Thursday, June 20, 2019

3 Common Objections to the Pre-Trib Rapture


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“3 Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires, 4 They will say, ‘Where is the promise of His coming?”  (2 Peter 3:3-4)

There is one doctrine in Bible prophecy that generates more excitement and division than any other—the pre-tribulation rapture. Just to be clear, this view holds that Christ’s return will happen in two-stages. First, He will come in the clouds to gather the church from the earth and take her to heaven (1 Thess. 4:13-18). After that there will be seven years of God’s terrible judgment on the earth, known as “The Tribulation Period.” After the Tribulation, Christ will return to the earth with the church to judge His enemies and set up His kingdom (Rev. 19).

Of course, not everyone subscribes to Rapture theology. A 2016 survey done by Lifeway research among evangelical pastors reported that only about one-third of pastors held to a Pre-Tribulation view of the Rapture.[1] I have personally heard preachers malign the Rapture as “unbiblical,” “escapist-thinking” and “too new to be true.” Today if you preach and teach the Rapture, you are subject to all kinds of scoffing, as if you were promoting Bigfoot or Sasquatch.

Here are some of the most common objections to the Rapture that I have encountered and how I respond to them. 

“The Rapture is unbiblical. Neither the word nor the idea is in the Bible.” Part of this is actually true. Indeed, the word “rapture” isn’t in today’s modern Bible translations. In 1 Thess. 4:17 we read, “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air…” That phrase “caught up” is the Greek word harpazo, which means “to snatch away by force.” In the Middle Ages, when Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, he translated harpazo as rapio, a form of the word rapture. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate was the Bible of Christendom for over 1,000 years. So, the word “rapture” may not be in the text, but the idea certainly is (see also, John 14:1-3; 1 Cor. 15:51-58). By the way, there are many theological ideas which have special terms that do not appear in the Bible—like trinity, incarnation, monotheism, and even the word “Bible” is not in the Bible. (For more evidence of the pre-trib rapture check out my other article by clicking here)

“The Rapture is too new to be true. None of the early church fathers believed it.” This criticism falls under the logical fallacy known as “chronological snobbery.” How old or young an idea is does not determine its truth value. Actually, this was the same objection that defenders of Roman Catholicism said to Martin Luther about “justification by faith” at the Diet of Worms in 1521. It is true that the doctrine of the Rapture was not formally crystallized until the 1800s in the writings of Englishman John Darby. It should be noted that many church fathers (Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, to name a few) did teach “immanency” (the belief that Christ could return at any moment), which is central to a pre-trib rapture view. Of course, the late development of the Rapture should not be a surprise, because the Bible does tell us that many prophecies will not be understood until the time of their fulfillment (Dan. 12:9). 

“You Rapture people are nothing but escapists, who are looking for a free pass from suffering.”
I believe that the events described in Revelation 6-19 are yet future and if you simply take the Bible at face value, I cannot think of anyone who would want to live through that time of woe and wrath. The return of Christ is called “the blessed hope” (Titus 2:13). If you take the position that there is no pre-trib rapture or that the rapture and return of Christ will happen simultaneously at the end of the tribulation, then what kind of hope is it to know that the Church will have to live through hell on earth? Moreover, what do you do about all the promises in Scripture to the Church saying that she will not have to endure the judgment of God (1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9; Rev. 3:10)? I don’t look at the Rapture as “escapism,” instead I look at it as greater motivation to be urgently winning souls to Christ and building the Church. Because “no man knows the day or the hour” of Christ’s return (Matt. 24:36), we ought to be living as if it could be today! -DM


[1] Bob Smietana, “Only One-Third of Pastors Share 'Left Behind' End Times Theology,” Christianity Today, 26 April 2016 <https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/april/sorry-left-behind-pastors-end-times-rapture-antichrist.html>

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

When God Made Dad


Image result for dad walking with son

“When God Made Dad”

When God made a Dad, He said, “I’ll build Him from special stuff,”
“To raise a family, the man will have to be tender and tough.”

God knew he’d have to work, and days would be long,
So a Dad would have to be durable and strong.
God put him in a sturdy frame for the sun and rain and snow.
Then God gave Dad working hands to farm and build and grow.   

