When Rapture Happens . . .

by Bill Perkins

It was Monday night and time to watch football for millions of Americans.
The Denver Broncos were at home playing the Oakland Raiders in sold-out Mile High Stadium. Denver always packed out their stadium for national television, and for this game it was particularly difficult to find a ticket. It was a huge game as both teams were undefeated in the Western Conference. It was late in the fourth quarter, the game was tied 21 to 21 and Denver was driving for the go-ahead score.

As quarterback Tim Tebow took the snap and dropped back to pass, a thunderous noise shook the stadium that sounded eerily similar to a monstrous trumpet blast. In an instant, nine of the eleven Denver offensive players on the field vanished into thin air. Less noticeable, two of the Oakland defensive players were missing too. (1 Cor 15:51-52, 1 Thes 4:16-17)

Even though the football bounced to the ground, and no whistle had blown, the players just stood motionless. Then, just as abruptly, every light in Bronco stadium went dark, as well as all of Denver. As far as you could see, there was no light anywhere. (John 9:5)

Stadium exits became clogged as thousands of confused fans rushed hurriedly into the dark parking lots . . . only to find their cars wouldn’t start. Car headlights wouldn’t even come on. Cell phones wouldn’t work. Nothing made any sense.

Regardless of their age, everyone seemed to be suddenly acting viciously self-centered. Fights between fans were breaking out over the least little issue. No one seemed to have any restraint. Darkness prevailed. It was as if someone pulled a switch.(1 Thes 2:67)

People watching the game at home across the nation heard the trumpet-sounding explosive blast both on TV AND outside their own homes. Their TVs had about 3 or 4 seconds of the strange sight of the missing players on the field. Then all the houses also went dark. America was dark. The world was dark. The Door had shut. (John 10:9)

KABOOM! Rapture had come like a bolt of lightning when not even the most die-hard predictors had imagined. Everyone on planet earth knew immediately that something major had suddenly changed.

When God, the Holy Spirit, came to earth some two thousand years earlier, the two most notable, non-personal characteristics of that event were a great noise and confusion for the non-Believers. It was no different when the Holy Spirit departed. There was an explosive globe followed by great confusion for those left on earth. (Acts 2:2,6,12)

But what was not noticed when the Holy Spirit first came to earth, and what was hugely noticed when He departed the earth at the Rapture, was the catastrophic disruption of earth’s electro-magnetic field. Scientists had warned for years about the possibility of a large solar flare knocking out electricity around the world.

The sudden departure of millions at the Rapture made a large solar flare look like a candle compared to a forest fire. Rapture caused a sudden world-wide change in the delicate balance of electrons and protons in the atmosphere and every electric motor in the world stopped dead in its tracks. In fact, if it used electricity, it didn’t work. It was as if the world itself had come to a stop.

Virtually 100% of communication ceased beyond the distance one could yell. Cars, buses, trains, computers, phones, televisions, elevators . . . everything with a motor or that used electricity . . . stopped working. Only the planes on the ground were saved.

Numbing the world, the Rapture affected every corner of every country. In an instant, people vanished into thin air without a trace—political leaders, businessmen, rich and poor, workers and unemployed. Everyone knew someone who was missing. Men and women, husbands and/or wives, parents and/or children were simply gone, leaving zero trace of their existence. In the U.S. about one out of every twenty five people disappeared in the blink of the eye.

With communication down, everyone was left to personally ponder what had just happened . . . as well as pondering their own future fate. Millions of people had heard about Jesus, and even the Rapture, but never truly trusted the shed blood of Jesus to pay for their sins. Millions more had thought they were Christians . . . they had prayed a prayer or walked an aisle . . . and they knew immediately what had happened. They had missed the Rapture! As daylight broke in America, many began a frantic search in their Bibles to see what was next to happen according to Bible prophecy.

In other countries around the world, disappearing people weren’t a major problem, but lack of electricity was a HUGE problem. The more electricity a country used, the more problems they had trying to do anything without it. The failure of all electrical devices shook people to the core. Those who knew the truth were gone.

The crashing of the electrical grid in Israel made an always-testy border situation far worse. But because three out of every four Israelis had weapons, military personnel and civilians living nearest the border crossings provided temporary security.

