“You don’t believe in a Rapture?” an older man asked me the other day.
— “No. It’s not in Scripture. In fact, NO Christians believed in a Rapture before the year 1830. That’s because the idea of a ‘secret Rapture’ was invented by a young Scottish girl named Margaret MacDonald.” *
[He stood there … stunned … but listening intently.]
— “Besides that fact, the idea of a ‘secret Rapture’ would only work for some Americans and maybe some Europeans. I mean, ask Chinese Christians, African Christians, or any other Christians [in Christian-hostile countries] around the world – ask them if they are getting ‘Raptured’ from all their troubles! Ha! They would think you’re NUTS! They have been beaten, bones broken, tortured for their faith, and they were not ‘Raptured’!
Do American Christians think they are better than everyone else? That ‘Rapture’ doctrine, at best, only works for certain people! It’s not true. It’s not real. It’s not Biblical.”
[He’s still stunned … but listening closely.]
— “Actually, the Bible never teaches us that God will magically whisk us away from all our troubles, in the sense of taking us off the earth. Noah was not ‘taken’ off the earth to be whisked away from those horrible, terrible troubles! [Noah was actually “LEFT BEHIND!”] God made a way for him to go through the turmoil. That’s what the Bible teaches – that God will help us THROUGH our troubles, not whisk us away from them.”
“Yes,” the old man replied excitedly, “we will go through troubles! But God will help us through them!”
— “That’s right,” I told him. “Thank God!”
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The whole Bible teaches us to PRESS THROUGH our troubles by the power and strength of God. See Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, and even Jesus Himself, not to mention the Apostles and early Church. God has always taught that He is with us “in the midst of the fire,” not that we will completely escape the “fire.”
True Christians have always gone “through the fire” and continue, to this very moment, to go “through the fire.” But there is a fourth Man in the fire.
Jesus is with us, if we are with Him.
Giving people a false hope is evil. Giving people the truth that they may be strengthened to face what is coming, that is good Biblical doctrine.
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* No matter what people say in objection to the idea that Margaret MacDonald (and Darby/Scofield) spread the Rapture doctrine, no one can deny that Christians did not teach this “Rapture” idea before that time. Do the research. You won’t find a “Rapture” in the writings of Christian authors before 1830. That fact, in itself, is proof enough to dispel the doctrine, although the Bible does the job on its own. Reading through the Bible without “Rapture-biased Scripture notes” will never lead you to any “Rapture.”
— First Sgt. Amos