Our government institutions changed. So many areas of life changed that it is difficult to adequately categorize them, much less catalog them. Now try to imagine the U. Or 5 million people. Or 25 million people. Or more. Highly valuable and experienced military commanders and business leaders and medical professionals will disappear, perhaps in the middle of critical projects or medical procedures. The impact will be catastrophic.
Consider, too, the emotional devastation for people who suddenly and irretrievably lose a spouse, children, parents, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and other loved ones. There will be no long illnesses during which one can get prepared, no dead bodies to identify, no human way to find closure. Consider the horror that will be experienced by millions of people who long described themselves as Christians but suddenly realize that they were not included in the Rapture, people who realize that they never actually received for themselves the free gift of forgiveness and salvation offered by Jesus Christ.
Consider, too, the terror felt by atheists and agnostics and people of other religions when they see their country and their world imploding and realize that their family members and friends who had been followers of Jesus Christ were right, and thus are gone, but that they themselves were left to face the wrath to come.
Absolutely, and they should. If they do, the Bible teaches that their sins will be instantly forgiven and their souls saved forever.
They can know without the shadow of a doubt that they are going to heaven when they die and will spend eternity with Christ Jesus, not in the lake of fire with no way of escape. But as wonderful and real and true as all that redemption will be, such people who receive Christ as their Savior and Lord after the Rapture will also be struck by the daunting realization that they and their remaining family members and friends and neighbors will have to endure previously unimaginable suffering in a country that will neither be nor seem like anything they have ever known, a country that has neither the strength nor the will to oppose the Antichrist or the persecution that is coming.
That is, if the abomination of desolation is an event we can observe happening, wouldn't that signal that the rapture will be imminent? Since the prewrath position requires the rise of Antichrist and his abomination of desolation before the rapture, it means that, in this view, the rapture is not imminent in the sense of being able to happen at any moment.
Matthew —33 suggests that this is proper. Do you think it gives off the impression that Christians are just eager to escape the world and leave it to its own destruction? Paul enjoined against something like the first problem in the Thessalonian letters and Jesus something like the second in John.
Getting things straight scripturally is important, but majoring on the minors and becoming arrogant and unloving in the process, both toward insiders and outsiders, is not of the Spirit. How should Christians defend the idea of the rapture in a more intelligent or believable way?
Well, defending what the Bible says is always going to be a joke as far as the world is concerned. More knowledgeable Christians can try to explain to an incredulous world what defensible interpretations lead us to conclude about the return of Christ. In the midst of various interpretations of the end times, what would you say are the most important eschatological truths or facts that all Christians should cling to? Things indisputably taught in Scripture and central to our faith are essential; things less clearly taught are non-essential.
That Jesus is coming again to vindicate his church and judge the enemies of God is the big essential. That is the blessed hope of the church. When and how are not as essential.
That there will be a resurrection of the dead, some to eternal life and some to eternal suffering, is essential.
What the new heavens and earth will be like, what the kingdom of God on earth will be like, etc. Alan Hultberg M. He holds a Ph. Barry Corey — June 30, Sarah Dougher — June 30, Joe Conway — June 30, Biola Magazine Staff — June 30, Cotton Mather, a Puritan minister who was influential in the construction of the Salem Witch Trials, announced that the world would end in Just kidding! Unhappy with , he soon moved the date up to ; when that year came and went, Mather suggested the world would end in While a large earthquake did shake Boston that year, the only thing that quickly came to an end was Mather, who died in February Mather is part of a centuries-long tradition of Christians who have made these bold predictions.
Thomas Ice of the Pre-Trib Research Center distinguishes between the Rapture believers being carried up to heaven and the Second Coming of Christ Christ coming down to Earth, which will happen seven years after the Rapture. While you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish. Maybe heaven is a story we tell ourselves in order to live.
Harold Camping died in after suffering complications from a fall at his home. Embarrassed, he had retired from his work at Family Radio and apologized for misleading his followers. California desert town takes back the night, wins rare "Dark Sky" award.
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