Saturday, September 27, 2025
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Belief That the End of The World is Coming Spawns TikTok Frenzy...
Belief That the End of The World is Coming Spawns TikTok Frenzy Called 'RaptureTok': What to Know
Is the rapture happening on Sept. 23, 2025? We're on the case.
History repeats itself, and we have another prediction of the end times in 2025. Rumblings of the supposed Rapture are taking over the internet, ranging from fervent belief to healthy skepticism.
Is the rapture happening on Sept. 23, 2025? Let's dive a little deeper.
What is the Rapture?
No, we're not talking about the seminal New York rock band. The rapture, in this case, is the belief held by some Christians that in the end times, all Christians, both dead and alive, will rise to heaven.
Some may recall the belief that the Rapture would occur on May 21, 2011, a date set by Christian radio host Harold Camping in 2005 after his initial prediction of Sept. 6, 1994 didn't pan out. As expected, nothing happened. The fear that the prediction instilled in some people was real, however, and in one case, a 14-year-old Russian teen died by suicide because of it.
Where did the new rapture date come from?
A South African pastor named Joshua Mhlakela said that he saw Jesus in a vision returning on Rosh Hashanah. “The rapture is upon us, whether you are ready or not,” Mhlakela said in an interview with CettwinzTV. “I saw Jesus sitting on his throne, and I could hear him very loud and clear saying, ‘I am coming soon.’”
According to Mhlakela, Jesus said he'd make his grand return "on the 23rd and 24th of September 2025."
How is the internet reacting to the news?
Believers of the prediction are quickly offering their excitement and, in some cases, even pointers on how to handle flying into the sky to meet their maker. It's called RaptureTok.
Some people have even appeared to quit their jobs, sell their cars and more in preparation for the rapture.
And others are parodying these videos, offering satirical advice for how to be "saved." If you're not Level 50 on Pokemon Go, better start now before the rapture.
My best advice? Stay calm, live your best life, and don't quit your job.
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Sunday, September 07, 2025
Date Setting: A Dangerous Distraction
Profit From Prophets
Date setting in Bible prophecy is a dangerous distraction that pulls believers away from the message God has called us to share. Predicting timelines for events like the Sunday law, latter rain, or close of probation leads to confusion, deception, and spiritual harm. Marko Kolic reveals from Revelation 10’s warning of “time no longer,” Mark 13:32 (KJV), Acts 1:7, and Ellen White’s writings why all prophetic time periods — including the 2300-day prophecy of Daniel 8:14 — have already been fulfilled. Drawing lessons from the Millerite movement and the Great Disappointment of 1844, he shows how setting dates always ends in failure and damages the witness of truth. Instead of focusing on failed predictions, discover how to stay grounded in Present Truth, proclaim the Three Angels’ Messages, and prepare your heart for Jesus’ soon return — no matter when the final events unfold.
Saturday, September 06, 2025
Friday, August 15, 2025
Saturday, December 14, 2024
Sunday, May 12, 2019
Friday, April 13, 2018
End of the world 2018: Will the Rapture occur on April 23?
THE end of the world could be arriving sooner than we thought, as a new theory suggests we are now in the ‘end times’. Could this shock prophecy be true? Will the Rapture occur on April 23?
By OWEN GOUGH
07:09, Fri, Apr 13, 2018 | UPDATED: 07:10, Fri, Apr 13, 2018
RAPTURE: Religious expert reveals truth behind September 23rd
According to conspiracy theorists, codes in the Bible suggest the end of the world is imminent, with Earth set to be destroyed on April 23.
One theory suggests the end times dates back to astrological constellations appearing on November 23, matching the book of Revelation 12:1-2.
The passage signals the start of the Rapture and the second coming of Jesus Christ.
The passage 12:1–2 reads: “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.”
It is thought that Virgo is the woman from the passage.
On April 23, the sun and moon will be in Virgo, as will Jupiter, which represents the Messiah.
Experts at first dismissed this claim when they discovered this alignment happens every 12 years.
However, the conspiracy theories claim another planetary alignment, representing “the Lion of the tribe of Judah’, will make this time the Rapture.
Christian conspiracy theorist David Meade is the main expert suggesting the end times are here.
