I know - we’ve all been taught pretty much the same story and timeline about this coming ‘rapture’. Jesus is coming back and God is going to unleash this horrific nightmare of judgement and destruction on the world but....at some point prior to things getting really bad, He’s going to snatch all us ‘believers’ up and out of here to meet Him in the clouds. Then it will get really ugly down here. Or so we’ve always been told.
Where the majority of our camps get all wound up in debating is trying to pinpoint when this event may occur. We’ve all seen those ‘dispensational charts and time-lines’ where it would seem there’s going to be this intense seven year period of ‘tribulation’. Some believe this ‘catching away of the saints’ will occur just prior to the seven years period; others are convinced it will take place midway at the 3.5 year mark and the rest think it culminates at the very end of this seven years.
I’m not there today to ‘set any record straight’ as I just don’t know how this event will actually play out ...or when it will occur. But I will share with you though what I do know from what I see written in the bible and you in turn can read for yourself asking the Holy Spirit to confirm what you read and hear, which is always a very good idea.
I do know that nearly every generation of believers since the time of the church’s inception has been looking for this event to take place in their lifetime. That ought to tell us something, yes? When I came to the Lord back in 1980, I was indoctrinated to believe that since Israel became a nation in 1948 (a monumental sign) that the generation who witnessed this would also see the ‘end times’ given a generation was ’40 years’ give or take maybe another 30. I am unclear of the math used to compute all that. But it seemed that 1988 was a good target zone and a popular writer sold a lot of books laying all this out for us. By the way, is it not true that every generation has its own...’end of time’?
So here we are in 2022 quickly approaching 2023. Has the ‘bridegroom delayed His coming’? If that is the case, then another time we read when he did that was back in Matt. 25:5; and guess what those awaiting for him did? They grew drowsy and fell asleep. Yeah, not good.
So consider this: for years, there were folks back in the time of Christ that were convinced based on all their study and understanding of the Torah and the writings of the prophets that the coming of their promised Messiah was going to take place in a certain way and manner. And when Jesus the Messiah did arrive, they crucified Him.
Yeah...I’m gonna put that one in the category of a ‘major fail’. They missed it Big Time.
Who’s to say all the ‘experts’ of our day who study such things could not ‘miss it’ again, big time? Oh...things are different today because we have the Holy Spirit, you say, along with more thick commentaries and a lot smarter people?
We (God’s people) tend to get it wrong more often than we get it right. You need only read through the bible to see that laid out for us.
Allow me if you will, to lay out a ‘scenario’ based on scripture for you to study on your own to see if this might be plausible. All I ask is for you to do what they did in Acts. 17:11.
Paul had been writing to calm the nerves of some of those there in Thessalonica who thought they might have ‘missed the rapture’ assuring them that the day had not yet occurred. (2 Thess. 2).
Can I tell you right now that scripture addresses much more often...another event that will occur...more than this ‘catching away’ (rapture). It is known as the ‘Day of the Lord’. And I don’t know of a more sobering topic a believer can study than this. We hear all this talk about the ‘coming of the Lord’ and what an exciting day that will be.
Look how Paul describes this ‘coming’ in his first letter to the church at Thessalonica: “For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as...a thief in the night.”
Stop here for a second. What did Jesus tell us in John 10:10 that a thief comes to do? - to “steal, kill, and destroy.” Please go make note of Rev. 3:3 and 16:15 as well right now. (His words, not mine)
Now look at Matt. 24:43 where Jesus gave us a heads-up saying: “Know this- that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.”
That’s kind of interesting as He seems to suggest that if we are not careful, our ‘house’ can be broken in to’. Sort of like what He alluded to in Matt. 12:43-45 and how when an ‘unclean spirit goes out of a man...he decides to attempt and return to his former ‘house’ and brings with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself’. And what was the condition of that person at the end?
What did Paul admonish us in Eph. 4:27...to ‘give no place to ______(who)?’
