Rapture: The Thessalonian Key, part 12

,

And now may the Lord direct your hearts

into the love of God

and into the patience of Christ.

2 Thessalonians 3:5, NKJV

In these two brief letters to the Thessalonian church, Paul has systematically laid out his eschatological views, a theology of last things developed through direct revelation from the Lord.  Though each of the other apostles whose epistles are preserved in Scripture will refer in one way or another to the return of Christ, none will do so in as great depth or detail as Paul has done here.  Some will speak of death and the resurrection, but Paul alone will teach the Rapture that bypasses death and delivers the saints of God directly into the presence of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  And apart from John and the Revelation, Paul is the only apostle to lay out a distinguishable timeline of end-time events:  Rapture & Resurrection, the removal of the Restrainer, the reward and rest for believers, the Rise of antichrist and the Wrath of God against the unbelievers, followed finally by the Return of Jesus Christ to earth in power and great glory.

Herein lies the hope of those who put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

When Jesus comes, we will be delivered from the wrath that is coming, because we have not been appointed to wrath, but to obtain salvation.

When Jesus comes, we will be established and secured in holiness and blamelessness and presented before God the Father.

When Jesus comes, we will be caught up in the air--the living and the dead in Christ together--to ever be with the Lord.

When Jesus comes, we will not be surprised or caught unaware, for we are children of the light and children of the day who are fully aware of the signs of the times and the nearness of Christ's return.

When Jesus comes, every part of our physical being and existence will be preserved and made completely blameless in fulfillment of our salvation.

When Jesus comes, he will give us rest from our troubles while he repays with tribulation those who have troubled us.

When Jesus comes, he will be glorified in his saints and admired among all those who believe.

And as Paul closes out his second epistle to the Thessalonians, he gives us this final key to understanding all of these things.

69.  Let us patiently wait for and anticipate His coming--and our going!

Amen.



Not Your Mother's Meatloaf

Ingredients

• 2 lbs ground beef (80/20)
• 2 cups oats
• 2 eggs
• 8 oz colby jack cheese, small cubes
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
• 8 oz tomato sauce
• salt
• pepper
• paprika
• garlic powder
• onion powder
• Casey's special meatloaf sauce  :)
• 6-8 strips of bacon

Making the Meatloaf

• In a large bowl, combine ground beef, oats, eggs, cheese, onion, bell pepper, tomato sauce
• sprinkle generously with seasoning and spices
• In a 9x13 glass baking dish, greased, form mixture into a loaf down center of dish
• form a trough down middle of loaf
• pour special sauce in trough
• place bacon strips over top of loaf

Making Casey's special meatloaf sauce

• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1/4 cup of Ketchup
• 1 tbsp Mustard
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• other condiments can also be used, such as Heinz 57, honey, BBQ sauce, whatever you like

• Bake uncovered at 350* for 1 hour
• drain off excess grease

And I like to serve this with green beans and macaroni&cheese.

Rapture: The Thessalonian Key, part 11

And then the lawless one will be revealed,

whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth

and destroy with the brightness of his coming.

The coming of the lawless one

is according to the working of Satan,

with all power, signs, and lying wonders,

and with all unrighteous deception

among those who perish,

because they did not receive the love of the truth,

that they might be saved.

and for this reason God will send them strong delusion,

that they should believe the lie,

that they all may be condemned who did not believe

the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

2 Thessalonians 2:8-12, NKJV

There is a war that has been raging for all the millennia and longer that mankind has lived on this planet.  When it began is unknown, but where it began was in heaven, centered upon the very throne of God.  And why it began was because the mighty archangel assigned to lead the angels in worshiping God had a thought, a delusion really, that he could be exalted above the God in heaven and himself be worshiped.  With his lies he led a third of the heavenly host in a rebellion that resulted in their expulsion from the presence of God, consigned to a fate from which there would be no escape.  An eternal and everlasting lake of fire that burns with torment forever and ever was then prepared for that devil and his angels.  And thus the long struggle began, though the striving is really one sided. 

Lucifer, that angel of light and deceiver of mankind, the accuser and trickster and tempter and destroyer, that thief and murderer, that liar and the father of all lies, the serpent of old, the scarlet dragon that rises from the abyss to go to his own destruction, is trying to thwart the will, plan, and purpose of God.  But God will not be thwarted.  The omnipotent, all knowing, everywhere present all the time God cannot be defeated.  He cannot be detoured or delayed.  He is never startled, nor is He ever surprised.  He is not in danger of being overcome or overthrown.  The powers of hell do not threaten Heaven's gates.  That shrewd satan is doing his damnedest to reverse his fortunes and resist his fate.  And though he cannot, he is also determined to wreak havoc on God's very creation and take as many of God's creatures as he can down with him.

At the end of the age, as grace finds fulfillment and the return of Christ draws near, the Devil will be given full and free reign to do his worst.  In a moment when the church of Jesus has been raptured out of harm's way and the gospel message falls silent on earth, unrestrained lawlessness will produce a singular man of sin, the son of perdition.  Yet even as he rises to power and consolidates his rule, his time is running out.  A short season is destined to be his reign, already limited by prophetic revelation to last seven years.  In the midst of those seven years, he will be slain, then reanimated and possessed by Satan himself.  He will be hailed as a god, and all the world will be required to worship his abominable image and receive his mark in their hands or their foreheads.  Those who refuse will be persecuted to death, pursued, tracked down, and destroyed.  And when it looks as if the devil's plan of human annihilation just might succeed, his defeat will be upon him.

For the heavens will open, and a white horse will appear bearing the One who is called Faithful and True, the One whose unknown Name is above every name, who rides with crowns on his head and fire in his eyes and blood on the hem of his garment, with His title boldly written on His robe and on His thigh--King of kings, and Lord of lords.  His Word will proceed from His mouth like a double-edged sword, and with a rod of iron in His hands He will smite the nations that have united in battle against Him.  And then the end of antichrist will come.

Here are Paul's key facts regarding that day.

60.  The Lord will consume the antichrist with the breath of his mouth.

61.  The Lord will destroy the antichrist with the brightness of his coming.

But about antichrist's rise and brief rule on this planet, Paul says:

62.  The antichrist comes according to the working of Satan.

63.  The antichrist comes with all power, signs, and lying wonders--the false Christ.  Even Jesus warned his closest followers to be on their guard against this day, because this kind of power will be convincing enough to deceive even the elect of God.

64.  The antichrist comes with unrighteous deception.  There will be no truth in anything he says or does.

65.  The antichrist comes to deceive those who perish.

Here is perhaps one of the saddest declarations in Scripture, and one of the hardest for Christians to accept.  All my life, I heard preachers preach and I heard wishful saints proclaim that if people, namely backslidden and uncommitted Christians, miss the Rapture and want to come to Christ afterward, they will just have to give their lives on the chopping block of the antichrist.  But Paul makes it clear in 2 Thessalonians 2 that such hope is false hope.  Those who have heard the gospel preached, who have been given the opportunity to accept and believe and confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and personal savior, and who have rejected the message or refused to live by it--those who knew the truth and did not receive it will in turn be deceived.  And they will perish with no hope of salvation.

