions demonic.
Meanwhile, London-born evangelist John Darby and members of his flock, the Irish-born Plymouth Brethren, popularized and molded the idea of Judeo-Christians being removed from the Earth, prior to an unknown period of strife. But McDonald had no influence on Darby's views, since Darby apparently espoused this idea as early as 1827. But McDonald's visions, and their later publication, no doubt further popularized the idea of the Rapture in Europe.
Popping up in publication Darby traveled to North America on several occasions during the mid-19th Century, teaching his theory of the Rapture. On one of these trips, Darby met with James Brookes, a prominent preacher and writer in Missouri — and, most importantly, the mentor of Cyrus Ingerson Scofield.
Scofield, influenced by Darby's teachings via his mentor, published the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909. The Scofield Reference Bible went on to become one of the best selling religious texts of the early 20th Century, one that continues to sell extremely well in the United Kingdom. Scofield's text displays his personal notes and explanations right next to the King James translation of the Judeo-Christian Bible. The proximity of Scofield's notes to the religious text no doubt lent credence to his words, especially in a world lacking widespread communication systems. As individuals emigrated to the United States in the early 20th Century, this helped spread the belief that Darby had already put in place, during his visits to North America.
Rapture roulette At the moment, Eastern Orthodox churches, many branches of Protestantism, the Anglican Church, and the Catholic Church do not believe in the Rapture.
Amongst those who do believe in the Rapture, meanwhile, the exact details of the event remain quite a mystery. But some leaders do go into specifics — even setting exact dates when the Rapture will happen.
Three different highly publicized dates came and went in the 1990s, but the most recent failed predictions happened just last year. Harold Camping made his second and third attempts to fix a date on the rapture after his humbling announcement of the "confirmed" date of September 6, 1994.
Camping announced May 21, 2011 as the date for the disappearance of the worthy — but after the date passed, he quickly came back and announced the date of October 21, 2011 as the "true" date. Camping predicted a series of earthquakes beginning in New Zealand, to accompany these dates. The 89-year-old Camping and his followers spent $100 million publicizing these two dates in a media campaign.
After nether date turned out to be accurate, many of Camping's followers felt cheated, especially people who'd put their lives on hold for years. This article, checking in on Camping's followers a year later, is compelling but depressing reading. One engineer spent most of his retirement savings on publicizing Camping's predictions, only to see them fail to materialize. Another former believer in Camping told the reporter, "I think I was part of a cult."
The destruction of the temple isn’t “a historical constant” rather an actuality that happened in 70 ad
Jesus prophesied that and that was the Olivet discourse.
The fulfilment of that prophecy was a major impetus pushing the Jesus movement sect of Judaism to dominate Judaism and beyond. This was the formation of the church
All I can say is.....if you are troubled, get right with God now.....
...man knows not his time.....
I received the Holy Spirit when God brought salvation to me through Christ Jesus
I was dependent on Him seeking and saving me......
I have literally been in church all of my life........and baptized as a young child
....but didn’t understand Lordship with the Heavenly Father until I was 35
Why should God let me into His Kingdom?.....because I am His child, a sinner saved by Grace...
Redeemed.......Forgiven
.....and every day I am being sanctified, but won’t be fully sanctified till I reach Heaven......because I am a sinner, saved by Grace and like the Apostle Paul says.....
Romans 7:21-25
God loved me when I was unlovely, and unloving......He loved me FIRST!
Maybe I didn’t answer your question......I don’t have all the answers
I walk by faith.......
You folks have no idea what the Bible is teaching. You are like the Pharisees.
= = =
Did the Pharisees have access to the New Testament?
Amen.
And yet, hundreds of years later Eucharistic miracles are still happening to this day.
Whereas you can interpret scripture infallibly I presume.
Whether the rapture happens, or not, is relatively unimportant to ones salvation. It’s a matter of one dies in Christ, or not. Perhaps one generation to be lifted up (Harpazo) as was Noah and his family in a similar fashion. Nobody’s salvation is dependent on belief, or non belief in harpazo/ the rapture.
Getting down to brass tacks, can you please tell us what one must do to be saved.
I meant thousads not hundreds
To believe. Which is a very pregnant word btw
I think bunches of people will be saved during the tribulation, but more than likely, for most of them, it will cost them their heads. Some will survive the tribulation too. Imagine that, surviving the tribulation. It sounds like a PTSD counselor's dream.
We will see what the great scholar says.
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ only.
the issue with teaching people they’ll get to escape any hardship is making them vulnerable to the mark of the beast. That is where the real issue lies in WHEN we are called to meet Christ.
I don't know. Maybe the same way they were before the Holy Spirit was given, like in the OT.
Besides, Scripture does not tell us the Holy Spirit's presence is gone from the earth. Just that the retraining work of either Him or Him through the church, is taken out of the way.
However, there is this.....
Revelation 7:9-14 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
This also just occurred to me. If the Holy Spirit is gone from the earth, then what are believers going to do, or how is that possible that He would leave believers?
He seals us until the day of redemption. If He is taken away, then believers have become abandoned by God.
That would also mean, no rapture, that believers are to go through the Tribulation without the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
I don't see that happening.
Because it's time for judgment.
It isn't like God hasn't given them enough opportunity as it is to repent and turn to Him.
There comes a time where God says *Enough*. The other option is that this world and what we are seeing now goes on forever.
bump
Says the guy who meddles with the demonic.
I cannot imagine anyone surviving it. although Scripture indicates there will be.
What a nightmare existence that will be for 7 LONG years.
It’s far easier to get saved now.
ff
Harold Camping was “raptured” the old fashioned way on 12/15/2013. There: I’ve set the date for his “rapture”. :-)
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