Month: January 2018

Have you ever thought about what the moments after the rapture will look like?

NOTE: If you’re doctrine of “it’s not for us to know” just kicked in, then please allow me to do you a favor –  stop here and move on to something else – otherwise this is going to seem very strange and unfathomable for you ( but I do pray that you would give the facts a chance – truly…)

For those of you who a) believe that the bible is the inerrant word of God, and b) have opened your thinking to actually believe that God is really coming for his Bride, and is literally pelting us with signs all around that He is coming very soon, then please think along with me.

Back to the original question – have you thought about what the condition of the world will be moments after the rapture (harpazo, ‘snatching-up’) of the church will be like? I was giving it some thought today – and if you think about it, the ugly condition of the world described as the tribulation is a little bit easier to imagine. And I think it some of that “ugly” is something that happens a lot more suddenly.

Think with me on this…

Let’s do something difficult, and lets try to figure out how many Christians that fall into the classification of being those that Christ claims are “His own,” and not those that he will say as in Matthew 7:23: “ …I never knew you. Depart you from me, ye that work iniquity.”

Wait.. What?

Oh sorry, yeah, I don’t think the 75% of the American Population that writes “Christian” in the “Religion” blank on government forms meet the qualification of being someone that Jesus “knows.” And that is the great debate – that we’re not going to go into here – but “claiming” the name of Jesus seems to be a lot different in Jesus’ eyes than “knowing” Him – in fact, simply claiming His name (acknowledging He exists) is more like “knowing OF Him” than actually “knowing Him.” Knowing tends to imply relationship, and relationship requires time, effort, and risk. Bottom line, if you are not sure if He “knows” you – now would be an excellent time to call out to Him now for clarification.”

Now we have another very difficult task. We have to “ball park” how many people we think will actually be a part of the snatching away event. Let’s focus on the US. With some exceptions, the US will likely have a higher percentage of “rapture candidates” than many european countries – where the falling away from God has progressed even further than our own since the founding of this country. We are going to have to do some “guesstimation” and we will probably be way off one way or another, but the point should still illustrate.

Gallup says (as of 2015) that 75% of Americans “identify with a Christian religion.”

Wikipedia says the current population of the US ( November 2017) is about 326 Million

Keep in mind that 77 Million (Pew Research) identify with Catholicism Pew Research 2014) and there may be a significant portion of that number that are not known by Jesus.

Please don’t throw tomatoes at me, Im just the messenger! But do know that Catholicism teaches a works-based faith with deification of many other players than Christ – and the bible warns us against that type of thing, so some percentage of this number may not “qualify” for the rapture. In truth, it is similar to those that go to church every Sunday at a protestant church, and don’t personally know Jesus – so please don’t shoot the messenger! Again check with Jesus to confirm your qualifications!

Only God knows these numbers, but for our little illustration, lets take a shot at some math. I realize your math may be significantly different than mine, please feel free to substitute your own – the illustration will work either way.

Let’s consider the following numbers (rounded off.)

US Population:                              326 Million
75% “Identify” with Christ             245 Million
Self-Identified with Catholicism     76.7 Million
Church attendance (2013)             37% of Americans, or 121 Million

Simply for illustration purposes, lets “low ball” the number at 25 Million people that “”Know” Christ as in Matthew 7:23 and Romans 10:9. Again for illustration purposes only – the actually number may be much less, and the problem lessens somewhat (it could also be much more, and the problem worsens significantly.) In either case, I think you will see that the world will become a VERY different place after that moment that the Church is snatched away.

Here are just a few of the innumerable issues that will immediately become apparent.

Immediate issues:

1. Roads will immediately be gridlocked with driver-less cars and trucks resulting in tens of thousands of crashes within moments. There may be cars with Christian drivers – and non-christian passengers that are about to be in for quite the ride. Imagine having to navigate around cars crashing all around you, from the passenger seat of a driverless car. Unfortunately, there will be deaths.
2. Airplanes – a broad estimate is that 500,000 passengers are in the air at any one time. If we go with 200 passengers per flight, that leaves 2500 aircraft in the air at any one time. Some percentage of those aircraft will have both a captain and first officer as Christ-followers. That airplane (and it’s 200 passengers) will immediately become pilotless. If that happens at altitude, survivability will be somewhat higher, but if it happens on approach (or even shortly after takeoff) the results could be disastrous.
3. Utilities like water and sewage treatment plants will immediately become short-handed – and any real-time decisions that are not automated will become un-monitored for a time. Power plants will be in the same position, and the rather active electrical power trading grid will be at huge risk for load imbalance. Imagine unmonitored (or under-monitored) nuclear power plants?
4. Panic will ensue, and pandemonium will follow as people disappear. The world will be without 25 million watchdogs, so crimes like looting will immediately occur (unlocked unmonitored facilities, wallets left behind, homes left open, etc.)
5. Factories that have flame or chemical processes that are human controlled & monitored will suddenly become un-monitored, resulting in some cases in disaster.

