The Rapture: In The Twinkling Of An Eye (31 page)

And with that, Paul too laid his crowns at the feet of Jesus.

Rayford Steele feared he had a better idea than most of what had happened. If he was right, if it was true, it explained why he was not getting an answer when he dialed home. Most shocking, as he stood in the terminal, was watching a TV monitor above him broadcast images of the chaos. From around the globe came wailing mothers, stoic families, reports of death and destruction. Dozens of stories included eyewitnesses who had seen loved ones and friends disappear before their eyes.

A woman in labor, about to go into the delivery room, was suddenly barren. Doctors delivered the placenta. Her husband had caught the disappearance of the fetus on tape. There was a scream, the dropping of the camera, terrified voices, running nurses, and the doctor.
CNN
reran the footage in superslow motion, showing the woman going from very pregnant to nearly flat stomached, as if she had instantaneously delivered.

Local television stations from around the world reported bizarre occurrences, especially in the time zones where the event had happened during the day or early evening.
CNN
showed via satellite the footage of a groom disappearing while slipping the ring onto his bride’s finger. A funeral home in Australia reported that nearly every mourner had disappeared from one memorial service, including the corpse, while at another service at the same time, only a few disappeared and the corpse remained.

Unable to reach more than the answering machine at home, Rayford finally caught a helicopter to the landing pad at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights. He was about five miles from home, and he bet he could hitch a ride easier than finding a cab. As he trudged along, his trench coat over his arm and his bag in his hand, he had an empty, despairing feeling.

A woman of about forty stopped for Rayford on Algonquin Road. As he got in and thanked her, he said, “Have you lost people?”

“Traid so,” she said, her voice quavery. “About a dozen nieces and nephews.”

As she drove, sniffling, into Mt. Prospect, Rayford felt fatigue he had never endured before. “Can I offer you anything?” he said as she pulled into his driveway.

She shook her head. “You could pray for me, if you think of it.”

“I’m not much for praying,” he said.

“You will be, sir. I never was before either, but I am now.”

Rayford stood in the driveway and waved at the woman until she was out of sight. The yard and the walk were spotless as usual, and the huge home, his trophy house, was sepulchral. He unlocked the front door. From the closed drapes in the picture window to the bitter smell of burned coffee when he opened the door, everything pointed to what he dreaded.

Buck Williams checked the phone log in his laptop and dialed.

A teenage boy answered, “Washingtons.” “Cameron Williams of Global Weekly calling for

Lucinda.”

“My mom’s not here. I’m the only one left. Mama,

Daddy, everybody else is gone. Disappeared.”

“Oh, man! I’m sorry, son.”

“That’s all right. I know where they are, and I can’t even say I’m surprised.”

“You know where they are?”

“If you know my mama, you know where she is too. She’s in heaven.”

Lucinda and Charles Washington, filled to overflowing with what they had already witnessed in the short time they’d been in glory, knew what was coming next. Seven Earth years after the signing of a covenant between the Antichrist and Israel, Jesus would return for His glorious appearing and establish a thousand-year reign of peace.

But just before that would come the marriage of the Lamb with His bride, the church.

Lucinda looked into the eyes of her husband and thought his thoughts. Time clearly meant nothing here. That wedding might seem eons away, yet it could happen within the next few moments. She couldn’t wait. Best of all was that when the time came and Jesus rode His white stallion in triumph to the Battle of Armageddon, the saints in heaven would descend with Him and constitute His avenging army. She and her husband would be part of that. Imagine.

Like everyone else in the great assembly hall on the first floor of the house of God, Lucinda Washington was finding heaven way more than she had ever dreamed.

The second coming of Jesus Christ is the most frequently mentioned subject in the Bible, other than the doctrine of salvation, what the Bible is all about. The Second Coming is clearly taught in both the Old and the New Testaments. It was promised 321 times in Scripture, predicted by Jesus Christ Himself, by all the writers of the New Testament and by many of the Old Testament prophets. It is the capstone of all Christianity, without which God’s merciful plan for mankind’s future cannot be understood.

The Second Coming is easily the most fascinating event predicted anywhere and is the only message that gives hope to the chaotic world in which we live. Jerry Jenkins and I have often been asked why the Left Behind books comprise the most popular fiction series ever. My answer, aside from Jerry’s incredible fiction-writing gift, is that it is based on the Bible’s forecast of the last days, starting with the Second Coming, which many find fascinating. Surveys tell us that more than 65 percent of the population of America believes Jesus Christ is coming back to this world, just as He promised. It is the last best hope of mankind, if, of course, you are ready for His return by having personally invited Christ into your life. This is the primary reason we wrote the Left Behind series. Fortunately, from the letters, e-mails, and personal contacts we receive, we know that thousands say they have come to faith through reading these books.