Monday, July 21, 2014
The Secret Rapture
Introduction
This article deals with a popular yet controversial subject within the Christian church, the legitimacy or illegitimacy of THE SECRET RAPTURE. Every truth seeking Christian, whether or not you believe in a secret rapture, should carefully read this article and prayerfully search the scriptures daily. This article is adapted from The Secret Rapture by James Bennett as published in the 1878 London edition of The second Advent. Prior to the 19th century the idea of a secret rapture was foreign to the Christian church. “Somewhere around 1830, Edward Irving began to teach the unique idea of a two-phase return of Christ, the first phase being a secret rapture prior to the rise of the Antichrist.” (Left Behind By The Jesuits). Edward Irving was highly influenced by the teachings of Jesuits Francisco Ribera and Robert Bellarmine regarding their anti-Reformation rhetoric and private Futurist interpretation of antichrist, which no doubt led him to speculations of a secret rapture. In 1864 Samuel Prideaux Tregelles published a book in which he gave the following testimony on the origin of the secret rapture:
“I am not aware that there was any definite teaching that there would be a secret rapture of the Church at a secret coming, until this was given forth as an ‘utterance’ in Mr. Irving’s Church, from what was there received as being the voice of the Spirit. But whether any one ever asserted such a thing or not, it was from that supposed revelation that the modern doctrine and the modern phraseology respecting it arose. It came not from Holy Scripture, but from that which falsely pretended to be the Spirit of God....” (The Hope Of Christ's Second Coming, 1864, Chapter 9, p. 35)
The Secret Rapture
This view is one which has made and still is making considerable progress among believers. There is much that is attractive about it, but it will not, I am persuaded, stand searching, sober investigation. The theory briefly stated is, that there are yet two comings of Christ to take place. One of them may occur at any moment, without the slightest warning. The object of this coming will be to take away the Church, which will thus disappear from the earth in an instant. This secret rapture of the Church will, we are told, be followed by the manifestation of Antichrist, the persecution of restored Israel, and when Jerusalem is besieged, the Lord will come openly to the world, accompanied by His saints. What the Christian is to look for, then, is not the coming of the Lord at the siege of Jerusalem, but a coming which may occur at any instant. So far as I am aware, this view has been derived from Edward Irving, by whom it was first broached. It need hardly be remarked, that, without saying one syllable as to Irving's personal condition before God, he was a most unsound teacher. Any Christian at all acquainted with the Word of God must feel this. His idea, for instance, that our Lord's humanity was teeming with evil propensities, is fearful to a spiritual mind. That the theory should have originated with such a man is enough to make one doubly cautious in receiving it. He, however, taught it in a form somewhat different from that given above. He said that the whole Church would not escape the great tribulation, but only those who followed his directions. And a modification of this is held by many who are not Irvingites. They say that only some will escape, viz., those who are watching for the Advent, and, as some add, standing aloof from all denominations! In these pages, however, only the form of the doctrine first given is dealt with, viz., that the whole Church will share in the secret rapture. I confine myself to this one aspect of the view, because it is the most widely spread. And in fact, if this is disproved, the other will fall with it.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Rapture Preacher Suffers Stroke, Now in Hospital
Published on Jun 13, 2011 by AssociatedPress
The California radio preacher who predicted the world would end last month was recuperating Monday after suffering a mild stroke, his family and colleagues said. (June 13)
Monday, May 23, 2011
Unapologetic Harold Camping gives new Doomsday date
An unrepentant Harold Camping took to the airwaves Monday night reasserting his beliefs in the end of the world and gave yet another prediction for the end of the world.
Speaking on his Open forum radio show from California, Camping, who publically predicted the end of the world was to come this past Saturday, defended his claims despite the events not happening.
Family Radio President Harold Camping is seen at his home in Alameda, California on May 22, 2011
"On May 21 this last weekend...God again brought Judgment on the world...We didn't feel any difference," he says, "but we know that God brought Judgment" on the world. "The whole world is under Judgment."
The preacher said not only was he correct this time, but correct in the past as well.
"Actually there are four days that are very crucial at this point in time. We have talked about all four of these days in the past and we are not making any changes in these four days except for in the emphasis...The first part the end of the world began on May 21, 1988," he asserted.
Camping continues going over dates he deems important in church history. The next year he points out is 1994, which is the year he had previously predicted would bring the world's end.
"It is true, there was judgment in a terrible way and there was salvation in a wonderful way. The salvation came because in the previous 2,300 days...virtually no one could be saved in the entire world. We didn't even know how bad it was. Family Radio was broadcasting in those days and we had no idea what was really going," he says.
Camping clarifies that this "judgment" in 1994 was "spiritual, not physical," and says Jesus Christ did not arrive on Earth.
Originally Camping had said that the when May 21 came around, there would be massive earthquakes and believers would be raptured. The ones who were left would suffer great calamities until October 21.
He reasserted that date.
"It won't be a five-month terrible difficulty...that we have learned," said Camping. Instead, he says, the world will end quickly on Oct. 21 without any build up.
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Saturday, May 21, 2011
Christian movement preparing for End of Days
Christian movement preparing for End of Days
(AP) – 7 hours ago
OAKLAND, California (AP) — Some shut themselves inside to pray for mercy as they waited for the world's end.
Others met for tearful last lunches with their children, and prepared to leave behind homes and pets as they were swept up to heaven.
And across the globe, followers of a California preacher's long-publicized message that Judgment Day would arrive Saturday turned to the Bible, the book they believe predicts the beginning of Earth's destruction on May 21.
The doomsday message has been sent far and wide via broadcasts and web sites by Harold Camping, an 89-year-old retired civil engineer who has built a multi-million-dollar nonprofit ministry based on his apocalyptic prediction.
After spending months traveling the country to put up Judgment Day billboards and hand out Bible tracts, Camping follower Michael Garcia planned to spend Friday evening with his family at home in Alameda, near the Christian media empire's Oakland headquarters.
They believe it will likely start as it becomes 6 p.m. in the world's various time zones.
"We know the end will begin in New Zealand and will follow the sun and roll on from there," said Garcia, a 39-year-old father of six. "That's why God raised up all the technology and the satellites so everyone can see it happen at the same time."
The Internet was alive with reaction in the hours past 6 p.m. Saturday in New Zealand.
"Harold Camping's 21st May Doomsday prediction fails; No earthquake in New Zealand," read one posting on Twitter.
"If this whole end-of-the-world thingy is still going on ... it's already past 6.00 in New Zealand and the world hasn't ended," said another.
Camping's radio stations, TV channels, satellite broadcasts and website are controlled from a humble building on the road to the Oakland International Airport, sandwiched between an auto shop and a palm reader. Family Radio International's message has been broadcast in 61 languages.
Camping, however, will be awaiting Jesus Christ's return for the second time. He said his earlier apocalyptic prediction in 1994 didn't come true because of a mathematical error.
"I'm not embarrassed about it. It was just the fact that it was premature," he told The Associated Press last month. But this time, he said, "there is...no possibility that it will not happen."
Skeptics are planning Rapture-themed parties to celebrate what hosts expect will be the failure of the world to come to an end.
Bars and restaurants from Melbourne, Australia to the Florida Keys advertised bashes.
In Oakland, atheists planned a gathering at a local Masonic temple to include group discussions on "The Great Success of Past Apocalypses," followed by dinner and music.
Camping and his followers believe the beginning of the end will come on May 21, exactly 7,000 years since the flood in the biblical story of Noah's Ark.
Some 200 million people will be saved, Camping preaches, and those left behind will die in earthquakes, plagues, and other calamities until Earth is consumed by a fireball on October 21.
