Bible Study Seattle

The contemporary idea of the rapture (does this word derive from rupture? Is it a rupture combined with a raptor?) is that God will supernaturally fly away Christians just before He fries that bad guys with lots of lightning and massive zappage. Jesus mentions it and Paul expounds on it also:

“It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down to take them out; and likewise the one who is in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left.” Luke 17:28-35

These ‘one taken and the other left’ verses might just be a whisking away. Or it may be something more mundane. Lot was warned by the angel to flee to safer ground before The Lord roasted Sodom. Lot here represents the bridesmaid class of Christians still alive right before the battle of Armegeddon. This battle is still about 200+ years away. Actually there may be no battle at all. It’s unclear; the battle may be at the end of the Millennium. God may just supernaturally roast the unrepentant as in the days of King Hezekiah:

“Then the angel of the Lord went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when men arose early in the morning, behold, all of these were dead. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh.” Isaiah 37:36-37

Even if this rapture occurs as is currently imagined, it will not exempt those Christians completely the evil of that time. It isn’t going to happen in the next twenty years. Remember Lot. He lived among very corrupt men.