Afraid You’ll be Left Behind? The Rapture Trap.

The National Review ^ | November 18, 2002 | Rod Dreher

[american colleen]

"The Rapture Trap" is on my reading list. I work with a guy who thinks I'm nuts and ignorant of the Bible because I don't believe in a theory concocted @ 150 years ago.

[RnMomof7]

I do not believe it eithor Colleen..and it is a trap

[american colleen]

Good column by Rod Dreher.

[american colleen]

I'm glad to hear that Terry. It is a very scary trap.

[RnMomof7]

BTTT

[the_doc]

You're both right. It's a trap.

Hal Lindsey's entire system is wrong.

[Siobhan]

It is a good column. Thanks for the ping.

As a nun taught me, "The only way out is 'through'."

[the_doc]

I should have added that Tim LaHaye and Jack Van Impe and the whole kit-and-kaboodle of the secret rapture guys are wrong.

[Wrigley]

Interesting article. His book is on my list. (I'll have to pare that down pretty soon.)

The dispensationalist apologetic The Late Great Planet Earth was the best-selling nonfiction book of the decade, and though he has never apologized for his erroneous predictions in that book, author Hal Lindsey continues to be considered by many an authority on Biblical prophecy. Being a dispensationalist evangelist means never having to say you're sorry.

So true in many ways and in many areas outside of eschatology.

[american colleen]

Sadly, he's mislead a lot of people. But who cares! He's rich! rich! rich!

[american colleen]

"The only way out is 'through'."

What you say?!? There is no "get out of jail free" card?

[Wrigley]

I remember in 6th grade my teacher was big into Lindsey. As a project with the 5th grade class we produced a "rapture" movie. It was fun at the time as half the class disappeared during gym, but thinking back on it now, I wonder how many classmates were hurt by it.

[Starwind]

I do not believe it eithor Colleen..and it is a trap

You don't believe in 1 Thes 4:13-17, or don't believe in pre-trib post-trib rapture theories, or you don't believe in the writings of the Lindsay, LaHaye, etc, crowd?

There are distinctions, most are unscriptural traps.

[drstevej]

***When I was in Late Great's grip, I would wake up every morning in a mild state of panic, wondering if the Rapture had happened while you were sleeping, and I'd been … left behind!***

None of us have a guarantee on tomorrow or the next breath. The real concern one should have is not that they will be left behind, but that apart from Christ they have an eternity in hell awaiting them.

As a dispendsationalist, I have never viewed the rapture as simply an escape hatch from The Tribulation. Rather it is the completion and removal of the Church to be with Him as God's focus turns to preparing Israel during this 7 year "day of Jacob's trouble" for the reception of their covenant promises to Abraham.

Serving Christ as a believer can encounter very severe tribluation. Last year one of our missionaries in China was murdered as he conducted religious services. Christians are not exempt from excruciating pain and intense physical affliction, etc. God uses such tribulation to shape us and accomplish His purposes.

"Let Him plow, He purposeth a crop."
-- can't remember the source, but love the quote

[drstevej]

dispendsationalist >> dispensationalist

[IGNATIUS]

Excellent post!

[RnMomof7]

I believe it is carnal man that thinks he is to be immune to wordly afflication..

Someone should have told Peter and Paul and James and Thomas and early church marytrs there would be a rapture to save them from their time of tribulation..

[Starwind]

I believe it is carnal man that thinks he is to be immune to wordly afflication..

Agreed. Christ himself promised we would have tribulation in our lives.

Someone should have told Peter and Paul and James and Thomas and early church marytrs there would be a rapture to save them from their time of tribulation..

1 Thes 4:14,16 teaches that those marytrs are only asleep in Christ and will "rise" 1st. Neither will we be saved from tribulation, but I believe we [in Christ] will be saved from God's wrath.

1 Thes 4:17 teaches that those of us [in Christ] yet alive or not yet martyred when the events of 1 Thes 4:16,17 happen will be "caught up" 2nd.

That "catching up" in the Latin Vulgate is 'rapiere' which has been Anglicanized to "rapture".

When it happens and where it fits in the sequence of events in Revelation and Daniel's 70th week, is a subject of much flawed debate, which flaws have often been exposed as the traps they are. And again Christ told us no one but the Father knows when the 2nd coming will be, nor when the "rapture" happens. So date prognostication is also a trap.

However, scripture none the less records and prophecies a "catching up" of those alive in Christ will happen. I believe God's whole word is true and self-consistent, though I don't yet fully understand how. I have studied it at length, and the "pre-Wrath" explanation (rapture around or between the 6th and 7th Seals) is, so far, the best fit, though an imperfect fit.

But if these are the endtimes, then we are to stand firm in our faith and not depend on some "fire escape" to bail us out before our faith is truly tested.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

1 Thess. 4:17-18 Then we which are alive and remanin shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

1 Thess. 5:9-11 For God hath not appointed us to wrath but to otain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another even as also ye do.

1 Cor 15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for th trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raesed incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

This is not the last trupet of Rev. 11:15 but the last trumpet of 1 Thess. It is so designated because it signals the end of the present age.

Becky

[saradippity]

I remember one of the nuns response to a question about the "end times".She said "I don't have any idea about when the world will end.I can only assure each of you that you will certainly die someday,and your world will end.So be prepared at all times".

Need I tell you that this particular nun had an exceptionally well behaved classroom?