My Family Was Raptured

I was 12 years old when I attended children’s church in a small United Brethren in Christ church near Meadville in northwestern Pennsylvania.  I loved children’s church for all the wrong reasons.  Separation from a father who determined to make me toe the line was a relief.  I was the kid every teacher would love to take behind the woodshed.  I was the real deal when it came to causing trouble.

      My teacher’s name was Carolyn, she always smiled and hugged me when I came in the door and I knew she didn’t mean it.  I entered the Sunday School classroom in the basement of our church on one particular Sunday morning in the Spring of the year not knowing that I was about to learn something that would change my life.  She took out the flannel graph and told us of an event that would happen in the future.  I was spell-bound.  I sponged up every word she said about the rapture.  That morning I left that room fearing that I might be left behind because I knew my life was full of sin.

      I went to school the next week and tried to forget about that silly Children’s church lesson but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. 

      On Friday of that week I was meandering on a path through the woods that led from Neason Hill Elementary School to my home.  With my trumpet case in one hand and a load of books in the other, one mile felt like three.  As I approached our white, two-story home on that April afternoon I looked over the hill beyond and saw the darkest cloud approaching I’d ever seen.  I heard distant thunder and saw lighting flashing in the cloud. 

      I picked up the pace and dashed to the house.  What did I find when I got there?  I found nothing.   There was no one there.  This was the first time I’d come home to find it empty.  The silence was deafening.  I called out for my parents and my older brothers. No one replied.  I felt a knot form in my throat.  I knew….oh, I just knew that the rapture had taken place and I had been left behind.  I went out in the yard and called for our dog, Buster.  Buster was always quick to meet me when I arrived from school but there was no sign of him.  Can dogs be raptured also?  I was all alone.

      I began to form a plan for survival.  I was going to have to live alone.  I knew there was food in the refrigerator and the cupboards.  I knew Dad had planted a garden and I knew Mrs. Henry has also planted a garden and she lived up on the hill.  Now, Mrs. Henry was the holy, saintly mother figure in our church.  She was old, very old.  She had already outlived three husbands. 

      The thought of Ms. Henry brought hope to my heart.  I stepped out in the yard and peered toward her house and I thought my heart would explode with joy.  Ms. Henry was out working in her garden.  That could only mean one thing.  I hadn’t been left behind.  God would never, ever rapture his saints and leave Ms. Henry behind. 

      I didn’t know where my family was but there was no possible way any one of them was going to be raptured ahead of a saint like Ms. Henry.

      It seemed Ms. Henry lived to be about 100.  When she died everyone knew she had a special place in heaven.  Two things happened to me on that day:  I wanted to know I was ready for Christ’s return and if I died before he returned I wanted to have lived a saintly life so that I could die in confidence and everyone would know that I had gone to heaven.

      We recently commemorated the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  Everyone knows about the Titanic but few people know about the Titan.  Morgan Robertson wrote a short novel about an enormous passenger liner called Futility.  The Titan was said to be unsinkable and it carried an insufficient number of lifeboats.  In the month of April, the Titan, on its maiden voyage from South Hampton to New York, hits a mammoth iceberg and sinks in the North Atlantic. 

      Morgan Robertson’s novel and the actual event are not exactly the same.  In Futility, the fictional ship, Titan, is 880 feet long.  The actual Titanic was 882 feet long.  The fictional Titan was able to displace 70,000 tons of water. The actual Titanic was able to displace 66,000 tons of water. 

      Why would Morgan Robertson go to the trouble of writing a fictional account of a real event and not take more care in the accuracy of the facts?  It is because he didn’t yet know what the facts were.  The Titanic sunk on April the 19th, 1912.  The book Futility was published in 1898.  Morgan Robertson wrote his book 14 years before the sinking of the Titanic.

      Is it amazing that a book 14 years ahead of its time could predict the events of the Titanic?

      We have a book that tells us the future, not 14 years ahead of time, but thousands of years ahead of time.  The Bible contains 2500 prophecies.  Over 1/3 of it is prophetic.  2,000 of the biblical prophecies have been fulfilled to the letter with no errors.  The remaining 500 prophecies extend into the future and they are being fulfilled rapidly as time progresses. 

