myBlessedHope

This week Terry had a great article in the Nearing Midnight section of RaptureReady.com.

Events are happening so very fast now that it is hard to keep up, let alone keep your head from spinning.  Just as Christ has predicted, end times prophecies are nearing completion at a stunning rate, all the pieces falling together one right after another, and yet the world acts as if nothing out of the normal is happening.  In fact, if you try to bring up the predictions from the Bible, you are mocked.  (Which in and of itself fulfills prophecy – ironically!)

I don’t know about you but I can feel this sense of something imminent.  I can sense that evil is accelerating and enveloping the planet.  People’s sense of right and wrong seem to be reversing themselves as deception rises to unprecedented levels.  The Truth, the Word of God, seems to be getting nudged out.  This world no longer has a need for it.

The hour feels late, but do you sense the world expects anything big will happen?  Or is it a day like any other day?

Matthew 24:36-44

³⁶ “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. ³⁷ But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. ³⁸ For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, ³⁹ and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. ⁴⁰ Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. ⁴¹ Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. ⁴² Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. ⁴³ But 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. ⁴⁴ Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Jude 1:16-19

¹⁶ These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. ¹⁷ But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: ¹⁸ how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. ¹⁹ These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.

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Rapture and Sudden Destruction

Every week I find in my email inbox a number of predictions for this or for that concerning Bible prophecy. Many involve the writer’s prediction of the time of the Rapture, based upon a specific formula he or she has figured out, or has adopted from someone else’s thoughts.

Some, such as the particular writer I’m thinking about in writing this commentary, send out each year a dozen or more predictions of the time of the Rapture to various forums, including Todd and me. His predictions usually revolve around traditional Jewish holy days. Although every prediction has thus far failed to come to pass, the writer is persistent, becoming more adamant about the validity of his date-setting with each succeeding “forth telling.”

I must admit that I’ve come to sort of look forward to unwrapping these missives to peek at what we might have, kind of like opening a surprise package. One thing sure…it’s never a disappointing exercise. He always has something new and unusual to spring upon the recipient. If he remains so persistent–based upon the way world events are shaping up–he is bound to be at least nearly right about the timing of the Rapture at some point.

The week just past, his email offering was a little less absolute in its predictive tenor, but nonetheless given with confidence, as usual. At any rate, this one struck a chord, and prompted me to think again on the words of Jesus that have burned in my spirit since I wrote a ten-part series to which I gave the title, “Scanning a Fearful Future.”

–More about that momentarily.

The emailer wrote:

DOES THE BIBLE GIVE US THE DAY OF THE YEAR FOR WWIII (EZEKIEL 38–39)? I have written much over the past 3 years about my Biblical studies that show World War 3 (the Sudden Destruction) and the Rapture to be the very same day. If the start of the Great Tribulation is going to take place in the next 5 months, and I am totally convinced that it is, then we need to take a very close look at this BIBLICAL day (it is in the very near future, still in 2011). In light of current events all around the world, especially involving a very possible imminent attack, involving Israel and Iran and/or Syria, this rapidly-approaching BIBLICAL day takes on a very urgent and ominous meaning for 2011. The Bride of Christ may have already celebrated its last Christmas on this earth.

Yes, well…I guess he was a bit more adamant about things than I remembered at first reading. Still, the prognostication was mild in comparison to many of his previous declarations about the Rapture and its timing. Just so you won’t be wondering–if I read it correctly–I believe that the date to which he refers is April 11, 2012.

I give this article the title “Rapture and Sudden Destruction” because I believe the persistent emailer is right in this instance. He is not correct on the date, because it is, again, based upon Jewish traditional holy days–and all of those have failed to produce the Rapture. Besides, no man knows the day, we are told by the Lord. There is no relationship anyone has been able to show, so far as I can tell, between any Jewish traditional holy day and that “twinkling-of-an-eye” moment prophesied in 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4, and, I believe, by Jesus Himself as recorded in John 14:1-3, and given by John in Revelation 4:1-2. The Rapture of the church will be sudden, unannounced, and unanticipated by most of the world’s population.

Paul the apostle, who, of course, was chosen by God to prophesy the Rapture, foretells much about that coming time when millions of believers will go to be with Christ in one atomos of time (an increment of time so brief that it cannot be divided). Paul writes further about the time immediately surrounding the moment of the Rapture:

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. (1 Thessalonians 5:1-6)

Paul tells Christians to be ever alert to the times that surround them. He exhorts them to “watch.” Jesus said the same thing as recorded in Mark 13: 37: “What I say unto one, I say unto all; watch.”

Jesus and Paul were referring to watching the events and issues of the times in which they will be living. There is no specific sign that signals the Rapture, but all of the signs of societal conditions will signal that the time of Christ’s coming in the Rapture is very near, even at the door. The day of God’s judgment beginning to fall upon rebellious mankind, the apostle Paul wrote, would begin like a “thief in the night” breaking into a home. Jesus had likened His coming to a thief in the night as recorded in Matthew 24.

While writing that series of articles I called “Scanning a Fearful Future,” I sensed the Lord impressing upon my spirit that Jesus’ words were all important in foretelling exactly when all of His impending judgment would suddenly break loose upon a world that has shown its hatred for His Son, who came to die for the sins of mankind. There will be no world-rending things, like all-out war or total economic collapse at that time. Even though portentious signs of the times will be prevalent, it will still be, relatively speaking, business as usual when Christ breaks in upon a world ripe for judgment. The persistent emailer is on the right prophetic page in this instance. It will be the Rapture that brings the awesome judgment of God upon this fallen planet.

Again, Jesus foretold:

And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. (Luke 17:26-30)

Terry

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