In the Philippines, a big billboard of Family Radio ministry in Manila warned of Judgment Day. Earlier this month, group members there distributed leaflets to motorists and carried placards warning of the end of the world.
Christian leaders from across the spectrum have widely dismissed the prophecy, but one local church is concerned that Camping's followers could slip into a deep depression come Sunday.
Pastor Jacob Denys of Milpitas-based Calvary Bible Church plans to wait outside the nonprofit's headquarters on Saturday afternoon, hoping to counsel believers who may be disillusioned if the Rapture does not occur.
"The cold, hard reality is going to hit them that they did this, and it was false and they basically emptied out everything to follow a false teacher," he said. "We're not all about doom and gloom. Our message is a message of salvation and of hope."
On Friday afternoon, a small group of eccentrics, gawkers and media opportunists convened outside Family Radio's closed office building. A sign posted on the front door said "SORRY WE MISSED YOU!"
As May 21 drew nearer, followers say donations grew, allowing Family Radio to spend millions of dollars on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RVs plastered with the doomsday message. In 2009, the nonprofit reported in IRS filings that it received $18.3 million in donations, and had assets of more than $104 million, including $34 million in stocks or other publicly traded securities.
Marie Exley, who helped put up apocalypse-themed billboards in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, said the money helped the nonprofit save as many souls as possible. She said she and her husband, mother and brother planned to stay glued to the television Friday night in Bozeman, Montana for news of an earthquake in New Zealand.
Camping recommended this week that followers surround themselves by their loved ones and not meet publicly, Exley said.
"It's an emotional time and we're kind of nervous and scared about how things will pan out as to who will be here and who will go to heaven," she said. "I'll probably be scared in the fog of it, and crying, because we don't know who is saved and who is not."
Some people wanted to make sure their pets receive good treatment, no matter what happens.
Sharon Moss, who founded AfterTheRapturePetCare.com to provide post-apocalypse animal care, said a new wave of customers has paid $10 to sign up in the last few weeks.
"A lot of people have said you should be out there saving souls not saving pets but my heart says 'why can't you do both?'" said Moss, who identifies herself as Protestant.
Associated Press video journalist Haven Daley in San Francisco contributed to this report.(backslash)
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Friday, May 20, 2011
At Apocalypse Central, Preparing for What Happens, or Doesn’t
Members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals outside the Family Radio headquarters in Oakland with plans for vegan Last Supper meals.By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: May 20, 2011
OAKLAND, Calif. — If Harold Camping and his followers are correct, Gertrude Stein’s famous comment about Oakland — that there is no there there — may finally be true. If not, some local churchgoers say they will set up encampments outside the headquarters of Mr. Camping, the self-proclaimed biblical soothsayer who has prophesied the end of the world on Saturday, with an eye toward consoling the disappointed.
In a state where fringe leaders like the Rev. Jim Jones and fringe groups the Heaven’s Gate cult have often found followers, and whose beliefs ended in mass suicide, not everyone is laughing about the prediction.
“They are going to be reeling,” said Pastor Jacob Denys of Calvary Bible Church in nearby Milpitas, so he and about 20 volunteers planned to spend Saturday outside Mr. Camping’s compound to let “them to know that God still loves them.”
On Friday, the only concrete sign of anything out of the ordinary was in the window of Family Radio — Mr. Camping’s radio enterprise, which has helped pay for and promote the May 21 prediction — announcing that the offices were closed.
“Sorry we missed you!” the sign concluded.
Family Radio’s representatives did not return calls and e-mails seeking comment on Friday. But whether or not the shuttered offices indicate Mr. Camping’s own pre-apocalyptic plans, what is certain is that the prediction has gained a life of its own.
And not surprisingly, some of the reactions have been light-hearted, especially considering history’s long list of swing-and-a-miss prophets. A Facebook page devoted to “Post-Rapture Looting” had assembled more than 500,000 promised attendees by Friday afternoon. “When everyone is gone and God’s not looking,” the page reads, “we need to pick up some sweet stereo equipment.”
On Friday, there was little activity at the compound, which includes a two-story suite of offices and a large cinder-block warehouse near the Oakland airport. Between the two buildings is a parking lot surrounded by a chain-link fence, topped with razor wire, containing several vehicles the Family Radio group has used to promote the May 21 prediction.
Inside the offices, a reception desk was unstaffed and the door was locked. Several boxes filled with brochures were visible, showing slogans like “Gay Pride: Planned by God as a Sign of the End.” A calendar on the desk had a red circle around the 21st with a note reading: “Rejoice!”
During a visit on Monday, Mr. Camping told a group at the compound that after Saturday there would be no chance left for anyone else to repent and be saved once the event began. “When the Judgment Day begins, there will be no more salvation, no more possibility of becoming right with God,” he said.
A former civil engineer, Mr. Camping, 89, built a small nonprofit empire in radio, going from a single station in San Francisco to more than 200 radio stations and a pair of television stations, according to The Bay Citizen, which also reported the organization’s most recent I.R.S. financial disclosure filings, showing $34 million in investments, $56 million in assets and $29 million in mortgages.
Mr. Camping has used those resources to buy billboard space across the country and print millions of pamphlets warning of doomsday and explaining his mathematical calculation for picking May 21, 2011: a complex formula involving the biblical flood survived by Noah; a 7,000-year clock ticking from that moment; and the subtraction of a year due to a difference between Old Testament and New Testament calendars.
Mr. Camping’s math has proved to be flawed before. He also predicted the end of the world in 1994. But this time around, Mr. Camping said he was supremely confident. “We’re just a few days away,” he said Monday.
Pastor Dave Nederhood, of Christian Reformed Church in Alameda, said he had met Mr. Camping on several occasions and had followed his radio broadcasts about the apocalypse closely.
“My concern is for the people that have bought into his lie and have sold their belongings, quit their jobs, left their churches and their families and now they are sitting at home listening to Family Radio and waiting for the end,” Mr. Nederhood said. “I’m terribly concerned.”
