ready for the rapture?

Of course you're not.  Nobody is.

So- tomorrow at 6PM, there's supposed to be an earthquake in the east somewhere, and all the Believers in Jesus get to make that cool trip to clouds and watch as God destroys the rest of the world over the next 6 months or so.

Wow.  Some people actually believe this stuff.  Needless to say, there's a veritable plethora of reasons why this probably won't happen.  Strike that.  Won't happen.

Every few years, some whack job with a calculator and a very basic understanding of Scripture comes up with something like this.  This is far from the first time, kids.  William Miller (no relation- thank God) predicted that the Rapture would happen sometime in 1843, and his followers sold their possessions and climbed a hill in Ohio in October, 1844 to wait, only to be sorely disappointed.  (that's the first one I can think of)  Paul Yongghi Cho predicted it in 1989 again.  They just don't learn.  The bottom line is this- no amount of math, equidistant lettering, secret codes or Dean Brown exogesis gets around Matthew 24:35-37, Mark 13:31-33 and Acts 1:6-7.  (To name but a few)  

It's totally ok with me if people want to run their mouths over their 1+1=5 calculations, but there's really two major issues with it- one self serving and one not so much so.

1. This kind of thing makes all Believers just look stupid.  I don't know about you, but I do a darned fine job of making myself look stupid on a daily basis, so I don't need their help.
2. This kind of teaching is false prophecy, plain and simple.

It's the second reason that is really the most troubling and from two really interesting viewpoints.  The fact that anyone claiming Christ as their Savior would even entertain this kind of idiocy is very troubling, because the Bible is full of statements from Jesus and the Apostles saying that there will always be false prophets, and that we need to be aware of them.  The people who entertain this are plainly not cognizant of passages like Matthew 7:15-23 (and 24), or other passages in Acts, 2nd Peter and the Gospel of John.  The final false prophet, shown in Revalation is actually the Anti-Christ- but I don't think this latest idiot has that much juice- and besides, Satan knows Scripture and would never even attempt to get around it.

(And, yeah- I'm saying that this latest prophecy is probably not given by Satan.  It's a foolish man, apart from anything else that is doing this)

The other troubling aspect of false prophecy is that Deuteronomy 18:20 is pretty clear on what is supposed to happen to the false prophet.

I make no secret of the fact that as far as Rapture disposition goes, I'm more of a post-tribber than anything- and that's if the Rapture - as we have heard about it for the last 30 years or so -  is even real.  (I'm not saying it isn't, so please don't start a flame war over that.)  Whatever disposition you adhere to is fine- but, for me, I actually don't care if it's pre, post, during- all I want is to be with Jesus, and however it happens, happens.  I'm not going to worry about the actual semantics of it.  Personally, I think that all that Rapture theology does is divert people's attention from what is important to something that isn't, and that they don't really have control over anyway.  God's ultimate desire for all of us is redemption and reconciliation - end of line.  Nothing else matters.