For 2,000 years, Christian preachers have been saying Jesus is coming to Earth soon. As the 1976 gospel song by Andre Crouch goes:
Soon and very soon
We are going to see the King
Soon and very soon
We are going to see the King
Soon and very soon
We are going to see the King
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
We’re going to see the king
Soon and very soon? Every generation of believers believed that Jesus would return to Earth while they were still alive. And every generation of believers died without seeing Jesus face-to-face. In the 1970s and 1980s, in particular, Evangelicals were certain that Jesus was going to rapture them away, safe from the wrath and judgment God planned to pour on the Earth, as recorded in the book of Revelation. Alas, most preachers who prophesied that the rapture was nigh died, proving themselves to be false prophets. Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe, Harold Camping, Herbert W. Armstrong, Edgar Whisenant, Jerry Falwell, and Ed Dobson — all pushing up daisies in the cemetery — predicted Jesus’s return in their lifetime.
These days, Evangelicals have largely given up on making predictions about the second coming of Jesus. Tired of waiting for Jesus to show up again, Evangelicals have taken to building a kingdom on earth through raw political power. They do not need Jesus; Trump is their Lord.
Earlier today, Defiance County, Ohio residents experienced an earth-shaking event that I hope will change their minds about the rapture. I spent fifty years of my life hearing Evangelical preachers preach passionate sermons about the imminent return of Jesus. Countless sermons were preached from Matthew 24:
And as he [Jesus] sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?
….
And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.
….
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Astute readers of the Bible will notice that I have skipped a number of Bible verses. I did this because that is exactly what many, if not most Evangelical preachers do. Their goal is to make a point or advance an agenda instead of properly exegeting the Word of God. If that was their plan, they would preach this passage of Scripture in context, and in doing so, teach their congregations that Matthew 24 has nothing to do with the rapture.
At 6:48 AM, Defiance County, Ohio, specifically the community of Hicksville (a few miles from our home), felt a magnitude 2.9 earthquake. This is the first recorded earthquake in Defiance County history. No fault lines lie nearby, so experts wonder what caused the earthquake. I suspect some local Evangelical preachers won’t wonder about what happened. Nope, these prophets of the Almighty will turn to Matthew 24, rip out the verses necessary to prove their point, and say that this earthquake is an irrefutable sign of the second coming of Jesus. Yes, siree bob, Jesus is coming soon! What other explanation could there be, right?
In time, scientists will posit likely explanations for the Defiance Earthquake®. And sure as Jesus is still lying in an unmarked Judean grave, these very same preachers will conveniently forget their earthquake predictions and move on to other newspaper auguries, sure, that this time, they will be right.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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