The rapture of the Church is such
a sticking point with many believer’s, some really don’t know much about this
glorious event because they never hear it taught in the congregation they
attend, some eagerly await for the Lord to catch them up and pray for this glorious
day to occur, and some resist and even scorn the day the Lord has inscribed
into the timetable of the Body of Christ because of personal reasons and
sometimes because of ignorance.
God has tabled a day and hour
when he will remove every believer from this world whether they are living or
dead, these people have been sealed by the Spirit of God and are referred to as
the Body of Christ, when this event occurs God will gather together the bodies
of those that have already died with
those that are still living and both groups will meet the Lord on the other
side of the physical realm where the spiritual realm begins; the Bible refers
to it as meeting the Lord in the air.[1]
This event has already been
written in heaven in the Church Chronicles even before the Church age is over,
because the days in which we live are already past in the realm of immortality,
everything that we read about in the bible that is future has already come and
gone in the eternal realm, in the physical realm the Body of Christ is
presently headed for what has been
promised as our future—when our salvation is completed and we are finally in
Eternity don’t be surprised if you see a special library dedicated to the
Church Annals displaying a record of the Church Age, and a specific repository
revealing the records of how the Spirit of God was able to bring the Body of
Christ through the salvation process to a victorious completion.
God’s plan for the Church is a
glorious plan but most don’t even realize how glorious it is, unfortunately
many teachers don’t even realize what our salvation entails or they would be
teaching their congregations substantial material on this subject, they would
be teaching end-time prophecy and information on the rapture because of how
important the rapture is and actually what it is going to be used for.
Jesus atoning sacrifice was not
only used by God to redeem those that believe but also to create for himself a new creation,[2] the new creation is made up of Jews and Gentiles who put their faith in Jesus
Christ, I am not overstating this suggestion but the Church has been created so
that God can boast before the fallen angels and the spirits of the Nephilim
who are the offspring of the fallen
angels, of how multifarious his wisdom actually is,[3] to
reveal to them that they have no possible way of outsmarting him, something
they intended to do when they followed the chief fallen angel Lucifer when he
abandoned Yahweh and rebelled against the Trinity, something the fallen angels
have tried many times to do when they produced the Nephilim with the daughter
of men before the flood and afterward.[4]
The angels are called, bene Elohim,
sons of God, the Body of Christ is also called sons of God[5]
but the angels were sons of God before the new creation became sons of God, the
angels have existed before God even made man from the dust of the earth and
made them in God’s image, most of us
have the understanding that Lucifer—the shining one, the morning-star, the son
of the morning—who is the chief fallen angel, rebelled against God[6]
and one-third of the angels, who are still the sons of God, followed the chief
prince and rebelled against their Father too,[7] it
is just unclear when the chief prince and his followers were evicted from God’s
throne room but the evidence may point
to sometime before the serpent
convinced Eve to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden, which is
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Before a person appointed to
eternal life[8] puts
their faith in Jesus Christ they are dead to the truth and don’t know the way
of righteousness, prior to salvation they are not worthy before God because
they follow Lucifer who actively works in the lives of the rebellious,[9] preceding
salvation those appointed to eternal life carry on lives similar to the fallen
angels who are the objects of God’s wrath to come, it was them that corrupted
man’s DNA after producing the Nephilim
in the days of Noah and even afterward, but because God is much wiser than any
of the fallen angels and any of the spirits of their offspring he makes those
appointed to eternal life alive to Christ revealing truth to us and even though
we still live in a physical environment we are spiritually raised up with
Christ and seated with God in his eternal environment,[10]
this infuriates the fallen angels and this is why they have waged all-out war
against the Body of Christ because God’s eternal environment is where they were
cast out of.
How does the Body of Christ get
from the place of just being spiritually raised up with Christ and seated with
him in his eternal environment to the place where we will be seated with him in
a physical state?
Salvation is a process: First,
those that God appoints to eternal life
he justifies beforehand, he makes them
right before him by his grace because they put their faith in Christ,[11]
then the believer is sanctified or made holy, being separated from the spirits
of darkness unto God by the name of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit,[12]
but God’s work is not done yet because his finished product is still to come.
Some think that sanctification is
the be-all and end-all of salvation, some think that the sanctification stage
of salvation is the primary cause of salvation, that it is the aggregate amount
of salvation, that once a person receives Jesus Christ by faith then they are
made perfectly whole, but this is not so, for the final state of the believer’s
wholeness comes once he is glorified, once he is raptured spirit, soul and body,
once he is caught up into the eternal realm being fully engulfed in God’s eternal
environment.[13]
If you think the Body of Christ
is whole already then you may want to give this some thought: Why do believer’s
in Christ still struggle with sin, why do they still give into certain
temptation, why do we sometimes still get angry, jealous, envious, and even still
find it hard to forgive people that have harmed us even though the Scriptures
say to flee from these sins?
The day will come when these
things and all the other things will not be a problem anymore as long as we
continue in the faith, [14]
as long as we “by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and
immortality, [then] he will give eternal life.”[15]
The reason God has the rapture of
the Church on his timetable is so that he can glorify us completely and make us
whole, body, soul, and spirit.