66.  Those who perish do so because they rejected the truth.

67.  Those who reject the truth will be given strong delusion by God to believe the lie of the antichrist.

68.  Those who reject the truth and take pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned.

Rapture: The Thessalonian Key, part 10

And now you know what is restraining,

that he may be revealed in his own time.

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work;

only He who now restrains will do so

until he is taken out of the way.

And then the lawless one will be revealed...

2 Thessalonians 2:6-8, NKJV

Lawlessness will abound, Jesus said, and the love of many will grow cold.  It's a sign of the times, just one of many crises that herald the nearness of his coming.  Except that regarding those signs that Jesus listed, this seems to be the one that no one in the world is worried about.  To the citizens of planet earth, casting off the restraints of morality and righteousness is not lawlessness, it's liberty.  We have rights!  We want the freedom in which to exercise them.  Anyone who tries to uphold any kind of holy standard to govern behavior is called an outdated, intolerant, hateful, ignorant bigot.  And lawlessness abounds.

For the man of lawlessness, this is exactly the spiritual atmosphere he needs in which to emerge on the scene.  The world's man of universal faith and freedom will come on the scene to break every fetter of the old religions, working signs and wonders and miracles that will make people marvel.  His rise to power will be meteoric, likely surprising and yet making lots of sense.  In the midst and aftermath of world war, global disaster, and worldwide chaos, this man will emerge from obscurity to unite humanity with his plan of salvation.  And the citizens of earth will fall prey to his plan and follow him to their deaths.

Already this lawlessness is at work, and (as John says) many antichrists have come.  They rise out of and distance themselves from true Christian religion, denying that Jesus is really the only anointed one and the only begotten true son of God.  They say that we are all Christs, that we are all sons of God, that we can all be little gods here with all of God's power and dominion and authority, and that we will become bigger gods later.  They dismiss the Bible as myths and fables created by men, and proclaim new and progressively revealed truths that they have discovered in the deceitful depths of their own hearts.  They deny the virgin birth and divinity of Jesus Christ, making him either a mere mortal or an otherworldly immortal--but not both.  These will be the marks of the Antichrist when he finally arrives on the scene, totally transgressing the doctrine of Christ.

During his brief ministry in Thessalonica, Paul informed the fledgling believers of these very things, and he continues to relate to them key facts regarding the Rapture and the rise of Antichrist, and now introduces us to the concept of the restrainer, that which is holding back lawlessness and the Antichrist.

54.  The man of sin is presently being restrained.

55.  The man of sin will be revealed in his own time.

56.  The believers know what is restraining the man of sin.

57.  The mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but is still being restrained.

58.  The restrainer will continue to do so until He is removed.

59.  When the restrainer is removed, the antichrist will be revealed.

And Paul tells the Thessalonian believers that they know what restrains.  Unfortunately, he does not also tell us.  This is one of those details that makes 2 Thessalonians 2 such a challenge.  Some suggestions regarding the identity of the restrainer include God Himself, Michael the Archangel, human government, the Holy Spirit, and the Church, and there may be even more ideas out there than these.  But looking at the context and the things Paul has already written in 1 Thessalonians, I believe we can reach the informed conclusion that the restrainer is the Holy Spirit living in and working through the faithful church, those believers doing in the world what we were commissioned to do.

Jesus told his disciples, "I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." 

Jesus gave his disciples power and authority over all demons, sending them out to preach the kingdom of God and heal the sick.  When they returned with reports of demons being subject to their power, Jesus said, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven (literally, again and again as the disciples exercised their authority).  Behold, I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you." 

1 John 4:4 says that we who are of God have overcome the spirit of antichrist, because He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world.

James 4:7 tells us to submit to God and resist the devil, and the devil will flee from us.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 declares that we have spiritual weapons that are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and making every thought a captive of our obedience to Christ.

How can lawlessness prevail as long as the church of Jesus Christ is standing in the way?  How can lawlessness overcome those that have power to overcome it?  How can lawlessness arise as long as we are still standing strong and warring in the power of the Holy Ghost, resisting the devil and restraining evil in the world through our obedience to the law of Christ?

And how do we restrain the devil, the antichrist, and the mystery of lawlessness?  I believe Paul gives us the prescription in 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22.

Honor those in spiritual leadership and listen to what they say.

Be peacemakers and peacekeepers in the church.

Warn the unruly with truth.

Comfort the fainthearted and feebleminded with truth.

Encourage the weak with truth.

Don't give up on anyone.

Don't repay evil with evil.

Always pursue what is good for yourself and everybody else.

Rejoice always.

Pray always.

Praise and worship God always.

Do not resist the Holy Spirit.

Do not despise the proclamation of truth.

Put every word and deed to the test, holding onto only what is good.

Abstain from every form of evil.

--CLS paraphrase

We, the believers in and followers of Jesus Christ, are the dwelling place of God's Holy Spirit.  Though the Holy Spirit has always moved upon the face of the earth, He has always worked through people.  We are the agents and instruments of the Holy Spirit, put here to fulfill the will, plan and purposes of God.  As long as the faithful church of Jesus Christ is praying, praising, preaching truth, and operating in the power of the Holy Ghost, the spirit of lawlessness and antichrist is opposed, resisted, pushed back and restrained.  But Paul has already informed the Thessalonian believers and us that there is an appointed time in which all Christians will be removed from this planet in the Rapture.  Judgment cannot come until we are gone.  Judgment cannot come until the antichrist is revealed.  The antichrist cannot be revealed as long as lawlessness is restrained.  As long as the church is doing what Christ commanded and empowered us to do, lawlessness is restrained.  But when we and the Holy Spirit living in us are taken out of the way, there will be nothing to restrain the world, its tendency and desire toward lawlessness, and the man who embodies every form of sin, evil and rebellion against God.  With nothing standing between him and world domination, the antichrist will rise, empowered by the devil, and lawlessness will prevail.

But not for long.

Gumbo, the way my Granny used to make it

Ingredients

• 4 chicken leg quarters
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 celery bunch, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, seeded & chopped
• green onion stalks, chopped (for garnish)
• Tabasco sauce
• roux (1/2 cup of Crisco, 1/2 cup of flour)
• 2 qts water
• 4 cups cooked white rice

Making your own roux

• in a small cast iron skillet, melt Crisco
• set heat between medium & medium low
• add flour, stirring constantly (DO NOT LET IT BURN)
• stir until roux is the color of a copper penny (the older the penny, the darker the roux, the stronger the taste)
• turn off heat, set roux aside
• if any oil rises to the top, get rid of oil

Making your gumbo

• in a dutch oven or other large pot, cover bottom with 1/4 inch of vegetable oil or melted Crisco
• when hot, add chicken with the skins on
• salt & pepper the chicken
• lightly brown chicken on all sides, then remove chicken and set aside
• add celery, onion, & bell pepper to oil, stirring occasionally, cook until onions are translucent
• return chicken to pot, pour in water, heat to rolling boil
• add dash of Tabasco sauce
• add roux
• reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook until chicken is done (falling off the bone done)
• if you have to add water, do it just a little bit at a time; you don't want the gumbo TOO soupy
• remove chicken bones and skins
• at this point, salt & pepper to taste
• cook until it's the consistency you want (some people like it thicker than others)
• At the very last, garnish with chopped green onion stalks
• Serve over rice

Extras

• Some people like to add things like tomatoes & okra to their gumbo; that's Creole cooking used in Mississippi and other places, but not real Cajun gumbo
• Some people also like to use different meats--like sausage or seafood.  Some people use all three.
• Some people like to serve it with something called gumbo file ("FEElay"), which is sassafras root and is used as a thickener at the table.

