# RAPTURE PRANK! You *must* see this.



## BlackCalvinist (Jul 4, 2007)

YouTube - Faking the rapture, www.prank316.com


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## Blueridge Believer (Jul 4, 2007)




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## Herald (Jul 4, 2007)

I'm probably the only one who is going to throw cold water on this joke. I think it was horrible. It just plays on the fears associated with those who are deceived by dispensationalism. That poor girl was in tears and terrified. I didn't find it funny at all.


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## ReformedWretch (Jul 4, 2007)

Yea, I must admit that I felt bad for her.


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## AV1611 (Jul 4, 2007)

I could not make it all the way through. I was not impressed at all.

"Do unto others..."


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## ReformedWretch (Jul 4, 2007)

> (But this isn't a jab toward you, Kerry, as I know you didn't mean it in a bad way).



I agree!


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## Greg (Jul 4, 2007)

joshua said:


> As much of a jokester I am, I agree with Bill on this (But this isn't a jab toward you, Kerry, as I know you didn't mean it in a bad way).
> 
> Here's a professing Christian who's been taught the things many of us were taught growing up, and her hope has been dashed to pieces when she walks in the room...she falls to her knees thinking, "But I _thought_ I was a Christian?" And you could tell she thought it because she was incredulous that she'd not been taken! That was a pretty cruel joke...and then the "spiritual" introducer set it up as if it were teaching her a lesson in order to justify it. Talk about disillusionment and her friends being a stumbling block. Sheesh.
> 
> ...





Dispensationalism...


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## blhowes (Jul 4, 2007)

If only she didn't start crying! Pretty funny up until that point.


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## bookslover (Jul 4, 2007)

I guess most people are agreed that it was a bad-taste/cruel sort of joke. But, we still have to deal with 1 Thessalonians 4:17, which is, after all, part of the Word of God, despite the jokes we make about it (and despite how it's been "ruined" by dispensationalism): _Then we who are alive, who are left, *will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air*, and so we will always be with the Lord._

How can the Reformed view of the Rapture be summarized?


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## CatechumenPatrick (Jul 4, 2007)

bookslover said:


> I guess most people are agreed that it was a bad-taste/cruel sort of joke. But, we still have to deal with 1 Thessalonians 4:17, which is, after all, part of the Word of God, despite the jokes we make about it (and despite how it's been "ruined" by dispensationalism): _Then we who are alive, who are left, *will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air*, and so we will always be with the Lord._
> 
> How can the Reformed view of the Rapture be summarized?



Good question Richard. Eschatology is a subject I am not too familiar with but need to be. Other than being opposed to dispensationalism, I am not altogether sure what, exactly, a Reformed eschatology would look like, and how passages like 1 Thes. 4:17 should be understood.


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## Greg (Jul 4, 2007)

bookslover said:


> I guess most people are agreed that it was a bad-taste/cruel sort of joke. But, we still have to deal with 1 Thessalonians 4:17, which is, after all, part of the Word of God, despite the jokes we make about it (and despite how it's been "ruined" by dispensationalism): _Then we who are alive, who are left, *will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air*, and so we will always be with the Lord._
> 
> How can the Reformed view of the Rapture be summarized?



A Brief Sketch of Amillennial Eschatology

Hoekema addresses that halfway through this article under " As regards future eschatology, amillennialism affirms the following:" (see #5).


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## BlackCalvinist (Jul 4, 2007)

bookslover said:


> I guess most people are agreed that it was a bad-taste/cruel sort of joke. But, we still have to deal with 1 Thessalonians 4:17, which is, after all, part of the Word of God, despite the jokes we make about it (and despite how it's been "ruined" by dispensationalism): _Then we who are alive, who are left, *will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air*, and so we will always be with the Lord._
> 
> How can the Reformed view of the Rapture be summarized?



all orthodox eschatological positions have a 'rapture' (saints caught up in the air to meet Christ). It's just simultaneous with the return of Christ.


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## etexas (Jul 4, 2007)

joshua said:


> As much of a jokester I am, I agree with Bill on this (But this isn't a jab toward you, Kerry, as I know you didn't mean it in a bad way).
> 
> Here's a professing Christian who's been taught the things many of us were taught growing up, and her hope has been dashed to pieces when she walks in the room...she falls to her knees thinking, "But I _thought_ I was a Christian?" And you could tell she thought it because she was incredulous that she'd not been taken! That was a pretty cruel joke...and then the "spiritual" introducer set it up as if it were teaching her a lesson in order to justify it. Talk about disillusionment and her friends being a stumbling block. Sheesh.
> 
> ...


