Posted on 06/12/2015 8:30:49 PM PDT by MHGinTN
There is coming soon a stupendous supernatural event. Some will die because of the chaos it causes. Some will cry out to God because of what it causes them to realize. It really is coming upon the Earth, soon.
In 1217 AD a German Rabbi of great devotion, Rabbi Judah ben Samuel, was given a vision from Elijah regarding the city of Jerusalem. It went something like the following, expressed in Jubilee periods of 50 years, not actual Jubilees but periods of fifty year increments.
Six Jubilees from 1217 AD and Jerusalem will come under rule by the Turks. [In 1517 The Ottomans took Jerusalem.] Eight Jubilees will the Ottomans hold Jerusalem and then give it up to be a no man's land for one Jubilee. [In 1917 during part of the first World War campaign, the British General Allenby flew a British bi-plane over the city. Turks misunderstood the name Allenby to be a messenger of Allah and fled from the city; Allenby had sent word to the Crown that he would not fire on God's Holy city. British occupiers posted signs all around Jerusalem and in the Gaza to restrain Arabs from wandering into mine fields and free fire zones or arguing over tribal claims. Those signs read simply 'No Man's Land'.] Elijah went on to tell the Rabbi that at the end of that Jubilee Israel would once again have possession of Jerusalem, for one more Jubilee. [One of the outcomes of the 1967 Six Days War was that Israel took possession of Jerusalem rather than it being under UN controls.] At the end of Israel's Jubilee period, the Jews would make a seven year compact with someone, declaring Peace and Safety, but the one with whom they made treaty would violate the treaty midway in the seven years period, and that Jerusalem would be no more.
The Bible gives specific instructions regarding the End Times. The period is called the Tribulation, and it is seven years in length, hallmarked by The Wrath of God upon men and the Earth. It is also expressly shown as a period in which God will deal with Israel as His focus, to make an end to sin (Daniel 9). The end of this seven years has The Lord returning to set foot on the Earth, to make-over the planet and establish a one-thousand year reign of Peace and God's presence with the Earth and mankind.
One can read about the prophecies for Israel in Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and throughout Paul's writings in the new Testament and John's Revelation. Tribulation is a period when life on Earth will become rapidly, and with increasing ferocity, unbearable. But The Bride of Christ will not be here for the wrath poured out upon the planet and the followers of the antichrist who will be running amok for seven years. This little essay is a short message on The Rapture, offered it to friends because God has 'laid it on my heart' to speak and write of it since it is imminent and Christians as well as wannabees need to make ready for what is coming quickly.
The English word 'rapture' is derived from Jerome's Latin word, 'rapio' used to translate the Koine Greek word 'harpazo' (pronounced harpadzo) used in the New testament most pointedly in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. But this passage in the Letter to the Thessalonians is not the only place it is used. It is also found in the Septuagint rendering of the Old Testament, a compiled Greek translation nearly three hundred years before Jesus came. Jesus quoted from the Septuagint.
Rapture is for the living. There are at least seven places in the Bible where a 'rapture' happens. I'll list them but not detail them here: Enoch walked with God and was not; Elijah was taken away in a firy chariot; Isaiah was taken to the throne room of God, but returned with a message; Jesus ascended into Heaven in Acts 1; Paul was taken twice to Heaven as he says in 1 Corinthians 12; the Church will be taken to the Father's House, 1 Thessalonians 4; the two witnesses during the Tribulation will be resurrected then raptured into Heaven; Philip was raptured to the Gaza from the Judean wilderness where he was instructed to go to evangelize the Ethiopian.
There are many voices now rising to discuss or deny The Rapture of The Church, The Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ. What is important is to be a believer in Christ as Savior and Lord. That is absolute Justification of the unrighteous by His Righteousness. Those who are His will be raptured before the Tribulation begins.
