You know, I was in the restroom at Wal-Mart recently, and this is where I go into some pretty graphic detail, so you might want to send the kids to bed.
Ok, I'm kidding, but here's the thing. I was in the restroom and written on the stall door was "Jesus is Coming Soon". Now I guess my first reaction, as I've been trained or schooled maybe a little too well was to say or write back in response, "Yes He is, but which one are you talking about?" Now, naturally I didn't write that. Unfortunately I didn't have a pen.
The next day I'm driving along and I see on a church sign "Make sure the rapture is a family affair".
Now we've all seen, or most of us have anyway, little signs and bumper stickers on the back of cars little sayings about the rapture. When I was in college this girl I knew was wearing a t-shirt one day that said "In case of rapture, this t-shirt will be unmanned.
Now, a lot of people will talk about the rapture and you get this mass picture of chaos really, where thousands or millions of people disappear around the world, and you literally do have drivers of moving vehicles disappear and people vanishing out of their clothes into thin air, as there's accidents all over the roadways and mass panic and confusion as loved ones around the world disappear.
Now first of all, I might ask, what kind of God would bring a scenario like that about? I mean really if you think about it, millions of people disappearing, car crashes and probably deaths as a result on the highways, people in a world wide panic and going out of their minds and you would say it was God who brought all that to pass? Now it is true that God can execute some pretty stern judgment on people if they deserve it, and it is true that I'm sure the plagues of the Egyptians, or on the Egyptians, those were no doubt very rough, and they came from God.
But let's think for moment about this whole idea of the rapture and where it comes from. You know, I'll bet sadly enough if you were to take a poll or ask most Christians if they believe in the rapture, they would say yes. But then, if you were to ask most of those same people where it mentions the rapture in the bible, they would probably say something along the lines of "Well, I don't really know, but I know my pastor says it's in there, and I know so and so on the tv is talking about it all the time, so, it's in there somewhere, I just don't know where."
Well, unfortunately they don't know where because they go to church perhaps every Sunday or whenever, they do in all likelihood love the Lord, but they sit there and listen to a man (or woman) go on for 30 or 40 minutes, or however long, they take that individual's word for it that they know the truth and what they're talking about, and they never bother to examine the Word for themselves. Hey, I've been there. When it comes down to it, most of my life I've been there. But you know, if you never advance beyond that stage, you never really grow as a Christian. You might be saved, you might very well be going to heaven. But what do you really know yourself, and more to the point, what can you teach to someone else who maybe is looking for, yearning for that truth? Unfortunately probably not a lot. I'm going to come back to this hopefully tomorrow. Right now, I need to get some more Christmas cards done for our people at work.
Jason