Although the Family Radio headquarters were mostly abandoned on Friday, the company’s flagship station — KEAR, 610 AM — continued to broadcast religious music, interspersed with sermons and biblically flavored life lessons.
There were also a few curiosity seekers who had made the pilgrimage, including one woman who refused to give her name but peered into the darkened building.
“Is this where,” she asked, “the world is going to end?”
Scott James and Malia Wollan contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on May 21, 2011, on page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: At Apocalypse Central, Preparing for What Happens, or Doesn’t.
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Monday, May 16, 2011
The End is Near? The False Teaching of Harold Camping
Harold Camping is now warning the world that the Day of Judgment will begin at about 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 21, 2011. The 89-year-old founder of Family Radio has made such pronouncements before, most recently in 1994. He now says that he simply miscalculated then, but he is absolutely certain that he has the right calculation now. You have been warned.
Actually, millions of people in America have been warned through Camping’s radio program and by means of the more than 1,200 billboards his ministry has put up across the nation. According to press reports, Family Radio has put up 2,000 billboards in other nations, as well.
Camping is no stranger to controversy, but this one has caught national and international attention. He was wrong before, but this time he is absolutely certain that he is right. As he told New York magazine:
“God has given sooo much information in the Bible about this, and so many proofs, and so many signs, that we know it is absolutely going to happen without any question at all. There’s nothing in the Bible that God has ever prophesied — there’s many things that he prophesied would happen and they always have happened — but there’s nothing in the Bible that holds a candle to the amount of information to this tremendous truth of the end of the world. I would be absolutely in rebellion against God if I thought anything other than it is absolutely going to happen without any question.”
If you know the Bible and this statement confuses you, you are in good company. Harold Camping believes that God has revealed to him the exact dates of biblical events and the timeline of the judgment. He says that God revealed some “exquisite proof” that enabled him to determine a “finished product” timeline that ends on May 21, this coming Saturday.
As Michael S. Rosenwald of The Washington Post explains, Camping “says he came up with the very precise date of May 21 through a mathematical calculation that would probably crash Google’s computers.” Further, Camping’s mathematical formula “involves, among other things, the dates of floods, the signals of numbers in the Bible, multiplication, addition and subtraction thereof.” As many have noted, the math seems to make sense only to Harold Camping.
Yet, in a strange way, this just serves to affirm Camping in his teaching. On his website he states:
However, it was not until a very few years ago that the accurate knowledge of the entire timeline of history was revealed to true believers by God from the Bible. This timeline extends all the way to the end of time. During these past several years God has been revealing a great many truths, which have been completely hidden in the Bible until this time when we are so near the end of the world.
These “true believers” turn out to be Harold Camping and his disciples. Others, even professing Christians, will be in big trouble when Saturday comes, he believes.
The Christian church has seen this kind of false teaching before. William Miller and his Adventist followers (known, surely enough, as Millerites) believed that Christ would return on March 21, 1844. In the 1970s, popular Christian preachers and writers predicted that Christ would return on various dates now long in the past. All this is embarrassing enough, but now we have the teachings of Harold Camping to deal with. Given the public controversy, many people are wondering how Christians should think about his claims.
First, Christ specifically admonished his disciples not to claim such knowledge. In Acts 1:7, Jesus said, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” In Matthew 24:36, Christ taught similarly: “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”
To state the case plainly, these two verses explicitly forbid Christians to claim the knowledge of such dates and times. Jesus clearly taught that the Father has not revealed such dates and timing, but has reserved that knowledge for himself. It is an act of incredible presumptuousness to claim that a human knows such a date, or has determined God’s timing by any means.
Second, the Bible does not contain hidden codes that we are to find and decipher. The Bible has been given to us in order that we might know the truth, and the truth is clearly revealed in its pages. We are not to look for hidden patterns of words, numbers, dates, or anything else. The Bible’s message is plain and requires no mathematical computation for its understanding. The claim that one has found a hidden code or system in the Bible is an insult to the Bible as the Word of God.
Third, Christians are indeed to be looking for Christ to return and seeking to be found faithful when Christ comes. We are not to draw a line in history and set a date, but we are to be about the Father’s business, sharing the Gospel and living faithful Christian lives. We are not to sit on rooftops like the Millerites, waiting for Christ’s return. We are to be busy doing what Christ has commanded us to do.
In Hebrews 9:28, we are taught that Christ will come a second time “to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” That is the faithful Christian response to the New Testament teachings about Christ’s coming. The church is not to be arrogantly setting dates, but instead to be eagerly waiting for him. Of that we can be truly certain.
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Monday, January 03, 2011
Christian Group Says Apocalypse Coming on May 21, 2011
Breen
AP
RALEIGH, N.C. -- If there had been time, Marie Exley would have liked to start a family. Instead, the 32-year-old Army veteran has less than six months left, which she'll spend spreading a stark warning: Judgment Day is almost here.
Exley is part of a movement of Christians loosely organized by radio broadcasts and websites, independent of churches and convinced by their reading of the Bible that the end of the world will begin May 21, 2011.
Gerry Broome, AP
Allison Warden of Raleigh, N.C., posed last month with her car, showing a message about the rapture.
"A lot of people might think, 'The end's coming, let's go party,'" said Exley, a veteran of two deployments in Iraq. "But we're commanded by God to warn people. I wish I could just be like everybody else, but it's so much better to know that when the end comes, you'll be safe."
In August, Exley left her home in Colorado Springs, Colo., to work with Oakland, Calif.-based Family Radio Worldwide, the independent Christian ministry whose leader, Harold Camping, has calculated the May 21 date based on his reading of the Bible.
She is organizing traveling columns of RVs carrying the message from city to city, a logistics challenge that her military experience has helped solve. The vehicles are scheduled to be in five North Carolina cities between now and the second week of January, but Exley will shortly be gone: overseas, where she hopes to eventually make it back to Iraq.
"I don't really have plans to come back," she said. "Time is short."
