The Rapture scenario continues to elude me

Just a quick report. I'm struggling through Hal Lindsey's book of 1999, Vanished, which was recommended to me as a help to resolve my ongoing inability to settle the questions involving the idea of a premillennial Rapture. Well, it doesn't resolve it. Yet. But I am having a very hard time reading it. Something about the way it is organized makes it hard for me to follow, and he spends too much time, for my purposes anyway, answering other interpretive schemes that don't persuade me at all anyway -- Dominionism and Reconstructionism for instance. For some time I've found the premillennial interpretation to be the best of the field at elucidating the scripture, just not entirely convincing to me yet.

I'm MOSTLY convinced that scripture does describe the return of Jesus in two different sets of terms such that the idea of the Rapture of the Church's occurring separately from His return to earth as conquering king is a reasonable interpretation. That is not completely resolved for me either because I'm not entirely sure which references apply to which event, and there's one that's taken to apply to the Rapture that has the Lord appearing with a "shout" that hardly sounds like a quiet snatching-away of His people. BUT overall the two-stage return of Christ is plausible. And there is precedent for such a division into two in the fact that Jesus' first advent only fulfilled the Suffering Servant prophecies of the Old Testament, leaving the prophecies of his return as triumphant warrior king for the Second Coming, which wasn't clearly understood until after His resxurrection and ascension. So as we approach the last of the last days it seems perfectly reasonable that a more precise outline of His return should also begin to appear, and also to expect that it too won't be fully understood until it is upon us or even later.

Unfortunately it's hard to point to exactly what it is that gives me the most trouble with Lindsey's presentation. Cobra helicopters are the least of the problem though. There is one place Lindsey makes himself utterly untrustworthy it seems to me, when he brings up Jesus' likening the kingdom of heaven to leaven gradually worked throughout a lump. Lindsey simply insists that scripture ONLY uses "leaven" to refer to sin and evil, without explaining how on earth he can treat its use to represent "the kingdom of heaven" in the same way. The Dominionists no doubt misuse that passage to support their cause but that's no excuse to try to make it refer to something else it obviously doesn't refer to. That lost me completely and shakes my faith in Lindsey's thinking. But it's a minor point in the overall interpretive scheme.

One thing I've always had a problem with concerning Rapture scenarios that put a great emphasis on the completion of God's dealings with Israel, is how to view the covenant of the land God gave to Abraham. Certainly it was given without condition and forever, but there is also the passage in Hebrews where we are told that Abraham was not looking to an earthly land but to an eternal abode -- unless I've utterly misunderstood that passage.

Hebrews 11:8-16: By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as [in] a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker [is] God. Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, [so many] as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of [them], and embraced [them], and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that [country] from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better [country], that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

I see present-day Israel on the earthly land and can't help but attribute that to God's own purposes -- what other option is there? But does that make that earthly land the fulfillment of the covenant promise? Aren't Christians also "heirs of Abraham" and as such also heirs of that unconditional covenant, and doesn't that put the covenant on a New Testament footing that changes how we are to understand it? We are to read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament, that's our primary directive for Biblical exegesis.

Yet it's not impossible to my mind that some -- a few -- of the promises to the Jews may not be completely fulfilled in the New Covenant and remain to be fulfilled -- or that there is a double fulfillment in the Church and earthly Israel both. Of course I can't go with any interpretation that seems to imply that the Jews are not to be saved by the same means as all the rest of us, through the death of Christ. Lindsey doesn't seem to make that error but he's a tad ambiguous on that point, and others of his basic persuasion do make that error.

One thing I am very sure of is that there remains a "week" or seven years left over from Daniel's prophecy of the time required to completely fulfill God's plan for Israel, the "seventieth week of Daniel" left after the first 69 were fulfilled in the first coming of Christ. I'm just not completely sure how to understand its purpose. Apparently it includes, or is synonymous with, the Day of the Lord, the time of the Antichrist, a time of unprecedented evil on the earth, also known as the Great Tribulation, during which time the vast majority of believers will be martyred. This idea of the fulfillment of God's plan for israel is hardly a happy one.

This period is also foreshadowed in Isaiah 61, 1 and 2, the first verse of which Jesus read in the synagogue to announce His Messiahship, leaving out the second verse which refers to the Day of the Lord, now clearly to be connected with His second coming:

Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is] upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to [them that are] bound; 2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

It appears that it isn't primarily the Rapture itself that's the problem for me, it's the whole scenario in which the Rapture occurs, and especially what supposedly happens AFTER the Rapture. Of course a different understanding of all that could change my acceptance of the timing of the Rapture itself too.

