Difference between revisions of "Promised Protection – Secret Rapture or Place of Safety?"

Latest revision as of 22:33, 17 October 2011

Next Part What Will Really Happen?

Back to By David C. Pack

Millions believe in a secret RAPTURE, when Jesus will unexpectedly take Christians to heaven. Is this what the Bible teaches? God does promise protection—a place of safety. Is this a literal place, located somewhere on Earth—or in heaven? And can we know? Horrific prophecies will soon be fulfilled. Great numbers will perish in the coming Great Tribulation and Day of the Lord. Some will be spared—PROTECTED—but who? What does God expect of His servants? All who care had better know. The Bible reveals the answers!

TABLE OF CONTENTS Part One – Promised Protection – Secret Rapture or Place of Safety?
PART TWO – PROMISED PROTECTION
PART THREE – WHO WILL GOD PROTECT?

PART ONE –IS A SECRET RAPTURE COMING? This could be one of the most important pieces of literature you will ever read. Why? Civilization is on a collision course with unprecedented world trouble. Global problems will soon grow much worse, and culminate in the prophesied Great Tribulation, followed by the Day of the Lord—and concluding with Christ’s Return. The masses are blissfully unaware of—and therefore UNPREPARED for—any of what is coming. This includes most who think they are.

You can be an exception! According to fundamentalist Christians, a RAPTURE is coming. “Believers”—those who have “accepted Jesus”—are scheduled to be whisked away without notice—no matter where they are or what they are doing. All “unbelievers” will be “left behind” to suffer under the ANTICHRIST, and through the supposed seven-year Tribulation—when war, disease, famine and religious deception explode worldwide. These missed being “vacuumed” to the safety of heaven at Christ’s secret coming. The antichrist will permit the Jews to build another temple in Jerusalem, which he will attack and destroy three and a half years later.

Recognize there are two major competing positions among rapturists. It occurs before, or in the middle of, the seven years. But the sudden disappearance of millions, it is said, will “shock the world.” After the Tribulation, Christ returns—this being His visible, and, in effect, THIRD, coming—and defeats the antichrist and his army.

Try to imagine these headlines after the widescale confusion caused by Christ’s initial “rapturing” away of His saints: “Driverless bus crashes—hundreds killed,” “Schools in chaos: Where are the teachers?” “Hundreds killed when pilot-less airplanes collide,” “200-car traffic jam: ‘Where did all the drivers go?’” “Factory employees gone, management wondering—‘Why?’” “Baseball game canceled: The Boston Angels are missing”—the possibilities are endless. Many have become so consumed by this doctrine that there has developed a series of movies and bestselling books, including board games, about the aftermath of such a worldwide vanishing act!

One group created a “Rapture Index” it terms a “Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity” and a “prophetic speedometer.” Supposedly, by calculating world conditions, this index can closely forecast when the Return of Christ will take place. “The higher the number,” the group’s website states, “the faster we’re moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.”

Another group has even gone so far as to program a “post-rapture” email chain letter, which would automatically be sent to family and friends after the rapture. The letter states, “Dear Friend, This message has been sent to you by a friend or a relative who has recently disappeared along with millions and millions of people around the world. The reason they chose to send you this letter is because they cared about you and would like you to know the truth about where they went. This may come as a shock to you, but the one who sent you this has been taken up to heaven…”

The email continues, “I am sure that there will be a lot of speculation as to what happened to all these people. The theories of some scientists and world leaders will have so much credibility that most of the world will believe them. It will sound like the truth!”

Have you accepted the rapture, because it also “sounds like the truth”? Great numbers of sincere people have been captured by this idea! Have you placed your hope in this belief without Bible proof?

God’s inspired Word—the Bible—reveals the TRUTH about what is to occur at Christ’s Second Coming. Much is at stake. In fact, your life depends on it!

So then, will Christ come one or two more times?

History of the Rapture Theory

While many believe a rapture has always been the Bible teaching, the idea was unknown before the 16th century. Some important history: During the 15th and 16th centuries, reformers John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Luther and John Huss campaigned against the dominance of the Catholic Church. These men shook Catholic theology to its core—even calling that church the antichrist! Previously, Rome would have forced its beliefs and traditions on those who disagreed. However, support for the reformers quickly mounted. This publicly undermined Catholic authority.

Rome called for reconciliation, and convened the Council of Trent in 1545. From this council sprang the “counter-reformation” teachings of three Jesuit priests—Francisco Ribera, Luis de Alcazar and Cardinal Bella mine.

Ribera followed later with a commentary on the book of Revelation. To dispel the church’s label of antichrist, he created the belief of futurism. This declared that the prophecies of Revelation only applied to the last seven years preceding Christ’s Return!

Recognize that the Catholic Church openly admits it creates beliefs—as well as traditions—entirely apart from the Bible. This is why Ribera could invent a completely non-biblical theory. Notice: “A rule of Faith, or a competent guide to heaven, must be able to instruct in all the truths necessary for salvation. Now the Scriptures alone do not contain all the truths which a Christian is bound to believe, nor do they explicitly enjoin all the duties which he is obliged to practise...” (Faith of Our Fathers, James Gibbons, pp. 111-112).

Catholic leadership makes no attempt to hide their belief that tradition outweighs Scripture. In fact, this has become its own tradition. Yet, most are unaware of this. The Council of Trent gave tradition—in this case, the humanly invented futurism—equal authority to the Bible.

It was Ribera’s idea that opened the door to the rapture theory.

Here comes the irony. Almost 300 years later, Protestants adopted Ribera’s “futurism” invention. Thanks to the Catholics, John Nelson Darby, the Anglican preacher who is called the “father of the rapture,” could pick up where Ribera left off with his own invention—dispensationalism. Unlike any need the Catholics felt, Protestants—in this case, Darby—needed a way to get the Bible to say what they wanted to believe about a rapture. His way of interpreting the Bible taught that Christ would first secretly collect His followers, and later return to defeat the antichrist. This teaching continued through Darby’s disciple, Cyrus Scofield, who assembled the Scofield Bible.

In Heralds of the Dawn, John A. Anderson records more history of what was originally “counter-Protestantism”: “The Catholic Apostolic Church had its beginning in 1830. It was founded in Britain by...men and women who claimed divine inspiration. They said the Holy Spirit revealed to them that the last days had come [this proved false], that the Lord was about to return [also false], that first He would rapture the believers...at a secret coming...after which Christ would come in manifested power.”

Since the 16th century, countless millions have blindly accepted the rapture theory—fearing what would happen if they did not. But grasp this. The doctrine began in the minds of Catholic priests, then continued development in the minds of the reformers—not GOD’S mind, as revealed in the Bible! The Protestants simply bought in and picked up later.

In I Corinthians 14:33, the apostle Paul states, “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.” I Cor 14:40 states, “Let all things be done decently and in order.” What could possibly be orderly or peaceful about millions of people suddenly vanishing from beds, workstations, automobiles, airplanes, etc.? The obvious result would be utter confusion and chaos! Let’s state this plainly! The rapture is a doctrine of chaos, and makes God and Christ the AUTHORS of confusion.

Now think. Disagreeing theologians—remember rapture theorists do not agree—found different ways of interpreting the Bible to present the rapture. Which should one listen to? The answer? None! This is because the belief is not in the Bible. Inventing theologies such as futurism or dispensationalism will not unlock God’s Word! By letting the Bible interpret itself—the greatest rule of Bible study—one can understand all the events surrounding the Tribulation and Christ’s Second Coming.