On Sunday evening, out of sheer need to find SOMETHING worth watching on TV, I watched a couple of religious programs. Now, please understand before I begin that I typically would not refer to such programs as “worth watching”. But, in fairness, they do often beat other programing even though they are often pitiful and wildly inaccurate. And such was the case that evening, but I still watched a couple of programs. And you know that TV programming has to be really bad for someone to turn to any of these stations in search of something new to watch.

Anyway, before we get to the one mentioned in my title I will begin with “A Study in the Word” on JSM. I regularly watch the “Jim Bakker Show” and “Frances & Friends” just to keep up with the latest idiocy presented on each program and I generally consider the former to be just about as pitiful of a program as anyone could possibly find, with Jim more often than not moaning and groaning about his past issues or incessantly talking about his family. And this is only when he is not yelping about the upcoming presidential election. That said, this airing of “A Study in the Word” was pathetic beyond belief. I don’t know how it compared to other airings, but all they did was go through a hand-full of scripture, alternately reading that along with Swaggart’s notes from his Expositor’s Study Bible before they got off onto Swaggart’s early life; the panel members looking at him as if they were disciples looking at Jesus or something. It made me glad that I don’t tend to try to watch that particular program.

But Jimmy Swaggart said one thing of interest, and that is why I make note of that program here. In speaking about the last days and the Tribulation, naturally they talked a bit about “Matthew 24” and Swaggart said that he had heard that when the Romans came down upon Jerusalem in 70 CE, not a single believer was harmed because they had taken heed of the words of Jesus to flee when they saw the wrath coming and did so. In actuality, as I biblical scholar I can tell you where that came from. Eusebius and perhaps a couple of other early church fathers. Swaggart either does not know or has forgotten the source, apparently.

But worse than this, Swaggart obviously neglected to think before he spoke because that statement all by itself negates the theology of any Christian today who believes in end-times prophecy, including the theology of the Swaggarts. Why? Because, contrary to what they will tell you, Jesus could not have been telling Christians of his own day who would live some 40 years after his death to be ready and flee when they saw approaching armies and at the same time have been projecting this warning to people who live two thousand plus years later! It literally can’t be both! For the record, that simply means that “Matthew 24” cannot and does not apply to today because the warning was clearly for the people of his own day.

Anyway, on to the next program which was entitled, “Before the Wrath” (Ingenuity Films, 2020), narrated by Kevin Sorbo (yes, the guy who played Hercules). As it was about to air it was billed as “proof” of the rapture and of the “fact” that the rapture would take place prior to the Tribulation (before the wrath to come). It was at least implied that “new archaeological evidence” had been found to substantiate everything. Well, I thought, at least I might learn something new here.

Sadly, even from the beginning I could tell that my slight hope was not to be realized except with one or two minor historical details of no real consequence. See the reader may already know that I have studied religion and history extensively over a lifetime and have obtained multiple degrees from accredited institutions of higher education. Not to toot my own horn here as Jim Bakker is wont to do, but I have learned a few things, and some of this education came from Jewish Rabbis (real ones, not Messianic “Rabbis”). So, I really didn’t need to contact any of them to ask them if this or that thing was accurate because the things that I knew were accurate were not new, and the things that were presented as new really make no difference.

And, frankly, the film was a bit cheesy too. After all, it started out with a bearded old man writing what apparently passed as some sort of scripture. It seemed that he was made to look like the Apostle John writing Revelation. But any other such program would at least have shown him writing in Greek. Yet this guy was – I kid you not – writing in English. Well, so much for authenticity.