Issues over time:

1. The world will have lost 25 Million people. That’s 13% of the population. That’s over 1 in every 10 people. This will have a detrimental effect on manufacturing, industry, and business. I believe that it could be significant enough to crash the US markets – as the US will have lost 13% of it’s output capability, without the ability to “backfill” for quite some time.
2. The US will have also lost 13% of it’s consumer base – which is a much larger percentage than the profit margin that many corporations operate with. This could also further markets to crash. Corporations would cease to exist, and where several in the same industry were to fold, there would be shortages especially in commodity items.

If we take this thought to the world population, it gets even worse. Countries that depend on US exports will experience supply-chain shortages shortly after the Rapture. Also US exports will drop significantly, as a large percentage of the workforce will have disappeared.

This is just the first layer. You can take a similar thought process to just about any area that you come into contact with on a daily basis, and you will see a similar crisis. Add to this that the bible says “the restrainer” leaves the earth as well during the rapture. Many believe The Restrainer is the Holy Spirit that dwells within each and every Christian – and that spirit is what repels evil in the world at the level we experience today. Once that force leaves, Satan is free to run wild and do his thing. I would expect martial law and one-world government forces to swing into high gear, and with that bring their one-world religion which will have a fertile ground to grow in after the mysterious and miraculous disappearance of almost 10% of the population.

Please don’t stall out on my estimates of the Christian population – whether it’s 5 million or 100 million, this illustration still works – it just gets even worse the more Christians that are actually raptured away.

This will not be a fun time for sure. My purpose was not to scare anyone, but to take time to consider what a world with and without Christians will look like – both the immediate effect and the long term effect. I also want to remind everyone that each and every one of us has a choice. We can choose to accept Jesus and his work on the cross for us immediately. Once we do that, we now do not have to experience the post-rapture horrors – as we will be in another place. If you’ve fallen away from Jesus, or don’t know Him at all, won’t you consider asking Him to come into your life? You have absolutely nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

Please consider choosing to not be left behind…

Much love,
~Bryan

p.s. If this  kind of supernatural talk bothers the scientific types that struggle with miraculous signs and wonders, consider this: we are made up of energy. Energy does not “go away” it just changes form. We are energy for eternity. In that light, “eternal” life can take on a new meaning. So can eternal damnation. Choose wisely dear friends!

When I began this blog, the purpose was to shed light on the fact that in most cases, information IS NOT as it seems at first glance – and that has never been more true at any other time in my life than it is now. From the political world, to fake news, to church and eschatology, most everything today is not as it initially seems, and one must dig deeper for the truth.

Over the past year, I’ve asked this question of myself many times – “what has caused us as a people group to be so averse to thought that differs from the mainstream view?” I believe this to be a worthy question, as the lack of truth in mainstream thought is becoming a very real thing. “Fake News” is not a conspiracy theory, it’s the real, provable deal – but you have to search for information outside of the mainstream channels to discover that which exposes the fallacies – and that’s something that’s never been easier than now in our internet-connected world.

Folks have gotten to the dangerous point where when someone brings up an alternative thought, the answer is “La La La La – I’m not listening to you…” (remember Beverly Hills Cop?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_RYIylWEp4

My first question at this point is, what are we afraid of? I mean, that type of response usually comes out of a fear of discovering that we may be thinking (or assuming) incorrectly on a given topic. But why do we respond with fear, and immediately seek to protect our way of understanding? I’ve come to realize that the more we challenge our own thinking, the more refined our thinking becomes. Every time we are given a new viewpoint is a great opportunity to test that viewpoint against our current knowledge – which either proves our current understanding, or sheds new light that we have to consider. But I think that’s the problem  – this process takes time.

Our Enemy has done a great job of attracting us into a “busy-ness as normal” way of life. We rarely have time to study on our own, and prove or disprove what’s in front of us. I also think this is a result of “teaching” rather than “practical knowledge transfer” – one being informational and the other being experiential – but that’s another subject to address later.

I think our faith is affected by the same problem – with limited time, we look for thoughts and ideas from people that we know we can trust, that we know have done the research. I get that, but the problem is when we stop with the source that is right in front of us, and go no further – that leaves us locked into a limited view. I’ve been guilty of this for large portions of my life, so I’m not excluding myself here. Many of us have pastors in our lives, we trust them, and that’s good enough for us. Again, guilty here – I’ve lived the Word of God through other men’s interpretation, rather than dig deep myself, for a large portion of my life.

