Jesus Himself said: "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one." (John 17:15)
This prayer is not for the Apostles alone, but for all who come to know the Gospel through them (v. 20).
In fact, does Jesus not already echo this sentiment in Matthew 24:9?:
"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me."
NO WHERE does Jesus say His Church will be spared from persecution in the end-times. The Rapture is a farce, a man-made heresy!
Apart from this, there is simply no Scripture (other than through twisting the meaning) which supports "three" comings of Christ.
Heb. 9:24 tells us, that "Christ will appear only a second time, when he comes in glory to save us." See also Rev. 19:11-16. The Scriptures only reveal two comings of Christ.
If you are a Bible-believing Christian, you cannot believe the Rapture!
The money-making scheme of Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, and their brood finds its origins in 1830:
"[when] a Scottish visionary, who belonged to a sect known as the Irvingites, claimed while in a trance that the rapture would occur before the period of persecution. This position, now known as the "pre-tribulational" view, also was embraced by John Nelson Darby, an early leader of a Fundamentalist movement that became known as Dispensationalism. Darby’s pre-tribulational view of the rapture was then picked up by a man named C.I. Scofield, who taught the view in the footnotes of his Scofield Reference Bible, which was widely distributed in England and America. Many Protestants who read the Scofield Reference Bible uncritically accepted what its footnotes said and adopted the pre-tribulational view, even though no Christian had heard of it in the previous 1800 years of Church history."
(Karl Keating, "Catholic Answers")
Many people try to say Paul preached about the Rapture in 1 Thess. 4:17 - Paul writes that "we will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." Many Protestants call this experience the "rapture" (even though the word "rapture" is not found in the Bible, it comes from the Latin Vulgate, where "caught up" is translated as "rapiemur" which has the same root). This theory says that Christ will take the faithful up to heaven before the final coming. But the "Rapture" preached in most fundamentalist churches today is FAR from what the Bible describes:
"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first." (v. 16)
Now, this verse HARDLY matches the "secret disappearance" theory the fundamentalists with their man-made doctrine have been trying to espouse. Sounds like a big, noisy, gala affair!
Now, LaHaye and other false prophets have tried to say, "Well, only the believers can hear all this going on." Oh really? Care to provide any scriptural proof?
For JESUS SAID: ""At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. THEY WILL SEE the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other." (Matthew 24:30-31)
Clearly, this is a VISIBLE event...
Now, what about Matthew 24:40-41? Don't these verses support the Rapture: "Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left."
NO, they do NOT. For Jesus is describing His SECOND COMING, and the end of the world... But READ and UNDERSTAND the words of the Lord, my brethren:
"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." (Matt. 24:27-39)
Remember that those who were "LEFT BEHIND" in the days of Noah were the RIGHTEOUS -- Noah and his family!!!! As you see in verse 39 of Matthew 24, those whom the Lord "took away" are those who PERISHED!!!
So rather than believe in the teachings of FALSE PROPHETS (Matt 24:11; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 4:1) who are making millions on books and movies, believe only the WORD OF GOD, the source of our LIFE!
Amen.
