HBO's new rapture television series "The Leftovers"

Wiki for The Leftovers:
The Leftovers is an upcoming American television drama fantasy series created by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta set to air on HBO. It is based on Perrotta's novel of the same name. The pilot was written by Lindelof and Perrotta, and directed by Peter Berg. The series stars Justin Theroux, Amy Brenneman, Christopher Eccleston, Liv Tyler, and Ann Dowd. It is scheduled to premiere on HBO on June 29, 2014.
Premise: The Leftovers takes place in the wake of a global "Rapture" and centers on the people who were not taken but were left behind in a suburban community.
An early review:

Clueless and Gloomy in Suburbia
‘The Leftovers,’ on HBO, a Tale of Mysterious Disappearances
If that was the Christian rapture, then some of the worst people were chosen for eternal salvation. On “The Leftovers,” a spooky new series starting on Sunday on HBO, about one person in 50 vanished on Oct. 14, without any discernible pattern: babies, lawyers, drunks, thieves, surgeons, murderers, grandmothers, bartenders, celebrities and even the pope are gone. Three years after 2 percent of the world’s population suddenly disappeared, lots of people believe it was an act of God, but nobody has any answers, especially not special commissions reporting to Congress. Some churches close, and new cults form
The question is, how soon will life imitate art? (except for the part about the pope, he's not going anywhere)
Dystopia: a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding. Compare utopia.

Below is an excerpt from an interview with the writer of the new series. It is so interesting to see how the unsaved view us.

That novel had several evangelical characters, and while researching that unfamiliar world, he was constantly struck at how often the Rapture came up as a literal part of people’s faith. But Mr. Perrotta, whose earlier books include “Election” and “Little Children,” had no interest in engaging in easy satire of the Rapture and its adherents. He wanted to deal with those beliefs seriously. “One of the things that happened was, I started to think of the Rapture as an amazing metaphor for loss, and particularly sudden loss,” he said. But Mr. Perrotta’s Rapture came with a twist: What if it was random? What if it took a wrecking ball to one’s entire belief system?

Yes, sudden ... in the twinkling of an eye. Literally.

And it will seem random. Just ask Lazarus and the Rich Man.

In the tv show about 140 million alive people go in the rapture, or about 2% of the world population. I'd say this is a reasonable estimate of how many will go. Of course, the dead shall rise, too.

This is another article about the show, Tom Perrotta explores mass grief in The Leftovers
What if millions of people around the world vanished -- suddenly, for no apparent reason -- in an event like the rapture foretold in Christian prophecy? That's the premise of a new HBO series based on Tom Perrotta's much-admired novel, The Leftovers.
That IS one aspect of the upcoming rapture, grief. There will be mass grief all over the world. However, the Holy Spirit's restraining ministry will cease at the rapture, so as to allow sin to have its day. After a short while the world's population won't care that loved ones have disappeared. Either they will be too busy sinning so greatly, or they will be too busy trying to survive, or the ones who come to Christ will rejoice in knowing they will see their loved ones soon anyway.

One article I read about the show made the comment that there are many dystopian televisions shows on tv now. Dystopian is the opposite of utopian, where everything is perfect. Dystopian is a world where nothing is perfect, it is dark, gloomy, hopeless. In Isaiah 24, the passage titled "Judgment on the whole earth" we read;

In the streets they cry out for wine; all joy turns to gloom, all joyful sounds are banished from the earth. (Isaiah 24:11 NIV)

There is a simple reason for the flood of dystopian movies, television shows, books, and themed magazines. There is a reason for the hoarding/prepping, apocalypse cults, and doomsday pod sales. It has to do with hope.

This planet is carrying the biggest load of sin since the Flood, and the largest amount of sinful people. Apostasy is rampant, Jesus-rejection is a plague, and hatred of all things holy is reaching a time of nearly no equal. Anyone who does not have Christ has no hope. That's a lot of hopeless people on the planet, promoting their hopeless worldview.

For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. (Psalm 71:5)

Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off. (Proverbs 23:18)

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)

Those with hope in Jesus have life and they have it abundantly. Those without Christ have no hope and do not have life abundantly. They live under the Thief (who is satan) who kills and destroys. No wonder the unsaved's worldview is so dark and dystopian. Further, because Hollywood is run by people with this hopeless worldview, it is no wonder that what flows from it are the pictures in the mind and the desires of their heart: dark, hopeless, joyless.

In this article from A.V. Club, see how cleverly satan has acknowledged the rapture, but has changed its presentation to a hopeless mystery and an "unknowable" riddle. To make us wonder if God really will take all the Christians, and casting doubt just as he did in the Garden ("Hath God said...?" Genesis 3:1). Yet we know in the bible that the mystery has been revealed! 1 Corinthians 15:51 declares it.

The Leftovers is bleak, brutal, brilliant television
Based on the novel by Tom Perrotta (who shares a co-creator credit with Lindelof and co-writes a couple of episodes), The Leftovers is some of the most desolate, despairing television on air. It’s also frequently brilliant, using the central hook of Perrotta’s book not as a pivot into genre fiction but as a pivot into something like a modern version of medieval mystery plays. But instead of God at the center of the story, there’s uncertainty, a Schrödinger’s cat the characters would desperately like to observe, if only they could force the box to open and provide them with answers.

In the series, as in Perrotta’s novel, an unexplained event causes 2 percent of the world’s population to disappear one crisp October day. It’s an event very like the Christian rapture, except there’s no rhyme or reason to those taken. It’s just as likely for sinners and innocents to be caught up. The series opens with a riveting depiction of that day, in which director Peter Berg, in one fluid camera movement, suggests the panic of a mother suddenly realizing her baby is no longer there, before leaping three years into the future, when both science and religion have essentially given up on trying to explain what happened, and others are hoping to move on with their lives.

