First I will start with the history of the rapture. Then I will go from there.
The History of the Rapture Theory:
Things began in the 1500’s when a Catholic Jesuit created a new theory to combat the theologies of the Protestants. This theory was sealed in the Vatican library for hundreds of years until a man named Edward Irving was tasked to translate various documents in the library to English.
Between the years 1790 and 1850, the second great awakening happened. In the year 1830, Edward was the pastor of a church and he had a member named Margret McDonald, who was 15 years old. Sometime between Feburary 1st and April 14th, Margret became deathly ill. Everyone thought she would die. However she had a miraculous recovery.
Shortly afterwards, she attended a prophetic meeting at Powerscourt Castle. During this meeting, she gave her testimony about how she had dreams concerning the second and third coming of Christ. Edward was present at this meeting. He had also been translating the rapture theory document during this time, too. The dreams lined up with what the Catholic Jesuit had written about. So Edward took it as a confirmation and accepted it as truth. Since then, Edward would teach on the pre trib rapture.
Then there was a man named John Nelson Darby. He heard about miracles happening in Scotland, so he traveled there to see them. During his travels, he heard Edward preach about the idea of the pre trib rapture and considered it as a new revelation from God that had not been preached before. As John continued his travels, he preached the pre trib rapture theory everywhere he went. Between 1859 and 1874, John traveled to the US and Canada seven times.
People like C.I. Scofield and Moody heard this theory and started teaching about it too. Scofield had a major role in teaching the rapture theory because he took John’s teachings and put them into the Scofield Reference Bible. The Scofield Reference Bible was widely distributed around England and America as one of the major authorities of biblical truth. It is used in schools to teach modern-day pastors.
Other writings like The Late Great Planet Earth, by Hal Lindsey in the 1970’s and the Left Behind series written by Tim LaHaye helped to make the rapture theology even more popular.
Eventually, we would see at least three different versions of the rapture theory come into existence. So which one is true?
The answer: all are false and never were true when they were first invented. The “validating” scriptures used to prove each version of the rapture were twisted in an attempt to validate it. People never did take a look at the origins. They just want to accept the theologies they like and agree with, and a lot of them will never give up the lie because they love it too much.
The Reality of the Rapture:
It was first invented in the 1500’s by a Jesuit (which were the assassins of the Catholic Church, who would kill other Christians that did not agree with the Catholic Church). There is no record of it before then. And its teachings disappeared after the document was sealed in the Vatican library. The teachings did not resurface until the 1830’s. And that was validated with a dream of the third coming of Christ.
One of the problems with the rapture theory is that it is based off of the 3rd coming of Christ. If you know your bible, you would know that there is no 3rd coming. You only have the second coming. This should have been a red flag to Edward, but for some reason, it was not. It should be a red flag to you, too, because you should not believe new revelations that do not line up with the Word of God.
Here is a reality: the rapture theory teaches a couple of truths: it will teach about the second coming of Christ, and sometimes it will talk about the resurrection. Both of those things are true. However, it tends to wrap those truths in lies while giving it a new name called “rapture.” One of the lies is that you will not suffer. This contradicts when Jesus tells us that we will be persecuted for His sake.
The rapture teaches us laziness, too. It teaches us to sit back and wait, while abandoning the role to expand the Kingdom of God. It causes people to go to sleep, too, because it teaches that the “chosen” people will magically fly away before anything bad happens. And it gives people false hope. People assume that hard times and tribulation will not befall them, and when it does, they lose their hope in Christianity. In fact, they will turn against God for not fulfilling a false lie, then turn against the other Christians.
Such a thing happened a few times. First it happened in the Ukraine under Stalin. Stalin took all the food for his communist utopia, leaving the Ukrainians to starve. The starvation was so bad that people were killing their children to eat them. The majority of those Christians believed in the pre trib rapture, which didn’t happen. So, they renounced Christianity and started reporting other Christians to the government.
Under Mao, Christians fell away because the pre trib rapture didn’t happen either. And you can expect the same thing to happen in any country where Christians believe in the pre trib rapture and Christianity becomes illegal and persecuted.
This message is for those people who believe in the pre trib rapture but are currently going through tribulation:
They lied to you about the rapture. They lied to you because the lie was taught to them. Forgive them for lying to you. Don’t give up your faith because a lie did not come true. What you know as the “church” has a lot of problems. Theology is one of those problems. Right now, it is time to seek God on truth. And seek Him hard for your provision and to give you strength to get through these troublesome times.