Not everyone who's heard Camping's message is taking such a dramatic step. They're remaining in their day-to-day lives, but helping publicize the prophecy in other ways. Allison Warden, of Raleigh, has been helping organize a campaign using billboards, post cards and other media in cities across the U.S. through a website, We Can Know.
The 29-year-old payroll clerk laughs when asked about reactions to the message, which is plastered all over her car.
"It's definitely against the grain, I know that," she said. "We're hoping people won't take our word for it, or Harold Camping's word for it. We're hoping that people will search the scriptures for themselves."
Camping, 89, believes the Bible essentially functions as a cosmic calendar explaining exactly when various prophecies will be fulfilled.
The retired civil engineer said all his calculations come from close readings of the Bible, but that external events like the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 are signs confirming the date.
"Beyond the shadow of a doubt, May 21 will be the date of the Rapture and the day of judgment," he said.
The doctrine known as the Rapture teaches that believers will be taken up to heaven, while everyone else will remain on earth for a period of torment, concluding with the end of time. Camping believes that will happen in October.
"If May 21 passes and I'm still here, that means I wasn't saved. Does that mean God's word is inaccurate or untrue? Not at all," Warden said.
The belief that Christ will return to earth and bring an end to history has been a basic element of Christian belief since the first century. The Book of Revelation, which comes last in the New Testament, describes this conclusion in vivid language that has inspired Christians for centuries.
But few churches are willing to set a date for the end of the world, heeding Jesus' words in the gospels of Mark and Matthew that no one can know the day or hour it will happen. Predictions like Camping's, though, aren't new. One of the most famous in history was by the Baptist leader William Miller, who predicted the end for Oct. 22, 1844, which came to be known as the Great Disappointment among his followers, some of whom subsequently founded the Seventh Day Adventist church.
"In the U.S., there is still a significant population, mostly Protestant, who look at the Bible as kind of a puzzle, and the puzzle is God's word and it's predicting when the end times will come," said Catherine Wessinger, a professor at Loyola University in New Orleans who studies millennialism, the belief in pending apocalypse.
Sponsored Links"A lot of times these prophecies gain traction when difficulties are happening in society," she said. "Right now, there's a lot of insecurity, and this is a promise that says it's not all random, it's part of God's plan."
Past predictions that failed to come true don't have any bearing on the current calculation, believers maintain.
"It would be like telling the Wright brothers that every other attempt to fly has failed, so you shouldn't even try," said Chris McCann, who works with eBible Fellowship, one of the groups spreading the message.
For believers like McCann, theirs is actually a message of hope and compassion: God's compassion for people, and the hope that there's still time to be saved.
That, ultimately, is what spurs on Exley, who said her beliefs have alienated her from most of her friends and family. Her hope is that not everyone who hears her message will mock it, and that even people who dismiss her now might still come to believe.
"If you still want to say we're crazy, go ahead," she said. "But it doesn't hurt to look into it."
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Billboards Announce Return of Jesus
(quinn.anya / Flickr.com / Creative Commons)Jesus may not know the exact time He returns to Earth, but one Bible teacher has marked his calendar.
Camping predicts the rapture will happen exactly 7,000 years from the date that God first warned people about the flood. He bases his prediction on the flood happening in 4990 B.C., on what he says would have been May 21 in the modern calendar.
Camping says that God gave Noah one week of warning, and since the Bible says that for God a day is like 1,000 years, Camping predicts there will be a 7,000-year interval between the flood and rapture: May 21, 2011.
Well, they could point to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 13, which records the disciples asking Jesus when “all these things will be fulfilled."
The Rev. Fred Fuller of Madison (Tenn.) Campus Seventh-Day Adventist Church said the Bible points to Jesus' return, but no one knows when.
"The Bible says no one knows the day or the hour," he said. "I don't believe that date-setting or the scare tactic of an immediate date is a biblical approach."
Camping wrote in “1994?” that we can know the month and the year that Christ will return, but he acknowledged he didn’t know the exact day because Scripture says “no man knows the day nor the hour” (Matt. 24:36).
Previous predictions of Christ’s return didn't pan out. The Tennessean said that in 1843, the so-called Great Disappointment happened when William Miller and his followers sold their homes and waited in a field for Jesus to come back.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Jesuits Fabricated the Rapture
The following is a response to a post from GuessN that claims that RAPTURE is a lie invented by Catholics and clandestinely fed to Protestants as their own, thus reducing their teachings to utter disrepute. Andrew's reaction is minimal since Catholicism does not make a big deal about the notion.
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GuessN writes:
The Catholic church INVENTED the Rapture (7 year) lie
Rooted in Catholicism
The foundation of the rapture theory was laid over 400 years ago upon the specific orders of the Catholic Church. Every Christian needs to understand how this fabrication of error was designed to neutralize the great Protestant Reformation.
If the facts of history were known by Protestants today who defend with such great emotion the rapture theory and the futurist antichrist doctrine, they would be horrified.Luther and his fellow reformers boldly identified the pope as the "man of sin," and labeled the Catholic Church as the antichrist of prophecy. In response to those charges, the hierarchy assigned two Jesuit priests to develop counter-interpretations which would turn the onus away from the Catholic Church.
In spite of the fact that the two men founded opposing schools of interpretation, their theories have survived to form the basis of most modern Protestant theology today. Not only did they effectively blunt Luther's assessment of the papacy as the antichrist, but they cleverly divided and diluted the "protest" of all the churches which grew out of the Reformation movement.
The Catholic faith has had a line of her own would-be prophets speaking about the Last Days. Regardless whether or not their testimonies are absolutely true, much of it remains speculation and private revelation. No one is obliged to believe even those supplementary elements that are in keeping with the deposit of faith.
The fact that certain Protestant groups borrowed from Catholic eschatology does not constitute a conspiracy on her part. Further, Luther's impassioned invective against the papacy can in no way be construed as serious theological deputation. It was rhetoric, pure and simple, from a reformer who often used foul and abusive language to win his arguments.