When the rapture happens, at that
very moment, Jesus comes to the edge of the spiritual realm which is just the other side of this physical world and he will stand there waiting for us, with
him he will have those that have already been in heaven but without their
physical bodies,[16] the
archangel that I assume watches over the Church is there with them too but I am
not sure of his name, maybe it is Michael but it could be another one,[17]I
don’t know how long they will be standing there but remember where they
are there is no time, time is on this
side of the spiritual realm, then at the appointed earth time the Lord will
give a loud shout to get our attention as we on the earth are about our
business, then the archangel will say something, the Scripture doesn’t reveal
what he says but nonetheless his voice
will be heard, some think that it is only the archangel that shouts but it
could be that the Lord and the archangel both speak at the same time, the trumpet of God will also sound which will
likely be heard not only by the Body of Christ but by everyone on the earth, the
people left on the earth may hear what they think is the loud sounds coming out
of the atmosphere that people are witnessing all over the earth even now,[18] then
the bodies of those that the Lord has brought with him will rise from the earth
no matter where they lay or for how long they have laid there, then those of us
that are still in our earthly bodies will instantly vanish off the face of the
earth, we will be caught up from the earth
with those that had preceded us and meet the Lord at the other side of
this physical realm.[19]
Then something miraculous
happens, at that moment a mystery that Paul revealed occurs, the dead and the
living in Christ will be changed, in a nanosecond, the Body of Christ will be changed and our body,
soul and spirit will be glorified,[20] we
will be given spiritual bodies because we cannot be physically seated with
Christ in Eternity until our salvation is completed, until we are made whole
body, soul and spirit.
Seventy-one years ago and before,
this was just something that serious believers contemplated because they were
not sure when this event would happen, but once Israel became a nation once
again on May 14, 1948, God’s timetable for the Church and also Israel became
clearer, Jesus predicted that those that witnessed Israel’s restored
sovereignty would also witness the salvation of Israel,[21]
this happens after the seven-year Tribulation is finished and specifically on
the last day of it,[22]
and for those that are not sure the rapture happens before the seven-year
Tribulation Period even begins,[23]
the seven-year Tribulation Period is also known as the hour of trial when God
will test the unbelievers,[24] the
seven-year Tribulation Period is the final seven years of Israel’s prophesied
490 years for them to finish their transgression.[25]
Once the Body of Christ is
glorified, made whole, body soul and spirit, we will not be physical beings
anymore, we will not be earthly men even though there will still be earthly
men, but rather we will be made of a heavenly substance meaning that we will be
in a glorified state, we will be clothed in splendor like Jesus is,[26]
we will bear his likeness,[27]
we will be immortal men as our mortality will cease to exist, we will be
imperishable and indestructible, we will finally be immaculate; body, soul and
spirit.
The day and age we live in is the
right time for the Church to be learning this information, Jesus even commanded
this be so, he commands the Church to keep watch and be ready for the day and
hour when he comes to rapture the Body of Christ,[28]
the Church is not supposed to be like the five foolish virgins that were
irresponsible and did not carry enough oil with them,[29] those
assigned as teachers are supposed to be teaching the Church this information so
that the Body of Christ will not be caught off guard when the trumpet blows, the
Church is supposed to know God’s program and specifically know when to be
teaching and learning end-time information, if the teacher obeys his master and
does as he is commanded he will reap many riches in Eternity, but if the
teacher refuses to obey his master’s command he will suffer great loss when the
rapture occurs.[30]
Many in the Church do not want
the rapture to happen until after they have lived long and happy earthly lives,
many ministers do not want this day to occur until after they have fulfilled
what they believe is their calling, but I suggest that if the clergy were to
actually do some soul searching they would have to confess that they just don’t
want this day to occur in their lifetime, some clergy do not want to even hear the
word rapture, they fight end-time prophecy as if it is their enemy.
Everyone that believes in Christ is
called to something, whether it be an apostle or a teacher, whether it be a
prophet or a miracle worker, whether it be one that can heal the sick or speak
in tongues, many wait on tables and even help others in need, there are so many
ministries that the Church is involved in and so many assignments for believer’s
to be working at, but the rapture of the
Body of Christ also happens to be in the plan of God and it has its own
assignment, it has its own duty to perform at a specific time on the timetable
of the Church, it just so happens that the rapture of the Body of Christ is
going to interrupt the calling of many but that does not mean their assignments
have not been fulfilled, God knows what he is doing, those that hold spiritual
offices should just be obedient and stop trying to prevent God’s plan from
happening by being contemptuous about it—ignorance is not bliss in this matter.
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[1] 1 Thessalonians 4:17
[2] 2 Corinthians 5:17
[3] Ephesians 3:10
[4] Genesis 6:1-4
[5] Galatians 4:6
[6] Ezekiel 28:13-17; Isaiah 14:12-15
[7] Revelation 12:4
[8] Acts 13:38
[9] Ephesians 2:1-2
[10] Ephesians 2:4-10
[11] Romans 8:30; 10:9-13
[12] 1 Corinthians 6:11; Ephesians 5:25-27
[13] 1 Thessalonians 5:23
[14] Colossians 1:23; Acts 11:23
[15] Romans 2:7 (ESV)
[16] 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15
[17] 1 Thessalonians 4:16
[19] 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
[20] 1 Corinthians 15:50-54
[21] Matthew 24:32-34
[22] Daniel 9:24-27
[23] Ephesians 5:6; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 5:9; Revelation
6:16-17
[24] Revelation 3:10
[25] Daniel 9:24-27
[26] 1 John 3:2-3
[27] 1 Corinthians 15:49
[28] Matthew 24:42-44; 25:13; Mark 13:32-37; Luke 12:40
[29] Matthew 25:1-13
[30] Matthew 24:45-52
