Left Behind

I'm a little shaky on eschatology, myself and I'd like to see what people think about these things, myself.

 

Believe it or not, some Baptists don't go for the pretrib view in the first place.

No. But I feel a little sad every time another sequel gets published.

 

I have better questions.

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1. Why can the main protagonists survive through ten books, even after falling from an airborne Gulfstream jet (for example), while minor characters can't seem to last through a single volume, and why hasn't anyone murdered LaHaye and Jenkins in their sleep for this travesty?</font>
2. Since LaHaye and Jenkins started padding out the series with filler as early as the second volume, Tribulation Force, in which nothing happens, why were they not immediately captured, drawn, and quartered?</font>
3. For what reason does Nicolae "They won't say I'm the Antichrist but anyone out of kindergarten has figured it out already" Carpathia move the UN to Babylon, and when are the authors going to be smeared with jam and tied to an anthill for this ridiculous plot hole?</font>
4. If these books are thrillers, how come the authors keep spoiling the thrills by telling us what will happen later, and when may I personally dispatch the authors with an icepick through the eyes?</font>

 

Just for fun: Having read the series through Assassins, I started compiling a list of the clichés that LaHaye and Jenkins have so far exploited.

The Hero Battle Death Exemption
This is a well-known action-hero convention in which heroes are far more durable than villains - it takes about ten times as much force to dispatch the hero as it does one of the evil characters. In Apollyon, one minor character is killed by a single bullet; in the same battle, Buck, one of the major protagonists, jumps from a Gulfstream jet travelling down the runway at takeoff speed and survives with a few scratches.

The Expendable Minor Character
Unless your name is Buck, Chloe, or Rayford, you should never join the Tribulation Force for the same reason that you should never beam down in a red shirt. You're toast. Apart from the three principal characters, who are indestructible, every character who joins the Trib Force dies within two novels of being introduced. (And yes, I've scanned the excerpt from The Remnant at leftbehind.com - Ray, Buck, and Chloe are all still going concerns, unlike most of their friends.)

The Patented LaHaye Suspense-Killing Convention.
This one is definitely peculiar to LaHaye. I mentioned previously how completely unthrilling these "thrillers" are, and the main reason for this is the PLSKC, which says essentially the following: At no time may the reader be surprised or kept in suspense; the plot must be rendered as predictable as possible. The PLSKC takes one of two forms:

The Gratuitous Suspense-Killing Plot Device. For example, at a time when "tribulation saints" are starting to be persecuted, leading to great suspense potential as our heroes might get infiltrated or caught somewhere that none of their friends can help them, LaHaye invokes the GSKPD and invents an invisible mark on the forehead that only other Christians can see. Now if you get in trouble, you only have to look for someone else with a cross on their forehead and get help. Suspense conveniently averted.

The Gratuitous Suspense-Killing Biblical Exposition. Suppose during the middle of The Empire Strikes Back, they had cut to a scene in George Lucas' office in which Lucas announced: "You'll really like the climax of this movie, because Luke and Darth Vader square off, Luke loses his hand and discovers that Vader is his father." The books are full of constant reminders of what LaHaye believes the Tribulation has in store, and so thanks to the GSKBE we're informed in advance that the 200,000,000 horsemen will ride, Little Nicky the Antichrist will get assassinated (he even tells us how that is accomplished, effectively killing the "whodunit" ending of Assassins) and will rise from the dead. Etc. etc. etc. Can't have the readers surprised now, can we? All this is accomplished either in offhand narrative comments or through the ponderous emails of Bible "expert" Tsion Ben-Judah who I really wish would die horribly.

 

I don't remember what movie it's from but one of my favorite lines is:

"Hey, man, I'm not going in there! Don't you watch those movies? Don't you know the black guy always dies first?"

After that, it's the two kids who go into the woods to make out.

 

Some of us are still trying to figure out where the Bible teaches that there's a "rapture" *before* the Second Coming when the Lord will destroy evil and everything will be made new.

Those who are "left behind" in Matthew 24 are the saved, not the lost. I *want* to be left behind!

[ December 09, 2002, 06:35 PM: Message edited by: Baptist Believer ]

 

The only problem I have with the series is that it's taking many more volumes than I think it should already...and that the books are only released twice a year.

Which means that it takes me a week (approx.) to read one novel...and about six months of waiting for the next one.

Did I cry when Zekes father died? I cry when any of the characters dies... I think I cried the most when those woman were beaten on their way to the guiotine...all the while sharing their faith with other woman in the line, ...and the mark of God appearing on their foreheads... I liked that part. Very dramatic. I would hope that if I were faced with a trial as difficult as martyrdom... I would have that kind of faith.

As for me... I believe in the rapture of the church before the tribulation. I believe that anyone who will be left behind will have to stay regardless of their subsequent decisions until the Lord returns or die. I believe that they will go to Heaven. But what I believe doesn't matter does it? What will be will be.

 

Have those of you who do not like the Left
Behind series seen the book, Right Behind,
by Sock and (I cannot remember the other
author)? Interesting!

 

Yes! It was a lot of fun. I've already loaned it out.

[ December 09, 2002, 10:17 PM: Message edited by: Baptist Believer ]

 

I didn't realize that there were Baptists that didn't believe in the rapture.</font>[/QUOTE]I believe in a rapture that is taught in the Bible... the one that will happen as the Lord returns to fulfill His Kingdom. I do not believe in a "secret" rapture like Tim LaHaye and others teach.

I was taught that too. But when I was in college I started over with my religious knowledge because I realized that I had been taught a bunch of things that were not necessarily true. I read the Bible several times and the New Testament more times than I can count and I couldn't find a secret rapture in it. I checked some references in the back of my Ryrie Study Bible and read the passages that allegedly teach a secret rapture, but I found that the Bible doesn't support that view without ripping verse out of context and using an extra-biblical endtimes view as the authoritative guide to scripture.

I believe I do. The simple way to find out if I am right is to figure out where you think the Bible teaches a secret rapture... If you find sometime, post it and we can all figure out what the Bible is saying.

 

No secret rapture. No two-phased coming. Not one of God's elect children will be "left behind". No two judgments, just one, when both the wicked and the righteous will be resurrected, the righteous to everlasting glory, the wicked to everlasting damnation.

The left behind series is, to borrow the title of another thread elsewhere in this board - "good old science fiction."

 

twpaige said:

I would like a serious answer about the whole salvation thing after the rapture though.

And here is where the whole Left Behind thing gets mired in First Principles.

As has already been said, read correctly, those verses that say some will be "taken" and others "left" (Matt. 24:40-41; Luke 17:34-36) are interpreted backward by the LaHaye crowd. Those "left behind" are not the unsaved at the Rapture. It is those who are "taken" that are judged.

Jesus compares the Second Coming to Noah's flood, saying: "they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be" (Matt. 24:39). And when the disciples ask them where they will be taken, Jesus replies: "Where the body is, there also the vultures will be gathered" (Luke 17:37).

'tain't a "Rapture." Other proof-texts for a "Rapture" whisking everyone away before the Tribulation wilt under close scrutiny too.