I think that the majority of evangelicals believe we are
living in the final days before the Coming of Christ. But they disagree as to
exactly when He is coming. Some
individuals believe that He is coming before the Antichrist appears and the
world is plunged into unprecedented tribulation. That position is called the Pretribulation
Rapture. Other ones simply believe that
Christ is coming at the end of the age.
That position is called the Posttribulation Rapture. The word “rapture” in the New Testament means
“catching away.” The newer of the two positions
is the Pretribulation Rapture. One would
be hard pressed to find any major Christian figure prior to the 20th
century that believed in the Pretribulation Rapture. In fact, the overwhelming majority had never
even heard of the doctrine. It began in England
in the mid 1800s and was propagated into American Christianity by the Scofield
Bible.
Even though the dean of the Pretribulation Rapture Movement,
Dr. John Wolvrood, wrote that the Scriptures do not present any timing for the
rapture, many evangelicals insist that it is in there somewhere. Apologists for the doctrine use a complicated
series of events along with verses that can be used for their position or the
opposite position. I have read and heard
teachers use verses for the coming of the Lord as wild cards. In one instance they can be used to support a
Pretribulation Rapture, and the next instance they are being used for the
coming of Christ at the end of the age.
They explain this apparent contradiction by declaring that the two events
are identical, but are considered one event.
They believe that He is actually coming two times separated by 7
years. However, the first of those two
events does not count as a “coming” because His feet don’t touch the
ground.
In spite of a plethora of evidence that it is a new
doctrine, somehow over the years the doctrine rose to essential status. It is true that when a doctrine survives
three generations, it becomes dogma. Many
evangelicals grew up with the Pretribulation Rapture doctrine. Memories of emotional church meetings where
the doctrine was preached and love of family members who believed the doctrine,
are woven into that dogma. The intensity
of their dogma surfaces whenever someone disagrees with them. I have witnessed friends and even family
members divide it. Refusing to accept it
is ground for excommunication in some denominations and churches. Some professing Christians believe so strongly
in the necessity of pretrubulation rapture that they actually consign other
Christians to hell that do not accept it.
It is obvious that if one believes that he or she is going
to face extremely harsh times, they will prepare accordingly. If instead they are caught up into heaven
before anything terrible occurs, the worst thing one could say about them is
that they were overly prepared. If one
believes that he or she will escape any tribulation, then preparation may be
much different. Therefore, preparation
will be proportionate to how one believes.
An important question begs to be asked here. Which one of the two adherents will suffer
the worse if he or she is wrong?
I have written and spoken frequently about preparation for
the end times. One of the greatest
hindrances to receiving those messages is that many Christians regard
preparation as unnecessary. A great
number believe that all one must do to qualify for the pretribulation rapture is
to have one day said the “sinner’s prayer”.
Another faction believes that it is essential to “rapture ready” status
to make an honest effort to abstain from sin and the lure of the world system. Of course, there is the group that declares
that one must believe in the pretribulation rapture or be left behind. However, as helpful and even essential as
they may be, none of those positions can prepare one for enduring the greatest
satanic chaos ever inflicted on humanity.
2 Thessalonians 2:9
states; “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan,
with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception
among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth,
that they might be saved.” (2 Thess 2:9-11 NKJV)
The deception will be so powerful and widespread that people
will not know they are deceived. They
will look around them and say, “I’m as good as everyone else.” They will not realize that the majority has
been swept up in a diabolical cloud of deception and/or great apostasy. In such a time, one cannot judge his or her
spiritual status by comparison to other individuals.
I believe that God has been preparing His people for the
most brazen display of evil in world history.
He has been allowing us to go through trials that bring us to the place
where we have no one else to trust in or help us but Him. He has revealed the evidence of encroaching darkness,
and the Holy Spirit is telling us to be very diligent about what we allow to
have access to our minds and spirits.
Some individuals have gone through more intense preparation than other
ones. These individuals are being used
to warn people about what looms on the horizon.
Satan is viciously attacking these blessed souls because he knows that
they are exposing him and his plans.
We have a choice during this transitional period. We can decide that we do not need any
preparation because we will never face volatile persecution. We can believe that we will not be forced to
choose between food and subservience to wicked people. Further, we can believe that we will not be
put in a situation where we must choose between denying Christ or losing our
lives. We can believe that in spite of
the millions of true Christians who were tortured and murdered, and the
millions of true Christians that are presently undergoing brutal persecution
around the world, that our generation in America who has done virtually nothing
for God will somehow be deemed worthy to escape any harsh events.
