WHAT IS THE RAPTURE?

WHAT IS THE RAPTURE?
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

It is time to shift to the last set of fundamental doctrines, those having to do with "last things." The idea of what will happen in the future
• Is a joke to the unbelieving world
• Is a matter of question and debate among many in the religious world
• Is often avoided by many in the Christian world
But I would like to remind you that the peace of God for today rests almost completely on trusting Him for what happens in our future. So understanding the prophetic things really is fundamental.

Let me begin with a brief overview of the entire theme of the Lord’s Return:
A. Shortly after Adam and Eve sinned God promised them that one would come from the seed of a woman and bruise the head of the serpent. This was the first promise that someone would come to deliver man from his sin.

B. Later on God promised Abraham that from the children of Abraham, specifically the Jews, would come on in whom all the nations of the world would be blessed.

C. And much later on Isaiah prophesied
Isaiah 9:6
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”

D. All through history the godly Jews were waiting for the Lord to come and deliver them from their sin. And the godly Jews expected Him to be born of a woman. This is the idea of the Lord’s first appearance as a man to men on earth.

It was also promised that this One who would take away sin would be Israel’s king forever and ever. In 2 Samuel 7:16 the Bible says,
And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever. (KJV)

And in Psalm 45:6 I read,
Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. (KJV)
• When Jesus came the first time He came as a child born in a manger in Bethlehem and He died to pay for the sins of the world.
• When Jesus comes to earth again He will come in great power to establish His kingdom for ever and ever!
According to Revelation 19, when He comes to do that He will bring His saints with Him.

Somewhere between that first coming and the future second coming, all of the Christians will have to be taken to heaven so that they can return with Jesus. That point, when the Christians are taken up to heaven, we call the Rapture.

We have no real idea when the rapture will take place.
• The Bible gives no signs so that we can get ready. and
• There is nothing stopping it from taking place at this very moment, except the secret will of God
We don’t know when it will happen, but we can tell a lot about what it will be like when it happens.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:17 you won’t find the word rapture. Instead you see the words, “caught up.” referring to the rapture. “Caught up” is translated from the Greek word “rapto.” That word has several meanings, all of which describe the rapture.

TO CATCH AWAY SPEEDILY
When the rapture does take place and all the Christians are taken to heaven, it is going to happen FAST.

1 Corinthians 15:51-52
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. (KJV)

I have heard that the twinkling of an eye is in the “mille- seconds.” That is quicker that the eye can see. What this means is that it is going to be sudden and unexpected. It will come like a thief in the night, the Bible says. And you will not have time to prepare unless you prepare ahead of time and stay that way. Unsaved people won’t even know it happened until it is over.

Imagine the chaos caused by cars going down the highway and all of a sudden the driver is gone. Or the pilot of the airliner is gone. Those kinds of things are speculation but very possible.

I don’t know how the unsaved that are left on this earth will explain how so many people disappeared at one time, but I am sure that it will create sudden chaos and confusion.

The rapture will happen quickly. If you aren’t saved, you need to get saved now so that you are ready when it does happen.

TO SEIZE BY FORCE
As tragic as it is, there are some Christians who love this world and the things they have acquired in it. They won’t want to go to heaven when the Lord calls them. Christians should never allow themselves to get so caught up in the affairs of this life that they are anxious to get caught up into heaven.

I wonder sometimes if God doesn’t allow us to suffer so often so that we keep our eyes off of this world and keep them looking forward to heaven.

The story of Lot in Genesis 19:
The Bible teaches that Lot was a just and righteous ma but he moved to the wicked city of Sodom and grew to like it there. We don’t know how long he lived in Sodom, but eventually the city got so wicked that God chose to destroy it.

But He couldn’t do it with Lot there. God sent two angels to warn Lot and tell Him to take his family and leave town. But Lot was so involved in the affairs of Sodom that the angels eventually had to take him by the hand and drag him out of the city.

That is a tragic story. But I know some Christians that, if the Lord came today, He would have to drag them to heaven.