Enjoy, cher!  If this doesn't work, I'll show you how next time.

Rapture: The Thessalonian Key, part 9

Let no one deceive you by any means;

for that Day will not come unless...

the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition,

who opposes and exalts himself

above all that is called God or that is worshiped,

so that he sits as God in the temple of God,

showing himself that he is God.

Do you not remember that when I was still with you

I told you these things?

2 Thessalonians 2:3-5, NKJV

The Day of the Lord--prophesied by Joel and others as a day of judgment and wrath upon the unrighteous world--was indeed coming upon the earth, but Paul says there are two things that have to happen before that Day begins.  First of all, there has to be a departure.  Whether one views this as a departure from faith, as most modern English translations have it, or as our departure from this earth in the Rapture, it is still a precursor to God's wrath.  And secondly, the Antichrist has to be revealed.

Prior to Paul's writing of 2 Thessalonians, the last real expose of this man of lawlessness and sin was 600 years previous in the visions of Daniel.  Daniel see him in a vision as the Little Horn rising out of the Middle East, a willful king who will forge a 7-year treaty with Israel and then break it halfway through.  He will invade the glorious land, take over Jerusalem, and defile the temple of God with an image called the Abomination of Desolation, an event Jesus referred to as well with a warning to the Jews to flee Jerusalem when they see it happen.

The next description of this man will be as the Beast of Revelation 13, a terrible conglomeration of all those empires and evil rulers who have passed away with time, rising from the sea of peoples and nations as the man with all the answers, the man with the plan.  This Antichrist will apparently be killed with a wound to the head, only to be resurrected and then worshiped as a God.  His image will be erected in the temple of God--likely the Abomination--and the whole world will be required to worship the image and the beast by bowing to the statue and receiving the mark of the beast.  To refuse either will mean death for the resistors.

In these earlier verses of 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul gives more facts about the rise of the man of sin.

51.  The man of sin opposes all religions.  He may arrive on the scene proclaiming the validity of all religions--except for those who believe there is absolutely only one way to get to God.  This man of sin will in actuality be opposed to all world religions and will eventually insist on putting them all down in favor of a single world religion that centers on worshiping him.

52.  The man of sin exalts himself above all gods and all that is worshiped.  Revelation describes how the kings of the earth will prop up the false, syncristic, New Age religion, but only until they destroy it to make way for the worship of Antichrist.

53.  The man of sin will declare himself to be God by sitting in God's temple and offering proof of his claims.  This would seem to indicate that there will indeed be another temple built in Jerusalem in which Jews will worship and which the Antichrist will defile with his own image and other abominations.  With false signs and lying wonders, including an evil trick designed to imitate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, this man will deceive the world and they will run after him.

Though some claim this has already been fulfilled, we know that the event is actually still future.

The Abomination of Desolation was not Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Syrian king who desecrated the Jewish temple in 167 BC, because Jesus talks about it as a future event in Matthew 24:15.

The Abomination of Desolation was not the continual sacrifices folowing the sacrificial death of Christ, because Paul talks about it as still future in 2 Thessalonians 2:15.

The Abomination of Desolation was not Titus, the Roman general who destroyed the temple in 70 AD, because John talks about it being in his future in Revelation 13:7, 14-15, in a future temple described in Revelation 11:2.

There has not been a Jewish temple in Jerusalem for 1942 years, but the Jews have been making preparations to build another one since they were restored to their homeland in 1948.  The Jewish temple will be central to the unfolding apocalypse that begins with the Rapture of the church, the revealing of the Antichrist, and the Return of the Actual Christ to destroy the Antichrist, and one of these days if will be rebuilt. 

When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in glory!

Psalm 102:16, NKJV

Rapture: The Thessalonian Key, part 8

Now, brethren,

concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ

and our gathering together to Him,

we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled,

either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us

as though the day of Christ had come.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-2, NKJV

In my opinion, 2 Thessalonians 2 is one of the most challenging passages in Scripture.  Some of the most confused eschatalogical teaching I have ever heard comes from this chapter.  One misunderstanding, one mistranslation, one misconception, and the whole passage unravels from a beautiful and meaningful tapestry into a tangled pile of meaningless thread.  Whatever conclusions one makes based upon this passage must also align with other passages on the same subject.  Out of all the passages I've discussed so far, none I think cause so much conflict and confusion as this one.  So it is with a little trepidation that I wade into the churning waters of 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2.

Pulling on threads from Joel, Daniel, and Jesus, the Apostle Paul begins to weave his tapestry of end-time theology together, giving us more key facts about the Rapture, the Return of Christ, the Wrath that is coming, and now the Rise of the Antichrist at the end of the age.  Thus far in Biblical prophecy, the Day of the Lord has been seen as a day of gloom, darkness and judgment upon the disobedient.  But Paul adds an additional layer when he calls it the Day of Christ, a day of blessing and reward for believers that he will write about throughout his ministry.  In this 2 Thessalonian passage, he doesn't dwell as much on the subject of believers and heaven as he does on the unbelievers who remain in the earth for the Day of the Lord.

48.  The Day of the Lord connects and apparently includes the Lord's coming, our gathering together to Him, and the days of judgment that follow.  The Day of the Lord was never intended to describe a twenty-four hour period in which all things would be wrapped up prophetically, but rather a time period of rebellion against God and wrath from Him, culminating in the return of Christ to win the victory over all his enemies.  Because believers are not appointed to suffer either from or through the wrath of God with all the unbelievers, but rather are promised rescue and rest from it, those days of horror and awe cannot begin until the believers are out of the way.

Let no one deceive you by any means;

for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first,

and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition,

2 Thessalonians 2:3, NKJV

49.  The Day of the Lord, God's wrath and judgment, cannot start until after the "apostasia"--the great departure.  I am not a Greek scholar, but some that are have taken a closer look at this verse in the original Greek and come to the conclusion that the English translators may have rendered this particular verse inaccurately.  It's not a mistranslation that has caused anyone to stumble or be led astray.  It changes no major doctrine of the church, but when understood correctly, it does bring an order to this passage that is desperately needed.  Hang with me over the next couple of days and you'll see why.

In the Greek, the word apostasia means, most simply, departure, and it is only used twice in the New Testament.  The first time is in Acts 21:21, when Paul is accused of teaching Jews to forsake (apostasia, depart from) Moses.   When the English translators came to the word apostasia and saw it being used in this instance to denote a religious defection, they actually transliterated it into English and gave us the word apostasy, which ever since has been used to refer to the renunciation, abandonment, or neglect of established religion.  And in the context of the Acts usage, such an understanding is reasonable.  But when Paul employs apostasia in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, he gives it no qualifying words.  Really, all he says is there will be a departure before God's judgment will begin. 