Except for this year – when I stumbled on the study of end times (eschatology.) I had to look beyond my normal mainstream sources for the real meat – up until that point everything was very general, things like “Oh we can’t know when,” or “That’s for a future time, etc.” Yet my curiosity drug me to information presented by others who have gone deep on their own, and made very interesting discoveries. When I went down some of these roads, I started to feel a challenge to my standard schools of thought on these subjects.

So my next question is, what’s the information delivery mechanism in the church that causes this? There’s got to be one, and I think in the church, there’s even a word for it that we all know, and it’s a “normal” thing to most of us:

“Doctrine”

Church Doctrine (Bryan’s version): principals and opinions on bible subject matter handed down from church fathers and leaders, and taught through institutions. Often times these are defining items for a particular denomination and they are rarely ever challenged. The originators of doctrine are usually a group of people with titles signifying educational level or licensing.

Or perhaps more clearly stated, “stuff that a bunch of really smart people figured out in previous times with info they had available, and in turn taught to their followers”. Its the “Status-Quo” of a given subject in that organization, given by people with a lot of letters after their names. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dogging education, however a title or letter suffix that comes after someones name (like Pastor) is no guarantee at all that of their information and knowledge is well researched and vetted by them. No, there’s no guarantee at all that they’ve been taught anything but doctrine. Again, please don’t hear me wrong – I’m not saying that everything our pastors tell us is wrong – but what I am saying is that we should never excuse ourselves from the requirement to apply critical thinking at all times to all information.

Consider the Book of Daniel, written by the prophet thousands of years ago. Take a look at the passage below:

Daniel 12:8-9 – Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

⁸ And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? ⁹ And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.

Daniel shares openly that he does not understand what he has been told to write. He asks for clarification on the time of the end, and is told that that is “sealed till the time of the end.”

At some point in the future, Daniel’s words will make more sense to the reader, as in the times of the end they will be “unsealed.” But at the time of writing, and up until the time of the end, Daniel is told that it is not to be understood. So for thousands of years, the “doctrine” has been that “this information is only for the end times.”

So how will we know? We will know by context. Based on the conditions of our world, some of these passages will start to make sense, as they are right now. But here’s the challenge:

We have to continually test our assumptions (doctrine.) This is done by challenging that doctrine – if it passes the test, that doctrine is still sound. If we don’t continually test our understanding, we may miss the cue.

Consider this passage:

Daniel 12:4 – Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

⁴ But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

If we read this passage through the filter of “the book is sealed until some point in the future” – how will we know when it becomes unsealed? When do we allow it to be “that point in the future” so that we re-enable our critical thinking cap? If we continue to look through the “future” filter (doctrine,) then when we read the second part of Daniel 12:4:

“many shall run to and fro” and “knowledge shall be increased”

We would have no reason to look more carefully, as we have convinced ourselves that it’s a future event.

Question: can you think of a time in world history where knowledge is growing faster and is more accessible than at this time? How about travel – are more people traveling “to and fro” than in Daniel’s time?

You decide for yourself, but don’t let the doctrine prevent you from asking the question. Don’t let the doctrine that the end times are some “future event” miss the queues that perhaps that time is approaching.

Theres’ something else that trips us up in this area – and also prevents us from digging deeper and challenging our assumptions – and that’s social status. Someone with a degree from a seminary carries more weight in biblical circles than someone with a degree from Cal Poly, or your neighbor, the electrical contractor. We give so much weight to titles and letters after our name. I’m not saying to discount people’s education in any way, but because they have the title does not make their doctrine “law.” Your neighbor, the electrical contractor, may have a more accurate view of end times than the Seminary graduate – because your neighbor formed an opinion likely from study guided by the holy spirit, without the power of doctrine. When you build a life of purely on doctrines without any critical thinking, it can become very difficult to see a different view.

Friends, I’m not a biblical scholar. In fact, I’m not very academic at all – so I’ve received much less doctrine over my years than most of you reading this. While I’ve had some catch-up to do,  my lack of academic education has made it a bit easier for me to consider alternative thoughts – as those thoughts don’t have years of academics to compete with them. The more knowledge we have in a given area, often times means that we already have an understanding or opinion on a thing. Sometimes the less knowledge we carry, the more we can consider new thoughts.

Again, knowledge is amazing but this sword cuts both ways .I’m not saying that “lack of knowledge” is a better state – not at all; but what I am saying is that those that come to the table with prior knowledge may need to work extra hard to evaluate and challenge their own doctrines.

So when you read a passage of the bible, and it speaks of end times, instead of going just with what you have heard from the pulpit or in school, ask your Father in Heaven if those assumptions that you hold from doctrines taught to you in years past are still valid. Just don’t be afraid to hear a new view.

Oh, and also, brace yourself for a little conflict – not everyone will see what you see – challenge assumptions and you create fear in others – so do it gently. And when you get the “conspiracy theory” label placed on you, wear your tinfoil hat as a badge of honor!

Love,
~Bryan