Trouble In the Middle East -- Time to Check the Rapture Index

With the Israeli-Palestinian conflict heating up, I thought it a good time to check the Rapture Index, something I do periodically to keep tabs on the current state of biblical prophecy punditry. The current Rapture Index level is 188, high enough to “fasten our seat belts.” The Rapture Index low in 2020 was 176—a significant decline from previous highs despite the Covid-19 pandemic. The lower number—if I had to guess—was due to the proprietors’ support of former president Trump.

As long as Trump was president, the Rapture didn’t seem quit as imminent. But Biden is now president, and the situation between the Israelis and the Palestinians is very tense, the index has returned to 188, just short of the all-time high of 189 (in October of 2016).

A couple of thoughts . . .

I was raised a dispensationalist, so I understand (and am even sympathetic) to those who long for the return of Jesus (the Blessed Hope—Titus 2:13). But an index such as this has been pegged at the “Jesus is coming back any day now” level for so long, that anyone still following the index will eventually become numb to the authors’ years’ long pleading, or join the ranks of those scoffers foretold by Peter, who ask “where is the promise of his coming?” “After all, things keep going on as they always have been from the beginning” (2 Peter3:3-4). The Rapture Index is the theological equivalent of the “boy who cried wolf.” At what point do people quit listening? After years of “any minute now” predictions, maybe folks don’t feel the need to keep their Rapture seat belts on.

The proprietors set themselves up for this burn-out and skepticism when they first determined to base their index upon specific end-times events, which they believe foretell of the Rapture and seven-year tribulation period. Yes, Jesus warns of wars and rumors of wars, famine, natural disasters, along with the rise of false teachers and various heresies (Matthew 24:3-14). But Jesus never predicts specific wars (such as the on-going Israeli-Palestinian conflict), specific famines and earthquakes, or specific heretics—other than warn his disciples that false teachers will attempt to lead his followers astray. The forty-five current events which the folks at the Rapture Index monitor, reflect the proprietors’ dispensational end-times assumptions far more than they reflect the signs of the end as actually given in the New Testament (see my series "The Future -- What Remains to be Fulfilled in Biblical Prophecy?")

Jesus speaks of these signs as birth-pains of the end, which does seem to indicate an increasing intensity in the days before his return. But the way Jesus speaks of the signs of the end defy all attempts to quantify them by index. We’ll just have to trust Jesus when he speaks of the certainty of his return, while at the same time declaring that no one knows the day or the hour (Matthew 24:36), even as he exhorts us to watch for his return.

The danger here is that as folks stay attuned to over-hyped preoccupation with specific signs of which Jesus himself does not speak, the more likely they are to grow numb to Jesus’ words to watch, even as they set themselves up for repeated disappointment based upon failed predictions and partisan political commentary which undermines the very promises the folks at the Rapture Index claim to champion.