By
the time you read this post and if the Christians are no longer around
physically on planet Earth, please know for a certainty that we have not been
beamed up by aliens in spaceships; rather we have been taken up to heaven to be
with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. I know the devil had been prepping
everyone to believe in aliens from outer space through movies from Hollywood
but they are not true. There are aliens
(of the spiritual kind) but not the type we see in movies. These aliens have inter-dimension powers and
they can travel in and out of our physical realm.
The
bible teaches that the Church, being the collective body of Christians all over
the world, is the Bride bought by the precious blood of God’s Son, Jesus Christ,
and she will be caught up into the heavens to meet her Bridegroom at the
appointed time.
So,
a number of questions arose that need to be answered.
A. When will this “catching up” take place? (the Christians call this the Rapture, a
specific event)
The
apostle Paul, in 1Thessalonians 4:16-17, wrote
v16 For the Lord Himself
will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with
the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
v17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together
with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be
with the Lord.”
So
three things will be happening: -
1.
One
needs to be a believer in Jesus Christ as his/her Lord and Savior;
2.
There
will be the sound of a trumpet in the air;
3.
The
catching away will happen to those of us who are still alive when the Lord
comes back for us;
Now
it is to be noted that all events for the church in the New Testament take
place on Hebrew holidays. And there are seven important Hebrew Feasts that God
told Moses to write down and command the Israelites to observe as part of their
worship of God.
a.
Feast
of Passover (Pesach)
b.
Feast
of First Fruits
c.
Feast
of Unleavened Bread
d.
Feast
of Pentecost (Shavout)
e.
Feast
of Trumpets (Rosh Hashana)
f.
Day
of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
g.
Feast
of Tabernacles (Sukkot)
Now
it should be noted that when Jesus came onto this Earth to die for our sins, He
did fulfill the first three feasts. He
died on the exact day that the Jews were to celebrate the Passover, and that has
now been called Good Friday by the Church, rose from the dead on the third day
when the Jews celebrated the Feast of First Fruits as His resurrection was the
first fruit of all future resurrections. The Feast of Unleavened Bread was the
period from the day the Jews ate the roasted passover lamb and journeyed out of
Egypt and was celebrated for seven days. For the church that corresponds to the
day Christ Jesus died on the cross until His first meeting with His disciples
in the Upper Room in Jerusalem.
Shavout
symbolized the day when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and 1,500 years
later, on the exact same day (50 days after the Feast of First Fruits), the
Lord poured His Holy Spirit on the Church at the Feast of Pentecost thus giving
birth to the Church.
So,
four feasts had found their fulfillment and three more are yet to be fulfilled
but the time is drawing near for their fulfillment. It is generally believed
that the Rapture of the Church will happen on the day that the Jews celebrate
their Rosh Hashana while the Day of Atonement will be the Day that Jesus Christ
returns as the King to judge the entire universe and subsequent to that He will
begin His millennial reign on a new Earth in the new Jerusalem.
Now,
back to our original question above – when will the Rapture take place? My short answer to you is SOON (in fact, VERY
SOON). All the signs pointing to Jesus Christ’s Return at His Second Coming are
falling in place and before His actual Return, the Church will have to be taken
out of the way so that the final stage can happen.
B. What
will happen to the Church after the Rapture?
The
scriptures call the Church the Bride of Christ and to get a good idea of the
type of relationship of the Bride and her Bridegroom, it is important we look
at the Hebrew wedding arrangements and ceremony.
The
bridegroom would visit the potential bride’s home and ask for her hand in
marriage from her father and would present a price for her. When she accepts
what had been offered, there is a betrothal and the bride is now considered as
married to her groom even though she will continue to live in her father’s home
under the groom is ready to fetch her home.
After
the betrothal ceremony, the groom will return home to his father’s house and
start to build a new house for his bride and himself to live in and start their
family. Usually the building period is between 18 months to two years and the
culture dictates that the new home cannot be worse off than what the bride is
accustomed to in her own father’s house.
When
the new house is ready, the groom will make his journey with the groomsmen to
the house of the father of the bride and fetch the bride. When the bride
reaches the new home the wedding ceremony will begin and Hebrew wedding
celebrations usually last for one week or slightly longer. Now, while the
guests are celebrating with food and wine, the wedded couple will enter the
bridal chamber and for one week, they will consummate their marriage. At the
end of the week, the couple will then appear to the ceremony officially as husband
and wife.
The
Church, being the Bride, had been purchased with the blood price of Jesus
Christ when He died for her on the cross and therefore, even though she is
physically remaining on this earth, she belongs to her Groom, her Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. Now, Jesus having returned to the Father’s house had been
building His mansion for His Bride for the last two thousand years (in the
bible a year represents one thousand years – 2Peter 3:8). Soon it will be the
time allocated for His Return to fetch His Bride; hence the excitement and
anticipation of the Church towards this great event which is being labeled as
“The Rapture” or the snatching away of the Church.
No
bride does not look forward to her wedding day for it is one of the most
important day in her life. She will start afresh with a new union of bodies,
souls, minds and spirits. It will be the same for the Bride of Christ for the
Rapture is liken to the Wedding Day for her as she finally gets to see her
heavenly Bridegroom, the Resurrected Lamb of God, She had been hearing His
words in the scriptures, feeling His warmth through the Servant, His Holy
Spirit and now finally meeting Him and being with Him for eternity.
