Delayed Rapture Fails to Unnerve Darbyists
Earthshaking events
Occasionally updated and edited.
Copyright © 2010, 2011
Periodically a crackpot will come along and embarrass the evangelical community by announcing a date for the rapture. The rapture, as understood by most Darbyists, is a future event at which Jesus will return and snatch away true believers. The rapture will occur instantaneously; "in the twinkling of an eye."
One such prediction made headlines in 2011 when a California religion entrepreneur announced the rapture date to be May 21.
While rapture predictions embarrass those who adhere to Darbyist eschatology, these same evangelicals fail to recognize that, short of date setting, their own expectations are wearing shamefully thin.
It's also worth noting that most Darbyists don't know they are Darbyists. They are not aware that the popular packaging of the rapture, anti-Christ, tribulation period, Second Coming, etc., is relatively new to Christian theology. It was introduced in the 19th century by John Nelson Darby, a noted Bible scholar and extreme dispensationalist.
Born in the early 1950s and raised in a fundamentalist Baptist church steeped in Darbyist dispensational perspectives, I was no stranger to occasional preaching and perennial chatter regarding the Rapture of the Church and subsequent Second Coming of Jesus.
Among the indicators that convinced us to "Keep looking up" were three key slam-dunk Bible prophecies.
The first was a prophecy found in Matthew 24:32-34. Here Jesus offered his followers a cryptic message that, according to Darbyists, claimed the rapture would occur while the generation living at the time of Israel's restoration as a nation (1948) was still alive. This theory is based upon the notion that the fig tree mentioned by Jesus represents Israel and "putteth forth leaves" indicates the reformation of Israel as a nation.
A generation, we were told, is forty years. Jesus would come before 1988.
I vividly recall reading the headlines atop the Indianapolis News' front page in 1967 as it chronicled Israel's Seven-Day War. To a fourteen year old, the evidence couldn't have been more obvious: The tree had brought forth leaves and Armageddon was right around the corner.
1988 came with great anticipation and left with disappointment. The fundamentalists, of course, were not deterred. They simply redefined the term "generation" in ambiguous terms.
Sixty-two years after the birth of Israel, the fig-leaf prophecy has all but faded. Some condemn it as heresy. There's nothing like hindsight to gain a grasp on foresight.
The second prophecy currently seems to be as prevalent as the budding fig tree once was. It involves earthquakes. This is based on Matthew 24:7 where Jesus is quoted as saying, "For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places."
For some reason the Darbyists have augmented this passage to presume the frequency of earthquakes will increase. (See also Mark 13:8 and Luke 21:11.) Maybe I'm missing something, but I fail to find any indication in the New Testament that suggests a rise in the number of earthquakes as a prelude to the Rapture.
But are they increasing?
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, "The USGS estimates that several million earthquakes occur in the world each year. Many go undetected because they hit remote areas or have very small magnitudes. The NEIC now locates about 50 earthquakes each day, or about 20,000 a year."
The USGS reports that the number of significant earthquakes has actually declined, depending on which years are compared. For example, in 2001 there were 23,534 earthquakes resulting in 21,357 deaths. In 2008 there were 14,791 earthquakes resulting in 1,787 deaths.
52,056 people died of earthquakes in 1990. Fewer, 39,928, died of earthquakes in the following seven years.
It's interesting that some evangelicals find the increase in the number earthquakes to be valid evidence for the imminent return of Jesus. Yet none find the increase of famine to be valid evidence. The reason? World hunger is obviously decreasing. Nor do they tout an increase in pestilence. Aside from scourges such as the AIDS virus, medical technology is effectively decreasing communicable diseases.
The Tōhoku [Japan] Earthquake of March 11, 2011 claimed 15,641 lives according to the The Japanese National Police Agency. That's about one fourth the number of earthquake fatalities recorded in 1990.
The third prophecy involves denial (II Peter 3:4). A key indicator that the rapture is about to occur is persisting denials that it will happen. And for that, there is no answer.
2010, 2011
