Is church too rapture-dependent?

The Christian church in America lies quiet, paralyzed, apparently moribund in the face of a wildfire of anti-Christian cultural and political trends sweeping the nation.

• same-sex marriage;
• the Supreme Court's decision labeling any and all opposition to the above as nothing short of bigotry;
• the first, unmistakable signs of persecution against those believers who do stand up in defiance often because they were entrapped by anti-Christian activists;
• a national freak show of the celebration of "transgenderism" and other deviant lifestyles;
• a government that no longer respects the will of the people and the law of the land, but caters to a radical secularist cultural elite;
• four in 10 pregnancies are terminated by abortion;
• Christian parents continue to send their kids to government schools that have become killing grounds for faith and indoctrination centers for radical secularism and sexual anarchy;
• half of evangelicals don't even bother to vote.

I could go on and on.

Why is the church asleep and abdicating its role as "salt and light" in what was the greatest Christian country in history?

A handful of Christian leaders boldly stand up to proclaim the truth – Jonathan Cahn, Franklin Graham, Tony Perkins, James Dobson among them. Too many mega-church pastors have thrown in their lot with the world, along with the so-called "mainline denominations."

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The situation is worse than I could have ever imagined.

So I've been asking myself why. I suspect there are many reasons. But I can't help but wonder if the American church is just too rapture-dependent.

As a new believer nearly 40 years ago, I accepted the idea that born-again Christians would be raptured out of this world long before the world got Revelation-style ugly. I defended against attacks that the pre-tribulation rapture eschatological view would leave Christians tolerant of the growing apostasy in their midst. Now, I'm not so sure.

Maybe it's because I am repulsed at the way the pre-trib rapture doctrine is preached with such self-assurance, certainty, fervor. I have come to believe it is leaving far too many believers unprepared for what is happening right now as other Christians are already being slaughtered around the world.

So let's look at one of the most popular "rapture" verses in the Bible – in historical context.

Read about the "pre-wrath" rapture position in “Antichrist Before the Day of the Lord: What Every Christian Needs to Know about the Return of Christ"

Let's look at Paul's books of 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians. It is in the first letter we read about the miracle of the rapture. It comes in the context of a first-century church already under persecution American Christians could scarcely imagine. Here's what Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:13-18:

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

Notice the preface to the famous rapture verses. Paul is telling believers facing serious persecution not to worry about those believers who have already died. They, he explains, will rise first when the rapture comes. That's the context. He doesn't suggest the rapture provides a get-out-of-tribulation-free card. He also promises only that this event will occur at "the coming of the Lord," not years before.

Now let's look at the epistle of 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8, where more information is provided about this time and this event:

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

Here Paul talks about the coming of the Lord, just as he did in 1 Thessalonians, but says it will not come until the Antichrist is revealed. Yet, I hear pre-tribulation rapture teachers confidently say they will never live to see the "son of perdition" come to power and never live to see him sitting in the Temple of God. So where is the unequivocal scriptural promise that believers will escape the tribulation?

I don't see it. In fact, in two epistles held up as critical pre-tribulation rapture evidence, what is presented, at best, is ambiguity about the timing.

It's time for America's Christians, spoon-fed speculation as doctrine, to realize wrath has always been part of the Christian life. As Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians, we are not appointed to wrath, but to salvation. Salvation is the promise, not a wrathless life. Jesus died on the cross. So did many of His apostles. All but one were killed for their faith, and the exception was imprisoned for much of his life. First-century Christians were crucified and set on fire to light the streets of Rome. They were fed to hungry lions in the Colosseum for the entertainment of the crowds. Christians are facing widespread persecution around the world today.

Don't think it can't happen to you.

Be sober and prepared, as Paul urges in these letters.

And pray unceasingly with the vigor Paul demonstrates throughout his writings was part of his life and the lives of the Thessalonians.

If America's Christians simply did that, with humility and repentance, it would rock our world like the first century believers rocked their world.

Media wishing to interview Joseph Farah, please contact [email protected].