Jimmy Swaggart’s New Rapture Rules

[PrisonerOfHope]

Jimmy Swaggart’s New Rapture Rules
December 18, 2012 by Mishel 23 Comments

Good news for those of you who are not living right! According to Jimmy Swaggart, you will be taken in the rapture as well and won’t miss out on eternal life! Unfortunately for you, it is a lie. His stance on the rapture is blatantly anti-biblical and downright apostate. However, this is a very expedient doctrine for a ministry that is more concerned about looking righteous than being righteous.

According to Swaggart’s stance, once you have accepted Christ it matters not if you are in an adulterous relationship, engaging in fornication or living a lascivious lifestyle. Nor does it matter if you are a drunkard, a compulsive gambler or a wife beater; you will still inherit the kingdom. A convenient doctrine indeed for a ministry that would rather bury their dirty laundry than clean it.

(Jude 1:4), For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

First of all, let’s take a look at what Jimmy Swaggart actually said and then we can examine it according to scripture.

What does the Word of God say?

(Video at the link)

Swaggart’s ministry in recent years has begun to align itself more with antinomianism than with Biblical Christianity. Antinomianism comes from the Greek and means “without law”. Antinomian is the polar opposite of legalism and both are errant extremes. Obviously, we can agree that we are saved by grace through faith. However, too often those who would oppose licentiousness are labeled as legalistic. Many apostates now claim that those who are simply encouraging others to live a righteous and holy life are preaching “salvation by works.” That is not at all what I am advocating. I do believe we are saved by grace apart from our works. In other words, there is nothing we can personally do to earn our salvation. However, I also believe that if we are truly saved we will have works, as faith without works is dead.

(Eph. 2:8-9), 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.

However, faith is not accompanied by works or actions, it is dead!

(James 2:17), Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

According to scripture, true faith produces fruits of righteousness in keeping with repentance! Now to be clear, I am not talking about someone who sins and repents and clearly shows the fruit of that repentance. I am talking about someone who habitually sins; someone who practices unrighteousness. The Bible is very clear that those who don’t do right are not born of God!

(1 John 3:9-10), No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him, he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God, so is anyone who does not love his brother.

We can not continue partying, fornicating, living in adultery, watching porn, or indulging ourselves in occult themed entertainment and say that we are saved. If we do, we are at best deceiving ourselves and at worst flat-out liars. The Word is clear; if we love God, we will obey His commandments.

(John 14:15), If you love me you will obey what I command.

(Titus 1:16), They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him.

(John 14:21), Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.

(Luke 6:46), Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say.

(John 14:23), If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him and we will come to him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.

(2 Timothy 2:19), “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”

(James 4:4), Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

(1 John 2:15), Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him.

(1 Corinthians 10:21), You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too. You cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons
BACKSLIDERS

With the scriptures above, we have established that those who practice iniquity, those who do not obey His commandments and deny Christ with their actions, are not in Christ. If they indeed knew Him at one time they have become what is commonly referred to as a backslider.

“A backslider is a regenerate person who has degenerated to a state of living in unconfessed, unrepentant and unforgiven sin. Such a person, as a natural consequence, is rebellious to the principles of theKingdom ofGod and the direction of the Word of God. Such a person is a disobedient and unfaithful servant, separated from God and in danger of being eternally lost but is a candidate for restoration” (The backslider- Bill Haynes).

Now keep in mind that contrary to scripture, Jimmy Swaggart is proclaiming that those who are not living right will be taken in the rapture along-side the righteous. This belief is diametrically opposed to what scripture actually teaches.

(John 15:6), If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers, such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

(Luke 9:62), But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

(2 peter 2:20-21), For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. 21 For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.

Do not be fooled! There will be many on that day who will beg to be let into the Kingdom claiming they deserve their reward. They will recount all the great and mighty things they have done for the Lord, but it will be too late! These men and women will not be what you and I would consider wretched sinners. They will have prophesied, performed miracles and cast out demons. These will be people who no doubt at one time KNEW the Lord. However, because of their iniquity and lawlessness the Lord will send them away into outer darkness.

(Mathew 7:21-23), Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

The word iniquity above, in is from the Greek word “anomia” which means contempt or violation of the law, or wickedness. These will be people who had done major things in the name of the Lord yet they practiced iniquity; they were lawless.

In light of this, I implore you to compare what is being told to you from the pulpit with the Word of God and do not blindly trust your leaders.

link