And isn't it clever of satan to ignore the reason for the rapture- God's wrath. God will punish in wrath during the time after the rapture, yet no mention is ever made of this in the program. Satan introduces doctrines of devils while conveniently offering only half the story. ("You surely wont die!" Genesis 3:4).

Praise Jesus that He is so full of Light and Joy! We have eternal, ever-flowing hope! His mystery has been revealed! He is coming for all the Christians leaving none behind. He is our Father, or Shepherd, our hope.

I will not be watching The Leftovers. Even if I had a TV. Or cable. Why join with those who are in darkness to present such an unbliblical view of the great Hope we have within us? Why participate in one lost man's academic - but not spiritual - exploration of the rapture? "For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?" (2 Corinthians 6:14)

Serenidad: free wallpaper

We have the blessed Word delivered to us the saints, once for all (Jude 1:3). We have the authoritative visions from the prophets and from Jesus describing the hope to come, the heavenly city and all its perfections. We have the Kingdom within us to sustain us as a deposit of the guarantee. Cling to His word, rejoice in what is described in the bible regarding our future home. Utopia is man's version of perfection, but the perfections seen in His word are so much more than than- they are God's promises.


Comments

  1. I find it both instructive and sobering (and yes, I admit it--a little exciting) that Satan has such a keen interest in the Rapture these days. I also find it interesting that when Satan targets the Rapture, he always targets the pre-trib. Never any other view.

    Go figure.

    Oh, but meanwhile, he's busy behind the scenes, working the other side of the street by heavily promoting the post-trib "locked, cocked, and ready to rock" spiel that appeals so strongly to the flesh (surprise, surprise).

    Satan may be the master of evil, but he's not a moron.

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  2. Hi Elizabeth,

    I'm really amazed at the number of "Bible" based movies and tv shows that are surfacing this year. I personally don't and won't watch any of them. Of course, none have been faithful to the truth, but I feel these have been a tool of the enemy to numb/anesthetize unbelievers to the truth. I see this as a sign of the times.

    But I had no idea about this rapture series. Wow. They are almost correct - to those left behind, there won't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the disappearance of 2% (I also think it's a good estimate) of the population world wide, because to unbelieving eyes, they will see not only teachers and grandmothers and doctors, but also men and women who are currently incarcerated for various crimes... all from every nation on the planet... and what could all these people possibly have in common that they vanished in unison?

    Yet this is the common link: those who vanish will be those who have repented and have been BORN AGAIN, no matter where they came from or what sins they committed, whether grandmother or thief, doctor or drunk. Along with, as you said, many empty graves.

    What really amazes me though is how many genuine believers deny or misinterpret the rapture. :) The good news, our brothers and sisters may erroneously hold to preterism, amillennialism, postmillennial, post/midtrib, partial rapture, or whatever, as a theological position, but they're coming with us anyhow when the trump blows. Hallalujah! I can't wait to see the Lord and meet everyone!

    And my comfort when thinking about the Tribulation: Rev 7:9 During the darkest years of this age, yet to come, countless multitudes will come to Christ!

    -Carolyn

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  3. Thank you for sharing this. We must continue to be on guard and watch for apostasy and continue to stand on biblical truth. It is the thought of the Blessed Hope that should encourage us all. Be seeing all my brothers and sisters soon!

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  4. Would love anyone's opinion of "Pretrib Rapture Stealth" which I saw on Google. Lord bless. Clara

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    1. It's bunk. That's the biblical fact, not opinion.

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  5. , "because Hollywood is run by people with this hopeless worldview, it is no wonder that what flows from it are the pictures in the mind and the desires of their heart: dark, hopeless, joyless." You expressed my thoughts exactly! I was trying to explain to my kids why so much of movies and books is not appropriate material.

    can't but help to hope that this show is a sign Satan knows how short his time is and hes trying to lay a foundation of lies in the lost people's minds...because I want to go home!
    A friend on facebook just last night was talking about this leftovers show, saying she was very intrigued by it......
    Jennifer

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  6. Reminds me of the show Supernatural. I thought it was a superhero-esque plot, but the one episode I ever happen to stumble upon, it has regular characters identified as Lucifer and Gabriel as brothers, one killing the other, oh and of course they have girlfriends and such. I can't remember it all. But it was just so.. bunk-y. Never had any further interest in it.

    I wrote a private journal entry about the "Sleepy Hollow" television series, focusing on a single episode. Maybe I'll post that review as an image on my blog sometime soon. It was AMAZING how blatant the spiritual warfare was when you broke it down. Not limited to messages such as
    * a person can be freed from their sin through methods other than God's grace
    * witches are freedom-fighters and compatible with Quakerism
    * the Apocalypse is preventable if you kill the headless horseman, identified as the first horseman of the apocalypse. IOW, God's plan can be thwarted?
    * and last but not least, "what you thought was your sin was actually your salvation." Climax of the episode, actual words said by a character--who was long dead and being spoken to through a necromancer, no less.

    Oh, *spoiler alert.*

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    1. Uploaded it here ( http://singlechristian1.blogspot.com/2014/07/sleepy-hollow-on-fox-spiritual-warfare.html ) if anyone was interested in reading a handwritten blog post :)

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  7. http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/06/opinion/parini-rapture-real/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

    Saw this posted in comments on Seans blog. Pertains to this post. Thought it would be of interest to you and readers.
    Jennifer

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    1. thank you! It IS interesting! So interesting I write a whole separate blog post about it. Thank you very much for the link, you're exactly right, very thought provoking (and bloodpressure inducing)

      http://the-end-time.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-rapture-is-economic-juggernaut.html

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    2. Awesome! Going to read it now.....
      Jennifer

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