We'll always have Purgatory...
Posted on 05/05/2015 6:10:22 PM PDT by EveningStar
Question: A friend of mine has been reading the Left Behind books that have all of this stuff about the “Rapture” in them. Is there really going to be a “Rapture” like these books talk about?
Answer: No.The “Rapture” refers to a passage in First Thessalonians 4, where Christians are “caught up” in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” Many Christians believe, and the Left Behind books promote, that this being “caught up” to meet the Lord will occur before the Great Tribulation sometime in the near future. Christians will simply vanish, meet Jesus somewhere in the air, and then return with Him to Heaven to await the end of time.
(Excerpt) Read more at aleteia.org ...
(Note: The original link in this post is now dead, so I cannot critique it. And if I misunderstood it I do apologize.)
The evidence of the Rapture is obvious the Bible. I Th 4:15-17, Matthew 24, and all of Revelation point to it.
In John's revelation, Jesus admonishes the seven churches in Asia Minor for the first four chapters. Then after chapter 5 the scene switches to the future for the remaining chapters. And it's nasty: rebellion everywhere, mass death, plagues, wars, the Anti-Christ, the Beast, the False Prophet and their minions are all running around everywhere. Basically Team Evil is running the whole show.
But in Revelation 6 on, the church is *nowhere* to be found. Poof. It's completely gone. No mention of it anywhere. The Anti-Christ didn't take it over. Instead the Church just disappeared. Where did it go? What happened to it?
Hmm.. where did the Church suddenly disappear to at the end of the Bible?
The only target left seems to be Israel. Why is that?
Think about it. It's not that hard.
The two main eschatological views in Christianity today are Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology. Now, prior to 1948 the reason for the schism was very understandable. It was because of a little minor theological problem: the Jews and Israel. They are repeatedly referred to in Revelation (and indeed are the main actors in that drama - Christians are poof), but prior to 1948 there was no Israel. The country hadn't existed for thousands of years. Oops, that's a problem.
It was a problem that needed explaining. So to get out of the jam, Covenant Theology was invented in the 19th century, which posits that Christians are the spiritual successors of the Jews and that Israel is only symbolic. Basically Covenant Theology is an attempt to hand-wave away what is clearly depicted in Revelation as an actual physical attack against a real people and a real country: the State of Israel.
And this is what Dispensationalists believe. And it has been confirmed so far by what is already happening. When Israel re-appeared in 1948 it was unprecedented for a country that was dead for thousands of years to seemingly miraculously come back to life again. It's never happened before. And to revive a dead language like Hebrew that nobody had spoken in daily life for generations? Preposterous. And to reunite a diaspora of people who were scattered for thousands of years in hundreds of countries? Absurd. And yet there it is.
But don't take my word for it. Go to Bible Gateway and read Revelation starting with Chapter 6 (use a good modern translation like NIV). Then compare what you read to what is happening in our world already. Then decide for yourself.
The First coming of Son of Man was to the Jewish people, and he was 'cut off', rejected by the Jews, as foretold in Isaiah and Daniel and elsewhere (Ez, Zachar, etc). The Second coming of the Son of Man will also be to the Jews, the Jewish evangelizers, the 144,000, or at least those remaining alive at His touchdown on Earth the Second time.
Jesus need not set foot on earth to call out His bride, and in fact that is perhaps why He himself alluded to the Bride and the bridesmaids and the trimmed and untrimmed lamps. He visited Saul on the road to Damascus without 'touching down' on the Earth.
Many site the days of Noah incorrectly, on purpose, trying to claim the unrighteous were taken, not Noah. But the essence of the Rapture will be the same as in the days of Noah, when God shut the Noah family up in the Ark BEFORE the rains came and the waters rose eventually drown all but those taken into the Ark.
And then they try to use the days of Lot, but there too the Angels came and directed Lot and his family out of Sodom BEFORE the targeting happened. The Lord delivered His chosen BEFORE the bad things arrived. At the end of the Trib period, the tares will first be removed and then a harvest of new saints will happen, new saints formed during the tribulation and the pouring out of the wrath on that terrible Day of The Lord.
So the Lord will come and take His Bride out BEFORE the Tribulation arrives. And this taking out will change the balance of power on Earth in a mighty way, allowing the forces of evil such as Islam to rampage unopposed, until Israel fights back (Psalm 83 war). The 'Pale Horse' BTW can be translated as the green horse ... green in any flag of note today?
