The Truth Which Sets Free - Chapter 17. Church Rapture?

An exposure of the false teaching of Christianity concerning the reason for evil and suffering. This is one of the most challenging and deepest areas in the Word of God.

The following four booklets are now also included in the Addendum of The Truth Which Sets Free.

Raising the Dead

Spirit of the Living God

Amazing Grace

Harlot Babylon

Acknowledgements and Sources

Chapter 17. Church Rapture?

In following on from the subject of books let us look specifically and briefly at one more of the church gospels. It fills shelves with bestsellers like no other in the Christian bookstores, and as a result has been made into a spate of popular and lucrative "rapture and end times" titles. After the gospel of self-commitment this is possibly the most important gospel of the church, the gospel of two second comings. The majority of Christians have no idea of the origins of this gospel, or its implications. Neither do they know how recently it was invented. I will provide a basic outline of what is grossly and deliberately misleading. For more detailed reference on this subject, the Addendum of this book includes a previously published work, Harlot Babylon. Put in simple terms, this gospel teaches that Christ will return in two stages: firstly for the church, to take them out of the world in a secret disappearance so that they do not experience "the great tribulation" or terrible reign of the Antichrist who is yet to come as a single person in the end time; secondly to sort out those "left behind" in this conflagration who either believed what was plainly happening to them or did not. If you have been permitted to understand anything you have been reading so far you may see right through this already. The vast majority of Christians do not know what is wrong at all, nor do they want to know. This is the gospel distributed by the likes of Tim LaHaye and Hal Lindsey and who knows how many other authors sold in Christian stores, and a favorite of theological colleges. Not only that, they have the perfect image of Catholic salvation by grace, meaning God’s offer dependent upon man’s response. Rome should be so proud of them, full-fledged Roman Protestants.

For a start, it should now be crystal clear that the Lord is not coming to save the church. The church belongs to the Antichrist, the man of sin, the son of perdition, and those he possesses will certainly be destroyed along with him when Christ appears. (2 Thessalonians 2:8-12) The church is anything but the "Bride," the elect described in scripture, for whom the Bridegroom is really coming. The scriptures do indeed portray Christ as a groom coming for his beloved, but in Israelite weddings the groom did not arrive twice. When the bridegroom finally surprised her, approaching with attendants, shouts and music, the bride went out to meet him and he immediately brought her with him to the wedding feast and to the house prepared for her. That is the image painted by Christ and the apostles. John the Baptist named Jesus as that Bridegroom. (John 3:21) Paul says that Christ will "descend from heaven with a shout of command, with the archangel’s cry, and with the sound of the trumpet of God," the elect either dead or alive being "caught up in the clouds" to meet with him as he comes. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17) This is the true rapture, a once and for all event, and it is certainly neither secret nor quiet as the church goats teach. He will come like a thief in the night, yes, when none are expecting it, but with a tremendous blast to usher the close of time. Jesus taught this as one event, not two. After the tribulation, "they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven and with great glory; and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." (Matthew 24:30,31) That is the hour which no one can predict (v.36), in which the goats, dead to God, will still be marrying and carrying on with business as usual (v.37-39), when one will be taken and one left (v.40,41), as the night thief arrives (v.43), not before. If one were to logically concoct a two-part coming from this sequence of explanation, the rapture would be after the Second Coming, not before it. It is nonsense. Jesus is describing one event, the same day, the very same hour, even the very same minute, the very same second. The apostle Paul uses the Greek word atomos to describe this indivisibly small fraction of time, "in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." (1 Corinthians 15:52) The apostle Peter caps the entire argument, saying plainly that the "coming like a thief" and The End are one and the same. "The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up." (2 Peter 3:10)

