By David Hobbs
THIS IS THE 7th IN A SERIES OF POSTS REGARDING THE CHARGE THE LORD GAVE ME TO "CALL THE CHURCH TO A WAR FOOTING."
The biggest hindrance to the church in America getting on a war footing vis its belief in an imminent rapture. The notion that we will be snatched out of here at any time, certainly before any major hostilities erupt, means we won’t have to face the major spiritual armies massing against us. I run into this all the time; people start to talk about what’s about to come against us in the church, then they catch themselves and say, “Wow, I’m glad we’ll be raptured out of here before that happens!” When I worked for the government we called this a “short-timers attitude.” Since you were going to leave soon, why worry about things going on—just leave them for the next person to deal with. In the military too, when you got within a month or so or your separation, you not only quit worrying about problems, you almost quit working altogether. The same thing in school; we called it “spring fever.” A lot of the church has a bad case of this “spring fever” so they certainly don’t want to hear about the necessity of going on a war footing.
No one can deny the rapture as it’s taught by Paul in 1 Thes. 4:16-17 and 1 Cor. 15--it’s in the Bible. It’s going to happen just like Paul says. But when is it going to happen? That is the million-dollar question that everyone thinks they know the answer to. But the wrong answer could plunge an unsuspecting church into a fight for its life against forces it is totally unprepared for. “That’s just your opinion, Brother Hobbs, what makes you think you know better than we?” The short answer is: because there are scriptures being totally ignored like they weren’t even in the Bible. But they are there, and we’d better consider them now while we still have time.
First let’s look at the end time scenario as it is commonly taught. The world gets wickeder like the Bible says. The perilous times come that Paul mentions in 1 & 2 Timothy. The stage is set for the anti-Christ to come forth and take over the world, but he can’t. Something is in his way, holding him back.
In talking about the rapture in 2 Thes. and how the Thessalonians misunderstood his teaching in 1 Thes., Paul goes into a fuller explanation in 2 Thes. 2 starting in verse 3:
"Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God. Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth …" [NIV]
So who or what is is holding the anti-Christ back? “Gosh Brother Hobbs, everyone knows that--it’s the church!” (More specifically, the power of the Holy Spirit working through the church.) As the teaching goes, the church is now holding back the anti-Christ until the church is removed from the earth via the rapture. Then the anti-Christ comes forth and the world enters into tribulation, the bowls of wrath are poured out, the beast is judged and the wicked perish while the Christians are safe in heaven at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
That’s a nice story, but does it fit reality? Has the church been holding any wicked or evil thing back? Abortion? Homosexual agenda? Corruption? Violence? Societal breakdown of all kinds? What power of evil has the church held back in the last 50 years?
If it doesn’t fit reality, how does that rapture-narrative fit with scripture? Look at Rev. chapter 12. It’s a poetic look at the war between God and the dragon (the devil). There is a woman there also who represents the people of God, both Old and New Testament. She gives birth to a Son (Jesus) who has come to defeat the dragon. The dragon tries to kill him at his birth (using King Herod) but is unable to, and Jesus flees to Egypt. Since he can’t kill the Son, the dragon goes off to make war against the woman and her seed. At this point the author interjects a clarifying point so we know exactly who this seed is: “those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.” That sounds like us! He is going off to make war against us!
Then in chapter 13, up from the sea comes the beast. We know this is the anti-Christ because in verse 6 he has a great swelling mouth, which blasphemes God and those who dwell in heaven. So here he comes to make war against us like it said in chapter 12. But we’re not here, right? Though the rapture is not mentioned, yet we have to have been raptured away for the beast to rise out of the sea, right? (Since before this the church has been holding him back.) Then what is the meaning of Rev. 13:7:
[the beast] was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.
Daniel too saw this beast (along with three others) rising out of the sea in Dan. 7. This last beast was especially ferocious and had an imposing horn (the anti-Christ) which “was waging war against the holy people and defeating them (vs. 21).” Verse 25 says again, “The holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time.”