God also knew that a Dad would need a father’s heart,
So he gave him a bigger one right from the start.
God said, “With My love he will be a diaper-changer and a safeguard from danger.”
“He’ll be a provider and a guider, a teacher and a preacher.”  

God gave him a good mind so if something breaks, he’d know what to do.
Then he made him tall, ‘cause little boys would need someone to look up to.
He poured into the Dad all kinds of courage and might,
‘Cause God knew little girls would get scared in the night.

Most would stop there, but God wasn’t done
The Lord thought, “Hey, Dad needs to be fun!”  
So he made dad a tent rigger and a sandcastle digger,
a mender of toys, and a maker of noise,
a bonfire lighter and a bad joke reciter,
a story book reader and vacation leader,
a ball thrower and an everything-knower,
a bike rider and a contest decider,
a runner of races and a shaver of faces,
a game player and an ice-cream payer.   

God stuffed so much into the Dad that there wasn’t any more room
And the Lord knew he would help the family blossom and bloom

And so, God said, “With my Word, he will teach the children wrong from right.”
“And if he shows them to follow Me, he will lead them into heaven’s light.”   

-DM

Wednesday, June 5, 2019

Even a Dead Snake Can Still Bite


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And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.  (Rev. 12:9)

For Jennifer and Jeremy Sutcliffe, it was supposed to be a relaxing day at home. A daughter and granddaughter were coming to visit. A family cookout was planned for later in the afternoon. But by the end of that day, Jeremy Sutcliffe would be in a coma, his body ravaged by rattlesnake venom and doctors unsure whether the 40-year-old would survive.

It all started with some yard work. To prepare for the day’s festivities, the couple decided to tidy up the yard of their home near Lake Corpus Christi in southern Texas. Jennifer was working in a flower bed when she discovered an invader that was much more sinister than pesky weeds. Hiding among her flowers was a four-foot-long Western diamondback rattlesnake.

Alerted by his wife’s panic, Jeremy came over with a shovel and decapitated the snake, a move that for many other animals would have meant swift death. But what the Sutcliffes didn’t know is that snakes can still bite and inject venom for at least an hour, if not more, after being decapitated. When Jeremy went to pick up the snake’s head about 10 minutes later, he never expected it to bite him in the hand.

Jeremy had to be airlifted to the hospital where he received an antidote. Fortunately, he survived and suffered no long-term complications from the bite.[1]

According to Genesis 3:15, which is the first prophecy of the Bible, Jesus dealt a fatal blow to Satan when He died on the cross and rose from the dead. God declared war on the Serpent saying, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Jesus defeated Satan at Calvary (1 John 3:8), but the old Serpent still has the ability to strike at us. From God’s perspective, he’s in his final hour. But we must guard against him day and night, realizing, though defeated, he is still a dangerous enemy. One day, Michael and his angel warriors will cast Satan down to the Earth (Rev. 12:8-9) and ultimately Christ will cast him into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10). Until then, we must be on guard against one of his subtle strikes.

One toxic venom that Satan tries to inject in our hearts is the poison of pride. It was pride that caused Satan’s original fall in the first place (1 Tim. 3:6). Warren Wiersbe wrote, “Satan’s desire is not just to work against the church from the outside, but to corrupt the church from the inside. Pride is one of his chief weapons. If he can get a pastor proud of his preaching, a Sunday School teacher proud of his class growth, a deacon or officer proud of his position, a singer proud of his or her voice, or a Christian too proud to pray, then Satan has a foothold from which to launch his attack.”[2]

Prayer is the antidote to the venom of pride. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7). Let’s ask the Lord to cleanse our hearts of pride today. -DM


[1] Allyson Chiu, “A Texas man decapitated a rattlesnake. It bit him anyway and he nearly died, his wife says.,” The Washington Post, 7 June 2018 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/06/07/a-texas-man-decapitated-a-rattlesnake-it-bit-him-anyway-and-he-nearly-died-his-wife-says/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f0aefe66d421>
[2] Warren Wiersbe, The Strategy of Satan (Carol Stream IL: Tyndale, 1979), 57.