This is the fifth in a series of possible, fictional scenarios of what it would be like after the Rapture of the born-again Christians. What will happen in the Rapture is all the true, saved, Christian believers will vanish as Jesus calls them up to heaven. In the first post, I showed how the Progressive Christians may react. I think they’ll get it. In the second episode, I featured two Catholic priests who were left behind. In the third, I told how a couple of secular “coexist” believers — one Jew, one Christian — handled the disappearance of believing family members. In the fourth, an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi discovered the truth that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Today we go to the other side of the world to Jakarta, Indonesia to see how a Muslim man handles being left behind.
We don’t know when the Rapture will happen. When it does, it will happen at the same moment everywhere around the world. So, if it happened at 10 AM in Phoenix, AZ, it will be midnight in Indonesia. The idea behind this, is to get you to understand that you have to be ready. It could happen at any moment and you really don’t want to be left behind.
Again, this is FICTION. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is pure coincidence.
Left Behind at the Rapture: The Muslim
Jakarta, Indonesia, 6 AM, the day after the Rapture — sometime in the near future — post COVID — things are back to normal.
Latif woke up with minutes to spare before the pre-dawn prayer. He and his wife Abisha and their 8-year-old, daughter, Jada, lived near the Istiqlal Mosque, the sixth largest mosque in the world. He went through the ritual washing of his hands, feet, arms and legs and dressed anticipating the call to prayer from the mosque’s minaret at any moment.
“Abisha, are you ready?” he called to his wife.
No response. He noticed the house was rather quiet and he didn’t smell breakfast cooking. Abisha was always up early making breakfast before prayer. The smells usually woke him up. Which is why this morning, he’d overslept and almost missed prayer.
He looked over to his wife’s side of the bed. There he saw her nightgown still tucked under the covers. That was odd, he thought. “Abisha!” he yelled for her again. Walking around the bed he saw that her slippers were next to the bed right where she leaves them every night. Now, he was getting worried. He thought about his daughter, Jada, and ran to her room.
She wasn’t there. Her nightgown was also tucked under the covers and her slippers next to her bed. It was as if their bodies had de-materialized leaving their clothes behind. He picked up her nightgown. There were no chemical smells, nothing out of the ordinary except that his daughter wasn’t in it.
The call to prayer sounded. Latif didn’t know what to do. He wanted to stay and look for his wife and daughter. Maybe someone was playing a trick or a practical joke on him. It wasn’t funny. However, his obligation to his religion took precedence and he ran to the mosque.
After the prayer, Latif ran home. He went to his neighbors’ houses asking if they had seen Abisha and Jada or had heard anything last night, but no one had. One neighbor, however, said that he saw in the news that there were disappearances in other parts of the city and around the world. Maybe Abisha and Jada’s were related.
Latif went home and turned on the news. At the same time, he grabbed his laptop computer and started searching online. He didn’t like what came up. The only articles, pages and videos he found all said that what happened was the Rapture of the Christian Church. In places where it occurred in the daytime, there were videos of people suddenly turning bright white, their clothes falling off and their bodies being lifted in the air, sometimes through a ceiling and vanishing into the sky.
No! Latif thought. Abisha was a devout Muslim! Then he read how children under 12 years of age also vanished. That they were innocents. Well, that could explain Jada’s disappearance, but not Abisha. His wife?! No!
Latif rummaged through her things. Hidden under her bed he found a Bible. Tucked in it was a folded piece of paper. It was a letter written to him from his wife…
My Dear Latif,
If you find this, it means that I am gone to be with Jesus the Messiah in Heaven. Jada’s probably gone there, too. You’re probably wondering how I became a Christian. Two months ago, Jesus came to me in a dream. I had been having doubts that Allah was the one true God. I was talking to a Christian lady, Diane, that I met at the market and she told me that Jesus was the Son of God and the Messiah. Also, that true salvation is through Jesus Christ alone. She gave me the Bible you are holding.
Jesus, Himself, confirmed it in the dream. It was beautiful. I was by a stream of clear, blue water. All of a sudden, there was a bright light and a glowing figure dressed in white was in front of me. He said my name, “Abisha, I am Jesus, the Messiah…
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
John 14:6 NLT
I wanted to respond. I wanted to say that that was not what I’ve been taught all my life, but he raised His hand to stop me. He then said…
“Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. 14 But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”
John 4:13-14 NLT
At that moment, I believed Him! I felt and incredible peace and joy inside me.
Latif, the Muslim religion has it all wrong! Please, read this Bible. Start with the Gospel of John. Then, stop going to the mosque and find any new Christians. They will be the Tribulation Saints. They were left behind like you, but they understand what happened and will have turned to Jesus. That’s what I hope you will do.
When you do, you’ll have the assurance that you’ll go to heaven when you die or Jesus comes again, whichever comes first. I will be waiting for you here with Jada.
With all my love,
Abisha
Latif fell on his knees sobbing. “How is this possible?!” Then he heard the noon call to prayer. He froze. “Could what Abisha wrote in this letter be true? Abisha! How I loved her! Her name even means “gift from God”. Maybe this is the gift she’s left me? Do I pray to Allah or Jesus?”
He didn’t know what to pray. Somehow, he knew he didn’t want to go to the mosque ever again. He searched on the Internet and found the video testimony of Nabeel Qureshi who wrote, “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus“. He watched it and believed.
Nabeel Qureshi’s Testimony
Jesus is the Only Way
No matter if you were born into a Catholic, Jewish, or Muslim family, Jesus is the only way to be assured eternal life in Heaven. Even if your family never observed any type of religion, remember this… Jesus didn’t suffer and die on the cross so that we could have religion! He defeated sin and death so that we could could live forever with Him in paradise! He wants to have a personal relationship with YOU! Yes, YOU!
If you’re not sure if you’re saved or not, if you truly want to be born again and have the assurance of salvation, receive the Holy Spirit, feel His Shalom — a peace that surpasses all understanding, and get a 1-way, non-stop ticket to Heaven after you die, or that you won’t be left behind at the Rapture, which can happen at any moment, this is what you have to do…