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11-15-2007, 06:15 PM

In Defenso Fedei:

The Rapture Myth

by John Loeffler World Affairs Editor

http://khouse.org/articles/2002/402/

[This is the final article of a three-part series on the philosophical and political directions the West is going and what this will mean to the Christian church.]

The Day Is Far Advanced

Our last article, The Antichrist Doesn't Wear Tights , detailed the battle for Western culture and religion, through which the church has generally slept. Humanism seized control of Western institutions with the declared goal of dethroning Christianity from its position as the core Western belief. It succeeded! All the battles fought by Christians in the public arena are simply skirmishes in a mop-up action. The church didn't lose the battle; it simply walked off the battlefield.

For centuries, Christian pulpits thundered with sermons expounding the moral issues of the day. They were instrumental in the founding of many of our countries, governments and legal systems. But today, the church has bought the humanistic lie that it should not be involved in the public square - that religion is a personal thing that should not push its values on others - all while humanism aggressively pushed its values on the West. As a result, doing spiritual battle is anathema to a slumbering Western church, which prefers self-help to self-negation. While preening itself as the Church of Philadelphia, it resembles more the Church of Laodicea, having lost its sense of combating organized evil and engaging in a dialectic process which does not allow for definitive "good" or "evil."

Separate! I Dare You!

There is no separation of church and state; never has been, never will be. There is an organic relationship between the two. The values and beliefs of a culture invariably pattern the forms of government and its laws. If a culture is based on the strong religious beliefs of its people, the laws and politics enacted by governments will be guided by that religious conscience. However, if the church abandons the public arena, which it has done in the West, the state will then fill the moral vacuum and dictate to the church how it will believe, act and worship. One of these two institutions will determine what is "good" and "moral." Someone's values will control the field of human action! But while the church cannot force government to do what it believes should happen, government most certainly can dictate to the church what it will make happen-and compel compliance. These two are historically inseparable companions.

Absolutes are Absolutely Dead!

In the West, absolute truth and morality are passé. God is dead or anything we want to make of him, her or it... or maybe he's me! Reasoning has moved from facts to feelings, and diminishing numbers are able to think logically about the core issues of the day. History has been rewritten so that people can't remember the lessons of the past or the greatness of Western heritage. Good things are labeled bad and bad things good. Even liberalism and conservatism have become relative, changing positions. That is why political parties look the same; all have embraced the same relative floating dialectic. Finally, religion is publicly demonized as the cause of all the West's problems and the scourge of Western civilization; unless, of course, it conforms to the new politically correct moral values.

Facing the Status Woe

As we proceed into the new paradigm - a repackaging of the failed evils inherent in both communism and Nazism - history predicts the future with certainty:

1) Since Judeo/Christianity is no longer the controlling paradigm of the West, the gurus of the new socialistic pantheism will call the moral shots, determining which things are "good" and "bad." Everyone will be expected to fall in line.

2) These moral "shots" will invariably conflict with Christian morals and beliefs.

3) As the severe flaws of the new relativistic moral system manifest themselves (and they already have in abundance), increased societal and legal chaos can be expected as a result. (Look at the result of just 40 years of secular control of morality.)

4) In responding to the nonsense, governments will be forced to act in an increasingly invasive, controlling and dominating manner to control the pandemonium and enforce the new paradigm. Since the confessing church is already at odds with the new paradigm, much of the legal "wroth" will invariably be directed at the church. As the conflict increases, Christians experience steadily increasing pressure to conform to the new system and a demonization of those who don't. Gradually, laws and regulations will be drafted to force Christians (and other religions) into conformity with the new morality. This is already happening in all areas of life, from child rearing to freedom of speech to the workplace.

Remember, it takes time for this to develop, but the process is inexorable and unidirectional.

The View from an Old Wineskin

Since the days of the Caesars, the Christian church has confronted this crisis with two modes of reaction: a) stand and suffer or b) compromise and coast, hoping it "blows over." Type A churches suffer much, produce many martyrs, yield much fruit and ultimately are the seed for the next round of growth, when the culture collapses of its own weight. The Confessing Church in Germany, the underground church in the former Soviet bloc, the Catholic Church in Poland, and underground churches in China are examples of this type of church.

