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The
Timing of
the Rapture
The subject
of the timing of the Rapture of the saints is always guaranteed to
ignite a debate. Within Church doctrine, there a four main positions.
1/
No Rapture of the Church
2/
Pre-tribulation Rapture
3/
Mid-tribulation Rapture
4/
Post-tribulation Rapture
Many leaders
totally avoid the topic of the Rapture. They dont believe it is an
important enough issue to risk the division that discussion tends to
create. However, I beg to
differ. I believe that the existence of Israel unmistakably
places us in the latter days.
If this is indeed the case, a correct understanding of the
end-time is essential. The
Body of Messiah needs to be prepared for what is about to take place in
the World. If the pre and
mid-tribulation doctrines prove to be wrong, then many Christians who
were expecting to be raptured may find themselves totally unprepared to
survive the tribulation. The Lord has called us to be His
fellow-workers. Therefore we need to know what lies before us,
so that we can invest our lives in the work of the Kingdom. Let
us also remember that Jesus rebuked the people of His day for being able
to discern the weather from the signs in the sky, but not being able to
discern the signs of the times in which they lived.
( Matthew 16:3 )
I want to
take a scriptural look at this volatile subject.
1/
No Rapture of the Church
I believe
that 1 Thessalonians 4:16 shows the no-rapture option to be unscriptural.
Some Bible teachers have quoted 1 Corinthians 15:51 to
also support the rapture. However, if we desire to rightly divide the Word of God, this
verse on its own does not speak of a rapture.
The verse simply states that we will all be changed in a moment
of time, even the dead will be brought back to life.
Taken in tandem with 1 Thess 4:16, the Corinthians
scripture does point to the Rapture, but standing alone it does not.
2/
Timing of the Rapture
That leaves
the other three doctrines to discuss. The Bible also teaches that every
word should be established by the word of two or three witnesses (Matt
18:16). I am going to
give you more than three scriptures that witness to the true timing of
the Rapture.
1/ Acts 3:21 "whom heaven
must receive until the times of restoration of all
things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy
prophets since the world
began. (NKJ)
According to
this verse, Jesus is being restrained in Heaven until the prophecies are
fulfilled. The prophets
spoke of Israel's scattering and latter day restoration of the nation of
Israel and the regathering of the Jewish people to the land of their
fore-fathers. (Deut 30:3 / Jer 30:3)
Both Hosea (Hos 3:5) and Jeremiah (Jer 30:9) prophecy
of the Jewish people serving David their King. King David was long dead when these words were
written. It is obvious that
this is a prophetic statement referring to Israel serving the Messiah
and Acts 3:21 tells us that will have to be fulfilled before
Jesus is release from Heaven. Romans
11:26 says that one day all
Israel will be saved.
2/
Romans 11:15 For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the
world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (NKJ)
The ultimate
"life from the dead" surely must be the
resurrection of the dead. This
occurs as the last Shofar announces the second coming of the Lord. (
1 Thess 4:16) and according to Romans 11:15, that event is a
result of the natural Jewish branches being grafted back in to the Olive
Tree ( Israel )
3/
Matthew 23:39 Jesus said to the Jews in Jerusalem
"You won't see me again until you say
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord''
Revelation
1:7 Behold !
He is coming on the clouds and every eye will see Him, even those
who pierced Him.
Taking
both of those verses together,
we can deduce that if Jesus said that the Jews won't see Him
again until they are ready to welcome Him back, then no-one will see Him
until the Jews welcome Him back.
4/
Matthew 24: I agree that some Bible verses can be use to support
the pre or mid-tribulation doctrines, but Matthew 24 should put any
debate over the timing of the Rapture to rest.
The disciples asked Jesus " What will be the sign of your coming and the end of the
age ?"
Jesus then
systematically answers their question.
I believe the only legitimate way to rightly divide this chapter
is to read through it in the order that Jesus spoke it out. Lets take an overview of His answer.
v 5
Many will come in my name
v 6
You will hear of wars and rumors
of wars
v 7
For nation will rise up against nation and there will be
famines, earthquakes and pestilences
in various places
v 8
All these are the beginning of sorrows
v 9
Then they will deliver YOU up to TRIBULATION and KILL you and
you will be hated by all
nations for my names sake
v 13
But he who endures to the END will be saved
v 15
Therefore when YOU see the abomination of desolation as spoken
by the prophet Daniel,
standing in the Holy place ( let him who reads understand )
v 21 Then
there will be GREAT TRIBULATION, such as has not be seen since the world
began
v 22 Unless
those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved, but for the elect's
sake those days
will be shortened
v 29
Immediately after the tribulation
.