But overall I'm still where I was when I began this book by Lindsey. Well, I'll keep reading and perhaps reread the book, since I don't feel I'm getting anything very clear out of it yet.

The "Locusts" of Revelation 9, what are they?

As I came to the end of Tal Brooke's Riders of the Cosmic Circuit I turned to a book by Hal Lindsey, Vanished, that had been recommended to me as possibly able to resolve my ongoing vacillations about a Pretribulation Rapture. I wouldn't ordinarily have sought out a book by Lindsey because he's so often ridiculed for some extreme positions he's taken, but I figure it's worth a try since I appreciate the ministry that recommended it.

One of his far-out positions was his interpretation of the "locusts" of Revelation 9 as possibly Cobra helicopters. This seemed so nutty to me too that I pretty much gave up on Hal Lindsey as any kind of trustworthy exegete of the Bible.

Rev 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment [was] as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

And the shapes of the locusts [were] like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads [were] as it were crowns like gold, and their faces [were] as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as [the teeth] of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings [was] as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power [was] to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, [which is] the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue [is] Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath [his] name Apollyon.

Lindsey mentions this in Vanished:

The most common criticism leveled against me by my adversaries is that I see "Cobra helicopters" as possibly being described in Revelation 9:5-10. This was presented as an opinion in my book The Apocalypse Code, in which I gave a detailed explanation for it. Whatever this passage means, it is a composite desription from may different things that is obviously intended to be symbolic. There is no insect, beast, or man in nature that fits what is described. Ample evidence can be found within the Book of Revelation to establish that John wrote about things he saw and heart while projected into the future. I believe John actually saw and heart things by Direct Divine revdelation that wree centuries future to his own time and still future to us. He was commanded to write about what he had seen. He therefore had to describe very advanced scientific creations of a much lateral time ihn terms of his first-century knowledge and experience. This is my opinion, and I believe it makes good sense. If you don't buy that, it's okay with me; show me something better.

There seems to be a problem here with an assumption that what John saw was necessarily an "advanced scientific creation." That's not the first thing that comes to my mind when I read the passage. I think of some kind of demonic creature from the deep abyss with special characteristics and special powers. I haven't read Hal Lindsey's argument for helicopters, though, and perhaps he should be given the benefit of the doubt that he finds something in the scriptural passage that fits his interpretation of a machine of some sort.

But then I as I picked up his book today and reread this description it reminded me of something I'd just read in Tal Brooke's Riders of the Cosmic Circuit that might actually vindicate Lindsey's interpretation somewhat, not entirely but somewhat.

Eckart Flother is describing some strange supernatural occurrences he experienced in Poona, India, at Rajneesh's ashram.

"And I was getting paranoid after some time. I was not so much getting paranoid, I was asking the people around me, 'Do you see this?' ... And the peak event was when I was standing with several people and we were going to cross the street. And there was something, an 'Entity,' I don't know what it was..." He laughed in irony.

"Go on," I said.

"It looked like a mixture of a big truck but with a lot of lights approaching at high speed, two hundred kilometers per hour, or about one hundred and twenty miles per hour. It also looked a little bit like a dragon. And this entity or whatever came down the road like ... 'whhhhshhhh' ... and I was standing there ... "

I had to ask just to make sure, "Were you stoned at the time?"

"No, I was straight," Eckart replied in earnest. "I was stoned occasionally, but in all these major experiences I was straight".

"When you say Entity, it was alive?" John and I asked.

"It was very tangible and in the first place the image was like an old locomotive, chugging, but the interesting thing was a lot of light all over it."

"You never find anything on an Indian street going two hundred kilometers an hour. That's an impossibility." My years in India were surfacing.

"And you see the interesting thing was it was like ... normally Indian roads are full of people ... and this street was empty, a perfect set-up."

"What was the feeling you had when it went by."

"It was a mixture of entertainment and being a bit frightened... I couldn't see it properly. But nothing flies down a narrow INdian road at two hundred kilometers an hour. It is physically impossible. This was very tangible... So I had the feeling that something was going on, especially at the Poona ashram."

"It's an evil city," I said. "A lot of these gods in temples actually look like locomotives. I remember the huge Kali form in the temple in Calcutta ... looked just like a locomotive. And the Bible speaks of the forms that idols are based on as being elemental spirits that are demonic."