The sheep will indeed be caught up, and the goats will be left to meet their doom. Jesus used the precise analogy of the Bride again when he said he had rooms prepared for his elect in his Father’s house. (John 14:2,3) There will be no one missing, no empty rooms for the so-called freewillers who fall from grace and fail to occupy. He knows his own and Jesus will save every one whom the Father has given him from eternity. There are no such rooms prepared for the goats. They go to one big place, all together. No trace of them will be left on earth, every single one of their rulers and kingdoms, clergy and churches will be razed, and the weeds and their pews burned in the fire. (Matthew 13:41; Revelation 19) These are the same goats who would have men believe that God will extract them from the world before the tribulation, leaving unmanned cars crashing around because the drivers have disappeared. Infantile superstition. They go through the reign of Antichrist, because they belong to his churches and are an essential part of the tribulation of the sheep. Antichrist is here right now, and God does not remove even his elect from this time. Christ’s prayer to the Father for his sheep was "not that you should take them out of the world, but keep them from the evil one." (John 17:15) The sheep are "not appointed to wrath," but Jesus most certainly promised them, "In the world you will have tribulation." (John 16:33; 2 Timothy 3:12; 2 Peter 4:12) Do not confuse the eternal judgment wrath of God with a mere time period of worldly trouble as the churchmen contrive to do. The goats will tell you they will not be around for that turmoil, and that Christ will need to come again for a third sorting of yet more believers and non-believers. Some extreme adherents to this gospel will describe a time when the returned Christ is even visible on earth and people still choose to accept or reject him. This is even more absurd. The real evangel describes a salvation that is solely through faith in things unseen. (Hebrews 11:1; Romans 8:24; 2 Corinthians 4:18; 5:7) When Jesus is again visible, and this time as absolute Lord of the universe, there will no longer be reason for faith. The sheep will know they are safe, the church will know the sham is over, and wish they were allowed to die. "Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power." (1 Corinthians 15:24) Yes, every principality will be consumed, every church and state foundation obliterated forever.

The elect have known for centuries who the Antichrist was, and clearly named him and suffered terribly for it at the hands of his Christians, as have many others who rejected his claimed supremacy, countless "non-conformists" being exterminated by the Church in the Dark Ages alone. They knew exactly what tribulation meant. But now the goats are telling the world that the man of sin is not even around yet. How did this swindle come into being? To trace the origins of this teaching we must go to the Counter-Reformation, particularly the efforts of the Jesuits to save their precious Vicar from exposure. Jesuit scholars were critical in the development of what is now called the "futurist" view, notably Francisco Ribera (1537-1591), who devised the concept that the son of perdition was yet to come, a single man who would rebuild the Jerusalem Temple and substitute himself for God, but only in the distant future. The Jesuit Cardinal, Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), saw the immense value of incorporating this into orthodox church doctrine. "All Catholics think thus that Antichrist will be one certain man; but all heretics teach…that Antichrist is expressly declared to be not one single person but an individual throne." (Disputations, Book 3, Ch.2, p.185) One of the early Protestant clergymen to adopt this doctrine was John Newman (1801-1890), who returned to the fold of Mother Rome in 1845 and became a cardinal (sainthood 1991). Out of the frying pan into the fire. For this whole fabrication to succeed the scriptures had to be re-interpreted, particularly the language used in Revelation by the apostle John and in the book of the prophet Daniel. These two books use very similar images, sometimes identical. Church goats, especially those with no knowledge of ancient history, have extracted the most fantastic predictions from these books. In fact the language and imagery of Daniel are surprisingly precise, even strict. John would have known that his scripture-versed readers would have understood what was being said, just as Peter knew his readers would understand that "Babylon" and the harlot "seated on seven hills" were code names for Rome. (1 Peter 5:13; Revelation 17:9) Revelation is not a pile of mystical gobbledygook for every bumper-sticker theologian to use to invent another gospel. The key is Daniel, and it is so accurate that when the proclamation of its contents and its confirmation in Revelation were made public at the end of the Middle Ages it almost rocked the Church off its foundation of sand. I say almost because this beast recovered from its near fatal wound and has ever since been gaining strength daily, Roman theologians working overtime to distort this once revealed clarity, and Protestant authors from daughter churches and sister flocks eagerly along for this most popular and lucrative ride.