Jesus talked about people abandoning their faith at the end of the age in His Olivet Discourse, and Paul will refer to the same in 2 Timothy 3.  There will certainly be a mass exodus from true belief in favor of niceties and fables before the end, but here in this discussion of the Rapture, the Return of Christ, the Rise of Antichrist, and a few verses later the removal of a restrainer, talk of the departure from faith seems out of place.  However, Paul has already been describing another kind of departure, not a departure from faith, but a departure from this planet.  It's not a falling away that has to happen before judgment can begin, but a leaving.

50.  The Day of the Lord cannot start until after the "man of sin" the singular manifestation of lawlessness and the object of God's wrath, is revealed.  In this passage, Paul introduces an individual he calls the man of sin, the lawless one, and the son of perdition--this last being a phrase also used by Jesus to refer to Judas Iscariot.  As the passage unfolds, we learn that he is talking about a person introduced in the prophets.  In Daniel he is the Little Horn and the Willful King.  In Isaiah he is the Assyrian.  John will call him Antichrist (the one who replaces and opposes), and in Revelation he is called simply The Beast out of the sea.  He will be the ultimate embodiment of evil, Satan's personal representative in his penultimate attempt to thwart the eternal plan of God.  And judgment cannot begin until he is revealed.

And how will he be revealed--this successor to Nimrod, Pharaoh, Haman, Antiochus IV, Herod, Nero, and Hitler--as the man of sin?  Most likely it is the covenant of Daniel 9:27, the treaty forged with Israel to bring peace to the middle east and give the Jews the right to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem, which also initiates the final seven years of God's dealings with Israel.  From that moment, it is a predictable countdown of 2520 days until Christ shall return to earth in power and great glory!

Rapture: The Thessalonian Key, part 7

Since it is a righteous thing with God

to repay with tribulation

those who trouble you,

and to give you who are troubled

rest with us when the Lord Jesus

is revealed from heaven with his might angels,

in flaming fire taking vengeance

on those who do not know God,

and on those who do not obey the gospel

of our Lord Jesus Christ.

These shall be punished

with everlasting destruction

from the presence of the Lord

and from the glory of His power,

when He comes, in that Day,

to be glorified in His saints

and to be admired among all those who believe,

because our testimony among you was believed.

2 Thessalonians 1:6-10, NKJV

By the time Timothy arrived back in Thessalonica with Paul's first letter, which contained the Apostle's answers regarding those who died believing in Jesus, there was a whole other issue now disturbing the Thessalonian church.  Someone had come preaching a message that was contrary to what Paul had preached.  Confused at best, intentionally false at worst, some traveling preacher had come into the church at Thessalonica, heard what Paul had taught, and said, "No, no, no, no, no.  Paul has it all wrong.  He's telling you Jesus will come back to get before the Day of the Lord.  But look around.  The Day of the Lord is already upon us.  We are going to have to endure the wrath and judgment of God."  Not only did someone preach that, but they may have produced written documentation purported to be from Paul stating as much.  They may even have jerked their head, dipped their shoulder, kicked their leg out with kimmiosee, thus says the Lord, and delivered an utterance as if through the Spirit, telling them judgment was already upon them and there was no rescue.

Talk about being upset!  These new believers had no Bible to go to, no chapter-and-verse to quote.  Many of them were Gentiles with no Scriptural foundation whatsoever, and these conflicts were causing no small amount of confusion among them.  First Paul says we're not going to die, and then some who had believed died.  Paul also said we wouldn't have to suffer tribulation, but these new guys are just as convincing telling us we are going to have to suffer tribulation.  And looking around at the things going on in the world and the way we are being persecuted for our faith, we think they might be right.  Maybe Paul didn't know what he was talking about after all.

So leaving the first letter for the church to read, Timothy hurries back to Corinth with the new controversy, and Paul gives the church his second Thessalonian letter to reassure them that they will indeed escape the wrath of God.  We are not appointed to wrath, he had written before, but to obtain salvation!  The message of Jesus Christ is one of hope, not despair.

36.  There is a difference between the tribulation the world heaps upon believers, and the tribulation God will heap upon the world.  Tribulation is trouble, trial, testing.  In the Greek is literally a pressing, like grapes or olives in a press.  It is true Christians will suffer through tribulation on this planet.  Jesus Himself said, "In this world you have tribulation.  But be of good cheer.  I have overcome the world."  John will later write, "This is the victory that overcomes the world; your faith."  The Christian life is not an easy one, for we face the opposition of the world around us--which hates Jesus because they do not know Him, neither do they have His Spirit in them--and from the devil and his kingdom--who is on his way to hell and wants to take us all down with him.  But there is coming a time of tribulation upon the earth, the source of which will not be the world or the devil.  This tribulation will come from God Himself during that time called by the prophets The Day of the Lord.  And about that Day, we don't have to worry.  Because we aren't going to be here.

37.  God will repay with tribulation those who trouble believers.  This is why He says, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay."  When the Revelation describes those days of tribulation, it repeatedly records the worship of heaven which declares that God's judgment is always right and just and fair.  He is storing wrath up for the wicked, but He is also giving them plenty of time to turn away from their sin and turn toward Him.  He doesn't want them to perish, but when they finally do, they will be without excuse.

38.  God will give believers rest from their troubles.  Like the persecuted church at Smyrna, we may have to endure "ten days" of testing, but when those days are ended, we will find eternal rest in the presence of the Lord.

39.  Tribulation for the wicked and rest for the righteous will be given by Jesus when He comes from heaven with His mighty angels.

40.  Jesus is coming in flaming fire.

41.  Jesus is coming to take vengeance.  There are two groups of people upon which tribulation wrath will be heaped:  those who don't know God and those who don't obey the gospel.  These two groups will include those who heard and did not believe, as well as those who heard and said they believed, but they didn't continue to live according to the Word of God.

42.  The unbelieving and the disobedient will be punished with everlasting destruction.

43.  This everlasting destruction comes from the Lord--from His presence and the glory of His power.

44.  This everlasting destruction comes when He comes.

45.  Jesus is coming on The Day of the Lord.

46.  Jesus is coming to be glorified in His saints.

47.  Jesus is coming to be admired among all who believe.

Rapture: The Thessalonian Key, Part 6

But concerning the times and the season, brethren,

you have no need that I should write you.

For you yourselves know perfectly

that the day of the Lord so comes

as a thief in the night.

For when they say, "Peace and safety!"

then sudden destruction comes upon them,

as labor pains upon a pregnant woman.

And they shall not escape.

But you, brethren, are not in darkness,

so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-4, NKJV

Just like the disciples, the Thessalonian believers wanted to know that all-engrossing question:  WHEN?  Jesus gave his disciples various signs to look for and told them, "When you see all these things, know that it is near--at the doors" and "When you see these things begin to happen, look up, lift up your head, your redemption is near."  When they asked about the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, Jesus answered, "It is not for you to know times or season which the Father has put in his own authority."  His answer to the question "when" is the same answer Jesus gave, so Paul is in good company when he answers enigmatically, "You have no need that I should write you about times and seasons.  They will come upon you like a thief in the night, like the labor pains of a pregnant woman."