The Rapture is depicted by Paul and Jesus as delivering from the tribulation. The Second Coming (a Jewish reference since He will be making His second arrival ON EARTH) will be bringing his saints as an army in clean linens and His vesture will be dipped in blood. The bridegroom would not come for His bride with his vesture dripping blood. But He would have the dripping of blood when coming as conquering King and Lord of Lords, to serve Judgment upon the earth.
When folks demand that we stop explaining these things, it is a sure sign to me that the 'plane is over the target'. The Rapture could happen any moment, between NOW and 2017. I suspect it is sooner rather than toward 2017, because it is the chaos following the Rapture which I believes make it so easy for an evil leader to get the world to agree to his enactments.
And we should also note that because the world will believe a great lie (regarding the snatching away no doubt, since those left behind will say 'good riddance to those pesky myth-mongers called 'Christians'), God will send them strong delusion. But those 144,000 evangelists will not be afraid of martyrdom for His namesake, because they will have been selected by the Holy Spirit and will know precisely when the Second Coming is to arrive, in 7 years split into two 3 1/2 year periods.
Meant to ping you.
when you see these things come to pass, look up, for your redemption draws near... Luke 21;28
He will keep us from the hour of wrath... Rev 3:10
we are to wait for His Son from heaven, who has delivered us from the wrath to come... 1 Thes 1:10
we will be caught up together with them (dead believers are raised first) to meet the Lord in the air, and from then on, we will forever be with the Lord... ! Thes 4:17
therefore comfort one another with these words... 1Thes 4:18
The picture these verses paint indicates an anticipation of an "any moment" kind of meeting with the Lord in the air, and that we are to conmfort one another with that idea... When I get raptured, and to your surprise, you also get raptured out of your socks... I'll just smile and say, nice not goning through the tribulation, the hour of wrath, huh?
Very well said. Thank you for your insights, dear brother in Christ!
Thank you for your encouragements, Sister in The Lord.
Matt 24:39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.It appears that the ones taken did not know about the impending judgment.
It will be no wonder that someone comes along and is eagerly and readily accepted if he brings peace to all the chaos that happens after the rapture.
There has to be some catastrophic event that will happen that will FORCE the people and nations of the world to unite cause I sure don’t see it happening without that impetuous.
Even the threat of nuclear war didn’t do it during the Cold War era so it needs to be even worse than that.
He believes that Christ has come in the flesh and so do you, and each Christian has his or her own level of maturity that the Holy Spirit has brought them to. For you to assume that you know what that ought to be for each person puts you in a precarious position, does it not?
In the end, Christ died and rose again, he is the author and finisher of our faith and he has promised that he will execute judgment upon the Earth. Maybe it will all go the way you envision it, maybe some other way but it will be Christ, the Faithful and True who is even now, bringing it about, indeed from God’s mind has already been done, signed and sealed in the blood of the lamb!
1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 New International Version (NIV)
15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 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. 17 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.
Nothing to see here. Move along sharply now...
We'll always have Purgatory...
I believe Christians will go thru the Tribulation.
Suffering and experiencing bad things is not being "punished," it's being tested (and it just comes with the mortal territory). It helps us grow and mature - it also weeds out the fakes.
If there was ever a group of Christians that needed tested, it is not the overfed, TV-addled Western Christian?
The tribulation is not a test.
It’s a last call come to Jesus moment ... or else.
Your post brought a smile of ‘yup, that’s speakin’ the Gospel in the shortest sentence’. Would you have the verses rewritten? ‘Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by The Word of God’ to read ‘Faith cometh by fear, and fear by the wrath of God’ ... there will be a vast number saved during the Trib, but it will be from fear, unlike the Saving faith during the Church Age. What Jesus said to Thomas following the resurrection comes to mind at the end of this Age.
Or are they just going to be believers with no understanding? Maybe they can just read all the popular Christian books that get left behind.
** Who is going to disciple them if we’re gone? **
Moses, Elijiah and the 144,000
http://www.godsoutreachministryint.org/RevivalEndTimeHARVEST2Witnesses.htm
Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. — Rev 3:10
It sucks that we have so many different interpretations—I’m NOT saying mine is 100% correct by any means. It’s what I believe. The Rapture isn’t a salvation point nor is believing the Church being the Bride of Christ.
We’ve been given assurance in many other verses on how one is saved.
Whatever confusion there is between us, know that it comes from the Father of All Lies. Our God isn’t a God of confusion or fear. God Bless!
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