Wow! Somebody’s got some wires crossed somewhere! Nowhere does it say or imply that this will be a substitute people of God raised up to replace the raptured church. No folks; we are the holy people of God, and we will be delivered into the anti-Christ’s hands right before the end. Are we ready for that? Are we ready to give our lives if need be? Or are we so sure we’re going to miss it that we are living careless and at ease? Only you can answer that for yourself, but God told me to “call the church to a war footing,” so I have to assume that many, if not most of God’s people, are unprepared for what the scriptures warn is coming.
Let’s look at the rapture again in 1 Thes. 4. Paul says that those who are alive when the rapture comes must wait for all the dead in Christ to rise from their graves and be given new, bodies. Then “we who are alive and remain” will also “meet the Lord in the air.” So all those who have ever been Christians throughout history will leave, and then every Christian still alive will leave. How many Christians does that leave on the earth? Exactly none. Then who is the anti-Christ making war against and overcoming in Dan. 7 and Rev. 13:7?
Verse 8 also implies that there are some of God’s people left, because it makes a distinction between those of the world who accept the mark of the beast, and God’s holy people who don’t. That would be a wasted sentence if it didn’t apply to anyone. And God doesn’t waste words. Besides, why would there even be warnings in the Bible about taking the mark of the beast if all the Christians were gone when it was rolled out? The Book if Revelation is a book of warning to the church, not to the world.
Jesus confirmed that there would be Christians on the earth up to His coming at the end of the tribulation period, because He said that God's judgments would be so severe that unless those days were shortened, no flesh would live. But “for the sake of the elect,” God would shorten those days (Mt. 24:22, Mark 13:20). I don’t know of any scripture that indicates there will be a time that there are none of God’s people on the earth, as would be the case after the rapture (as it's taught).
People go to great lengths to get around this problem, such as saying that the 144,000 mentioned in Rev. 14 were Jewish evangelists, who, after the rapture, got saved somehow and then God discipled them, raised them up, empowered them--all without the church’s help--and then they quickly evangelized the earth. Never mind the problem raised by what billions in the church failed to do over 2000 years, these 144,000 were able to do in a snap. (if that were the case, why even have the church for all those years? That would make it a colossal failure! Why reward it by rapturing it out? Rapture out the 144,000 evangelists instead! They’re the real heroes.)
So maybe people who were not saved before the rapture, got saved by seeing the rapture and missing it. All kinds of things are possible, but is there any scripture to back them up? Isn’t the whole rapture scenario just human speculation with little scriptural evidence? For most of its 2000 year history, the church has done just fine without it. It’s only been around since 1830.
But there is scripture that the anti-Christ is going to be allowed to make war on the saints and overcome them. Shouldn’t we be preparing for that event? We know it’s going to happen. God told me, “Call the church to a war footing.” Would you put human speculations ahead of heeding His voice?
The rapture scenario that makes the most sense to me is that it occurs at the second coming of the Lord; that after rising to meet the Lord in the air, the whole entourage accompanies Him back to the earth where He takes His throne and assumes His millennial reign. The verb used in the Greek for “meet” refers to guests going out to meet the guest of honor to escort him back to the estate.
Paul clearly identifies it as "the coming of the Lord" [1 Thes. 4:15]. The idea of a "secret" rapture with the trumpet blast of God, the Lord descending from heaven with a shout, the voice of an archangel, every Christian grave being broken open simultaneously around the world with bodies rising out of them as they’re being transformed, along with 3 billion Christians rising from the earth also being transformed, all being a “secret” event, is … well, mind-boggling. Rather, I see it as a cataclysmic event of epic proportions. The way Paul ends his account in 1 Thes. 4:17 agrees with this. It is the final, climatic, ultimate consumption of biblical history. The breach opened between God and man in Gen. 3 has been closed “And thus shall we ever be with the Lord.” Amen!
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