What blunted Luther's assessment of the papacy were the more sober men with peaceful spirits that followed and interpreted him. They would restore the New Testament canon after Luther's egotistical abrogation of important sections and seek civilized ways of living in Europe with their Catholic brethren. War and violence still took place, but the voice of sanity had not been utterly silenced.
Modern religious observers were astounded in January, 1984, when men like Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell meekly accepted and defended the establishment of United States political ties with the Vatican.
Why could those famous Protestant spokesmen see no danger in being allied with the Church of Rome? Because they are deceived, along with millions of others, by the Catholic-contrived theories of those two priests which have almost eclipsed the historic, biblical position of the Reformers.
If the spiritual descendants of Luther and Wesley now had the same doctrine which they taught, not a single Lutheran or Methodist would favor any kind of alliance with the papacy today.
Now let's take a look at these two Spanish priests who flooded the sixteenth century with their counter-Reformation propaganda. Alcazar of Seville applied all the beast prophecies to Antiochus Epiphanes, who lived long before the popes began to rule in Rome. His system of interpretation came to be known as the Preterist School of prophecy.On the other hand, Jesuit Francisco Ribera invented a system known as the Futurist School of interpretation.
He taught that the antichrist was to be some future superman who would appear near the end of time and continue in power for three and a half years. It is his clever, unscriptural theory which has been resurrected by modern evangelical Protestant Christians. And today millions of Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, etc., hold this anti-Protestant concoction of the Jesuits as some kind of infallible doctrine.
Yet, those same denominations claim to be faithful supporters of Protestant theology. Luther and other stalwart protestors against Catholic errors would be astounded if they were suddenly resurrected to hear what is being taught in the name of Protestantism.
In the early 1800s the futurist view of Jesuit Ribera passed through certain refinements and additions, including the seven-year tribulation and the snatching away of the saints. For the first time, it was espoused by Protestant teachers who were seeking ways of reconciliation with Rome. Through the influence and writings of John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren Church in England, the new doctrine spread to the United States. During the middle and latter nineteenth century, it received its biggest boost from Cyrus Scofield, who incorporated it into the notes of his Scofield Reference Bible published in 1909.
It is interesting that rapture is made the scapegoat for what the critic sees as unwarranted compromise with the Church of Rome. The Protestant view of rapture is not even officially espoused by Catholicism. It does not matter, because his starting point is not really rapture or the bible itself, rather it is a deep-seated hatred of the Catholic Church. Everything-- bible interpretation, religious speculation, and political alliances-- everything has to be judged in the light of this abiding prejudice.
It would not surprise me to learn that the critic is a former Catholic, such people often were ignorant of the faith initially and allow their pride and passions to pollute clear reasoning and charity. It should be said that some anti-Catholics if not most still accept the misbegotten theory of rapture. They would suggest that the identity of the anti-Christ is no secret, and that it is the Pope.
This is all very unfortunate because if the bishop of Rome is actually the visible head of the Church and Vicar of Christ, then THEY are the ones in league with the anti-Christ in human history. Just as the Roman emperors persecuted the Catholic Christian Church, they perpetuate the slander against and the martyrdom of the saints.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
IS THE PRE-TRIBULATION RAPTURE A DECEPTION?
Is the Pre-Trib Rapture a Satanic Deception?
Recently, pre-wrath advocate Marvin Rosenthal wrote that the pre-trib rapture was of Satanic origin and unheard of before 1830. "To thwart the Lord's warning to His children, in 1830," proclaims Rosenthal, "Satan, the 'father of lies,' gave to a fifteen-year-old girl named Margaret McDonald a lengthy vision."1 Rosenthal gives no documentation, he merely asserts that this is true. However, he is wrong. He is undoubtedly relying upon the questionable work of Dave MacPherson.
Another thing amazing about Rosenthal's declaration is that a few paragraphs later in the article he characterizes his opposition as those who "did not deal with the issues, misrepresented the facts, or attempted character assassination."2 This description is exactly what he has done in his characterization of pre-trib rapture origins. Why would Rosenthal make such outlandish and unsubstantiated charges about the pre-trib rapture?
One of the things that facilitated the Nazi rise to power in Germany earlier this century was their propaganda approach called "The Big Lie." If you told a big enough lie often enough then the people would come to believe it. This the Nazis did well. This is what anti-pretribulationists like John Bray3 and Dave MacPherson4 have done over the last 25 years. Apparently the big lie about the origins of the pre-trib rapture has penetrated the thinking of Robert Van Kampen5 and Marvin Rosenthal to the extent that they have adopted such a falsehood as true. This is amazing in light of the fact that their own pre-wrath viewpoint is not much more than fifteen years old itself. Rosenthal must have changed his mind about pre-trib origins between the time he wrote his book The Pre-wrath Rapture of the Church (1990) and the recent article (Dec. 1994) since, in the former, he says that the pre-trib rapture "can be traced back to John Darby and the Plymouth Brethren in the year 1830."6 Rosenthal goes on to say, "Some scholars, seeking to prove error by association, have attempted (perhaps unfairly) to trace its origin back two years earlier to a charismatic, visionary woman named Margaret MacDonald."7 Even this statement is in error, since the Margaret Macdonald claim has always been related to 1830, not 1828. However, Rosenthal is correct in his original assessment that these charges are "unfair" and probably spring out of a motive to "prove error by association," known as the ad hominem argument.
Pretribulationists have sought to defend against "The Big Lie" through direct interaction against the charges.8 In a rebuttal to these charges I made in 1990, I gave two major reasons why "The Big Lie" is not true. First, it is doubtful that Margaret Macdonald's "prophecy" contains any elements related to the pre-trib rapture.9 Second, no one has ever demonstrated from actual facts of history that Darby was influenced by Macdonald's "prophecy" even if it had (which it did not) contained pre-trib elements.10 John Walvoord has said,
The whole controversy as aroused by Dave MacPherson's claims has so little supporting evidence, despite his careful research, that one wonders how he can write his book with a straight face. Pretribulationalists should be indebted to Dave MacPherson for exposing the facts, namely, that there is no proof that MacDonald or Irving originated the pretribulation rapture teaching.11
There is a third reason why MacPherson's theory is wrong, Darby clearly held to an early form of the pre-trib rapture by January 1827. This is a full three years before MacPherson's claim of 1830.