Satan clearly does not want anyone to understand prophecy, for there is no more spiritually motivating subject than the return of Christ. Jesus called Satan “a liar” and “a deceiver,” so we can expect him to “[sow] discord in a family” and confuse those who are seeking the truth /Proverbs 6:19). Keep in mind that Jesus predicted there would be “false messiahs and false prophets” who would come on the scene in the last days (Matthew 24:24; Mark 13:22). If these are really the last days, as many Bible scholars believe, we should not be surprised to find false prophets and those deliberately teaching error. For that reason it is important for the serious student of the Scripture to learn…

The Two Keys to Understanding the Second Coming

1. You must take the Bible literally, including prophecy. That does not mean we are “wooden literalists,” as some detractors accuse. Every language has metaphors and other figures of speech usually revealed by context. We follow the time-honored principle used by many Bible scholars: “When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense, but take every word at its primary literal meaning, unless the facts of the immediate context clearly indicate otherwise.” This, of course, allows for no allegorizing or spiritualizing of prophecy, which is what leads to so many divergent and confusing interpretations of end-time events. Most amillennialists, postmillennialists, and preterists fall into this category. Whereas they may take other Scriptures literally, they tend to spiritualize or allegorize prophecy, which, in our opinion, makes it all but impossible to rightly divide the Word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). As the Old Testament prophecies of Jesus’ first coming were literally fulfilled, there is every reason to believe that the New Testament prophecies of His second coming will also be literally fulfilled.

2. You must keep in mind that there are two stages to the Second Coming. By studying all 321 Second Coming passages in context, we find that they fall into one of two categories: They relate either to the rapture of the church—when Christ calls all believers to meet Him in the clouds (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) just before taking them to heaven as He promised (John 14:1-3)—or they describe the Glorious Appearing (Matthew 24:29-31; Revelation 19:11-21) just before He returns to earth and establishes His one-thousand-year kingdom. In our series we show the Rapture coming just before the Tribulation period, which we cover in books one through twelve, and then the Glorious Appearing, which we cover in book twelve and the final sequel.

In four of my nonfiction prophecy books—Are We Living in The End Times?, The Popular Encyclopedia of Bible Prophecy, The Rapture (not to be confused with this novel), and Charting the End Times—I list the fifteen differences between these events. In fact, after you compare them, you will realize that they cannot possibly be describing the same event. For example, the Rapture could take place at any moment without warning; the Glorious Appearing cannot take place for at least seven more years after many prophetically forecast events. The Rapture finds Christ calling believers to meet Him in the air so He can take us to His Father’s house as He promised. The Glorious Appearing finds believers coming with Christ to the earth when He sets up His kingdom. This may be why the apostle Paul referred to the Rapture, our Lord’s coming, as “the blessed hope,” and gave us the name “Glorious Appearing” for the public coming of Christ to earth. Personally, I think Paul was distinguishing these two phases or stages of Christ’s second coming.

The miniature chart on page 351 shows these two phases of Christ’s coming separated by the seven-year tribulation period. If you have read most or all of the books in the Left Behind series, you will find it easy to locate where each book appears on this chart. I hope you find this exercise helpful in understanding the entire plan of God for your future and that of the rest of the world.

For further information on end-times prophecy, check my Web site, www.timlahaye.com, as well as our publisher’s site, www.tyndale.com. And take a look at the entire Tim LaHaye Prophecy Library.

—Dr. Tim LaHaye

Jerry B. Jenkins (
www.jerryjenkins.com
) is the writer of the Left Behind series. He owns the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild (www.ChristianWritersGuild.com), an organization dedicated to mentoring aspiring authors, as well as Jenkins Entertainment, a filmmaking company (www.Jenkins-Entertainment.com). Former vice president of publishing for the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, he also served many years as editor of Moody magazine and is now Moody’s writer-at-large.

His writing has appeared in publications as varied as Time magazine, Reader’s Digest, Parade, Guideposts, in-flight magazines, and dozens of other periodicals. Jenkins’s biographies include books with Billy Graham, Hank Aaron, Bill Gaither, Luis Palau, Walter Payton, Orel Hershiser, and Nolan Ryan, among many others. His books appear regularly on the New York Times,
USA
Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly best-seller lists.

He holds two honorary doctorates, one from Bethel College (Indiana) and one from Trinity International University. Jerry and his wife, Dianna, live in Colorado and have three grown sons and three grandchildren.

Dr. Tim LaHaye (
www.timlahaye.com
), who conceived the idea of fictionalizing an account of the Rapture and the Tribulation, is a noted author, minister, and nationally recognized speaker on Bible prophecy. He is the founder of both Tim LaHaye Ministries and the Pre-Trib Research Center.

He also recently cofounded the Tim LaHaye School of Prophecy at Liberty University. Dr. LaHaye speaks at many of the major Bible prophecy conferences in the U.S. and Canada, where his prophecy books are very popular.

Dr. LaHaye earned a doctor of ministry degree from Western Theological Seminary and an honorary doctor of literature degree from Liberty University. For twenty-five years he pastored one of the nation’s outstanding churches in San Diego, which grew to three locations. During that time he founded two accredited Christian high schools, a Christian school system of ten schools, and Christian Heritage College.

There are almost 13 million copies of Dr, LaHaye’s fifty nonfiction books that have been published in over thirty-seven foreign languages. He has written books on a wide variety of subjects, such as family life, temperaments, and Bible prophecy. His current fiction works, the Left Behind series, written with Jerry B. Jenkins, continue to appear on the best-seller lists of the Christian Booksellers Association, Publishers Weekly, Wall Street Journal,
USA
Today, and the New York Times. LaHaye’s second fiction series of prophetic novels consists of Babylon Rising and The Secret on Ararat, both of which hit the New York Times best-seller list and will soon be followed by Europa Challenge. This series of four action thrillers, unlike Left Behind, does not start with the Rapture but could take place today and goes up to the Rapture.

He is the father of four grown children and grandfather of nine. Snow skiing, waterskiing, motorcycling, golfing, vacationing with family, and jogging are among his leisure activities.

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