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The "Left Behind" series by Tim LaHaye
is thoroughly trashed and hated by the Catholic apologist. Biblical
teaching about the Pre-Tribulation Rapture, the Great Tribulation of
seven years, and the Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ all flies
directly against the Catholic revisions of Scripture. Of course,
there are some variations of teaching about the Rapture and the
Millennium in our midst, and Catholic writers make much out of those
differences. What they fail to do is explain the many variations of
doctrine in their own camp about Scripture and major truths.
The Catholic view of both the
political world and the church is that of a dictatorship rather than
a democracy. They brag about their One World views and international
monopoly of their contingencies, but their dictatorial and dogmatic
approach has always squashed any private views or open debate. Look
at any culture dominated by its hierarchy and there are limited
human rights, almost non-existent private enterprise that creates
great wealth, and very depressed personal freedoms. Let's especially
look at their condemnation of the Rapture and then at their
doctrines of End Time prophecy.
"The Rapture Trap": A Catholic
Attack
I have two books from the Catholic bookstore that attack the Rapture
with a fury. Both are written by disenchanted Evangelicals who have
turned Catholic. The first book is The Rapture Trap by Paul Thigpen.
Let me quote Marcus C. Grodi, another
Evangelical who has turned Catholic, from his forward to Mr.
Thigpen's book. He described his background among the Evangelical
world. This is the forward he wrote for The Rapture Trap.
"In the mid-seventies, an engineering
student I know experienced a powerful, life-changing adult
re-conversion to Christ. He was 'born again,' in the popular
language of evangelical Protestantism, and he grew intent on loving
and serving the Lord as completely as he could. Not long afterwards,
a friend, anxious to share a book that had shaken his own life to
the roots, passed along a copy of The Late Great Planet Earth, a
book of apocalyptic speculations by the Protestant fundamentalist
writer Hal Lindsey.
"Unable to put the book down, the
young man, now working as a plastics engineer, read it from cover to
cover. Without adequate religious training to challenge the book's
premises, and trusting in his friend's sincerity, he accepted the
book's teaching, hook, line, and 'rapture.'
"In time, the book's emphasis on the
notion of a 'rapture'-- and imminent 'secret' coming of Christ--led
the young man to question his vocation: 'If Jesus were to return
tonight, would He be pleased with what I'm doing with my life? Would
I be content to tell Him that I'm dedicating my life to making
better plastic cups, butter tubs, and coffee decanters?' Eventually
this was one reason that the engineer decided to leave his secular
career and enter the seminary instead.
"In case you haven't guessed, I was
that young man, and for several years I was caught up in the
apocalyptic views expressed in books such as Hal Lindsey's little
volume and more recent 'Left Behind' series. During my years of
study at an evangelical seminary, I was confronted with every
Protestant 'end times' notion imaginable. Often during theology
classes, or especially around the dinner table, seminarians would
debate over the details, the timing, and the imminence of Christ's
return.
"Sometimes contradicting views would
split us along denominational lines. (The majority of mainline
Protestants actually do not believe in the secret rapture.) Too
often these debates led to unchristian anger. I must even admit,
shamefaced, that I once lost a close friendship because my friend
and I could not see eye-to-eye about whether the timing of Christ's
second coming was preordained or whether it was dependent upon man's
free will in his efforts to reform the world.
"I encountered again these same
issues constantly during my years as a Protestant minister. In every
congregation I served, some member or members would challenge the
longterm planning of the church because the rapture of true
believers, snatching them out of the world into heaven, was to occur
any minute. 'Forget tomorrow!' they insisted. 'We must insure that
all are ready to meet their Maker tonight!'" (The Rapture Trap, by
Paul Thigpen, Ph.D. Published by Ascension Press, pp. 11-12.)
Please forgive the long quote but
this helps you understand why the Catholics are promoting this book
big time. It's impossible to believe in the Pre-Tribulational
Rapture and still be a Catholic. Their entire worldview makes the
Rapture anathema to them. The introduction in this book is entitled,
"The Truth Will Set You Free". A few quotes will give you their
basic argument against the Rapture. Thigpen said, "Sadly enough, a
mistaken and rather novel idea about Christ's return, rooted in
fundamentalist Protestant teaching, is making the rounds of our
culture these days. It claims that Jesus is coming back, not once
more, but twice. One of those times, this teaching asserts, He will
come secretly to snatch away true believers from their troubles on
earth. This even has been dubbed the 'rapture' (or 'secret
rapture'), from a Latin verb that means 'caught up' or 'snatched.'
