Why DO people believe in a rapture to heaven?
It’s a great idea! Get away from this troubled world.
It is the only end times doctrine that many have ever been taught.
But the fact there is no actual supporting scripture for this idea, is no deterrent because some scriptures can be made to infer the idea of a rapture. There are prophesies telling about spiritual happenings, but none of them actually say that any living people will be taken to heaven.
As there are many prophesies telling about the future of Israel, some people make the error of thinking the Israel of God is the Jewish State of Israel and the Christian Church is therefore, separate from the Israel of prophecy. This is incorrect, many passages in the New Testament confirm that there is only one people of God, call them the Ekkelasia, spiritual Israel or simply God’s righteous Christian people and the rest of the world are the ungodly peoples, doomed for destruction.
But the false idea of Two People Two Promises has to be an immutable tenet of the rapture theory for them to go to heaven, while ethnic Israel faces tribulation, etc. That this idea is un-Christian: ‘let them burn, we will be safe’, as well as the shockingly bad notion of ‘escape from responsibilities’, seems to not be a concern for them.
With the belief of a rapture removal to heaven firmly fixed in their minds, people then fail to see the truth of what God has planned for the future. There will be testing times, to come upon everyone as Luke 21:35 makes crystal clear. What we must pray for is not escape by removal, but for the Lord’s protection, promised to His people during all that is coming and for them to stand, dressed in white linen, before Jesus when He Returns. Revelation 19:9-11
The Prophetic Word 