Agreed! As a master prankster, and having been guilty of some mean stuff in Boarding School and College..........even I thought this in rather bad taste.


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## Herald (Jul 4, 2007)

I follow Jesus said:


> Agreed! As a master prankster, and having been guilty of some mean stuff in Boarding School and College.........



Max - yes, I must come clean and admitt that I was a prankster in college. I was a master at putting Saran Wrap on commode seats. I am still repenting of those days.


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## Greg (Jul 4, 2007)

BaptistInCrisis said:


> Max - yes, I must come clean and admitt that I was a prankster in college. I was a master at putting Saran Wrap on commode seats. I am still repenting of those days.



Dude, you're bad!! Kinda like putting the hand of someone whose sleeping in a warm container of water or filling their hand with shaving cream and...uh, never mind. These are just things I've heard that _other_ people have done...not that I would know anything about such foolishness...really...


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## panta dokimazete (Jul 4, 2007)

Did ya'll think she was REALLY surprised? I thought she was acting - I think the whole deal is an act, through and through.


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## panta dokimazete (Jul 4, 2007)

joshua said:


> She very well _could've_ been. In fact, I hope she was...otherwise it was very cruel.



Yeah - if it is true - the mere fact of PURPOSEFULLY making someone doubt their salvation???

Not. Funny.

Sin.


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## Tirian (Jul 4, 2007)

Well, the poor girl seemed truly distressed. I remember the trauma I felt after having been exposed to "A thief in the night" as an 8 year old - seeing this girls reaction brought back some of those memories, though obviously they have no hold on me now.

Seems like this Left Behind videos have a legacy in the same way as A thief in the night did in the 70's/80's


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## bookslover (Jul 4, 2007)

BlackCalvinist said:


> all orthodox eschatological positions have a 'rapture' (saints caught up in the air to meet Christ). It's just simultaneous with the return of Christ.



I always figured that, with my luck, I'd be in the shower when it happens.


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## Kevin Lewis (Jul 5, 2007)

*Same*



BaptistInCrisis said:


> I'm probably the only one who is going to throw cold water on this joke. I think it was horrible. It just plays on the fears associated with those who are deceived by dispensationalism. That poor girl was in tears and terrified. I didn't find it funny at all.



I feel the same. This was cruel.


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## shackleton (Jul 5, 2007)

It just proves what I always thought..."Left Behind" is referring to their clothes.


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## Blue Tick (Jul 5, 2007)

Looks like a fake. 

I don't think it was cruel. It was a joke that wasn't even funny.


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## CatechumenPatrick (Jul 6, 2007)

shackleton said:


> It just proves what I always thought..."Left Behind" is referring to their clothes.


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## Dagmire (Jul 6, 2007)

The guy who introduced it made me want to vomit.


"What do you do to someone [who has been taught bad theology]? You play a joke on them!"


So much for teaching others the Lord's ways.


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## bradofshaw (Jul 6, 2007)

I've never really thought of this before, but is there any scriptural reason why Dispensationalists or anyone else assume that folks will be raptured in the nude...? 

As for a Reformed view of the rapture, I Thessalonians 4 is quite explicit about those events. My dad used to preach a sermon on this passage entitled "The Noisiest Verse in the Bible" in order to contrast it with the notion of a secret rapture.

I Thessalonians 4:15-18


> 4:15
> For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep.
> 
> 4:16
> ...


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## historyb (Jul 6, 2007)

I guess I'm the odd man out. I thought it was funny


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## RamistThomist (Jul 6, 2007)

it was probably the sinful flesh in me, but I did laugh.


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## Kristine with a K (Jul 6, 2007)

I think she was acting. Or at least suspected she was on America's Funniest, or something. That's just my gut-feeling, though.


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## Dagmire (Jul 6, 2007)

I don't think it seemed very genuine, either.


And the whole concept of that show, or whatever it is, makes me quite angry.


*For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should be pranked by Him will not die, but have everlasting life.

Prank 3:16*


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## turmeric (Jul 6, 2007)

> 4:18
> Wherefore *comfort* one another with these words.



How come those words have been used in the last century to do anything but comfort?


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