Dear Doves,

I have watched the first two episodes of this new series which portrays millions of people disappearing in The Rapture.

It’s on HBO and has ‘adult’ content, so…for those who might be offended, perhaps they shouldn’t watch this show or even read peoples’ comments on it. Having said that….

I find several aspects of this show quite intriguing. The pilot episode picks up 3 YEARS AFTER 140 million people worldwide have simultaneously vanished into thin air, or were raptured. Three years later people are still trying to pick up the pieces of their interrupted and traumatized lives. A couple of cults have appeared on the scene: The Guilty Remnant (people clothed only in white who have taken a vow of silence) and some cult leader who sells his healing ‘hugs’ for lots of money. The young generation (teenagers) appear to have no morals whatsoever. They go to parties where a modern take-off on the old spin-the-bottle kissing game is turned into a spinning “app” game where the person spins this electronic app and whoever it ends up pointing to has to do the message on the app with them: burn, choke, have sex, etc. Teens go into rooms where they do whatever the electronic ‘app’ said to do. Weird….but believable in a world with no morals.

Anyway…the premise of this story is that things are going to turn real bad real fast….AFTER 3 years have elapsed. It kind of makes me think that this series is somehow pointing to a 7 year pre-trib rapture. Now, before I go on…..

I in no way wish to debate my fellow Christians on pre-trib or mid-trib, or whatever. I know this is some sort of “hot topic” that gets some Christians all riled up and wanting to argue with one another, thereby going against Jesus’s commandment to love one another. Time is too short to start these fights with our fellow believers in Christ. No one knows everything and we will find the truth of all things when our Lord Jesus returns shortly….but for now, back to the storyline of this series…

Since the story picks up 3 years later and real tough times are just about to ensue….perhaps there is a 6 month window where this is just about to happen. That would make these people at this juncture facing the 3.5 years of Great Tribulation. Meaning that, the last 3-3.5 years was the Tribulation (where the rapture occurred first)…now they are on the cusp of the Great Trib and all hell is about to break loose.

This is what I find interesting about this show, amongst other things. There is no statement that martial law is in effect; however, one of the cults (the guy with the healing hugs and his followers) is attacked by the government who just raid their home and kill whomever they want….no due process, no trials, nothing. They’re just gone because the government wants it that way. TPTB in this scenario answer to no one.

Then, there’s something strange with the animals. It’s shown that the dogs are no longer domesticated…they form packs and hunt down other animals, like deer, and kill them. A couple of men hunt down the dogs to kill them.

Then you have the leftovers who are trying to denigrate and insult the memory of the people who have been raptured. One guy says his brother in law was an ‘expletive deleted’ and he was taken. Some preacher guy, who is highly irritated that he himself wasn’t raptured, badmouths the people who were, stating that one woman who beat her children was taken…therefore those ‘raptured’ people were no good. Another character says “these people were no better than us!”….but what is the truth and are they stating these things out of jealousy? I can only deduce that the people who were left behind don’t appear all that holy….to put it mildly. The police chief has no problem lying and it’s alluded to that he had an extramarital affair with his teenage daughter’s best friend. His daughter is morally bankrupt, his son works for the creepy healing hugs cult leader and his wife left all of them to go and join the Guilty Remnant.

There is a scene where a government worker is interviewing a poor elderly couple who are applying for monetary benefits. Apparently, the government is giving benefits to people who have lost immediate family members to the rapture. The bureaucrat has to ask this elderly couple (whose son had Down Syndrome and was raptured) 150 invasive questions about him. Some of those questions have to do with how many sexual partners did he have, etc. They find it almost unbearable to answer such questions, but have to endure the interview if they want the benefits. This leads me to believe that the government is trying to find out what ‘type’ of people were raptured….how ‘righteous’ were they….what faults did they have? What sort of people were taken??

I have a feeling things are going to go downhill rapidly soon for those left behind….perhaps earthquakes, pestilence, famine…who knows. I guess viewers will see what the Great Trib looks like, or at least the show writers’ idea of it.

That’s all I’ve got so far…I thought it was pretty interesting.

YsiChrist,

Patty RP