Daniel described the world in terms of four beasts that would be critical in affecting the truth from his time right up until the coming of the Lord for judgment on the Last Day. These were the four particular empires which would be blended into the system that would deceive the whole world, even the elect if that were possible. We are not talking about Inca kingdoms or Chinese dynasties here, only the strict images given by Daniel and reappearing in the Revelation to John. The four empires were Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. This was revealed to Nebuchadnezzar II (c.603 BC) with the given interpretation (Daniel 2) and also shown again to Daniel himself in the first year of Belshazzar’s reign (c.550 BC), including the interpretation. (Daniel 7) Again, they are described in detail in Harlot Babylon in the Addendum of this book, but the critical empire to look at is Rome. This fourth beast is the last one in human history, there is no fifth. Made of ten parts clay and iron (Daniel 2:33,42), it shatters all previous kingdoms and then rules, but during its time God sets up an everlasting kingdom, not made with hands, a rock which will stand forever. (Daniel 2:34,44) That rock is the kingdom of Christ established in his first coming during the reign of Roman Emperor Tiberius. When Jesus told people that the kingdom of God was "among them" or "in the midst of them," the kingdom was indeed standing right there in the middle of them. (Luke 17:21) He is the kingdom of God, and he established and secured it in himself, entirely and successfully. The end times span from the First to the Second Coming, the last days are now. The "last hour" of the antichrist to come, and all antichrists, the deceivers who were not of the apostles and "went out" from them, is right now, beginning with the first century under Rome. (1 John 2:18,19) The end times begin with the Word made flesh and end with His return. "God…has in the last days spoken to us by His Son, whom he appointed heir to all things, through whom he made the worlds. He reflects the glory of God and bears the stamp of His nature, upholding the universe by his word of power." (Hebrews 1:2,3) As Jesus said to his apostles, "Now is the judgment, now is the ruler of this world cast out." (Luke 12:30)

In Daniel’s own vision and interpretation the fourth beast is even more specific, having ten horns, three of which are replaced by a "little horn" speaking pompous words, making new laws and changing the times, a different kind of beast altogether, persecuting God’s elect until the Ancient of Days appears in final judgment to destroy the little horn in the fire. (Daniel 7:7-12,17-28) The ten horns are the ten tribes of Rome, three of whom were subdued, giving rise to the Papacy. This is the little horn of that different and tiny city-state, the Vatican, which substitutes God’s laws with its own canons and authority, changes the calendar and festivals, and hunts God’s people throughout the world. There is no end to the rule of the little horn until the Second Coming of Christ, who will slay this man of sin. Yes, Christ will slay the son of perdition when he comes, whichever Pope is sitting on that throne at the time, but that does not mean that there is only one single man who is the Antichrist. Daniel says these four beasts are four kings which arise from the earth, meaning not just four individuals but four kingdoms. (Daniel 7:17) These four beasts last from Daniel’s time to the Judgement Day. That is over 2,500 years so far, so the horns obviously represent not just four individuals but the successive heads of each empire, all the "zzars" (tsars, csars, caesars, kaisers) of Babylon, the kings of Persia and Greece, the Emperors of Rome. The little horn exactly fits the throne of the Papacy, the succession of Popes until the Last Day. Just as Christ’s kingdom is now, and is to come, so too Antichrist was in the time of the apostle John, is now, and is to come. Satan was completely destroyed at the crucifixion of Christ, and will be destroyed when Christ comes a second time.

The little horn of the Papacy is the same Antichrist predicted by the apostle Paul, the one who would blossom and displace the pagan emperor who restrained his appearance, stealing his very name, Supreme Pontiff, the head of the great "falling away" called Christianity, the fake who sits in the house made with hands, who poses (to use an official Papal title) as "God upon earth," the mouth which exalts himself, deluding the church goats who love his lies and hate the truth. (2 Thessalonians 2:4-12. See the Anti of Christ, Harlot Babylon in the Addendum for a more full list of papal names and claims) Paul said there would be no return of Christ until this falling away was accomplished. (2 Thessalonians 2:3) The falling away is not from the church; it is the church. And Jesus said the time for his return would also be preceded by an abomination which makes desolate. (Matthew 24:15; Luke 21:20-24) This was not just the destruction of the Jerusalem temple by the Roman emperor, Titus, in 70 AD. He does not qualify as the little horn. This desolation clearly reaches far beyond that, throughout "the time of the Gentiles" being permitted to hear the Word right up to the Second Coming. (Matthew 24:30,31; Luke 20:24-27) This is a desecration that continues for the whole reign of the fourth beast of Rome, through the entire Papal succession, until Christ comes. The last Pope, whom Jesus slays on arrival (2 Thessalonians 2:8), may or may not be worse than all others, but he will be the last of his line, the last Substitute (Vicar) of Christ, the last successor of Judas. The Papacy cannot escape its fate, any more than Iscariot could avoid his predestined doom. Other men in scripture are possessed by mere demons, but these two false apostles, Judas and the Papacy, are the sons of perdition (John 17:12; 2 Thessalonians 2:3), the only ones, according to scripture, whom Satan himself personally enters and empowers. (Luke 22:3; John 13:27; 2 Thessalonians 2:9)