TO CLAIM FOR ONE’S SELF
If you are a real Christian you need to come to grips with the Bible fact that you are not your own. You have been bought with a price. And that price is the blood of Jesus. If you are a Christian Jesus owns you. He paid for you with His own life. And you are obligated to glorify God
• In your body and
• In your spirit
That is not bad because the other choice is to belong to the devil and to live your life glorifying him. And that is what all the unsaved people do. When Jesus calls for the rapture, He is going to take all those that He has bought to be with Him.

Ephesians 5:27 says He will,
“present it to Himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing!”

This also lets us know that only those that are His are going. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 says that only those that are "in Christ" will go. You can almost always tell who is in Christ because,
2 Corinthians 5:17 says
If any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.

Real Christians act differently than the rest of the world.

TO MOVE TO A NEW PLACE
Jesus said,
John 14:2-3
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (KJV)

We Christians have a dual citizenship:
• We are citizens of this earth and
• We are citizens of heaven.
And actually we are supposed to serve as spokesmen for our heavenly home. But when the rapture happens, then our job on this earth will be done. At that time it will be “Home - here we come.” We will be pulling up stakes down here and settling in with Jesus Christ our Lord.

TO RESCUE FROM DANGER
That tells us something very important about the rapture; tt will take place before the terrible Tribulation that will try this world.

I know some disagree with this, but there is no way to put all of the rapture verses together and fairly and literally interpret them without believing in what we call the Pre-tribulational rapture. It doesn’t take much sense to see that this world is getting pretty rough. Just in the last few years alone we have witnessed
• Many states approving same sex marriages
• Many others refusing to oppose them
• Forced health care
• Falling economy
• Muslims in placed in the highest offices of our land
and the Bible teaches that it is going to get worse. It will get worse than the world has ever known. When this Tribulation starts, there will not be a Christian one on the earth. Look at 1 Thessalonians 1:10
And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. (KJV)

Christians have been delivered already from the wrath to come.

Another verse is Colossians 1:13
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.

And there is Revelation 3:10
Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. (KJV)

Christians don’t need to be tried; Jesus was already tried for us. He literally took the wrath of God for us so that we wouldn’t have to. As a matter of fact, God, I believe, is actually withholding His wrath until the Christians are all gone. That’s what He did with Lot, remember? I believe that is what is being referred to in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8 and especially verses 6-7.

2 Thessalonians 2:3-8
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: (KJV)

Just to summarize this doctrine of the rapture:

1. There is nothing that could stop it from happening today.
   No man knows the day or the hour, so the Bible tells us to always be ready and your prepare for the rapture by getting saved.

2. The Rapture will be complete.
   All Christians will hear the trumpet
   Every Christian will be taken.

3. Your only chance to be saved is before the rapture.
   The Bible does teach that multitudes of souls will be saved during the Tribulation, but the Bible also teaches that those who rejected the chance to get saved before the rapture will believe a lie after the rapture and not get saved.

For all of us that are saved and living right with God, all of this is exciting. If it is not exciting to you
• Maybe you need to get saved
• Maybe you need to get right with God

HE’S COMING BACK
Revelation 19:11-21

When it comes to prophecy, there are some details we can’t know for sure. But there is a basic outline of future events that is certain, sure and, I believe, fundamentals.

1. The next event to take place is the Rapture of the Christians
   It will include the resurrection of those Christians who have died when Jesus comes.

2. That is followed by a seven year Tribulation that will come to try the people left on the earth.
   It is divided into two halves
   The first half, I think, is marked by world wide tragedy. Cataclysms like we have not yet seen. Things that will make:
   • The Tsunami of 2004
   • Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans)
   • Hurricane Sandy (New York) and now
   • Typhoon Yolanda (the Philippines) 2013
   look like spring drizzles.

The second half is marked by the unbridled terror of Antichrist against all of humanity – especially those who will not worship him. Jesus said of the Tribulation:
Matthew 24:22 KJV
And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved...

1. At the end of those seven years,
   • Jesus will return to this earth.
   • He will defeat Antichrist and those who have followed him and
   • He will establish a kingdom on the earth lasting 1000 years
   When those 1000 years are completed, Satan will have one final battle against the Lord. He will loose.