Certainly what Eckart had seen fit the pattern. I was convinced, with Eckart and John, that it was a rare demonic manifestation. It sounded like a massive collective entity.... [p. 180-1]

As, in a way, do the "locusts" of Revelation 9, or in their case separate collective entities, each made up of multiple parts.

And although I don't see much of a mechanical component in those locusts it's interesting that Eckart's entity had such a component, first seeming like a large truck, and also like a locomotive, but it was also like a dragon and had a quality that suggests the whole thing was alive in some sense.

It's also possibly relevant in this regard that Ezekiel describes in his first chapter a vision he had of four creatures that together could appear to embody something like a chariot with four wheels, and the wheels have a living spirit in them.

So if Lindsey is right to find anything resembling a Cobra helicopter in the locusts, it would most likely not be the actual machine itself but something along these lines, a living creature or composite living creature with attributes of a machine as part of the composite.

And of course all this also reminds me of speculations about the increase in UFO phenomena as a clue to a likely last days major UFO invasion of sorts in which they are to contribute to the mass delusion of the Antichrist, and probably make a handy excuse to explain away the Rapture of the Church if it does occur. While as far as I know nobody has yet suggested the UFO "vehicles" themselves could be alive in the sense the truck entity appeared to be or Ezekiel's wheels, the fact that they don't behave according to any known laws of physics, and that we (Christians) know the whole UFO phenomenon to be a demonic manifestation, makes something like that also a possibility -- a composite demonic creation of some sort, as Tal suggests.

Such possibilities make my old bones ache to get off this planet, but I can't be very happy thinking of all the people who may have to experience such demonic manifestations and worse if they live into the very last of the last days.

The Enlightenment Experience, Three Antichrist Gurus of recent times and the rescue of two from their clutches by Christ

Finally read Riders of the Cosmic Circuit which comprises Tal Brooke's studies of three of the most famous Hindu gurus of recent times, also known as "god-men" --Sai Baba (1926-2011) who was Tal's own guru for two years in India up to 1971, and for whom he was the premier Western spokesman during that time, Swami Muktananda (1908-1982) who was very big in California in the 70s, and Rajneesh (1931-1990), the notorious guru of sex, murder and mayhem who was finally kicked out of America after four years of terrorizing an Oregon town and went back to India where he died five years later.

The main subject of the book is the experience of "Enlightenment" which is what makes a guru a guru. Brooke claims that this experience is the same across all the different religions which promote such a state, in spite of different methods and different terminology. In fact the work of the student or initiate in these religions is all geared to coming ultimately to that final realization. It is generally described in terms of loss of ego, loss of self, the "no-self" experience, merging with the Self which is God, and the like. Its attainment is accompanied by supernatural power, and the approach to it can hold a variety of supernatural experiences both beautiful and terrifying.

The book is convincing at least for these three gurus that Enlightenment is probably a state of Perfect Possession, that is, a state in which the personality or soul of the original person has been completely abdicated while the body becomes inhabited by some sort of "entity" that takes its place. All three were described by others as dramatically changed after their respective enlightenment experiences, and all three were described by some family members as seeming "possessed." And the work of all three in their respective ashrams among their respective followers became marked by evil practices, both of sex and violence, Rajneesh apparently reaching some sort of pinnacle of perfection of evil.

It's interesting that the personality must be PERSUADED to abandon the body, and that's what much of the teaching of all these disciplines seems to promote. The wonderful understanding that will occur when you completely surrender your ego or self is the enticement, and there are plenty of bliss experiences on the way to keep the student motivated.

As Tal Brooke notes, such gurus are antichrists and this must be the formula for the final Antichrist to come, in which a personality is to be completely replaced by Satan himself. All such possessions that occur before the end period are more or less trial runs for the final one.

Tal himself stopped just short of the experience of Enlightenment, having repeatedly "smelled" evil in the endeavor, puzzled why this should be so. Aren't gurus supposed to be "holy men," the equivalent of Jesus Christ? During this period of his growing awareness of the evil behind his chosen teacher, he was driven to desperation in his inability to understand it.

I had discovered an absolutely Satanic thing operating behind Sai Baba's veneer. Now I was desperate. I crouched on a massive boulder on a hillside overlooking Baba's main ashram in Puttaparthi. My love affair with Vedanta was ending. I was dissolving inside, dying inside ...In my perplexity I was willing to look anywhere for an answer. There was one source of revelation I had avoided.