Backward Christian Soldiers

Type B churches conform to the system, compromise their beliefs and oftentimes make life miserable for the suffering Type A churches, but become so watered down they are indistinguishable from the culture and are, indeed, generally part of it. In essence, they cease to be salt and light. These churches, such as the Russian Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union, the German Christian Church in Nazi Germany and the registered churches in China today are examples of this type of church; all in different stages of compromise.

Compromise is a process, not an instantaneous event. It takes time and is seductively easy when a major cultural paradigm change is underway because all the reference points become blurred. Parts of the old paradigm still endure while parts of the new paradigm seem to be compatible with Christianity and even similar. Today's "tolerance" doctrine mimics the Christian doctrine of "love thy neighbor" until one asks what it is we are expected to tolerate.

Historically, when government seeks to control religion, it uses a two-stage plan: 1) co-opt the church into conforming to the new agenda; and 2) once resistance to the new belief system has been eradicated, extinguish the church. This is once again the goal of the new paradigm.

Totalitarian governments have always sought to create a model church that conforms to its dictates. This church is publicly extolled as "good," against which the Biblical churches are demonized as "reactionary," "radical," "extremist" or against the "collective good" or "counter-revolutionary." The pejoratives are different but the essence is the same. This process is well under way in the West today so we know we're on the timeworn trail of difficulty for the Biblical church.

One thing is clear: The churches that intend to survive with their confession of faith intact under the new paradigm will not be "doing church" the way they have done it in the past. But first, they will have to get over the "Rapture Myth."

The Rapture Myth

The Rapture Myth is identical to the doctrine of cheap grace, as detailed by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Rapture as doctrine is one thing. The Rapture Myth is a distortion of that doctrine, which says the Rapture will spare us from all time of trial, suffering, conflict and the need to do spiritual battle because we aren't going to endure God's wrath in the time of the Tribulation. It never occurs to the Rapture Myth people that we may well endure the world's wrath before Christ returns.

The Rapture Myth takes comfort in the fallacious assumption that there will be no time of trial in the run-up to the Rapture and Tribulation. It comforts itself with a "we're going to be outta here" mentality; not to worry about anything. Just keep teaching the Bible as if the Bible were an end and goal unto itself. It fails to notice that the Bible is a manual for action, not just study, and most definitely not an end in itself. As Jesus said, the Kingdom of Heaven consists in power, not words.

Airplanes and Silly Virgins

Planning to take a flight? Any pilot knows that flight planning requires having enough fuel to safely make the entire trip with a generous reserve for emergencies or unexpected situations. Nothing is more sobering than a fuel warning light that pops on when you're in the middle of nowhere. The gospel parable of the foolish virgins is identical. All the virgins had oil in their lamps to start with. It's just that some didn't have enough to go the whole night until the bridegroom came. Those believing in the Rapture Myth may well find themselves out of fuel in a bad way.

History dictates that if the storm ghosts on the horizon continue their rapid approach, a time of trial will be upon us and many will have their faith flagging, wondering where the Rapture is or whether the whole thing was just a giant fairy tale in the first place. Our brothers and sisters from persecuted countries of the 20th century have warned of this. Standing firm in a time of trial requires aggressive action and preparation ahead of time just in case this isn't the immediate end time and a time of testing is coming.

Inflating New Wineskins

The hour is truly more desperate than most Christians understand, but dark times make for great spiritual leaders and a terrific platform for spiritual action. More and more Christians are awakening to the call of preparation. Here are organizing guidelines. Check with the Holy Spirit for His particular battle plan for you.

1) The church must recover its sense of urgency. The day is far advanced and the night is at hand. There is a time of trial coming for the Western church and the Rapture will most likely not get them out of it.

2) The church must recover its belief in the existence of organized evil; not just good and bad individual choices. It must also recover its notion of spiritual warfare -onward, not backward Christian soldiers.

3) The church must understand the worldviews of today and the new paradigm and how Christianity is distinct from that. The Bible can no longer be taught in a vacuum or as a personal implementation item. There is a bigger picture and a bigger battle than just our own personal lives. The Bible must be seen in that context.

4) In understanding the worldviews of the day, the church must once again recover its own understanding of why it believes what it does and what the basis for faith is. The creeds of old were a great asset in this area.

5) The church must begin to train warriors who understand the nature of the battle. This applies specially to young Christians, the majority of whom are lost to the faith upon hitting college.

