The Great Evangelical Escape Plan

Pre-millennium Dispensation

There are those on the Evangelical side of the faith who hold out on a promise of a pre-tribulation rapture. A charismatic preacher named William Miller created this concept in the early 1800s.[1] This movement went on to become today’s Seventh-Day Adventist faith. However, the principle of the rapture quickly spread in Christianity. Miller focused on Revelation chapters 12 and 21 as his support for the belief. Although Miller’s predicted date for the rapture did not occur, skeptics later labeled it the Great Disappointment.[2] Theologian John Nelson Darby further refined the concept, which is now quite popular.

The key concept is that true Christian believers will be taken off the earth shortly before the tribulation. I’ve mentioned this period as the 48 weeks of Revelation when the beast builds his power. It is thought to be an escape plan for some to avoid the suffering to come. It’s a convenient belief to think some will altogether avoid suffering — but it is not scriptural.

It’s manufactured to give hope and some indifference to the conditions of the world. It’s a sinking Titanic with only a few lifeboats, and those boats are reserved for Christian evangelicals.

As mentioned, the tragedy in this thinking is a lack of concern for the world and its conditions. As conditions worsen, there is more hope that the rapture will occur soon. This is partially why Evangelicals support the worsening conditions in Israel and its wars with its neighbors. If Israel loses, Jesus will come and end the age. Also, why worry about failing environments when the world will be burned up anyway?

Nothing I read in Revelation indicates an avoidance of suffering, and it is inconsistent since the early Christians faced great persecution, and many were killed as martyrs. Why would today’s privileged modern Christians be spared? The fact is that martyrdom is assured in Revelation, and those who make it through will receive the Kingdom. [3]

Recall the seven letters to the churches in Revelation chapter 2 — “whoever conquers will not face the second death; permitted to eat of the tree of life; given the hidden mana of God; be given the morning star; and cloth in robes of white.”

The Philadelphia church was told they would be kept out of the hour of trials coming on the earth.[4] But they, too, were said to endure, and they were spared because they had shown endurance. This isn’t necessarily a rapture but could be an early death. Death to God can seem like an avoidance of trials and tribulations coming to the world.[5]

The one passage indicates that not all will die or be put to death.[6] This occurs at the sound of the seventh trumpet. If one reviews the order of the seven trumpets, much suffering has already happened on the earth, and the seventh is the final. It’s not an escape plan — but coming out of the thick of anguish and terror. [7] There isn’t a comfortable escape plan, which will also surprise many who call themselves Christians.

[1] https://pages.billygraham.org/what-is-the-rapture/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=nn_what_is_the_rapture&SOURCE=BY200ZETG&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjIvw98mnhwMVhUr_AR0Xtg0iEAAYASAAEgKeAfD_BwE

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/explanation/amprophesy.html

[2] After the Great Disappointment, there was much skepticism about prophecy belief. There was a period when it was discredited. And it was at that point, in the mid-19th century, that John Nelson Darby, a brilliant British theologian, and preacher, emerged with a new system, premillennial dispensationalism, in which he offered an interpretation of the prophecies that were quite different from Miller’s. Miller saw the prophetic scheme unfolding over time and ending at a certain point. Darby sees a series of dispensations, culminating in a dramatic moment, the moment of the Rapture when true believers will be taken from the earth. At that point, the prophetic clock will begin to tick again, and a series of events will inevitably follow: the Great Tribulation, the Second Coming, the Battle of Armageddon, and so on. …

It is well-advised to avoid attempting to predict a date or time for Jesus’s return. Guessing, no matter the method used, only weakens the credibility of the individual and the church.

Also, faith is never an easy path, and escape comes more likely mid-tribulation, when saints are rescued out of that troubling period and likely after suffering for their confession of Christ. Do not be fooled into thinking there is an easy path. Strengthen your faith and set your hearts and minds to endure.

[3] Revelation 7:9–17; Revelation 6:9–11

[4] Revelation 3:10

[5] Isaiah 26:20

[6] 1 Corinthians 15:52 — the rapture passage

[7] Revelation 7:9–13; Revelation 8:6–13; 9:1–20; 11:15–19