In my desperation, I laid a Bible on a hillside rock -- a book I had long ago 'transcended.' Now in an act of faith, I threw open the pages. You could call it a kind of miracle at the time. What I read answered a need so deep I cannot explain it. For by then I was in a blackened state of mind best described as occult desolation. In trying to figure out this creature in the red robe, claiming to be God out here on the Indian desert, I was totally lost for an answer, bewildered.

Imagine what I felt when the Bible fell open to Matthew 24:23-24 (NIV ). It was Christ himself talking about a future age in our world. And suddenly a new perspective took shape for me.

At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ,' or, 'There he is!" do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect, if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time.

I looked down at Baba's green prayer hall below and thought,

"That's it, that's what Sai Baba is, a miracle-working antichrist." [p.161]

Soon afterward, partly through a missionary couple in India, he gave himself to Christ and has spent the rest of his life educating people about the false teachings of the various Hindu gurus and the growth of the occult as we approach the very last days.

In the book he also recounts the experience of Eckart Flother, a German disciple of Rajneesh who had a similar escape through a miracle or revelation of Christ some years later.

We were in a Los Angeles outdoor cafe, sitting at an open shaded table, away from onlookers. It was a warm January day in 1983. Eckart, who had been with Rajneesh for many months in Poona but who then suddenly fled, was now meeting Sai Baba's one-time top Western disciple, namely me, who had also fled his guru. And John Weldon, an author and friend, was with us at the table as a witness. I had heard about the incredible incident that happened to Eckart in Poona but now I wanted to hear it from him. One thing that had inspired him, after what he had just gone through, was reading about a sijmilar event in Lord of the Air, the abridged European version of my book Avatar of Night. Our meeting was intense, charged with energy and feeling. Eckart was recalling a powerful supernatural incident of the highest order of magnitude -- an incident that changed him forever...

It was one of those typically warm, humid Poona nights. I was alone in my hotel room. As you would say, sober as a judge, feeling alert. It was Auguswt 1979. It was one of those nights when everything is covered with mosquitoes and nobody can sleep. At any rate I was sitting in my hotel room reading and writing. Perfectly normal...

All of a sudden in the left-hand corner of my hotel room I saw a bigger than man-sized brilliant light. The sheer power, sheer presence was awesome. Rajneesh could not hold a candle to this. I felt instinctively that it was Jesus Christ ...

"Had anyone been seeing you who was a Christian?" I asked Eckart. "Or handing you material on the subject, or anything like that?"

Absolutely not. At any rate all of a sudden I heard a mighty voice saying to me 'I want you to become my disciple.' I was absolutely shaken to bits. I knew right away that this was Jesus calling me...[p. 173-4]

When he makes an appointment to tell Rajneesh about it he has an impression of evil emanating from his guru, and Rajneesh seems to shrink back in fear from the very mention of Christ. But he released Eckart with the words "Enjoy it" and that was the end of his following of Rajneesh.

There is more to this conversation in which Eckart details some of the cruel and criminal acts done under Rajneesh and he and Tal agree that their gurus are indeed Antichrists.

Eckart seems to have written a booklet about Rajneesh that is mentioned on a few websites but I can't find a description of it or a way to acquire it. Amazon doesn't have it. His name is variously written with an umlaut over the o, or as Floether. He is a business management consultant.

What Tal Brooke says on pp 160-61 pretty much sums up his observations throughout the book:

Curiously, when the heavy-hitting gurus, the Riders, emerged from the Explosion [another term he uses for Enlightenment], close assoicates and family usually used the term "possession" in describing the change that they saw. Rajneesh prepares his highest adepts by readying them emotionally to do the same thing -- sink into the infinite abyss, and drop away and keep dropping away. His words are a juggling act. Along with this comes the admonition, 'Don't worry about what fills you or enters you. Let it happen. Surrender. Lose your identity forever.'

The only scripture on earth that deals with this phenomenon is the Holy Bible. Period. It talks about massive evil intelligences operating behind the scenes of our world. It talks about possession. It has live historical instances of demonic possession and exorcism.

But there is also a super-class in this group whose possession is different -- it is a Perfect POssession and the consciousness within the possessed is many levels beyond the standard possessor demons. This was all a revelation to me in INdia ten years ago as I searched desperately for a category in which to put this phenomenon. Suddenly I noticed that this category of creatures repeatedly appears in the Bible's pages. The Bible even predicts, in its prophecy, that one day the world would be full of these creatures. What are they? Antichrists, claiming to be God. Their appearance and reign on the earth was prophesied to precede the Return of CHrist. Why had I not seen it before?