The powers of the heavens will
be shaken
v 30 Then
the sign of the Son of Man will appear in Heaven, and all the tribes of
the earth will
mourn and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of
heaven with power and
great glory. He will send His angels with a great sound of a
trumpet and they will gather
together His elect from the four winds,
from one end of heaven to the other ( this lines up
with 1 Thessalonians 4;16 )
v 36
But of that day and hour, no-one knows
v 40
Then two men will be in the field; one will betaken and the
other left. Two women will
grinding at the mill; one will be taken and the other left. This surely
must be a picture of the
rapture and it occurs at the END of the Lord's narrative, well
after the GREAT
TRIBULATION of verse 21.
I used to
prefer the mid-tribulation position, but on Jesus words alone I was
forced to reconsider and I arrived at the only possible Biblically
correct position. According
to Jesus, the Rapture is immediately after the time He called "the
Great Tribulation". Does
you theology agree with Jesus, or do you choose to disagree with Jesus ?
I have two
more points that also confirm a post-tribulation Rapture
Ruth
A good
number of today's Bible teachers see the book of Ruth as a prophetic
picture of the end-time Church. Ruth
the Gentile clung to Jewish Naomi.
Ruth had done what all true Christians have done, whether they realize
it on not, in making the
God of the Jews, their God. But
Ruth had gone even further. She
said to Naomi, "Your people shall be my people, and your God shall
be my God. Where you go I shall go, and where you die I shall die"
(Ruth 1:16) This is a picture of total commitment and a picture of the
end-time ' Ruth ' Church
standing with the Jewish people in the last days.
' Ruth ' means friend and Israel needs as many friends as
possible in the days of the Great Tribulation.
Ultimately, the whole world will come against Jerusalem and
Israel in the final days. The non-Bible believing world will never be Israel's friend -
quite the opposite will be seen to be true.
Only the true Church of Jesus will stand with Israel in the dark
days ahead as both Jews and Christians pass through the days of Jacobs
Trouble standing united against the wrath of
a Satanically inspired one world government and the false church,
both of which are already being formed.
Jesus came
the first time for the Jewish people
By His own
declaration Jesus came the first time for
the lost sheep of the House of Israel (Matt 15:24)
and I believe that He will come for the House of Israel when he returns
at his 2nd coming.
The only
difference is that this time there are millions of ' wild branches '
that have been grafted into the ' Olive Tree ' of Romans 11:17
that represents the House of Israel.
God only has one house, one people.
The Church does not stand separately as many Christians would
believe. Paul commands us not
to boast against the
(natural) branches, but remember that you do not support the root, the
root supports you
( Romans
11:18 ) Were it not for the fact that God has grafted the non-Jewish Church into
the natural Olive Tree - the Church would simply not exist.
Gentile Christians are now ' fellow citizens'
of the commonwealth of Israel ( Ephesians 2:11 - 19 )
Jesus is
coming back for His bride - Do you really believe that the Bride of the
Jewish Messiah will be void of most of the Jewish people ?
Paul didn't believe so. In
Rom 11:25 Paul tells us that there is a certain number of
Gentiles who are pre-destined for salvation and when that number is
complete, then the Lord will supernaturally remove the veil that has
blinded the eyes of the Jews and then ALL Israel will be saved
( Rom 11:26 )
Jesus will
not take the bride out until she
is complete with Jews and Gentiles. The Jews have been blinded to the
truth and have suffered dreadfully for the last 2000 years, so that you
dear reader, if you are a Gentile could be grafted in.
That is why Paul also says in Romans 15:27 that it is your
duty to bless the Jewish people in material ways.
You are called to be a ' Ruth '
in the day that you have come to the Kingdom. Any other opinion, or the desire to escape the time of Jacob's Trouble, leaving the Jewish people
behind to go through it by themselves, is an un-Biblical, selfish
attitude, and in the light of the above scriptural evidence, needs to be
seriously reconsidered.
And as the last word, Paul's warning in @
Thessalonians 2
Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
and our gathering together to Him,
. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come
unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the
son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is
called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of
God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not remember that when I was
still with you I told you these things?
(NKJ)
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