Well, if the Rapture happened tonight, I missed it. According to reports so did everybody else. We were thinking about going into town and at 6PM throwing piles of clothes on the ground and start screaming that the people had been taken. I’m sure it would have been fun and worth a lot of laughs.
But in reality, this is not a laughing matter. It is sad that so many people actually believed that this would happen. I know that this guy is way out there, but when I think about how many Christians are really waiting to be taken out in a “lifeboat” as it were from a dying and depraved world it frightens me. How can we think that we will be taken away when we have been called to be salt and light on the earth? Didn’t Jesus tell us to preach make disciples of ALL nations? How ca we do that if we are taken out? We can’t.
The idea of the Rapture is a late blooming idea that only came about in the last 100 years of so. The early church had no such belief. I just don’t understand it. If we are supposed to be the Bride of Christ, then it is our job to make ourselves ready for the wedding, not to escape by the skin of our teeth. Instead of waiting to be taken out, we should be advancing the Kingdom of God on the earth. The earth is not going to hell in a hand basket. No, the Church is going to get stronger and more powerful. It will continue to spread the Gospel of the Kingdom and increase in influence in every area. We are called to be a light on a hill. We don’t want all the lights taken away and the devil to regain power.
No, I refuse to believe in an eschatology that has the church running away. In fact, I believe that this list of eschatological core values from Kris Valletton really tell what I believe better than I could ever do. So here they are:
My eschatological core vales - I will not embrace an end-time view:
1) that re-empowers a disempowered devil.
2) that destroys hope for future generations.
3) that ignores the command to make disciples of ALL nations.
4) that steals hope for the nations.
5) that changes the nature of a wonderful God.
6) that celebrates bad news as a sign of the times.
The belief in the Rapture and a Church that runs away does all these things, so I refuse to allow myself to believe that. I believe that the Church will continue to grow and increasingly release more of the presence of the Father. If it does this, we will not have to worry about quacks and being “Left Behind”. No, we will be bringing them all in. I can’t wait, God is in a very good mode.
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