And here Paul introduces a well-known Old Testament concept into the Thessalonian vocabulary--The Day of the Lord.  Peter used the term on the day of Pentecost when he was quoting the prophet Joel about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and he will use it again in his second epistle when talking about the second coming of Christ, the renovation of the earth and heavens by fire, and the creation of the New Heavens and the New Earth.  It is a phrase of prophetic significance that does not denote a twenty-four hour period, but rather covers the span of the Last Days--from the day Christ returns for his Church to the day he makes all things new, a time period at least 1007 years long.

The Prophet Joel, preaching in the mid-9th Century BC, was the first one to employ the term "Day of the Lord", and his usage shows that it was a time of judgment and wrath coming upon Israel for their disobedience to God.  Other prophets took it up, adopted it in their own proclamations regarding the same, and now Paul is using it to expand upon the Old Testament thought with New Testament revelation.  Like Jesus, Paul says, "You may not know the day nor the hour, but you can know the season by the signs of the times."  And then he gives 16 more key facts regarding the Rapture, the Resurrection, and the Return of Jesus Christ.

20.  The Day of the Lord--the day or time of judgment and fulfillment--will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night.  Jesus said if you knew what hour the thief was coming, you would be ready for him.  Instead, he breaks in when least expected and breaks up whole households.  In that day, some will be taken and others will be left.

21.  The Day of the Lord will come when 'they' say "peace and safety".  When the whole world seems to be on the verge of final, man-made peace and prosperity, that's when destruction will come.

22.  The Day of the Lord will come like labor pains upon a pregnant woman.  Jesus employed the same labor-and-delivery imagery in speaking of the signs of the times, "the beginning of sorrows" that signal the nearness of the birth.  These labor pains are not unexpected, but they are unpredictable and unavoidable, and they will grow more and more intense until the day of the Lord is fulfilled.

23.  The Day of the Lord will come, and 'they' will not escape.  Those who weren't looking for it and watching the signs will not escape it.

24.  The Day of the Lord will not surprise believers.

But you brethren, are not in darkness,

so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.

You are all sons of light and sons of the day.

We are not of the night nor of darkness.

Therefore let us not sleep, as others do,

but let us watch and be sober.

For those who sleep, sleep at night,

and those who get drunk are drunk at night.

But let us who are of the day be sober,

putting on the breastplate of faith and love,

and as a helmet the hope of salvation.

1 Thessalonians 5:4-8, NKJV

And why will the day of the Lord--the coming of Christ and the ensuing judgment--not surprise believers?

25.  Believers are children of the light and of the day; we can see what's happening.

26.  Believers are not children of the night or of the darkness.

27.  Believers do not 'sleep' (or die) as unbelievers do; we die fully aware of what's coming.

28.  Believers are alert and aware.

29.  Believers do not let sleep, death or drunkenness dim our sight.

30.  Believers wear their hope of salvation as a helmet.  Our hope is in Jesus Christ, who will save, rescue and deliver us from the horrors of the Day of the Lord. 

For God did not appoint us to wrath,

but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep,

we should live together with Him.

Therefore comfort each other and edify one another,

just as you also are doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:9-11, NKJV

31.  Believers do not have an appointment with any part of God's wrath.

32.  Believers do have an appointment with salvation, including physical rescue, through Jesus Christ.

33.  It doesn't matter whether we live or die--we are always alive with Him.

And as is his oft-repeated pattern, Paul closes his letter with a prayer:

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely;

and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless

at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:23, NKJV

34.  When Jesus comes back, every part of our being and existence will be preserved--body, soul & spirit.

35.  When Jesus comes back, we will then be blameless because our salvation has been fulfilled.

 





Rapture: The Thessalonian Key, part 5

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren,

concerning those who have fallen asleep,

lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again,

even so God will bring with Him

those who sleep in Jesus.

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord,

that we who are alive and remain

until the coming of the Lord

will by no means precede those who are asleep.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven

with a shout, with the voice of an archangel,

and with the trumpet of God.

And the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive and remain

shall be caught up together with them

in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

Therefore comfort one another

with these words.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, NKJV

Finally Paul reaches the crux of the matter, the question being addressed him by the Thessalonian church.  How do those who have died believing in Jesus Christ fit into this concept of never dying and the Rapture?  Do they miss out on what God has prepared and promised?  Having established that Jesus is indeed coming from heaven to earth to get his people and take them back to heaven with Him to present them blameless before God, Paul now moves into the discussion of the dead in Christ with more key facts about the Rapture, the Resurrection, and the Return of Jesus Christ.

11.  Jesus is coming to bring his people to heaven, and with Him God will bring all those who have died, who "sleep" in Jesus.  Take note that that the dead in Christ are not being sent back to earth, but rather will be brought back to heaven.

12.  Jesus is coming from heaven with a shout.

13.  The archangel will also shout.  We aren't told which angel it will be, although Michael and Gabriel are both good candidates.  Gabriel is usually associated with good tidings of great joy, whereas Michael is often seen as a warrior doing battle and contending for Israel and Israelites.  I think it also likely that this event will be such a celebration, that the shouting won't be limited to just Jesus and one angel.  They may all begin to shout, and I'd imagine there's going to be alot of shouting on earth too.

14.  The trumpet of God will sound.  The inclusion of a trumpet blast here and also in 1 Corinthians 15 (which we will look at soon) gives us extra meaning, associating the coming of the Lord with the Feast of Trumpets, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which is also called the Day of the Awakening Blast, when the resurrection of the dead is supposed to take place.

15.  The Dead in Christ will be resurrected.  This is specifically the resurrection of those who believed in Jesus Christ as their savior after his death and resurrection.  For those righteous people of the Old Covenant whose souls waited in the holding place of the dead described by Jesus in Luke 16:19-31, they have already been raised from the dead and taken to heaven.  When Jesus died, the tombs of the ancients broke open, and after he was resurrected, they also were brought out of their graves.  And after people witnessed them walking around, they went to the Paradise of God in heaven, probably at the time of Jesus ascension.  It has even been suggested that the "cloud" which received Jesus as he ascended was the great cloud of witnesses, the Old Testament saints.

16.  Those who are alive and remain in Christ will be caught up--RAPTURED--with the resurrected dead.  Paul actually said "we who are alive and remain."  This was something he expected to experience himself before his own death.  Fifteen years later, as he writes 2 Timothy, he recognizes that he is indeed going by way of the grave, but that he still anticipates the appearing of Jesus Christ.

17.  All believers, both the resurrected dead and the raptured living, will be caught up "in clouds".  Those new white garments of the righteous could indeed look like clouds as we shoot into the sky.  There is also the thought that we may meet in clusters above the earth as Christ circles the globe, reuniting and waiting to join the procession back to heaven.