I have chosen to accept and submit to God’s preparation. I hope the pretribulation rapture proponents
are right, but they have no convinced me that they are. Imagine that the Weather Channel issued a
severe weather warning for my city. The
warning stated that a massive Cat 5 tornado is heading our way and they predict
a direct strike on the city. However,
the local news does not issue a warning giving the reason that the city has
never been hit by a tornado. They claim
that nearby mountains turn every storm of that magnitude to the north. Although I hope the local news is right, I am
going to prepare for the worst and take shelter. I advise everyone to do the same when it
comes to the end times. We need to be
spiritually and mentally prepared to face great persecution. If one is not prepared, the shock to ones
spiritual and emotional system will cause immeasurable damage.
I am reminded of Elie Wiesel’s book,
“Night”. In the first chapter he tells
about a warning that went unheeded.
Several
days passed. Several weeks. Several months. Life had returned to normal. A wind of calmness and reassurance blew
through our houses. The traders were
doing good business, the students lived buried in their books, and the children
played in the streets.
One day, as I was just going into
the synagogue, I saw sitting on a bench near the door, Moshe the Beadle.
He told his story and that of his companions. The train full of deportees had crossed the
Hungarian frontier and on Polish territory had been taken charge by the
Gestapo. There it had stopped. The Jews had to get out and climb into lorries. The lorries drove toward a forest. The Jews were made to get out. They were made to dig huge graves. And when they had finished their work, the
Gestapo began theirs. Without passion,
without haste, they slaughtered their prisoners. Each one had to go up to the hole and present
his neck. Babies were thrown into the
air and the machine gunners used them as targets. This was in the forest of Galicia, near Kolomaye. How had Moshe
the Beadle escaped? Miraculously. He was wounded in the leg and taken for dead….
Moshe had changed. There was not longer any joy in his
eyes. He no longer sang. He no longer talked to me of God or of the cabbala,
but only of what he had seen. People
refused not only to believe his stories, but even to listen to them.
“He’s just trying to make us pity
him. What an imagination her has!” They
said. Or even: “Poor fellow. He’s gone mad.”
And as for Moshe, he wept.
“Jews, listen to me. It’s all I ask of you. I don’t want money or pity. Only listen to me,” he would cry between
prayers at dusk and the evening prayers.
I did not believe him myself. I would often sit with him in the evening
after the service, listening to his stories and trying my hardest to understand
his grief. I felt only pity for him.
“They take me for a madman,” he
would whisper, and tears, like drops of wax, flowed from his eyes.
Once, I asked him this question:
“Why are you so anxious that people
should believe what you say? In your
place, I shouldn’t care whether they believed me or not….”
He closed his eyes, as though to
escape time.
“You don’t understand,” he said in
despair. “You can’t understand. I have been saved miraculously. I managed to get back here. Where did I get the strength from? I wanted to come back to Sighet to tell you
the story of my death. So that you could
prepare yourselves while there was still time.
To live? I don’t attach any
importance to my life any more. I’m
alone. No, I wanted to come back, and to
warn you. And see how it is, no one will
listen to me….”
On the seventh day of Passover the
curtain rose. The Germans arrested the
leaders of the Jewish community. From
that moment on, everything happened very quickly. The race toward death had begun.
The first step: Jews would not be
allowed to leave their houses for three days—on pain of death.
Moshe the Beadle came running to our
house.
“I warned you,” he cried to my
father. And, without waiting for a
reply, he fled.
That same day the Hungarian police
burst into all the Jewish houses on the street.
A Jew no longer had the right to keep in his house gold, jewels, or any
objects of value. Everything had to be
handed over to the authorities—on pain of death. My father went down into the cellar and
buried our savings.
At home, my mother continued to busy
herself with her usual tasks. At times
she would pause and gaze at us, silent.
When the three days were up, there
was a new decree: every Jew must wear the yellow star.
Some of the prominent members of the
community came to see my father—who had highly placed connections in the
Hungarian police—to ask him what he thought of the situation. My father did not consider it so grim—but perhaps
he did not want to dishearten the others or rub salt in their wounds.
“The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don’t die of it….”
(Poor Father! Of what then did you die?)
But already they were issuing new
decrees. We were no longer allowed to go
into restaurants or cafés, to travel on the railway, to attend the synagogue,
to go out into the street after six o’clock.
Then came the ghetto.
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