Two years prior to the Rapture, an Israeli oil drilling firm had struck a massive oil reservoir in the heart of Israel, only five miles southeast of Haifa and close to the Mediterranean coast. The oil strike was so large it was estimated to be the largest reservoir ever discovered in the world. (Ezek 38:13)

Needless to say, this was a game-changer for the Middle East oil cartels. Being able to ship oil directly into the Mediterranean Sea gave Israel a huge pricing advantage, and the Arab world was understandably not happy!

Virtually overnight, the stranglehold they had over the price of oil vanished. Israel was now the supplier of oil via the Mediterranean Sea. And once the Israeli oil began to flow, the market price dropped to $35 a barrel in only three months.

True to Israel’s abilities, she constructed a pipeline from the oil wells directly to the city of Haifa on the Mediterranean coast in only six months. The project had become the pride of the nation. Many Israelis worked on the pipeline construction for free. The young nation of Israel sensed this incredible new resource was a gift from God.

Western nations welcomed the new, efficient oil supply from the western edge of Middle East. Being able to load oil on ships from Haifa avoided the shipping problems that had become all too commonplace in the dangerous waters off the eastern Arabian peninsula.

But most importantly, the oil strike made Israel totally independent. No longer did she need to rely on the United States for anything. She was militarily monstrous with the second largest fleet of F16 fighter jets in the world . . . only the U.S. fleet was larger.

Israel was already growing and harvesting far more food than she could consume and was exporting the excess daily to Europe. She had nuclear weapons and her army understood why they were fighting—for their very existence! (Ezek 37:10)

On the other hand, the Islamic nations had lost their oil-stranglehold on the world to, of all people, their archenemy Israel. It was difficult for the Arabs to watch Israel growing richer by the day as their own oil fortunes waned. It was as if Allah was no longer protecting the Muslims, and they could hardly stand it. This huge reduction in revenue seemed to make them mad at everybody, including each other, as large skirmishes continually broke out on Arab-to-Arab borders. (Gen 16:12)

Since arriving to permanently indwell Believers on earth in 33 AD, the Holy Spirit had been the Restrainer of wholesale evil. When the Rapture happened and the Restrainer departed, Iran and Russia conspired with an evil thought. With the world in post-Rapture confusion, they perceived this to be their long awaited window of opportunity to initiate a secret invasion that they had been planning since Israel struck oil—designed to catch Israel by surprise with a nuclear attack. (2 Thes 2:6,7)

After about seven days, electrical grids slowly began coming back to life and global communications finally began rebooting. The secret plan by Iran and Russia to launch the massive nuclear attack on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv was now or never. They believed Allah had caused the world to go dark so they could use the opportunity to defeat Israel. So in the post-Rapture vacuum, with the Restrainer gone and communication spotty, Iran, Russia and several smaller countries began their secretly planned nuclear strike. (Ezek 39:7)

Their strategy was simple . . . take out 80% of the Israeli populations in Tel Aviv, Tiberias and west Jerusalem with hydrogen bombs, leaving Haifa and the oil pipelines exposed for capture. The prevailing winds from the Mediterranean Sea would disperse the radioactive dust to the east toward Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. And with control of the new oil riches, their massive incomes would be restored.

With exception of Jordan, the whole Arab world was united to rid itself of its enemy Israel. In the post-Rapture darkness, over a million troops were assembled in Syria and Lebanon on Israel’s northern border ready to invade and not stop until they reached the oil fields. As the nukes were launched, the massively large number of troops descended into the northern mountains of Israel like a dark cloud covering the land. (Ezek 39:2; 38:9, 15)

The Russian-made atomic missiles were launched from ten different locations in Syria and Lebanon. Each missile was carrying over 600 times as much nuclear explosive power as was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

At the same time, Russia launched 90 more nuclear missiles over the north pole toward the United States. Russia had launched every working nuclear missile she had available. It was as if Russia had also decided it was now or never. Evil seemed ready to triumph over good. (Ezek 39:6)

The Israeli military had gone on full alert within minutes following the Rapture, trying to discern what was happening around the world. So the nuclear attack didn’t catch Israel off guard. But Rapture had totally shut down her vaunted, but electric-dependent, nuclear shield and she had no defense. To no avail, the Israeli Defense Force scrambled to get its jets to start. But there was nothing she could do to stop the massive missile attack.