2. God will then judge those who have never gotten saved in what the Bible calls “The Great White Throne Judgment”.

3. At the end of that judgment God will give to those who have been faithful a
   • New Heaven
   • New Earth and
   • New Jerusalem
   where we will live forever in His presence. I have left out some important details but this is a general schematic of what’s left in prophecy.

I want to take you to the end of that seven year Tribulation.
Imagine now that you have just endured those seven terrible years. No doubt you have witnessed the traumatic deaths of many of your friends and loved ones as those years progressed through
• Some of them likely died of starvation
• Some of them were the victims of supernatural disasters
• You may know some who died as enemies of the state – they refused to take the sign of the Beast and were executed for it
You yourself, though not a believer seven years previous to this, have come to accept that Jesus Christ is indeed the Lord and Saviour and because of your faith, you have suffered great trials of persecution. But you have – somehow- survived. The sky has been unusual for some time and the rumors running round is that it is a sign from heaven. Jesus is coming back.

Antichrist has assembled the largest army he is able to in the valley of Megiddo, some miles north east of Jerusalem. And in a moment, the world as you know it is changed.
• Antichrist and his false prophet are defeated and cast into the bottomless pit.
• Kings and princes, complicit with the Antichrist, have died in the battle
• The armies of men and women who have enforced the reign of terror have been exterminated
• Jesus has come to set up His one thousand year kingdom.

If the Bible is true at all
• Jesus will come again
• Jesus will come again personally and
• Jesus will as a King

I want to describe for you what happens when Jesus comes again to begin His One Thousand Year Reign.

THE JEWS PROMISES ARE FULFILLED
Genesis 49:10 KJV
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

We sometimes confuse the promises for Israel with the promises that God made to Christians but they are very different.
• Israel’s promises all have to do with their nation
• Christian promises all have to do with a congregation

• Israel’s promises all have to do with God
• Christian promises all have to do with Christ

• Israel’s promises all have to do with an earthly kingdom
• Christian promises all have to do eternal heaven

The world has been devastated in the past by Christian denominations who believed that Christian promises were earthly “kingdom” type promises.

• It’s why the Catholics ruled kings
• It’s why the Protestants fragmented and persecuted anyone who did not believe just like they did

Christian promises all have to do with heaven. But it was always the promise to the Jews that they would become a great nation. It was also always their promise that one from the tribe of Judah and specifically the family of David would rule on the throne of David in that Kingdom.

When Jesus comes to the earth again, He will fulfill all those promises to the Jews. (I believe the promises to the Christians will have all been fulfilled at the time of the rapture.)

There is some room for disagreement right here, but it is because of these differences of promises that I do not see the Jews who have died in the faith being resurrected at the same time as the New Testament Saints. I believe they are resurrected at the beginning of this One Thousand year Kingdom. I also believe they are resurrected, not with glorified bodies as the Christians are, but with perfect and immortal bodies, similar to what Adam and Eve would have had before they fell in sin.

This millennial kingdom will be the culmination of every:
• Promise God made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
• Promises to David and to Solomon
• Promises to Jeremiah and to Daniel
Promises that God refused to change His mind about even when Israel dove into her deepest days of idolatry and sin.

2 Kings 8:18-19 KJV
And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as did the house of Ahab: for the daughter of Ahab was his wife: and he did evil in the sight of the LORD.
Yet the LORD would not destroy Judah for David his servant's sake, as he promised him to give him alway a light, and to his children.

During the One Thousand Year Reign,
THE LORD RULES WITH A ROD OF IRON
Revelation 19:15 KJV
And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

Seems to me that we Christians get a lot of things having to do with future events mixed up.

We think of the
• Old Testament times as being when God was strict but
• New Testament times God is lenient.

We think
• The age of God as a taskmaster during the age of the Law and
• We think of God letting us off easy during this age of grace

Let me give you a passage to make you rethink that a bit
Acts 17:30 KJV
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

I do not want to make it sound like God is harsh and cruel today. But I do want to burst that false bubble that, since Jesus died on the cross, God is a teddy bear.

Remember Jesus said
Matthew 10:34 KJV
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

Remember also that
The first time Jesus came as the Lamb of God
So peaceful was He that He would not even speak up to defend Himself.