18.  We will meet the Lord in the air.

19.  After that, we will never be separated from Jesus again. 

Rapture: The Thessalonian Key, part 4

We give thanks to God always for you all,

making mention of you in our prayers,

remembering without ceasing

your work of faith,

labor of love,

and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ

in the sight of our God and Father,

knowing, beloved brethren,

your election by God.

1 Thessalonians 1:4, NKJV

Someone had died.

Perhaps it was someone's beloved wife, or someone's favorite uncle.  Perhaps it was the old grandmother of the church that everyone respected and greatly loved.  We aren't told in Scripture who it was, or how they died.  In fact, we're not even told specifically that they had died.  It is simply something inferred from the First Thessalonian letter.  Paul had spent three weeks telling those believers that whoever believed in Jesus would not die, but rather would have eternal life and and bypass death through the Rapture when Jesus came back.  Then he left, and someone died in Thessalonica, leaving these brand new Christians with lots of burning questions about life, death, and after.

In First and Second Thessalonians, Paul mentions the return of the Lord at least eight times--once in each of the modern chapter divisions.  In most cases it's just a sentence.  Once in each letter he spends a rather lengthy passage explaining his eschatology. And we need to keep in mind that, as an epistle written by an apostle a mere 20 years after Jesus went to heaven, this is the first written teaching of the church's beliefs regarding the rapture, the resurrection and the return of Christ.  In the next several posts, I'm going to break down each mention of Christ's return and show 68 key facts that reveal what Paul taught about the events of the last days and the end of the age.

1.  Jesus is Coming.  That the Apostles and first Christians believed this is no surprise.  It was the promise of Jesus to come back for his followers, it was the expectation of the Apostles that it would happen in their lifetime--or at least within the lifespan of the Apostle John--and it should be our anticipation today.

2.  Paul praised the believers for their continual anticipation of Christ's return.  As believers in Jesus Christ, we should be offering ourselves to God and His people in good works that spring from our faith and love, as well as keeping our eyes on the skies as we wait for Him in persevering hope.

For they themselves declare concerning us

what manner of entry we had to you,

and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,

and to wait for His son from heaven,

whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus

who delivers us from the wrath to come.

1 Thessalonians 1:10

3.  Part of the Christian experience is waiting for Christ's return.  Once we have turned from our former lives of sin and desperation, our new lives should be devoted to waiting for Jesus to come again.

4.  Jesus is coming from heaven.

5.  Jesus is coming to deliver us from the wrath to come...which introduces us to another end-time concept--

6.  Wrath is coming too.  Throughout the Bible, two concepts are inseparably joined together--the Lord is coming to rescue the righteous, and pour his wrath out on the wicked.

For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing?

Is it not even you

in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?

For you are our glory and joy.

1 Thessalonians 2:19-20

7.  Jesus is coming to reward us for the people who received Him through our ministry.  Here Paul names one of five crowns mentioned in the New Testament that is available to believers, this crown of rejoicing rewarded to those Christians who have brought others to Jesus.  Other crowns are the imperishable crown (1 Corinthians 9:25) given to those who run the race of faith and finish it well; the crown of righteousness (2 Timothy 4:8) given to those who have anticipated and loved the return of Christ; the crown of glory (1 Peter 5:4) given to those who ministered faithfully to the people of God; and the crown of life (Revelation 2:10) given to those who suffer martyrdom for the cause of Jesus Christ.

And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love

to one another and to all, just as we do to you,

so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father

at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.

1 Thessalonians 3:12-13

8.  Jesus is coming to establish us in perfection.  Holiness and blamelessness are the goals we strive toward in this life, but we need to understand the most perfect we will be while on this planet is not when we cease doing the wrong things and always do the right things, but rather when we stand forgiven by the grace of God given us through Jesus Christ.  And one day, Jesus will come for us and we will then be made again in His image and after His likeness, changed to sin no more.

9.  Jesus is coming, and He will present us perfect before God.  This is the first hint we get about how this coming of Jesus Christ fits into the larger body of prophetic and apocalyptic literature in the Bible.  When Jesus comes for us, it will not be to establish His kingdom on earth.  It will be to take us back to heaven to stand before God.

10.  Jesus is coming, and all of His saints will be with Him.  Jesus will not be coming alone.  He will be accompanied by all of the Old Testament saints, who were resurrected with Him and taken to heaven 2000 years ago.  What a grand parade that is going to be!

Rapture: The Thessalonian Key, part 3

For the Lord Himself will descend

from Heaven with a shout,

with the voice of an archangel,

and with the trumpet of God.

And the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive and remain

shall be caught up together

with them in the clouds

to meet the Lord in the air.

And thus we shall ever be with the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, NKJV

In Peter's sermons and letters, he spoke of the Second Coming and the New Heavens and New Earth.  James & John wrote about the coming of the Lord.  Jude quoted the apocryphal Book of Enoch when speaking of the Lord's return.  The Revelation gives a long and glorious description of Christ's return to earth at the end of the Great Tribulation in power and glory.  But Paul is unique among the New Testament writers in his descriptions of the mysterious coming, the Rapture of the Church.  Though Jesus taught his disciples for three and a half years, it seems that this particular New Testament revelation was reserved for the Apostle to the Gentiles, given to him only after Gentiles started receiving Christ as Savior.

Paul called himself a Hebrew of the Hebrews, born to the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised on the eighth day.  Schooled at the feet of Gamaliel, Jerusalem's most celebrated teacher, Paul says that he excelled above all of his peers, followed the law blamelessly, and was zealous in his enforcement of it, which led to his personal vendetta against the church of Jesus Christ.  Then one day while enroute to Damascus, Paul was blinded by the brightest light of heaven, knocked on his back in the dirt, and addressed by a powerful voice from the unseen.

"Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"  In this way, Paul met Jesus. 

Three days later, healed of his blindness and full of the Holy Ghost, called to be God's Apostle to the Gentiles, he begins to preach the good news as Jesus had revealed it to him during those days of fasting and sightlessness.  Rejected by the Jewish leaders and feared by the Christians, Paul spent three years in Syria and Arabia, and aside from a brief mention in the biographical account in Galatians, we know very little about that time in Paul's life.  What was in Arabia? one might ask.  A further reading of Galatians tells us that Mount Sinai was there--not the traditional site in what is now called the Sinai Peninsula, but rather the secluded mountaintop in Saudi Arabia that is today known as Jebel al Lawz.  And why would Paul go there? one might ask.  Because that's where Paul's predecessors and heroes of faith had often gone to meet with God.  Moses met the Lord on Mount Sinai; Elijah met the Lord on Mount Sinai.  Paul was going to do the same.

During the course of those years of obscurity, Paul communed personally with Jesus Christ, received multiple mysteries not revealed to any of the other Apostles (at least that they wrote about), and at least once was caught up to heaven, to the Paradise of God.  And while the Apostle to the Gentiles is meeting with God on the mountain, Peter is bringing the first Gentiles into the church.  It is no wonder that so many wonderful revelations were reserved until the believers finally opened themselves up to what God truly wanted them to do.  And when Paul was finally recruited by Barnabas for the ministry in Antioch, he began to preach and teach the things he had received directly from the Lord, one of those mysteries being that of the Rapture of the Church.