So, here is the general scheme of the program which, I will state, is not entirely without foundation, although they leave certain things out that would help with an understanding of the things they present, but which would go against their faith. The entire film is based on a Jewish wedding ritual, more specifically, a Galilean one. Thus, the first thing that is posited is that a Galilean wedding was not only different from weddings in other local cultures, but also different from the standard Jewish wedding. So, in this Galilean model, they posit that the bride and groom to be would go to the city gate area and go over the written contract drawn up by the bridegrooms father and that the potential wife had a choice either to accept or reject it based on whether she accepted a cup of wine (probably not grape juice, by the way) from the bridegroom. If she accepted it and drank from it, then a standard year was to pass as both prepared for the actual wedding – the bridegroom building a room onto his father’s house and the potential bride obtaining materials, etc. for her wedding dress and then waiting for the bridegroom to come get her, wearing the dress as she slept with her bridesmaids each night in case he showed up. Personally, I was only hoping that someone washed her dress every day after she slept in it each night. But I digress.

Two key points were made in addition to this. (1) Only the father knew when the bridegroom would be allowed to go get his bride and (2) the bridegroom would go at night to get her. In so many words, even though the standard period of time to elapse was to be a year, it would actually be whenever the father of the bridegroom said it would be and only he knew when that would be. So, even though the bridegroom might be ready well prior to a year, he still might have to wait for his father’s approval. In addition, it would be at night when most people would be asleep, including the bride and her entourage. So, when the time came the bridegroom would blow a Shofar and walk with people who gathered around him through the streets until arriving to the potential bride’s location at which time, having made a litter upon which to carry her, she would be lifted up and taken to the wedding feast (supposed to be symbolic of the Rapture). There, once those who had become “guests” because they were awake and already in the procession would be allowed to come in and take part in the feast. Anyone who came late would be locked out. And the latter were pictured as being wrathful because they had been locked out. So, all of this was supposed to be a picture of the rapture and the “wrath to come”, i.e., the Tribulation foretold by Jesus in “Matthew 24”.

For the most part, so far so good except for at least one crucial issue. NO new “proof” or evidence was presented to support any of this. Not a single thing. There is not a single allusion to anything that could be considered either evidence or proof in the entire program. For a program that purported to provide some sort of “new” evidence, this was quite disappointing to me. But, in reality, it also was not really a surprise because even if they had presented some sort of evidence it might not have been the “proof” that had been promised. You know, any biblical scholar, even me, waits and sometimes searches for some bombshell piece of evidence that will tie everything together or prove that some historical even really happened. And this is not the first time that I have heard someone claim “proof” where there was none.

Anyway, getting back to the actual program, the scenario that was laid out is in fact mostly plausible. I do think that it is a stretch to suggest that a Galilean wedding was somehow fundamentally different from any other local wedding custom. But that such weddings might have been essentially like what was presented in this program is possible. AND, yes, the description provided does go along with the types of things that Jesus said about weddings according to the canonical gospels. So, if one wishes to use such a wedding analogy as a description of future events, such as the rapture and the Tribulation, then that is not really bad theology. In fact, I would suggest that this is, more or less, exactly how Jesus would have intended for his wedding descriptions and parables to be interpreted. So, I fundamentally agree with the premise here even though there is no “proof” presented to back it up.

These things having been said, there still exist some fundamental problems with the things presented in this film. First, as already alluded to, I seriously doubt that they really have “found” the type and level of detail about Galilean weddings that they present here. It seems more likely that someone simply back-engineered the sayings of Jesus and created this scenario from them. Again, no evidence or proof is presented in the film. Surely if they wanted to really prove their point they would present at least something found to support it.

But let’s just say that they are right about all of it and things really did happen in the way presented, at least most of the time. One glaring problem is that in some cases the father might have already been deceased. So, who would be the arbiter then? Also, what if father and son didn’t get along? What if the son no longer resided with his parents?

But, for me, the biggest problem with this scenario is the concept that the couple were supposed to wait a year until getting married, but the father was the only one who could decide when it would take place. It’s not so much that the couple were left in limbo until the father made or expressed his decision. That’s bad enough and I don’t know how many people would have put up with that. But in equating a Galilean wedding with the rapture and the Tribulation anyone can see that the time-frame does not match up. How long were they to wait, a year? EVEN if one is to extrapolate a year being, oh, a thousand years, we are well off course by now. If you took and misinterpreted every prophetic scripture available you could not come up with a scenario that says two thousand plus years.