      The Bible is 100% accurate in the fulfillment of its prophecies.  One of the most amazing and exciting prophecies yet to be fulfilled is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.  It is the one my children’s church teacher, Carolyn, taught me about years ago, “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. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”

 

      These words spawn joy and hope in the hearts of true believers throughout the world.  We are to encourage each other with this great hope.

Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.

Harold Camping: Who Is He?

Harold Camping was born in Colorado in 1921. His family moved to California when he was very young. He attended the University of Berkeley and earned a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering. He is notoriously known for his false prediction of the end of the world in 1994. He has achieved a great amount of attention recently as millions consider his latest prediction concerning the rapture of Christians. Camping now insists this event will take place on May 21, 2011.

Camping has established a radio broadcast system called Family Radio which serves as a very effective vehicle to spread his beliefs. Open Forum is his call-in program. You may have heard his deep, rotund voice, "And may we take our next call, please. Welcome to Open Forum."

Camping has been associated with the Christian Reformed Church for most of his life. In 1988, he withdrew from the conservative denomination and chose a course that refused to associate with any organized church. He believes that 1988 marked the ending of the 1900 year old age of the church. He questions the fact that each church denomination has a loyalty to its own set of doctrines. The multitude of conflicting doctrines brought nothing but confusion to the true body of believers, therefore, the church age has ended. He teaches that all organized churches are apostate and members should flee the organized church.

Many Christians have challenged Camping with the verse from Hebrews 10:25 that admonishes Christians to not to forsake "our own assembling together, as is the habit of some." Camping's response is that this verse is still applicable but only in the sense that Christians should meet together for edification, preferably in small groups for Bible study and to listen to Family Radio.

There are several other doctrines that Harold Camping contradicts in the conservative Christian movement. He has moved away from the Calvinist doctrine he was taught in his youth and he now places a greater emphasis on free will. He does not believe in the total depravity of humans. However, he does agree with evangelicals that one's salvation is not something that can be purchased with good works.

He also questions the doctrine that states that those who fail to commit to Christ will suffer eternal torment in hell. He leans toward the doctrine of annihilation which states that when we die we simply cease to exist.

Most fundamental Christians are irate with Mr. Camping because he teaches that it is possible to know the exact date of the end of time. These Christians often refer to the verse in Mark 13:32 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." A question most often asked on his Open Forum program is, "If the Son, Jesus Christ himself, doesn’t know the moment he will return, how would you know?" These opponents assign a great deal of arrogance to Mr. Camping but regardless of all the criticism, he remains extremely confident in his declaration.

The date Camping has predicted is based on the assumption that Jesus Christ was crucified on Friday, April 1, AD 33. Numerous biblical scholars question that date citing AD 29, 30, 31 and 32 as possible alternative dates for Christ's crucifixion.

If Harold Camping is correct in his prediction, approximately 3% of the world's population will be raptured later this month. That would have an immediate and cataclysmic impact on our society as 200 million of the world's people suddenly check out. It may sound far fetched to you but many of his followers are quitting their jobs, withdrawing all their money from their accounts and embarking on a mission to tell the world that the end is nigh.

The test of a true prophet is that they are right 100% of the time. Camping has already missed big in 1994. If Camping is right he will be regarded as a modern day Moses by those who have been left behind but if he is wrong then he may be much despised for spreading a deception that caused so much fear and anxiety.

The words of Charles Spurgeon may be appropriately for this situation: "In many cases shear fanaticism has been the result of exclusively dwelling on prophecy. Probably more men have gone mad on that subject than on any other religious question." Christians are instructed not to fret or to become obsessed with such predictions, rather, they are to continue doing what they always do and heed the instruction of Christ to "occupy until I come."


Kevin Probst - Is a teacher of Apologetics and History at Calvary Christian School and Associate Pastor of Crosspointe Nazarene Church church in Columbus, Georgia.