This is the sixth 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 (too late, however). In the second episode, I featured two Catholic priests who were left behind, clueless. 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. In the fifth, we went to the other side of the world to Jakarta, Indonesia to see how a Muslim man handles being left behind. Today we stay in Asia as we see how a strict, devout Buddhist man handles his wife’s disappearance.
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 1 AM in Taiwan. 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. I chose Taiwan because my pastor and his wife, good friends of mine, spent over 20 years working as missionaries there and their stories of God’s work were amazing. So, years later, here’s a scenario of what could happen after the rapture in Taiwan.
Left Behind at the Rapture: The Buddhist
Taipei, Taiwan, minutes before the Rapture — sometime in the near future — post COVID — things are back to normal.
Mei Wei Chang walked cautiously around the corner to the back door of her house. It was close to midnight and she hoped her husband was asleep so he wouldn’t hear her coming in at this hour. She managed to quietly leave the house after he fell asleep at 9:30 pm, to attend a Christian Bible study at a friend’s house. See, Mei Wei’s husband, Song Shi, was a devout Buddhist. Buddhism is one of the main religions in Taiwan with over 8 million practicing Buddhists. Christianity is still the minority religion, but it is growing. It grows by word-of-mouth.
Mei Wei, heard about it from her friend Li Ling, who heard about it from her sister, and so on. Tonight, was Mei Wei’s third Bible Study and she had given her heart to Jesus and was looking forward to being baptized on Sunday, in church. She felt a peace and a joy that she never experienced before. Definitely never in a Buddhist temple ritual. All that idolatry disgusted her now. She prayed for strength to be able to tell her husband and father-in-law and that they would also find the light of Jesus Christ.
She managed to enter the house and walk to the bedroom without disturbing the men. Mei Wei was just 25 years old. She married Song Shi, 35, last year and she moved into his home with his father, Chao Chen, whose wife had passed away the year before. Chao Chen had arranged the marriage mostly so he could have someone to cook and keep house.
When she went to the bathroom to wash up, she heard her husband get out of bed.
“Mei Wei?” her husband called.
“Yes,” she locked the bathroom door so he couldn’t get in. She quickly got into her night gown and came out. “I’m sorry for waking you.”
“You’ve been out,” he stated sternly.
Mei Wei knew she could not lie to him. The Holy Spirit in her heart was holding her back. She looked at him straight in the eye and said, “Yes, I’ve been to a Christian Bible study. I became a Christian today and I’ll be baptized on Sunday. I feel joyful and peaceful at the same time. It’s a feeling I never got going to the temple.”
Song Shi’s temper flared. “How dare you defy my orders! I told you to never go back there! How can I face my father now? The fact that my wife doesn’t obey me!”
“I had to go! My soul was yearning for the truth, for peace. Nothing I ever did at the Buddhist temple ever brought me the joy that I feel by just surrendering my life to Jesus.”
That did it. A wife surrendered her life to her husband. What she did was so disrespectful to him. Song Shi raised his hand to slap Mei Wei. Suddenly, she vanished before his eyes! He ended up slapping the air.
Her body seemed to take on a bright, white glow, then lift up and disappeared. Her nightgown fell to the floor along with a cross necklace she wore underneath so he wouldn’t see it.
He yelled, “Mei Wei! Where are you? Where did you go?”
At the same time, outside he heard a crash. He looked out the window and saw that a bus had crashed into the side of a building across the street. He ran outside towards the bus. He immediately noticed that there was no driver, only a uniform on the seat where the driver should be. Being so late, there were only 3 passengers and they were not injured, but were astonished as to where the driver may have gone.
By that time, his father had woken up and come outside. “What’s happening?”
“Mei Wei is gone. So is the driver of this bus. I have no idea what’s going on.”
One of the passengers on the bus found a cross necklace on the driver’s clothing. “He was a Christian.”
When Song Shi heard that, he was shocked. Could both disappearances be related? He didn’t know what to think. He decided to walk over to Li Ling’s house to investigate. He knocked, but no answer. He knocked again. A teenager, who had obviously been crying walked up to the door.
“Is Li Ling home?” Song Shi asked.
“My parents are gone.”
“When will they be back?”
“No, they are gone, gone — vanished. It’s the Rapture of the Christians. They tried to warn me that it could happen at any time. That we were living in the last days — I mean, with the pandemic and rumors of wars and all the storms and earthquakes we’ve had. But, I didn’t listen. Now, I know the truth. It’s all in the Bible.”
“I’m finding this difficult to believe,” Song Shi said.
“Look, come on in. I’ve been researching this online. My parents left me a letter in the event that they would disappear. It had this website with a video. My name is Andrew. Yes, it’s a Christian name. I was named after an apostle of Jesus.”
“I’m Song Shi. Show me, please.”
They both spent the rest of the night researching. When the early morning news came on, they learned that the vanishings were all over the world. Videos from places where it was daytime caught people suddenly glowing white then rising to vanish into the sky. Needless to say, there was chaos everywhere. We’ll talk about that in later episodes.
Will You Be Left Behind?
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…
Invite Jesus into Your Heart and Receive the Gift of Grace, Joy, Peace, and the Confident Hope of Eternal Life…
God So Loved the World
Soli Deo Gloria! To God Alone Be the Glory!
The grass withers and the flowers fade,
Isaiah 40:8 NLt
but the word of our God stands forever.