As the warning sirens screamed across Israel, and her military powerless to stop the incoming nukes, the strangest thing happened. It seemed that a force from high above Israel pushed every oncoming missile straight down to the ground. Amazingly, the missiles’ destructive power was unleashed unwittingly on the Russian/Syrian invading forces. (Ezek 39:25, 9)

At the same time the troops were getting nuked, a 12.8 magnitude earthquake hit the northern Israel mountains area where the massive number of soldiers were crossing. The earthquake was so large it literally smoothed the landscape. Whole mountains were reduced to mere rolling hills. (Ezek 38:19,20)

Where first the invaders looked like a dark cloud covering the land, they now literally lay as a mass of scorched and radioactive humanity. It would eventually take seven months to find and bury all the highly radioactive corpses. (Ezek 39:11-12)

Astonished, Israeli commanders were at a loss as to what was causing this. They watched in grateful disbelief as every incoming missile fell from the sky. Even the weather changed abruptly and blew the radiation away from Israel. It was as if God was personally protecting Israel. (Ezek 38:16, 23)

In the United States there had been a total breakdown of law and order following the Rapture. With electrical grids out, food was scarce as the stores had only a three-day supply of food. In Washington communication was non-existent, rendering the government powerless. But guns still worked and anarchy began to prevail.

Then came the Russian missiles expertly striking over 80 U.S. cities. For decades the U.S. had systematically dismantled her nuclear weapons through naive “Peace Treaties.” Now she was a sitting duck. Russia, forever lying about her own nukes, had determined she couldn’t conquer the U.S. because too many citizens had guns. The alternative was to destroy the U.S. and that she did. (Jer 50:9)

Due to the huge number of people departing at the Rapture, and many had critical know-how, the massive U.S. electrical grid had not yet recovered. The entire country was in chaos. And without warning, the Russian missiles began to strike the U.S. with unimaginable consequences. The world was in shock to see the world’s largest importer, and the world’s military hammer, go up in flames in only one hour. The world’s financial system’s anchor was gone in an instant. Around the world a global economic panic ensued. (Rev 18:4-11; Jer 50:23)

For Israel, the destruction of the U.S. meant she was alone in the world. All nations were now against her. She could no longer hope for peace, and instead, she knew her only hope was to take a page from the Six Day War and go on the offensive. It was kill or be killed. Israel’s military commanders immediately began to attack. (Zech 14:2)

The cities of Beiruit and Damascus had missed the brunt of the Iranian-Russian misguided missiles. Fearing the Arabs might quickly regroup and try again to attack Israel from the north, the Israeli commanders ordered two nuclear bombs to be dropped on Damascus and two on Beirut. (Zech 12:6)

Having prepared for this possibility for decades, the operation went flawlessly. Coming out of their protective underground bunkers in the heart of the Jezreel Valley, Israeli fighter jets flanked larger nuclear bomb-laden aircraft. In less than forty minutes they had reached their targets, dropped their bombs and were heading back to their base. Damascus was 100% destroyed by the hugely destructive hydrogen bombs. Beirut was 80% destroyed. Then the Israeli military turned its attention to the infamous Gaza strip. For years Israel had endured with restraint as Muslims fired thousands of missiles at Israeli citizens. It was payback time. (Damascus—Is 17)

But rather than H-bombs, Israeli aircraft dropped precision neutron bombs on Gaza. Virtually every Gaza resident was melted instantaneously. The Israeli residents in cities surrounding the Gaza strip heard the warning sirens, retreated to the interior shelters of their homes, donned their gas masks and waited for the all-clear signal once the small radioactive cloud passed.

Next it was Ramallah, Jenin and Jericho to be wiped off the map with more neutron bombs. The Israeli Defense Force was on a mission to take out her enemies once and for all. Nothing could stop her.

News of Israel’s victory over the Russian/Iranian invasion, and subsequent annihilation of the other Arab cities, spread quickly around the world. But every nation had its own problems with food shortages, banking failures and riots. Not to mention they were powerless against Israel’s massively strong military.

The Arab nations were in a collective uproar. Each fearing they were next on Israel’s list for destruction, they pleaded for help and protection as Israel seemed unstoppable. The world, it seemed, was coming apart at the seams.

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Bill Perkins is the founder and Executive Director of Compass International, Inc.
© Copyright 1993-2013, Compass International Inc.