"If you are Catholic, when Jesus
comes, many of the preachers of this idea insist, you had better be
careful. If you have failed to renounce some of the essential
beliefs the Church has taught you, too bad. You are not a true
Christian. You will be left behind.
"That claim is simply not true. It is
a dangerous error. And that is why this book was written. In recent
days many unsuspecting Catholics have gotten caught in the 'rapture
trap.' I want to help them get free of this unbiblical idea and the
anti-Catholic theology to which it is typically shackled. I want to
warn other Catholics who might be in danger of getting ensnared. And
I hope to help equip Catholic pastors and teachers to dismantle the
trap whenever they encounter it." (Ibid., p. 19.)
Please note in the following quote
that the basic argument against the Rapture is church dogma and not
the Word of God. They simply do not argue from scripture but from
the dictates of previous popes. He further stated, "'The Rapture
Trap' is written primarily, then, for everyday Catholics who accept
the God-given teaching authority of the Church and who have a good
dose of common sense. They will find here ample grounds for
rejecting the rapture teaching as misguided and alien to both Sacred
Scripture and Sacred Tradition. I trust they will also discover much
more in these pages: an overview of Catholic teaching on the 'close
of the age' (Matthew 24:3; 28:20); some insights for responding to
other questionable claims about the end times; and encouragement to
grow spiritually strong in the rich soil of the Catholic faith."
(Ibid., p. 20.)
Note that he calls the teaching of
this church, "the rich soil of the Catholic faith".
Author Thigpen states, "'The Rapture Trap' is written primarily,
then, for everyday Catholics who accept the Godgiven teaching
authority of the Church and who have a good dose of common sense."
(Ibid.) Read this statement from his book, "All the tedious and
prickly debates over the true meaning of a biblical Greek term used
by St. Paul, or over the true significance of a horned beast
pictured in the book of Revelation, really count for very little
until this larger issue of authority is resolved, some of these
minor debates may count for nothing at all." (Ibid., p. 21.)
The question is the authority of the
Catholic Church to teach doctrines, above and contrary to the Bible.
This author closes his introduction of this attack of the truth of
Scripture by saying, "To know Christ, who is Himself 'the Truth'
(John 14:6), we gladly turn to the teaching of 'the Church of the
living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth' (1 Timothy 3:15).
After all, it was the Holy Spirit's preaching through the Catholic
Church that first told the world about the good news of Christ's
coming. And it is the Holy Spirit's teaching through the Catholic
Church that can keep us safely in the truth about His coming again."
(Ibid., p. 23.)
The author's first chapter is an
out-and-out attack on the idea of being "Left Behind." He calls it,
"The puzzling popularity of an odd idea." He discusses Tim LaHaye's
"Left Behind" series as following, "Breaking new ground in the
religious publishing world, this author's vision of the end of
history has created a multimillion-dollar apocalyptic
industry...What exactly has Jesus to do with this startling story
line? Why in the world would He want to make people disappear and
throw the human race into chaos? ... Once they are gone, the Devil
will be free to take control of the world through his puppet, the
Antichrist. Gross horrors will accompany this diabolical man's
wicked reign." (Ibid., p. 27.)
How can this author that was
gloriously saved, and the evidence points to a real experience,
become so totally determined to destroy some of the greatest truth
in Holy Scripture. It was Jesus who said, "Let not your heart be
troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's
house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I
go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for
you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I
am, there ye may be also." (John 14:1-3)
With that great promise from Jesus
Christ in mind, let's listen to Thigpen's reason to attack our
glorious hope. "The rapture doctrine is dangerous in yet a third
way: It is often tied to a larger, complex body of religious
teachings that are explicitly anti-Catholic. As we will see in
chapter seven, when fundamentalist authors such as LaHaye and
Jenkins write nonfiction books to explain the theology behind their
novels, they make it clear that they believe the Catholic Church is
a creation of the Devil and will be a tool of the Antichrist. They
go so far as to associate the Vatican with the bloodthirsty 'whore
of Babylon' pictured in the book of Revelation, who drinks the blood
of the Christian martyrs in the last days of the world (see
Revelation 17:1 - 18:24)." (Ibid., p. 35.)