Another problem is what they, in my view, deliberately leave out. See, there are indeed allusions to weddings and wedding feasts in the canonical gospels which can reasonably be applied to the concepts of the rapture and maybe the Tribulation – maybe. But an even better, even if also scant, source for such a scenario is actually the Gospel of Thomas. This gospel speaks more about weddings and wedding feasts than any of the canonical ones and draws allusions to the spiritual nature of these things all on its own. I won’t detail any of it here because the reader can search for themselves. It’s easy. The point being, if one wanted to understand the spiritual connection of the wedding of Christ and his church, the Gospel of Thomas would be a great source to utilize. I suspect that the producers of this film neglected to do that.

These two things having been stated, it is also obvious, again, that if such weddings were used as an analogy for the rapture and the Tribulation, the two latter events have over time been put too far into the future. Everyone who cites “Matthew 24” always wants to begin with the first verse of that chapter in which the disciples are asking “when will these things be”. They practically never consider, “what things”? Those “things” were detailed in chapter 23, especially vs 37-39, which read (NASB), “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. ³⁸ Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! ³⁹ For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

The reader has to especially focus on that last sentence. Jesus is directly stating that those in Jerusalem would not see him again until the day in which they would say, “Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!” Now, according to the gospels, this happened when Jesus went to Jerusalem during what is termed the “triumphal entry” just prior to his crucifixion. So, all of the things that are detailed in Matthew 23 and 24 were to happen from the time he physically left Jerusalem until the time that he physically returned. Did Jesus not just say in 23 vs 34-36, “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, ³⁵ so that upon you will fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. ³⁶ Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation”? He wasn’t talking about a generation two thousand plus years later!

Please understand, the fact that Matthew has the triumphal entry as taking place prior to this event is simply a slight of hand of the writer. Matthew was not written until decades after the crucifixion of Jesus and by that time followers were already busy inventing scenarios to explain why he had not yet returned. If the writer had placed the triumphal entry properly after Matthew 24 at some point, then it would be clear to the reader that Jesus had meant the triumphal entry. But because of the arrangement of events this becomes lost to those who do not carefully read and consider the events in context.

But this still does not illustrate the proper time-frame without even further context. The proper context can be derived from exactly why and when Jesus would have been in Jerusalem to begin with. After all, most of his ministry was done outside of Jerusalem. According to the gospels, Jesus only went to Jerusalem during certain periods of time. Like most other Jewish people, that was once a year. So, it becomes obvious that in Matthew 23 Jesus is literally stating that those in Jerusalem would not see him for another year and at that time they would rejoice at his arrival. And in a carefully choreographed event, Jesus returned riding upon a donkey as if to fulfill messianic prophecy. After that he immediately went to the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and was soon crucified.

This is also when the “Lord’s Supper” took place. This literally was the wedding feast of the Lamb! This is not the way it was presented in the film, but it is when Jesus and his church, by way of his disciples, were married. But the end of the world was not supposed to take place at that time. They had expected that the Romans would see the commotion and come down on Jerusalem to destroy her at that time and this would be the end of the age, but this did not happen. The physical events did not take place, but one could argue that the spiritual ones did and that the Eucharist is the means by which believers ever after that event also take part in the marriage supper of the Lamb. Therefore, it is not some future eschatological event that is to happen after some rapture, but is an event repeated over and over again as long as history remains.

If the disciples, as Galileans, would have understood the analogies of weddings that Jesus presented and if they had in mind the specific scenario that has been presented in this film, then they also would have well understood that everything was supposed to take place within the time-frame of ONE YEAR. And, for them, that is exactly what happened. If you take the wedding analogies and tie them to Matthew 23 and 24, then you HAVE to come to this conclusion. And that, even though Matthew 24 mentions things that would not even take place for decades afterward because the Romans did not come down upon Jerusalem at that time as expected. But not a single word of it has anything to do with today except for the things that can be taken spiritually.

End-times prophecy is completely false, period.