6) The church must learn from those Christians who have lived through duress in the past, especially the 20th century, and who have emerged with their faith intact. They have much to teach us about the battle skills we will need.

Most of the Biblical adjectives and verbs imply a conflict: contend, run to win, race, stand, fight, resist, defend. "In defenso fidei"1 must once again become the battle cry of the church. The Christian spiritual life is a life of rewarding but often painful sacrifice and dedication; it is a war - not a picnic. Yes, we do win in the end, but many expect to win without participating in the fight. In reality, Paul calls us to suffer with Christ. To quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "When Christ calls a person, he bids him come and die."

What is exciting is that swelling numbers of Christians are awakening to the fact that things are radically wrong and responding to the call for the coming battle. So, soldier, when night falls, where will you be?

* * *

John Loeffler is host of the nationally syndicated news program Steel on Steel, which can be heard at www.steelonsteel.com. Subscriptions to program tapes as well as a catalog of programs can be obtained at (800) 829-5646.

**NOTES**

1. Latin: "In defense of the faith."

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The Armor of God:
The Sword of the Spirit

by Chuck Missler

http://www.khouse.org/articles/1997/6/

We have been reviewing the various elements of the Armor of God (from Ephesians 6:10-18), and this month we come to the sixth in Paul's list of seven:

And take... the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

Ephesians 6:17

This "Sword" is, of course, a well- known idiom:

For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

There are a number of insights in this verse. First, it highlights the fundamental frustration of psychology which, at best, can deal only with the psyche, or soul level; it has no ability to reach into the pneuma, or spirit of man. Only the Word of God can.1

Only the Word of God can discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. There is much confusion today concerning the existence of the "subconscious"-those areas of memory which seem to be out of reach to our own conscious effort. The Scripture clearly indicates that the heart is beyond our knowing.2

The sword is the offensive part of our armor. Notice also that the sword is two-edged: it is intended to be used defensively as well as offensively. In addition to the "pulling down of strongholds,"3it was to be used in defense of the faith.4

It is, of course, impossible to adequately characterize this fantastic element of our armor in this brief article. Psalm 119, the longest psalm in the Bible, is entirely devoted to describing the "Sword of the Spirit"-the Word of God.

The Enemy's Stratagem

It comes as no surprise that Satan's most desperate stratagem is to cast doubt on the veracity and authenticity of the Word of God. His first attempt in the Garden was, "Yea, Hath God said?"5 It was all downhill from there.

And thus it continues to this day. We live in an age where pseudo-scholarship has made it fashionable to demean the Bible. Self-styled experts, with PhD's (and H2SO4's) behind their names, have disparaged, demeaned, and mutilated the sacred Scriptures in the mind of the uninformed. And yet, never before has there been more evidence of its true origin!

Supernatural Origin

As most of our regular readers know, the two great discoveries that are the underpinning of this ministry are, first, that the Bible is an integrated message. Even though it consists of 66 separate books6 which were penned by about 40 different authors-over thousands of years7- we now discover that it is the product of detailed and skillful engineering: every detail, every place name, even the mathematical properties of the text are the result of deliberate and careful design.

The rabbis have a quaint way of expressing this idea. They often say that they really won't be able to interpret the true meaning of the Scriptures until the Messiah comes. "But when He comes He will not only interpret the passages, He will interpret the very words, the very letters, He will even interpret the spaces between the letters!" I used to dismiss this as just a colorful exaggeration, until I re-read Matthew 5:17, 18:

"Think not that I am come to destroy the Torah, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one yot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

Now a yot and a tittle are the Hebrew equivalents of our dotting an "i" or crossing a "t." I then realized that those rabbis were apparently closer to the truth than I had ever imagined!