There are further Biblical visions with clarifying details of the four beasts, in which a single individual is indeed portrayed, notably in Daniel 8 where Alexander the Great is pictured as the Greek goat who destroys the two horned ram of Persia. This is not open to interpretation; Daniel is directly told that this is the king of Greece defeating the alliance of the Persians and Medes. (Daniel 8:20:21) The two horns of the ram were joint kingdoms of the second beast, the goat was the third beast under the leadership of a particular king at that time. Alexander was not the first king of Greece, but he was the one in power when Persia was defeated. After this, Alexander the goat dies suddenly at the height of power (323 BC) and Greece is divided into four horns or realms; Macedonia, Egypt, Asia Minor and Syria. (Daniel 8:8) Out of one of these appears the Syrian or Seleucid tyrant, the "little horn" of Greece, in particular the second Seleucid leader to hold this position, Antiochus IV (Epiphanes). This mini-horn of the third empire of Greece chillingly foreshadows the mini-horn of the fourth empire of Rome. Antiochus entered the Jerusalem temple and replaced the sacrifices approved by God with his own pagan offerings between 168 and 165 BC, thereby making an "abomination which makes desolate." (Daniel 8:9-14) Just so the Roman "little horn," the Antichrist, fulfilled his mission of replacing the once and for all time God-satisfying sacrifice of Jesus Christ with another pagan offering, the Sacrifice of the Mass, the substitute sacrifice, the continual abomination that Jesus predicted would be established during the fourth beast of Rome. Like Herod the Great who tried to do away with the Lamb of God, the infant Jesus, Antiochus died in agony, eaten inside out by worms. The Popes, who pose to substitute for Christ, will fare no better, and neither will the millions who partake in the abomination of the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, or any such church sacrament. The Catholic Dictionary defines this ritual as "the unbloody sacrifice of Calvary, the sacrifice of the Eucharist…which is offered up by a priest in the place of Christ himself." Exactly.

This division of world history in Daniel, and the interpretations he was given, are critical to understanding the Revelation of the apostle John. Daniel’s four beasts were first a Babylonian lion, second a Persian bear, third a Greek leopard, and finally a most terrible beast. (Daniel 7:3-7) And Daniel’s fourth beast does not immediately destroy the previous beasts. Indeed, their lives are "prolonged for a season." (Daniel 7:12) Yes, while they linger the features of the first three beasts are absorbed by the fourth. John sees that same beast with ten horns, and it has merged the attributes of the first three, the lion, bear and leopard, and is empowered by the great serpent to hunt the saints. (Revelation 13) This is the fourth beast of Rome, with all the paganism of previous beasts rolled into one, receiving its power directly from Satan; it has that same mouth which speaks against God and wars against the elect, and the whole world follows and worships it. It carries an apparently fatal wound from which it recovers, and for a period it is allowed to overcome the elect yet cannot annihilate them completely. Note carefully that there is no gap or break in the rule of this fourth beast. Churchmen love to portray the fourth beast of Rome as destroyed in the time of the pagan emperors, to be resurrected in the end times, perhaps in ten countries of the European Union, or other flights of fancy. There is no such break in continuity in scripture. The fourth beast rules throughout the last days, persecuting the sheep and served by the goats. And the only ones who will be saved from it are those whose names are in the Lamb’s Book of Life from eternity. (Revelation 13:8) Christian authors, in love with the futurist view of the Jesuits, who put the Antichrist into the distant future and believe that they will not be around when the man of sin is revealed, are actually sitting squarely in his very camp right now, keeping his festivals, spreading his gospels, eating his sacraments. The harlot church is now. The desecrating Eucharist is now.