To add to this statement Thigpen
stated, "Catholics who read the 'Left Behind' books or see the movie
are thus at risk of being deceived into thinking that the very
Church Jesus Christ founded on St. Peter and through the other
Apostles is actually a counterfeit church. Drawn into reading other
books or attending religious meetings that use these spiritual scare
tactics, they may not be prepared with an adequate defense against
such high-pressure fundamentalist propaganda." (Ibid., pp. 35-36.)
I believe we are getting the picture.
The debate is not about the Bible or what Scripture teaches, but the
endangering of the Catholic Church. There is no doubt for a
Bible-believing person but that any doctrine that anyone teaches
contrary to the plain truth of the infallible Word of God is wrong.
The Catholic Church must attack and destroy any idea that confronts
their established institution. They cannot create their One World
Religion unless they can control the way the people think. Whenever
Bible believers begin to make an impact, they always come out
fighting. These books against the Rapture are wonderful evidence
that truth is making an impact.
The second book that we must discuss
is entitled, Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible
Behind. It is written by David B. Currie. He is also a former Bible
believer who was raised to believe in the Rapture. He and Paul
Thigpen have the kind of understanding of Biblical truth to make
them well prepared to pick at every point. No person is more
dangerous to truth than that person that knows it but turns from it.
The Bible makes it plain that when Satan is defeated in someone's
life, he returns looking for an opportunity to reestablish his
control. If that life returns to its former empty state, the demon
returns with additional demons and the latter state of that person
is worse than their former condition. These men are perfect
examples.
In the preface of his book on the
Rapture, which was written for the Catholic Church, Mr. Currie
stated the following, "My own experience cannot help but influence
this book. I was raised in a devout Protestant home, the only son of
a Fundamentalist pastor. Many of the leaders of the "pre-mill,
pre-trib" movement were close family friends. I attended Trinity
College and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield,
Illinois. While still a believer in a pretribulation rapture, I
team-taught a college class on prophecy and preached it from many
pulpits. Although I had no natural inclination toward Catholicism, I
finally reconciled with the Church in my forties. The rationale
behind that lifechanging decision can be found in my book, Born
Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic." (Rapture: The End-Times Error
That Leaves the Bible Behind, by David B. Currie, published by
Sophia Institute Press, p. XV.)
What is perfectly evident in this
book as well as The Rapture Trap is that the difference is based
almost totally on the skewed teachings of Catholicism. I do not know
whether these personalities changed their views of the Rapture
before they converted to the Catholic Church or after, but I
strongly believe it was before. The loss of the literal Biblical
interpretation of the End Times sets a person on a sea of change.
The church denomination, where I spent over forty years, has, for
the most part, left the literal and authoritative sense of Biblical
interpretation and, in the process, has changed radically. There is
a very strong development in that church hierarchy of a growing
acceptance of the Roman Catholic Church. Recently, a leader of that
denomination was invited as a guest to a celebration at the Vatican
and this was reported, along with a picture, in their official
publication. That would have caused a revolt twenty years ago.
Let me simply give a few quotes in
the order of development from Mr. Currie's book.
"Left Behind author Tim LaHaye wants
to convince America that the rapture 'could be any time: today,
tomorrow, next week' (CT), while protecting his flanks with the
'rolling end of the world' strategy. He will not compromise on the
fact that we are in the final generation." (Ibid., p. 21.)
"Anything touching on Jerusalem in
Israel or Babylon in Iraq strikes a raw nerve with them." (Ibid., p.
23.)
"A second problem with
premillennialist has to do with their vision of the Kingdom of God.
Is it spiritual or physical? The premillennialist would claim it
must be a corporeal reign of Christ here on earth. Critics would
counter that this completely misunderstands the message of the major
prophets of the Old Testament (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and
Daniel), not to mention the message of the entire New Testament."