Brethren writer, Roy A. Huebner claims and documents his belief that J.N. Darby first began to believe in the pre-trib rapture and develop his dispensational thinking while convalescing from a riding accident during December 1826 and January 1827.12 If this is true, then all of the origin-of-the-rapture-conspiracy-theories fall to the ground in a heap of speculative rubble. Darby would have at least a three-year jump on any who would have supposedly influenced his thought, making it impossible for all the "influence" theories to have any credibility.
Huebner provides clarification and evidence that Darby was not influenced by a fifteen-yea-old girl (Margaret Macdonald), Lacunza, Edward Irving, or the Irvingites. These are all said by the detractors of Darby and the pre-trib rapture to be bridges which led to Darby's thought. Instead, he demonstrates that Darby's understanding of the pre-trib rapture was the product of the development of his personal interactive thought with the text of Scripture as he, his friends, and dispensationalists have long contended.
Darby's pre-trib and dispensational thoughts, says Huebner, were developed from the following factors: 1) "he saw from Isaiah 32 that there was a different dispensation coming . . . that Israel and the Church were distinct."13 2) "During his convalescence JND learned that he ought daily to expect his Lord's return."14 3) "In 1827 JND understood the fall of the church. . . 'the ruin of the Church.'"15 4) Darby also was beginning to see a gap of time between the rapture and the second coming by 1827.16 5) Darby, himself, said in 1857 that he first started understanding things relating to the pre-trib Rapture "thirty years ago." "With that fixed point of reference, Jan. 31, 1827," declares Huebner, we can see that Darby "had already understood those truths upon which the pre-tribulation rapture hinges."17
German author Max S. Weremchuk has produced a major new biography on Darby entitled John Nelson Darby: A Biography.18 He agrees with Huebner's conclusions concerning the matter. "Having read MacPherson's book . . ." says Weremchuk, "I find it impossible to make a just comparison between what Miss MacDonald 'prophesied' and what Darby taught. It appears that the wish was the father of the idea."19
When reading Darby's earliest published essay on biblical prophecy (1829), it is clear that while it still has elements of historicism, it also reflects the fact that for Darby, the rapture was to be the church's focus and hope.20 Even in this earliest of essays, Darby expounds upon the rapture as the church's hope.21
The various "rapture origin" theories espoused by opponents of pre-tribulationsm are not accepted as historically valid by scholars who have examined the evidence. The only ones who appear to have accepted these theories are those who already are opposed to the pre-trib rapture. A look at various scholars and historians reveals that they think, in varying degrees, that MacPherson has not proven his point. Most, if not all who are quoted below do not hold to the pre-trib rapture teaching. Ernest R. Sandeen declares,
This seems to be a groundless and pernicious charge. Neither Irving nor any member of the Albury group advocated any doctrine resembling the secret rapture. . . . Since the clear intention of this charge is to discredit the doctrine by attributing its origin to fanaticism rather than Scripture, there seems little ground for giving it any credence.22
Historian Timothy P. Weber's evaluation is a follows:
The pretribulation rapture was a neat solution to a thorny problem and historians are still trying to determine how or where Darby got it. . . .
A newer though still not totally convincing view contends that the doctrine initially appeared in a prophetic vision of Margaret Macdonald, . . .
Possibly, we may have to settle for Darby's own explanation. He claimed that the doctrine virtually jumped out of the pages of Scripture once he accepted and consistently maintained the distinction between Israel and the church.23
American historian Richard R. Reiter informs us that,
[Robert] Cameron probably traced this important but apparently erroneous view back to S. P. Tregelles, . . . Recently more detailed study on this view as the origin of pretribulationism appeared in works by Dave McPherson, . . . historian Ian S. Rennie . . . regarded McPherson's case as interesting but not conclusive.24
Posttribulationist William E. Bell asserts that,
It seems only fair, however, in the absence of eyewitnesses to settle the argument conclusively, that the benefit of the doubt should be given to Darby, and that the charge made by Tregelles be regarded as a possibility but with insufficient support to merit its acceptance. . . . On the whole, however, it seems that Darby is perhaps the most likely choice--with help from Tweedy. This conclusion is greatly strengthened by Darby's own claim to have arrived at the doctrine through his study of II Thessalonians 2:1-2.25
Pre-trib rapture opponent John Bray does not accept the MacPherson thesis either.
