Tired of the Rapture Mongers? Part One By Vernon Gray Are you sick and tired of these Rapture ready Christians who are always on about Jesus coming for His church in an event called the Rapture? Have you had enough of them forever going on about getting ready and preparing your life for His return? Do you also find excuses to ”switch off” when they get all excited about an event that you personally have no real connection with? Do you find them annoying when all they seem to speak about is Jesus and the Rapture? Are you irritated by the constant drone of their take on “End Time” events and what is happening in the world around us as if they have some special knowledge? Are you too disinterested when they harp on about the books of Revelation and Daniel? What about their rather negative world view especially when it comes to the New World Order, the Illuminati or the European Union to mention but a few. And of course they are constantly going on about Israel; “Blood Moons,” Jewish Feasts and “Signs of the Times “as they call it. If you are any of the above this article is especially for you. If you are a born-again Christian and you take the Bible seriously and the Rapture is not on your radar, you need to assess your theology and doctrinal stance. You could be in grave danger of being deceived by the god of this world. Chances are that you probably you have been influenced by liberal teachers from churches who discard prophecy and the doctrine of the Rapture as a “pathetic” pipe dream. Christendom superstars like Gerald Coates and Rick Joyner say that the Rapture is a lie of the devil, a fantasy and a myth. They mock it, comparing it to Star Trek’s, “Beam me up, Scotty!” What is their purpose for this mockery? It is to cause the true church of Christ to forget about the Rapture and trust in this life. This is what the ecumenical movement is all about? Building the brotherhood of Man; once again, trusting in this life. But the Bible says that this earth is not your home; this life is a temporary condition. Your real home is a heavenly one and you are in transit; you are an ambassador passing through. To get hung up on the things of this world, especially now is silly because it will distract you from the real issues concerning your destination. Almost every lie of Satan has perpetrated upon the church today is designed with one purpose: to get Gods people to hope in this life and this world. By definition, that is what backsliding is. Kingdom-Now Theology, Dominionism, Triumphalism, Calvinistic Re-constructionism – what are they all trying to do? Set up the kingdom now; trust in this life. The Faith-Prosperity gospel is teaching the church to embrace the sin of covetousness and calling it faith. The worship of Mammon is called the worship of God. Again it is the trusting in this life. It is astonishing… no, frightening, to find how many Bible believing Christians today have almost abandoned the instruction to “watch and wait.” “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). Their “Blessed Hope” for the future is a watered down anemic gospel of self-help heresy. What exactly is the Blessed Hope? In a word the answer is a Person...JESUS! His return and the expectation associated with that certain future event constitutes the foundation of every believers blessed hope. Is your existence here on earth being spent dealing with “the cares of this life?” We all need to occupy until He comes, but the process of occupying should not be an altar on which you sacrifice devotion to the Word of God and your heavenly calling. As a born-again Christian you are essentially a spiritual being. You are a creature that The Holy Spirit has sealed as “heavenly.” You are not an “earth dweller.” We belong in heaven, and our home is not here on this earth; our home is the Father’s House. Essentially we are ambassadors, sojourners and pilgrims in transit to our true home, which is in heaven. A. WE HAVE A HEAVENLY CALLING. Hebrews 3:1: “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus.” B. WE ARE AMBASSADORS. 2 Corinthians 5:20: “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us…” C. WE ARE SOJOURNERS AND PILGRIMS. 1 Peter 2:11: “Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and fellow pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.” D. WE ARE CITIZENS OF HEAVEN. Ephesians 2: 19: “Now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” We are spiritual beings, housed in a physical body; we live our earthly lives on a planet that is claimed by the sworn enemy of God. The two definitive Scriptures unambiguous about the Rapture: 1 Corinthians 15:51-53: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” 1Thessalonians 4:15 -18: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” Ephesians 1:18 tells us, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” If you take the Bible seriously and your heart’s desire is to do that which is pleasing and honoring to God, you need to take the above portion of Scripture to heart. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:13: “Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.” Romans 13:11, is particularly pertinent to our watching and waiting today. Paul wrote: “And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” Perhaps the first thing to do is to awake from the religious slumber that so many of God’s people are in today. They ignore the prophecy about the second coming of Jesus as the Christ to the earth, but much more seriously for any Christian is to ignore the doctrine of the Rapture. The fact is that we are in the last days right now and if ever there was a time to pay attention and get prepared, it is now! Are you paying attention or paying lip service? Furthermore, none of us knows when he or she will die. Being spiritually prepared for the end of life should be our top priority. Many people started poorly and ended well in God’s economy. No matter where you come from and who you may be in this life, you need to end well. You may be a young person who thinks that his or her entire life is ahead of then or you could be much older thinking that you will not be included in the Rapture because it is still years away. Don’t be fooled, the enemy will lull you into complacency if you do not pay attention to the signs of the times in our world right now. In order to know where to focus our attention, we particularly need to know the Bible prophecies concerning the end time, especially the prophecies surrounding the second coming of Christ. We are to “eagerly wait for” Christs return, not just passively wait around (Hebrews 9:28). Jesus was emphatic that His followers should hope for His return, expect His return and pray for His return! In addition, our enthusiastic anticipation and excitement will intensify as we see more and more world events fulfilling Bible prophecies—especially those that point to the increasing nearness of Christs return. Note the watching, waiting, anticipation and preparedness in the following passage: “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching” (Luke 12:35-36). Finally: We read in the gospels that Jesus held Israel accountable when they missed His arrival as their Messiah. They were “blinded in part” because of their unbelief that He was their Messiah. Will you too be held accountable for not watching and waiting for His return? Is there a price to pay for ignoring the many signs that His return is near. It is not as if the signs of the end of this age hidden or vague. They are blatantly obvious for anyone who will read the Scriptures and prophecy concerning this time. “This time” or the time in which you now live is spoken of in the Bible more than any other time in all history. These end-times are given more attention in the Word of God than the times in which Jesus walked the earth. GET YOUR LIFE RIGHT AND GET SERIOUS WITH GOD TODAY. NOT TOMORROW, TODAY. According to The Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy by J. Barton Payne, there are 1,239 prophecies in the Old Testament and 578 prophecies in the New Testament for a total of 1,817. These prophecies are contained in 8,352 of the Bible’s verses. Since there are 31,124 verses in the Bible, the 8,352 verses that contain prophecy constitute 26.8 percent of the Bible’s volume. Taking the life of Jesus there are about 300 prophecies that were given between 500 and 1000 years before to His birth, but the most popular ones are the one about Him being born in Bethlehem, (Micah 5:2), being born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), riding into Jerusalem on a donkey (Zech 9:9), or being betrayed by a friend for 30 pieces of silver with the money going to a potter to buy a field (Zech 11:12-13). There’s also His crucifixion and the fact that the soldiers would divide up his clothes (Psalm 22:16-18), and that He’d come back from the grave (Isaiah 53:11). Those who view the Bible as merely a book with good suggestions for how to live, but don’t consider it the literal Word of God, can’t be expected to understand the crucial necessity of preaching and teaching the whole Word of God. With almost thirty percent of the Bible containing prophecy I think that it is worth studying; particularly because we are right here in the Last Days before the Tribulation and the Great tribulation spoken of by Daniel. There are millions of Christians who are born again but live a mediocre Christian lifestyle. They think that because they are saved there is no need to “overdo” their Christian walk. They say, “Extremism is counterproductive; everything should be done in moderation.” OH? And the Cross at Calvary was not extreme and very public. Being crucified naked on a bloody cross is about extreme as you can get. They have entered into a comfort zone of complacency where they do not want to be confronted with the facts. The Rapture and its implications for their lives are too radical and would mean cleaning up their lives in preparation for that momentous event which is about to overtake them. “Time is short!” You may have heard it said before fifty years ago. You waited all this time believing that time was indeed short and nothing happened. But friend, please hear me now more than ever, TIME IS SHORT! “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation’” (2 Peter 3:3, 4). In relation to the above verse where do you stand?
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 09:12:27 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015