In Case Of Rapture

When I was a young woman, living in Hollywood, I moved out of my parents home and moved to a very ‘slick’ apartment complex. It was perfect for my first apartment. I had a one bedroom apartment, just steps from the swimming pool. To say I was impressionable at this point in my life is a gross understatement. Everything impressed me, Tony, the crazy old manager, who always had pot pies in his freezer for kids who ran out of food. The tall handsome blond young man from New York, who sat on the steps outside of his apartment and played a magical 12 string guitar, and sang like an angel, and Tony’s traveling preacher friend who handed me a brand new Schofield Reference Bible, and told me to keep it, which I did. As a matter of fact that was the bible that became my introduction into the understanding of “the Rapture.” That, as you may already know, is the profound event where at any moment, all the faithful christians are to be caught up off the earth, into the clouds, to forever be with Jesus, while the rest of creation suffers 7 years of horrifying tribulation here on Earth. There was never any doubt in my mind that what was written in the indepth study notes of that bible, about the dispensational aspect of the scripture, and the mystical event of the “Pre tribulation rapture” was anything but gospel truth. It was a truth so deeply ingrained in me that I raised my own children with that belief as well. I believed it so strongly that I actually had a sign in my car that read, “Warning, In Case of Rapture, this car will be unmanned!” It seemed like no one in the church I had attended, for years, questioned it. I mean, if you didn’t believe in the Rapture, you were just not going to make it. You would be left behind. There was even a movie out at that time, entitled, “Left Behind, ” about all those who missed the Rapture. The only question in anyone’s mind, and the separating factor among believers, seemed to be whether you believed in a Pre Trib, Mid Trib, or a Post Tribulation Rapture. Of course, in my house we were believing in a Pre Tribulation catching up. I mean no one wanted to remain on the Earth during the terrible trouble leading up to the great apocalypse, the end of all things. It was a terrifying prospect. About a year after leaving that particular congregation, the Lord led me to a very wise pastor, who lovingly told me to take my head out of the closet, put it back on my shoulders and start thinking again. He took the time to educate me, during an hour and a half phone call, about a young visionary, named Margaret McDonald, who was born around 1815, in Port Glasgow, Scotland, and died around 1840. While in her teens, Margaret had a dream about what came to be known as the Rapture, and she shared it with her pastor, who eventually shared it with John Nelson Darby, a 19th Century British evangelist. He was the founder of the Plymouth Brethren. Influenced by the prophetic views of McDonald, Darby developed a complete system of dispensationalism, that included the Idea of the pre-tribulation Rapture. He carried these ideas into his congregation, and putting his own spin on the girl’s dream, eventually built it into the doctrine of his church. This teaching became even more widespread, when Cyrus Ingerson Scofield wrote the Scofield Reference Bible, published in 1909. It was a version of the King James bible with extensive notes and cross references. In those notes, Scofield propagated dispensational theology and expounded on the concept of the “rapture” in such an authoritative manner that no one thought to question it, least of all me. The Scofield Reference bible influenced such a wide audience that it became a foundational text for 20th Century Western Evangelical Church. You can imagine my shock when I realized that the very bible that I had carried with me for years, the one upon which I based my understanding of theology, the one whose footnotes I studied diligently might, in fact, be based on the dream of a teen age girl. That 90 minute phone conversation began the unraveling of everything I thought I knew to be true. I am now so far away from rapture theory that recent rapture predictions have caught me off guard. Timelines associated with our predicted departure of the planet always seem to increase as things tend to be more chaotic around the globe. But, as it turns out, outside the United States, the concept of the rapture is really nowhere to be found. It is primarily a western escapist idea. That in itself is pretty sad, that we all want to be scooped up out of here, instead of taking the original mandate of the garden and employing it for the betterment of the planet. God told us to multiply, subdue and replenish the Earth. He gave man dominion over everything, the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every creeping thing that creeps on the Earth. We seem to have forgotten what we were put here to do. Having put my head back on my shoulders, I don’t think about the ‘catching up’ in the same manner anymore. Now I see it more like the Apostle John experienced it, in the Revelation, when he was caught up into the 3rd heaven. Now that was a true rapture. So to all who still cling to the idea of being rescued off our beloved planet, I ask, haven’t you been raptured? If not, ask Abba, to reveal His Son, in you, and like the Apostles Paul, and John, the beloved, you can come to know Christ in you, the hope of Glory, Colossians 1:27, the experience of the indwelling Christ. The true Rapture