He [Darby] rejected those practices, and he already had his new view of the Lord coming FOR THE SAINTS (as contrasted to the later coming to the earth) which he had believed since 1827, . . . It was the coupling of this "70th week of Daniel" prophecy and its futuristic interpretation, with the teaching of the "secret rapture," that gave to us the completed "Pre-tribulation Secret Rapture" teaching as it has now been taught for many years. . . . makes it impossible for me to believe that Darby got his Pre-Tribulation Rapture teaching from Margaret MacDonald's vision in 1830. He was already a believer in it since 1827, as he plainly said.26
Huebner considers MacPherson's charges as "using slander that J. N. Darby took the (truth of the) pretribulation rapture from those very opposing, demon-inspired utterances."27 He goes on to conclude that MacPherson
did not profit by reading the utterances allegedly by Miss M. M. Instead of apprehending the plain import of her statements, as given by R. Norton, which has some affinity to the post-tribulation scheme and no real resemblance to the pretribulation rapture and dispensational truth, he has read into it what he appears so anxious to find.28
F. F. Bruce, who was part of the Brethren movement his entire life, but one who did not agree with the pre-trib rapture said the following when commenting on the validity of MacPherson's thesis:
Where did he [Darby] get it? The reviewer's answer would be that it was in the air in the 1820s and 1830s among eager students of unfulfilled prophecy, . . . direct dependence by Darby on Margaret Macdonald is unlikely.29
John Walvoord's assessment is likely close to the truth:
any careful student of Darby soon discovers that he did not get his eschatological views from men, but rather from his doctrine of the church as the body of Christ, a concept no one claims was revealed supernaturally to Irving or Macdonald. Darby's views undoubtedly were gradually formed, but they were theologically and biblically based rather than derived from Irving's pre-Pentecostal group.30
I challenge opponents of the pre-trib rapture to stick to a discussion of this matter based upon the Scriptures. While some have done this, many have not been so honest. To call the pre-trib position Satanic, as Rosenthal has done, does not help anyone in this discussion. Such rhetoric will only serve to cause greater polarization of the two views. However, when pre-trib opponents make false charges about the history of the pre-trib view we must respond. And respond we will in our next issue where we will present a clear pre-trib rapture statement from the fourth or fifth century. This pre-trib rapture statement ante-dates 1830 by almost 1,500 years and will certainly lead to at least a revision of those propagating The Big Lie.
1 Marvin J. Rosenthal, "Is the Church in Matthew Chapter 24?" Zion's Fire (Nov-Dec 1994), p. 10. 2 Ibid.
3 John L. Bray, The Origin of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Teaching (Lakeland, FL.: John L. Bray Ministry, 1982).
4 Dave MacPherson, The Unbelievable Pre-Trib Origin (Kansas City: Heart of America Bible Society, 1973). The Late Great Pre-Trib Rapture (Kansas City: Heart of America Bible Society, 1974). The Great Rapture Hoax (Fletcher, N.C.: New Puritan Library, 1983). Rapture? (Fletcher, N.C.: New Puritan Library, 1987). The Rapture Plot (Monticello, Utah: P.O.S.T. Inc., 1994).
5 Robert Van Kampen, The Sign (Wheaton, IL.: Crossway Books, 1992), pp. 445-47.
6 Marvin Rosenthal, The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990), p. 53. 7 Ibid., pp. 53-54.
8 Some of the pre-trib responses include the following: R. A. Huebner, The Truth of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Recovered (Millington, N.J.: Present Truth Publishers, 1976); Precious Truths Revived and Defended Through J. N. Darby, Vol. 1 (Morganville, N. J.: Present Truth Publishers, 1991). Gerald B. Stanton, Kept From The Hour, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956). John F. Walvoord, The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979). Robert L. Sumner, "Looking For The Blessed Horrible Holocaust!" A book review of The Late Great Pre-Trib Rapture in The Biblical Evangelist (Vol. 10, Num. 1; May, 1975); "Hope? Or Hoax?" The Biblical Evangelist (Vol. 18, Num. 3; Feb., 1984). Hal Lindsey, The Rapture: Truth Or Consequences (New York: Bantam Books, 1983). Charles Ryrie, What You Should Know About the Rapture (Chicago: Moody Press, 1981). Tim LaHaye, No Fear of the Storm: Why Christians will Escape All the Tribulation (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 1992). Thomas D. Ice, "Why the Doctrine of the Pretribulational Rapture Did Not Begin with Margaret Macdonald," Bibliotheca Sacra 147 (1990), pp. 155-68; "The Origin of the Pre-Trib Rapture," Part I & II, Biblical Perspectives, vol. 2, no. 1, Jan./Feb. 1989 & vol. 2, no. 2, Mar./Apr. 1989; "Did J. N. Darby Believe in the Pretrib Rapture by 1827?" Dispensational Distinctives, vol. I, no. 6, Nov./Dec. 1991.
9 The following books are some of those which have the full text of Macdonald's utterance: MacPherson's Cover-Up, and Hoax. R. A. Huebner, The Truth of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Recovered (Millington, N.J.: Present Truth Publishers, 1976), pp. 67-69. Hal Lindsey, The Rapture: Truth Or Consequences (New York: Bantam Books, 1983), pp. 169-172. William R. Kimball, The Rapture: A Question of Timing (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985), pp. 44-47.
10 Ice, "Why the Doctrine of the Pretribulational Rapture Did Not Begin with Margaret Macdonald," pp. 158, 161.
11 Walvoord, The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation, p. 47.
12 R. A. Huebner, Precious Truths Revived and Defended Through J. N. Darby, Vol. 1 (Morganville, N. J.: Present Truth Publishers, 1991).
13 Ibid., p. 17. 14 Ibid., p. 19. 15 Ibid., p. 18. 16 Ibid., p. 23. 17 Ibid., p. 24.
18 Max S. Weremchuk, John Nelson Darby: A Biography (Neptune, N. J.: Loizeaux Brothers, 1992). 19 Ibid., p. 242.
20 J. N. Darby, "Reflections upon the Prophetic Inquiry and the Views Advanced in it" The Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, vol. 2 (Winschoten, Netherlands: H. L. Heijkoop, reprint 1971), pp. 1-31.
21 Ibid., pp. 16-18, 25, 30.
22 Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism 1800-1930 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1970), p. 64.
23 Timothy P. Weber, Living In The Shadow Of The Second Coming: American Premillennialism 1875-1982 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1983), pp. 21-22.
24 Richard R. Reiter, The Rapture: Pre-, Mid-, or Post-Tribulational? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publication, 1984), p. 236.
25 William E. Bell, A Critical Evaluation of the Pretribulation Rapture Doctrine in Christian Eschatology (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1967), pp. 60-61, 64-65.
26 Bray, Ibid., pp. 24-25, 28 27 Huebner, p. 13. 28 Ibid., p. 67.
29 F. F. Bruce, Review of The Unbelievable Pre-Trib Origin in The Evangelical Quarterly, (Vol. XLVII, No. 1; Jan-Mar, 1975), p. 58.
30 Walvoord, p. 47.