Why I Believe in the rapture
Titus 2:13 NIV “While we wait for the blessed hope-the glorious appearing of our great Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ”.
There is something in the air, we feel it and we know that it is true. Something big is going to happen and I stand to greet it with joyous expectation. I am anxiously awaiting the Rapture of the Church. My Grandmother taught me about it when I was a child. She looked for it then and I look for it now. It is truly my blessed hope. This hope has been a source of comfort to me for my whole life.
I know this is an old song that I’m singing and that most of you have heard it all before. People have been predicting the Rapture and setting dates since the earliest beginnings of the Church. Through the years numerous dictators have risen and fallen in a seemingly endless line to apply for the job of the Anti-Christ as we watch with rapt anticipation and try to guess who he will be.
It seems like every few weeks another man with slicked back hair and a suit stands up to rally his followers with the news that the rapture will be happening on the fifth or the sixth or the twenty-third, whatever. He can always back it up with signs, and numbers, it is a sure thing. Everybody gets excited, everybody gets disappointed, everybody gets depressed. This is human failure, or a trick of Satan. If the Devil wants us all disillusioned he’s going about it the right way. God saw this coming and made allowance for it. The lesson is hard-won but the Bible had this covered in Mark 13:32, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father”. It’s a microcosm of the arrangement made in the traditional Jewish wedding. Neither the Groom or the Bride knows just when the event is going to take place, only the Father of the Groom knows the date..
Is it wrong to look for the Rapture? I think not, we saw in Titus that it is our “Blessed Hope” and we see in 1 Corinthians 15:19 that “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” In other words, we need a hope that extents farther than this life. And we have one.
The Doctrine of the Rapture is in the Bible, and before you start fitting me for a Tin-foil hat, let's look at what it says.
“For the Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout. With the voice of the Archangel and with the Trump of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with Him”. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18. That’s straightforward and that’s what it says. Let's stand back and look at this thing for a moment, somebody in the back of the crowd raises his hand and shouts. “The word Rapture is not even in the Bible”. I have to answer, “au contraire”, the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, the word “Rapture” comes from the word rapturo, which was from the Latin. This word is a translation of the Greek verb for “caught-up”. This is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:17.
Titus 2:13 NIV “While we wait for the blessed hope-the glorious appearing of our great Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ”.
There is something in the air, we feel it and we know that it is true. Something big is going to happen and I stand to greet it with joyous expectation. I am anxiously awaiting the Rapture of the Church. My Grandmother taught me about it when I was a child. She looked for it then and I look for it now. It is truly my blessed hope. This hope has been a source of comfort to me for my whole life.
I know this is an old song that I’m singing and that most of you have heard it all before. People have been predicting the Rapture and setting dates since the earliest beginnings of the Church. Through the years numerous dictators have risen and fallen in a seemingly endless line to apply for the job of the Anti-Christ as we watch with rapt anticipation and try to guess who he will be.
It seems like every few weeks another man with slicked back hair and a suit stands up to rally his followers with the news that the rapture will be happening on the fifth or the sixth or the twenty-third, whatever. He can always back it up with signs, and numbers, it is a sure thing. Everybody gets excited, everybody gets disappointed, everybody gets depressed. This is human failure, or a trick of Satan. If the Devil wants us all disillusioned he’s going about it the right way. God saw this coming and made allowance for it. The lesson is hard-won but the Bible had this covered in Mark 13:32, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father”. It’s a microcosm of the arrangement made in the traditional Jewish wedding. Neither the Groom or the Bride knows just when the event is going to take place, only the Father of the Groom knows the date..
Is it wrong to look for the Rapture? I think not, we saw in Titus that it is our “Blessed Hope” and we see in 1 Corinthians 15:19 that “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” In other words, we need a hope that extents farther than this life. And we have one.
The Doctrine of the Rapture is in the Bible, and before you start fitting me for a Tin-foil hat, let's look at what it says.
“For the Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout. With the voice of the Archangel and with the Trump of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with Him”. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18. That’s straightforward and that’s what it says. Let's stand back and look at this thing for a moment, somebody in the back of the crowd raises his hand and shouts. “The word Rapture is not even in the Bible”. I have to answer, “au contraire”, the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, the word “Rapture” comes from the word rapturo, which was from the Latin. This word is a translation of the Greek verb for “caught-up”. This is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:17.
The Bible is full of references to this event, the Rapture, the Harpazo, the catching away, the rescue, whatever you want to call it. In Bible College they taught me that you needed at least two or three Scriptures to form a doctrine. I can show you many more than that, but here are three, to show you it qualifies for doctrine, just for good measure.
Matthew 24:31- “And He shall send out His Angels with a loud Trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of Heaven to the other.”
1 Corinthians 15:51-53 -"Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality".
John 14:3- 3 "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am".
God likes us to study, and to seek out answers to things. Proverbs 25:2 tells us that “it is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the glory of kings to search out a matter”. God sprinkled tidbits about the Rapture all over the Bible. Breadcrumbs if you will, Prophecies, signs, timeframes. Enough to peak the interest of any observant Christian. We find today that most Christian Churches teach some form of Eschatology (study of future events), and the doctrine of the Rapture is perhaps the most compelling.