Like
the Hebrew custom, the Bridegroom and His Bride (the Church) will be locked in
each other’s arms and spending quality time together for seven days (in earthly
time frame, that will be seven years), there will be tribulation on planet Earth but she (the
Church) will not be physically here to suffer through this trying seven years.
C. What
will happen to the inhabitants left behind during the seven years after the
Church had been taken away?
The
scriptures tell us that, after the Church had been raptured, the earth will go
through trying times of tribulation. If one were to compare the incidents and
disasters that had already befallen the planet as difficult times, one should
expect the seven years of tribulation to produce even worse events. The
scriptures (Mathew 24:1-31 as well as Luke 21:10-38) describe the trying times
ahead – wars between ethnic groups (ethnos in Greek), famines, pestilences,
natural disasters – earthquakes, cyclones /typhoons, floods, etc – economic
calamities and meltdowns, nuclear disasters and the ensuing fallouts and many
other sufferings which have yet to exist. Compared to these, what we had
experienced so far are pale by comparison.
The
seven years of tribulation is often terms The Tribulation Period and can be
separated into two halves. The first half (3-1/2 years in length) will not be
as severe as the second half when the anti-Christ (yes, he is a human being and
not an alien) will reveal himself as the world leader and he will impose
sanctions and control the people’s inherent ability to buy and sell goods and
services. He will demand worship from everyone who has his mark on their bodies
and whoever does not have this mark will be severely punished through starvation
and thirst.
But
not all will be lost as Revelations 7:9-17 tells us that there will be a great
multitude who will make it to heaven even during the Tribulation as they will
put their trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Yes, unfortunately for those who receive
Christ into their hearts during the Tribulation, they will have to endure the
hardship and sufferings but their eternal destiny will still be with their Lord
and Savior when Jesus returns to judge and rule the new Earth for a thousand
years.
D. How
does one qualify to be with Jesus for eternity?
The
bible is very clear – all those who believe in Jesus and receive Him into their
hearts as their Lord and Savior (John 1:12) will be made children of the Father
in Heaven. And as children, they will receive their inheritance, even eternal
life (defined as life spent in the presence of God the Father forever -which is
a very long time).
You
might ask, “how do I become a child of Christ?” By confessing that Jesus
Christ, Who died for us on the cross as the price payment for our sins, is your
Lord and Savior and invite Him into your heart.
The bible tells us that there is no other way to the Father except
through the Son Whom He had sent to save us from eternal condemnation because
of the sin of Adam, the first man to be created.
And
to help you receive Christ into your heart, here is a sample prayer that you
might want to pray.
“Thank you Jesus for coming to die for my sins. I
receive you into my heart as my Lord and Savior. Thank you that Your Blood had
made me righteous in the sight of God the Father and I am now Your child. Thank
you Jesus. AMEN”
And
the moment you confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, He will come into
your life and live on the inside of you.
The devil will throw doubts across your path but the surety is there;
that you are a child of God and if you receive Him now before the Rapture takes
place, then you too will be caught up together with all the believers. However, should you decide only to confess
Christ as your Lord and Savior after the Rapture, then pray and ask Him for
strength and protection to overcome whatever is coming on this earth and look
for your redemption at the end of the Tribulation.
E. How
urgent is the timing for the Rapture?
Although
the Bible does not give us specifics on the exact timing (date and time for the
Rapture), we do believe that whatever that needs to take place before the
Rapture had already happened and therefore the Rapture IS very imminent and can happen any time now.
I
want to share with you a verse from Psalm 114:7 - Tremble, O earth, before the
Lord, before the God of Jacob.
The
words used here are very strong words of caution and one should not take them
lightly. It is my belief that the psalmist is alerting his readers that
something calamitous is going to happen and this event is so immense that
everyone who witnesses it will begin to tremble. One may ask whether this event will be a
nuclear holocaust or a global epidemic or a major drought or an economic slump
but I came to the conclusion that this event is the Rapture of the Church.
Imagine you may be chatting or conversing either over email or internet
chat-room or mobile application or be in a telephone conversation or even
having a face-to-face discussion or meeting and the other party (who is a
believer) is being raptured right before your eyes. How terrifying will that be
for the one who will be left behind?
It
is also my personal belief that the Rapture will also include the catching away
of young children below the age of knowledge (I do not know what is this age)
regardless of the religious setting of their families. How would the parents of these young children
feel to suddenly not be able to find their loved ones, their own flesh and
blood? They will be awed and shocked and
feel lost. The feeling will not be the
same as if the loved one is killed; there one can still find the corpse but not
for the Rapture where the person who is raptured will ‘disappear’ bodily and
there will be not trace left behind.
So
my readers, I urge you to consider your eternal fate and if you have yet to
receive Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, please take a moment and pray
the prayer to receive Christ into your heart and you will immediately start to
enjoy eternal life.
“Thank you Jesus for coming to die for my sins. I
receive you into my heart as my Lord and Savior. Thank you that Your Blood had
made me righteous in the sight of God the Father and I am now Your child. Thank
you Jesus. AMEN”
Maranatha, Lord! Come, Lord, Come!
