Posted on 07/02/2013 5:05:25 AM PDT by Gamecock
Some Christians believe that Jesus will return secretly, and the “rapture,” when Jesus “catches up” believers into the clouds of glory with him will be secret. As a young Christiain I watched a number of movies about this secret rapture. I particularly remember one called “A Thief in the Night.” The opening scene shows a young woman waking up with the radio on announcing the sudden worldwide disappearance of thousands. She calls out for her husband a couple times, gets no answer, so she gets up and goes into the bathroom only to find his electric razor laying in the sink buzzing. Terrified, she screams.
You can watch the opening sequence of “A Thief in the Night” here.
My friend Jim recently told me that when he was 11 years old at a church camp they showed all the kids that same movie in the rec hall right before bed. “We were all scared after we saw it, and it made a big impression on me.” Jim said that every morning the camp would play reveille over loudspeakers and everybody would get up, make their beds, and go down in front of the dining hall, line up, say the pledge of allegiance, and march into dining hall. If not there, you’d get in trouble. When Jim woke it was thundering and lightning. He looked around and everybody was gone. No one was in the cabin. Terrified he thought the rapture had happened. He ran out of the cabin. All the cabins were empty. The dining hall was down the hill. He ran down and could see that nobody was lined by the flag pole. Then to his great relief he saw the other campers in the dining hall. “Boy was I happy. I was quite relieved that the rapture hadn’t happened.”
“A Thief in the Night” takes its title from Matthew 24:43-44:
But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. (Matthew 24:43-44)
We must live every day as if Jesus might return that day. We don’t know when will come. But when he does he won’t come secretly.
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18)
Believers who have died and those alive when Jesus returns will be “caught up together…in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air,” but it won’t be in secret. The whole world will hear the “cry of command,” “the voice of an archangel” and the “sound of the trumpet of God” announcing the presence of Jesus. What will these things sound like? These sounds will strike terror into the hearts of all who are unprepared for Jesus to return, but will be joyful alerts to Christians. They will announce the joy of seeing Jesus and being with him, eternal pleasures at the marriage feast of the Lamb, along with all our loved ones who had entered heaven before us.
Jesus’ return is going to be visible and bright as well:
and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8)
For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:24-27)
No one will miss Jesus’ return. The “rapture” won’t happen in secret. Will unbelievers see us caught up to be with Jesus? Will we see each other flying through the sky toward our Lord and his angels? I don’t know. But it’s going to be loud. And bright. And glorious. I can’t wait.
I wake every morning disappointed I am still here......and turn expectantly at the crack of thunder.
One day. Maranatha!
Father Murphy walked into a pub and said to the first man he met, “Do you want to go to heaven?”
The man replied, “I do Father.”
The priest said, “Then stand over there against the wall.”
Then the priest asked a second man, “Do you want to go to heaven?”
“Certainly, Father,” was the man’s reply.
The priest said, “Then stand over there against the wall.”
Then Father Murphy walked up to O’Toole and said, “Do you want to go to heaven?”
O’Toole said, “No, I don’t Father.”
The priest said, “I don’t believe this. You mean to tell me that when you die you don’t want to go to heaven?”
O’Toole said, “Oh, when I die, yes. I thought you were getting a group together to go right now.”
If Jesus comes to earth tomorrow or in a thousand years, to us it should make no difference, live each day as if it is the end and enjoy it in Christ.
To live is Christ and to die is gain. :-)
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I think we add our own meaning to things in the bible all the time. In fact, I was listening to John yesterday and there is a place where this happens in the bible and is called out. In John 21, it say’s this:
22 Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” 23 Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?”
The “thief in the night” analogy points out the unexpectedness of the event, not the impact. A home invasion comes like a thief in the night, but you notice it.
>> I can’t wait.
I can. As long as there is one unsaved person on Earth, all Christians should be content to wait as we work to reach that person. Until that day, we have the honor of being Christ on Earth and not saying, “I want my reward now. The rest of them had their chance.”
If Jesus chooses to return before all are saved, then that is His right. But, it isn’t our place to say “I can’t wait” as long as there is work to be done here on Earth by those He gave the Great Commission.
Indeed, the “thief in the night” analogy has only to do with “you won’t know when it’s coming” - but when it comes, you’ll definitely know it happened/is happening.
Indeed. The shepherd searches until what he has lost is found.
Jesus taught us that we need to seek out the lost, the sinner, time and again, and bring him back to the fold.
Wouldn’t a shepherd, encountering a bear or a wolf in the dark fight it, even give his life for his sheep?
every morning after bacon & coffee? or before? - might as well be awake and fed first - just sayin
Nice. But still disappointed.
A day on earth? A day in Heaven....is there really a choice to be made?
I see it like when my mortal father would come get me from the hay field....I see the truck bouncing up the pull road....now I am waiting for the sound of the horn. Then I will know I am going home.
Work is satisfying in the field, hot sticky, and itchy.... still, a clean field is a beautiful thing....but it can’t compare to the ice water, warm biscuits, and cool comfort of the Big House when the whole family is home.
I am not against a rapture but i don,t think any one is going to go to heaven with out dieing.
And i suppose i am just judging every one by my self, but my body would not be fit go to heaven even if it were perfectly clean, flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of God.
This whole rapture idea is based on a speculation about a single Biblical phrase. Obviously a catchy idea, but I’m not lying awake at night about it.
Have no fear, we have a rock-ribbed promise from Christ that all of the elect will be saved! Not one will be missed! We have the honor of witnessing and spreading the gospel until that last one hears and believes. We witness and preach in confidence because we know His sheep will hear His voice and follow Him! (John 10:27)
“All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37)
yes, home is home, but God put us here in the field for a reason. We are not to despise his creation and wish to leave it — it’s kind of strange, we wish to be with Him, yet not to wish so much that we kill ourselves to be with Him :-P
Not strange to me.
We have a job. A duty. At the end of the line, we get to go home (heaven).
The duty isn’t all bad, but some of it is. Home is all good.
But you don’t drop you duty and head home early. You keep working.
Just the way I was raised.
In this technologically-self-imprisoned society that we live in, an event of such magnitude, without question, generate such a scene that Hollywood has never considered, nor could any ‘computer-generated’ scene be put together with any accuracy.
I could see the panic within the military, of those involved in action at that moment, be it air, sea, or land. Consider those who are in “The Silent Service”. Submarines are crewed with exact numbers of crew to perform all the functions necessary, in peace and war.
All the moving machinery of air, sea, and land have the possibility of having their trained operators missing, in this event. All at once, globally.
No, there would be not enough ‘talking heads’, or radio voices, to cover all of such an event.
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