From JAP: The Rapture
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18:
For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.
This “catching up” is what theology calls the Rapture (departure, disappearance, harpazo, vanishing)—the transporting (and transformation) of believers into the sky to meet Jesus, and then go to their home in heaven with Him!
This awesome event is not like any other. People cannot at the last minute jump on an airplane and go. Each individual must prepare for it with A CHOICE, for once that trumpet sounds it will be too late to purchase a ticket!
People cannot work for passage, the price was paid long ago and not with money, but on a cruel cross with the sacrificial crucifixion of the One God sent into the world He loved to save it from eternal death, with the offer of eternal life. John 3:16. Again, this is the active, mindful, purposeful and individual choosing of Jesus as Lord and Savior.
There is an early illustration of this “catching away” in Genesis 5:23-24: Altogether Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because GOD TOOK HIM AWAY. This exciting event, for all who walk with God today, is next on God’s prophetic calendar.
Daniel also prophesied about this wonderful escape we believers look forward to in Daniel 12:1-4: There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time Your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book (of Life)—will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end.
Jesus said we (as His believers) live in this world, but we are not part of it because we are now citizens of heaven. As His chosen, believers are uncomfortable living in the midst of sin and self-indulgence because “you are no longer foreigners and aliens (of heaven), but fellow-citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household” (Ephesians 2:19). A believer’s spiritual residence has been changed, but we wait with hope and expectation for that final transformation—that voice and trumpet when we will be changed from death into new life.
But let us not be confused about the difference between the Rapture and Christ’s second coming, as noted in Matthew 24:29-30: Immediately after the distress of those days (the days after the Rapture and throughout the tribulation) the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will SEE the Son of Man coming on the clouds (His second physical return to earth) of the sky with power and great glory.
Far different from the secret catching away!
And the tribulation and great tribulation will not be a time of rejoicing, but the time of judgment and God’s wrath on those who refused Him.
Even today the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness (Romans 1:18). God warns against worshiping the spirit of Antichrist which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world (1 John 4:3).
People must understand that the Rapture will come as a “thief in the night” and if they have not accepted the terrible price paid for mankind’s passage into that heavenly place God has prepared for us, then they will have to suffer through that time of great tribulation, that last period of deceit and misery from the prince of this world—Satan, and his final attempt to destroy God’s creation.
So, as Luke 21:28 says, When these things (the end time prophetic warnings) begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near, remembering that, because the price has been paid, believers will hear His voice and trumpet call!
Hallelujah for the cross!
Amen.