The Rapture - not to be confused with The Revelation April 11, 2011 at 6:55pm By Min. Derrell Revels I was in service this weekend listening to a preacher teach of the so - called pre-tribulation rapture. Had I not been manning my post as one of the tabernacle musicians as I lacked much respect for the sermon being preached. I would have got up and walked out. I have a very low tolerance for mess when it comes to Gods Word. Despite the traditions of man, we must learn to serve God in spirit and truth. God is going to set up his Kingdom here on Earth. We declare this when we pray the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples Thy kingdom come, thy will shall be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. In order for his will to be done on Earth the Kindom must come first. Believe what you want to believe as it is not Gods intent to have us ignorant but for he who is ignorant (chooses to be), let him be ignorant still but he who hath an ear let him him hear what the Spirit says to the Church. None of us can claim to have escaped all of the many doctrinal traps which Satan lays for the ignorant or uninstructed. Many sincere preachers have been trapped by the remarkable notion, now being widely accepted in America, that seven years before Jesus comes to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth, He will arrive silently and secretly to snatch away the faithful to heaven. This event will leave airplanes pilotless and cause driverless cars to run off the e-way. To me this sounds goofy at best however, it is widely believed. Few know that leading theologians, amongst them leading exponents of pre-millennialism, have felt the need to write whole books in refutation of the fantastic theory of a second and third coming of Jesus. George Ladd’s The Blessed Hope, Alexander Reese’s The Approaching Advent of Christ, and Robert Gundry’s The Church and the Tribulationare are must reads for those seeking the Truth of the Bible. There is no text in the New Testament to support the idea that Jesus will come back in two stages separated by seven years. This teaching is unknown in theology before the 1830s, where it was launched by members of a small denomination called the Brethren, in England. Note carefully, however, that many leading Brethren disagreed with the new discovery and denounced the doctrine as unbiblical. The idea of a separate and secret coming of Christ to remove the church prior to his coming in power and glory is a vagary of prophetic interpretation without any biblical basis whatever.’ The carelessness of popular handling of the Bible is shown by the fact that many will quote the verse 1 Thessalonians 5:2 about the thief in the night almost as if they have never bothered to look it up in its context. Inspection of the context will reveal immediately that this text says nothing about a secret coming of Jesus seven years before His public manifestation. The verse explains the opposite from the one given it by the pre-trib theory: The coming like a thief is supposed, according to pretribulationism, to affect the Church only and not the unbelieving world. But let us see what 1 Thessalonians 5:1-2 actually says: Now brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you for you know very well that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. For while people are saying ‘Peace and safety’ destruction will come upon them suddenly . . . and they will not escape. The coming of Christ like a thief, Paul says, will take the unbelieving world by surprise. It will not be a secret event affecting the church only: But you, brethren, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief (1 Thess. 5:4). It is all perfectly straightforward. The thief-like coming will affect the non-Christians mainly because they will be unprepared. How can these simple verses be used to invent some sort of secret event as a secret coming seven years earlier. Another thing that gets me is the fact that Paul had just previously described the catching up of the saints to meet Jesus in the sky, an event accompanied by a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet call of God (1 Thess. 4:16). It is in connection with this event that Paul goes on to explain that the world will be overtaken as by a thief. One has only to read the biblical text as one unit from 1 Thessalonians 4:13 to 5:6 to get Paul’s message. A baby in the Scriptures has no difficulty understanding it. Tragically, those who should be more experienced isolate verses to support this two-stage coming. People who believe in this foolishness like to quote 1 Thessalonians 4:14 as a text to support a prior coming for the church but it says that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep. Jesus, in other words, is seen here coming with the church, having raised the dead and assembled them with the surviving believers. The pre-tribulation believers form a theory that divides the second coming (as well as churches). They speak of the rapture as an event not to be confused with the Revelation (something revealed. The manifestation of divine will or truth). The latter, they say, is the public revelation of Jesus, but they expect to be raptured seven years earlier. What they are waiting for in hopeful anticipation is the rapture, not the revelation. But the New Testament Church was expecting the Revelation. Once again the theory puts its advocates on a collision course with the Cannon: Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for the Revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:7). The theory is misleading in saying that Christians will find relief from the tribulations of this life when Jesus comes secretly to take away His church seven years before His arrival to punish the world. Paul did not teach this. He tells us: God will give relief to you who are troubled and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his holy angels, taking vengeance on those who do not know God. . . (2 Thess. 1:7, 8). Just as Paul described the gathering of the faithful and associated this event with the glorious public arrival of Jesus (2 Thess. 2:1-2) so Jesus also gives us a simple outline of God’s program for the end of the present age: When you see in the holy place the abomination which causes desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel -- let the reader understand -- then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains...for then will be great distress unequaled from the beginning of the world until now -- and never to be equaled again...Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened...and the heavenly bodies will be shaken...At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory, and He will send His angels with a loud trumpet call [ie. the Lord will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet call of God -- 1 Thess. 4:16] and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other (Matt. 24:15, 16, 21, 29-31). Perhaps the most daring of all attempts to divide the Second Coming into two events separated by seven years is the use of Matthew 24:40: Then there shall be two men in the field; one will be taken, one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. But when is this? The previous verse (39) explains: it is when the Son of Man comes to a heedless world just as the flood overwhelmed the unbelieving civilization in Noah’s day. It is when Jesus comes to punish the world that one is taken and one left. The separate second coming seven years early is revealed as a misinterpretation, a lie, an illusion. It does not line up with scripture. Cry aloud, spare not. lift up thy voice as a trumpet. show my people their transgressions and the ho use of Jacob their sins. All scripture is given by the inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in rightessness. I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shaLL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD at his appearing and his kingdom. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears but study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth and finally, for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they shall believe a lie. That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasures in unrighteousness. Make Bible study your first priority. You cannot afford not to. Maranatha, Min Derrell Revels
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 23:54:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015