The entirety of Paul's three week ministry in Thessalonica is summed up in four verses in Acts 17, leaving us no details except that some members of the synagogue were persuaded to follow Christ, but a great multitude of devout Greeks--including several leading women of the community--also believed.  His two letters to that church make it clear that he spent alot of time talking to them about the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the end of the age, and the promise of never dying but rather going in the Rapture.  And then a riot puts an end to Paul's stay and he hurries down the road to Berea, Athens & Corinth.  Concerned about the fledgling churches in Macedonia, Paul sends Silas and Timothy back to Philippi and Thessalonica, only to discover that the death of a believer in Thessalonica had caused a crisis of faith among the believers.

We thought you said we weren't going to die, they said. 

We thought you said Jesus was coming back to get us before we died, they said.

Were you wrong? they asked.  Did you lie to us?  Were you mistaken in your revelation?  And if Jesus does come back now, what about this one that has died?  What will happen to them?  Will they go too, or will they get left in the ground?

Interestingly enough, he will be asked the same thing by the Corinthian church in just a few years, and he will write it all over again in 1 Corinthians.  But patiently taking their questions into consideration, Paul sits with Silas and Timothy and writes the letter we have now as 1 Thessalonians, in which he cannot write very many thoughts without coming back to the concept of the return of Christ, the resurrection, and the rapture.  He spends half of chapter 4 & most of chapter 5 talking about it.  And when more questions arise about the timing of that event and the erroneous belief that the Day of the Lord--God's time of wrath upon the earth--has already begun, Paul writes 2 Thessalonians, leaving us that great passage in chapter 2 on the rapture and the rise of the antichrist.

And in those 2 letters, Paul gives us 68 simple truths, 68 key facts regarding the return of Jesus Christ--the who, what, where, when, why & how of it.  Those facts will reveal the Thessalonian key to understanding Paul's revelation of the Rapture of the church.

Rapture: The Thessalonian Key, part 2

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout,

with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.

And the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up

together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, NKJV

There it is, in full detail, the event that will change everything.  It is portrayed in types and shadows throughout the Old Testament.  It is promised by Jesus throughout the course of His ministry.  And now it is described by the Apostle Paul in one of his earliest epistles, in a passage meant to encourage the Christians in Thessalonica about the loss of one of their loved ones who had died after having believed in Christ.  Paul spent three weeks in the Greek city of Thessalonica before being run out of town ahead of a riot, but his letters indicate he spent much of his time telling those believers about the imminent return of Jesus Christ.  It was an event he fully expected in his lifetime!

The Lord Jesus Christ is currently seated at the right hand of God, waiting for the day when the Father says, "Son, go get your bride."  And one of these days--Paul believed it was going to be soon 2000 years ago; I believe it's going to be soon as well--the word will be given.  Like a Jewish bridegroom going to get his bride for their long-awaited wedding day, Jesus will arise from his seat of glory and begin the descent from wherever he is to where we are now.  He's been sending messages through the Holy Spirit and through his spokesmen for these last two millennia, but the promise of his return is that for which we are watching and waiting.  And just as the disciples saw him go, so shall we see him return in power and great glory!

As Jesus descends through the heavens toward the earth, he will begin to shout.  It will be a commanding shout, assembly orders for all the saints of all the ages.  It will be a stimulating cry, a rousing, resounding, triumphant summons to his own.  I think there's enough Biblical evidence to suggest that he will utter two things--the name of everyone both dead and alive who ever believed on him for salvation, coupled with the phrase, "Come up here!"  And because he is all powerful and able to do so much more than we can even imagine, he will be able to utter the name of every believer simultaneously!  Perhaps, as in the Song of Solomon, he will say it twice, once for the dead and once for the living.  But whether on the ground or in it, our ears will hear the Lord call our name with the greatest invitation ever:  Arise, my beloved, and come away!

When Jesus begins to shout, one of the chief angels will begin to shout as well--The Bridegroom cometh!  The Bridegroom cometh!  Perhaps at that moment, the heavens will erupt in the thunderous voice of the multitudinous myriads of angels and saints in heaven as they join the call.

The trumpet call of God--coming either from one of God's holy angels or perhaps even from the very throne of God itself--will sound from one end of eternity to the other, that awakening blast of the last trump.

The earth will tremble and quake.  The graves of all those who believed in Jesus Christ will burst open with new life as the saints receive their newly immortal and glorified bodies and rise to everlasting life.

And all of those believers who still live and breathe on planet earth, who have found true life through faith in Jesus Christ, who are living an active and blessed life dedicated to him, will suddenly be snatched from their earthly existence, changed in the blink of an eye into glorious incorruption.

Together all who have lived and died for Jesus Christ since his own resurrection from the dead will rise in singular jubilant union, caught up in clouds there to meet the Lord Jesus Christ in the air as he descends.

And so we shall ever be with the Lord.

Rapture: The Thessalonian Key, part 1

For the Lord Himself

will descend from Heaven

with a shout,

with the voice of an archangel,

and with the trumpet of God.

And the dead in Christ

will rise first.

Then we who are alive and remain

shall be CAUGHT UP

together with them

in the clouds

to meet the Lord in the air.

And thus we shall always

be with the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, NKJV

One of the worst objections I have ever heard to the Rapture is that the word Rapture is never found in the Bible.  Such an objection is ludicrous.  It's laughable.  It's lamentable.  Because it is so ill-informed.

First of all, we use a lot of words that aren't found in the Bible to explain theological truths.  Like the word trinity to explain the nature of the relationship between Father, Son & Holy Spirit in the godhead.  Or demon, which was not a word used in the earlier English translations but which came to be associated with evil spirits that plague and possess people, and from which Christ offers deliverance.  Even the word millennium, employed by Christians to explain their particular eschatalogical view whether they believe in the Millennium or not, cannot be found in the Scriptures.

So I have no problem saying that the word rapture is not in the Bible.  But perhaps it should be.

Rapture is an English word that describes the state of being transported by a loft emotion.  It is ecstasy or the expression of ecstatic feeling.  In a theological sense it is employed to describe the idea of a person being transported from one place to another, especially to heaven.

As with all things English, very little of the language is original to the British Isle.  Rapture actually comes from an obsolete French word for abduction or carrying off, which is traced back to rapt for carried away.  The French word, in turn, comes from the Latin raptus which means the same thing.

Raptus at its simplest means "carrying off by force".  It has been used in a spiritual or rhetorical sense to describe out of body experiences.  In the legal terms of the Roman Empire, it meant "carrying off by force", usually associated with crimes of property, theft, and abduction. In canonical law, it was used to refer to the abduction of women for the purpose of compelled marriage.

In the late 4th Century, a man named Jerome was commissioned by the religious powers of the time to translate the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin--the common language of the Roman Empire.  He finished his work in Bethlehem in 405 AD, supposedly while living in the cave believed to be the birthplace of Jesus.  While translating the Greek New Testament, he encountered the Greek word harpazo, which means to seize, to carry off by force, to eagerly claim for one's self, to snatch out or snatch away.