The realization that the Bible is a skillfully designed message system significantly altered my understanding of the whole and my respect for the details. But it also involved a second discovery: the Bible demonstrates that its origin is from outside our time domain.8

Outside Time Itself

Since God has the technology to create us in the first place, He certainly has the technology to get a message to us. The question is, How does He authenticate His message; How does He let us know that it is really from Him and not some kind of a contrivance or a fraud? One technique He uses to demonstrate that the origin of this message is from outside our time domain is by writing history before it happens. He alone knows the end from the beginning9 and there is no way to counterfeit this characteristic of the Biblical text. We call this "prophecy." And, of course, there are ample materials available exploring this topic.10

Today's Technology for an Unbelieving World

It has recently been discovered that the Biblical text has secret codes hidden among the letters. Numerous articles have been published highlighting the incredible discoveries that appear to be emerging from computer analysis of the text.11 This was originally discovered by Jewish researchers and widely published in the professional literature, as well as disseminated throughout Israel. It also has now been revealed that the name Yeshua seems to be hidden behind virtually every Messianic prophecy! The Jewish researchers now have a problem!

It is interesting that in this modern world of skepticism, God has raised up a technological insight essentially unavailable to researchers of the past: our modern information appliances are revealing new discoveries daily which demonstrate properties of the text itself that are impossible to duplicate synthetically.

Our Sword

Paul's use of the idiom "the Sword of the Spirit" carries some other suggestive characteristics. Most of the ancient armies favored a long sword with a single edge. The Romans developed a short sword-the Machira-which, with its associated techniques, enabled them to conquer the world. It was only 24 inches long and was sharpened on both edges.

But there was a secret to its effectiveness: training and practice. Its uniqueness was a liability unless it was used with the proper techniques, which required extensive practice. Is there a lesson here for us?

Let's look at an example: What Bible study was given by seven different people, on twelve separate occasions (in just one book of the Bible), always yielded remarkable results, and yet is rarely given today? The Answer: Presenting Jesus Christ as the Messiah entirely from the Old Testament.12

In the Book of Acts, when they presented Jesus from the Scriptures, they were using only the "Old Testament." Could you present Jesus to your Jewish friends using only these references?13

The proper use of our "Sword" requires training, and practice, practice, and more practice, if we are to be effective for our Lord. There are (at least) four highly effective techniques to acquiring the essential skills:

1. Serious study, with a core set of tools in your home library. If you're serious about your Bible, invest in it: acquire a resource base of your own. Pick up a good study Bible, an exhaustive concordance, Biblical helps, etc.14
2. Discover the amazing results available through audio cassette tapes. You can be personally tutored by whomever you best relate to. Some have indicated that they have learned more about their Bible in six months with tapes than they have after twelve years of Christian schools plus seminary! This is one reason that our ministry has emphasized these remarkable resources (Romans 10:17). See the following article in this issue.
3. Join a home Bible study. The dynamics within an intimate group is where the real action is!
4. The biggest secret of all: teach a home Bible study. The way to really learn a book is to teach it. It is not hard to collect some competent background materials and stay a week ahead of the group. Few things are as rewarding.

A Sound Foundation

One of the biggest challenges is to maintain a balance, free of serious error. It is so easy to focus on a few pet areas at the expense of the whole. Avoid "Bible Bytes," or doctrinal snippets on which to hang some deviant notion. Attempt to embrace "the whole counsel of God," comparing Scripture with Scripture. Invest time in preparation and practice with your sword:

"So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." Isaiah 55:11

* * *
This article was originally published in the
March 1997 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

**NOTES**

1. For more information on this aspect see our briefing package The Architecture of Man or, better yet, review Nancy Missler's latest book, Be Ye Transformed.
2. Jeremiah 17:9.
3. 2 Corinthians 10:4.
4. 1 Peter 3:15.
5. Genesis 3:1ff.
6. Actually, 70 if you recognize the 5 books that make up Psalms.
7. Some quibble about the duration, but remember, Moses' books are not the oldest. Job is the oldest.
8. For further discussion of this topic, see our briefing package, Beyond Time and Space.
9. Isaiah 46:10.
10. See our briefing package list on page 19.
11. Personal UPDATE: 3/96, p. 5; 1/96, p. 4; 2/95, p. 12. See also Grant Jeffrey's Signature of God and Ya'kov Rambsel's Yeshua (see our order form for details). Also, see our briefing package, The Bible: An Extraterrestrial Message, for a discussion on these topics.
12. Peter, Stephen, Philip, Paul, Apollos, Aquila, and Priscilla, all presented Jesus from their (OT) Scriptures.
13. These are reviewed in our briefing package, Footprints of the Messiah.
14. Our briefing package, How to Study the Bible, has reference lists and other suggestions which should prove helpful.

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