#Prophecy. The New Testament Rapture.

So, which is it? Is the Rapture before, halfway through the Tribulation, or at the end of the Great Tribulation? Before we answer those questions, let’s review some facts.

THE NEW TESTAMENT RAPTURE

The Greek word for rapture is harpazo. The word is mentioned fourteen times in the New Testament, meaning to carry off by force, ripped away, or rapped from. Satan will do anything possible to keep the believers on earth. However, his attempts are fruitless. To sedate power, it requires a greater power to overpower it. As most Bible readers know, this is none other than the power of Christ and His angelic hosts. While Satan is mighty, God is eternity's almighty, most powerful force.

To keep things simple, there are only two significant events in the Bible – the first coming of Jesus and His Second Coming. All Biblical events hinge and are built around these two events. Jesus’s first coming was moments before the Father handed the world over to Satan for a temporary rule, the first being through his demonic spirits. His Second Coming will be moments after Satan is finished ruling the earth for seven years through the Antichrist. Both are perfectly timed. Jesus’s first coming opened the door for a demonic rule, and His Second Coming closed the door to a direct ruling of Satan’s Antichrist – forever. 

There are two phases to Christ’s Second Coming. First is to gather up His Bride, which is at the beginning of the Tribulation. The second phase is when Christ comes in person to end the Tribulation, which is the last hour of Satan’s seven-year rule.

The Tribulation will be packed with torturous horror, suffering, agony, murder, and mayhem. However, his reign has two phases as well. The first three and a half years are fake peace while he slaughters the Gentiles. During this time, Satan will remove the final Gentiles on earth. Phase two is called the Great Tribulation. In this phase, the Antichrist will focus his efforts on the Jews. Satan will be on a special mission to place his throne in the third Jewish temple while he hunts down the pure-bloodline Jews to eradicate them.  

It is important to understand the Rapture.

Paul made it clear in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 regarding the facts behind the glorified Rapture.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

We discover yet another revelation from Paul's writings through the number seven. Here are the seven points of Truth.

ONE: The Rapture Contains No Signs in the End Times.

In the infamous passage in Matthew 24-25, the signs all point to the physical return of Jesus Christ. The passage covers all the deception, war, famine, pestilence, and earthquakes of the Tribulation. Please note that none of these signs point to the first stage of His Second Coming – the Rapture. For Godological reasons, God the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit keep the details of the Rapture as silent as a thief in the night. And for good reasons. In this, we find what Jesus meant by “at any moment” and in the “twinkling of an eye.” Count on the first half of Jesus’s return will be without signs, wonders, and announcements. This will be a signless event.

TWO: The Rapture is meant to be a surprise.

Paul said, in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-2, Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

While calculated opinionates work to nail down the time of the Rapture, avoid such people. Humanity tends to demand timeframes around all Biblical prophecies. If God says His Son does not know the day or the hour, why would He give it to a mere human in His name? He won’t. Some say they can nail down the year. Really, how is that working for them? God purposes to keep this event secret so that the pressure and responsibilities are on the people to be ready – at all times. Readiness produces perseverance and endurance, the two qualities that must house authentic believers before they are Raptured.

THREE: The Rapture is a split-second event.

Have you thought much about how fast the “twinkling of an eye” really is? It is called a nanosecond – one billionth of a second. It is less than the time it takes to blink. A twinkle refers to the amount of time it takes for light, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, to be reflected on the retina of one’s eye. That is the Biblical time stamp on how briskly the Rapture will occur without warning. When the moment is perfectly aligned with God’s timeline, in less than a nanosecond, the Bride of Christ will be evaporated from the face of the earth.

FOUR: The Rapture is a hand-picked event.