 Harpazo is the word used in Acts 8:39 to describe how "the Spirit of the Lord caught away Phillip, that the eunuch saw him no more."  It is the same word Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 12:2, 4 to describe his own experience, whether in or out of the body, of being "caught up to the third heaven...into paradise."  It is the same word used in Revelation 12:5 to describe how the manchild "was caught up unto God, and to his throne."

It is derived from the Greek word haireomai, which means to take for one's self, to prefer, to choose by vote or election.  This word is itself akin to airo which means to raise up, elevate, lift up, raise from the ground, bear away what has been raised, move from its place, take off or take away, remove, carry off, carry away, and so on.

One native Greek-speaker has been quoted as saying, "It's like two of you are walking along.  You turn your head, and when you turn back, your friend is gone and you don't know where he went."  Very literally speaking, it means to be grabbed by the hair of the head and snatched away.

So when Jerome came across the Greek word harpazo, he chose the Latin rapere to translate it, a word derived from raptus which means "to seize by force and carry off."

Bringing the Bible into the English language, those translators looked at harpazo and rapere and chose the phrases "caught up" and "caught away", a translation that could just as well have been "rapture."

So for those who say the word Rapture is not in the Bible, I like to say, "You're right--but it should be!"

The Olivet Revelation: Further Reading

At the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus presented his disciples with a teaching regarding His Return and the last days leading up to it.  He talked about the signs of the times that would herald the nearness of His coming.  He talked about the Great Tribulation, a time of judgment and wrath that would come upon the unbelieving world.  He talked about his triumphant return to this planet from heaven, clothed in glory and crowned as the King his followers had been waiting for.

And he talked about the Rapture of the Church.

This teaching is found in three of the four gospels--Matthew, Mark & Luke.  Though I have spent many hours of research and study on those passages, I did not present the entire study here.  This was an overview of those teachings, focused specifically on showing the Rapture in the teachings of Jesus.  If you want to know everything that Jesus said, a close look at the following passages will be helpful.

Matthew 24 & 25

Mark 13

Luke 12:35-48; 17:20-37; & 21:5-36

Next up will be The Thessalonian Key--a look at the Apostle Paul's thoughts on the Rapture as recorded in 1 & 2 Thessalonians, and the 68 Key Facts Paul gives us about the return of Jesus Christ.

Rapture: The Olivet Revelation, part 4

Then two men will be in the field:

One will be taken and the other left.

Two women will be grinding at the mill:

One will be taken and the other left.

Watch therefore, for you do not know

what hour your Lord is coming!

--Jesus, Matthew 24:40-42, NKJV

Remember the days when the evangelist would come to church for a week-long meeting, and he only had 5 sermons--Salvation, The Holy Spirit, Healing, Hell, & The Rapture?  He'd build up all week long, and on the last night, he'd preach it hard and he'd preach it hot.  "Jesus is coming at midnight...ain't none of you going!  For straight is the way, and narrow is the gate, and ain't none of you found it!  Two'll be in the field, and they're not going!  Two'll be at the mill, and they're not going!  Two'll be in the bed, and they're for sure not going!  So if you're not ready to meet Jesus in the air tonight, get down here and REPENT!"

And of course we'd all run to the altar, scared out of our wits because we'd had a bad thought that afternoon, or said a bad word, or acted in a way that wasn't 100% Christ-like, and we just knew that it was enough to keep us from going in the rapture.  We'd go home that night and pull the covers up over our heads, praying and pleading with the Lord to save our rotten souls, waiting until midnight to see if the trumpet was going to sound.  But if at five minutes after twelve you could hear Dad snoring, you knew you had 24 hours of grace!

As a child, and even as a teenager, there were times that I came home to an empty house, empty and eerily quiet.  No signs of life, no sounds, no nothing.  I called out, but no one answered.  My heart began to pound in my chest, my breath caught in my lungs, and I looked everywhere for a note that said, "Case', we're at the store.  Be back soon.  Love Mom."  I may have even called a dear sweet saint or two, just to check that they were still on planet earth.  Because if Mom & Dad were gone, and Sister Sweet Saint was gone, there was a good chance Jesus had come, and I got left behind!

It was an unreasonable fear to be sure.  I gave my life to Jesus as a child, and I've tried to faithfully serve Him ever since.  I don't always do it right, but I guarantee you I do get it right with Jesus before I end my day,because I don't want to take any chances.  Even now as a grown man, there have been times that I wondered to myself, are you really going to make it?  Some of you knowing that I'm a preacher, you're sitting out there wondering what could possibly make me suspect I might not make it.  Well, that's for me to know and you to never find out.  So I keep a heart of repentance turned toward God.  I think that's a healthy habit to have anyway.  I'm not out their drinking and carousing and being ugly toward my fellow man.  I try to live each day by the Book.  But when I fail (and God and I both know that I do from time to time), I'm thankful I can still go to God and get some grace that never runs out.

But one of these days, it's going to happen for real.  Two men will be working a jobsite somewhere, carrying two-by-fours or something, and suddenly one will be holding up his end all by himself.  And as the boards clatter to the ground, he's going to look around to discover his buddy is gone.  Two women will be baking cookies, and as one bends to take the second cookie sheet from the oven, she'll hear the first cookie sheet and all of its cookies crash to the floor.  Turning in surprise that her friend dropped the cookies, she'll find that her friend is not longer there.  Two will be in a bed sleeping (a married couple of course) somewhere it is night, holding each other out of love as they slumber, and suddenly the arms of one will be empty.  Waking with a start, they will find their beloved spouse has simply vanished.

This is what Jesus was talking about when he referred to the thief coming into a house to break up whole households.  What a sad state of affairs it will be when a believing father will be snatched away by a returning Jesus, leaving his unbelieving wife and kids behind.  Or when the hard-working mother who sent her kids to Sunday School but never went herself is sitting at the breakfast table with her children and suddenly finds herself alone.  Or when the wife and kids are leaving for church with dad still in his pajamas in front of the TV, and suddenly the family is gone leaving Dad in bewilderment.  There is any number of variations this story could take, but suffice it to say, when Jesus comes back for His people, there are going to be folks left behind because they weren't ready for it.

You see, my friend, the point of the Rapture is to be ready for it.  And the only way to be ready for it is to be in right standing with God.  Just because you raised your hand one time for a preacher to see while everyone else had their heads bowed and their eyes closed doesn't mean you're ready to go.  Just because you walked an aisle, said a prayer, shook a preacher's hand, and signed a decision card doesn't mean your life is as it should be.  Just because you got baptized one time doesn't mean everything is still okay between you and the Almighty.  You can go into that tank a dry sinner and come up a wet one.

To be ready for Jesus to come back means that you have given your life to Christ, trusting him for salvation, and that you are living out a daily walk that follows in his footsteps.  To be ready for Jesus means to be doing as he wants you to do, to be faithful at whatever task he has assigned you, and to be working hard here on earth while keeping your eyes on the skies.  Because one of these days, there will be a trumpet and a shout, Jesus is gonna call my name, and I'm out of here!  I want you to be out of here too.