1 Thes.4:15 -18 – For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Teaching on the Rapture or even believing in the rapture has fallen out of popularity in the last number of years. The belief in the sudden catching away of the church before the Great Tribulation was very popular when I came to Christ during the Jesus movement. As a matter of fact we had a Christian sister we had just met sing the Larry Norman song “I Wish They Had All Been Ready” at our wedding. I don’t insist that you believe in a literal pre-tribulation and pre-millennial rapture of the believers but I still believe it after all these years of searching the scripture. One of the arguments against the belief in the rapture is that the word rapture isn’t found in the Bible. In today’s verse we see Paul use the phrase ‘caught up’ which is one of the passages where the rapture is described in the Bible. Here is how Dick Mills describes the phrase ‘caught up’ in this passage.
“caught up, harpazō; Strong’s #726: To seize, snatch away, catch up, take by force. The word describes the Holy Spirit’s action in transferring Philip from one location to another (Acts 8:39) and Paul’s being caught up to Paradise (2 Cor. 12:2, 4). It suggests the exercise of a sudden force.”
So Paul believed that at the return of Christ every dead believer would be resurrected from their grave and every living believer would be caught up or raptured in a moment of time, both the living and the dead will receive their glorified eternal body. Jesus taught a parable about the church called the Parable of the Ten Virgins. The whole message of the parable was to be ready for the imminent return of the Lord. In the story Jesus tells us how to make sure we are ready, keep your lamps filled with the oil of the Spirit. So apparently the way we stay ready for His return and our being caught up is to stay constantly filled with the Holy Spirit.
1 thought on “RAPTURED”
Yes, I agree! I believe in a pre- Tribulation rapture because we are supposed to live in a way that we will escape ALL those tribualations.
In the Letter to the church of Philadelphia, in Revelation, it says that if we keep His word, He will keep us FROM that judgement that is about to be poured out on the Earth. If He keeps us from it, then that means we will not go through it! I do believe, however, that trying times here will come for the body of Christ! There will be a massive revival, with millions being saved every day, and because of that, a huge persecution will come. This will “sift out” the true believers! I plan to be ready! Come, Lord Jesus!