(Ibid., p. 47.)
"The third view, amillennialism, is
the one held by the vast majority of Christians, whether Catholic,
Orthodox, or Protestant. It is the only acceptable option for the
Protestant who claims to stand in the tradition of Luther or Calvin
and for the Catholic who seeks to remain faithful to the teaching of
the Church." (Ibid., pp. 48-49.)
"While the Catholic appeals to
Scripture, Tradition, and the teaching authority, or Magisterium, of
the Church to guide his beliefs, rapturists claim to rely
exclusively on the ostensibly clear and self-interpreting text of
the Bible. So it is fair to ask whether the rapturist belief system
is the best way to understand the relevant Scripture passages,
considered apart from other authoritative voices. Of course, as
Catholics, we would say this approach removes two legs of the
three-legged stool of truth. But discounting for our purposes Sacred
Tradition and the Magisterium, can the rapture theory really do
justice to what the Bible teaches?" (Ibid., p. 51.)
"The Book of Daniel lays the
foundation for the entire time framework of rapturist theology."
(Ibid., p. 79.)
"In fact, this gap does great
violence to the text, to the fundamental message of the vision - all
for the purpose of protecting rapturists from the idea that the
Catholic Church might have to be examined as a possible candidate
for the present-day Kingdom of Heaven." (Ibid., p. 82.)
On and on this author espouses the
doctrines and teachings of the church he has embraced. When you
couple his support of the Mass and the literal transubstantiation of
the bread and wine into the substance of His body, with the Marian
message, the infallibility of the words of the pope, purgatory,
etc., only demonic deception could lead souls to such depths of
untruth.
After both of these books attack
Bible believers because there have been so many false claims, false
prophecies, and false prophets; they describe the situation in their
own Catholic ranks to be equally flooded with false alarms. Listen
to author Thigpen speak to this issue. "To complicate the matter
even further, contemporary 'messengers' have sprung up and
multiplied as fast as wild mushrooms, and some of them may be just
as poisonous. Their messages sometimes agree with one another,
sometimes not. Meanwhile, anyone who wants to stay up on the latest
alleged locutions has to invest considerable time reading through
the stacks of visionary emails that fly around the world daily via
the Internet.
"A number of these messengers call
for concrete, immediate actions from their listeners. Some insist,
for example, that Catholics must procure a supply of blessed candles
(a few sources even dictate that they must be beeswax candles),
because only these will be capable of providing light in homes
during the 'three days of darkness.' Others call for the creation of
hidden sites of refuge, well stocked for survival, to be used soon
when the great persecution of the Church arrives. Still others urge
the faithful to move away from coastal areas, because the coming
comet will cause tidal waves that will wipe out the populations of
coastlines around the world." (The Rapture Trap, by Paul Thigpen,
Ph.D. Published by Ascension Press, p. 227.)
After warning of the dangers from
Catholic mystics, Thigpen states, "Even so, we certainly do not want
to miss out on any extra graces our Lord may want to give us through
private revelations. How much poorer we would be if our Lord had
never asked St. Margaret Mary Alacoque to spread devotion to His
Sacred Heart! How many souls have been drawn to God because that
revelation has spurred them to make use of the more ordinary means
of grace! If God has truly spoken, and His words have meaning -
perhaps even urgency - for us, we are wise to want to hear and obey
them." (Ibid., p. 82.)
Conclusion
The Rapture of the Saints and the Pre-Tribulation doctrines of
Scripture have never been so attacked in church history. This of
itself is prophetic. By Apostle Peter, the Holy Ghost said that men
would say, "Where is the promise of his coming? for since the
fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the
beginning of the creation." "The Lord is not slack concerning his
promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to
us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance." (II Peter 3:4, 9)
This vicious attack on the Rapture by
the largest religious organization in the world, the very church
with much to lose if you believe the truth, is prophetic of where we
are in final history. Man cannot set the hour because the Father
alone knows the time. Our joy is to watch, occupy, be busy for His
Kingdom on earth, and be ready. In a moment that you think not, He
may well return.
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