How long the Rapture before Israel's signing of the treaty with the antichrist is anyone's guess. The Bible gives not one hint to it that I have found. But if 2017 is the year the treaty is signed, we have less than three years until the seven years of Tribulation begin. The Church will be snatched away in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:51-53), because believers are sealed by the Holy Spirit earnest of our inheritance, and the Holy Spirit is the restrainer of lawlessness. The Restrainer will be taken out of the way (2Thess2:7) in order that the man of Sin can emerge. We are given a foreshadowing in Ezekiel, when the Glory of The Lord had to depart the Temple before the Babylonian armies could take Jerusalem. Interestingly, Ezekiel (Ez 10&11) witnessed the Glory departing from a vantage point on the Mount of Olives.
The Rapture is a real event spoken of first by Jesus in the Upper Room (John14), prophesied in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 1 Corinthians 15:51-53, Revelation 3:10 and 4:1, and 2 Thessalonians 2:3. It is hinted at in the Old Testament and we see a foreshadowing, of Enoch taken away before the flood. The Rapture of The Church -the believers in Christ as Savior- is not the Second Coming detailed in the Olivet Discourse Jesus gave to James, John, Andrew, and Peter (Matthew 24, Mark 13; Luke 21). The Rapture is Christ returning in the Air not setting foot on Earth, to take to Himself The Church, which will return with Him in the Second Coming. The Rapture removes His Church before God's wrath falls upon humankind, while the Second Coming is Jesus coming as the warrior fulfilling promises to Israel, and Revelation cites those Raptured will be coming with Christ in the Second Coming.
Jesus opened the mystery of the Church Age teaching His faithful disciples (Judas had left to betray Him) that He was going away to prepare a place then come to take them there. In the Church Age there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile. The Tribulation is God dealing with Israel, and Jews evangelizing the world in opposition to the antichrist, the false prophet, and satan.
Salvation preached by the Jews (144,000 will be chosen by God to evangelize during the Tribulation) necessitates the Church be gone because there is no distinction between Gentile and Jew in the Church Age. Rapture ends the Church Age where God's Holy Spirit indwells believers, so they are born from above then raised up in the way that they should go (John3, Jesus speaking with Nicodemus, then Proverbs in raising up a child in the way that they should go).
To any who remain behind after the Rapture, call upon the Lord and you will be saved, spiritually. The world-wide chaos that will ensue following perhaps hundreds of millions suddenly disappearing from machines in motion will be horrendous. In this chaos people will gladly embrace a 'man of sin' to set things in order.
Are you asking for the ecclesiological (the Church and Church Age) explanation or do you somehow have an eschatological (end times) form you’re speaking of?
Eschatological - “approved” watching and waiting for Christ’s return.
Do you not know the answer, or are you testing the poster?
Let redleg answer, I wasn’t speaking to you.
Actually, no, since this thread has gotten quite old, not much interest in it: he doesn’t have to answer, nor you for him. Have a good day. Bye.
Thank you, and you too have a nice day. I’m going to address the issue for those still checking back on this thread. I’ll put it in another post so you won’t get pinged. Don’t want to disturb your day ...
'Speaking of clarifications, how about clarifying what you mean by "approved." Who's approved according to your eschatology?'
Eschatology being the study of end-time things, this is a most interesting question related to the Rapture!
The Rapture is for living people, people who have put their faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and have had the Holy Spirit seal their human soul/spirit with His presence as the earnest of their inheritance to come. Yup, it is for the living. But wait! There's more.
In 1Thessalonians 4:13-17 Paul tells the Thessalonians that they should not worry for their dead, for the Lord is going to do something miraculous for believers, namely raise the dead to living bodies, then transform them, along with 'we who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord', into bodies fit for eternity. The further clues are found in 1Corinthians 15:51-53. The corruptible must put on incorruption, so even living bodies like 'we who are alive and remain' must also be transformed.
Jesus introduced this notion of the Rapture in the Upper Room Discourse found in John 14. It must have been a puzzling discourse because good old Thomas says 'we don't know where you're going'!
