Persisting Physical Presence

So, the Rapture's come and gone. There's pandemonium in the streets. People are outside rioting and looting, and I've barricaded the front door to keep them out. I'm planning on sneaking by the angry mobs to a friend's house because he has some guns. I'm gonna borrow one and then hoof it all the way to Bremerton, where my wife is right now. Driving is too dangerous. I don't want to draw attention to myself.

Of course, if you haven't been living under a rock, you know that's a whole load of it. This post may be rambling. You have been warned.

So, enough making fun of this whole thing. Harold Camping, a noted "prophet," predicted the Rapture happening at 6pm on May 21st, 2011, followed five months later with the total destruction of the world. He came to this conclusion through some calculations allegedly hidden in the Bible. I looked it up. It made absolutely no sense.

But clearly, the Rapture hasn't happened. And while I, a Christian myself, joke about this whole thing, it both saddens and angers me to see these false prophets misleading people.

Maybe Camping genuinely thought his prediction was true. Or maybe it was all a scandal to get money. I have no idea. But regardless, it's resulted in people losing a lot of money or selling all their worldly possessions only to wind up still on Earth at 6:01pm.

One of the most ludicrous things I've heard of in these prophecies is that the Rapture will occur time zone by time zone. Assuming that there are genuine Christians in every time zone, that results in twenty-four Raptures! The Bible says that Jesus will catch up his elect one time. Once. Not twenty-four times. It also says it will be in a moment, the twinkling of an eye, and no one will see it coming. If there is an ongoing Rapture, people will see it coming, no? Whether this means a literal Rapture or not, I don't know. But don't go on saying that there will be twenty-four Raptures, or even that God cares about our perception of time. He invented time. He'll gather His people whenever He wants to, regardless of time. If there is a Rapture, many of us may be asleep at the time while others are awake and at work because they live on the other side of the world. We'll all get caught up in the end.

Then there's the whole thing about how we will not know the day or hour. I think I heard something by Camping's followers about how that's only directed at non-believers. The problem with that is that if it was, it would most likely say so. Other times in the Bible when something is directed at a specific group, the Bible says specifically who it is directed to. Why not this time?

And then I have to wonder about those poor people who believed it. They've given away a lot, all for their current hope to be dashed. Will they fall away? Will they lose faith? I don't really know.

I also have to think about how many non-Christians probably think this was a belief held by all Christians. For the record, it's not. Christians are divided on what will happen in the end. The only thing that we can be sure of is that Jesus wins in the end. How He'll do it, the Bible isn't specific.

So those are my thoughts. I didn't have a lot to do today while I was working, so it's been on my mind all day long.

So, now to think about the next day...

A Christian's Perspective on Bin Laden's Death

When the news of Osama Bin Laden's death reached me, there was at first a reaction of "Holy crap!" After that there was a mixture of joy and uneasiness. On one hand, BIN LADEN was dead. On the other hand, Bin Laden was DEAD.

Then yesterday I was contemplating the whole thing. A lot of people on Facebook reacted in different ways. Some were positively elated. Others were uncertain because someone died. That's sort of how I felt. Should I, as a Christian, be happy that this terrorist is dead and gone? Or should I not be happy about it? Maybe it's weird that I have to think about how to feel about things, but I don't want to feel how I shouldn't about something, you know?

After some thought, I came to this conclusion. I'm not sure if this should be the universal Christian perspective or not, but it is this Christian's view.

I'm not particularly happy that someone had to die. Proverbs 24:17 has been quoted very often about this: "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles" (ESV). There's also that whole thing about eternal damnation and whatnot. That's a tough doctrine to swallow. As Christians, we shouldn't be glad when anyone dies unsaved.

Now, here's the flip-side of that. I am absolutely glad that a terrorist, who was still a threat to the world and would have killed thousands more people if he could have, has been stopped. Notice I didn't say killed, just stopped. It's unfortunate that he had to die for this to be accomplished, but it's fortunate that it was accomplished. Does that make sense? It's like war. It sucks. It shouldn't have to happen. But sometimes it's a necessary evil carried out to protect people.

We live in a fallen world. It's sad that things sometimes have to happen like they do. But we can rest in the fact that God can use anything for good as well. Is it good that Bin Laden died? No, because no one should have to die for anything. However, is what Bin Laden's death accomplished, that a murderer has been stopped, a good thing? Absolutely.