Now take a look at Joel 2...the warning to ‘blow a trumpet in Zion (church) and to sound an alarm....and why? “For the day of the Lord is coming and it is at hand’. (1). It is described as a day of darkness and gloom and warns of an approaching ‘army’. I’m just gonna give you a hint here...that if you are looking for the Chinese or the Russians...you are looking for the wrong army. Paul tells us our enemy is not ‘flesh and blood’ but something else- (Eph. 6:12)
You might make note of vs. 5 there as it talks about how this army ‘leaps over mountains’ with a ‘noise of flaming fire that devours the stubble’. (Please look up: 1 Cor. 3:12-13; Mal. 4:1, Matt. 13:42; Isa. 13:9) Further down in this same chapter (Joel 2) you read some verses that may sound familiar. We use to sing a song about this back in the 80’s...and we thought it was a victory song about how we were God’s triumphant army. How ignorant we were. This is the ‘army’ of the powers of darkness that God unleashes in the day of His wrath...they are the ‘instruments of His indignation. You can read about them in Isaiah 5 & 13 and Psalm 78:49-50. But look what this ‘army’ does there in Joel 2:9 – they ‘climb into the houses, and enter at the windows like a...thief’. Isn’t that interesting? Check out vs. 11-13 first chance you get as well.
Now....quick glance to Acts 13:40-41 where Paul tells us NT believers to ‘beware...lest what was spoken through the prophets come upon us’. He then quotes a passage from Habakkuk 1. Let’s go visit that for a moment. God is warning there of His impending judgement and how He is going to ‘raise up the Chaldeans...a bitter and hasty nation’. You read in that chapter that they come for violence and gather captives like sand’. (9). We read there in vs. 7 how they are terrible and dreadful. So when Paul warns that we beware lest this happen to us, I can assure you he is not talking about some old time tribe of feared people known as the Chaldeans. He’s talking about a spiritual enemy who...according to vs. 6 – come to ‘possess or seize dwelling places that are not theirs’. (see any more dots connecting here?)
And what has God ‘appointed them’ to do? Look at vs. 12.
You have probably heard in times past that the first time Jesus came, He came as a ‘lamb’. But the next time He comes, we’ve always had the understanding that He is coming as a....’lion’, yes? Why did Peter suggest we would do well to remain sober and alert? - because our ‘enemy’ comes as a...’roaring lion seeking to devour’. (1 Pet. 5:8).
Then, when we read there in 2 Thess. 1 that in the day when the Lord is revealed, there will be mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do ‘not obey’ the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ’. (7-8). (Luke 6:46)
Yet, how many people are sitting under a false sense of security in their church pews thinking there will be ‘peace and safety’ because they have listened to those same ‘prophets/teachers’ that Jeremiah warned about in 23:16-20. I would suggest you go look at that passage right now. Then back to 1 Thess. 5:1-6. You might go highlight those now as well.
Hang with me just a tad longer and flip back to Matt. 13 where Jesus was explaining the parable of the wheat and tares to His disciples. Vs. 39-43 describes what happens at the ‘end of the age’ and how these reapers or ‘angels’ go out and gather out of the kingdom ‘all things that offend and those who practice lawlessness (sin). What happens to them there in vs. 42? Now look at vs. 30...who did He say was ‘gathered up first’...before the ‘wheat’ was? (Wheat has fruit). Now John 15:1-7 comes in to play here because the only way we can bear fruit is if we are ’abiding in Him’. Otherwise, what do we read there in vs. 6?
Sure sounds like quite the ‘storm’ being unleashed, does it not? Sort of like ‘as it was in the days of Noah’? (Matt. 24:38-39). And nobody even saw it coming or knew what happened until it was too late. Kind of like those ‘foolish virgins’ in Matt. 25:11. Or even those folks that Daniel was told about regarding the ‘time of the end’. He was told that while many shall be purified and made white and refined, the ‘wicked will not understand...but the wise shall understand’. (Dan. 12:8-10) And again, those who are blind...never even realize what is happening. (Isa. 42:25)
In Noah’s day...who were the only ones that were ‘saved...from the wrath of God’? Noah and his family. And why is that? They were ‘in the ark’. What does it mean to ‘be in the ark’ today? It means to ‘be in Christ’...abiding in Him. Psalms 91 paints a very telling picture of what that looks like as well. And remember, that ‘ark’ did not take Noah ‘out of this world’. It just protected them during the ‘storm and flood’....sort of like that house in Matt. 7:24-25. They were the ones who ‘obeyed the gospel’.
God means what He says. And we will study that more tomorrow, based on what He has done in the past. [You’re probably gonna want to digest and process this yourself before trying to covey it to others. It’s taken me awhile, myself]
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