In 70AD The Roman General Titus destroyed Jerusalem, burned the temple and left “not one stone stacked upon another. Jesus himself prophesied this. The Jews were dispersed and survived as a people without a nation for close to 2000 yrs. (this by itself is a miracle) before they returned to Israel and once more were declared a sovereign nation in 1948. After the 6-day war in 1967 they came into possession of Jerusalem, these things were foretold in the Bible. Matthew 4:4-34
I read somewhere that Catherine the Great of Russia once asked one of her adviser’s if he could prove the existence of God with one word. His answer was “the Jew.” I believe this is why the Jew is one of the most hated people-groups on earth.
Matthew 24:31- “And He shall send out His Angels with a loud Trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of Heaven to the other.”
1 Corinthians 15:51-53 -"Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality".
John 14:3- 3 "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am".
God likes us to study, and to seek out answers to things. Proverbs 25:2 tells us that “it is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the glory of kings to search out a matter”. God sprinkled tidbits about the Rapture all over the Bible. Breadcrumbs if you will, Prophecies, signs, timeframes. Enough to peak the interest of any observant Christian. We find today that most Christian Churches teach some form of Eschatology (study of future events), and the doctrine of the Rapture is perhaps the most compelling.
In 70AD The Roman General Titus destroyed Jerusalem, burned the temple and left “not one stone stacked upon another. Jesus himself prophesied this. The Jews were dispersed and survived as a people without a nation for close to 2000 yrs. (this by itself is a miracle) before they returned to Israel and once more were declared a sovereign nation in 1948. After the 6-day war in 1967 they came into possession of Jerusalem, these things were foretold in the Bible. Matthew 4:4-34
I read somewhere that Catherine the Great of Russia once asked one of her adviser’s if he could prove the existence of God with one word. His answer was “the Jew.” I believe this is why the Jew is one of the most hated people-groups on earth.
Time has moved on and we have seen the four consecutive Blood Moons all take place on Jewish Holidays, animal die-offs and red tide. Nation rises against Nation and kingdom against kingdom just like the Bible says. For the first time Russia (Gog and Magog) Ezekiel 38:2-3,Revelation 20:7-8 has a formable presence in the Mid-East and the “Kings of the East” (China and North Korea)(Revelation 16:12). are rousing from their sleep. The Weather has gone bonkers as we are inundated with floods, fires, earthquakes, volcanos, and Hurricanes. Yes, people are beginning to notice that something is going on. We see these things prophesied in Joel 2:31, Acts 2:19,20. Matthew 24:7. Revelation 19:19. And Zephaniah 1:3. Also. Hosea 4:3 tells us “Therefore shall the land mourn, and everyone that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.” And in Revelation 6:12 “I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood;”
Yes there will be a Rapture then seven years of disaster before Christ comes back to reclaim his planet. The Rapture and the Second coming are two separate events, which confuses many people. Perhaps I will revisit this issue at another time, but for now it is sufficient to say there is ample Scripture to prove this.
Yes there will be a Rapture then seven years of disaster before Christ comes back to reclaim his planet. The Rapture and the Second coming are two separate events, which confuses many people. Perhaps I will revisit this issue at another time, but for now it is sufficient to say there is ample Scripture to prove this.
It is a strange Prophecy this rapture, far beyond the ordinary, hard to wrap your mind around. To think that God would come down from Heaven and rescue Christians from the destruction and wrath that will come upon the earth. That He would lift our living souls to heaven, that we might forever be with Him. Strange stuff, wild, you wonder if maybe we’ve been smoking something not usually found in the Ladies-aid bulb garden. But is it any stranger than some of the stuff we already believe? That God Himself came down to earth in the form of a man and suffered and died to pay the price necessary to redeem us from sin? That He hears every prayer we pray and knows even the thoughts of our hearts. How strange is that? But most Christians believe it. How about the fact that even though the Bible was written over a period of several thousand years yet we believe that it was written by direct inspiration from God? That it is His living word and a true account of His interaction with men? If we believe any of the Bible, we must believe all of it. We cannot pick and choose. If any of it is true it is all true and wherein it is feasible we should take what it says literally. Christ literally rose from the dead. He turned the water into wine, fed the 5000 and walked on water. Hey, if we believe this we might as well go for the whole enchilada and go for the Rapture as well.
Yes, I believe in the rapture of the Church. No, I don’t know when it going to happen, but I don’t think it will be much longer because of all the signs that are taking place right now. It like when the sky gets super dark, the wind blows, and the air begins to feel cool and damp, you might not know the exact moment when the storm will come, and the rain will start to fall, but you know it can’t be long.
It is necessary to be ready, the Bible says in Romans 10:9,10,13 that “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Matthew 7:7-Ask and it will be given to you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.
The Bible says “Watch ye therefore and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of man.” Luke 21:36.
Talk to the Lord about it, repent of your sins, cast you lot with Jesus.
Yes, I believe in the rapture of the Church. No, I don’t know when it going to happen, but I don’t think it will be much longer because of all the signs that are taking place right now. It like when the sky gets super dark, the wind blows, and the air begins to feel cool and damp, you might not know the exact moment when the storm will come, and the rain will start to fall, but you know it can’t be long.
It is necessary to be ready, the Bible says in Romans 10:9,10,13 that “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Matthew 7:7-Ask and it will be given to you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.
The Bible says “Watch ye therefore and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of man.” Luke 21:36.
Talk to the Lord about it, repent of your sins, cast you lot with Jesus.