THE RAPTURE - PART 1

TEEN TREE OF LIFE
The Rapture of the Church

Part 1
November 8, 2020

Before you begin, ask yourself a very important question: Do you believe that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins? If you answered yes, you will need to be sure that you are filled with The Holy Spirit. How do you do this? You name your sins to God The Father in His Son’s Name. This is called Rebound. As a Christian, you must rebound any time you sin. This is taught in 1 JOH 1:9: If we confess [name] our sins [directly to God], He [God] is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, if you have never believed that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins, all you have to do is say to yourself that you believe in Him and you are saved! The Bible verse which teaches us this is ACTS 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”

One of the most fascinating events in history will be The Rapture of the church. Before The Lord Jesus Christ establishes His Kingdom on earth for His Millennial Reign, He will come for His Church. At The Rapture, dead believers will be raised and those Christians who are living on earth will be caught up to meet The Lord in the air to be with Him forever.

The Rapture should give you hope in times of trouble and turmoil. It should also motivate you to live in God’s Pre-Designed Plan for your life. You can only carry out God’s Plan through your union with Jesus Christ and by increasing your knowledge of Mystery Doctrine. The Mystery Doctrine is only available to those believers, like us, who live in the Church-Age. You can only carry out His Plan by learning and applying His Word along with the use of the Filling of The Spirit. The Rapture should be a source of great comfort to you because once you learn what it is, it will strengthen your faith about your future.

Jesus Christ described The Rapture to His disciples on the Mount of Olives in MAT 24:36-44 (The Message Bible): “But the exact day and hour? No one knows that, not even heaven’s angels, not even the Son. Only the Father knows. The Arrival of the Son of Man will take place in times like Noah’s. Before the great flood everyone was carrying on as usual, having a good time right up to the day Noah boarded the ark. They knew nothing—until the flood hit and swept everything away. The Son of Man’s Arrival will be like that: Two men will be working in the field—one will be taken, one left behind; two women will be grinding at the mill—one will be taken, one left behind. So stay awake, alert. You have no idea what day your Master will show up. But you do know this: You know that if the homeowner had known what time of night the burglar would arrive, he would have been there with his dogs to prevent the break-in. Be vigilant just like that. You have no idea when the Son of Man is going to show up.”

So no man knows the day or the hour when The Rapture will take place but it will most definitely happen! The apostle Paul – one of the most educated men of his time – wrote this about The Rapture: But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. (1CO 15:51-52 The Message Bible)

Paul describes The Rapture this way in 1TH 4:16-17 (New International Reader’s Version): The Lord himself will come down from heaven. We will hear a loud command. We will hear the voice of the leader of the angels. We will hear a blast from God’s trumpet. Many who believe in Christ will have died already. They will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them. We will be taken up in the clouds. We will meet the Lord in the air. And we will be with him forever. Do you see how fascinating The Rapture will be? And do you see how knowing that this will happen gives us hope and comforts us about our future?

It’s extremely important to understand that The Rapture of the church is not the Second Coming of Christ. The Rapture takes place before The Tribulation, while the Second Coming (Second Advent) takes place at the end of The Tribulation. The Tribulation will bring ecological disaster on a scale never known to man. It will also bring unprecedented famine, disease, and possibly nuclear war which will sweep the planet, culminating in the war to end all wars — Armageddon. More than one billion people will lose their lives as Satan wreaks havoc on this planet. Those who do not live by the standards God has set down in His Word for our protection, will finally have their way. Were it not for the intervention of The Lord Jesus Christ Himself as He returns to reign, no one would survive! The Tribulation is well named. Jesus Christ, knowing the severity of the coming tribulation period, described it this way: “There will be terrible suffering in those days. It will be worse than any other from the beginning of the world until now. And there will never be anything like it again. If the time had not been cut short, no one would live. But because of God’s chosen people, it will be shortened.” (MATT 24:21–22 New International Reader’s Version)

During The Tribulation, there will be the greatest power struggle in all of human history. It will involve not only people, but also angelic creatures as well. It isn’t a time that you would want any of your family members, friends, or neighbors to have to go through. Honestly, if you truly come to understand The Tribulation, you wouldn’t even want your enemies to experience it. It’s a time of great rage and madness on earth, both from God and from Satan: “The Great Judgment Day of God is almost here. It’s countdown time: . . . seven, six, five, four . . . Bitter and noisy cries on my Judgment Day, even strong men screaming for help. Judgment Day is payday—my anger paid out: a day of distress and anguish, a day of catastrophic doom, a day of darkness at noon, a day of black storm clouds, a day of bloodcurdling war cries, as forts are assaulted, as defenses are smashed. I’ll make things so bad they won’t know what hit them. They’ll walk around groping like the blind. They’ve sinned against God! Their blood will be poured out like old dishwater, their guts shoveled into slop buckets. Don’t plan on buying your way out. Your money is worthless for this. This is the Day of God’s Judgment—my wrath! I care about sin with fiery passion—A fire to burn up the corrupted world, a wildfire finish to the corrupting people.” (ZEP 1:14-18 The Message Bible)

In REV 6:12-17 (The Message Bible) the apostle John tells us that The Tribulation is a time of great judgment on the earth like never before: I watched while he ripped off the sixth seal: a bone-jarring earthquake, sun turned black as ink, moon all bloody, stars falling out of the sky like figs shaken from a tree in a high wind, sky snapped shut like a book, islands and mountains sliding this way and that. And then pandemonium, everyone and his dog running for cover—kings, princes, generals, rich and strong, along with every commoner, slave or free. They hid in mountain caves and rocky dens, calling out to mountains and rocks, “Refuge! Hide us from the One Seated on the Throne and the wrath of the Lamb! The great Day of their wrath has come—who can stand it?” This period is God’s final countdown for humanity, culminating in the personal, visible return of Jesus Christ to this earth, known as The Second Coming.

The prophet Isaiah wrote this about this future time period: Come, my people, go home and shut yourselves in. Go into seclusion for a while until the punishing wrath is past, Because God is sure to come from his place to punish the wrong of the people on earth. Earth itself will point out the bloodstains; it will show where the murdered have been hidden away. (ISA 26:20-21 The Message Bible)

{to be continued}