Make no mistake; the Eucharist is the abomination. Every time I see a bishop or priest and a crowd of goats "celebrating" that unbelief in Jesus’ name I know exactly what twisted thing it is. I have never doubted this since I was first awakened to it; not by reading it anywhere, just while observing people worshipping the "Host" and genuflecting before an inanimate piece of dough. What a searing jolt that was; I could hardly speak. I usually turn the TV off if I see it now; it pierces me so. I have even read of a priest risking himself in a church fire to save the holy bread because it had already been turned into Jesus, rescuing his god of flour! If Christ comes when a major Mass is going on at "Saint Peter’s" (another substitute name travesty), and He may well do this, He will roast them from the earth with the flame-thrower of all time. It is disgustingly subtle, the elements, the warping of the words, everything. It has been perpetrated on millions of souls for centuries. Nothing else will ever come close to this awful thing predicted by Daniel. The Papacy is the Antichrist and what is served on his plate is desecration. This is the public face slapping of the Lamb, the rejection of His perfectly finished sacrifice, exchanging Him for a different one. Let someone show me a better world-encompassing fulfillment of what Antiochus Epiphanes did with his replacement sacrifice. Show me a more deceiving thing done in the stead of Christ. I will use the language of Ezekiel’s first vision of the Son of Man in reverse imagery to describe the Antichrist’s offering: any appearance of a resemblance of a likeness is unacceptable. Get away from it. Touch not the unclean thing.

And now to the final arrival of the Son of Man. It was not the Jesuits who actually invented the two-stage Second Coming of Christ. Influenced by the teachings of a former Presbyterian, Henry Irving (1792-1834), a sect called the Irvingites established the Catholic Apostolic Church in 1835. Under the patronage of Henry Drummond (1851-1897), this charismatic cult followed the apostolic succession and rituals "resembling in many ways the splendid functions of the Catholic Church." (Irvingites, Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VIII, Appleton, 1910) The most critical "prophecy" ever to come from this sect was through a member, Mary MacDonald, in one of those typical trances of Pentecostalism, in which she uttered the notion of a two-stage Second Coming of Christ. That is correct, reader, this invention is only 150 years old. No one had ever taught or heard of a rapture separate from the last trumpet before then. This idea was adopted by J.N. Darby (1800-1882) of the Plymouth Brethren, and in America incorporated as side notes in a Bible by Cyrus Schofield (1843-1921). Sometimes referred to as "Dispensationalism," it is now the staple diet of American Christians, most of whom have no idea of its origin. It is the fantasy of a future Antichrist that so endears this gospel to the goats, and the promise that they will be away in bliss when he comes, leaving their unmanned planes and cars behind them. This is a farcical proposition and typical of modern charismatic thought. Anyone who has watched something like the Toronto Airport Christians, falling about and making guttural noises while claiming that their antics are all part of a "holy order" should know exactly where their inspiration comes from. That behavior is nothing like the Pentecost of old, when men heard the elect declare the lucid Word in so many languages and were cut to the heart in repentance from sin and the world. I’ve watched this Pentecostal display and read their pamphlets, many not even mentioning the name of Jesus Christ once in writing, or by voice while they rant and rave. No, this is not the harmony of the Spirit, nor is it even close to the fear of God; this is the holy order of the doomed church, thrashing about as its time grows ever shorter.

Christ is not coming to rapture the church and leave others in yet another carnal kingdom full of evil to be sorted out. He is not coming to rebuild the earthly temple he died to abolish. No, he is not coming to sort out all that sin over again but to save his elect, the house not made with hands. "And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly awaiting him…See to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking…’Yet once more will I shake the earth.’ This phrase ‘Yet once more,’ indicates a removal of what is shaken, as of what has been made, in order that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 9:27,28; 12:25-29) Read it again. He is coming again once, and the goats will not survive this arrival, they will be burned in the midst of their unacceptable worship, not left in a further earthly thousand years of second chances or any other eastern karma doctrine. Christians of every persuasion buy books from authors of every denomination laced with this fantasy. The apostolic successor of Judas could not be more pleased if his own theologians had written these bestsellers or produced the films themselves. The purpose of the gospel of two second comings is not some vague error invented to tickle the mind. The subtle one who gave this to the church is no mere entertainer. He would have his servants teach this because of what it hides from view, the identification of Antichrist Now, who was and is, and is to come, and the coming destruction of the entire fourth beast of Rome, starting with the Papacy and then right through all the offspring of this great harlot, the whole of Christianity.

18. Church Planting or Assembly?