Sovereignty is not a concept that humans can understand, let alone resist. Sovereignty has full control over the laws of physics, transcended time, and human reasoning and logic. It also includes prophetic events eternally sealed in God’s ordained plans for sovereign control. 1 Corinthians 15:23 reveals the perfectly timed event of the Rapture, which ONLY includes “those who are Christ’s at His coming.” More significantly, it includes all who died in Christ before this well-timed event. Each Biblical passage regarding the Rapture is restricted exclusively to those who had or have the Holy Spirit living within their mortal bodies. That leaves a question. Did all those who died, fully knowing the indwelling Life of Christ, go to Heaven? The answer is “yes.” However, there are two Heavens stated - the one that has always been in play and the “New Heaven” spoken of in Revelation. During the Rapture, the Saints, dead or alive, will be gathered up and taken to the present Heaven until the New Heaven is given to Jesus’s Bride as a wedding gift, as noted in Biblical prophecies. 

FIVE: The Rapture is the most glorious event in world history.

Outside of a couple of individuals noted in the Bible, this event unfolds the most glorious, shocking, miraculous, and sensational event of all times. There are two phases to the Second Coming of Christ – spiritual revelation and physical appearance. The Rapture is phase one of Christ revealing Himself spiritually to the elect. His second phase is when He reveals Himself physically to the unbelievers. Both are considered a part of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Once Jesus keeps His promise to be seen by both His Bride and the haters of God, He will swiftly bring humanity to an end – resulting in ruling the earth for 1,000 years.

SIX: The Rapture is an event of succession.

A succession is an event forming or following in a logical order or sequence. It is what we call a Godological succeeding event. It is a phenomenon that precedes one event and follows another. It is a point on a timeline. It cannot be moved or adjusted, or it will affect the events on both sides of its destined marker. The Rapture is such a time stamp. The Rapture must occur to seal the past to open the events that follow its predestined or appointed purpose. In the outcome of this event, all those who house the Holy Spirit will first experience Christ’s return, their resurrection, and completed redemption, and behold full-on spirit and soul, reunion with Jesus Christ. Within the nanosecond of this event, each will be dropped into a new Heavenly body.    

SEVEN: The Rapture is an empowering event.

As most Bible readers know, there is a seven-year gap between the Rapture and the physical appearance of the Second Coming. Furthermore, the Bride of Christ comes back to earth with Jesus Christ in His appearance to the world. This proves the importance of the Rapture being an empowering event. During the moments of the Rapture process, the Bride is supercharged with the power of Christ, well beyond what they had on earth. This empowering is for several reasons, but an essential one is to be a full-on representative of the preeminence of Jesus. The power gives the Bride of Christ privilege and passage to return with their Husband, Jesus, to what the Bible calls the most horrific conditions of humanity, not to mention the requirement of facing Satan, his False Prophet, the Antichrist, and a host of demons. To face these conditions, all of God’s eternal beings will be supercharged with the powers of God’s most Holy place. The reason? There will be one last battle to be won, the battle of Armageddon.

While God offers no signs of the Rapture, He has sounded plenty of warnings loudly through His prophecies. Prophets of old and new have alerted the masses of this forthcoming event. Agreed. Few have listened, but after all, the call was for the faithful, NOT the faithless. God has always expected the faithless to choose Hell over Heaven. On the other hand, He promised that the faithful who endure to the end would be caught up with the coming of His precious Son, Jesus Christ.  

If your name is not in the Book of Life, or you are not dangling from the Tree of Life, when the Rapture occurs, you will be one of those left behind to experience the most horrid time the world has seen in human history.

When people ask me, How do I know if I am in the Book of Life and stay in the Book of Life? My answer is always in what Jesus said, those who endure to the end those shall be saved. So, that answer cannot be answered until you take your last breath. Sorry folks, no ticket in your pocket will secure you as a benefactor of eternal security.

Don’t hang your hat on that salvation prayer you said unto the Lord. It is not a “prayer” that saves a soul. It is a life dedicated to enduring to the end in belief, loyalty, and commitment. Yes. I believe in the acceptance of Christ as our engaged Husband. However, the consummation and wedding feast is not until we arrive on the other end. We should never disregard the words John was required to write down in the last penned words of the Bible.

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (Revelation 22:18-19)

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