Thomas blurted his question because Jesus had told them that ... "‘Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, also in me believe; in the house of my Father are many mansions; and if not, I would have told you; I go on to prepare a place for you; and if I go on and prepare for you a place, again do I come, and will receive you unto myself, that where I am ye also may be; and whither I go away ye have known, and the way ye have known.’ Thomas did not have the later revelations regarding the Rapture of the Church, so it is understandable that when Jesus says He is going away to somewhere, to prepare for them a place, where He will come from to get them and take them there, well this was reasoned out in earthy terms. But Jesus didn't leave the confusion there. .... Yes, there's more.
Philip was beginning to catch the clues: 'Philip saith to him, ‘Sir, shew to us the Father, and it is enough for us;’
Jesus then gives Philip a Physics lesson about dimensional abilities being limited by how God made him, but he reassures Philip that if he has seen Jesus he has seen the father, because the Father is in Him and He is in the Father. And with that astonishing teaching, Jesus launches into the further meaning of this relationship He is instituting with the coming Crucifixion and resurrection. Something wonderful is about to happen, to steal a phrase from 2001 A Space Odyssey.
John 14:16-17 I will ask the Father, and another Comforter He will give to you, that he may remain with you — to the age; the Spirit of truth, whom the world is not able to receive, because it doth not behold him, nor know him, and ye know him, because he doth remain with you, and shall be in you.
So, who is 'approved' to be taken out of the way when the restrainer is removed Who is restraining the revealing of the spirit of lawlessness, the antiChrist? [2Thess2:3] Any who have this Holy Spirit seal upon their soul/spirit, placed there BY GOD, because they believe in Jesus as The Lord From Heaven. These sealed ones have done what Jesus told the Sadducees and Pharisees was the 'work' that God requires for salvation.
One other point to ponder regarding this Rapture event: among those taken ‘out of the Way’ are all ‘the innocent’. Those who have believed on Jesus, because God put His seal upon their souls, are innocent before His righteous vision. And the little ones who have yet to rebel against God and reject Him are also innocent. It is a horrible thing to see that ALL children below a certain age or behavior will be suddenly gone from the Earth. Sadly, children will be born upon the earth after this escape ... imagine how horrible it will be that their parents will present them to receive the mark of anti-Christ/Beast.
a false rapture is on the way https://youtu.be/uGaM95MDZsI via @YouTube
Having watched this video (12 minutes), I can only say that the creator of the video makes sense.
Whether he’s right or wrong the important issue isn’t if or when a Rapture takes place, it’s being ready for Christ’s return regardless of Rapture doctrine.
Amen ... and I will now go to the link. Thanks
ping
What I find most astonishing about the Tribulation period is that some lie will be offered to explain away the astonishing event of the Rapture, and people will believe The Lie! Also, think about what level of delusion must be upon the earth that the armies of the world will actually believe they can make war against God, physically! I mean, make war against the creator of the Universe, the creator of them?
The creator of the video makes more than one error in portraying the Rapture and the Second Coming of Jesus. The creator of the video assumes axiomatic that which he is trying to convince us is correct, so he has a poor grasp of what the Bible actually states concerning believers, the restrainer, the taking out of the restrainer, the number so great no man could number it who are saved during the Tribulation (the Tribulation Saints), and the return of Jesus as a warrior who is seen by His friends with blood on Him from riding through the mass of army arrayed against Israel. And finally Jesus descending to the top of the Mount of Olives as King to establish His millennial kingdom for 1000 years. Sorry, the video has lots of errors in it.
Without a dispensational perspective it is hard to make heads or tails of much of end-times Bible prophecy. It also allows foolishness like ‘replacement theology’ which claims Israel has been replaced by the Church and the Church Age. To clear up such errors as that requires a better way to organize your thoughts when studying the Revelation of John. Dispensational perspective gives that organization to the reasoning. It also allows the student/Berean to see that even the Church Age is foreshadowed in the Levitical feasts plan.
Paul referred to ‘the Last Trump’ of the feast of trumpets. This feast was the first of the three Fall feasts. The next Feast is Yom Kippur, then the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles will take place in the Lord Millenial Kingdom.
pingalingaling
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