When is the Rapture?

Harold Camping. May 21st. October 21st. These are things we keep hearing about from the news, the pulpit, and the water cooler. I have personally received many Facebook messages, texts, and other questions as to when the rapture will be.

One thing is clear. We can now safely rule out May 21, 2011.

I have read and heard some within the Associated Press claim that most Christians reject the idea of the rapture; they have mocked it (referring to it as God “beaming us up”) and even pointed out that the word does not appear in the Bible. So before we can discuss when the rapture will be, first we have to see if it is even biblical.

The word rapture does not appear in the Bible, but it would if our Bible were Latin. In 1 Thessalonians 4:17 Paul refers to a time where all Christians will be “caught up” together to meet the Lord in the air. That is a description of the event in which all living Christians will instantly be taken to heaven, and the words caught up are the English equivalent of rapimur in Latin. So the rapture (or The Catching Up, if you will) is certainly a biblical concept. But when will it be?

Harold Camping, who is famous for his now debunked claim for May 21st, is not the first person to incorrectly predict the rapture date. In fact, another person was wrong on May 21st, 1994. The person: Harold Camping. For the last 2,000 years people have been making claims about the exact date. Many believed the Y2K theories, that the rapture would happen at midnight as the year 2,000 rolled in. That theory was about as accurate as the predictions of worldwide power outages and computer crashes.

There was a book put out in 1984 called, 1,984 Reasons Why Jesus Will Come Back in 1984. I have a book in my office called, 2008: God’s Final Witness. Both books give their reasons for the Lord’s return that year. I wasn’t able to get my money back when 2009 came around.

How do people come up with these dates? They believe that God left us some encrypted codes in the Bible, and if we grab our Sherlock Holmes pipe and magnifying glass, we can put together all the clues. There are so many numbers in the Bible that I can make them say anything I want them to say. If I multiply the number of candlesticks in the Tabernacle by the number of lashes Paul received, I have my first clue. There are two problems with this: #1, that’s not how the Bible works. OK, that’s only one, but it’s enough for me.

The Bible has this to say about the time of the rapture: “But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need that I write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night (I Thessalonians 5:1-2).”

*Note: I know many want to use the verse that says that no one knows the day or the hour from Matthew 24:36, but that is in reference to the 2nd Coming, not the rapture. The context of I Thessalonians 4-5 is the rapture, not the 2nd Coming.

Paul wrote that the rapture would be like a thief at night. If you knew a thief were coming, would you tuck yourself in for the night? Of course not! That is why Paul goes on to warn that we must be watchful. He compares the rapture to a pregnant woman; she might have an idea of when she is due, but she doesn’t know the exact minute she will go into labor. She must be ready—bags packed, gas tank full, route mapped out—because in a second’s notice she may make the trip.

Like a pregnant woman we can have an idea that the day is drawing near. The signs of the times are hear. We have a great deception (ear-pleasing “preachers”), crazy weather (Joplin, Tuscaloosa, etc.), and wars (War on Terror, Middle East turmoil, etc.). These are the signs that Jesus gave us to look out for (Matthew 24:3-8), but we must be ready for the exact minute. The Scriptures are clear: no one knows when that minute will be.

If the rapture had been May 21st, would you have gone to heaven, or would you have been left behind? I’m glad the rapture wasn’t last Saturday, because that means that people still have time to get right.

So when will the rapture be? I know with about as much certainty as I know when a thief is going to break into my house. So let’s not waste time with a calculator doing apocalypse algebra; rather, let’s be busy about spreading the Word and inviting people to get caught up with us.

But I’m not going to get caught up in predicting a date.

To Save a Life

(Like my blog about the peace symbol, this blog was written as a default response to all the parents, students, and other people who are asking my opinion of To Save a Life.) By now you have probably heard of the movie To Save a Life, which opened nation-wide in theaters on January 22nd. The movie deals with so many issues that teens face today, like suicide, cutting, drinking, drugs, premarital sex, teen pregnancy, and abortion. At first glance this movie looks like an awesome resource that we should recommend for our teens, parents, youth pastors, and youth workers. But a closer look at the movie reveals a few disturbing things. For starters, according to pluggedin.com, there are 2 uses of the “A” word, 5 uses of hell (used as a curse word), and once the “D” word is used. There are other crude terms used to describe a girl, and crude terms for referring to sexual activity. There is also a bedroom scene that shows a girl removing a boy’s shirt, then afterwards the girl putting he...

Catechism #15

Q. By what sin did our first parents fall from their original condition?  A. Our first parents’ sin was eating the forbidden fruit. The first sin we see in the Bible was in the eating of the forbidden fruit by Adam and Eve. But as we saw last week, there are sins of commission and omission. The eating of the fruit was an act of commission—a sin that was committed in the Garden of Eden. But before Eve ever took her first bite, a few sins of omission occurred that led up to the sin of commission. First, notice that it was Eve, not Adam, that did all the talking with the serpent in Genesis 3. Yet it was Adam, not Eve, who was created as the spiritual leader of the family. For whatever reason Adam abdicated his role as the spiritual leader and stood silently by as Eve ate the fruit. After Eve’s bite, she gave it to Adam, and he ate it too. Not only did Adam omit his role as leader, Eve omitted her trust in the goodness of God. Not only did she misquote God ...

All Things To All Men

One of our favorite verses to use in our evangelism methods is where Paul said that he “becomes all things to all men” so that he might “by all means save some (I Corinthians 9:22).” This is certainly a good idea if we keep it in its proper context and application. For example, I remember a time in high school where I knew a kid that loved skateboarding. Being the chicken that I am, I was never a skateboarder. All he would talk about was skating, and I knew none of his lingo. But to help develop a relationship with him (he was new to our church and didn’t know many people), I brushed up on my skating lingo so I could ask if he had done any sick ollies lately (impressed?). This would be like Paul saying “to the skateboarder, I became a skateboarder.” This is effective and necessary. But then there are the people that use this verse to justify doing sinful things in the name of evangelism. The first one that comes to mind is about drinking. Some people will go into the bars to evan...

Tommy Mann

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