We all believe and know that Jesus is coming back.  How Jesus is coming back is hotly debated.  My personal thought is not a single person probably got the first appearance of Jesus correct, so someone nailing the details of his second coming are unlikely.  But it is good and important that we live in an understanding of the end times as best as we can.  Because we are definitely seeing a lot of it unfold.

Having said that, lately in talks about world events I’ve heard people say, ‘I don’t worry about it.  I’m going to get raptured before it gets bad.’

I have to confess that I stare at them blinking.  It’s not just my American friends who are saying this.  Some of my international friends are saying the same.

What gets me is hidden in this thinking is that God will protect me from hard things.  In fact, he will rapture me out before it gets bad.  I won’t have to suffer.

Tell that to the Christians of the first three centuries who were absolutely brutalized.  Tell that to the Holocaust Jews of 1940 as some were believers.  Tell that to the Ukrainians of 2022.

Worse than that is people don’t engage and pray because they are sure that God will rapture them before they suffer anything.  So they come to the hard things of the world with a measure of passivity instead of sobriety. It’s this subtle kind of thinking that says God doesn’t want me to suffer.  But what about these verses?

In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (2 Tim 3:12)

³³ “Those who are wise will instruct many, though for a time they will fall by the sword or be burned or captured or plundered. ³⁴ When they fall, they will receive a little help, and many who are not sincere will join them. ³⁵ Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time. (Daniel 11:33)

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, (Mt 24:12)

“Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name (Mt 24:9)

Blessed are you when people hate you (Lk 6:22)

There are so many more verses that talk about the suffering and persecution of God’s people.  God’s people have always gone through terrible times of suffering and persecution.  God will come rapture his people but at the proper time.  In the meantime, people all over the world who love the Lord are suffering and dying.

So when people say, “I’m not worried about it.  Jesus is coming to come rapture me out before things get bad.” It’s just prideful in so many ways.  Such foolish things are said only by those who have lived a life mostly free of persecution.  Beware. Let’s not use any kind of rapture theology to lead us to passivity.  This kind of belief hinders our prayer life for those who are suffering, and for the care of world events, knowing that the nations belong to Jesus.

Rather let’s focus on these words:

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. (Php 3:10)