The next time He comes it will be as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
The Bible says His vesture will be dipped in blood and a sharp sword goes out of His mouth. This One Thousand Year Kingdom of Jesus Christ that we often think of as Paradise on earth will begin and end with a war, and there is a terrible judgment between them.

I will grant you that, by this time, those of us in this room who are saved, will be free from judgment. But it does serve to remind us that Christians today ARE called upon to
• Be ready
• Walk worthy and
• Serve faithfully

The Bible warns us that some people will go to heaven, saved yet so as by fire; saved but suffering loss. But it also says that some will go to heaven with an abundant entrance.

So it does matter what sort of Christian life I live today. We don’t all just go to heaven and find that the Lord has winked at all our sin. Even if we think we are getting away with it right now – we will then find out, too late to change it, that we were VERY wrong.

The thing is right now, I do have the opportunity to change all of that.
Ezekiel 18:21-22 KJV
But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live.

• If we will hear the Word of God
• If we will turn away from the sin
• If we will give ourselves to following the way of God

God promises that He won’t remember those wicked things we have done.

During the One Thousand Year Reign of the Lord
THE SAINTS WILL BE PERFECTED
Revelation 20:1-9 KJV
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.

A. The Thousand Year Reign of Christ is composed of three classes of people, with a fourth class coming along as the One Thousand Years goes on.

1. First, there are the New Testament saints like you and me.
   The Bible says that we will rule and reign with Christ during this kingdom. We will have already been made perfect at the resurrection and rapture of those in Christ.

2. Second there are those Old Testament and Tribulation Saints
   They will also have already been made perfect through death and resurrection.

3. Third, there are those Saints who got saved during and lived through the Tribulation.
   These saints have not been perfected. Everyone who goes into the One Thousand Year Reign of Christ will be saved but they won’t all be perfect.

• That’s why Christ rules with a rod of iron
• That’s why we will rule and reign with Him

We wouldn’t have to have government and rules at all if no one had a sin nature.

Government was not established by the Lord until after the Flood. Its only purpose is to manage the effects of the sin nature. Jesus will rule with a rod of iron and completely restrain the nature of sin for one thousand years.

The Bible also makes it clear that these same people will be having children.
• We won’t be having children
• Neither will the Old Testament saints
But those who lived through the Tribulation will be able to have kids and will have them.

Now picture this:
• Satan and his devils have been bound away
• The environment of the world is perfectly safe
• Government will be run by Jesus Christ Himself
• People will know exactly who God is and exactly what God wants
• Everyone to begin with will be saved
• No one will be allowed to sin
but at the end of the one thousand years, Satan is loosed. And he is able to put together an army of people to fight against the Lord. It can’t be any of those who lived through the Tribulation – they got saved way back then. It has to be their children.

And this answers all of the objections people have against faith today:
• If I knew who God is I would follow Him
• If I saw Jesus personally I would believe in Him
• If I had not grown up in such a bad environment I would be a better person
• If my parents had raised me better I would not be in the trouble I am in
• If Satan had not tempted me, I would never have given in to sin
• If my government had taken better care of me I would have turned out better

During the One Thousand Year Reign of Christ the children born then will:
• Have saved parents who are compelled to raise their kids right
o No abuse
o No neglect
o No misplaced priorities
• Have the chance to see Jesus face to face
• Grow up not only worshipping God but worshipping God the right way
• None of them will have a bad experience
o No friend will die in a tragic accident
o Nobody will be crippled or maimed by some terrible event
• None of them will grow up in poverty and want
• Not one of them will ever be influenced by the devil to do the wrong thing

And yet they are not automatically saved and inherently good. Those who follow the devil will be defeated. Everyone else will then be perfected. God’s work of redemption will be completed.

The lesson I learn from the Millennial Kingdom is the necessity of personal salvation.

• We don’t need a better government
• We don’t need to make parents raise their kids better
• We don’t need to get our government to take better care of us

What we need it to be saved; each and every one of us. Let’s stop making excuses and let’s get to the cross.
• If you are not born again – today is the day to do so.
• If you are saved – stop making excuses for your sin and start walking with God
• If you have children – you can’t make them be saved, but you can give them a shining example in your home and you can pray for them.